Harry gritted his teeth,"Ready?"

"No." Ron yelped,"Crabbe stinks!"

"Oh, suck it up, would you?" Hermione snapped, nibbling her nails.

Ron chuckled,"Literally."

"Well," Hermione didn't laugh,"we've not really got a choice. I say we hold our noses and chug it down on three." She pinched her nose and the boys copied her,"One..."

Harry peered into his vial of sludge, hand shaking-

"...two..."

-he was terrified. He had no clue what he was going to say to Malfoy, or what would happen if they got caught. Luckily, he would have both Ron and Hermione by his side the whole time to help him-

"...cheers." Hermione said grimly as they clinked their vials together.

The trio tipped their vials upside down as the liquid slipped into their mouths. Ron spluttered, desperate to spit his out, but Hermione shot him a glare and shook her head, though she too had paled greatly. For a few moments, Harry, Ron and Hermione just stood in a triangle, mouths full, waiting for one of the others to swallow the potion first.

Harry was the first one to release his nose and swallow the vile sludge. Hermione reluctantly let her potion slide down her throat too, and Ron shrugged - seeing he really had no other choice - swallowed his too.

"Ugh - I think I'm gonna be sick..." Ron dropped his vial and ran into the first stall in the row.

"Me too..." Harry let his vial fall to the floor and followed him into the next one.

Hermione, who had become very pale by that point, scratched her arm and frowned. The potion hadn't seemed to have had the same effect on her as it had on the boys. She hadn't felt sick at all, although Hermione was sure at least one of the two had been. That was when she coughed up a fur ball. She inspected it on her hand but, before she could identify it, Hermione saw a little patch of fur appear where she had been scratching her arm.

"Dear Merlin!" Hermione ran into the third stall in the row, placing her empty vial on top of the toilet tank and leaning over the toilet, ready to vomit. Instead she coughed up another fur ball.

***********

Ron almost tripped over in Crabbe's massive shoes as the boys ran back to the toilet. The potions hadn't lasted long - barely an hour - and Hermione had been unable to go with them.

Thoughts raced through Harry's mind as he reached the toilet. He wondered what on earth could have gone wrong with Hermione's potion that meant she couldn't go with them. Malfoy almost definitely wasn't the heir of Slytherin ("Damn it!" Ron had cried,"I really thought we'd caught the bloody git this time!"), however, he had said something that had struck more than one of Harry's nerves.

They had been on the touchy subject of Slytherin's heir and when the Chamber of Secrets was last opened, when Malfoy had brought up the beast residing inside of the chamber. He'd told Harry and Ron that, fifty years ago, that very monster had killed a Muggleborn student. Though Harry and Ron had trembled at the thought of a monster killing, Malfoy had seemed rather amused by the death of an innocent girl.

"It won't be long before it kills another Mudblood." He had said, tossing a green apple up and down for no reason in particular,"As for me," Malfoy caught the apple abruptly and pierced Harry with a wicked stare,"I hope it's Granger."

Harry would have punched him then and there if it weren't for him being in a disguise.

***********

"Hermione?" Harry knocked on the stall door.

"Go away." A voice came from inside it.

"Come on, it can't be that bad!" Ron peeked over Harry's shoulder.

Myrtle peeked over Ron's shoulder,"Ooh, it's bad! Really, really, really bad! It's a disaster! She'll never be the same again!" She cackled.

Hermione let out a sob.

"Oh, shut up, Myrtle!" Harry snapped,"Hermione, listen. We don't care what you look like - we're your friends. It's okay, you can come out. We won't laugh at you or anything, we promise." The sobs silenced, but she didn't come out,"It doesn't matter what you've turned into, Hermione. It'll wear off soon enough. We can take you to Madam Pomfrey if you'd like. I've got the invisibility cloak..."

Ron was laughing,"Yeah, we don't care if you're a vicious, wizard-eating tiger or a humongous dragon who wants to rip off our heads or a really fat pig who has an uncontrollable desire to roll around in mud and eat rotten apple cores!" No one said anything. Ron continued anxiously, seeing Harry's glare,"Erm...you're...you're not any of those things...are you?"

"No." Hermione sniffled.

"She's far, far worse!" Myrtle grinned.

"I said shut up!" Harry's scar twinged,"Hermione, please come out! We've got to fix whatever's wrong, and it really can't be that bad! And even if we can't get you to change back, we'll all love you just the same. You'll still be the same old Hermione and we'll still like you and no one's going to make fun of you at all."

The lock clicked and the stall door slowly creaked open to reveal a Hermione-sized figure. You almost wouldn't have been able to tell it was Hermione under all of the chestnut brown fur covering her whole body. Two small ears had sprouted from the top of her head, though her hands were the same if you ignored the fur and sharp claws that has replaced her nails, and a long brown tail was flowing out from under her skirt. Big, round, chocolatey eyes poured into Harry sadly as a tear dripped off of one of her whiskers.

Ron and Myrtle burst into uncontrollable fits of laughter.

"A...a cat?" Ron choked,"You said...you said it was...terrible!"

"It is!" Myrtle laughed.

Hermione let a few more tears drip to the cold, wet ground as Harry stood open-mouthed, unsure of what to do. This seemed to upset Hermione more, as she placed her paws over her eyes and began to cry properly. As her loud sobs filled the bathroom, Harry shut his mouth, stepped forwards and wrapped Hermione in a tight hug. He hoped he was comforting her as much as she was comforting him, what with the soft, thick fur and delicate ears that kept nuzzling against his chin.