As Time Goes By

Chapter 7

Draco's P.O.V

Draco internally thanked Ginny Weasley.

If it wasn't for the fact that he had been tutoring her all week, he probably wouldn't have known what he did about the Bloodroot Potion. He'd only been learning as much as he could to make sure she passed the test. It was a good thing, since now he was more prepared than he would have been otherwise. If her grades hadn't been so terrible, he wouldn't have bothered offering to tutor her, and wouldn't have troubled himself studying since he'd been satisfied with the grade he'd gotten on the practice test.

He was really really glad he was tutoring Ginny Weasley.

Draco's eyes found themselves traveling over to her, skimming over Blaise, whose eyebrows were furrowed, and sweeping down her profile.

His gaze lingered on her long, glossy, ginger hair, which she always seemed to keep down, and then glided down past her arms to her waist. They lowered more until they reached her legs, which were the only things on her that weren't covered by her uniform. They found their way back up to her face and stayed there, watching her quill brush her lips as she held it close to her mouth while she thought. Watching the slight pink color that came to her cheeks as she concentrated. Watching her eyes narrow as she tried to come up with an answer.

She sighed and flipped her hair behind her head as it slid into her face, and he looked back down at his parchment when she glanced in his direction.

It was amazing how quickly his mind could never seem to stray too far from her, really. A minute ago, he'd been trying to recall the purpose for why a griffin claw was used in the potion.

Thinking about it, he hadn't ever took the time to really look at her. Sure, he'd skimmed over her to throw an insult her way, or sneaked a quick glance from the Slytherin table, but those didn't really count. He'd always been surrounded by people who'd expected him to act a certain way. He'd never really looked at her for himself.

He smirked. The pink-tinted concentration look worked for her.

He should probably stop though, if she caught him staring at her it might creep her out.

Draco turned his head back to his parchment and wrote down that the griffin claw was used to add strength to the potion. A frown slowly edging its way onto his face afterwards. He hadn't been able to go over this with Ginny yet, and had planned to go over it last night with her after she'd gotten back to the dormitory. Although he'd forgotten about it after McGonagall came over and Ginny and him started arguing . . .

A rush of heat and rage went through him, and he kept himself still, his grip on his quill tightened while he tried to rid himself of the anger. He was still mad at her for what she'd said yesterday, but she'd apologized. She'd practically gotten on her hands and knees, begging him to forgive her. Part of him, the part that was still hurt about the situation, wanted to resent her for what she said. But the other part of himself just wanted to forget it had happened. He didn't need the added stress of dealing with all of this drama.

He really just wanted things to go back to what they were before, it would've been easier. Before the whole thing with Potter happened and it was Draco and Ginny studying together, the only thing to worry about was getting her through the test. It was probably the least amount of drama he'd had in his life when it concerned Ginny since he came back to Hogwarts.

He wanted yesterday to never have happened. He wished those stupid words had never left her mouth.

Draco stared at the fireplace, watching the fire flick across the stone, and tried to relax.'Why'd you tell her you were over it if you're just going to keep getting mad?' He thought to himself angrily.