chapter 6

"There you are, dear," said her mother, as Ginny came back into the dining room, where a buffet had been set up. "Is everything all right?"

"Just fine, Mum. Um....when does this whole thing end?"

"Not for a while. You look like you have a headache," her mother said, peering at her. "You only get that flushed when you're getting ready to be sick."

"I tried walking in the garden, but it didn't help," she said, seizing on the excuse. "But I don't want to cause a problem."

"No problem at all, dear. I'll have your brother pop you home, and then he can come back, if he likes."

Molly looked across the room, saw a red head bobbing above a sea of black robes, and whispered urgently to a server, who nodded. Before long, Ron was standing there with them.

"Dizzy, Gin?" he said, compassionately. "It's late, anyway. You've been seen and seen who's here, and that's the point, near as I can tell. Let's head home."



They apparated in front of the guard post, and one drew her wand before she got a good look. Then, her on-duty mask cracked. "Oh, MY. You two look...wow. Ginny, I am SO jealous. Tell me that's not a Satcheverel."

"I can't do that, Susan," she said, smiling giddily.

And then Susan turned her attention to Ron. Her lips parted and eyes widened, and she couldn't say anything for a bit. "I....Did anyone tell you you clean up well?"

"I've been told that a couple times tonight," he said, with a rather intimate look in his eyes.

Ginny rolled her eyes. "I'm going in and taking a hot bath before I go to bed. These shoes aren't made for standing in."

Ron waved at her, deep in conversation with the Auror, whose supervisor, the older man she'd met when she came home, was regarding them indulgently.


Once Ginny got inside, she kicked off her shoes and padded over to the stairs. It had been so unreal. It would feel like a dream, except for a bone-deep soreness in her pelvis, and a general feeling of having been shaken and stirred. A reminiscent grin spread across her face, and she ducked into her bedroom looking like a cat that had eaten the canary. She took off the Satcheverel, and slid on her bathrobe, and looked at herself in the mirror. She didn't look different...except in the eyes, she decided, which were lit but sleepy in a way she'd never seen on herself before. A giggle worked free, and she hurried into the bathroom.

There were some good things about the renovations. The bathtub, for instance, which was huge and would come up to her shoulders when she sat in it. She turned it on and started it filling, and heard a knock just as she was about to get in.

"Ginny, you in there?" Susan called. "Yeah, come on," she called, and heard the door open and close.

"My relief came, so Ron and I are....Slap me blind, girl, what have you been DOING?!"

Ginny felt a fullbody blush coming on, and turned to look at Susan slowly. "Oh. He left marks?"

"Did you look?"

"Noooo....Oh, bloody hell," she said, staring at the marks that peppered her breasts, and the fingermarks on her hips.

"I hope he was good," Susan said. "Um, yeah," said Ginny, a rather silly smile crossing her face.

"And I hope you used a spell."

"Yes. Bill's last girlfriend taught it to me."

"Well," Susan said. "I won't tell your mum, because it's none of her damn business, as it stands. You want me to help you erase those?"

"Please," Ginny said fervently. It didn't take very long for quick healing spells to restore Ginny to looking untouched, and Susan had her turn around one more time.

"That's got it all," she said, looking her over critically.

"I do appreciate it. He helped me put my hair back up, but we were both in a hurry."

"I can imagine." Susan looked away for a moment and said, "I don't suppose if I said it would go no farther..."

"I trust you. And it better not, because they would all kill me," Ginny said, waving her hand at the house to indicate her entire family.

"Promise."

"Draco Malfoy."

Susan cocked her head and thought. "Yeah, that would do it. Wow. But you can count on me."

"Thanks," said Ginny, stepping into her bath. "And, Susan?"

"Yeah?" she said, stopping with her hand on the doorknob.

"Be careful. My brother's not half as stupid as he looks, especially when he has a goal in mind."

She choked on a laugh and said, "Between you and me, if he doesn't come home tonight...He's at my place in Surrey."

And she ducked out with a huge grin.

Ginny leaned back in the tub, and let the giggles come. Unbelieveable. She'd done it.





That night, Draco dreamed. But this time he saw the woman's face...It was Ginny's. He woke in a sticky bed around noon and swore creatively as he headed for a shower. And in the shower he thought of the look on her face when she had impaled herself on his cock...and he came. As he dressed, he swore he could smell the scent of her body still hanging in the air, and he winced as he tucked himself into his pants.

He brushed his hair, turning to the chair where she had sat, remembering coming in to see her, red hair like a waterfall of fire around her shoulders, in this very room, and what followed...and need racked him, painfully this time. This was not right, he thought. What the hell....? And then his subconscious added it all up. An April afternoon, a month ago. A half-finished Clarifying Potion, with selkie hair added at the wrong moment, and an apple. He'd opened his eyes to see Ginny staring at him across the room. Coltsfoot, apple, selkie hair, lizard heart, cassia buds. Oh, shit. He tried to think of something else, but his body was on one track, and wouldn't let him. He tried eating, but couldn't. There was nothing he could do to distract his body from thoughts of her.


By three that afternoon, he was composing a miserable letter to Snape.

By four that afternoon, Snape was there, and consulting with his father.


It was four-thirty in the afternoon. Draco lay on his bed, asleep and undreaming through the use of potions. Lucius looked at him a moment, and walked back to where Snape stood.

"Do you have any idea of what's happened to him?"

"He thinks it's a delayed reaction to the potion that splashed over him in April," said Snape consideringly," and based on what he remembers happening, he's right. Coltsfoot, apple, cassia buds and selkie hair together make a rather potent love potion. The dried lizard heart would...mmm, ensure that it was rather more lust than love. He opened his eyes, saw her across the room, and, well, there it is." He shrugged. "That's how the stronger ones work, you know, first person you lay eyes on."

"It surprises me that if this is the case we haven't seen its effects sooner," said Lucius, consideringly.

"Not really. That was the last time he was in the classroom. Miss Weasley is a year below him...that was the only class they took together. The most that he saw her before the reception might have been a glance when he was doing his final, but I didn't give them time for woolgathering. And, I must admit, she made a strikingly beautiful woman in formal robes. I didn't recognize her at first."

Lucius shook his head. "I couldn't believe it myself. But she was willing. He's convinced I'm going to disown him for sleeping with the daughter of my enemy. "

Snape raised one dark brow. "Are you?"

"Of course not. Weasley can't be my enemy any more, you know that," Lucius said, gesturing Snape out of the room and shutting the door gently behind them. "I need him, and he's beginning to realize that he needs me."

"Just as Fudge did."

"So, I'm not worried. The girl has no intention of "accidentally" falling pregnant, and unlike her mother she knows contraceptive charms." Snape shot him a glance, and he said, "The portrait in his room told me. So since she undoubtedly doesn't want her family to know....well, it will work out fine. She has to go back to school this fall. He has his apprenticeship in Paris. The only worry I have now is how long it will take for this...aphrodisiac....to wear off."

"Two to three months," said Snape, "based on the amount I can figure that absorbed through his skin. Sedate him at night, and I'll come up with something that will buffer the effects. He'll still be thinking of her constantly, he just won't have the...physical effects."

Lucius nodded. "Make free of my laboratory. You know where everything is."


When Draco woke he was in his own bed, and Snape was just walking in the door. "Well," he said, "this is not what I expected."

Draco felt a wry grin twist his face. "I didn't expect it either," he said, and as his mind followed the track of exactly what he hadn't expected, he groaned in real pain as arousal slammed into him, hard.

"Here, drink this," Snape said, holding a vial that smelled of peaches to his lips. It...blunted...things. Still aroused, but it wasn't the painful fire that had been racking him, and he sighed and leaned back against the pillow.

"Thanks a lot. I....didn' t know who else to contact."

"Well, you had the accident in my classroom," Snape rejoined. "And I feel responsible."

"It could have been much worse," Draco said. "I could have seen McGonagall, or Filch, when I opened my eyes." He gave a not wholly faked shudder.

"Yes...." said Snape consideringly. "What...happened last night?"

"I was talking at the reception...turned, and there she was. You were there, you saw her," Draco said, shaking his head slowly in wonder, a slightly stupid look on his face. "She was..."

"Yes," said Snape. "What happened?"

"We talked. Walked out on the terrace. Strolled out into the garden, and into the cypress grove. And...I wanted to kiss her. So I did. And....it's never felt like that before. I was on fire. I'm very grateful that she pushed me away and asked me to find somewhere we could do this properly. I think otherwise I might not have been able to wait for consent. It took all my willpower to get that far."

"She asked you," Snape said, consideringly. "I didn't expect that." He had a look on his long ascetic face of surprise and consideration.

"I have no idea why she chose to give her virginity to me, of all people," Draco said, "but it was her choice. Entirely. And I'll swear to that on Veritaserum, if you ask me to."

"I can think of several reasons why it would be you, Draco," Snape said. He did not elaborate, and Draco went on.

"So I sent her up here, came up here myself, locked the door, and...well, um, things took their course."

"So I see," said Snape at his dryest, and Draco realized that he was shirtless, and the bitemark on his collarbone was showing in all its glory. He blushed bright red.

"How long will this..."

"It will be a while, I'm afraid," Snape said. "But by the time you leave for Paris, the effects should be minimal."

"But....what do I do?" "Take this potion twice daily to damp things down," said Snape, standing and moving as if to leave.

"But what about Ginny?" he said. "We..."

Snape cocked his head. "Was it worth doing again?"

"Oh, hell, yes."

"Did she think so?"

"I believe so."

"So go on as you will. There are worse people to be in love with for the summer."

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