Chapter Six
A/N: Thanks, dream-on-sunday, as always.
After the Christmas holidays had finished, the relationship between Merida and her mother had been improved no end. However, one thing that still infuriated the woman was that her daughter still refused to behave herself.
It wasn't that the girl didn't care about pleasing her mother, not at all, but she just found that being constantly under the woman's watchful eye made her day to day life so incredibly boring.
Besides, she wouldn't misbehave in Potions if Professor Snape was not so prejudiced against her. Ginny had repeatedly assured her that he hated all Gryffindors on principle, but that was not something Merida was going to let him get away with. If he wanted to mess with the Lions, the Lions were going to bite back.
That was the reasoning behind the well-developed prank she was going to play on the man, one which she had been assisted with by her best friend's brothers, Fred and George, who were the most renowned for playing trick on teachers in all of Hogwarts. Or so they had told her.
The prank involved a Skiving Snackbox, three Gryffindors holding a grudge and a certain prejudiced hook nosed professor. Ginny had sworn off becoming involved, Luna had been busy with an article for The Quibbler that she was doing for her father, and Harry, Ron and Hermione had decided that they didn't need any more attention drawn to themselves, as they were already just as famous for being in trouble as the twins were. Still, at least they had three of them, and that was enough.
The trio now sat flush against one of the dungeon walls, right around the corner from where the bat like professor was now sweeping into his office, completely unaware that there was a healthy sized batch of Fever Fudge sitting on the desk, signed to him by Professor Sinistra, on whom the professor had been rumoured to have a crush. Whether he did or not, his reaction to the sweets would be utterly priceless.
Unfortunately, the three had been so absorbed in plotting how to permanently capture the image of his facial expressions for future blackmail purposes, they didn't notice that the very same man had caught onto their prank and was making his way very slowly towards the door of the cold stone building, just moments away from catching all three Gryffindors in the act.
Luckily, a dozen seconds at most before he would do so, Merida heard the clip of his boots against the floor.
"Fred. Fred, George! He's coming! We have to go, he'll catch us!" the girl exclaimed, her usually gentle Scottish accent becoming rugged out of fear. The twins behind her nodded and bolted down the corridor, leaving Merida breathing heavily in their wake. Luckily, she had never been a complacent person, nor had she ever been a procrastinator, and so she ran after them, just clipping the corner of the wall as she sprinted around it, unfortunately just a moment too slowly, as Snape just caught sight of the edge of her skirt as she turned.
It took Merida all of ten seconds to realise that the man was following her. 'Oh no!' she thought, beginning to panic inside her own head. 'If he catches me and sends me to Dumbledore, godfather or not, I will be out of here so fast Mum will hardly see me go. I'll need a miracle to get out of this one.'
Out of nowhere, as if as an answer to her prayers, a quiet voice sounded through the silence.
"Oi!" The whisper was urgent, yet seemed strangely inviting.
'That might be because of the probability of impending doom, though.' Merida reasoned with herself. 'Anything would be inviting to me right now.'
"Oi!" it sounded again, yet more urgent. "Come in here, otherwise he'll see you! Come on!"
Seeing very few other options, for once in her life, Merida decided to do as she was told. She had slammed the door a little more loudly than she would have liked, but at least quietly enough so that Snape did not hear, and walked away.
With a huge sigh of relief, Merida opened her eyes to take in her surroundings, though she did not really remember closing them. The first thing she noticed was the green light that filled the place, through the sole window in it. The room was furnished with emerald and rosewood, making it completely obvious which House it belonged to, though down in the dungeons, it was the most obvious choice.
But it was her saviour that was the most surprising. In fact, it was the last person she would have expected at all.
"Thanks." Merida managed to breathe, still recovering from the shock of the recent events. The young man in front of her did nothing but nod. "You just saved me from being expelled."
"Well, I wouldn't want to face the wrath of McGonagall, and I wouldn't want to wish that on anyone else. Even on a Gryffindor." he ended, with a trace of sneer behind his cheeky smirk.
"Even on me? We didn't exactly have the best introduction in the world." she pointed out, smiling just a little at the memory of their first meeting. The boy did the same.
"No, but it was certainly memorable!" A short pause followed the statement, before the blonde spoke again. "Listen, um…"
"Merida." she told him, to which he nodded his head.
"Merida… I didn't want for you to get into trouble. I was bullying your friend, so you hexed me. I would've done the same for one of my friends. Well, if I had any friends, that is."
"But… what about those boys you were hanging around with?" Merida asked, her confusion clear.
"They aren't my friends. They're just people who stay on my good side because of the influence my father has at the Ministry. That isn't friendship." he finished with a sigh. Merida considered for a moment what she was about to say, knowing that she would not be able to take it back.
"Do you want to be my friend?" It did not surprise the Scottish girl when the blonde threw his head back and laughed.
"Why would a Gryffindor want to be the friend of a Slytherin?" he asked her, a trace of a smile still remaining on his face.
"I don't know, but this Gryffindor does. So, do you want to be my friend?" the redhead repeated, though this time the boy did not laugh.
"Alright." he said. "But if we are to be friends, we should start again."
"Agreed." she responded, nodding her head, and held out her hand for the Slytherin to shake. "Merida Ross."
The boy shook her hand and spoke in response.
"Draco Malfoy."
A/N: Update number ten! How good am I this week! Please review and I'll try to equal it next week.