The Crash Years

Drew sighed. He was sitting in Defense Against the Dark Arts. He was bored stiff. He kept trying to catch Demi's eye, in the hopes that they could have one of their infamous secret conversations, but it seemed she might have been actually paying attention. Oh, the horrors!

So, instead, he drifted into an old habit of his--people watching. People always seemed so very interesting to him; no two people thought or acted exactly the same way. Unfortunately, however, lately, his eyes seemed to drift towards one person in particular. He was a Slytherin, from the same year as Drew. His name was Cole.

That was almost all Drew knew about him.

He always stared, trying to figure something out. Trying to get something from his movements, his behavior, his habits. He never got anything, though. All he knew was that he was very, very attractive.

And way beyond his reach.

Demi was staring at the teacher like he was some sort of half unicorn half bird creature. She'd been attempting to listen to what the teacher was saying, so maybe she could actually do her homework this time. But, she really had no idea what was going on. The teacher had lost her after the first few sentences.

"Do you have any idea what is going on?" She asked Drew, she'd been ignoring him for most of the lesson. As she was attempting to listen. But now she'd given up she thought she may as well spend the rest of the lesson actually enjoying herself. She looked at him, seeing that he wasn't even looking in her direction. "Fine," she muttered under her breath, too low for anyone to hear. "Ignore me. I don't mind."

She picked up her pencil that she randomly at the bottom of her bag and poked him, trying to get his attention.

Ignore me, I don't mind.

Demi's voice and a pencil prodded unceremoniously into Drew's side jolted him out of his reverie. "Oops. Sorry, there. I was zoning out a bit. How are you doing? Does any of this make an ounce of sense to you?" He paused for a second, looking at Demi's annoyed, frustrated face. "Guess not. Anywho, what's the plan?"

Demi looked at him, and shook her head. "Does it look like it makes sense? It's a bunch of pointless, I don't even know." She sighed dropping her pencil down onto the table, it made thumping noise as it hit. "What were you staring at anyway?" She asked him, as she picked the pencil back up and started tapping it against the table. "Generally, when you zone out. You look at the teacher. So it looks like you are somewhat paying attention."

Uh oh. Drew realized it was possible that Demi was catching on, which would be bad news.

"No one else in the class is staring at the teacher. Well, you were, and the kid over there is. But besides that, I figured it would look out of place if I was staring at the teacher this time, and you know I am about blending in. I was people watching, since you were ignoring me completely. Why were you bothering to pretend you were paying attention?"

"Yeah whatever," Demi replied with a wave of the hand that was holding the pencil. As she was holding it rather loosely it flew out of her fingers and into the air hitting the ground somewhere behind her. She glanced behind her, seeing the pencil sitting on the floor a few feet back. "I was actually attempting to pay attention for once," She replied frowning at her pencil. "For a change, didn't learn anything more than usual. Actually learnt less. Would have learnt more listen to you babble on." She ducked out of her chair and went to retrieve her pencil, getting a few looks from other people. "Find anything interesting about however you were watching this time?" She asked him.

This was somewhat of a pattern with Drew and Demi. Drew watched and then gave information about what he learned. Demi was a gossip-monger at times, and she enjoyed getting the scoop on everything. However, today he did not have much to share.

"Pettigrew tried shaving his face and cut himself. Whoever let him near a muggle razor was not the brightest bulb in the box. Lupin is looking a bit under the weather--it always happens around this time of the month, although I'm not sure quite why. He keeps staring at Black, though. I'm thinking there's a possibility that something is going on there that he is not sharing. Black and Potter were passing notes again, although I don't know why they bother, because both of them seem to be able to read each other like a kindergarten-level book. Narcissa is in a prissy mood. In other words, very little new."

Demi sat back down in her chair, putting the pencil down on the table. Though she knew she'd pick it back up in a few moments. She listened as Drew talked over what everyone was doing. "Pettigrew's an idiot," She said. "Seriously." She looked at Narcissa. "I wonder what she'd do if I threw my pencil at her." Demi mused picking it back up and starting to draw an eye on the table. "Though, that's probably not a smart idea is it?" She asked looking up at Drew for a moment before going back to her eye.

Drew smirked. "Probably not the smartest idea, no. Malfoy over there looks like he would skin you alive if you tried. He's staring at her like a lovesick puppy." One by one, Drew went through the room--that is, until he got to the mysterious Cole. He skipped over him, hoping Demi would not notice.

"Why is it that no one in our classes ever change? We are always stuck with the same people who do the same things every single day. No one ever does anything new."

"Oh, but that would be amusing," Demi muttered as she glanced over at Malfoy. "Nothing like riling up the Slytherins. Maybe I can throw it at Potter? That would get an amusing reaction." She smiled, her eyes flickering from each person to the next as Drew talked about something about them. "Well, we'd change so subtly that you wouldn't notice would you?" She suggested finished off of her eye and looking at it. "That's actually a good eye." She mused looking at it. "Pity I drew it on the table and not in my notebook." She sighed and shrugged. "You missed one of the Slytherins," She commented looking at Drew, with a vague hand gesture at the boy. She sometimes wondered how the teacher didn't notice the two of them talking. She supposed they probably just ignored them most of the time.

Uh oh again. Demi noticed his omission. He would just have to make something up as he went, he supposed.

"I think that his name is Greengrass? Cole or something. The entire time he's been in this class, he has looked at almost no one. He is either paying attention or very good at pretending. He seems to be playing the ice king card."

It did not match his appearance at all, but that was precisely what it looked like Cole was doing. He never looked around. He never talked. Never passed notes. Just stared straight ahead, the entire time Drew had been staring at him.

Which was, admittedly, quite a long time.

"Hm kay," Demi said, not paying an awful amount of attention to Drew. "wait," She frowned, and actually looked at the person Drew was talking about it, she'd had a few encounters with him in the past. "Bah Greengrass," She muttered scrunching up her nose. "Stupid jerk." She turned her pencil around her hand, it hit an odd angle and shot off again, landing on the floor. "Whatever," She muttered at it, using her foot in an attempt to reel it back in.

"What?" Demi's mood changes were frequent, but not usually this rapid. "Do you know something about him? I can't seem to find anything out, because he never ever talks to anyone. It's terribly frustrating. Do you know the Greengrass family?"

Watching Demi struggle with her pencil, Drew quickly muttered a summoning spell. The pencil flew into his hand and he set it down on his desk. She kept fidgeting with it.

"Purebloods," Demi muttered picking the pencil back up, she glared at Greengrass' back as she turned the pencil around her hand again. "Very blood superior, well, from what I've seen from him." She gave his back another dark look, and stopped turning her pencil around. Recalling her earlier thoughts of throwing her pencil at someone she flung it across the room in the general direction of his head. "Pah." She muttered sourly, crossing her arms across her chest.

Cole was absentmindedly paying attention to the lesson. It was something he already mostly knew about, so it was a rather dull lecture, but he would occasionally catch a fact he didn't know and would jot it down. His grades had to be perfect, always perfect. Otherwise he would never live up to his brothers.

He was just about to write down the newest fact when he felt something poke against his shoulder. Turning his head slightly in the direction it'd come from his eyes narrowed, then he just dismissed it, not deeming the distraction worth his time any.

Cole turned his head to see who had thrown a pencil at him, but seemed to ignore it. Drew decided that he was either completely oblivious or really studious. However, that was not the most important thing--this was one of the first times that Drew was seeing more than the back of Cole's head.

He was a lot more attractive than Drew thought.

Oh goodness.

No one should be allowed to be that attractive, especially a pureblood supremacist.

At least, that's what Demi claimed he was.

Demi rather childishly poked her tongue out at him when he turned back to face the board, she then looked at her pencil sitting on the floor and frowned. She looked sideways at Drew who was looking at the Slytherin. "Hello?" Demi muttered. "Earth to Drew." She waved her hand in front of his face. "Care to help me get my pencil back?" She asked him, as she was hopeless with summoning charms.

Cole was about to get back to writing when it occurred to him to find out just what had hit him exactly. A brief glance at the floor produced a pencil that hadn't been there previously. Rolling his eyes just a tad, he reached down and picked it up. If the owner wanted it back they were going to have to get it from him. It would tell him who it was anyhow.

Uh oh.

Demi was busted. Cole took the pencil, meaning if Demi wanted it back (and she was stubborn enough that the fact that it was just a stupid pencil meant nothing to her), she was going to have to confront Mr. Iron Eyes. Which meant, most likely, that he was never going to hear the end of this. Demi was about to do something stupid--her very eyes screamed it.

"Be careful," Drew warned her. "Don't do anything stupid."

He knew it was hopeless.

Demi frowned as Greengrass picked up her pencil, which means she'd have to go over and get it. She frowned, and made a face. Wondering how much longer the class had left so she could go and get the pencil. "Me? Stupid?" Demi asked with a smile at Drew. "Like I ever do anything stupid." The bell rang. "Come on Drew," She said grabbing his arm as the teacher dismissed them. "You're coming with." Whether he wanted to come or not Demi pulled him over. "Oi Greengrass," She said stopping behind the boy, who was putting away his notes, because he was odd and actually took notes. "Pencil please?" She asked with a slightly raised eyebrow.

Cole was clearly off his desk and neatly putting everything away when he heard a girl's voice behind him. Smirking just a little, he straightened up in his seat and looked at her, holding the pencil between two fingers. "You want this back?" he asked, voice airy as usual, betraying nothing about him. "Too bad."

Drew pondered the situation for a second. From everything he knew about Cole, there was no way he could intimidate him to get the pencil back. He was so... aloof. But it was more than that. He was surrounded by an impregnable wall, and Drew had no idea how to worm his way in.

He doubted he could just use magic to get it back--if Cole was a pureblood, there was no way that he, a half-blood, or Demi, a muggleborn, could match him in terms of magical prowess. Nothing they did would catch him by surprise.

"Excuse me," Drew hedged in, sounding confident but mildly respectful. It would set Cole at ease--it was what he was used to, Drew was sure. "Can we please have the pencil back? It's just a pencil."

Cole put his attention directly on Drew. "Correction," he said. "It's a pencil that was thrown at me. That changes it completely. And I don't trust your little friend there not to throw it again." He took a moment to sweep his bangs out of his eyes so that he could properly see them both without the annoying blonde strands in the way. "However, I'm willing to let you try and convince me otherwise."

"Because throwing something at you automatically makes it yours," Demi muttered under her breath. "Just give me the freaking pencil, please." She said though the way she said please definitely didn't sound like she meant it. She didn't want to be standing anywhere near Greengrass, she just wanted her pencil back and then wanted to get the hell out of there. She wanted something to eat.

Drew shot Demi a look that clearly said, if you want to get your pencil back, you'd better learn to be polite.
She clearly was not paying attention to what he was conveying. Thus, he would have to take it into his own hands to get back the stupid pencil.

"Look, Demi is just trying to say that it is just a little pencil. It does not make sense to withhold it. She doesn't plan to throw any more pencils at you." With this, he sent Demi a direct, withering stare. She was not making him into a liar. "Besides, even if she were going to try something stupid again, which she isn't, why would keeping this pencil stop her? There are thousands of pencils in the world."