Shades of Green

She was average. She was obedient. Speak only when spoken to is what she had been taught from the moment she learned how. And that was, perhaps, the only lesson that stuck. Until she met him. And he was anything but ordinary.

- - -

A pair of eyes skimmed over a textbook that was perhaps too large for the lap it rested on as the inky brows arched with confusion. The small, upturned nose on the face sniffed disapprovingly with frustration as the female closed the textbook. It was dropped carelessly with a loud 'clunk' on the floor of the Slytherin Common Room.

She rose off the armchair she had been sitting in and slung her bookbag over her shoulder, suddenly noticing the emptiness of the common room. A look of slight shock crept across her face. It was a pale face, and fairly plain-looking.

The girl gathered her parchment and books and after checking her watch, ran out of the room hurriedly. She had been trying to finish up a Transfiguration essay which was supposed to be finished.

Well, it's not my fault anyway. The night before, Millicent Bullstrode, one of her classmates, thought it was funny to practice her Accio spell on her roomates books and quills.

"Stupid horse," she mumbled.

A jolt of panic rang through her body as she now sprinted through the halls towards the classroom. She skidded to a halt at the door as ninteen heads turned around to look at her.

Look away, look away, she willed her classmates silently, knowing her face was probably rosy and hair tousled and messy.

The ancient teacher at the front of the classroom, Professor McGonagall, crossed her arms and frowned. Her deep-set wrinkles seemed to become even more noticable as she scowled, "Everly Hudson, explain yourself. Class began almost nine minutes ago."

"I, um, s-sorry, Professor. I just..."

McGonagall walked menacingly forward until she was mere feet away from Everly. "I, you, what, Everly? Take a seat."

Everly pushed her hair behind her ears and took her seat in the back of the classroom next to Blaise Zabini, who was busy picking at his nails. Her classmates all turned around as McGonagall stalked back towards the front of the classroom.

"Oh," the teacher said in sudden remembrance and stopped in her tracks. "Ms. Hudson, essay?"

She felt her face tingle with embarrassment again and looked down at her hands. "No, sorry."

"No essay?"

"No."

A few classmates whipped their heads around again. Lavender Brown and Parvati Patil hid smiles beneath their hands.

"Ms. Hudson, that will be a detention for you tomorrow morning. See me after class," she said shortly.

Everly sighed again and cursed Millicent in her head as her face went white again with anger. She was usually such a good, quiet student. McGonagall resumed class and continued her lecture, which was only briefly interrupted by a verbal spat between Draco Malfoy and Ron Weasley. Weasley received a dentention, but Draco, being the instigator (he had related Ron to the weasel they were working on transfiguring aloud) also received a dentention plus a deduction of twenty Slytherin house points.

Fabulous, Everly thought to herself. Saturday morning detention with Ron Weasley the famous Draco Malfoy himself. It wasn't that she didn't like Draco, he could be quite the gentlemen to the Slytherin girls when he wanted to be, it was just the cockiness that got to her. The cockiness that drove most girls wild. He also seemed never to pay attention to Everly, which, in her opinion was fine since she had other friends in other years. In this way, Everly was automatically separated from the Slytherin females in her grade.

He remained livid throughout the rest of the period, she noticed. His gray eyes focused on Ron Weasley as he shot dirty looks towards him repeatedly.

So mature, Everly thought.

The rest of the lesson dragged on for what seemed like a century before ending. Everly gathered her materials together while the class filed out, chattering noisily, and stepped up to McGonagall's desk, followed by Draco and Weasley.

"Professor," he shot, pushing his way to the front of her desk. "I've got Quidditch practice tomorrow morning! And since I'm captain, I just can't miss it because-"

"Mr. Malfoy, you will speak when spoken to. You obviously, in your five years here, have not learned that yet. Detention tomorrow, end of story."

"But I can't-"

"Trophy Room, six in the morning, practice or not. You too, Mr. Weasley," she said, as Ron stalked out of the room, his ears red, followed by a cursing Draco, "and you, Ms. Hudson."

Everly, too beaten and lazy to retaliate as Draco had, merely walked miserably out of the classroom.

- - -

Sleep did not come easily that Friday night. In fact, Everly kept tossing and turning so frequently that Pansy had yelled at her ("Keep quite and stop moving, you stupid git!") from across the darkness of the dormitory at two in the morning. Everly felt as if she had dozed off into a state of half-sleep for just an hour when she awoke the next morning.

Feeling especially foul and disagreeable, the last thing she wanted to do was polish trophies.

"Ugh..."

She moaned lazily as her eyes fluttered open and scrambled out of bed. There were no windows in their Slytherin dormitory, but had there been Everly would have noticed it was still dark and far on the horizon over the Forbidden Forest there was a shade of light blue creeping slowly over the trees.

She tiptoed across the freezing cold, damp floors. It was mid-October, which meant it was starting to get cold in the dungeons. Poking her wand into the fireplace, Everly whispered, "Incendio," and started a small fire to try to warm herself before getting dressed. Millicent grunted from the corner of the dormitory as she turned in her sleep.

Everly sifted through her wardrobe before settling on a pair of jeans, gray wool jumper, and black shoes. Although she had a wardrobe almost as impressive as Pansy, Everly opted for plain clothes this particular morning as she would be working.

On entering the Trophy Room about ten minutes later, she noticed that Professor McGonagall was already waiting with Draco and Weasley. Draco, still seemingly seething, looked flawless, per usual. He wore black slacks and a dark green shirt, and stood with his arms crossed, staring off into nowhere. He looked like a model from an ad in Witch Weekly with that pose, Everly mused. Weasley, on the other hand, seemed to be drifting in and out of consciousness and looked rather disheveled.

"You're late," McGonagall said sharply, tapping her watch. "It seems time and you just don't get along, do they, Ms. Hudson?"

Everly was in far too much of a bad mood to deal with her Slytherin-hating teachers this early in the morning, and clenched her fists as she fought the urge to say something cruel back.

The teacher rounded upon all three of them as Everly moved to the center of the room to join her peers. "I want all the trophies in this room polished. Do the plaques too. I'll be back in two hours. Hopefully this will teach you two boys a lesson about interrupting class, and you," she nodded to Everly, "about arriving late and getting work done on time."

Then the teacher muttered, more to herself than anyone, although all heard, "Doubtful in both cases."

With that, she conjured three rags, three buckets of soapy water, and polish out of nowhere with her wand and added, "No magic," and walked out of the room.

Everly gripped her rag and dunked it into a bucket of water. She didn't believe any of this.

Two hours? No magic? This punishment was out of hand.

"What's she playing at here?" Draco mumbled, and picked up a rag. "She's completely mad."

"Oh, just shut up and do the work," complained Ron. "I don't want to hear you."

"No, really, Weasley, were you born a prat or was that an acquired trait?"

"Piss off, Malfoy."

"Nancy-boy."

"I'm warning you..."

"But I'm serious," he held up his hands. "Did it rub off from Potter or something, because-"

Before he could even finish his sentence, Everly had about enough, and threw down her rag at their feet. "You two," she began, unable to contain her anger anymore, "are both a bunch of immature, cocky gits and if I have to listen to two entire hours of this, I'm going to kill one of you. I swear."

Draco lazily twirled his finger into the air. "Sing it, sister."

Surprised at his nonchalant reaction, she didn't say anything. Normally, calling Draco Malfoy any names of any sort, no matter what house one was in, meant social suicide.

Weasley meanwhile, stood with his mouth slightly gaping. "I think that's about the longest sentence I've ever heard you say."

Draco, in the middle of bending down to pick up his bucket, paused in realization. "Me too, come to think of it."

"Nobody asked you," the other boy mumbled, barely audibly.

Everly shot them both threatening looks before they started working again. Cheeks a little blushed, she was still slightly surprised from herself. I slipped.

Weasley had already begun to clean the trophies. Draco stood still, where he had paused himself before, looked at Everly in a strange sort of way, and resumed his work. Everly chose the trophy case farthest from the two boys across the room to begin her own work.

She certainly didn't want to hear anymore teenage-hormone-fueled bickering.

- - -

After about twenty-five minutes of soap and sloshing and polishing, Draco had had enough. He had barely finished one case before total and complete utter boredom kicked in.

Weasley, who was ten feet to his left, had sat down to polish a low-lying trophy and had somehow managed to fall asleep. His face was pressed up against the glass as he rested on the concrete.

Draco sighed deeply and dropped his arms to his sides.

At this moment, he wished he were still sound asleep in bed in his dormitory, piled under layers of blankets and sheets in the pitch black and comfort of the dungeons. Even his strenuous Quidditch practice would have been better than this by a long shot.

A snore from the redhead at his side broke his train of thought.

"Oh, bloody fucking hell," he moaned and looked around him for some sort of amusement.

Everly was on the other side of the room. She stood lazily, her back to him, leaning on her right leg and looking just as bored as Draco as she polished a plaque. Draco could have sworn that in his five years of knowing her, he had not once seen her yell like she did. Especially not to him. Although, he never really got to know her, did he? Besides Weasley and his gang, not many students had the nerve to yell at him, and he took pride in this. She was a normally quiet student. He saw her with Daphne Greengrass often, though, also a Slytherin sixth year. Draco had always thought she was boring, in fact. He was torn between amusement, surprise, and offense at her outburst. He tried to picture his other housemates having the nerve to call him an 'immature, cocky git,' but had a hard time doing so.

Draco shook his head and glanced down at Weasley again, then at his watch.

There's nobody else to talk to in this bleeding place. He walked elegantly across the room towards the girl. It couldn't hurt.

She looked up in mild surprise and arched an eyebrow. "Yes?"

"Nothing, really," he drawled and crossed his arms, leaning against the glass cabinet. "It's about six-thirty now, though, and Ronald seems to have fallen asleep on the job and I just need a reason not to run out on this truly riveting task."

Draco then suddenly launched into a story about this one time Weasley cursed himself to spit up slugs, which was completely irrelevant, but entertaining nonetheless. He was quite content being able to talk freely without interruptions and to someone new for a change. Conversation without interruption was a rare thing to come by when the main people one talks with are Pansy Parkinson, Vincent Crabbe, and Gregory Goyle.

- - -

So Everly polished and washed while Draco did the same next to her, talking all the while. She quite liked the way he talked. He enunciated every word and never fumbled over any of them. His stories also passed the time quicker.

Draco opened the glass case to put a plaque back inside and Everly caught his reflection in the glass. She had hardly looked at him the entire time; just listened quietly.

He was talking about his last Quidditch match and Everly hadn't been paying attention for the past minute or so. She suddenly felt slightly guilty and zoned back into his speech, still watching his reflection, which he did not seem to notice. At least, she didn't think so. He had lovely, large pearly gray eyes; the kind of color that most girls wished for, and a perpetual slight smirk, even when he spoke. Never a true smile, but always a smirk. His pallor beat out her own, but it seemed to fit him in an odd sort of way. The only word to describe his looks would be ethereal. She supposed this was what drew most people to him in the first place.

And he was quite handsome, she had to admit, but as the saying goes, beauty is only skin deep. In most of his stories, he had come out the triumphant person, or proved somebody else wrong in some way or another. His conceitedness was undeniable.

Still, she weighed, he was being nice, and he was interesting. More so than she had always assumed.

Everly's view of Draco's reflection was broken when they both shot around quickly. The redhead across the room had awoken with a start and was now sitting up on the stone floor. He had just finished mumbling something about spiders and seemed briefly confused, as if trying to figure out where he was.

Draco chimed, "'Morning, Weasley. Hope you had a nice rest. I was going to wake you, but you just looked so very peaceful although one must wonder how you manage to sleep with the side of your face so wet," and pointed to his own chin.

"Oh, just bugger off," he said, wiping his face clear of drool with his sleeve. He scrunched up his face into a frown and resumed his work.

McGonagall walked in haughtily nearly two minutes later. She did a quick circle around the room ("Weasley, you might want to stay an extra five minutes. There is still dust on this!") and dismissed Everly and Draco.

They walked out of the room quickly. Everly felt as if a weight had been lifted off her shoulders. She suddenly felt much happier and energized. She glanced to her side, and Draco was still there, walking and talking. Everly had expected him to bolt as soon as they were done spending their time together.

"So, why don't you talk, anyway?" He asked suddenly, after finishing up a speech on how ridiculous the Charms homework was. He asked this question somewhat rudely, but he didn't seem to have intended to ask it rudely.

Everly was caught by surprise at this question and she paused a few seconds before answering so only their footsteps could be heard in the deserted hallway. "You never asked me any questions."

"Oh," he said simply.

"I mean," she began, "it's not like I don't have anything to say. I do."

"Go on, then," he tested.

"Sure, well... as for the Charms homework, I agree. From a bloke that assigns essays that take twenty minutes and then giving us a two-pager, that was bollocks. On what you said about Weasley and Granger before, you're absolutely right. I was in the Library looking for a book to help with the Potions homework, and you know that little alcove that hardly anyone ever enters? I caught them snogging each other like you wouldn't believe. See? I talk. I'm not shy or anything."

He shook his head as if trying to figure out a complicated math problem.

"You're an unusual one, you know that."

"That could be either good or bad."

"Yeah. I'm not sure which one yet."

"Oh," she said, and before she had time to ponder this, he broke in again.

"But Granger and Weasley? You saw them? You're not taking the mickey, are you?"

"No, I swear, I'll tell you exactly what happened..."

- - -