Huffily Puffily || Golden Trio

Body-Snatched || xxxiv

At ten o'clock the next day, Lucy walked down to the Quidditch pitch, an irritated Tom Riddle following closely behind.

She and Riddle spent the entire morning arguing about whether or not flying broomsticks was a meaningful skill to have. He claimed it wasn't and it was a fool's mode of transportation, and Lucy countered by saying he only didn't like it because he didn't know how. He didn't like the implication that he wasn't good at something.

"I bet you couldn't summon your broomstick the first try," Lucy sniffed after he told her he was finished with the conversation.

He had 'ended' the conversation five times already. It didn't last for long. She always said something to set him off again, like now. "Lucy, I'm the greatest student to ever step foot in these halls," he hissed. "I could certainly summon the broomstick- however, that doesn't take away from the fact that using a broom is slow and dangerous, and not nearly worth the effort."

"All right." Lucy sighed, making it seem like she agreed with him. He smirked to himself as he thought he won the argument. He walked ahead of her toward the Quidditch pitch. "So now what I'm hearing is that you're scared of heights," she called after him.

He stopped in his tracks and whipped around to glower at her. "You are incorrigible!"

"I'm not hearing you deny it!"

"It's such a baseless claim that I shouldn't have to deny it!"

"I'm not mocking you or anything, it's perfectly fine if you don't like heights-"

"Lucille."

His voice was low, and he walked in front of her, his arms crossed over his chest. He stared down at her like the prefect he was. "We are done arguing about this. I'm not afraid of heights, I'm not afraid of broomsticks, and this entire conversation has been pointless."

She smiled, staring up at him. "Oh, I know. It's just funny when you get mad- your eyes get all squinty."

She changed her expression to mirror his, and the light genuinely drained from his eyes. The entire morning they argued about this, and now he found out it was all for nothing. She patted him on the arm as well as she could, considering she couldn't touch him.

"I'll hold DA Unearthed open tonight to make up for tormenting you," she promised.

A nightly ritual for them was Lucy reading whatever books she wanted with the curtains drawn around her bed; Riddle didn't have any books in that pocket world of his, so he liked to sit next to her and read whatever book she had in her hands. It was one of the few times they didn't bicker.

"You'd do that anyway." Riddle rolled his eyes but stepped aside to let her through. She grinned at him and continued on her way, like they hadn't been arguing for hours.

The match wouldn't start for half an hour, but she had a lot of people to save seats for this year. She had Ron, Hermione, and Neville to account for, as well as Ginny and Colin. Ginny had another friend of hers she wanted to sit with. Seats in the stadium were hard to come by, but she was determined- she would hex them if she had to.

The Slytherin and Gryffindor teams were already on the field glaring at each other, so like the good friend Lucy was, she stopped by to give Harry a little extra luck.

"HARRY POTTER!" She yelled, cupping her hands over her mouth.

Riddle jumped at the sudden noise and glared at her. "Really, we're only a few yards away. Was that necessary?"

"I will not contain my love for anyone, Riddle."

"Hey, Luce," Harry waved at her as she approached. "Come to give us a pep talk?"