A Study Break

[Thomas Smith]

Thomas felt another headache coming on as he flipped through the pages of his textbook. The OWLs were coming up and the closer they got the more ill prepared he felt about them. He used to be so on top of his studies but lately he seemed to lack a lot in them. He hated that his grades were slipping on the eve of the biggest exams that he have taken to date. While he hadn’t thought of it in quite some time now and he knew that it was probably impossible for it to even happen now but in the back of his mind his dream of becoming an Auror were still alive and this is why he had yet to give up on his school work – something he could have easily done by now if he wanted too.

Putting his book to the side he stretched out on the couch, letting out a small sigh of relief as he felt his muscles relax now that he wasn’t hunched over a book. Cracking his knuckles as his hands felt like they were cramping up after holding the quill for so long he ran his hand through his messy and slightly over grown hair; something he was beginning to like more and more lately. Resting his head on the back of the couch his closed his eyes as he pondered a number of things that had been going through his head lately.

 

[Autumn Gwin]

The petite brunette’s mind was in turmoil as she emerged from the library, loaded down with books that she’d been promised would best prepare her for this year’s daunting exams. Her fifth year had come upon her so suddenly that it seemed she was in tears every time her mind drifted to it. She had sort of hoped she would be reunited with her once-upon-a-time boyfriend Thomas Smith, if only to rekindle the easy friendship they’d once shared. A friend was something she could certainly use these days. But she’d gone into a sort of depression around her fourteenth birthday, and hadn’t come out of it until she’d realized her sweet sixteen had come and gone without much thought. Now she was attempting the old song & dance of grasping for the loose ends she’d left untied, trying to set her life right again. Through it all she’d somehow managed to keep her head above the water when it came to her grades - but that was a poor showing of the intelligence that had gotten her placed in Ravenclaw House to begin with. Autumn made an oath with herself to bring her classes out of the three year slump they’d been in as of late, and her self-worth with it.

She stumbled down the corridor on the black heels she’d donned when she dressed herself this morning on her way to the student lounge. To anyone who hadn’t seen much of the girl in a while it would appear as if she’d finally hit a growth spurt. In reality she was still stuck at her twelve year old height of 5’2” (feet-n-inches, metric system droools, lol ) and still unbelievably frustrated at her statuesque dorm mates. She slumped against the heavy oak door of the lounge and pushed with all her might to budge it open. The wedge of a space she managed to create would have to do as she backed into the dimly lit room - firelight flickering off of every surface. The new school commons was much more convenient for late night study sessions as it was just off the library - and one didn’t have to manage the bloody stairs in the dark with a mountain of books in front of them. Autumn swiveled and tripped toe against heel, crashing against the back of the couch. Her armload of literature tumbled down onto the unsuspecting fellow student on the other side.

“Frig!” she squealed in alarm, trying to catch them but only losing the few she had left as well, “Sorry, sorry sorry! I’m so sorry, are you okay, oh crap.” she stammered, wheeling around the side of the sofa and helping the poor victim of her clumsiness emerge from beneath the dusty volumes.

 

[Thomas Smith]

As Thomas began to let his mind run wild he started to become confront with a number of topics that had been weighing him down as of late. Of course the main problem that he had was all thanks to the impending OWLs that seemed to be the bane of every fifth’s year’s existence for he had never heard of a fifth year who was calm about said exams. Thomas was of course like every other fifth year and freaking out over them although he had yet to really do anything about his fear of them as he had barely even opened a book ad was just scrapping by on his classes. At times he wished things could go back to the way they were in first year where he had always done well in his class work and exams. Things in first year had been so much easier and not just in terms of schoolwork but terms of well everything else. Most importantly, in terms of his friendships. He was actually happy in first year when he had made a few friends; he had never really had friends before so it was pretty much a Godsend for him to actually make a few friendships in such a small space of time.

Although as time went by he felt that his lack of having friendships in his younger years had affected him badly as slowly but surely his friendships had started to dwindle. He didn’t know what he had done wrong at the time to make his friends start to hate him and not want to have anything to do with him of course now he knew what the problem had been. Never did he know having a girlfriend would cause him so much hassle. When he and Autumn decided to take their friendship to a whole new level he honestly couldn’t be happier, Autumn was his first friend and when his feelings for her started to increase for her he thought that breaking the walls of their friendship was honestly the best idea. Although it was because of this that he started to lose his friends and unfortunately he and Autumn started to grow apart too. Thomas didn’t know why it happened but it did, he figured that they had probably been too young when they started dating but how were they to know? Although when he started to see more and more of Isabella Chaos and eventually ended it was Autumn and started to date the older Slytherin girl, everything went down the drain. He had enjoyed his time with Isabella immensely but he still wasn’t sure if it was all worth losing his friends over it all.

Yet here he sat, still alive despite past battles between friends and such, almost friendless and most definitely girlfriend-less. He was lucky that he had started to patch things up with Joceline and things were almost back to how they were with the two and he had patched up a few other broken friendships but the one that mattered most to him had yet to be mended. He barely saw Autumn anymore now and no matter how badly he wanted to fix the friendship he had a feeling that he had long since lost the chance. As all of these thoughts swirled round and round in his head he didn’t notice someone else entered the room; that was until he felt what felt that the whole contents of the charms department of the library fall on to him. Sitting forward with a groan of pain he couldn’t actually stop himself form laughing for some strange reason. Seeing the person who the books had belonged too he knew he couldn’t be angry at the person. Throwing a few of the books off of him and setting them to the side he shook his head lightly, “Autumn it’s fine, stop worrying about it.” he said in a soft voice as he picked up a few of the books that fell on the floor. “I’m fine, really.” he told her, a genuine smile that he hadn’t had in so long he thought his face forgot how to make it crossed his lips.