"Stop it!"

"Stop what?"

"What do you think?"

"What, am I a Legilimens or something?"

"What, are you?"

"Am I what?"

"For Merlin's sake!"

"Am I for Merlin's sake? Like, was I created specifically to serve Merlin? Am I the god of unbelievable hotness that is going to find the long-lost Merlin, long since believed to be dead, and bring him back to the Ministry of Magic so he can vanquish all the evil in the world?"

"Just stop throwing paper in my hair!"

It was Friday afternoon, the end of the first week of school. Rather unfortunately, I was celebrating the first weekend of the school year by sitting around in the library with Will Frobisher.

Of course, this wasn't supposed to be some cozy picnic or something. We were supposed to be doing top-secret, extremely-important, Operation Emerald Flower (Operation EF, for short) planning. But because I had chosen Will Frobisher as my partner in crime, most of that planning time had, so far, been spent by him throwing small pieces of paper into my hair.

"Come on," I said, lowering my voice. Madam Pince, the ancient librarian, was glaring at me. I did not want to get in trouble with her. She may be old, but she's definitely capable of things worse than murder. "I thought you would actually be good at this."

He looks surprised, probably because I thought he might be good at something. "Good at what?"

I waved my hand vaguely. "You know. Planning. Evil things. Et cetera."

"You know, you're the only person who thinks I'm evil," he said. "Everyone else finds me charming, intelligent, and dashingly handsome."

I raised my eyebrows. "Really? Well, they are probably not the people who witnessed the manticore incident."

The "Manticore Incident" took place during our third year. We were in Care of Magical Creatures, learning about unicorns, when Will noticed a crate full of manticores that was being used for a seventh-year lesson. He thought it would be funny to snatch a piece of my hair, give it to one of the manticores, and release it.

Basically, manticores hunt by scent. So, the minute the manticore smelled my hair, it was like "Ooh! Tasty girl! I want to eat it!" Thus, when the manticore was released, it chased me all over the Hogwarts school grounds. I managed to escape by climbing up a tree, and I was forced to stay there until they caught the manticore.

It was almost worth it, though, because Will got four months worth of Friday detentions.

"Well, anyone who likes you clearly was not present for the Week of the Floating Pudding," retorted Will.

Oh, yes, that story. Well, a few months after the manticore incident, I noticed that Will was eating pudding at dinner. I had a rather brilliant thought, did a small charm, and when Will stood up, a small dish of pudding began to float after him. From then on, every time he ate pudding, another small dish began to float behind him. My clever little puddings were rather good at hiding whenever he turned around, so he never saw them, and it was a week before anyone bothered to tell him. Of course, everyone knew it was me, so I got several detentions, but I didn't care. It was worth scrubbing a few toilets to see my arch-nemesis pursued by a dish of chocolate plum pudding.

"That was completely different," I insisted. "A few bowls of floating pudding would not have killed you. Manticores are dangerous."

He rolled his eyes. "Well, there was also the thing with the hippogriff—

"—and the thing with the pretzels, and the thing with the donkey, and the Amortenia love potion incident," I said, naming several more instances in which one of us had been the culprit. "Let's not get into this."

"Fine," he said. Then his eyes widened. "Amortenia love potion! We could drug them!"

I stared at him. "You are way too enthusiastic about that option. Also, they already like each other."

"Oh, yeah," he said, deflated. "I just thought if they were in a romantic mood…

"Ooh, there's an idea!" I said. "We could set them up on a blind date!"

"They're secretly in love with each other. Why would they want to go on a date with someone else?"

I sighed. "Good point."

"Wait a second... I've got it!" he said excitedly. "Let's tell them we're all going to meet up at the next Hogsmeade visit. We'll get there early, disguised, so we can watch and see what happens. They'll both get there, and they'll be sitting alone, somewhere extremely romantic…

"Brilliant!" I said, and then amended hastily, "I mean, compared to your usual moronic standards, that's pretty smart."

He rolled his eyes. "Yeah, yeah, whatever. Tell Rose to be at Madame Puddifoot's."

"See you there," I said. The next Hogsmeade's visit was only a week away.

"Hopefully they'll snog and start dating quickly, so I never have to talk to you again," said Will.

I couldn't help but grin. "My sentiments exactly." I grabbed my bag. "Well, cross your fingers!"

"Crossed," he said, and we parted ways.