Carefully Neville prodded the plant in front of him; he needed the tender inner flesh of the plant to remain unscathed and the particular plant when it was being harvested would often times release a poison into itself to kill the tender meat so that it was rendered unusable for potions. Next to him his table mate was viciously stabbing his plant and Neville winced, an imagined cry emitting from the plant as the thick creamy substance that the plant emitted slipped sluggishly down it's greenish-grey skin.

Somewhere across the room Professor Sprout was keeping watch on those that didn't have the slightest idea on what they were doing but because of his proficiency in the class he was often left in charge of those at his table and more often than not was call upon to do tutoring for the OWLS. Neville didn't mind, he loved Herbology and planned on one day taking over the class, but for right now he was happy just being the star pupil.

All too soon the class was over and he was cleaning up, lovingly adding water to his plant and placing it on a shelf that was getting plenty of sunlight. As he headed back to the table he spotted the mangled mess of the plant his table and he sighed, picking up the pieces and emptying the pot out behind the greenhouse; there was no way that the plant was going to bounce back and he felt silly as he shed a tear.

Gathering his books headed back into the school, it was time for lunch and he was looking forward to just relaxing before potions.

Draco sneered as he watched from the doorway, Neville take the plant that Malfoy had mangled out back to dispose of it. He didn't care about the damned things, and the class was particularly boring to him. He should have probably taken it more seriously, but they were only plants and he hardly saw what was so horrible about entertaining himself with one once in a while--leaving it in shreds if he so wished. They were just plants, it wasn't as if they felt anything anyway.

The blond headed to the Great Hall for lunch with the rest of the students, and sat himself in his usual chair at the Slytherin table. He was mimicking Neville, boo-hooing in an exaggerated way which he and most of the Slytherin table found to be amusing.

"Do you know what Neville did after Herbology today? He took his plant out behind the greenhouse and gave it a good snog. The poor thing wilted and died of fright!" Draco and his two thuggish bodyguards laughed merrily at Draco's joke. "I'm Neville Longbottom, but if you ask me in five minutes, I might have forgotten. And don't hurt my pretty flower or I'll cry about it--booo hoooo."

The Slytherin table errupted into more laughter, and Draco took a self-congratulatory bow at his own genius and wit.

Neville heard the laughter from the other table nand judging from the looks he was getting it was probably at his expense. It was nothing new for him to be the butt of every Slytherin's joke but it still didn't take the sting away. He took another few bites of his meal before pushing it away and standing, straightening his robes and gathering his books.

Looking at the large hour glass on the wall he seen that he still had around twenty mintues before potions class started. With a sigh he left the hall, heading down to the dungeons to wait for class to start. He sat down indian style on the floor and opened his herbology book, reading about the different uses for the plant he'd harvested in class and how they impacted potion making.

Draco made his way to Potions class by himself, having looked around for Goyle and Crabb later and finding them nowhere. He had told them specifically to wait for him, but they were obviously too stupid to comprehend even a simple instruction. Annoyed at having been left alone Draco slumped against the opposite wall in the hallway, looking pouty. There was no one there yet but Neville, sitting on the floor with his nose stuck in his Herbology book. Draco watched him quietly, looking through his lashes in a way which he hoped was discrete.

After a few moments, Draco glanced up and down the hallway, scanning it multiple times to make sure no one was approaching from either way or ready to pop out of a classroom. He was considering speaking to Neville, though the thought alone made him feel awkward. He had planned at some point in the near future to bully Neville into doing his Herbology homework for him, as he was doing poorly in that class and did not wish to disappoint his father with poor marks. However, his usual sidekicks were nowhere around, and so the bullying of Neville Longbottom would have to wait. Without his beefy protection he was too afraid to do so. He wasn't specifically afraid of Neville, that would have been silly. Draco was afraid that on his own, the students he regularly picked on would become brave and lash out at him--and humiliation and physical pain were two things that Draco did not take well at all.

The moments until Potions ticked away, and Draco knew that at any moment, more students would be waiting outside the door, not as if they were eager to attend Professor Snape's class, but because few dared to be late to it as they would receive strict consequences from the Head of Slytherin House.

Draco pushed off of the wall, took a step towards Neville, and then looked once more around to make for certain he and Neville were alone. He crossed the hallway and stood near Neville, looking down at him and feeling awkward. Was Draco actually going to ask nicely for Neville to help him in Herbology? The thought of such a thing made Draco's lip curl and his gray eyes narrow. He couldn't, it would completely ruin his reputation.

"N-Neville?" Draco forced a sneer, but it looked anything but natural or threatening. It simply looked like he was trying too hard, which was usually the case anyway, but with Crabb and Goyle at his side, his ruse came easier to him. Without them he lacked the confidence to pull it off as well as he would have liked. He even had used Neville's first name, not a snipped 'Longbottom' with a hint of jeering laughter behind it. It had come out 'Neville' and stuttered and horrible.

He'd heard the sound of footfalls on the ancient stone flooring and had peeked up from his book. Inwardly Neville sighed, was he never going to catch a break from the constant bullying and put downs. As if being a Slytherin is soo much better than a Griffyndor. He muttered to himself. My bloodlines are just as pure as Malfoy's he needs to go take a long walk off a short pier. At least Goyle and Crabbe aren't with him, so I guess someone somewhere must like me even a little bit. Quietly Neville lowered his head and waited for Draco to say something, anything at all to him.

When no jeers or jabs or any snarky comments reached him Neville turned a page in his book and when he did he chanced a look up; his eyes falling back to the freshly turned page when he seen that Draco was looking at him and not throwing any rude taunts. Something inside of Neville immediately went on the alert; this was out of Draco's character and as such was to be treated with high skepticism. He was sure that somewhere Draco's goons were waiting to pounce on him and make his face a bloody mess if he dared to speak to the darling of Slytherin house.

"N-Neville?"

The stuttering of his name had him looking up at the standing blonde with wide, owlish eyes. He'd thought that his ears had deceived him, the sound was so different from what he was used to hearing that he had to shake his head and close his book as he continued to look up.

"Yes?" It was the only word he could muster and yet it sounded loaded and wary as it left his lips.

Draco tried to look as menacing as he could, but he didn't really feel it without his back up.

"It's rather surprising to know that you're good for much anything, N--Longbottom, but it hasn't escaped my attention that you do well with all those boring plants." Draco wanted to chew on his lower lip, but forced himself not to. He flicked a strand of platinum hair off of his forehead, and knelt so he was face to face with Neville, still attempting to sneer at him, although it was really nothing more than a small frown. "We have a parchment due for next class on the structure of..."

Draco glanced to his left, having heard some approaching footsteps. It was Crabb and Goyle, and a few other Slytherins. Draco didn't finish. Instead, he grabbed Neville book and stood up, using his wand to levitate the book just inches below the tall ceiling.

"But you won't be able to do it without your book, will you? Can't be top at anything anymore if I shred it to pieces."

Crabb and Goyle now flanked Draco's sides, looking smug and amused by Draco's sudden antics.

Neville looked up at his levitating book and then back down at Draco. He'd finally had enough, he'd put with Draco's foul taunting and bullying for four long years and it finally hit a head. He cocked back his fist and landed it square to Draco's family jewels.

It gave him some satisfaction to watch the blonde double over and he reached out in time to catch the book before it dropped on Draco's head. At Draco's side the goon twins were looking at him as if they couldn't make out what he'd done and for the moment he was glad, it meant that until Draco started screaming that he'd be safe.

He'd intended to run but at that time the door to the potions room swung open and Snape stood in the doorway. Looking down Neville hurried past him and took his usual table in the back and waited for the class to start; certain that it was only a matter of time before points were taken from Griffyndor for the way he'd acted.

Draco collapsed to the floor, his hands clutching his damaged goods as tears streamed down his face, which had gone even paler than usual. A choked sob escaped him, and he would have loved to scream at Crabb and Goyle for standing there like a couple of good for nothing lumps of dung--but he couldn't cough out any words. All he could do was curl up on the floor and look up at Snape through watering eyes.

Snape shooed the rest of students into his classroom, scowling after Neville. He then looked down to Draco.

"When you're able, I suggest you peel yourself off of the floor, and take your seat in my classroom." Snape stated, and then swept into said room snapping at Neville, spouting off something degrading about Neville's potion skills, and then deducting points from Gryffindor.

Draco took his time, slowly sitting up and wincing at the pain. He wiped the tears off of his face, humiliated about all of what had just happened. He really didn't want to walk into potions now. Everyone had seen and watched him crumple into a whining, injured heap onto the floor--at the hands of Neville Longbottom none the less.

With a deep breath, Draco gingerly got to his feet. He moved carefully towards the door, brushing his robes. He entered the classroom and looked around for an empty seat. He was further annoyed to see that the only remaining seat was next to Neville. No one wanted to share a table with Neville in potions, as he always managed to do something hideous to their assignments. Draco ground his teeth together to keep from mumbling curses as he sat down next to Neville, and threw open his potions book in a huff. The cover made a loud 'slap' sound against the table. Draco sniffed and wiped at his eyes once more, a few tears left clinging to his whitish lashes.

Neville couldn't contain the head desk that happened; his forehead striking the scarred with enough force to leave a red imprint on the smooth skin. Why do you hate me so much? What have I ever done to deserve this?

The sound of the slap from Draco's book made him jump a bit and he looked over to see the proud boy wiping at his eyes. A dark voice inside of him laughed, said it served him right. However that voice was extremely small and Neville opened his mouth to apologize but never got the chance to as Snap started firing off the directions for that day's potion.

Neville paled and scrambled for his paper and pencil, hastily writing them down in the hopes of getting his potion right this time. In his haste he knocked over his ink pot and he groaned as it left inky fingers across the desk trailing towards him and dripping down to stain his pants.

"Great.." He mumbled as he used his robe to sop up most of the mess.

Draco decided to pay no attention to Neville for the rest of the class, even if his cauldron exploded. He heard the rattle of Neville's ink bottle against the desk and from the sound of Neville's mumbling voice he assumed the ink had been spilled. He chanced a glance over, and saw the black pool spreading over the desk towards Draco's things, some of it dripping off the table and onto the dungeon floor.

With a glare Draco scooted himself and his things as close to the end of the table that he could get, which also meant as far away from Neville and the spreading ink as possible. Draco hardly wanted his things printed and smeared, nor did he want to be made victim to whatever other dunder-headed bouts of clumsiness Neville would no doubt display throughout the entire class.

Draco said nothing to Neville as he began to prepare some of the ingredients for their potion, splitting open some sort of brown pod which oozed out a purple, foul smelling sort of goo. Draco hated it. Normally he'd sit with someone else whom he would make do the gross things that he didn't want to dirty his hands with, but right now that wasn't possible. If he forced Neville to cut open the pods, he would probably do it wrong and then they'd just have to start over...and besides, his earlier confrontation with Neville had gone severely wrong. For now it looked like Draco was going to have to settle on cutting his own pods and making disgusted faces at the odorous purple ooze.

With the worst of the mess contained Neville grabbed a pod and with his knife sliced into it; holding it over the cup and watching as it dripped down, the foul stench nothing to him as a few of the plants that Professor Sprout had him working with smelled similar. Soon he had three pods worth of goo collected and he set the cup to the side and started on the next task; finely chopping the iridescent root from the plant that the pods had come from.

It was still amazing to Neville that the the different parts of the plant could be used for different things and that each had their own magical properties. The next on the list was to crush the dried husks of locust; something that was easy easy enough to do. It wasn't the actual prep of the ingredients that gave Neville trouble it was the putting them together.

As the class wore on Neville finished his prep and stared at his cauldron; he didn't fear the inanimate object but his hand did shake as he reached for it. Once he almost dropped it and his face burned red as a couple people from other desks turned to look at the source of the noise. After a moment he managed to get his fire lit and very carefully started to add the ingredients just like the directions stated; his wooden spoon held at the ready so when the five minute mark hit he could stir.

He was so preoccupied with his work that he even managed to put Draco to the back of his mind and for the first time he felt as if he had the class under control and wouldn't be bringing any harm to those around him.

The rest of potions passed thankfully without any sort of mishap. In fact, the rest of the day was pretty uneventful. Draco hardly felt like jeering at anyone after having Neville's fist to his goods. He was still surprised that Longbottom had actually done it, he really didn't think Neville had a brave bone in his body, and yet Neville had proved that theory wrong in a very convincing way.

What else really burned Draco up about that whole incident, was that before Crabb and Goyle had showed up and ruined the moment, he had simply been going to make an arrangement with Neville to copy his parchment that was due next Herbology class, about the properties of bark from some stupid old tree, and how to properly harvest and use it. Now Draco was sitting in the library looking as pouty and annoyed as possible as he reluctantly flipped through a couple of books that were sure to put him to sleep instead of getting his homework completed.

Draco scribbled a few lines onto his blank roll of parchment, leafed through a few more books, and at some point fell asleep atop the stack. When Draco woke up, he was horrified to realize that he had slept the whole night through and it was now morning. No one had bothered to wake him and make him go to bed, no one had even bothered to look for him when he didn't turn up in the Slytherin dorm that night, not even Crabb and Goyle. Draco hastily gathered his things, and stormed out of the library. He rudely bumped into anyone in his way, snapping at a few terrified first-years, channeling the hurt and loneliness he felt into anger that lashed out at any target available. In his head he was half plotting the old fall-back: threaten with Daddy. Maybe after class he could stick behind and bully Sprout with threats of 'Don't you know who my Father is' and hope that it had the desired affect on his slumping Herbology grade.

He ran his fingers through his pale hair to straighten it and quickly made his way towards Herbology class. He'd slept so late he'd even missed breakfast, and now he'd be starving long before lunch rolled around. He day couldn't possibly get any worse. He pushed past the other students milling around outside the greenhouse, purposefully stepping on a few toes, and with a grumble took his usual spot with an expression on his face that was even more sour than usual.

After a good night's sleep Neville started Herbology with a ghost of a smile on his face. He stopped for a moment and chatted with a few of the other students that were milling around the entrance of the greenhouse before he entered; sighing when he seen Draco sulking over at their table; the look more twisted and sour than he could ever remember seeing it being before.

He looked around to see if he could find a better table mate but any of the open tables were with students that were as bad as he was in potions. Shaking his head he moved over and deposited his books on the table, laying his parchment on top of the stack before going and checking on his plant. The soil was a little dry so he added some water and then turned it so that the other side could get some sun.

He moved back over to his table and took his seat as Professor Sprout took her place in front of the class; clapping her hands and requesting the nights homework. He handed his to her and flipped his book open as he waited for the class to begin; ignoring the grumbling coming from besides him.

Draco grumbled and sneered his way through class. Neville's plant looked perfect, while he'd had to start off on a new one after he'd mutilated the one from last class. He hadn't the patience or interest for these damn things and he wanted more than anything to just swipe Neville's plant onto the floor and watch the bits of broken pottery, dirt, and uprooted plant spray over the greenhouse floor. He didn't do it, however.

The moment class was over Draco cornered Professor Sprout and made demands of her and threatened her with his Father but she would not be bullied by a spoiled student. Instead, she stopped Neville just as he made it to the door, and summoned him over.

"Neville, Mr. Malfoy is unimpressed with his grade in my class, as am I." She gave Draco a rather stern look which he frowned at. "Draco, you will not demand or threaten a mark out of me that you don't deserve. If you wish to improve your Herbology grade, then you may have use of the greenhouse after classes and complete extra assignments." And now she turned to Neville. "Perhaps Neville, my top student, would be willing to tutor you, but that is completely up to him. I'm sure Neville, that you would enjoy the extra time with the plants."

Draco looked like he had been slapped in the face. This was not exactly how he had wished things to go. Why would he want to spend any extra time with plants, or with Neville Longbottom?

Neville's face paled as he blinked a couple of times at Professor Sprout; the extra time with the plants did sound like a good deal, but only if he could feed Draco to one of the Snargaluff's.

"Uh...well..."

"Think of this as your way to help a fellow student Neville; to bolster them as you were bolstered not too long ago."

Professor Sprout took the wind from him with that low blow and Neville dropped his head. Even if he'd rather see Draco drowning in the Black Lake; failing the one teacher that he'd really had a bond with was tantamount to going and suddenly saying that he was Lord Voldemort's number one supporter.

He looked over at Draco and the affronted look was almost enough to make him say no but he swallowed the word down and nodded his head; speaking through gritted teeth.

"I'd be glad to help Professor Sprout. Besides I can get a start on repotting the Venomous Tentacula." He looked over at Draco, sighing as he spoke. "I'll be here tonight after dinner if you're serious."

Professor Sprout beamed and patted him on the shoulder. "That's wonderful. Fifty extra points to Griffyndor for improving interhouse relations and helping a fellow student."

Neville smiled weakly and mumbled his thanks before leaving the greenhouse and heading to lunch; screaming at himself mentally for taking on the challenge of tutoring Draco Malfoy. It spelt trouble and Neville had the feeling that he'd spend more time in the hospital wing with random hexes than actual tutoring but he'd at least try.

Lunch was a quiet affair, he listened to Ron and Harry joking around with Ron's brothers and answered a question for Hermione about the use of wolfsbane and even laughed a little with Ginny over something silly that she'd over heard in the halls. Soon however it was time for potions and he pushed away from the table; gathering his things and heading down to the dungeons.

Just before heading down the long hallway he changed his mind and headed back to towards the Library; one day with potions wouldn't kill him and he reasoned that he needed the time to mull over the tutoring plan he was going to put in place for Draco.