Anything You Can Do I Can Do Better
"I hate you." Ginny sloshed her brush into the bucket of murky water and greenish bubbles.
"No more than I hate you." Draco seethed and continued to scrub out the old, crusted, browning floor of the classroom Dumbledore hoped to re-open.
The two served out their detention under the supposedly watchful eyes of Madam Sprout. She, in a display of hawk-like intensity, was resting her eyes and snoring quite loudly in conjunction. Both Draco and Ginny wanted to take advantage of the situation and ditch out on the rest of the detention but they knew the other would rat them out. Instead they both labored away, on their hands and knees, scrubbing the dingy, squalid floor. At first they'd been absolutely full of insults but now they were both running on proverbial fumes.
"Oh I give up!" Ginny whispered harshly and threw her brush down. "This floor is all grime! There's no stone left!" Ginny growled and Draco sneered at her.
"What's the matter? Ickle Weasley's hands hurt?" Draco sat back and mocked Ginny. "Do you have a booboo?"
"As a matter of fact, yes." Ginny replied dryly and rubbed the blister that had formed on her right hand.
"Face it, you just don't have the skill needed. Not even when it comes to petty house cleaning." Draco smirked and Ginny narrowed her eyes at him.
"Bring it on Malfoy!" Ginny growled and they both stood up.
The two of them narrowed their eyes on one another and would have drawn their wands had they not been confiscated. Ginny took a step back, kicked her brush off to the side, and eyed Malfoy.
"Anything you can do I can do better," Ginny said cockily and put her hands on her hips. "I can do anything better than you!"
Malfoy scoffed.
"No you can't," Draco stared down at her with a mask of unmarred superiority.
"Yes I can." Ginny leaned forward and interrupted him.
"No you can't." Draco said flatly and began to get irritated.
"Yes I can," Ginny stated in a sing-song voice, "Yes I can!"
Draco glared at the overly arrogant Ginny and stepped back. He kicked his brush up off the floor with the toe of his shoe and snatched it out of mid air. Ginny cocked an eyebrow at him and feigned a yawn before he spoke up.
"Anything you can be, I can be greater." Draco folded his arms across his chest and smirked down at Ginny. "Sooner and later I'm greater than you."
Ginny glared.
"No you're not." Ginny snapped and Draco pressed his lips into a line.
"Yes I am," He corrected and she glared.
"No you're not." Ginny pouted and Malfoy leaned over.
"Yes I am." He locked eyes with her.
Ginny turned away with a small hmph and shot a glare back at Draco.
"I can mix a potion with Shrivelfig and Billywig." Draco added and Ginny scoffed.
"I can make solutions with twelve different uses!" Ginny laughed and Draco rolled his eyes.
"I can make most anything." Draco boasted and Ginny eyed him dubiously.
"Can you bake a pie?" She smirked.
"No." Draco cocked an eyebrow and stared at her.
"Well…Neither can I." Ginny admitted reluctantly and shot him a look that definitely meant 'the point stands.'
"Anything you can buy I can buy cheaper." Ginny leaned back on one of the old desks and stuck out her tongue at Malfoy.
"Fifty sickles." Draco motioned to the gaudy necklace that Madam Sprout was wearing.
"Forty sickles." Ginny stared at the necklace and snickered.
"Thirty sickles." Draco looked down at her with a look of smug superiority.
"Twenty." Ginny laughed and Draco blinked.
"No you can't."
"Yes I can." Ginny confirmed and Draco shot her a look of mild interest for a moment before retreating back to his angry state.
"I could be a racer, quite a Quaffle chaser." Ginny propped her feet up on a chair and sat back on the creaky old desk.
"I can fly you in circles, make you cry like Myrtle." Draco boasted and Ginny rolled her eyes before mouthing 'Harry owns you.'
Draco glared and took a few steps forward. He sneered at Ginny and sat down on one of the sturdier desks next to her just because he was tired of standing.
"I can open any safe." Draco added cockily and Ginny stared at him.
"Without being caught?" She asked, a bit amazed.
"You bet." Draco smirked and leaned forward, towering over Ginny slightly.
"That's what I thought—you crook." She answered wryly and leaned back.
Draco rolled his eyes but didn't have time to make a snide remark. The desk Ginny was sitting in was too old and dilapidated to hold up even her meager weight. It collapsed like a house of cards as she laid back on it and would have dropped Ginny down onto the filthy floor had not Draco's reflexes kicked in. He sprung forward in one cat-like lunge and managed to catch Ginny before she hit. Ginny cracked an eye open and shot a semi-startled look at Draco. The two froze in that position and didn't break until Madam Sprout cleared her throat.
"Might I remind you two that this is a detention," Madam Sprout said with obvious insinuation behind her words. She stared at the two as they flew apart like polarized magnets. She eyed them both and folded her arms across her chest. "I suppose you've served out your punishment, go get your wands back from Professor McGonagall."
Not a moment after Madam Sprout had dismissed them, they were out the door and glaring at each other like there was no tomorrow. They walked in this openly hostile silence for a few hundred feet before Ginny finally spoke up—a serious tone of suspicion in her voice.
"Just why did you catch me?" Ginny eyed him and he sneered at her.
"If you'd fallen on the sharp bits of metal beneath that desk," Draco started harshly, "I would have been blamed." He narrowed his eyes and Ginny fell silent.
"I still hate you." Ginny grumbled something like 'thank-you' and walked a bit faster.
"I wouldn't have it any other way." Draco rolled his eyes and muttered something like a 'your-welcome.'
The two of them walked in uneasy silence the rest of the way to McGonagall's office. When they entered the Professor's office they both shot each other a flat look and glanced at the stern woman sitting behind her desk. McGonagall looked up at them, set down her quill, and pushed up her glasses before speaking a word.
"Madam Sprout excused you?" She asked and both of the students nodded rigidly. "Very well."
McGonagall pulled open one of the top drawers of her desk and took out both their wands. She let out a heavy sigh, looked at both the students, and set the two wands on the tabletop. "Don't let us catch you dueling again." McGonagall definitely meant don't let anyone—'us' in the overall sense—catch them dueling ever again. Or in other words don't ever do it again. But she didn't say that.
The two snatched up their wands and walked out of McGonagall's office at a speed which was slightly more respectable than a flat out run. They both exited the door at the same time; turned to face each other, shared a deadly glare, and walked off in opposite directions. The two skulked and plotted against one another for hours until they were forced to sleep. They retired and managed to put their vengeance on hold, but the next day was no better. It seems that despite the lack of students actually bearing witness to the duel, someone had leaked out the information.
_ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _
"Petrificus Totalus!" Gwendolyn Greengrass exclaimed through a snicker, held her wand in one hand, and pointed it at Malcolm Baddock.
"Well, what was that spell that Ginny Weasley was supposedly capable of casting that could have covered up for Malfoy's poor aim?" Malcolm mused and held up his wand.
"Bugger off," Draco spat at them and the pair of Slytherin students burst out laughing as they walked out of the common room.
"Do try to cheer up now Draco, dear."
Draco stiffened for a moment and then relaxed as he realized who was speaking to him. There were only two girls in all the school who used terms of endearment when talking to him. Tracey Davis, just to make her point a bit creepier, and Pansy Parkinson.
"Davis, I must ask," Draco turned and eyed the tall pale girl. "Have you ever managed to spook Snape by doing that?"
"Hmmm." She commented and took on an interested expression. "Come to think of it, no. But I will have to give that a try—won't I?" She smirked and swooped over to 'her' chair.
"You're eyes are slowly gnawing through my patience and constitution, what do you want?" Draco eyed Tracey and she waved her right hand nonchalantly.
"Aside from the view that is your maleficent visage?" Tracey asked wryly but couldn't finish her comment.
"Did someone mention my Drakie's magnificent visage?" Both Draco and Tracey cringed as they heard Pansy Parkinson's screechy voice.
"Maleficent, dear Pansy." Tracey corrected and the prissy blonde shot her an angry look. "Don't play with grown-up words if you can't tell one from the other."
"Now, now Davis." Draco spoke up. "Didn't you ever learn that you're not supposed to attack the dignity of those possessed of such diminutive powers of deduction."
Draco had come off sounding incredibly nasty. Tracey frowned slightly and leaned back in the tall leather chair. The normally biting remark that Draco had made was completely lost on both Crabbe, and Goyle. Pansy, however, and her twittering band of cronies managed to retain a bit of it—after all their minds are as quick and attentive as a steel sieve.
"Well Drakie darling." Pansy smirked at Tracey—she must have thought Draco was actually defending her. "I've waited patiently for a very long time. I know you want the moment to be perfect and amazingly romantic to show your feelings for me—."
Draco glanced over at Tracey who locked eyes with him for a moment. They both imagined the same perfect moment with Pansy. Draco, Pansy, on a cliff over the ocean watching the sunset. Then all of a sudden, shove, and Pansy was one with the jagged pointy rocks. The only flaw would be the inevitable ticket for littering. But the bill would be worth it.
"But you're cutting it a bit close, aren't you?" Pansy snapped Draco out of his pleasant imaginings.
"What are you on about?" Draco asked and eyed her. She frowned slightly and hit him on the arm—he wasn't amused with the gesture.
"Silly!" She hit a high-pitched note with her slightly off key voice. "You still have to ask me to the Yule Ball!"
Draco actually laughed.
"What?" Pansy frowned and knitted her brows together.
"You really believe I'm going with you—don't you?" He smirked and Pansy blinked at him.
"I heard this terrible rumor that you were going to the ball with some Gryffindor, but I didn't think anything of it…." Pansy stared at him, the same blank expression she always wore was prevalent on her face.
"Tis' no rumor." Tracey spoke flatly and Pansy looked over at her, her features taking on the seething hatred of an enraged baboon. "Draco and thou shall not be coupled together at the Yule's Tide Ball. But fear not, an abysmal harpy such as yourself should have no trouble hooking a male with your exceptionally long, treacherous talons."
"Quiet you!" Pansy hissed and turned to Draco. "Honey, it can't be true—you're going with me right?" She fluttered her eyelashes and smiled at him.
"I'm quite pleased to say," Draco started and Pansy lit up, "I am most certainly not."
"What?" Pansy's voice fell flat and she stared at Draco.
"Thank you Davis." Draco stood up and smirked at the scrawny shadow-like girl. "You have cheered me up."
"I do what I can, and pay someone to do what I can't." Tracey nodded at him and enjoyed the horrified expression on Pansy's face as she watched Draco leave the common room out to the hall.
_ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _
"I do hereby swear that I, Ginny Weasley, will uphold the good name of all things ploy." Ginny held up her hand and drawled out the club oath.
"Seriously! Losing your temper like that and just striking up a duel?" Cho Chang eyed Ginny and crossed her arms over her chest.
"I'm sorry, Cho. But he's just such a supreme prat." Ginny put her hand down and leaned back against the bookcase behind her.
"I know," Cho said quietly and ran her hand through her long black hair.
"Of all people, I never would have thought we'd have to hold a special meeting for you Ginny." Denis Creevey shook his head and his brother patted him on the back.
"I do hope you won't simply make poor Megan have to keep recording the meetings for you." Cho scolded and handed Ginny a list of names that had a series of short sentences attached to each of them.
"This is the list of all the cons?" Ginny flipped through the two pages of paper and looked up at Cho.
"Yeah, that's all of them—not including what you're doing."
"Getting a little shorter with each meeting, isn't it?" Ginny looked down the list and frowned.
"Well, they're all getting squeamish. They don't want to try anything big since they're all new." Cho explained while both Colin and Denis nodded behind her. "They've never seen someone pull anything big so they don't want to try."
"This is some attempt to bring me back in isn't it?" Ginny put her hands on her hips and stared at the Chinese girl.
"Of course. But that doesn't mean it isn't true." Cho smiled brightly and Ginny rolled her eyes.
"Fine, I'll come in to the next meeting and have a talk with them." Ginny agreed reluctantly and the other three beamed.
"You're a doll Virginia." Cho mused and walked out with Denis and Colin close behind her.
"Conniving little…" Ginny grumbled and trailed off. She finished listing something near thirty loathe-able qualities that Cho possessed and smirked. "No wonder they made her president." Ginny shrugged and walked out of the Library.
She swung her bag over her shoulder, intending to head over to the Quidditch Pitch to watch the Gryffindor team practice but her stomach cut her off. Her mid-section let off a quiet rumble and she sighed before walking off towards the Great Hall.
After all, a girl's got to eat.
Author's Notes: Wow, romance!
Lo, and behold. The next chapter that consisted (partially) of an adapted song! I sincerely hope that the song choice wasn't too hokey. But alas, I heard it and suddenly felt compelled. Lucky for all of you rebellious reviewers I realized just how irritating the song was and cut it down to half the lyrics.
Seven reviews per chapter. Great Ratio, that. Do try to keep it up.
By the by, I would really love a beta reader….(Cue painfully obvious request that lacks subtlety in every way shape or form.)
Volunteers?
I love all you reviewers! *Flicks a switch on her stereo and the sound of applause fills the air.*
There you have it. A computer generated audience, got to love modern technology.
Ignore.
Disclaimer: Not J.K. Rowling. Never will be.