There was written Astronomy, Potions, AND Ancient Runes homework to be doing.

The essay portion of the Astronomy homework was fairly simple, really, and Sophie Brown knew she could write DOUBLE the inches required in length for it. Potions was the same deal - it would've been the easy route to exchange potions with someone and document its effects, but analyzing the specifics of the potion was far more her cup of tea. That required detailed thought and analysis, and that was the kind of thinking she needed to finely tune to become a successful potioneer. And Runes was the last homework assignment she wanted to tackle this evening, but she hadn't quite decided between drawing and creating a new ending. Drawing wasn't something she was particularly skilled at, while she could write stories all day, so naturally she was more inclined to choose the alternate ending... but any time she had chosen a drawing option in the past, it had been loads of fun.

So... maybe it just came down to what level of focus she had reached by the time she finished the other two assignments.

For now, Sophie set out her textbooks and various sheets on parchment on the study table in front of her, her astronomy book and notes closest to her, as that was what she was determined to work on first. Lunar formation theories, then...

Sigh. It was going to be a long evening. Why hadn't she thought to bring snacks? Maybe no one would notice if she snuck over to the art nook and stole some of those cookies and a mug of hot chocolate...

Eyeing them, she was.

Surprisingly, Adrienne was doing... pretty okay on her homework. Even for the beginning of the year, this was new for her. Usually she procrastinated everything until the very last minute and then rushed to get it done, ending up with unsatisfactory grades and lacking in sleep. So it was impressive that she'd already managed to recopy her nearly unintelligible Astronomy notes, somehow beat those into an essay, and write the first paragraph of the potions assignment. She was on a roll!

So it was with a much more content attitude than usual that she dumped a bunch of stuff out from her bag onto the study tables. Adrienne grabbed a chair and dragged it over to what was now her spot and then turned it around so she could sit on it backwards, leaning over the back of the chair to sort out the numerous sheets and notebooks she needed to go over.

"Heya, Soph," she said cheerfully. "Hope I'm not bothering you." Adrienne and Sophie had rarely spoken in the past, but she definitely knew the younger girl, having been in the same House for the past six years, and as far as she could remember, the other girl hadn't ever done anything to particularly annoy her, which was a feat in and of itself.

Digging around in her bag once more, Adrienne managed to pull out a slightly crinkled plastic bag of Cauldron Cakes and Pumpkin Pasties. For nourishment, of course. Had to keep her blood sugar up while she studied, right?

Sophie was staring down the vacant art nook across the common room, dwelling on how wonderfully the hot chocolate and cookies always complimented each other, and was rationalizing how the hot beverage would stimulate her cognitive functions and help her concentrate enough to blow this Astronomy essay out of the water to live up to Flamsteed's expectations, when--

COMPANY.

Sophie was grateful for Adrienne's arrival, actually, and the prefect offered the seventh year a big smile as she made herself at home a comfortable distance away from her. "Hi Adrienne," she chimed back equally as cheerfully. "'Course not. Just doing some homework." Soph preferred doing her work with others around - the silence of an empty common room drove her mad.

Even though she and the seventh year weren't close friends, Soph had looked up to her since her very first year. She always thought the girl would get prefected before Soph ever got the chance, actually, and she felt a little sheepish about the badge on her robes. Could've gone to numerous people, really, so... she just felt lucky. Adrienne would've been good, though, and Soph knew it.

And the older girl had FOOOOOOD.

A sound very much like a whimper resonated deep in Soph's throat at the sight of one of her favorite sweets - Cauldron Cakes - and she had to tear her gaze away immediately to cover up the fact that she was PINING for one. Instead, to hide her longing for Adrienne's food in particular, Soph's gaze flickered back over to the art nook's cookies and she sighed, "Y'had the right idea to bring food. Think I'm gonna go nick Kitridge's can of cookies with the refilling charm on it from the art area. Care for any hot chocolate while m'over there? M'gonna get some for myself anyway." She'd risen to her feet, now, and offered the girl a sincere smile.

Might as well get them both something while she's over there, right? It was only polite.

Adrienne quirked an eyebrow at Sophie's response to her question. "As always," she sighed. Much as she enjoyed homework, sometimes it felt like they never really stopped doing it, to the detriment of... well, anything else she might want to to do. "It's, like, the beginning of the year. We shouldn't be this swamped."

She couldn't help but grin when she saw the prefect's reaction to her snacks. Adrienne definitely got the feeling- studying without distraction in the form of food could be terribly demotivating. "D'you want one?" she asked, angling the bag in the other girl's direction as she grabbed a cauldron cake for herself and took a bigger bite than would have been advisable. Mmmm. Delicious.

Sometimes, she thought she liked food more than she liked anything else. As to liking it more than people, well, that was a yes, hands-down.

"Mmf, ysh mleesh-" Adrienne tried to say in response to Sophie's question, but she found it incredibly difficult due to the fact that her mouth was way too full. Holding up a finger to indicate needing a second, she covered her mouth with her other hand, chewed, swallowed, and then gave talking another shot. "Sorry, uh, yes please! Hot chocolate would be lovely."

She shot the other girl a smile back, and then glanced over her parchments again. Let's see, which one was potions again? And more importantly, did she also have the book she needed? Adrienne could have sworn she'd packed her old copy of One Thousand Magical Herbs and Fungi with her this morning, but given that she couldn't seem to find it in her bag, that might mean it was upstairs... With a sigh, she pulled the bag towards her and began thumbing through her textbooks. It had to be here somewhere.

Sophie nodded her solemn agreement to Adrienne's despair over their homework. "S'gotta be worse for you, what with preparing for NEWTs on top of it and all." Sophie knew how it was to have loads of homework and extra studying and reviewing for her OWLs last term, so she greatly sympathized with the seventh year. Reviewing stuff from ALL SEVEN TERMS and EVERYTHING she'd ever learned in her NEWT subjects had to be brutal. Ugh.

She wasn't looking forward to her seventh year at all.

Oh. OH. SHE WAS BEING OFFERED A CAULDRON CAKE. Her fingers twitched and she instinctively almost grabbed for one, but... Adrienne wasn't CB or Evie, and she didn't feel it was okay to take her food, even if it was being offered. If Adrienne offered one and she accepted, it would open the floodgates and Sophie would wonder forevermore if the older girl would share her food in the future, and... it wasn't polite to put those kind of expectations upon anyone. Probably. "No thanks," the prefect declined lightly, "I think I'll just binge on Kitridge's cookies."

And so she did - Sophie hurried over to the art nook, tucked the can of cookies under her arm, then retrieved two mugs of steaming hot chocolate and brought her loot back over to the study tables. Adrienne's talking with her mouth full hadn't fazed her, by the way, because Sophie did that all the time. She wasn't the most lady-like member of the house, and the Grey Lady never let her forget it, but Soph thought there were more important things in life than waiting to swallow before speaking. Life was too short - words needed to come out uninhibitedly.

Setting the mug out of the way of Adrienne's books and school work, Sophie brought her own mug and the can of cookies back over to her own seat and got cozy. "Feel free to help yourself to these, too." Though she was clearly hogging the cookies and eyeing them like a ravenous beast who hadn't eaten in days, they weren't HER cookies and Adrienne could have as many as she wanted.

Merlin bless Kitridge for the refilling charm he'd put on the can.

"What're y'gonna work on, anyway?" Sophie tried to peek at which subject Adrienne had in front of her as she helped herself to a chocolate chip cookie, shoving half into her mouth and taking a large bite. No politeness about it - just hunger.

And Eden thought she'd finish up her Charms homework in the comfort of her own common room. She was going to change one of the tables BLUE. It was happening. No question about it.

And after this, she wanted to flop on one of the couches by the fire and pass out. Roaming around the castle all day had worn the Ravenclaw out. Positively POOPED. It didn't help that her common room was like, a million floors up. Stairs. So. Many. Stairs. Three years in, and those stairs STILL killed her, every time.

She could only imagine what it was like for people who didn't go running every morning.

The middle table seemed to Eden the best pick to change. And what better--oh--maybe she'd just change ALL the tables to 'Claw colors? It would fit quite nicely in the 'CLAW common room.

"COLOVARIA!" she pointed her wand at each table in turn, changing two to blue and one to bronze. HOW NICE IT LOOKED IN HERE NOW. She beamed and took out her notebook to log this down before..nap time.

It was definitely nap time.

Figuring she may as well get it out of the way, Tia decided to set to work on her manuscript even though it was a lengthy process. Removing it carefully from her bag, she flipped through briefly as to what she'd done in class. Mostly just rough sketches. What she needed was more detail. Elaboration.

Smoothing out the parchment on the study table, the fifth year began with the first page, which detailed a tiny baby girl with a young boy holding her in his arms. If she was to do this about herself, then she might as well start from the very beginning. Her birth. Her brother holding her.

Carefully sketching the baby and adding a tiny pink bow to her hair, she smiled satisfactorily at that page before adding just some abstract designs on the border. One page down. Now just 14 (and a half) more to go.

Penelope was ready to write her first entry in her personal history book. She was enjoying this assignment so far. Her illuminated manuscript was beautiful and had been fun to make. Even more interesting than the illustrations were the stories hat would be going into her book.

SPOILER!!: Entry 1

My name is Penelope Wright. The name Penelope comes from Greek Mythology. Penelope was the wife of Odysseus in Homer's Odyssey. My dad really likes Greek mythology and my parents thought that Penelope was a pretty name. Penelope is sort of a long name, but I really like it. When my little sister was younger she couldn't say my whole name, so she has always called me Penny. A lot of other people call me Penny, but I don't really like nicknames, so I only let friends and family call me Penny.

It was sort of weird to think about nicknames. She liked her name and didn't always respond to nicknames. Most people called her Penelope. Her sister Isa got to call her Penny because she was her sister and when she was younger she hadn't been able to say Penelope. Some of her friends called her Penny, and she was okay with that. She like the name Penny as much as Penelope, but she was fine with letting some people call her Penny.