A/N: Everything except the stuff you don’t recognize belongs to JK Rowling and her utter genius.
Getting To Know You
“Aren’t you coming?” Phaedra asked the next morning as the group walked in the Great Hall for breakfast.
“No,” Patrick answered. “I’m waiting for someone.”
Hyatt wagged his dark eyebrows. “Have fun.”
Patrick saw both girls ask Hyatt if he knew anything when they thought he wasn’t looking. He shook his head. They’d find out soon enough if all went well.
He swore he’d been standing there for hours when he finally saw the pale blonde head he’d been waiting for. He ran up to her with an anxious smile. “Good morning.”
She surprised him by kissing his cheek. It was quick, but it calmed him down a great deal. “Good morning.” She bit her bottom lip coyly. “Were you waiting for me?”
“Yes, I thought maybe we could tell my cousins today.”
Her smile faded and her eyes moved nervously to the entrance of the Great Hall. “In front of everyone? I mean, do really think that’s wise.”
“My hope is that they won’t make a scene in front of everyone, but I could be wrong,” he admitted.
Medea desperately wanted to believe him, after all they were his cousins, but somehow she doubted it would work out that way.
He took her hand and pulled her toward the door. It took a great deal of courage for her to keep her legs moving. As they walked through the tables hand in hand no one seemed to notice, until they got to the Gryffindor table. Then the silence slowly began to permeate.
Odile was the first to speak. “What are you doing?”
Everyone, even Medea, looked to Patrick for the answer. “Odile, Phaedra, Hyatt, Medea is my girlfriend.”
Medea almost laughed as one jaw after another dropped down the Gryffindor table. She had never done anything to make her peers drop their jaws, and that was probably why she was Head Girl. But now she was in her last year and she was finally living a little. Plus, finally having a boyfriend wasn’t bad.
“This is a joke, right?” Odile asked.
“Please tell us you’re under the influence of something,” Phaedra said almost desperately.
Patrick shook his head. “No,” he said. “I just thought you should know.”
He pulled Medea to an open bench and they sat down to eat. “They’re still staring at us,” she whispered. “They don’t like me, Patrick, they never have.”
“But I do, very much, so they’ll have to deal with it.” And he went back to his breakfast.
Medea lost her appetite. Mostly everyone had gone back to their food, but they would glance their direction every so often. She knew they were still talking about them.
“Patrick?” she said after she’d sat there for a few minutes.
He looked up with a smile that looked a little too big. “Yes?”
“Uh, why do you like me?” she asked nervously. “I mean, what changed?”
His smile shrank, but it became genuine. “Because you stand up for what you believe in, even when you know it’s unpopular. You have passion.”
A blush crept into her cheeks at his compliments. The only people who’d ever complimented her were her parents and grandparents. “Oh,”
“What changed for you?”
She shrugged. In all honesty, she couldn’t pinpoint what exactly had changed except the fact that he’d risked his life to save hers. “I guess I just realized you were actually a good person underneath the troublemaker.”
He smirked as if being called a troublemaker was a compliment.
Patrick finished up his breakfast and once again took Medea’s hand as they left the Hall. They had potions together and then they both had a free period before lunch. In Potions, Professor Selene refused to let the two of them sit together. She’d apparently heard about the goings on at breakfast already and hadn’t even let them get the question out. Medea, of course, knew it was for the best. She knew she wouldn’t get anything done if Patrick was right beside her. But she still didn’t like it.
As usual Medea was done at least ten minutes before the rest of the class. “You’re such a natural,” the Professor said with a smile. She looked over to Patrick; she could see his bubbling potion from there. “Do you suppose he’ll listen to you today?”
Medea was happy to get up and walk over to his table. She didn’t say anything, she just smiled down at his concentrated face. He was so cute when he was frustrated. “Could I offer my advice?” she asked with a soft smile.
He looked up with an affectionate scowl. “If I say no will you tell me anyway?”
She rolled her brown eyes. “Men. If you cut this into strips before you put it in, it’ll stop the boiling.”
He nodded and immediately began to cut the dried skin into thick strips.
“Thin strips,” she whispered.
He grunted and cut the thick strips into several smaller ones. He mumbled threats to the potion the whole time, but when he threw the strips in a smile crept to his lips; the potion immediately calmed to a gentle simmer. “Brilliant.”
“The trick with the Dragon’s blood is to add a drop then stir, add a drop then stir and so on.”
He stared at her in amazement. “How do you figure these things out?”
She shrugged. “Just makes sense. I used to bake cookies… never mind, I’ll tell you later.” Her cheeks flushed with embarrassment.
By the time Patrick finished his potion, Professor Selene gave it her seal of approval.
When class was over, Patrick eagerly pulled Medea up to the Gryffindor Tower for their free period. She had the feeling she’d be spending more time there than she had her other years, and she didn’t even live there anymore.
“Don’t your cousins have their free periods now too?” she asked nervously.
“Just Hyatt.”
She couldn’t help but be relived. Of all the Weasleys, she knew that he’d be the most accepting. If she remembered correctly she’d actually met his parents, Fred and Angelina, at her mother’s bookstore.
Patrick pulled her into a chair just as Hyatt walked through the portrait hole. He proved Medea right when he whistled at them. “The girls swear they’re never going to talk to you again,” he warned his cousin.
He pouted his lip. “So sad, really.”
“They’ll probably have my head for this, but I say it’s about time.”
They both looked at him with questioning smiles. “What’s that supposed to mean?” Patrick asked.
He shook his head. “Come on, there has been tension between you two since we were eleven. I’ll say it again, it’s about time.” He winked at Patrick and then ran up to his room.
“He’s mental!” Medea laughed.
But Patrick smiled; he knew he wasn’t that crazy. “You were about to tell me why you’re so good at potions.”
“Yes, before I started school, I would always help my mum bake cookies the Muggle way. We’d go to Muggle London and buy all these cook books and make all of this stuff.” She smiled at the memories. “Course, we never ate all of it. Most of the time she would set them out in the store for the customers. But now that I think about it, she was preparing me for potions.”
“My mum taught me spells and my dad taught me to fly.”
“Predictable.”
“Yeah, well, it got me on the team, didn’t it?” he reminded her with a smirk. “And it’s won us””
“Three Quidditch Cups,” she finished. “I know. And my mum preparing me for potions and the like has helped us win the House Cup for””
“All seven years,” he finished. “I know.”
She smiled shyly and bit her bottom lip. “That’s pretty much all we know about each other, isn’t it?”
Patrick turned to her and stuck out his hand. “I’m Patrick Potter. I’m an only child, but I have a huge family. I’ve been the captain of the Gryffindor Quidditch team for two years; I’m told that seeking is in my blood. I want to train to be an Auror, which you may find ironic considering that I break an average of ten school rules a year for no reason. I’ve never really taken an interest in girls until now, and frankly you still scare me, especially since I know you can read my mind.”
"Only if I want to," Medea whsipered and tentatively shook his hand.
“Are you going to introduce yourself?” he pouted.
“Okay, I guess I’ll play your little game. I’m Medea Malfoy. I have a six-year-old brother named Jarret, and as far as I know I have an extremely small family, but I could be wrong. I was a prefect my fifth and sixth years and now I’m Head Girl. I love Potions, Herbology, and Arithmancy, but I’m not really sure what I want to do as a career. I speak five languages because my mum used to work for the Ministry in International Relations. As you know, I am a Legilimens, but I rarely use it. And I’ve always secretly envied you and your cousins because you were friends.”
Patrick smiled. “Nice to meet you.”
She looked at him seriously. “So what happens now?”