Authors Note: I am so sorry! There is no acceptable excuse for why I haven't updated in so long, but the truth is I had no idea where I wanted to go with this. The good news is, I've got a bit of direction as to where I want to head, so I'll be picking it back up again. If anyone is still reading, that is.
P.s: I changed Lavender Brown's age, so she's now as old as Katie, Marcus and the rest of that group.
Disclaimer: I own absolutely nothing except the plot
[Alicia and Terence]
"So….." said Alicia awkwardly as she stared down at her clasped hands. She was currently sitting on the edge of a desk in the transfigurations classroom staring at the floor.
"So" Terence replied from the other side of the room where he was laying across two desks staring at the ceiling. After their initial sexual attraction had been satisfied from their intense make out session there wasn't much left to fill their time together.
"Terrence, right?" asked Alicia attempting to start some sort of dialogue. Terence mealy raised an eyebrow and leant up on his elbows so he could look at her. Alicia flushed under his gaze and nervously laughed. "I just- I wanted to make sure. You know, there's Terry Boot, and Theodore Nott, and they all sound so similar I just wanted to make sure I had your name right." Alicia mumbled the last bit as her face turned bright red in embarrassment.
"You just spent the last fifteen minutes snogging my face off, and now you want to know if you've got my name right?" Terence asked smirking at the witch sitting across from him.
"Yes. I mean no. I mean, I don't know, this is harder than I thought" Alicia said flopping back dramatically to lie down on the desk she was perched on.
"It doesn't have to be" Terence replied sitting up on his desk. "Not if we don't make it awkward."
"You think so?" Alicia asked. "I mean we've spent the last six years being taught to hate each other on principal alone. You think we can just forget it all that quickly?"
"Of course not" said Terence walking towards the door of the classroom. "I just meant this doesn't have to be any more awkward than we make it. For the rest of this project we can forget about Slytherins and Gryffindors and just be us, Alicia and Terry. Or was it Theodore?" he said laughing as Alicia threw a quill in his direction. "I want to see what everyone else has gotten up to. You coming?" he asked holding the door open and smiling when Alicia gathered her stuff up without complaint.
Alicia followed Terence down the corridor where they passed Harry Potter who was sitting against a window ledge tiredly holding up a large pink hand mirror while Pansy Parkinson touched up her makeup. When he noticed Alicia and Terence passing, he caught Alicia's eye and desperately mouthed "Help me!" While Alicia brought her hand up to her mouth to stifle her giggles, Terence lacked her tact and loudly laughed catching Pansy's attention.
"What's so funny Terence?" Pansy asked, putting the tube of lip gloss down beside Harry.
"Nothing Pansy", Terence replied with a grin. "Just glad to see you're taking advantage of the Partner Project."
[Adrian and Angelina]
"Aren't you the luckiest girl in all of Hogwarts?" Adrian asked as he sat beside Angelina on the Quidditch pitch.
"You mean because I'm smart, and pretty, and better than you at Quidditch?" Angelina asked, turning to smirk at Adrian.
"Not quite" he replied with a laugh. "I meant because you get to spend the next three months with me. Day and Night. Monday to Sunday and then back again. Think of all the things we could do" he said raising a hand up to brush a lock of her hair behind her ear. Adrian silently cheered when he heard the slight hitch in her breath from the action.
"It makes me very excited" Angelina replied using her own hand to caress the side of his muscular arm. "We could study, or experiment with different ways to style my hair." Adrian's' grin slipped off his face with her words, but Angelina was unperturbed. "If you're really good" she continued, waiting until Adrian was hanging off her every word "I'll even beat you in Quidditch." Angelina laughed at the unhappy look on the resident playboys face before turning her attention to the other couple on the pitch: Alexander Montague, and Lavender Brown.
"Fine" said Adrian coolly, breaking her train of thought. "I guess I'll just have to take my services elsewhere. And believe me Angelina, these are exemplary services."
"You know" Angelina started, reaching up to straighten his tie "you're not as charming as you think you are."
"Oh really" Adrian asked raising an eyebrow. "You think you can do better than me?"
"I know I can."
"Alright" said Adrian with a grin. "See Montague and Brown over there?" Angelina nodded in the affirmative. "We go over there and try our luck with both of them."
"And what do I get when I win?" Angelina asked with a slow grin, already excited at the prospect of competition.
"When you lose" Adrian corrected with a scoff. "Whoever gets rejected first has to do what the other one wants for the rest of the day. Deal?" Angelina raised her hand to meet his, and they shook hands cementing the deal.
The walk over to the other side of the pitch didn't take long, and before either of them could really formulate a game plan, they had reached Montague and Lavender. Lavender was sulking a few feet away from the handsome Slytherin who had refused to engage in any form of conversation, or flirtation despite her best effort. As a result of this, it was extremely easy for Adrian to sit beside his target and acquire her complete attention.
"Hello Lavender" he said sitting beside the brunette.
"Oh, hi Pucey. How are you?" Lavender stuttered, her face beginning to flush under Adrian's intense gaze.
"I'm fine darling, but you don't look too good. Has my brute of a housemate been treating you alright?" Adrian asked, easily feigning concern for Lavender before turning to wink at Montague who was looking over suspiciously.
"He doesn't want anything to do with me! It must be because I'm ugly" Lavender cried before bursting into loud ugly sobs. Adrian internally rolled his eyes at her theatrics, but put on a distraught expression before slinging an arm around the sobbing girl and pulling her against his chest.
"There, there love" he soothed, rubbing circles in her back while sticking his tongue out at Angelina who was getting increasingly frustrated that Montague was taking her blatant flirting as their usual banter. "You're beautiful." Lavender looked up at Adrian with big watery eyes that were surrounded by smeared mascara.
"I am?" she asked hopefully.
"Of course" Adrian replied pulling back down so her face was once again against his chest. He muffled a laugh behind a cough after seeing Angelina stand up in a huff and cuff a grinning Montague against the side of the head before storming over to their previous spot on the opposite side of the pitch. "If it's alright with you," Adrian murmured against Lavenders hair "I'd like to show you just how beautiful I think you are."
Angelina sat waiting for no more than two minutes before Adrian walked back to where she was sitting and flopped down beside her.
"What went wrong darling?" he asked with a grin.
"Quidditch." Angelina replied miserably. "All that daft twit wanted to do was banter about Quidditch! I tried everything" she said dropping her head into her hands.
"There there" said Adrian rubbing her back the same way he had just done to Lavender. "It's alright we can't all be as charming as I am."
"You didn't!" Angelina said incredulously lifting her head up to look at him.
"A deal's, a deal" replied Adrian standing up and offering a hand down to help pull her up. "Since I've got a date with Lavender, we better hurry up and get my transfiguration homework done now, don't you think?"
[Ginny and Blaise]
"Have you ever been to Italy? It's quite nice there" Blaise said staring at Ginny who continued to refrain from making eye contact with him. He was currently sitting on the edge of Ginny's bed while she was sprawled out on her back throwing a mini toy quaffle in the air and catching it.
"No." Ginny replied coldly, eyes locked on the falling and rising quaffle.
"Oh" Blaise muttered disappointedly. "So, what's your favorite color?" he asked, slightly leaning forward expectantly.
"Don't have one" she replied curtly, ignoring Blaise's huff of annoyance.
"Well do you have anything you want to contribute" he snapped, irritated he had been attempting for more than an hour to engage in conversation with his partner while she remained unresponsive.
"Loads, actually" said Ginny sitting up quickly and looking angrily at Blaise. "How about we start with how you and your friends have always treated me and my family like garbage? We can talk about all the things your precious Malfoy has done to Ron, we can talk about all the times your housemates have called me a blood traitor just because I don't believe in your blood supremacy bullshit. If you really want, we can even talk about how unlucky you are because you got stuck with the poor weasel!" Ginny shouted before getting off the bed and sitting on top of Alicia's crate on the other side of the room.
"Excuse me?" said Blaise angrily walking over to where Ginny was sitting. "In case you noticed, I wasn't on that list of people who've done things to you. I don't discriminate Ginny", Blaise said hurt that she would think that little of him without even getting to know him.
"Fine" Ginny replied coldly. "You're right. You didn't do anything to me. But you didn't stop anything either. You never intervened when your housemates said hurtful things, and you never stopped Malfoy from being a colossal prick to Ron either. You may not have done anything to directly hurt me, but you've never done anything to help me."
"I can't control my housemates" Blaise snapped, frustrated at her accusatory tone.
"No" Ginny said looking away from Blaise. "You can't. But you can control yourself. You could have spoken up, and the fact that you didn't makes you just as bad as they are."
"I'm trying now!" said Blaise, lightly lifting up Ginny's chin so that she was looking at him. "I'm trying to get to know you, so that maybe I can help and my housemates won't be so cruel to you anymore." Rather than responding with gratitude as Blaise had expected Ginny surprised him by slapping his hand away from her face and standing up quickly.
"I am NOT a charity case" she hissed looking down angrily at Blaise.
"That's not what I meant!" he said, quickly backtracking and trying to fix the situation. "I just meant you could use some kindness!"
"Get out." Ginny hissed pointing at the door. They were both so caught up in the argument that neither of them noticed Katie and a soaking wet Marcus standing in the doorway.
"Ginny wait!" Blaise said taking a step towards her.
"Out!" she screamed throwing the closest object, which just happened to be the plush quaffle at him.
"Blaise" Marcus said gruffly surprising both Ginny and Marcus who turned to their friends in the doorway, "Let's go. It's not worth wasting your breath on these Gryffindor bints. The whole lot of them are mad anyways." Surprisingly enough, Katie laughed from beside Marcus and mentioned something about a drying charm before closing the door on the two Slytherins and walking over to Ginny. On the other side of the door Blaise turned to face his older friend who was leaving a trail of water droplets behind them as they walked back to the Slytherin common room.
"How long does this project last for?" Blaise asked miserably, still trying to figure out how his conversation with Ginny had gone so bad, so quick.
"Too long" Marcus muttered as the boys lapsed into a comfortable silence until they reached their common room.
Authors (other) Note- Okay dolls, here's chapter 4. Once again, I apologize for not updating in so long. I tried to make this chapter a bit longer in a sad attempt to make up for it. If you're still reading this leave me a review and let me know what you thought. Thanks! xX- illie