Her seat partner was in the Hospital Wing with the sniffles to get a dose of a Pepper-Up potion. So Hadley was the lone girl in the seats closest to the front. She sat far enough away from Tucker and Joel that she had no idea that they were doing anything out of the ordinary, except that one minute Professor Flintwick was without ink and the next there was a sticky line of black writing liquid up the front of him. Apparently Joel Watkins was implicated, and Hadley felt the overwhelming need to move over into the empty seat like one would on a bus and place her book bag on the one she was currently occupying so he wouldn't take it. But she couldn’t do that, what she could do was listen to the sudden giggling of almost every girl in class.

And her cheeks started to heat as eyes were turning from Joel to herself. She not only felt every girl in the class glancing in her direction, but the finger of one T.J. Scott was poking into her shoulder, hard from behind her. Poking into her and the girl was psst’ing at her with a sharp breath as if to point out, in case she’d missed it, that Joel Watkins was headed toward her right now. And T.J was under the impression that Hadley and Joel were meant to be and somehow that story and thought had caught up with most of the girls in their fourth year class. It had been a silly game that they’d decided to play, setting up their numbers with the boys they knew. But somehow, every number that they had was a perfect match. No one had a perfect match, it was almost impossible. Except Hadley and Joel had, Hadley looked back toward her friends almost with a pained look, the looks on T.J, Hazel, Honor, Avaline and a few more faces ranged from mild interest to eyes that were widely staring at her, seeming to try and tell her silently to make her move.

A chorus of “Here he comes!” “That’s him, that’s the boy! “Look, he’s going to sit next to her.” “Oh gosh, is she blushing?” “Did you hear that they…” and “I bet she thinks he’s cute.” were all being whispered behind hands and into the ears of their seat partners, almost insuring that not only would the female half of the class know about the Arithmancy, but now the boys would as well.But by the time Joel was at her side, her elbow was resting on the desk and she put her pale hand up cupping it around the side of her face like one would put blinders on a horse that pulled sleighs though cities during the holidays.

“My brother didn’t put a kick me sign on my back, did he?”

Hadley didn’t even bother to look, she just shook her head in a short jerking way so she didn’t have to actually respond, just before T.J. poked her back one more time and Hadley turned to frown while her roommate giggled, but turning back she caught eyes with Joel. Her lips pressing into a line and she looked back down at her paper abruptly.

“No, you’re fine.” Was the murmured response, while she picked up her own quill again, and just started scribbling on her parchment like she was trying to get the ink to work on a worn out quill tip all in an attempt to look far too busy for talking.