Recently, Draco Malfoy's calm was challenged nearly every day. Wherever he happened to go, one person managed to ruin his mood quite…spectacularly.
At first -being such an incredible wizard, an incredible man- he tried to channel his famously stoic ancestors, but the girl was tenacious. This particular witch was truly in-su-ffe-ra-ble, even by his loose standards, and that was saying something given that he was friend (slash kind-of-more-once-but-not-anymore) with Pansy Parkinson and cordial with Daphne Greengrass. So when stoicism failed, the blonde tried leniency.
It was not the girl's fault if she didn't know how to behave in polite society, muggleborns were not known for their upbringing and manners; being raised by muggles tended to do that to people. However, being the magnanimous wizard that he was, Draco let it slide with a mere shrug. It would be absolutely unbecoming of a wizard of upstanding breeding like him to react like a plebeian. At least, the girl was clever enough to -almost- make up for the lack of proper upbringing, and she wasn't too hard on the eyes either. Unfortunately, those two positive points didn't make up for everything else, namely being a giant pain in his derriere. Everything about her was designed to irritate him, the Slytherin was sure of that.
Even the way she spoke, like she knew the deepest secrets of the universe and you were simply a biped mammal with two brains cells and a half battling in duel, infuriated him to no end. As if she were the only being with a functioning brain in the vicinity. In her defense, Draco supposed that hanging with someone like Weasley tended to that. The depth of the boy's stupidity was so great that Gilderoy Lockhart could look brilliant next to the ginger. If the blond had the ability to feel any pity towards the Weasel King he would have… Or not. No, probably not. They were things a man could not bring himself to do no matter the situation. Feeling something other than pure disdain for the redhead (and his family) was one of them.
All those things pushed the blond to take drastic measures; it was his duty to expose Granger and open up everybody's eyes. Rita Skeeter, great woman that she was, did her best but the witch was stronger, even back then. He was ready now though, and if the Gryffindor wanted a fight, he would give it to her. Two could play this game and he was resolute to win. One, because he was a sore loser and two…well, because he was a sore loser.
Here, he was staring. Again. Hermione was beginning to think that the blonde had lost it in the past few months. Since the beginning of their sixth year he'd taken the unsettling habits to be wherever she happened to be and stare at her. Like, really stare at her. She could barely see him blink. Sometimes he would even look at her face as if it had personally offended him. All the inbreeding must have gone to his head.
At first, Hermione chose to ignore it, naively thinking that he would tire of this odd behavior and let her be. How was she wrong! Now, his staring has evolved into an examination of her every movement. All day. At this rate he was going to obtain his N.E. in stalking and harassment with zero effort. She was bemused at first, and annoyed. Probably a lot more annoyed than bemused. However the brunette could not deny that his new hobby of his was taking a toll on her. As weird as it was, she couldn't forget where his family's beliefs lay and the thought that perhaps Malfoy had something more sinister than messing with her head was making her anxious. One couldn't forget that when he was only thirteen he tried to have Buck killed simply because the poor beast tried to do the world a favor. She was on edge every time Malfoy was nearby, but couldn't tell Harry and Ron about her suspicions (paranoia coupled with a quick temper was not a good mix), nor Ginny (same awful temper, meaner right hook). At this point Crookshanks was her best and only ally.
Morning classes went by swiftly and by the time lunch came she still hadn't come up with a plan to make Malfoy stop his weird staring thing. Sighing heavily, the curly-haired witch began eating her meal guessing that if she left now someone (namely Harry or Ginny) was bound to notice, and she truly didn't want any of her friends to ask questions about something she hadn't had answers for. Unfortunately for the young Gryffindor, it was at this exact moment that Fate decided that everything was going way too smooth that day and turned an oblivious red-haired witch into her agent.
"Hermione? Malfoy's been staring at you for the past five minutes… I don't even think I even saw him blink."
As if they have been rehearsing their role, Harry and Ron turned at the exact same time towards the Slytherin's table to witness their archenemy in an intense contemplation of their best friend. Draco had to have seen them, the boys were in his direct line of sight… and, yet, his gaze never ever wavered for one second from her even though he'd never have wasted an opportunity to antagonise them before. The lack of reaction was odd coming from the pureblood.
Resuming their previous position, Harry and Ron were ready to bombard their best friend with a bunch of questions when they realised she'd not even spared a glance towards the blonde. She was eating her meal, imperturbable and unbothered, eyes fixed on her plate. Suddenly unsure of how to proceed they looked at each other until Harry decided to speak first.
"Hum…Hermione haven't you heard what Ginny said?" Harry said, before casting a look at his girlfriend who shrugged in response.
At this, a somewhat deadpanned Hermione replied that she had heard what the ginger said, thank you very much, but that fortunately for her and her sanity she didn't possess any access to the Draco Malfoy's Brain Daily Show and in conclusion she didn't have any more clues than them, so if Harry was done with his questions there were still classes to attend if it wasn't too much to ask. Apparently this was not what the Chosen One was expecting because by the time Hermione passed the door he was still frozen in his seat by Hermione's bold statement.
A hand appeared suddenly on his shoulder and bright brown eyes sought his before darting across the room and landing on a certain Slytherin watching rather intensely the spot where their best friend stood moments ago. Curiously, Harry couldn't detect any ill-intent, any malice towards Hermione, rather his eyes seemed almost contemplative. The Gryffindor determined that this was perhaps more troubling than anything else given who Malfoy was, and then vowed to keep a close eye on the Slytherin.
The girl was positively nuts. It was the only possible explanation for her behaviour. She'd been talking to herself for the past 15 minutes and by talking he meant literal tirades and monologues, as if she didn't realise exactly where she was. Especially, in potions where Severus could and would verbally exterminate any non-Slytherin for breathing, let alone chattering, with a glee unseen since last week when he gave the Weasel and Scarhead one month worth of detention for being forty-seven seconds late. Draco could privately admit that it had been hilarious.
Now was not the time to dwell on such thoughts, though, no matter how pleasant they might be. Back to business, even if said business was still busy conversing with herself with a conviction she had only shown when dealing with homework or house-elves. S.P.E.W. Another thing proving that she was mental.
Malfoy's eyes began to scan the rest of the classroom and soon landed on the imposing figure of his godfather who gave him a glare that promised a lecture in the highly improbable case the light quirk of his eyebrow wasn't incentive enough to start working on the day's assignment. Self-preservation being one of his many qualities, Draco started right away to read the instructions written on the blackboard right away, before immediately letting out a long sigh of suffering. By Salazar's saggy balls, this potion was one of the most difficult he had ever seen. The only person who wasn't not-so-internally panicking was Scarhead. Perhaps he'd studied this particular one before. Draco was sure he'd seen it somewhere before, he couldn't recall anything else, though.
Exhaling once more, the Slytherin began to work on his potion with Zabini. At least, his partner wasn't completely useless and knew how to brew potions like no one; it was a refreshing change from Crabbe or Goyle. You couldn't possibly be the child of Elora Zabini and not knowing everything there has to know about poiso…potions, anyway.
Half-way through the instructions, the blonde saw that Granger wasn't doing so well if he was to judge by the very cross expression on her face and the state of her hair. Draco could absolutely not not tease her and, with a little smirk, began to draw a little something for her, before throwing it in her direction.
Startled, Hermione saw a little paper land on her workbench and almost threw it away, when the last person she didn't want to see and hear chuckled. Picking up the piece of parchment, she unfolded it and flushed in anger at the drawing that little slimy, piece of troll sketched.
"You don't like my little portrait of you, Granger?"
Narrowing her eyes, she stomped on the paper and ostensibly turned her back on the Slytherin, determined to ignore him until the end of the world. With a little more force than necessary, Hermione began to grate her unicorn's corn while monitoring the potion. She couldn't afford to lose her calm, especially in this class because without her Neville would most likely fail and they'll end up with 3 months worth of detention for ruining a cauldron or whatever excuse Snape would use and get a T. Hermione never did have a T and wasn't planning to get one today (or never, actually).
With the patience of a saint (she really deserved a medal from the school for this incredible feat), she disregarded any taunt thrown in her direction by the Ferret and finished the potion with efficiency a few minutes before the time limit. Ready to rub this fact in Malfoy's face, she turned around and opened her mouth just to see the inbred albinos already looking at her with a smug expression. Lowering her gaze she realized that he had finished his potion too, and it looked damn perfect.
With all the dignity she could muster, the curly-haired witch turned her face away to hide the scowl she was sure was set permanently on her features.
Life was so unfair.
Draco was exulting. This was better than anything he could have hoped for, for this class. He didn't even have to do anything to get back at Granger for purposefully crossing him every damn day.
When his godfather told them to sample their potion and bring them to his desk with their name on the vials, the blond didn't hesitate one second to annoy further the Gryffindor Princess.
"Hey, Granger! This horrible potion smells like you- disgusting, isn't it?"
"Sod off, Malfoy!" Hermione replied, her hair more ruffled than ever.
Suddenly, Snape's voice rang out in the room "Granger! Malfoy! Quiet. The both of you." before adding with an uncharacteristic glint in his eyes, "Now, class, can anyone tell me what this potion is? Yes, Mr. Zabini?"
"Amortentia, sir"
An abrupt movement on his right made Draco look at Granger who appeared to be abnormally frozen.
"Good, very good. And what is Amortentia, Mr. Zabini?"
With a Malfoy-worthy smirk that made him very wary, Blaise watched him take the full measure of his words. "Amortentia is the world's strongest love potion, and it smells like who the particular person is attracted to…". At this, his best friend (pending) stopped a little for show, and let out a ringing "And yes, Draco, we all heard your comment."
...May Salazar swallow him whole.