Starry skies and Gardenias

Chapter 105

May sped in and hit them all like a ton of bricks. The heat rose rapidly, and students now chose to loiter around in the green grounds instead of staying inside. 

And with the arrival of the month of May, the Quidditch fever had risen to its peaks. The final matches were nearing. 

The month of May was also the time when the fifth years and the seventh years would start to panic. Because their "ultra-super-mega-important exams", as Andrew said, were coming up.

And because of the mass resistance from the fifth and sixth years, the Marauders put the Duelling Club on temporary hold, promising to hold only one last meeting the coming Wednesday. 

The teachers had stopped giving homework now and were making them revise and revise and revise. 

Slughorn, however, didn't seem to stop his little extra lessons for Isabella and Black. But both of them took it as an extra practical practice session for their O.W.L.s.

One day, a notice had come upon the notice board in the common room for the fifth years.

CAREER ADVICE

All fifth years will be required to attend a short meeting with their Head of House during the first week of the Summer Term, in which they will be given the opportunity to discuss their future careers. Times of individual appointments are listed below.

And along with that, came the variety of pamphlets with job opportunities and career choices on them.

Muggle relations, Ministry of Magic workers, Healers, curse-breaking for Gringotts Wizarding Bank, something about training security trolls, there were also a couple of leaflets for a career in Quidditch. 

Isabella sat in the corner of the common room, reading through all the leaflets trying to find even a single career she would like to pursue.

There was nothing. Literally nothing she would like to do after school. 

But she would have to do something. The most stable job seemed to be in the Ministry of Magic, but she wasn't going to take that because the Ministry was soon going under Voldemort's control. She could think about all that after the fight was done, and Voldemort was defeated. 

If she was being honest, there was a high chance she would be killed just for being muggleborn. 

She could hear people talking loudly about what careers they would like to pursue, and what they had planned for their future. Some wanted to follow in their parents' footsteps, others wanted to try out new options. 

And then there was Isabella who would rather do nothing. 

All the careers sounded interesting and nice, but she just didn't seem to be able to choose any one of them. 

That would be a nice thing to tell McGonagall on Thursday afternoon after lunch. She had insisted that she would take all the subjects for her O.W.L.s and her N.E.W.T.s and now she was saying she didn't know what to do with all this!

As the O.W.L.s neared, Isabella was finding it hard to make her predictions for the Dialy Prophet and the Witch Weekly. But Valerie couldn't go off on a break. Valerie was always on time, and was the most accurate there was. . .Really, it was just the way she worded it. That was the only thing Isabella was proud of, she was persuasive.

. . .That reminded her of Riddle. 
She should really find a word instead of 'persuasive'. 

"Jefferson!"

Isabella stopped. She was on her way to the library to get some books on Care of Magical Creatures when she was called by Black.