Theo was going to kill Draco the next time he saw him. It was bad enough that his friend had been so distant lately, refusing to admit that something was wrong. Now the git was cutting class and running off to do Merlin knows what. If it were anyone else, Theo wouldn’t bat an eye. But Draco Malfoy simply did not miss class without reason. And he certainly didn’t leave his friends high and dry in Potions. If Draco were here instead of sneaking around Hogwarts, he would be the one cutting up these damn Valerian roots.
Huffing, the young wizard knew his agitation was pointless. It really didn’t matter that Draco was being secretive. Who was he to say how his friend should spend his class time? What mattered was that he chose to skip on the same day Millicent ended up in the infirmary, leaving Theo alone with none other than Daphne Greengrass. Carefully glancing at his new partner for the day, Theo struggled to hide the blush in his cheeks. In all of his six years at Hogwarts, he’d done his best to avoid the witch at all costs for this very reason. His luck, however, had run out. Despite his insistence that he could work alone, Professor Slughorn wouldn’t hear of it.
“Theo?”
“Hmm?” The boy snapped his head up at once, turning beet red as he met Daphne’s brilliant blue gaze.
“I think you’ve chopped those roots as much as you possibly can,” she said, wrinkling her nose at the smell.
“Oh,” he said, shifting his attention back to the Valerian roots. “Right.” Scooping up the mess into his hands, he carefully placed them into a beaker with water to settle.
Daphne waved her wand over his hands to wash away the oil from the roots, but turned back to her own task before Theo could say anything. Swallowing hard, he glanced down at his textbook for the next step in the instructions. Out of the corner of his eye, he could see Daphne adding the Sopophorous bean juice to the cauldron, so all that was left to do was let the roots settle for five minutes. It felt more like hours as he fidgeted by Daphne’s side.
When it came time to extract the liquid, Theo couldn’t have been more nervous. He could feel Daphne leaning in close to watch as he added the necessary drops, the brush of her arm against his own making him lose focus entirely. Shit. Was that seven drops or eight? What if she thought he was an idiot who couldn’t count? If that were the case, Daphne said nothing of it, taking over to stir the potion ten times. Theo could feel beads of sweat along his forehead as he waited, looking for anything that could possibly distract him from how close the witch was and how sweet her perfume smelled.
“Okay,” Daphne said, jarring Theo from his thoughts. “You take over stirring and I’ll set out the pieces of Valerian root to use.”
Theo nodded, taking up the stirring rod without question. It was simple task, and he only had to stir until the potion turned—
“Oh!” Daphne cried. “It’s clockwise, not counterclockwise!”
Theo stopped abruptly, looking back down at his text. Sure enough, he’d mixed up the next two steps. Instead of a lilac color, the potion was turning a sickly green. Stirring the wrong way couldn’t have affected it that badly, right? And was it supposed to be bubbling like that?
“Shit,” he hissed, flipping through the book for some sort of counter to his mistake.
Daphne began waving a hand over the cauldron to clear the steam rising from it, but soon there was a thick fog forming in front of them. “Maybe we should clear the potion and…” she started, choking as she continued to fan the air. “We can start over.”
But there was no time for such measures. Theo could hardly see a hand in front of his face, much less focus on the wand work to clean up his mess. He couldn’t see Professor Slughorn hurrying towards them, or his nearby classmates backing away from their desk. And he certainly couldn’t see the potion boiling over. It was pure instinct that told him to shield Daphne, just as the potion shot up into the air. He felt intense burning on his arm and the side of his face, as if he’d been branded, and he wasn’t sure if the screaming that followed belonged to him or someone else. He was shaking from the pain, and then the smoke cleared and Slughorn was demanding that everyone remain calm.
“Ms. Greengrass, please escort Mr. Nott to the infirmary,” the professor said, his tone sounding too nonchalant given the circumstances.
Theo blindly followed Daphne out of the dungeons, fearing that the potion would get into his eyes if he opened them too much. Merlin, how could he have been so stupid? And in front of Daphne, no less? He would probably have boils to match the burns, or maybe something would grow out of the side of his face, or—
“Here,” Daphne said softly, gently dabbing at his face with a handkerchief. “That was really stupid, you know.”
Theo might have flinched at her words were it not for the poorly hidden concern in her voice. “Yeah,” he said with a forced laugh. “That’ll teach me not to get distracted so easily.”
Daphne laughed too, a light and airy sound that made Theo’s heart beat faster. “Well, that, too. But you shouldn’t have jumped in front of me like that.”
Theo carefully opened his eyes, ignoring the burning pain along his cheek. He watched her in silence as she finished cleaning up his face, and when their eyes finally met, he was sure all the air had been sucked out of his lungs. Gods, how could one person be so breathtakingly beautiful?
“I’d do it again in a heartbeat,” he said, so quietly that he wasn’t even sure if he said it aloud.
Daphne’s eyes gleamed, a shy smile breaking out across her face. She leaned in close and kissed the unmarred side of his face before taking his hand. “Come on, let’s get you to Madam Pomfrey.”
Theo followed alongside her without question, too over the moon to mind his injuries any longer.