someday, somehow → d.malfoy [discontinued]

014

artemis wanted to believe that hadie knight had somewhat warmed up to her, eventually.

by late september, the two of them had made progress: from silently sitting at the same desk in ancient runes (they were two of four other slytherins in the small class), to sharing a pot of ink, to agreeing upon a weekly study session in the library on friday afternoons. hadie knight was still nearly as cold as she had been on the first day of september, in their carriage and in the dorms. she kept her responses curt and straight-forward, all but ignored artemis anytime outside of their classes. artemis wanted to invite hadie to sit with her own friends during mealtimes, as the tall girl seemed to be alone constantly, but she (and this was difficult to admit to even herself) was slightly intimidated by hadie's character. the two slytherins had been paired together for the rest of the year in potions class; one of artemis' least favourite subjects, even if the head of her own house was teaching. he wrote in looped writing on a blackboard she could barely read off of—and she had to ask her partner, shamefully, what many of the instructions indicated her to do. luckily, hadie seemed to have a talent for potion brewing, and did most of the work by herself. if she did require artemis' help, she always spoke the instructions aloud to her. no matter how embarrassed it made the girl, she was grateful that her dorm mate took the effort to do so. over the course of several (way too many) hours of potions classes, in which everyone's hair seemed to frizz tenfold, hadie knight's patience with artemis' comprehension problems did not waver—she even seemed to pick up on the fact that artemis was better at preparation than the actual brewing of their various potions.

besides potions, artemis disliked her defense against the dark arts class. professor moody was, above all, temperamental and unhinged, and made artemis greatly uncomfortable. he taught things that would never have been allowed in a classroom of teenagers at beauxbatons—their very first defense against the dark arts lesson had even consisted of actual demonstrations of the unforgivable curses. artemis did not consider herself fond of spiders at all, yet at the end of the session she had felt like gagging; horrified, she was, with the image of the tortured spider sticking in her mind especially well. she could perform the defensive (and other questionable) spells well enough, but struggled with the theory and writing. often, when the homework of an essay was set, she would first write it entirely in french, and then perform a clever charm she had taught herself, that translated a text into a language of choice. the same charm came in handy for other subjects, when she was required to read a number of passages from a textbook: transfiguration, ancient runes, charms, history of magic and, occasionally, care of magical creatures. 

by far, her most favoured subject was charms. there was no seating arrangement—so she was pleased to be able to sit next to a gossip-loving pansy. they rarely got much work done, but artemis cared very little—some of the charms they learnt, she had already studied the previous year, and others she caught up in the library, while the rest of her friends had classes to attend. every other day or so, she found pansy's endless flood of words to be draining, but tried her best not to let that show—responding with fervour and compassion and distaste, depending on the content of her gossip for that particular day. she only favoured charms over transfiguration due to the seating arrangement concept. though, professor mcgonagall had placed artemis and draco right next to each other, which was anything but unpleasant—it was not so much who she had been placed next to that artemis frowned upon, but the fact that she did not get a choice in the matter. subsequently, the subject turned out to be artemis' best, and draco's worst—the pairing worked well, in that artemis could explain and assist draco should he have any troubles, and the explaining on her part allowed her to test her own knowledge.

they took up most of their conversations during this class, as well—resuming those they'd first sparked during the summer break, and making new ones as time went on. it was during transfiguration that—after casting a muffliato charm around the two of them, should anyone think of eavesdropping their conversation—he often inquired about her past life. he seemed somewhat fascinated by how different her life had been prior to the school year; and yet there were undeniable similarities between their lives. both had been caught between the values of their strict pure-blooded families, and their own morals which grew to reflect that of their friends and peers. draco was, in a sense, a very different person around artemis. whereas around their friends (artemis still wasn't sure if she could call blaise, theodore, crabbe or goyle her friends, per se) he seemed snarky, uncompassionate and as if he fed off of his parent's views; around her, he seemed more delicate and solicitous, more like a boy than anything. still, he was a heavily sarcastic character—a trait artemis was rather fond of—and he tended to judge rather than empathise with others. draco had become a confidant of artemis', and she was utterly grateful that he allowed her to make him such a figure.

.

the idea of the imperius curse horrified draco to no end.

even if professor mad-eye moody thought it a beneficial, practical learning experience for the fourth year defense against the dark arts students to personally experience it—the idea of knowing what his father might have put someone through was a bone-quivering fear of his. he'd even been too shocked—his limbs rigid as he sat, frozen, in his chair—to bring himself to reply sarcastically after the know-it-all granger had quivered her lip and said "but—but you said it's illegal, professor." she was right, was she not? the use of an unforgivable curse on another human being, much less a whole group of fourteen year old students, was illegal and immoral. "you said; to use it against another human was—" the professor had cut her off sharply.

"dumbledore wants you taught what it feels like. if you'd rather learn the hard way—when someone's putting it on you so they can control you completely—fine by me. you're excused." he pointer a gnarled finger at the door. "off you go." granger proceeded to turn an exceptionally deep shade of red as she began muttering under her breath. moody proceeded to beckon each student to the middle of the classroom, one by one, as he cast the imperius curse upon them—over, and over, and over. draco flinched every time it was evident a student had been put under the curse, their eyes going vacant as they performed great feats of athleticism. it was the gryffindors first—dean thomas managed to hop around the room thrice whilst belting some sort of anthem; moody made lavender brown take on the characteristics and behaviour of a squirrel; and neville longbottom of all people barely seemed shaken as he recovered from doing quite an impressive series of flips and handstands under the influence of the curse. the whole class seemed to hold its breath as moody, finally, called up the potter boy. to a general astonishment, instead of submitting to moody's bidding, he unceremoniously crashed into a table nearby. 

"now that's more like it!" moody growled, his voice guttural, unpleasantly rough. "look at that, you lot... potter fought! he fought it, and he damn near beat it." and then to draco's horror: "we'll try that again, potter, and the rest of you, pay attention—watch his eyes, that's where you'll see it—very good, potter, very good indeed! they'll have trouble controlling you!" draco admitted—in his head where no one would hear such a thought—that resisting control was an impressive feat, and then allowed himself to relax as the bell went before moody was given the chance to try using his curse on any of the others. as he sped down the stairs to lunch—nudging a few second-years out of the way as he went—the four times potter had experienced the curse embedded itself into draco's mind. four times, a voice in his head emphasised. his breathing had turned sharper by the time he reached the bottom of the stairs, and his chest was heaving up and down in an intense rhythm. draco's gaze snagged on several things within the spanse of three seconds—until someone tugged roughly at the hem of his school robes' sleeve.

"what?" he hissed, whipping around to face whoever had done so. it was artemis—he swallowed immediately after such a realisation. it hadn't occurred to him, the whole trip down, that his friends might have been following him, and had witnessed his partial-breakdown. he ducked his head, feeling his cheeks flushing, and swallowed. artemis refused to let go of his sleeve, and pulled him away from the base of the staircase with a strength she did not look to have. he found they were in a secluded sort of hollow underneath another staircase. artemis cupped her hands around the jaunting curve of his shoulders, and pierced his eyes with her gaze.

"breathe," she said. "are you okay?" he could not look at her—it was shame that pressed his head back down, so he might fix his gaze upon the tips of her spotless black loafers. he was still breathing strenuously. the feeling of vulnerability crept into his stomach, threatened to make him sick.

"i'm fine," he snapped, cringing at the tone with which he'd thrown the words at her. "i'm fine," he said, gentler this time—then pulled away from the steady hold of her hands and turned to walk away, a practiced mask of arrogance and indifference already seeping into his expression. supposedly, artemis was not satisfied with his response. she yanked him backwards once more (he'd nearly lost his balance, and blushed again because of it) and wrapped her slender arms around his torso.