"You've got to be kidding me."

"Funnily enough, Mr Malfoy," Drawled Snape "I'm not."

Shit. Had he said that out loud?

Professor Snape had been reading the list of pairs for the term; Pansy Parkinson was paired with Granger, Longbottom was with Blaise, Weasley was with the violet girl...was it violet?...Lavender! That's the one. Who on Earth would name their child after a Plant? Draco Malfoy, who's name was latin for Dragon, snorted internally.

Snape had been trawling through the list awfully slowly and had finally, after what felt like days, reached Draco's name. Draco couldn't believe his luck. Or his unluck, if that was even a word.

He was paired with Potter.

Stupidly perfect, heroic, scar-faced Potter. Potter who could ride a broomstick as though he had been doing it since birth. Potter who had the most loyal friends, the love of all the Hogwarts teachers (aside from Snape, of course), a whole first year fan base led by Colin Creevey, the love of most of the entire wizarding population (aside from Voldemort, obviously) and the respect of Merlin himself, probably.

Draco scoffed, and apparently swore aloud.

"As I was saying," Continued Snape, pushing his thick, grease-coated hair out of his face, "You will be working with your pair for the rest of term so I suggest you make an effort to tolerate them." He said this with a pointed glance at Harry and Draco.

Everyone at Hogwarts knew of their rivalry, and from the outside it probably appeared to be normal teenage angst. Just two boys from opposite sides of the pond feuding for the top spot of some psychological podium. But it wasn't quite what it seemed.

Draco had been angered by Harry since first year, after making what Draco thought to be a rather great first impression in 'Madame Malkin's robes for all occasions' he was sure Harry would want to be his friend. Aside from his father speeches about the benefits of a friendship with the famous Harry Potter, Draco wanted to be his friend because he was utterly intrigued by his story. A boy, no more than one years old, able to defeat the most powerful dark wizard of all time. Merely the thought of such power had the Malfoy's heir itching to meet this phenomenon.

But things had worked out quite differently. Harry wanted nothing to do with Draco, instead choosing to stick with the boy of orange and freckle, known as Ron Weasley, and the bushy haired Hermione Granger.

It had bothered Draco at the time, bewildered him in fact. But after all these years it had turned into more than anger, it was pure and utter jealousy. Harry had fame and a heroic backstory, Draco had his father constantly badgering him about upholding the family name. Harry had a girlfriend, or so Draco had thought up until last year when Blaise Zabini reliably informed him that Potter was, as Blaise had so eloquently put it, "Gay as shit."

This news in particular, caused Draco to snort so viciously that his pumpkin juice he'd been drinking had shot up through his mouth and straight into his nose.

You see, not only was Draco jealous of Potter but he was extremely attracted to him. Not that he'd ever admit it to anyone, other than Pansy Parkinson after two bottles of firewhiskey. He'd barely admitted it to himself at first, but with Harry's thick black hair, that was "messy, but not bad messy..like just got out of bed kind of sexy messy, you know?" (as Draco had explained to Pansy) and his perfect mahogany skin, it was undeniable.

After explaining the term of potions up ahead, Snape turned to the front of the classroom and began scrawling on the blackboard.

He was dragging the chalk across the blackboard so that it screeched mercilessly, he could have just used magic, but why do something as simple as that when you can torture a bunch of kids with a hair-raisingly gross sound, right?

The board told them they were to be making the 'draught of death', which Draco thought extremely appropriate as he very much wanted to die at that moment.

Harry approached him slowly, as though he were a ticking time bomb about to explode.

The shorter boy nodded slowly, "Malfoy."

"Potter."

Harry sighed. "Malfoy, if we're going to be working together for the rest of term we might as well make an effort to get along." He said this slowly, still eyeing Malfoy as though he might detonate the classroom at any second.

"Sounds reasonable. But, just so you know, I fully intend on returning to hating you afterwards."

Harry saluted him jokingly then turned to gather the ingredients for their potion.

This was going to be a long term.