It had been a long, long hour.

Each time Hermione opened her mouth to ask a question or to request that Draco pass her an ingredient, she was answered with a snarl and a sarcastic remark. As the minutes ticked by, she found herself becoming more annoyed and less hurt. Hermione was beginning to remember how she'd become desensitized to the word "mudblood" in the first place.

Making a valiant effort to ignore Draco's pettiness, Hermione threw herself into her work. The potion was not the most complex one they'd made that year, but it did occupy most of her attention as she went through the motions of adding the precisely sliced ingredients. Draco, for his part, was doing very little work on the actual assignment, instead choosing to perfect his insults.

"Careful not to cut yourself, Mudblood. Wouldn't want you to taint our potion, after all." He gave her a condescending look, laughing lightly to himself.

"You know, you could help me with this, Malfoy." Hermione replied bitingly, glaring at him with all her might.

Draco chose to ignore the look she was giving him. "I can't get hurt, Mudblood. We need me for this project."

Hermione rolled her eyes.

"Right," she answered, "well, go on then."

He seemed confused. "What?"

She motioned to the potion. It was a shade of pale green, described as the color of the step before the last. His eyes skimmed the directions once.

"Good job, Mudblood. Looks like you didn't screw up too horribly, despite your disadvantages."

Sighing, Hermione knew that that was the closest Draco Malfoy would ever get to complimenting her. She didn't need his acceptance, Hermione reminded herself as she handed him the knife she'd been using to cut the ingredients.

"What's this for?" Draco asked, wrinkling his nose. Hermione motioned to the potion with an expectant look on her face, and he caught on to her suggestion. "Do we happen to have anything else I could use? You touched this."

Her blood boiled, but Hermione swallowed her rage. "I realize it's difficult for you, Malfoy, but please try to be less of a git long enough to finish our potion."

With a look of disgust clearly written on his features, Draco lifted the knife to his fingertip and made the smallest incision. A drop of bright red blood formed on the digit before falling into the potion, which promptly turned a steely gray.

"There, happy?" Draco sneered, pinching the small wound between the pointer finger and thumb of his other hand.

Hermione looked over the potion, and then back down at her notes. Then at the potion. Then at her notes. She repeated this a few times, squinting and rubbing her eyes furiously as well. Draco noticed her erratic behavior.

"What is your problem, Mudblood?" he barked.

A smile broke out on Hermione's face.

"Not my problem, Malfoy," she said, her voice giddy, "yours."

Draco checked his finger. It was still bleeding. He sighed and cast her a furious glance. "What in the bloody hell are you talking about?"

Hermione pushed her notes toward Draco, pointing out the last sentence. She watched with joy as his jaw dropped.

"Our potion," Hermione stated, "is supposed to be periwinkle."

A/N: Yes, yes—this took me much longer than usual to post. I apologize. For some reason, I can't seem to make myself happy with any of the chapters I've written since Chapter 10, and it makes me not want to update. Baahhh. I'm really rather frustrated with this little piece, and when I'm frustrated I tend to avoid the thing that's gotten me worked up at all costs. Also, college started again, my work hours have picked up by a lot…you get the picture. I know, I'm all excuses. Still, I hope you all understand!

A note pertaining to the length of the chapters—a few people have complained about the short chapters. It's a stylistic choice of this story. I'm going with what I feel comfortable with, and so I've done my best to leave things at what I consider to be natural breaking points. I know that it's an annoyance for some people, but I'm afraid I'm rather fond of it that way.

Thanks go to—Gwinna, Harry's Lil Bitch, chichirixxx, kazfeist, crazy-emerald-blue, Imagination Vs Reality, and Tomo Potter. I appreciate all your comments and advice! (: Also, thanks to anyone who's even read this little story—I looked at my stats, and it has most hits than any story I've ever written. (: