10 March 1992

Professor Sprout was a very big fan of cake, and she knew for a fact that her charges were all cake aficionados as well. Except Adrian of course. Adrian was a biscuit person. For the last meeting of the rotation, she decided that she would provide refreshments other than sandwiches. She obtained Victoria sponge cake, ginger cake, angel food cake, and in case they were in the mood for something heavier and more local than the others, Dundee cake. She also obtained a selection box of biscuits by owl order that she felt certain that Adrian would be a fan of.

The club filed into her office and sat down, talking animatedly to each other while they went along. After leaving them to talk for a few minutes while she got everything set up, she sat down as well.

"Has something happened?" she asked, not wanting to be left out of the conversation.

"I got an Exceeds Expectations in Potions!" Adrian exclaimed. "I wouldn't have been able to do it if the others hadn't helped me to stay motivated while studying."

"Oh, it really paid off, didn't it!" Cho grinned.

"We were very pleased to be able to help," Neville said warmly.

"We should really make a thing of it," Addie added. "I think we all kept each other on task."

"We really did!" Adrian said. "Thank you, all of you."

"How did you help Adrian?" Professor Sprout asked. She had been hoping that they would all get on, but she had not expected them to start helping each other out in academic crises like a potions exam. That had of course been one of her long term goals, on her predicted trajectory, but it had felt more reasonable to have them only commit to the Tuesday lunch meetings.

"We divided everything up," Neville started. "Cho did all the managing. None of the rest of us had any idea of where to start but she was full of ideas."

"Some of us quizzed Adrian on flashcards," Addie added, "and marked his past paper questions for him so that he would have more time to dedicate to his work."

It truly warmed Professor Sprout's heart to hear that they were all getting on so well. This had worked out far better than in her best dreams, and she now had to make sure that it was sustainable.

"You of course need to make sure that you are not sacrificing your study time to help another unless you actually do have time for it," she felt the need to add. "It would not do if some of you ended up not having enough to do all your work to help each other."

"But that's the good thing about it," Cho defended their plan. "It's not that we actually help one another with our work in our new plan, we just sit in silence, and prevent each other from wandering off."

"That's a concern?"

"Oh yes," Addie said. "It was only yesterday that I was trying to do Transfiguration, but then had a sudden question about what happened in the 1621 Goblin strike? I ended up reading about the specific strike as well as a book about Goblin and other creature unions. It was in no way relevant to Transfiguration, and I ended up losing my train of thought. My Transfiguration was left undone, and I'm even more stressed now than I was before."

"My Mum always tells me that you can just think about doing something and then do it, but that's something I have always struggled to do," Cho said.

"My Mother says something similar," said Adrian. "She always tells me off for not being able to focus in class. I don't really want to tell her that I don't focus in class as I am not interested and would rather be reading up on Quidditch strategy."

"So this is a common problem that you all have," Professor Sprout concluded. It was strange to her that she was only now realising that they were more similar to each other than she had originally thought.

"Yes. My Gran despairs at me ever being able to get things done. We hadn't actually talked about it much before, but it's definitely something we have in common."

"We're going to make a plan for when we are going to meet up in the library, and for how long. Then hopefully, we should be able to start doing better and stop having to do work the night before."

"I am at my most efficient at 02:00," Adelaide admitted, "but I also thrive on 9 hours of sleep, otherwise I start falling asleep in class, no matter how much tea I drink."

"I was thinking one and a half hour slots. We do 16:30 after class until dinner at 18:00, then we do 18:00 to 19:30. We can see how that goes and then add more if we need to," Cho, ever the planner, said while she looked at the timetable that she had stuck to her planner.

"That sounds very sensible to me," Professor Sprout admitted, pleased to hear that they were sticking to specific times. Too many times had she realised that her stressed Hufflepuffs were studying in the library for six hours to try and make up for the things that they didn't understand. Ravenclaws and Slytherins read about everything, and Gryffindors had the unfair and unexplainable talent of being able to pass exams through sheer willpower. At least that was the impression that her Hufflepuffs had.

With that, they got on with their meeting.

"This week, Addie is going to talk about what she wants to do in the future."

"Well," started Addie, "I don't really know what I want to do long-term. Of course, at the moment I am thinking that I might want to do something to do with history, but sometimes things that I am interested in just suddenly become unbearable to me, and I don't know why. I am currently planning on eating the lemon and herb potatoes at dinner instead of getting a baked one. Tomorrow I am going to start reading a book about why a Magical National Health Service did not form alongside the muggle one. It looks really interesting."

"That's..." said Cho.

"Not very far into the future, I know," Addie responded, "but I know that if I plan too far in advance, I will remain stuck to that forever. Once I have made plans, I cannot change them. If someone were to ask me if I wanted to go and gather conkers with them in October, I would of course say yes. I love conkers. I would intend to nearer the time, and have crippling anxiety about attending. I would then feel like I had to attend, even though I no longer wanted to as I was so anxious, and would spend ages hoping that the other person would cancel."

"Erm, that sounds...incredibly stressful," Neville said.

"Oh, yes it is. That's why I have a sweet spot for how much notice I need to be able to do something, and that means anything. If I get a month's notice, that's too much. If I get a week's notice, that's not enough, I don't have enough time to mentally prepare for it. If I get 2 weeks of notice, then I have enough time to consider what it will involve, while also not having enough time to talk myself into a disaster."

"I suppose that makes sense," reasoned Neville. "I don't quite understand it myself, but I suppose that we all have to do what makes sense to us."

"I agree," Professor Sprout said. "Making plans and then breaking them is generally considered to be irresponsible, and if you are able to make provisions that improve your consistency, then I say go for it."

"I know you said that you might change your mind, but I promise none of us will hold you to it. What do you currently want to do as a job?" Adrian asked.

"I suppose something academic and involving history. I like the idea of combining muggle and magical history in something. I only hope that I will be able to find a part of muggle history interesting enough to me to allow it."

"There aren't exactly many books on muggle history in the library, are there?" Adrian considered.

"I had a look," Addie confessed, "and there's three. One on the Statute of History and its impact on muggle communities, one on the introduction of tea to the UK, and one on World War Two and Grindewald."

"The second one is very..." started Neville.

"Random? Yes," Addie agreed. "Quite interesting though. Did you know that the two most common names for tea in different languages which are 'tea' and 'chai' are pretty much just dependent on where in China tea was introduced from? Lady Grey tea is also a recent fabrication."

Professor Sprout would have made a note to herself to ask the library staff to consider including more muggle items in the Hogwarts collection, but knew very well that this would be rejected. Their funding was down due to the school board deciding that most books being acquired were 'dangerous propaganda'.

"Well I'm sure you'll be able to benefit from your local muggle lending library during the summer," Cho suggested.

"Cho, you are a genius!" Addie cried. "I hadn't even thought about that!"

Addie left the meeting with her brain full of ideas. How should she get hold of a library card? Would it require guardian consent? The sheer idea of spending her days outside of cleaning and avoiding Harry in the local library was a fantastic one. She had only been there once, and had not been taken there since. The single time she had been, was when she was about eight years old. Aunt Petunia had decided that it was time for 'Duddy' to look at some books so she had asked the librarian for the suitable area. They had been directed towards the 5-8 years section and Aunt Petunia had taken it upon herself to have Dudley see if he enjoyed any of them. Addie knew that Dudley's reading level wasn't high enough to read any of them. This had been one of the few times that she had felt sorry for him. He wanted so much to be the perfect child, that something so 'abnormal' as struggling to read at school would make him more and more like them, and such a thing would never do. He had therefore feigned understanding before having a tantrum about the fact that both Addie and Harry were looking at copies of the Chronicles of Narnia. Dudley had been upset as they had both clearly been interested and understanding what they were reading, while Aunt Petunia had been upset as she knew very well about the type of nonsense that happened in 'those sorts of books'. Addie supposed that only time could tell what would happen.

She went and hid with her books in a secluded area near her next class, and spent a blissful 15 minutes reading. It was extra reading from History of Magic as the previous week, Professor Binns had not been on his usual form. He had been rather less enthusiastic than usual, which was saying something. Addie supposed that there had probably just been something going around. Therefore, she had decided to do some of her reading again just to make sure she understood it.

"Potter, what are you doing inside?" a familiar voice asked her sharply.

"Just killing some time before my next class, sir," Addie said truthfully. "I don't see the point in wasting 15 minutes that could be spent reading."

Professor Snape did not like her, that much was plain to see. Addie didn't know why exactly, but he kept on trying to bait her for some reason. He constantly made comments about her dad, and Addie wondered how Harry was reacting to this. He was fiercely protective of the parents that neither of them had ever known.

"I very much doubt that a Potter would ever voluntarily read. I doubt your brother has ever opened a book, and your father was the same. He always was arrogant."

Addie took a quick moment to wipe spit of her face before continuing. She didn't see much point in going about one's day with someone else's spit on one's face.

AN: I hope everyone enjoyed this chapter, and be sure to leave a comment either way. I just started back at university, but will continue uploading until I reach the end of this part of this story. I haven't been able to write much beyond that. Whenever I try to, I am filled with dread, and it isn't really the writing that does it to me, but instead the knowledge that I have to reread the books that She-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named wrote. I loved them when I was younger and I read them over and over, but now I cannot disconnect them from her in my mind. After years of reading almost entirely queer Harry Potter fanfiction, reading her words feels like she's talking to me directly, and not in a tone I like very much. I'm going to try and power through over the Christmas holidays, and alternate this story and writing my dissertation. I keep reminding myself that rereading the first one gave me loads of ideas and I am certain to miss something if I rely on the internet.

I just realised how long this is. I apologise for subjecting you all to my rant. Hope you are all having an alright week.