Draco Malfoy's Dirty Little Secret

Chapter 32

I woke up content and happy. It was the first time in a long time that I had felt that happy, but that soon went away when I saw that Draco was nowhere in sight. He had left during the night. I was usually a light sleeper, but I had never done what we did so I must’ve been pretty tired. I knew I was sore when I moved. I pulled on my clothes from the day before and ran to the bathroom. On my way to the Gryffindor tower, I learned that the first classes had started. I grabbed my bag off my bed and ran down to potions.

“Where in the name of Merlin’s beard have you been?” Ron whispered at me when I snuck into class hoping that Slughorn didn’t notice. “I’ve been covering for you for twenty minutes now.”

I just shrugged. “Guess I overslept,” was my weak answer. “Now, what are we doing?”

He looked at me for a moment before pointing at the board. We were working on love potions. I sighed. That was just great. He had a huge pot in the middle of the room. Was that were that great smell was coming from? I looked across the room and found Draco smiling at me. I smiled back.

“Earth to Courtney,” Ron said, waving his hand in front of my face. “I know that Draco is mighty interesting for you to stare at, but we have to make a love potion. Go get the ingredients and be bloody useful, all right?”

I nodded and headed straight for the storage cupboard. While I was looking for enchanted rose petals, someone stood beside me and cleared his throat. I smiled once more before turning to face him. His smile that he had just a few moments ago was slightly smaller. I swallowed nervously.

“Hey, where did you disappear to this morning?” I whispered.

He then held up a folded up piece of parchment. “I had every intention of waking you up and we could be back together, but when I was folding your clothes, this fell out of your jean pocket. I think you have some more things to figure out before we even consider us again.”

I took the piece of parchment remembering that it was the letter from Fred. I had completely forgotten about it, but I was expecting to get back with Draco that soon. I nodded and turned back to look for the petals. I could feel him still staring at me. I was trying to hold some tears back because I had been so stupid with everything. I had just been so hurt that I wasn’t thinking everything all the way through. Now I wish that I had.

“Do you love him?” Draco then asked. “He said that he loved you in the letter. Do you love him?”

I looked over at him and our eyes met. “No, I don’t love him,” knowing full well that it wasn’t a lie. I didn’t need to hesitate to answer that. “I love you, Draco.”

He nodded. “We’ll talk about this later. Don’t want to miss a good class, do we?”

I sighed and watched him walk away and then went back to scanning the shelves for the rest of the ingredients. Slughorn was at our desk when I returned with everything in hand. He smiled at me before strutting up to the front of the class room and began to speak.

“Can anyone tell me what is in the cauldron in the middle of the room?” he asked, looking directly at Hermione, whose had had already shot up. “Yes, Miss Granger?”

“Its Amortentia!” she smiled.

“It is indeed. It seems most foolish to ask, but I assume you know what it does?”

“It’s the most powerful love potion in the world!” exclaimed Hermione.

“Quite right! You recognize it, I suppose, by its distinctive mother-of-pearl sheen?” Slughorn asked with a smile on his face.

“And the steam rising in characteristic spirals, and it’s supposed to smell differently to each of us, according to what attracts us, and I can smell freshly mown grass and new parchment and-“  She turned a bright pink and didn’t finish her sentence.