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Simon stalked into the dormitory and drop-kicked his schoolbag into his desk. Baz was already present and looked up at Simon's uncharacteristic display of disrespect towards his schoolwork. "Good day?" he inquired with mock cordiality.
Simon glared. He was not in the mood to deal with his maddening roommate. "Don't get me started. Three major tests, and Dingdiff and Branner both assigned essays due in the next two days on top of regular homework. And I haven't started on anything because of that stupid detention!" He froze. Revealing his woes to Baz likely meant Simon would hear no end of ridicules for weeks.
Oddly, Baz made none of the anticipated derisive remarks. "Better get started then, haven't you? You'd best not keep me up late with your poor time-management."
All right, one threat and an unfair accusation. But at least Baz hadn't left the room.
Simon plopped down in his chair and chose to do Dingdiff's essay first. He scratched the title onto a piece of paper: Goblin Feuds and their Impact on Magickal History.
Right. A good start.
He stared at the paper for another moment and then dropped his pen on the desk. Simon racked his brain to recall anything about goblin feuds from Dingdiff's awfully dreary classes but found nothing. There was no history book to help him, either: he'd lost it earlier in the year and hadn't bothered to tell anyone. After a few minutes, he'd managed to write a feeble first paragraph with no real thesis.
Sighing at his poor work, he allowed himself to look up and found Baz watching him with an indiscernible visage.
Annoyed, Simon turned back to his essay, digging his pen into the paper with unnecessary force. He fancied himself around halfway through when Baz spoke from behind Simon's swivel chair. "Lovely work. Great title, a nice introduction, oh yes, and these transitions, just marvelous. A compelling argument here, good work, wonderful examples."
"Shut your trap, Pitch. I've got better things to do than deal with you," Simon said angrily. Baz's provocations seemed less bearable today than usual.
"If my assistance isn't welcome…." Baz suggested loftily.
Simon pushed this aside. "Assistance? Yeah, right. Your idea of assistance is to scratch the entire bloody thing out and stuff it down the toilet!" His insults were substandard today, perhaps because of his stress levels. The tiny, logical part of him reminded him that he should not be picking fights with his roommate when he had essays to write, but somehow the temptation was too strong.
"Well," Baz began, "the first recorded goblin war in history was in 1013, not 1113. You said that the goblin Hekrud started Hekrud's War, but actually it was the peasants under his rule that initiated it. And the goblin tribes have been divided since the reign of Rolk, not Rakyin."
Simon stared at him.
"You might want to get rid of that sentence. Move this one over here instead. Oh, and you should probably add that mages and goblins haven't always been in disagreement, but only since their King Troblag attacked a magickal village in 1745." Baz procured a pen from nowhere and began to mark Simon's essay up thoroughly with red ink.
"You'd better not be ruining all my work," Simon warned, but it was an empty threat, issued only because he felt silly sitting there while Baz did his work.
Baz ignored this and continued to mumble under his breath.
Simon, now fully registering what was happening, could not believe it. Why in the name of Merlin was Baz editing his essay? Did he want Simon to get good marks, or was this some sort of prank?
The boy was not yet finished with his musings when Baz shoved the sheet toward him. Red marks covered the paper. Feeling rather miffed, Simon took it and read the modified essay through. Hardly a single original sentence was still in place, but the new writing could still be mistaken for Simon's own. Astounded, he slowly peered up at Baz, who was once again eying him with that maddeningly blank expression. "What…." But before he could voice a coherent thought, a wave of anger flooded him. What made Baz think he could completely rewrite Simon's essay? Who did he think he was, stomping in and not even giving Simon a chance? This emotion was as unfounded as his logic was flawed, and Simon forced himself to calm down. He hadn't wanted to write that essay, after all, and it had admittedly been very poor. Just breathe, he advised himself. Control yourself.
Baz stretched. "What am I doing? I think we can both see that I just finished rewriting your essay. Why am I doing it? Good question, that. I'm sure I'll find a reason."
"Maybe," Simon snapped, "it's because you felt in the mood to be yelled at for your infuriating habit of making annoying comments?"
Crowley curse it. Again he'd said too much. Simon made a mental note to mind his mouth around Baz.
Once again, however, Baz let it slide. "Look, Snow, do you want me to undo all the edits and let you turn in that mess or are you going to thank me for taking the time to improve your Magickal History marks?"
Simon was taken aback by this. Naturally he would keep the new essay, but before he could think of something to say, Baz cut him off. "Too much to ask of you? What a shame. Now let me do the other one. About body-altering spells, was it?" And he whipped another piece of paper out of his desk.
Simon shook his head as though to dispel what was surely a hallucination. Basilton Pitch was doing his, Simon's, homework.
So maybe his first essay was bad. Maybe Baz was acting on some impulse to fix his work. But now he was composing the second paper. Did Baz think Simon's writing was so awful that he shouldn't give it a chance? Did he believe Simon had such bad marks that someone had to intervene? Did he feel that there was no point in even putting down two words of this essay before Baz swooped in and did the entire thing, as he was now?
Well. That was rude.
In a haze of anger, Simon leapt off the bed and yanked the paper from Baz's hands.
"What in Crowley's name are you doing?" Baz demanded.
Simon's vision cleared and his actions registered. "Oh, erm… right." Looking at the floor, he shuffled over to the desk and handed the paper back to Baz. He wanted to hit himself for what he'd nearly done. Of course he was glad that he Baz was doing his work, for his result would certainly be better than Simon's own. Upon seeing the bemused look his roommate wore, the annoyance in Simon's belly grew stronger. Not only had he nearly caused himself to write another essay, he'd also made a fool of himself in front of Baz. "Oh, just write the essay, won't you?" he groaned.
"Careful, Snow, pushiness gets you nowhere." With a final look that twisted the knife in Simon's gut, Baz picked up the pen and turned back to work.
Simon watched him as he wrote, forgetting entirely the Form up! spell that he still needed to practise and the chapter on Organizational Magic in his textbook he still needed to read. His mind was focused solely on the mystery before him. What was Baz playing at, doing Simon's assignments? Surely he had homework to do himself? Nobody could work fast enough to get all their homework done in the two hours Simon had been in detention, could they?
Apparently Baz could work very fast, however, as he set his pen down within twenty minutes. "Take a look," he offered.
Simon gingerly took the essay from Baz's hand. The essay was perfect. There was not a single misspelling to be found, not a comma was out of place. And the content…Baz's points were far more thoughtful and relevant than anything Simon had considered.
Why? That was the million-quid question, indeed. Simon could not see a single explanation for Baz's out-of-character behaviour this evening.
"Blimey…" Simon could not help but voice his amazement. "Why did you do this? I mean, haven't you got other stuff to do? And how do you write so fast?" he babbled. "Why did you help me?"
Baz didn't betray any outward emotion, but Simon saw in his eyes a hint of… sadness?
The dark-haired boy rose from his seat and lit on the edge of his bed. "I thought I might save you some time to work on your immense load of homework, but it seems you can't even take that hint," he said with a look at Simon's bag, which hadn't been touched since he unceremoniously deposited it at the side of the desk not an hour ago. "Now I suggest you get a move on before my entire enterprise goes to waste and you end up completing your work later than you would have done otherwise. Don't think I enjoy falling asleep to the sound of your ballpoint on paper."
There was something different in the way Baz delivered his words, something that made Simon feel a little guilty. Baz seemed almost stung. But what was he to do?
You could thank him, whispered a small voice in his head. It wasn't very tall an order, after all, and it was the least he could do after Baz did his work. Simon hesitated, though, because it was just so unconventional for the two of them. What would Baz think?
Simon shook his head slightly. Never mind what Baz thought. He'd made plenty of blunders already; if Baz wasn't disturbed by them, he shouldn't take any more the wrong way.
Taking a deep breath, Simon began his statement. "Er, thanks. For writing my essays. I-" He faltered. Why did he sound so lame? Another try, then. "Thank you. I really appreciate you doing my homework in your free time. Merlin knows mine would have been terrible." Emboldened by his rather more eloquent thank-you, Simon tried for a small smile, which was, after a moment, returned by Baz.
Simon's heart caught. Never in his memory had Baz directed a smile at him. All these years and not one. It was such a little thing –just a smile– but Simon felt in that moment as though his world had been suddenly illuminated, like a room that didn't feel dark until someone walked in and turned on the light.
Baz broke him out of his reverie by riffling through his schoolbag and withdrawing a planner. "Here… for tomorrow you still need to read about and practise Reversal Magic, and draw a diagram of a Four-Fanged Snarabree."
"Yeah, that sounds about right," Simon sighed in confirmation.
"Sorry, but I can't help you with that. Even I find it hard to replicate your ineptitude in art." If Simon's ears were functioning, Baz's slights now carried a different undertone, one of amicable banter as opposed to scorn.
"Right then. I'll just get to work." Simon hauled his textbook onto his bed and opened up to chapter four: Reversal Magic. He couldn't help but sneak an occasional look at Baz, who lay on his bed and stared at the ceiling. He appeared to be deeply pondering something, and Simon wondered if his roommate was experiencing the same sensation as he.
An hour later he packed his wand away for the final time that night, having spent the last half-hour prodding it at a group of plastic figures on his bed. He had to set them up in a disorderly fashion, then try to get them to line up with the Form up! incantation. It was tricky, and he'd only managed to get the figures to stand up.
Now he got out another piece of blank paper and moved to his desk, as sketching animals was hard to do sprawled on a comforter. Baz was right: Simon's drawing skills were abysmal, but eventually he managed to create something vaguely recognizable as a member of the Snargabree family.
A loud yawn from Baz startled Simon, causing his pen to skid across the sketch. "Oh, sorry," Baz said thickly. "Here- Take that back!" The line of ink vanished.
Simon rolled his eyes. "You did that just to show off, didn't you?"
Baz rolled onto his stomach. "You know," he yawned, "falling asleep to the sound of your ballpoint… might not be… all that bad…."