Disclaimer: Nope, sorry, don’t own Harry Potter!

Warning: slash, slight themes of angst, lots of humor and insanity

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To Be Insane, Or Not To Be Insane

Hit the Floor

By: Roslyn Drycof

Harry and Draco were human again by the time the train arrived at Hogsmeade. After spending most of the trip in the luggage compartment, they had realized that perhaps staying in that shape any longer would have been illogical. As rocks, they could not move very fast, nor could they climb into carriages. Or eat. Harry was quite concerned about the eating part.

So they had rolled back to the compartment and had Hermione transfigure them back. Unfortunately, she was unable to successfully finish the transfiguration. They were still left with a particularly gray pallor to their skin.

“I look like a zombie!” Draco had screeched, staring into the hand mirror he’d conjured. This had induced Potter to laughter, which thus induced Draco to smack him. Weasley hadn’t liked that, so he’d socked Draco in the face. A large bruise now decorated Draco’s cheek, a rather gray bruise, but still tender and slightly swollen like all fresh bruises are.

Draco shared the Golden Trio’s carriage, and followed them into the Great Hall. They were rather perplexed, but understanding dawned on their faces as they saw the behavior of the Slytherins when Draco left them to sit at his House table. Sneers and jeers, jibes and smirks rose from the snakes, and Draco shrunk in on himself at the blatant mockery.

“I hear the Dark Lord says you’re not fit to lick his boots, Malfoy,” a seventh year whose name escaped Draco at present crowed.

Draco’s silver eyes flashed. His pride absolutely hated that he was being made fun of. He was one hundred times better than these fools who thought they were great for following a crazy snake-man who wanted to pretty much destroy the world. And they though hewas the insane one!

Still, his act was working and that gave him some measure of relief. Jutting out his lower lip and furrowing his brows, he pretended to look tearful. “It’s not fair! I’m the most powerful wizard in our year except for bloody Potter!”

That was a proven fact, and it angered several of the Slytherins that such power was going to waste. Why in Grindelwald’s name did he have to be insane? He could have helped turn the tide against those blood traitors!

Daphne Greengrass curled her lip in disdain. “Power means nothing when you’re loonier than Loony Lovegood.”

Draco lowered his face so that his hair shielded his still gray features. To those at his table and elsewhere in the Great Hall, they would think he was trying to fight tears. In reality, he was trying to get a hold on his anger. It was threatening to spill over.

Several minutes passed, during which time McGonagall went through the Sorting ceremony. Draco ignored it, staring at his plate. This was harder than he’d thought. Acting crazy in front of Potter and his friends wasn’t too hard. They weren’t his House, the people he’d once held power over. It used to be that his name caused fear, and thus toadying and a willingness to bend to his every wish.

Now? Now, he was nothing. He was just a pathetic excuse of a wizard to be pitied and stepped upon.

“Draco?” Blaise Zabini tried to catch his attention. Draco winced. Blaise was his best friend, and to have him think he was bonkers was even more humiliating than having the other Slytherins believe so.

Draco turned his eyes to the dark-haired Italian, forcing his expression to appear blank. His friend was frowning. “May I ask why you’re gray?”

A flush stole up Draco’s neck and cheeks, darkening his skin to an even grayer color. “Er.”

Great, he was channeling Potter now. “I thought it would be fun to be a rock.”

And that sounded even more stupid, although fitting perfectly with his façade of idiocy.

Blaise flicked his eyes to the Gryffindor table, where an equally gray Potter sat quietly eating his supper. “And why did you feel that Potter needed to enjoy the same pleasure?”

While the other boy hadn’t meant to intimate anything other than involving Potter in his lark, Draco choked at alternate implication in those words.

He was saved from having to come up with a reply, as their Head of House strode up to the table, his coal-black eyes narrowed at Draco. “Malfoy, you’re to go with Potter to see Madame Pomfrey to fix your, ahem, gray problem.”

Relief sped through the blond, and he jumped up from his seat. He exaggerated his relief, grinning widely. “Yes, sir!”

Potter had already risen, and was waiting just outside the large doors that graced the entrance to the Great Hall. He was currently fiddling with the lock of hair that stubbornly fell into his face much of the time. Draco thought it was endearing, but immediately banished the thought from his mind. Now was not the time to be thinking things like that! Potter was sick.

“Let’s go, shall we?” Draco said brightly, taking off down the corridor.

Potter followed silently for several minutes, then said, “You know, you’re more interesting now than when you were a snarky bastard.”

Draco chuckled. “I’m still a snarky bastard, Potter. I just feel no need to take it out on the mentally ill.”

Potter rolled his gorgeous emerald eyes. “So says the mentally ill.”

Draco didn’t respond, merely shaking his head in amusement. Friendly banter with Potter was actually more fun than he’d thought it would be. Potter actually did have a funny side to him.

And then he had to go and be serious. “I saw how the other Slytherins were treating you.”

Draco’s face closed off. “I don’t want to talk about it.”

“But I know it has to hurt –“

Draco grabbed the other boy’s arm, a scowl marring his features. “I said I don’t want to talk about it, Potter!”

With that, he released him and stalked through the entrance to the infirmary that they’d conveniently arrived at. Madam Pomfrey was waiting for them.

“Ah, there you two are.” Potter had followed right behind Draco, and Draco could feel frustration roiling off the raven-haired hero in waves.

“I’ll deal with Mister Malfoy first. Mister Potter, just have a seat right over there,” the nurse said, motioning to a nearby bed.

Potter went to go sit, looking disgruntled. Meanwhile, Draco patiently waited for Madame Pomfrey to wave her wand and fix his grayness.

She didn’t.

Well, at first she didn’t. First she said, “Mister Malfoy, I have been informed of your disability, and I want to let you know that I am here to help if need be. That said, while Hogwarts is accommodating of disabilities, we must insist that you continue to see a therapist while attending school.”

He frowned. Would they assign some stupid medi-witch from St. Mungo’s to come every week and pick apart his brain?

He lucked out. “Every Tuesday after your last class, you and Mister Potter will come to my office to floo over to Healer Bean’s. Understand?” the kindly medi-witch continued.

A nod was his response. She smiled and flicked her wand at him. Immediately, Draco noticed that his skin color was back to normal.

“Oh dear, would you look at that bruise?!” she tsked, bustling over to a cabinet.

Draco refrained from stating the obvious, that no, he could not look at the bruise unless he had a mirror. Instead, he sat down on a bed and waited for her to bring over a healing salve. Within a few moments the ointment was rubbed over his cheek and he felt the tingling effects as the bruise was erased.

Madame Pomfrey then moved over to Potter. She removed the gray skin color first, and then gave the same speech to the frowning Gryffindor. After finishing that speech, she continued talking. “…and now I must perform regular tests to see how you’re progressing in retaining your magic use. I’ll start while you’re here now.”

Potter’s frown transformed into a black scowl. “It’s going to tell you the same thing it’s been saying the whole damned summer…I can’t do it!”

The nurse pursed her lips and shook her head. “That may be, but we still need to check. It’s important to monitor it to see what may or may not be helping it.”

He crossed his arms and glared mutinously at the floor as lifted her wand and began moving it in a complex pattern in front of him.

Draco was perplexed. Potter seemed almost resigned to the fact that he couldn’t do magic, almost as if he didn’t want it back.

But that was preposterous.

Wasn’t it?

A golden glow surrounded the sullen Gryffindor, growing in intensity until it nearly blinded Draco. It was a physical manifestation of his magic, and Draco was stunned to see how powerful Potter really was. What was also surprising was that there looked to be nothing dampening the magic, nothing holding it back from working properly.

Apparently Madame Pomfrey saw the same thing. Her voice held confusion as she said, “Harry, you’re magic is in working order.”

Potter snorted. “Your spell may think so, but it’s not.”

She lowered her wand and the golden glow disappeared. Raising her hands to her hips, she ordered him to try a spell. Potter immediately reacted by shaking his head vehemently. She repeated the order, frustration apparent in her sharp gaze.

She didn’t notice the flash of terror in Potter’s eyes, nor the fact that several of the beds in the infirmary were started to vibrate. Draco did, and he opened his mouth to tell the medi-witch to stop when suddenly Potter grabbed his wand from his robe pocket and shouted an incantation at a vase on the nightstand next to the bed he stood near. “Wingardium Leviosa!”

It exploded, as did every other breakable object in the room. Vases, cabinet windows, potion’s bottled, windows, mirrors, they all shattered. Glass was flying everywhere, and Draco dropped to the ground, trying to create as small of a target as possible.

A piece of glass slashed Madame Pomfrey’s cheek, another tearing her gown at the sleeve. She shrieked and erected a shield to protect herself.

Harry saw the damage he’d caused, and as Draco would later put it, he freaked. His eyes rolled up into his head and he covered his head with his arms, shaking like a leaf in the wind. The beds that had been merely vibrating earlier were now violently shuddering and began to levitate. The glass, which had just started falling harmlessly to the floor, rose up again and began whipping around the room.

Feeling rather terrified, Draco tried to cast a shielding spell to protect himself like Pomfrey had. His mouth wouldn’t work properly, and all that came out were whimpers as he felt his skin sliced again and again.

Through the haze of fear clouding his mind, he noticed one glaring fact—Potter wasn’t getting cut. There was a three foot circumference around the unresponsive boy that was completely glass-free. Draco made a split second decision and lunged at him. He landed on his knees at Potter’s feet, gasping.

Blood trickled from several shallow wounds on the blond, but he ignored them as he sighed in relief that he was no longer in the war zone. Apparently during magical outbursts, Potter was like the eye of a hurricane.

Rising to his feet, Draco noticed that Madame Pomfrey’s shield was flickering. It would fail any moment now. She also seemed frozen with that realization.

Seconds that really felt like minutes passed, and Draco knew he had to do something. Perhaps it was that he was really getting into his role as mentally unhinged, because the idea that popped into his head was anything but sane.

Hopefully it was crazy enough that it would draw Potter out of his catatonic state.

Draco raised his wand with trembling fingers, closing his eyes and wishing really hard for his magic to obey him. He didn’t know any spells that would do what he asked, so he hoped that just thinking what he wanted would work, such as when he’d been a spoiled child with the impatience of a Hippogriff.

Amazingly, it worked, even though the wizarding world held that willful magic could not work for anyone but a child whose magic hadn’t centered into their magical core yet.

Draco would think about the possibilities of his feat later.

Now all he hoped was that his little conjuring would get through to Potter.

I was tired of my lady,

We've been together too long.

Like a worn-out recording,

Of a favorite song.

So while she lay there sleeping,

I read the paper in bed.

And in the personals column,

There was this letter I read:

A strong voice sang, sounding throughout the entire room. Singing was a six foot long banana with a moustache and soulful blue eyes.

"If you like Pina Coladas,

And getting caught in the rain.

If you're not into yoga,

If you have half-a-brain.

If you like making love at midnight,

In the dunes of the cape.

I'm the lady you've looked for,

Write to me, and escape."

Draco had to admit that the banana had a great voice.

I didn't think about my lady,

I know that sounds kind of mean.

But me and my old lady,

Have fallen into the same old dull routine.

So I wrote to the paper,

Took out a personal ad.

And though I'm nobody's poet,

I thought it wasn't half-bad.

Madame Pomfrey’s shield winked out of existence just as the shards of glass dropped to the floor with tinkling sounds. The beds immediately followed, hitting the floor much more loudly.

"Yes, I like Pina Coladas,

And getting caught in the rain.

I'm not much into health food,

I am into champagne.

I've got to meet you by tomorrow noon,

And cut through all this red tape.

At a bar called O'Malley's,

Where we'll plan our escape."

Harry’s eyes slowly opened, the emerald orbs blinking with confusion. His arms lowered slowly and he dropped his wand, which he had been clutching almost to the breaking point in his right hand.

He stared at the banana, which continued to belt out the words to a song he’d once seen his Aunt Petunia dancing and singing to when she’d thought no one was around.

So I waited with high hopes,

Then she walked in the place.

I knew her smile in an instant,

I knew the curve of her face.

It was my own lovely lady,

And she said, "Oh, it's you."

And we laughed for a moment,

And I said, "I never knew…

A smile curved his lips and soon it was a full-fledged grin as he saw Draco bobbing his head along to the music.

That you liked Pina Coladas,

And getting caught in the rain.

And the feel of the ocean,

And the taste of champagne.

If you like making love at midnight,

In the dunes of the cape.

You're the love that I've looked for,

Come with me, and escape."

He motioned to the blond, his eyes twinkling. Draco stopped his head bobbing and raised an eyebrow in the typically Malfoy-ish way of his. Harry mouthed, “Did you do this?”

Draco nodded, a light blush tingeing his cheeks.

Harry grinned again and opened his mouth wide…to sing.

"If you like Pina Coladas,

And getting caught in the rain.

If you're not into yoga,

If you have half-a-brain.

If you like making love at midnight,

In the dunes of the cape.

I'm the lady you've looked for,

Write to me, and escape."

The music slowly dwindled away, and Harry clapped. The banana took a bow, grinning widely. “Thank ye, gents. Now if ye don’t mind, Cocomo’s got another gig at Ritzy’s Pub he’s got to get to.”

Draco waved his wand and the banana disappeared in a puff of smoke.

There was silence for a few moments and then Madame Pomfrey exhaled loudly. “Next time warn me about the side effects of your attempts at magic, Mister Potter.”

The Boy Who Lived bit his lip and nodded. “I’m sorry.”

She sighed, “No real damage done. Off to your dorm while I fix Mister Malfoy here.”

Harry nodded again and muttered a quick apology to Malfoy, before hurrying out of the destruction that was the infirmary.

“All right, Mister Malfoy. Let’s see about fixing these scrapes…” the nurse said, bustling over to her patient.

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A/N: I promised a banana name Cocomo, and here he was. Don’t ask me why, but I thought it would be amusing to see a banana singing about Pina Coladas and getting caught in the rain. Lol.

I hope you enjoyed this chapter, and I would absolutely love it if you reviewed. Much thanks ahead of time! Oh, and I should have the next chapter up sometime before January…hopefully!