Unofficial Portkey Archive

Chapter One : The Challenge

"You have to be joking Hermione!" Ginny gasped, "No, you're right, that's beyond a joke"

"Not at all Gin, I think it's a perfectly reasonable challenge!" laughed Hermione. Ginny Weasley looked pleadingly over at Parvati and Lavender for support, it wasn't forthcoming.

The four Gryffindor girls sat in a corner of the common room. The four girls had set up a club together to make the dull winter evenings at Hogwarts go a little faster. They set each other tasks to test their courage and determination, but it had quickly escalated beyond simple tests of academic prowess to more demanding and dangerous dares. Hermione, having been the last to receive the particularly difficult task of getting into Professor Snape's office and planting a dung bomb in his desk drawer without being caught, was eager to set an equally difficult task to Ginny.

"I am Head Girl Gin, if I had have been caught in Snape's office I would have been expelled! I don't think that a dance with the Head Boy at the Halloween Ball is that difficult a challenge in comparison!" Hermione declared with a wicked grin. The look of exasperation on Ginny's face sent the other three girls at the table into raptures.

"The day that his ferrety Majesty Malfoy asks me for a dance is the day that hell freezes over."

"Nevertheless Ginny, that is the challenge that we set you. You have two weeks exactly until the Halloween Ball." Lavender stated in an exaggerated official tone. Parvati and Hermione giggled loudly and even Ginny smiled despite herself. "OK, OK, you are on." Ginny sighed, defeated.

"I am telling you though I'm gonna need a seriously strong Love potion to persuade Malfoy to slum it with a lowly Weasley, and an equally strong sedative for Ron when he sees me on the dance floor with the amazing dancing ferret!"

"That's the Gryffindor spirit girl!", laughed Hermione.

Having spent hours of her spare time in the library looking for industrial strength love potions, Ginny finally found one that seemed to be appropriate and set off for the Dungeons and the Potions classroom long after most others were sound asleep. There were so many ingredients on the list that she decided to make the potion right there than risk getting caught by a fellow prefect on her way back to Gryffindor tower. "That would be a hard one to try and talk my way out of" she winced, imagining trying to explain to Colin Creevy why she had an arm full of ingredients for a love potion.

It was after two in the morning when Ginny was finally finished, "All this for that complete wanker, Malfoy, Hermione has a lot to answer for on this one. With any luck I'll give into my real feelings on the dance floor and empty my stomach contents all over his over-priced robes" She chuckled to herself. She was clutching the vial full of "Lady Loretta's Love Liquor" searching around for the stopper when she heard voices in the corridor outside the classroom.

"Bugger it" she hissed and grabbing her cloak and bundled into a nearby cupboard, managing to shut the door just in time to avoid being seen.

Whoever had just come into the room they didn't seem to be looking for her. A gruff male voice she vaguely recognised hissed "Get on your knees girl and hurry up about it will you, I've got an early class in the morning."

A female voice, high pitched and shrill replied "OK Draco, but you had better not tell anyone I did this"

Ginny stifled a gasp and then a cough as she inhaled a deep breath of the liquor she held in her fist. It made her eyes water and her head woozy. "Strong stuff indeed" she thought marvelling to herself.

"I've told you a hundred times to call me Head Boy, Pansy. Do you want to do this properly or not?", huffed the male voice.

"Yes. Sorry Dra…. I mean Head Boy. I won't forget again." Ginny tentatively pushed the door of the cupboard open, praying that it wouldn't squeak.

Leaning on Snape's desk facing her cupboard at the back of the classroom was the tall blonde figure of Draco Malfoy. Ginny hesitated, horrified. Malfoy was facing her cupboard but he hadn't seen her, his eyes she could now see were shut lightly and his head tilted back, an expression of delight playing across his porcelain features.

Ginny craned her neck and spied only the black and green robes of the Slytherin girl at Malfoy's feet, the desks between them spoiling her view. She didn't need to see what was going on to know that Malfoy was getting oral pleasure from the obscured figure of whom she could easily deduce was Pansy Parkinson.

Draco let out a hissing sigh, Ginny could see his body jerking sharply as he spent himself into Pansy's mouth. "Thanks for that," Draco said sarcastically, "Next time be a little quicker and less sexy"

"Fuck you Malfoy, I don't know why I bother. You never even talk to me unless you want sex.", spat Pansy, standing up stiffly and striding from the room slamming the door.

"Try making it a challenge next time, don't act so desperate. And it's Head Boy to you!" Sniggering, Draco straightened up his robes and strode after her, out of the Potions classroom.

"For Flammel's sake" Ginny thought savagely, climbing from the cupboard "that ugly old tart doesn't deserve to be anywhere near him, he deserves someone who will rock his world, to make him forget what day it is. Someone like me."

Ginny gathered her things together and began to head back to Gryffindor tower, her head so full of thoughts of Malfoy she hardly noticed the vial of love potion fall to the floor and shatter behind her.