AUTHOR' NOTE: 19/11/2013

SO, I haven't been on this site for a while, and then I remember, hey! I used to write stories! Trying to figure out my password and email after about seven years incognito is not what you'd call fun, but I did it, and then bothered to re-read some of my stories. Some were cringe-worthy, though at the time were totally hip as I wasn't nearly as cynical as I am now, whilst others I was pleasantly surprised about, since I have not an iota of creativity left.

This story has thus, been slightly edited and updated, since its final upload, and this is the only author's note you'll get. So I don't own anything, the characters may be a little OOC (do they still use that term nowadays?) but hey, yolo (yep, were past the noughties now), I commonly use the letter U in between O and R in words and S's instead of Z;s as I use British English, so don't harp too much about spelling, I'm not American! and I haven't even read the final two Harry Potter books. Yep. One of those people.

The Sweet Escape

CHAPTER 1

The Ambush of the Slightly-out-of-Proportioned Chocolate Frogs.

DO NOT ENTER: GIANT SWEETS ON THE WAR PATH. OBVIOUSLY ADDING A MUGGLE GROWTH ENHANCMENT HORMONE INTO THE MIXTURE WAS, IN HIND SIGHT, A BAD IDEA.

~ Sincerely Fred and George Weasley; founders of WWW

Unfortunately, for Harry and Ginny they had missed the sign: and most would- it was only two hands width in length and hidden amongst an overgrown Lily Weed, and some other decidedly unpleasant shrubbery- which clearly, was the intent of its mischievous creators.

"Harry, I highly doubt that hiding in a run down confectionary factory will solve your aficionado problems! They'll find us and we'll be trapped! And then what? We'll ward them off with countless numbers of treats? Oh yes, stay back crazed female! This chocolate frog is not as sweet as you may think! Its 70% cocoa! Harry!"

"I was really hoping you'd see this as an enlightening experience," Harry sighed, ducked under a lose plank of wood.

Ginny scowled and bobbed under the plank Harry was holding up for her. "Oh I'm sure to be enlightened Harry. Some sort of wizard owns this building, so who knows what sort of charms and traps have been conjured in there to ward off Muggles. Not to mention it looks older than Merlin himself and could at any moment collapse over us, leading to our ultimate demise with earwax flavoured Bertie Bott Beans as our witness."

"I'm more concerned about the rabid pack of females chasing after us, and one decidedly manly one at that!"

Ginny rolled her eyes, "Oh come on Harry; they're only girls with a crush. You've faced Voldemort countless times and yet you're more afraid of adolescent girls."

"Voldemort didn't find it necessary to pinch my bottom or try to charm my pants off- and by that I mean in the literal sense. No, we are going to be cowards for once and hide. My bottom can't take any more bruising." Ginny, knowing he would not be swayed, glared at him and stalked ahead, back straight her brilliant red bobbing wildly, looking for a door to the building that wouldn't crush her. Harry smiled at his friend and followed.

It had been six years since they had left Hogwarts to find the Horcruxes; five years since the final battle, in which many lives were lost, including those of: Fred Weasley, Severus Snape, Lupin and Tonks.

Alas, here he was now 22, one of the top Aurors in the Ministry, being chased by a dozen or so female fans, some of which had been enamoured with his courage and dominance at defeating the Dark Lord, and others he regrettably obtained during a Quidditch charity match to mark the fifth anniversary for all those brave souls whose lives were lost during the war.

Unsurprisingly he was the seeker and won the match for his team thirty minutes into the game by pulling off a Wronksi Feint that entranced his already captivated fans. Ron had played the Keeper and Hermione, who had no choice but to master the skill of flying, with Ron's benevolent but utterly unhelpful guidance, in order to join the Ministry, had played a Chaser. Suffice to say she didn't play too badly, but a monkey on stilts balancing on a broom one hundred feet in the air would've done better.

Ron had told her this and she had turned him into a cockroach. His mother hadn't known, and tried to kill the insect; and would've succeeded had Harry not turned him back, laughing all the while.

And so, the Great Potter: The Boy Who Lived and Would Not Die, was in hiding with his friend trying to get away from the female fanatics. Harry thought hiding in a rundown factory would suffice; Ginny on the other hand was less than impressed.

"Harry," she turned to him, folding her arms in that haughty manner she was accustomed to; it would've frightened a lesser man, but Harry stood tall.

"Yes Ginevra?"

"Don't be smart. Have you noticed that there are no doors in this ramshackle factory?" She gestured to the walls flamboyantly; Ron had rightfully called her mental.

He hadn't thought of that. He assumed all wizard factories to be the same as the Muggle ones: clearly he was mistaken. Shit on sticks. "I'm sure if we look around there'll be a door somewhere. There cannot not be a door!"

"It may take me a while to grasp that," she added dryly, and fired a spell at the wall and cursed. "These walls are literally unbreakable!"

He walked over to the fiery redhead and took away the wand. "You keep hitting the wall with explosive curses Gin and the whole place may just fall apart."

Ginny started to panic. This was not good at all! Stuck in a place alone with Harry, she didn't know how to handle it. Wasn't it enough that he had been her crush for over a decade and her love for half of that, that now she was likely to be trapped with the wizard for Merlin knows how long?!

The last time she was close to him was when he was teaching her how to pull off the Wronksi Feint, before her tryouts for the Holyhead Harpies. The close contact had been unbearable for her, so she made the excuse that she was getting vertigo and to continue another time; though damned if she ever would. She knew it was wrong, she could not fall for her brother's best friend…again. They had decided to separate at the end of Hogwarts when Harry left to find the Horcruxes and knew that the best way to maintain a good friendship was to forget the past. If only it were that easy.

She hadn't said a word when Harry started to date Cho Chang, though inside she was churning. She comforted him when they broke up, celebrating his misfortune. Hermione thought they should grow up and marry already: Ron told her to mind her own business. So she again made him vomit slugs for a week.

In her trance, Ginny had bumped into a wall. That's all there seem to be, she thought hysterically, walls! She squealed when hard hands steadied her.

"You alright Gin?" Harry asked concerned, yet was unable to hide the laughter in his eyes.

"I'm fine, why?" she quickly stepped out of his way; no need to encourage those feelings to start up again. Looking around all she could see were the derelict grey walls of the building, covered with weeds and rust, and undoubtedly a few creepy-crawlies. Regardless, she leaned back against, what surprisingly, was a spongy wall. "Wha-"

Harry heard a yelp and turned to where he thought Ginny stood. She was nowhere to be seen. "Ginny? Ah… GINNY?!"

No sound. He strode over to the wall and gently touched it. It was spongy and slimy at the same time, and he wasn't surprised when his hand went through. "Well I bet that's violated some building regulations. You there Gin?"

"Yes! Why did we have to come into this bloody factory Harry!" she spat. She saw Harry step through the wall and rubbed at her sore bottom on the floor. "What are you laughing at?"

Harry suddenly stoped chuckling. He thought he saw a flicker of movement to the far right of Ginny. "Lumos," he said and the room suddenly lit up. He stopped dead in his tracks: half of the room was filled with giant chocolate frogs about a metre high.

"Harry what is it?" he helped her up, his gaze unwavering at the giant frogs. She dusted herself off. "Harry, we need to get out of here!"

"Shut up for a second Gin," he whispered and she turned around.

"Oh my God."

"It's a giant chocolate frog army," he muttered and would've laughed at the sheer stupidity of it but found he couldn't. I doubt anyone would have, had they been facing a hundred giant edible amphibians.

"I suppose now's a bad time to tell you I don't have my wand Harry," Ginny whispered, slightly hysterical. "And I was never particularly good at wand-less spells…"

Harry cursed, trying to imagine the headlines in the papers. "The Boy who never dies killed during a Chocolate Frog Assault"; "No need to fear the Dark Lord, Dark Chocolate Frogs are on the war path".

He grabbed Ginny by the waist and together they moved sideways; cringing as the tiny black eyes followed them closely. "They're alive."

Harry sighed, "Nice observation Gin. Try thinking of something useful to say next time."

She turned in his arms and glared at him, "Well how about: Look Harry there's a door over the other side of the slightly-out-of-proportion amphibians. How about we eat our way out?"

His grip on her waist tightened, "Try with less sarcasm next time." He handed her his wand, "Take this; I'm going to try something out."

Regretfully, Harry let Ginny go and walked slowly toward the chocolate frogs. They didn't move at all, he waved a hand in front of one of them; nothing whatsoever.

"Is that some sort of cultural greeting known only to the Chocolate Frogs of the Factory your performing? I don't think establishing a relationship with these monsters is going to get you anywhere. Squashed, perhaps, but that's about it."

"Gin, I think they're here for decoration, they're not real. See look," he touched one of them his hand going straight through the chocolate. "Nothing."

Suddenly a huge tongue slashed out at Harry and wrapped itself around his arms and chest. Ginny screamed, "Not real Harry!? Oh Merlins Melons! What am I going to do?"

Harry struggled for breath as the chocolate tongue suffocated him, "Standing…. there…is not…" the tongue tightened itself around him, "going to HELP!"

"Think Ginevra, think!" She ran through a dozen spells in her head, surprisingly none would counter attack a confectionary ambush. The surrounding frogs started to stir and make their way towards her, fortunately very slowly.

Meanwhile Harry was having a hard enough time trying to breathe; the thick tongue of the frog felt like it was crushing his bones and each breath was a struggle. He had tried to bite through the chocolate, and it had worked for a time but after a while he started feeling sick. Hurry up Gin, he thought and pushed at it.

"Wingardium Leviosa!" she cried and hurled a frog against the wall. It broke apart in sharp shards of cocoa, which grazed her skin. "Well that's not a good one," she looked over at Harry who was putting up a fair fight, but he wouldn't last much longer. Chocolate…nice to eat, no doubt, but I'm not going to eat my way through all these.

"Incendio!" the frog holding Harry started to melt as did all the others from the heat, leaving a thick puddle of sticky chocolate on the floor.

Harry rose to his feet, spitting the goo from his mouth. "Took you long enough!" he spluttered, covered in thick chocolate. "Oh Shit." The melted frogs started to reform, larger and darker than before: but now into one huge frog.

"Well who'd have thought, that you melt dozens of milk chocolate frogs and in return, form a giant dark chocolate toad…" her voice somewhat drifting, rather inappropriately, into thought.

Great, thought Harry, of all the times to have a thoughtful deliberation, she does it in the most inappropriate of times. He grabbed at her hand and started for the archway across the room. "Now is not the time to use your brain. Let's go, Gin!"

He yanked at her hand, and they started running for the door. Ginny looked behind her to see the bulbous three-meter high toad leaping mightily towards them. "Oh shit."

Harry turned, only to curse himself. "Who the hell made this place?"

The master toad let out a sickening sound and lashed its tongue out at them; narrowly missing Ginny - and instead came crashing down onto a lose pillar. The ceiling began to shake.

"There's no way we can out run it Harry, it's too fast."

She was right, he had to think fast. He stopped suddenly, Ginny crashing into him. "I didn't mean we had to stop and welcome death!"

He quickly pulled out a tiny broomstick from his pocket and muttered a spell causing it to enlarge greatly. His Lighting 6000 was the top of the market broomstick going at least 300km per half hour. "Get on!"

Ginny was muttering incomprehensibly all while getting on the broomstick. Harry ushered her in front of him and pulled her tightly towards him. "Isn't there a more suitable way than flying Harry?"

He whispered in her ear, causing her to shiver. "Would you like to stand around to find out?" He cursed as the huge tongue lashed out again.

Ginny screamed as Harry kicked off on his broom, she clutched at his hands tightly and closed her eyes. "It's alright Ginny, we're gaining speed."

It thrust its tongue out high into the air, intercepting Harry's flight path and hit into them.

"Son of a-" Harry started and strained to get control of the broom. Ginny shut her eyes tightly as the broom hurled towards the ground; it wasn't supposed to end like this! Harry then jumped on his broom ready to perform a Wronski Feint.

"Harry!" gaining control Ginny opened her eyes. She was seething with rage and was known for her nasty temper. "That's it Harry, give me your wand!"

Harry who had only just managed to control the broom was too distracted to register her command. He looked behind them and was surprised to see the frog standing stock-still. He laughed and turned around again, only to see a dead end of the corridor. He quickly stopped the broom short of hitting the wall and turned to face the frog.

Looking back at it, it was a rather amusing situation. All that was needed were cowboy hats, some guns and a rolling ball of hay, to represent a familiar American western scene. Ginny was not the least bit amused and snatched the wand off Harry.

After a muttered spell, the amphibian began to shrink and change shape. She smiled and turned to Harry, who was staring at the crumbling ceiling. "A little transfiguration should do the trick."

Before Harry could comment, the huge toad had changed shape indeed: this time a giant cockroach took its place. "Um Ginny, we're not trying to transfigure Ron here. No need for the rodent-"

"What? Oh bullocks…" she turned to see a huge giant chocolate cockroach, waving its antennas around frantically. She looked at Harry and laughed shakily. "Whoops. That's not a table..."

"Ah…" Harry groaned yanking Ginny and himself back onto the broom. "Maybe if you get rid of the legs and eyes, and body and turned it into a table it would be." The new figure thrust and moved about, trying desperately to get hold of the intruders. It fired sickly goo at them in the air. "Oh nice."

Ginny thought hard again; it was becoming a rather bothersome habit, as she wasn't getting paid to do it. As a multi-positioned Quidditch player, she was known for her brutal strategic skills and her logical approach to tough situations, so why couldn't she think? The simplest of situations: well if you called being attacked by a chocolate frog-then toad- and-now-cockroach was simple: she could not function the slightest. Then an idea, an absolutely terrible idea occurred to her: heck she may as well give it a shot.

"Harry, confuse it a little. Cockroaches can't get up if they're on their backs, it'll at least give us a chance to escape." So much for one of Hogwarts most brilliant minds, though clearly she was no Hermione.

"That is so totally," he strained his muscles as he tried to avoid another splurge of goo; "preposterous…but I think it may work. Hold on."

Harry flew straight above the pest's head and begun to circle it. The roach spun around trying to hit them with its gunk, missing continually and hitting the ceiling: which started to give way.

"Hurry up Harry, or we'll be crushed."

After a mischievous smile, Harry came straight at the pest full force. Neither moving out of the way, Ginny sensed that there was going to be quite a large collision. She grabbed at Harry's hand, who whispered in her ear telling her to trust him. She had done that in the first place and look where they ended up.

Just before hitting the beast, Harry fired out a spell and it fell back: its legs wildly flicking around in the air. Just as they were about to land, the ceiling above them gave way: huge shards of brick and mortar falling at deadly speeds.

Ginny looked up, half in a daze, and wiping soot from her eyes. "Oh this really isn't good."

Not it's not, he agreed and flew up into the giant hole that had caved in.

"Um Harry, we're supposed to get away from the crumbling ceiling, not go to the source!"

"If you hadn't noticed," he began, narrowly dodging a falling rock. "Staying on this level would be suicide. There were no doors, just a huge, ugly chocolate frog! Would it not be better to go up a level then get crushed?"

He posed a point and she remained silent all the way up. They were supposed to try and find away to get out of this place, not explore the upper levels to see what other mysteries the place held. Passing through the gap, Harry found a safe spot to land. "Well that was fun."

She turned and glared at him seated behind her. She held his head and shook it, "Fun? FUN! Harry are you mad?" she quickly let go of him, as a whole wad of melted chocolate fell on her hand. "You're covered in it!"

He gave her a hand getting off the broom, "Surprisingly Ginny, I'm not sure you noticed, but I almost got swallowed by a frog; a chocolate one at that. Which would probably signify the huge amount of melted chocolate covering my body." He took off his shirt, and unconsciously flexed his muscles: Ginny of course noticed and turned away quickly.

"Now where are we?"

He took out his wand and shrunk his battered broomstick. "No idea. But-" he started and licked off some of the chocolate of his hand. "This is nice. Shame it tried to kill us."

Ginny stood in the center of the room. There was no way she was going near any walls; heaven knows what other surprises this place posed. She took a deep breath and tried to stay clam. "What spell did you use on it just now?"

His eyes grew dark, "Not one you'd want to know Ginny."

She left it at that; she knew better than to question his motives, so decided to assess the current situation: they were in shit. "We have to get out of here Harry; but I don't think we can."

"Where there's a will there's a way, Ginny." Harry casually said, rubbing the chocolate off his body. Ginny noticed how it stuck in the crevices of his muscles; she swallowed. Harry wandered ahead.

"Yes and where there's a will: there's also a corpse," Ginny muttered and followed along; or tried to until the floor beneath her gave way and she landed again on her backside. "It's not funny Harry!" she stood up in the tiny room, her head almost hitting the ceiling. "And if you're not careful, you'll be the one writing out yours soon enough!"

SouredSweetie