A/N: Thank you all so much for your reviews, favorites and follows! I am so pleased that you guys are enjoying the rising tensions between the two of them. Happy Thanksgiving to all my American readers - I am seriously so thankful for all of you! You can follow me on tumblr (nauticalparamour) where I post sneak peeks, story updates and answer questions.
Please let me know what you thought of chapter eight and be on the lookout for chapter nine soon!
Hermione hadn't been able to get her mind off of her near kiss with Theo Nott in a seventh floor broom cupboard no matter how hard that she tried. Worse was that Harry wouldn't let it go either. "Where did you go?" he demanded, nearly every time he got her away from Ron's big ears. "I saw Nott was skulking around on the floor, too. Did he hurt you?"
She was never able to come up with a satisfactory answer, telling him instead that she hadn't seen anyone else but Mrs. Norris. She was very aware that her friend did not seem to believe her. Still, he'd always drop it as soon as Ron came around, perhaps sensing that there was some tension between her and the redhead.
Theo Nott had invaded her mind and honestly, it was a bit embarrassing just how affected she was by him. She already spent a lot of time thinking about him - worrying about him - but it was made so much worse once she knew how he smelled, what his chest felt like when she was pressed up against him, the way that he would look at her before he dipped his head to kiss, Merlin, what the height difference felt like. It was all too much, wriggling into her brain until all of her dreams were of him.
He had been about to kiss her, she knew that know, drawn into her. And she had wanted him to kiss her, so badly, but he hadn't.
She thought that seeing the way that he snapped back, desperate to get away from her, was probably part of the reason that it hurt so badly. Of course, she knew that she wasn't the prettiest girl in their year, but she certainly wasn't bad looking either. And, she knew that she had trouble getting along with her classmates, but she didn't seem to have that same difficulty with Nott. They always had lively conversations when they met and he always made her laugh. She had thought that they were becoming friends.
Maybe she'd been mistaken. Maybe there was no room in his life for a mudblood friend, let alone a mudblood lover. Her cheeks flushed at the thought of it. Perhaps it had something to do with his odd behavior since the beginning of school. Had Nott taken the Dark Mark? If Draco Malfoy could have gotten it, why couldn't Nott? His father was just as involved as Lucius Malfoy; she remembered seeing him at the Department of Mysteries the year before. Had he suddenly remembered that he couldn't be with someone like her, not when he was involved with the Death Eaters, even if he really wanted to?
A part of her longed to confront him and ask why he hadn't kissed her, but she was too scared. Scared of his rejection and scared of him sneering at her like he always did when she got too close to him.
And, well, Nott certainly wasn't bringing it up either, though he didn't seem to be immune from the new tension that lingered between them when they met in the library. Sometimes, she would look up and he would be staring at her, with that familiar gleam in his eyes, that always seemed to make her heart stutter in response.
She tried to through her focus into other things, to try and keep her distracted from thinking about Nott at every opportunity. Hermione forced herself to talk more with Harry and Ron, feeling a bit embarrassed that she hadn't been spending more time with her best friends. She found Ron to be even more obsessed with Quidditch than usual, using most of his free time to practice for their first game. He was a bit over confident in his ability, if she was honest, and she was worried that it might all come crashing down. Guilt over the confundus charm she'd used made her belly twist uncomfortably.
But a bit of Quidditch couldn't compare to what Harry had been up to. While he wasn't stalking Malfoy all around the castle, he had picked up the disturbing habit of pouring over his potions text, looking for spells that he could use. Hermione was already quite suspicious of the textbook that Harry wouldn't let anyone else hold even, but learning that he was trying spells from inside its pages was concerning.
"How can you just try to use a spell that you have no idea what it does?" she would prod at him, hoping to get him to see reason. "What if they do something horrible?"
"I don't see you complaining about the muffliato spell," Harry countered, arms crossed and looking crosser at her constant nagging.
Hermione could agree that it really was quite a useful spell, and they had taken to using it more often than not. You could never be too careful about who was listening in to you, even when you were in the Gryffindor common room, she decided. "It is a very useful spell," she agreed with a frown. "But you have no idea what the other ones do. I am just worried about you, Harry."
Harry, like Ron, had taken to insinuating that she was just jealous of his marks in potions, that he was finally doing better than she was. Cheating, more like, Hermione always wanted to snap back at them, but she kept the thought to herself. It was unnerving to have Harry besting her in a subject that he had genuinely struggled with while Snape was their Professor, and she knew that not all of it had to do with the man who seemed to have it out for Harry.
And, it wasn't as if she wanted Slughorn's endless praise in class either. Hearing the portly Professor go on and on about what a prodigy Harry was could make her cringe. It wasn't making him a friend to any of his classmates either. No, Hermione did just fine on her own merit, having received hints from Slughorn that an invitation to his little Slug Club meetings would be coming her way. It didn't seem like more than a way to extract favors from people in the future, but she would probably go anyway.
It was hard not to get caught up in watching Harry work away while he was making his potions, his green eyes pouring over the spiky text in the potions textbook, seeing the way he deviated from the instructions. While he was happy to just go along with whatever the Half-Blood Prince said to do, Hermione's mind was whirling through everything she'd learned, trying to determine why his changes worked better than what they were told to do. Without fail, it seemed, the person who'd owned the book before was outwitting all of them, week after week. It pained her to say it, but whoever it was was obviously brilliant at potions.
But, the instructions were written that way for a reason, and so Hermione was going to follow them, even if it meant that she no longer held the top spot in the class.
They had been talking about Everlasting Elixirs for the past two weeks and Hermione was excited to finally get into the brewing at last. Theory was fine, of course, but after last year's overhaul from the Ministry, she had even more appreciation for practical application of what they were learning.
Brewing required you to be precise and play close attention to detail - two things that Hermione excelled at. It was a way that she could show that she was a better caliber of student than the others, though, with how small the class was at this point, they were all pretty much excellent brewers. Except for Ron.
"Hey, Hermione, could you grab me some asphodel?" Ron asked, trying to give her a dopey grin, perhaps thinking that it would entice her into doing his bidding. "Since, you know, you are always so good at picking the best asphodel. And, I mean, you are headed to the closet anyway."
She rolled her eyes, determined not to give into his laziness, especially not with that clumsy compliment he'd tried to give her. She knew he was only saying it to try and manipulate her into doing something for him. She was just ready to snap back and say something at him, when Nott sneered at Ron instead in that stereotypical Slytherin way. "Honestly, Weasley, if you managed to get into this class, you'd think you'd be capable enough of doing your own work," he said, making Ron's face color. "You could always drop it if you find it too...strenuous."
Ron sputtered and floundered, but was unable to come up with a retort in the time it took Nott to stalk off in the direction of the ingredients closet. Hermione smirked, grateful to her arithmancy partner for sticking up for her, even if she was sure that he'd only done it to get under Ron's skin. "Well, he is right, Ronald," Hermione said primly, before going to get her own ingredients.
Nott wouldn't meet her eye when she passed him, but she was able to whisper a thanks that he didn't acknowledge either. She quickly gathered everything that she needed, eager to get back to her station so she could start brewing. Even if everything went perfectly, it would likely take her the whole period to complete the potion.
When she returned to her station, Nott was cradling his hand against his chest, hissing in pain. Slughorn was bustling over, his hands on his belly. "Let's have a look then, Mister Nott," he said, his voice booming through the classroom. "Now, that is a nasty burn."
Hermione could agree. From what she could see from her spot, his fingertips looked pink and irritated. His face was drawn in pain, looking unusually pale. She could only imagine how it would have felt, her own skin tingling from the sight of it.
"Next time, Mister Nott, try not to be so careless with a hot cauldron," Slughorn said, patting the taller student on the shoulder. "Head off to the infirmary. I am sure that Madame Pomfrey will have you patched up in no time. Does she still have those scrumptious biscuits of hers? Maybe you'll get one of those as well."
Nott hauled his bag up over his shoulder, eager to get out of the dungeons as quickly as possible, as though relief couldn't come soon enough.
Hermione stared at his station when he left, his silver cauldron still in place over the burner. Her eyes narrowed in confusion when she noticed that the burner hadn't even been lit yet. That was odd, she decided. Turning to glare at Ron, she wondered if he hadn't sent some kind of jinx at Nott's cauldron when he hadn't been looking. "Did you do something to Nott?" she demanded, wanting to know the truth.
"What? No!" Ron said, looking offended. "But if you ask me, he deserves it for butting into a conversation he wasn't involved in."
"Really?" Hermione asked, thinking that it was rather rude of her friend to wish ill on Nott, but then again, she knew that Ron thought very little of Slytherins in general. He didn't have the same relationship that she had now, with Nott. And it's a good thing he didn't, Hermione thought to herself. Merlin, she couldn't imagine if the boys knew. Shaking her head at how lurid she'd made it sound, she tried to remind herself that there was nothing going on between her and Nott.
Even if...she might like there to be.
Returning her focus back to the potion in front of her, she used her mortar and pestle to begin powdering the asphodel finely, hoping that the work would get Theo Nott out of her head. It didn't work.