Someone to Watch Over Me

Someone to Watch Over Me

Chapter Two: A Potion and a Plan

Hermione and Draco sat up at the Head Table next to Professor Snape picking at their lunch.

"She'll do it, Draco. Professor Dumbledore will convince her, you'll see," Hermione told him, though she wasn't really sure herself.

Draco just glared at her. He did that a lot. It made her wonder if he'd forgotten how to smile.

"Highly doubtful, Granger," he muttered, turning his glare toward his sandwich.

"Then I'll do it! We won't let you marry Pansy."

The smile he gave her made her wish he'd start glaring again.

"You're not a pure blood. They'll tear you to pieces."

"So? Volde- ouch! Professor!" Hermione glared at Snape, rubbing her arm where he'd jabbed her with his elbow.

Snape gave her a pointed look.

"Sorry, 'The Dark Lord' isn't a pure blood either. We'll just convince him I want to switch sides."

Draco looked at her contemplatively for a minute.

"You'd do that, Granger? For me?"

"Not for you! For the Order. Whatever it takes, we all swore, remember?"

They both went back to glaring at each other until Professor Snape cleared his throat.

"Hopefully that won't be necessary, Miss Granger; here comes the Headmaster now," he said, nodding toward the older wizard making his way through the hall.

Dumbledore's expression was very nervous. Hermione had never seen him look that way before, and could feel her stomach start to clench.

"She's going to do it," he informed them absently as he made his way toward his seat.

"But that's good news, right? Why do you look so nervous?" Hermione asked.

"She's making me break the news to Molly."

It was Dumbledore's turn to glare as all three of them gave him smirks.

Hermione relaxed and, suddenly very hungry, began to eat with enthusiasm.

When she was almost finished, she turned to frown at Snape.

"Professor, really, you need more than just coffee to function," she admonished him.

"I'm not hungry," he sniffed at her, then stood and left the hall.

Hermione sighed, and began bundling some sandwiches up in a napkin.

"He'll eat these if I have to shove them down his ornery throat," she muttered and left.

As Draco watched her go, he wondered if he'd ever have anyone look after him that way.

His eyes turned to the Gryffindor table, but Ginny had not returned. He looked over at Professor Dumbledore.

"She'll meet you in the Potion's classroom in an hour," he said.

Dumbledore always insisted that he could not read minds, but Draco wasn't as sure as he nodded at the Headmaster and quickly left the Hall.

He had some preparing to do.

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"Blast it, woman! I told you I wasn't hungry!" Snape growled at Hermione as she sat the bundle of sandwiches down on his desk.

"You're not hungry, now. You might be later." She glared right back at him, not the least bit intimidated.

"Miss Granger, need I remind you..."

"Is the potion ready, Professor? They're going to need it soon," she cut him off, casually.

"What? I, oh, yes. It just needs testing."

He quickly turned back toward the cauldron he'd been slaving over since late last night, and poured some in a bottle.

He walked it over to Hermione, and held it out for her with a smirk.

"Bon Appetite."

She eyed the concoction warily and stuck out her lip.

"I still don't understand why I have to be the one to test it," she said, sulkily.

"Because, I need to know how much to adjust it if it's not right," he explained, again.

"Still not a good enough reason," she muttered, bringing it to her lips.

She hesitated.

"You're going to have to put up with me like this for six hours," she reminded him.

"Yes, yes, go on!" he grumbled, waving away her protestations.

She gave him one last glare before downing the whole thing in one swallow.

Snape sat back and waited.

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Ginny paced her room, trying to calm her nerves. In a few hours she would come face to face with the very subject of her worst nightmares and have to convince him that she was in love with a man she had hated all her life.

And to think, when she woke up this morning she was all worried about what she'd do when school let out next week.

Ginny stood in front of the mirror and studied her reflection with a critical eye.

"Ginny Malfoy" she said aloud, and paled.

"Okay, just get through this first meeting, and you can think about it later," she told herself.

Her brilliant auburn hair was pulled up in a high ponytail. That, and her uniform made her look much younger than her seventeen years.

She stripped down to her underwear and began rummaging through her nicer dress-robes to find something suitable.

After much deliberation, she decided on dark navy ones as it was the closest to black she had besides her school robes.

Next was the hair. Using a simple transfiguration spell, she turned the straight locks wavy and pulled it back halfway with a butterfly barrette.

A touch of make-up and some simple silver jewelry later, and Ginny was feeling much better about herself. She certainly looked the part, even if she couldn't act it. Maybe she could just stand there and daydream while Draco did the talking.

An impatient pounding on the door interrupted her thoughts.

Curious, she opened the door. Something she couldn't see brushed passed her, and she turned to find Draco Malfoy pulling off an invisibility cloak.

"Where have you..." he stopped and looked her up and down, distracted.

Ginny felt that same familiar rush that she got when a guy she was dating admired her.

She struck a pose and gave him a wide grin.

Draco found himself starting to smile back before shaking his head and clearing his throat.

Her beauty was distracting, and he had to remind himself that he was angry with her.

Why? Uh ... oh yeah!

"Where have you been? Dumbledore said you'd meet me in the Potion's classroom two and a half hours ago!"

She blinked at him.

"Oops."

"Oops? You stood me up for two and a half hours and all you have to say is oops?" he demanded.

Draco had gone through a lot of trouble to get to her dorm. All the Gryffindors he'd asked to take a message to her had either remembered him from when he was in school and didn't want anything to do with him, or had heard of him, and were terrified. One first year had burst into tears before he'd even opened his mouth. He'd had to pay a Slytherin 5^th year ten galleons just to borrow the prat's invisibility cloak; then, he'd sat outside the portrait hole for forty-five minutes waiting on someone to go in so he could follow.

Ginny frowned and crossed her arms over her chest.

"You know, Draco. I've kind of had a lot on my mind today. So it's not too surprising that I forgot about our meeting," she huffed.

Draco began to argue back, but Ginny held up her hands.

"We don't have much time before the meeting. We need to get our story straight. I promise all the arguing you want if we live through it, okay?"

"We could have had our 'story' straight by now, if you'd bothered to show up," he grumbled.

Ginny ignored that.

"So what do we do now? Ask questions about each other so we will be convincing as a couple?"

Draco smirked at her.

"No, actually, you're going to take the love potion that Snape and Hermione have been working on all day."

"What? I did not agree to that!" she flushed.

"Acting was one thing, but a potion?"

"It's the only way we can make it work. The Dark Lord is an accomplished legilimens, and he'll know that you're lying."

"What about you?"

"I'm an occlumence. I don't need it. Besides, I need to be able to think on my feet to keep us safe. You just need to look pretty, and be infatuated with me."

Draco watched Ginny's expression go from defiant to terrified. She started shaking, and her eyes grew bright.

"Hey now! It won't be that bad. I swear I won't take advantage of you, and it'll wear off in six hours." He reached out a hand and awkwardly patted her shoulder.

"I really have to face him again, don't I?" she whispered, feeling numb.

Draco was confused.

"Again?"

"In my first year, he tried to steal my soul." Her haunted eyes spoke of a horror that even Draco didn't recognize.

He moved his hands to her shoulders and started massaging the tension out of them.

"Yeah, I heard about that. But the Dark Lord hasn't. He doesn't know anything about what became of that diary. Father was too embarrassed about the way it all turned out to let him know."

Ginny sniffed and leaned back against him for comfort.

"He won't remember me?" she asked, unsure.

"No. It was a memory of himself that you dealt with. Not him. That memory has been lost to him forever."

Ginny wanted more than anything to believe that, but the fear that she'd lived with for the last six years refused to leave her.

"That's another reason why you need to take the potion. When Voldemort looks into your mind, the only thing we want him to see is me, understand?" he asked, gently.

She nodded.

"Okay, let's just get this over with." She abruptly pulled away from him as she realized that he was touching her, and she had liked it.

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When Draco and Ginny entered the classroom a few minutes later, muffled shouting coming from behind Snape's office door alarmed them.

Suddenly, Professor Snape barged through the door and shut it quickly behind him, leaning up against it as pounding started on the other side.

"Please Severus, I need you!" They heard Hermione's muffled call.

Draco and Ginny tried valiantly to hide their sniggers as they took in the Professor's ravished appearance.

His robes were hanging open, and the shirt underneath had had all of the buttons ripped off. His hair was mussed and sticking up in all directions, and he was sporting a rather large hickey on his neck.

He pulled out his wand, and did a spell to keep the door locked, and soundproofed, so that Hermione couldn't get out or be heard.

When he was satisfied that it worked, he gave a sigh of relief, and hurriedly began fixing his robes and smoothing down his hair.

He turned back toward them with a dignified sniff.

"The potion is a bit stronger than I had intended, so you should only take a sip, Miss Weasley."

Ginny gulped, it suddenly wasn't funny anymore.

End Chapter