Stained Glass; Draco Malfoy

Chapter 1

I wonder how it could've gotten to this point. Me sitting here in his dormitory. Of all the tutors I could've been assigned, of all 872 students attending this outrageous school, I'm sat here in Draco Malfoy's desk chair.

The worst part is that of his silent observations of me. He's sitting on his bed, as if I'm some sort of virus he's fearing he'd catch if he sat next to me. The air is void of sound, you can hear only the grandfather clock ticking in the corner of his room, and we haven't made eye contact yet. Or any sort of contact, we don't even look one another in the face. I'm at his desk, my back to him, and he observes that back. I wonder what he's thinking, if it's of me, if it's the configuration of a letter he will be owling his mother to release him of this arrangement.

I'm not offended, he might as well. This just isn't practical, he hasn't taught me a single thing yet. I just sit in his room for an hour, and do my homework silently while he thinks of whatever strains the privileged mind of a Malfoy. I wonder.

But in all of the greatest plot-twists in Hogwarts history, in the week and a half of our silent workings, Draco Malfoy spoke to me. "Are you done with page 10 yet, Matthews?"

I pause my doodles in the top right corner of page 4. How did he expect me to get to page 10 so fast without proper tutoring?

"Yes." I didn't turn to him, and I never do. I'm actually not quite sure what he's doing in the corner of his bed farthest possible from me. Besides the mental daggers he daydreams painting my back, maybe he does classwork too. Maybe he's reading a novel. He has a bunch of those neatly tucked in every shelf of this room.

Suddenly, I hear shuffling behind me and I'm immediately on high alert. Why is he moving? Is it over to me? I thought we both mentally signed some sort of contract to keep this distance between us.

The shuffling continues until I can feel the heat of his very being near me. I sense his entire essence, can hear his breathing and if he took a step closer, i'd have his heartbeat too. I don't look up at him, but I can tell he's peering down at my paper, my scribings of "I hate it here" over and over again, row by row. As if I'm a child serving punishment during detention. Like Harry having written I will not tell lies earlier this year, compliments of Umbridge. "Do I have to tutor you on truth telling as well?" He says.

"You call whatever is happening between us two, tutoring? Had you actually been helping I would have made enough progress that these meetings could be put at an end." I shot back immediately in defense, so agitated that I finally lock our eyes. His look like the sky anticipating a thunderstorm.

"Scoot" He demands.

"What?"

"There is only one chair, because this is my desk. You need to scoot so we can both be seated."

"The both of us sharing this tiny chair is absurd Malfoy."

"Then stand, I don't care."

I pray to the great Merlin that I do not look a fool right now. I wish that my jaw had not slacked a little when he said to move over, I do not favor to be seen caught off guard but this was uncharacteristic of him. I quickly gathered myself internally and scooted to the right a bit. Making very little room for him, but he did not say anything as he sat down next to me.

A moment like one of these, where I'm shoulder to shoulder to a boy should be making my heart race, I'm assuming at least. I never get this close to boys. Mother forbade me from doing so on attending my very first day at Hogwarts. But my heart is fine, intact and brilliantly beating as usual. If it's not due to my ability at keeping calm under most circumstances, it's because Draco Malfoy is barely a boy at all. He's just another problem under my thumb. I need to get better at Ancient Runes so I can rid of him.

He muttered a spell under his breath and with a swipe of his ringed fingers over the paper, my writings were gone. "Look here," he pointed to two symbols. "This is the rune of prosperity, and this one represents good fortune." He connects the two runes with a line, causing a new symbol to form. "When you combine them, it forms the phrase you're looking for."

"So.. it's like a puzzle then? I just have to figure out what each rune means and how they fit together? Maybe he's not the worst at this.

He nods at me, "Runes are tricky, but once you get the hang of it, they become more manageable. He rolls the pencil to my side of the desk with a flick, "Try the next problem, I want to watch you."

I warily look over his features and then my runes. He taught me one problem, even Professor Babbling shows more examples than him. Luckily though, at no expense of the both of our time I recognize the next set of runes as ones I know. I went over them in my head while showering last night. I connect Thuriaz, a protection rune, and Berkano, a growth rune. Together they formed Ehwaz, the rune for progress and movement. I looked at him awaiting some sort of praise a teacher would give his student but he did not look back. Instead, he silently began getting up. Is he serious? That's it? This felt like some sort of practical joke Fred put him up to play on me.

I watched as he shuffled back over to his spot on the bed, opening up his DADA textbook, paying no attention to my being. Unfortunately he's a decent and horrible tutor all at once, he could lay the material out straight and simple, unlike Professor Babble who babbled and rambled and whatnot. It was just the matter of how much material he felt like helping me with I suppose.

I must beg professor babble for a change of heart, a change of tutor, anything other than Draco, I thought.

I turn to my paper, still dumbfounded that this was the entire lesson. I don't recognize the next set of runes and I go back to doodling in the corner of my paper for the last half hour until dinner.

Back to the abysmal void of silence we go then.