A Past Reclaimed by nuw255
Chapter Notes: Harry and Ginny serve their detention.
I'm back, everyone! Sorry for the delay, but I've been without regular Internet access since just before the queue closed for the Holidays. I'm back now, though, and I hope you decide this chapter was worth the wait!
Harry Potter blew out a long breath as he ran his fingers through his messy black hair. It was Friday evening, ten minutes to seven o’clock, and already he was a nervous wreck. He was going to be spending the next few hours alone with Ginny and, for the first time ever, he desperately wished there was some way he could get out of it. Snape must have noticed the tension between them, because under normal circumstances he never would have dreamed of putting them in the same detention. Now that their relationship was strained, however, he seemed only too pleased to force them to work together, in hopes of destroying their friendship once and for all.
Harry arrived in Snape’s dungeon at five minutes to seven, and found Ginny there waiting for him. Or maybe she was just waiting for Snape, because she didn’t even acknowledge Harry’s arrival. At seven o’clock precisely, the door banged open and the Potions Master swept into the room.
“How nice to see that you’ve both decided to arrive on time,” he began with a sneer. “Tonight you will be cleaning these cauldrons. All of them. Without magic.” He waved his wand, and two buckets of soapy water, along with a pile of filthy cauldrons, appeared against the west wall. Harry gaped at them; there must have been at least a hundred cauldrons there, of all types and sizes, and each one was caked in its own unique sort of grime. Several of the cauldrons still bore the charred remnants of old potions, while noxious fumes rose from others.
“Wands,” Snape demanded. Ginny sighed heavily and handed over her wand.
“Why?” Harry asked belligerently without moving to take out his own wand. “You already said we couldn’t use magic.”
“Because I don’t trust you, Potter,” Snape answered, his lip curling nastily. “Ten points from Gryffindor for your cheek. Now, give me your wand before I make it twenty.”
Harry bit back a retort as he handed over his wand. The only thing arguing would accomplish would be to land him in detention during the next day’s Quidditch match, and no matter how angry he was or how much he was trying to avoid his friends at the moment, there was no way he was going to miss that match.
A moment later, Snape was out of the room and slamming the door, and Harry very distinctly heard the lock click.
“Perfect,” Ginny grumbled. “Now not only do we have an impossible job, we can’t even get out until the great git comes back.”
Harry didn’t respond. He trudged over to one of the buckets of soapy water, picked up a rag, and started scrubbing a small ceramic cauldron that was covered in a thick, black, burned-on crust. Ginny just stood there watching him work for a full five minutes before finally stepping forward and laying a tentative hand on his shoulder.
“Harry?” she asked softly.
Harry stiffened slightly, but didn’t stop his scrubbing.
“Harry, can I talk to you for a minute?”
Harry sighed and put down his cauldron and rag. “There’s nothing to talk about,” he said in a flat voice. “You don’t want anything to do with me. I get it. Let’s just get to work.” He bent down to pick up his rag, but Ginny grabbed him by the shoulder and forced him around to face her.
“You may not want to talk, but you will listen to me!” she shouted. The torchlight danced upon her hair, and her eyes flashed dangerously as her words reverberated around the classroom; she looked so fiery and beautiful that Harry simply couldn’t bring himself to look away. He just stared dumbly at her as she took a calming breath and began to speak.
“I’m really sorry for running away from you the other day,” she began. “I should never have done that.”
She’s starting out by being polite before she explains that there’s no way things would ever work out between us, Harry thought bitterly.
Ginny began speaking very fast, the words tumbling from her lips so quickly that Harry had to struggle to keep up. “Hermione had just told me about what happened at Umbridge’s trial, and I was so angry and confused and hopeful and ashamed, and- I needed to be alone, to think, and then there you were, and I hadn’t had a chance to think about anything yet and I didn’t know what to do, so I finally just ran off.” She began blushing furiously and looked down at her shoes. “After that, I was so embarrassed because I’d run off that I couldn’t face you.”
“Hang on,” Harry interrupted, bewildered. “You’ve been avoiding me because you were embarrassed?”
“Of course,” Ginny affirmed, beginning to pace back and forth in front of him. “I ran away from you when you needed comfort and reassurance more than ever. And it didn’t help that I was ashamed of some of the things I was feeling. I still am ashamed, actually.” She still wasn’t meeting his eyes.
“Things like what?” Harry spat, his anger beginning to return. “Like the fact that now you have the perfect excuse to keep rejecting me forever?”
Ginny’s head snapped up. “No!” she shouted, the fiery spark in her eyes flaring up anew. “The exact opposite, actually. My first thought when I heard Umbridge had snapped her wand wasn’t, ‘Oh, how terrible,’ or, ‘Poor Harry,’ or even, ‘What a wench!’ My first thought was that, if your memory-loss is permanent... maybe we could finally be together. And then I was so ashamed of myself for being so selfish at a time like this that-”
“Wait a minute,” Harry said, cutting her off. “You want to be with me?” Most of Ginny’s words had flown through his mind without making any impact at all, but that sentiment stopped him short.
“I’ve always wanted to be with you, Harry,” she replied softly as she laid a reassuring hand on his arm. “I thought you knew that.”
“Then why did you run away?” Harry’s voice was so low that it was almost a whisper. His heart began pounding in his chest as he immediately asked himself if he really wanted to know the answer to that question.
“Because I didn’t know what to think or how to feel, and I just needed to be by myself and sort everything out. And then there you were, and I knew you needed to talk to someone, and it was obvious by that point that it wasn’t going to be Ron or Hermione. I was so angry and sad about Umbridge breaking her wand, but at the same time I was being so selfish, wanting to use it as an excuse to finally agree to be your girlfriend.” She sighed heavily. “I couldn’t face you, so I ran. And then I was so ashamed that I had run away that I kept running all week. I was actually sort of glad we had this detention together because it’s forced us to be in the same room without anyone else around.”
Harry laughed softly. It was a mirthless laugh, but a laugh all the same. “You know,” he said, “before Umbridge’s trial, I almost would’ve paid Snape to lock us in detention together. Today, though, all I could think about was ways I might be able to get out of it.” He looked away from Ginny’s face.
“Well, either way, we’re stuck here now,” she said, laying a hand gently on his arm. “So if you want to talk about anything, I’m willing to listen.”
Acting on a sudden impulse, Harry pulled her in for a hug. “Thank you,” he whispered into her hair. “I was so afraid I’d lost you forever.”
“You’ll never lose me, Harry,” she answered. “I may act like a git sometimes, but I always come around.” She chuckled and gave him a playful nudge. “Sort of like you.”
Harry spent the next hour telling her all about the trial, and by the time he finished they were sitting on the floor, resting against the wall and leaning on one another.
“So what’s the plan now?” Ginny asked at last.
Harry shrugged. “There isn’t one, really. It’s not like there’s anything I can do about what happened. I guess I’ll just get back to work on my classes so I can finish school.” He looked thoughtful for a moment before giving her a sideways grin and adding, “Of course, I might try getting myself a girlfriend at some point along the way.”
Ginny sighed and leaned into him even more. “I’d love for it to be me,” she whispered. “But not yet.”
“Why not?” Harry asked, slipping his arm around her shoulders and pulling her closer.
“Tom,” Ginny said simply.
“You need to learn to trust me first?” he asked.
“Yeah,” she replied quietly.
“Out of curiosity, how come you were able to go out with Michael and Dean without getting over your trust issues?”
Ginny closed her eyes and laid her head on his shoulder. “Because I wasn’t in- I mean, they’re nice enough blokes and everything, but... I don’t know; I always sort of knew that things wouldn’t last with either of them no matter what I did. But I don’t want to mess things up with you.”
“How can I help?” Harry asked quietly.
“Just keep doing what you’re doing right now.”
Harry laughed softly, and this time it sounded happy, rather than forced. “You want me to keep my arm around you at all times?”
“Prat,” Ginny laughed, swatting him lightly on the chest. “I meant you should talk to me and listen to what I have to say.” She slowly got to her feet, dusting herself off as she looked forlornly at the pile of filthy cauldrons. “It’s too bad we won’t be together for our next detention.”
Harry stood up as well. “What makes you think there’ll be a next detention?”
Ginny rolled her eyes at him. “Honestly, Harry, you can be so daft sometimes. We haven’t cleaned any of these cauldrons; Snape’s sure to give us another detention - probably several more, actually.”
“Oh, that,” Harry said with a relieved grin. “Don’t worry about that.”
“What do you mean, don’t-”
“Scourgify.” He waved his hands at the pile of cauldrons, and in seconds they were all sparkling clean.
Ginny gaped at him. “How come you didn’t do that earlier?” she demanded.
Harry shrugged sheepishly. “I thought you hated me. Scrubbing them by hand seemed like a good way to keep my mind off the fact that we were locked in here together.”
Ginny shook her head at him in mock exasperation, but she was grinning all the same. “I see your point. What should we do with the water?” she asked. “Because you know Snape’s going to be suspicious if he gets back and the buckets are still full.”
Harry’s brow furrowed in thought. “I didn’t think of that,” he muttered. “Any ideas?”
Ginny smirked at him. “Maybe,” she said coyly as she sidled up to her bucket of soapy water. She bent down over it and without warning threw a handful of water into Harry’s face.
“What was that for?” Harry spluttered as Ginny dissolved into a fit of giggles.
“What, you mean this?” she asked innocently as she splashed him in the face again.
“You realize this means war, right?” Harry said as he picked up his bucket and began stalking toward her.
“Harry, wait,” Ginny pleaded as she backed away from him. “All I did was splash you a little bit.”
Harry just nodded as he moved closer and closer. Suddenly, he threw the contents of the bucket forward. He must have done something to give away his plan, though, because Ginny ducked and ran past him to get out of the way just in time. The water splashed harmlessly onto the desks and floor. Harry turned around only to be hit squarely in the face and chest with the entire contents of Ginny’s bucket.
“You think that’s really funny, don’t you?” he asked as he looked down at Ginny, who was doubled over in hysterical laughter. “You know, I wasn’t going to do this because it didn’t seem quite fair, but... Aguamenti!” A powerful jet of icy cold water burst from his outstretched hand, knocking Ginny to the floor and drenching her through to the bone. By the time he ended the spell, she was no longer laughing.
“Truce?” she asked weakly as she got to her feet.
“Truce,” said Harry. He looked around at the mess they had created in the Potions classroom and added, “I suppose I ought to clean all this up before Snape gets back.”
“P-probably,” Ginny agreed with a nod. Harry noticed that her teeth were beginning to chatter.
“Erm... do you know a good Drying Charm?” he asked sheepishly. “You look like you’re freezing, but I just realized I don’t know how to dry you off.”
Ginny smiled at him, and he was startled to see that her lips had a very slight bluish tinge to them. “M-Mum uses S-S-Siccus,” she answered through her chattering teeth.
“Right,” Harry muttered. Fervently hoping that this Drying Charm was simple enough that he would be able to do it on his first attempt, he held out both hands toward her and said, “Siccus.” To his surprise and relief, Ginny was instantly dry, although she still looked quite cold. He quickly dried himself off using the same spell, and began looking around for some way to warm her up.
“H-Harry? W-what are you d-doing?” she asked, her teeth still chattering.
Instead of answering, Harry grabbed a small cauldron and conjured up a fire inside of it. “Here,” he told her. “Get yourself warmed up.” Ginny smiled gratefully at him and huddled up close to the cauldron, allowing the heat from the fire to warm her freezing body while Harry walked around the room Vanishing soap suds and puddles of water. By the time he was finished, Ginny was quite warm and comfortable again.
“Done with the fire?” Harry asked as he walked back over to her.
“Yeah,” Ginny answered. Harry noted with satisfaction that her teeth had stopped chattering and her lips had returned to their normal color. He quickly extinguished the fire and placed the cauldron next to the others.
“So, what do we do now?” he asked.
Ginny shrugged. “We wait for Snape to come back. We might as well get comfortable, too, because he probably won’t be back ‘til morning.”
“What?” Harry demanded. “But we’ve got a match in the morning! He can’t keep us out all night on the night before a Quidditch match.”
“Harry, this is Snape we’re talking about,” Ginny said patiently, as though she were explaining something very simple to a very small child. “We’re playing Slytherin tomorrow, and he’s going to do anything he can to give his team the advantage.”
Harry sighed. “You’re probably right. Well, on the bright side, at least the cauldrons are clean. Now we just need to get some rest.”
Ginny looked thoughtful for a moment. “Maybe you could try and conjure up some-” She broke off talking as two voices became audible in the corridor outside the classroom.
“Who’s that?” Harry whispered as they both hurried over to the door to try and catch some of the heated conversation.
Ginny shook her head and shrugged to indicate that she didn’t know.
As the voices came closer, Harry was able to distinguish one of them as Professor McGonagall.
“... lock them in there all night?” she raged.
The other voice responded, but it was too quiet to make out the words.
“Need I remind you, Severus, that you are already on shaky ground with the Headmaster with regards to Mr. Potter?” McGonagall snapped. Harry and Ginny glanced at each other in surprise; neither of them had had any idea that Snape was in trouble with Dumbledore at all.
They were now close enough that Harry could hear Snape reply, “Yes, I know very well that the Headmaster has long been willing to overlook Potter’s blatant disregard for everyone and everything other than himself. You are, of course, welcome to supervise him and Miss Weasley tonight, but I expect their detention to be completed before they are allowed to play in their little Quidditch match tomorrow morning.”
Snape and McGonagall were now right outside the door, and Harry and Ginny retreated to the middle of the room in hopes that it wouldn’t be completely obvious that they had been eavesdropping.
“I doubt that will be of any concern, though,” Snape added with a touch of malignant amusement. “With the way those two have been acting lately, they probably haven’t touched those cauldrons except to try beating each other over the head with them. That is, of course, the reason I confiscated their wands - I didn’t want them cursing each other when they were supposed to be working.”
Making a quick decision, Harry swept Ginny into his arms and pulled her close. “Just play along,” he whispered in response to her surprised expression as he quickly began messing up her hair. A moment later, the lock clicked, the door swung open, and Harry released Ginny and jumped away. Glancing over at her, he had to suppress a grin as he saw a slow blush creeping up her cheeks. As he looked at the two professors in the doorway, he knew immediately that his plan had worked: they thought they had just caught two students snogging in detention.
“Fifty points from Gryffindor for engaging in such... revolting activities instead of doing the task that was set for you,” Snape snapped immediately.
Harry just smiled benignly at him and, gesturing toward the spotless cauldrons, replied, “We finished a bit early, sir. We were merely waiting for you to return so we could head back to our common room.” Over Snape’s shoulder, he caught a glimpse of Professor McGonagall struggling valiantly to suppress a smile.
Snape gaped, wide-eyed, at the pile of cauldrons for a full thirty seconds before narrowing his eyes menacingly and rounding on Harry. “You used magic to clean those, didn’t you Potter? You must have, because there is no way anyone could have cleaned so many cauldrons by hand in so little time.”
“Didn’t you just inform me that you had confiscated both of these students’ wands, Severus?” McGonagall asked harshly. “I hardly think that either of them could have performed any cleaning spells without them. And I’ll be awarding those fifty points back to Gryffindor for such remarkable speed in completing this detention.”
Snape was livid, and for a few seconds, Harry was certain that the pulsating blood vessel in his forehead was going to burst. Finally, after regaining enough composure to speak, he hissed, “You will return with your Head of House to your common room immediately,” as he reluctantly turned over Harry and Ginny’s wands.
Harry casually slipped his arm around Ginny’s shoulders and they began following Professor McGonagall out of the classroom. Just before passing through the doorway, he turned around to face the Potions Master, still with his arm firmly around Ginny’s shoulders.
“Professor Snape?” he called out.
Snape looked up at him with an expression of utmost loathing, but did not respond.
“I just wanted to say thank you, sir,” Harry continued in an extremely polite and deferential voice. “If you hadn’t put us in detention together, we’d probably still hate one another. So thank you, Professor.”
“Yes, thank you, sir,” Ginny added before biting her lip to suppress a giggle at the look of mixed hatred and horror on Snape’s face. Without giving him a chance to respond, they hurriedly scooted out of the classroom and caught up with Professor McGonagall. The walk back to Gryffindor Tower seemed to take forever as both students fought desperately to contain their mirth, and as soon as the fat lady’s portrait swung closed behind them, they collapsed on the floor in a fit of hysterical laughter.
“I can’t believe you tricked them into thinking we’d been snogging,” Ginny gasped.
Harry, who was still laughing too hard to speak, just nodded his head.
“And then, when we thanked Snape for putting us in detention together.... I’m shocked I didn’t lose it sooner.”
As their laughter began to die down, Harry took a deep breath and said, “I know what you mean. Thanks for playing along.”
“Any time, Harry,” Ginny replied with a smile. “I suppose we ought to get to bed, huh?”
Harry nodded. “Quidditch tomorrow. We wouldn’t want to be tired for the match.”
“Goodnight, then,” said Ginny, surprising him with a tight hug.
“Goodnight,” Harry whispered into her hair before they retreated to their dormitories. A few short minutes later, a smile played upon Harry’s lips as he slipped into a dream about a beautiful girl with flaming red hair. For the first time since the trial, Dolores Umbridge’s wand was the furthest thing from his mind.