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booksmarts and broomsticks
act i , a lovelorn lockaby
chapter eleven , a walking textbook

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➖ TESS ROBBINS ➖
may 1992

AS APRIL NEARED ITS end, the warmth of the sunshine only got stronger and eased the students of Hogwarts into the month of May and the start of their summer term. In addition, much to the dismay of the fifth-years, it marked the start of their exam season as well as the term in which they attended scheduled careers advice appointments with their heads of house.

       "Miss Lockaby, please have a seat."

Professor McGonagall spared the Lockaby girl a polite nod as she edged through the doorway, her hands stuffed in robe pockets with a small smile in response.

"Professor McGonagall."

       Dria let out a small sigh as she plastered a smile on her face, and took the seat opposite the Professor, who was shuffling through various pieces of parchment.

       "So, Miss Lockaby," The head of house looked up through her rectangular spectacles at the blonde opposite her. "Have you had any thoughts about what you would like to do after you leave Hogwarts?"

       "I'd like to be a Healer, ideally." Dria answered, almost immediately after the question was asked much to the surprise of her head of house.

       "An admirable ambition." The professor commended, with a smile, pleased to finally meet with student with some sense of ambition, as she jotted a few notes down upon the parchment.

       "Thank you, Professor."

       "I take it you've been inspired by your father's career choice?" The Professor inquired with a slight arch of her eyebrow to which the blonde responded with a small smile and a nod.

      "Yes, Professor."

      Professor McGonagall remembered the girl's father well, the man having also been in Gryffindor house and having had a very similar careers meeting with the Professor, some twenty years before. 

       "From my understanding, you'll require five NEWTs—"

       "In Charms, Potions, Transfiguration, Herbology and Defence Against the Dark Arts." The blonde cut the Professor off, nodding along as she recounted the NEWTs she'd required to pursue a Healing career.

       "I can see you've done your own research." The Professor replied with the lightest of chuckles while the girl opposite her smiled, bashfully. "Well, as I'm sure you're aware, your grades, should they remain consistent with what they are now, should not prohibit you in the slightest for taking those chosen subject to NEWT level."

       Dria smiled at the words that came from the professor's lips, happy to receive the ratification of her ambition from another. However, her smile faltered ever so slightly when the professor spoke again, setting the pieces of parchment down upon the desk.

       "However, another thought has occurred to me." The woman in emerald green added, leaning her forearms upon the desk before her, her eyebrows furrowing slightly in thought.

        "Professor?"

        "How would you feel about potentially volunteering in the Hospital Wing, next year?" The professor asked with an arched brow, watching as the girl's eyes slowly widened and her lips curved into a smile.

       "You mean actually treating people?" Dria asked, furrowing her eyebrows at the question, thinking it too good to be true.

       "Under Madam Pomfrey's guidance, of course." The Professor added, at which the girl nodded in understanding. "Normally, I wouldn't suggest it, but I believe you'd benefit from the extra tuition."

        Dria thought she might have seen a little twinkle in the Professor's eyes, as she felt her smile broaden in excitement at the proposition.

       "And it certainly wouldn't do your application to St Mungo's any harm—" She continued, picking up her quill again and scratching a few more notes on the parchment. "I assume that's where you'll be applying."

        "Yes, Professor."

       "I'll speak with Madam Pomfrey, but I'm sure she'd be more than delighted to take you on, especially with the grades you're predicted." Professor McGonagall said concisely, setting down her quill and looking at the girl with a short, dismissive nod.

       "Thank you, Professor." Dria said, trying to contain her excited smile by pressing her lips together as she rose from her seat.

       "My pleasure, Miss Lockaby."

       And with that, Dria left the professor's office, shutting the door behind and letting out an excited squeal, fighting every urge to jump for joy as she began walking away down the corridor.

       Her good mood didn't once fade as she returned to the library — where she'd left ten minutes prior — and found her friends grouped together down one aisle where she'd left them, still hunched over various books as they revised certain subjects.

"That was quick." Jackie mused as she noticed the return of her friend who slid into the seat opposite her and next to Tess.

"There wasn't much to discuss really." Dria shrugged, her smile still persistent as she let out a content sigh, pulling her textbook towards her.

"You look chirpy." Penny put in, arching a curious brow as she looked up from her roll of parchment.

"McGonagall's trying to bag me some volunteering hours in the Hospital Wing, next year." Dria told them, unable to hide her smile anymore.

"That's brilliant." Penny gushed, her own lips curving into a glad smile.

"One step closer to Doctor Lockaby." Jackie added in a sing-song tone as she smirked on the blonde opposite her, and earning a light smile from her.

However, the dark-haired girl beside Dria didn't offer any words of congratulations at the news — in fact, her head was buried so deeply in her textbook, the blonde wondered whether she'd even acknowledge her return.

Tess let out a frustrated huff before scrunching up the piece of parchment, she'd been writing on, into a ball and throwing it away while her jaw clenched in irritation.

"Tess, that's the third piece of parchment you've crumpled up in the last ten minutes." Penny addressed the Gryffindor opposite her, as her smile morphed into an expression of worry.

"I don't get History of Magic. I don't get it!" The girl practically exploded, taking aback all her friend who looked around in alarm, thankful that Tess' outburst hadn't come to the attention of Madam Pince. "Who cares about the fucking Goblin Rebellions? I know I don't."

The girl let out a final huff before letting her head collapse onto the open textbook on the table before her with a long groan, while her friend surveyed her with wide eyes.

"Jesus, what's got your wand in a knot?" Dria asked, turning more towards the girl beside her, who slowly lifted her head from the table and rested it upon her hand.

"You remember that date I had with Thomas Kettlestring?"

"Was that before or after the guy with glasses?" Jackie asked, her eyebrows furrowing as she retorted Tess question with another.

"No, that was Chris Fawley, he was after." Penny corrected the Irish girl at her side.

"Kettlestring's the Chaser?" Jackie tried again, her eyebrows still furrowed as she tried to navigate Tess' fruitful dating life.

"I though that was Rowle?" Dria chimed in, adding her own confusion into the mix.

"It was. Kettlestring's the Beater. Phoebe Rowle was before Fawley."

"But after Kettlestring?"

"Yes!" Penny nodded, with a small grin as the three successfully made sense of the complex situation much to the disgruntlement of the fourth girl.

"Are you quite done?"

"Tess, you've been out with the entire school, you can't blame us for sometimes losing track." Dria defended herself and her other two friends, who gave nods of agreement.

Tess merely rolled her eyes at their clear smugness, and gave a large huff before shaking her head and launching back into her train of thought.

      "Anyway, we were having a nice time, he seemed interesting enough." She told them, nonchalantly as she reminisced, before her expression curved into a grimace. "And then he made this comment about how it was "alright that I wasn't smart because I had looks to make up for it". So, my esteem's through the roof!"

       "What a tosser." Dria scoffed, her eyebrows raising as she shook her head in contempt. "I mean don't get me wrong, Tess, you're a dream to look at, but still; what a tosser."

       Tess shot her friend a small smile of appreciation, before her hand stopped supporting her head and she allowed it to fall back on top of the textbook pages.

       "And now, I'm thinking maybe he's right." The Gryffindor groaned in desperation, "Because none of this makes sense to me, so I'll be lucky to even get one OWL!"

       "Don't say that, Tess." Penny shushed her, furrowing her eyebrows in disagreement. "You're plenty smart."

       "Except I'm not!" The girl looked up at her friend with an incredulous smile and a scoff, before turning to each of her friends in turn. "You're a Ravenclaw, you're a walking textbook and Jackie—"

       Jackie's eyes widened in anticipation as she waited for her own berating, but Tess just let out a hopeless sigh and waved lazily in Jackie's direction.

      "Jackie, I have no idea how you do well in school."

       "I am an enigma."

       Rolling her eyes at Jackie's attempt to lighten the scenario, Tess slumped in her seat and crossed her arms over her front, not daring to meet the gazes of any of her friends.

       "You guys don't know what it's like to just not get something."

       A small silence fell over the four friends, as three of them looked on Tess with sympathetic gases while she kept her gaze firmly on her nails where she was picking off old nail polish.

       Dria let out a light sigh, as she stomached her friend's words before she straightened up, having thought of an appropriate response.

       "Yeah, you're right." The blonde nodded in agreement, leaning forward and resting her arms on the table as she turned more towards the girl beside her.

       "What?"

       "We don't know what it's like." Dria clarified, her gaze panning across to her other two friends who slowly caught on to her intentions. "But that doesn't mean we can't help."

       "Yeah," Jackie added, sitting up and mirroring Dria's position as she looked around at the three of them in turn, just like Tess had moments before. "You've got a Ravenclaw, a walking textbook and an enigma at your disposal."

       Tess let out a light laugh at her friend's words, lifting her head slowly from the table with a small smile stretching across her face.

       "Precisely, and we're going to help you understand the Goblins Rebellions if it's the last goddamn thing we do." Dria stated with a firm nod, looking across the table at the other girls who nodded in agreement, while the Robbins girls could do nothing but gratefully smile upon her friends.

***

"SO WHAT WOULD YOU get if you added powdered root of asphodel to an infusion of wormwood?"

"Draught of Living Death."

Dria quickly set down the flashcard bearing the question, she'd just asked the Gryffindor Keeper who sat beside her, and picking up the next card with a small smile.

"What is a bezoar and what is its function?"

"A stone taken from the stomach of a goat, and it will save you from most poisons."

The sound of another card hitting the table echoed through the empty library that surrounded the two Gryffindors.

"What is the difference between monkshood and wolfsbane?" Dria asked, reading the question from the next card, pursing her lips.

"Trick question." Oliver told her with a confident smirk, as he leant back in his chair. "They are the same thing, they're both alternative names for aconite."

       Three weeks into the summer term, the fifth-year students found themselves on the verge of their OWL exams, and the stress levels were at an all time high.

       Dria and Oliver had organised to meet in the library on the night before their Potions exam, which would be the first of their exams on the Monday morning.

Tossing the final card onto the desk, Dria grinned at the boy next to her who only reciprocated her expression.

"Ladies and gentlemen, my work here is done." The blonde stated, leaning back in her chair with a chuffed sigh, pleased by the progress of the Gryffindor Keeper. "If you don't pass that exam tomorrow, I'll eat the Sorting Hat."

       Oliver let out a small chuckle at her words, as the two began packing away their various things into their bags, in the dim candlelight that illuminated the library.

       "Well, I owe it all to you." He smiled genuinely at the girl, as he slung his bag over his shoulder as he handed the blonde her textbook. "I don't know what I would have done without you."

       "Probably fail Potions." She shrugged, nonchalantly before cracking a smile at him and stowing the book in her bag.

       "I'm trying to be sincere, Dria." The Keeper rolled his eyes with a chuckle, as she slung her bag over her shoulder and the two began making their way out of the library.

       "Oh, of course, my apologies." Dria replied in faux sincerity, her grin still resident on her lips as they walked through the doorway and quickly onto a moving staircase.

       "Thank you, I mean it."

       Dria cast a nonchalant look at the boy beside her, but was taken aback by the sincerity that glinted in his eyes as he thanked her. So, she responded with a small smile that beheld the same sincerity as she replied to him.

       "You're welcome."

       A comfortable silence settled between them as the staircase arrived at its next landing, and the two students jogged quickly up the steps to jump onto the next one which would lead them up to Gryffindor Tower.

       "How are you feeling about everything?" The brown-haired boy asked casually, leaning on the bannister as the staircase began moving.

       "Exams, you mean?" Dria asked, cocking her head a little as he nodded back in clarification. "I'm alright."

       "Are you?"

       "Yeah, I mean I'm a little stressed out."

       "Yeah, I gathered."

       Dria's eyebrows furrowed at his response, as she turned to face him in confusion, all the while he looked on her with slight concern.

       "What do you mean?" The blonde asked, plastering a small smile on her face although it did little to distract the Keeper.

       "You keep cracking your knuckles." He remarked, making Dria noticed that her two hand were interlinked in front of her from doing as he'd said. "You never do that normally, so I guessed it was a nervous habit."

       Immediately ripping her hands away from one another, Dria forced them to rest at her sides before letting out an airy chuckle in a second attempt to mask her stress.

       "Well, you guessed right." She replied with a tight-lipped smile, as the staircase came to a halt and the two found themselves approaching the Fat Lady portrait.

       Forgetting the password momentarily, Dria turned to Oliver who muttered it in a quiet voice so as not to disrupt the other paintings that by the looks of it were beginning to doze off as the day bled into night.

      "You have nothing to worry about, Dria." Oliver assured her, as the two of them entered the warm atmosphere of the Common Room, that was mostly empty save a couple of students revising in various corners of the room. "If you can have faith in me, you can have faith in yourself."

       She turned to face him, letting out another airy sigh as he offered her another look of sincerity but this time accompanied with a ghost of smirk tugging at his lips.

       "If you don't get all Os in your OWLs, then I'll eat the Sorting Hat."

      Abashed at the boy's clear faith in her, she couldn't help but let her gaze fall to floor before she willed herself to look back to and meet his gaze with a grateful smile.

       "Thanks, Wood."

       "I only speak the truth." He grinned with a small shrug, as they both began parting ways to go up their dormitories. "I'll see you tomorrow."

       "Yeah, tomorrow." Dria whispered to herself, as she watched the boy slowly walk away towards the staircase that led to the boy's dormitory, but not before he turned back and called at her.

       "Don't stress!"

       A light chuckle left her lips at his words and felt her spirits instantly brighten, before she snapped herself out of her mindless daze and willed herself to make the quick journey up to her dormitory.

Upon opening the door, Dria's face quickly curved into an even wider smile, than the one she'd been wearing, at the chaos that lay behind it.

       Isolde was lying on her front upon her bed, as her eyes traced the words on the pages of the textbook in front of her, her mouth moving ever so slightly as she whispered the facts to herself.

       Hettie, still in her uniform — having clearly just returned from her prefect duties, sat upon the floor with her back against the end of her bed, and her legs outstretched before her as she twiddled her wand in hand and practiced various charms on a empty Chocolate Frog box.

       Tess lay upon her back on her bed, with her feet resting on the top of her headboard as she held a book above her head, craning her neck to read it.

       Idle chatter passed between the three girls in the dormitory but ultimately they were so engrossed in their revision that they barely noticed the door opening to reveal their blonde roommate. Tess only noticed after she casually looked in her direction, a wide grin spreading across her lips as she moved to sit up straight.

       "Dria, quiz me!"

       The blonde cracked another smile as she stepped over Hettie's legs, before pursing her lips in thought and throwing herself down upon her own bed, beginning to untie her shoes.

      "Who was the Minister for Magic during the 1752 Goblin Rebellion?" Dria asked simply, throwing a glance at Tess as she kicked her shoes off her feet and lie down on the mattress beneath her.

       "Albert Boot, followed by Basil Flack." Tess answered promptly, before furrowing her eyebrows in thought as she tried to recall further information. "Who then resigned after the Goblins allied with werewolves and was replaced with Hesphaestus Gore."

       Dria nodded along as the dark-haired girl recounted various details, not even trying to suppress the proud smile that crept over her lips.

       "Absolutely correct." She told her friend who let out a large breath of relief.

       "Well, thank Merlin for that."

       Dria stifled another chuckle as she leaned forward and mirrored Isolde's position of lying on her front, an idle smile still on her lips as her mind continued to think back on the sincerity in Oliver's deep brown eyes some moment before.

       "You look chirpy." Hettie commented with a curious smile, as she set down her wand and looked up at Dria, who had to quickly snap herself out of her daze to reply.

       However, she found whatever explanation that she tried to muster was cut short as always, but the gossiping girl on her right, who leaned forward to answer Hettie's query with a smirk on her lips. 

       "She's always chirpy when she comes back from seeing Wood."

        The three other girls in the room broke out into a fit of giggles at the sight of Dria's cheeks slowly reddening at Tess' comment. Although, the blonde couldn't especially argue and instead fought the smile that threatened to spread across her lips and playfully narrowed her eyes, letting out a light mutter at her three roommates.

       "Oh, shut up."

𝖙𝖗𝖎𝖓𝖆 𝖘𝖕𝖊𝖆𝖐𝖘!
tess is baby,
that's it x

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