Something unfortunate happens...
Chapter 5
Four days until the potion is due. Hermione wiped sweat off of her forehead as Malfoy looked for the next ingredient. The last one. They were going to finish early!
"Found it," he said, and sat cross-legged again.
"Lovely," Hermione said, and took the vile of gold liquid from his fingers. She attempted to ignore the feeling of his warm fingers brushing hers. He didn't seem to notice. Tosh—why would he?
"Okay, here I go," she said, and Malfoy and Myrtle watched her pour the full file of gold healing liquid into the cauldron. "I hope this works. I had to bribe Madam Pomphrey with my favorite spells book for this."
The gold liquid drained into the cauldron, and the cauldron billowed out fumes of glowing, sparkly yellow light, just like a glittering ray of sun. All beside Myrtle had to squint their eyes. Then, after the light died down, Hermione just stared at the beauty of it all. It cast a glow on her and on Malfoy. She looked at him and caught his eye.
He was staring at her. Not meanly or anything like that, but was simply… staring.
The glow died down completely, and the two partners looked into the cauldron to see thick golden liquid inside.
"It's perfect!" Hermione exclaimed, smiling widely. "We did it!"
She looked at Malfoy and he had just the slightest bit of a smile on his face, but it faded the instant she looked at him. He looked away.
"Were you this excited when you finished the polyjuice potion?" he muttered.
"Not as," she replied. She took a deep breath before saying, "Thank you for your help."
He didn't answer, which pricked her heart a bit, but she got passed it. She stood up.
"Well, I'm off to dinner. You coming?"
"No," he spat. "I don't want to be seen traipsing around with a mud— with you."
She huffed through her nose. At least he didn't say that name. "Alright."
She left. Malfoy stayed sitting where he was. He stared at the gold stuff in the cauldron, visions of the light illuminating Hermione in his mind's eye. Her brown eyes and fair skin sparkled, and her hair shined brilliantly. His hands balled into fists as they were resting on his knees.
"Lunatic, Draco," he muttered. "She's a mudblood."
Myrtle stared at him from across the cauldron. He scrambled up and left the lavatory. Once he entered the Great Hall and made his way to his usual seat at the Slytherin table, which was in the middle of the table, his gaze landed directly on Hermione talking with Ron and Harry. She was smiling. The vision came to his mind again.
He sat down and stared at his empty silver plate, confusion and shock filling his system at the reason why he didn't want to look up because his eyes would instantly land on her again.
Hermione eyed Malfoy in the main corridor, giving him the look that she always gave him in the past two-and-a-half weeks when she wanted him to follow her to the lavatory. He gave her a look that said, "We finished the potion. I don't need to go anywhere."
Her eyes widened indicating that she wanted him to come along. His eyebrows creased as she ran off around a corner. He said bye to his posse and left.
"Now exactly why do we have to be here?" he asked as the two stood over the cauldron in the lavarory.
"To check it."
His brows pushed together. "Why do I need to be here for that?"
"Because this potion belongs to both of us."
He huffed through his nose and gazed at the chess board from the day before when he and Hermione played while waiting to put in the last ingredient into the potion. He smirked. He won that game.
"Looks good," Hermione said and he looked down and saw the top of her head over the cauldron. No doubt the golden glow was on her face. He looked back up, attempting to forget that pretty image.
"I wonder if it will change at all over the next few days?" she said.
"How should I know?" He folded his arms.
Hermione's heart leaped. That foul voice of his made her skin crawl and jaw clench, but made her heart dance. Curious. She stood up straight. "Well, then. I guess we're done here."
"Lovely," he said tonelessly.
Hermione huffed and left the lavatory and got not two steps into the corridor when she heard something fall against stone back inside the lavatory. She sprinted back inside, heart pounding, only to find her worst nightmare—
The thick gold liquid was all over the stone floor, oozing out of the cauldron like liquid sunlight. Malfoy stood there looking at it with a blank expression, the gold getting on the bottoms of his black shoes.
"What have you done?!" Hermione bellowed into the empty lavatory, and her voice echoes off the walls.
He looked back at her, his face twisting up. "I did nothing!" His arm spread out over the mess. "It tipped over on its own!"
She glared at him with wild eyes and stomped up to him, her heart hammering and her face heating up with anger. "You liar! How could you ruin something that we spent the last three weeks on?"
He glared down at her wildly. "I didn't do anything, mudblood! And who cares about a stupid potion?!"
Hermione's eyes stung with tears, and they fell speedily down her face. Her chest constricted so much that it felt as if her heart were being squeezed right out of her. "How can you be so heartless?" she demanded fiercely, glaring at him. "Why do you take so much delight in making everyone around you so miserable? Why do you have to be such a bully? Why?!"
He stared at her with daggers, and his lips flattened into a grim line.
"You know what?" she said, tears still rolling, and a crack in her voice. "I tried to get through to you. I tried to be your friend. But it's impossible with your black heart!"
The whites of Malfoy's eyes began turning red, and his mouth trembled. His words slithered through his teeth. "I. Don't. Care. What. You. Think. Mudblood!"
A sob billowed out of Hermione. She looked all over the room, besides at him, because she knew that new tears would come if she did. She looked at the golden potion that was now falling down the drain under the sinks.
"Of course you don't care," she said, her voice quiet, but filled with emotion. "Of course you don't."
Her legs, now feeling like wet noodles, managed to move her out of the lavatory. Her sobbing drowned out the sound of clanking from the cauldron being set up-right again.
"I told you that he's a foul, rotten git," Ron said to her as the trio were on their way to the common room the next evening. "It's just like him to do something like that."
Hermione hugged her books to her chest, clutching onto them so hard that her hands were going to be poked through with the corners of the hard covers. This was probably the hundredth time that either Ron or Harry brought up… Draco.
"What are you going to do about the potions project?" Harry asked, and she tried to ignore him.
"Yeah, now that Malfoy destroyed everything," Ron said. "Blymee, why does Hermione have to suffer for Malfoy's evil doings, huh?"
"I know," Harry agreed.
Hermione hugged her books tighter if that were possible, and she huffed through her nose. Her heart hammered and her cheeks felt hot.
"So, what are you going to do, Hermione?" Ron asked, looking passed Harry since he was walking in between the two of them.
Tears stung her eyes and she said nothing. Her breathing became heavier due to her rising irritation.
"Hermione?" Harry prodded. She had enough.
"Just shut up, the both of you!" she bellowed, her voice echoing in the corridor, and people looked over, and some stopped. Ron and Harry stared at her, stunned speechless.
"Don't ever mention Malfoy or that blasted potions project again, or I'll never speak a word to either of you for the rest of the year!"
She stormed away to the common room, leaving Ron and Harry unable to comprehend what just happened. They just stared at her back as she stalked walked away.
Hermione reached the common room, and went straight to her bed and pulled the red curtains around it. And sobbed. She pictured Draco leaning over the chess game, his brow furrowed in concentration, with his feather-light blonde bangs hanging over his forehead… the secret looks they gave each other every time she wanted them to head off to the lavatory, and he actually followed her each time… his crystal blue eyes that gazed at her after she poured the gold elixir into the potion…
She didn't care about what made him the way he is because it doesn't matter anymore. She thought he changed, at least a bit, but she was wrong. Dreadfully wrong.