Rachel couldn't help it - she laughed. "Hey! I'm not THAT scary... Or am I?" she replied, raising her eyebrows suggestively. Forcing back another set of giggles, she settled for leaning against the wall and listening to his excuses *cough* reasons *cough*.

Yeah.

Crap - he was WAY too good at making himself look good. FOCUS Rachel.

"Hmmm," she began, pretending to evaluate his explanations, her eyes rolled upwards in concentration and her hands scratched her chin thoughtfully. "Ok, so I can accept SOME of that - but let me make something clear," the sixth year finally replied, and changed her tone to a slightly more serious one. "I think that it's important in life to have options since you NEVER know what might happen. Now, I'm not saying that your acting career will end - I actually think you'll be like, 200 years old before you step off-screen - but you might want to take a break and study something or just try something new for a while," she said, smiling as she pictured Reid working as a Ministry official.

It would be SO like him and yet so UNlike him too. "What I AM saying is that good grades in your NEWTs will give you an option to do ANYTHING you want. Doesn't that appeal to you?" It certainly did to her - why did people think she worked so hard?

Lightening the mood, Rachel let out a small giggle. "Now - on a scale from 1 to 10 - just how much did that little speech make me sound and look like a teacher? Be honest."

Australia? Pfffft - they were NOT going down that road today. Or ever.