“Ginny Weasley is in big trouble.”

That was the foremost thought circling in Draco Malfoy’s head as he gingerly slithered along the corridor towards the Transfiguration classroom. He grimaced at the thought. Though the Malfoys had been Slytherins from their platinum hair to their house elf-pedicured toes since Hogwarts had begun, they had never slithered down the corridors of the castle. Or any castle, for that matter. Though all in all, it wasn’t exactly the slithering itself that brought such an unsightly grimace to the young man’s visage on what should have been a bright morning of glaring at first years and pissing off the portraits. No, Draco had manfully accepted that human-animal transfiguration was part and parcel of a Hogwarts education, and he even hoped that when his secret Animagus studies paid off, he’d take the form of an elegant silver snake.

That was the problem.

He was, today, not an elegant silver snake, sleek and shiny. He was currently in the shape of Slimy, his stuffed green snake he’d slept with every night when he was a wee boy . Draco currently embodied every detail, down to the red button eyes and crimson felt tongue, covered, of course, by a Slytherin uniform he would have to attempt to charm back into shape when he was through.

The thought of this ‘do-it-yourself damage control’ reminded him of where he was currently slithering. Snape, the malicious, supercilious bastard that he was, had claimed such a reversal was more suited to someone of Professor McGonagall’s caliber. Perhaps if he’d been a bit quieter commenting on his professor’s in-dire-need-of-conditioning-charms hair to Blaise this morning, he wouldn’t be about to offer himself for humiliation to the head of his rival house.

He wondered what the Crazy Cat Lady, as he’d heard a few promising first year Slytherins refer to her, would do when she found out someone in her own precious house was responsible. Probably nothing. He rolled his eyes, reflecting on the deplorable lack of punishment the Weasley twins had enjoyed while at Hogwarts.

Which brought him back to his original thought. The only sister of those inhumanely irritating twins was going to get it; just as soon as he had limbs again, and decided just what “it” would be. He should have guessed that something was afoot when an anonymous looking owl delivered a green, snake-shaped sweet to the Slytherin table this morning. The Hogwarts student body had learned all too quickly never to accept food from the Weasley twins, though every new school year saw a trickle of naïve first years off to the hospital wing when the twins had been able to get around Hermione Granger. Never having had siblings, Draco had been unprepared for the shine Ginny had taken to the family tradition of trouble making. She had lived in their shadow until their dramatic flight (both literal and physical) from Hogwarts a year ago, and now her own instincts had been given a chance to flourish.

Draco’s antagonism of her brother, her friends and her house in general, ensured he was a ready target for the flame-haired fifth year to practice on. Unbeknownst to him, she kept in regular contact with her now merchant brothers, and had been sharing ideas for the best part of the last six months. Their latest creation was a sweet which looked harmless enough to the intended victim, before proceeding to transfigure them into a childhood toy. This particular sweet had found its way into Draco’s mouth faster than the youngest Weasley had been moved to the top of his “Must Revenge Self Upon” list. The speed of Ginny’s ascension to the top beat even Harry Potter or the Bertie Bott’s management when they’d changed the recipe for their espresso-flavoured beans. Draco attempted to blink his red button eyes as he contemplated the door to the Transfiguration classroom in front of him. After the challenge of dragging himself up several staircases, barely managing to save his tail from a nasty trick step, he was in no mood to wait untill the end of classes. Feeling again the futility of life without limbs, he raised his soft green head to bang it against the doorway.