POTION´S CLASS

The voice of the Gryffindors and Slytherins, who were approaching the classroom, made Snape come back to his senses. He had just started to take large and quick steps towards the classroom when he saw Harry, Hermione and Ron enter it. He also saw Crabbe and Goyle approach Draco with bewildered looks on their faces. And as he walked by their side he overheard Crabbe tell Draco:

"Do I have an eye problem or were you helping a mud-blood?"

Draco´s mind was racing for an answer. "Um, well... you know... Christmas is approaching and... well... we should help others even if they are mud- bloods" said Draco in a tone that tried to sound convincing.

"Christmas?!" said Goyle taken aback "Its mid-September!!"

Snape shook his head; in his opinion Draco had just given, the thickest answer he could think of.

"Yeah, that's why I said approaching" said Draco while he turned to enter the classroom. He didn't want Crabbe and Goyle to keep on inquiring him; he had enough questions in his head already.

Draco sat in his usual spot in the dungeon. He was hearing Snape´s voice but couldn't make a word out of it. His mind was just too overflowed with unanswered questions. He hated mud-bloods, right? Hermione is a mud-blood. Wait a second had he just thought of her as Hermione. No he corrected himself. Granger is a mud-blood. But then why had he helped her? Worst, why had he lost the precious opportunity to jinx her? His head started to hurt.

For some reason this questions were very overwhelming. Definitely there was something else going on his head and his heart.

With his arms crossed over his chest, Snape was watching Draco with the corner of his eye, then he set his eyes on Hermione and then back to Draco, trying to figure things out. Hermione didn't seem to be aware of Snape´s suspicious looks and neither did Draco, he was to busy following Hermione's moves. Hermione with her usual concentration was very busy mixing her own potion when all of the sudden she grabbed Harry's hand.

Judging for what he had just seen, Snape concluded that Harry was about to put the wrong ingredient in his potion, at the moment that Hermione grabbed his hand to stop him. Snape looked back to Draco, his face had a serene expression, but his eyes gave him away, they were reflecting jealousy.

The bell rang and everyone just burst out, including Draco. Snape couldn't say he was annoyed, after all he preferred the dungeon when it was quiet. But all of the sudden something caught his eye. Draco had left his Potion's book on the table. Snape rolled his eyes and stood up to put it away when something fell from it. At first he couldn't see what it was, so he knelt to pick it up. Maybe in other time this could have caused him heart attack, but now he saw no reason for Draco not to have a picture of Hermione.