Disclaimer: I do not own Harry Potter or any of the characters.
Applause rang throughout the great hall. Professor Dumbledore had just announced the new Potions master, Fleur Delacour.
Hermione Granger was speechless as she watched her friends (male friends, mostly) eye the new professor with dreamy looks of admiration and desire. Hermione knew that Fleur was fairly good academically, but she had to see for herself just how well she could teach. She tried to keep an open mind, however, and came into Potions the next day with only a slight bias.
"Today we will be brewing a silencing potion," Professor Delacour spoke to the class. "Sounds utterly useless when there is a simple spell to perform the trick, but what if you were in different circumstances, no?" She added on this last part after seeing a skeptical look on Hermione Granger's face. After she had given permission, the class broke into somewhat of a frenzy, many students rushing to finish the potion in order to please Fleur. Hermione scoffed at this and went at the assignment at her normal speed (which was quite fast anyway).
Hermione went to the supply closet to grab more diced lacewing, and noticed that Professor Delacour was looking at her. She thought nothing of this, and grabbed the lacewing and continued the potion.
Ah, this was it, the black steam was rising from the cauldron just as the book said it would. Hermione smiled and looked up at her resulting cloud of darkness. Through the smoke she could make out a pair of cerulean eyes staring at her, but Fleur's body was turned in another direction.
These strange occurrences happened again, whenever the class was assigned a potion Fleur seemed to take interest in Hermione. But it wasn't always during brewing, during lectures she would let the girl expand her answers to Fleur's questions to the fullest extent, whereas most other teachers would cut Hermione off after she had sufficiently answered their question. Hermione had also noticed that Fleur seemed to stare at her an awful lot in any case, and never broke eye contact when she spoke to her. Hermione wasn't the only one to notice these things, however.
"What's she taking so much interest in you, now?" Ron asked after class, a scowl on his face.
"I honestly don't know," Hermione said. "But I wish she would stop it, it's giving me the creeps."
"Yeah, you almost didn't want to answer that question about moonstones, did you Hermione?" Harry said, and he and Ron laughed.
"Hermione? Not answer a question when asked? Preposterous!" Ron exclaimed.
Hermione playfully punched Ron in the arm, but she later realized that he was right. She felt uncomfortable under Fleur's everlasting gaze, and the way she would stare so intensely into her eyes whenever Hermione decided to make eye contact was unnerving.
The next class assignment was to make a high-level sleeping draught. Hermione was feeling more and more distracted as she felt her Professor's eyes burn into her when she worked, but to her pleasure the potion turned just the right shade of blue that the book described. Happy, she turned the potion in with the rest of the class and made for the door.
Before Hermione could leave, Fleur spoke. "Mademoiselle Granger, may I have a word with you?" Hermione froze in her tracks and wondered what Fleur could want with her. The rest of the class had already left, it was before lunch and everyone was hungry, including Hermione. But she made her way back to the professor's desk, and tentatively asked "Yes?" Fleur gave a small, friendly smile, and then stood up from her desk to match heights with Hermione.
"I wanted to talk with you about your work, lately," Fleur said simply.
Hermione started to get worried, and when she spoke her voice was a little shaky. "What's wrong? Did I do today's potion wrong?" she asked. The Professor thought it was adorable how Hermione worried so.
Fleur made her way around her desk and sat on the front edge, facing Hermione. The younger girl noticed her skirt slid up quite a few inches when she did this, and Fleur didn't bother to fix it. "I know you can do better than this." She reached over onto her desk and picked up Hermione's vial, the contents now a murky brown.
Hermione gasped. "That's supposed to be blue," she said worriedly.
"Yes, Hermione, I'm afraid you forgot to add more powdered turnip root. This sleeping draught was only valid for about five minutes."
Hermione narrowed her brow. "This has never really happened to me before, professor, except for that time with Slughorn…but that was because of the time, I finished this with time to spare…how could I have done this?" Fleur noticed how beautiful and passionate her eyes became when she spoke so worriedly. Such sad, sad eyes.
Barely registering what Hermione had just said, Fleur spoke softly, still knowing what she was about to say would hurt the girl's self esteem.
"I want you to take private lessons with me weekly."
Hermione had made her way to her private Head Girl dorm and now lay in bed, thinking about what had just happened. Fleur had wanted her, the top student of her year, to start taking private lessons. There were many students in the class that were far less skilled in potions than she was (Ron, for example), but Professor Delacour had insisted that she knew Hermione could be doing better than she had been. She stared at the ceiling for a moment.
I know why she's been staring at me so much, Hermione thought, it's to monitor what I've been doing wrong, why the quality of my work has been declining… Hermione was doing just fine in her other classes, but for some reason Potions had been upsetting her. She came upon the conclusion that private lessons were the best thing for her to do, even if the idea of them had hurt her pride.
Meanwhile, Fleur paced around in her dorm. This ineffable feeling inside of her – what was it? She knew Hermione didn't need private lessons, not in the least! Her work may have been declining but it was nothing a talk with her couldn't fix! Hermione was probably stressed out with all of the things that had been going on lately, she was taking a full load of courses. Then why did she offer unneeded private lessons? Why did she yearn to find out more about Hermione, and to spend more time with her? Why did she constantly find her eyes locked on the bushy haired girl's slender form? Why did she find Hermione taking notes so intriguing, her talented little hand working away on the parchment…Fleur had to stop kidding herself. She wanted Hermione Granger.
A/N: My very first fan fiction. How exciting. Well, comments and suggestions would be appreciated, especially suggestions on how I could improve my writing. Hopefully the next chapter will be soon...