Victoria smiled triumphantly as she released her grip on Draco's hand. He, however, looked faintly sick. This only made her smile all the more.
"So, what do you suggest?" he asked tentatively.
"Well, I suggest you continue on with what you were doing; I believe that was running away from Pansy to the dormitories. Really not a bad plan for the moment. I, on the other hand have an appointment."
"With whom?" Draco asked with obvious suspicion.
"Well, as though you have any right to know, Professor Snape." Victoria began walking down the hall again and Draco fell into step with her.
"I didn't know you had gotten detention."
Victoria rolled her eyes. "I didn't get detention. I may be helping him with a potion."
"You 'may' be helping him? You mean you don't know?"
"Goodness, you sure are full of questions now that we've made that truce." From the look on his face, she figured she needed to start being a little more gentle. She wondered briefly what Parkinson had done this time to have had such an effect.
"Sorry," she began. Draco looked shocked by this declaration. Victoria was tempted to roll her eyes again. "I meant that I may be helping him if it's possible to help him. I uh...stumbled upon him swearing at his cauldron and asked if I could help somehow. After being significantly Snape-like he finally told me to come back here after dinner to see if perhaps I could help. That's what I meant."
"Weird," was all Draco said.
"Yes, well, here we are," she pointed out as she stopped right outside the old potions classroom. She could no longer hear Professor Snape swearing, but she could hear something...she just wasn't sure what it was. Victoria began to head towards the door when Draco stopped her.
"Wait. Before, when I asked what you had in mind, I meant about Parkinson."
Victoria smiled kindly, but not without amusement. "I know."
And with that being said, she pushed open the door and stepped inside, leaving a very perplexed Draco behind.
"Bloody Americans," he muttered under his breath.
*
As soon as she stepped in, Victoria saw what it was that was making the indistinguishable noise. Professor Snape was no longer working at the cauldron. Instead, he had found himself a nice little corner and was periodically knocking his head against the wall.
Feeling bold after her encounter with Draco, Victoria decided to go out on a limb...one that might cost her more than just the honor of helping her professor with his work. "I wouldn't imagine that brick on the forehead will do anything for your potion, Professor."
He growled as he turned around, but he didn't scold her, so Victoria didn't lose her nerve. "You told me if I came back you would inform me on whether or not you could use my help. Could you, or am I just getting in the way?"
He looked at her for a long moment without speaking and Victoria had her first moment of disappointment, thinking perhaps he would tell her to leave. What he said, however, was, "What do you know about speech potions?"
Victoria thought for a moment. "Not much, except that they are usually very difficult due to the rarity of some of the ingredients and their preparation before-hand. Well, that and that Glowssa buds are usually used." Victoria shivered just thinking about those repulsive undergrowth. "Why? Is that what you were working on?"
He nodded and walked back over to his cauldron. "I prepared some of the trickier ingredients weeks ago, but it seems that one of your fellow students thought it would be funny to switch the prepared ones for the unprepared!" He held up a bit of shriveled dragon tongue as he spoke. "I stewed my tongues for exactly thirty-five hours – exactly! – and I get it to add to the potion and someone had replaced it with these...these...half-baked withered tongues!"
Victoria sincerely wanted to laugh her head off at the way he was fuming about his "stewed tongues" and how the others were only "half-baked." It sounded like some very twisted cooking show. There were two reasons, though, that she didn't laugh. One was the fact that making this man mad could just about ruin her academic life...or maybe just her life in general. And two, he just kept talking without coming up for air, so she couldn't laugh without interrupting; and interrupting someone when they 're talking is rude.
"I had just placed one of these poor excuses for a stewed tongue in when you walked by. My perfectly done potion, which was supposed to be almost half finished, began to splutter and it threw bits of itself all over the room. And, as I saw when I found you sprawled on the ground, it also got a bit of itself out of the room!"
Victoria was sure he would have continued, if not for the sudden noise. Professor Snape growled again as he went and opened the door, behind which the sound had generated. And, who would have guessed? There was Draco Malfoy in just about the same position Victoria had been in earlier that evening. Apparently Professor Snape had not bothered to clean up the "bit" of his potion that had gotten out of the room, despite the consequences he'd already suffered – namely, Victoria.
"What exactly are you doing on the floor, Mr. Malfoy?"
"I fell."
"Yes, I seem to be getting that excuse often today." Snape shot a look at Victoria that left her blushing again. The look on Draco's face showed that he had just discovered why Victoria had used the word "stumble" when describing what had happened here earlier. She was not happy about that discovery.
"Well, Mr. Malfoy, there is quite a bit of hall over there that doesn't have anything you could slip in, so I wonder why you had been walking along this exact part of the floor. Perhaps you were spying on me as well?" Victoria flinched. Was he going to let Draco know about everything? She was not at all enjoying the looks either of them was sending her way.
"No, sir, I wasn't spying on you. I was just..." Draco hesitated. If he hadn't been spying on Snape, Victoria was just as curious as Snape to find out what he had been doing.
"Well? Out with it, boy!"
"Nothing, sir. I just fell." Snape snorted at this and growled, once again, as he turned back to his cauldron. He turned quickly back to them, though. The suddenness of it made Victoria flinch while Draco recoiled as though he'd just been bitten.
"I suppose since both of you are here, it may be helpful to have two competent potions students to help me with this." Snape looked each of them over, as though weighing their talent.
"Um...help you with what, sir?" Victoria asked, feigning timidity. Draco shot her a gaze at this statement that seemed to be asking "where did that come from?"
"Well, my potion of course. I need to have it all done by your class next week, and I can't possibly prepare the tongues again and do everything else required of this potion. So, you will work on the potion while I prepare the ingredients." He said it so matter-of-factly that Victoria really didn't know how to respond. "Unless, of course, you're not going to offer your service now."
"Oh, no sir. I mean, yes sir. I mean my service is still offered...sir." Victoria could hear Draco chuckling at her lack of coherency and she almost turned around and slapped him. That wouldn't really break the truce, would it?
"And you, Mr. Malfoy?" That shut Draco up real quickly.
"What? Oh, er...yeah." Victoria snorted her own laugh at his lack of sentence structure, and suddenly felt much better. Unfortunately, the exchange was not lost on Professor Snape.
"Now, if you would stop trying to humiliate each other, we can all get to work."
Draco and Snape moved toward the cauldron, which Snape emptied with a wave of his wand, and Victoria followed slowly. "I just have one question, Professor."
He turned to look at her, a slightly vexed expression on his face. "And that is?"
"What exactly is this potion supposed to do?"
Snape's vexed expression turned to one of cruel amusement. "Have you ever heard of telepathy?"
~*~*~*~
Madame Moony – You don't understand Victoria? Yeah, I don't understand me either ;) I hope you like where I take this story.
Spaces Out Space Cadet – Yay! Thanks for reviewing again! Well, now you know what he's working on (kind of *evil grins*) and Draco continues to be a twitchy little ferret. Too bad she doesn't know that joke, huh? *gets idea...*