Mercury's POV

The second time he called me a mudblood, I slapped him. We were fighting again, he was being controlling and arrogant so naturally I was being disobedient and difficult. We were shouting at each other our words jumbled as they ran over one another. I don't think either of us were really thinking clearly. The word mudblood rolled off his tongue without a seconds hesitation and I raised my hand and struck him swiftly across his pale-skinned cheek. He stopped talking and looked down at me, his eyes wide as he was frozen in shock. My eyes were brimming with tears, hurt by his words but it felt good to watch the burning red mark of my hand begin to form on his cheeks.

"What the hell was that for?" He yelled once he was able to compose himself, he didn't even know what he'd done wrong and that just made me feel worse about what he'd said.

"For calling me a mudblood." I told him as I wiped a fallen tear away with the sleeve of my grey cardigan. He looked at me like I'd just struck him again. He apologised to me, which was surprising – in the five years we'd been at Hogwarts I had never once heard of the great Draco Malfoy apologising to anyone. He said he hadn't meant it but that didn't matter now he couldn't take it back, he couldn't unsay it.

Once more we worked in silence, eyes down on the floor, the table, at the cupboards around us, anywhere but on each other. We finished what needed to be finished and then went our separate ways.

The next I saw of him was at dinner that night, my friends sat around me laughing at something I hadn't caught in the conversation and stuffing their faces with all kinds of amazing foods. I wasn't all that hungry and my eyes scanned the Slytherin table. I must have hit him rather hard because even after the hours between then and now, he still had a red outline of my hand on his cheek.

I couldn't hear his conversation perfectly but what I could make out was one of his followers asked what had happened to his face and Draco brought a hand up to his cheek covering the mark of my hand with his own and shrugged. It wasn't clear what he said next but it sounded a lot like, "I was an idiot." His friend laughed but Draco had already turned away from him, his eyes found and locked with mine.

His eyes were sad and once more he ran a hand across the mark on his cheek. I wouldn't feel guilty for slapping him, he deserved it. I narrowed my eyes at him for a moment before turning my head away, back to my friends and their happy conversations.

He was nicer after that day, he spoke softer, said please more. Things went a lot smoother when we actually worked together and a lot of the time we finished our work quicker than planned so we'd sit and go over our notes from class, it wasn't always potions either, we shared the same charms and care of magical creatures classes too and would help each other in those if necessary, I don't know how it happened, one day I asked if he knew what the charms homework was and the next thing I know we're study partners for more than just potions. We'd been working together for just over half of our fifth year at Hogwarts and though I still wouldn't call us friends but we were definitely something that we hadn't been before and had managed to get onto first name terms.

Draco's POV

"Mercury, your handwriting is terrible, how am I ever supposed to read this?" I asked as I shuffled through a pile of her papers, scribbled writing and a mess of doodles. It was an odd name and I'd told her this on more than one occasion but she had just shrugged it off claiming her muggle parents were eccentrics. I couldn't really understand how a poisonous substance could be a name but I guess with a name like mine I couldn't be a judge.

"Most people just call me Mercy." She informed me and took the pile of papers out of my hands to point out what different things said. "And I told you not to rely on my notes, Draco." Every time she said my name it sounded like she was laughing but when I looked up her face wasn't even smiling, just focussed on the words written out in front of her.

"That's still not really a name." I muttered, I hadn't intended for her to hear me but she did and this time she did laugh, I'd grown quite fond of her laugh – I definitely liked it more than her crying - Her entire face would light up, like she emitted sunshine, she was quite radiant when she laughed.

We worked a little longer, she kept rubbing her arms. Mercury always wore these cardigans with sleeves that were ridiculously too long for her yet somehow she always complained the dungeons were cold. I'd told her to bring her cloak but she never had.

"You cold, again?" I asked and she nodded. I thought for a second and then suggested, "Want to head up to the library instead?" She looked thankful for my suggestion and we collected our things together and headed upstairs.

The library was warm, just like I thought it would be and we made our way to a back corner where there was an empty table. We spread our things out much like we had downstairs in the potions classroom and proceeded to work.

The library proved to be a good idea for a while until Mercury got distracted by all the books, I'd never realised how much she loved to read until she brought over books from the shelves and would read them while I tried to work then she would force them under my nose to make me read a paragraph she found particularly interesting.

It worked liked this for our next few meetings, we'd do any practical potions work in the classroom downstairs then head up to the library where we'd do homework from other classes till Mercury got distracted by books. I liked watching her read almost as much as I liked to hear her laugh, she had a very expressive face so I could always tell what she thought of whatever she was reading and her dark blonde hair would always fall in to her face...

She was distracted by the books and I was distracted by her.

Thank you so much for reading, I hope you enjoyed it. Please leave a review to let me know what I'm getting right or more importantly what I'm getting wrong! Thanks again ~RainbowVeins