Draco Malfoy and the Unusual Mission

Joe's Note: A bit more chatter, some resorting, and that's about it for this chapter. Sorry. They'll get more interesting as we go along, though, I promise.

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     By the time Draco's second visitor arrived, Luna had helped him master the art of braiding his own hair as well as teaching him how to do the double braids she wore, and they'd since moved on to cosmetic charms. Not that Luna (he'd switched to her given name after letting 'Loony' slip while she was braiding resulted in her almost tearing a chunk of his hair out) was a serious user of them, but she did sleep in a dorm with four girls who did. Luna tapped his nail again and it went from green with silver stripes to solid black. Hmm. That was rather fetching with his pale skin…

     "Ahh, Miss Malfoy. I hope I'm not interrupting anything?" Draco just arched one pale brow at Dumbledore for that one; he and Luna had been talking until the headmaster had disturbed them, of course he was interrupting. But the doddering old fool just chuckled and used his wand to draw up a chair for himself before sitting beside the bed. "Sorry I could not see to this matter sooner, but there was a matter in the Forbidden Forest that I had to attend to. Now, if you wouldn't mind taking a break from personal beautification, we can discuss your future here at Hogwarts."

     Luna tsked, tucking her wand back behind her ear as she pulled away, turning so she was sitting facing Dumbledore. "There's nothing wrong with attempting to look one's best, Headmaster."

     That made Draco shoot his fellow blonde an odd look as he turned to match her, knee bumping against hers. "Luna… you wear a necklace made of corks. And most people would consider radishes food, not jewelry."

     Shrugging, Luna just gave him an odd half-smile and her hand drifted up to her necklace, toying with one of the corks. "I'm the best looking out of all the cork and radish-wearing students here, aren't I?"

     There was a definite odd, Luna logic to that… and the fact that Draco was able to find the logic in anything the crazy blonde was saying disturbed him deeply. For his sanity's sake, he decided to head to safer ground, at least temporarily. "So… Headmaster… now what?"

     "Now…" The headmaster opened one of the boxes of Bertie Bott's Every Flavor Beans that Draco hadn't even noticed sitting on the table that had held his wand. Popping one bean into his mouth, he made an unhappy face before closing the box and returning it to the table. "Alas, even in my advanced years, I still cannot manage to avoid the earwax-flavored ones." This was the wizard he'd been afraid of going up against? Draco snorted; he should have used the poison from Knockturn Alley to create some sort of poisoned candy and slipped it to the old buzzard. Perhaps then he wouldn't have felt the need to maim or kill Potter, and he wouldn't be stuck in a girl's body at present, lying in a bed staring up at Dumbledore. "I, of course, assume you will be reenrolling at Hogwarts as Miss Malfoy when I call you such. Unless you wish to return home until a cure can be found?"

     Draco opened his mouth and then closed it again. If he went home… the Dark Lord would most likely kill him, because he would have failed his mission and the patriarchal nature of the family meant a Malfoy heiress was nowhere near as useful as a Malfoy heir. His only use would be as someone to marry off to another pureblood so You-Know-Who could regain access to the Malfoy vaults, and perhaps be breeding stock come the day the Dark Lord won and wanted to start raising the next generation of his followers.

     But if he stayed… while he would be subjected to the humiliation of being the Malfoy heiress around people who knew him as a boy, You-Know-Who would have a much harder time getting to him. School gossip and the taunts of his peers… nothing compared to what would happen to him if he went before the Dark Lord and announced he couldn't fulfill his task. Or if he was asked to marry someone so they could touch his family's vaults and he declined. Not that a relationship with a boy troubled him any, but being essentially sold off and not having a choice of who he got to spend his life with? Wasn't going to happen.

     While neither option sounded particularly appealing, the choice wasn't really that hard when he put it to himself like that. Mocked girl was infinitely better than dead, at least in his opinion. And who knew. Maybe he'd have better luck now that he was in a form that most other boys would find appealing. "What would be involved in 'reenrolling' me?"

     "Nothing too complicated, Miss Malfoy." Dumbledore reached into his robe, withdrawing a tin of lemon drops and putting one in his mouth before offering the tin to Draco. The Slytherin shook his head and Dumbledore tucked them away again. "Simply put, because the only student on record is Draco Malfoy and you are no longer technically him because of your… unfortunate accident… you will be treated like any other newly-arriving student and be asked to sit for a sorting. After that, we'll send you to an appropriate dorm and reconstruct your records after some other paperwork is taken care of."

     Oh. Well then. That didn't sound so bad. After all, he'd been declared Slytherin before the Sorting Hat even touched his head the first time around. What were the odds he'd end up anything else? And if it made the old coot happy and kept him here, so be it. Draco nodded and then sat up, throwing his legs over the side of the bed. "No time like the present, I guess."

     "That's the spirit!"

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     'Ahh. Hello again, Mister Malfoy. Or should I say, Miss Malfoy?' Draco sighed; that hadn't been very funny the first two or three times and it wasn't any funnier coming from the Sorting Hat. 'No need to get a bee in your bonnet. This is the most excitement I've had during the year since four years ago, when Fawkes took me to help Potter slay the basilisk. But you're not here for a history lesson, are you?'

     The Sorting Hat was silent a moment before letting out a disgusted snort. 'You're still loyal to no one save yourself and perhaps your mother, so Hufflepuff is out. Your cowardice is the reason why you are remaining here instead of returning home, so Gryffindor would not be a good fit. Ravenclaw, perhaps, especially considering the learning experience this promises to be…'

     Sighing, Draco peered up at the hat, eyeing the tattered brown brim. 'What about Slytherin?'

     'Are you really that eager to surround yourself with people who knew you well as a boy?'

     Draco shrugged as he thought about it. He had run the house as a boy and didn't see why that would change any as a girl, unless his magic had diminished or some such. The seventh years feared his father's power and status within the Dark Lord's circle, the sixth years were his personal allies, and all those below feared him. That wouldn't change now. 'Like you said, at least I know them. Besides, if you put me in Hufflepuff I might have to slit my own throat, and if I end up in Gryffindor I'll probably slit someone else's.'

     That earned him another snort of disgust. 'Yes, I'd like to avoid being blamed for either a suicide or a homicide. So Slytherin or Ravenclaw, eh? I know what you've been commanded to do this semester, young one, and since I have the opportunity to remove you from a situation where you're surrounded by those who can help you achieve it… I think I will. Therefore, you might want to pick a new favorite color, because you're headed straight to…' "RAVENCLAW!"

     Well bugger. The sorting hat knew he was here to kill Dumbledore. Draco handed the hat back to the headmaster, waiting for the moment it would open its mouth and spill his secret. But strangely it was silent as the headmaster rose from his seat, lifting it up onto the top shelf before returning to his chair. Dumbledore eyed him for a moment before popping another lemon drop into his mouth. "Interesting. I've often wondered if a person would change over the years to the point where if they were sorted again, the outcome would be different. Now I know." If he only knew exactly why the hat had taken him from Slytherin, Draco mused…

     "At any rate, we have a great many things to do and not much time to do them." Dumbledore shook himself before gesturing to the fireplace in his office. "I shall summon your mother shortly to discuss a few legal aspects of your change. In the mean time, a student is going to be assigned to help you with your… transition… although you're free to seek help from your new roommates as well. For now, though, she will help you get dressed in more fitting attire so that you can leave the castle when your mother arrives."

     After sitting in silence for a moment, Draco realized that he had been dismissed. He rose from his seat and headed for the stairs, rolling that last bit over in his head. Well, it made sense. Dumbledore hadn't known where he would be resorted and this way if the Ravenclaw girls didn't react well to him (which was likely, given he'd picked on several of them in the past few years), he'd have outside help.

     Reaching the bottom of the staircase, Draco stopped and stared at the very familiar blonde waiting for him, wand tucked behind her ear as she stared dreamily at him. "Hello, Draco. Fancy meeting you here."

     This was his guide to the land of femininity? The one supposed to help him learn to cope with his new life? Draco sighed. Well, she was pleasant enough to be around, if you could learn to disregard her ramblings about non-existent creatures. And… well, at least she wasn't Granger. "Hello, Luna. Don't suppose you could show me to Ravenclaw Tower?"

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     "This promises to complicate matters quite badly, doesn't it, Severus?"

     Severus Snape emerged from the shadows, still staring at the door through which his godson… now goddaughter… had just disappeared. He still couldn't believe Draco had managed to do that to himself. Even though the Slytherin sixth year's superior grades were partly due to Severus's own bias against anyone not of his own house, the boy was still one of the (if not the) most proficient brewers in the class. How had one of Draco's potions gone so terribly wrong that not even the combined efforts of he and Horace could make heads or tails of it? "Indeed."

     Opening his tin of lemon drops again, Albus popped another into his mouth and sucked on it for a moment. "A pity. With my time in this world winding down, I was hoping for a bit of excitement in my last days. I was rather looking forward to seeing how young Draco planned to kill me. Alas, the best laid plans of mice and men…" He was silent for a long moment before looking over at Severus. "How do you think Tom will react to this?"

     "I… do not know. He may order Draco onward, despite the fact we'll be watching him closely and you've assigned him a shadow. He may change Draco's orders. Or he may just decide Draco has failed and attempt to eliminate him and Narcissa. I'm not entirely sure." Left unsaid was what both had seen in Draco's mind; that he was hoping to use this transformation both as a way to escape his suicide mission as well as a path to success in more… personal areas.

     That didn't mean Draco was suddenly a changed and better person, though, and Severus wasn't foolish enough to think as much. While he still held fast to his ideals of pureblood supremacy, Draco had come to recognize that the Dark Lord's campaign of murder and terror was not the way to achieve them. Which, he supposed, was a minor victory. "We may wish to offer Narcissa protection when she visits."

     Albus nodded slowly. "Or perhaps you should, since I supposedly do not know of her son's mission." The fireplace burned green and he straightened up, adopting the more formal persona necessary for dealing with pureblood parents. "And here she is now…"