Potions Assortment

Chapter 6: Fairytale Potion

"Draco?" Pansy asked Draco the next day at breakfast. "You look worn out. Didn't you sleep well last night?"

"No," Draco snapped. He was tired and had a massive hangover and didn't want Pansy in his face this early in the morning. "I had nightmares that you were chasing me all night."

Pansy's eyes filled with tears and they overflowed leaving mascara streaks like the matchmaker in Mulan.

"Draco Malfoy!" Pansy shrieked as loudly as she could, getting up to stand on the bench. Everyone else in the Great Hall stopped what they were doing to see what was happening at the Slytherin Table, even the teachers were curious enough to listen. The Slytherins sitting around Pansy and Draco were trying to hide under the tables out of embarrassment so people wouldn't see them. "I have put up with you for way too long! Your arrogance, your insults and your constant whining. You don't treat me with any respect or affection! In all of the years I've known you, you've only kissed me once! Once! All you care about is yourself! I deserve more than that! And if you think that I'm going to put up with your self-pity a minute longer, you're wrong! Frankly, I don't care about why you kissed Granger but I do care about why you kissed her over me! I'm your fiancée! You're supposed to think that I'm perfect! I'm supposed to be your sun, your moon, your oxygen, your everything and all of that other romantic crap! You are supposed to fawn over me! You are supposed to shower me with gifts and poetry! YOU ARE SUPPOSED TO LOVE ME! AND IF YOU CAN'T DO THAT, WELL FRANKLY, I'M TOO GOOD FOR YOU!"

"Is that so? I'm supposed to love you? I was wondering what I was supposed to be doing all this time," Draco replied, his voice dripping with sarcasm. Draco also stood on the bench, his form towering over the fuming Pansy. "Well let me tell you something you spoiled brat! I have good reason for not fawning over you and not thinking of you as my everything! Do you know why?! Because you are an annoying, pushy, obsessive, pathetic and clingy! You're so incompetent at magic that anyone would have thought that you were a squib! The only reason you're barely passing your classes is because your father keeps giving the school 'donations' so you won't fail and bring shame to your family! And do you want to know why I've only ever kissed you once? It's because you kiss like a Saint Bernard! I thought I was drowning in a waterfall of your saliva! You look like you put make-up on with a pallet knife and you swim in that stench you call perfume! I gag at the very thought of you let alone the sight or smell of you! My father's already written to me and he agrees with me. You and I are not getting married anymore. Father's thought long and hard about this arrangement and he said, and I quote, 'I would rather live with muggles than call someone like that Parkinson pug my daughter-in-law. Our arrangement with the Parkinsons is off.' He's wondering what your mother had put into his wine to make him agree to the two of us marrying. Now if you don't mind, I have to go and throw up from inhaling your cheap perfume."

All eyes followed Draco as he stormed out of the Great Hall. Still, no one dared to make a sound. Even the owls that were sitting in the rafters with the morning post didn't want to disturb the uneasy silence by ruffling their feathers. After a while, Pansy realised that she was still standing alone on the bench and all eyes were now on her.

"What are you all staring at?!" Pansy shrieked before running out of the Hall too.

As soon as she had left, everyone went back to whatever they were doing.

"What's with you, Hermione? You look terrible," Harry said, noting shadows under Hermione's eyes.

"Huh?" Hermione asked, still half-asleep.

"Hermione," Ron said, waving his hand in front of Hermione's face. "Don't tell me that nice little conversation between Malfoy and Parkinson didn't wake you up!"

"Yeah, I heard it. I'm just to tired to react," Hermione replied, stirring her porridge lazily.

Harry peered into his friend's tired eyes. "Didn't you well sleep last night?"

"I slept," Hermione answered. "I just had a lot of thoughts in my head last night."

"What about?" Harry and Ron asked in unison.

"I'll tell you later."

After lunch, the trio were down by the lake because they had a free period before their next class, Care of Magical Creatures. Hermione was telling the boys about the Fates Potion and her dream.

"What!?! I was called Reginald?" Ron complained loudly. "First Ronald and now I've got to live with the fact that I used to be called Reginald?"

"Ron, you're forgetting the important thing here," Harry reasoned. "Malfoy really is Hermione's soul mate."

"But Reginald, Harry! Reginald!"

"Malfoy is Hermione's soul mate, Ron! Malfoy is Hermione's soul mate!" Harry mocked.

"If I give you a chocolate frog, will you stop mocking me?" Ron asked sarcastically.

"Sure!"

"Do you guys always think with your stomachs?" Hermione asked as she stretched out on the grass.

"Not always," Ron replied with a wicked grin.

"Ugh! Please leave the discussion at that," Hermione groaned.

"What do you think Malfoy would do if he found out that Hermione was his soul mate?" Harry asked, gazing up at the clouds.

"Jump of a cliff?" Ron replied longingly.

"Nah, he'd probably cry like a baby and then deny it," Harry laughed.

"Or maybe he'd just check himself into St Mungo's and rid us of him forever," Ron added.

"Hey!" Hermione exclaimed, throwing grass at the boys. "You're forgetting that that is my soul mate you're talking about!"

"Sorry, Hermione," Harry apologized, "but it is rather amusing that Malfoy is your soul mate. Especially after knowing how much he hates muggles."

"Maybe he'd change his identity and hide himself where no one can find him! Like in the Amazon rainforest or something!" Ron said, still delighting himself in his fantasies with no knowledge of Harry and Hermione's exchange of words.

Hermione made a strange sound that sounded sort of like the sound that Crookshanks made when Ron accidentally sat on him a few weeks ago, and stormed off.

"What's with her?" Ron asked Harry as the two boys watched Hermione's retreating back.

"Oh I wouldn't know," Harry replied sarcastically. "Maybe it was the fact that you were still teasing Hermione about Malfoy."

"But you were doing it too!"

"I knew when to stop."

Care of Magical Creatures went by without a hitch and everyone seemed to enjoy learning about Pegasus. Well, everyone except Pansy. She kept going on and on and on about how rudely Malfoy had been treating someone of her 'class' like someone from 'Granger's class' and blah blah blah, and stuff like that. No one had been paying attention to what she was saying anyways. Draco was keeping his silence, still fuming from the morning's freak show and he had this nagging feeling that he had to talk to Hermione.

After class ended and everyone was walking back to the castle, Draco decided that it was now or never.

"Hey Granger, could I talk to you about something?" Draco asked quickly.

"About what?" Ron quickly snapped.

"If it's any of your business, which it isn't, it's about an extra credit project I'm doing for astronomy," Draco lied.

"I'll meet you guys in the Common Room," Hermione said, wanting to talk to Draco too.

Harry had to drag a loudly-complaining Ron all the way back up to the castle and by the time the two had made it up all those stairs to the Gryffindor Tower, Ron was still complaining like a broken record.

"Ron will you please shut the hell up!" Harry finally yelled just before they reached the Fat Lady. "Hermione's a lot smarter than Malfoy will ever be so she's not in any sort of danger! They're just talking about an extra credit project!"

* * *

"What did you want, Malfoy?" Hermione asked uneasily.

"I want you to drink this," Draco said, handing her a warm pewter vial. "I had Professor Snape make this up. It's not poison, I promise you."

"It's a Fates Potion," Hermione said softly, feeling the vial heat up her hand. "Past Loves."

"How did you know?" Draco asked in surprise.

"Because I'd taken it last night."

"What did you see?"

"I saw me and some other Gryffindors at a ball."

"And did you find your soul mate?"

"Yeah, I did," Hermione replied, turning away and walking towards the lake.

Draco quickly snapped out of his trance and ran to catch up to Hermione. It was getting dark and the two shivered in their robes as a cool wind blew around them.

"So who was your soul mate?" Draco asked, almost afraid of her answer.

"It was you," Hermione replied shyly, looking down at the grass at her feet.

"What did you see?" Hermione asked after a few minutes of silent contemplation.

"I saw me and some Gryffindors at a wedding. My wedding in fact."

"And who was your soul mate?" Hermione asked, looking up at Draco.

Draco reached out to tuck a stray hair that was blowing in the wind behind Hermione's ear and leaned down slightly to brush his lips against hers.

"You were."

Hermione smiled back and gave her soul mate her perfect kiss.