"Shut UP, Zabini!"

"Why should I?" the Slytherin said cockily.

"Because I said so." Padma replied shortly, burying her face in her books. The two were sitting the schools library, trying to get ahead on homework before the Halloween dance that would be happening later that week. Or, at least, Padma was working. Zabini was merely sitting there and tormenting Padma as she tried to do her homework.

"Oh, no, I'm sorry." he said with an over-dramatic wave of his arms. "You're not my mom, see, and only moms get to use THAT line."

Padma stuck her tongue out at him. "Well, I am older than you." she pointed out. "That should count for something."

He huffed in irritation. "Only by two weeks!" he protested. "It barely counts, really!"

"I'm still older." Padma replied absentmindedly, poring over an especially interesting passage in her Potions book. "So shut up."

"You shut up." Blaise said childishly.

Padma snickered. "Did you really just say that?"

"Um, yes?"

She tried and failed to stifle her laughter. Madame Pince shot the pair a warning look, and Padma had to shove her fist into her mouth to stop the hysteric chuckles from escaping.

"What is it now?" Zabini said, in a voice that made it seem as though he was the one being wronged.

Padma snorted, then plastered her innocent look all over her face. "I'm quite sure I have no idea what you're talking about."

"I'm quite sure you don't." he said drily. Then he blinked. "Wait. I don't even know what I'm talking about."

Padma frowned in contemplation. "Nothing important, I don't think."

During the two weeks or so since Padma had shoved the arrogant Slytherin into the lake, the two had clumsily constructed some sort of friendship. Blaise had followed Padma around for days on end; pestering her during every waking moment and startling her at inopportune moments. After Padma had slapped him twice in the face, kicked him three times in the ankle, and ruined four potions when he sneaked up behind her and scared her by making bizarre noises. Eventually, she couldn't take the strain anymore and snapped.

"What is your PROBLEM?" she had screamed at him in frustration, even throwing a few textbooks at his head in her sheer rage. "Why won't you just leave me alone, you sadistic-"

Thankfully for the poor, innocent little firsties looking on, it was at this moment that Zabini had chosen to place his hand over Padma's mouth; otherwise, the foul language Padma was planning on using would have sullied their vocabularies for aeons.

"I'm bothering you because-" Zabini began, and then looked down at the audience of younger students that was intently watching their argument. "Look, can we go somewhere else? It's kind of confidential."

Padma had snorted rather inelegantly. "You want me, Padma Patil, a Ravenclaw self-proclaimed 'blood traitor' to go somewhere more confidential with a Slytherin, in a time where Dark curses are not only allowed but ENCOURAGED? Are you out of you goddamn MIND?"

Zabini sighed. "Would you PLEASE watch your language? There are young children about!"

"You've used UNFORGIVABLE CURSES on those same young children, and yet you worry that I'm using IMPROPER LANGUAGE around them?" Padma's left eye was twitching.

"Um.....yes?" he said cooly. "Now, come along." He grabbed her by the upper arm, and dragged her up a flight of stairs. Though Padma was quite strong from a three-year stint as Chaser on the Ravenclaw Quidditch team, she was still barely five foot four and so was no match for Zabini, who was well over six feet.

He had pulled her all the way to the Room of Requirement, where he paced about. "Let's see..." he mumbled. "First, I need Silencing Charms....Anti-Trespasser Wards.....Nobody, and I mean NOBODY should be able to get in....I'd like, also, the walls to be blue, because I like blue, and I want.....some pretzels. Yeah, pretzels!"

A door appeared in the wall in front of the two seventh years, and they entered.

Padma's mouth dropped open as she saw what Blaise had created. The walls were striped with hundreds of shades of blue, and bowls filled to the brim with all kinds of pretzels littered the floor. The wards the Room had constructed for them were so powerful Padma could see them glittering even without mage-sight.

"Wow." she said initially, and then smirked. "So....pretzels?"

Zabini rolled his eyes. "I meant like one or two!" he had protested. " I didn't expect this room to come up with so MANY!"

"Sure, sure..." Padma said teasingly, and took a bite from one of the many pretzels lying about. "Mmm..." she sighed happily. "Cheeeeeesy...."

The tall, dark Slytherin just stared at her.

"So, down to business." she forced out around her mouthful of pretzel. "Why did you follow me around?"

"Because I want to be your friend." Zabini said. Padma looked at the Sneakoscope the Room had conjured upon her request. It was motionless.

"Why do you want to be my friend? I thought you were a Slytherin."

"I am."

"So....What, are you bailing on your serpentine heritage?"

Zabini scowled. "Of course not. We're supposed to be 'cunning' and 'ambitious' and 'power-hungry', right?"

"Right..."

"Well, think of those people in Slytherin now. Are they cunning? How about ambitious?"

"No. Not really. They're kind of stupid, in fact."

Zabini smiled triumphantly. "Exactly! Slytherin used to be powerful! It used to be a house of HONOR, and now what?"

Padma seemed to understand where he was going with this. "It's looked down upon as being filled with evil wizards. Nobody respects Slytherins, at least not for the right reason; everybody merely fear them. Slytherin used to be great, and now it's fallen so far..."

Blaise nodded approvingly. "You could have been a Slytherin yourself, you know." he pointed out. "You've got the cunning bit down."

"The hat wanted to put me there." Padma said. This was one of her greatest secrets, one she had never told even her twin sister. There was just something about this boy that made her want to tell him everything. "But I didn't want to be there, because of the whole 'dark' hangup. I want power, but I don't want it all for myself, so the hat figured that I'd have just as much luck in Ravenclaw."

Zabini whistled. "Have you ever considered a career in politics?"

"No, I don't want THAT kind of power." she said with a sigh. "I want power to help myself and others. I'm planning to be a Healer, if you must know. But we're not here to talk about my career plans! We're here to talk about your stalking habits!"

"That sounded really, really bad the way you phrased it. I do not have 'stalking habits'."

"You HAVE been stalking me."

"Yes, but only because I've seen that you don't judge people, and I know you're in the new DA-"

Padma's paled. Zabini ignored her.

"And I wanted to get into that and HELP, so I figured you'd be the best link."

"How do you know I'm in the DA?" Padma asked urgently. "HOW?"

"I-well-" Zabini flushed a deep maroon. "I've been watching you. Observing you, more like."

Padma just looked at him. Then she smirked. "You are SO a stalker."

"I SO am not!" he protested.

"Are too."

"Am not!"

"Are TOO!"

"AM NOT!"

Their conversation continued in this venue for quite a bit, and so it had been determined by the time the pair left the Room of Requirement that they would try being friends for a bit.

Yes, I know that food is exempt from the laws of transfiguration and so the room couldn't possibly have conjured pretzels. I also don't care. I don't own ANYTHING AT ALL, got it? Please review, and MERRY CHRISTMAS!