Love at First Sight (Harry Potter)

The Boggart in the Wardrobe

|ALEXANDRIA WEASLEY'S P.O.V|

The first week of our third year past by agonizingly slow. Harry, Ron, Hermione, and I sat rather impatiently in our lessons, all waiting for that familiar Slytherin to strut through the door; he had been stretching out every possible second in the hospital wing, in hopes of angering Malfoy Sr. just enough over the attack to get Hagrid fired.

It wasn't until Thursday morning, halfway through a double Potions lesson, that Malfoy made his appearance. He slammed open the door with a smirk on his lips, grey eyes filled to the brim because of his over-inflated ego. Everyone had turned to look at him upon his entry, even Professor Snape paused his teaching. Malfoy showed off his injury with pride: his right arm was covered in bandages and bound up in a sling, the sleeve of his black robe pushed up high above his elbow so that the sight was unmistakable.

"How is it, Draco?" simpered Pansy Parkinson as her blonde bimbo of a crush made his way over to her table. She stared up at that boy as though he had put the sun in the sky. "Does it hurt much?"

"Yeah," said Malfoy in a sort of brave, heavy voice. From the Gryffindor side of the dungeon, I watched and gave a loud scoff; immediately the boy looked over, his lips upturned in amusement as he gave me a quick wink.

"Unbelievable," I tore my attention away and whispered beneath my breath to Hermione, who was on my right side.

"Settle down, settle down," said Professor Snape suddenly, even though the only real noise in the dungeon had come from his favorite student.

I heard Ron snort from the table behind us, where he was seated with Harry. I glanced over my shoulder at my brother, and found that he was glaring at Professor Snape. Suddenly, before I could even blink, Malfoy appeared between the boys. As they watched with wide eyes, the Slytherin placed his cauldron down onto their counter; the smirk still ever present on his lips.

"Perhaps you should just take a picture, Alexandria, it will be there whenever you wanna stare at my cute face."

Without a word, I rolled my eyes and spun on my heel. A small exhale of annoyance left my throat involuntarily as Hermione began to slide ingredients in front of my workspace.

"Sir," called Malfoy with glee in his voice while I read over the instructions to brew a Shrinking Solution, "sir, I'll need help cutting up these daisy roots, because of my arm —"

"Weasley, cut up Malfoy's roots for him." Snape didn't even glance in our direction.

Another moment went by and then, "Professor, Weasley's mutilating my roots, sir."

Snape finally walked over, his black eyes scanning over Harry and Ron's space. I grimaced at the sight of the old man's unpleasant smile.

"Change roots with Malfoy, Weasley."

"But, sir —!"

"Now."

To say the least, this Potions lesson proved to be one of the worst I had ever experienced — further exposed as such when Malfoy opened his big mouth, simply set on upsetting Harry. He hadn't said a word about Sirius Black, not until the very end of the hour as we all cleaned up our supplies and stowed away quills into our bags.

"Maybe you'd rather not risk your neck," I had heard Malfoy say to Harry from a few feet afar, where I was rinsing out my cauldron beneath the tap in the dungeon's large sink. I could barely hear the water rushing over my hands, attention entirely focused on the boys behind me. "Want to leave it to the Dementors, do you? But if it was me, I'd want revenge. I'd hunt Black down myself."