Malfoy,
Why can't you just agree with me!?
"Believe me, I know what I'm doing Granger!"
"No you're not, you're deviating from the instructions!"
"The instructions are wrong."
"And how the bloody hell do you know that?!"
"Because I'm smart Granger, and unlike you, I didn't have trouble brewing this potion back in sixth year from what I remember."
You're such a prat. An annoying prat. The biggest prat in the world of prattiest prats. The instructions said to cut it!
Hermione fumed at the blond boy who reached out and snatched the knife right out of her hand. He lowered the blade, the tip barely touching the ingredient before she swiped it out of his hands and back into her iron grip.
"Malfoy, I refuse to listen to you. You'll ruin the potion!" She growled, taking the knife and channeling all her fury caused by the certain Slytherin Prince to slice the Sopophorous beans clean in half.
"What are you doing!?" His voice rose to a tenor, taking the knife away from her before she could do any more damage.
"The bloody book said to cut the beans," she aggressively pointed at the book opened flat on the table, "and that's what I'm doing!"
"Have you not learned from Potter yet?" Draco seethed, his eyes rolling to the roof before using the flat side of the knife to crush the cut beans to extract the juice. "And I can't believe I'm saying this, but he actually did it right last time!"
"Harry was cheating!" She snapped, "He used that book from Snape, and I forbid to use any sort of shortcut he did because that's not the proper way!" She grabbed the knife again, causing Draco to hiss as a speck of red grew to contrast against his pasty skin where the edge of the knife glided delicately.
"Granger, you almost killed me!" He gritted through clenched teeth, glaring harshly at the petite bush of a girl unfortunately situated besides him. "I could've died!"
And you and your dramatic arse continued to say we crush the beans! Where did it ever say that? In your brain? With full offense, you're brain isn't particularly reliable with the stupid ideas and beliefs you have.
"Stop being a dramatic pansy, it's just a cut," she scowled, resuming to cut her half of the bean. "Use magic. You're a wizard, no?"
He scrunched his nose in a mocking snarl, albeit waved his wand for a quick spell to heal the cut. His frustrations with her heightened as he felt the tight ball within him coil. "Granger, your way of doing this will make us stay here for hours! With my way, we could get this done within an hour or so!"
"Exactly," she bit out, her fingers threading through her scalp to grip at her curly roots irritatingly. "It shouldn't take hours faster! That means you've done it wrong! It should rest in the cauldron as we stir seven times anti-clockwise!"
He shook his head vigorously, his fingers doing a repetitive motion of furling and unclenching, "That's where you're wrong—"
"Oh Merlin, here we go again," Hermione interrupted with an unrestrained groan, throwing her head back in annoyance. He chose to ignore her.
"—It's eight times! However, the eighth time is stirred clockwise!"
"Stop making things up!" she nearly shrieked, her eyes shadowing with craze from having to deal with him. "It should be seven times, as stated in this potions book in bold letters and black ink. Are you blind or are you just an idiot?"
"You make me want to stab you with this knife!" Draco sneered, stealing the knife she placed onto the table and waving it under the glinting light. Hermione scoffed, crossing her arms and fully faced him as if taunting him to even dare try.
"At least I won't be a wuss about it!" She growled. "I'll make you swallow this whole Drought of Living Death potion when we're finished with it!"
"We wouldn't even get to finish it because you and your this-is-not-proper attitude is keeping us from actually doing anything!" His anger caused him to swing the knife to stab onto the wooden table, letting the tip stick between the splinters of wood as the rest of the knife protruded up towards the ceiling.
"No," she denied with narrowed eyes, "your bigoted I'm-better-so-let's-do-it-my-way attitude is a hindrance! Move your pride so we can finish!"
"My pride?!" He scoffed incredulously, his upper lip twitching into a jeer, "What a joke. If you want to do it your way then make your own!"
You know, I actually assumed we'd be good partners. You're admittedly good at potions, and well, I'm the first in classes. And how we grew our tolerance of each other, I thought things would go swimmingly.
"Perhaps I will!" She shrilled, glaring at the boy who returned one just as intensive.
"Great, then I can finally finish faster!" He turned to face his cauldron and left her be, taking a bean and hovering it over the cauldron.
"Absolutely not!" Hermione went to lunge at him to cover her hand over his, preventing him from leaking the juices out of the bean. "This is mine. You go make your own."
"Excuse me?" he glowered, "I'm the one who did most of the work here! I should continue this myself."
"You just dropped the ingredients in and stirred!" She groaned, "I did all the actual work trying to obtain these and mincing them and whatnot!"
But sometimes I think our built up tolerance towards each other will backtrack to loathing again.
"If we're going to argue about who takes this potion, might as well just stay together then," he snapped, releasing a tired sigh afterwards. His burnt-out gaze shifted to his hovering hand still clutching the bean, a slight frown on his face, "And you're still holding my hand."
She immediately withdrew her hold with a scowl, and much to his disappointment, the warmth disappeared.
"I still think we should follow the book," she commented, her voice now hushed as the adrenaline from their argument faded into tense crisps.
"And I still think my way is faster," he added in similar intonation.
"Of course you do," her gaze lingered on the potions book, her ears that were focused solely on his voice had now broadened to hear the busy noise of her classmates casually conversing or shrieking as their potions exploded in their faces.
"Look," Draco tried, pinching his fingers between the bridge of his nose before threading his hand through his long and tousled, platinum blond locks that dangled sublimely over his dark arctic pools of silver. "We can't agree to disagree. We can't make a separate potion even if we wanted to. Hexing each other won't get us anywhere. And we need to finish this before class ends. So what do we do?"
But all the same, I think your prat ways and my stubborn self is what makes our close friendship so intrinsically us. No matter how often we want to maim each other.
She exhaled a frustrated sigh, leaning her forehead against his broad shoulder with her eyes shut exhaustively to regulate her emotions and control her breathing, the smell of his calming pine and mint scent wafting around her as she did so.
Ironic how his scent was capable of relaxing her thoughts yet his voice aggravates her in every single facet. Above her, she heard him snort at her actions. However, he didn't have the heart to shove her off of him; it was a habit she unconsciously does when she was distressed or irritated near him and he grew to adapt to it.
And perhaps he liked it when she leaned on him.
"Well fine," she softly thumped her forehead against his shoulder as if hitting her head on something would cure her mild headache, "I'll be the bigger person here."
"Funny," he snickered lowly, "I was going to offer to do what you wanted."
"We're not arguing about this too," she groused, shaking her head in refusal.
"It was a joke," he scoffed, "A Malfoy always gets his way."
Her lips turned to a slight sneer, turning to face their cauldron with her head still leaning against him.
Because somehow, we'd call an unspoken truce in the midst of an argument. And we'd be alright again, as if it never happened.
"Right. Well fine, since we already wasted a load of time, let's just do what you said since it's supposedly 'faster'," She air quoted.
"Sounds good," he merely smirked, slinging a friendly arm around her shoulders as his free hand reached out to the take hold of the knife they previously fought control over.
"Oi, what the hell?" A deep voice of a male shocked the two apart, the warmth of Draco's arm around her falling off her shoulders like she scorched him. She missed the feeling of his arms.
"Blaise, what do you want?" Draco scowled, somehow irked as he spotted his friend walking up from behind them.
"I literally just saw you guys biting each other's heads off and now you guys are snuggling? Your relationship is strange, mate."
"We're not in a relationship," he snapped lazily, preoccupying himself in finishing the potion as fast as possible while the bushy witch watched him inquisitively. "If we were, we would be hexing each other to oblivion because we can't stand being in each other's presence for longer than an hour."
"Don't you already do that?" His friend smirked, eyeing the slightly rose-colored cheek on the witch. His amusement furthered when Draco didn't notice her flustered look as the blond boy glared at the two of them. And even further when Hermione didn't see how his menacing glare seemed to soften when they trailed to hers.
They liked each other, oh he knew it. But they didn't.
"Sod off, Zabini," the witch grumbled, earning a chuckle from him.
"For the first time within this awful hour, I finally agree with you," Draco said to her as he sneered at his best mate, pointing his knife at him to scare him off and leave him alone with her.
Blaise raised his hands in surrender, the smirk still plastered on his face. "Okay I'll leave, just don't start snogging in front of everyone right after." He pranced away with a lingering smile when he spotted both of their tinting cheeks, and back to his table where Neville was stirring the potion in utter boredom.
"So how about it?" She heard the gruff voice of Draco's ask lowly, an octave deeper than before.
"How about what?" She asked, fidgeting in her stance as she felt herself become more self-aware at his question.
"Snogging in the middle of class?"
Her jaw slacked at his growing smug expression, and she reached to take hold of the knife he still carefully held away from her. "I'm doing it my way now!"
"No way, I just finished for us," his smirk widened as he assessed the astonished, wide-eyed expression of the witch. Hermione's jaw remained limp while she leaned over the cauldron to scrutinize the rest of his work, attentively seeking for any flaws to scold him with.
He leaned back, waiting smugly for her appraisal or scoff of disbelief for him achieving something she possibly couldn't do within the same allotted time. "Well?"
She sighed, reluctant to admitting defeat. "Well what? You want a prize?"
"Yes," he grinned, containing the extent of his eagerness. Hermione smiled to herself, an idea making it's way into her mind.
"Wait until later," she answered him, sending a subtle wink that he easily caught as she trudged to Slughorn to verify the success of their concoction.
Draco's brows raised at that, his eyes never failing to divert from her figure as he studied her in depth. Clad in her uniform, she had on a buttoned down white shirt, red and yellow striped tie, a skirt that reached mid-thigh, and had her white stockings that were lifted to her knees.
Draco smirked. Oh he couldn't wait until later.
You're still a prat though. An annoying, attractive prat.
Hermione Granger
•••
a lot of my oneshot endings feel rushed, but makes sense since I'm trying to post within 24 hours
so i might edit all these after promptober
also thank you guys for reading! i have a handful of readers it's pretty shocking :O