Chapter Ten: Real Partners

Draco and Ginny entered the laboratory which had become the second common room for both of them. As they entered almost at the same time, they were highly surprised at seeing professor Snape in there. The reason for it was quite simple: Snape never visited them after their first day. He simply left the assignments on the work table. If he paid a visit in person, then something serious was going on. When they entered, he stood up and greeted them:

"Good evening."

"Good evening, professor," they said in unison.

"My surprising appearance here can be explained by the quality of your current work."

'Merlin, what did we do now?' they thought together.

"I saw a big improvement." Ginny and Draco sighed with relief. "That's why I came here to ask some questions and summarize the results of your research," he sat on the chair, but didn't tell them to take a seat. He only gestured to come nearer. After they reached the position where they faced him, they stopped.

Snape continued, "Mister Malfoy, tell me about the result of your research about the family curses." Can Snape say "please"? The research result is "No".

"Ask Weasley, she is doing the research on this subject," answered Draco.

Snape's eyebrows rose a little. 'He trusts her to do such an important and complicated task? Hm, then they can do the next step now.'"Then tell us, Miss Weasley, what have you found?"

Ginny felt very important and proud of herself. "There wasn't a lot of information about the family curses, but I found some about the main aspects," she went to her table, which was flooded with books and found some parchments with her notes there. "Family curses are very strong, especially when cast by a number of people, and can only be removed by the caster himself. The curse won't be removed even after the caster's death. There is practically no chance to remove the family curse the other way, but it all depends on the structure of the curse. There are different types of family curses. Must I read all of them?"

After Snape's nod she continued. "From the weakest to the strongest. A simple family curse consists of a curse that punishes the recipient for something and forbids him to do something, but then he does, and something bad happens to him. More advanced curses consist of practically the same, but if the recipient crosses the line, he dies. The strongest family curse is pure torture. Most of the time it is cast by the whole family and the curses used there may be of all kinds. The curse can be removed only when the recipient does exactly what he was cursed for."

"Thank you, Miss Weasley; this is a very important piece of information. You will work on the last type," just a pixel of gratitude could be heard in his tone. "What about the blood?"

Now Draco answered. "It is normal human blood, but there is something wrong with it. I am not sure still, but there are some foreign bodies which come and disappear from time to time. I mean, when I look at it in the morning, there is nothing wrong with it, but in the evening these bodies return and cast some flashes of light, like from very, very small fireworks. They can't be viruses for certain, but they are not bacteria either. The strangest thing is, when I try to mix something with blood to do any tests for revealing their birth, they just disappear again. I am getting the wrong end of the stick here."

"Interesting, very interesting indeed," Snape looked deep in thought for a few minutes. "Alright, now I have a very important question for both of you. Think about the answer as long as you want, I mean not more than ten minutes," he paused to acknowledge the substantiality of the moment. "Do you trust each other?"

Draco and Ginny were taken aback by the sudden change of topic, but thought thoroughly about the answer nonetheless. After two minutes they looked into each other eyes and searched for something in there. In Draco's case it was more than difficult, because Ginny still couldn't penetrate through the shields of his steal eyes, but after another two minutes, they turned their heads back to Snape and answered together, "Yes."

"Very good. Then come with me," he went to the center of the room and a table with a vial with green transparent liquid appeared there. "Give me your wands." They both gave the wands automatically, like they were in a trance.

Snape put the wands on the table and muttered a spell, after that, their wands split in two halves on the vertical axes. Ginny gasped, how could her precious wand be split like this? How will she use it after this? Without noticing Ginny's gasp, Snape took one half of Ginny's wand and one of Draco's and poured the potion in the hollow part of the wands. Then he combined Ginny's mahogany half with Draco's black oak one, which at once became smaller, right to the size of Ginny's wand. Then he made the same operation with Draco's wand.

"I am sure you want the explanation about all this, don't you?" Draco and Ginny nodded. "These," he gestured to the brown-black wands, "Are Partners' Wands. They can only be created when potions' partners trust each other. Now let me give you a small lecture about the potions' partnership. I am stressing the word "potions", because this partnership is closer then many others. You already know from experience that potions are very dangerous and attractive at the same time. You can call this laboratory a battlefield, where you must watch each others backs all the time. Now, Miss Weasley, press fingertips of your right hand to the fingertips of mister Malfoy's left hand. That's it, and repeat after me. I swear on the magic that flows in my veins that I will help, protect and treat like an equal my potions' partner during ups and down of his career, life or death situations and at all times devoting myself to the art of the potions' making." They repeated after him slowly but steadily. "Let me congratulate you on your newfound partnership. I must say that the last time that this ceremony was conducted was at times of the Founders. You must be honored."

"Of course, we are, professor," said Draco, who was the first to snap out of all this "ceremony" and its consequences. Ginny was still in deep shock.

Snape headed to the door, but stopped on the door threshold and took a thick lace with a brush on the end out of his robe. Then muttered a spell and it was glued to the wall beside the door. "If something happens, or if you need something to ask me, you can pull on this lace and I'll come immediately," with that he left.

Draco returned to his work. After a minute Ginny snapped out of her shock and said, "Why am I feeling like I have just been married?" she wasn't asking anybody in particular, just the air in front of her.

"Because it was quite like it," came Draco's calm voice.

"How can you be so calm about it?"

"Why shouldn't I?"

"Because marrying is a very serious business!" she exclaimed.

"I don't see a married couple anywhere around, who are you giving the lecture to?"

"Urch! We said votes that demand a lot from us, don't you think?"

"You shouldn't have said you trusted me. Then nothing would have happened."

"But I do and I didn't know what will come next and..."

"What is the ordeal about? We need a lot of work to do, and you are just babbling about nothing!"

"That vote sounded like I am marrying you, like all my life is you and potions from now on and forever!" she was now gesturing madly with her hands and pacing back and forth.

"You can be deaf sometimes also, nothing is new to me. There was no such phrase, as "only death will separate you". You can still marry Potter and have his children, but not now. The war is going on and if these are our places in it that should be it then. If we'll come out of it alive, which I seriously doubt on my case, you will do anything you want."

"I don't want to marry Harry, but you are giving a bright perspective nevertheless. Ok, what am I to do now?"

"Finish the potion in that blue cauldron I left on the sixth point." There were seven different cauldrons in the laboratory and each had a different color, so they wouldn't mix the contents of each other potions.

An hour later they still hadn't finished the last assignment and the end was never in sight. Suddenly Draco heard the soft sound of boiling and turned his head in that direction. Ginny was working with the red cauldron now and absolutely forgot about the blue one. After analyzing the situation, he swiftly turned his head to Ginny.

"Why aren't you wearing the work robe?"

"What?"

"You heard me."

"I forgot."

She was standing with her back to the blue cauldron, that's why she didn't see anything, but Draco was on the opposite side of her, that's why the process of potion coming out of the cauldron and spitting all around was right in his view. There was only one result of such a boiling reaction.

"Weasley, come here this instant!"

"What the Hell?"

He didn't wait for her to understand what the Hell was, he just grabbed her left hand and pulled towards him, pushing her on his chest and covering with his work robe. Then he only managed to turn his back towards the cauldron when BANG! – the cauldron exploded, crashing the glass equipment which lay nearby, on the way.

Ginny felt a jolt, but nothing else, because she was covered with the robe from head to toe. After not hearing anything nasty from Draco about obeying when he said to, she pulled his robe from her head and looked at his face. It was paler then normal.

"You seem to make a lot of debts lately." After that he fainted and started falling on her. Surprisingly even to her, she didn't lose her common sense. She, as gently as she could, put him on the floor and only then saw the cause of his fainting. A sharp, almost three inches long, glass piece was sticking up from behind his neck. She gasped at the sight; blood was flowing down his neck and formed a small pool on the floor already. "You, idiot, you forgot to pull your hood up!" then it hit her. 'The Lace!'

She ran towards the lace and pulled it with all her might. After a second, Snape appeared in the doorframe.

"Can't you finish a simple assignment all by yourself? I am sure that if this lace was here all the time, you bothered me every minute!" he barked in frustration.

"Oh, professor, come with me!" she didn't hear him, but kept pulling him by his robe.

When they reached Draco's unconscious form Snape looked it over and asked in the same manner but a little bit softer this time, "What happened?"

"I...I...forgot...to put my...work...robe and...the cauldron...blew up," she mumbled, never taking her eyes from the piece of glass. He saved her. Again. Making a debt. Again. How silly, could she get? "Can...you...heal...him?"

Snape looked at her as if she had an eye on her forehead, but said nothing. Standing on his knees, he gently pulled the glass out of Draco's neck and then a real wonder happened: all the blood sucked in and the trace of the cut simply vanished.

"How!" Ginny couldn't help but ask.

"The potion in your wands can help you heal yourselves, but only on one condition: if the injured protects the other one. And as I understood from the mess of words you gave me as an answer, Mister Malfoy covered you with his robe to save you from the blow. When he comes around, and he will do in less then fifteen seconds, you can discuss the matter."

After that, professor Snape stormed to his private chambers very pleased with this day.