Most Potente Potions of Fate

She could feel the freezing wind sliding over her skin, causing little goose bumps to surface. It was disturbing her from her sleep, and she could feel herself being pulled out of her comfortable dream, slowly and inexorably.

Ginny opened her eyes and wished she hadn't. Instead of the lovely, little room she had been in, in her dream, she was still flying on a broomstick with her hands apparently frozen around Malfoy's waist. It didn't feel that bad actually, he was warmer than usual.

Unfortunately, that was the only good thing if you considered their situation. After a few more seconds of silence, she spoke up. "Draco, where exactly are we?"

She felt him jump a bit under her hands. " See you're awake," he said nonchalantly.

She groaned. "I suppose you could say that, I feel like I've been frozen and then heated up all at once."

He chuckled. "You shouldn't have fallen asleep then. And in answer to your question, I'm not sure. But I'm going to land anyway; my arse feels like it has fallen off."

She pulled a face. "Charming."

He angled the broomstick down and started to head for the ground. They had mostly been flying over forests and countryside but they had occasionally passed some villages despite Draco's attempts not to. Being put in a Muggle newspaper was the last thing he needed now, or a Wizard one come to think of it.

They landed with a small bump and Ginny got off immediately. She looked around them to see that they were in the middle of a field, but a group of houses could be seen in the distance. She could hear the sound of a few cars and voices, which sounded like they were coming from the houses. It was definitely a Muggle settlement, whatever it was.

It was then that she actually bothered to look at what they were wearing, and realised that they were seriously buggered. Draco had thrown a black top on but was still wearing his dark green silk pyjamas and she was wearing her school robes-which she had changed into before she had left Hogwarts-and her cloak.

Ah, that could be a problem.

But she doubted Draco knew that, and it was very tempting to let him walk into a Muggle village dressed in such a fetching fashion. It would be a shame to tell him; he did look very good in silk.

Come to think of it, why shouldn't she? He had sprung that kiss on her anyway, and put all of her feelings in turmoil. She should get her own back, and what better way to do it? Ooh the possibilities were endless, she almost felt like cackling out loud.

So she pulled her robes about her, and tried to make them look as normal as possible and turned to Draco.

"Think we should go and investigate that village then?" she asked, pointing in its direction.

He looked to where she was pointing. "My plan precisely, if we're lucky we should be able to find somewhere to stay for the night."

Not looking like that, you won't! She thought amusedly. Draco shrunk down his broomstick so that it fitted in his pocket while Ginny watched on in envy. If only she could do that with her wardrobe!

There turned out to be a lot more fields than they had first assumed between the village and them, and Ginny soon found herself ankle deep in mud and very disgruntled. As if that wasn't enough, a thought occurred to her; "Draco, what are we going to do about paying for accommodation? Since we only have Wizard money?"

He gave her a withering look. "I had, of course, thought of that as soon as we arrived. I happen to know a handy little spell for converting Wizard money into Muggle."

She was impressed, it seemed he was more street-savvy than she had thought. "Oh, that's clever. How does it work?"

He looked at her again. "Like I'm telling you."

"Well I'm sorry I asked."

"You should be."

"Your evilness never fails to amaze me."

"Oh don't, you'll give me a big head."

She made a show of looking him over. "I'm sure that's not possible. It's already huge."

"I wondered why I had such trouble putting on my hat."

She giggled, despite herself. He shouldn't be allowed to joke and make her laugh like that. There should be some sort of law against it.

She looked up from the ground again to see that Draco had stopped. She looked at him quizzically.

"It appears we haven't found ourselves a tame little Muggle village, but a fully fledged Muggle town," he said, not looking at her.

She looked ahead and saw he was right. They must have been walking for about half an hour now and had reached the crest of the hill; over it houses and shops were sprawled for a good few miles in every direction. They could also see a motorway to their left, which had appeared through the trees, and explained why they had heard cars so far from the town.

She shrugged at him. "Well I suppose that just means that we'll find somewhere to stay easier, right?"

He assumed an air of indifference, but she wasn't quite sure she believed it. "Well...I suppose it does, it's just a lot of Muggles that's all," he said, and she could swear he sounded nervous.

She narrowed her eyes. Draco Malfoy, nervous? Since when did that happen?

"You really don't like Muggles do you Draco?" she said as they started walking again.

He sneered. "Well obviously not. Idiotic Muggles."

She winced; she had forgotten she was talking to Malfoy. It was easy to believe he was half-decent sometimes, but he always reminded her he wasn't with some crass comment or another. She supposed she was just meant to take it with a pinch of salt, and she would have to try.

"No, that's not what I meant; I mean, why don't you like them?"

He looked shiftily at her.

She sniggered. "Do they make you scared Draco?"

"Disgusted more like," he said, but he didn't meet her eyes.

Well, well. It looked like the famous Draco was actually afraid of Muggles! Actually, that made sense. If you never associated yourself with certain people through obligation, and you were completely ignorant as to what they were really like, you probably would be a little apprehensive of them. It still made her smirk. It looked like she had found another opportunity to tease.

"So the famous Malfoy is afraid of Muggles then, eh?" she said with a merciless grin on her face.

His head shot up to look at her. "What the hell gave you that idea?"

"Oh, nothing really."

"Well I'm certainly not."

"Of course not."

He glared at her. "I said I wasn't."

"I believe you completely," she said, actually looking quite sincere.

He was about to argue again, but then he stopped and settled for glaring at her instead. She wasn't worth him 'losing his cool'.

They had now come to a roundabout and could see they were approaching a high street of some sort. Ginny took the lead and they began to walk briskly along the pavement. Soon, she was walking at a very fast pace. Since she had been up all night, she just wanted to go to bed; after having a good long shower, and she didn't really care what people though of her.

She turned back to Draco. "What about this one then?" she said, pointing at a hotelish looking building, calling itself The Half Moon. He nodded. "Are you going to do that spell of yours then?" she asked.

He nodded again and turned his back on the street, so that he was facing into a bank checkpoint, that way he couldn't be seen. He reached into his pocket...and cursed. He was still wearing his pyjamas, and naturally didn't have any money in them. Amazingly, this fact had failed to register until now, which was bloody inconvenient!

"What is it Draco?" she asked quickly, when she noticed his expression.

He looked to be going very slightly pink from embarrassment. "It appears I don't have my money," he said.

"Oh, yes," she said. "I don't suppose you do carry your money in your pyjamas."

"No, I don't, how astute of you Weasley."

She flushed red with quickly rising annoyance. "It's not my fault you haven't got your money Draco, so don't get annoyed with me," she paused and glared at him. "Besides, we have no idea how long we're stuck like this, so there's no point arguing."

He matched her with his own, formidable, glare. "I am so, so sorry Ginny," he said, sarcasm dripping from his words.

She just raised her eyebrow at him before continuing- seems to me someone's got a little temper on them! - "Well, come on, what are we going to do then? We need to work out a plan, I want some food, and then I think sleep would be a good idea."

He didn't say anything, but looked at the burning sunshine, then back to her.

"Yes, yes, I know it's hardly night. But I've been up far too long, and I need a bloody long nap!"

This seemed to do for him, and he set off walking down the street to The Half Moon, not waiting to see if she would follow.

Ginny shrugged at the empty air where he had stood and walked after him. She put her hands in her pockets absentmindedly, and hit something solid. She closed her hand around it and heard a clinking sound. Money!

She squealed excitedly and began to run after Draco. "Draco, wait, stop, I've got some!"

She got some astonished stares from people but she didn't care, she just might get the chance to go to bed! ... But not in that sense, she quickly added to herself.

He turned around and stared at her incredulously, what was she about? Had she finally cracked? She came to a sharp halt in front of him, and triumphantly pulled out the few coins from her pocket. He looked at her pointedly, as if she were very stupid, and then sighed.

"Ginny, that's three knuts you've got there. Do you really think that will do a lot?"

She waved her hand impatiently. "Like that's going to matter, can't we just increase the amount or something? The important thing is we actually have some money now."

He didn't believe it, it wasn't fair; he had been outsmarted by a girl! For the spell to work, you just needed any amount of base metal and the right incantation, both of those they had. He pretended to be considering her sceptically and then nodded. "All right then, let's give it a try, you might just be right."

And indeed, she was. After Draco had spent several minutes trying to remember the full incantation and the exact science of how far he should flick his wrist, the spell was done. He looked at Ginny somewhat smugly at his ability to do the spell, and it wasn't until she returned his smug look more strongly, that he realised he had her to thank, not himself.

He could not openly say thank you though, so instead he led the way to The Half Moon with an uncomfortable silence on his part.

They booked into a shared room, after Ginny had made it clear to the bewildered Muggle behind the desk that this room was to have two single beds, and certainly not one double! By the time it was midday, both Draco and Ginny were rather unflatteringly sprawled across the single bed closest to their door, because this was the furthest either had managed to get into the room without feeling the urgent need to sleep. The second single bed remained untouched and alone in the far corner.

* * *

Several hours earlier, the post had arrived at Hogwarts. This was nothing out of the ordinary in itself, but the image on the front of the Daily Prophet-which was being hurriedly extracted from porridge bowls and marmalade pots all over the Great Hall-was something of a cause for concern.

A huge heading emblazoned the front page stating 'Hogwarts students defy under-age wizarding decree once again,' and underneath it a subheading 'Children of two eminent wizarding families elope together.'

As you can imagine this would be enough to get any social gathering abuzz with gossip, and breakfast time at Hogwarts was no exception. It was with great curiosity that Hermione Granger opened her copy of the Daily Prophet and gasped in absolute shock at the front page. Harry and Ron were used to very shocking things being reported in the Daily Prophet and decided to wait until Hermione was ready to reveal this latest turn of shocking events. Neither was at all prepared for said turn of shocking events.

On the front cover there was a hugely blown up image of a couple on a broomstick. One would presume they were a couple because the passenger on the back of the broom had their arms firmly wrapped around the waist of the other. The front rider could just about be made out to have silvery blond hair and was clothed in what appeared to be silky green robes, on closer inspection these turned out to be pyjamas. The second rider looked to be female and had flaming red hair reaching down to her waist. When the second rider noticed they were being watched, she desperately tried to hide herself behind the other mysterious passenger, by burying her head in his side.

Hermione began to read from the attached article in a horror filled voice. 'It was in the early hours of this morning when a witch and a wizard were spotted flying across the Muggle countryside. They were then spotted landing a short way from the Muggle town, Shaftesbury

in south Wiltshire. On closer inspection, the witch and wizard were identified as Draco Malfoy, son of illustrious personage, Lucius Malfoy; who once spent a short spell in Azkaban on Death Eater counts and Ginny Weasley, daughter of Ministry worker, Arthur Weasley. The two appeared to have fled together from Hogwarts school of Witchcraft and Wizardry late last night. It is thought they had planned to marry in a Muggle settlement; to avoid attention, as soon as they could find a suitable destination. Ministry wizards are currently trying to repair the damage caused by the troublesome couple and the Headmaster of Hogwarts, Albus Dumbledore, has been alerted to the disaster. - Here Hermione broke off to glance up at the Head table where there was an empty space in the Headmasters seat- Their exact location is now being worked out and we are waiting on further reports from the Ministry.'

Hermione had no desire to read further in the article and looked up to meet Ron's very angry, nearly beetroot coloured face, and Harry's decidedly worried one. A moment of horrible silence followed from her two friends as they tried to understand what they had heard.

Finally, Harry spoke up. "Well, the 'Prophet is hardly known for being accurate is it?"

"But the picture, Harry, the picture," said Ron in a pained voice.

"You have to admit it Ron, there may be a picture, and yes, it looks bad...very bad in fact...what with Ginny's arms being so tight around Malfoy's waist. But, there's probably a perfectly rational explanation to all of this," she finished, somewhat lamely.

Ron glared at Hermione as if all of this was her fault.

Hermione huffed and looked away.

She turned back to look at Harry a few moments later, and saw a rather glazed expression taking over his face, as he thought. Eventually he spoke. "Well, there is only one way to find out if the rumours are true or not..." he said slowly, leaving his sentence hanging.

Hermione jumped in before another second had passed. "No," she said firmly, and then repeated it a second time just to be sure. "No."

Harry turned to Ron. "What do you think?"

He didn't bother to wait for an answer, as Ron was now half the hallway from them, and was striding to the door in absolute determination.

They both ran to catch up with him, Hermione shouting for him to slow down.

"No...no...there's nothing you can say...must find her...now," said Ron, in a very disjointed way as he continued to half walk, half run towards Gryffindor Tower.

Hermione and Harry exchanged worried glances but they both knew there would be no stopping him now. His temper was second only to Ginny's, and both had got in her way when they shouldn't have, and they didn't want to experience anything like it ever again, thank you very much.

They managed to grab their brooms and cloaks, throwing them on over their school uniform, Hermione cutting out the supposed location of Draco and Ginny from the Daily Prophet, and they were ready to go. On a second thought, Harry dashed off to get his invisibility cloak, and by the time he returned Ron was almost panting with impatience, from where he stood next to Hermione.

* * *

At a quarter past twelve Harry, Ron and Hermione stood in the middle of the little Muggle town known as Shaftesbury. They had inquired at almost all of the inns, and were only left with the possibility of Draco and Ginny being at 'The Half Moon' which was apparently to be found in the far south of the town, near a 'roundaring' as Ron called it.

In a solemn procession, they walked up the stairs of the inn and up to the reception desk. Hermione had promised Ron to let her make the inquiries, so she left Harry, almost physically restraining Ron, in the hotel lounge.

The kind-looking man at the desk asked if he could help her and she asked if he was allowed to give out room details, but it was only because they were family you see, and could he tell her if a Mr Malfoy and a Miss Weasley were checked in?

He checked his list and said he was terribly sorry but no, there didn't appear to be. Hermione goggled at him in shock. Then was there anyone with the surname Weasley? She asked, as politely as she could make herself.

The kind man said no, unfortunately there was not, but there was a double room booked under the name of Malfoy. Would that help at all?

Hermione told him it most certainly would, and nearly tackled the copy of the key he presented to her in her haste.

She was up the stairs in a heartbeat, not waiting to see if Harry and Ron were following her, but fortunately they were. Room 23 was found easily enough and Hermione jammed the key in the lock as quick as she could, waiting for the 'click' that indicated the door was open.

* * *