Hateful Love

Chapter Six

NOTE: I do not own any of the ideas or characters expressed in this story (except Cassie Jackson). All of these belong to J.K. Rowling.

~*~

Draco P.O.V.

          “Parseltongue,” I say curtly to the portrait, and it swings open at the giving of the password. I crawl through the small opening and enter the Slytherin common room.

          I don’t look at anyone else as I flop onto the couch nearest to the fire. This seat officially became mine in my second year, and no one has dared take it since. I’m just starting to close my tired eyes when someone shakes my shoulder.

          Angry, I sit up and glare at Blaise until he lets go of my shoulder. He laughs and says, “Come on, Draco, get up! The funniest thing just happened. Some first year—“

          “Look, Blaise,” I cut in, rubbing my eyes. “I don’t care.”

          Blaise is too elated to be hurt, which I don’t find surprising at all. Blaise rarely gets upset. He pushes some third year out of the way so he can sit at the seat next to mine, saying, “You look terrible, mate.”

          I lean back and rest my head against the couch, running my fingers through my hair. I decide not to respond to this.

          “You need more sleep.”

          I glare up at him once more, and see that his face has turned more serious than it has in a while. “I can’t.”

          “Why the hell not?”

          “You know why,” I snap, frustrated that he’s making me even refer to it. That’s the last thing I want to be talking about.

          “Draco,” Blaise leans closer and lowers his deep voice. “He’d want you to be well-rested, you know that.”

          That’s it; I’m done with this conversation. I stand up suddenly and hiss, “You’ve no idea what he wants.”

          Before Blaise can respond, I leave the common room and trudge up the steps to the boy’s dormitory.

          Collapsing onto my bed, I curl my fingers around the green and silver comforter. I close my sore eyes, and start to drift off immediately. My last thought before I fall completely asleep is how early I’m going to have to wake up tomorrow. I’m getting behind on my task…

~*~

Cassie P.O.V.

“Damn it!” I cry angrily, lifting my finger to my eyes and inspecting the fresh cut. It’s not too bad, but I’m so pissed off. Freakin’ Potions.

          The Slytherins at my table don’t notice my little outburst, which is probably a good thing. They’ve been leaving me alone these past few days, as we’re now a week into the first semester. This is most likely because Malfoy has been especially quiet lately, and I can’t help but notice how absolutely exhausted he looks all the time.

          I shake my head to remove Malfoy from my thoughts and continue to brew the potion. This one is even harder than the Death Potion we made on the first day of school, and I’m having serious troubles. I’ve already cut my fingers three times and have almost set the table on fire.

          Slughorn walks by and frowns at me disapprovingly. “Miss Jackson, that potion is not supposed to be lime green.”

          “I know, professor, I don’t know what I did.”

          Slughorn glances over at Malfoy and sees that his potion is completely finished, then says, “Draco, help Cassie with her potion.” He lowers his voice and tells me, “You’re failing this class, as it is.”

          What? I watch with horror as the professor leaves our table and Malfoy reluctantly scoots closer. Fuck. I’m apparently failing Potions, and now Malfoy has to help me? And I had just been thinking I could actually make it through this year…

          I refuse to even turn his way as Malfoy leans over my bubbling potion. After a moment, he grumbles, “I can fix it.”

          He starts sifting through my ingredients, then begins crushing spider legs with the handle of a knife. Despite myself, I peer over at what he’s doing and interrupt, “Why are you crushing them? It says to cut them.”

          Rolling his eyes, he dumps the powder into the cauldron and responds with annoyance, “No, it says to crush them. Can’t you read, Jackson?”

          “Of course I can!” I reply hotly, pointing to the open textbook. “It says right here to cut the…oh.”

          “Yeah,” he smirks. “You were reading the wrong recipe.”

          I turn my head so I can glare at the floor angrily. Great, of course Malfoy is right and I’m wrong.

          I force myself to stay quiet as Malfoy basically makes my potion for me. After about ten minutes, Malfoy gives up. He sets the ladle down and says, “I’m done. Finish it yourself.”

          Annoyed, I respond snappily, “Fine.” I look over the instructions and realize I don’t have any Bulgarian grey powder. I’m standing up to go retrieve some when Zabini grabs my arm.

          He scares me so badly that I barely refrain from smacking him across the face. Zabini hands me a small bag of grey powder, saying, “Take mine, I’m already done.”

          Glaring at him suspiciously, I slowly sit back down. There’s no way that Blaise Zabini is actually being…nice to me? Then I realize that he probably just didn’t want to get up to put the leftovers back. I roll my eyes and open the bag.

          I’m just starting to pour it in when Malfoy jumps off his stool, shouting, “Cassie, don’t! That’s—“

          This shocks me so much that I don’t even realize half the bag’s contents have fallen out into the cauldron. In less than a second, the cauldron is rumbling, and the potion has turned to a murky black. I’m too stunned to do anything as the cauldron explodes, sending shards of iron and sizzling hot liquid straight towards me. I feel someone push me harshly out of the way, but the last thing I feel is something hard whacking the side of my head so violently that the entire room spins and fades to black.