Only a month and he would be free.

Admittedly it was a thought that filled him with guilt. Hogwarts had been so good to him, and to say he'd been eager to escape would have been a lie, but as he reached the final stretch of his Hogwarts career it became less about leaving the old behind and latching onto the new. He'd already signed with the Wasps, so he had a good idea of what to look forward to in his post-Hogwarts life, but his father had made one thing clear from the moment he'd signed the contract with the overly ornamental peacock feather quill: he would need to do well on his NEWT examinations to even think of having such a frivolous lifestyle.

And so he was here, for the third time this month, sitting in small table in the library across from Miss Rowan Yaxley. He'd made sure to pick one of the tables that one of he large bookshelves obscured from view, as the last thing he wanted to explain to his friends was that he was seeking the help of someone who was a sixth year, a Hufflepuff, and a girl to get him through the NEWT exams he wasn't sure he could get a passing score on. (The only reason he'd continued their tutoring sessions was because she'd proven more informative than he liked to admit—that and she answered any question without judgment because of the coins he'd slid across the table at the beginning of each session.)

"I know that's how I'm supposed to do it," he said, the frustration clear in his voice as he looked back between his notes and his textbook. Astronomy was one of the easiest classes, or so he'd thought when he'd received an 'O' on his OWL exam. But now that he was taking it at a NEWT-level, the charts had gotten more complicated and none of it made sense.

---

Not for the first time during their sessions, Rowan had to chew on the inside of her mouth to keep from retorting, "Do you?" in response to Malfoy's insistence. Who exactly of the two of them had gone to whom for help in their NEWT classes? She looked at all their papers spread out on the table; charts, quills, ink, books to complete, however she knew it just wasn't clicking for him.

Ro knew she couldn't just snap at him, and she pursed her lips, hating him, hating both of them for knowing who held the upper hand. Sighing, she leaned forward, brushing a stray tendril out of her eyes before reaching over to point at his star chart. They'd covered filling out star charts for O.W.Ls, now it was time to put them to practical use. He had this foundation, he'd gone above and beyond in his O.W.Ls; she'd made sure of it.

"Look, we're studying the planets and how they function as a whole. Why they interact with each other and how that impacts us." She employed the most patient tone she could, trading her finger along his star chart as she spoke. "You have to look at it from the bigger picture. It's not just that they go around and around in circles right now because they want to."

---

"I am," he insisted, letting out a little huff of air. He was looking at it from the bigger picture, and he was sure of it. He had the whole chart right here, and he'd looked at it from every way he could—as one big picture, as four smaller quadrants, to individual planets. In some way the way the planets moved seemed like quidditch formations, and from there if felt like he was one realization away from it clicking, but every time he felt like he'd nearly grasped the concept it fell through his fingertips.

"Is there any way to—I don't know—get rid of all the little details?" he asked annoyedly, his tone less directed at her but with the numerous labels all over the page. Star charts had layers, and he knew that they were required to put all of those layers together in NEWT-level Astronomy, but it made so much more sense when looking at them as individual layers.

But of course they couldn't get rid of the details. That was the whole point, wasn't it? What would be the point in setting aside an hour of the day for them to review the things he already knew, already understood? He let out another noise, something between a frustrated grunt and a whine, and he reached out to circle his thumb and pointer finger around her wrist as she traced the chart. With his other hand he traced the pattern of one of the planet's rotations while he used her hand to continue along the path she'd been tracing. When they met in the middle, he demonstrated how his planet's path seemed to waver.

"This is what I mean," he said, releasing her hand wrist and using his now-free hand motion to the two planets closest. "Is it the sun that makes it shift, or is it one of those?" he asked, pointing to the nearest planet and the nearby asteroid belt. His brow creased and, before she could even answer, he pulled his hands away and leaned back in his seat. "See? It doesn't make a lick of sense."

---

Get rid of the little details? Rowan forgot her mask of patience and stared at him openly, her mouth ajar. "You can't just forget the little details." she replied, her voice equally as annoyed with his insipid question. "And they aren't little, unless you'd like to venture into space and see for yourself!"

Ro pursed her lips as he took hold of her wrist, resisting the urge to slap it away. But she saw what he was trying to demonstrate to her and she kept her arm still, allowing him to pull her hand along its path to meet his. She followed along, her eyes tracking his other hand as it drew. Finally, when he'd released her wrist she jerked it away in indignation. "They don't shift, Malfoy." she said, using the same hand to grab a book and open it to the chapter they'd been talking about. After riffling through the pages to find the sentence she was looking for, she rotated the book and slid it in front of him.

"They revolve. They can't crash into each other because of the way they all work together." It made sense. He just didn't see it.

---

Yaxley had been mostly patient with him since their sessions began, but at her sudden slip in expression he wasn't sure whether to try a witty retort or to withdraw back further into his corner. He knew he wasn't great at Astronomy, but he was paying her so there wasn't any reason she should be so rude. He was still bristling when he looked down at his star chart, trying to conjure up a mental image of the planets revolving around each other, but his mind wasn't built for such animations; he could focus on a single planet and what it would look like on its path, but the moment he tried to imagine two separate revolutions at the same time the planets ceased their movements in his head.

"Well I'm glad you have it all figured out," he said bitterly, shaking his head as if he was trying to get rid of all his wrong ideas about the lesson. (Could he use obliviate just to get rid of everything he thought he knew about one lesson, or did it not work that way?)

He tried not to sigh in relief when she pushed the textbook in front of him, because its explanation was bound to be less condescending than she was. (Hint: it wasn't.) The first line said something among the lines of "building upon the last lesson..." and at that point he blanked out, because he at that moment he realized the last lesson hadn't made much sense either and now he was trying to build upon a foundation that didn't exist.

"But why do they work together?" he asked. It was another stupid question, but she seemed to have answers to all of them despite her snippy tone. "Is it the sun or just some - magical force?" He couldn't look her in the eye when he asked it; she probably thought he was stupid.

---

She did have it all figured out. Rowan would later that day admit that her normal patience with Malfoy was a great deal thinner than it usually was, and she would tolerate little of his back talk today. But the remaining fact at the end of the day was that she needed to keep him as a client; needed to guarantee she could send that money back to her family. Running a hand through her now messy hair, Rowan bit her lip as guilt gnawed at her. She supposed she could lighten the condescending tone she took on with him. But really it was only because the idiot could be so self-righteous sometimes.

His refusal to look at her as he posed his next question told her she really needed to ease back her tone. "Yes and no." she said, quieter this time as she took a breath and turned to her book bag to fish out her sketchbook.

"Here," she opened to the sketch of the solar system model in the Divination room and pointed to the sun. "Planets have different levels of gravity, which pulls things in. But because these large objects are traveling so fast, the gravity doesn't effect them as much as much as me dropping this book would." Not the most elegant of explanations, but Rowan hoped this was enough to a) draw an invisible truce as well as b) have him understand.

---

He still refused to look at her, partly in embarrassment but also because he wanted to be stubborn and show her how rude and unhelpful she was being with that tone of hers, but when his gaze slid to the sketch of the of the solar system model his expression finally softened. Had she drawn that? He might have asked if he hadn't been so determined to be annoyed with her, but it was a nice drawing—beyond anything he could imagine doing himself and even beyond what he thought Angeline and Estelle (but probably not Victoire) could do.

"So the gravity only affects... much smaller objects. Like the moons?" he asked with a great deal of uncertainty to his tone, far more than he might have allowed if he hadn't been so focused on trying to understand what she was saying. Maybe the details weren't that important, or at least maybe they weren't all so important all at once. "And sooooo..." He peeked up at her, feeling vulnerable as he did so but also feeling compelled to make sure she wasn't looking at him as though he was a walking disaster. "When we do the calculations, we don't have to take into account how the other planets would impact their revolutions... because they don't?"

---

This time she stared at him because he'd gone the exact opposite way she'd been drawing him to, and she wasn't entirely sure how they'd arrived there. In what world was the moon small? She hoped her gaze wasn't exactly judgmental, just a bit flummoxed. Perhaps it was time for a separate approach. It seemed she might have to start a bit further back than she originally thought. "Here." she said, motioning for him to get up. Her chair screeched backwards as she did the same and Ro looked up and down the aisle to make sure the librarian wasn't hovering anywhere around before she took out her wand.

Thank Merlin she thought ahead. Pointing her wand at her book bag, she coaxed one glass orb out of it while the other smaller one floated along lazily behind it and into Rowan's hand. This wasn't going to be easy. It might help him understand the idea, but magically speaking it would take a good amount of mental concentration. As the larger glass orb took its place in between them, she began:

"Simply put, gravity affects everything. Thinking of it as a shield around our world. Everything that touches that shield gets drawn in and falls." She looked up at him over the glass orb, now hoping he followed.

---

Sooooo he wasn't right. He slapped his hands against his knees as he rose from his seat. She'd brought out the glass balls and everything, as if she'd anticipated him needing this sort of remedial reeducation. He wasn't sure whether he ought to be grateful of annoyed at her foresight, so he settled on both. With pursed lips he crossed his arms over his chest and looked down at her with unamused eyes. "Yeah, I know that. This is NEWT-level, not Intro," he pointed out. She was doing just as he asked—peeled away the more complicated details—but now she wasn't being nearly detailed enough and he felt like he was being lectured by his childhood nanny.

---

Impertinence!

For the umpteenth time, Ro resisted the urge to throw something at him; the fact that she had an object in her possession that would prove to be quite satisfying to throw didn't help. She did, however, glower at him over the orb. "You asked what makes them revolve around each other, did you not?" she ground out. Before waiting for an answer, Ro returned to her explanation. "So." She released the glass orb and it fell to the ground before hovering just inches below the floor. "Anything that has mass has gravity, objects with more mass have more gravity and thus gravitational pull. So."

In a feat of improvisation, she tossed him the smaller orb and reached up to grab her pearl earring, praying to Merlin she wouldn't lose her mother's earring in pursuit of educating the foppish upper class. "My earring. You're not physically pulled to it because it's so small. But compare that to Earth's mass? Gravity prevents us from floating upwards." She shot him a warning look to not interrupt before placing her earring on the table and motioning for him to toss her back the smaller orb.

"Gravitational pull is what we want to focus on. That's what makes everything revolve around each other. Because these large masses —" Ro tossed the second smaller orb up in the air and made them spin in the air around each other. "— attract each other. Are pulled toward one another."

---

She looked as unamused as him, and he didn't know why. She was the one going out of her way to put on a show to explain the basics of astronomy, which he was certain they'd covered during the first six years of his education. He didn't think any of this would help him calculate the positions of planets at any given time, or hep him figure out which planets' rotational cycles affected the positioning of the asteroid belt, but he decided it wasn't worth it to argue when she'd started waving around her wand and taking out her earrings.

"I'm not physically pulled to it because it's just a pearl," he sniped under his breath as he caught the orb, hoping she wouldn't hear her while she was distracted with her demonstration. The only thing mildly interesting about any of this was the revelation that Yaxley was as good at practical magic as she was at answering his questions, and he briefly considered how terribly she'd take it if he tried to segue from Astronomy into Charms.

But then he was tossing her the orb back and was once again focused on her sideshow. He watched the orbs circle each other in the air and snickered. "Now the phrase 'you've got a big head' makes sense. Get it? Because it means you think the world revolves around you." Which he wouldn't admit to having been told a dozen times before, but she'd probably figured that out already, too.

---

Rowan scowled at Malfoy. Of course he wouldn't think pearls are valuable — not when there was excess wealth that he had access to buy the worlds most expensive diamonds and rarest gemstones. Sentimentalism would be lost on him. At least he was following her.

But she peered around him to check on the clock to see how much more time was in their lesson. She was hungry and wanted to leave as soon as she could. Before she could resume, he cracked a joke that she hated to admit, was mildly amusing. "I hope you're not inferring that I'm the one with the big head." she commented, a threatening edge to her voice as she continued.

"To answer your original question, it isn't the sun that makes everything shift or revolve, but the sun is a part of it because it has gravitational pull." She finished, flicking her wand towards her bag and watching the orbs zoom obediently into it. "This is how they function as a whole."

---

Brows raised slightly and head tilted to the side, he contemplated a reply. Maybe I am, he was tempted to say, and though he managed to keep the words from rolling off his tongue the expression he bore did nothing to suggest he wasn't talking about her. She might not think the world revolved around her, but she certainly thought she was better than him (which, to give her credit, she was where academics were concerned, but the way she regarded him suggested she thought he was stupid).

"So basically - it is the sun. Its gravity," he finished dryly. He still wasn't certain how it would help him pass his Astronomy NEWT, but he wasn't going to press when they were already tense and another quip might cause her to break. He sat back down in his chair before she could and began closing up his books. He stuffed them into his bag as best as he could, not caring about how some of the pages bent or how his parchment crumbled as the books were piled on top of each other, and only once he'd managed to belt it shut did he open the outside flap and pull out a bag of coins.

He slid two sickles, not meeting her gaze as he did so. She'd never specifically said so, but it didn't take a genius to figure out that she probably needed the money after what had happened with her family. It was one of the reasons that he didn't quickly befriend those beneath him; he didn't like having to watch his words so he didn't come across as insensitive. "Later this week, then? Charms next time."

---

"It's not just —!" Ro protested, scowling at him as her cheeks flushed maddeningly against her wishes. He had completely missed the entire point of the lesson, that much was clear, but it was even more clear that they were done. Ro fell silent, eyeing the coins offered onto the table, her eyes moving up his arm to study his expression. He wouldn't look at her.

Of course why would he, when she was to be charity?

"Fine." she said, snatching up the sickles and stuffing them into her robes. With her cheeks already flushed, it was her heartbeat that picked up afterward, infuriated that she had to be seen this way. In a desperate attempt to be first one out, Ro pointed her wand at her papers and books which flew into a neat stack in her bag with the smallest orb following them. Seizing the largest orb and cradling it in her arms, she stalked away without so much as a goodbye, her forgotten earring left on the edge of the table.

---

The moment she turned her back on him Raphael exhaled a sigh of relief. Merlin's left bullock, she was a real stick in the mud. He stood up and slung his bag over his shoulders, only then realizing that she'd left the little pearl earring in the center of the table. He picked it up between his thumb and pointer finger and turned to call after her, but she'd already gone. Taking in a breath, he weighed his options: he could go after her after that, or... he could keep it. He'd never been one for thievery, but she'd been particularly annoying and keeping it so she wouldn't find it (while still knowing it was safe in his possession) gave him a little bit of dickish satisfaction.

It was decided them. He unlatched the outside pocket of his bad and dropped it inside, resolved to hide it away in a small box when he got back to his room—a place she'd never be to be able to find it.

---