Try and understand it

The study room's door swung open with a low groan, one which punctured the perfect silence being emitted by its only occupant - an ugly older girl who was in Slytherin, or so Samuel Grigori thought.

It was probably his least favourite room, the study room, and easily the one which he frequented the least - heck, he'd even visited the girl's changerooms more, oh god how much he loved disollutionment charms.

"Evening," he muttered to the girl, choosing a desk behind hers and throwing his bag down with a loud thud, before pulling his books and writing tools out, grumbling to himself all the while.

After a few short minutes he begin to tap his fingers on the desk, and a short while after that he started humming "You're The Voice" to himself, it had been stuck in his head all day, and he was glad to have a few moments of peace and quiet to himself... or at least to himself and the other girl in the room. Hopefully she didn't mind John Farnham.

Work was taking up a fair bit of Athena’s time, though it wasn’t the conventional type of work. She was hardly studying for a Transfiguration test. No, there was something better that had caught her attention. Slytherin’s gift presented a challenge for there was only one person with a shred of Parseltongue and that was not acquired by his own blood. No, Krum would be useless and without another Parselmouth in Hogwarts, they would have a hard job of keeping the snake under control once it began to grow and thirst for something larger than a dormouse. Athena knew it would only become enraged by the sound of a rooster once it was fully grown so that could only be used as a disciplinary technique while it was still young. They grew fast and lived a human life ten times over. For as long as it was in her possession, Athena needed a way to speak to it and control it. She knew there had to be a spell somewhere so she was pulling resources and had decided to retire to the study room in an attempt to make sense of it all in her own mind.

As was typical of the time of day, the room was empty and so Athena felt relatively safe to have the books out in the open. That didn’t mean that she was careless enough not to charm the books to make them appear innocent in the eyes of anyone else. No, she would never be that foolish. Athena worked meticulously, taking notes where she deemed necessary and slowly began to uncover what she needed to know. She had a bothersome feeling that she would have to create the spell herself; a spell that would bind either her or someone else to the snake and enable them to converse with it. Ideally she would have rather had herself and another person bonded to the animal but she didn’t honestly think the Dark Followers to be anything other than scared little children looking to play their cards right and ensure their survival. Athena didn’t blame them but it was an inconvenience for her.

The low, guttural groan of the hinges on the double doors caused Athena to look up. She scowled openly at the Gryffindor that padded across the stone floor and flicked her wand at the doors from under the table, prompting them to swing shut again. She returned her eyes to the text in front of her not moment after, deciding against returning the greeting to him. She glanced down at the pocket watch that she’d placed down on one of the sheets of parchment to keep it from rolling inwards and frowned at the time. She brought her quill to her wrist and wrote in large, careless lettering ‘EAT’, as if she needed to remember. The House Elves knew where to find her and would no doubt bring some food later but she figured she may as well put some effort into it and at least go down to the kitchens. That way maybe they wouldn’t fret over her as much as they did.

Athena’s train of thought broke at the sound of humming and she turned, her eyes zeroing in on the Gryffindor that looked sickeningly content as he sat there humming the tune of a song she expected to be one of Muggle origins. “Will you desist?!” Athena hissed, her eyes flashing dangerously. “Hum elsewhere, I will not put up with your presence if you insist on being intolerable!”

Sam looked up from his work as he heard a noise coming from the girl in front of him, realising she was about to address him just in time to snap out of his trance and actually pay attention to the things that were happening around him.

Unfortunately, what he heard wasn't really to his liking, and he wasn't all the keen to listen to the nasty little words spouted out by some know it all Slytherin. Sure, he'dve stopped if she'd just asked nicely, he knew where she was coming from after all. But when she started glaring at him like that, he couldn't help but feel his temper rise a little.

"Mind your own business," he snapped back, his eyebrows shooting up into his hair. "I can do whatever I like, and I'm not forcing you to stay here, you can go if you like," he said, gesturing at the door before rolling his eyes.

"Anyway, I don't care," he said, starting to hum again but louder this time, pausing only to scratch his chin then flick a rather unfortunate hand gesture in her direction, a small grin playing on his lips.