Shawn and Tobias left the Great Hall and walked down the hallway. The two had just finished eating breakfast and Shawn was ready to return to his studying. O.W.L.s began in two days and Shawn was growing very nervous. Tobias, who was grinning and bouncing his invisiball around, was obviously not feeling the same way.
“Tobias, can you please stop bouncing that thing?” Shawn snapped. “You’re making me even more nervous.”
“Oh relax,” Tobias said. “It only turns things invisible when I say the name of an object. I’m not saying anything right now.”
“I’m surprised that you haven’t gotten caught with it. Honestly, it would really make me happy if you put that away before you get a chunk of points taken away from Hufflepuff for stealing a banned object.”
“Why do you care so much about points? They don’t even matter.”
Shawn sighed. It was going to be an amazing day for Hufflepuff once Tobias finally left Hogwarts. Shawn was sure that Hufflepuff had come in last place for the last four years because Tobias was always causing them to lose points. Shawn often wished there was a way he could switch houses.
“Seriously, why does everyone care so much about the House Cup?” Tobias went on. “It’s not like winning it will help you later in life. Is winning the House Cup something that employers look at when hiring someone for a job? ‘Okay let’s see, you were both Head Boy and Quidditch Captain your seventh year, you got ‘Outstanding’ on all your N.E.W.T.s, and you were in Hufflepuff, who won the House Cup during your fifth year! Wow, you’re instantly hired!’ Seriously, why not worry about more important matters?”
“Yeah,” Shawn replied. “Like studying for O.W.L.s. Which I haven’t seen you do once.”
“Oh relax. I told you I have those in the bag. Hey, check this out!”
Tobias was looking over at Jeremy Forester, who had set all of his books down to tie his shoe. Shawn glared at Tobias.
“Tobias, you better not…”
“Jeremy’s books!”
Jeremy’s books all disappeared. Jeremy finished tying his shoe and turned to his right to grab the books. When Jeremy noticed the books were gone (or, unbeknownst to him, simply not visible), a shocked look appeared on his face. He stood up and began pacing around the hallway in a desperate attempt to find the books. When he was unable to find them, his shocked expression became even worse.
“Where are my books?!” Jeremy shouted. “Who took my books?! Where are they?!” He turned and sprinted down the hallway. “Who has my books?! Please give them back to me! I have to study for my O.W.L.s!”
Tobias began to howl with laughter. Shawn grunted.
“How do you live with yourself?” Shawn asked Tobias bitterly.
“Why can’t you grow a funny bone every once in a while?” Tobias said, still laughing. “It’s just a joke. Of course I’m going to give the books back to him. But first I want to follow him and see what he starts doing over there. I’m sure it’s something hilarious.”
“Tobias, give them back to him right now.”
“Just wait one minute.” Tobias began to walk very fast down the hallway.
“TOBIAS!”
Shawn was just about to sprint towards Tobias and pounce on him, but a voice from behind him cut him off.
“Is that your friend?”
Shawn turned around. A Ravenclaw girl with light brown hair stood behind him. He started to cringe inside.
“Uh…hi,” Shawn said.
“Hi,” the girl said. “Was that a friend of yours? The one who was laughing right there?”
“Umm…no. No, he’s not. He’s…well…I guess you can say he’s my brother. Sort of.”
“Sort of?”
“It’s…it’s complicated.”
“Oh, okay. Well, I was just going to say that it wasn’t very nice of him to be laughing at someone when they are panicking like that. He should’ve been helping him out instead.”
“Ah, well, that’s just the way he is. He’s not exactly normal.”
“Oh really? That’s interesting. Well, I hope he can at least learn to be more respectful towards people someday. He’s going to need to learn to be respectful once he gets out in the real world.”
“Yeah, I know.” Shawn wasn’t even sure if Tobias would even be able to function normally out in the real world. He often worried that Tobias would somehow wind up in Azkaban not long after the Trace was finally off of him.
“I’m Helena by the way,” the girl said, holding out her hand. “Helena Collinsworth.”
“Shawn,” Shawn said, shaking Helena’s hand. He was still cringing slightly.
“You’re a fifth-year too, right?” Helena asked.
“Yeah.”
“I’ve seen you in class. It’s been a busy year hasn’t it?”
“Uh…yeah. It sure has. I’m really not looking forward to O.W.L.s.”
“Neither am I. But at least they’ll be over soon and we won’t have to worry about them anymore.”
“Yeah, that’s true. After that, we get to start worrying about N.E.W.T.s instead.”
Helena laughed.
“I’m pretty confident about most of my exams,” She said. “It’s mainly History of Magic and Transfiguration that I’m worried about. Those were always my weakest subjects.”
“For me it’s Potions and Astronomy,” Shawn said. “I’ve actually never had a problem with History of Magic though I do think it’s pretty boring. But I’ve always seemed to struggle a lot with Potions and Astronomy. I’m starting to worry that I won’t score high enough in those to move on further. That’s a shame, because I’ve always thought that Astronomy was pretty interesting.”
“Don’t worry too much about it. If you study hard enough for it, you should do well. Besides, I heard that Travers sometimes lets ‘Acceptable’ scores in his N.E.W.T.”
“I sure hope so. Even so, my goal is to get at least an ‘Exceeds Expectations’ in all of my O.W.L.s. I’ll be pretty disappointed if I see even one ‘Acceptable’ on my results.”
“Same here. I also really want an ‘Outstanding’ in both Herbology and Care of Magical Creatures. I really want to be in those N.E.W.T.s.”
“Sounds great. Well, it’s been great talking to you, but I really need to head back to my common room. I got a lot of studying to do.”
“I was about to head to the library to study. Would you like to join me?”
Shawn froze in surprise. He really did not see that coming.
“You…want…me…to…study…with…you?” Shawn stammered.
“If you want to,” Helena said.
After a brief moment of silence, Shawn enthusiastically said: “Yeah! Of course! Of course! I would love to study with you! I just need to go grab my books and notes from my common room!”
“Great,” Helena said. “Then I guess I’ll see you at the library.”
“Yeah, I’ll see you there.”
After Helena was gone, Shawn turned around and excitingly sped over to his common room (though trying his hardest not to run to fast, as he did not want Seavers to spoil his joy). It was not every day that a girl he had never met randomly began talking to him and asking him if he wanted to study with her. Especially not one from a different house. There was no way that Shawn was passing up an opportunity to get to know a girl. Shawn had always wanted to be in a relationship with a girl, but he was much too shy to even talk to them, including the ones from Hufflepuff. He was always severely afraid of saying something or doing something embarrassing that would cause the girls to think negatively of him. Even with Helena, Shawn was worried about the possibility of making a fool of himself, but knowing that Helena now liked him enough to want to study with him gave him a large amount of confidence. Having had such a rough year, Shawn had not felt so much excitement in quite a long time.
Shawn’s excitement did fade briefly when he neared the common room and started hearing the sounds of Jeremy Forester’s screams of panic and Tobias’ laughter coming from down the hallway. If Shawn’s parents had ever had any sense, they would agree that letting Tobias go to Hogwarts in the first place was a huge mistake.
After Shawn grabbed his notes and headed to the library, he began to think much deeper about the situation with Helena. As eager as he was to get to know her, Shawn knew that he needed to focus on his O.W.L.s. Shawn knew it wasn’t a good idea to let his exams suffer all because of a girl he had just barely met.
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