Proper Perfect Partners
Morning started with hushed whispers.
Looks of befuddlement were thrown across the room upon noticing the odd pairing of yellow and green assuredly taking the front row seats in potions class. The rest of the students had, customarily, stuck to their own respective houses, thus creating a clear divide down the middle aisle to separate the snakes and the badgers. One thought echoed through everyone’s mind: what was the Slytherin perfect-grades-golden-boy prefect doing with a no-name Hufflepuff?
As if their joint presence was not enough of an oddity, venomous eyes watched as Tom pulled out a chair for Thea, proceeding to give her a smile – just a touch beyond his usual cordial ones that had the girls swooning – upon receiving a grateful one in response to his chivalry. He then took his seat beside her, paying no heed to the others who had shut their mouths in sheer surprise. It took only a second before the mutters restarted.
Didn’t you hear? They were chatting on the train platform last year!
They said Riddle had accepted a gift from a girl, I suppose that’s her?
You mean to say that Riddle had not rejected her? That can’t be!
The tension broke at that moment with Slughorn’s entrance, greetings spewing out of him energetically, oblivious to the heated stares shot at the new topic of interest. Though, he did share their surprise when his eyes fell on the pair before understanding crossed him. He shot them a quick expectant grin, pleased to have his top students partnering together for the rest of the year.
“Welcome, welcome! It’s wonderful to see you all here for N.E.W.T.s potions this year…” Slughorn continued on to explain the partnering system for the year, mentioning that he’d make his own pairing if there were any unsuitable ones, therefore striking the hopes of those who had wished to join their friends purely for fun. This forced the students to make their way to the opposing houses and when the professor gave them a moment to get to know one another, the majority of class was unashamed to groan in annoyance.
Thea and Tom turned to face each other and curiosity won over the latter when his attention caught onto the girl’s hand which had been fidgeting with an all-too-familiar piece of paper. “Why paper cranes?”
Not expecting the line of questions to start there but welcomed nonetheless, Thea responded honestly, “well- I like them. Some cultures treat them as symbolisms for longevity, peace, grace.” Thea applauded herself in the small, amused twitch of Tom’s lips at the joke. “And, besides, I’m not exactly well-versed in the art of origami, so it was either paper boats or cranes.”
“And you chose cranes.”
“Mhm.” Tom was clearly avoiding the elephant in the room, which was of no issue to her.
Truthfully, Thea had nothing to hide. Should Tom ever ask her of her intentions, she’d be frank with it. Her secrets? She’d lay them bare for him. Tom wasn’t a trusting person and any hint of deception would only get her nowhere. She was no master of lies – she held no silver tongue. But she understood why he hadn’t breached the topic yet – there was no guarantee, in his perspective, that she’d plainly tell him everything. He would, undeniably, be plotting to charm her enough to be able to wrap her around his fingers. Hence, she took his sweet behaviour towards her with a grain of salt. For as long as he would like to play round-a-bout, she’d play along too.
That in mind, Thea decided not to cut their talk short there. “Say, do you know how to make one?”
Tom raised an eyebrow. “A paper crane?” Upon the affirmative Thea gave, he responded with a “no”.
Feigning mock offence, she decided that a lesson was due to share the beauty of art, that was paper craft, and snapped into existence another small sheet of paper. Tom, caught off-guard at the path the conversation had taken, could only follow her instructions as she folded her own set. It was only in the midst of it that he allowed himself to curb his curiosity once more. “You seem proficient in wandless and non-verbal magic.”
Thea hummed. “I had the chance to grow up with a house elf as my supervision for a few years prior to Hogwarts. She’s a remarkable elf, Tally, and – it took a bit of convincing because it could be dangerous, but – she taught me ways to control my magic without the use of verbal nor physical aids. Since I had no wands tied to my magic yet, the Trace couldn’t track me.” And then, casually, she instructed him on the next step to the paper crane before switching the focus back to continue where she left off, “turns out, I had a knack for it and was able to do simple spells by the time I had to get a wand. I’ve been working on it since and- thank Merlin, Hogwarts has a few books on physics because they’ve been tremendously helpful for it.”
As Tom mimicked Thea’s actions, he questioned, “physics? What’s that got to do with magic?”
Thea grinned as she did the finishing touches on the origami, tugging the wings apart and holding it up to showcase the finished product. “And that’s where education has failed us, Riddle, because physics could have everything to do with magic. Nice one, by the way, yours look spectacular!”
Tom glanced at the paper crane in his hand when she gestured to it, thanking her absent-mindedly before returning to her previous words. “What exactly do you mean by that?”
“Here-” Straightening up, Thea placed the paper crane on the table and laid her hands flat, palms-down, on her lap. Only a brief second passed before the paper crane started levitating off the desk, gradually rising until it was at eye-level. “Okay, now place your hand underneath it.”
Ignoring Tom’s sceptical expression, she only nudged her head at the floating paper with an unassuming smile. He did as she told him to and reached a hand out below the crane, puzzlement showing through his expression when the crane suddenly dropped to his palm and upon feeling the continuous wind blowing upwards against the back of his hand.
“In addition to will, I find that imagination helps with magic. I wanted the paper crane to fly, but I didn’t specify how. If you hadn’t felt it, you wouldn’t have known that I wasn’t using a levitation charm – in fact, I’m not using any specific charms that has a verbal counterpart! With the help of some basic physics understanding, I’m essentially spelling the air molecules to move in two circles; clockwise on the right, anticlockwise on the left. Or-” Here, Tom felt the slight shift in the air motion. “I could spell it to move up the centre and back down on all direction to create a spherical wind motion.”
Tom retracted his hand as he digested the information intensely and Thea took the crane and placed it in the air where the wind blew.
“There’s air all around so I can make it move wherever I’d like it to go. Left-” The paper crane shifted to the left. “Right-” Now, to the right. “Up, down, in circles- you get the point. I just have to spell the wind to blow however I want it to go.” In no particular fixed direction, the origami began moving through the air fluidly in front of them. “I let my body exude my magical energy, direct it outwards to be casted onto the air, while I have my imagination direct said energy to act on my desires.”
Thea turned to regard Tom who was now looking at her as if she was Merlin-incarnate altogether. Still trying to wrap his head around Thea’s display of advanced magic and unusual explanation, Tom couldn’t find his words and Thea took this opportunity to continue, biting back a grin. “Now, I find this easier than spelling the crane directly to levitate but if I wanted to do that, I’ll just have to tweak my imagination a tad.”
The crane then dropped slightly before it stilled in place once again in the air. “If you feel around it now, there’s no wind blowing on it. Where does physics come in now, you may ask? It’s all in the imagination; if I want to move it around, instead of trying to will the paper to float in an air of nothing, I picture it displacing the air molecules as it moves. This helps ease the strain of letting my magic do all the work in obeying the laws of physics while still disrupting it – unless you wanted to create a vacuum in the path the crane moves in, that is – and now, my magic has the aid of my mental image to spell the target into action, thus using up less of magical energy in a more efficient manner. With enough practice and fundamental knowledge on science, the imagination can come second-naturedly.”
As if she hadn’t just blown Tom’s mind, she had the crane doing flips and loops with a mirthful hum to fill in the silence that he found himself struck under. Magic and science had always been distinguished as two areas that didn’t intersect and jokes were, that magic triumphed over science. To hear an entire lecture on how they complemented each other, that was certainly refreshing to Tom – or anyone else, really. Once again, the girl had rendered him speechless, intrigued, interested, and he couldn’t even find it in himself to feel frustrated at it. If anything, he only wanted to know more about all that she had to offer – about her.
“How did you come up with all these?”
Giving him her full attention, she dropped her magical hold on the paper crane and turned back to him. “You could say I was a pretty creative kid. Tally didn’t grow up learning to separate science and magic as humans have been doing so she didn’t shoot me down when I suggested my idea. She’s been supportive since day one and I’ve got her to thank for, for not belittling little me and allowing me to explore. There’s a lot more to magic than what meets the eye.”
Tom hummed in agreement. “I must say the same about you, Grace. You’re certainly quite the witch.”
“Thank you, and- just ‘Thea’, please. I imagine we’ll be fairly acquainted with this partnership in place.”
“Of course, Thea. Just ‘Tom’, then.” Her bright grin infectious, Tom let his lips slip into a slight smile.
They had the time for Thea to dive further into her perspective on science and magic as a unit, upon Tom’s expression of genuine curiosity, before Slughorn called on the class’s attention. The period passed uneventfully and the bell rang just as the professor began dismissing the class. “This room will be empty for the next hour so do feel free to use this opportunity to discuss how you’ll be making the potion that you’ve picked out with your partners. Just a quick reminder: double potions after lunch will be held in the dungeon’s practical classroom! Right, class dismissed!”
Both on the same page, Thea made no moves to pack up her belongings and patiently waited for Tom to gesture for his housemates to go on ahead without him. They proceeded to waste no time launching into a productive discussion on their chosen potions, speedy exchanges flying between them with ease of keeping up with each other’s comments and queries.
“Here, I’ll deal with the beetle juice and thymes while you stir the potion clockwise twelve times.”
“And I’ll dice the crickets while you keep the temperature steady after that.”
“I’m thinking of adding cinnamon between the borage and granian hair in this step; what do you reckon?”
“Brilliant! I’ll have time to spare once I secure the lizard’s leg then so I’ll handle lowering the temperature to 87 degrees Celsius so that the cinnamon won’t introduce unwanted effects.”
“Sweet! I’ll help stabilise the drought while stirring it anticlockwise twice as you increase the heat back up to 103 degrees.”
“With the earlier adjustment we made in step six – shortening the second cat hair from eleven millimetres to eight – you should be able to introduce the first strand of granian hair once the solution reaches 96 degrees.”
“Oh, you’re right! I’ll just note that down here…”
What felt like only a couple minutes of an extremely fruitful discussion turned out to have taken up half an hour of their recess. It was to each of their relief that they didn’t have another class on the second hour of lunch time and so they were in no rush as they wrapped up their impromptu meeting, putting away their notebooks now filled to the brim with each other’s ideas on potion-making.
Still riding off the exulting highs invoked during their brainstorming session, they indulged in a casual conversation on potions as they made their way to the Great Hall, sharing their respective opinions on improvements they had had thought of with regards to certain droughts they favoured. Having seen one another in their element, eyes wide and gleaming with passion for magic as their mouths ran off in tune to their thoughts with the confidence that the listener was genuinely interested in what they had to say, any fleeting awkwardness and tension had disappeared and a solid connection had been established between them. They hadn’t expected to have grown as reassured in the other’s presence as they had come to be, but there was now an unverbalised mutual respect and understanding that they were safe to ramble to their utmost content about everything magical without fear of being shot down as other people had done.
Just as their talk had been efficient, when the two met again later in double-period potions, their movements as they put their ideas into practice were just as smooth and orderly. While the majority of the class scrambled to plan on the fly once the greenlight had been given to start on their droughts, no words were shared from Tom nor Thea as the former headed to the back of the class to grab their needed ingredients while the latter prepared the cauldron and the fire to settle the base solution in advance. There was no residing hesitation as each of them acted on their agreed tasks and words escaped their lips only to update each other on their progress so as to be able to time every step accordingly. By the time they had corked the vials to be submitted and had cleaned up their station, they had a quarter of an hour to spare – much to the boisterous delight of their professor.
“Wonderful! Absolutely wonderful, the both of you- marvellous! Just remember to label your submission before you leave it in the stands on my desk – not that I doubt you’ve already done it, of course – and you’re free to head off early! I’ll see you in the next class!”
With a quick greeting to Slughorn so as to not distract him from the concerningly-purple-and-bubbling concoction of an arguing pair of students, they slipped out of the room and shut the doors behind them. Finally away from the bustle of heat and panic of the first day of potions class, they took a deep breath of fresh air and revelled in the silence of the dim corridor.
“That was great work, Tom! Quite literally the best set of potions I’ve ever had a hand in creating.”
“I have to agree; never have I ever been this satisfied with class that it’s almost uncanny just how much I anticipate our next potions practical.”
“I know, right?!” Pleased – and flustered – with the insinuation that he had enjoyed his time with her enough to not mind more time shared together, Thea couldn’t help the wideness of her grin as she regarded her partner. “Cheers to many more potions we’ll make together.”
Similarly affected by Thea’s joyful acceptance of his company, Tom lost the fight to bite back the most genuine, yet harmless, smile he had ever fathomed he was capable of. “Cheers to that, Thea.” Oh, how she had changed everything.
Upon Tom’s insistence to walk Thea to her next destination, they chatted idly as they walked up the flights of stairs to the library. They talked schedules, hobbies, and N.E.W.T.s subjects, finding out that they had both picked out almost the same collection of subjects to take with the only difference being Thea’s choice of Astronomy whereas Tom had chosen Alchemy. Their schedules would align once again that day for Transfiguration and so, with the knowledge that they would meet again soon, they bid each other goodbye on the doorsteps of the library, leaving Tom to grapple with his newfound desires as he made his way back to the dungeons.
Previously, Tom had lamented the fact that he had no proper conversation with Thea to dissect her character from and now that he had had a few, he wanted more. More of her inspiring and eye-opening rant on magic, more of her active participation and willingness to debate ideas that interested the both of them – more of her. Never had he had someone who wanted to discuss theories with him, someone who entertained his words with reciprocated curiosity on topics that others had deemed ‘dull’ and ‘boring’. He silently pleaded with Lady Magic that Thea wouldn’t turn out to be an enemy for he wanted her. Now that he had a glimpse of her, he knew with utmost certainty that he didn’t fancy letting her go.