"Oi, Vince," sniggered Goyle from behind the thick, ancient book he had been skimming through. His best friend, Vincent Crabbe, turned from the bookshelf he'd been examining, his mouth slightly open and his eyes alight with dull curiosity.

"What?" He came to stand behind the plush library chair where his friend was curled up and looked over his broad shoulder into the yellowing pages, his eyes following the thick finger to the spell. "A binding spell?"

"Yeah," replied Goyle enthusiastically. "It's like a bonding spell. You cast it on someone and the first person they touch is bound to them."

Crabbe paused for a moment, thinking. "What do you mean; bound?"

Goyle squinted at the page. "Well, the two people who are bound can't go too far away from each other. Like, if they go too far apart, they feel this need to go back together again. And over time, it gets tighter so they need to get closer to each other."

"Sounds funny," smirked Crabbe. "Is it hard to do?"

"Nah. You've just got to say this thing."

"We've got potions next, don't we?"

"Yeah…"

Crabbe's smirk turned into a wide grin. "Draco's in our potions class. Wouldn't it be funny to do it to him?"

Goyle grinned up at the large figure of his friend. "Yeah."

"Instructions and ingredients on the board. You have," Snape glanced at the pocket watch that lay on his classroom desk, "twenty minutes. Go!"

A flurry of activity began on the potions professor's last word as students started to gather equipment and ingredients for the potion of the lesson.

Crabbe and Goyle assembled everything as quickly as they could and grinned at each other as an oblivious Draco Malfoy began to heat the almond oil and dragon eggshell in his cauldron while a bored-looking Blaise Zabini looked on.

"Should we get him bound to Blaise?" whispered Crabbe to Goyle, barely able to contain his excitement at this practical joke they'd been planning since their study period in the library.

Goyle nodded eagerly and arranged his robes around his wand so that only the tip was showing through his sleeve. He pointed the tip at the blond Slytherin and muttered the words from the book, pleased when a barely opaque stream of magic shot towards the target and hit him on his left shoulder. The two large boys nodded at each other as Malfoy absent-mindedly rubbed his shoulder then turned back to the cauldron.

Draco absent-mindedly rubbed his shoulder then looked to see how the potion was progressing. It was now a delicate shade of lilac and smelt faintly of rainwater, just as Snape had explained in the scrawled instructions on the blackboard. From then on, the potion just needed simple work so he left it to Zabini who was gazing aimlessly into the depths of the cauldron, gathered the various beakers he's dirtied while mixing various things and collecting ingredients and headed towards the sink. His heart leapt into his throat as he saw Hermione Granger, one of Potter's friends, also headed towards the sink. Quickly ducking his head down and pretending not to have seen his secret love, Draco continued towards the sink until a bump brought his head up again.

"Watch it, Malfoy!" she gasped as a streak of something green spread across the front of her robes as a result of the head-on collision she'd just had with the boy. Draco stepped back quickly, almost tripping on another student.

He wanted so badly to apologize and wipe down the front of her robes but instead he forced out his standard reply, twisting his face into a sneer, scared that she would recognize his feelings for her. "Sod off, Mudblood."

It hurt him to say that word but he knew that if he didn't the other Slytherins would suspect something and his father would eventually find out and that would not do; Malfoys did not communicate willingly with mudbloods, after all, or so he had been taught.

Forcing back a sigh as Hermione shot daggers at him with those deep eyes of hers and hurried back to Potter and that stupid boy, Weasley, Draco dumped his glassware into the sink and began to carefully rinse it out, completely unaware, apart from a slight sense of discomfort, of the binding spell that now bound Hermione to him and the two rather large boys who guffawed behind his back at what they had done.

"… and then… and then…" Ron tried to finish but the laughter that interrupted his every sentence and left him breathless wouldn't allow it.

"And then what, Ron?" Harry asked, a grin spreading across his face as he leaned forwards in his armchair, the flaring fire in the Gryffindor common room grate illuminating his features.

"And then… he…" the red-head once again collapsed in giggles, squirming in his own chair as Harry began to join in with Hermione watching them with vague amusement as she settled a large volume of 'Durmstrang through the Ages' on her knees. The book had been a gift that her dear friend, Viktor Krum, had sent her for her fifteenth birthday just weeks ago.

Out of curiosity, she flipped to the back of the book where the history of Durmstrang was the most recent. Sure enough, a photograph of Viktor was printed just a few pages before the end with a paragraph about his achievements that did his school proud. She sighed as he grinned and winked from the page, his fur cloak gently moving in the breeze. If only he could have stayed at Hogwarts with her. She missed the intimate companionship of a boyfriend. Of course she had Ron and Harry but it just wasn't the same. Ron blurted out the remainder of the sentence that he had been attempting for the last fifteen minutes and both boys burst out in a renewed round of laughter. Smiling fondly, she closed the book and observed them for a moment before standing.

"I'm going to bed," she announced and the boys settled down for a moment to each smile and bid her goodnight before Ron choked out another joke and the two were once again wriggling in their seats, overcome with mirth.