"are there still beautiful things?"
Astoria let him kiss her. It was short, it was sweet, but just as quickly as it had happened, it was over.
He pulled away slowly, "I wanted to do that last time." He smiled at her.
"I-" She didn't know what to say. "I ought to go to bed," she looked out at the barely setting sun.
"Astoria, it's barely-"
But she didn't hear him, before he had even finished his sentence, she had fled. She threw herself on her bed as soon as she entered the room, groaning loudly. "Fuck."
"Astoria," Pansy looked over at her, "what's wrong?" She came to sit on her bed, Daphne quickly following suit.
Quickly, she thought of a lie, "Theo really is going to fail his NEWTS." She rubbed her eyes, "he is just impossible"
"Merlin aren't we all, I can't see myself passing anything this year!"
"And" Daphne sighed, "we are already a year behind."
"I am not- and I mean not, repeating another year." Pansy growled, "revision time anyone?" She asked them, getting up and heading toward her trunk, "Daphne take Charms," she handed her a book, "Astoria, you can have Potions. And I will do Defence Against the Dark Arts- then we teach each other. Well, Astoria can teach me. And Daphne, you can deal with Transfiguration on your own." Everyone nodded.
"Sounds like a plan, especially while we don't have the map." It felt good to be free of it, even if just for a little while.
And so, the trio got stuck into their books, reading until they could barely keep their eyes open.
When Astoria awoke the next morning, she had almost entirely forgotten about the kiss last night, instead her brain contained the entirety of Sixth Year Potions. She felt as though she was overflowing with information.
"Morning everyone," she smiled as she walked into the common room.
A chorus of good mornings called back to her.
"Join us for some revision today boys?" Pansy asked them, packing up her bag with textbooks. "You might have forgotten, but we do have our NEWTs this year still."
"Merlin, might as well," Blaise stood up, "Theo grab my books," he instructed him.
Draco called out, "and mine!"
"Fuck it's like I'm a house elf." He rolled his eyes as he carried out the pile of books in his arms. "Take your bloody books," he shoved each book at its rightful owner. "So now, how are we going about this?"
"I've had a great idea," Daphne suggested, perching on the edge of the sofa, "everyone read a chapter of the textbook, then we all teach each other? It worked for us three last night, we did it for different subjects too."
Blaise shook his head, "no way Daphne. I'm not having Pansy or Theo try and explain the Draught of the Living Dead to me."
"At least we can bloody spell it," Pansy stuck her tongue out at him.
"Well, that's what works for us, so come up with a better solution or shut it." Daphne barked at him, tucking her hair behind her ears.
Everyone paused. "How about we pair up by subjects, so we have, Charms, Potions, Transfiguration, Defence Against the Dark Arts and Herbology. Everyone does Charms and Defence Against the Dark Arts, so scrap them." Draco began scrawling on some parchment, "so Blaise, Pansy, me and Daphne do Transfiguration. And then Theo and Astoria do Herbology. Potions..." he paused for a moment, "that needs a group effort I think."
"So I'm stuck with Theo?" Astoria asked with a smile.
"Best friends reunited again!" Theo gave her a high five.
Blaise stood up, "so for Transfiguration, we can each do a chapter, I guess Pansy can just about do that."
"Fuck off, at least I can spell."
"It-" he stood up, "was one time."
"Still, the rest of us haven't had it happen." Draco smiled at Blaise, teasing him.
"Fuck off ferret boy." That wiped the smile off his face at once.
"Theo and I are going to the Herbology classroom," Astoria took Theo's hand, "up we get." She pulled him to his feet, "we can charm Professor Sprout into letting us in."
"Watch out, I'll pull out my puppy dog eyes," Theo began to bat his eyelids, "she won't be able to resist."
"If only we had your puppy dog eyes when people were getting petrified years ago," Astoria said, "they would have woken up just to see the beauty for themselves."
With a smile, the duo made their way out of the common room. "You know, Draco told me." Theo said abruptly as they walked out of the castle towards the greenhouses.
"Oh," she stopped in her tracks, "he did?" Astoria raised her brows, "what about?"
Theo smiled at her, she had taken the bait, "well, he started with how he apologised, as he should have bear in mind," he added the last part quickly.
"And?" She prompted him continue.
"He said you two are quite close now, some might say. You know, he hasn't even told me or Blaise about some of the stuff he told you..." Theo trailed off, "I'm glad he has. We all need someone we can talk to sometimes."
"Do you have someone?" She pressed him. Theo had only ever really had those in Slytherin to support him, and a lot of those students were gone now. He only really had a few people left.
"I think so," Theo nodded, "Blaise and I talk a lot, and I talk to Draco, even if he doesn't talk to me," he shook his head, "but anyway, Draco doesn't really talk to anyone."
"Did he ever?" Astoria had only ever really known Draco as a closed off person, as someone who could've be cracked open, even with a key. She had never known any different.
Theo paused before he answered, but he almost didn't need to, "not really. He's not the kind of person that opens up, and usually, that seems to work for him, but he struggled last year, and the year before. So it's just nice that you two talk sometimes."
Astoria felt her heart pitter-patter, a warm glow erupting inside of her, "so do you approve of our friendship?"
"Of course I do, I would even approve if it became a bit more..." he winked at her, "if you both wanted it to."
"Not that I need our approval, but thank you anyway."
Astoria didn't say anything else until they reached the greenhouse, "go and woo Professor Sprout for me now, pretty please." She batted her eyelashes at him dramatically.
Theo was off immediately, heading straight towards his target. He spoke to Professor Sprout for a few short moments before returning. "Easy, I just pretended I was going to cry," he wiped a droplet from his face, "because I am simply so far behind in Herbology. And now, we have three sweet hours of access."
"You think three will be enough?" She made her way into the greenhouse, setting up some plants for inspection.
Theo followed suit, mimicking her setup, "I already know what a Mandrake is, so I would say I am doing quite well."
"Theo, Mandrakes are not even on the NEWT syllabus, they're from years ago." She rolled her eyes as she opened up her textbook.
He sighed, "let me just shake that out of my memory, that is clearly taking up too much important space." He shook his head, "much better, I have so much space to learn now."
"Get sorting then," she handed him a pile of seeds, "which seed is which?"
"Astoria, they're all just seeds, they aren't any different that was a trick question, and I win." He took a bow, dropping the seeds onto the workspace.
She took a step back, "Merlin it really is bad. How did they even let you onto NEWT level Herbology Mr every seed is the same."
"I seduced Professor Sprout, obviously," he shook his hips and Astoria couldn't help but pry her eyes away.
"Stop it." She hit him playfully, "we really have a lot of work to do."
Astoria stepped towards the workbench, "read this page about seed properties, and then sort all of these different," she made sure to exaggerate the last word, "seeds, into their categories."
"Easy, no problem." He looked at the textbook for a brief moment, "maybe not so easy. Why are the pictures so small?"
Astoria sighed, taking out her wand, "Engorgio," she pointed at the textbook, watching as it doubled in size, "that better?" She pushed it back into his hands.
"Thank you." He took the textbook, staring at each picture carefully, before picking up a seed and moving it into a new pile.
It was peculiar to watch him, he was like a kid in a candy store, trialling all of the new flavours, doing his research on each one before he took his first bite. Astoria felt like a mother in that moment, watching over him as made his first big decision.
"Okay, I'm done." He pushed the piles towards her, "how did I do?"
Astoria picked up each seed, carefully comparing it with the textbook pictures. "Good job Theo, now," she mixed up the seeds, closing the textbook. "Now you just have to be able to do it from memory."
"Shit, well," he paused, "it was good while it lasted."
"Read the textbook a few more times, then I'll quiz you. And then, we could go and see if Hermione's free for a lesson tonight?"
Theo lit up, "well that makes Herbology a lot less crappy."
And so, with a smile on his face, Theo read the pages on seed classification for the next hour while Astoria tried to draw diagrams of the seeds, as well as their fully evolved state. The hour passed by slowly but knowing that they would both soon be working on their Patronus, and hopefully getting even closer to mastering it made the time go faster.
"Can we go now?" Theo closed the textbook, "I know too much about seeds now, how they look, their magical properties, their evolutions, their beige colour. Okay, that last one I don't know about. They're just beige."
"We can go," she picked up her notes, sliding them inside of the textbook.
"Ready?"
Astoria nodded, "ready."