𝐀𝐑𝐂𝐀𝐍𝐄

𝟏𝟐. 𝐭𝐡𝐞 𝐛𝐢𝐭𝐭𝐞𝐫 𝐭𝐚𝐬𝐭𝐞 𝐨𝐟 𝐲𝐨𝐮 (𝐩𝐚𝐫𝐭 𝐨𝐧𝐞)

𝐡𝐚𝐫𝐫𝐲.

Dean Thomas is your potions partner this term. This is the fact that drove me to the verge of madness nearly every day for the entire class period. Most days I could easily block it out. It came as a second nature, like hitting mute on one of Ron's quidditch rants or Hermione's lectures about academic integrity.

Dean never tried anything with you, though. He was the same breed of Gryffindor as I was — all bark and no bite when it came to the opposite sex.

Today, I can't help but chew unnecessarily hard on my bottom lip as you skip into class and glance around in confusion when you find your workstation totally empty.

Dean Thomas was your potion partner this term until something very strange and very dreadful happened to him at breakfast this morning—something unexplainable that sent him to the hospital wing for the rest of the school day. Something peculiar and very mysterious indeed.

But lucky for you, Ron decided to sleep in this morning and I was right there, thumbs twiddling, eager to fill in on behalf of poor Mr. Thomas.

I tried not to think about the weeks of work that led up to this very moment, rolling a golden butterscotch token between my fingers. The wrapping crinkled under the pads of my fingers as I watched you approach Slughorn about your missing partner. They were out of peppermint toads by the time I wrestled my way into Honeydukes last weekend. But you liked butterscotch almost as much, I was sure of it.

Just as I was so very sure that you wouldn't question its misplaced rosey aftertaste.

Amortentia wasn't as difficult to make as the professors were so inclined to make us believe. Perhaps they only did so to deter us from taking a crack at it ourselves. However, Slughorn's efforts certainly didn't work on me. The old wizard accepted all sorts of excuses for why I needed the key to the potion's closet. A pinch of Black Sea salt for a novice sleeping aid, a fistful of toad's legs for one of Hagrid's extra credit assignments. And now, at last, the fruit of my labor was sitting snug in the palm of my hand.

I watched from across the room as you spoke with Slughorn. The baby blue ribbon in your hair rippled like a little waterfall, cracking like a silent whip when Sluggy pointed you in my direction. Your doe eyes immediately went round at the sight of me sitting there, the only person left without a partner in the entire classroom. I lifted my palm off of the table in a short wave and you parroted the gesture before trotting over to set your books down in the seat beside me.

If Malfoy were here, he would have taken all sorts of measures to have you paired with anyone else. Anyone but me. But he wasn't, and you were far too timid to actually request someone else from old Sluggy, who was already off on another tangent about the ethics of potion-making.

Your hands were folded neatly in your lap, ankles knocking against each other as you kicked your legs underneath the work desk. You were doing everything in your power to avoid my eye, but it was as if you were naturally drawn to my gaze. The words tearfully scrawled into your diary had been burned into my eyelids.