Chapter Nine- Altruism.

"Are you planning on coming back to Gryffindor this term?"

"Depends on what time it is," I said.

Harry looked at his watch. "Eh...about ten o'clock."

"Then come check my pulse in eleven hours."

He frowned at me. "Ron, are you feeling okay?"

I wrestled my Herbology textbook out of my bag and flipped to the index. "Oh, yes. Except for the sense of impending doom, I'm super."

"What are you working on, anyway?" He unrolled one of the scrolls. "Potions? I thought you finished this weeks ago!"

"So did I. How d'you spell 'perambulating'?"

"I dunno—what did you forget to do?"

"The sixth scroll."

I snatched the first scroll of my essay out of his hand and knocked three more off the table. "It's none of your business." And if he wasn't going to help he could bugger off and let me work in peace. I had at least another three feet to fill and eleven hours to do that in. That came out to, what, three inches an hour? I could write three inches in an hour. Of course I could.

Harry said quietly, "You couldn't read your own writing after you took down the assignment, could you?"

"Shut up."

Just because he was finished and could be that annoying, Harry perched on the end of the library table. "You didn't seem too worried last week..."

I glared at him. "Because I didn't realize I wasn't done until Sunday night."

"And you still left this long?"

"I didn't leave it," I snapped. "I worked on it Sunday night, but we had Quidditch practice on Monday."

"And yesterday?"

What was this, the Spanish Inquisition? "Yesterday," I said slowly, "I had a date with Allison."

"Oh, right..."

I rolled my eyes and flipped through the textbook. Page one hundred seventeen...seventeen...or was that seventy-one? Damn it.

"How was that, anyway?"

"What was what?"

"Your date," Harry said slowly. What did he think I was, stupid?

"Nice," I told him, "lovely. We walked around the lake and then we sat under the Quidditch stands."

He raised his eyebrows. "That's all?"

"What do you mean, all?"

"It just sounds sort of...boring."

"We sat. We talked. It was nice. What's so boring about that?"

He looked at the ceiling; he obviously wanted out of the conversation as quickly as possible. I wasn't feeling that charitable. "I didn't mean in was boring boring, I meant...well, it's what, your third date? And you're still just talking and holding hands?"

"Harry, I told you, I don't want to screw things up with her."

"I know, I know...but I'm thinking there's a difference between going slowly and not going anywhere at all."

I slammed the book; it turned out I didn't care too much about page one hundred whatever anyway. "If you're just going to sit there and criticize my love life, then you can leave, okay? I've got thirty-five more inches to write."

He scowled at me and left. Maybe I was a bit harsh, but he had no business going around telling me what to do with Allison, at least not until he'd actually done something with someone himself. If I'd wanted to do more with Allison I could've—not that I didn't want to do, you know, more, but I didn't want to. What I mean is that she's a very attractive girl and there was a whole lot of "more" I wouldn't mind doing to her, but I didn't want to end up in the same situation I had in with Michael and Lisa and every other person I'd ever dated. Harry was supposed to understand that, instead of complaining that we weren't fooling around enough. What did he care if I fooled around, anyway? If anything, he was the one who needed to fool around more, relieve some of that tension, instead of going around sticking his nose in other people's sex lives, boring or not...not that mine was boring...what the hell page was that, anyway?

Six hours later, I knew I wasn't going to make it.

"'The roots...of the Per-am-byoo-late-ing...Cypress...are used...in many...preparations...for...' For what?" I looked back to my Herbology book, but the words were all swimmy, and the candlelight made my eyes water and ache. I had to write at least another foot and a half for Snape to even accept it, but the library was cold and I was so damned tired..."Fuck Snape, then."

"Mmm. Kinky."

I turned so fast I fell out of my chair. I knocked it over, half-cleared the table, landed on my bottom and looked up at Draco bloody Malfoy, smirking like the weird crazy bastard he is. "What are you doing here?" I demanded.

"I could ask you the same thing."

"I'm researched the legal rights of house elves." I climbed to my feet and started picking up everything that had fallen. "What do you think you're playing at, sneaking up on me?"

He handed me a quill, like it was some great gesture for him to sully his hands with it. "Oh, I was just in the neighborhood and got curious," he said airily.

"Yeah, well, didn't you mum ever tell you curiousity killed the ferret?" I sat down and tried to go back to writing.

He peeked over my shoulder. "It might help if you used some ink."

Damn it. "Do you have somewhere else to be?"

He sat down on the edge of the table, just like Harry had, and sighed theatrically. "Unfortunately, no. I seem to have been stood up."

I obliterated half a paragraph with a single blot. "What's the matter, you forget to pay in advance?" Not that I gave a damn about Malfoy's sex life, mind you.

He scowled at me. "I am trying to make polite conversation, Weasley."

"And I am trying to work!" I opened another book, and nearly smashed his fingers with the spine. Damned Seeker reflexes. "So bugger the hell off, would you?"

"Interesting choice of words."

My head snapped up. "What?"

He was smiling like...what was that Muggle picture Hermione liked, Moan Elisa? He was smiling like that and looking at me. "You said, I quote, 'bugger off.' Were you perhaps subconsciously hinting at something?"

Oh, Merlin, not this again. Back before Easter, when his father had sent the Howler, I'd wondered if maybe Malfoy was actually a human being deep down inside, if there was more to him than sex and mind games. Apparently not. "Look, Malfoy, if you're horny, why don't you go find Harry? He's tense."

"Huh?"

"And tell him my sex life is not boring."

"What the hell are you talking about?"

I looked down at the sentence I'd just written: The roots are extremely dificult to harvest exsept during the new moons in summer because of there speed in ecsess of twenty-five miles and hour and my sex life isn't boring.

I was doomed.

I buried my face in my hands. I had to concentrate. I had Potions at nine o'clock and eighteen inches to write, but I could make it that far, I could finish this and probably even sleep for a bit beforehand...sleep...god, sleep sounded good right about then...somewhere warm...but I had an essay to finish...not that it couldn't wait a bit...

I jumped when I felt a pair of hands settle on my shoulders. They were strong and confident, and began to systematically knead their way down my spine. I was sore from leaning over the desk and from the wooden chair; the firm pressure felt wonderful on my knotted muscles. It took a few minutes for my brain to kick in. "Malfoy?"

His voice came from somewhere behind me, distinctly distracted. "Mmm-hmmm?"

"Are you rubbing my back?"

He sighed. "No, Weasley, you are under attack by enormous massage-giving spiders." It took me a moment to register the sarcasm, during which time Malfoy gently guided me forward and worked toward the small of my back. I could feel him leaning over me, looming, radiating heat in the cold library. It would've been easy to lean back just a bit and press myself into that warmth, against the contours of his chest. Though we were both wearing a few more clothes than the last time I'd felt his weight on my back, I could still remember it quite clearly, a sharp-edged sense-memory of mixed-up pleasure and pain...

Some kind force in the universe guided my back along my train of thought and show me where I'd derailed. I jumped and jerked away from Malfoy's hands, which had gotten all the way to my waist. "Go find someone else to bother, would you?" I snapped, and groped for my quill.

"What's the matter?" He traced one finger up my spine, triggering a reflexive shiver. "Something wrong with my technique?"

"Sod off, Malfoy."

"There's no need to be rude—"

"Sod off, damn it!" I stood up and turned on him. "I am busy here, see? I am working. I don't have the time or the patience to get dragged into one of your weird evil...thingies, not here, not now. If you want is a fuckbuddy, Zabini ought to be waiting for you back in Slytherin. Now leave. Me. ALONE!"

He stared at me like I was out of my mind. "Weasley, what debilitating malfunction in your tiny, useless brain could possibly lead you to conclude that a simple backrub is some sort of devious prelude to sex?"

With Malfoy, anything could be a devious prelude to sex, but I didn't feel up to that line of argument. "So you expect me to believe you just randomly decided to give me a backrub out of the goodness of your heart?"

"Is that so hard to believe?"

"Yes."

He scowled. "And why is that?"

"Because you are incapable of being selfless, or generous, or...or nice." I sat down and turned my back on him. "It's all about you, and everyone else is just there so you can fuck with them, but you're wrong because some of us are sick of getting fucked with and fucking and...and..." I paused. "Why am I even having this conversation?"

Malfoy leaned against the edge of the table again and started counting on his fingers. "Let's see, I tried to be polite, you were an ass, I rubbed your back, you were an ass again—"

"Malfoy, just—just—please," I stared at him, "go away. I've got more important things to do."

His face darkened. "Fine." He pushed all my things off the table and stalked out. Bastard.

I turned back to my essay and tried to keep writing. Really, I did. But after Malfoy left it got harder and harder to concentrate, as the candles burned down and the words went in and out of focus. I think I must've read the same paragraph about four times and never understood a word of it; I was so damn tired, and I was cold, and really, a little nap couldn't hurt any. I could keep writing later, but I just had to rest my eyes...for...a bit...

...just...resting...

....mmmm.....

"AAAAAHHHHHH!!!!!" I tumbled out of my chair—again—and squinted against the bright daylight seeping through the windows. Oh, shit. Oh, shit.

"I can't believe you fell asleep down here, honestly. Oh, why didn't you finish this on time? You could at least make an effort to write more neatly..." Hermione kept babbling while Harry helped me scrabble to my feet. I hardly noticed either of them. It was morning, and the essay wasn't finished; it wasn't finished, it wasn't finished, it was...

I heaved myself up on the edge of the table while Hermione continued her tirade.

...it was laying in neat rolls on the tabletop.

The hell?

I seized the last scroll, knocking the rest of them to the floor. The essay was finished; not quite down to the end of the parchement, with all the proper footnotes and everything. Unbelievable. No, actually, impossible—I didn't remember writing any of it. I skimmed the last few paragraphs, and I realized I didn't even know most of it. So how had it gotten finished?

"Ron, come on," Hermione seized my arm and started hauling me towards the library doors. "It's nearly nine, if we're not there on time Snape won't even collect our essays and you'll have stayed up all night for nothing."

"I...uh..." I looked to Harry for help, but he just shrugged and handed me my bag. I had insulted him last night, hadn't I? Damn...

Halfway down the entrance hall steps, a thought occurred to me. "Harry?"

"Mmm?"

"Does Dobby know anything about potions?"

He blinked at me.

Hermione sighed impatiently. "Come on, you two, we're going to be late..."

So who finished my essay? I didn't think anybody but Harry and Hermione knew I was even in the library...and Ginny, but Ginny didn't know enough to write an essay like that. Maybe it had finished itself? The scroll had been sitting in the bottom of my bag for a while, who knew what sort of spells it might've absorbed.... I pulled it out of my bag and shook it; it didn't do anything exceptionally un-scroll-like. Still, this was Hogwarts...

I whispered into the end of the scroll. "Hello?"

Harry looked over his shoulder. "Who are you talking to?"

"Er, no one."

So how was my essay finished?

Hermione dragged us into the queue out front of Snape's classroom, with plenty of time to spare. I tried to cover a yawn and poked myself in the face with the scroll. A couple of people laughed at me, but one person snickered, and I snapped around to find him as soon as I heard it. Malfoy was parked between Crabbe and Goyle, holding his bag, snickering at me. Looking at me, with this funny expression. Evil weird crazy fucking bastard!

"Malfoy!" I charged out of the queue and shoved the last scroll under his nose. "What the hell is this?"

He raised his eyebrows and looked down at it, until he was nearly cross-eyed. "That," he said calmly, "is a scroll, Weasley. People write on them." Crabbe and Goyle laughed at that, like it was fucking funny or something.

"I know what you do with a scroll, Malfoy, now what did you do with it?" I snapped.

He blinked at me. "I don't know. What is it that I'm meant to have done?"

"You wrote on it!"

A few Slytherins started giggling, and Ophelia Nott coughed delicately. Malfoy smirked just a little, though. "Weasley," he said softly, "I should have thought that was obvious."

"So you admit it!"

He suddenly switched back to a innocent-and-a-little-confused face. "Apparently. Now what have I admitted to?"

Then suddenly Hermione was tugging on my arm. "Come on, Ron, whatever it is, he isn't worth it." And I realized that I couldn't say a damned thing about my essay without admitting I hadn't finished it on my own, which would set Hermione off screaming, not to mention get back to Snape as fast as one of the Slytherins could whisper.

I settled for waving the scroll in Malfoy's face a bit more, and ended up jabbing him rather hard in the upper lip. "I'll get you for this, Malfoy," I hissed. "I swear, whatever it is, I'll get you for it." And went back to my place in the queue with all the Slytherins laughing behind me, and one in particular just snickering. Bastard.

Snape popped around the corner almost immediately and ushered us into the room. I quickly unrolled the scroll and peered at it again: it looked okay, although in terms of the facts it could be complete and utter nonesense and I wouldn't really know. The handwriting even looked like mine, and that really worried me, but I suppose there was some sort of spell for that...but why would he do in the first place?

Snape finished taking the roll much, much faster than usual. He had to've. "Mr. Goyle, Mr. Moon, collect the essays. The rest of you, begin taking down the instructions on the board." I started tying all my scrolls together with a bit of string I found in my bag, but a horrible thought hit me: what if he hexed the parchement? He could've, and fixed it so it wouldn't hurt me, but whoever else touched it...I leaned over in my seat and jabbed Seamus with the end of the scroll.

"Ow!" He turned around and glared at me. "What'd you do that for?"

"Um...never mind." But couldn't he have also fixed it so it would only hurt Snape? Wouldn't that be perfect, no one would believe I hadn't done it myself...I tore a piece of paper out of my notebook and scribbled on it quickly, If this essay explodes it is really not my fault and I mean it. Or gives you boils. I tucked it into the bundle and shoved the whole thing into Moon's arms and put my head on the desk. I was completely doomed.

Hermione poked me with the sharp end of her quill. "Ron, sit up, you can't nap in here!"

"I'm doomed," I told her.

She sniffed. "Quit being melodramatic."

I took notes with everyone else, or tried to, even though my eyes stung and I kept tipping over sideways into Harry. After about twenty minutes, I heard Snape clear his throat. "Mr. Weasley?"

My head snapped up. "I'm sorry, sir."

He raised one eyebrow at me. "What for?"

"Um..." Shit, now I looked guilty.

He let me suffer for a few minutes before calling me up to his desk. When I was standing in front of him he held out a bundle of scrolls. "Mr. Weasley, what is this?"

I looked at the bundle. Was it a trick question? Was he trying to take points from Gryffindor? He usually did that to Harry... "It's, um, scrolls. Sir."

"And what is written on these scroll, Mr. Weasley?" It looked a vein or something was popping up on one side of his forehead.

I examined them closely. "Er...an essay? Sir...?"

"Yes, Mr. Weasley. Specifically, your essay. Now," and he pulled my little note out of the bundle, "what is this?"

Oh shit, oh shit, oh shit. "A...a...a note. Sir."

He looked up at me. "Would you care to explain the reasoning behind this little missive?"

"Er..." Once again, my staggering intellect leapt to my rescue. "I don't know."

"You don't know." He examined the note again. "Mr. Weasley, all things considered, I find it difficult to believe that even you could be completely disengaged from your own thought processes while penning such a literary masterpiece as this."

"I didn't write it."

He looked up again. "Mr. Weasley, I saw you write it."

"No you didn't."

His eyes narrowed.

I fixed my eyes on a jar sitting over his desk. "Er, um...what I mean is, um, under the...the circumstances, in this particular situ...situation, that is, there was...there is...are...um...with regards to...to..." By then I was looking at the ceiling, which was luck, because I had to yawn. When I looked down again, I couldn't remember what I'd been talking about. "What was the question?"

He made a sort of snorting noise and crumpled the note in one hand. "Take your seat, Mr. Weasley, or it'll be five points from Gryffindor."

I took my seat. I looked at Malfoy. Malfoy was looking at me. I blinked at him, trying to put it all together, but he smiled before he looked away.

"What'd Snape want?" Harry whispered.

"Er..." I tried to think of a good excuse. "Nothing."

Harry blinked. I wondered if there was some kind of special eye dust going around that made people blink all the time. "...Okay."

Harry looked back at his notes, Hermione hadn't yet looked up from hers, and I looked at Malfoy. He was levitating scraps of parchment across his desk and looking completely bored. But he had finished my essay. He admitted he had. What the hell was he up to?

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