Some Kind of Magic

When Cora makes it back from Starbucks, she knocks on the door as violently as she thinks she can manage without Erica killing her; but instead of her blonde roommate, it's actually her boyfriend Marcus who comes to the door. He's shirtless and shameless, and there's some pretty impressive hickeys on his collarbone. It's kind of gross to think of Erica as even a slightly sexual human being, but Marcus is a good guy, and Erica likes him, so Cora bites back her comments about the English major he's here at Princeton completing and plays nice.

"Welcome back," Marcus says happily, holding the door open for Cora. "Erica said you'd be on your way over at some point. She said not to let you in until... 5:00, and it's 7:00, so I'm pretty shocked. She left for class at about 4:45."

"And you hung around?" Cora says, opening up their mini-fridge and pulling out a bottle of Corona light. "You could have just left me the key by the door and fucked off at 5."

"Are you trying to kick me out?" Marcus says, and he's teasing, but there's a hint of hurt in his voice. He's the kind of sensitive that you don't find in many people, especially in college, but while Cora would normally find it annoying, it's kind of endearing on him.

"No," Cora says, flopping down on the couch and opening her laptop. "I'm just implying that you probably have better things to do than babysit me," she says, taking a swig of her beer and typing in the password to her laptop. "I'm sure you've got, you know, books to read or something, prestigious English major that you are," she says. Okay, she doesn't refrain from making fun of his major all of the time. Whatever. She tries, sometimes, and that's what counts.

Marcus, however, is used to her being an ass, and doesn't miss a beat. "Trying to get rid of me again so that you can send emails in binary to all your little nerd friends?"

"You are hilarious, truly," Cora says, forwarding the email she sent herself earlier with the algorithm to her internship manager. "I'm finally closing the case on that algorithm. Like, I can actually go to sleep tonight. This is big."

"You figured that out?" Marcus says, impressed, before his eyebrows furrow. "Erica said you didn't have that done when you left the house earlier."

"Yeah, yeah, I realized what I was looking for in line at Starbucks and had to steal some kids laptop so I wouldn't forget my train of thought, technicalities," she says, waving him off. "Nice guy, though. Normally I'd get some real colorful language for that; like these idiots that hang around at Starbucks are actually working on anything important."

"Are you implying you've stolen laptops before?"

"Yeah, yes, whatever, like I said, technicalities. You should be happy for me. I've been thinking about this for days--"

" 'Days' isn't even long, you've got such a twisted timeline--"

"Shut up, I've been thinking about this for a very long amount of days and I need to get drunk, so either you're gonna grab a beer and watch Game of Thrones with me, or you're gonna get the fuck out of my dorm, yeah?" Cora says, stifling a yawn into her beer.

Marcus looks torn, but he picks up a bottle of Miller Light anyways and sits down next to her. For all that Marcus can get on Cora's nerves, he's probably one of her closest friends after Erica just by association, and also the fact that he's in Blair more than his own dorm.

It's three hours later when they're starting in on their fourth Game of Thrones episode and discussing absentmindedly how badass Daenerys is that Erica strolls in, saying she got caught up at some party for a few hours, even though it's not even quite 11; it's not like it's late. Cora is piss-drunk and Marcus is well on his way, and Erica takes one look at them and rolls her eyes. "Children," she says. "I live with children."

"I don't even live here," Marcus protests weakly, giggling into the sleeve of Cora's sweatshirt.

"You've got a toothbrush here and your own clothing drawer in Erica's dresser, bud," Cora says, smirking over the top of the cheap Smirnoff vodka bottle her and Marcus have turned to passing back and forth. "You live here."

"Yeah, yeah, whatever," Marcus says, waving this off like it's not even a valid point (which it is, all of Cora's points are valid, but that's a different argument entirely).

Eventually they nod off to the theme music playing on the menu screen of the season 1 DVD, and when Cora wakes up again her head is lying uncomfortable on the arm of their old sofa and her legs are tucked half under herself and half under Marcus's own legs. She squints at the clock from where she's sitting and jolts, pulling a hand through her hair as she struggles to disentangle herself from her roommate's boyfriend.

"Fuck, Marcus, move, I've got a class in 10 minutes," Cora says, jumping up to her feet, legs shaky from disuse.

Marcus just blinks up at her blearily, waving a dismissive hand. "Skip it, you skip gen ed classes all the time," he says, and it's true, she really doesn't have a ton of use for the dumb world history pre-requisite she's enrolled in for the semester (especially since it starts at 8 am- honestly, that's just begging her to skip), or really for any gen ed class, but regardless she changes into a new sweatshirt, slips on her shoes, and fast walks out to the history building.

It's 8:05 when she shuffles into the lecture hall, but the professor isn't even there yet, so she's in the clear as long as she can find a seat. That, however, seems to be the problem, because she can't see an empty seat in sight until... there. There's one, far left and back. Right next to... the kid whose laptop she stole the day before. Harry.

"I didn't know you were in this class," Harry says happily once she sits down, like Cora in the same pants from the day before with hair she hasn't washed in two days is the best thing that could ever happen to him.

Well, it is a gen ed class. Maybe it is the best thing, considering the circumstances. "Please tell me this isn't for your major," Cora says as way of a greeting, and Harry just laughs again, tries to stifle it into the sleeve of his blazer- which, really? Who wears a blazer to World History 101?

"No, I'm a business major," Harry says. "And you never technically told me what you are."

"Computer science," Cora says. "My major must have slipped my mind, in between, you know, stealing your laptop and what not. Nice of you to let me, by the way, although as far as rogue computer programmers go, I suppose I'm a bit of an anomaly. That is to say, you shouldn't be so trusting."

"You didn't do anything harmful, though," Harry points out. "Gus, um, made me run a systems check to be safe," he admits shyly.

"Of course I didn't do anything harmful," Cora snorts. "I helped you out. You had a lot of incomplete programs taking up your hard drive space, so I deleted them, upgraded your systems, and boosted your antivirus software."

"You did all that in the 15 minutes you had my laptop?" Harry asks, incredulous again, a slight smile playing at his lips.

Cora shrugs. "Wasn't hard..." she mumbles, looking down to hide the way that part of her preens at the attention. Normally she just gets eye-rolls every time she opens her mouth about a processor.

"Thank you, seriously," Harry says, smiling. "That's really nice of you."

Cora was about to open her mouth to talk about how it should be easier for him to keep track of any malware that comes in contact with his computer when the professor walked in.

"I'll talk to you after class," Harry whispers, opening up his notebook, because apparently he's the type of person who cares enough to take notes for a gen ed class. Maybe he cares about his class rank or something? Cora only cares about the classes for her major, and graduating, and even graduating she could probably be persuaded to skip if she was offered a job.

"Alright," she shrugs, adjusting the mess of a ponytail she'd pulled her hair into, and focusing in on not falling asleep while the professor droned on about Marxism.

---

Harry ends up inviting her to study after class, and while Cora usually doesn't accept those kinds of requests-- who needs a study group when you've got an IQ of over 170, right?-- in the face of Harry's kind smile and hopeful eyes she caves and lugs her 15 pound history book to Harry's off-campus apartment.

It strikes her as a little strange that a freshman wouldn't live in the dorms, but she's pretty sure Harry's loaded, and just judging from the fact that his assistant or bodyguard or whatever-he-is Gus is following them right at the moment, she figures he can probably afford his own apartment. Or maybe he just didn't receive on-campus housing with his acceptance? She's not really sure.

It doesn't really matter, because Harry's apartment is nicer than her own house. Given, her childhood home was constantly dirtied by the evidence of the four children living in it (herself and her older sister plus their two younger brothers), but it was fairly spacious with a nice yard and Cora had always considered it at least upper middle class. Harry's apartment makes it look like a shack.

The apartment is small, as can be expected in a town, but it's gorgeous; dark-stained wooden flooring in the living room, with a wrought-iron spiral staircase leading to a meticulously clean and gloriously modern loft above what looks like some sort of study downstairs. There's an expensive-looking beige leather couch and possibly the biggest TV she's ever seen in the living room, and the kitchen is filled with immaculate stainless steel appliances and shiny black granite.

"Wow?" she says, dropping her book-bag on the ground and meandering towards the main living area. "Are you a drug dealer? Is this drug money? This is insane."

"I know it's a little much," Harry says sheepishly, "um, my mum picked it out."

"Your mother is paying for this," Cora says, dazed. "Jesus Christ, is your mother a drug dealer?"

"My mother works in media," Harry says, his voice even slower than usual as he scratches at the back of his head and looks down at the ground. Cora thinks he might be blushing, but she can't really. "I paid for this."

"I'm not even going to ask," Cora tells him as she runs her fingers over the gorgeous stained glass of the window in his main living area (seriously, stained glass, who has a stained glass window in their college apartment?). "I'm not going to ask, because this is incredible, and I don't want to find out you've made all of your money cooking meth or something."

"My life isn't Breaking Bad," Harry says.

"You're right," Cora agrees. "A meth cook would never bother with higher education."

Harry just laughs, shaking his head. "You really are something else."

"Something else, insane, a genius, whatever you please," Cora says happily. "Now, if you don't mind, I'm going to raid your kitchen. And possibly move into your apartment. Jesus, if you saw the inside of Erica and I's dorm room you'd be disgusted."

"Wouldn't be disgusting if it was yours," Harry says simply, not even looking up from his textbook.

"That's awful kind of you," Cora says, taking an apple out of Harry's fridge.

They sit in silence for a few minutes while Cora opens up her laptop to check a few things and Harry reads from his textbook.

Of course, they sit in silence until Harry blurts, "Do you want to go a party with me tomorrow night?" and Cora just shrugs.

"I'm not very good with parties," she says honestly, biting her lip. "You haven't seen me drunk yet, I'm a massive idiot."

"You're the smartest person I've ever met," Harry says, and the honesty is refreshing, really, but he hasn't seen her after a few drinks. She's not actually an idiot when she's drunk, she's an asshole, but there goes Harry with his stupid hopeful eyes again, and she's normally awesome at saying no to people (seriously, she could go to the Olympics for saying no to people), but she can't just lie to Harry and tell him she's busy when he looks at her like that.

"I guess I can spare a few hours?" she says hesitantly, and Harry's answering grin tells her she's probably fucked up.