Chapter Two: A Simple Crush

Neville Longbottom sat in the library with a piece of empty parchment in front of him. He was supposed to be writing a two foot essay on the property of Wolfsbane and its effects during lunar cycles for Professor Snape's class, but he was having a hard time keeping his mind on his books in front of him.

His inattention was due to the girl sitting five tables away from him, completely oblivious to Neville's moony gaze. She was tiny; barely even five-foot-four, with hair cut in a smart little bob. Her skin was creamy and pale and Neville longed to just touch her cheek, caress her high cheekbone and feel how warm she was because she certainly looked cold. Right then her face twisted into a small scowl, her eyes poring over a large tome; no doubt, she was probably working on the same essay as Neville.

'Pansy Parkinson is so beautiful', Neville thought. He sighed heavily as though the weight of the world sat squarely on his shoulders.

He didn't know when the attraction first arose, but one day while Neville sat eating breakfast in the Great Hall a notion, which followed him through the rest of the day, came to his head. He was staring off into space and suddenly, Pansy's face came into sharp focus. It was probably because she had just sat down in the place where Neville's eyes had just been, boring a hole into the wall; but the appearance of her had startled him. Of course, being across the room, she didn't even notice Neville's stare nor the jug of milk he had spilled in his surprise. As he mopped up the spill with a discarded copy of the Daily Prophet he happened to look back at Pansy and a thought hit him with the force of a bagel to the head: 'What a cute nose Pansy has.'

He dismissed it as crazy talk, but the image of her gabbing with a blonde-haired Slytherin girl followed him for the rest of the day like a fly on the back of a horse. During Care of Magical Creatures, while the Slytherins got their turn feeding a handful of giant spiders that had emerged from the forest, Neville stared long and hard at Pansy. His face grew warm as he realized why he was so interested in the girl. Normally, he hated all Slytherins. Nothing good ever came from an encounter with a Slytherin, but Pansy was just so pretty. 'I have a crush,' he thought glumly, 'on a girl who hates me.'

This was why, sitting at the table in the library with his parchment and books collecting dust, Neville sighed again, this time even more heavily.

Walking back to the Gryffindor dormitory, Neville bumped into a haggard looking Hermione. Both dropped the books they were carrying and, after a moment's pause due to surprise, laughed sheepishly.

"Sorry about that, Hermione," Neville said, gathering up his parchments.

"That's alright, Neville. It was my fault too." She handed him his book.

Gathering and collecting himself, he looked sympathetically at her pile. "I guess you've got loads of work already too, huh?"

She laughed, "Yeah, Professor Vector set us up with a five foot essay. I don't know how I'm ever going to get that done."

"When is it due?"

"Next month."

Neville grinned knowingly; Hermione was notorious for starting early and still managing to worry her pants off about assignments. "I think you'll be fine," he predicted.

They said their goodbyes and headed towards their dormitories. Neville envied Hermione, for she had a private dormitory all to herself. True, she had to share it with one person – who Neville would never want to share so much as a bench with – but at least she didn't have to worry about pesky first years. 'Honestly, they're like flies this year' Neville complained.

As he climbed through the portrait hole he could see a large group of first years involved in a loud game of Exploding Snap. Ron and Harry were sitting glumly at a table, no doubt trying to work on their essays.

As Neville approached them, he noticed Ron muttering something to Harry, "… just one, let me hex one of them and the rest of them will follow, Harry. They're like sheep."

Obviously, they weren't getting much work done either.

Instead of joining them, Neville said goodnight and headed for his bed. He surmised the weekend was not going to be fun, and dropped his books. However, something caught his eye as he pulled his sweater over his head. One of the parchments wasn't his. 'Must have grabbed Hermione's by accident,' he thought, and he picked it up from the floor to read it.

It was filled with notes from today's Potions class. Hermione's writing was messy and Neville could barely read some of it. 'No wonder she works so hard,' he chuckled, 'she has to copy everything twice just to understand it later.'

The bottom had caught Neville's interest, something he forgot Snape had mentioned during the class; however, Hermione, being a total perfectionist, had managed to catch it.

"The potency of dragon berries are quite strong, however when used in potions the effects are diluted. Many love potions contain dragon berries because this is the most effective ingredient to a love potion. If they are eaten simply off the bush, they cause the same effect, although heightened to a great degree."

Suddenly Neville grew excited. He didn't know why the thought of a love potion had never occurred to him. It seemed like the perfect solution to his predicament. He knew if he simply left it to luck, he'd be waiting until the cows came home for Pansy to notice him; he would be left a lonely man. But if he used a love potion maybe, just maybe, he stood a chance. 'It's worth a try,' he decided. And with a goofy grin plastered on his face, he crawled into bed. 'What's the worst that could happen? She barely knows I exist now. At least then she would know my name.' He decided that tomorrow he would go to the library the first chance he got and research on love potions.

Draco's eyes followed Hermione as she, with books and parchment in hand, crossed the common room and exited the dormitory. She hadn't mentioned where she was going, but Draco knew she was headed for the library. All week she had been leaving at the same time, 6:45 pm, right after dinner. She was obviously still upset with him after being embarrassed in Herbology or else she would have at least tried to endure studying with him in the same room.

Draco would have enjoyed the peace and quiet if it weren't for the icy stares she sent him each time he came to her with a problem they both needed to solve; like the upcoming Prefects' meeting they were to organize. On the other hand, her threat had in no way affected him at all. In fact, as the suit of armor settled back in front of the doorway, Draco sprang to his feet, threw his book down onto the couch and headed towards the door.

He prodded the suit in just the right place – left hip – and it jumped to the side. He peered into the empty hall and saw Hermione's robes swirl around a corner.

"Psst!"

Draco's head whipped around. On the other end of the hall Phyllis Tickle stood, still in her kilt and blouse, grinning at him from behind the statue of Boris the Bewildered. He smiled back, and indicated with his head for her to come over. Phyllis was the third girl Draco had brought to his room since his argument with Hermione. She was a fifth year Ravenclaw with a well-developed chest and a penchant for wearing a lot of pink lip gloss. Draco liked her name; and hoped she would live up to it.

He grabbed her by the hand as soon as she was close enough and pulled her through the door.

"We've got about two hours," he said, as she wrapped her arms around his neck.

Phyllis giggled affectionately, licking her highly glossed lips. Draco could nearly see his reflection in them. "Will that be enough time?" She asked, her voice throaty.

He chuckled, "That's plenty of time," before covering her mouth with his.

Hermione cursed herself for having forgotten her favourite quill. She never liked studying without it. She looked down at her watch. It was only half past seven, but she was exhausted. The thought of studying in the library for the third night in a row wasn't pleasant, but she had gathered her things and gone nonetheless. Being in the same room with Malfoy was annoying. He didn't even have to say anything and Hermione got angry. She simply had to remember the look of disgust Ron wore as he pictured her ogling Malfoy. That was the reason why she wasn't using the nice, comfortable common room in her own dormitory to rewrite her notes and work on Professor Vector's essay.

'Tonight is not the night,' she sighed and decided to call it a quits, vowing to work an extra hour or two the following night.

She was deep in thought, wondering how to structure Vector's essay, when she bumped into someone. As her books flew out of her hand she saw Neville fall over. They both laughed at the incident and said goodnight. Before leaving the library, Hermione had seen Neville sitting at a table by himself, books open, but his gaze fixed rather dreamily on Pansy Parkinson. Hermione worried if Neville had developed a crush on the harsh Slytherin girl but laughed at the absurdity of the prospect.

'He's got more brains than that.'

She decided to talk to Neville about it, just in case he had gone and fallen for her. Hermione knew Pansy was what the boys all called 'a looker', but the term 'village bicycle' had also been thrown into conversations surrounding Pansy. Hermione knew Neville deserved better than the throw-aways of at least half the boys in years six and seven.

Hermione was still deep in thought when she got back to her dormitory. She mumbled the password to the suit of armor – "Butterbeer." – and headed towards her room. She noticed Malfoy was no longer sitting in the common room reading. 'Does that boy ever do any schoolwork?' she irritatingly wondered. Deciding she didn't care, she threw on her dressing gown, and headed to the bathroom, intent on taking a long bubble bath. Before leaving her room she grabbed her wand out of her school robes; she didn't think Malfoy would try anything funny but, there was no harm in being prepared.

When she reached the bathroom, she soon realized that the door was locked. 'I guess he didn't go to bed after all,' she grumbled to herself.

She knocked loudly. "Are you going to be long?" she called.

Hermione was startled to hear a high pitched giggle emerge behind the locked door.

"Um, yeah!" Malfoy called back, his distraction obvious by his tone. "I'm taking a bath, Granger. Sod off!"

Hermione was outraged at his dismissal. "Excuse me? Did you just - Don't tell me to sod off, Malfoy!"

She was surprised when the door opened a crack and Malfoy's soggy hair peeked out. Hermione knew instantly he was hiding something, and it most likely belonged to that insipid giggle she heard. Normally he would have thrown the door open; especially if he were naked; just to see her reaction. After all, that's how Malfoy seemed to be enjoying himself these days.

"I said," Malfoy started, smirking at her angry scowl, "I'm taking a bath, Mudblood. Unless you want to hop in and join me, beat it."

He shut the door before Hermione could reply. Inside she could hear a soft voice ask who was at the door.

"A broom salesman, love," Hermione heard him reply, water splashing around as he got back into the large tub. "I told him we didn't want any."

She sat down on the couch in a huff, entirely appalled and infuriated at Malfoy for having a girl in their bathtub. She made a mental note to scrub the tub twice before ever getting back into it. She was torn between waiting there for Malfoy and the strumpet to emerge out of the bathroom in order to rail at them, or, admit defeat and go to bed, vowing to forget she ever heard anything. Her moral indignation kept her rooted to the couch.

To Hermione's horror, Malfoy came out of the washroom – thankfully, wearing clothing this time – looking damp and tired, with Phyllis Tickle, a vacuous blonde from fifth year Ravenclaw, who skipped out behind him. She giggled nervously as she spotted Hermione sitting on the couch, still in her bathrobe, sending a death glare their way. Malfoy was unperturbed by Hermione, but Phyllis' eyes kept darting towards the brunette who watched Malfoy pull his date by the hand towards the entrance to the dormitory. 'I guess one night stands aren't always reserved for a full night,' Hermione thought angrily. She grimaced as Phyllis gushed over Malfoy, who was looking down at her with a bored expression on his face. She was playing with his shirt which was half undone, exposing his pale skin underneath. Obviously, she was looking for at least one more kiss before being pushed out the door.

'Oh just hurry it up and get it over with,' Hermione wanted to snap.

"That was lovely, Draco," Phyllis said loudly glancing furtively at Hermione.

He answered with a grunt, nodding his head. Hermione noticed he wasn't even touching her; his hands were on his hips while Phyllis was standing in front of him, her damp blonde hair falling in waves on her shoulders and her hands at his waist. She stood on one foot, like a great blonde flamingo, while the other foot played nervously with the back of her knee.

As she watched the stupid girl throwing herself at Malfoy like some kind of lemming an idea came to Hermione. With as little movement as possible, Hermione subtly pulled her wand out from her pocket. 'This would teach him for being such a smarmy bastard', she thought as she sent a hex across the room.

Phyllis didn't even flinch as it hit her.

It was plain to see Malfoy had no intention of kissing her, and after a moment, Phyllis figured that out as well. She glumly turned towards the doorway. "Well, goodnight," she muttered halfheartedly before leaving.

Hermione watched Malfoy turn, a grin on his face. No longer angry, Hermione smiled back at him before rising and heading to the bathroom. The smirk then slipped off of his face.

"What are you smiling about?" he asked her retreating form suspiciously.

When she reached the door to the bathroom, she turned and shrugged innocently, "Oh, nothing really," she replied. Hermione shut the door and called out to him, "I just really like Phyllis. She's a nice girl, Malfoy."

She wished she could see his expression, perhaps a look of bewilderment on Malfoy's face would be worth the aftermath her little spell would cause the next day.