Green Eyed Monster | Draco Malfoy

70. Outdated

Chapter 70 - Outdated

"Oh, Audrey," Hermione sighed as I raced late into Potions, skidding into place beside her on the off-balance bench. "Again?"

Did she need to sound so condescending? No. She didn't. Then again, clearly Hermione had no couth when it came to hiding her disbelief over such typical circumstances. I mean, what other reason would she have to be surprised that I had been splattered with another one of Astoria Greengrass' infamous paint-splatter hexes? Still, I gave a grunt and threw my bag down beside her, glaring at Ernie MacMillan who chuckled to himself from his seat in front of me.

"Laugh again, Hufflepuff," I urged darkly, "and I'll show you what it's like to get hit with a real curse."

He was quick to change seats.

"Settle down, settle down, please! Miss Potter, you're late - but I can see you have an adequate enough reason," Slughorn pointed out in front of the whole class. I didn't dare to look around and find out where my friends - and where those who were not my friends - had seated themselves. I gave Slughorn a fake smile of thanks for pardoning my timing, which I'm sure still looked like a grimace, before I busied myself by taking out my textbook.

"Now, let's go back to what happens if we accept Golpalott's Third Law as true..." Slughorn went back to saying. Harry tapped on my shoulder, as usual seated with Ron behind me.

"Everything all right?"

"Peachy," I responded flatly, refusing to look back at him. I heard him sigh before he sat back in his bench - the wood creaking slightly under the movement. At least he knew I was not in the mood to hear his opinion on my newest bought of misfortune.

"-which means, of course," Slughorn was continuing, "that assuming we have achieved correct identification of the potion's ingredients by Scarpin's Revelaspell, our primary aim is not the relatively simple one of selecting antidotes to those ingredients in and of themselves, but to find that added component which will, by an almost alchemical process, transform these disparate elements. And so, I want each of you to come and take three of these vials from my desk. You are to create an antidote for the poison within them before the end of the lesson. Good luck, and don't forget your protective gloves!"

"Perfect," I breathed, knowing that at least the class would be easy, even if my morning had been disastrous. It wasn't just me who had suffered today; while I was splattered in red, Tracey had been splattered with yellow. When all was said and done, the red suited much more nicely to me than the mustard-thick substance had in her hair.

I went up to Professor Slughorn's table and grabbed my vials, horrified when he pulled me aside.

"Is everything alright, Miss Potter?"

"Fine," I told him tightly. "Just a bit of a practical joke; I'm sorry it kept me behind, professor."

"No problem at all, you are one of the best," I could feel my expression flicker disdainfully by his words, but he didn't seem to notice it. One of the best my backside... "As long as you're sure everything is good and well?"

"Perfect," I smiled a fake, cheeky smile before he sent me on my way to create the necessary antidotes. On the way back to my desk I caught the eye of my favourite Slytherin - Draco had taken to sitting on the aisle across from me these past few weeks. It was nice that Hermione always chose the same desk so it didn't look suspicious. While he looked at me he gave me a shameless wiggle of his eyebrows that shamefully made me want to laugh. And to think that Snape told Draco I would be a distraction for him.

When I was back to my work bench I was glad to notice that the poisons themselves were easy to identify - one was snake venom, another Aconite, and though the third would take some more investigation I was sure I had dealt with it before - it's thick consistency was familiar.