A/N: I'm still on a roll! Yay! Again, thanks for all your reviews, I really appreciate them. And if anyone has any suggestions, just let me know. Also, Ginny's alegory about the bank teller and everything is inspired by the movie Anger Management. And don't worry about the last day of the chapter - for future refernce, if the outcome of an item isn't written in the day it's meant to, it will be recapped in the next chapter so don't worry about it. And I'm really sorry to tell you, but this is the last completed chapter I have at this point that was left over from the first time this was posted. No more daily updates. : (
Randomness: I had a dream that I made out with Brandon Flowers in Dracula's castle last night.
Days Twenty to Twenty-Four
DAY TWENTY
21. Confess your undying love for him.
For the next day or so Ginny was drifting about with a deranged grin on her face, not letting anything bother her. Not even the fact that the next item would probably be the hardest, or that any situation with Harry was proving very akward. She hadn't told anyone about what had happened in the Common Room that night, not even Mandy and Rose, and she was sure that Harry had not told anyone either. It didn't bother her, though. Nothing did.
Her euphoria was so great that she forgot to open the letter that Harry had come up to give her until the next day. She'd had it clutched in her hand all night, and the next morning Rose had snatched it from her and said, "Oh my God, Ginny, are you in trouble? Maybe you should stop doing all this."
She snapped out of it long enough for the form of a rectangular, white object to come in to view. She pulled herself into a sitting position, red hair threatening to engulf her like a bad sci-fi movie (Attack of the Sixty-Foot Bed Head), eyes still groggy from sleep. She grabbed the letter from Rose just as rudely as it had been grabbed from her, and offered a greeting of "Fuh."
The letter was wrinkled and slightly damp in one corner from her night-long grip on it. It was fraying at the edges and bent in several places due to her rolling around on the bed all night in random fits of schoolgirlish giddiness. Breathing a sight of relief when she saw that it was addressed from 'Gred and Forge, Esq.' she ripped open the top of it and pulled out the parchment inside.
Dear Ginny-minnie-kinnsy,
We would like to declare our intentions of making you poster-girl of our shop. From now on when people enter our shop, dazzled by the pretty colors around them, eyes shining with obvious awe and admiration of our awesome creativity and overall amazingness, and they ask us - Gred and Forge, why are you so bloody handsome and ingenious? How can I surmount to such august status as you two?
And we will reply, You bloody well can't! You may serve our younger, wonderful, beautiful sister tea and crumpets at her every behest because she is far better than you will ever be. Please buy our products and get out.
- Gred and Forge
PS - We'll be sending you along something in the mail to help with your quest. Send us a copy of your list so that we can work something out.
The letter made Ginny feel a warm glow of pride on top of everything else. She felt so wonderful and content at that moment, she was sure that she would be able to complete #21, get Harry to marry her (whether it took illicit substances, forceful coersion, or what have you), and still manage to indulge in pina coladas and getting caught in the rain. She sent a letter back to her brothers gushing with overly purple, ridiculous prose expressing her deep gratitude and affinity for orange socks and enclosing a copy of the list inside. She truly felt like a Weasely.
Which is why, when she finally went to Potions that day, she felt twice as ashamed at her failure to bring herself to declare her love to the most foul-tempered, slime-faced git in all of British history.
DAY TWENTY-ONE
22. Wink knowingly at him if someone screws up in class.
"It's not that bad. Really, Gin, it's not."
Rose and Mandy had been puppy dogging Ginny since Potions ended the next day. During the latest class, Eladora Montgomery accidentally added two much of one particular ingredient to her potion, sending sparks shooting up, some of them going as high as the ceiling, leaving dark, sooty stains on the ceiling above her head. Ginny had winked, only realizing then how hard it was to do so. She didn't so much wink as she made a constipated face, grimacing and squeezing one eye shut so hard tears were beginning to come out before she finally stopped and grinned insanely at Snape.
Snapes response had convinced Ginny that no one ever hugged Snape when he was little. "May I suggest Miss Weasely, that you not spend so much time with our resident celebrity? A bit of his ego seems to have rubbed off on you. It's time you both learned that you are equal to the rest of us. Detention on Friday at 9:12 sharp."
Ginny suddenly stopped in the middle of the hallway, almost causing a collision that would have engaged most of the students in the hallway - no doubt causing a pile-up rivaling any smash up derby. She looked Mandy squarely in the eye, placed her hands on her shoulders and said,
"My dear, simple friend - some people in this life are bank-tellers, day after day working in claustrophobic conditions and dealing with people whose very existence contradicts the entire idea of natural selection. Others are those people, beligerent antogonists of everyone around them as they huff and puff and slobber all over common decency. Then others hide under counters when the bank tellers finally snap and slaughter everyone."
"Okay, Gin. I don't get it. Snape's the bank teller, so what does that make you? The slobbering, dribbling fool?"
"No, my dear stupid one, I am the one that goes in and finally causes the teller to lose control, and then goes outside and has a fag while everyone else is left to have punishment rained down upon their heads."
DAY TWENTY-TWO
23. Ask him if Draco is good in bed.
Rose and Mandy were still miffed at Ginny when they took their seats in Potions the next day. Mandy didn't say anything to her at all while Rose continuously asked her to explain the analogy because she didn't get it. Ginny felt as though her role was going to switch from antagonist to bank teller shortly if she couldn't first slobber all over Snape, and felt a twinge of the initial excitement she'd felt over the project return.
Snape tapped the board, the instructions for the day flowing outward from the center. The writing was miniscule, messy, and covered almost every square inch of the board. As though the class was at a football game, everyone seemed to rise from their seats at once in a wave motion to try and decipher the illegibal writing that had appeared on the board.
Ginny's hand was up immediately. Snape did not call on her, instead acknowledging the question of a Slytherin student on the other side of the room. Not to be discouraged, Ginny cut in instead.
"Professor I can't read the board."
"I did not give you permission to speak, Miss Weasely. Do be quiet or it's twenty points from Gryffindor."
"But I can't read it."
"I didn't ask you. Nor did I give any indication that I care in the least. Be silent."
"But Professor it's like trying to find the Virgin Mary on your toast in the morning!"
"I did not ask you! I didn't give you permission to say anything or to ask a question! Be quiet or it's fifty points from your House."
"But I didn't ask a question."
"Consider fifty points gone."
"But as long as we're on the subject, I do have a question. Is Draco good in bed?"
The room was absolutely silent. Snape seemed frozen in place at the front of the classroom, and Ginny suddenly felt the eyes of everyone in the room on her. She ignored them, staring directly at Snape, noticing that his hand seemed to be itching for his wand.
"No? Alright, what about Lucious? Just for curiosity's sake, you know."
"Miss Weasely, if I didn't find a long, leisurely walk through the Forbidden Forest to be a preferable option than being subject to your company, you would have detention every night of the week until your graduation. As it is, you already have a detention with me, but I don't think I can bear to go through with it. Consider it cancelled. Tonight's homework is a roll of parchment explaining the different mushrooms found in a boreal climate zone. Miss Weasely, for you it's five."
Snape disappeared into the backroom, locking the door behind him. Although he had placed a charm on the door, the class could still hear his screams and curses and the sound of him effectively destroying his office. Ginny was suddenly deafened by the laughter of the students around her.
DAY TWENTY-THREE
24. Talk like an old Hollywood actress. Say 'Ciao' and 'darling' a lot.
By that evening Rose and Mandy seemed to have forgetten that they were ever mad at Ginny in the first place, and Ginny didn't think it prudent to remind them, but that still didn't solve the matter of the five pages of homework she still had to do for Snape.
"Lousy git," Ginny muttered, holding her quill in position above a sheet of parchment but not writing anything. "I wish we had some laxatives or something. Hermione, will you help me with this?"
Hermione only looked at her. "Ginny, do you really think there aren't going to be any consequences for this? You asked him if one of his students is good in bed - I'm not even sure if that's legal. What if it gets back to Malfoy? What if it gets back to Lucius Malfoy?"
She felt as though her stomach had suddenly opened up into a bottomless pit. "Oh," she said. She was starting to feel shivers starting from her spine and going through her whole body and her vision was starting to unfocus. She had honestly not considered consequences of that levity when she, Rose, and Mandy had written out the list. The only thing she could think of to say was, "Thanks a lot, Mandy, that one was your idea. You sick, perverted swot."
Mandy looked up from the essay she was busy writing. "Ginny, please. Do you want me to do your homework or not?"
Ginny quickly shut up. She leaned back into her chair, wishing that it would come alive and eat her, but she had no such luck. What happened instead was that a large, red orb that bore a passing resemblance to her brother loomed over her, shouting and spitting and cursing. For a moment she wondered if her mother had indeed sent a Howler, whereupon Ron had taken and shoved it up his -
"Oh, hello, Harry," Ginny quickly said, sliding out of the chair, trying to avoid Ron's hands that, like claws, were scraping at the air as he violently articulated his ranting. She was sure for a moment that her face was turning as red as Ron's; she noticed that people around the common room were beginning to stare. "Did you want something?"
Harry looked from her to Ron, who was being restrained by Hermione and who now looked as though he was about to explode any minute, obviously trying to refrain from saying something. His efforts resulted in an odd whistling noise. Rose leaned over to Mandy and whispered in her ear. Immediately, Mandy yelled, "Tea time!" and then the eruption began! Ginny and Harry almost ran out of the common room, slowing down once they were safely out of the portrait hole, but not talking until they could no longer hear Ron's screams.
"So, Harry," Ginny started, "what did you want to talk about?"
The situation suddenly seemed to get very awkward very fast, and Harry didn't seem to want to look at her. "Well, it's just that I've been thinking about what happened on Sunday and I don't - well, I wasn't sure if - I don't know. Forget I said anything, I don't know what I was thinking." He made to stand up, but Ginny grabbed his hand.
"What were you trying to say? Harry really, you can tell me," Ginny said, starting to feel very nervous. He didn't say anything, so she added, "I didn't mind when you kissed me, Harry, really. I actually quite liked it," she said, smiling shyly.
That seemed to cheer Harry up. "What if it happened again?"
"As long as Ron doesn't find out . . ."
DAY TWENTY-FOUR
25. Paint your nails in class.
The last item hadn't gone exactly according to plan, but it had pissed off Snape a great deal and that was the point, now, wasn't it? Ginny had handed in her homework, grinning from ear to ear, while Snape scowled at her, squeezing his stress buddy. "Take off the sunglasses and boa NOW, Miss Weasely." He wanted to add, "Before I choke you with it."
The rest of the class had been filled with the sounds of Ginny shrieking at Snape, sometimes standing up to try to get his attention. "Ciao, darling! I just LOVE what you've done with this dungeon, it almost reminds me of something my ancestors would be buried in! Except they would have had Gucci or Prada furnish it, you know, not this depressing old smelly dirt you've got here . . . Professor, pay attention to me! Ciao! Over here, professor! You're upsetting my doggy. See? He's upset." She brandished a limp, stuffed dog at him, yelping when it suddenly disappeared.
The next day, they'd been at a loss when they realized they had no nail varnish and had no means by which to get some. They improvized with a marker, and before long everybody sitting near them had gotten high to some extent. Ginny, nearest the fumes from the marker, had started giggling after finishing her left hand and started drawing smiley faces and stars on the table.
After giving instructions for the day, Snape stood facing the corner and didn't move. Ginny got up and drew a smiley face on the board.