teathyme
why are we still here? just to suffer?
Draco was feeling restless as he sat silently in his seat. He found he was becoming more anxious these days. The loss of weight and sleep over the past few weeks were proof of that. His grades had started to slip a bit after he had missed a few assigments and he had even resigned from the Slytherin Quidditch Team for the year. Not to mention he was no longer fulfilling his Prefect duties, something Pansy had been pestering him about lately.
Potions was always one of his best classes, and while he definitely preferred Professor Snape over Slughorn, who the instructor was didn't actually have much to do with why he wanted class to end as soon as possible.
No, it was something far greater than anything he had ever had to deal with in his life. The Dark Lord had entrusted him with a very important mission: kill Headmaster Dumbledore. He still remembered how honored he had felt. The Dark Lord had trusted him- chosen him to kill his arch-nemesis, one of the most powerful wizards alive.Draco hadn't questioned the potential difficulty at the time, having assured his mother that he was more than up to the task and that in succeeding in his mission, he would be able to put the Malfoy family back in the Dark Lord's graces.
Perhaps in doing so, Draco also hoped that the Dark Lord would help free his father from imprisonment in Azkaban. But there was a long road ahead to get there, and Draco was finding that his mission was starting to prove a futile one. He had attempted twice to kill the Headmaster and he had failed twice. He still couldn't manage to get the damned vanishing cabinet fixed. He was starting to grow desperate.Soon he would run out of time. He dreaded that fact. He knew how the Dark Lord felt about failure, how the man punished others for it. Draco was afraid. For himself and his family. But there was still time left. He only wished he didn’t have to spend so much of it in his classes.
“Can anyone describe Golpalott’s Third Law?,” Horace Slughorn’s eyes hadn’t even been able to begin to wander as one of his student’s hands shot straight up.
“Sir,” Hermione spoke, waiting to receive a nod of approval before answering the question, “Golpalott’s Third Law states that the antidote for a blended poison will be equal to more than the sum of the antidotes for each of the separate components.” She had given the right answer, of course.
“Excellent as always, Ms. Granger,” Slughorn smiled before directing his attention to the rest of the class, “today we will be putting Golpalott’s Third Law into practical use. You will each be assigned a blended poison to brew an antidote for. Granted, I do believe that this will be quite the strenuous task indeed, therefore you will all be assigned a partner to work with on this assignment.”
He began making his way down the line of students, appearing to pair some up at random. “Ms. Janssen and…,” he paused, twisting around to look in the opposite direction, “Mr. Malfoy. You two will be another pair.” He gestured for Astrid to share a cauldron with Draco, wanting to space out the students as much as he could.
“Tsk,” Draco silently clicked his tongue, wanting to glare at the professor for making his whole day worse. Astrid was a Hufflepuff, a mudblood, and a friend of Potter’s. Practically everything he disliked rolled into one. She had even talked back to him on several occasions. He couldn’t stand her, but he wasn’t in a position to change his situation. “Mind your space, Janssen,” he practically spat out with a scowl, making it plainly obvious that he didn’t want to be close to her in any way.
How did a girl like her manage to advance to N.E.W.T. level potions anyway?