What's My Line

January 8th, 1891 - Library

Venusia Crickerly had been slightly less Fun since coming back from break; their OWLs felt so much more real now than they had before break. And she had a secret, one she was keeping very carefully in her chest - she wanted very desperately to be an auror. In order to do so, she was going to need to take at least five NEWTs, and they were going to have to be in real subjects. She couldn't afford to slip now.

So getting as much homework out of the way as possible before the distractions of the weekend was a necessity. She was holed up at a table in the library moving through her History of Magic work, and was startled when she flipped a page and spotted Elon out of the corner of her eye.

Venusia looked up slowly, as if she had been aware of his presence the whole time and was only just now choosing to acknowledge it. This was not too far off, she supposed, if one pretended that she had been less sunk into her textbook. "I hope you're here to study," Crick said. Elon could not always be counted on to actually follow through on doing their homework; when they were hanging out for social reasons, Crick didn't care about this, but the library was a sacred place and she had OWLs to excel on in just a few months.

---

@Elon Wildsmith

Elon didn't care about his OWLs. He was smart enough to get at least passable grades in most of his classes. He also had no career ambitions, so it wouldn't matter whether he got an A or an O or a D in any class. The ones that interested him truly he could pass. The others... Meh, whatever happened happened. It would all be down to luck and what sort of questions they'd have on the exams.


They hadn't been taught anything exciting that week as far as classes went. He had some assignments to do and he was planning on doing a half-assed job so he'd hand at least something. He didn't believe in not handing in homework at all. However, one could easily tell when he was bored with an assignment. It was the Victorian equivalent of copying and pasting off of Wikipedia and changing the sentences a bit so it wasn't direct plagiarism.

His heart fluttered when he saw Venusia at the library. One, because it was nice to see a friend when you had boring assignments to do and two, because he rather liked her.

That being said, he had noticed that she had become a lot more tense ever since they'd returned from the holidays.

He exclaimed loudly but kept a smile on his face. "Yes, I'm here to..." He paused in a rather theatrical manner and started scrambling through his things until he retrieved a rather crumbled piece of paper. "Write about the medicinal properties of bird eyes in potion-making." He made a face. "That's so boring. Thank Merlin some people are passionate about learning this stuff so we go to them to cure us if anything happens. And what about you?" He leaned forward towards her to peek into her book and exclaimed loudly. "The Werewolf Code of Conduct." He made another disgruntled noise. "Why are we even learning about this so extensively, it's not like any of us is a werewolf."

---

Elon was talking a lot for a person who was here to study. Venusia squinted up at him, trying to decide how much she believed him - how much he cared about potions. She could not really accuse him of lying, she supposed, but she did not entirely believe him.

"It's important to know how others govern themselves," Venusia said, tapping her fingertips against the pages of her book. "The potions assignment isn't too bad once you get into it - there's a lot of good examples to use in the homework, because there's so many birds."

---

"As you say," Elon replied with a bored tone. He couldn't imagine how an assignment about eyes being used in potions could be interesting. In all honesty, potions were only fun when they were brewing something. He hated learning all the detailed theory behind them. Especially when it was for boring potions such as these. He had never once had to brew his own medicine.

Elon allowed his friend to work for a bit, as he began to scribe down his assignment. However, at some point, he started to feel bored and he started flicking the book of his page quite loudly. He was shooting glances at Venusia, hoping that she'd notice how bored he was and offer an alternative to the current state of affairs.

---

Crick was absorbed in her work; she had practically forgotten that Elon was there. She was nearly done with her work when she heard the sound of him flicking the piece of paper and was startled out of her paragraph.

She glanced at him sidelong.

"You want to start your weekend," Venusia said, factually.

---

This was all Elon needed. He closed his book with a 'thud', crossed his legs and leaned towards Crick with a smile. "Yes!"

"Don't tell me you feel like studying any more than I do!" By studying he meant for school, of course. There was always something Elon was independently studying about.

---