A Stroll in Your Shoes

 Disclaimer: I don't own any of the Harry Potter world, or characters etc…

Warning: H/G at beginning, though I wouldn’t really call it anything myself. There are quite a few lewd references, but it’s not really enough to make this story R. If you’re offended by it, I guess you shouldn’t read it. *shrugs*

 A/n:  I don’t normally do this, but I have to admit it is kind of sad that I have so few reviews considering when I first wrote this story it ended up with over 200. I know people feel that they don’t have time, or have nothing to say, but I really do appreciate every review I receive, and I would love to hear what you think instead of wondering if anyone likes the story.

On that note, I want to thank Usha88 who is always so dedicated in reviewing!

The Inevitable

Draco and Ginny raced down to the dungeons to find Snape sitting at his cauldron looking particularly annoyed, a normal expression for someone as grumpy as him.

“Professor, we need your help!” Draco and Ginny said breathlessly in unison, their eyes staring at Snape expectantly.

Snape looked down his hooked nose at them and frowned, his black eyes swivelling from one face to the next. “What is it?”

“We need to know what was in the cauldron last night.” Draco said with a warning glare at Ginny. She stared at him questioningly but he only glared at her even more. Ginny didn’t know why Draco just didn’t tell Snape that they had swapped bodies but decided to play along anyway, at least to stop him glaring at her like that.

“Yes Professor, we think we may have been affected by it since we were both in the vicinity.” Ginny said, with a glance towards Draco. He nodded his head briefly to show he was pleased with her effort, and Ginny felt a small sense of pride, though why Draco’s opinion on her lying abilities should matter to her she was not sure…

Snape looked at Ginny, obviously more inclined to talk to her since she looked like Draco rather than Draco himself. 

“Draco,” he began patiently. “It was merely a potion that causes the people surrounding it to fall asleep by its intoxicating fumes. I assure you, nothing will have happened.”

Ginny’s eyes gazed at Draco with a crestfallen expression. If Snape was telling the truth then they were still no closer to finding out how they switched bodies, or how they were going to switch back. 

“No, it can’t be. You must have made a mistake!” Draco insisted angrily.

“Weasley, how many times do I have to tell you to not talk back to me? Unless you want points taken off Gryffindor, I suggest you keep quiet, though I know for you that is a difficult feat.” Snape said nastily.

Feeling highly offended by Snape’s words, but not wanting Gryffindor to lose anymore points on her behalf, Ginny nudged Draco to be quiet and looked at Snape with forced politeness. “Thank you professor, that’s all we needed to know.”

Snape nodded his head in dismissal and Ginny and Draco left the dungeons, both mirroring each other’s disappointed expressions.

Draco stopped once they were out of earshot and gazed at Ginny with an annoyed expression, obviously tired of every plan they thought would work failing. Ginny could understand, but she was not exactly in the mood to listen to his whinging again. She also had just suffered a severe frustration in finding the potion was not what had made them switch.

“What do we do now?” Draco complained in a long-suffering voice. “Clearly it wasn’t the potion.”

“I don’t know Malfoy.” Ginny replied tiredly, just wanting to get out of his body and get back to her life. She didn’t understand why he hadn’t just told Snape what had happened, and she really didn’t want to go researching in the library again. She just wanted her body back.

“Why don’t we just tell Dumbledore what happened?” Ginny asked, as she continued to walk. “He’ll know what to do.”

“And what are you going to say?” Draco retorted dryly, turning to face Ginny with a mocking expression in his eyes. “Hey Professor, me and Draco Malfoy switched bodies and we don’t know how, so can you turn us back?”

Ginny rolled her eyes, wishing that for once he would just stop being such a sarcastic, annoying jerk and just help her sort this out. “Well it’s better than to keep pretending.”

Draco suddenly grabbed her arm and frowned, no longer looking sarcastic and moody but genuinely wanting her cooperation. “Look Weasley, maybe you haven’t noticed but only dark magic can make people switch bodies. They’re going to think we did something really bad and probably expel us.”

Ginny frowned as she saw the reasoning in his words. Why would anyone believe them that it was by accident that they had switched bodies? They had no proof they hadn’t been messing around with dark magic, and they could get expelled if people decided it was their fault they had somehow switched. Sighing she looked at Draco, a resigned expression on her face.  “Okay, so what do you think we should do?”

“We need help, there is no doubt about that.” Draco stated bluntly, and Ginny had to agree. She was sure if they had to spend anymore time together they’d probably kill each other. 

“Blaise would probably help us,” Draco continued in a thoughtful voice. “He’s good at finding out all that stuff.”

“Well Hermione can help us too then.” 

“The mudblood?” Draco asked sharply, his eyes narrowing slightly.

“Her name is Hermione.” Ginny said firmly, her eyes flashing angrily. She had almost forgotten how bigoted Draco Malfoy was. “You know she is the smartest witch in our year, maybe even our school. I’d say she’d be able to find a solution to all this.”

“Fine.” Draco said, much to Ginny’s surprise. She had almost expected him to put up more fight than that. “We get Blaise and Granger to help us.”

“Fine.” Ginny echoed, a satisfied expression on her face. It seemed he was willing to put his prejudice aside if it meant helping himself, though that didn’t exactly make him any nicer, more just confirmed her belief that he was a nasty, selfish brat.

“Now when should we meet?” Ginny mused out loud, wondering where a good place to discuss their problem with Hermione and Blaise would be.

“We’ll meet during dinner.” Draco answered promptly. “I’ll get some food from the kitchens and we’ll go to the unused charms classrooms and figure these things out, alright?”

Ginny nodded in agreement. It would be better to meet in one of the unused classrooms, but then how were they going to get Hermione and Blaise to meet them? She didn’t like to think of what Draco might say to Hermione to get her to come.

“Maybe I should tell Hermione?” Ginny asked, voicing her concern at what he would say to her friend.

“Weasley, you are in my body,” Draco said with a slight smirk, an amused expression on his face. “She won’t go anywhere near you.”

“Oh, right. Well you tell her then.” Ginny mumbled, slightly embarrassed that she had said something so stupid when she should have realised her telling Hermione was practically impossible in her current state.

“Alright, well make sure you tell Blaise.”

“I know, I know” Ginny muttered as they went their separate ways.

It didn’t take her long before she found Blaise walking absently down a corridor munching on a sandwich. She was glad to find him alone, for she wasn’t sure how she was going to get rid of Crabbe and Goyle if they were there too.

“Oh there you are Draco,” Blaise said with a grin, spotting Ginny standing in the corridor anxiously watching him. She realised she had to tell him now, but she had no idea how to get him to come to the classroom with her later.

“Blaise, do you, uhhh, want to come with me, uhhh, to do some study during dinner…. in an unused classroom?” Ginny felt herself blush as she finished her awkward sentence, realising that had to have been the lamest lie she had ever said. She really didn’t know how else to get him there though without saying that she wasn’t Draco Malfoy, and who knew how he would react to that…

Blaise stared at her with an odd look in his amber eyes, and Ginny was slightly worried that there was no smile on his face. “You want me to come with you to an unused classroom and do study during dinner?” He repeated slowly, still with the same odd expression.

Ginny nodded, still blushing about how stupid her lie was. She had made a right botch of it this time, but she was hoping Blaise might just agree anyway. All she needed was to get him there after all.

Blaise’s expression suddenly changed to a very sharp, hard look, and Ginny finally realised just why Blaise Zabini was indeed a Slytherin. “Alright,” he said menacingly, suddenly grabbing Ginny by her collar and pinning her hard against the wall. “What have you done with Draco?”

“Nothing, nothing,” Ginny gasped, trying hard not to squeak in fright at how intimidating he looked right now so close to her face with his furious expression. She realised she had no choice but to tell him the truth before he decided to skin her alive right then and there.

“Please,” Ginny said hurriedly. “Just let me go and I’ll tell you everything.”

Blaise nodded and released Ginny’s collar, taking a step back where he stood watching her expectantly. She instinctively smoothed down her clothes, taking a few deep breaths to gather her thoughts together.

Sighing, Ginny looked back at Blaise. “You’re right that I’m not Draco. It’s not what you think though. I don’t know how it happened, but somehow I got stuck in his body.”

“What? You serious?” Blaise asked in confusion, his eyes widening slightly at what she had disclosed.

Ginny nodded, glad that he had believed her straight away; she hadn’t known what she would have done if he hadn’t accepted her story.

“So, if you aren’t Draco, then who are you?” Blaise asked curiously, his eyes watching her even more closely now. Ginny wondered if she could trust him enough to tell him now, but then she realised she had already told him this much, so she’d might as well disclose the rest.

“Ginny Weasley,” Ginny mumbled quietly, not wanting to look at him to see his expression.

“WHAT?”

Ginny winced at his loud exclamation. “I know it’s hard to believe, but I’m telling the truth.”

Blaise burst out laughing, and Ginny looked up in surprise. She had been expecting him to get angry, maybe mock her or shout at her- but laugh?

“Out of all the people in the school, Draco somehow trades bodies with you. Oh this is too good to be true.” Blaise said in an amused voice, the traces of laughter still lurking in his amber eyes.

Ginny huffed indignantly, feeling not very happy that he was finding her discomfort so humorous. “Yes well I’m not exactly enjoying myself being stuck in the ferrets body, so you’ll have to excuse me for not finding this situation as funny as you obviously do.”

Blaise laughed again, leaning forward to peer at her more closely, even though Ginny knew all he would see was Draco’s disgruntled face.

“It really is you in there, isn’t it, Weasley?” He asked with a smile.

Ginny sighed and nodded. “I’m sorry I imposed on all of you,” she mumbled apologetically, feeling bad now that she had pretended to be their friend. “But I didn’t have much choice.”

“It’s alright.” Blaise said, waving his hand unconcernedly. “So what is it you want me to do anyway? I take it the meeting in the classroom at dinner is not about studying?”

Ginny blushed again, remembering her awful lie, and shook her head quickly. “No, that was just where Malfoy wanted us all to meet, but we were hoping you would be able to help us research a way to get our bodies back. We figured we shouldn’t trust the teachers since they would just think we were playing with dark magic and expel us.”

Blaise nodded, a small smile coming to his lips. “I’ll help you.”

Ginny took in a deep breath, glad that was over and even more glad that he was going to help.

He laughed suddenly, and Ginny stared at him questioningly. “What?” she said in surprise, wondering what could possibly be funny now.

“You’re lucky you told me,” Blaise said still chuckling slightly. “I’ll be able to help you be more like Draco now, because it was very obvious you weren’t him.”

“Was I really that bad?” Ginny asked anxiously. She had thought she had done quite well, but seeing his amused expression she wondered if perhaps she was wrong.

Blaise smiled somewhat kindly at her. “You were terrible, but don’t worry; Crabbe and Goyle are too thick to notice and Pansy hasn’t been talking to you much today. By the way, you’d better remember that date with her or Draco won’t be happy.”

“How can he go out with such a harpy?” Ginny asked puzzled.

Blaise sniggered slightly. “Pansy is alright. She just doesn’t like you Gryffindors.”

“Hmm,” Ginny mumbled, frowning slightly to herself.

“Well, shall we go to class then?” Blaise asked smiling.

“Sure.” Ginny shrugged. “I guess we can’t really do anything until dinner anyway.”

She followed Blaise down the corridor, inwardly hoping that Draco had not faced the same problems she did in trying to persuade Hermione to come to the classroom…

OOOOOOOOOOOO

“Where is that stupid, bushy-haired mudblood?” Draco muttered as he scouted the corridors for Hermione. He had spent nearly half an hour looking for her and soon class would be starting, which would leave him no time to talk to her at all.

Harry started coming towards him and Draco’s eyes bulged in horror momentarily before he suddenly ducked behind a pillar, fervently hoping that Harry had not seen him.

“Hey Hermione, have you seen Ginny?” Draco heard Harry call. He almost swore in frustration, realising that Hermione Granger was mere feet away from him and he couldn’t do anything unless he wanted Potter to start spouting love rubbish to him again.

“No I haven’t, Harry,” Draco heard Hermione say distractedly.

Draco was not religious, but right now he was inwardly praying for whatever deity was listening to force Harry to leave and make that silly, bushy-haired bookworm stay still so he could talk to her.

With a sigh of relief, Draco saw Harry walk past his pillar and go around the corner where he passed from his vision. Waiting a few more moments, Draco quickly gathered himself together and rushed out from behind the pillar to see Hermione walking down the corridor in the opposite direction.

“Granger!” He called, walking quickly to catch up to her. Hermione turned around and looked about the corridor in confusion. “Ginny,” she said with a smile realising who it was that had called out to her. “Harry was just looking for you.”

“Never mind that,” Draco said roughly, pulling Hermione away from the rest of the students. “I need your help.”

“Of course I’ll help,” Hermione said with another smile. “What is it?”

“Well the thing is…I’m not Ginny,” Draco admitted, a serious expression on his face.

Hermione laughed as if it was all a good joke. “Of course you are Ginny.”

“Me and Weasley somehow switched bodies.” Draco said in a rush, knowing how stupid he was sounding and feeling just a little degraded to be talking to the know-it-all mudblood, even asking her for help.

“You what?” Hermione said confused, the laughter dying out of her eyes to be replaced with a puzzled expression.

“I woke up this morning in Weasley’s body. I don’t know how it happened; all I know is it did.” Draco replied in an annoyed voice. He thought she was supposed to be intelligent, but she was certainly taking a long time to catch on to the ‘I’m not Ginny’ part.

“You…you’re Malfoy aren’t you?” Hermione asked in a shocked voice, holding a hand to her head.

Draco nodded, glad that he hadn’t had to tell her that. “Weasley thought you might be able to help, and Merlin knows I’m failing miserably in pretending to be the she-weasel.”

Hermione stared at him sharply, and for one horrible moment he thought she was going to say no, but then she slowly nodded her head.

“I guess I can help.”

Draco sighed with relief. Though he would never say thankyou to Hermione, he was grateful for her help.

“It’s not like I’m doing this for you,” Hermione said firmly, giving him no doubt that if it was for him she would not have bothered. “I just don’t think Ginny will be enjoying her time pretending to be you, or having you ruin her reputation for that matter.”

Draco nodded, not really caring why she was helping them as long as she did. “I understand.”

“Well then for now I guess we can put our differences aside,” Hermione said politely, putting out her hand in a truce.

Draco took her hand somewhat reluctantly and nodded his head. “I guess… for now.”

“So when are we meeting Ginny?” Hermione asked, quickly pulling her hand away.

“We’re going to meet Weasley at dinner in the old charms classroom. She’s bringing Blaise with her.” Draco replied in a business-like manner.

“Zabini? That Slytherin?” Hermione asked, scrunching up her nose slightly.

“What’s the matter Granger? Afraid of the big nasty Slytherins?” Draco asked with a smirk.

“Please,” Hermione huffed. “I just didn’t expect him that’s all.”

“Whatever,” Draco said quickly, not really interested in what she thought of Blaise. “We’ve got a few hours before dinner, and make sure you aren’t late.”

He turned around to leave and suddenly spotted Harry coming back around the corner. He gave a panicked glance around the corridor until his eyes fell on Hermione.

“Granger, do me a favour and don’t let Potter follow me.” Draco said quickly. He mumbled a quick thanks and made his way speedily down the corridor to escape. Hermione watched him leave and turned back in surprise to see Harry walking towards her.

“Why should I have to do the dirty work?” she mumbled to herself, and then plastered a cheery smile on her face. “Hi Harry,” Hermione said brightly as he stopped in front of her.

“Hi Hermione. Listen, I can’t find Ginny anywhere. Are you sure you haven’t seen her?”

“Sorry Harry, I already told you I haven’t seen her.” Hermione lied, though she guessed in a way it was the truth since their Ginny was now stuck inside Draco Malfoy’s body. “Have you tried Ron?”

“He’s too busy snogging Luna to listen. I guess I’ll keep looking,” Harry said, sighing dejectedly as he continued his trek down the corridor.

Hermione watched him walk away and frowned. Things were getting way out of hand here. How on Earth did Draco and Ginny switch bodies? And how was Ginny taking all of this?

Hermione shook her head. She figured she would just have to wait until dinner to find out.

OOOOOOOOOOOO

The unused classroom was a small circular room with desks and chairs piled everywhere, giving them little space to be comfortable. The atmosphere of the room was not exactly pleasant either. Hermione kept giving Ginny awkward glances, clearly finding it difficult to be friendly with her while she looked like Draco, Blaise was watching the situation with an amused smile hovering at his lips, and Draco was pacing up and down sighing from time to time.

“Okay, now that we are all here I guess we should tell you two all we can remember.” Ginny said to Blaise and Hermione, hoping to break the tension in the room.

Draco stopped pacing and together him and Ginny recounted all they could remember, which unfortunately was not much.

Hermione frowned to herself, chancing a glance at Blaise who merely looked contemplative. She turned back to Ginny, and Ginny hoped that maybe she would have an idea of what could have happened.

“You think Snape could be lying?” Hermione asked thoughtfully.

Ginny shrugged. “He may have been right that it was just a sleeping draught, but it does seem strange that it is the last thing we can remember.”

“You’ll probably find that is because you were knocked out,” Blaise said matter-of-factly. “I saw Draco carried into bed last night and he was still knocked out. I don’t know if that was you then, Weasley, but I would say Snape was telling the truth.”

Draco nodded in agreement. “Blaise is right. Snape wouldn’t lie to us like that; it would be pointless.”

Ginny looked at Hermione to see what she thought about the whole situation.

“I’m going to have to agree with Zabini and Malfoy,” Hermione confessed. “I don’t think Snape would purposely do that.”

“You’d hope he wouldn’t,” Ginny muttered darkly.

Blaise laughed lightly, giving an amused glance at Ginny. “I know you hate him Weasley, but he’s not that bad.”

Ginny shrugged, not wanting to accept that Snape could be anything but a mean, grumpy man. She stared back at Hermione, determined to find out some sort of reason as to why this happened if it wasn’t because of Snape’s potion.

“So what do you think might have caused this?”

Hermione looked at the book Ginny and Draco had been looking at earlier, a slight frown on her face. “I’m not sure,” she admitted, “but I will try and find more information on this. There will be a way to reverse it; we just have to find out how you got like this in the first place.”

Blaise nodded in agreement. “She’s right. We can’t do anything until we figure out how you got this way.” He stared at both Ginny and Draco with a hopeful expression. “Are you positive you can’t remember anything after being knocked out by Snape’s potion.”

Draco and Ginny looked at each other, and Ginny knew that he just like her was unable to think of anything.

Blaise sighed in disappointment. “This is going to be harder than I thought…”

“No way! I have to get my body back!” Draco exclaimed angrily, obviously annoyed that Blaise and Hermione had not figured out something right away. She had definitely come to the conclusion that patience was not one of Draco Malfoy’s virtues.

Blaise shook his head, giving an apologetic look at Draco. “It ain’t going to happen at the moment. I’m sorry, Draco, but you’re stuck in Weasley’s body for now.”

Ginny put her head in her hands, frustrated at the thought of having to keep up this charade. “So what do we do?”

Hermione and Blaise exchanged glances and then both looked back at Ginny and Draco. Ginny had a feeling whatever they were going to say was not something she wanted to hear.

“For now just keep pretending to be each other. I’ll help Malfoy be more like Ginny-”

“-And I’ll help Weasley be more like Draco.” Blaise ended, grinning at Ginny. 

Ginny and Draco both looked at each other crestfallen. Things were really beginning to look bad…