1,980Okay I had this brewing for a long time but I didn't start writing it until today. So read if you dare, and tell me if you want me to continue with this story!
Genres: Romance, Humor, Adventure and Drama
Disclaimer: This will cover all the chapters: I DO NOT OWN HARRY POTTER!
Chapter 1: Announcement
Everyone was seated at their respective tables in the Dining Hall. Harry, Ron and Hermione were talking about their summers. Ron was complaining about how Fred and George covered his room in Gunkachoo, their new experiment. Harry was going on about how he had to spend half the summer with the Dursleys and Hermione was nodding her head at them, only half listening. She had received her head girl badge over the summer and couldn't wait to begin.
On the other side of the room, Draco Malfoy was quietly conversing with his best friend Blaise Zabini. Pansy, as was custom, was clinging to Draco's arm tightly while looking dreamily up at him. Every few minutes Draco would shake loose of her but then within a matter of seconds she'd cling back on. Grabbe and Goyle were busily counting out the galleons they had collected from the first years, sickening grins displayed on their troll-like faces.
"So what are you going to do now, Draco?" Blaise asked after scanning over the new faces of Slytherin house.
Draco shrugged his shoulders, "Well now that my father is in Azkaban, mum has taken over the house. We hardly see any of the death eaters anymore. Voldemort doesn't call on my mother, you know."
"At least you're free from being enslaved by the old coot! I still have to come up with a decent plan to rid myself of all this unnecessary crap!"
Draco snickered, "Fat chance, unless daddy dearest gets sent to Azkaban too."
A thoughtful look fell across the dark haired boy's face, "You know, that's not that bad of an idea."
"Drakie! Do you want me to give you a massage?"
Draco cringed at the sound of the she-devil's voice. The blonde had about had it with Pany's antics, "For the love of Merlin, Pansy! Get off of me!" He pulled his arm away only to have it seconds later trapped within Pany's claws.
"She's awfully besotted with you," snickered Blaise.
Draco glared at his friend, eyes full of venom, "Tell me something I don't know!"
Meanwhile, on the other side of the room…
"Has anyone seen my new rat Tipsy? I lost him again," Neville asked the trio. The three friends looked at each other then shook their heads 'no.' Leaving a very distraught Neville to walk to the other Gryffindors at the table and ask them the same question.
Hermione watched the brown haired boy shuffle away crestfallen and sighed, "Poor Neville, he always manages to lose something one way or another."
"Maybe we should get him another rememberal for Christmas," suggested Ron.
He received only glares from Hermione and Harry.
"What?"
"Remember our first year?" Inquired Harry as he adjusted the glasses atop his nose.
"Neville couldn't remember what he had forgotten," Hermione concluded with a shake of her head.
"Bloody hell, he's going to have a hard time taking the N.E.W.T.S. then I suppose?"
"Ronald!"
"What did I do now for Merlin's sake!" Bellowed an annoyed Ron, a frown marring his face.
Hermione fired back at him, "Language!"
"Bloody witch…" Ron grumbled under his breath only to have a piercing glare shot at him from Hermione. He gulped and shut his mouth.
"Sometimes I wonder…" mumbled Harry as he looked over to the staff table only to see Dumbledore stand up and pick up his glass. The first years had been sorted and so it was customary for Dumbledore to give his yearly speech.
"Welcome!" Said Dumbledore, the candlelight shimmering on his long white beard. "Welcome to another wonderful year at Hogwarts! I have a few things to say to you, mostly concerning our seventh year students…"
Harry, Ron and Hermione exchanged glances.
Dumbledore cleared his throat and continued, "I am pleased to welcome a new teacher to our ranks this year. Professor Nymphadora Tonks, who has kindly consented to fill the post of Defense Against the Dark Arts teacher."
There was a great applause coming from the Gryffindor table, namely from Harry, Ron and Hermione.
"Also we will begin a new program this year for the seventh year students. As you may have heard the news, many of our young wizards and witches have not been producing children. For reasons such as they don't know how to take care of them, are afraid of the pains…"
Chuckles broke out from all four tables, even some of the professors snickered.
"… and most of the young witches don't think that their spouses would help out with all the things an infant would need. Therefore, our minister of magic decided to run this program. All our seventh year students will be paired off and will have to take care of their own baby. Now this will be further discussed after dinner at eight o'clock tonight in the astronomy tower.
Lastly, I would like to introduce your new head boy and head girl, Hermione Granger and Draco Malfoy!"
There was complete and utter silence.
Dumbledore had officially left his rocker. Only a complete and utter idiot would ever think of putting Hermione Granger and Draco Malfoy together!
"Well, I think that's everything of importance," said Dumbledore after a few seconds had elapsed. "Let the feast begin!"
The food appeared on the tables and soon all the students were heaping it onto their plates. It took Ron only about ten seconds to recover and he began shoveling food onto his plate. Harry followed suite while Hermione just stared across the table at a certain Slytherin…and that Slytherin was staring directly back.
"Hermione?" Harry asked after noticing that his bookish friend hadn't made an attempt to fill her plate.
She didn't move.
"Earth to Hermione!" Harry gently shook her and she looked at him, an indiscernible look in her eye.
"Harry…" she said quietly, "May I borrow your fork?"
Harry eyed her warily, "What for?"
"So I could throw it at ferret face and so that he could die!" Harry moved his fork out of Hermione's reach just as the muscles in her arm flexed and stared at her.
"Ron, do something!" He barked as Hermione practically hurled herself at him, trying to get at the silver dining utensil.
Ron quickly crawled over to their side of the table and grabbed Hermione by the waist, yanking her off a disheveled and terrified Harry.
"Bloody hell, Hermione! Stop thrashing about!" Yelled a red faced Ron.
"Why! Why! Why me!" Repeated an angry and flustered Hermione as hands formed into fists beside her.
Ron held her against himself until she calmed down enough for him to plop her back onto the bench. He then sat next to her, grabbing Hermione's fork stealthily so that she wouldn't attempt murder again with the four pronged utensil.
"Hermione, we're your friends…you know that, right?" Harry said.
She nodded her head, still eyeing Harry's fork.
"If he lays one finger on you, Ron and I won't hesitate in bashing his brains out." Ron nodded his head in agreement with Harry's statement. This seemed to calm Hermione a bit more and she relaxed.
"Thanks you guys," she smiled sweetly at them.
"No problem," they smiled back at her.
Across the dining hall…
"Draco, Draco, DRACO!" Blaise tried to get Draco's attention by waving his hands in front of his mate's face. The platinum blonde head of hair turned to look at Blaise, a murderous glint in his eye.
"I'm going to kill someone!" He looked at Pansy, eyes two pools of liquid silver.
Pansy noticing the crazy gleam in Draco's eyes let go of his arm and scooted away. She wasn't that stupid, whatever people might think. Grabbe and Goyle were busy shoving food into their mouths to notice that Draco looked murderous, so they continued to eat away. Blaise on the other hand, scooted away on the bench with a visible gulp.
An angry Draco was not a good Draco.
Draco grabbed a piece of chicken and put it on his plate. Grabbing a fork, he began stabbing it with a crazy vigor. When he was done, the chicken looked mutilated. No longer did it resemble something edible…now it looked like something one might find at the outskirts of a wolf den. He continued to maul the innocent chicken thigh for sometime. His fellow Slytherins watched wearily as the stabs became less and less forceful. Finally, when Blaise was certain that Draco's anger had subsided, he moved closer to his friend.
Putting an arm over Draco's shoulder Blaise sighed. "It could have been worse."
Draco sneered, "Oh pray tell me, how could it have been any worse?"
"It could have been Parkinson."
Draco stared at his friend blankly. His mouth opened slightly then shut as he nodded, giving a sigh of agreement.
"Hey, I heard that! And Drakie wouldn't mind if I was head girl! He loves me, right sugar cube?" She fluttered her eyelashes at him and Draco fought the urge to gag.
"Besides, you knew it was going to be her anyway," Blaise said offhandedly. Forking a fried potato and popping it in his mouth.
Draco sulked, "I was just hoping she would get run over by them muggle moving things with wheels. Lots of wizards get run over by them."
"Cars?"
Draco rolled his eyes, "Yes, Blaise. Cars."
"Well you better eat up, we have a meeting at the end of dinner with the old coot." Blaise moved to his own plate and began heaping it up with the different foods.
"I lost my appetite," Draco grumbled, pushing his plate with the maimed chicken away as he continued to sulk. Blaise shrugged his shoulders and bit into a chicken drumstick.
Once everyone had eaten their fill, the food on the tables disappeared and the seventh year students got up and began walking to the astronomy tower. Upon their arrival, the Slytherins huddled in a small group and glared at the other houses.
The Gryffindors clustered together and glared at the Slytherins with up most loathing.
You see, the whole school knew that Hermione Granger was the Gryffindor princess. Nobody questioned and nobody addressed her as so but everyone knew. No guy could go out with her unless they went through Harry and Ron -which meant nobody went out with Hermione.
Those two treated her like a sister and wouldn't let anything even resembling bad happen to her. So all the Gryffindor boys treasured her and treated her with the up most respect. All the girls went to her for advice and respected her as well.
On the other hand, Draco Malfoy was the Slytherin prince. Nobody questioned and nobody addressed him as so but everyone knew he was. The Slytherins stuck together like glue and no one messed with them. If you picked a fight with one, you had the whole house to deal with. And Malfoy was their…leader you could say. What he wanted he got.
That was reason as to why the two houses were glaring at each other as they were seated. Neither of them wanted their respected people dealing with the other.
The room grew quiet as soon as Dumbledore came in.
Seeing all the students seated he began."As you know, we are going to be performing this assignment as it is now a requirement made by the Minister of Magic himself. Each of you will be paired up boy girl and will be given a living space which you will share. Your assignment will be to go through the stages of taking care of a child before and after it is born. Now, what I mean by that is, the girls will walk around as if pregnant for a few months. During these few months the baby will develop and once it is born you will have to take care of it. For the rest of the year you will be writing reports, doing research and accumulating journal entries about how your day with the baby has been. This will be a graded assignment may I remind you, so I expect you all to work hard on it. During the pregnancy stage you will pick out a name for your child and get the proper supplies for your infants such as diapers, clothes etcetera. Any questions?"
All hands shot up in the air. Dumbledore smiled.
"Yes, Mister Thomas?"
Dean looked at Dumbledore quizzically, "Are we going to be getting the girls pregnant, sir?"
That seemed to be everyone's question as the number of hands dropped drastically and the students looked up at Dumbledore.
"No, we will extract an egg from the female and a sperm from the male and fertilize the egg thus so infusing it with a spell that will simulate a pregnancy. Then we will magically speed up the developing process, plant the egg back into the female, and have it continue to develop inside her. The process will still be magically enhanced, therefore the baby will be born in about 3-4 months instead of nine. Does that answer your question, Mister Thomas?"
Dean nodded.
"Yes, Miss Parkinson?"
"Have our parents been informed of this?"
"Yes, they have been…two weeks ago I think," he nodded his head.
"Yes, Miss Patil?"
Padma lowered her hand, "When will we find out our partners?" This seemed to be another big question as the rest of the student body lowered their hands.
"Well tomorrow after breakfast, we will insert every seventh year student's name into the goblet of fire. It will spit out two names every other minute," she nodded and Dumbledore looked around.
"Anymore questions?" He smiled when everyone shook their heads. "Well then off to bed now, Miss Granger and Mister Malfoy, please patrol the hallways."
As the students were leaving, Hermione walked over to Draco and looked at him expectantly.
"What Granger, can't keep your eyes off me?" He said haughtily with his arms crossed. The Gryffindor rolled her eyes as she turned on her heels.
"Come on, Malfoy."
"Don't tell me what to do, mudblood!"
She rolled her eyes again, "Malfoy, you use that term so often that now it doesn't even affect me," she turned and left the room.
His left eyebrow twitched as his lips thinned into a frown, however he held his tongue and followed. McGonagall's watchful eye was on them. It would be safer to bicker outside her visible radius.
They patrolled the hallways all the while throwing insults at each other as they dutifully walked the halls. Needless to say, both returned to their common rooms very mad. Neither were looking forward to the morning mayhem that was sure to ensue.
Hermione entered the Gryffindor common room to find all the seventh years still awake sitting near the fire talking. She found Harry and Ron and sat beside them, a curious look on her face.
"What's going on?" She asked.
"Lavender is predicting who's going to get paired up with who," answered Harry.
"So far she has me paired up with you and Harry paired up with herself." Ron grinned up at her and then looked over to Harry who had slightly paled.
"Well we won't know until tomorrow so we better get to sleep." Hermione got up and walked to the center of the room. Pulling out her wand she mumbled a spell under her breath. Suddenly the lights went out and shouts and curses were heard in the darkness.
"Time for bed, you'll find out who you're paired with tomorrow."
Grumbling amongst each other, the seventh year students of Gryffindor house stood from their seats and went to their respective rooms. Wondering who their partners for the upcoming project were going to be.
So that's chapter one, did you guys like it?
Review!
Tootles!
-smartcat