Someday, I will own something of great value. This will not be Harry Potter, as J K Rowling already owns it.
The Meeting in the Library
"So, Harry, want to go over that Charms essay?" Hermionie was just unpacking her book bag at their customary homework table, businesslike as usual.
"Hermie, we've just finished supper! Couldn't you wait a few minutes?" Ron, as usual, had eaten himself nearly sick, and was lying on the couch in a near catatonic state, feet projecting well off the end.
"Ronald Weasley! I'm surprised at you. This is our seventh year! We've got NEWTs to write, and we have to be well prepared. And in any case, I was talking to Harry, as I knew you wouldn't be up to any activity for quite a while yet. So, what about it Harry?"
"I wish I could, Hermionie, I really, really do." Harry was packing up his book bag, hoping somehow that Malfoy would have miraculously written the entire project on his own and they wouldn't have to work together at all. "Unfortunately, thanks to the two of you abandoning me in DADA, I'm stuck with Malfoy as a partner, and I have to go write my half of that presentation on fire curses."
"Oh, right."
"Good luck with that, mate!" Ron cheerily called from the couch, "I'll be thinking of you here, with my own lovely partner to keep me company... ouch, Hermie, that was a compliment..."
Harry ducked out of the portrait hole as his two best friends started up what promised to be an embarrassingly intimate pillow fight. He passed numerous other students on his way down to the library, some probably off to meet study partners, an awful lot of them skipping merrily around hand in hand, off to a different kind of study date.
All too soon, he was outside the wide doorway leading into the library, and unfortunately, had no excuse not to go in. Well, as much as he hated spending any sort of time with Malfoy, at least he'd get a chance to figure out what was going on in his slicked blond head. "Potter, about time." Malfoy genially greeted Harry as he walked up to a large, round table next to the Herbology shelves.
"I'm not late, Malfoy." Lovely. What a wonderful evening this was going to be. "So, have you written the entire thing already so we can both forget this and go back to our common rooms?"
Malfoy sneered at Harry, motioning for him to sit down. "As much as I'd like to avoid the whole project, Professor Snape is actually intelligent enough to catch something like that. And anyways, I'm not doing more than half the work on this, I promise you."
"Fine." Harry dropped his bag on a seat at the same table, and went off in search of curse manuals. Madam Pince pointed him off to a section of dusty shelves, warning him not to burn anything by accident. He picked out a leather bound book that appeared to at least be written in English, and checked it out, going back to the table where his partner was trying to ignore a group of giggling Hufflepuff girls who had just occupied the table adjacent to theirs. "Wonderful company we've got, eh?"
"Oh, shut up, will you? You are not a whole lot better." Harry rolled his eyes, then groaned as a loud group of Ravenclaw and Gryffindor second-years showed up to the table left of them.
"Popular night for group meetings or something?"
Malfoy snorted, saying "Delores Umbrage had the right idea, banning all clubs, you know. You could always find space to study."
"But then it turned out she was a useless, unqualified squib."
To Harry's surprise, Malfoy almost laughed. "Well, yes, but if you kiss up to the person in power, you get a much easier life. Although, I was quite thrilled when she kicked you off the quidditch team. Pity Dumbledore put you back on."
"Right. And quidditch captain to boot." Another group of students came, filling up the last free table.
"Huh." Malfoy was clearly done with any sort of conversation, and bent to his note taking with, Harry noticed, Harry's quill.
He was considering asking for it back while he opened his book when Lavender Brown came up, asking "Hey, Harry, could we sit here?" Harry jerked his head up from reading about a particularly nasty curse which involved setting every hair on someone's body on fire to see the entire seventh-year Divination club standing there, star charts, palm maps, and a portable crystal ball evident among a jumble of things in a large bag supported by three of them.
"Yes, have the whole table. Potter, let's find somewhere we can actually study." Apparently Malfoy's nerves were fried to the last possible inch. And he didn't seem to care about Harry's opinion in the matter whatsoever. Actually, Harry was about to suggest they find somewhere else himself, so he agreeably packed up the rest of their books and followed Malfoy's billowing cloak out the door. "I propose we go to the dungeons. No one will disturb us there, it's not exactly the place you go for meetings or dates."
"Sure," Harry said, happy to be going somewhere away from so many people. Maybe he'd be able to get Malfoy to talk if no one would overhear.