It was Wednesday, which meant it was time again for their next Potions lesson and Hermione was less than enthused to see what Draco would say about the spell she had struck him with the other night.
She hadn't seen him at all in the Great Hall or out and about during the night-time patrols. Hermione even made sure to check the girls' toilet on the second floor, only to find Moaning Myrtle wailing about not having "any handsome visitors" anymore. Not that she felt that she should take up any stalker-like tendencies, but there was something fishy going on with Malfoy
She had seen him in Arithmancy the day before, but he had arrived on time and didn't do anything that was particularly out of the ordinary. He had chosen a seat near the front, which gave Hermione the perfect view to watch him from the back row but she had hoped he would've sat in his usual place.
She wasn't scared of him, but there was a looming threat that he might disturb the peace. He may have mentioned the Cruciatus curse to Theodore Nott, but he was just a boy of big words and little action. Then again, he wasn't a boy anymore. The picture in the Daily Prophet of him didn't quite look like the little scared blond boy she had always known. She decided to watch over him, at least to make sure he wasn't up to something.
Professor Slughorn shuffled around the classroom with various bits and bobs in his hands, mumbling nothings to himself. Interestingly, the potion this week was a blood replenishing potion – something different from the previous classes, but Hermione found this challenge exciting. Students moaned when they heard it would take twenty-seven days to concoct and would need to be taken care of to stay effective.
Hermione guessed that Slughorn didn't expect the class to finish the potion, just that they only really needed the theory for their exam, which wouldn't take a month to complete.
Slughorn simply put it that "a good potion can sometimes take twenty-eight days just like a fine steak."
After looking around the room and noticing that everyone had been paired up, Hermione groaned knowing that her potions partner this week would be Malfoy. This was the moment that he would surely confront her about the hex she had sent him on Monday. Although, it was particularly un-Malfoy-like of him to have not caused a raucous scene about it yet.
She watched as he walked to the front of the class to hand in his performance review where he received a knowing look from Slughorn. He apologised for arriving late and then retreated, scanning the room for a free seat before identifying Hermione as his new partner. He smirked and strolled over, pulling his wand out of his pocket. Hermione stiffened and reached for her wand, but she needn't have bothered. Draco had Accio'd the ingredients for the potion using non-verbal magic and summoned his books from his satchel.
"How…" she started regrettably. Draco turned to her, his eyes glistening with amusement.
"Yes?"
She supposed she ought to say it now.
"How are you so adept at non-verbal spell casting?"
"Can't keep up, Granger?" he smirked. Draco examined the recipe and began the day's work.
"No, I just assumed you would rather boss people around than do any work yourself," she smiled.
"Well when you can't be better than you inferiors, how do you expect to best your equals?"
Hermione scoffed. "That's to say you're superior."
"Well, to put it so nicely; yes, I am superior."
Hermione narrowed her eyes, head shaking in dismay.
"To have such a magnanimous opinion of yourself, you'd expect that there would be someone out there that respected you," she replied coolly. This wasn't quite where she wanted this conversation to go, but the banter was mildly entertaining.
"I'm surprised, Granger. I know your brain isn't as frizzy as your hair but with the simple fact that you have not taken this potion off my hands means you respect my talents within potions, which is also exemplified by the fact that you would rather watch than contribute. I assume that makes you feel inferior. Not to mention you blush whenever I'm near, so you obviously find me more attractive than your ginger-nut sidekick boyfriend." Malfoy scraped off some powder from his knife into the potion and picked up an aconite root.
Hermione flushed a brilliant red but tried to hide it with anger. She grabbed the root out of his hand and began crushing it into a paste. Her head was whirling with profanities. How could she like anyone like him?
"Just the thought of that makes me feel sick. Quite disturbing," scoffed Hermione.
"I know," replied Draco, feigning concern. She looked at him through her lashes. "It is a terrible, terrible thing to do to your best-friend of eight years and to have led him on like that," he said shaking his head with a quirk of his brow, "and to then fall for the poor bloke's arch enemy? I couldn't live it down, personally. You're brave, Granger. Exceptionally so."
She stared at him in utter shock. Was this truly happening? She couldn't tell if he was pulling her leg or not but she supposed he must be. Whatever his intentions were she might as well play along – see where that would get her.
"Well, you better run, Malfoy. There's a Mudblood chasing after you," she chuckled.
"I'll be waiting," he replied throatily. Their eyes met, but Hermione had to slam down the flask in her hand onto the table to cope with the oddity.
"Alright Malfoy, what are you playing? Tell me the truth," she demanded, irked that she had surrendered so quickly, but this was too weird.
He cleared his throat. "Nothing, Granger."
"Oh, that is utter ... Come on Malfoy, what are you planning?" She asked in frustration.
"Granger, the only thing I am planning today is when to get my revenge on the stinging hex you sent me the other night," he said dryly. Hermione considered this and figured that he wouldn't tell her even if she begged him (even knowing that he would find it unbelievably amusing. Twat).
"Well it has taken you long enough…" she said, noting him smile unnervingly. They were silent for a few beats taking in the bubbling, boiling and splashing sounds that surrounded them from other workstations.
Hermione wanted to at least get one thing straight from the Slytherin in front of her. "Would you really use the Cruciatus curse on Theo?" His eyebrows scrunched together, his smile still set in place.
"Do you ever stop talking, Granger?"
"No."
"Oh fantastic," he drawled, pouring a purple liquid into the cauldron. Hermione added the paste she had been making.
"Fine. Answer me this then. Why are you talking to me?"
"I don't know how it has escaped your notice, Granger, but assuming that it has even though I cannot imagine how anyone could be that brainless; we are partners in this class. Conversing with one another does seem like an inevitable and tragically unavoidable part of this whole situation." Hermione blushed and flicked her eyes between Malfoy and the empty spaces surrounding him, trying to think of a way to not look incompetent, but just failing at it. "Lost for words? Well, you're not the first girl to be flustered by me."
"I most certainly am not flustered by you!" she hissed.
"Denial is the first stage …" he mumbled, focussing intently on the number of drops of clear liquid from a pipette he was putting into the potion.
Hermione opened and closed her mouth completely stunned at the man in front of her. Malfoy turned to her and quickly raised both of his eyebrows before putting the stopper back into the vial.
She felt like she was always losing at the conversations she was having recently with Malfoy. 'Conversations' was too bold a word, really… they had, stare offs and then Monday night happened.
The stinging hex she had sent him obviously didn't pose a strong enough offence to him to qualify her as having leverage over him. It was perplexing and quite frankly made her reevaluate every conversation she had ever had with him. None had ever left her thinking she cared about his reaction or his words, yet somehow he was irking her like no one ever had. It made her angry not understanding any of it.
Hermione pursed her lips and sat stiffly in her seat. What was even going on? She barely had the time to ask the man about what he and Theodore Nott were searching for before her mental tangent left her with a muddled brain.
"Do you ever stop talking, Malfoy?" was her lame retort.
His tongue stroked his back teeth. "Yes," he said with a wink.
Hermione gnawed on her lip for the rest of the class as they continued adding ingredients to the potion. When class ended Slughorn inspected each cauldron, then waved his wand to keep them safe until the next lesson. By the time she had turned back to her table, Malfoy had already disappeared with his new Slytherin cronies, Nott and Zabini. She waited for Harry and Ron before they left for their next lesson.
