Misunderstood Maledictions | Tomione

Calugala Malfoy

Monday, December 20, 1944
6:43 P.M.

"I need the dragon's tooth. Now, right now, hurry it up. Do you even have the dragon's tooth, Nefertari?... Give it to me. Good. And the Basilisk scale... Before we all die of old age, Nefertari—"

With immense restraint, Hermione held back a growl and shoved the rough, scaly patch into Calugala Malfoy's waiting hand, simultaneously shooting mental arrows into both her Defence Against the Dark Arts professor and Tom Riddle: her professor for assigning this stupid group project on exploring the links between potion-making and defending against the Dark Arts, and Tom Riddle for being in the Hospital Wing so often that she was left to deal the pompous blond alone.

Hermione cursed the fates that had removed one Malfoy from her life, so to speak, only to replace him with another one.
Calugala held up the faded, yellowish-green basilisk scale, squinting, and critically examined it under the dim spare Potions classroom lighting. "Well, well, well. I am impressed. How did you manage to get this, Nefertari?"
This time, Hermione let out a guttural rumble without thinking twice about it, her wand hand twitching.

"Malfoy, just put it in before I pour the entire potion in your lap," she snapped waspishly, already irritated that her last day of classes before the Holiday break had been dragging on... and on... and on...

Yes, tomorrow would be the last exhausting round of Great Hall decorating; yes, the Holiday Soiree was tomorrow night; yes, she was going with Tom Riddle; yes, she had absolutely no idea what she was going to wear. Her mind was too numb to think that far ahead, and now she was trying to get through minutes rather than days.
It was a task far easier said than done.

"And risk your grade, Nefertari?" Calugula rhetorically asked with a signature Malfoy smirk and that conceited Malfoy confidence. "I think not."

Hermione's eyes followed the scale's demise as it sunk into the thick green goop. She had hardly made substantial contact with Draco's grandfather: only ten hour-long meetings to formulate the Silviarius Potion, an advanced mix utilized in wiping memories without the sticky side-effects that the Obliviate charm often created. Even that amount of time, really, was more than she would have originally needed to sped with him, but Malfoy had elongated the process by "accidentally" starting the potion with far more base than they needed or could legally have.

Despite this lack of time spent, however, there was no doubt in her mind that she despised Calugala Malfoy.

It had taken Hermione several weeks of pondering to figure out exactly why she felt so much more uncomfortable around Malfoy than a young Lord Voldemort. She finally came to a reasonable conclusion: Whereas the Tom of here and now seemed to only draw his power from knowledgeable assuredness and quiet, cold detachment, Malfoy drew his power from a creepy, bossy, obnoxiously loud arrogance that easily managed to top even Draco's during his earlier years.

"Well, unfortunately for us, that's the last step," she reported sarcastically. She forced a note of cheerfulness into her voice, but she felt a blissful relief like no other airily drift through her senses. She snapped Malfoy's Potions textbook shut and pushed it away from her as if it were diseased. "Simmer for three weeks and test."

A few muttered spells and a dismissive sweep of his wand later, Malfoy quickly cleaned up the surrounding area of desks in the small, alcove-like spare Potions classroom, his apparent familiarity with cleaning spells surprising Hermione as he sent the simmering cauldron floating off toward a holding shelf lined with steaming, nearly identical black cauldrons. As it touched down securely, a worn label beneath it scrawled the words: C. Malfoy, H. Nefertari, T. Riddle; Silviarius.