Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry was a castle built with stone and secrecy. There were rooms that came and went, ghosts with unknown pasts, and professors that seemed to appear out of nowhere just when a student put a toe out of line. One thing that wasn't a secret in the sacred halls of the old school was the frequency of sex had by Slytherins Draco Malfoy and Pansy Parkinson. It was strictly against the rules and if they were ever caught, surely they would both be expelled. Rumor had it they had fornicated in every classroom they had ever had class in, including the greenhouses, as well as the Great Hall and Quidditch pitch. It absolutely infuriated Hermione Granger.
Hermione, in general, didn't care if students were intimate or kept their romance under wraps. It seemed that Parkinson and Malfoy all but displayed their physical relationship and then skimmed just under the radar. They mocked the rules by repeatedly breaking them and never getting caught. While she didn't relish the vision that she knew would be scorched into her eyes, she would give nearly anything to be the one to catch them. What sweet vengeance against the two people that had given her so much grief during her first six years in Hogwarts.
September was at an end, Harry Potter and his friends enjoyed a quiet year for once without the threat of Voldemort around every corner. As if a wall had been torn down after the Dark Lord's defeat, the bridge between the house of green and silver and the rest of the school was slowly being built. Sometimes Slytherins and Ravenclaws would partner in Transfiguration. Hermione had once caught a Gryffindor boy and Slytherin girl out of bed late one night. The Prince and Princess of the snakes weren't as easily swayed as the others to join in with the comingling and instead exiled themselves to copulating exclusively.
It wasn't healthy to dwell on the sex lives of others, Hermione knew. She told herself she didn't care about the act but for the fact that it was against school policy. As head girl, it was her duty to her beloved home of education to uphold every rule. She wouldn't go to such extreme measures to catch just any old wandering first year, but Hermione had managed to convince Harry to lend her his Marauder's Map one evening. She could only hope her targets wouldn't be too quick about it, lest she walk in a moment too late only catch them fleeing from the scene.
Two small dots, smashed so closely together with her marks' names above them, were soon spotted in the spiral staircase leading up to the astronomy tower. Taking off faster than a snitch, only on the third floor, Hermione began the hunt.
As if she were wearing blinders, the Head Girl completely missed the signs of other wrong doers; giggles down the hall and doors lightly closing. She glanced up and down from the parchment, smirking with superiority when the couple stopped, probably to snog against a wall. They had no idea that the longer they took, the closer she was to catching them.
For a moment, she lost heart in her quest. By the time she was on the sixth floor, Draco and Pansy were in the tall tower. But, judging by the small distance between them, they hadn't started anything. She held on to that small hope and doubled her pace.
"Just drink it, Draco," Pansy said forcefully. She had already unstopped her bottle. The light pink liquid inside fizzed like a soda. Draco looked at his own glass container with minimal enthusiasm. "What are you so worried about?"
The two didn't normally go all the way up to a tower in the evenings simply because it was the furthest place from their dormitories. But with the delightful sensations promised by the wrappings, Pansy wanted to make the night as exciting as possible. Draco, however, seemed determined to ruin the evening.
"It did come from their joke shop," he sneered. "What if it doesn't actually do what it says it will?"
Pansy rolled her eyes. "Not all of their products are gags. Just think of all the love potions they sell. Besides, if it does anything terrible we can hex them later." She was fully convinced that the potion would make their love making more spectacular than ever before and she was tired of waiting. "Just drink it already!"
Without waiting for further argument, she gulped hers down in two swallows and gave Draco a challenging look. The writing on the package told them that the potions would be more effective if they drank them simultaneously. Draco knew that the longer he waited, the more he would anger Pansy. Seeing that she hadn't fallen to the ground dead, he downed all of his and stowed the container.
The potion had a mild aftertaste of fruit, but was otherwise unremarkable. The two stood there for a moment waiting for something to happen. Draco looked at Pansy, her dark hair and eyes seemed perfectly natural in the low light setting of the tower. As he took her in, he hardly noticed the edges of his vision going fuzzy. A hazy film seemed to settle over his eyes, which he rubbed thinking it was only tiredness.
Pansy let out an irritated noise, but it seemed distant and muffled. His eyes were very heavy and he let out a yawn. Sitting down, darkness fell over him and his head lulled to the side. He began breathing heavily and didn't even feel the warmth of Pansy's body up against him or the solitary sound of the small glass bottle rolling away from her limp hand.
The two Slytherins were leaning against one another and quietly snoring when the head girl walked into the room.
Hermione didn't know what she was expecting when she finally made it to the high tower, but it certainly wasn't to see the two people she had been chasing fast asleep against a wall. It wasn't worth it to raise any alarm, but she probably shouldn't just leave them there. A wave of her wand and a thought of the reviving spell and they both started awake, glancing up to Hermione standing over them.
Malfoy and Parkinson rubbed at their eyes as though they had been sleeping for hours and gave Hermione a confused look before jumping up. Though she wasn't still aiming it at them, Hermione's wand was clearly visible and neither of them dared go for their own. "A bit far from the dungeons, don't you think?" Hermione asked.
Draco smirked and Pansy grimaced but neither said anything, still clearly disoriented from their sudden bout of sleepiness. "Ten points from both of you." She further asserted, daring them to fight back. Malfoy opened his mouth but couldn't find anything to say and turned away quickly. Pansy glared for a half second but quickly followed her fellow Slytherin out the door.
Hermione was about to leave when she noticed an empty potions phial on the ground. She stooped and picked it up, holding it under her nose to sniff the contents. There was a faint smell of berries; something she wasn't familiar with. Perhaps this was why they were asleep, an after effect of a potion? She didn't know, but it was getting late and time for her to retire. Even if she hadn't caught them as she had intended, she had taken points from Slytherin and felt some sense of accomplishment at sending them back to their dorm with tails between their legs.
