Glancing out through the tall windows before descending into the dungeons, Draco noted that it had begun to rain hard outside. That would mean no quidditch practice this evening. Great. He was alone in the halls, having just come from the infirmary after an unfortunate mishap in Herbology that morning left Crabbe and Goyle with angry boils all over their hands and faces. Sprout had asked Draco to take them to Pomfrey while she finished up class and she had given him a note to take to Professor Snape, as he'd be arriving late to Potions. Honestly he didn't see why she hadn't just excused him from the class entirely as he'd be missing most of it anyway.
Pushing open the heavy door to the classroom, he started toward Snape, but as soon as he drew breath to speak, he found his every sense was assaulted by the warm, intoxicating scent of ginger and amber—Granger's perfume. He'd know it anywhere. The first time he'd caught the scent had been out on the breeze during a quidditch match when he'd flown right over the Gryffindor stands. The smell had driven him wild, and he'd been so distracted he'd failed to see the damn snitch right by his own damnable head and Saint Bloody Potter had caught it instead, to raucous applause of course. Draco was furious at himself for getting so distracted and he'd searched for the owner of the scent in the halls for weeks. Lion wasn't his usual fare, but in this case he'd make an exception; if he could just figure out who that scent belonged to, he could get a taste of the little chit and move on with his life. So imagine his surprise when he'd encountered it again quite by accident in the library one morning before breakfast, warm notes of ginger and amber clinging softly to a girl as she was reaching for a book on the top shelf. A girl with frizzy, chestnut curls. The only person who would ever come to the library before breakfast apart from himself. Granger.
After that, he'd quietly turned on his heel, put down the book he'd picked up, forgetting why he'd even bothered to come to the library in the first place, and left. So Granger smelled good. She's a girl. Girls do that. He determined then that he'd put it out of his mind, and he did. Well, for the most part, apart from a few desperate wanks over the next few weeks to the memory of her scent and the bit of skin he saw at the back of her thighs when her skirt lifted up as she reached for that book. At night, in his bed with the heavy curtains drawn, Granger's soft body and smart mouth were all his, and it was her scent that he'd seek out each day, just a little, just by bumping into her in the halls or walking a little closer to her desk in class, that would feed his fantasies at night.
So, what? Had the desperate girl just dumped the entire bottle on herself before class today? Pathetic. He couldn't help but make a dig at her.
"Why is it," he asked loudly in a drawling voice, sauntering up to the front of the classroom to hand in his note, "that this entire classroom smells like Granger?"
Snape looked up sharply at his godson, his eyebrows raised. There was something that looked to be shock in his eyes but disappeared quickly into a malicious glint coupled with a smirk worthy of a Malfoy. He took the note from Draco silently and slowly inclined his head, smirk still in place, gesturing for him to take his seat. Draco noted that no one in the classroom, not even Blaise or Theo, had laughed at his clear dig at Granger. Perhaps they hadn't understood him? Glancing around and seeing Granger staring, pink cheeked, into her cauldron and the Weasel and Scarhead looking mutinous, Draco figured his dig at her must have landed since those two were staring so hard at him. Everyone was, in fact, staring at him. Draco hadn't yet taken his place. Something was wrong. Everyone was looking at him with varying degrees of shock, from horror to barely contained glee. He glanced over at his friends, at Blaise and Theo, who, upon seeing his face, both burst into fits of laughter. Draco blanched. They laughed harder. "Oh Merlin, oh Merlin, Blaise, hey Blaise—Ten points..." wheezed Theo, tears in his eyes as he doubled over laughing and holding onto Blaise, "to Dramione!" At this, Blaise howled and the entire classroom erupted into hysterics.
Snape's voice telling them to settle down could be heard in the din, but it was clear he wasn't trying too hard. Turning to look back at the front of the room, Draco noticed the blackboard for the first time and what was written across it: Amortentia.
In that moment, Draco could have gladly been swallowed up by the Giant Squid and he'd have thanked her for the privilege. He felt his eyes drawn like a magnet toward Hermione, who now was looking back at him with an unreadable expression. Her lapdogs and a handful of other Gryffindors were the only students not laughing. As his godfather finally took it upon himself to properly settle everyone down, asking them to take their seats, Draco just sneered and walked out of the room as quickly as his long legs would take him, slamming the heavy door behind him as he went.