Richie-
"Sir! My partner isn't here! I think he's sick, what do I do?" Richie heard a voice exclaim fretfully from the other side of the room, the side where the Gryffindors sat. Richie looked over and saw the boy from the Sorting, the small firey adorable boy that freaked out.
"Okay, does anyone else not have a partner? If you don't go ahead and-" the teacher started. Richie jumped up and waved his hand in the air.
"I don't have a partner!" He grinned.
"Yes you do-" his partner said.
"NO I DONT."
"It's nice to see you finally excited about a project. Go ahead and sit next to Eddie, please." Richie scooped up his belongings and took a seat next to the boy.
"Hi, I'm, uh, Tozier. I mean Richie. Richie Tozier." His face burned a little and he gave a nervous smile. The boy looked down at Richie's tie and his face lit up. Did he just really want to meet someone from my house? Richie wondered.
He began to talk, try and make this less awkward, have some fun. He didn't notice Eddie's face fall when he realized Richie wasn't going to shut up. He just kept talking about the time he tried to eat thirty saltines in ten seconds and Stan got scared. He didn't notice Eddie struggling with the potion, restarting over and over again.
"We aren't ever going to finish this..." Eddie mumbled. Richie stopped talking and looked at the distressed boy.
"But this is one of the easiest assignments?" Richie said. The recipe and instructions were simple- that's why he was wasting so much time talking, because it wouldn't take long for them to do it.
"No it isn't, I've tried it like three time times now and it just keeps failing, we are going to fail this!"
"No, really, it's easy, look..." Richie began picking up ingredients. He instructed Eddie on how to measure correct amounts, precise to the very molecule, and how to time adding ingredients. Eddie watched intently as he explained.
"Now, to heat it, we're just gonna turn these two knobs, this one a millisecond after this one, and then, boom. Watch it for two minutes and then we are good." Richie explained, turning the knobs. Eddie nodded and smiled. He may be talkative, but he was really helpful and nice. Richie smiled, his braces glinting in the light. He turned back to the potion, making sure it didn't mess up. Eddie kept staring at him, taking in every detail of the Slytherin. Richie began to continue his story about the saltines as he watched the potion, ignoring the feeling of eyes burning into his head.
Eddie seemed to try and take in everything before Richie turned and saw him staring. Every freckle, every crack in his glasses, every dark curl.
The funny thing is, Richie could see him watching out of the corner of his eye. He smiled to himself. Why was this perfect boy staring at him like he was the perfect one?
Two minutes passed quickly and Richie quickly shut off the heater, not letting it burn a second longer than necessary.
"See? It worked!" He grinned. Eddie looked down into the cauldron with surprise. The potion was the exact right color and looked exactly like the example image in the books.
"H-how'd you do that?" Eddie gasped in disbelief. He stared into the pink potion in awe. The boys looked each other in the eyes and their faces began to burn the same color as the potion. A trail of fuchsia steam rose off the liquid, forming a small heart between the boys as they stared at each other. Richie suddenly made a faux coughing noise and the eleven year olds averted their eyes from each other.
"It was easy to do, like your mom." Richie said, pretending he wasn't just staring into the small boy's eyes.
"Fuck you." Eddie said, disappointed the boy had went back to the annoying jokes. Richie just grins and tells more dumb stories.
Richie was glad he was getting to know this kid. He really hoped they'd become friends- maybe even more than that.
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Yeah, I know it's short. I'm trying not to stray too far from Nox's storyline but I honestly have no idea where they're going with it since I'm just another fan. So if the art at the beginning of the chapter is different than my writing that's probably because I started writing before I saw their newest post. Also this story I blowing up thanks to Nox, thank you all and especially Nox. Follow them on Instagram if you don't! @noxaton