daddy's little angel - dark zarry

chapter three

today's my birthday. i'm now eighteen and blonde. also this may be triggering.

Group work.

Two words Harry absolutely dreaded to hear. Especially since the only person he was ever comfortable talking to was in a different class. What was worse was that today partners were assigned. Harry was fine when you could chose your own; the students would pair up with each other, leave him out, and he was able to get his work done all by himself.

Assigned partners meant Harry had to have the courage to get up, sit next to his partner, listen to them moan about being stuck with him, and end up doing all the work, while they scrolled through their phone or talked to another student. And since he was doing an experiment in Chemistry today, partners were mandatory; though Harry could have easily completed the assignment by himself.

"Harry, you'll be with Ashton," their middle aged teacher, Mrs. Childs, announced as she read through the list of partners she had written down for her class.

While the name calling continued, Harry looked over his shoulder to see his classmate, Ashton Irwin slouched back in his chair, looking uninterested, with his head down. Over the past couple of months, while him and his group of friends were very charismatic and friendly, they seemed to die down, only sticking close to each other, and being viewed as very conserved. It started after one of their close friends, Luke, committed suicide because his girlfriend cheated on him. While Ashton himself kept quiet, his other two friends took more darker paths. Michael Clifford got expelled for getting into too many fights, while Calum Hood just got suspended for getting caught smoking behind the school. Ashton didn't behave as reckless as his other two friends, he just let himself get lost in shadows and be known as, "the kid who's best friend died."

After every student was assigned to each other, they all grabbed the school owned lab coats and safety goggles, before making their way to the back of the classroom where the lab was. Harry nervously gulped, his palms sweating, as he made his way over to his partner.

Ashton was already stationed at one of the tables furthest away, which was now considered typical. He was leaning against one of the storage cabinets, twirling with his pencil, with his packet set in front of him.

"H-h," Harry swallowed sharply. "H-Hey Ashton."

The brown haired boy barely glanced up, before returning his eyes back down, staring at the wooden object between his fingers.

Harry didn't say anything, he just placed his supplies down on the table and began to set up the experiment. It was a simple procedure to see how certain chemicals reacted to heat. Placing a small amount the copper carbonate into a test tube, he slowly hovered it over a burner, seeing the reaction take place.

"Do you want help with anything?"

Harry jumped, nearly dropping the test tube from the words spoken. He looked over at his lab partner, who stopped twirling the pencil and had an eyebrow cocked. Not once, since Harry could remember, had anyone of his partners bothered to help him. Not even in grade school when they had to color the picture by solving mathematical equations. Harry spent the following thirty minutes on solving multiplication problems, while coloring in a picture of a bird with a top hat. He's pretty sure his mum still has it.

"Um-" Harry stuttered, looking back at the test tube to make sure nothing harmful would happen. He didn't know how to respond. Especially since it was coming from someone like Ashton. Sits in the back, wears all black, Ashton.

"This is a partner assignment and it doesn't seem fair for you to do all the work," Ashton explained. He leaned forward, his elbows resting on the table, as he stared up at the green eyed lad. "What do you want me to do?"