Chocolate ♕ Ginny Weasley

six

Six;

Patricia could think of numerous other things she'd rather be doing than cleaning rusty cauldrons without magic on a Saturday morning.

She could be completing her Transfiguration homework. She could be doing extra reading in the library. She could be sitting by the lake and enjoying the abnormally good weather. She could be having fun.

Instead, her arms were burning as she scrubbed cauldron after cauldron, beads of sweat forming on her forehead. Beside her, Ginny had gritted her teeth, her face as red as her hair. Snape supervised them idly, reading the Daily Prophet while they slaved away.

He'd given them fifteen cauldrons to clean. So far, in an hour, Patricia had finished three. Ginny had nearly finished her fourth. It would take them another hour to finish the rest - more, if the aching in Patricia's arms didn't subside.

An hour into their detention, they were interrupted by Filch. The caretaker approached Snape, and the two exchanged a few words - Filch looking livid - before Snape stood.

"You two keep working. I'd better see you still here when I return," he said coolly, and left the room.

As soon as the door closed behind the Potions master, Ginny sighed and dropped her cleaning material, wiping a hand across her forehead and wincing. Patricia collapsed back in her desk, closing her eyes and exhaling heavily. 

Lazily, Patricia lolled her hair to look at the redhead. 

"How are your arms?" she asked quietly.

Ginny grimaced. "They hurt like hell. What about you?"

"Just as bad."

Ginny groaned and buried her head in her arms. In their shared agony, they'd quite forgotten that they were supposed to be rivals as dictated by their houses. Right then, they had a common ill will against Snape.

"We won't be out of here until the end of the day at this rate, my arms can't take this for much longer," Ginny moaned. "How do Muggles live without magic?"

Patricia shrugged. "I don't have the faintest clue."

The brunette let her arms hang limply by her sides. As she did, her hand felt a lump in her robes. Patricia's eyes widened. She'd automatically put her wand in her robes that morning despite Snape forbidding the use of magic!

Glancing at the door, Patricia whipped out her wand, a devilish grin wide on her lips.

"Let's speed up the process a little, shall we?" she quipped as Ginny gasped.

Ginny grinned back, her eyes sparkling mischievously. Patricia winked back and pointed her wand at three of the cauldrons in turn. "Scourgify!" 

With three waves of her wand, Patricia made the three cauldrons clean themselves at once.

"I daren't do more," she told Ginny. "Snape wasn't paying close enough attention to see how many we'd gone through, but he'd get suspicious if they're done too quickly. I don't fancy more detentions with Snape than necessary. But I can make things a little bit easier." With a second incantation and wave of her wand, half of the rust on the current cauldrons they were working on disappeared.

"You're a lifesaver," Ginny breathed as Patricia stowed her wand away.

They started on their cauldrons again, and not a second too soon; Snape returned not a second later, considerably bad tempered.

For the remaining hour, Patricia's arms screamed in agony and her face was as red as a tomato, but there was a secret talisman that kept her going, and she had to suppress a grin several times, especially when she made eye contact with Ginny.

When they had finished and Snape their work acceptable, the two girls left the room as calmly as possible. When they left the dungeon far enough behind them they both burst into a chorus of laughter.

"I can't believe we got away with that!" Ginny chortled. "That was brilliant, Patricia!"

Patricia went red, and it was nothing to do with the exertion she'd just been put through - it was a mixture of embarrassment and the fact Ginny had called her by her first name for the first time.

She tried to cover up how flustered she was with a shrug. "I just made things a little more bearable."

They met eyes, and they were grinning, and everything from the previous year may as well have never happened.

From that moment on, Patricia Bolton and Ginny Weasley were pretty much inseparable.