Chapter 3: Day Four
"So, Draco," Blaise whispered conspiratorially. Draco rolled his eyes at the book he'd been reading before turning to him, knowing to expect the worst, "tell me about the way you fancy the wizarding world's favourite hero."
"Why don't you go bother Theo?" Draco answered, so annoyed that Blaise was still talking to him after days of Draco's scathing silence that he broke it. "I thought I'd made it obvious that I don't want to talk to you. I certainly don't fancy anyone."
Blaise just snickered, raising Draco's ire further. "You're so much more entertaining than Nott. Something tells me - and I know you well - that you're lying."
"You're obsessed. I have half a mind of accusing you that you fancy me."
"And what if I do?" Blaise returned, leering and staring straight into Draco's soul through his eyes, as though he might convince Draco that he wasn't the most annoying Slytherin in existence. There was a fat chance of that happening.
"Then I might have to kill you," Draco said cooly, turning the page of his Potions book and returning to his reading.
It was rather nice to have days off from lessons so that he could indulge in his love for obscure potions. Their current potions professor could hardly count to ten with his fingers, let alone remember more complicated relationships and instructions.
His brief flash of contentment didn't last.
"Ooh, exciting. How would you do it, Draco? Would it be slow and drawn out so that I feel every drop of blood leaving me - you know I like it passionate - or would you look at me with those striking grey eyes and-"
"Don't be rude." Draco, startled, swallowed hard and then schooled his features into a more appropriate sneer.
He supposed he should be more affected by Blaise's blathering - he'd never really been able to stand the boy in previous years - and thanked the heavens that he wasn't in any state to really act on the murderous promise he'd offered earlier.
Though he was a bit riled up inside, he could practically feel the potion - still running through his veins - soothe him.
"I'd like to get back to my reading," Draco said pointedly.
As was most commonly the case, Blaise didn't get the hint, and though he was silent for a few moments, he started up again just as Draco finally began to get back into the book. Typical.
"You know, I would have thought you'd be bragging to Potter about your potions skills. Isn't it pathetic that he's in here because he can't even keep up with that idiot who is teaching us? Besides, that potion of yours is something to be proud of, don't you think?"
Blaise had changed tactics, and even with the help of the potion, Draco felt himself flailing at the change in topic.
"That potion of mine is none of your concern," Draco said. He closed his book and rested it in his lap, resigned to the loss of his concentration thanks to Blaise.
It was just as well - he hadn't had any proper conversation in days. His top two enemies aside, Blaise was really the only one who spoke to him without laughing about the injury to his tailbone that Pomfrey'd had to heal despite his loud protests.
An unfortunate detail that didn't mean he liked his present company.
"Why won't you tell us what it is? I would have thought that you'd be bragging to Potter first chance you've got. Didn't you say it was a rather advanced potion? You've never been able to resist rubbing your superiority in his face before."
Draco had half a mind to call for help and demand to have his bed moved. Then he remembered that there were few people in Hogwarts who would tolerate sleeping next to him, and his pride deflated.
"It is an advanced potion, and I've even enhanced it. That doesn't mean Potter needs to know. If he didn't recognize it-"
The mischievous glint in Blaise's eyes told Draco that he hadn't been convincing.
"The more you avoid the question, my friend, the more my thirst for knowledge seems to grow. Suppose if Potter were to help me study for potions... do you think he might bring me some of those books you go through so desperately?"
He'd struck a nerve, and he knew it. Draco felt his blood pulse at his temples. His mind, however, had a reaction incongruous with the instinctive one his body had in response to the threats. He was forced into calm, though his palms itched to hurt Blaise.
"It isn't important," Draco said, voice steady and clear despite the tension in every muscle of his body. "You'll never find what it is."
A lie. If Blaise really had been paying attention to what Draco'd been reading, he would find the potion with very little work. It belatedly struck Draco that he should be more careful. The hospital wing - and apparently his dormitory, if the spying had gone on there - clearly offered little in the way of privacy.
"I think I'll befriend Potter anyway. It's best to keep all avenues open, isn't it?"
Draco's glower intensified, and Blaise's haughty expression finally cracked. His eyebrows scrunched lower on his forehead and he pursed his lips.
"I can't imagine what it might be, if you're so adamant that nobody find out," he said. Blaise ran his fingers through his hair in a practiced motion that Draco would never imitate, because his hair would never come out so artfully tousled as Blaise's.
Arrogant prat.
The other Slytherin threw himself back on the bed, finally redirecting his attention from Draco to the ceiling.
Draco wondered how much the potion was affecting him when he found that he began to relax, thinking the barrage of interrogative questions meant to simultaneously irritate him and extract information was over.
Obviously, he hadn't learned much from his years being a Slytherin, because Blaise was not finished.
"You're so mysterious, Draco. It shouldn't shock you that I'm interested."
Draco had to hide a little smirk. He really was incredible, and others' interest truly didn't shock him. He'd been receiving fan mail for years. He'd been in the running for most attractive student at Hogwarts in some gossip rag or another, at least at one point.
And he did try his very hardest to be mysterious. Rather nice of Blaise to tell him it was working.
"You're so full of it," Blaise said. "Though I'm not lying when I say that you've intrigued me enough to make me want to know your secret. A Slytherin doesn't give up. A Slytherin also keeps a close eye on the subject of his investigation. You should know that I see how you lean into Potter's touch. I'll bet it's killing you with jealousy to think that I'll be studying potions with him and that we'll find out about the potion together."
Draco was loathe to admit that Blaise was right, at least about the jealousy. Potter was his. His enemy for years. His family's downfall. Blaise had no right recruiting Potter for help.
Though, thinking about it, Draco realized that Potter had already tried to ask Blaise for information about the potion, as though Draco had shared his secret with someone who'd tell Potter with the slightest prompting.
The two deserved each other, he thought spitefully. They were both right idiots.
"Malfoys don't get jealous," he said. "And I hate it when he touches my hair. Of course, you wouldn't understand my worry. Your hair is just as bad as his, and even Potter's filthy hands could only fix it."
Blaise turned his head to give Draco a rather disbelieving stare, eyebrows raised. Between his cheek and the pillow, he caught a few tendrils of fine black hair that easily exposed Draco's posturing. Draco knew Blaise's hair was worthy of pride, a fact of which the other boy was well aware.
Trying not to show just how dismally the conversation was turning out for him, Draco fumbled with the book on his thighs, fingers catching on the frayed leather so that he accidentally pulled some off. Blaise's scoff to his side made him swallow against the unwanted truth that he had probably lost his touch.
"You know," Blaise murmured, and Draco barely held back the worry about what Blaise might think of next. "All you just told me was that you notice Potter's hair."
Draco's eyes widened, taking the bait instead of staying silent. "How could I avoid noticing it? It's so big!"
Blaise's next words were more dangerous, though Draco had to admit that he'd walked set it up for Blaise. He had no one to blame but himself for the scarring image that emerged from the dark depths of his imagination.
"I reckon he's got something else that's really big. I've been hearing you moan and groan in your sleep for a few nights, perhaps you've noticed it, too? I imagine that his cock is absolutely enormous-"
Draco's horrified gasp was cut short by a curt cough followed by sharp, stern words.
"I'll take five points from Slytherin for that exceedingly lewd comment." It was McGonagall.
What was it with Gryffindors and their vexing tendency to save him from impossible situations while also grating on every one of his nerves?
"If you'll allow me to interrupt," she said, turning to Draco, "it has come to my attention that Mr. Potter's obligations to helping here - and helping you, in particular - have been causing him to miss vital information from my lessons as a result of his tardiness. I must request of you to stop acting like a child with foolish rivalries, to allow him to do his job, and to stop putting his education in danger!"
Draco's jaw fell open as shock filled him. It was not his fault that properly combing his hair - to get rid of the lice as quickly as possible - took Potter an eternity and a half. No one could blame anyone but the stupid git for his own incompetence regarding fine motor skills.
It rather offended him that he was being criticized for Potter's failings, but his musing was cut short.
"Mr. Zabini, your laughter is unnecessary. I also have heard complaints about you. It appears that in addition to the five points earlier, I'll have to take away another twenty because of the appalling comments you've made to Madam Pomfrey."
Draco turned to look at the suddenly sheepish Blaise. Through his rather sluggish, foggy memory, Draco thought he did remember Blaise making suggestive comments to the Healer once or forty times. He'd found them very entertaining at the time.
He still found them hilarious, given that Blaise was also in trouble for them.
McGonagall looked weary. "It would do you boys well to consider other people for once instead of yourselves. An adjustment to your behaviours would befit the adults that you currently are by age alone. I do not wish to have to come back with more complaints. We are not in wartime anymore - you have time to think."
With one more searching look at both of them, McGonagall pursed her lips and seemed ready to say something else. Shaking her head, she closed her eyes.
"The next time I see you will be in Transfiguration, I expect. Keep up with assignments."
With that, she turned, robes billowing dramatically - but not intimidatingly, at least not with Snape as a comparison point.
A moment of blissful silence.
"So, do you agree with my assessment of Potter?" Blaise said, breaking the peace, McGonagall's warnings lost on him. Draco understood his attitude - if the old Gryffindor thought she could control them with silly house points and a firm talk, she was sorely mistaken.
Still, she'd made a good point. Not about him, of course, but about Blaise's constant, unnecessary babble.
Draco firmly ignored him, determined not to give him anything else after the disaster that had preceded McGonagall's arrival. He grabbed his wand from the small table beside his bed without even looking back at the other Slytherin.
A bathroom break was what he needed.
The bottoms of his bare feet were numb to the cold of the floor as he crossed the room. It was the potion at work, again. Draco promised himself a nice, long shower to warm up - one that would also hopefully restore his patience so that he could return to his bed without throwing hexes at Blaise.