Paired Up
After breakfast everyone went to their first classes, and the Slytherins were going to be sharing Herbology with the Gryffindors. As all of the seventh and eighth years were walking there, the social and personal changes brought by the war could easily be seen: everyone had a little less spring in their step, some mixed-houses groups had formed, Hermione was closer to Neville and Ginny but avoiding Ron, who was walking a little behind them and stealing a few quick glances to his ex-girlfriend every now and then, the same action that was happening between Seamus and Dean, who were walking together in a comfortable silence.
Harry was observing everything from behind the group; he liked walking on his own and he didn't want to take sides on the whole fight between his two best friends, he was going to need to talk about that with them later. Another thing that he noticed, or rather didn't, was Malfoy's signature platinum blond hair, which was really hard to miss, and so its absence was equally as noticeable. He thought about asking Blaise and Pansy about him, but he wasn't sure if he was in 'asking about Draco' terms with them; also, he didn't want to seem weird asking questions about a guy he was just going to start being friends with, after being enemies for so long. Luckily for him, they were already getting to the greenhouses, so he didn't have much time to dwell on it.
Going in the greenhouses was like going through a passage to another universe; there were plants everywhere, of all colors and shapes, odors and sounds. The whole place had changed a lot since Harry's first lesson there, and it resembled now more a jungle rather than a classroom.
The classes usually took place in the middle of everything, where about seventeen double-desks were placed in form of a crescent moon facing a larger desk that belonged to Professor Sprout; from there she could easily watch over her students and help them in case they were struggling with anything. There was also a blackboard behind her from which the students could read the instructions for the class.
The dynamics of the class required the students to work in couples, which they typically chose by themselves; today however, Professor Sprout wanted to mix things up a bit by pairing students from different houses, taking into account personalities that would work well together; when the students arrived, she informed them of how the class would work that day and left the instructions on how to domesticate their Venomous Tentaculae, which they had learned how to handle back in sixth year.
The pairings went like this for the Golden and the Slytherin trios: Harry was working with Draco, Hermione was working with Pansy, Ron was working with Theodore Nott and Blaise was working with Ginny. None of them were pleased, but the only one complaining was Ron because he still didn't like or trust the Slytherins. However, this was not the only problem: the class had already started and Draco was nowhere to be seen.
As the class developed there was bickering and scolding all over the classroom.
-Parkinson, you're supposed to pet it, not break it!-
-Yes well Granger, maybe if your lion hair wasn't in the way I could actually see what I'm doing!-
-Weasley, that's not the mouth-
-Shut up Nott-
-Zabini, hurry up with that twig or I'll let go of the spikes-
-Wow, easy there Weaslette, I'm almost done-
The first few minutes in the classroom were really a chaos because that's when the plants were more feisty, but eventually everything started settling down, except for Harry's plant, which he hadn't been able to tame due to the lack of a partner. The golden boy was currently trying to feed a treat to his Venomous Tentacula, but the mouth was in the middle of all the spikes and he couldn't handle everything by himself. Malfoy was so gonna get in trouble. But then, just as a spiky twig was about to hit Harry's face, something stopped it.
-Nice timing Malfoy, but next time you could just be here on time- Said Potter, he was furious.
-Whatever Potter, just give me the treat- Answered Draco, who was actually feeling kind of embarrassed, but couldn't just drop his mask.
When the class was over, all the plants had been successfully tamed, for Professor Sprout had made some really good pairings. Something else that had come out of this activity were some seeds of friendship; it was hard to domesticate a Venomous Tentacula and the tamers had to work together to achieve it, and since the Slytherins had already apologized, there was no hatred between the students when they got out of the greenhouses.
As the Slytherins got together to discuss the events of the class and the absence of Draco for all the first half of it, they started discussing their experiences when working with the Gryffindors and realized that they had actually had a very good time; Pansy had gotten her highest grade yet in herbology and had learned some other facts that had come out in some casual conversations with Hermione, Blaise had ended up flirting at Ginny and bothering her for "looking cute when she was angry" and Draco had found out that Harry was actually a pretty cool person to work with, they had a very nice connection that allowed them to catch up with the other students despite the lost time, and even though Draco denied it, it was there and it was only gonna grow bigger.