Adjustment

This is gonna take some getting used to. It's not every day that you find out you have...you know... feelings for your greatest enemy. Well, okay, maybe not greatest enemy, and probably not even second-greatest, but certainly most irritating.

So, what am I supposed to do, now? I suppose I could just tell him, but I don't feel like having the life strangled out of me any time soon. I hear that breathing is actually quite good for your health, or some such nonsense.

I keep half-hoping that this is some weird phase, somehow akin to the have-lots-of-weird-dreams-about-your-teachers-being-naked phase. You know, something that everyone goes through.

...everyone does go through that teacher thing, right? Right?

Ah, um, anyway, I've been sort of waiting for this to just, you know, disappear. It's a rather sizeable inconvenience, after all. Every time Ron or Hermione says something bad about him, I get all defensive, and I think they suspect I'm under the Imperious Curse, or something. The whole thing has set them a bit on edge.

Or maybe they've just both gone insane.

You see, the other day, Ron jumped out at me from behind a chair in the Gryffindor common room, wearing some weird headband thing with candles in it and waving this stick that had paper chains hanging off the end. He yelled something about "Evil, begone!" and appeared quite put out when all I did was hit him in the face with a pillow and ask whether he'd lost his mind. I'd bet my last knut that Hermione put him up to it; knowing her, she's probably been in the library, desperately researching some sort of crazy Eastern magic that she thought would help rid me of my "affliction." Hmph. Girls.

But, if I don't figure out a way to start hiding my emotions better, and soon, they're going to move on to really drastic measures. After all, only an idiot wouldn't notice that something was wrong with me. *coughNevillecough* I've been moody and distracted ever since I found out about my...er...'new point of view,' if you know what I mean.

Mood-swings are not something I'm accustomed to. I hear it's a normal teenage thing, but I'm Harry Potter. I don't do normal. I do brave, heroic, and even near-sighted, but not normal. Recently, though, my emotions have been getting a just a little bit out of control.

On Tuesday, Neville was once again searching the common room for his constantly wayward toad. I was attempting to study Potions, trying to figure out why my shrinking potions always turned the drinker into a platypus, but I kept becoming distracted by his rather frantic cries of, "Trevor? Trevvy-dear? Where ARE you?"

Now, let's consider this situation. Here we have Panicked Neville, Irritated Harry, and Clueless Trevor, who I just happened to notice sitting under a pile of empty Chocolate Frog boxes which Ron had left haphazardly strewn across the table by the fireplace. So, what did I do?

What do YOU think? A? B? C?

Well, you're wrong. The answer was,

Trevor continued sitting, innocent and unaware, until Ron came flouncing in from the talking-to he'd just gotten from McGonagall for leaving his things lying around. Muttering irately to himself, he began gathering up the Chocolate Frog boxes, now and then pausing to vindictively throw one into the fire for good measure. Imagine how delighted he was to find that there was, in fact, one frog left!

"Brilliant!" he cheered, catching the "chocolate frog" as it tried to leap away.

"Ron," I said, smiling my trademark smile. "Why don't you give it to Neville? He's having a hard time of it, over there." Ron was torn, and gazed longingly at his prize, but finally cracked under the pressure of my completely earnest and good-natured self.

With a sigh of long-suffering, he offered the treat to Neville, who accepted it gratefully and tried to take a large bite.

I don't think that he and Trevor are on speaking terms right now.

To make matters worse, I've started acting weird around Malfoy himself. I keep catching him staring at me, and I'm afraid he may suspect my real feelings. He always has this exceptionally strange expression on his face that makes me incredibly nervous, so I try to just look confused at the attention, to throw him off the scent.

Then, when damned old Snape partnered us up on a Potions assignment, his hand touched mine when he went to dump the armadillo bile into our cauldron. I, ever so graceful, jerked back in embarrassed surprise and managed to upend the bottle all over the front of his pants.

He knows even more swear words than I would have thought.

I'm sure he must have caught on to my weird behavior, by now. In fact, I'm almost positive, seeing as yesterday I got a love note by owl post, and Hermione traced it back to - you guessed it - Malfoy. We confronted him about it during lunch, and he just smirked, going on about how he was just yanking my chain. You know, leading me on and getting my hopes up, so he could squash them in the end. Fantastic.

He looked a little bit pale while he was talking to us, though. I hope he isn't ill. God knows what sicknesses are running rampant in those drafty dungeons - the flu, strep throat, malaria...

I had almost voiced my concern before Ron and Hermione fortunately managed to drag me back to the Gryffindor table. I did run into him later that day, though, and couldn't help but ask, "Hey, are you feeling all right?" He just gave me this look. You know, the die-Potter-die look. I expected an attempt on my life at the very least, but instead he just coldly asked why I cared. And do you know what my oh-so-intelligent reply was? "Because I lo-...er...I mean..."

I lose my head when I get flustered. It's like my brain decides to go on vacation whenever I get in trouble. So, to cover my mistake, I cleverly amended, "I lost one of my green socks this morning."

Well, true to form, a heated (if somewhat confused) shouting match followed, and we both got a bit unintelligible. I was especially puzzled at some of his insults, though. I mean, really, a cupcake?

And, maybe I'm missing the point here, but what on Earth does lending Blaise his Potions book have to do with Draco bothering me?

With the way things are going, it won't be long until the entire bloody school knows. I have this horrible suspicion that my verbal slip-ups are only the beginning of a long and undoubtedly painful downward spiral. Soon, I'll be blushing at him, and my hands will get all sweaty, and my heart'll race...

Okay, okay, so maybe all of that frighteningly cliché stuff already happens. But, next thing you know, I'll be tripping over thin air just so I can bump into him in the hallway, having Hermione do a romance chart of our names for Arithmancy, and writing sonnets to his little toe. And I don't even like feet.

I'd better hurry up and come up with some solution, and not just for my own pride and well-being, but because Ron'll kill me if he ever finds out. I mean, seriously, kill me. As in murder. Instead of being the Boy-Who-Lived, I'll go down in history as the Boy-Whose-Best-Friend-Had-Every-Right-To-Have-Him-Drawn-And-Quartered-But-Showed-Incredible-Restraint-And-Mercy-And-Instead-Just-Beat-Him-To-Death-With-A-Dirty-Toilet-Seat.

I suppose it's worth it, though. Even if Draco is a cold, arrogant, and geneally heartless little prat...he's damned good-looking. If anything ever happens between us, as unlikely as that scenario is, I'll feel terribly vindicated.

...wait a second. I think I've just overlooked a monstrously important detail.

What if, despite his utterly feminine appearance, tremendous vanity, and constant nancing about, Draco isn't gay.

...

DAMMIT!