Days Fifteen to Nineteen
DAY FIFTEEN
16. Conveniently forget to put the right ingredients in your potion, so that it makes his room smell like rotten eggs for weeks. Say it was his fault and that they have medicine for that type of thing.
Ginny was unsure of how to mix ingredients the exact wrong way to get a long lasting rotten egg smell, and she spent ages talking with Mandy and Rose trying to decide what was the best way to mess up the potion. They'd asked Hermione, but she'd looked scandalized and had stormed off in a huff to the library.
"Why don't you just drop in a couple of rotten eggs in vinegar or something like that?" Mandy suggested eventually, after a day spent sitting by the window watching Hagrid terrorize a class of third years. They were suppose to be doing an assignment for McGonagall, but found more interest in the matter of ruining Snape's life.
Ginny leaned against the cold glass panes and stared out into the dark night. It was late and they were no further along on the issue than they had been that morning, and she was getting increasingly impatient. "Don't be stupid, Mandy, that won't work."
"Well, fine, if you don't like my ideas then I just won't give them anymore," Mandy said, stung, and crossed her arms. A moment later, she said, "Why don't you just whip up a plate of beans and fart for the entire lesson?"
Rose looked at her incredulously. "That is so childish. And it doesn't have anything to do with ruining a potion."
"I don't see you coming up with anything better!"
It was at that moment that Harry and Ron decided to come back up the common room from Quidditch practice and collapse into chairs by the fireplace. She tried to hear what they were saying, but couldn't quite make it out. It seemed to be along the vein of Slytherins being stupid gits. Leaving her arguing friends at the window, she jumped up and headed over to them and sat near Ron, making sure there was a sweet, angelic expression on her face.
Ron seemed surprised to see her there, but she was sure she saw something flash across Harry's eyes for half a second. She filed that away into the "Get Hermione to Validate" section of her brain, before throwing a retort at her brother after he over reacted to her coming and sitting next to them.
" - I mean, best brother in the whole world," she added quickly, as she saw Ron's ears start to heat up at being called a git. "What I need from you is some advice."
He looked suspicious. "Advice on what, exactly?"
"On how to make Profesor Snape's room smell like rotten eggs."
Harry burst out laughing. Ron glared at him for a second. "It's not funny, you know, this taking after Fred and George thing, Harry," he turned back to Ginny. "Mum's going to send a howler, just you wait."
But Ginny didn't listen, as Harry turned to her and said, "Just replace your regular ingredients with milk and eggs and things like that and put it over the fire."
And Ginny was happy to report the next night, making sure she had him alone, that it had worked perfectly.
DAY SIXTEEN
17. Bring a Mariachi band to class. Say it helps you concentrate.
Although Ginny and her friends had considered going to the Room of Requirement to find a mariachi band, they instead decided to just summon one from Spain or wherever it was Mariachi bands hailed from. At first they'd thought that their spell had failed, only to hear news of a Mariachi band that was terrorizing Hogsmeade village. With a cry of "Accio Mariachi band!" Mandy sent the sombrero-sporting members of the band sailing through the windows of the Gryffindor Common Room, into the midst of a terrified and confused crowd of second years.
As though it hadn't been heard enough getting the Mariachi band there in the first place, it proved even worse trying to get them all the way down to the dungeons, as they almost had to rope them up and drag them down the many flights of stairs to get them to stop touching things and shouting "Ole!" When they finally managed to drag them through the doors of the dungeon, they took up more room than they'd planned and made it difficult for students to get by.
But ignoring all the difficulties, it was worth seeing the look of absolute shock on Snape's face, and for about five minutes half of the class enjoyed themselves thoroughly while Snape tried to make themselves heard over a resounding chorus of "Mi amor esta una puta" until he lost control and vanquished the band in a puff of green smoke. Sombreros and mandolins went flying, and one hit a Slytherin in the face, silencing his hysterical laughter.
Ginny looked at Snape incredulously, almost frightened for a moment, until she saw that one of the sombreros that had gone flying had landed lopsided on Snape's greasy head.
DAY SEVENTEEN18. Leave presents at his place at dinner. Leave a note saying it's from his secret admirer.
The hardest part of the next item was deciding what to give Snape at dinner. After much though, Ginny decided that it had to be something of Harry's, and although Rose and Mandy agreed that it should be a picture of him, Ginny adamently refused and stalked off to the sixth year boy's dorm and managed to find a pair of his underwear, before running out screaming at the realization that Neville was in the room with her. When she got back to where Mandy and Rose were sitting, they wrapped it up in brown paper and wrote on it in red ink, "To Severus, From Your Secret Admirer."
At dinner, Snape was late, so it was easy to place the package at his place. Not twenty minutes later, after anxiously waiting, she saw him slouching into the Great Hall, wearing a sour expression on his face and walking very slowly. Ginny hid her face, laughing, and nudged Ron, who was sitting next to her. The next time she looked up, when Mandy reached across the table to hit her and tell her that Snape was opening the package, the first thing she saw was a pair of underwear fly across the room and explode in midair.
DAY EIGHTEEN 19. Fall asleep in class.
Ginny found it extremely difficult indeed to fall asleep in class while giggling like a maniac and listening to the horrible screeching sounds that Snape had playing on a modified gramophone to calm himself down, so she had Mandy bewitch her to fall asleep. She fell into such a deep sleep, that when she woke up there was nobody left in the dungeon. Panicking for a moment, she leapt out of her chair and pulled at the door only to discover that she was locked in. Looking round for her wand, she couldn't find it and realized that Mandy or Rose must have taken it. Her day immediately ruined, she slumped against the door and decided to wait. She didn't know when the next potions lesson was, so she didn't know how much longer she had to wait, although she had a suspicion that she wouldn't be in time for her next lesson. I guess I can look forward to another detention this weekend, she thought bitterly, and kicked a nearby chair.
She was only sitting there for a few minutes when the door opened, hitting her in the back. She immediately jumped up and prepared to fling a bat bogey hex at whoever was behind the door, but stopped herself just in time when she saw who it was.
"Harry!" she yelled, and before she could stop herself she hugged him so hard he started choking. Ignoring that she had probably breached some kind of privacy barrier, she headed out the door, explaining that she had been in there for ages and couldn't get out and was mighty appreciative of the fact that he'd come down to get her, only to see that the entire sixth year Potions class was behind him in the corridor.
DAY NINETEEN20. If you see him in the hall, shriek and say to stop stalking you, you're jailbait!
The next day Ginny was still burning with embarrassment, ignoring Mandy and Rose when they laughingly asked her what happened. As soon as she got her wand back from them, she found no need to talk to them for a while, and instead went stalking through the corridors until she saw Ron, Hermione, and Harry coming the opposite way. Although she momentarily felt like turning and running, she steeled herself and greeted them, then turned and began walking with them to the library.
"So Ginny, how was your day, yesterday?" Hermione asked, without a hint of sarcasm in her voice. Immediately Ginny inwardly thanked her for not being a prat.
"It was okay. I was locked in the dungeon, as you know," she said, ignoring Ron, who began spluttering.
"Of course that didn't mean you had to go throwing yourself on people, like a tart!"
Ginny bristled. "I am not a tart! Am I, Harry?"
Harry laughed. "Really Ron, it doesn't matter. I didn't really mind," he said, patting Ginny on the shoulder encouragingly.
Before Ginny could get too excited, she saw Snape coming around the corner up ahead. As Ron began protesting, she shrieked, "Stop it, you dirty old man! Stop stalking me! I'm jailbait!"
Then she ran, flailing her arms and wailing, back down the direction she had been going earlier, leaving Ron, Hermione, and Harry to deal with the impending wrath of Snape.