"Who, her!? You like her!?" exclaimed my friend as we headed to our potions class with our books tucked under our arms. "You can't like her!" my friend continued, trying to convince me out of my feelings as we hurried along in fear of arriving late. There was no way he could quell this feeling, since even I had already tried to and miserably failed, but that didn't stop him from trying. The class was located far away from our common room so we should have headed to class early but we always put it off to last minute. In fact, it was so far away that it wasn't unusual to see Gryffindors running into the class late but the penalty was point docking so we had learned early on to head early or run really fast.

"Shut up." I hissed at him as we took our seats, we sat next to each other and often messed up on our potions together. We became good friends since we were both Gryffindors and first years. He was also from a family with muggle parents. "I didn't say I liked like, I just said I'm a bit-" I paused as I noticed that she had appeared. We hadn't talked to each other but since we were both first years we did run into each other quite a bit, especially for classes. I was still pretty heartbroken that she was a Slytherin but I couldn't help myself.

She entered the classroom quietly and headed to her seat. She smiled a bit at me when she noticed me and nodded to acknowledge me. She seems amused whenever she sees me. I noted as I nodded back and felt my face flush in an instant when our eyes met. My heart practically leaped out of my chest. I was definitely itching to have a proper conversation with her. I wanted to know what she was really like because it felt like she was toying with me.

"Interested," I mumbled, finishing my sentence as I cleared my throat in an attempt to hide my embarrassment. I really liked her and I hated to admit it. My friend watched the whole exchange so he knew I was lying and was head over heels for her. He was about to say something when the professor walked in.

"For today's lesson, we'll be making the potion on page 31 of your textbooks. It's important that you grow familiar with all of the ingredients that are available and how to prepare them. You'll need to partner up with someone as an extra hand will help. You have three minutes to choose and begin. If anything blows up then I'll be docking points from houses since last times disaster was a huge mess. It took loads of spells to return everything to normal." the professor remarked as their eyes turned to warn the culprit. The student merely nodded nervously.

My friend immediately approached me but I had already grabbed my book and was approaching the girl.

"Hey, what're you doing!?" my friend asked as he grabbed my arm to stop me. I pulled away as I noticed that a Slytherin boy was approaching her. I knew I had to take this opportunity to get close to her! I had to because I felt like I was dying just not knowing about her. In an instant, I had run to her, miraculously reaching her before the Slytherin boy did. In all honesty, it was kind of embarrassing how desperate I was getting.

"C-can I be your partner?!" I panted out as I held out my hand in an attempt to thwart the Slytherin boys path. She looked at me surprised but my hand was pushed away as the Slytherin shoved me away.

"What're you doing you stupid Gryffindor?" he asked angrily as he stepped in front of her, blocking her from my view. "You can't just walk up to one of us and expect us to join you as if we were all best friends or something! Obviously, it's better if she's partners with someone from her own house!"

I glared at him. "I was asking her, not you so unless you're her boyfriend shut it!" I growled, acting more intimidating than I really felt because I wanted to look like a cool and dependable person in her eyes. He glared back at me but she convinced him to step back with a hand gesture.

"It's okay, I can handle this," she told him. He hesitated as he looked worriedly at her but glared at me; he obviously considered me to be a threat. "I'll be over there if you need help," he muttered loud enough to make sure that I could hear as he decided to respect her wishes and team up with someone else. "It's stupid to try to be friends with those Gryffindors." he snorted.

She said nothing and then turned to look at me causing my heart beat like crazy. My face instantly turned red as I realized this was the first time that we ever had personal one on one time (I'm ignoring the rest of the class) together. His comment about Gryffindors didn't even matter anymore. Her face was beautiful, she was beautiful, I was going mad.

"W…..Will you be my partner?" I somehow stammered out, trying to sound tougher than I really was again.

Her lips drew up in a beautiful smile that seemed like a bud blooming into a flower as if to soak up the warmth of the sun.

"Yes," she said with her sweet voice that sounded like a gentle bell ringing but it was definitely music to my ears. My heart soared as I realized that she was going to be spending time with me. She definitely had some power over me even if I hated to admit it.

"Although I'm kind of sorry for you that you have to associate with this bad Slytherin wizard." she finished, still smiling beautifully. Instantly, I froze, my heart felt as if it had just been thrown a curveball; I was in complete disbelief of what I had just heard.

What did she say? Did I really just hear that?! I wondered as she had already started working on the potion. I glanced at her questioningly, still in doubt of what I had just heard. There was just simply no way right? No way that something like that could come out of this adorable girls mouth. Then a lightbulb went off in my head. She must have heard what we all said in the train! I panicked, remembering all the horrible things we had all said. Of course, it would make sense for someone not to join people who were insulting you; this explained so much! She must only be smiling at me because she thinks its a sick kind of funny how I talked smack about them but still seem to melt around her.

"B-but I don't think you're bad!" I flailed as I helped with what little I could on the potion in order to at least try to earn some 'seems dependable and smart' points. "T-there's just no way you could be bad!" I said in an attempt to redeem myself in her eyes.

She stopped for a moment and quietly whispered: "You wouldn't like me if I were bad?"

"Huh?" I commented in confusion, I really wasn't sure what she was asking. Could such a cute and wonderful creature be bad?

"You wouldn't like me if I were bad?" she repeated, this time louder so it would be clear enough for me to hear.

"Well, I...I" I babbled, completely unprepared for this sort of question. "I can't like someone who is bad." I finally said dumbly. I know it wasn't the best answer but it was all that came into my head at that moment.

The moment those words left my lips the liquid in the cauldron shot up as she had started focusing a spell on it. Her fragile fingers seemed to tighten their grip on the wand to express frustration. I didn't even need to look into her eyes to know that I had made her mad. I didn't know what I said to cause her to get angry but I instantly regretted it.

"Woah there! Focus on the spell." shouted the professor. She immediately focused on the spell and easily finished it.

"Professor, we're finished," she reported to the adult who was walking around, inspecting the cauldrons, not even asking my opinion or looking at me. My heart felt a bit uneasy, she wasn't even letting me get a word in.

"Wonderful, wonderful. Looks spectacular. You pass." the professor stated as they glanced at us, interrupting my thoughts. "My, my how unusual. A Slytherin and a Gryffindor together, how rare. 50 points to each house for this wonderful show of unity, although we're all different we should still remember that we are all wizards and a team." they cheerfully said as they headed off to check on the other students.

I was still slightly in shock when I noticed that she was already cleaning up to pack up and head back to the common room. If she headed to her common room then I wouldn't get another chance to see her, not even during lunch, dinner or breakfast! People just didn't cross over to other house tables to join people from other houses.

"H-hey!" I called out in hopes of getting her attention, waving my hand in front of her eyes. She refused to meet my eyes. "Umm hey, why are you getting angry?" I asked, hoping that if she won't meet my eyes then she'll at least answer my question. "If I don't know then I can't fix it and apologize for it-" I continued as I reached out to put my hand on her arm to stop her.

"You're rig-" she started to say, about to give in when my friend got in between us. "Don't talk to her. She's a Slytherin," he said as he tried to pull me away. "She even tried to sabotage your guyses potion and make it explode so we'd get docked points!" he accused as he pointed his finger at her.

Her eyes widened in disbelief and then in anger.

Immediately, there were Gryffindors standing behind me and Slytherins behind her. Each house was looking at each other in disgust. The Hufflepuff and Ravenclaw students were just watching from the sidelines. Each house was muttering amongst themselves, accusing the other.

"That's not true! I distracted her so that's why that happened." I explained, hoping to make this situation right. They weren't even there so why were they just making stuff up? "Take it back." I pleaded to my friend; he hesitated but refused to take his statement back. "Slytherins are bad! I told you not to partner up with her!" he said. I couldn't say anything because these sort of comments hadn't mattered to me until after I realized she was a Slytherin which had only been like three months.

"Hey what happened?" interrupted the Slytherin boy who had earlier tried to stop me from partnering up with her as he stepped into our circle. "Did he do something?" he raged as his eyes stared daggers into mine. I figured he must also like her since he was so protective of her but I was really hoping that it was just a coincidence because they both happened to be from the same house.

"Nothing happened, I want to know what I did wrong so I could apologize to her and make it right," I said. However, he barely noticed me when the Gryffindors were instigating fights with the Slytherins.

"They're the worst." "I don't care what they say, they're all bad wizards." "She must've tricked him to join her."

I realized that it was my fault that it had all gotten out of control.

"You guys…." she started to say, capturing my attention "You all just assume we're all bad people before you guys even get to know us so in our eyes you're all the worst! You Gryffindors think you're so great with your strong goody two shoe sense of justice! We're aspiring wizards too, just like you!" she glared at me with wet eyes because she was about to cry. My heart cracked as I realized that I was the reason that she was like this. If only I could take all I said about Slytherin back but the whole world agreed! Was it my fault that this was a universal belief?!

"You say you like me but you act like me being a Slytherin is a huge deal breaker for you like it's a sort of sacrifice you're willing to give up for me! I am a Slytherin and I'm proud. Stop trying to get close to me acting like you're doing me a favor. I know you hate that I'm a Slytherin. I've known since the start so just stay away. There's no way you could ever really like a Slytherin like me." she lamented and left the classroom with her Slytherin posse.

I was stunned. She was right, I was….I do hate that she's a Slytherin but I do really like her, probably even love her. In the end, I fought with my friend and cleared up the misunderstanding but by the time everything was fixed she was no longer talking or even looking at me. She acted as if I didn't exist and rarely associated with people outside her house. I messed up but I really was interested in her.