What the hell are Dark Arts anyway ?

Mikey slipped into the Study Room more than half an hour late, out of breath after having run up the final flight of stairs. His hair stood up more than ever, his satchel pulled across his chest with quills and parchment spilling out of the open mouth. He groaned at the clock. Wonderful. First tutoring session, and he'd been sure to make himself look a scatterbrain who couldn't even get the time right. Except—when he caught sight of the girl he was supposed to be assisting, she wasn't glaring at him or storming away. Lilith Darcy, Gryffindor, head on elbows, asleep.

Mikey slowed into a more creeping pace, fingering the back of his neck scratchingly. She obviously wasn't enjoying one of her superior mornings. Perhaps not her best week. He hovered, then quietly sat down in the chair across from her, drawing it back. He simply stared at her for a moment, his mouth spreading into a small grin at the edges. He couldn't actually blame her—DADA wasn't a morning class.

He reached into his backpack once more and pulled out a notebook, opening it. Using his pen, he wrote a note on the first page and laid it where she would find it when she opened her eyes. Lesson number one: You're not terrible at DADA. You're just tired. We can work on at least one of those things. – Mikey Forville

After a pause, he reached over and gently tapped the side of her parchment pile with his quill, careful not to jab her or make too much noise. “Hey,” he whispered, leaning forward a little. “Sorry I’m late. But if you’re dreaming about Dark Arts, I’m impressed. That’s commitment.” He waited, grin tugging wider, to see if she stirred.

Lilith slowly opened her eyes, realizing she had fallen asleep in the study room. The first thing she saw was a paper, which she quicly read before looking up and locking eyes with a boy sitting on the chair across from her. He was grinning, which was kind of annoying. Was he laughing at her ?
"Mikey Forville ?" She asked, suppressing a yawn. "You're late. We were supposed to meet at 8."
Blaming him for being late was perfectly hypocrytical given that Lilith was never on time, but he didn't need to know that. And for once she hadn't been late, so she had every right to act furious that he was, right ?
"I have other things to do, you know." She added. "You're wasting my time."
Normally, Lilith would have been nicer. She wouldn't have been so annoyed. She had nothing against him personally, she was just sleep deprived. Hogwarts was still new for her and she struggled a bit with handling everything. Of course, she's never say she had trouble balacing all the activities.
Straightening up, she looked at him expectantly, half daring. Her mouth curled in a grin mirroring his.
"So, you gonna fix my grades ?"

@Mikey Forville

Mikey held his hands up a little in mock defeat, his smile never wavering even when she used her tart voice. "Guilty. Ravenclaw mind, bad Ravenclaw sense of time. You got me." He sat back in his chair, balancing it on two legs for a moment before allowing it to collapse onto all four with a soft thud. “You must be Lilith” He said relived he found the right person.

"You're right, though, I was late." He nudged the edge of her notebook where his scribble still rested. "But you were sleeping, so technically… we both wasted each other's time. Which means we're even."

There was a spark of rebellion in his eyes to match the smile she offered him, but his voice remained relaxed, playful and not combative. He drew out a crumpled pile of DADA notes from his backpack and pushed them across the table. "And sure—I'm going to get your grades straightened out. Or at least give you a fighting chance not to doze off in class every time Boggarts or counter-curses are discussed."

He turned to a page where he had doodled in the margin a very suspicious drawing of a vampire, complete with little fangs and a speech bubble reading blahhh. "See, the thing about Dark Arts isn't that they're difficult. It's that they sound more frightening than they are. You don’t have to go running into battle tomorrow or anything you know.” Mikeys expression twisted a little as he remembered doing just that at the wedding last month.

He recomposed himself "So tell me, what's the one thing you get stuck on the most? Spells? Monsters and theory? Or just… waking up before nine o'clock in the morning? He said with a chuckle hoping she wouldn’t take him too seriously.