Little Bird

Chapter Five

Eve

            Malfoy left me alone for approximately one day. Which, to be honest, was longer than I had been expecting. I had thought he would go right back to being just as nasty as he always was even after I yelled at him, but he didn't. Malfoy completely ignored me during Potions the next day, and he did the same throughout Care of Magical Creatures. He even went so far as to avoid me in the Slytherin common room later that night.

            So, needless to say, my second day at Hogwarts was about a hundred times better than the first.

            Ginny and I had worked together during Charms, and after classes I went outside with the rest of her friends to sit down by the lake. I felt a little awkward around all those people I didn't know, but they definitely seemed to like me. I went to bed that night feeling pretty happy, which was a huge difference from the way I had felt the night before.

            Of course, I knew it wouldn't last.

            Malfoy went straight back to his usual attitude on the third day of classes, but by that point I was feeling okay enough that I didn't even feel the need to flip out on him again. Besides, I'd promised myself that I wouldn't listen to him anymore or let him affect me at all—and so far, it was working.

            Now, it was the fourth day of classes and we were making our first potion of the year. Snape dryly told us that we would need to work in partners, so Blaise automatically looked over at me and winked. No matter how hard I tried, I couldn't keep the redness from rising to my cheeks.

            "Alright, you mash up the beetles and I'll sort through the dried pepper?" Blaise smiled at me over the cauldron, the two of us sitting much closer now that we were working together. Across the table, Malfoy was paired up with Goyle; although, I could see that Goyle was going to be doing most of the work.

            "Okay," I replied, giving a small smile in return.

            I was mashing up the beetle legs with the handle of my knife while Blaise went to work with the pepper, and I glanced over our cauldron to see that Malfoy was leaning back in his seat while Goyle worked with the ingredients. He was just lazily looking around the classroom while his partner did all the work. I rolled my eyes at this, keeping my head down and my mouth shut.

            "Did you hear we're working with Fire Crabs later?" Blaise asked, looking over at me as he dumped the dried pepper into the boiling water. One corner of his mouth was turned up as he explained, "Marcus told me that's what we're gonna be doing in Care of Magical Creatures later. Doesn't that suck? Hagrid does it on purpose because he hates Slytherin, I swear."

            "He seemed okay to me," I shrugged, wiping the handle of my knife with a cloth. "Besides, aren't the Gryffindors working with them too?"

            "Of course not," Malfoy scoffed, butting into our conversation before Blaise could even open his mouth to respond. I tried not to sigh loudly as he leaned forward in his chair, sneering across the table at me. "They're working with Flobberworms. Did you honestly think he wouldn't favor the Gryffindors over us? He always does this shit, it's the same every year. You wouldn't know."

            "You're right, I wouldn't know," I replied evenly, not looking up at Malfoy. Blaise snorted beside me, and I saw him grinning at me out of the corner of my eye.

"Anyway," Malfoy said as though I hadn't spoken, leaning back in his chair. "I'm skipping. That class is a waste of my fucking time."

"Yeah, I'm surprised you haven't skipped already," Blaise said, chopping up some lemon grass. "You barely even showed up at all last year."