Chapter One: I Hate That I Have To Put Up With You

"So, what are your subjects of choice? I see Transfiguration, Herbology, Divination, and Charms!"

"Is that enough?"

"Yes, it is."

"Awesome! Thanks!"

"Wait, before you go, Professor Flitwick here is running a Charms extension course. You really should consider taking it. Your scores are amazing and it would be enough NEWTs to get into the Ministry."

"Really? I'd love to!"

"Wonderful! Here's your time table. Good luck!"

...I bet you're wondering what that was all about. First I must introduce myself! I'm Lavender, Lavender Brown, and I have a very interesting tale to tell you. Care to listen? Okay, so it isn't that great. It doesn't have dragons, or knights, but there's a little bit of magic! It's a tale about how I met my husband, and how I fell for him.

I'm a witch, and a fully qualified one now. When I was girl I was particularly gifted at Charms, so I took the extension course, mainly for the extra points. Little did I knowthat I wasn't the only one.

"Hey, Lavender," my good friend Parvati said happily, skipping down the Great Hall towards me the second morning of my 6th year. "Are you okay?" She stared at my nervous face as I barely lifted the fork holding bacon.

"I'm okay," I said hastily. Parvati looked at me, seeing through my blank face. I sighed, realizing that there was no use hiding it from Parvati. By our 3rd year we knew each other back to front. We were really good friends. I think we had a better relationship than she did with her twin sister.

"Okay," I said, placing the fork on the plate in front of me and taking a deep breath. "I have my first extension Charms class today, and Pansy Parkinson came up to me today with her gang of girls and told me Draco Malfoy is going to be joining me."

"What?" gasped Parvati. I knew this would be her reaction, but I just couldn't hide anything from her. As it so happens though, her reaction was worse than I thought it would be. She began shouting and screaming the place down and even stormed up to Professor Flitwick, the teacher for this class, demanding that he remove Draco from the class. All she ended up with was a detention from our head, Professor McGonagall, and taunting from Pansy.

"I was afraid that would happen," I mumbled, as she approached me with all this news. "I didn't want to tell you anything but..."

"I forced it out of you, I know," she said guiltily. "It's okay, Lavender. It's only scrubbing the trophies in the trophy room, nothing too hard."

"Not hard for you?" gasped a voice. It was Ron Weasley, the boy I had a secret crush on. I never told anyone about that, not even Parvati. I never really thought about it much after my second day of the 6th year, so that's probably why.

"What are you talking about?" Parvati snapped. She hated Ron. She thought he was a loudmouth and arrogant toad. I think that might have been another reason I didn't tell her about how I felt for Ron.

"I had to do it in our 2nd year," he stated, cringing at the memory. "It was not fun at all. I don't know how Muggles can stand doing it. It must be so hard to be a Muggle. I just don't know how they can possibly manage to do such labor. Come to think of it, how can they live without magic?"

Parvati and I just rolled our eyes. Ron Weasley tended to get a bit dramatic over things, especially when he was hungry. There were only 5 minutes till lessons began, so naturally all food had to go. Ron had obviously slept in, judging by the shabbiness of his robes, which looked like he'd landed in them by falling off his bed.

"It's not that hard you know," said the voice of Hermione Granger (apostrophe, comma). "I managed it perfectly fine as a child." I smirked, and Hermione noticed me. "Oh, hello, Lavender." Even though we never hung around, and I thought Hermione was a little know-it-all, she was okay. Her smart nature certainly came in handy.

"I heard about the bad news," she added, frowning. "I'm so glad I didn't take the class. I just couldn't stand being stuck in a classroom, learning with Malfoy." Parvati and I nodded in agreement, but Ron just stared at us with a blank look on his face, as if something was puzzling him.

"Why didn't you take it?" he asked, which clearly explained his confusion. At that point I began to wonder why little know-it-all Hermione didn't take the class. She was definitely way smarter than me. It didn't make sense.

"I have the max number of NEWTs I can take," she answered gruffly. Ron looked like he was about to ask something, but Hermione glared at him. "The time turners are broken, we've been through this."

A loud bell sounded and we all looked at each other in alarm, realizing how much time must have passed. It was now time for class and we would be late if we didn't get a move on.

"I'll see you all later," I said, grabbing my bag hastily and waving at the group. I had no intentions of being late to such an important class, despite having to put up with Draco. Maybe he wasn't as bad as they made him out to be. However, even now I realized what a stupid thought that was. He wasn't just bad. He was an unbelievable nightmare!

I stepped into the Charms classroom, which had changed a bit, obviously for the occasion. All the typical rectangular desks that were usually there had vanished. Instead, there was a round table with three chairs around it, two already filled by the bodies of Draco and Professor Flitwick. I sighed. I was annoyed with myself, realizing that I was 10 minutes late for the lesson. How much had I already missed?

"Sorry sir," I said hastily, throwing myself into the remaining chair, which was, unfortunately, beside Draco, and pulling out parchment and ink from my bag. I sat up, stiffening slightly. Draco didn't have anything out, and I realized that there was no blackboard behind Flitwick. Draco smirked, and Flitwick gave me a cheery smile.

"No need for any written work in this class, Ms. Brown," he said happily. "I was just telling Mr. Malfoy here that the main aim for this extension class is to focus on the practical side of Charms. It is my aim to teach you every spell that is in this book." He showed us a big ugly brown book which had 'Advanced Charms for Advanced Students' written in bold black writing on the cover.

"Each House has the option of selecting the smartest of the Charm students, but only one. You, Ms. Brown, got in second to Ms. Granger, who had enough NEWTs and did not need to take the class."

As Flitwick went on, suddenly I heard a weird noise. At first I had no idea what in the world it was, till I realized Draco had been laughing at me. I blushed, embarrassed that I had been chosen second. I felt very humiliated, even though I couldn't care less about what Draco thought of me.

"...Very smart, my Ravenclaws," Flitwick went on. "None of the Hufflepuffs felt up to taking this course. So, only you two were chosen this year. I must mention to you that you will not need to buy this book. I can give each of you a school copy, so everything's okay."

Draco and I nodded. I was still glaring at him while he smirked. Already I was in no mood to put up with this! I suppose it was what happened to Parvati that had gotten me fired up. I had to keep calm, though. I certainly didn't want to wind up in detention myself.

"We have two lessons each week, Tuesday and Friday. I expect a new spell to have been practiced each time, so that I may test you, and then we can move on." Flitwick said. We simply nodded, but our trance of glaring and smirking ended. Flitwick clapped his hands together, scaring us both.

"Now, our first set of lessons will be charming cutlery, obviously. It's a complex charm, but one of the basics for Advanced Charm students." He stood up as he said this. So did Draco. I hastily got to my feet, realizing that I wasn't creating the best impression of myself. I can only blame Draco for that.

The whole bloody lesson, he drove me crazy! First he stole my wand out of my pocket, making me lose 10 minutes of my practice time while I frantically looked for it, tipping my bag inside out. Eventually he just 'charmed' it towards me, or rather, threw it so it bounced off my head.

"Look, sir," he said excitedly. "I was trying to chop a carrot with this knife here, and I accidentally summoned Lavender's wand from under her desk!" Flitwick smiled at Draco, and to my horror, awarded him 5 points! On top of that, he made me say thank you. I was starting to get really angry now.

It didn't end there, though. I thought I'd be safe with my wand in my hand, practicing the spell. I reckon I did alright. Flitwick certainly noticed and I was glad for his praise. Draco didn't like this, though. He didn't show it on his face, but the nice big shove he gave me, which sent me crashing into the cupboard, was enough to convince me that he felt differently.

"Oh, Lavender, are you okay?" Draco said, faking concern. He bent down until he was at eye level with me, a big smirk on his face. "Don't bother trying to outdo me here, Lavender," he whispered. "You can't beat me." I stared at him in shock. I was so paralyzed by it that I couldn't get up.

"Is she alright?" Flitwick asked as Draco returned to charming his knife, which was now cutting up carrots nice and thin. He looked at me once again with that horrible smirk of his that I hate so much. Even to this day, I hate it.

"She's fine sir," Draco said, putting on some kind of pathetic concerned voice - if you could call it that. I pulled myself up, trying to return to normal, which is pretty hard after you've been threatened. Maybe it wasn't a big threat, but it was enough to freak me out. I barely knew the guy. He was treating me like his mortal enemy or something.

Anyway, I returned to charming the knives, hoping Draco would soon get bored with bothering me. I sure was wrong! He began watching me, and just as I performed the charm, he poked me with his wand, causing my knife to go flying onto the floor, nearly hitting Professor Flitwick's foot!

"Not to worry, Ms. Brown," he reassured me. I had fallen in shock, scared that I might have hurt him. He was fine, though, and to my joy, the bell rang.

"Oh, the bell!" Flitwick said in alarm. "Doesn't time go by fast when you're having fun?" I frowned at him unhappily. I wish I could have agreed with him, but that lesson certainly had not been fun. I was happy that it was lunchtime so that I could confide in Parvati about what happened. I could finally escape the hell of the classroom that Draco had created for me. Unfortunately, escape wasn't so easy.

"It's lunchtime, isn't it? I have to hurry to the kitchens to give these wonderfully sliced vegetables to the house elves!" Professor Flitwick squeaked, alarmed. "You two wouldn't mind staying here and setting up the classroom for the next lesson, would you?" I had to stop myself from groaning in protest.

"Oh, that's perfectly fine, Professor," Draco said. He just couldn't miss a chance to bother me to the best of his ability, could he? When Flitwick left, Draco threw a tomato at me. Where he got it from, I'll never know, but as soon as it hit me, I completely lost it. I don't know why. I could easily have cleaned it up with a simple spell. I suppose it was just because he had been bothering me all lesson.

"Listen, Draco Malfoy!" I snapped hysterically, getting up from the ground and approaching him, absolutely fuming with rage. "I don't know what I've done to make you treat me like nothing but dirt, but I'm trying to learn here and all you're doing is preventing me from learning anything, and it's driving me crazy!"

I took a deep breath, and moved on from explaining my frustration to verbally abusing him. "I hate you even more than I did before, Draco Malfoy. I wish you were never put in this class with me. I wish you never even went to this school. You're nothing but a stupid little slimy ferret. You think you're better than everyone else, and it's so stupid that you think that way. No one in this world would like a person like you!"

"I'm just an ordinary guy," he said, putting on that innocent voice again. "All I want is to be loved. Is that so wrong?"

I'm pretty sure I threw a few books at him at this point, not wanting to play his little mind games. I can't exactly remember what happened then, but I do remember that before I left the room, slamming the door in his face, I screamed, "I hate that I have to put up with you!"