Author's Note: Thanks to those who reviewed the last chapter. Every little thing is appreciated!

Chapter 2

"What?"

Harry and Malfoy had both leaped out of their seats in protest as soon as the words were out of Snape's mouth. In surprise, Harry's head snapped towards Malfoy just as Malfoy glared back at him. Well, so much for avoiding Malfoy this year; the git was his new bloody husband! Harry scowled and turned away, the familiar feeling of anger bubbling up in his chest.

"No, sir I can't—"

"There must be some way—"

"I will not work with—"

"You have got to be kidding—"

"Shut up and sit down, or you will both lose a tremendous amount of House points." Snape's gaze was cold.

Harry plopped back down on the bench quickly and from the corner of his eye, saw Malfoy doing the same. He did not dare to look at Snape, who was probably glaring ice cubes by now. Fucking hell.

"I do not care what either of you do or say, your assignment is final," Snape snarled. "I had said that there would be no argument. That goes for everybody else, too—I do not wish to hear one more protest; I hear another and there will be detention. For everyone. Do I make myself clear?"

Gods, Snape was on it today. The students all groaned mutually, but no one else uttered another word of complaint, as was suspected. Snape pursed his lips and raised his parchment again. "Good," he grumbled. "Now sit with your partners and I will proceed to assign…"

Harry glanced over at Malfoy, but the other boy had purposely not moved an inch and did not look as if he were going to. Bloody git. Harry sighed, picking up his things and exchanging sympathetic looks with his friends before stalking over to Malfoy's bench. The Slytherins gave him cool stares as he made his way down the aisle—Merlin, he hated the staring! Harry made a point to sit down at the very opposite end of the bench, where most of the Slytherins had avoided, and wished to be as far from them as possible. Malfoy sat very still, his legs crossed in a proper manner and his pointy face purposefully turned away from Harry. Harry's lip curled; this bench was certainly not big enough for the two of them—this school wasn't big enough for the two of them. Fuck acting like adults. Being in such close range with Malfoy again reminded Harry of the reasons why he had hated the git so much. For one, Malfoy was a stubborn son of a bitch.

Harry seethed inwardly at the man in the front of the room. This was so unfair. Snape must have planned it, the pairing was just too perfect to be a complete accident. The professor may have earned Harry's respect after he had learned of his true loyalties, but Snape would always be an outright bastard. How in the name of Merlin did the man believe that Harry and Malfoy were ever going to actually work with each other? They weren't. It would take the threat of the whole world blowing up into bits before they could even stand to be civil to one another. And that might not even do it.

Harry chanced another peek at Malfoy and found that the other boy was still staring straight ahead with a carefully painted expression of boredom on his face. Harry raised an eyebrow. He knew Malfoy well enough by now to know that the composure was completely fake. Malfoy was furious; it was a trend of his. Harry had noticed that the Slytherin always seemed to use that face whenever he was angry or defeated—like whenever he lost the snitch, yet again, to Harry during a match, or if Harry managed to throw back a particularly biting retort. Ha. Harry couldn't help but feel a bit triumphant knowing that he was the only one who could make Malfoy use that face. And it was quite comical, really, how Malfoy dealt with those sort of things. Like a child who hadn't gotten his way. It was certainly fitting for his personality.

But then again, this tantrum wasn't for nothing—this was actually a pretty big deal. Harry didn't like it, but he knew that he was the only person who could get under Malfoy's skin and Malfoy was the only person who could get under his, and now that they were here, there was no way to stop the chaos that would ultimately ensue. It would be a disaster. Mutual dislike was all that Harry had ever known with Malfoy, and sure, they had survived a war together, but for what? They wouldn't survive this class together as long as they were stuck with this ridiculous assignment. Harry wanted to laugh and cry at the same time, thinking about all the horrible fights that were going to come due to this awful class. For Merlin's sake, they were going to murder each other.

In the midst of his thoughts, Harry had yet to notice Malfoy staring back at him with a quizzical look. Harry blinked and shook his head, suddenly realising that he had been gazing at the blond for over five minutes now. Oh. He gulped and tried to play it off by directing his stare away from the other boy slowly, but Malfoy wasn't fooled. His grey eyes bore into the side of Harry's face with careful scrutiny. Harry tried not to move.

After a few more minutes of awkward avoiding, Malfoy took a different approach and slid down the bench until he was right next to Harry. "Has my face suddenly become an interest of yours, Potter?" he asked, his lip curling up into a sneer.

Harry turned and frowned at him as if he were just noticing him for the first time. "Your face has always been an interest of mine, Malfoy," he spat back, without thinking.

Malfoy raised his eyebrows at that and proceeded to snort in amusement, only it couldn't have been because Malfoys didn't show amusement. Harry decided that if it was at someone else's expense it might be okay, though. "Careful, Potty," Malfoy mocked. "You wouldn't want anybody to get any ideas." He promptly slid back down to the edge of the bench before Harry could even reply, smirking the whole way.

Yeah, definitely amusement at his expense. Harry decided to ignore Malfoy's last comment and glared furiously at his own fingertips instead. Stupid, stupid, stupid. Why was he always saying such stupid things around Malfoy? They had been going at it for years now, and Harry couldn't come up with anything better? Stupid Malfoy. Stupid class.

Snape had just finished the last pairing, observing the students settling down with their partners before speaking again. "Now that you are all partnered up, I will go into more detail with what we are going to be accomplishing this year," he said. "Your partner is going to be the person you will be spending most of your time with and you will get to know them as you would in a real relationship. Ideally, this will create an actual bond."

Harry rolled his eyes and looked around the room for his friends, seeing Hermione glance nervously towards a stoic Blaise Zabini and Ron wide-eyed as Pansy Parkinson smirked at him evilly. Damn it, they were all screwed. How were they going to stick together when they were supposed to hang out with a bunch of Malfoy's friends all the time? Not to mention Malfoy himself... Harry refused to look at his own partner as Snape continued.

"Your first assignment is to spend a week together learning about each other's traits, likes, dislikes, hobbies and whatever other simple-minded paraphernalia you can gather about a person. I expect a full essay about your partner, analysing the things that you have in common and things that you view differently, and how that would or would not make a functional relationship."

Oh yeah, because he and Malfoy were definitely masters of functional relationships. Together, they could conquer the world. Harry rolled his eyes. Brilliant.

"Class is dismissed."

Thank Merlin. Harry got up quickly and dashed over to where Ron and Hermione were already huddled up together. He clutched Ron's shoulder and the other boy looked back at him gravely. "Bloody hell," Ron said, shaking his head. "Slytherins."

Harry nodded in agreement. "Just our luck."

"It's curious, us three getting paired up with them three," Hermione said. "Snape had said that it was random, but that was rather convenient..."

Harry sighed. "I reckon Dumbledore had something to do with it," he remarked. "Anyways, I'm as a good as dead. Bloody Malfoy." Harry wrinkled his nose and watched the blond head disappear out of the room with the other Slytherins. Stupid Malfoy, and his stupid blond hair and his stupid friends. Stupid.

Hermione gave him a pointed look. "He hasn't done anything horrible this year, Harry," she insisted. "He seems to have mellowed out... At least, he hasn't said anything nasty to us."

"To you," Harry corrected, remembering Malfoy's taunting tone from before. "He's already said plenty to me."

Ron snorted as well. "Hermione, it's only the first day back and we hadn't even seen him until this class," he pointed out. "Obviously, Malfoy hasn't had enough time to torture us yet. Don't get your hopes up, he's just the same old mean Malfoy."

Hermione shoved his shoulder in response. She didn't seem to have an argument to that.

Harry sighed. "Yeah, and he'll have the whole year to torture me," he mumbled miserably. The image of Malfoy's smirking face entered his mind and he shook his head to get rid of it. What a nightmare.

~x~

When dinnertime finally rolled around, Harry was starving. There was something distinct about going to classes again for the year that had always been exhausting for him, and Harry hadn't attended them for two now since the start of the war. It was somewhat of a refreshing thing to have that feeling back, though... almost nostalgic in a way. He could hardly believe that it had been so long since he'd attended the Welcoming Feast; it seemed as if it were only yesterday that he had entered this room for the first time.

Harry ambled into the Great Hall, chatting with his friends and expecting to claim his usual spot at the Gryffindor table, but when he glanced over to look for it, he found that the tables had been rearranged to fit another table with banners of all the house colours combined. The normal House tables were situated around it and Harry had to wonder for a moment whether this was yet another ploy at House unity—Dumbledore seemed to be full of those lately. But why would... Harry suddenly caught sight of many of his fellow Eighth Years being escorted over to the colourful new addition, and the wheels began to click in his brain. Oh, fuck me, he thought, grumbling to himself. This was going to be unpleasant.

At that moment, Dumbledore caught his eye and smiled benignly; Harry could tell that he was enjoying himself. Of course he was. Harry shook his head and rubbed his temples. The old Headmaster was definitely going a bit overboard with all of this. Hadn't it been centuries since the Great Hall table layout had been altered? What was the point? Harry sighed. Well, he supposed maybe it wouldn't be so bad if he had to sit with a stray Hufflepuff or two. It might even work, the unity thing, as long as he wasn't seated anywhere uncomfortable—like between Zabini and Parkinson, for example.

Dumbledore began to speak up as soon as the confusion in the hall buzzed to a high that couldn't be ignored. "Students, as you may have noticed, there is indeed an extra table in the Great Hall," he announced. "This will be for the students taking the Marriage Sex and Family course, as for each get to know one another better. Instead of sitting by House, you will be sitting with your partner from the class. And you shall have an assigned seat to ensure that you don't try to sneak out of it." The man stopped to wink at Harry. Harry merely cringed.

Oh dear Merlin, so he did have to sit in an uncomfortable place—right next to Malfoy, in perfect range for the slimy git to choke him or poison him or... or... there were simply too many possibilities. He would be dead in a fortnight! Fuck. Harry wanted to punch something. Was the whole staff trying to kill him? What kind of 'thanks-for-defeating-Voldemort-and-saving-our-ars es' present was this? Not that he wanted one, of course. But still.

Dumbledore beamed and nodded at the whispering, waiting crowd. "If you will, Severus," he said calmly.

Harry turned around to find Snape standing at the end of the table, still looking sour as ever. The man began to assign seats, placing Harry and Malfoy right across from Zabini and Hermione, with Ron and Parkinson a couple of seats down from them. Harry started to breathe a little when he noticed Neville and Luna not too far away and Seamus and Dean close by. At least he wasn't in completely foreign territory, even if he did have to sit next to Malfoy... in fact, as Harry glanced around, he noticed that despite the three Slytherins, all of his friends surrounded him. Yes! Harry felt like smirking; he could practically feel the tension wafting off from Malfoy right about now. The other boy had his main friends, but the rest of the sparse Slytherin population were nowhere to be found. Harry felt a little better by this. At least he had some sort of advantage over Malfoy, if at all—it was as much consolation as he could hope for.

When Harry searched again, he noticed that Ginny had been placed further down the table, and he suddenly felt very sorry for her. She was isolated from the rest of the Gryffindors, and he knew for a fact that it was no fun being alone in this sort of situation—besides, he knew that he could use her lighthearted and brazen disposition at the moment. Sitting next to her was Nott, her partner, and he was currently sporting narrowed eyes and pursed lips as if he'd just tasted a lemon. Harry frowned. For godssake, the Slytherin was a rude prat. Then Harry stole a glance at Malfoy—not that his partner was any better.

Malfoy caught him. "What the fuck are you staring at, Potter?" he snarled.

"Nothing," Harry muttered.

Malfoy sneered at him again, and Harry rolled his eyes, turning away. Maybe the person he should really feel sorry for was himself.