Someone spiked Draco's morning pumpkin juice.
It would have been really helpful if he'd noticed it before he laughed at Snape's face and called him a greasy git, after which his eyes grew comically wide and and he tried to hurriedly apologize (more out of fear for his parents than Snape)—only for his mouth to tell Snape to "go wash your hair for bloody once".
Veritaserum. Someone put blithering Veritaserum in his drink, and now he can't open his mouth without spitting out several of his deepest, darkest secrets.
"Two points from Slytherin for your uncharacteristic and very offensive behavior, mister Malfoy," Snape had sneered. "I will only tolerate this foolery once. The next time you dare to speak to me like that, I will not hesitate to treat you the same way I would treat any other student."
Draco would have tried to defend himself, but he isn't stupid enough to let another truthful insult slip out by accident, so he'd kept his mouth shut and nodded.
If one were to go into detail, they would tell you about how Draco had tried to ask Madame Pomfrey to help undo the potion's effects only to severely insult the poor old lady's hair, and how he'd also tried to ask McGonagall only to admit the fact that he'd cheated on her transfiguration test two years ago. He has insulted every single person he has tried to talk to so far during the day. He's called Crabbe an illiterate oaf, told a random Gryffindor couple passing by that they look absolutely dreadful together (something that he doesn't really regret blurting out, but he could have lived without letting them know), and admitted to Professor Flitwick that he'd paid someone to do most of his essays.
But if one were to put it simply, they would go like this: Draco is in a dilemma, and he needs help, fast.
Except he has severely offended every single person he has tried to ask for help, and will no doubt do the same for anyone he plans on asking. Draco is desperate. He is halfway through the school day and the effects of the truth serum have yet to wear off. At this rate, he's going to lose all of his friends, as well as lose his teachers' favor.
Draco can't ask a teacher in fear that all of his good grades will slip from his grasp at a single (honest) insult. He can't stick it out for the rest of the day, either, because when he spends too long a time not talking to anyone, it seems that the truth potion grows impatient and starts making him blurt out a bunch of his innermost secrets.
He has already shouted "I peed my pants when I was eight" in the Great Hall; there is no time to waste.
Potions class comes around right after breakfast and brings with it the inevitable need to face Snape again. Uncharacteristically enough, Draco doesn't swagger into the dreary dungeon classroom. Instead, he keeps his head down as he perches himself on his usual seat right—which is, of course, right in front of Snape's desk.
When the last of the students have filed in and Snape closes the dungeon door shut to begin the lesson, he makes sure to fix Draco with a long stare; one that Draco only holds for several seconds before he sniffs and casts his eyes away to look at his desk instead. You'd think that a Potions master would be able to tell when someone was under the influence of a truth potion—but then again Snape might also have known, but was too offended by Draco's jab about his hair.
He looks up sometime along the lesson and catches sight of the light reflecting off of Snape's greasy hair; well, Draco had been telling the truth.
For today's lesson, they're tasked to brew some sort of calming draught. Draco can't entrust Goyle—his partner—to even as much as get the name of the potion right, so Draco shoots the poor boy a familiar scowl and proceeds to do everything on his own. But Draco is no Potions expert, so instead of the faint lilac hue the liquid inside their cauldron is supposed to have turned into, it becomes a violently bubbling pink substance.
"Four slices of the bat spleen, mister Malfoy, not five," Snape drawls, peering down at Draco's cauldron through his hooked nose. "And you have been too heavy-handed on the lavender. Shame. I expected better."
Draco suppresses a sneer. Snape usually never points out his mistakes—that sort of treatment is reserved for other houses. Snape, it seems, took his insult to heart, the greasy-haired bloke.
Feeling severely irked, Draco slumps down in his seat, folds his arms over his chest, and stops trying entirely. He may be acting like a sulky five-year-old but so be it because Draco is not in the mood. He has humiliated his own self far too many times in one day (and been humiliated by Snape approximately ten seconds ago)—he wants this day over, fast, and with any luck, the Veritaserum out of his system by the end of it.
But he can't see how, so Draco does the only thing that he can do to help himself: he keeps his mouth shut.
The annoyance on his face shows as he surveys the dungeon room with a sour glare. Stupid Potter and Weasley are laughing over something at their shared table; why isn't Snape telling them off? Bloody slimeball. How dare he even speak to Draco like that? It's not like Draco lied. He has never seen anyone in such dire need of shampoo as Snape.
Draco shoots the back of his head a nasty glare from where he's standing all the way on the other side of the room, looming over a table of two Ravenclaws. One of them looks bored and the other seemingly immersed in potion-making; her movements are quick and precise as she pours one ingredient after the other into their cauldron with the same kind of effort Draco would put into making his afternoon tea—like what she's doing is an absolute piece of cake.
"Sit up, mister Corner," says Snape curtly, voice echoing throughout the dungeon and ceasing all chatter as he fixes the bored-looking Ravenclaw with a stony gaze. Draco recognizes him now—Michael Corner, some annoying half-blood he shares a few classes with. As for the girl beside him.. Draco tries to angle his head to see her properly, but her head is bowed over her cauldron and her hair blocks her face from view. "If you think you'll be getting the same outstanding grade as miss [Y/L/N] without even as much as lifting your pinky finger, then I assure you, you are terribly mistaken. I do not tolerate free riders."
[Y/N]. Draco knows her. Some Ravenclaw he has several classes with but has never spoken to—the one with the pretty eyes, Draco vaguely recalls himself thinking at one point, back when he'd first laid eyes on her. And truth be told her eyes are pretty; a lovely shade of [Y/E/C] that Draco has only seen up close once or twice.
But that is hardly the topic of concern, because if Draco turns his head just the right way and sits up a little straighter, he can see that the liquid inside of her cauldron has turned a glossy shade of faint lilac, which, according to the instructions written on the board, is what is exactly supposed to happen. [Y/N] finishes faster than anyone else, even Hermione Granger, and Draco sees Snape give her an appraising nod before moving on to criticize some other innocent student.
So it seems Snape isn't the only Potions expert in the room.
He perks up a little in his seat and fixes the Ravenclaw girl—[Y/N]—with a discreet stare out of the corner of his eye. [Y/N] sits down properly in her seat so that Draco gets a good view of her face (not a bad-looking one, an annoying little voice says inside his head). She hasn't even broken out in a sweat—it seems that potion-making isn't as difficult for her as it is for other people. Draco pictures the truth serum in his veins quivering in fear (although physically impossible) because he is pretty certain he's found the answer to his dilemma.
The rest of the class passes by annoyingly slow—or at least for Draco—because it seems like ages until Snape finally dismisses them for lunchtime. Draco just about jumps right out of his seat and strides straight towards [Y/N], who is currently in the process of stuffing her books inside her bag.
Draco clears his throat.
She turns around, and he's suddenly reminded of why he'd dubbed her as "the one with the pretty eyes", because she truly does live up to the name. Her eyes are strikingly [Y/E/C]; even the whites of her eyes look like they're tinted with gold. He finds himself incapable of speech for a brief moment, but then she raises her eyebrows and offers him a grimace of a smile, and Draco is back to himself again.
He opens his mouth to say "brew me something that'll stop me from blurting out the truth every bloody second" but instead what comes out is: "I've never spoken to you before but that's mostly because I have an irrational fear that I haven't quite admitted to myself yet which is that I'm scared of talking to pretty girls in fear that they'll reject me and my pride will be in tatters."
There's a split-second in which Draco stands there, his own words not having sunken into him yet, and then his face slacks.
[Y/N] stares at him, evidently baffled. And then she opens her mouth, eyebrows furrowed in apparent bewilderment, and says, "Um," she swallows, forcing out an awkward laugh as she takes a step back. "Wow. Okay. Thank you..?"
If Draco had been thinking straight—if he hadn't been so flustered and if he wasn't rushing to take back his words—he would have probably paused, realized that talking would have made the situation worse, and left. But Draco is flustered and he isn't thinking straight, so instead he opens his mouth to take his words back only for the following words to leave his mouth in a rapid burst: "Your eyes are a really lovely shade of [Y/E/C] and you have a beautiful smile and I've never heard you laugh before but I bet my inheritance that it's one of the loveliest sounds to ever exist."
[Y/N] looks flabbergasted more than ever. She doesn't even look flustered—just utterly confused. For a few seconds, all she does is stare at him, frowning.
And then, looking as though she wants to thank him but not entirely sure it would be appropriate, her gaze darts away from his momentarily before she purses her lips. Excruciatingly slowly, she repeats, "Your.. inheritance."
Draco grits his teeth.
Apparently there are several truths that the Veritaserum in his system thinks appropriate to reveal to [Y/N]—truths that even he hadn't been fully aware of. He opens his mouth, thinks better of it, and closes it again. At that moment he catches sight of the quill and parchment in her hands that [Y/N] had been in the process of stuffing into her bag; hurriedly, he grabs it from her (much to a surprised [Y/N]) and begins to write down the following words (seriously, why hadn't he thought of this before?): accidentally drank truth potion, brew me a remedy.
He practically shoves the parchment into her hands. Still looking wildly confused, she takes it from him with the cautiousness of someone being handed a firecracker. Her eyes dance across the words on the paper for no more than two seconds before she looks back up at him; realization slowly floods her face and her eyebrows rise even higher as she mouths, mostly to herself, "Truth potion."
Draco nods, eyes darting around the classroom. most of the class has already left. Snape is at his desk, fixing the two of them with a frosty stare. When Draco meets his gaze, Snape flicks his eyebrows up at him and asks, in that same drawling voice Draco despises today, "I was under the impression that lunch time meant all students had to be at the Great Hall."
Draco's brain doesn't operate well when he's annoyed—that's something he's realized today. Against his better judgment, he opens his mouth to sneer a retort without even pausing to think about the fact that he might blurt out some other offensive truth, but [Y/N] cuts him off and says, "I'm sorry, professor, but Malfoy's asked me to help him with homework and I thought it'd be nice to help him." She stuffs the piece of parchment into her robe and side-steps Draco so that he's not blocking her from Snape's view. "Would it be okay if we stayed here for lunchtime?"
Snape's lip curls in apparent amusement. Staring at Draco, he drawls, "That's quite convenient. I had been thinking of assigning mister Malfoy a tutor; it seems he's been having trouble holding his tongue—alas," his mouth twists into a sneer, "I meant potion-making. Forgive me."
And then he heads to the dungeon door, leaving Draco behind to stare at his greasy head on his way out.
[Y/N] purses her lips, cheek twitching with the threat of a smirk. "I'm guessing you've offended him somehow? Veritaserum and all?"
Draco opens his mouth again—really, remembering to keep it shut is easier said than done—and instead of the reply he'd been intending on saying, what slips past his lips is: "Has anyone told you you're one of the prettiest—"
"Okay!" [Y/N] 's eyes widen and she rushes to clamp her hand over Draco's mouth, looking actually flustered now. "Okay—stop. Just.." Slowly, she pries her hand away from his lips, movements cautious, and Draco stares at her, body completely rigid as he registers the fact that they're a mere few inches away from each other and she'd just put her hand over his bloody lips. And this is the first time they've ever spoken to each other.
"I'll brew you the remedy," she says, grimacing. There seems to be a hint of a faint pink blush spreading across her cheeks, but that could just be because the dungeon lighting is poor. She turns on her heel and makes her way to the ingredients cabinet all the way on the other side of the room, calling over her shoulder to Draco, "Just sit tight there—and keep it zipped before you say anything you don't mean."
The last part she says in a quieter tone, but Draco catches her words anyway and he finds himself thinking that maybe he did mean them.
Because [Y/N] is pretty—prettier than most. She's not breathtakingly beautiful, but there's something about her that seems to have always drawn Draco, though he might not have ever thought much of it. Maybe it's why he always finds himself staring at her whenever they come across each other in the hallway. Maybe it's why he'd thought of asking her to the Yule Ball last year, but chickened out at the last moment.
He leans on the desk, arms folded across his chest whilst watching [Y/N] rummage through the ingredients cupboard. A moment later she turns around bearing an armful of different potion vials.
Draco means to ask her if she needs help carrying them (because yes, he may regularly be a prick but he has common courtesy). Instead, the Veritaserum still inside his bloodstream urges him to say, "I wish I'd asked you to the Yule Ball last year instead of Pansy."
He freezes.
At that moment, Draco swears to himself that he will inflict pain onto whoever poured Veritaserum into his pumpkin juice. He will have his revenge—no matter what it takes—and although he hasn't quite figured out how exactly he'll be doing it, all Draco knows is that he will.
He can't bring himself to look at [Y/N] any longer, so he plays it off by picking up a book on the desk he's leaning on and rifling through it. It only takes him a moment to realize that it's [Y/N]'s; her name is written across the bottom of the cover. Almost every page Draco flips through has tiny scribbles written in-between the lines—countless of notes, it seems, but so many of them that the actual text is almost indiscernible. Draco almost snorts. [Y/N] seems to be the quintessential Ravenclaw, if he has ever seen one.
She sets down the potions onto the desk, Draco still flipping through the pages. "I'd ask you how you accidentally drank Veritaserum," she says casually, "But I don't want you fawning over me even more than you already have."
Draco glances at her out of the corner of his eye. She's in the process of uncorking two of the vials, both of which she pours into the now steaming cauldron. Whatever, he thinks to himself, rolling his eyes in an effort to convince himself that he's not embarrassed (even though he totally is: he's bloody blushing).
But then again, whatever. He's totally not flustered. Totally.
Draco reaches the final few pages of [Y/N]'s Potions textbook without having even registered most of the ones he'd flipped through. The last two pages, like every other book, are completely blank save for the—
Draco's eyebrows furrow. There are drawings of all sorts on the back pages of her textbook, from cauldrons and brass scales to places in the castle that Draco recognizes.
But what has him most intrigued is the faces, all drawn so vividly and with so much detail they look as though they had been brought to life on paper. Draco sees Snape's deprecating sneer and Michael Corner's familiar face of boredom, sees Hermione Granger with her brows knitted together at the middle as she leans over her cauldron, Ron and Harry with their heads bowed over a piece of parchment—and then he sees himself, arms crossed over his chest as he fixes something with a stony gaze. But the more Draco's eyes explore the pages, the more of himself he sees. There's him slicing what looks like a dragon heart, scowling at someone that looks like Goyle, and another one of him smirking—
And then the book is snatched from his grasp by none other than [Y/N] who looks wildly panicky. "You—I—" she blubbers, gaping at him for a moment before whipping around, turning her back on him as she stuffs the book into her backpack. "How much did you see?"
Slowly, a grin breaks out on Draco's face. "Enough," he says—and apparently it's the truth, because it's what he actually meant to say. A little surprised, he tries his luck again and means to say so you draw? But instead what leaves his lips is something so excruciatingly blunt and embarrassing part of him wants to dive under the table and hide there for the rest of his life: "I'm assuming because you've drawn me more than anyone else that you find me attractive so I'm going to go ahead and thank you for that, but unfortunately you're a half-blood so I might have to get my parents' permission before I think of asking you out."
A moment of silence, only interrupted by the sound of the antidote bubbling. Draco has to physically suppress himself from diving straight into the cauldron and never coming back out.
[Y/N] scoffs a little, uselessly fanning her face with her hand like doing so will somehow rid her of the blush on her cheeks. Draco grits his teeth and fixes his gaze on the stone floor, refusing to meet her gaze.
She clears her throat in an attempt to quell the sudden burst of suffocating awkwardness now resting between the two of them. Not quite looking at him, she peers into her cauldron and mutters, "I just like to draw all sorts of things. People, as you've seen," she adds, pressing her lips together abashedly. Draco watches her out out of the corner of his eye, lips twitching. "And I don't find you attractive. You just have.. a nice face. For drawing, I mean. It comes out nice on paper."
Draco's eyebrows flick up of their own accord. He has a nice face. Are those butterflies he feels in his stomach, or is it just the Veritaserum?
It takes no more than a minute or two of silent awkwardness before the antidote is finally finished brewing and [Y/N] pours it into a small vial, which she hands to Draco.
Draco eyes it skeptically, holding the vial up to the light and swirling it around a little. It definitely doesn't look pleasant; a stark contrast to the clear hue of Veritaserum, the antidote is a murky brown in color and vaguely reminds Draco of mud and manure.
You expect me to drink this? Draco means to ask, but instead says, "You have the most beautiful eyes I've ever seen."
And just like that, Draco, exasperated and embarrassed out of his mind, uncorks the vial and takes a large swig.
The feeling of the liquid sloshing down his throat is an unpleasant one; he coughs a little, face scrunching up with disgust as he swallows down the last of the antidote. But not long after the vial is emptied, a tingly feeling spreads from his fingertips to his entire body and has him feeling weightless for a few moments before it fades and Draco feels normal again.
He sets the vial down on the table, rubbing his throat. When he looks up, he sees [Y/N] already cleaning up, throwing away the empty glass vials and emptying the cauldron with a single flick of her wand. She's taking all of her things and shoving them into her bag, and Draco watches as she slings it over her shoulder and makes for the door—
"You're leaving?" says Draco without really thinking about it. "Already?"
She stops in her tracks and turns around, already a few feet away from him. Eyebrows raised, lips twitching up at the side just the slightest bit, she shrugs. "Well, yes," she purses her lips. "Was there something else you wanted me to brew?"
Draco's hand comes up to scratch the back of his neck. "No," he says hastily. But he hadn't been expecting her to leave so soon—not after his, ah, countless confessions.
What had he been expecting, though?
"Well, I'll be going now," [Y/N] says slowly, a little awkwardly, gesturing to the door. Draco watches her as she takes a backwards step away from him—but he knows a chance when he sees one, so he blurts out, "D'you wanna go to Hogsmeade with me this weekend?"
Her eyebrows rise even higher as a genuine look of surprise floods her features. Draco doesn't know what the bloody hell he's onto, but whether or not he regrets it is entirely up to [Y/N]'s answer.
She lets out a breathless laugh, looking dubious. "You're being serious?"
Draco stares at her for a little while—Merlin, she really does have pretty eyes—and then he shrugs a casual shoulder, nodding.
She narrows her eyes at him suspiciously, but there's still that hint of a faint smile resting on her lips. Draco finds himself wishing he'd see her do it more often—in front of him, and not halfway across the classroom. She feigns a look of contemplation, tilting her head at him, now full-on smiling in a manner Draco thinks might be playful. (Alright, those are definitely butterflies in his stomach.) "And what d'you have to offer?" she asks him, eyebrows raised.
It's Draco's turn to narrow his eyes at her, unable to suppress the tiny smile that slides across his face. He pauses to think about his answer first, all the while holding her impish gaze, before finally shrugging and saying, "My company. And not everyone gets to enjoy that," he adds as an afterthought, and it's true—Draco is very picky with who he graces with his presence.
But then [Y/N] replies, "Well, not everyone gets to enjoy mine, either," and her tone is almost challenging. Draco, for some reason, finds himself on tenterhooks. Something about her is drawing him in; he can't quite decide whether it's her coyness or her eyes. Likely both.
Severely amused, he leans on the desk and inclines his head a little towards her. "So would you do me the honor of blessing me with your company this weekend?"
There's a beat of silence—this time not at all awkward—as they stare at each other, a sort of tension between them that Draco finds himself enjoying. And it's a blessing that she breaks it because if it had stretched on for any longer Draco would have lost himself in her eyes completely; "Alright. Sure. No harm to it," says [Y/N] with a light laugh, nodding.
Draco's lips break out into a grin and he nods, grabbing his bag and slinging it over his shoulder. "Maybe you can tell me more about your drawings. Well," he pauses, brows raised teasingly. "Drawings of me, to be specific."
She lets out a scoff, rolling her eyes, but she's laughing. "Okay—and maybe you can tell me about how much you love my eyes."
Draco's face falls. [Y/N] grins, beginning to walk towards the dungeon doors. "I'll see you around," she sings, and her back is turned but Draco can hear the smile in her voice. Just before she disappears into the corridor, she pauses at the doorway and looks back at Draco, and her eyes are positively sparkling. "Try not to get lost in my eyes too much. Wouldn't want you tripping over yourself."
With one last playful grin, she leaves the Potions classroom.
And while, just a few minutes ago, Draco had been prepared to get revenge on whoever put Veritaserum in his pumpkin juice, now he feels like thanking them.