Felicity Taylor was not an impatient girl. She’d never once snapped at a younger student for asking her the same question ten times, nor had she ever lost her temper when waiting for some of her dorm mates taking too long in the bathroom in the mornings. The seventh year Hufflepuff might have been called the most patient girl in the school for her ability to heal the McGregor triplets without complaint, even as they failed to follow orders and rest the injured parts.

Thus, it was slightly concerning when her eyebrow started to twitch and her nostrils flared while she waited for her ‘partner’ to arrive at the greenhouse they’d agreed upon. Really, most people would have gotten to a point of no patience whatsoever for the Gryffindor male at least an hour ago. Felicity had been waiting for the boy for over two and a half hours so far, and there was still no sign of him.

The two were supposed to be planting, growing, and harvesting their very own venomous tentacula. Felicity had the seeds prepared, the soil properly fertilized and at the key temperature and moisture levels, and she was monitoring the whole setup with a simple wave of her wand every ten minutes or so. The irritating thing was that she’d already done so much of the work and could have finished the entire process in about twenty minutes. Felicity did not, however, believe in doing work for other students, and so she stood there feeling incredibly irritated and wanting nothing more than to curse the slacker of a boy into oblivion.

At least there wasn’t much left for them to do, though she did plan to give him a hefty lecture once the fool finally did show his face. Oh, he had to learn exactly what she’d done so far so he’d know the entire process. Then there was the rude factor. And the whole ‘taking advantage’ thing he seemed likely to be doing to her. The blonde did not appreciate people doing such things just because she was a relatively nice person who was easy to take advantage of. She’d learned how to correct the assumption that she was some sort of pushover, though.

The boy in question finally appeared to have remembered their meeting, as he walked through the door like nothing was even wrong. Her eyebrow twitched even more as she looked the boy up and down, noting that he wasn’t even in uniform. ”How nice of you to join me for our meeting. Three hours late. It’s not like I had any plans or anything, CJ.” Felicity rolled her eyes at him and started placing the seeds. He was here, so that was good enough, right? ”What kind of name is CJ anyway? Two letters? That isn’t a name. Those are initials. I’m sure I’ve heard your actual name before, but I just can’t seem to remember it. Why not enlighten me? What does the C stand for, oh letter boy?”

CJ had the distinct feeling that he was forgetting something. He was flipping through the pages of a dirt bike magazine he’d gotten in the mail from his mum, one of the few things she actually consistently sent him, and one of the few possessions he actually valued. He was sitting in the stands at the quidditch pitch, ignoring those people flying down on the field, and marking with a pen each part he wanted to purchase to improve his bike.

Most of the time all he did was mark the pages up and then end up throwing the magazine away when the next one came, never quite having the money for the parts he so desired. The boy was lucky to have the money for his smokes and the repairs that he inevitably needed to make on his bike. The upgrades were simply out of his league, but he still liked to look at them, wishing he could get himself a fancier ride.

The boy had flipped through the magazine a good two or three times before he managed to nod off there in the stands, waking about an hour later with a nagging feeling that he’d definitely forgotten something and it was something rather important at that. It was when he opened his satchel and shoved the magazine inside that he noticed his Herbology notes, or doodles, really, and realization hit him hard in the head.

The project.

He groaned, looking at the setting sun and knowing he’d already missed their planned meeting time long ago. It wasn’t so much that he cared, as it was that CJ didn’t much enjoy lectures. He didn’t go to most of his classes to avoid the things. If he hadn’t have gone to the stupid Herbology lesson, he wouldn’t even be in this mess, seeing as it was the little ‘partner project’ that he needed to meet the Taylor girl about.

CJ got up and stretched lazily, trotting toward the greenhouse and hoping she’d given up on his showing up. Of course, he couldn’t get that lucky, and he groaned when he entered the building only to get lectured just as he had figured. “Oh, shut it, Taylor. We both know I don’t give a damn and you are still going to do pretty much every bit of this project.”

He rolled his eyes at her mocking about his name. What did the C stand for? Like he was going to tell her. “The C stands for ‘mind your own damn business,’ Taylor. Now what else do we have to do with these stupid plants? I have more important things to do.”