There are two solitary figures in the Ravenclaw common room. Third years. On closer inspection it is clear to see that one is a boy, and one is a girl. They aren't aware of each other-yet.
The girl is curled up in a cushioned chair by a floor to ceiling window, wild, curly, bright red hair in a half hearted ponytail-bun type thing, with strands flying loose every few seconds. Her head is bent over her work, a boring essay on cauldron safety that she had put off until the last minute. She glances out the window onto the lightly snow-dusted grounds, admiring the view that makes the Ravenclaw common room so famous. Her back is turned to the boy.
He is sprawled out on a couch, with crumpled pieces of parchment scattered on the surrounding floor, table, and cushions, his position spectacularly contrasting with his smooth, meticulously brushed blond hair and his careful, even handwriting. He's scratching out the same essay as the girl.
They would both rather be elsewhere-playing Quidditch, exploring the grounds, building a snowman, shopping in Hogsmeade, visiting Weasley's Wizarding Wheezes, or watching the Hogwarts Eighteenth Annual First and Second Year Inter-House Wizard's Chess Tournament Grand Championship,(HEAFSYIHWCTGC for short) but their essays are due by the end of the day, and the MoM representative in charge of the Magical Safety course isn't accepting any late papers.
Their relationship to each other is quite strange. Their family names carry a lot of weight and expectations that they're not sure that they can live up to. Weasley. Malfoy. Whispers in the hallways, articles in The Daily Prophet; they're used to cameras and puffs of colored smoke by now. They're the top of their class, constantly competing for first place. They've never actually had a lengthy conversation with each other, mostly communicating by the occasional smirk and consequent glare when one of them gets top marks. The boy is quite good friends with the girl's cousin, and they'll sometimes see each other at a house, where they won't make eye contact and one of them will leave and go to a different room. They just have no desire to get to know the other.
They get annoyed with each other. Little things, like the way she'll lean back in her chair when the professor isn't looking, or how he'll finish his charms with a flourish, occasionally sending sparks or powder her way and singeing the corner of her paper. But they leave each other alone.
The girl, Rose, is interrupted in the middle of her essay by a peculiar pecking at her neck. She whips around, expecting to see her prank-happy Gryffindor cousins. But she's surprised by a folded paper crane fluttering above the back of her chair, now pecking at her eyebrows. And behind that, an almost-innocently smiling boy. She rolls her eyes, annoyed. She just wants to get her essay done.
"Cranes don't peck." she mutters, "And they definitely don't flutter."
"Well, that's all I know how to make. I'm bored out of my mind."
"Not my problem."
She turns back around determined to get her paper done, but the bird keeps pecking at her. Exasperated, she turns around, swishes her wand at it, and promptly disintegrates the bird into a pile of confetti. She focuses on the boy.
"Can't you go somewhere else?" she questions him.
"Nope," he replies, popping the "p". "Lysander's gone off Merlin knows where with Lorcan, I loathe chess, and-"
She interrupts him.
"You hate chess?" She's unbelieving. Chess is her life. Both she and her annoyingly adorable little brother Hugo had won the wizard's chess tournament in their respective first years. She's ready to go on a full-blown rant about the wonderfulness of wizard's chess, but she stops herself.
