Title: Slytherins Through and Threw

Author: nend0roidgal

Rating: K

Summary: Pansy and Goyle exploit Malfoy's weakness for perfection; Crabbe is none too pleased.

"Merlin's Beard! Did you even read this?!" Malfoy scoffed with horror as he stared down at the parchment Goyle was sloppily scribbling his Potion's essay onto. Goyle looked up at him with mild confusion drawn across his wide, blockish face.

"Wha..?"

"You wrote 'threw.' 'You can abtain dragons blood threw potion shops.' My God! We had the same tutor growing up! How is your grammar, not to mention your spelling, so atrocious?!"

Goyle shook his head slowly, his look of confusion growing even more pronounced.

"And there's too many 'o's on this. 'Too measure out,'" Malfoy read, pointing at the mistake. "'Too' means 'also,' 'as well,' 'exceedingly.' You only need one 'o' here."

Malfoy shuffled through his school bag and pulled out his correcting quill with red ink that disappeared when the mistakes were corrected in the appropriate manner. He snagged the paper out of the thuggish boy's hands without asking and began to furiously peruse the essay and mark word after word, sentence after sentence until he threw up his arms in defeat.

"I'm going to have to rewrite this entire thing. It's… astonishing," he said with absolute awe. "I didn't think it was possible for anyone to be this… this terrible at writing."

He turned to look at Goyle with mix of humor and pity.

"Next time," he reminded Goyle, "do this the night before. At this rate I'm going to have to skip lunch just to fix this horrendous mess."

With that said, Malfoy neatly replaced all of his things into his bag along with the rolled up parchment and headed off to the library. When he'd disappeared through the Great Hall doors, Crabbe turned in his seat and frowned at Goyle whilst shooting him a knowing look.

"You really shouldn't do that."

"What?" Goyle asked with a laugh and a shrug as he pulled out a library book from his bag and started to read. Crabbe narrowed his eyes and set down his fork. Eventually the cold look grew so intense, Goyle was forced to look up.

"I don't see what the problem is. It gives him something to do and I don't have to do my homework. Besides, he likes thinking he's better than us. Serves him right."

Pansy, who was sitting across from them, laughed.

"Shouldn't you do something?" Crabbe grumbled. "He's your boyfriend after all."

"And why should I do that? Besides, I don't particularly like writing essays myself. If you let him see yours, I'm sure he'd be absolutely beside himself if he didn't 'help' you with it."

"I can do my own homework, thank you. I'll take my well deserved A."

"It's not like he writes O level work for us," Goyle assured him. "The most he'll do is an A. He writes it the way he thinks we'd write it. He's even perfected our handwriting. Can you believe it? Honestly it's a little offensive at times, but I'll let him think what he wants. Gives me more time to be with my girl, Austen, here," he said smugly while waving his book.

"Ugh, those romance novels again?" Crabbe groaned with disgust as he looked at the battered copy of Pride and Prejudice in the other's thick hand. "Wasn't she a Muggle?"

"You - Just!" Goyle's whole face turned an alarming shade of purple. "But - Mr. Darcy!" he finally burst out as though that somehow explained everything.

"They're really great books," Pansy snapped at Crabbe, her arms crossed firmly over her chest. When Crabbe rolled his eyes, she said, "You're a boy. You just wouldn't understand."

"I'm a boy!" Goyle exclaimed as though she needed reminding.

She looked at him. "Well, true, but you're sort of…" She eyed him once over and frowned before making a face.

"What's that supposed to mean?"

"Anyway," Pansy said, turning back to Crabbe and ignoring the miffed and humorously confused Goyle, "Are you going to tell Draco we've been exploiting him?"

Her tone wasn't really threatening per say; it was more like asking whether or not he'd be willing to tell a young child what really happened to their favorite dog when it didn't come home one day.

"No," Crabbe said slowly, "I suppose not."

"Good," Pansy said with a somewhat evil grin on her lips. She turned and looked at Goyle. "And you. I didn't mean to imply anything, not that much needs to be said…"

"What?!"

Crabbed tuned them out as they started to bicker back and forth loudly about things he didn't quite understand (Mr. Darcy among them) and went back to eating his breakfast. Normally Crabbe didn't like keeping things from his friends, but to be fair, Malfoy did sort of deserve it. He was far too arrogant for his own good and could use a couple of blows to his ego once in a while. Maybe one day Crabbe would mention it, but for now he'd keep mum on the matter. Hell, maybe tomorrow he'd show Malfoy that Herbology essay he'd been 'struggling' with all weekend.

He felt himself grin a bit manically as he dug into his massive helping of scrambled eggs and sausage, his friends' voices ambient noise in the background as he imagined how easy the rest of the year would be.

End.

How do you bend a controlling, arrogant narcissist to your will? Easy! Indulge their feelings of superiority and they'll do your bidding any day of the week!

Hope you enjoyed!