The Amazing Illegal Wonder Potion

Chapter 10

A Sordid Affair

Ginny was bored. She wanted school to start so that she could find some new people to shag. At the moment, the only people in the house whom she hadn't shagged yet were Ron, Hermione and Harry (she was not sick like Hermione, and did not consider anyone over the age of twenty to be shaggable).

Ginny sighed. Harry was a possibility, of course, but he probably didn't even know what a shag was, much less how to do it. And Hermione appeared, for the moment, to be out of her reach.

The Snape thing really was feral. Ginny shuddered at the thought of seeing the Potions master naked. Sirius might be all right, but he was still way too old, and besides, he was obviously gay. So was Snape for that matter, so Hermione was at least not in any danger of getting what she wanted.

Ginny was sick of males. After her extensive research into the possibilities they had to offer, she had come to the conclusion that girls were prettier, nicer and generally better smelling. And Hermione was intelligent to boot... Oh, if only she would see the world Ginny's way!

Ginny went down to the cellar to find some rats for Buckbeak. The house was silent apart from the creaking of the floorboards beneath her feet. It muffled human sounds, hid away the twisted relationships that went on within it.

Ginny began drawing lines in her head. Hermione had the hots for Snape (eurgh). Now Snape, Ginny was almost certain, was lusting after Draco. And Draco, though it was probably more out of pride than anything else, still wanted to conquer Hermione. It was a genuine love triangle, sick and bizarre as it was.

And then there was Ginny herself, a loose end. Briefly, she wondered whether anyone was after her, but dismissed the thought. Nobody had ever wanted her - she had learned that to get what she wanted, she needed to go after it herself.

She picked up her sack of dead rats and climbed the stairs to Buckbeak's room. However, when she got there, she was surprised to find that the door was locked. Puzzled, she said, "Alohomora," and the door swung open.

The room was empty except for Buckbeak and, for some reason, a small shaggy goat. Ginny wasn't really surprised to see it - in a house which had once belonged to Dark wizards, there was bound to be at least one goat somewhere. Perhaps Sirius had found this one and decided to introduce it to Buckbeak.

She was about to leave when she noticed the smell. It was quite a nice smell, which was what made it stand out; you did not expect pleasant aromas in a room which housed a goat and a hippogriff.

She looked around the room for the source of this fragrance. There did not appear to be anything which could have produced it. She was about to leave once again, telling herself she'd imagined it, when she noticed that steam was coming out from the crack beneath the cupboard door.

The cupboard also turned out to be locked, and it did not respond to "Alohomora". Ginny was just racking her brains for other unlocking spells, when she heard footsteps on the stairs. She sprang away from the cupboard at the same moment that the goat let out a startled bleat and rushed straight at her.

Quidditch reflexes saved her from being skewered on the goat's horns, but a pointy little hoof caught her below the knee. With a yowl of pain, Ginny toppled over, just as Sirius rushed into the room.

"Bad goat! Bad goat! Ginny, are you all right? Get away, you stupid animal!"

He helped her to her feet and healed the cut on her leg, though not before a substantial amount of blood had trickled down onto the mouldy carpet. Sirius tried not to smile in triumph - the goat had done exactly what he had wanted.

"Sorry about that," he said. "That goat is a bit wild. I don't know where else to keep it, though."

"That's okay. I was just feeding Buckbeak. I might just... go have dinner now."

She made a hasty exit.

A bit wild? No, that didn't sit right at all - the goat had been chewing peacefully on the curtains right until the moment Sirius came up the stairs. And there was something hidden in that cupboard, Ginny was sure of it. Sirius was up to something.

When she was out of earshot of Buckbeak's room, she murmured "Silencio," pointing her wand at the floor. She repeated the spell, pointing at her own feet. Then, she crept back towards the now-closed door, pulling an Extendable Ear out of her pocket.

She did not have to wait long. After just a few seconds, she heard Sirius command "Open!" This was followed by a creak, which could only be the cupboard door. Ginny thought fast. What she needed was for Sirius to leave the room, leaving the cupboard open.

Well, that would be easy enough, but it also had to be plausible - Sirius needed to leave the room without suspecting Ginny. And he had to be gone long enough for her to see what was in that cupboard.

Ginny's plan did not involve any stroke of brilliance. She was even a little annoyed at herself for not being able to come up with anything more interesting than hiding behind a tapestry at the end of the hallway and sending a fire spell at the door of Buckbeak's room.

As soon as the flames caught, she sent another spell at the floor at the bottom of the stairs. Almost as an afterthought, she also sent one into the dark hallway on the bottom floor. With any luck, it would hit Mrs Black's portrait.

It only took seconds.

Suddenly, there was a yell from inside Buckbeak's room, and Sirius was running out through the burning door. He put out the fire with a gush of water from his wand, only to see that the stairs were burning, too. At that moment, there was a terrible screech from downstairs - it appeared that Ginny's third spell had hit its target.

She didn't wait any longer. As Sirius rushed down the stairs, Ginny jumped out from behind the tapestry and ran on cat-like feet into the room.

The cupboard was open, and fragrant steam was billowing out of it. On closer investigation, the source of the steam turned out to be a bubbling cauldron full of thick, lilac-coloured potion.

Ginny didn't hesitate. Conjuring a flask out of thin air, she scooped out some of the potion and hid it in her robes.

As she crept back out of the room, Ginny rubbed her hands in anticipation. Life at Grimmauld Place no longer seemed so tedious. Sirius was doing something dodgy. Ginny had every hope that her investigations would reveal a juicy, sordid affair.