Draco stormed up and down the corridors, looking into empty classrooms and peering down more corridors. He slowed every time he came across people, wanting to appear to be casually walking around the school. He had searched everywhere he could think of. They must both be in the common room.
Draco, disgusted with himself, had finally accepted that he liked Hermione Granger. He had spent days trying to force himself to stop feeling that way about Hermione, trying to think of her bad points, reminding himself that she was a mudblood, she was off limits! He knew that it was such a bad idea to like a Gryffindor, a mudblood, and Harry Potter’s best friend! His worst enemies best friend…
Of course, he was aware that this meant he couldn’t tell anyone. He had managed to shake off Crabbe and Goyle for a few days. He just had to shout at them and tell them he wanted to be alone and they would go away. He hadn’t told any of his fellow Slytherins’… if it got around the school…
So he had come up with a plan, it was a risky one, and had taken about two months to prepare. The Polyjuice Potion took about a month to form, let alone the amount of time it took to steal the ingredients from Snape’s cupboard. But it was ready, simmering away underneath his bed; it was lucky that the potion was odourless. Now all he had to do was get rid of Harry Potter for an hour and he’d be fine, if he just remembered to keep his cool…
He finally came to the conclusion that Harry and Hermione was in the Gryffindor common room, after searching the school for an hour. He headed that way, and three floors down, he waited behind a statue of Norris the Nosy outside the common room, made sure he was well hid and watched the portrait of the Fat Lady.
He must have waited half an hour before he sat up, immediately alert, the one person who he wanted to see emerge from the portrait hole. He had no idea how he was going to do this, but he decided to have a go anyway.
‘Potter!’ Draco called, and Harry turned, a look of dislike upon his face.
‘What do you want, Malfoy.’ Harry said wearily. Draco paused for a moment. What did he want? He did some quick thinking.
‘Professor Snape sent me to get you,’ he invented, in a pretend annoyed voice.
‘Why? What does he want?’ Harry asked.
‘I don’t know, I was just told to bring you down to the dungeons. Follow me.’ Draco began walking, Harry behind him. He knew where he was going, but he wondered wildly whether it would work. He and Harry walked up and up to the seventh floor, until Harry spoke.
‘Malfoy, where are you going?’ He said, suddenly realising where he was. ‘The dungeons are down the stairs not up!’
Draco began walking past the tapestry, thinking hard. ‘I need a place where I can keep Harry for an hour…’ he thought. ‘Where he can’t get out or communicate with anyone…where no one can hear him…’ Draco turned to Harry.
‘You’re right, I lost track of where I was.’ He turned and gasped at the door of the Room of Requirement in mock-surprise. ‘What’s this?’ He said, approaching the door, ‘I’ve never seen this before…’ Harry ran up to Draco and put his hand on the door. This was exactly what Draco wanted, he quivered in excitement. Harry opening the door and stepped inside.
‘Wow! I wonder who wanted the room to be like this…’ And without even looking inside the room, Draco pushed Harry into the room even further and slammed the door. There was no lock, but he had a feeling that Harry wouldn’t be able to escape. He couldn’t hear banging on the door…it must be soundproof.
Draco turned and ran at top speed back to the Slytherin common room. He dashed up to his dormitory and, after checking it was empty, pored the potion into a container and ran out of the common room, ignoring all the strange looks he received on the way.