Originally Posted by Dances_With_Potter

Sutton jumped suddenly and looked up with a small gasp when she heard a voice next to her. She had been so absorbed in her own despairing thoughts that she hadn't even HEARD anyone else come in or sit next to her. With wide, sparkling eyes, the third year stared at the woman sitting next to her. This had to be a professor. What a great first impression she had made!

Immediately tucking away her tears and sitting up properly in her seat, Sutton made the conscious decision to avoid the professor's kind but complicated question. "Am... am I not supposed to be in here, professor? It's just... the door wasn't locked, and there wasn't anyone in here so I just thought..."

Actually, what she had thought, Sutton wasn't sure. Now that she looked, she noticed this couldn't be the kind of room people simply wandered into. There were lots of books, but they all seemed to be about roughly the same topic. As her eyes scanned the spines nearby, words popped out at her such as: Arithmancy, Numerology, Finding your Path. Sutton had no idea what any of this meant, but this was probably a place for older students or even just professors...

Originally Posted by Presley Black

Presley's eyes flickered to the crying girl, then back to the professor that had just entered the room. She nodded at Professor Hadley. "Thanks," she replied, with no real intention of asking for help. She bent back over her parchment. What on earth was an Essence Cycle? Presley was pretty sure she'd never even heard the term before, but that might have been because she was still trying to figure out an earlier part of a lesson when the term was introduced.