(james) Hitting the books.

For your homework this week, I want you to create a presentation based on a famous witch or wizard you’ve studied in this class.

Professor Binns was either drifting way to close to the afterlife again or he’d been haunting for far too long. He’d set that assignment last month, and while she was tempted to hand in the same presentation she’d used last time she knew deep down it would be her results that would suffer. She hated being so bloody moral. There was a terrible difference to this project though, instead of working on it individually, they were each paired up into pre decided partners and sent to work. Out of all the people in the class she could have been paired with and it had to be James.

She really liked the boy, he was good friend, but when it came down to work, especially History of magic work, she knew he’d rather be running around, causing havoc. With that in mind she’d gone personally by herself to the library and picked up a whole stack of books on potential candidates for their project and for the past half hour while she had waited for him to show up their study session had spent it leafing through the texts deciding on who to use and which names to discard. It was going to be a long night.

WE DON'T NEED NO EDUCATION

we don't need no thought control
• • •

Dead teachers should probably just be dead instead of trying to maintain a class schedule. Living teachers were boring enough, and frankly, the teaching profession didn't really have room to get any less interesting. That was why History of Magic had becomes James' designated sleep-and-do-absolutely-nothing class. To be fair, most of his classes were kind of like that, and he was prone to avoiding work as much as possible when he could. Though in Defense Against the Dark Arts there was a chance he would be hexed if he fell asleep at his desk, History of Magic wasn't threatening at all. Professor Binns was even thoughtful enough to give long sermons to lull his students into the land of Nod.

It was strange though, because James just hadn't been able to fall asleep in class for the life of him. It might've been the coffee, cigarettes, and bacon he had consumed as part of his healthy breakfast that morning, that had him more or less wide awake. Truthfully, he would have rather been asleep, because listening to Professor Binns prattle on about Goblin rights, or centaur battles or whatever it was he was talking about was dead boring. To entertain himself, James had been shooting small pieces of paper at the back of Chloe's head. Though he had initially thought he would like to throw things at Emma, his better judgement had told him that leaving her alone was probably wisest for the time being. Though rationale thinking was not his forte, occasionally it emerged and reminded him that certain people appreciate paper to the back of the head more than others.

In throwing his tiny pieces of paper he'd gotten distracted, and Professor Binns must've announced something important because Ethan beside him groaned in dismay. Dammit. James hadn't been paying attention. Again. And he mentally cursed himself for his lack of drive in this whole graduating process. It seemed like James never really knew what was going on. He'd rather goof off with Ben than do work, because quite honestly, the former was easier and more enjoyable. Ben, however, was leaving. And so was Ethan, for that matter. Ethan took a seat next to Chloe, Ben next to some Hufflepuff. A project. James hated projects.

Molly Meadows was far from the worst person to have as a partner. She paid attention in class, did well on assignments, and was not opposed to having fun a hundred percent of the time. Honestly, of all the girls in Gryffindor, Molly was probably the only one who was almost normal. Honestly, James felt a little bad for the girl. Unless his partner was Ben or Chloe, usually the other person ended up frustrated with him and about ready to kill him for his lousy work ethic in the face of school.

But James liked Molly. She was his friend and friends don't let friends do all of the work on some boring History of Magic assignment. That in mind, James trudged down the stairs from the seventh year boys' dormitory to the common room where they were supposed to meet. There had been a large debate before he'd come down on whether or not he would put his trousers on. James argued that he was simply studying with Molly and it shouldn't matter. Ethan countered that Molly would rather James not walk around in his pants. Also, that there are first years in the common room.

Ethan won the argument and James entered the common room fully clothed.

"Can't be just use your project from last time?" James whined without even greeting her. James never greeted anyone properly. Ethan had told his friends that professor Binns had assigned the same homework a month ago. James clearly hadn't done the project because he didn't remember. That being said, Molly was a better student than James. She had probably done the project. She also probably wanted to do this the proper way instead of cheating. It wasn't cheating. There was no rule against it. It was using their resources.

That's how James saw it anyway.

• • •

([/color] TAGGED )[/color] Molly Meadows
([/color] WORDS )[/color] 681
([/color] LYRICS )[/color] Pink Floyd - Another Brick in the Wall
([/color] CREDITS )[/color] made by LACEY
([/color] NOTES )[/color] Here you go![/size][/font]

After what seemed like a short while, the upstairs door creaked open peering up from behind the dusty old book Molly smiled as James entered the common room. Just as she was about to greet him that smile slowly disappeared.
“James Potter, I think Binns would notice if I handed mine in again.” She said sternly as she tossed him a rather large book, but her grin returned to show she was only joking.
“I think I’ve managed to narrow it down to two...” she said as she checked the list “maybe Merlin, because he’s awesome or Wendelin the weird.”

Molly sighed; she hated history of magic, more than anything. Okay, Arithmancy was much worse but at least in that lesson she could switch off and simply look at the notes afterwards. With history of magic if you missed an important date you were screwed, and if you asked old Binns for help he’d repeat his whole lecture! Nobody had time for that, she suspected even Emma would hate to listen it a second time as well.
“If we get enough notes we just need to right them up properly, then were sorted I think...” said Molly unsurely. Binns had a reputation for accepting most work regardless of the quality of presentation, if that was true then surely if they both wrote enough that would do.

“God, I hate this class.” She said as she turned yet another page in her book she plucked the packet of Bertie Botts from the floor “Bean? Or you chicken.” She teased, she’d been lucky in her last choice receiving only a sickening vanilla flavour, though she knew from experience how horrible most of the others could get.

WE DON'T NEED NO EDUCATION

we don't need no thought control
• • •

There was the thing about Molly, while Emma was more or less constantly plagued by an unimpressed scowl, Molly smiled cheerfully even when James was being an absolute moron. Not that he was being an abosolute moron right now, but truthfully, there hadn't been too much hope behind suggesting they hand in her past assignment. Once before James had tried that with their charms professor… needless to say it hadn't gone over well. Not only did he have to redo the work, but it resulted in a detention: two things that James Potter despised, homework and detentions. Anyway, neither he nor Molly were all that keen on a repeat of that event.

That being said, when she starting talking about the project, James was just about ready to risk the detention. Assembling information on some old guy what could possibly be more boring than that? Merlin, he supposed, was pretty cool. 'Cept everyone in their whole class would probably think the same thing. James didn't want to write about the same wizard as everyone else. It would give Binns something to compare theirs too! And likely their work would be better, therefore making James and Molly seem fairly incompetent. "Let's go with the weird one." James could already tell it would be a long night when he couldn't even be bothered to remember the name of that one wizard she'd mentioned.

He flopped down in one of the big comfy armchairs and tucked his hands behind his nonchalantly. How hard could this be? Obviously it would require some reading, which he was not thrilled about, but was it much more than just finding dates and events and stuff? Molly had clearly already found the books they needed, so it should just have been a matter of searching through the index. History of Magic was mostly a cakewalk. James slept through class and he had managed to earn an E on his OWLs. Obviously, the NEWTs would be a little harder, and he really needed an E there. Being an auror required at least five Es in any NEWT level courses. The more he thought about it, the less he thought History of Magic would be among them. Sighing, he untucked his arms from the comfortable, relaxed position they'd been in and he grabbed a piece of parchment and a quill from the table. "Right, so what do I need to find?"

Why did they have to write about dead wizards anyway?

With a book in one hand, quill in the other, he tried uncharacteristically to do the work given to him. It was all basic information finding, but usually James preferred to let somebody else do the actual research part of the assignment. He could drop the paper on the professor's desk if that was really needed. Molly, fortunately, was not quite as focused on keeping James on task as some of his other partners sometimes were and she offered him a bean. Bertie Bott's Every Flavoured Beans weren't like normal jellybeans that you could by in a muggle candy shop. Only the brave of heart and strong of stomach really enjoyed the wizard candy. Once, when James had been little he'd gotten a vomit flavoured one. Never again had he gone for the pink ones in hope of cotton candy. When she offered them to him he couldn't help but chuckle. "Chicken, me?" he reached in and took two "I was raised on these." he popped the brown one into his mouth, hoping for chocolate. It wasn't chocolate, but fortunately, it wasn't totally unpleasant either. Salty, smokey, a little bit spicy, "Beef jerky." he affirmed with a smile. The other green one in his hand, however, looked far less safe.

More like toxic sludge than anything.

• • •

([/color] TAGGED )[/color] Molly Meadows
([/color] WORDS )[/color] 627
([/color] LYRICS )[/color] Pink Floyd - Another Brick in the Wall
([/color] CREDITS )[/color] made by LACEY
([/color] NOTES )[/color] I once had a vomit flavoured bean. It was horrible[/size][/font]