Untouchable

Hermione, Lavender, and Parvati recognized the owner of the icily controlled voice, and all talk ceased instantly. In that tense moment of silence, all three girls realized one thing, Slytherin snakes were never oblivious to their surroundings; they blended into them well. He strode towards them with arrogant brisk strides of a hunter till he stood at the edge of their table, hands braced on either side of their smoking cauldron. His amber-flecked brown eyes gleaming with a promise of brutality narrowed to slits. Lavender and Parvati scurried to the opposite end of the table with Hermione. Zabini leaned forward deliberately over their potion, their handiwork. "Unhinged, am I?" Even though they were separated from him by a large expanse, he seemed to tower over all three of them. Could you pull yourself together? Hermione reminded herself that she had faced larger and more threatening opponents in her time. She would be damned if she felt intimidated by someone in her year group. Silently, she willed the other two girls to do the same.

Lavender spoke first. She stuttered. "Did we say that?"

His lower lip curled with grim satisfaction at the effect of his sheer presence over three spineless Gryffindors. "I heard you say it, Brown."

Lavender's voice began to strain as she fought to keep her composure. "We weren't that loud." She stuttered. "Anyway, we weren't talking about you."

Perhaps Zabini relished watching her squirm under his gaze. Even Hermione shifted uncomfortably in her seat. The silence stretched too long. "You are a terrible liar, Brown. Since I am here, maybe I can clear up some things for you."

She swayed ever so slightly. "Why would you want to do that?"

"Because if I find out you are spreading untruths about me, there will be consequences."

Lavender's composure fell apart. She searched for something to say, a come-back line, but the moment was already gone. That was when she felt a nudge in her side. A bony shoulder edged out in front of her own, pulling her behind a human barricade. Parvati stood resolute and faced Blaise Zabini head-on. A good strategy was to close ranks if there was ever any doubt.

"Don't worry about us, Zabini; we are just small fry," Parvati replied with renewed confidence.

"Since the party you attended was hosted by Ravenclaw, you can expect our house to be the last to have heard about it," Hermione added gently.

Parvati spoke. "Though it's a bit late to try to contain the source, like closing the stable door after the horse bolted."

"I can't understand why you would be so upset by all this unless there were some truth in the rumors." Hermione landed her blow, soft but direct.

His rabid gaze focused on her at its full intensity. "Which rumors?"

"Seeing as you came over to our bench for our benefit, did you start the fire, Zabini? Remember, the one you claimed insurance for property damage."

"Don't get involved in things that don't concern you, Granger." He said lips pressed in a razor-thin line. Blaise Zabini gritted his teeth, regretting ignoring Nott's advice. He was now past the point of return and had no plans of retreating with his tail between his legs. Until then, he had only regarded the muggle witch as being book–smart, not intelligent. She had a mind that soaked up random trivia and a mouth to recite whatever fodder had been relayed. He remembered that it was lions who hunted on open ground. A lion's strength lay in open and direct confrontation, and snakes only resorted to that tactic when wounded and defensive. In true serpentine fashion, Blaise tried to maneuver the discussion back onto territory he could navigate. He was never one to back down from a fight, but it would be on his terms.

They watched with horror as a long tapering finger circled the rim of their cauldron. Transfixed and helpless, they watched his finger gently apply pressure on one point each time a revolution of the rim was completed.

Please don't tip it, Lavender mouthed.

Each time he applied pressure, the cauldron bottom lifted and leaned further away from the support of the tripod stand on its opposite side.

Parvati muttered pleadingly. "You're not supposed to move the potion around."

He glanced up. "Sorry, Patil? Did you say something?" With a single digit, he gently pushed the cauldron to one side, to a forty-five-degree angle, and balanced it at its tipping point.

Hermione snapped. "If you dare..."

"Dare to do what?" He grinned wolfishly before removing his finger.

"No!" Lavender and Parvati rushed forwards to save their potion.

Miraculously, the cauldron pot righted itself, but Blaise Zabini had been expecting that. He openly smirked at the obvious weak point of the Gryffindor girls now held tightly in his grasp again.

Hermione responded curtly. "Right, we can all agree that you started the fire."

"Back to this again, Granger?" Two fingers began flicking their cauldron's thin rim to a primal rhythm this time.

She mustered as much conviction as she could. "You know what you did was criminal. You got away with arson and insurance fraud."

"The ministry would disagree." He stated. "It's unwise of you to form an opinion without having all the facts. I could sue you for slander, Granger."

"It won't stop people talking about what you did." Lavender interrupted.

"Why don't you write an opinion piece, Brown, and get all those repressed feelings of scorn, lust, and envy off your chest? Then, I can sue you for libel."

"He will clean out your family's savings, Brown." Hermione turned around to face a certain pointy-faced blonde named Draco Malfoy, returning from the potions store with a bundle of fresh chamomile. "Though it won't add too much."

Scratch one. They all bleed.

"What does he need the money for?" Parvati asked. "Have you blown your inheritance already, Blaise?"

Blaise's features twisted into an ugly scowl. Parvati had struck a nerve. That's when she remembered that he came into his inheritance last year after his mother passed unexpectedly. Hermione winced at the poor choice of words, given the bereavement. She sympathized with his loss but knew he would hardly accept her condolences. She waited in dread for his reaction and tugged on Parvati's sleeve. This had gone too far. Hermione could imagine what damage Zabini was capable of when provoked. It was the equivalent of prodding a rattlesnake with a stick.

"That's a terrible shame," Parvati quipped as she elbowed Hermione off her, "The money was the only he had going for him!"

But before Blaise could open his mouth, Malfoy chimed in. "You know what, Patil, if you need money, my mother is looking for a new parlor maid. Formal education is wasted on that fat mouth."

Lavender jibed. "That position may stay open for some time, Malfoy. If I remember right, your mother couldn't even keep a house elf!"

Fat mouth, indeed. Parvati struck another low blow. "Malfoy, she might have to learn how to do her housework. God forbid, you could get chores the next time you visit."

"You might build some calluses on those soft hands, Malfoy!" Lavender volleyed. "Make a man of you, yet."

Malfoy spat. "Respectable women don't do housework, Patil. If you weren't a blood traitor, you would know that. How dare you compare my mother to Weasley's mother!"

Blaise finally found his voice, and it was laced with venom. "You must be bored, Patil. Gossiping about everyone else's misfortune is the only thing you've got going for you."

Parvati laughed in his face. "Someone, pass me a box of tissues. Let's hear about your misfortunes, Blaise, while you cry all your way to Gringotts."

"Just because I am rich doesn't mean I don't have problems." He said indignantly.

Hermione stomach roiled. She screamed internally at Parvati to stop rankling Blaise, but for some reason, her voice was reduced to a hoarse croak. Lavender slid Hermione a tissue across the bench and winked.

Parvati continued, all too ready for a dirty-knuckled fight. "You know what your problems are, Zabini? You bought and paid for your position on the team, and then when you had to put some work into it, it was too much for you. You coasted through matches and then had the nerve to protest a fair dismissal. You could not accept defeat gracefully and backstabbed your teammates in the process. They lost a crucial match, and somehow you are still the victim. It sounds like a Greek Tragedy for the ages!"

"More like a soap opera." Lavender stated, "I'd buy front-row tickets just for the entertainment value."

A heated discussion was now escalating into something more. Hermione looked at the hourglass and the instructions they had barely started on. Oh, Merlin! What's more, neither Lavender, Parvati, Malfoy, nor Zabini looked like they were anywhere near finishing the verbal spat. Malfoy mentioned his father for some reason, and Parvati informed him his father was part of a larger separate problem she was only too willing to address.

Blaise chuckled sadistically, "All three of you looked shocked when Patil mentioned I had a slumber party with the Ravenclaws."

Lavender mumbled. "Oh, if it were only so innocent."

He ignored the jibe and pressed on. "The expressions on your faces were priceless." His gaze, both assessing and lecherous, swept over all three girls, who shifted uncomfortably. "You know, worse things have happened at parties, and you would have to be invited. It explains why I have never clapped eyes on all three of you outside lessons."

"I think we go to different parties," Lavender said defensively.

"Tea parties?" Blaise said scathingly.

Parvati continued. " Blaise, you are so delusional. You are too used to getting hot air blown up your backside from your groupies, and you can't stand it when normal people see you for what you are."

"Oh yeah?" He drew himself up to his full height.

"A talentless, feckless prick!" yelled Parvati.

Lavender high-fived her. Even Malfoy sniggered behind his palm.

"Talentless? Who are you calling talentless?"

Harry put down the stirring rod he had been using for the last five minutes and furrowed his brows at Neville. Both students stared four desks down to where the racket originated. "Did you just hear that?"

Neville shook his head in mild disbelief. "Yeah, I think I did."

The spread of the Daily Prophet, the professor had his head buried in, rustled. Several classmates were staring at them from surrounding work benches. She looked helplessly back at her two friends locked in ferocious verbal combat with Zabini. This tiff was generating quite a fuss. It was time to end this as she thought frantically of her perfect application. Hermione was still formulating a plan when her friends finally managed to catch her attention. "What is going on?" Harry mouthed.

She put her head in her hands. Why is this happening to me?

Blaise's voice shook her out of her thoughts. "You should come, Patil, to some of these Slytherin events." He smirked at the repulsion that showed on her face. "Next time, Patil." He whistled. "And bring your sister."

"You stay away from Padma!" Parvati shrieked.

"Well, she can't seem to stay away from me!" He leered and high-fived Malfoy. "There you go; I call that a talent." He winked, "I have more talent than Dean Thomas."

Parvati's cheeks burned.

"Parvati," Hermione tugged on her friend's sleeve. "Why don't you measure out fifty milliliters of synovial fluids for me, please?" Hermione begged her. "We are so far behind."

Parvati shrugged her off, and she jabbed the air with her index finger. "It had better just be a rumor, Zabini, because if I find out you have been making moves on my sister, I will transfigure you into a rodent."

Malfoy's wide smile vanished immediately at the memory.

The number of bystanders putting their experiments on hiatus was growing. If Hermione were not so upset about finishing the potion and getting perfect recommendations, she would appreciate how comical the situation was. Tracey Davis tapped a rather flustered Daphne Greengrass on the shoulder and pointed their way. Under normal circumstances, Greengrass' bad acting would have had Hermione in stitches. Today, Hermione felt like beating her head on the table.

"Then you put that Ravenclaw seeker in the hospital." Lavender accused.

"It wasn't me!" Zabini protested loudly. "I didn't go near her!"

"You are just riddled!" Lavender squawked and swatted at him with a textbook before frantically fanning her workspace. "What's more, you are not even sorry about it."

Parvati hollered. "How many girls must go to the hospital wing before you wake up and see that you have a problem? You need help, Zabini!"

This was escalating to unmanageable levels. All she needed now was Nott gallivanting in to defend his friend and speaking of the Devil; where was Nott? She spotted him, hunched over some parchments, completing the written part of the experiment, wholly unperturbed or perhaps unaware of the commotion around him. She gaped openly; how could anyone work like that in what she termed a warzone? Intermittently, he would raise his head and calmly check the temperature of his furiously bubbling potion using his wand and return his attention to the parchments before him.

"Can we have some quiet in this classroom, please?" Slughorn called out; his eyes still trained on his Daily Prophet. He took a long sip from his coffee mug and settled back into his chair.

Malfoy backed up, holding his hands aloft. "Put that book down right now!" He raised his arm just in time to catch an oncoming blow from Lavender's advanced potions-making text and yowled with the pain.

"Get off my desk, Malfoy!"

"You crazy bint! You are not going to catch gonorrhea by breathing it in!" Malfoy dodged a second blow, shouting. "Why don't you hit Blaise? He was the one who hooked up with Chang."

His poorly thought-out question earned him a cold glare from his fellow Slytherin. "I never went near the girl," Blaise said, lying through his teeth like a statesman.

"I'm just repeating what they said." He pointed at Brown and Patil. "I'm not here to judge anyone." Malfoy wished the ground would swallow him to escape Blaise's stern glare. He turned back to his bench and called out. "So...err, Nott. How's the potion coming along?"

Hermione was conscious that time was running out, that Slughorn would raise his head any minute, and that one of the girls might snap and do something even more reckless, like hexing the Slytherins. Parvati already had her wand drawn out, but she had far more self-control than Lavender, who pulled out the heatproof mat under the cauldron and looked ready to club Zabini over the head.

"A deep-seated knee infection won't develop overnight, Brown," Blaise explained, his patience hanging by a thread. "As I said repeatedly, that had nothing to do with me!"

"I'm not taking any chances; I don't know where you've been!" Lavender hissed, mid-swing.

"I thought you said you never went near the girl?" Parvati snarled. "Or are you saying that you never touched her knee?"

Malfoy drew up short. Nott looked up from his desk quizzically. Blaise looked stumped, his political career over before it began.

Lavender put down the heatproof mat with an epiphany. She patted Parvati's shoulder encouragingly. "That's an excellent question, babes."

"Do you think so?" Parvati asked her.

"I don't have to listen to any of this!" Blaise lost his temper and roared. "None of this is any of your business! You are the craziest bints I have ever met!"

Lavender clapped back furiously, "You need to get your story straight before you start accusing us of lying." She stabbed her index finger into the air. "You didn't even answer the question?" She parroted. "You better answer the question, Blaise!"

"What question?" Blaise shouted.

Hermione jumped out of her skin as Slughorn hollered. "I think the noise level is rising too high here!"

Then it clicked. I am a genius. She could not believe it – Hermione Granger now had a plan to divert her two coworkers' attention back onto their potion and impress Slughorn enough for him to reward all three girls with prefect recommendations. Marveling at her brilliance, Hermione went about implementing her foolproof plan. Hermione subtly removed her wand from her robe pocket, knocked the pestle off the table, and dropped to her knees. She glanced around to make sure no one was watching, though inwardly guessed everyone's attention would fix on the rabid dogfight overhead. She creased her forehead, focusing intensely on the target, and fired her shot.

Parvati screamed. Malfoy yelped. Blaise Zabini swore very loudly and quickly grabbed his dress robes from the back of his chair before the frothy, fizzling pale pink potion engulfed the whole table, dripping over the sides and slopping onto the floor. Theodore Nott's carefully penned notes were not so lucky. Nott sprang from his seat, quill in hand, gazing at his sopping wet mulched work still on the table, brows knotted in confusion. The cauldron lay on its side, lamenting, with a hole through one side.

"You idiot!" Malfoy bellowed, roughly grabbing hold of Theo's shirt. "What the hell were you doing, Nott?"

The Gryffindor girls, now entirely forgotten by Blaise, he too made his way over, fuming. "You were meant to watch over the potion and ensure it didn't get too hot!"

"It didn't!" Nott snarled, dislodging Malfoy's hand with barely restrained force. "I checked it, the temperature's fine, and the potion didn't need stirring for another three minutes."

"Right. Another three minutes." Blaise said flatly before glaring at the pink froth quickly solidifying on the bench and the floor.

Hermione had positioned herself behind Parvati and Lavender, who were equally shocked at the explosion. Her friends fanned themselves using the instructions sheet, warding off the pale pink fumes. Thank Merlin, the potion was barely brewed that it caused so little damage.

Slughorn sighed as he thumbed the next page of the paper and settled down to read the wizarding financial times. "Boys, can we be more careful in the future?" He tutted.

"What are you going to do?" Lavender asked the boys, voice quaking slightly.

"Isn't it obvious, Brown?" Malfoy replied tersely. "We've got to clear this mess and then start again."

Blaise turned sharply, holding their cauldron in one hand, examining the perfect hole in the side. "Did any of you..." He asked the girls suspiciously.

Nott interrupted. "No, the school cauldrons are of poor quality and uneven thickness, and that hole would have been a weak point in the side which collapsed first." He took the cauldron from Blaise's outstretched arm. "I'll go and replace this." But his stony gaze never left Hermione.

Hermione turned to Parvati and said queasily. "I'm going to get us some more filter paper."

Parvati nodded. "I'll start heating our cauldron. Lav, have you added the eggshells?"

Hermione took her leave swiftly, knowing the longer she stayed, the more her façade would crack.

And he watched her, following her progress across the room with an unblinking, unnerving, and all-knowing stare. A suffocating stare that even Hermione Granger could feel the weight of as she reached the potions storeroom. He knew. But why had he interrupted Blaise? Nott wants to settle this with you and know that he will. She glanced back over her shoulders, and her eyes sought his arresting sharp grey gaze ten meters away. He stood, leaning against her desk, arms folded casually over each other and legs crossed at the ankles. He was a calm, statuesque figure amid all the hurrying students. His eyes were piercing, and like a vice, they locked on her.