Azura's confidence that Garreth would hear back from the schools he had applied to, and that they would judge his work fairly was a refreshing change of pace from the usual broken record in his head. 'They'll figure you out, it sounded over and over. 'And even if they don't, they'll say your essay was terrible!' Of course, Garreth was rather young, and didn't really expect to be able to impress anyone working with materials at the college level, but he hoped that they would at least give him a fair assessment. He would never get any better if everyone always sugar-coated their judgement of him and his work. Then again, he had no reason to believe that people were indeed doing that. He simply had a feeling, no doubt a result of the boy's over-abundance of modesty.

He nodded as the girl spoke, agreeing with her that there was a good chance come away from the experience with a truthful work evaluation from a college-level professor. In the end, that's really what he was after (even if it would be amazing to get a positive grade).

"Get in?" he looked rather puzzled. It hadn't even really occurred to him that that was even within the realm of possibility. "I'm not going to get in.. I mean, as soon as they found out I'm 11, they'd just withdraw the invitation, so I can't accept anything like that. I just want to know if I COULD get in..." he explained quickly and threw up his hands in a defensive manner. "Besides, I don't think I could ever leave Hogwarts.. I've spent my entire early youth preparing to come here and learn about magic, and I'm in no hurry to get out of here."

"Plus, I've got some really nice friends here that are important to me. More so than any college." he eyed the purple-eyed girl with a sly smirk.

And then of course, she had to laugh. "Azura, you promised you wouldn't laugh.." She had in fact promised no such thing. It was he who had promised her he wouldn't laugh, but he figured him promising not to laugh at her sort of implied she wouldn't laugh at him either. "I just thought, you know.. I had to come up with a name.. Just took the name of the first male role model that came to my mind." The boy was of course cripplingly embarrassed by the girl's reaction, and he had half a mind to just run away. In fact, if he'd been exposed to the same scenario a few months earlier, he would have. Thankfully, he was getting better at handling social situations, and he knew that running away wasn't going to help. He just had to stand there and take it. Thankfully, it was just Azura. She wasn't judgmental enough to really tease him about it.

Oh no, Azura was so upset! It looked like she was having a hard time holding back tears! What was up with this Jace kid? And poor Azura was just going around being sad about it? This wouldn't do at all. No, Garreth was going to help. He'd fix this. He'd make it better. If nothing else, at least he could be there for his friend. "Well, he has no concept of the mistake he's made." he nodded with a comforting smile. The boy's face was already bright red from having told her about the name he put on his applications, but it got even redder when she responded. What was she saying? What did that mean? Oh, Merlin, poor Garreth was going to have a stroke.

"N- next time? M- e? Like m- m- me?" he stammered after a moment of excruciating silence. "I mean.. I mean, yeah, if you- I mean.." Oh my gosh, what was wrong with him? "I'd- yeah, I'd take it better." Ohmygosh Ohmygosh Ohmygosh Ohmygosh Ohmygosh Ohmygosh Ohmygosh Ohmygosh Ohmygosh Ohmygosh Ohmygosh Ohmygosh Ohmygosh Ohmygosh....