Author's Note: A little shorter this time, but I don't mind if you don't mind. As always, questions and reviews are very welcome. Thanks for reading and enjoy!

The rest of Monday was, unsurprisingly, filled with a very awkward silence. Draco was so set on ignoring O'Doherty completely that he didn't even dish out his usual complaints about being dragged along with her to choir practice after their classes were over. However, the next day was an entirely different story. The odd quietness between them had been replaced by annoyance and stubbornness. The morning started with Draco bellowing that the alarm was too loud and the floor was too cold. Then the pair fought for nearly fifteen minutes about who would shower first. The argument was cut short when Blaise popped his head into the room to say that Katelyn could go shower with him if she wanted, and she holed herself up in the bathroom to be rid of him. Unfortunately, the bond was being especially needy that day and she was forced to spend breakfast next to Draco at the Slytherin table while Zabini wiggled his eyebrows at her every ten seconds.

Their first class of the day was Transfiguration, where they sat silently snubbing each other as their professor went on excitedly about how to turn an owl into opera glasses.

Out of nowhere, Draco leaned towards O'Doherty's ear. "Have you ever noticed how much Ms. Donaldson resembles Hermione?" he whispered.

Katelyn gave him an odd look, but upon closer inspection, she could see where he was coming from. Jessica Donaldson was a springy young witch from America. With her light brown curly hair and large glasses, she sort of looked like the quiet and reserved aunt every person seems to have. In spite of her appearance, she was anything but. She was quite the energetic teacher. At any given time, she could be seen floating about the room whistling appraisal, her floral flowing robes billowing behind her. It was nice to have someone of such high spirits conducting the class.

"Draco, just because they both have curly hair doesn't mean they're twins…" but as she turned to him to check for a response, he seemed to have remembered that he was set on pretending she didn't exist.

"Very good, Ms. Granger, very good!" Ms. Donaldson's voice popped up as she looked over Hermione's shoulder at the table behind them. Not only had she successfully transfigured her owl into opera glasses, but they were a rather ornate looking pair.

Ms. Donaldson patted her arm. "Fit for a queen, I'd say. Five points to Gryffindor." She looked over at Ron's pair of opera glasses, which still had feathers and was hooting quite loudly. "Hm, nearly there, Weasley." And with that she fluttered away across the room.

The rest of class went by rather uneventfully. By the end of the lesson, Draco and Katelyn sat adding details to their opera classes, a pearl here and diamonds there, until Ms. Donaldson told the class to transfigure their opera glasses back onto owls. O'Doherty muttered the spell and tapped her wand, but her owl ended up with rubies in the place where its eyes should have been.

"Ooh, that's quite all right, dear," Ms. Donaldson giggled as she fixed the owl, which then flew away to perch on a nearby bookshelf. It ruffled its feathers, looking downright affronted.

Draco snorted as he saw her cheeks tint pink. "So much for being little Ms. Perfect." This earned him quite the glare.

Draco spent the rest of the day pointedly ignoring O'Doherty. She could feel a slight gnawing irritation playing at the back of her mind from his end of the line. Whenever it cropped up, she would find Draco reading and rereading a crumpled letter in his hand. Every time she questioned it, he would stash it away without another word on the subject, and that was that.

After repeating this process throughout all of their classes, Katelyn finally grew tired of being treated like she was invisible. She looked up from where she was sitting on the floor in their room. Draco had shut the curtains of his bed so that he was hidden from view, but she could feel that he was reading his letter again.

"You know, Draco, if you're so enticed by that note then you should tattoo it on your arm. It's be a lot easier to transport that way."

"Shut up," came a muffled voice from behind the emerald curtains of the bed.

She sighed and turned back to her Alchemy homework, trying very hard to ignore the nonsense she was feeling from Draco as it strengthened the wearing effects of the bond. Its indigence hadn't lessened at all as the day went on and it was making her skin crawl.

"Could you at least open those curtains? They might as well be brick walls… This bond is setting my teeth on edge. It can't be comfortable for you either."

There was no response. After a moment, the curtains opened an inch or two. Draco's wand emerged and summoned his trunk. He placed the letter inside and put the trunk back in its place. O'Doherty waited, but nothing else happened. Then the spec of frustration started up in the back of her head again. Now there was something else bugging him.

She slammed her book shut and marched over to his bed. "Oh, for god's sake, Draco! Get over it! Whatever it is, just get over it!"

The curtains flew open and Draco's head popped out, his face contorted as if he'd just eaten a lemon. "Excu—"

"No! Shut up. Listen. Is this about that dream you had two nights ago? Are you seriously still hung up on that? I swear to god, Draco… I don't care. I really don't. Okay? I get it. It's probably been awhile for you. Of course you're going to have weird dreams. It's fine. Just get over it!" She stood there, out of breath from the speed at which she'd been shouting, with her arms crossed over her chest. She eyed Draco expectantly.

He looked down at her feet as he waited for his face to return from tomato red to its normal color. "Erm… sorry." He glanced up and watched her stride back over to the rug and plop down where she'd been sitting before.

"Now, if you want to keep being embarrassed and painstakingly unbearable, go ahead, but I'm going to ignore this headache you've graced us with and finish my Alchemy essay… You're very welcome to join me."

Draco froze for a moment. He wanted nothing more than to hinder the effects of the bond, but he'd also hate to give her the satisfaction if he were to lie on the floor writing essays with her.

To hell with it.

Sheepishly, he skulked off the bed and across the room to his desk. He retrieved his homework and sat down next to his roommate. Almost immediately, his headache faded and the general irritation went away. He thought he heard O'Doherty mumble a 'thank you,' but he couldn't quite tell.

Nothing could convince Katelyn to return to the Slytherin table and let Blaise give her any more suggestive glances, so Draco was forced to sit at the Gryffindor table at dinner. He was about to lose his mind listening to Granger and Longbottom chattering about some rare water lily that had recently been discovered, along with Potter, Weaselbee, and Weaselette debate on and on about Quidditch. It was nearly more than he could handle. It also didn't help that whenever he looked across the Great Hall to his own table, all he could see was Blaise and Theo lusting over at O'Doherty as Pansy sat beside them fighting for their attention. He had to roll his eyes at his humiliating friends. Honestly, if he was a stranger he would never think that they were of high class society.

Oddly enough the only thing keeping him sat at the table was O'Doherty's knee leaning against his leg sending that peculiar soothing impression through his body.

Damn this bond.

In his left ear was the cacophony of O'Doherty's friends and in his right ear was the sound of O'Doherty cooing over Finnigan. He was very determined to not hear whatever nonsense they were saying. He focused his attention just about anywhere else before settling on the spot in his brain just behind his left ear. This, he figured, was where the bond was attached to him because it was where all of O'Doherty's foreign emotions channeled through. Right now the feeling was a sickening giddiness. Draco mulled over what he would have thought of this predicament this time last year. If someone had told him that he would end up bonded to O'Doherty, he would have sent them to St. Mungo's and then downed an entire bottle of wine to get the thought out of his mind. He had to stop himself from audibly groaning.

What has my life become?