Put Your Curse In Reverse [Part 2]

Chapter 1 - Dragons

Harry was kneeling on a particularly damp patch of tilled earth and dripping with sweat. To make matters worse, he was elbow-deep in a bucket of eel eyes. He wouldn't have admitted it to anybody, but he felt disgusted to the point of nausea.

"Come on!"

With baited breath, he withdrew his arm for what felt like the hundredth time. There was a sickening squelch as his arm released from the eel eyes that did nothing to help his queasiness. Harry slowly unfurled his fingers, staring down at the tiny eyeballs grouped in his palm. White, white, white, white. He groaned, twisted his wrist so the eyes plopped back into the bucket, and immediately thrust his hand back in. He began withdrawing eel eyes at a rapid pace, searching for the one he needed, and then immediately re-submerging his hand when he inevitably didn't find it.

"Oh," he heard. He paused and glanced behind himself; Ginny had arrived, a glass of wonderful, chilled butterbeer in hand. Harry reached up with his eel-less hand and impatiently pushed his sopping hair out of his eyes. His wife was appraising him with a smirk. "Do you and the eel eyes need a bit of privacy? Are you having a moment? You know, with the—" with her free hand, she mimed shoving her hand into the bucket and pulling it back out. Harry probably would've laughed had she made that joke thirty minutes ago, but he was disgusted, frustrated, and dying of thirst. He fell back onto his bottom and reached for the towel at his side. Ginny approached and settled down beside him as he wiped his arm off, his lip curled with disgust.

"Ugh!" she cried. "God, those smell awful!"

"They feel even worse," he informed her darkly. He reached a hand out for his glass; she passed it to him immediately, probably sensing how lightheaded he was. He immediately began downing the drink as quickly as he could. He felt a cool mist drift over his burning skin a moment later, and when he glanced to the side, he saw Ginny was orchestrating the cool-down with her wand, her eyes glued on the bucket of eel eyes.

"Remind me," she began, "you're looking for a yellow one?"

"Yes," he groaned. "Neville said there should be loads in there. But I've yet to find one. I thought about dumping them all out, but that'd ruin them."

"Accio?"

"Tried it. Horrible. Horrible." The haunted look he sent her must've told her all she needed to know because she grimaced and didn't press the matter further. Harry slid over in the wet dirt to lean his back against the wheelbarrow; he let his head fall back and his eyes shut as he continued sipping at his butterbeer, taking smaller sips now to keep from actually vomiting. He was briefly disappointed when the cool mist from Ginny's wand stopped tracing over his exposed extremities, but he assumed she needed to get back into the house before their lunch guests arrived. However, he heard her voice a moment later.

"Yellow?"

"Mmhmm."

"Like a sort of mustard-yellow?"

"Right."

"How many?"

"Just the one. Neville said it's the next step since these sodding, bloody slugs wouldn't keep away with the mashed up white ones...oof!" His words shattered into a surprised exhalation as he felt his wife fall down into his lap. Having assumed she was preparing to walk away, he hadn't anticipated it. He lifted his head and peered at her. She was leaning forward, her face lovely, freckled, and mischievous—and only a few inches from his. Her hair was spread around her and doing a decent job of blocking them from the sun. She held something up in front of his glasses a second later, so close that it took him a moment. When he focused on and processed what he was looking at, he gaped.