3. What's in a Malfoy?

What’s in a Malfoy?

The next weeks I forced myself to hate Malfoy and everything he did. But as I tried to hate him, I realized I was constantly looking at him. So I forced myself not to look at him anymore. This only worked for two days, so after two weeks of desperately trying to hate Draco, I decided to give up and just tried to hide it as much as I could. Snape had other plans for me, after being drowned into homework for five weeks, He decided we would have to work in pairs soon. We figured that I could work with Ron and Harry could work with Hermione, because leaving the two boys together would be just pathetic. The day after, Snape messed up our plans: “So, I’ll divide you in pairs”, he said. “Eum, Weasley and Goyle you’ll be one pair, Potter and Crabbe, Granger you’ll fit great with Parkinson and Dhanes you’ll form a pair with Malfoy…”
“O no” I thought. I looked at Ron, Harry and Hermione. They all looked a bit pissed, but also were happy not to have to work with Malfoy as well. I looked at Malfoy, he was looking at me as well and grinned mean. I stood up took my books together and dawdled to Malfoy’s desk. “Not to sad are you? I mean, you look like you have to go into the dark forest, where you need to search some hippogriffs poop together or something.” he said, still with a mean grin. “We both don’t want this so let’s make it as nice as we can” I answered.
“Whatever.” For the rest of the hour we didn’t say a word, but his hand dared to touch mine once accidentally and then we both pulled our hands back quickly.

A few days later we were at potions again, “so”, Malfoy said:” You’re in the Quidditch
team now?”
“Yes I am actually, why do you care?”
“We both know Quidditch interests me don’t we?” I looked at him: “what do you want?”
“Wow, take it easy I’m just trying to be nice, ok?”
“Right” But I, pretty shocked, had to commit he looked pretty disappointed. The rest of the hour we were silent and didn’t say a word. At the end of the hour I quickly apologized. He smiled at me with the clear meaning: it’s ok.
When we got down the great hall, Ron began to nag: “Goyle really is a stupid dump ass, he ruins everything!”
“Well sorry, but Crabbe isn’t much better!” Harry responded. They decided to organize a little secret contest: who’s more stupid, Goyle or Crabbe?
I looked at Hermione after I decided this was way to boring. She looked back at me pretty sad and said: “I have to commit working with Parkinson isn’t a lot of fun either, but…” She raised her voice so Ron and Harry looked up. “We of course don’t have to work with Malfoy.” Now they all looked at me. “Well he’s quite calm actually, it’s not as bad as I expected. Ron looked at me as if I was a ghost and both Harry and Hermione looked pretty nauseated. “What?? I’m just honest, he really hasn’t done anything like he normally he does!” I shouted, a bit panicking. “Yeah, well that’s hard to believe isn’t it” Ron answered. Harry seemed to be on his hand, but Hermione looked very strange, I didn’t quiet know what to think of this look.

The next day my first class was with Fred and George and I was thankful for that, I really didn’t feel like class with Malfoy, because I sensed it was getting out of hand. Fred and George, as usually, made me forget my trouble and I had an awesome day. I decided to stay with them and Lee all day, because I was scared to face Hermione, Ron and Harry. We fooled teachers and Slytherins all day and I loved my life.
The next day we started with defends against the dark arts, so I was forced to go back to Harry, Ron and Hermione, but Hermione’s look still scared me, so I had breakfast with the twins and wondered to class on my own. When my three friends got in, they all looked at me saying: “so you’re still here?” I mumbled a bit of an answer and that seemed to be enough. So class afterwards I felt miserable in spite of the twins intensions to make me smile, I sure did love those guys, they were awesome. They just couldn’t help me on this one. So I decided to go and have lunch with Hermione, Ron and Harry again.

That afternoon we had potions. I couldn’t help it, but I was a little happy to be near Draco again, on the other hand I really didn’t feel like it. I sat behind the desk as all the Gryffindors but the Slytherins were behind.
Snape looked trough the classes, with his normal scary look. I had to commit though I liked him, the man had something special, so I admired him a bit. Slytherins came in “hi”, Malfoy said.
“Hi” and I thought to myself, see he’s nice! It’s not imagination! And I looked back to Hermione; she was looking back, with this strange look again. “Pff, stupid McGonagall kept us in class”, he said and then he looked down at me, while he took his things for class together. “She probably had her reasons”, was my answer. He looked at me, as if searching something on my face. So I turned down my eyes.
A few minutes later we were working on a special potion, I had to grab one of the ingredients, at the same time Malfoy wanted to grab it. Our hands at the same time being touched and we both pulled back our hands as fast as possible. With this movement I hit our potions boiler and I pushed it over. I turned around, the entire class looked at me and Snape said calmly:”10 points off of Gryffindor! And you may come back to my office this evening at eight o’clock Miss Danes.”
” But sir she couldn’t help it.” Draco said. I didn’t believe my ears and looked at him, but he kept staring at Snape. “Very well, you may come with her then, Malfoy. Now class is over, you can all go to your next lesson.” I looked at Malfoy.
“Thanks” I whispered. He looked at me and smiled: “no problem.” Then he, as if he appalled himself, turned his eyes down.

That evening Ron, Harry, Hermione, Fred, George and Lee all wished me good luck and after thanking them I left the common room. Draco was already inside Snape’s office. “Well, I haven’t quite figured what you guys have to do, so let’s say...” He looked as if he was thinking deeply. Malfoy was looking at me, I tried to ignore him and stared at Snape. “Pff” Snape concluded: “I haven’t got any inspiration. You can go to Filch and do something for him. “I nodded my head and stood up. “O no wait, I almost forgot, there’s a lot of cleaning up you can do in the back.” So I spent three hours in a dark small room with Malfoy, For once I was actually glad Snape watched us.
Three hours later Malfoy and I left Snape, we walked together, but didn’t say a word, until Malfoy said: “Joan, I need to talk to you” I took a quick look at him, appalled by hearing him using my first name, and walked further. Draco suddenly stopped walking, he crabbed my arm and pulled it towards him. I now stood right in front of him. For a moment I thought he would begin to discus something, but in stead he just stared at me. I couldn’t help it but my heart was going crazy, I looked in his eyes and felt like I was melting. He bowed forward and touched my lips with his, then he backed of and looked into my eyes:” I love you” I smiled, and lifted my arm, he had let go. I softly stroke his cheek and then we kissed. I felt in heaven, I laid my head on his shoulder and he wrapped his arms around me. We stood like that for a while. I looked up at him. “Our friends would never appreciate this.”
“No, you’re right” He gave me another small kiss, “we’ll see” I got into bed happy. Consciously not thinking of the day afterwards.