"Today, in assigned partners, you'll be making a batch of The Draught of Living Death. The pair who makes it the best will gain twenty points for their own house," Snape explained as he walked around the room.
"Forest Jeong and Zabini."
"Potter and Greengrass."
"Weasley and Bulstrode."
"Joaquin Jeong and Parkinson."
"Brown and Goyle."
"Thomas and Crabbe."
"Finnigan and Davis."
"Takahashi and Malfoy."
As Snape called more names, Oshun didn't go to Draco. Instead, she went to grab the cauldron and other supplies before right back to her spot.
She flipped open her textbook to the needed page and then began to make the potion.
The second Snape sent everyone off to work, chatter filled the room as the pairs worked together to make the potion.
In her peripheral view, she saw a blond Slytherin approach her and stand next to her by the table, watching her make the potion.
His fingers drummed against his bicep as his arms folded over his chest, leaning against the table with his hip to face her. He hadn't worn his robe and his hair flopped over his forehead, framing his face very nicely.
She tried to disregard how effortlessly handsome he was by reading the instructions before moving onto the next step.
"Clockwise." Draco shattered their pregnant silence.
Oshun's eyes lifted to meet his pale ones.
"You just added the Powdered Root of Asphodel, yes?" His eyebrows lifted, gaze locked with hers.
She nodded.
"Stir clockwise twice. Not counterclockwise," he told her in a low, hard tone.
She nodded and stirred clockwise twice before moving onto the next step.
"You're quiet today," he pointed out after his siren eyes observed her for a few silent beats.
She shrugged, not quite sure of how to respond to that. She added the sloth brain into the potion before crushing the Sopophorous bean to get the juice.
"What's wrong?" His voice hushed as he inched just a bit closer to ensure only she could hear him.
"What makes you think something's wrong?" She chuckled quietly and stirred counterclockwise seven times.
"Because you're not talking to me." His eyebrows pinched together, deeply perplexed. "Not a word or anything."
"So just because I'm not talking to you, something's wrong?" She arched her brow at him, hands resting upon the edge of the table.
"Yes."
Her eyes rolled. She then read through the rest of the instructions to make sure she didn't miss anything.
"So?" the blond pressed on.
"What?" Oshun retorted as her stare moved to meet his.
"What's wrong?" He was beginning to get irritated, visibly so.
"You're nagging me. That's what's wrong," she drawled annoyedly, and closed her textbook.
"How am I nagging you?" he shot back as his brows bunched together.
"By talking."
"Because you're not talking," he said huskily. "You're usually the one talking between us two. Not me."
Her eyes steered straight ahead absently and she saw Theodore Nott's dead eyes gawking at her. His sharp jaws were tight, but his features were etched in a way that made his expression completely unreadable.
His assigned partner was doing all the work, wordlessly so. He just stood there. Leaned against the wall behind him and stared at Oshun.
She did not know whether she should be worried or not. He hated her so much, clearly.
She saw the three green gems on his silver band—that ring that stood out on his hands—gleamed as the sunlight through the window shone on it. He was twisting the ring around his finger, the ring he was always twisting around his finger.
"Takahashi," Draco hissed irritably, and buried the toe of his shoe into the side of hers to get her attention. "I'm talking to you, you idiot. You can't give anyone else your attention when I'm talking to you."
Oshun's head turned to him. "What do you want, Malfoy?" she bit out annoyedly.
"I want you to tell me what's wrong—why you're not talking to me," he clarified through clenched teeth.
"Can I just say something?" She leaned forward and rested her elbows on the table, still holding his gaze.
Draco gave a nod.
Her chin nuzzled into her palm. "When you don't get your way, you can't go calling people vile names and snapping at them. Don't do that, Malfoy. It just goes to show how immature you are," she neutrally explained.
His jaws rolled subtly. "I liked it better when you weren't talking." He averted his eyes from her.
"I'm not saying it to insult you or anything like that. I'm just helping you because that's not a good quality to have." Her shoulders lifted in a shrug as she kept her eyes resting upon him.
She studied his neck tattoo for a second, admiring how brilliant it looked. She detail of it was insane.
He turned and met her eyes once more with a blank expression. "You're referring to when I called you a filthy blood witch on the train." His words came out very thinly.
"Not just to me, Malfoy. I'm talking in general," she clarified, and straightened herself out. "Again, I'm not trying to insult you. I'm just saying it's not a good thing for you to snap whenever you don't get your way."
He stared at her for a few moments before he just nodded slowly.
Silence.
"Looks good on you." Draco broke the silence once more, some warmth coming into his tone.
"Huh?" Oshun's eyebrows bundled together in bemusement.
His chin lifted towards her, silver eyes staring at her the spot below her collarbone.
Her hand went to her neck and she held the spade pendant between her fingers. "Oh, yeah." A glimpse of a smile passed her lips. "I layered them and it looks good with my Buddha one, as you said."
He nodded, expression serene and pleasant.
"And one more thing." She lowered her voice and narrowed her eyes subtly at him.
"Hm?" His eyebrows rose in question.
"Did you know you left a pair of your clean boxers under my bed after you left?" She raised an eyebrow back at him.
"Oh." He gaped and smiled. "I had no idea. I wonder how that got there."
"Yeah, I wonder too." She nodded and played mockingly along. "Good thing I found it before I went to The Burrow."
"What a shame." He was still smiling, but it wasn't sincere. It was sort of wry and sardonic. "It would have been a shame for Weaslebee to find it."
"Good thing he didn't," she said in a singsong voice.
"If you know about the boxers, then surely you know about my deodorant and my roll-on cologne in the cupboard of your bathroom?" His head cocked to the side, his taunting smile never leaving.
She blinked furiously at him. "What?"
He ran his hands down his trousers and into the pockets of them, calm. "The highest shelf, right behind your tub of curl cream," he countered, and gleaming look lightened his eyes.
"Oh yeah." She grasped the recollection and smiled back at him. "Fred threw it in the bin once he found it."
Draco's smug look wiped off faster than she could register. "You're lying."
"I don't lie. You know that."
"He threw out my— that's— he—" He was failing to form a sentence, the fury causing a scowl to tighten his features. "That's expensive stuff, Takahashi."
"Surely with the money you have, you could afford to buy more." Oshun shrugged, dismissively.
"I mean, yeah." He exhaled a breath of air, coming out as a scoff. "But still."
"Why'd you leave that stuff in my room anyway?" She had an idea as to why he did, but she wanted to know what he would say.
"I forgot them."
"But you what you just said tells me that you did—"
"You talk a lot."
Her mouth sealed shut too quickly as she looked away from him. His words made something mangle and knot in her tummy.
"Why'd you stop talking?" His hand brushed down her arm, a small little movement that made her stupidly weak. "I never said it was a bad thing."
"I don't have anything to say." She smiled faintly at him before dragging her eyes away.
A sigh slipped from his lips. "Takahashi, I didn't mean it in a rude way or a bad way," he said quietly, nearly regretfully.
"Snape's coming around." Oshun didn't look at the beautiful boy next to her.
"Wait, stop." Draco's fingers clenched around her wrist to tug her gently. Forced her to look at him. "Have I actually hurt your feelings?"
Her nearly black eyes were so tightly locked with his as she took her wrist out of his familiar hold. "You're acting as though you hurting my feelings is new to you," she said icily.
"Oh, come on." He half scoffed and half sighed, eyebrows pulling downwards. "I didn't mean it in a rude or bad way."
She didn't say anything. She just looked away from him and into their potion they made in the cauldron.
"Fine. Be like that. See if I care." His voice was flat as he muttered the words.
She knew he didn't mean it in the way she took it, but she still took it to heart. Plenty of people would have taken that comment to heart.
Snape made his rounds around the room to drop a leaf into each cauldron. He got to Oshun and Draco last. He dropped a leaf into the cauldron and it disintegrated.
"The only perfect one made out of all. Twenty points each for Gryffindor and Slytherin," Snape announced as he made his way back to the front. "Clean your space and then you may leave."
Everyone got to cleaning their area as quickly as possible, clearly eager to leave the classroom. Draco had actually cleaned the whole space he and Oshun used, wordlessly so.
By the time Oshun gathered her things, she was walking out alone since the Jeong twins had to quickly find and talk to McGonagall before their next class.
Oshun slung her book bag over her shoulder and strolled out of the classroom, the last one to do so. She turned left since her next class was in that direction.
"Takahashi!"
Oshun exhaled heavily with a nauseous stomach at the voice that belonged to Astoria.
Slowly, she spun to see Astoria, Draco, Pansy, and Blaise all staring at her with hostile expressions.
"Whatever you and Draco might have done over the holiday means nothing," Astoria drawled as her fingers laced with Draco's, his arm over her shoulders.
Oshun fiddled with the strap of her book bag. She felt beyond uncomfortable under their gazes.
"He's not going to marry you." Astoria's green eyes trailed up and down the other girl in obvious disgust. "You were just an easy fuck. Still are, according to Draco. He called you a pathetic whore."
Oshun forced herself not to frown in complete misery. She ignored the dense feeling in her heart and her chest. She ignored how her throat felt like it was closing.
Ignored how the words actually hurt her. Words spoken by Draco to another person.
When her eyes went to the blond, his expression was unreadable.
It was like he wore a mask, and she had only ever seen his mask off once or twice. When he had opened up and the night he came into her room at Malfoy Manor all beaten.
Oshun didn't know what to say, so she just turned and walked off with a heavy heart. She blinked rapidly, refusing to let her eyes blur with tears.
An easy fuck. She trusted him with her body and she was an easy fuck?
That stung.
_____
"Hey, Takahashi. I've been trying to catch you all day." Fred slowed from his jog and stopped right in front of her.
"Hi, Fred." Oshun tossed him a smile as they stood in the middle of an empty corridor.
"I haven't seen you much at all." His brows frowned as he brushed his hair from his eyes. "Everything alright?"
Yeah, because you've been busy with girls left and right. She dismissed the intrusive voice in her head.
"I've been busy with my studies. I've actually been helping Mavi tutor some younger students," she told him pleasantly, telling herself not to show her jealousy at the fact that Fred had been surrounded by several girls every second of the day.
"Oh." He nodded subtly, wetting his lips. "Sounds nice, I suppose. I've been quite busy tutoring people too."
"You tutor people?" she blurted out, eyebrows pinching together. "Since when? You've never tutored people before, have you?"
She knew he was tutoring people—girls in specific. She just played along because if she told him that she knew, it would insinuate she noticed and kept an eye on him.
"No." He shook his head and dragged his large hand through his hair once more. He was very fidgety at the moment. "But people ask me for help, so I guess why not help them."
"Oh." She swallowed thickly and chewed the inside of her lip.
"Yeah." He cleared his throat quietly, looking just as awkward as he sounded.
It was weird, this conversation they were having. It was the first conversation they were having since the holiday.
To Oshun, it felt like they were back to square one. Small talk and awkward tension. She didn't like that at all.
Several days ago, he was cuddling her and playing with the flesh of her ass and hugging her from behind with no shame or hesitation. There was zero awkwardness.
Now, they were... not them.
"Why did you want to find me?" she asked kindly with furrowed eyebrows. "Did you want to talk to me about something?"
"I did, actually." He nodded and cleared his throat, hitching his book bag higher up on his broad shoulder. "Well, not talk to you—but ask you something."
Her head tilted as she nodded. "What is it?"
"Can you meet me at the pitch after classes?" His question dismayed her.
"Why?" Oshun's eyebrows drew together in confusion.
"Because I thought that maybe you and I could—"
"Hey!"
Oshun looked past Fred as he turned around to see a Hufflepuff girl in third year approaching them.
"Oh, hey," Fred greeted warmly with a lopsided grin. "Did you pass your Charms exam?"
"With your help, of course, Freddie," the girl beamed with doe eyes up at the handsome ginger. "Otherwise you helping me every day after classes would've been pointless."
It took everything in Oshun to keep a pleasant expression on her face and to ignore the pang in her chest. The pang that rippled through every inch of her insides and bounced off her skin.
Don't show jealousy. Don't boost their ego. Don't give them the power.
"I'm glad I could be of help," the redhead said smoothly, and sent a swift wink.
"I was actually wondering if you could help me with Herbology as well," the Hufflepuff girl said as she pulled something out of her book bag. "I was going to ask Neville, but I don't want to stress him since a bunch of other people are being tutored by him already."
"I was never good at Herbology," he said dubiously as she handed him an assignment sheet. "I passed—barely." His golden eyes scanned over the sheet. "A pass is a pass though. I'm just glad I don't need to take it anymore."
"Maybe we can grab a butterbeer after as well?" the girl asked with visible hope in her eyes. "I've been swamped this week, but I'm free after classes."
"Sure." He nodded distractedly, still reading the assignment sheet with brows bunched together in seriousness. "I'll meet you there."
Oshun's heart did something—a feeling she didn't like. As though it withered inside of her chest.
"I need to get to class," she said evenly with an attempt at an apologetic smile.
Fred's gentle eyes snapped to hers, eyebrows now creased into a deep frowned. "Wait—"
"I just don't want to be late to Flitick's." She smiled as brightly as she could up at him before walking by them both.
And as soon as she passed them, her mouth pulled into a large frown and tears threatened to creep over her waterline.
Today was just not her day.
No one told her that being involved with a guy—let alone two—would be so hard on her heart, and it was only the beginning.
She was beginning to feel that regret. The regret of getting close and comfortable with the two beautiful boys.