**Disclaimer: All characters, locations, etc belong to J.K. Rowling. No copyright infringement is intended in the posting in this story.**

"This is bad."

"Well spotted."

"This is really bad."

"I always knew they put you in Ravenclaw for a reason."

"Al, shut up!"

About a hundred people shushed me at once. Numerous mutterings of "Rose…" echoed through the library. Albus Potter sat across the table from me, a thoroughly ignored History of Magic book sitting open in front of him.

To others, Al always seemed to radiate kindness. I couldn't count how many times one of my dorm mates had gushed about how sweet he was, how loving, how lucky I was to have him. He was the boy every girl in our year wanted to date. Well, one of two.

Both of these boys were currently high up on my hit list, Al for being so sarcastic, and the other boy for causing the situation in the first place.

"Rose, calm down," Al said, looking straight into my eyes. "It really isn't that big a deal."

I glared in return.

Al was a good child, the golden boy of the family, and had a good appreciation of the Rose stink-eye. He knew it was not to be ignored, that it usually meant I was on the verge of shouting, and cowered appropriately. As always when he was nervous, he ran his hand through his unruly black hair, and the usual subsequent sigh came from all the girls at the surrounding tables. I laughed at them internally.

"Look, Rose," he said with exceeding caution, "all I'm saying is…"

"That it's not that big a deal?" I retorted. "Not that big a deal? I was actually intending to pass my O.W.L.'s thank you very much."

"This isn't exactly going to stop you."

"What? Oh yes, let me just continue with my day, my O.W.L.'s and forget that I have to the most important project of my life with the devil's spawn. I'll just forget that he won't lift a finger to do anything, that we can't even speak without yelling at each other. I'll just forget that I've hated him for years. Let me just erase all the times he's called me 'the mudblood's daughter!' What does it matter? It's not like it's going to get in the way of my future!"

I paused for breath and became aware of the fact that the entire History section of the library was staring at me. Fine, let them stare. I was on a roll.

"It's not going to stop me that I don't know a damn thing about my topic; I don't have to worry because my partner will be oh-so-willing to help me! I only have to think back to every time he's spat a word at me for that one! So yeah, Al. I'd say that hating my partner isn't going to stop me from doing something incredible on my O.W.L. project. I'll just forget that I'm working with Malfoy."

I was practically frothing at the mouth.

But the more I thought about it, the worse the situation was. The project was a new thing, a "genius" idea of Al's dad. Uncle Harry had played a big part in arranging the new prejudice-free Hogwarts. He'd created the communal room, where anyone from any House could spend the evening. He'd further mixed up the class schedules to avoid rivalries. And he'd created the O.W.L. project. Every Fifth Year had to do one. You were given a partner, someone outside of your House, usually of the opposite gender. Together, you were assigned a subject that you were both taking and that you both had to pass to proceed in your desired career track.

That's where the rules ended. You could do anything you wanted. People did the weirdest things. They created muggle calculators for Arithmancy, wrote Horoscopes for all of Hogwarts for a month, created new spells for Defense Against the Dark Arts and charmed the entire castle green for a day. There were no rules, no guidelines, simply come up with something cool and don't screw it up.

A committee consisting of the Heads of House, the Headmaster, the Head Boy and Girl and the Professor of the subject the pair were assigned graded the projects. It was tacked onto your grade for the subject. An amazing project was quite the driving force for employment. Dominique's Potions project on a potion for giving birth got her a job at St. Mungo's without any extra training. Yes, there was certainly something to be gained by doing a fantastic job.

Which, of course, was why I was so upset in the first place. My project needed to be amazing. Something out of this world. And there was no way to do an incredible project if you had a useless, hateful slug for a partner.

Al had it is easy; he'd wanted to be an Auror his whole life. So naturally, when the project came around, he was quickly assigned Defense Against the Dark Arts and one of his best friends, Ella Henderson of Hufflepuff. They would have no trouble coming up with something incredible; when it came to DADA, Albus was best in the year, and Ella was definitely in the top five.

A chair scraped along the floor and another person sat down at our table. "Rose, I love you to death, but please don't tell me you're still sulking." It was my other cousin and one of my best friends, Roxanne. Roxanne was Uncle George's daughter, and she was just as much of a laugh as he was. But she also got Aunt Angelina's serious side and both of her parents' love for Quidditch. She sat across from me now having just returned from Ravenclaw practice, pealing her Keeper's gloves off of her hands.

I nodded solemnly; Roxanne had it easy too. From the very first day of school, Roxanne had exactly two loves, and two only: Charms and Quidditch. She'd sit there on the pitch, a hundred feet up in the air, and turn everything yellow, or putting a cheering charm on the whole crowd. But there was no contest between the two. All she'd ever wanted to do was be a Charms professor. And of course, she was paired with another one of Al's friends, Kyle Quint from Gryffindor, who was looking to go into Accidental Magic Reversal. Again, another perfect match, another unbelievable project.

Of course, it was only me who'd been paired with someone totally wrong. Although, I can't think of how the child of Satan could be right for anyone, so I guess they'd just had to partner him with someone, but why me?

I mean, there wasn't particularly anything wrong with Scorpius Malfoy; it was just that there was nothing right. He was annoying git, but so was half of Hogwarts. He could possibly be considered mildly attractive, but anyone could be if you squinted hard enough. He was smart, but he didn't really care enough to apply himself to anything. He was a good Quidditch player, but he basked too much in his glory. And most importantly, every single one of his actions seemed unbearably annoying to me.

All of the other girls fawned over him, dreaming about his piercing grey eyes, which I could never seem to find the beauty of, his platinum blond hair which made him look old to me, and his amazing personality, which never seemed to extend in my direction. For some reason, some wonderful, fantastic reason, all I saw was an arrogant boy who liked the limelight a little too much. And all right, he was a little bit attractive. A tiny, little, teeny-weeny, insignificant bit. If you know what I'm saying.

At any rate, he was much better looking than me, for example. I seemed to have split evenly down the line between my mother and the traditional Weasley look. Although my entire family insisted I was beautiful, I was never able to see it. My hair was a chunky, wavy mess, like my mother's, but it had the typical Weasley red. Almond-shaped plain brown eyes and splattering of freckles decorated my face, along with rose-petal lips that were supposedly "adorable." All I knew was the tip of my nose always seemed to be red and no matter how hard I tried to stop it, a horrible blush would cover my nose, cheeks and even spread to my neck at the slightest embarrassment. Although my body was slender, I never saw myself as being skinny. I was perfectly normal, cursed with a perfectly normal height of 5'6" and a perfectly normal life. It was horrible.

Along with my perfectly normal life came the perfectly normal idea of not knowing what I wanted to do with myself. All of my cousins had known from young ages exactly what their adult lives would entail. Even my little brother Hugo knew that he wanted to be wand maker, and he was two years behind me in school. But me, I had no idea.

When I'd told McGonagall that, she'd looked at me very strangely. All of the Weasleys for generations had known where they were headed in life, even if they didn't want to admit it. Uncle Charlie had loved dragons; Victorie knew the only place for her was International Cooperation. Even my father, who had ended up running Weasley's Wizard Wheezes with Uncle George, had known when the time came that he wanted to be an Auror.

So why didn't I know?

As I cast my mind around in that uncomfortable silence at McGonagall's desk, I tried to think of things that appealed to me. I'd always loved animals, but I didn't want to work with them. Transfiguration was fun, but I hated teaching. No, what my mind hit on was transportation.

I loved the way things moved. Since primary school, physics had fascinated me. I forced my dad to teach me about apparation and take me along. I hated flying, but the mechanics of a broom were amazing. My mum had bought me hundreds of books on the physics of flight and movement. So I did the only thing I could think of it.

I told McGonagall that I was considering going into the Ministry Department of Magical Transportation.

Big mistake. Since there was no real subject that lined up directly with transportation, McGonagall created one. It was a mixture of Charms, which were required to apparate, make portkeys, and use the floo network, and Arithmancy, which incorporated the physics and math aspects of those methods. My project grade would be split between the two subjects and naturally I was a very lucky person because there was someone else who wanted to go into the same field and whom I could work with.

Yes, Malfoy.

Damn.

There's a general rule among those who are upset. You do not ever, under any circumstances, associate yourself with the cause of your unhappiness. It only causes said misery to strengthen quite dramatically, and then it takes ages to get out of it.

Being the daughter of both my mother and my father, rules had always been a little strange to me. For my father they were made to be broken, for my mum they were more important than anything. So generally, I looked at a rule, decided if I liked it, and then either stuck with it or chucked it out the window.

Most rules were quickly chucked for being completely pointless, but there were a couple that I stuck by no matter what. That rule in particular I clung to like there was no tomorrow. An angry Rose was not fun, and I usually ended up apologizing to a lot of people the next day.

So, as I ditched my unhelpful family in the library, I held on tightly to the rule. I didn't have a destination in mind, but wherever I was going would definitely not contain Malfoy.

A grumble from my stomach prompted me to look at my watch and realize that I had totally missed dinner in my undeniable need to sulk. My location set, I headed off to the kitchens. There was a certain house-elf down there by the name of Winky who I knew would be only too happy to make me a sandwich. She and my mother worked together for a long time when Mum was in the Department for the Regulation and Control of Magical Creatures, trying to get elf rights passed. Winky knew me from numerous dinner parties and late night discussions, and I could use an old friend right now.

Unfortunately, plans born spur of the moment in anger never work out quite right. And as I pushed open the kitchen door open, I heard the exact voice I'd been hoping to ignore.

"You don't understand, man. I can't even be in the same room as her without feeling the need to…"

"He-hem." I cleared my throat, making myself known as I walked into the kitchens.

And there sat the prince himself. Scorpius Malfoy was picking at scone, his long, graceful fingers pulling it apart and crumbling the pieces. He looked up, seeing me, and a slight pink tinge spread over his pale face, somehow accentuating his pointed chin.

"Weasley," he nodded at me.

"Malfoy," I responded. "Hey Milo."

His companion, Milo Brown, was something of a family friend. He was Aunt Audrey's cousin's nephew, or something like that. At any rate, we were related, but not by blood, and quite civil to each other. We'd never been especially close friends, but we spoke occasionally in class and waved in the hallways.

"Rose," Milo said with a smile.

The flush on Malfoy's face and Milo's slightly guilty look left no doubt in my mind that they had been talking about me. I didn't even want to know what Malfoy had had to say. In fact, just thinking about the fact that I would have to listen to this ponce was starting to make me feel a little green. Food was beginning to sound mildly revolting.

"So Weasley," Malfoy started, "I was thinking-"

"We should work on our project," I finished for him.

"I was thinking Friday…"

"Five's good."

"We'll need the libra-"

"The Charms section."

And without another word to him, I turned on my heel and left the kitchens, all thoughts of food firmly put away for later, when I would no doubt become starving. Any actual conversation between Malfoy and I always ended that way. We both knew what the other was going to say before they'd actually said it. Impatient to have the contact over, we'd cut each other off, only further succeeding in annoying the other. Usually, what began as an off-handed comment ended with us yelling at each other, insults flying across the air between us. I couldn't think of a single interaction, beside the one that had just occurred, that ended without either a petty jibe or a screamed, anger-filled slander.

Malfoy and I despised each other from the beginning. Our parents had turned us against each other before we'd even gotten the chance to speak. Although we'd later found out that both of our parents had only been half serious, by that time the hatred was planted too far down to be removed. My mum had spent a summer trying to convince me to give Malfoy a break; he only hated me because of what his parents said to him. For a while, I believed her, and I came back for second year expecting to try to be friends. Well, that went down the toilet incredibly quickly. Our first conversation was the usual barb-filled banter. That was the end of any thought of being friends with Malfoy. We returned to our easy dislike of each other.

My feet had subconsciously carried me back to Ravenclaw tower, and the door broke me out of my reverie.

"Name three animals that can travel far and wide fast and may be slow but never get far away from home."

I sighed. Lately the door had been getting cheesier and cheesier. The Head Boy and Girl were in charge of supplying it with enough riddles for a couple weeks. My cousin Molly was good at her job, but as a Gryffindor she'd never understood the point of the Ravenclaw riddles, so she'd gone my mum's Internet over the summer and printed out pages of them. Most were stupid, insignificant little things. Occasionally you'd get logic. However, if you were unlucky, like I obviously was, you got trivia.

"Um…" I muttered. "A turtle. And a snail. And…"

I paused, having no idea what the last one was. "Me," I deadpanned. No response. Damn.

"Rosie!" a call echoed down the hall. Roxanne approached me, looking excited. "Thank God I found you. Al's worried that you were going to go suicidal on us."

"I'm still considering it," I mumbled.

"So, care to tell me why you're standing outside?" she asked.

I motioned wordlessly to the door, which repeated its riddle for Roxy.

"A turtle," she said right off the bat. "And a slug."

Slug, snail, same difference. We were one short. Roxanne and I stood there for a moment, thinking.

Finally, she spoke. "A fish."

I was about to give her my trademark "What?" look when the door swung open. I looked at her in amazement as we passed through the door. "How'd ya figure?"

"What?"

"The fish," I asked. "How did you get the fish?"

"Fish can swim for miles and miles, but they never leave the ocean, which is their home." Together, we sat on a couch in front of the fireplace. I nodded, understanding her reasoning.

"So," I began, "homework?"

"Psh, Rose, it's the second week back. Plus, don't you want to talk about your little tantrum?"

I rolled my eyes. "It was not a tantrum."

"Fine, call it a breakdown then."

"Roxanne!"

"Rose…"

"Forget it," I said. "I'm going to bed."

"Oh Rosie, come on," Roxanne begged as I headed up the stairs to our dormitory. I shook my head in response.

"See you in the morning."

I reached our floor and the little room that my cousin and I shared with three other girls, Claire Schnider, Verity Cozen, and the world's biggest female dog ever, Kelly McCalman. Luckily, it was empty of both friends and dogs. There was really only one thing to do in this situation. I flopped on my bed, kicking off my shoes and putting my hair up in a sloppy bun. Reaching for my bedside table, I grabbed a piece of parchment and my favorite quill and began to write.

Dear Mum,

Do you ever feel like a situation is just completely hopeless and you'd be better off giving up now? It's a very strange feeling, not one that I particularly like, especially not when it's associated with something I've looked forward to since arriving at Hogwarts. Okay, enough secrecy. I've got to tell someone.

We got our partners for our O.W.L. projects today. And our subjects, I suppose, but that isn't really the important part. Although you'll be interested to know that I told McGonagall that I want to go into Magical Transportation. It seems kind of interesting, and to be honest, it was the only thing I could think of.

So she said my subject would be a mixture of Charms and Arithmancy and my partner would be – are you ready for this? – Scorpius Malfoy. I KNOW.

What am I going to do, Mum? I am in need of serious advice here. He and I still can't talk civilly and now we're expected to do a project together? Not mention, what the bloody hell are we going to do? It's not like we can create some new method of transportation or anything…

Al was not being helpful; he was paired with Ella and is as happy as a pig in a wig. Roxy is working with Kyle, and well, you know her, if it has to do with Charms… I told them both to sod off; they can actually stand their partners.

Hugo's fine. Hope everything's well at home. Please don't tell Dad, I really don't need him to come stomping down here like he's going to murder someone.

Love, (although with eternal hatred)

Rosie

P.S. I HATE him, Mum. He's horrible.

AN: A couple of quick things...

1) This story is part of a writing challenge entitled Project PULL. Details on my profile.

2) I wrote this ages ago and it was betaed about six months ago. I intend to rewrite pretty much the entire thing because everything but the basis of the story will be changed. However, I didn't have a chance to write anything for PULL today and I had to post a back-up story. The majority of this will be changed at some point.

3) Happy Christmas, everyone!