Learn to Love » Draco Malfoy x Reader

IV

Across the potions classroom, I couldn't ignore Draco and Blaise laughing amongst themselves. It was an obnoxious type of laughter that could only equate to smugness or having gotten away with something, which was unfortunately exactly what happened.

Much to my chagrin, Malfoy was actually being truthful about what would happen when I took him to Dumbledore.

The Headmaster kindly thanked me for reporting Draco's insubordination, but stated that these were issues to be dealt with privately, in the group. He allegedly hadn't broken any real rules or violated any guidelines that prefects were required to follow. As such, Draco was let off with simply a warning and being told to do better.

It made me sick to my stomach that someone like Malfoy could get away with anything he wanted just because his father bought his position as prefect, especially since he didn't even want to be a prefect, seemingly. It was a recipe for disaster; he could flaunt his prefect power whenever he wanted without consequence. Considering he had no care for his job anyway, and everyone in the group was sick of his antics, I'd have to double my prefect efforts as his assigned partner.

I had voiced these concerns to Daphne, but she was sat with Tracey at another table. Theo took the liberty of keeping me company.

"Here," he plopped two Advanced Potions books down on the desk, sitting down at the empty chair on my left. "Picked this up for you."

"Thanks, Theo. Saved me the trouble," I grinned and picked the worse of the two; he could have the newer one.

I flipped through the pages quickly, feeling the slight breeze of the papers passing by on my fingers. The book itself was quite beaten up, but there was something comforting about its datedness.

"How do you feel about Slughorn this year? Seems like an alright bloke," he turned in his seat to face me.

I shrugged. "He's a family friend... supposedly knew my grandfather pretty well. I've met him at a few family functions. He's a bit of the airy, socialite type but nothing wrong with him."

Slughorn typically would come to ballroom events or large gatherings put on by my family when they first moved to the UK, but nothing overly personal. They had met Slughorn when he came to Italy many years ago, and my grandfather and him had a decent friendship whenever one was visiting the other's country. Since he passed away a few years ago, I haven't seen much of the professor except at large events.

We moved to the UK when I was just a child, so I don't remember or even know an extensive amount about him, but I didn't have anything necessarily poor to say about Slughorn.

Theo nodded. "Yeah, I'd say so. Thinking about the Slug Club at all? He's mentioned it a few times."

"It's by invitation, Theo," I let out a dry laugh.

"Even so, I have no doubt the both of us will get accepted," he gave me a playful grin.

"Right," I returned his sly smirk. "If I'm invited I think it would be disrespectful not to go, even if I don't particularly want to. If you're there it'll be a... little more tolerable, at least."

"Just a little?"

"Barely manageable."

He placed a hand over his heart in a mocking way of feigning pain which earned a genuine laugh from me.

"Ouch, that hurts, y/n," he joked back. "Careful with your words, they cut me deep."

"Glad to know you care for me so much that I make an impact," I sarcastically jested.

He snorted and looked down, chuckling to himself. "You're coming to Hogsmeade this Saturday, aren't you?"

I shook my head. "Unlikely I'll get a chance. We're barely a few weeks into the schoolyear and I'm already drowning in assignments."