Reward System

"I can't believe I'm stuck in here with you," Draco said disdainfully as he counted rat eyes.

"Get over it," Ginny replied, stirring the cauldron carefully.

"If I could only--"

"What? Tell your father?" Ginny snapped.

"You stupid poor muggle-lover," Draco snarled, scooping up the rat's eyes and dumping them into the cauldron. Tiny droplets splashed onto the scarred tabletop.

"Watch it!" Ginny yelped, stepping back. "Are you sure that there were enough rat eyes?"

"Positive," Draco replied.

Ginny rolled her eyes, looking at the cauldron hesitantly before making a move. The wrong ingredients at this stage could do some serious damage to the end result. The liquid was still bubbling a happy shade of chartreuse, so she began to stir again.

"It's your fault we're here, you know," Draco continued his sullen tirade. Ginny was about fed up with it. The boy had been rambling on and on about how terrible it was to be here.

"You know, most would consider this an honor," Ginny pointed out.

"Are honors supposed to mean more work? I personally think that sounds a lot like punishment," Draco replied.

"Well, Snape considers us advanced enough to work on this potion without his supervision," Ginny said. "From him that's like getting the Order of Merlin. Twice."

Draco snorted before remembering that he was supposed to be sullen and angry about having to work with a Weasley, no matter how competent this one seemed to be. "I still say that not making us do work would be a better reward system. I think Snape's just being lazy."

"Probably," Ginny agreed. She blinked twice. Had she just agreed with Malfoy? But it had been about Snape being a git, so maybe agreeing with an eternal truth didn't count.

"Okay, here are the boomslang slivers," Draco said, dropping them in.

"No!" Ginny yelped, a moment too late. "We weren't supposed to add those until after we stirred counterclockwise four times and added the armadillo blood!"

Draco stared down at the cauldron, wincing as the chartreuse changed to lilac, and a few weak sparks spat out as Ginny stirred. She stepped away quickly.

"Any clue what will happen?" she asked.

"None. Just that this was a sensitive potion, that's why Snape wanted two of his best students working on it."

They both carefully peered at the cauldron.

"Maybe it wasn't ruined too badly," Ginny said hopefully.

"Or maybe it will now eat through our flesh and turn us into talking skeletons," Draco said. "Did some splash on me? My hand burns."

"We should probably get Snape," Ginny said. "We can just admit that you screwed up, and ask if we can start over."

"I did not screw up!" Draco protested immediately.

"Then who put in the wrong ingredient?"

"Who didn't tell me they hadn't put in the armadillo blood?"

"What's going on here?"

Draco and Ginny jumped as Filch's gravelly voice cut through their argument.

"Nothing!" they both said quickly. Filch stepped into the potions lab, glaring at the two students. Mrs. Norris wove figure-eights around his ankles.

"What are two students doing alone here? Up to mischief, I suspect," he growled.

"No mischief at all," Draco said.

"We were just doing some extra work for Professor Snape," Ginny said, stepping up to the cauldron and beginning to stir vigorously. "See? Nothing wrong here at all."

Filch moved closer, glaring at the two menacingly. "I'm going to find out what's going on he--"

His threat was cut short as Mrs. Norris suddenly yowled and took a flying leap over the table.

"Eek!" shrieked Draco, and Ginny let out a loud squeal as Mrs. Norris, spitting and hissing, ran across the table.

"What's wrong with that cat?" Ginny asked, leaping back as Mrs. Norris's tail hit the cauldron and sent it flying. "Oh no!"

"I think I saw a mouse," Draco said, peering under the table, then clunking his head as he heard Ginny yell, "Oh no!"

He stood, looking around. "What? Where'd Filch go?"

Ginny pointed to the other side of the table. "I think some of the potion hit him when it was knocked over."

"What happened to him?"

"I hadn't looked yet."

Draco and Ginny crept as one to the opposite side of the table, both reluctant to see what they had managed to do to Filch.

Ginny couldn't help but snort when she heard Draco's horrified gasp at the sight before them.

A dirty white ferret glared up at them from where Filch had been standing.

"I think it's trying to yell at us," Draco whispered, watching as the ferret's mouth opened and head bobbled furiously.

"Did you try to yell?" Ginny asked before she could stop herself.

"When?" Draco asked, distracted by the ferret's antics.

"When you got turned into a ferret," Ginny replied.

Draco glared at her. Ginny rolled her eyes, having become somewhat immune to the Malfoy glare over the last few weeks when they had been working on the extra projects for Snape.

"Well?" she asked again.

"I don't remember," said Draco stiffly as he watched the ferret attempt to jump, or something. It was twitching alarmingly.

"We should help him," Ginny said. "Or something."

"Something," Draco agreed. He leaned closer, whispering so that ferrety Filch couldn't hear. "Wanna go toss him in the lake and watch the Squid try to catch him?"

Ginny considered this, secretly relishing the warmth she was feeling from Draco's very near body. "It could be fun, though it is amoral."

"So?" Draco asked, looking around for a container.

"What if Snape finds out?" she asked, despite the fact that she could practically feel Fred and George's disapproving glares at the idea of their sister not taking the perfect opportunity to pull the worst prank on Filch ever.

"I am the Slytherin golden child. Snape does not worry me," Draco replied imperiously.

"Well," Ginny said. She looked at the ferret some more. It was now rasping and leaping at Draco's pant leg in an ineffective attack. "It couldn't hurt his disposition any."

"We'll put him in here," Draco said, pointing to the tipped-over cauldron. "Get rid of the evidence."

The co-conspirators shared a look, grinned at one another. All house and family rivalries forgotten, they chased the suddenly nervous ferret around the room, trying to trap him in the cauldron while carefully avoiding all of the potion from making contact with them. Finally, Ginny leapt at the cornered ferret and slammed the cauldron over it, cheering as she heard the faint scratching of claws on the metal surface.

"Okay, let's go," Ginny whispered. They peered out the door of the Potions classroom, and seeing no sign of Snape or Peeves (as Filch was already accounted for) they hurried down the corridor and out towards the lake.

After miraculously making it out of the castle without running into an authority figures, Draco and Ginny stood on the bank of the lake with the cauldron-entombed ferret formerly known as Filch.

"It seems kinda cruel to just chuck him in there," Ginny said.

Draco shrugged. "You aren't chickening out, are you?"

"No," Ginny said quickly. "We could kinda float him to the Giant Squid."

"Okay," Draco agreed after a moment of contemplation. He cast a buoyancy charm on the cauldron, then carefully set it in the water, and removed the potions textbook that was keeping the ferret entombed.

"Have fun, Filchy," Ginny said solemnly.

"Don't let the squid get you down," Draco said, giving the cauldron a not-so gentle shove. They watched as the cauldron bobbled towards the middle of the lake. The Giant Squid's tentacles rose out of the water a few times, slapping the surface near where the cauldron bobbled. They could hear the tiny terrified shrieks of the ferret. Finally, the squid simply wrapped a tentacle around the cauldron and held it steady in the center of the lake.

"Can ferrets swim?" Draco asked.

"I don't know. You're the expert," Ginny replied.

They watched the lake a few more moments, and then shuffled boredly as they realized that the squid had no intentions of attempting to eat Filch, or of tossing him gaily in the air.

"I thought this would be more entertaining," Draco said, sidestepping closer to Ginny.

"Me too," she replied, allowing him to.

"Squids are normally very humorous," Draco said, wrapping an arm around her waist.

"It's all the tentacles," she agreed, snuggling closer.

"But the lake is very nice this time of evening," Draco said, looking down at her intently.

"Very nice," Ginny said, looking up at him.

"Very," Draco said, leaning down to kiss her.

"Mmm," Ginny said.