Delilah frowned and tried to settle her back more comfortably against the armchair. She was kind of starting to worry though. She was still in pain.. would she be able to walk, even? Nah, it wasn't that bad. She hoped, anyway. .. At least, she didn't hit her head. Now, that would have been terrible.

.. Anyway. This pain. Talking is a good distraction, yeah? She nodded when Alec asked if she was okay. "Yeah, I suppose. My back still hurts a bit but I think I'll be fine. Are YOU okay? Sorry for being a creep. You seemed to be muttering something in your sleep.."She blushed faintly but continued anyway, ".. well, I wanted to hear what you were saying. Sorry." You know. She wasn't sure if he'd accept her apology but he definitely deserved it. What she did was super weird.

Alec felt bad. Her back was still hurting a bit, from what the girl had said. That fall must have been bad one then. "I... sorry. Erm... do you need an ice pack? I can summon one!" Nodnod. He was good for something at least. And since his knees and lower back were practically screaming at him for staying crouched down, the boy sat down slowly in a cross legged position. This was more comfortable. Yeah.

Was he okay? "Oh... yeah yeah! Erm... just had some weird dreams, that's all," he said, smiling at her. ... Why... was she apologising? And the blushing? Alec understood none of that. What he did understand was that she had heard him mumbling and... well... that was embarrassing. "No need to apologise!" ... Pause. "What did you hear?"

Ice pack? Yes, ice pack would be rather nice right now. Delilah nodded and managed a small smile. "Yes. I think it would really help." Because her back ache was getting worse. Ugh. She really didn't need this right now. Not when she felt sick enough already with all the tiredness and her headaches. "Thanks, Alec."

Weird dreams. Delilah tried swallowing on her giggle but a small sound still escaped her lips. It was rather hilarious, wasn't it? Him dreaming about food in the library. She felt bad for what she did.. but yeah. Definitely funny. What did she hear? "Well....." She eyed him for a moment before looking away. "...Uh. You said something about pancakes.."

*Looking around for a comfy spot Romulus headed right for an empty table. His arms as always were full of books. He had gotten a bad flu and missed a few classes. It would have been easier to go to the hospital wing and take a potion to clear it all away in a night. But that would mean seeing his cousin the schools healer. It wasn't that he didn't like Cece, he just knew that she would see him as being a whimpy Hufflepuff. No thanks, he heard enough of how Hufflepuffs were weaklings and cry babies over his holidays. No need go in and have Cece again go on about how this wouldn't happen if he were in another house like Slytherin, he wouldn't have turned all weak.
Still feeling a little under the weather Rom had tissues packed in his pockets and a very red nose and eyes as he got started on the homework he had missed.*
"Right... Potions ch-ch- AAAAACHOOOOO! *sniff* Chapter 2."

She needed an ice pack. Now that made Alec feel really bad. Pulling out his wand, he flicked it, hopefully summoning an ice pack from the kitchen. "Okay, I've summoned one," he said, trying to smile reassuringly at her, "I just... I need you to take deep breaths, yeah? You'll be fine." Nodnod.

... What... was that sound? He tilted his head and watched her curiously. It wasn't anything bad, right? Not a name, yeah? Because if he accidentally called Delilah his Dad or Chip, he might have to hide for the rest of the year. ... But... pancakes. A sheepish expression crossed Alec's face and he nodded slowly. "I had a dream I was making pancakes." Maybe he shouldn't have said that. "I was a master chef." Shouldn't have said that either.

Hair!ruffle.

A great place to relax. And study. This one was. She probably had issues with it last year but only because she was a bit stressed about the OWLs and all. Now it was less stressing and it may be that she gained more confidence in her abilities.

Enough confidence that she curled up in one of the armchairs and pretty much left the book abandoned before her. Yeah, she'll get to that later. Or so she's been saying that for a while now. Finally she willed herself to lean forward and peer at the book. Now she could see the page, much better. Now she just needed to keep her eyes open. Not her fault it was really cozy here.

Time for his mandatory self-taught lesson on defense, cause he knew Romanos wasn't gonna do it this year either. He was alright with that, though. With his photography class, he could find someone take a compromising photo of them then blackmail them for the information later until he was proficient enough. Or maybe he'd blackmail them for some money to pay for the lessons. Yes. He liked this later idea most.

Cutty dove into the book shelves and a few minutes later he swam out carrying copies of; 'How to Defend Yourself Without Really Even Trying: A Guide to Passive-Aggressive Magic', 'I've Created A Monster!: An Illustrated Encyclopedia of Wizard-made Creatures', '101 Strategies for Defensive Magic' by Gracielle Hornby and lastly, 'The Essential Defense Against the Dark Arts' by Arsenius Jigger. He seemed to know what he wanted and or be very familiar with the layout of the library and it's placement of books. There was his prefect, nose in a book like she did last year for her OWLs. Could she be studying for another test?

"Hi Cassia!" He said smiling at her and taking a seat nearby. "You're always studying. So responsible! Nevermind what Nurse Brutalis says, I think you're the best prefect Slytherin could ever ask for." He said in a voice only scarcely above a whisper.

Luckily this certain creatures she happened to be reading about was interesting enough that she didn't drift to sleep and start snoring seeing that the angle her neck took would probably cause snoring. She liked Mister Kitridge too much to sleep in his library and be a total disappointment.

A distraction occurred and she always welcomed those.

Smiling broadly at her companion, Cassia angled her body to face him where he sat. "You flatter me too much," she told him chuckling when he got to the last part. Brutalis. She could totally laugh at that. No one was going to report it or anything, right!? And she also found it funny that she gave the impression of a studious girl. Heh. One doesn't correct people when they think that.

Registering the books he carried with him, the blond arched an eyebrow at her lil friend. "What are all these books for?" Was he going to read them all?! Or was he looking for something particular.

After placing his books down on the floor near Cassia's armchair, Cutty picked one of them up (it was the one about passive-aggressive magic if you're curious), then he curled up at the female snake prefects feet and put his head down at her knees. To anyone who didn't know him, it might look as though Cutty were Cassia's ever-loyal subordinate.

Which was exactly the look he was going for.

"Extra-circular studying, Prefect Somerlad. Extra-circular studying." He said casually, raising his head up and opening the book as he caught her raised brow. "How about you? I thought you were all done with your O.W.Ls?"

Delilah winced with pain. Was this serious? Because it had been half hour and she was STILL hurting. Oh, gosh. What if she had damaged her spinal cord or something? Okay.. Now, she was just freaking out. The girl took a few deep breaths and nodded. "Okay. Thanks, Alec. You're the best." Really. He was honestly one of the nicest people she'd met at Hogwarts.. and she was lucky to know him.

He had a dream he was making pancakes? Delilah snorted, forgetting her pain for a moment. Okay, she did dream about food too.. sometimes. So it wasn't THAT funny but what he said next was quite hilarious. "Master Chef?" She pursed her lips tight. Yeah. She really wanted to laugh.. but she didn't want him to feel bad. So. She just looked at him.

..... And burst out laughing. Ooops, so much for her self-control.

Little one had studying to do. And while she traveled around while she studied, Caelen was back here with her books again. Because she needed to learn and get ahead, and this was the place to do it.

Caelen considered herself not much if smart, and liked to keep up a reputation by reading a lot. School came easy for her. It was actually FUN. In a weird, nerd chic kind of way. She could pull it off. Okay, no she couldn't, but whatever.

Her Aunt had finally sent her a language workbook and she was going to learn some language and catch up on some school reading. Because blah blah, pursuit of knowledge blah blah.

Okay, textbook one. Herbology. She wanted to re-copy notes and read further into her textbook. Making sure that her topiary had nice cuts. And then potions and then Astronomy and so on.

So, grabbing some parchment and a quill -official- she started recopying things in her nicest handwriting. One of the perks of being right handed was that ink didn't smear all over her hand. Which was good. It didn't fix her still childish handwriting or the fact that she had a tendency to write sloped. In weirdly small letters.

Every couple of minutes the blue-eyed first year had to put down the quill and shake her hand out. Stupid hand cramps. Oww. But whatever. She still picked up the quill afterwards and worked. And one of the most ironic things about this was that she wasn't incredibly driven or motivated either. She was actually quite lazy at home. Espcially during the summer when homeschooling let out and she had time to herself.

But anyway, she was trying to get at least the Herbology and Potions notes done with her time. Because as her mother said, "Time worth wasted was time not worth it." And apparently she now lived by those rules. For some strange reason.

The snake watched him put down his books then pick only one, she tried catching the title and only managed to get the word passive. Interesting pick, she thought. Not that she expected any less from Cutty, she had great expectations of him.

Then he just went ahead and rested his head on her knees. That got a low giggle out of her, it was the library after all and she needed to keep it quiet. Jokingly she reached out and patted his head.

"I'm impressed," she told him. When she was his age she barely did anything extra. "I am done," She told him, tilting her head to get a look at his face. "I just figured I'd enrich one of my essays with more information," See she was supposed to be reading in order to put what she read in the essay. Definitely her Ravenclaw friends effect.

Cutty turned one of the pages from his book, pleased with this reaction from Cassia. "Just trying to remain practical, you know. Professor Romanos doesn't like teaching us very many defensive spells. I figured I should look into it myself." Hearing himself say this out-loud made him consider why. Why didn't Professor Romanos teach them defensive magic? Was she a dark creature herself? Afraid that they were going to team up on her and use it against her? That would be his approach if he were a dark creature teaching at a school for magical young children.

"You are? How'd you do?" He whipped around eagerly shutting his book in the process and revealing it's cover and title, How to Defend Yourself Without Really Even Trying: A Guide to Passive-Aggressive Magic by Azkadellia Montgomery.

Although she had high expectations of Cutty she still couldn't feel not impressed by him wanting to learn more and deciding that what a Professor taught was easier than he aspired to learn and gain. It was also other's opinion in DADA case. Cassia wasn't the kind to complain about not learning dangerous stuff. If anything she'd appreciate less chances of anything dangerous and uncomfortable which probably was the case with the dark arts.

"How smart," she nodded approvingly at his reasoning. If anything Cassia was curious about in DADA, it was why couldn't Romanos pronounce her lastname correctly. Always the extra 'n'. Always! "Why do you care about learning those spells a lot, though? Have lots of enemies?" she asked amused.

Oh, he didn't know about her OWLs? The blond grinned proudly at him. "Yup, and I was pretty pleased with my results," When she got them over the summer, that is. She did work hard for them. "I got two outstandings. Care of Magical creatures and History of Magic," she probably would have been disappointed if she hadn't gotten O's in her favorite subjects.

Alec frowned a little when Delilah winced. Was it that bad? "Anytime! ... Erm... anything to help," Nodnod. "If it gets worse, do you think you'll be up for a visit to the Healer?" He'd go with her, too. And probably make her pancakes. Maybe... with honey on top. Yeah... unless he went for the chocolate chip option with chocolate sauce...

... Right. Delilah.

The boy shook his head and tuned back into the conversation in time to hear...the younger Hufflepuff snorting. A sheepish expression crossed his face. It wasn't that funny, right? Maybe to Delilah but to him, there was the embarrassment factor added too. "Chef Summers. I had a chef's hat, too." More sheepishness...

... And then she was laughing. And before he knew it, he had started laughing too. "Is it really that funny?" Maybe it was.

And so Cutty nodded casually at Cassia's questions about the enemies, remembering what the Headboy had said about Sophie Newell bursting into the Prefects compartment on the train ride in and trying to frame him for a brilliant billywig based crime he hadn't committed. Sophie was a dark witch. She was a dark witch, but she didn't know she was a dark witch. She had good ideas, but didn't always know how to execute them. He felt that he could've helped her with that, but eh, what was it to him?

He wasn't interested in taking on apprentices until AT LEAST his fourth year. AT LEAST!

"I have a few. Mostly in the way of jilted, would-be lovers, though. You know, girls can be a bit touchy when they're turned down from the things they want." He explained this...well, I wouldn't dare call it a fact...idea outloud even as he sat there looking quite the shriveled Capuchin. He had complete confidence in his idea. He surely had complete confidence in his idea.

"Two O's?! Kudos to yer, Somerlad! Kudos to yer." He congratulated her twisting his head up smiling. This was somewhat an awkward position and so he got up and actually sat upon the cushiony seat available next to Cassia's. "History of Magic's always been an interesting subject for me. It's good to know all of the information. Shame about Professor Dursley, but I like McCormack alright. Accio!" Cutty took advantage of the distance between himself and his book pile to further practice the charm. He'd tried to do it wordlessly next time. You know. Just to see if he could.

"So, what do you think of the new Creature Teacher?" Which really meant, did you see the Augurey poop?

She almost winced at the uncomfortable angle his neck had twisted into. So she was glad he chose to sit on a chair and face her. Though him at her feet was both hilarious and cute. Trust Cutty to pull off those kind of things.

Not being able to help it, she giggled at his answer then tried to pull a serious face. "If you need any help, I have a badge that help," Frame someone with something, would she do it? The idea didn't seem all that horrible, though such acts needed to be carried out so care fully. And she, of course, wouldn't be offering such kind of help for anyone, only those special and close to her. Yup, Cutty had a place among those.

"Why, thank you," She grinned at him bowing her head. She really was proud of herself. "It is interesting," She agreed with him. "Oh, you were a fan of Dursley? The man was indeed decent," He had an issue with shoes as she recalls. "My favorite History Professor left when I was a third year," She told him as Scabior pops to her mind whenever history was mentioned. "He was great.". A couple of seconds of silence to wish the man all the good wherever he was.

And those second ended but she paused an extra couple as Cutty summoned his book. The boy never ceased to impress her all the time. Or maybe she still clung to the idea that he was the ickle snake selling candy.

"He's handsome," she casually answered him. Which couldn't be denied, right?!

And then she said it.

The thing he'd wanted to hear so much. That statement that no matter what words were used to say it, essentially boiled down to: Let me help you.


But the only thing Cuthbert offered in return was the small and temporary smile combined with these words, "If it gets more than I can handle, I'll remember to tell you."

He nodded at being a fan of Dursley. Odd, ODD Professor Dursley. Cassia had a favourite Professor, but in her third year, Cutty wouldn't have been there to have remembered him (her?). He was about to ask what the Professors name was when Cassia said something in response to the Care of Magical Creatures Professor.

"Wot?" He wasn't really asking a question as he brows furrowed and he seemed to take on a very disbelieving expression. He hadn't really gotten a very good look at Thompson. He was...fairly good-looking, Cutty supposed, though not as much as he found the comely Transfiguration Professor. Mostly for her bone structure, which Cutty didn't realize was a thing for him, apparently. "He is rather good-looking, I suppose." And here he readjusted himself on the seat, laying out on his back with his hands beneath his head for support and his legs flopped over one another and the seat's edge. "Not like Tobias Tempus, though." He sighed in an obvious manner.

Sander was working hard on his Ancient Runes homework assignment. He was having a little difficulty trying to count the number of runes in each line as his eyes were giving him problems. However, after spending a considerable amount time, he had managed to identify the weak spots in each task assigned.

Now all he had to do was to explain what the significance of each weak spot was.

He rubbed his eyes for the umpteenth time as he flipped through the pages of his textbook first looking for the meaning of what each rune represented and quickly wrote the description down. With that written down, he proceeded to write down what he thought each weak spot signified.

In serious need of help with her Ancient Runes homework, Lux had been hoping that Sander was in the library. After searching in other places, she was very pleased when she managed to track him down at the study tables. Smiling, she made her way behind his chair, moving as silently as possible. When she was right behind him, she put her hands over his eyes. "Boo!" Quietly laughing so that she wouldn't risk getting into trouble with Mr. Kitridge even though he was so nice.

Letting go of him, she pulled out one of the chairs beside him and sat down. "I need help, Sander." Opening her bag, she pulled out everything she would need.

Sander almost jumped five feet high in his chair when Lux came up behind him and placed her hands over his eyes. He barely had time to register her prescient behind him when she plopped down in the seat next to his.

"Hey Lux. Don't ever do that again. I could have had a heart attack and believe me in the state I'm in right now, that's a high possibility," Sander gently chastised the younger girl. He envied her. She didn't seem to be affected by this aging ailment that had affected others like him.

"You need help? What with? Girl/Boy stuff?" Sander smiled as he teased Lux.

Pout.

Lux had been wanting to have fun with Sander, not get told off. But it was her fault anyway; sometimes she forgot how her friends could easily have a heart attack. "Sorry, Sander." Feeling a little bad, she opened her text book and looked at the table of contents so she could find the page she needed.

Wait what?

"I have no idea what you are talking about." Were her cheeks turning red? Did he know how she felt about Bay?

Sander would have teased Lux more about what he had heard happened between Bay and Lux at the Tunnel of Love ride the other night, but one look at her told him that she wasn't ready to talk about it. So he decided to change the subject.

"Really? Maybe I was wrong. So what do you need help with? Homework? I'm currently working on Ancient Runes and once I'm done, I'm going to be working on our History of Magic homework assignment," he told the younger girl as he resumed writing his answers down.

Mentally Lux gave a sigh of relief when Sander dropped things. She really did not want to be teased about Bay right now, especially when he did not feel the same way towards her as she did to him. "Well, I need to do both, but I think I have more trouble with the Ancient Runes." Since the History of Magic was more applied, she had feeling it would be simpler; applied magic was always easier for her than essays and other written assignments. "I don't even understand how half of these Rune Wards are to be written, or how to do the Extra Credit."

Sander nodded acknowledging what Lux was telling him. "I agree with you. This Ancient Runes homework is a tough one. I'm having a hard time figuring it out myself, but I'll try to do my best to help you out as much as I can," Sander smiled down at the younger Hufflepuff.

Leaning down to look at the runes notated on the parchment, Sander first pointed out the lines to Lux.

"See this one here is a single line. According to Professor Botros the weak spot is the one right smack in the middle. For those that consist of two lines at an angle from each other, the weak spot is where one line branches off from the other. For the wards with three lines or more, you find the middle one of each line in the ward. Does that make sense? Why don't you try and identify them while I finish up on the extra credit assignment. Then I'll check your answers." Sander told Lux before picking up his quill again.