I found this in my files and figured I'd post it since it has been a while. Fret not, I haven't forgotten about Witch Slap - it's in the works. I'm trying to get through this one chapter and it's been a bummer.

"You just carry the squiggle!" Rose cried out in frustration at Al, her wand impatiently tapping the diagram she'd drawn on the blackboard. "It's not that hard!"

"I thought we were studying, Weasley," drawled Malfoy from a table far away on the corner, "not listing your boyfriend's problems in bed."

The study room was completely empty except for the three of them. All the other students had decided to enjoy the exceptional day and were outside, basking on the precious summer sunlight. An unofficial holiday of sorts had been declared by the exhausted fifth-year students who had been hard at work for their O.W.L.s.

All of them except for her cousin, who still couldn't seem to wrap his pea-brain around the most basic principles of Arithmancy. Which meant she wasn't allowing him to leave until he crammed at least a third of the coursework, which in turn meant she couldn't leave until she had forced him to cram at least a third of the coursework.

What Malfoy was doing there, she'd be hard-pressed to tell you.

"You childish prat," she scolded. Al sniggered and Rose threw Malfoy a spiteful look. "Go away!"

Their progress had been slow and steady for the past few days, but the arrival of good weather had definitely put a damper on her best efforts.

All they wanted was to be anywhere else, doing anything else.

Al wasn't even trying anymore. And Malfoy? Malfoy was just being unhelpful, as usual. And here she was, desperately trying to cram five years of Arithmancy into her cousin's thick skull, wasting time she could spend reading or studying herself.

It wasn't that Al was stupid, no. He was just one of those incredibly talented people who survived solely on the knowledge they had absorbed by osmosis in classes and never had to pick a damned book.

He was brilliant, but he was lazy.

He was intuitive, but he had no work ethic.

It was such a damned waste. If he focused a tenth of the time and energy he expended on those silly spells of his into his studies, he'd beat her in every single O.W.L.

"It's a study room, Weasley," Malfoy replied with a lopsided smirk that made her insides curl. He lifted the thick book he'd been lazily perusing, flashing the cover at her - Potions, of course - so she could see what a good boy he was. "And I, for one, am studying. You have no grounds to kick me out."

"I don't need grounds to kick you," Rose sniffed disdainfully. "Don't you have to go bat a Bludger at someone?"

"Not today," he said, pointedly flicking a page with that same annoying grin.

"Go shag your girlfriend, maybe?"

"Nope."

"Throw yourself off the Astronomy tower…?"

Before Malfoy could reply, Al lifted a hand between them and quirked an eyebrow. "Are you two quite done?"

Sheepishly, Rose's attention snapped back to her unwilling pupil. He had picked up the piece of parchment he'd been scribbling on and was dismissively handing it to her. "Is this what you were saying?"

She eyed the calculations for a few seconds, brows furrowing every few lines.

It was technically correct, in that weird, haphazard way that Al did everything. He never bothered to show his thought process and the way he was solving the problem had very little to do with the way she'd just been describing for the past hour and a half... but it was fundamentally correct.

"You can't do it like this in the O.W.L, Al." Her lips pursed and she handed him back the parchment, shaking her head. "They're sticklers for method, they'll eat you alive."

"But I'm right, aren't I?"

He had a defiant, snooty look on his face and Rose silently cursed her choice of words. Anyone who was even mildly acquainted with Albus knew that he had a problem with authority. He heard the words 'can't do' as an open invitation for rebellion rather than an actual constraint to take into consideration.

"You are, but-"

"Then that's that," Al huffed, impatiently tapping his fingers on the table. "Next."

"But-"

"Next."

Rose rolled her eyes and started turning the pages of the Arithmancy book. "I swear I don't know why I bother."

Every year the same thing. Every year this same room and the three of them crammed in it, with her trying to catch up Al on every subject he'd been thoroughly ignoring because it wasn't right up his alley, Al moaning because he'd rather be studying Charms or Transfiguration (which he really didn't need to study because he was already naturally brilliant) and Malfoy doing something else entirely, sticking around for the sole purpose of causing her grief.

"Because you love me?" Al grinned at her and got up from his seat to stand next to her, peering at the pages she was flicking. "What are we doing next?"

"Foundations of occult numerology. And don't groan," she scolded, giving Al's shoulder a nudge with her own, "I know for a fact that you were daydreaming during those classes and didn't listen to a single word Professor Jeffries was saying."

"I wasn't daydreaming." Al scoffed indignantly, taking a step away to better scowl at her. "I was working out a new practical application for Skinning's Principle of Relocation!"

"Skinning's Principle, my arse," Scorpius sniggered from the back of the room, laughter bubbling from him. "You were trying to make a spell to pinch girls' knickers!"

"Damned right I was," Al huffed, languidly leaning against a nearby desk. "Come to think of it, I never quite finished it. I was so close, too. Maybe I could revisit-"

A dreamy look appeared on his face which Rose recognised as his face right before he moved on to greener, more amusing pastures.

"Revisit all you want... after the O.W.L.s," she said quickly, stumbling over her words. She sighed with relief as Al's enthusiasm died down before scowling at Malfoy, who was watching the chaos he'd just caused with obvious glee. "The weather's rather nice out, Malfoy. Are you sure you don't want to go enjoy it?"

"I'm touched by your concern, but I'm very comfortable right here," he replied, a lopsided smirk curling his mouth. Again, her insides churned at the sight of it and Rose clenched her teeth. "And anyway, Al, you have to remember you weren't that close. You ran into a problem with-"

Anger surged on her chest and Rose grabbed her wand. "I swear if you don't stop being a disrupting tosser, I'll-"

"You'll what, bore me to death?" the boy snorted disdainfully, his eyebrows furrowing with amusement. "If that was your initial plan I have to say you've been doing a great job at it. I'm sure if you keep at it-"

That was just hurtful. She'd been trying very hard to show Al just how interesting Arithmancy could be. It wasn't her fault the full extent of her cousin's interests in life was limited to practical spellcasting of the devious sort.

"- both Al and I will be six feet under in a matter of days."

Rose rubbed her free hand against her forehead and closed her eyes, inhaling deeply.

This was going to be a long couple of weeks.

"Nine, wait, ten O.W.L.s?" Al's eyes perused over Scorp's O.W.L. scores and he threw his arms in the air. "Did you study without me, you wanker?"

"Unlike you, I actually pay attention," Scorp said, dismissively pinching the parchment from Al's hands. "It's not a big deal."

The butterflies in his stomach told a different tale: he'd never been giddier in his life. His mum was a sucker for academic prowess and his small collection of O.W.L.s would pretty much guarantee him a Nimbus 3000, which was something he'd been wanting for a while now.

Superior speed and aerodynamic breakage prepare to meet Scorpius Malfoy.

"Not in Arithmancy you didn't," Al replied mournfully. "Didn't pick up a book either. How in the name of Morgana did you get an O?"

Al griped about the unfairness of life for a little while. Scorp didn't move a muscle, his eyes scanning the parchment.

Al was right: that O in Arithmancy didn't belong and neither did the one in Ancient Runes or Astronomy.

He hadn't picked up a damned book.

"I just carried the squiggle," he said quietly, more to himself than Al. Visions of tousled red curls and indignant sniffs caused a small smirk to curl his mouth.

"What was that?" Al asked, lifting his eyes from his own O.W.L.s.

"Nothing."