"Pssst," Draco hissed, trying to get Potter's attention.
As luck would have it, he had Potions today before the Hogsmeade weekend. Now, normally Draco didn't have a problem with Potions; in fact, it was his favourite class now that Professor Snape was back. But Potions when he could be in Hogsmeade terrorizing the first year Hufflepuffs, or even the seventh years, just didn't sit well with him.
"Pssst!"
"Have you sprung a leak, Harry?" Granger smirked, looking far more presentable today than usual.
Potter sent her a strange look. "What're you talking about?"
Granger sighed. "Idiot," she said fondly, before going back to her work.
Draco smirked. She wouldn't be so fond of Potter when he was made to look like a manipulating bastard. Aware that Potter wasn't going to talk to him willingly, the blonde reached out and tugged on his messy dark hair.
The Boy-Who-Lived-To-Be-A-Prat whirled around, glaring. "What?" he snapped.
"Meet me after class," Draco whispered.
Suspicion shadowed green eyes. "Why?"
"Do you want to get an in with the Weasley chit?" the Slytherin asked rhetorically.
"Yes…" Potter admitted.
"Then meet me."
"Is there a problem here, Mr. Malfoy?" Snape sneered.
Draco leant back in his seat. "No, sir. Just telling Potter he put too much boomslang skin in his potion, which, as you know, can change it from a healing potion to a poison."
"Very well. Ten points from Gryffindor, Potter, for not following the directions correctly. Mr. Malfoy, five points to Slytherin." The Potions Master glided away, and Potter glowered at Draco before turning around.
------------------------------
Ginny stared at her watch, waiting impatiently for it to change to 11:00 am. Then, Harry would 'pick her up' for their date.
She sighed. Twenty minutes left. Unfortunately, Parvati and Lavender didn't have class, and had imprisoned her in their dormitory to finish her makeover.
"Almost done with her make up, Lav. Have you found a suitable outfit yet?" Parvati asked, wielding her wand like a painter's brush and surveying Ginny in a way that made her think of an artist inspecting an unsatisfactory piece of work.
"Nearly," Lavender answered.
"But we have to wear our uniforms!" Ginny protested.
"That doesn't mean we have to look grotesque," Lavender retorted. She held up Ginny's uniform. "Here we go, I managed to find a robe that's not noticeably faded, 'Vati."
"Good." The oriental witch stepped back. "Her face is almost done. Ginny, go change. I need to coordinate your makeup and hair with how you look in your uniform."
Ginny obeyed. The other two still had her wand, so what else could she do?
When she came back out dressed in her grey wool skirt, white blouse and black robes with her Gryffindor tie around her neck, Lavender sighed.
"It's no use, 'Vati," she said, "Even Hermione's skirt is shorter."
Ginny blushed. "Mum doesn't like me showing my knees," she mumbled. In all honesty, she was quite happy not to show her knees or thighs. She was stick thin, which made her knees stick out, and Ron often called her Chicken Legs. Plus, even her upper thighs were covered in freckles, and they only saw the sun when she was swimming.
"Well, your mother isn't here." Parvati said firmly, "and I'm sure Harry will appreciate it." With a wave of her wand she shortened Ginny's skirt and tightened her blouse at the same time.
There was a moment of stunned silence, and Ginny cringed.
"How…how do you do it?" Lavender asked finally. "How do you stay so slender? I want your figure!"
Ginny blinked.
"Yeah, Gin, what's your secret? What diet are you on?" Parvati questioned eagerly.
"I'm not on a diet. I just…do what I always do." Ginny said in confusion.
"That's not fair!" Lavender wailed. "I have to watch everything I eat! And you…I've seen you scarfing sweets!" The blonde girl looked most indignant.
"Sorry…" Ginny said uncertainly.
"Well, there's nothing we can do about it," Parvati said, though she looked quite disgruntled as well. "You look great, Gin, and I think we'll leave your hair out. It provides a nice contrast for the uniform. And a natural look would probably be best; you've got a great complexion anyway, so I won't do much more with your makeup…"
------------------------------
"Potions drags on forever these days," Hermione complained, pushing her sleek curls away from her face. It was nice not to have frizzy hair anymore, but this new hairdo kept getting in her eyes.
Ron grinned. "Did I hear the studious Hermione correctly?" he teased. "A class that lasts too long?"
Hermione pushed her boyfriend playfully. "Shut up. I've been looking forward to going to Hogsmeade, all right?"
"Why? Nothing good-oh! Yeah, me too," the redhead said hurriedly.
"Why you, ooh!" Hermione smacked the redhead, grinning.
Harry rolled his eyes at their antics; raising his voice to the Fat Lady could hear him over their squabbling. "Blaygird." The portrait opened just in time for him to catch Ginny. "Gin, what..."
"Save me! They're out to get me!" the pretty Gryffindor squealed, flinging her arms around his neck.
"Ginny, where've you gone?" he heard Parvati call from inside.
Hermione gave a most un-Hermione-like giggle. "I'll take your books in, Harry," she said, taking Harry's bag. "You get an early start on your date."
"Okay. Er...Ginny, it's not that you're heavy or anything but could you get down?" Having her so close, her rose-scent all around him, was doing things to his body, reminding him of a time when they might have worked out. 'This is never going to happen again,' he told himself firmly. 'You already had your chance. This is just a dare.'
"Okay." Ginny's feet hit the stone floor and she stepped away from him, blushing.
Harry stared at her, taking in the tight shirt, short skirt, and the curves that had so recently been pressed against him. He swallowed. 'Just a dare,' he reminded himself.
-------------------
"They're here," Daphne told Draco, who was currently pretending to nibble on her neck. She'd been the look out, while he made them inconspicuous, just two more hormonal teenagers enjoying a Hogsmeade weekend.
After Potions, Draco had told Potter to take the Weasley girl to The Red Slipper, a popular new restaurant that was far less lacy than Madame Pudifoot's, but far more intimate than the noisy Three Broomsticks.
The Slytherin pair was, of course, waiting for the perfect moment to split the entire Gryffindor house up, to cause discord and strife in their all-too-perfect ranks, which would surely happen when they learned that Harry Potter had to be dared to go out with Ginevra Weasley again. Obviously he regretted those short weeks at the end of his sixth year when he stupidly dated her. That it was her own brother who dared Potter, and that he was now dating the Mudblood was only icing on the cake. Delicious icing.
"Are they sitting near us?"
"Mm hmm. Tatiana's making sure of it."
They'd paid the waitress ten galleons to make sure the Gryffindors were placed in the next booth, but to a rich Slytherin and his wicked accomplice, this was mere flobberworm food.
"Good," Draco said, "listen to what they say, then."
Daphne pushed the blonde away. "No, you watch them," she snapped. "I'm not your slave, Malfoy. I may have faerie blood in me, but remember, I am helping you."
Draco scowled. "Very well. Listen to what they say, please."
The green-eyed witch smirked. "Gladly." She pushed an Extendable Ear into her own, the other end firmly affixed to the next booth. "It's ironic that three of the Weasley chit's brothers are inadvertently responsible for her pending humiliation, is it not?"
"Pure poetry, my dear Daphne," Draco replied.
-------------------
"Right this way to your table," the pretty blonde waitress directed the Gryffindor pair.
"Thanks," Harry said, smiling at the girl.
"I'll be back over with your menus in a minute."
Harry and Ginny sat down, and fell into silence, at a loss of what to say. They'd talked about Quidditch on the way to Hogsmeade, and now it seemed the fountain of conversation had dried up.
"I heard you seventh years had a party for Neville on his birthday," Ginny said suddenly.
"Er...yes," Harry said.
"So what happened? I know you played Truth or Dare, 'Mione told me."
"Not much aside from that. We were pretty drunk by the time we began playing," Harry lied. He hadn't drunk anything at all.
He'd learnt from experience that alcohol only enhanced his memories, the acrid smell of fear and sweat and blood made so strong that he could have been back on the battlefield, choosing who should live and who should die, his white robe a grotesque parody of the cause he was fighting for.
"What were you dared to do?"
"Huh?" Harry asked, jerked out of his morbid thoughts.
"During Truth or Dare. I know Ron was dared to kiss 'Mione, and that Seamus and Dean had to run naked around the Quidditch Pitch twice. Neville's already confessed his undying love for Sir Cadogan. So what was your dare?"
"I don't remember," Harry lied again. "I think it had something to do with hugging a house-elf."
Ginny giggled.
"What would you like to order?" Tatiana asked, appearing as if from thin air.
"Um...I'll have the pumpkin soup and a cup of tea." Ginny ordered.
"I'll have that, too," Harry said. "Better make it a pot of tea."
"Okay." The blonde noted it down. "And your choice of sides? Chips, toast or salad?"
"Toast," the pair chorused, grinning at one another in surprise.
"Sure." Tatiana tapped their bowls and bread plate with her wand. "I'll be right back with a pot of tea and some butter."
"I like to cut my toast into soldiers," Ginny admitted with a small smile.
"Me too." Harry grinned back at her.
"You like soldiers with your soup?"
"Yeah." The green-eyed wizard shrugged, embarrassed.
"Cool. It's just a really homey thing for me, my mum always made soup with soldiers when I was little." Ginny smiled softly, then changed the subject. "Oh, you won't believe what Luna did the other day!"
Harry laughed as Ginny regaled him with stories of her friends' exploits, his first genuine laughter since before the war began.
-------------------
It was late in the afternoon when Harry and Ginny headed back up to Hogwarts. They'd enjoyed themselves so much that they'd missed the last carriage back up to the castle, and had to sneak up through the secret passage in Honeydukes so they wouldn't get into trouble.
"Shh." Ginny giggled when Harry dropped his wand. The light went out, plunging them into almost total darkness.
He hunted for it, and ended up groping Ginny's hip instead.
Ginny, who'd knelt down to help, looked up, her face startled in the pale light of her own wand, freckles standing out like ink droplets on white parchment. Harry stared into her dark eyes and slowly lowered his mouth to touch hers.
It was only a brief press of lips against lips, but it had an embarrassing effect on Harry, who blushed red as a beetroot.
"I still really like you…" Ginny said shyly.
"Me too," Harry admitted, kissing her again tentatively, before moving away to see her reaction.
The redhead hummed low in her throat, arms reaching out to pull Harry back to her. Warm breath ghosted over his face, before a mouth, lips slightly chapped from Quidditch, the taste of pumpkin soup, sweet black tea, and something uniquely Ginny, like strawberries and whiskey, filled Harry's senses.
She pulled away slowly, her face a floating blob of white beyond Harry's fogged up glasses. "Are we going to do this again?" she asked, the insecurity in her voice odd after that passionate and possessive kiss.
"Yes," Harry replied, forgetting about his promise to himself, mind still reeling from that kiss.
"Good." Abruptly, Ginny stood. "I found your wand, let's go."
-------------------
Draco and Daphne walked back to the school casually, uncaring of the time.
"She's already in deep," Draco observed with satisfaction.
"Hmm, yes, but we need more," Daphne mused. "At least two more dates, to ensure her attachment."
"Leave it to me."
"No." The dark-haired Slytherin shook her head. "No more involvement, or Potter will get suspicious." Her unearthly eyes glowed. "Now we just have to watch...and wait."
---------------------------- Author's Note: "Soldiers" are toast cut into thirds, so they look like strips. Usually, they're buttered. A lot of the time they're either served with soup, or with soft-boiled eggs, and you dip them into the soup/egg yolk. They're often given to small children, or sick ones, because they look less intimidating than a couple of pieces of toast, and they encourage the child to eat more.