A Far Less Ambitious Project.
Disclaimer: Not mine; it's all J. K. Rowling's.
She sat down, book thumping heavily on her lap as she did so. "Right," she said, "I was thinking we could do that elemental one; pyromancy. What do you think? The other choices seemed quite interesting too, but this is new territory for me, well not totally as we've worked it with it before briefly in Potions and the rest but never on its own as a study. I think pyromancy will be the best to start with, I don't think many others will be doing it but that gives us all the more access to stuff in the l-"
"I don't like you, Midgen."
She snapped her mouth shut, stunned by his bluntness but recovered herself soon enough.
"I was aware of this you know, Malfoy."
He smirked and leant back on the chair, "Just checking, with people like you, one can never be sure."
Deep breath. Count to ten. Resist the urge to push the chair he was sitting on back a little more so he'd tip up. "Well now that you've made it clear, perhaps you could share your thoughts on the project?"
He shrugged and she tried not to hit him round the head with the book, "Whatever, between my brains and..." he looked at her in a way that made her skin crawl, "well, my brains, I'm sure we'll manage."
She bit her lip, holding back mentioning how she was actually rather good at Charms thank you very much, and sighed instead. "Why did Flitwick pair us up again?"
"Because he's a Sadist, of course. You just know he keeps a collection of black leather in the back." And there was that skin crawling sensation again.
"Thank you for that, Malfoy. You really are quite excellent at giving me memories I'll have to block if I ever want to lead a normal life."
He seemed unimpressed, "Wow, praise from a Mudbood. I shall treasure it always."
She gave into the urge this time and even laughed as he succumbed to gravity. It wasn't often you saw a Malfoy flail.
-
"I'm bored," he whined.
"How is it you're bored? You haven't actually done anything yet." Pyromancy was hard, and rather tiring and it wasn't very helpful when your supposed partner did bugger all but watch you struggle all day.
"Yes, but I thought it would be interesting. That just looks difficult."
He did seem to notice her grip tighten more than a little on the tome she was holding though judging by his put-upon sigh and subsequent movement.
"Fine. What am I supposed to do?"
"Pay attention usually. I've only been telling you how for the last hour and a half."
"But it was boring, and you have this awful droney voice; it was a miracle I stayed awake to be honest."
The book made a lovely 'Thump!' as it bounced off his head.
-
"What are you doing, Malfoy?" she asked, trying to look over the covered pieces of parchment.
"Work."
"Pfft, right. Seriously, we need to get busy, it's all useless."
He thrust the parchment into her and she snapped her mouth shut, stunned by his bluntness but looked at the thing anyway.
It was the project, mostly anyway, all nice and written up.
"Are you ill?" she asked.
"No."
"Then why do this? Changed your mind on the not liking me front or something?"
"Hardly."
"Then why?"
His words were stated plainly, as if talking to a small child.
"Because every time I seem to even attempt this thing with you, I end up in the hospital wing as a result. I would like a grade on this at some point during my lifetime, however brief it might be if you keep on attacking me and I know Sprout's got a soft spot for you so retribution's out of the question."
She thought on this for a moment but was interrupted before she could speak.
"Oh and Goyle said he'd murder me if I even pondered about thinking about getting my own back personally. This for Gregory was rather a long and convoluted speech so I'm inclined to take him seriously."
She seemed to be rather happy with that answer and handed him his parchment back, along with one extra piece.
"What's this?" he asked.
"Flitwick changed the subjects for the projects, like I said, everything's useless."
"Midgen, I really, really don't like you."
"I know," she said happily, as she flounced away, his expression captured in her memory forever.