Little Bird

Chapter Ten

Eve

           "If you would all listen for two seconds, I'll tell you to get paired up with another student at your table. Now, Mr. Finnigan, unless you want a detention—"

            As Snape moved to the other side of the room in order to snap at Seamus, I turned back around to face my table. Already sliding his chair closer to mine, Blaise smirked, "What do you say we work together, yeah?"

            "Okay," I said shyly, even though we both knew I wouldn't be able to work with anyone else at our table.

            I leaned under the table to get the cauldron out while Blaise went to get the ingredients. When I finally emerged and placed it on the wooden tabletop, I realized Goyle had also gone to get ingredients—which meant that Malfoy and I were alone at the table.

            There was an awkward, uncomfortable silence as we both busied ourselves with our own cauldrons, refusing to look up at each other. I pressed my lips into a thin line while I used my wand to light a small flame underneath the belly of my cauldron, telling myself repeatedly to just pretend Malfoy wasn't even there. I glanced over my shoulder as the fire finally caught, seeing that Blaise was still over by the counter. As I was wishing he would just hurry up, I suddenly felt Malfoy watching me.

            Annoyed, I turned back around to glare at him. As soon as I caught him staring, Malfoy quickly glanced away and pretended to be extremely busy with his cauldron, his cool expression returning to his face. I shook my head, turning my cauldron closer to the flame. If I was braver, I would tell Malfoy off for being so weird.

            Before the silence could get any more awkward, Blaise finally returned to the table and sat down beside me. As he dumped all the ingredients in front of us, I tried not to blush when his fingers brushed against mine.

            "Alright," he said, pulling out his Potions textbook as Goyle made his way back to our table. "What goes in first?"

            "The spider legs, I think," I told him, leaning over to point to the list in his book. "Did you get the yellow ones?"

            "Yeah, they're totally weird though," Blaise grinned, showing me the packet.

            I took the packet from him to inspect the spider legs, giggling at the electric yellow coloring. "Where do they even find stuff like this? I'll crush these, you wanna start on the lily pads?"

            Blaise agreed, so I reached for the knife while he started on the lilies. Across from us, Goyle was sifting through their small pile of ingredients to try and find their lily pads. I glanced over at them, expecting to see Malfoy doing absolutely nothing—just like always. But instead, I saw that he was actually helping out this time, using the handle of his knife to crush their spider legs.

            Blaise must have noticed too, because he grinned across the table and joked, "You're actually doing something this class, Malfoy? I never thought I'd see the day."

            Malfoy smirked as he dumped in the yellowed powder, replying, "Shut up, Blaise. Snape told me my grade's going to drop if I don't help out. And it's already a shitty one, so I can't afford to fail."

            "No wonder," Blaise said. "You always skip."

            "Snape doesn't usually care though. It's bullshit, if you ask me."

            I scraped the spider legs into our cauldron and reached for my textbook to see what the next ingredient was, the other three Slytherins still talking together.