HAPPY HALOWEEN
I spent too long on this….
I looooovvvvve
“Right, so here’s how we’re going to do the costume party this year. We’re all going to dress up as classic Muggle cartoon characters,” Seamus said, three weeks before Halloween, as the group sat in the 8th year common room.
Draco sighed. “I don’t know anything about Muggle cartoons,” he said. Seamus smiled, wickedly and right then, Draco should have known. This was a setup.
“We’ll draw them out of a hat,” Dean said. “That way it’ll be random, so it’s fair.” Draco folded his arms across his chest but otherwise said nothing. It wasn’t as if he could reasonably argue now, could he? “Unless of course, you’re scared.”
Draco glared, “I’m game.” Dean and Seamus shared a conspiratorial smile. The Slytherin never could resist a challenge.
Dean held up the hat with the list of cartoon character names in it. “You can draw first Malfoy,” he said. Draco rolled his eyes sticking his hand into the hat and pulled out a single name. Tom. Draco raised an eyebrow.
“Is this some sort of sick joke?” he demanded. Several snickers went around the room, and Draco felt his face heating. Harry cleared his throat from beside him.
“It’s a cartoon, Tom and Jerry. They’re a cat and a mouse.”
“Which is which?” Draco asked.
“Tom is the cat. You know… tomcat?” Draco raised an eyebrow at that.
“I’m to be a bloody cat?” Draco groaned.
Harry picked next. “Oh look I got Jerry. See it’s like a couple’s costume,” Harry said.
Draco snorted. “Yeah. Right. Only how are you the bloody mouse in this scenario?”
“Cause I’m cute and innocent,” Harry retorted.
“And small.”
“Not where it counts,” Harry said almost sing-song. Draco nearly choked on his tongue.
“May I be excused?” he asked.
“No,” Dean replied, as the rest of the students continued to pull out their assigned costumes. Hermione got Velma, while Ron got Fred. Whoever they were. Then there were Padma, Parvati, and Lavender who got something called the Powerpuff Girls, and several other cartoons that Draco was certain he had misheard. When at last the names were pulled, with Seamus getting something called Scooby Doo, and Dean getting Shaggy, or at least that’s what it had sounded like, Dean smiled at the group. What odd names these characters had, Draco thought shaking his head. “Right, now then. You’ll be expected to come dressed as your character so you might want to do some research,” Dean said at last.
Draco pursed his lips. How on earth was he supposed to research a Muggle cartoon character? Draco didn’t know the first thing about Muggle anything let alone whatever a cartoon was.
“I’ll help you,” Harry whispered to him. Draco snorted. Right. Perfect. Just what I need. Draco thought.
He would never admit it in a million years of course, but Tom and Jerry had turned out to be quite an adorable little thing.
“Kinda seems like us, huh?” Harry said as the two watched the cartoon cat and mouse chase each other around the screen. Draco huffed.
“Hardly Potter, I’ve never once chased you. But I seem to recall you stalking me for the better part of a year not all that long ago,” Harry chuckled then.
“Oh, it’s all in good fun. It was totally random.” Draco didn’t believe that for a second.
When the episode had ended, Draco stared at the screen for a moment, “You know. In Wizarding media, stories like this are more interactive. Why isn’t this like that?”
“Because it’s Muggle,” Harry said. Draco rolled his eyes.
“Yes Potter I understand that, but surely the Muggles don’t just watch stories they can’t interact with.” Harry eyed him. “Oh look,” he pulled out his wand and pointed it at the screen. Harry’s eyes widened.
“I don’t know if you should…” but it was too late. With a wave of his wand, a bright yellow beam shot out of the end at the screen. A moment later, out bounced Tom and Jerry, only they weren’t the cartoon cat and mouse, but two very human boys.
Draco smiled, turning towards Harry and looking rather pleased with himself. Harry stared blankly at the living cartoons Draco had unleashed. “Oh bloody hell.”
Draco merely smiled, turning back to Tom and Jerry. “How do you do?” Draco asked. The one called Tom, who looked rather oddly like a taller version of Potter, only with much better-coiffed hair, blinked at him, he opened his mouth as if to speak only, nothing came out. Jerry who was considerably shorter, and much leaner like Draco himself, only with mousy brown hair, smirked at Tom then. Though neither one seemed to be able to speak.
“Draco they never talked in those cartoons!” Harry said. “Put them back now before someone sees and asks questions.”
“Alright, alright, don’t get your knickers in a twist Potter,” Draco cleared his throat and waved his wand at the former cartoons. Only, nothing happened.
“What’s not happening?” Harry asked, frantic.
Draco worried his lower lip. “Well, I don’t actually know the counter spell to this.”
“Draco!” Harry hissed. “You’ve just brought two cartoon characters to life and you don’t know how to send them back!”
Draco shrugged. “Surely it can’t be that hard.”
Harry snorted, watching as Draco went through several incantations with no success, the two boys merely blinking at Draco as he waved his wand at them, and then it happened. Jerry snatched Draco’s wand and took off in a flash. Draco’s eyes widened.
“Oh, for the love of Salazar!” Tom stared at the spot where Jerry had been. “Well go after him you bloody stupid cat!” Draco shrieked. Tom nodded and ran after the mousy haired boy with lightning speed. Draco groaned.
“Just bloody perfect,” he thought.
“You’re awfully calm for someone who lost his wand to a cartoon mouse!” Harry said. Draco eyed him.
“Considering you’ve had it, it seems like a bit of an upgrade don’t you think?” Harry stuck out his tongue in response and Draco couldn’t help but chuckle. Fortunately, Jerry didn’t get very far, unused to his human form, he’d attempted to run through a mouse hole, wand in hand and had crashed into the wall, head first. Tom snatched the wand from the ground and took it back to Draco with a proud smile.
Draco pat, his head in the way one might do with a cat, not that he’d ever owned one, and renervated Jerry.
* * *
Two weeks later, and Draco still hadn’t managed the counterspell, to his credit, neither had Hermione and in an effort to make the two blend in better, Draco had opted to give Tom an extra set of his Slytherin robes, while Harry shared his Gryffindor ones with Jerry.
“Remarkable how well they fit,” Harry said.
“Only because Jerry’s a shorty like you,” Draco said. “Tom and I are of perfectly normal heights.”
“You try growing tall when you’re stuffed into a cupboard during your formative years,” Harry snapped. Draco merely blinked at him then.
“I beg your pardon, did you say cupboard.”
“Forget I said anything,” Harry replied, looking very uncomfortable.
“You mean to tell me you grew up in a cupboard?”
Harry sighed. “Only till I was 11,” he said.
“ELEVEN?” Draco shrieked.
“Well after I came back from Hogwarts my Aunt and Uncle were a little scared of me, so they gave me one of Dudley’s old bedrooms. Which I was locked in, and fed through a cat door but it was bigger.”
Draco merely stared at him then.
“I… have, no words,” Draco shook his head. Harry looked visibly uncomfortable so Draco opted to change the subject. “Right well, although I don’t know how we’ll explain them, obviously Tom and Jerry will be us, at the costume party. I’ve already managed some rather nifty cat ears with a transfiguration spell,” Draco said proudly. Harry smirked.
“Oh?”
Draco nodded. “Just you wait, Potter, it’s going to knock your trousers off. That is what the Muggle’s say isn’t it?”
Harry shook his head, a faint blush rising in his cheeks then. “Socks,” he said.
“Oh right yes,” Draco smiled, and Harry was beginning to want to snog that smile right off of him.
By Halloween, Draco had managed more than just cat ears, he had managed a whole tail, and whiskers too. He had opted to keep his hair blond, despite the human Tom who’s hair was an inky black. Briefly, Draco had considered wearing a black and grey bodysuit and had instead opted for a white tee and a grey button-down, which he felt made his point better. For his part, Harry was wearing a brown baseball shirt, or that was how he explained it, and mouse ears. Draco frowned, as costumes went it wasn’t especially inventive.
“What are you supposed to be?” Draco asked.
“I’m a mouse, duh,” Harry said with a smirk. Draco merely stared at him, unblinking. “Right remind me to have you see Mean Girls. Actually, you’re rather like Regina George.”
“I’ll take your word for it and take that as the compliment I’m sure it was,” Draco replied.
“You do that,” Harry said, looking around the room for Tom and Jerry as them. Draco had drawn on a lightning bolt and glasses, on Jerry with a makeup pencil he’d nicked from Pansy. Draco spotted them, in the corner by the fireplace, and his eyes widened.
“Don’t look now but that cat seems to be devouring that mouse,” Draco said. Harry followed his line of vision. Sure enough, Jerry was perched in Tom’s lap, snogging him rather incessantly.
“Didn’t see that coming when I was a kid,” Harry said.
“Indeed,” Draco replied watching them in rapt fascination. He tried not to think particularly hard about why he was suddenly jealous of a cartoon mouse. Draco shook his head, trying to dislodge the thought. When Harry spoke up.
“Suppose we should give them a taste of their own medicine?” he waggled his eyebrows.
“I’d rather not have your arse in my lap Potter,” Draco replied. Harry rolled his eyes, dragging Draco closer to him then.
“I was thinking you could be in mine, kitten,” Draco shuddered at the nickname as Harry pulled him towards another couch and into his lap. By far it was the strangest Halloween he’d ever experienced, and easily, one of his favorites.
I have no words. Blame @mzuul ;)