The concoction they were cleaning turned their hands and the knees of their robes lime green. For the first two hours, Draco merely leant against Snape's desk, glowering at Susan Bones and refusing to help. The potion hadn't exploded until she added the dried kelpie fin so as far as he was concerned, it was her mess.
All that he'd wanted to do by sitting with her in Potions was terrorize her into a healthy fear of him so that she'd think twice before tricking him out of catching her insubordinate friends again. It wasn't fair that he be punished for it.
After the first two hours, when it became clear that the mess would not wash out easily, Draco gave in and decided to help. The less detentions served with the Hufflepuff witch, the better. She was too stupid to be intimidated anyway, so it was a waste of time all around.
"I heard you were good at Potions?" Draco looked up from scrubbing the floor to find Susan studying him with a softly curious gaze. Her eyes were doe-like today, though no doe had ever had eyes that green. It infuriated Draco that she even considered herself worthy of talking to him.
He fixed her with his coldest stare. "I know better than to add kelpie fin to a potion based on salamander lung," he drawled, his voice sharp and aimed at her self-esteem.
Confusion crossed her features; but embarrassment did not follow. Smiling finally, she said, "I don't." She leant back, kneeling on her haunches, and trailed a hand through her hair, leaving behind a smear of green that most likely wouldn't wash out. "Potions isn't my strong suit."
"Well," said Draco, in his most disinterested tone. "You're a Hufflepuff; so your only strong suit would be eating."
She shot him a startled look before laughing. It wasn't the nervous titter of someone who thought they were being made fun of, but the cheerfully delighted laugh of someone who hadn't even considered that the statement was not a joke.
"You think I'm kidding?" asked Draco, trying to keep the incredulity from his tone. That only made her laugh harder, as though he'd made another joke.
"Did you hear about the Hufflepuff who gave his Kneazle a bath?" she asked eventually, eyes warmly amused. "He's still trying to get the fur off his tongue."
Draco stared at her. She was so very innocent, and so very awkward; reaching out in that sweet way of Hufflepuffs to offer friendship. He'd seen them do it before; none of them ever expecting to be rejected, but not one of them had ever been so stupid as to try it with him.
She smiled easily before he could come up with a retort that was cutting enough; one that she wouldn't be able to take as a joke, and tossed her scrubbing brush back into the bucket, not seeming to care that the water splashed out onto her robes. Her fingers were as green as the knees of her robes and the streak in her hair and her eyes; she'd obviously forgotten a gloving charm. Though, she was a Hufflepuff, perhaps she didn't know how to cast one.
She was probably the most flawed creature that Draco had ever had the misfortune to spend time with. Gritting his teeth, he resolved to get through the detentions as best he could and never think on them again. There was nothing of the sharp, stormy girl he had cornered the night before in her and he was wasting his time on anything less.