FicWad

I immediately whipped my attention over to Professor Slughorn and pretended that I had not been staring at Lucius moments earlier. Professor Slughorn gave us a big smile and said in a jolly tone, "Why it's so nice to see so many young, smiling new faces here today! Why don't we have the newcomers come and stand in the front of the classroom so I can introduce them to all of you?"

At this suggestion, my heart literally stopped beating and my mouth fell open. It was hard enough being new, but being new and the center of attention was even worse. I couldn't help but feel furious at Professor Slughorn. The last thing I wanted to do was go to the front of the class and have him introduce me to everyone. I already felt like all the eyes were on me. Unfortunately, I didn't really have a choice about any of this. If a Professor gave an order, I pretty much had to obey whether I wanted to or not.

Noticing two other students already heading to the front of the classroom, I braced my nerve, took a deep breath, and got out of my seat. Feeling like everyone was scrutinizing me, I headed to the front of the classroom and took a place next to the other two students. Surprisingly enough, all were girls. One was around my height with auburn hair and beautiful green, almond-shaped eyes. She had a big smile and looked friendly enough. Next to her was the chubby red-head who had been sitting to my left.

In a booming voice, Professor Slughorn pointed to the chubby red-head and introduced her to the group, "Everyone, this is Molly Johns. She's part of Gryffindor and comes from a good, pure-blood family." Professor Slughorn turned to the next girl and said, "This is Lily Evans. I guess she's part of Gryffindor as well."

I couldn't help but notice that Professor Slughorn didn't seem as thrilled to have Lily in his class as he was with Molly. I assumed that this had to do with the fact that Molly was a pure-blood. If you don't know what a pure-blood is, let me explain it to you a second. Pure-blood students come from families that have magical blood. Muggle-born students are ones that have no magical heritage and come from the human world. Needless to say, pure-bloods are higher in rank than the muggle born students.

Finally, it was Professor Slughorn's turn to introduce me. Oh great, here we go. Too bad I hadn't learned how to turn myself invisible yet. That would end up being a very useful spell in the future. I mean, how great would it be to be able to appear and disappear whenever you wanted? Now would definitely be a time to disappear.

Looking at my feet, I tried to shrink as Professor Slughorn introduced me nice and loudly, "This is Narcissa Black. The Black family is very wealthy and powerful. It's a pleasure to have another Black around here. Your sister, Andromeda, is very talented at potions. I hope you have her same talent."

Oh shit. Now the Professor was going to expect me to be as talented at potions as Andromeda was. That wasn't fair. I mean, before this moment, I hadn't even known that Andromeda had a talent for potions. I guess that shows how much I know about my sister. We never talk, so how should I know what she's good at?

Finally, I decide to look up and take a look at the class. Just as I imagined, all eyes are aimed towards the front of the class where the newcomers are standing. Luckily though, not all the eyes are on me. On the other hand, most of the eyes seem to be on Professor Slughorn. Only three pairs of eyes happen to be on me.

The first pair of eyes belongs to a young boy sitting behind Lucius. He has a rat nest of tangled red hair, a curious look on his face, and he was wearing an old robe that looked like it should've gone to Goodwill years ago. I could help but wrinkle my nose at him. He looked really poor. I would assume he was muggle-born, but how should I know?

The second pair of eyes on me was from the chubby red-head standing next to me at the front of the class. I could tell she was trying not to stare, but nonetheless, her eyes drifted over to my direction. She was gazing at me out of the corner of her eye. I wondered what she was looking at. I didn't have a stain on my robe or anything, did I?

The third pair of eyes belonged to none other than Lucius. He was staring at me with that typical stony look on his face. Lucius was just so cold. It was like his heart was made of rock and ice and there was no room left for emotions in it. I wanted to make Lucius smile so badly, but something told me that would never happen.

"Already, everyone can go back to your seat now," Professor Slughorn ordered the three of us, pointing his finger back towards the seats. I immediately hurried back to my seat and slumped down into it, glad to have returned to safety. At my sigh of relief, I could see Lucius smirk. My god, what was his problem? I was really starting to get irritated with him at this point.

"Today, you're going to make a potion that cures burns. Everyone except for the newbies have made this potion before. To make it, you're going to need the bark of an oak tree, paste from a slug, and the feather from a falcon. Your supplies are on the table at the front of the room. Take whatever you need. I want you newcomers to pair up with some of the other students so they can teach you how to make the potion. To make this easiest, I'll just assign you all partners. Molly, go with Arthur Weasley. He's sitting there behind you. Lily, why don't you go with Severus there to your right? And Miss Black, go with Lucius Malfoy," Professor Slughorn commanded us regally as if he was doing us a favor. Personally, I would've rather worked by myself.

Feeling like this was going to be bad, I took a deep breath and looked over at Lucius. Since I was working with him, did that mean I was suppose to move my desk over by him or something? I wasn't quite sure. Lucius was helping me out either. He didn't even say a word to me. Deciding that I had better take things into my own hands, I decided to slide my desk over closer to his.

Once I was sitting next to Lucius, I asked nervously, "So...um...what do you want me to do?" There was a black cauldron in front of each of us. I figured that was where our potion ingredients went, but there was no way to know for sure. As I asked Lucius the simple question, I could feel eyes on me...again.

Getting pretty annoyed at always being stared at, I whipped my head around to see who was looking at me now. Surprisingly enough, this time, the eyes were not directed towards me. Behind me, was Molly Johns and Arthur Weasley. Arthur was the red-headed kid with the crazy hair who had been looking at me earlier. I thought it was kind of funny that he happened to be paired up with Molly Johns. I mean, they were both red-heads and they both looked pretty poor. Molly's robes were torn at the hem and this was just the first day of school. I guess her parents didn't have money for a new robe. What a pity.

Anyways, enough of worrying about a person's status. Molly's eyes seemed glued to Lucius' back. Her eyes were glazed over and she had a dreamy look on her face as she stared at him. Arthur was trying in vain to get her attention, but apparently she was too interested in Lucius to notice his attempts. Very interesting. So did I have competition?

As if aware of my thoughts, Lucius glanced lazily behind him in Molly's direction before glancing back over at me. Before answering my earlier question, he sighed loudly. I think he was thinking something along the lines of "fuck off bitches", but who knows. Finally, Lucius answered my question, "Why don't you just go get the feather, paste, and bark? I'll mix up the potions so we don't end up with a cauldron full of shit. I've already had enough of that this morning."

Eager to comply to Lucius' wishes, I quickly jumped to my feet and hurried to the front of the classroom to retrieve the ingredients. The bark was rough and brown and looked like normal bark. The feather was white and...well...feather-like. The paste was pretty gross looking though. It was an ugly yellowish color and looked like puke or something. Luckily, it was already dished out into little bowls so all I had to do was select a bowl to bring back to Lucius. Touching the stuff would've been disgusting.

Once I had brought the ingredients back to the table, Lucius took over. He broke all the ingredients in half, dumped them into our cauldrons, murmured a spell under his breath, and then waited. I guess that was all there was to the spell. I wanted to make conversation with Lucius or something, but didn't have the guts to. So instead, I half-watched Molly from behind me. It was totally irritating me how her eyes never left Lucius' back. I wanted to slap her or something.

Finally, Professor Slughorn called out loudly, "Alright, if you've finished your potion, bring it over to me for inspection." At Professor Slughorn's words, Lucius rose from his chair, grabbed our potions, and headed over in Slughorn's direction without a word to me. That figured. He wasn't ever going to talk to me, was he? What a bastard!

I rotated around in my chair to look at Lucius and Professor Slughorn. The Professor peered into the cauldrons curiously. I crossed my fingers and hoped he approved of the potions. From the smile that appeared on his face a few minutes later, I assumed he did approve of it. He took both the cauldrons from Lucius and set them on a shelf.

Apparently dismissed, Lucius strode back towards his desk with that same bored expression on his face. Halfway across the room, his eyes lit up evilly. Something told me he was up to no good. As Lucius passed the desk where Molly and Arthur were working at, he casually leaned up against Molly's cauldron. The cauldron wobbled and then tipped onto its side while pouring out its contents all over Molly. Molly just seemed stunned. For a long moment, she didn't say a thing.

Pasting a shocked look on his face, Lucius murmured, "Whoops. My bad." With that, he continued back to his chair with a hidden smirk on his face. From behind him, Molly finally returned from dream-world into the real world. Her voice came out in a stammer, "Oh..that's okay. It...it wasn't a very good potion anyways."

Molly didn't seem to care about the spilled potion, but Arthur was a different story. He leaped up to his feet, grabbed his wand from the inside of his bag, and pointed it straight at Lucius' back. Even though Lucius was facing the opposite direction, I swear he could sense what Arthur was up to. Lucius snatched his wand out of the inside of his robes and raised an eyebrow as he looked over at Arthur and asked in a mock-curious voice, "Do you have a problem, Mr. Weasley?"

Arthur's eyes narrowed and he thrust his wand towards Lucius' heart as he replied, "You apologize to Miss Johns right this instant. You know that what you did wasn't an accident. You purposefully spilled her cauldron. You're messing with her. What, do you like her or something? If so, there are other ways to get a girl."

Lucius' eyes widened and I could tell he was pissed off. He leaned close to Arthur and said, "You think I like her? My god, your brain is thicker than I realized. But again, what should I expect from a poor fucker like you?" From the looks on Arthur's and Lucius' faces, I could tell there was going to be a fight.