Eve
Neville, Ginny, and I sat under a large oak tree after classes were over and tried to help each other plan out the Potions essay that was due the next day.
"There's no way I'm going to finish this in time," Neville moaned, sifting through the papers in his notebook. "Does Snape actually think that writing a five page paper in two days is physically possible?"
"Apparently," Ginny replied dryly, flattening out her piece of parchment in front of her. She was lying on her stomach in front of us, while Neville and I sat against the tree trunk beside each other. "To be fair, we probably could have started it yesterday."
Neville dipped his quill into his ink pot and rolled his eyes. "I was busy. Anyway, tell me what you're putting in the introduction. Should I start talking about the history?"
"I wouldn't," I suggested kindly, leaning over to see what Neville had already written. "I'm putting the history in the next paragraph so it can take up more space."
"Make sure you write really big," Ginny added helpfully. "I'm nearly to two pages and I haven't even started my second paragraph."
The sun glinted off of the lake in front of us, momentarily blinding me. As I shaded my eyes from the brightness, I squinted down at my parchment and glanced over what I already had written down. The three of us had started working on the papers nearly an hour ago, but it had taken way too much time just getting started. This essay was probably going to take me all night to finish—my stomach twisted with nerves as I remembered Blaise was going to be working on it with me later.
I shook my head and started scribbling down the next sentence, knowing I needed to distract myself from thinking about that before the nervous excitement completely took over. As I loaded my quill with ink again, I smiled over at Ginny and asked, "How come Harry's not here? I thought you wanted him to help you."
She blushed furiously, and I held back my smirk. I knew how much she liked him, but she still refused to admit it to anyone. Ginny kept her gaze fixed on her parchment as she replied evenly, "He told me he couldn't make it. He got a detention, can you believe it?"
"No way," Neville exclaimed, finally glancing up from his paper. "From who?"
"Umbridge," Ginny said, wrinkling her nose. "He mouthed off in class, apparently."
"She's awful," I shook my head. "Did he say what she was gonna make him do?"
Ginny twirled her quill between her fingers as she tried to remember. Finally she said, "No, but it probably won't be too bad. Lines, probably. He said he'd tell me when he gets back."
She tried to pretend that she hadn't seen the smile I sent her.
The three of us worked on the papers until the sun went down and we were forced to pack up our things. We headed back inside and decided to go to dinner, as it was getting pretty late and curfew was soon. I parted with Neville and Ginny when we reached the Great Hall, wishing them good luck with the rest of the paper.
After dinner, I walked down to the Slytherin common room alone and mentally prepared myself for writing the rest of this paper. Blaise had said he would be pretty late because of Quidditch practice, so I knew I at least had a couple hours to get rid of the nerves. I needed to relax; after all, I was only helping him write the Potions essay. I had to keep reminding myself that as I entered the common and sat down beside the fire.
Only a few Slytherins were still out, and just a few of them eyed me carefully from other parts of the room. Doing my best to ignore them, I pulled out the essay and went back to work.
Eventually the common room completely emptied out, and I was the only one left downstairs. I was just finishing my fourth page when the portrait door opened and I looked over my shoulder to see Blaise crawling through. My face broke out into a smile at the huge grin he gave me as he walked over to the couch.
"Hey," he said as he sat down beside me, placing his bag at his feet. "Sorry I'm so late, practice ran over."
"It's no big deal," I assured him, honestly not annoyed at all. "I always go to bed really late anyway. Besides, this essay has been taking me forever."
"How much have you gotten done?" Blaise asked, pulling out the parchment from his bag.
"Four pages," I said, rolling my eyes. "Snape's insane."
Blaise laughed at this. "Everyone's been saying that lately. That's pretty good, I'm only on the third page."
I tucked my legs under me, placing my paper on my lap and brushing the stray hairs away from my face. I waited for Blaise to get out his quill, but he didn't.
"So," Blaise grinned. "How was your afternoon?"
I raised one eyebrow at his cheeky expression, not being able to keep myself from smiling back. "It was alright. I worked with Neville and Ginny on the essay."
"I still can't get over that," Blaise laughed. "How can you stand to hang out with Neville?"
"Neville's alright..." I weakly defended him, but I wasn't brave enough to completely stand up for him. It was sad, but I was honestly surprised I wasn't straight up agreeing with Blaise. Wanting to change the subject, I quickly asked, "Do you have a quill?"
"I'll get it out in a minute."
I rolled my eyes playfully at him, deciding that it wasn't that important we started working right away. "How was practice?"
"Good," Blaise replied, leaning back against the couch and stretching his arms out along either side of him. "We're definitely gonna beat Ravenclaw this Saturday. You're going, right?"
"I dunno..." I said uncertainly. Who was I going to sit with? Like hell Pansy was going to let me sit beside her. "I'll think about it."
Blaise smirked and leaned forward, placing his left hand on my knee. "Come on, Eve. You gotta go, you'll get to see me play Quidditch. I'm so good."
His smug tone and touch against my bare skin caught me off guard, so for half a moment I didn't even know what to say. I could feel myself blushing even in this darkness, and I found myself praying Blaise couldn't see it. "Um...I guess I could go."
His hand was still on my knee, and I couldn't ignore the fact that only a few inches of the couch separated us. Blaise grinned hugely at my answer and said cockily, "See? I knew you would go. I'm going to score so many goals, just wait and see."
The portrait door slammed open behind us, and even as we both twisted around to see who it was, Blaise didn't move his hand. I glanced over the back of the couch to see Draco Malfoy shutting the portrait loudly behind him.
"What the fuck?" Blaise snapped. "Malfoy—"
"How'd you get back here so fast?" Malfoy interrupted, crossing the room with an arrogant stride and coming around the side of the couch we were sitting on. Only when he rounded the corner did Blaise finally remove his hand from my knee. "Practice only just ended."
"I don't take twenty minutes to get changed, unlike you," Blaise said angrily as Malfoy collapsed into the armchair directly next to us. "Don't you want to go upstairs? And, you know, leave?"
"Is that the Potions essay? Great, I need you two to help me," Malfoy said, completely ignoring Blaise. I missed the murderous glare Blaise gave him as Malfoy began to pull out his own essay from his bag.
Blaise let out an exasperated sigh and shifted away from me slightly on the couch, and I nervously readjusted myself on the cushions. As Malfoy rummaged through his bag, he said, "I barely have anything done. This idiot third year was supposed to write it for me, but he backed out at the last second. What an ass, right?"
"Listen, Malfoy—" Blaise began, but Malfoy went right on talking as though he hadn't heard anything.
"—so I wanted to beat him up, of course, but McGonagall kept hanging around. And I don't want another detention, I have enough shit to do without having to waste my time writing lines. Anyway, I need your help with this fucking essay. What did you put after the ingredients?"
I could practically feel the growing tension in the room, and I felt the familiar hate for Draco Malfoy rise up inside my chest. Why did he even want to work on this essay with me and Blaise when I knew he disliked me even more than I did?
"I dunno," Blaise said through gritted teeth, shooting Malfoy a glare. "Look, just go upstairs. Eve and I are working, leave us alone."
"It didn't look like you were working," Malfoy retorted, and I looked down to see that his hand was clenched into a fist at his side.
"You know what," I said hastily. "I think I'll just go to bed."
"No, stay here," Blaise said quickly, not even turning around to look at me. "Malfoy, fucking go upstairs."
"Why should I?" Malfoy said. "This is my common room, Zabini."
"It's not your common room, asshole—"
"Do you have a problem with me being down here? You're welcome to go upstairs."
"Fuck, Malfoy—"
I stood up quickly once I saw that Blaise was seconds away from jumping on top of Malfoy and strangling him, shoving my essay into my bag. "I'm just gonna finish this in my dorm."
This finally made Blaise turn around, and he hastily said, "Wait, don't go. Malfoy, go upstairs before I kick your ass."
"Can't," Malfoy smirked. "I have to finish this. If she wants to go upstairs, let her. I don't care."
"It's okay," I said in a quiet voice. I quickly tucked my bag under my arm and stepped around the coffee table, not wanting to walk in between the two of them. "I'm almost done with it anyway."
Blaise was opening his mouth to say something more, but I cut him off by repeating, "It's okay." And then I smiled at him and added, "Thanks for the help, Blaise", even though we had literally done no work.
The two of them were sitting in a stingy silence, glaring at each other, as I made my way out of the common room. My head was spinning so badly that I felt dizzy.
I didn't glance down when I passed Malfoy, but if I had, I would have seen that his essay was already completely finished.