Chapter Text
She raised her hand. He raised his.
“Bartemius”, the professor chose him instead of her. “Present your findings to the class. Do you even have them with you? Your desk is empty, Crouch”
“Yes, of course. My homework is all up here in my brain” before he started, Barty turned back to smirk at her. Lily sat in the row behind him. Looking at the back of his head was bad enough. Barty knowing exactly how to provoke her made classes ten times worse.
Lily expected him to know well how bad she wanted to share her results. Two and a half hours she spent in the library analysing this chapter. “So I figured out a lot. The husband is using animal related pet names to refer to his wife. That’s because he doesn’t see her as a human being. It is also part of the reason why she left him in the end.” The class continued on with mostly Slughorn repeating the entire plot of book as if they haven’t already read it. As Lily saw the confused looks on the others’ faces she questioned if anyone apart from her had read the book.
Bells rang and the only thing keeping the students from storming out was the professor: “Stay for another minute, please. I have your exams with me today. I am sorry to inform you but I was really upset with most of your work.” He called everyone separately to the front. Lily guessed that he was either too lazy to walk around and hand everybody their results or that he couldn’t match their names to their faces.
“Lily” he called and she went to get her exam back. “Could you please upload yours for the other students? They need all the help they can get for the final exam.”
She nodded at him before heading back to her seat. On her way she gave her sweetest smile to Barty seeing that his expression was grim. He looked her straight in the eyes none the less.
Lily’s last class for the day was finally over. She directly headed to the dorm which she shared with her friends. Mary was already sitting on her bed. She looked up from her laptop to greet her: “Hey, girl. Marls just texted me their doing another training today because of the upcoming match.” To that Lily responded with: “Thanks for letting me know. Does she want us to wait or should we go eat now?” Mary closed her laptop and stood up immediately in response. So meal now it is, Lily thought to herself. Together they went to the cafeteria.
The unhappy looking Mr Filch stuffed their plates with mashed potatoes, peas and an interesting smelling sauce. They sat down at their usual table where Remus was already sitting. “Hello Lily, hi Mary” he took another bite before starting a conversation: “McGonagall nearly cried while handing out our exams today. I don’t think that she was proud of what we’ve written.” ”Same with Slughorn but he simply said how upset he was with us” I agreed.
Mary did not seem interested in talking about teachers: “Yes we all know that the professors have way to high of a standard. Now Lily tell us if you have won the little competition of yours?” Remus looked quite confused but Lily immediately knew what she was talking about: “The grading system is no competition you know that, right?” Mary just raised her left eyebrow in response wanting Lily to tell the truth. “I won. Okay, so what grade did McGonagall give you Remus” she tried changing the subject but her attempt failed. The interest in his eyes was obvious: “So Lily tell me, please. The things that are going on in your literature curse sound quite interesting to me.”
She let out a sigh then started to explain the situation: “There’s this guy that I have most of my classes with. He is lazy, doesn’t do homework, never writes anything down and sometimes he even sleeps during lessons. Somehow this dude still knows the answers to all the teachers questions and is getting high marks on nearly everything” Lily’s voice kept getting higher and louder because of the rage she was talking herself into.
Remus laughed so hard he was nearly crying. He tried to talk a few times but was soon stopped by his own laughter again. “You’re telling me that there is a guy in your classes and you are angry at him because you believe that he’s too good at school. And now got a competition going because you can’t take not having better grades than someone who sleeps in class. This is hilarious, Lily.” He then gets out.
With crossed arms she looked towards Mary and Remus who were both smiling wide. Lily realised how dumb it sounded spoken out lout.
She couldn’t stand being laughed at even though it were just her friends who didn’t mean anything mean by it. “Today I scored higher than Bartemius and Slughorn even asked me to upload my exam to help the others learn. It was a success judge me all you want.”
Remus looked at her with big eyes: “Tell me that you’re not talking about Bartemius “Barty” Crouch.”
“That’s the guy. You know him? Please tell me all. Lily refuses to give me the important information on him” Mary started talking excitedly before Lily had a chance to answer for herself.
“Yes, I have met him a few times. He is Regulus’s best friend and they share a dorm. He can be quite extreme to have around but I like him.” Lily and Mary both stared at him in disbelief.
Regulus was taking the same biology curse as Remus. Since pretty much the begging of the year Remus was desperately crushing on him. They both were more than surprised to figure out that the man of their friend’s dreams was apparently best friends with Lily’s sworn enemy.
“Anyway, I’m taking out Regulus tomorrow evening, so I won’t join you for dinner. Just so you know” Remus said like he was talking about the weather.
Now both the girl’s mouths were wide open. This time Lily was fast to respond: “How come you don’t tell us about this new development.” Remus shrugged “I just did or didn’t I?”
“I can’t do this with you guys any more. Since when are you dating little Black? How did it happen? And don’t you leave out any details, Remus.”
“We were studying in the library last Monday and afterward we went to the Three Broomsticks for some coffee. He asked me if I wanted to go out with him on a date and since I’m no idiot I said yes.” Remus sounded so happy that it made Lily smile.
“And when are we going to meet him. You’ve met his best friend, so it’s only fair if we as your friends get to meet Regulus.” Remus only nodded as if he thought that Mary’s statement actually made sense: “He invited all of us over for Saturday. It’s his birthday and he’s doing a little party in his dorm.”
She looked forward to meeting Regulus.
The problem was, Lily didn’t believe she would enjoy spending an evening with Bartemius Crouch.