[Disclaimer: Harry Potter and its characters, settings and such belong to J.K. Rowling. The song "Mistakes Like This" is owned by the band Prelow. I own nothing ]
"I hate you!"
She stood with hands clenched and a look of murder, feet firmly planted and he thought she looked cute the way her freckles wrinkled on her nose when she was annoyed.
The girl threw herself in his arms when that smirk cracked across his face again. Her holler echoed around the empty boys bedroom after the heavy wooden door swung shut. Luckily, there was no one here but that was the only time they would meet.
She was in his arms now, legs wrapped around his waist and he stubbled when she jumped in his arms. His arms curled under her thighs, keeping her steady, and her lips graze across his neck, hot breath splashing across his pale skin and he feeling her mumble against him sent chills down his spine.
He stumbled and she soon felt her back pressing into a tall bed post.
"I hate you…" She hissed, leaving harsh kisses under his jaw. "You're so aggravating…" her fingers tangling in his messy, dark hair, smiling at hearing his jagged breathing.
This was such a rush, and there was a warm, energizing emotion that exploded in his whenever she was near, whenever she gave her touch.
"Yeah?" he asked, teasing. "Am I?" When she grabbed a fistful of hair and tugged, he groaned, "tell me more. How much do you hate me?"
His hands grip her ass and she took a short intake of breath. She nipped the area where his throat connects and leaned back to glare down at him. He was looking her in the eyes as he hoists her up higher, her fingers digging into his biceps and her stomach flips when she felt them flex. There was a snarky smirk he wore and it irked her more.
"Lots," she answered, and began leaving love bites just as harshly on him as he had left on her a few weeks ago.
She was a modest, reserved, and quite farouched girl, and he uncharacteristically smirked up at her now, at person she would become when they were together, when she would become so bold and temerarious and dirty, and he smirked knowing that no one but him would know.
Her hands begin undoing his buttons, sliding his shirt off from the collar down when she swooped down to nip a his lip.
She is wrapped around him and the two bodies are a flurry of arms and harsh kisses. Eventually, he stumbled over to his side of the room.
There were kisses, gasps, and touches, and it wasn't long until Isobel was laid out bare on the red bed covers.
He started at her jugular, trailing fierce kisses down her throat to the valley between her breasts, and making her back arch and stomach flutter and core ache. Isobel could feel her face burning, herself blushing, but not that she hadn't been already. She watched with her knuckle between her teeth as his mop of dark hair lowered so slowly. Inch by inch, his kisses trail down, her breath hitching higher with each kiss and mark left lower and lower.
Isobel groaned, legs squeezing together and he eats it up, loving it. She watched him lower to her naval, nip at her hipbone, and settling himself in between her thighs after spreading them apart. Her breath caught in her throat and her head fell back to the pillow, panting from exhilaration. When she looked back down again, cheeks a lush pink, she caught his viridian eyes flicker in her direction.
With each kiss he left, accompanied by a pretty red mark, he heard her breathing raise higher and higher, and he grinned devilishly.
She is bare before him and his hand slide over a small love bite on her hip before cupping the cheeks of her ass.
Isobel watched him slither down and in her mind she simultaneously wishes him on while cursing him to stop. She squirmed, heart racing, and she can feel her face burning when his arms hook under her thighs and she dreads, yet, is excited for what he is to do next.
She says his name, it coming out more as plea than she meant.
This boy, with the dark, raven hair glanced up at her reddened face before slithering down the final inch and making her cry out.
Isobel writhed on the bed but doesn't move much under his hold. Her body raised from the bed and tears brim in her eyes and she screams. She could feel his sharp jaw between her thighs as he mumbles, voice so full of ego, and asks her:
"How much do you hate me again?"
She doesn't answer except for an incoherent grunt like he expected, and felt her hands tangle in his hair and give a deserving pull.
Isobel knew she would feel the ghost of that jaw hours after this was all over.
. . . .
The next time Isobel went to potions class, she just couldn't sit still.
She had gotten to class on time, a feat from her past four tardies of her own laziness. But today, she was on time for once.
She arrived alongside Hermione Granger who was arguing with Weasley again, and Isobel took her assigned seat at the front of class, wondering yet again why only she had one.
She wore a smile and turned it to Dean Thomas who slowed his footsteps when catching it as he entered and greeted that her non-tardy today was "a pleasant surprise."
She was even earlier than Pansy, who said good morning with a frown and eye roll then proceeded to pull out her chair and plop down, giving her back to the Gryffindors chatting beside her.
Dean and Isobel giggled, waiting for class to fill in. And Seamus, who sat beside Dean today, snapped a comment that earned a snarl from the Slytherin girl.
"What's with you today, Parkinson? Did a flobberworm crawl up your arse this mornin' or somethin'?" he chuckled. His tie was done wrongly again and small, as usual.
"Shut it, you bucktoothed git!" Pansy hissed. Her dark hair was done up in a ponytail today and it lashed like a bullwhip when her head turned. "I don't associate with your kind."
"Oh Yeah? And what kind is that?" Seamus egged on, reading for a fight.
Dean eased at his side, inwardly sighing, and Isobel watched nervously—she was directly in the crossfire. She stammered, wanting to break the tension and Dean spoke up, beating her to it.
He was the one who stopped Seamus. And turning, in a harsh tone directed at the Slytherin: "just turn around, Pansy. No one was talking to you in the first place before you starting looking at us cross-eyed."
This time, Pansy glared. Her gum popped loudly.
Isobel saw her eyes dart past the boys, no doubly looking toward Draco and his crew. She didn't think Dean or Seamus noticed and didn't say anything. Draco didn't either.
"You won't offend me, you dirty halfbloods," she spat. "Especially with a face resembling a monkey, like that," she pointed at Dean and earned an enraged look. Pansy glanced at Isobel. "You better get your boy toys."
At the same time, Seamus barked: "hey! Don't confuse us with your mum just because she's such a pathetic, ugly witch!"
Pansy whipped back around with her wand out.
Isobel gripped her chair worriedly.
And that is when Snape called for attention.
The desk had filled in around them and neither had noticed.
Near the front on the other end of the room, Ron had watched with his usual arched brows.
Today they weren't going to be brewing potions, the professor told them, but learning about Essence of Insanity, a potion not brewed by many. Hermione immediately raised her hand, remembering reading about it once. Isobel also remembered the potion but kept silent and hands to the desk.
Snape ignored Hermione's hand. "Can anyone give any slight jab on what they think its purpose is?" His deep voice spoke the question but it was obviously not an honest one searching for answers.
Hermione's hand lingered in the air as expected, along with a few others scattered across the classroom who hesitantly rose.
Pansy looked over her shoulder.
Hermione caught Draco's stare out of the corner of her vision and rolled her eyes. Draco smirked and Pansy frowned, catching all of it.
Snape's robes reached to his shoes and flowed when he turned from his pacing at the front of the room. His dark eyes scanned over the students. Ron and Neville and Lee stared intently at their open textbooks, praying they wouldn't be called.
Isobel, also looking down and dreading, saw Snape's feet stop in front of her desk and slowly looked up, hazel eyes wide.
"Miss MacDougal…?" Snape stared down at her.
The rest of the request was unnecessary and Isobel already knew.
She looked back at her desk. "It's because—-"
"Stand up, Miss MacDougal. And raise…your voice," Snape's tone boomed.
She held in a sigh and did as she was told. Her chair sounded loud in the quiet classroom, screeching across the stone. "It's because it causes irrational behavior, similar to insanity itself," she recited from a passage in her textbook, from memory, her voice tremoring slightly from nervously. "It's dangerous because...since it causes the drinker to not be in the right frame of mind, it's not unlikely that they can harm...or even kill under the influence of the potion. You aren't really in the right frame of mind at all under this potion…and…that's why..."
"Correct." Snape began his pacing again and Isobel plopped back down. "Now take notice… Miss MacDougal might be the only one who passes this course this year."
"Well that's not fair," Hermione sighed, mumbling under her breath.
Eyes immediately turned to her.
Her ears blazed red under her hair, regretting it.
"What was that Miss Granger?"
"Nothing sir," she rolled her eyes.
Isobel turned from looking behind at the Gryffindor to back to Snape, catching his stare before he looked back out at the classroom. He ordered to get out a piece of parchment and a quill and that there now was going to be a quick quiz on high level potions.
There were collected muffled groans across but were quickly hushed. The professor strode back to his desk where he charmed the stack of papers to pass themselves out.
The tests were all the same questions but were charmed to be unreadable to all except the student given and to Snape himself. There were 41 questions total, starting from the front of the page and ending on the back.
The looks of disappointment were immediate.
Each question was of potions either covered briefly or were ones they've never brew themselves. If someone had read all the books of potions, then maybe they would have been able to breeze through the test, but all the students have read was textbook. Unless you're like Hermione, of course.
The bright witch hesitated at a few questions in the middle, trying to recall any additional information she's read about poisonous potions and resulted to guessing for most of the answers.
Isobel squinted, tickling her cheek with the end of her feather in thought. Pansy stared down at her page, spacing out.
Snape sat with hands folded at his desk and watched for cheaters. He slammed his desk once when catching Draco and Pansy separately trying to peer at their neighbor's answers. The professor earned a few nasty looks too, but other than that, the room wasn't filled with nauseating chatter.
Harry scratched his head in frustration, Ron was chewing his thumbnail nervously, and Parvati held her head in her hands.
This test was one unable to complete without guessing and it brought an upward curl to Snape's lips when he announced time was up, seeing most tests turned over and completed.
In the back, a student was having a nervous breakdown. Isobel turned, hearing rapid breathing and jumped at a slam on her desk.
"Stay seated forward," Snape ordered, currently charming all the tests back onto his desk.
He had levitated and dropped her books on her desk, causing the desk rattling slam, and Isobel frowned at her teacher.
Somewhere behind, Ron muttered under his breath. "What kind of bloody test was that?"
"One that will count as thirty-six percent of your grade, here, Mister Weasley," Snape answered.
Ron couldn't really whisper, everyone in Gryffindor knew that.
Then, as Snape flipped through each tests, he mumbled loudly for them to hear, "pity. I hoped it would have taken far longer."
He was referring to the test, which Miss Granger sat with her chest out about, hoping her guessing had played out in her favor.
The man looked over his class once more and turned to the papers on his desk. He waved his wand at his quill, turning the ink red, and began grading. It was twenty-two minutes filled with worried whispers when someone finally spoke.
"Sir," Isobel raised her hand, "what are we going to do now?"
It was highly unlikely to have extra time like this in potions class and this set the students uneasy with hushed voices.
"No talking," was the answer.
Miles Bletchley responded next. "I need to use the bathroom."
"I will hex the next person into oblivion who opens their mouth next!"
It was crazy but everyone sat straighter in their seats, knowing it true. Their professor didn't look up again and the following long, agonizing minutes were filled with muffled chatter among classmates.
Isobel swiddled her fingers, Pansy picked at something in her teeth, Seamus and Dean wrote notes pictures to each other on parchment.
This was usual in Snape's classroom. If they weren't standing over boiling cauldrons, they were learning all the things he promised their first year. They've learned about making potions that affected your physical features into charming others, how to make others fawn over you gloriously, and even how to give yourself another life, so to say. This was the first time they've taken a tests as ridiculous as this, however.
The room hushed once more when Snape stood, dark eyes falling on a few students in particular. The noise of him tapping the stack against his desk echoed. And everyone watched his robe sway as he approached. Snape made it known who passed and who didn't as he handed the red-marked pages back.
"Mister Goyle—actually pay attention next time.
"Miss Brown—read the questions carefully and clearly.
"Maybe next time, Potter."
Clutching the paper, Harry waited until Snape's back was turned and swung his hand in a suggestive gesture to backhand the man.
"Bletchley—not your best work.
"Jordan… Patil… Dunbar… Zabini…"
"Parkinson—I'm very surprised," which he said to a few others, probably meaning they didn't completely fail.
"Close, but not close enough, Miss Granger," to which Hermione sighed in frustration.
Once all were given back, Pansy looked over at Isobel's empty desk and made a haughty grin at the other, taking it Isobel was to get the worst remark and grade that Snape was saving for last. She muttered this to the Gryffindor with the smirk displayed.
Snape turned, speaking from the back of the room. "It seems as if Miss MacDougal was the only one who passed this pop quiz…with only nine incorrect…" He looked around with a sense of pride at the jaws that dropped. "Maybe you all should learn a thing or two from your peers…" he added with mock concern.
Isobel could feel the eyes on her and slumped.
Pansy was staring, her smirk vanished. Dean and Seamus were the same, the former cracking a smile at the younger year.
Snape walked back to the front of the room, standing with arms folded and peered down at the young Gryffindor. Since there was still much time left for class, he asked for her help in demonstrating the making of the potion mentioned before, the Essence of Insantiy, of course, asking Isobel first.
She stammered an acceptance but she feared—she never performed an advanced potion in from of peers before and feared that something would go horribly, horribly wrong. She glanced at her professor, hoping he would take her worried look as a hint, but he kept his eyes forward.
Whispers spread that Isobel was picked only for her high grade.
It was true, though.
Snape announced the select two were to be making a demonstration of the Essence of Insanity potion, and that he was going to pick someone with one of the lowest grade to go against Isobel.
Isobel stood beside her professor with her head down and ears burning. She stroked her hair as a feeble reassuring mechanic. Frantic questions of why he put her out like this ran through her mind.
The man's eyes scanned the room, once settling on Neville and then Vincent—either one would be amusing to see fumble and fail.
Silence lingered and his eyes swept across all those who avoided his glare.
"Potter," he called out finally, and the boy's head snapped forward. The professor ordered him to the front.
He hesitated first. Harry merely frowned, his motions angry as he stood and stomped to stand beside Isobel, purposely not meeting either's eyes. His hands balled into fists at his sides.
She was right in between both and felt the tension that spiked; her blush grew.
In the crowd, Draco and Blaise sneered. Hermione and Ron looked on, worried.
A cauldron was set out on the table between them, along with absurd ingredients like snake fangs and wormwood placed beside them.
"Essence of Insanity is not an easy brew, hence why very few have ever been reported to complete it successfully."
"Successfully," Isobel scoffed to her shoes, but low enough that the professor hadn't heard.
Harry had, and stuffed his hands in his robe pockets, averting his gaze.
Snape ordered the class to watch carefully as he began the time for the two students to begin brewing. "You have ten minutes."
Isobel was the one who darted forward first, hands a rush as she ground ailhotsy leaves and lovage leaves with a mortar and pestle and tossed a portion of it into the bubbling cauldron. Harry had been reaching for the bottle of reem's blood right as Snape called time had started—Isobel snatched it first—and he marveled at her speed.
"Get moving, Potter," Snape spat.
The boy fumbled for a moment and Isobel glanced up, smirking.
He grabbed a handful of large mushrooms and a knife.
"Don't lose a finger," she teased as he began slicing the stalks of exploding mushrooms.
The boy glared back. She was growing cocky now.
Isobel completed creating a mixture from the root paste and the remaining amount of the powered leaves, and began stuffing it into brightly colored flowers, which she had to and go around the table to get from beside Harry. She passed the stuffed flowers off to Harry to tie shut with the cut stalks.
Isobel tried not to think of how close they were to each other and in an effort to distract herself, began soaking sneezewort petals in rem's blood. Harry dropped each tied flower into the cauldron as he finished, watching the water beginning to froth.
Students rose a little from their seats, watching the hands of the two at the front. Isobel's flew and Snape watched from beside his desk chair, arms folded under his robes and frown prominent.
Five minutes down, and Isobel waved her wand over the cauldron and watched it turn a light peach color before settling to a pretty lavender. A nervous grin grew on her face—she was doing it!
Harry handed her the container of snake fangs and read aloud their remaining instructions. He had taken it that reading would be his job since every ingredient he reached for, she snatched first. And when he had readied his wand to wave over the top, to do what she had just done, she had slapped his wrist away.
Both missed Snape's very faint chuckle at the action.
Looking up from the cauldron, Isobel grinned, watching Harry finishing dropping the mushroom tops in and reading aloud. He glanced inside and she caught something dark under his collar. A small smile split across sheer face.
"Nice bruise there, Potter. But you probably don't want McGonagall to see it."
It was said in a low chuckle which made the boy hurry and pull his collar higher. But Isobel had already seen it, the blue bruise under his collar bone and near his shoulder. There was another one at the back corner of his jaw near his ear if you looked hard enough, and she wouldn't be surprised it there was more under his shirt. She giggled watching Harry fumble and prepared the last of the potion with mumbles under his breath and ears turning a pink hue.
An explosion went off and colorful smoke rose from the cauldron. Isobel looked over her shoulder, hoping her teacher would come and help.
"Four minutes remaining," was the aid he sent.
They finished on time though, but barely. And just as Harry finished stirring in a final figure 8 motion, both brewers raised their hands as time was called.
The class gaped in amazement, remaining quiet as the professor tested the potion.
Snape glared at both brewers.
Hesitated to pour a small corked bottle, declaring it complete and perfected, bitterly congratulating the two.
Isobel bit the inside of her cheek, holding in a growing smile. Harry shuffled back to his seat.
Potions class ended soon after. Dean and Seamus were the first to congratulate her success and Pansy quickly left to be at Draco's side. Seamus admitted he thought Isobel would be the one to blow up the room and Isobel smiled a thanks.
Class ended and the students were eager to leave. Bags were packing and chairs were pushed back under the desks. It was a big rush at the beginning wave of students streaming out the door. Isobel stood at the edge of the waning crowd of students and slug her bag over her shoulder, congratulations still circulating. Some time through it all, she had felt a hand slide to her backside, making her words catch in her throat and heart speed up in nervousness. It was gone when Snape's voice boomed above the chatter and called her to his desk.
She didn't catch whose hand it had been, but she knew. She had already known.
As the stragglers were left behind in the mostly empty room, Snape told Isobel to outstretch her hand and he placed the small bottle in her palm. It was big enough go on a necklace with a slightly glowing purple liquid inside and Isobel wondered why he had given it to her and not Harry, who had finished the potion. But she knew better than to question, and nodded her thanks and left with a wave from his hand.
Besides, it's not like Harry would want something like this.
A/N: I really wanted to post something and I'm hoping to make this story good. I'm up for criticism and please tell me if you don't like something or I didn't do something right again. I'll go change it. How was this chapter?