"Wonderful." Lydia complained, "Just perfect!"
The Slytherin-girl was sitting on the foor in the damp dungeons. She had managed to get her foot stuck in a hole in the floor, and she just couldn't get it out.
Must've twisted it. She thought, cursing. The pain wasn't the thing that bothered her the most, it was the fact that she was sitting on a floor, helpless and unable to to get up that annoyed her. All she could was to hope that someone saw her, as she tried to figure out a way to do something about it.

Zeke was in a hurry. His morning had been one big mess, as he had woken up late and had missed breakfeast.
He was desperately late for class, and was annoyed already.
Walking as fast as possibly could he heard an unfamiliar voice.
Wonderful.. Just Perfect! it called out.
As Zeke turned around the corner he saw a blonde girl stuck in a pathetic pose with one foot stuck in the floor. As she was sitting with his back turned to him he considered just turning around, then figured he couldn't, since the girl was on the way to his class.
Glancing at his watch he decided that this was not his problem, and walked straight past the girl, silently hoping she wouldn't notice him.

Lydia heard footsteps behind her and turned around as much as she was able to, still stuck in the floor.
"Are you somehow finding this funny?" She asked
Lydia herself would have found the situation very amusing if it hadn't been her on the floor, which explained her slightly paranoid behavior against the boy..

Zeke regretfully turned around to face the girl.

"Um.. no?" he answered as calmly as he could.

He really didn't want to become too involved, or he knew he was going to have to take the time to help her out of there.

"Then what were you looking at?"
Lydia knew she shouldn't act like that, but she found the whole thing very embarrassing, and thought that the least she could do was to not act so weak.
But the effort was in vain, the girl was stuck in the floor, yelling at a boy who could just laugh and walk away.
In that moment she could have been the definition of the term 'weak'.

Zeke had no idea why the girl was so upset. Then again, who wouldn't be if they were stuck in the floor?

"I wasn't" he said, since he had actually made a great effort to ignore the girl as he walked by.

"Listen I really have to be somewhere.." he said, looking at his watch again.

When he saw the girl's tragic attempts of getting herself unstuck, however, he sighed.

"Do you need a hand there?" he asked in an indifferent voice.

Of course I do! What in the world does it look like? She thought.
"No, I don't." She snorted, not really sure if she would have believed it herself, but what should she have said? 'Yes please, that would be very nice of you.', No, Lydia couldn't do that.
What if someone else comes and sees me?
"I'm okay, I'll be up and standing in no time." She determined continued.

Zeke rolled his eyes, and stepped towards her.

"I'm sure you will." he said, and added
"Unfortunately, no time is exactly what I have, so if you could just let go of some of the pride you seem to have so much of, for a second, this would be a lot easier"

His voice clearly reflected hs annoyance. He wasn't exactly looking forward to being told off about being late for class, and this pretentious brat was just the last straw.

He offered an arm and decided he was going to give her exactly five seconds to take or leave it.

Five.. he silently started the countdown.

Lydia sighed.
"Well if you insist." She muttered, and took his hand.
Thank god.
"I could've done it by myself." She stated, avoiding looking intohis eyes, she wasn't that good of a liar.

Zeke pulled her out of the hole, and quickly let go of her hand.

"I'm sure you could" he said in a calm voice, clearly being sarcastic.

Looking at his watch, he realised he had missed more than half of his class already. He swore under his breath then looked up at the girl.

"Great. Now I missed more than half my class. Thanks a lot." he said, knowing she wasn't responsible for that.

He was going to turn around to walk to class but realised it probably wasn't going to make much sense to go now anyway.

"Anything else you can't handle? I might as well get it overwith while I'm here. " he said in a snappy voice.

Lydia crossed her arms and glared at Zeke.
"You could have let me handle it." She hissed.
"And thanks, I'm fine!" Lydia rolled her eyes. "I never asked for anything."

She would have liked to say 'Thank you', and maybe even introduce herself, after all, he at least didn't seem to be some suck-up. But that was out of question, of course.

"Wow" Zeke said, shaking his head.

"You must be a hufflepuff with that friendly attitude of yours" he said ironically, deliberately trying to tick her off.

Having given up on making it to class all together he decided he might as well stick around - he was still annoyed with this girl. She hadn't even said thank you.

"Oh, where are my manners? You're welcome. No wait, you're not, since you havent actually thanked me yet" he said, his voice still calm. He didn't know why he couldn't just leave it and walk away.

He crossed his arms as well and waited for the girl's response.

"I'm sorry!" She replied, "Thank you so much!"
Lydia sighed and shrugged.
"Okay so I maybe didn't have it completely under control." She said, looking down on the floor.
"Don't you have class or something?" She contiued, in an effort to change the subject, now daring to look directly at him.

Zeke narrowed his eyes, trying to figure out whether she was being ironic.

She didn't seem to be, so he lowered his arms, and took a less defensive posture.

"I did.. But I'm terribly late. It's practically done by now, but it's no big.." he said, still not sure whether to trust her kindness or not.

"You really should take better care when you're roaming around down here.. how did you end up in that hole anyway?" he said, replacing his annoyance with genuine curiosity.

"I'm sorry for the class..." She quietly said.
"I just thought I could take a shortcut from potions..." She said, embarrassed.

He as amazed by the sudden change in her way of behaving.

"No, it really isn't important." he assured her, and felt a sudden need to introduce himself.

"I'm Zeke" he said shortly, then decided to offer her his hand for the second time in a very short while.

"Lydia." She replied, and shook his hand.
It was a lot easier for her to be polite when she wasn't hopelessly helpless anymore.

Not sure of how to proceed, Zeke started fiddling with a loose thread in his robe. He liked her name but didn't think she was the kind of girl who'd like to be told something like that.

"So I guess you're not gonna go to class either then?"
It was all he could think of, yet it sounded imbearably stupid.

"You're a Ravenclaw, right?" She asked, more as a statement, nodding towards his robes.
"If you don't find it necessary to go, then it can't be that necessary."
She turned around and leaned against a wall.
"So..."

Nodding as an answer to his question, he followed her example and leaned against the wall.
He soon changed his mind.

"I was kind of gonna go somewhere else.. Wouldn't be too good if my professor came out and found me here, right?" he said, and motioned to go somewhere else, hesitating slightly.

"Okay." She said, and shrugged.
Lydia got the feeling of that he didn't really appreciate her company, so she did no effort to do the same.

"Bye then" he said, and left with slow steps.