It's Love When It Burns (Part Two of You Will Be The Death of Me)

It's Love When It Burns Chapter 24

"Okay class, just add the bat wings and..." A loud ring sounded through the room. I quickly cover my ears to try and drive out the high pitch noise

I look over at Ron who had his face all bunched up and his hands over his ears.

I felt like my ears would bleed if I had not covered them so quickly, the look on Ron's face told me he felt the same.

"This is ridiculous!" I shout to him.

He looks up at me and I could see him mouth a WHAT, but it was no use, we couldn't hear over the noise.

Finally, after a few minutes, the screech that the Professor caused began to slowly die off. Hesitantly I remove my hands from my ears, still ready to place them back over if the noise would start up again.

I look around the room to see some of the students had begun to remove their hands also. Some were still hesitant, but all had one thing in common, all were glaring at Professor Slughorn.

"Wasn't that marvelous?" Slughorn asks completely unaware of the menacing stares he was receiving.

"Marvelously awful," Ron mumbles but not loud enough for the Professor to hear.

I raise my hand, willing to speak up since everyone else lacked the courage to remark to the loud and obviously disturbing noise.

"Yes Ms. Sweary?" Slughorn calls out, still very eager. He probably thought I was going to agree with him, about it being marvelous and all, but instead I questioned his actions.

"Is supposed to last that long Professor?" I question then look back down at my book to study the potion, "I read here it was supposed to only last for a few seconds."

The smile Slughorn had across his face began to fade, "Indeed," he agrees, "But I may have tweaked it a little to better the recipe."

"But that would not be following the recipe or the book for that matter, and I thought we are supposed to follow what the book says no matter what," Hermione voices in.

Slughorn's attention now turns to Hermione Granger, "That is true Ms. Granger," he begins as he makes his way towards her desk, "but when you have years of experience, you began to investigate with potions, trying to see if there is a way to make better," he explains rather contentedly.

I watch as Hermione bites her tongue wanting to make a remark. Instead she diverts her eyes from Slughorn and looks away.

I couldn't help but smile at her actions, Hermione was so stern when it came to straying from the books.

Seeing that her argument with him had died off, Slughorn moves on to another subject.

As Slughorn begins going over the next set of potions, I sneak a glance towards someone I had tried to look since the beginning of class.

Draco Malfoy sat in his usual dark corner in the back of the room. Alone, like most of the time, he sat fiddling with his tie. His typical followers such as Pansy wasn't even flocking him.

Instead she was at the front of the class now. But enough about her, I was more interested in the behavior of my ex-boyfriend.

Draco had been a main focus on my mind for the last couple of weeks since the return from Christmas Break.

Like I said, I still believe something was wrong about him. I had not confronted him, or even had spoken to him since the train, but I had being paying a lot of attention to his actions since then.

What further caused me discomfort was the fact that even Harry had noticed a tremendous change in his behavior.

One night, at a very weak moment of mine. I had confided in Harry that I was worried something was wrong with Draco, or that he was up to something.