UNEXPECTED EVENTS
My detention is scheduled for Wednesday, Thursday, and Friday night. Wednesday, I have Transfiguration (fine), Arithmancy (fun), then a double block period of Potions with the Gryffindors (jury's still out). Usually, Potions is my favorite class, but some jerkwad decided that sixth year Slytherins should spend two class periods in a row with the Gryffindors. Worse still, Harry Potter and his loudmouthed friends sit right next to me, at the same table. This is because on the first day they were late, as usual, and the only empty seats were right next to me so they had to take them. Lucky me. And for some unfathomable reason it was Harry himself, my arch-nemesis, that decided to bite the bullet and take the seat directly next to me. I’d expected him to make one of his goons take the fall and sit next to the slimy Slytherin, but he surprised me. And sometimes, like today, we are forced to be partners. Crabbe and Goyle partner up, Weasley and Granger partner up (I suspect there’s something going on between them), and Potter and I are left in the middle. How romantic.
“So, I take it we’re working together again?” said a voice to my right. Harry’s voice, to be precise. Shaking my head, I looked around. Professor Snape had dismissed us into pairs. Curse partner assignments.
“Um, yeah, I suppose,” I muttered, belatedly taking out my Potions book. As Harry went to grab our ingredients, I couldn’t help but ogle at how the light flickering off the candles outlined the shape of his thighs. I can almost picture myself running my hands down his-
“Alright, do you want to get started on the base, while I grind up the moonstone?” Harry asks, beside me now. Pulling myself out of my thoughts, I nodded a yes and got up to fetch the cauldron. I needed to get focused.
Yet all through the process of making the base, I couldn’t help but steal glances towards Harry, at how his forearms flexed while grinding up the moonstone, and how his brow furrowed in concentration when he examined his handiwork. Luckily, by now, I could make a potion base in my sleep, so my distraction did not have any adverse effects on our work. Every time I looked over at him I tore my eyes away and mentally scolded myself, yet time and time again my eyes betrayed me.
Making the potion was torture.
“Is that good?”
“Uhmmm, just a pinch more moonstone,” I replied, examining the color of the brew.
“Alrighty,” Harry said, then proceeded to grab at least five times the amount that a ‘pinch’ entails. In doing so, he brushed my arm with his, which of course was immensely distracting to me, enough that I did not notice how much moonstone he intended to put in until it was too late. As soon as he deposited the powder, our potion erupted green goop onto the front of my robes. At this stage, it was harmless, of course, but it still meant a failing potion.
Snape strode towards me.
“What could have possibly gone wrong already?” he asked, sounding incredibly bored.
“I’m sorry, sir,” Harry said, “I think I put too much moonstone in,”
“You think?” I asked incredulously, “That was practically the whole jar!”
“I’m sorry, but a pinch isn’t a very precise measurement!”
“It means very little! What part of very little don’t you understand?”
“Malfoy, Potter,” Snape cut in, “Settle down. Potter, a day’s detention for your carelessness. Now, the both of you, go clean yourselves off.”
Both Harry and I bowed our heads, but as soon as he was out of the classroom, Harry called Snape an asshole under his breath.
Nevertheless, we set out to the restrooms together, not that we had much of a choice. The walk to the nearest washroom was, thankfully, not a long one, so we didn’t have to walk in silence for too long. What was the etiquette for this situation? What do enemies say to each other when nobody is around? Surely I don’t say something cruel- that person is reserved for when I have a point to prove. I suppose we say nothing, and instead let the tension of hatred fill the air. I can tell he’s itching to get away from me, by the way he walks a bit too far away to be friendly. I’m sure he can feel the resentment I have towards him, although I hope he can’t tell how that resentment has contorted itself into something else. I’m not quite sure what it is, only that ever since first year, when Harry is around I feel tense, like a wind-up toy before it’s set free, and when I’m bored and daydreaming he always forces himself into the fantasy, but somehow only makes it more sweet, and when I’m alone at night the thought of him causes those unnatural urges to almost take control. When he brushes my hand in Potions it feels like I’ve been zapped, and when he looks my way it feels as if I’m being set aflame.
The walk to the bathroom is taking forever. I’m too keyed up to pay attention to where exactly we are until Harry opens the door to the bathroom, except it’s not the bathroom I thought we were headed to.
“Why are we at this bathroom?” I ask, confused as to why Harry chose to avoid the one nearest to Snape’s room.
“Oh, uhhm,” Harry starts, looking confused as to why I’m asking, “I don’t really like that one”
I pause.
“Why not?”
“Well, you see,” he starts, stumbling on his words like always, “The other one is the one that leads to the Chamber of Secrets”
“…. So…?”
“Well, I don’t know, it creeps me out. Lotta bad memories”
“Oh.”
Hastily, I turn to the sink and assess the damage. There’s green goop practically covering the front of my sweater, but thankfully, the cauldron was too high up to have any effect on my jeans. The collar of my undershirt is a bit dirtied, but not so bad that I’d have to remove it. There are spots of green goop dotting my neck and jaw, and my hands are soaked. I took the brunt of the damage, being the one closest to the cauldron, so Harry sported a splattered sleeve and cuff. Despite the minimal damage, Harry still thought it necessary to remove his sweater, and doing so pulled up his undershirt. Again, my eyes betrayed me, fixating their view on the exposed skin. He had a mole right on top of his hip bone. God, how I longed to touch- No, I reprimanded myself, you do not want to touch him. Why would you want that? It’s unnatural and immoral and you should be ashamed of yourself.
Jerking my head, as if I could shake off the thoughts, I turned my eyes away from his midsection and began removing my own sweater. Two boys undressing in the bathroom together. Good god, get your head out of the gutter, pervert. I resisted the urge to slap myself in the face. I wager that wouldn’t seem normal.
There was no way I could make this sweater wearable without magic, and I had left my wand in the classroom, so I set it on the floor. I’ll just go without it today. It seems Harry’s forgotten his wand in the classroom as well, as he’s running his sweater under the sink. I suspect Snape could have cleaned us off with a spell, but he probably wanted us out of his sight.
I bend over, trying to get the collar of my shirt under the running water, and as I do so, the tap spurts water all down my shirt, leaving the front of my torso drenched.
“Goddamnit,” I curse, looking around for a towel.
Harry reaches over with the dry side of his sweater, meaning to pat me dry with that, but I flinch back. He seems to ignore that and tries again, at which point I swat his hand away. He finally looks up at me.
“What?” he asks thickly, as if this is a normal occurrence in our relationship.
In response I glare at him, not knowing quite what to say,
“Dude, what?” he asks again.
“What do you mean ‘what’?” I ask sharply.
He rolls his eyes and reaches for me once again, at which point I snap at him: “Would you stop that?”
“I’m just trying to help”
“I don’t need your help”
“Malfoy, will you stop being a prick for one minute and let me help you? Snape will never let you walk back in the classroom looking like this”
I sigh.
He looks at me expectantly.
“Yeah, alright, go ahead,” I concede. I have no inkling of his intentions, but knowing him, it’s probably those hero’s instincts kicking in. He must believe that nobody can solve their own problems, that he simply must swoop in and save the day for everyone around him.
He takes a step towards me cautiously, like one would approach a feral cat, and begins blotting the front of my shirt with his sweater.
Good god, the pressure feels heavenly. I can’t remember the last time someone touched me like this. I am taut as a wire, expecting him to exploit this weakness and hurt me. He makes his way towards my collar, where he brushes against the skin of my neck. I take a sharp breath, stiffening even more.
“Dude, c’mon, I’m not gonna hurt you,” he says, eyes still focused on his work.
What does he mean he’s not going to hurt me? As if that’s not what he has wanted to do since the first day we met! Why would he do this? Why would he say that? Is he trying to get me to let my guard down? Perhaps later he will take advantage of this tentative trust. That’s the only possible explanation for this, but I have never known a Gryffindor to be that cunning, especially Harry. There’s no way he would have the forethought to plan a betrayal like that, and no way that it would work on me.
“Malfoy.”
“What?” I snap.
“Chill out. You look like you’re in pain”
“Why are you doing this?”
He looks at me, puzzled. “What do you mean?”
“I mean, Potter, why are you helping me? I’ve been nothing but cruel to you”
“Hm,” he says, thinking, “Well, if there’s gonna be peace, someone has to take the first step”
I scoff. “What are you, a Hufflepuff?”
“Frankly, Malfoy, I’m tired of this. We’re in sixth year. We’ve got bigger fish to fry”
I furrow my eyebrows. What does that mean?
“Oh, sorry, Muggle phrase. We have more important things to do than hex each other”
Oh. This is unexpected.
“Don’t you agree?”
A beat. I consider my options. Option one: we carry on the way things are. But he said he’s getting tired of our rivalry, and if he loses interest… Option two: we make peace. Of course being friends is out of the picture, but perhaps we can chat in Potions class, and after Quidditch games we’ll congratulate one another.
I choose option two. “I suppose”
After that, we return to class, at which point both of us use cleaning spells on our clothes and the cauldron. Snape assigns us both a paper on the importance of precise measurements, and since our potion is unfixable, we both work on that for the rest of the class period. It’s hard to focus, though, since I feel like a live wire.
The rest of the day passes without incident. I spend my free hours working on the arithmancy work that is due tomorrow, then on the astronomy chart that is due Friday. Dinner is uneventful. Blaise is back, although he spends the time ranting about how awful seventh-year girls are, and Pansy keeps trying to slip her hand onto my thigh. By the fifth time I swat her away, she begins to say something to me, no doubt about how I’m an awful boyfriend (even though I never formally agreed to date her), but seven chimes of the clock save me and I’m able to rush off to detention.