Love Of My Life

Chapter Two: The Potions Partner

Salem woke the next morning to the warm sun, evenly spread across her face and the sound of birds chirping outside of her window. Luckily, it was Friday so she only had astrology and potions for the day.

The girl pushes back the fuzzy blanket and shivers at the cold, wooden floor that was under her feet.

She gets dressed in the usual white button-down shirt, black jeans, black ankle boots, her Slytherin tie, and the Slytherin robe over top of it. She used magic to do a small bit of makeup as she brushed out her blonde waves.

Once she was done getting herself ready for the day, she grabbed her bag and her black wand, then headed out of her room.

As she walks down the stairs to the common room, she spots Andromeda writing something on a parchment.

"Good morning. What are you up to?" She asks as she takes a seat next to her best friend. "Writing home. My parents keep trying to find me a husband and I'm trying to hold them off for a little while longer." She ties the parchment to the owl's foot and lets it out the window.

"Hopefully they don't make you marry a cousin," Salem says as she shutters of the thought.

"Merlin, I hope not," Andromeda says as she picks up her bag and the two leave the common room.

Potions Room

Salem takes her seat next to Lucius as she rolls her eyes at professor Slughorn's new seating chart. 

She looks around and sees that Severus, fortunately, got paired with Evans, and Andromeda got paired with James Potter.

"Can I switch with the half-blood?" She hears Narcissa's annoying voice call out from behind her to Professor Slughorn. 

"Narcissa shut up." Lucius snaps at her.

What was that about? Did he really not mind working with her? She figured that he wouldn't be able to keep his ego in check for long enough to work with a half-blood as herself. "Please, Malfoy isn't worth your thoughts." She tells herself in her head.

"Anyways. Today we will be working on an amortentia potion." Slughorn tells them all as he pulls a vial of potion from his desk. 

She looks over and sees Lucius rolling his eyes as if he didn't believe in it. 

"This weekend, you will all be doing a parchment on it with the person next to you." He tells the class as groans erupt in the room. "I expect a parchment and a vial of it on my desk by Monday," he tells them all. "And there's another catch. It's worth 45% of your grade." He tells them as people begin to get worried. 

However, she had the second high mark in the class (Next to Severus) so she had nothing to worry about.

He then goes about the class when the realization hits that she would have to work with Malfoy. "This should be fun," She tells herself in her head.

.

.

,

The potions class ends and Salem grabs her bag while she gets ready to leave. As she goes to head for the door, she suddenly feels a tight grip on her arm.

"Library, Midnight," Lucius says as he gives her a small, sarcastic smirk. "I'll be there." She tells him as he lets go of her arm.

"Ha, you have to work with Lucius," Severus tells her as they walk down the crowded halls. "Trust me, I'm not ecstatic about it." She tells him as they turn a corner, headed for astrology. 

"Oh, he's going to insult your blood status at least ten times. He did with me before we became friends." Severus tells her.

She pushes the door open and they take their usual seats next to Andromeda. 

"She's complained to me at least thirty times that you're working with Malfoy," Andromeda whispers to her as she points to a pouting Narcissa that was sitting towards the front of the room. 

"If I could change it, she could have him," Salem whispers back as the two girls giggle.

********

Lucius sat all the way in the back, two rows back and to the right of Salem. He has always hated astrology, only dark arts interested him.

He fiddled with the silver of his wand when something caught the corner of his eye. He looked over and saw that Salem had dropped her quill and was reaching towards his side of the room to grab it. "Clumsy girl." He thought to himself as he rolled his eyes.

Once she turned back forward, he couldn't help but stare at her. He had to admit, she was much more beautiful than Narcissa, even if she was a half-blood. "If I have to work with her, at least she's easy on the eyes." He thought to himself as he smirked.