Yes, I know. I haven't updated in the longest time. I'm really quite sorry, but I was ill and my parents still made me go to school and stuff . . . so, the main thing is: I'm back now! And I'm excited because I got 21 reviews on my last chapter, and that makes me so happy, not to mention that my birthday is coming up really soon, less than two weeks! Well, thanks a ton for reading and an extra special ton to those who reviewed.

Chapter Eight

"You have ideas?" Ginny asked, wiping her eyes with her shirt sleeve.

"Yea. You can get Blaise right before dinner. He usually comes down ten to fifteen minutes after dinner starts and he'll be coming down the main staircase because he has Transfiguration right before dinner. You can just hide behind a statue or something and hit him with a curse when he walks by."

"Hermione?" asked Ginny, mouth open. "How do you know this stuff?"

To Ginny's surprise, Hermione's face turned bright red, showing unwillingly that there was a story behind her information, but Hermione made a brilliant save, saying, "I'm head girl, it's my job to know." Ginny eyed her skeptically, but didn't say anything, just grateful for the help Hermione was giving her.

"Anyways," said Hermione, acting as if nothing had happened. "That's how you can get Blaise. Now, for Pansy. My head girl instincts say that I don't want you doing anything too cruel. But, I hate that girl just as much as you do, so I would really like to see her confidence fall. What if, somehow we got her to do something, unwillingly, that we wanted her to do?"

"Hermione, that sounds like the Imperious curse."

"Oh." Hermione's face fell. "That's illegal."

Ginny nodded.

"Well, I'm sure there's a potion of some type that will affect her like that, but leave her in control of her mind, so it isn't illegal." Hermione got a large book out of her satchel. "In fact, I think it's in here." She gestured to the book. "I checked this out for a little background reading about the Wolfsbane potion for Potions class."

Ginny looked on while her friend flipped briskly through the pages of the book, Living the Magical Potion Making Experience, she saw it was called. Hermione stopped her frantic flurrying of pages after about five minutes and came to rest on page 1194. "Here it is!" Hermione cried, earning a stern glance from the librarian. "It says 'the potion described in these pages has not yet been defined as a first class highly dangerous potion, and is still legal throughout Europe and Africa, it has been outlawed in America as well as South America. Results of votes are pending in Australia and Sweden. Further reading can be found on page 1239.'" Hermione ruffled to page 1239 and continued reading. "'The Imbunitias potion is used to control the actions of the person that it has been given to, but it leaves the drinker in control of his or her own mind, therefore it is not the same as the Imperious curse, which takes complete control of the person on which it has been cast upon.' It goes on to list several ingredients and gives the directions for making it."

"Err, Hermione," started Ginny. "What exactly do you plan on having Pansy do?"

"Oh, just something that will embarrass her entirely and she can't live down for months," said Hermione offhandedly, busy writing down ingredients and instructions on a spare piece of parchment.

"Like?"

"Like make her kiss Harry."

"Kiss Harry? Ewww," said Ginny.

"Exactly." Hermione put a final period on her parchment and stuffed it into her book bag. "You want to get back at Harry for not paying enough attention to you and so on, and you want to get back at Pansy for being a complete and utter pig. So we put Pansy under the effects of this potion and she will have to endure the agony of having to kiss Harry and not having any power to stop herself. Harry will just be embarrassed that he was kissed by a Slytherin of all people."

"Well," started Ginny, only to be cut off by Hermione.

"It's settled then. We can start making the potion right now. All these ingredients can be found in the student supply cupboard. It only takes a few hours to make. We can make Pansy kiss Harry at dinner where everyone can see her."

"What about Draco?" asked Ginny as Hermione stood up, meaning to head to the potions store cupboard to gather ingredients.

"He's the only one I don't know what to do about," Hermione said as she walked out of the library.

"Hmmm," Ginny replied.

Together they walked down four flights of stairs into the dungeons and made their way to the potion supply cupboard. "Here Ginny, read me the list," said Hermione, handing Ginny a small piece of parchment on which the ingredients were scribed.

"Okay. First, ummm, we need asphodel root, mandrake skin, bat's eyeballs, three of them, er, sixteen lifbeean leaves, two pixie puffballs, and some oorphailee blood," Ginny read off, making faces at the disgusting ingredients. "We are never going to get Pansy to drink this."

"Yes we are. The book said that this potion can be added to pumpkin juice or apple cider. Apple cider is what is usually served with dinners, and pumpkin juice is the other thing, so what we need to do is get the completed potion to the kitchens and to Dobby, and just tell him that we want it to go to Pansy Parkinson."

"Since when are you on such good terms with Dobby?" asked Ginny.

"I gave him an old Chudley Cannons tee shirt. I found it in Ron's drawer one night and it clashes horribly with his hair, so I just gave it to Dobby."

Ginny smiled. "Where can we start making the potion? And how long will it take us? Class starts again for me in fifteen minutes."

"Oh, my room is just up the stairs. We can do it in there, since I'm head girl. Nobody can come into my room unless I want them to."

Ginny followed Hermione up the center hall stairs and into Hermione's bedroom. It was identical in every aspect to Draco's room, but the decorations were completely different colors. They got started to making the potion until Ginny had to go to class.

"I'll come check on it after Herbology," said Ginny. "What's the password?"

"Vancouver," said Hermione, prodding her cauldron.

"'Kay." Ginny left for Herbology in an exponentially better mood. The class itself was quite boring, Herbology was more of Luna Lovegood's thing, but Ginny stood it out, focusing more on her revenge plans than on the Flesh Eating Whippersnaps. As soon as class was over, Ginny sprinted up to Hermione's room, leaving Luna talking to herself about how orange mooglies lived in the forest and fed off Hagrid.

"Vancouver," Ginny breathed as she slid to a stop outside of Hermione's door. Her friend wasn't yet in there, and probably wouldn't make it because her class was totally opposite where the room was located, but she had left Ginny a note.

Ginny- -

Stir it fifteen and one half times counter clockwise and then stir it one and one fourth times clockwise, then you have to make that four point stir that we learned in second year potions. Remember, north, east, south, west, NOT north, south, east, west. Then once you've done that, run it down to Dobby and tell him to put it in Pansy Parkinson's pumpkin juice this evening. Then you have to go to your last class. DON'T BE LATE! Remember that you have to get Blaise before dinner too!

Love, Hermione

Ginny followed Hermione's instructions to the last period and ran off to Care of Magical Creatures, remembering Hermione's warning about not being late. Remembering didn't help her. She was still fifteen minutes late.

"Sorry, Professor Hagrid," she panted. "I was, urr, in the bathroom."

"Lateness isn't a virtue, Ginny. I've got ter follow these here new rules set out by Dumbledore, so I've got te' give yer a detention. After dinner tonight ye' can go talk ter Professor McGonagall about yer detention."

Ginny walked over to her group of Gryffindor acquaintances as the Slytherin's sniggered openly at her.

Care of Magical Creatures class didn't go as Ginny had expected. She now had extra homework, though it was only drawing two Perpixies instead of one, and a detention. Hopefully, dinner would make up for all of it.