Forbidden [d.m.] || rewritten

chapter 4

- year two -

Draco Malfoy was a smart and talented student, I admit it. Many would call him gifted, given that he had mastered a few nonverbal spells as a second-year. Everything came naturally to him. Similarly, I mastered the same spells with ease. I considered myself a natural at Charms and Defense Against the Dark Arts. So, you could say we were both pretty intelligent individuals—

—intelligent individuals who somehow got detention together.

Go figure, the insufferable Professor Gilderoy Lockhart gave us detention for causing a "disturbance" in class. It was all Malfoy's bloody fault. One moment, Lockhart was assigning us a project on offensive dueling. The next thing I knew, I was having a full-on dispute with the blonde git in the back of the classroom over whether a certain spell could disarm an opponent or not, ignoring the several warnings Lockhart gave us. I thought he was bluffing at first, but apparently not.

To sum it up, I couldn't handle Malfoy's know-it-all attitude and he apparently couldn't handle my snarky comments back at him. That left us stuck polishing antiques and portraits in Lockhart's classroom on Christmas Eve.

Malfoy harshly pushed the double doors to Lockhart's classroom open, ignoring my presence in the room and muttering words under his breath that I'm sure were ridiculing me. "Ah, Mr. Malfoy." Lockhart's arrogant, self-obsessive voice echoed throughout the entire room. "Arriving fashionably late as usual."

This really was my nightmare. I was stuck in a classroom with the two most egotistical, self-centered wizards in the universe. I think I'd take Malfoy over Lockhart, though. The man was clearly a fraud and any time he opened his mouth, all I wanted was to conjure a jinx to lock it shut.

Malfoy scoffed and took a seat in a random desk across the room as we awaited Lockhart's instructions. The Professor abruptly rose from his chair and marched towards us, swaying his flamboyant, flashing robes in a foolish manner that he thought looked cool.

"Alright, Miss Potter. Mister Malfoy. Since you two take joy in causing a disturbance in my classroom, you must now reverse your actions. You two will clean my entire classroom from top to bottom while I sign copies of my books and sort through my fan mail in my office," he ordered, prancing up the long flight of stairs. "You will be dismissed in a few hours."

Professor Lockhart shut the door to his office, leaving Malfoy and I to ourselves in the classroom. "Kill me now," I muttered under my breath.

"What did you just say, Potter?" He snapped, spontaneously rising from his chair. My name fell off his tongue like a toxin.

"Please... Don't speak, Malfoy." My eyes bored into his, burning holes into his skin. "It's Christmas Eve, and instead of spending it with people I actually enjoy being around, I'm with you. And your voice is a rare breed of irritating. So, for the sake of both of us, shut up."

He rolled his tongue in his cheek in dismay. I ignored his obnoxious huffing as he started grabbing rags and polishing sprays to clean the large portrait of Lockhart. "You know, this is entirely your fault." Malfoy went on a rant yet again, polishing the painting beside me. "If you hadn't opened your mouth in class—"

I groaned loudly, burying my face in my palms to make it clear how irritated I was by his dramatic actions. "Did you just huff at me, Potter?"

Rolling my eyes, I avoided any sort of eye contact with him, continuing to wipe and spray. Wipe and spray. Wipe and spray. "Will you quit asking stupid questions?"

"Will you just quit being stupid?"

I chuckled under my breath and decided against firing back at him, ending our feud of insults. Malfoy only became more and more agitated as the minutes went by. The minutes were quite literally ticking by like hours and I, too, found myself getting increasingly restless.