Not Quite a Love Song, in Ten Scenes

Part 2: Potions (or: Anything for Love)

Potions, Draco reflected the next day, was hell. Well, usually it was only hell for Gryffindors, but that was before his head of house had decided to stab him in the back. With a pitchfork!

Draco shot a glare at Potter, who was happily giving him puppy eyes - again! - and deliberated using his horned slug disembowelment knife to cut his newly assigned work partner's throat. He had an inkling that by the end of class he'd be ready to use the knife on himself.

He hissed at Potter to cut their Flobberworm tails into thin and even slices, and received a soft smile for his pains. Letting a drop of Bubotuber pus fall onto his nemesis's hand instead of into the cauldron produced a far more satisfying soft hiss. Draco opened his mouth to make a sarcastic comment, but Potter cut him off.

"It's all right, Draco. I know you didn't do it on purpose."

Draco let out a desperate moan and rested his forehead on the tabletop with an audible - and rather painful - thud. It was going to be a long class...

It didn't get much better from there, although when Snape marched over to hover over Potter, Draco treated himself to a five-second fantasy of his godfather leaning over the desk to strangle the life out of the Gryffindor git. But he only received a detention to be served in Greenhouse Three, to collect another bottle-full of pus.

Draco brewed their wit-sharpening potion to perfection and made sure with a gentle sprinkling of pixie dust that Potter would not get any invigorating results from trying it. Not that it would make much of a difference, anyway.

He had just packed his bag and was heading towards the exit with a happy whistle when a sinewy hand grabbed his wrist and pulled him bodily into the dark potions storage room.

"Wha-!?" he objected, and then, when his eyes had adjusted to the dark, "Potter, you jerk! Will you for Merlin's sake stop hitting on me!"

The grip on his arm tightened slightly, and there was a distinctly dangerous glint in the jade-green eyes. "If you'll stop avoiding me."

The intense gaze softened and his nemesis leaned in closer, eyes fixed on Draco's lips as if hypnotised. It was deeply unnerving.

"Potter, last summer you beat me up, gloated about my father, and finally your posse hexed me into a slug. Just how have you managed to go from bloody murder to would-be snogging in three months' time?"

A sullen expression washed over Potter's features. "It happens!" he insisted defensively. "It happens all the time."

"In your little corner of the lunatic fringe, perhaps," Draco sneered. "But I swore I'd kill you, and unlike you, I haven't been kissed under a twig of Creeping Mindsuck disguised as mistletoe over the holidays."

"There hasn't been any Creeping Mindsuck!" Potter objected. "There hasn't even been Christmas yet." Then his eyes lit up. "And you didn't say you'd kill me - you said you'd have me," he concluded smugly. "Well... you can, if you want." Long, curved black lashes lowered in a way the Weasleyette might consider seductive.

"Gah!" Draco yelled, eloquence washed away by horror at the prospect.

"And while we're at Hogwarts, Professor Dumbledore would protect us from-"

"Look, Potter," Draco interrupted, his free hand up in front of Potter's face to prevent any further advance. "I'm not worried about the Dark Lord, or my father. Because there is no reason." Very slowly, as if speaking to an addled child - which Potty was, obviously - he added, "Because there is no us."

"There can be, Draco."

"Not a snowball's chance in a magma puddle on a burning day in hell!" Draco tilted his head as a new thought suddenly hit him. "Wait a second - I know what you're up to, Potter!"

"What are you talking about? I'm not up to-" The vermilion orbs widened in surprise.

"You're trying to screw with my mind. Of course it isn't exactly a secret that I spent the summer at the Quiberon Quafflepunchers's Junior Seeker Training Camp. That's it, isn't it? You're scared of the upcoming match. That's why you're pulling all that love crap. Bugger it, Potter! You little narrow-gauge Slytherin, you!" It was the first time Draco felt something remotely like respect for his arch enemy. This was a ploy almost worthy of a Malfoy.

Potter gaped with a mixture of horror and guilt.

"I would never toy with your feelings like that!"

"No?" Draco threw him a scrutinising glance. "Then why do you look like an Erkling caught with one foot inside the nursery door?"

"Uh..." Potter carded a hand through his awful hair. "It's kind of... I haven't told anyone but Dumbledore..."

"Potter!" Draco tutted, shaking his head. "You said you cared about me - would you keep secrets from the one you love?"

Incredibly enough, the Gryffindor flushed. "I... well, at our Sorting, the Hat tried to make me a Slytherin, but I refused."

"You, a Slytherin?" Draco stared at him wide-eyed, then laughed out loud. "Bright choice, Potter. Snape would have nailed your heart to the wall in first year." He ducked out under Potter's restraining arm and paused at the door, adding, "And if he hadn't managed fast enough, I would have."

~ tbc. ~
Next: Quidditch (or: Falling in Love)