Chapter Seven
People had always thought of Draco as the plotting, conniving sort. Today he planned to live up to his image.He looked at his watch and he walked leisurely to Charms. Sure, he was two minutes late, but that was part of the plan. Draco could be punctual, very punctual, if he so desired. Watching the minutes tick by on his watch, it was obvious that today he had no desire to be on time.
When Draco finally reached the door to the Charms classroom, he had wasted at least six minutes more minutes than usual getting there.He paused outside the door. Bracing his ears for the imminent assault of Flitwick's squeaky voice, he turned the knob.
Draco noticed the students in the classroom were paying little attention to Flitwick's lecture. The girls were passing notes or absentmindedly doodling hearts on their homework, and the boys stared bleakly at the clock, awaiting the end of class in a sleep-like trance. Flitwick was at the opposite end of the room from Draco, and might not have noticed his entrance were it not for Pansy, who squealed his name the second she noticed him.
Flitwick turned around, catching Draco just as he found his seat. Flitwick flicked his wand at Draco's chair."Wingardium Leviosa!"
Draco's chair rose quickly into the air, and he grabbed at the seat quickly so he wouldn't fall.Luckily, being a Seeker gave Draco impeccable reaction time.
"What do you expect me to do with you, Mr. Malfoy?I can't just let you walk in late every day as if you were on a private pass system!" Flitwick shook his hands furiously in gesture.Pansy shrieked and covered her mouth. Flitwick whirled around, throwing up his hands in exasperation. "Do you have something to say Ms. Parkinson?!"
Pansy gulped and pointed at Draco. Flitwick looked up."Oh my!" he gasped. Draco was holding onto the chair by the seat, his body dangling dangerously in the air. With every wave of his hand, Flitwick was shaking Draco off the levitated chair.
Flitwick lowered the chair until Draco was able to stand on Pansy's desk, and from there jump to the floor.
"Oh, Draco! Are you alright?!" Pansy threw her arms around Draco's neck, burying her head in his neck. "I was so worried about you!"
Draco shrugged out of her arms, rolling his eyes.He grabbed his chair from the spot it still hung in the air and set it down next to his table, sitting downas Flitwick gathered his wits again.
"Mr. Malfoy, you know I'll have to have you serve a new detention in addition to the one you owe me... three days worth now, isn't it?"Flitwick nodded to himself. "Seven-o-clock, with Madam Pince in the library.Don't be late, Mr. Malfoy."
Draco made a mental note and grinned to himself.Now all he had to do was talk to Snape.
Ginny walked to Potions.The excitement and anticipation of the kiss a few days before was over, and since it was such a less-than-spectacular experience, Ginny was still feeling a bit gloomy. She shook her head. 'This is what I need to cheer me up, a nice long class with Snape.'
She pushed open the door and trudged to her seat. As she begun unpacking her things, Colin burst into the room.
"Ginny! Ginny!"
She turned her head and gave him a smile."Yeah, Colin?"
"Did you remember the crushed horn beetle for the lab today?"
Ginny slapped her hand on the table."Darn it! I knew I'd forgotten something!Snape will have my head for this! Do you have any left from last time?"
Colin searched his bag and pulled out a small glass bottle with a cork stopper, shaking it."A little, but I'm not sure how well it'll work.It's from last month."
Ginny took the bottle from Colin and held it up to the light, tilting it this way and that, looking for impurities."It looks okay, and we really have no other choice but to use it."She set the bottle on the table and pulled out the rest of their materials for the day's lab.
Professor Snape walked in front of the class slowly, with his hands folded behind his back. Reaching the front of the room, he picked up a few small glass vials filled with a dark purplish liquid. Walking around the classroom to each desk, he distributed a vial to each lab pairing, instructing as he did so.
"Each lab group is receiving a small amount of Erkling blood. You will not touch this fluid until it is to be added to the potion, and at that time, it must not remain in contact with air at any time.It will not work if it is oxygenated."He continued to explain how to add the Erkling blood while submerged in the potion as to not expose it to air and lectured for another twenty minutes on the importance of the fresh crushed horn beetle everyone was supposed to collect the night before as homework.
Ginny shot Colin a worried glance as Snape said this. Still, she decided, a little bit of possibly expired ingredient was better than the wrath of Snape. She followed the lab procedure from her manual, occasionally looking at Colin to make sure he was preparing the hydra root correctly. Finally, she finished the first portion of the lab.
Colin added the shredded root and veela hair, stirring carefully. While adding pinches and sprinkles of colourful powders from various bottles, Ginny thought of Seamus.She had been avoiding him for the past few days.'What am I going to do?I made my self look like a complete idiot by kissing him and now everyone's going to think I'm a desperate little girl again. Just when I'd gotten over Harry, just when Seamus was starting to like me, and just when I had a chance, I blew it. Now I'm in trouble…'
"You're in a great deal of trouble, Miss Weasley." Snape hovered over Ginny and Colin's cauldron.He looked disgustedly at the bubbling green mass inside it."Do you have any idea what you are doing?"
Ginny was scared and confused. "Sir, I -"
"Miss Weasley, do you know what this is?" Snape pulled an entire Hydra root out of Ginny and Colin's potion.
Ginny looked at Colin with horror."It's a Hydra root, sir."
Snape glared menacingly at her. "Did you not know, Miss Weasley, that the Hydra root must be prepared properly in order to have the desired effect in your potion?"
"I knew, sir, but -"
"And did you not read the procedure for this particular lab?"
"I read it, sir, but -"
"If you read it, you would know the Hydra root must be shredded finely before being added to your cauldron!"
Ginny gestured at Colin. "Professor Snape, I was watching him when he was shredding, and it was done properly! I don't know how that got there!" She pointed shakily at the whole Hydra root.
Snape smirked and folded his arms. "Well then, if you're so confident in his potion making skills, why don't you try it out? Have a sip, Miss Weasley."
Ginny swallowed hard. This potion, intended to be a simple beauty potion (as simple as a potion from "Dastardly Difficult Potions We All Know and Love" could possibly be) that made eyes sparkle, cheeks rosy, and hair grow long and shine healthily. Overall, it wasn't a bad thing to try. However, they had used old horned beetle, and an entire hydra root had contaminated the mixture.
Ginny lifted a vial to her face and smelled it. It reminded her of feet, dirt and sulfur.
Snape grinned. "Any time now, Miss Weasley."
With a sickened grimace, Ginny drank the potion.It tasted worse than it smelled, and soon she was bent over and coughing in the middle of the Potions classroom. She felt a tingling, then a burning in her face and eyes, and a stretching feeling in her scalp. The entire class, which had been holding their breath, suddenly gasped. Her hair had been just past her shoulders before, but was now growing past her hips, her knees, her feet. It fell out of its braids and pooled at her heels, trailing behind her like a train and shining gloriously.
Ginny didn't know what to do. The burning in her face and eyes was just starting to subside. When she lifted her head and looked at the class, they gasped in awe. She was confused by their reaction until one of the girls handed her a small mirror.Ginny looked at her face. Her brown eyes were brightly shot with blue and green and gold, and were gleaming dazzlingly. They were almost painful to look at, though oddly entrancing. She lifted a hand to her cheeks. The potion hadn't made her cheeks rosy, exactly; she looked as if she were blushing painfully.
The other girls stared in awe. "Ginny, how did you make that?" one asked.
"Can you make more for me?" asked another.
"Enough!" Snape glared at Ginny through narrowed eyes. "I've had plenty of your arrogance for one day. You will take a detention tonight and two nights thereafter for the audacious sabotage of your potion.You will not go to Madam Pomfrey to deactivate the potion, due to your disgusting smugness regarding the results."
"But Professor, when will it -" Ginny began, but was cut off.
"I said, enough! That will be all, Miss Weasley.When you have all cleaned your lab stations, class is dismissed." Snape walked to the back of the room, looking pleased with himself.
Ginny left the class and headed to her dorm. Her hair dragged on the floor behind her, and she had to keep scooping it up in her arms to avoid tripping other students. Anyone who met her eyes stared at her in amazement, and Lavender had actually asked her in the common room about purchasing some of her potion.
On her way up to her dormitory, Ginny found Hermione. The other girl stared at her in shock. "Ginny!What did you do?" Hermione touched Ginny's hair.
Ginny spoke frantically, her newly luminous eyes filling with tears. "Snape, and a beauty potion, but he cheated! And he put it in when it shouldn't have, and the Hydra root, oh Hermione!" Ginny sniffled and held the hair in her arms up. "And now my eyes glitter! And my face is so red!"
Hermione led Ginny to her room and had her explain what happened more clearly.
"So Snape put a whole hydra root and an expired crushed horn beetle in a Luxor's Looks potion?" Hermione looked as if she were calculating something in her head.
"Well, I put in the horn beetle, but yeah."
"Have you tried cutting your hair?I'm not sure it'll work if it's a higher level potion like this, but as you have about two and a half meters of hair at the moment, I think it's worth a try." Hermione picked up a sharp pair of fabric scissors from a dresser drawer.She spent the next twenty minutes cutting Ginny's hair just past the shoulder, doing her best to go straight across.
Ginny shook her head to rid her hair of stray pieces and get the feel of her cut. Hermione put her hands on her lap and looked pleased with her work. "There! It's perfectly fine... oh no."
Ginny's hair was growing back in floods, and was soon longer than it had been before it was cut.
Hermione sighed in frustration. "All right, I'll take a look in the books I have and see what they say. I have Ancient Runes early tomorrow, so I don't think I'll have time for the library."
Ginny looked hopeful. "I have a detention in the library tonight, if you have any books you wanted specifically, I could get them for you."
Hermione's eyes lit up. "Could you?"She pulled out her wand."Accio parchment!" The parchment flew to her hand as she grabbed a quill and ink from her dresser. She scribbled some book titles ontothe page and handed it to Ginny, who folded it and put it in her pocket.As she did, Hermione caught sight of the watch chain inside.
"You're still carrying your brother's old pocket watch?"she asked as she begun braiding Ginny's hair.
Ginny pulled the amulet out of her pocket. "Well, the chain at least.I don't have a watch on it now."
Hermione looked at the pendant quizzically. "Where did you get this?"
Ginny would have shaken her head, but it was held still as Hermione braided her hair. "It's not a big deal, I found it outside." Ginny was determined not to speak about Draco with her just yet. "Why, is it dark magic?I know it's magical, since it changes color every once and awhile."
Hermione tilted the forest green pendant in her hand. "Changes color? No, I'm not sure if it's dark magic or not. I'll have to look that up as well. Can you add Amazingly Ancient Artifacts to your list? Because that thing's definitely old enough to be in there."
Ginny nodded slightly and Hermione continued braiding Ginny's hair. "I don't know what we're going to do with this," she said as she neared the end."It's still way too long. When do you have to leave?"
Ginny checked her watch. "About fifteen minutes. Maybe you could pin it up?"
In the end, Ginny's braid was pinned into three loops at the back of her head.It looked almost Victorian, and was pretty in an unusual way.Ginny was sure Luna Lovegood, a Ravenclaw in her year, would like it if she saw her before she took it down.Anyway, it would keep it out of the way, so that was all that mattered.Ginny thanked Hermione for her help and ran up to her dormitory to change.
Ginny changed out of her school robes and into a comfortable skirt and her Weasley sweater.Putting on a fresh pair of socks, she grabbed the list from her school robes and put it in her pocket.
She found the amulet from her robe pocket as well, and held it, studying it.It had a mystical, antique feel to it, and the shades of green in pendant swirled like wisps of smoke trapped in the glass.There was something about it that she couldn't quite place.It relieved her to know Hermione was researching it, as Ginny saw it change every couple days, working its way up the color spectrum. She couldn't help the feeling the colors were counting down to something...
Ginny attached the pendant to a necklace chain, laying her brother's watch chain on her bedside table, and secured it around her neck. Tucking it under her sweater, Ginny left for her detention.