Chapter 8: Beginning

"Albus, really. Allowing the students to continue that way." Minerva was simply outraged.

"Minerva, Minerva, everything turned out alright. Draco came to the rescue." Snape smirked and leaned back in his chair. He personally enjoyed the show, and nobody got hurt so what was the problem.

"I agree with Severus." Dumbledore looked at the professors before him. "Mr. Weasley was handled well, and nobody told anyone anything they didn't already know. Or should have already known."

"But Albus can the trio bread up after He-Who-Must-Not-0Be-Named disappeared. We don't know if he will come back or who will take over. We mustn't let them argue so."

"Minerva, they must grow by themselves. Besides the prophecy clearly states everything. In time things will be revealed." Snape narrowed his eyes

"Prophecy?" Dumbledore smiled and made a noncommittal gesture with his hands. Snape nodded but wasn't happy about the lack of response. Something was clearly brewing, but what? And how would it affect the wizarding world?

Ginny woke up Monday morning to an owl pecking at the window. She didn't really want to get up even though the weekend was over. She remembered last, and how her brother was such a dunce, and was of the mind to go out and castrate all the males who crossed her path. She remembered how after the scene with her brother Blaise was more withdrawn. She hoped that her brother hadn't ruined everything for her, or that he hadn't forced her to ruin everything herself. She really like Blaise and didn't want to lose him.

Ginny opened the window to let the owl in. She untied the small box attached to the owl, and gave him a treat, absently petting his feathers as he ate. The box was forest green velvet and was more elegant than any she had ever seen in her life.

When she opened the box she half expected it to be for someone else, but there was a note inside addressed to her.

Ginny,

I wanted to give this to you last night, but after the Great Hall with your brother, I faltered. I didn't want you to think that I didn't want you anymore so I want you to have it now. I hope you like it.

Blaise

Ginny smiled. Even in a note her Slytherin tried to conceal his emotions. She removed the note and the tissue paper and gasped at the present. The ring was so beautiful she thought it might vanish if she breathed.

Delicately she fingered the garnet surrounded by emeralds and felt tears well up in her eyes. He loved her. Ginny giggle and slipped the ring onto her fingers, trying to see which one it fit on. The ring was made for her ring finger. Ginny admired the ring on her finger and noticed an etching on the side of the ring. A snake. A smile spread across her face. He had claimed her. Ginny vowed to always wear his ring.

Draco rolled over and glanced at the clock. 4:50. He should try to go back to sleep for a while, he had Double Potions, Double Transfiguration, then Care of Magical Creatures, and Defense Against the Dark Arts, but all he could think of was sex and Hermione. Together. He hadn't gotten laid in two days. Sure they cuddled, and that was cool, and they made out, and that was fine, but he wanted her so bad he hurt. He'd taken to performing concealment harms at night so Hermione wouldn't know when he was hard. This was all the time.

Hermione stirred against him, rubbing against him and he almost moaned at the contact. It was ludicrous what she was doing to his body. No woman should ever have this much control. Ever.

"Hermione." Draco desperately needed her to move away from him. They hadn't been fighting lately so they got a bigger bed, and he needed her to move.

"Hermione." He said her name louder and she opened one eye. What did he want so early in the morning? She knew he wasn't hard. She would have felt him.

"What?" Hermione's voice was husky and thick with sleep. Draco closed his eyes and concentrated on something neutral, and nonsexual. The library. Then he saw him and Hermione, against the bookshelves having sex.

"Roll over!" It came out harsher than he he'd intended it to, but he needed her to get away from him.

"Why?" He hadn't wanted sex for two days and now he wanted her to get away from him.

"Hermione, just do it!" He was quickly running out of patience. Something he had very little of to begin with but was now running close to empty.

"Why?" Draco growled and kissed Hermione roughly, and lifting the concealment charm. He was laying on her, pushing her into the bed, and his erection was positioned right between her legs. He kissed her with all the sexual tension he possessed, his hands running along her body. Touching, grabbing, massaging, trying to conjure fire in her like the one raging in him. The more he got the more he wanted.

Hermione was dazed when he pulled away. She hadn't been prepared for that, and truth be told, even if he'd told her, she wouldn't have been prepared. The range of emotions her body went through was new to her. She wanted more.

"That's why. Please, roll over." Draco got off of Hermione and lay on his back closing his eyes. Hermione looked at his half naked body and grinned. She rolled over, but she was going to have him. He'd built a fire, and he was going to put it out. She quickly got rid of her small amount of clothing and positioned herself so that she was above Draco without touching him.

Draco felt the movement on the bed and almost sighed in relief and disappointment, until he felt the bed move close to his body.

"I thought I told you to move?" Draco opened his eyes and almost came. Hermione was hovering above him, relaxed and calm and confident.

"You did. I didn't listen." Draco grabbed her hips and tossed her on the other side of the bed before throwing himself on top of her.

Both moaned when he entered her and began to move in a steady pace, but quickly sped up when passion took over.

Draco couldn't get deep enough, couldn't go fast enough, and couldn't get enough moans. He wanted more. Her body moving beneath his so wanton that he didn't know how he'd held out this long. He was kissing her lips, her neck, her breasts, and she was going crazy. He was so big, going so deep, and so fast she was surprised she wasn't in pain. All she felt was pleasure. Her hand moved down his back, nail digging in, urging him on until both were sent flying over the edge. Her body contracting around his, and him coming, hot and seedy, in her.

Hermione brought her legs down, unaware that she'd had them around his hips, and Draco collapsed onto her soft body, completely spent.

"If you ever use a concealment charm again, I'll kill you." Hermione gently bite his earlobe, and Draco bent to kiss Hermione breast.

"You sure you want that?" Draco didn't know how she knew. She knew everything he did. He'd bet she knew when he'd jacked off in previous years.

"Yes." Hermione felt him growing hard inside her and looked into his eyes.

"You got it." Draco began moving in and out of her again, kissing her jaw and massaging her breasts.

"Again?" Draco laughed and Hermione felt her heart stop. He should laugh more often.

"Yes again. And then I plan on one in the shower." Hermione giggled. He was teasing her now with the movement of his hips.

"Oh, really?"

"We have to get clean somehow." Hermione's laugh turned into a moan and both got serious about getting satisfaction.

"Today you will work on your Paradise Potion with your partner. You will add the pig, snout, horse hair, and vanilla extract." Snape tapped the board with his wand and all the instructions appeared immediately.

There was a loud boom and smoke filled the classroom to the point where no one could breathe, let alone see. When the smoke cleared to a haze Snape pounced.

"McMillan. Reynolds. What happened?" Bernice Reynolds was near tears. She knew that she did everything right, and the potions could explode without being damaged but Hufflepuff's could only take so much.

"We didn't' do anything." Ryan McMillan knew Reynolds was emotional, but they had done everything correctly. He was Ravenclaw and under no circumstance would he tell anyone he thought she was hot. It wasn't that she was lower or anything, but she was from Hufflepuff. The house was just…odd.

"Obviously." Snape was walking over to the table to check the potion. The color, texture, and smell had to be correct before moving on. Bernice bite her lip and Ryan had taken enough.

"We did everything correctly! We didn't do anything wrong." Snape raised and eyebrow at the growling tome. The color was good, smell good, the texture was almost correct.

"Stir your potion for a few minutes before beginning today's instructions." Snape went back to his desk to write down the events to far. Two potions had exploded, but it was different. The signs are different, not right. Reynolds' and McMillan's potion shouldn't have exploded yet. Unless…

"Who was near Reynolds and McMillan's potion before it exploded?" Several students raise their hands. "Who touched it?" All hands went down. This still wasn't right. He made notes of all this before observing the classes progression. What was going on? None of this makes sense.

"Okay, drop in the pig snout and stir for two minutes, I'll time you." Hermione was concentration on the time while Draco stirred in the snout. The pig snout was supposed to melt and turn the potion a rose pink. After about five minutes the pink would turn purple and they would add the horse hair.

"Two minutes. Now we're supposed to wait." Draco watched the potion while Hermione took notes on everything going on in their potion.

"It's changing a light purple. Is there a specific shade of purple that we're aiming for?" Hermione looked from her calculations to survey the potion. The potion was a beautiful shade of lavender. Hermione looked through her noted, trying to find anything on the varying shades. Nothing. Nothing on specific colors. Hermione looked at Draco and shook her head. Hermione never ceased to amaze him. She would have researched to potion to make sure everything was perfect with the potion.

"Should we wait to see if it changes colors?" Hermione honestly had no clue what to do.

"I don't know." Hermione wrote down the questions going through her mind. She looked up to check the potion and saw a difference.

"Draco! It's a bright purple." Draco had looked up as soon as he said his name. She's never said his name in public before. He saw the color of purple and decided they would wait to ass the horse hair. He wanted the deepest purple they could get.

Both Hermione and Draco looked up when they heard another explosion. They looked up to see smoke all around Marcia Mendez and Marshall Donaldson.

"What did you do?" Snape had been watching Head Boy and Head Girl just before the explosion.

"The potion exploded." Donaldson was from Slytherin and one of the biggest smart asses in Hogwarts.

"We added the horse hair. I didn't think I had cut it the wrong way, but- I mean-" Marcia stopped talking as Snape pushed away from his desk so violently that his chair fell over. He hadn't told the students, for fear of scaring them, that as the potion developed, the explosions got worse and more powerful.

"You would cut horse hair the wrong way. Who knew there was a wrong way to cutting it, but you found it, didn't you?" Marcia sent Marshall a deadly look. She was from Griffyndor and wasn't going to take that crap. She'd get him back.

"Yes. I can see." The potion was redder, they needed more horse hair. "Add a whole strand of horse hair. Stir for two minutes, then add the vanilla extract." Snape was watching Marcia's movements. He had to test his theory. He began undressing Marcia with his eyes, and he was not enjoying it. Everyone else was going back to work, so they only one to notice was Donaldson.

"Hey, Snape, I don't care if you watch birds, but leave the feathers on." Snape looked at Donaldson and raised an eyebrow.

"Donaldson, get a life." Marshall gaped at Marcia. She could not honestly tell him she enjoyed greasy haired Snape undressing her in the classroom.

"So you like it when people ogle your goodies?" Marcia sent him a scathing look. She could have slapped him. She wanted him to undress her, figuratively and physically.

"Shut up. Add the vanilla extract." Marshall was about to when Snape looked back at Marcia.

"Dude! Do you mind?" Snape looked back at Marshall and smirked.

"You don't own her son." Marshall growled and added the vanilla.

"If I did-"

"You don't." Snape walked away to gloat to himself, and write it all down.

"So, if you did own me, what would you have done.?" Marcia was stirring the potion and Marshall could see that she wasn't joking. "And if you owned me, what would you do to me?"

"This isn't a conversation for the classroom." Marcia laughed and shook her head.

"I didn't know Slytherins got afraid." He could tell she was toying with him, but couldn't let her think he was chicken.

"I wouldn't ever own you so let's just move on." Marshall did want to tell what was really going on in his head. That if they were going out, she would never want for anything, everything she desired would be hers, and she would never think of another man again.

"Oh. Right." Marcia didn't want to show how much she was hurt by his response. Not that she wanted to be owned, but him claiming her, telling everyone that she was his girl would have sufficed. "You know, if you would pull your head out of your ass I would- Never mind. The Slytherin in you would never allow that." Marcia mumbled the last part and Marshall was shocked by the first half of the statement.

"I may be a lot of things, but normally I'm not wrong about girls."

"Could have fooled me." Marcia tried to focus on the potion, but she could smell his cologne, and she loved his cologne.

"Listen, I avoid girls that detest me. I'm not going to go out of my way for some girls that's going to turn me down anyway!" He was so confused. He had no idea what was going on and all he could think of was to defend himself, and he had a feeling he was failing miserably.

"Detest you? Detest you! You think I detest you?" At Marshall's nod she wanted to cry and laugh at the same time. "Would someone who detests you go out of their way to get your attention?"

"You've never-"

"All those times I dropped my quills just to pick them up and show off cleavage hoping you would see. All those times I walked past you in the hallway putting extra sway in my hips. All those times in our classes together that I've sat next to you just to hike my robes too high, or my shirt too low. I've gone out of my way to get your attention, and you ignore me."

"On the contrary; I've loved every minute of it. I just never thought it was for me. Thought you were too Griffyndor for that." Marcia laughed and bit her lower lip. "You look impossibly sexy when you do that. Makes me wonder what your hiding."

"How Slytherin of you."

"How male of me," He corrected. "You wanna go to Hogsmeade with me next weekend?" He couldn't believe how nervous he was about this. "As friends."

"No." Marshall tried not to look crushed but that's how he felt. "I refuse to go as your friend." Marshall looked up and grinned.

"Marcia, will you go to Hogsmeade with me, as someone from another house?"

"Marshall." Marcia whined and nearly made him hard as the blood rushed from his head to his lower regions.

"Marcia, will you go with me as my girlfriend?" Marcia laughed and hugged him tightly before answering.

"Yes, as long as you come up to my room before then." Marshall remembered her whine, and her body pressed against his.

"Definetly. Wouldn't miss it.

As soon as the class left, Snape wrote down everything that had conspired, and made a note to Dumbledore about the late night rendezvous. There was no reason for teenagers to go about meeting late at night. None whatsoever, especially when they were up to no good. There was no reason at all. First thing at lunch it was getting taken care of.

"Severus, they're only teenagers. Let them be young. Let them be free. You're only young, truly young, once."

"Exactly! They shouldn't be allowed to do this. They are young, reckless, and irresponsible. They have no business doing this."

"For once I agree with Severus." Minerva grimaced as she said this.

"Minerva, Severus, trust me. Children need to be children. Let them be young. Besides, we should let nature run it's course." Albus had a twinkle in his eyes and both professors knew they wouldn't win this battle.

When Snape and McGonagall left Dumbledore's office he sat at his desk and thought of the students Paradise Potions. Ronald Weasley and Pansy Parkinson's potion was the first to explode. To the outside world they were opposites, and could not get along. ON the inside, if they would open up to each other, they would find that they really were compatible, but it was opening up to each other that was the hard part.

Ryan McMillan and Bernice Reynolds' potion was second. They have feelings for on another, and get along well enough. In fact, they were almost perfect for on another. Almost. They would have to not care about other people's feeling, they have to be happy with themselves.

Marshall Donaldson and Marcia Mendez's potion was the third to explode. They were a good match. They need each other to balance one another out. They already had a rendezvous and a date planned. They could go the mile together.

That's why this didn't make any sense. In the past years, the Paradise Potion exploded the potions of students who didn't belong together first, and those students that were meant for each other would explode last. Even if the potion were working backwards, student's potions that are meant for each other have not exploded yet.

Dumbledore began to pace. This made no sense.

"Albus, maybe there is no pattern." Dumbledore looked up at the past Headmaster's and saw Malfoy.

"Sir, you know there is always a pattern in the Paradise potion."

"Maybe we aren't supposed to know the pattern. Yet."

"Maybe." Dumbledore went to stand under the portrait of Damien Malfoy. Lucius' great-grandfather.

"How about this years Head Boy?" Dumbledore laughed at this question.

"One of the best Hogwarts has seen yet."

"That Head Girl isn't too shabby either. Brightest witch in her class." Dumbledore nodded waiting for the old wizard to get to the point. "They make a good pair." Dumbledore grinned. Damian approves of Draco's choice.

"Maybe you should tell Draco that."

"He doesn't need my permission."

"Ah, but he does need your reassurance. He needs your history." Damien nodded and thought it through.

"Next time he comes, we'll discuss the family."