Closed Ugh

[Vanity Mettlestone]

Vanity wasn't sure why she had been chosen today to stay behind and help clean the potions classroom after class, but she guessed it had something to do with her chatting throughout the lesson. But so what? It had been boring and easy, it wasn't like she had missed anything. The other girl staying behind was Lucy, the goody-two shoes from Ravenclaw. Vanity waited until they were alone, then crossed her arms and leaned against a desk. "You don't mind getting your hands dirty, right? So I'll just leave you to it." She said, waving vaguely around.

 

[Lucy Montague]

Lucy didn't mind tidying up after class. It was sort of annoying, but cleaning had a sort of cathartic edge to it. What she didn't like was being partnered up with someone like Vanity. Urgh. To make matters worse, as soon as the professor was out of the room she was going to put it on Lucy to do everything. "Hey, you can't do that," Lucy interjected. "We were both told to tidy up the room, so we're going to do it together, okay?" She sounded a lot more authoritative than she usually did, something about Vanity brought it out of her.

 

[Vanity Mettlestone]

Vanity scowled as Lucy spoke, annoyed she wasn’t as easy to push around as she looked. She crossed her arms and watched the Ravenclaw. “Well, I think it’s unfair that we have to do this. It’s not out job.” She complained, though after a beat she picked up a rag and did a half hearted attempt to look like she was cleaning. “It’s demeaning.” She muttered under her breath, wiping one of the Dees’s clean.

 

[Lucy Montague]

"It's just nice to help out," Lucy stated as she began to collect some of the ingredients that needed to go back into the storage cupboards. "Though I don't expect you to know anything about kindness," Lucy couldn't help but say, in a somewhat catty tone. Vanity just brought something out in her, and no, she hadn't forgiven her for what she had said all those years ago. Lucy began to put the items back in the cupboard, carefully in their proper places.

 

[Vanity Mettlestone]

Vanity snorted at Lucy's words, she really couldn't believe this girl. But when she kept on talking, the smile vanished off Vanity's face. "Hey, you don't even know me." She snapped, turning on her. "This isn't kindness it's... child labor, or something." She said, frowning. "Don't we have people for this work at school? Or professors could, I don't know, wave a wand and clean up." She scowled. "Your whole goody-two-shoes act is really boring you know, I'm not buying it." She told her, sure the girl was just pretending to like doing this so she could look better than Vanity in comparison.

 

[Lucy Montague]

"Maybe I don't know you, but you Slytherins are all alike. Well, most of you," she said, thinking of Enoch and how he wasn't so bad really. Just a bit closed off. But mostly yes, Slytherins seemed to be all alike - selfish and hard to get along with at the best of times. She found Vanity's complaining to be grating, but she continued to tidy things away back in the cabinet. But she stopped when Vanity suggested not buying her 'act'. That took Lucy off guard. "An act? I don't have an act. I'm just me," Lucy said, a little defensively, knowing full well that this year more than any she was trying to put up a front.

 

[Vanity Mettlestone]

Vanity rolled her eyes at Lucy’s response, feeling her temper flare. “Oh, please,” she snapped, taking a step closer to her as she put her hand on her hip. "Everyone has an act, Lucy, and yours is pretending you're better than all of us." She said. "That's why you don't like most of us Slytherins, we cut the crap and don't bother with all the fakeness." She said, picking up a vial of leftover potion. She inspected it and started swirling it around idly, tilting it a little. "I wonder what you'll be like when you get angry." She mused with a raise of her eyebrows, starting to hold the vial more and more sideways until it threatened to spill over a spot she had just cleaned.