The Flirt
“Have you finished Flitwick’s assignment yet?” Draco peered over the lamp, greeted by a mess of red hair.
“Last section,” Maeve said in a sing-song voice. She couldn’t hide her annoyance even if she tried.
“If you want, you can look at what I wrote. I finished,” Draco smirked, tossing over his roll of parchment towards Maeve. She looked up and gritted her teeth. With a flourish of her quill, she finished the last line of her assignment and rolled Draco’s work back to him.
“I’m done now. You’re a real pain in my ass. So much for partners,” Maeve puffed, waving her parchment so that the ink would dry faster. “You’re not even real competition. Hermione finished the assignment yesterday. By herself.”
“That just looks bad for your cousin,” Draco took back his roll of parchment and slid it into his bag. “I still can’t believe the two of you are even related.”
Maeve started packing up her belongings, ignoring Draco’s comment. Like some wicked joke, the two had been continuously paired together for Charms assignments. Flitwick was piloting some cruel teaching method that involved writing out the history and uses of charms before actually teaching them. Draco was just glad he was able to be paired with Maeve because she knew the spells already. Too much hanging out with Hermione he guessed. They were also class partners because the two of them had a run-in with McGonagall that made them late to class, so the two of them had no choice but to take the back row together. Draco decided to stop wearing ties to get professors off his back about its proper wear and Maeve had singed a hole at the bottom of her robes, probably from practicing Confringo in her free time. Regrettably, he didn’t have any leverage on her to make her teach him the spell.
Draco, Maeve, and Hermione turned into an infamous trio that competed for the top marks in class. However, Hermione was a strict book reader while Maeve liked to explore education outside the confines of the Hogwarts curriculum. Surly, she would’ve made a great Slytherin. Last Draco checked, Maeve was learning some ancient runic language on some academic pursuit she was on. Draco was snapped out his daydream with the scraping sound of Maeve’s chair as she stood up. He quickly packed his things and followed her out.
“Same time after class on Friday?” Maeve yawned, redoing the pearly U-shaped pin holding her hair. Her tossed hair wafted perfume, almost sending Draco back into a daydream. He was embarrassed about how much he let her affect him but ever since they first met, Draco spent countless hours awake at night trying to figure out how to strike a conversation. He’d rather suffer a sit-down dinner with Harry, Ron, and Hermione than admit these rehearsals to anyone. He’d also bear the dinner than admit that he liked her. “Draco?”
“Yeah, sorry. That works. I can’t stay too long. I have a game at 6,” Draco held the library door, surprising Maeve and making him bump into him.
“Adrian’s playing?” Maeve asked, a little too giddy for Draco’s liking.
“Adrian?” Draco spun around, exaggerating his dissatisfaction.
“Don’t get any thoughts. That is not what I meant,” Maeve protested, bumping her shoulder into Draco’s. He would never stop getting flustered about how touchy she was. She was always batting his shoulder annoyedly or grabbing his arm when she got excited. Sometimes he let himself delude himself into thinking she had a crush on him too.
“Merlin, Pucey's like two years older than us,” Draco teased, making Maeve’s cheeks flare a bright red.
“He’s just a good Quidditch player,” Maeve said defensively.
“I didn’t realize you were such a Quidditch fan. And I taught him how to do that fancy flying technique you girls fawn over,” Draco tried bumping her shoulder back playfully, but his clumsiness almost knocked her off her feet.
“You can’t steal my bit,” Maeve scoffed, smoothing her shirt down. “Fine. Then I’ll look forward to seeing you on the field. Hope you don’t disappoint.”
In a perfect world, this would’ve been Maeve flirting with Draco but in this reality, he had to hide the flutter of his heart into his robe sleeve. This was so humiliating.