An American At Hogwarts: Book Three

Chapter Twenty-Eight

After my brief trip to Grimmauld place (and after seeing Tonks make a delicious looking sandwich), I decided to get food before finding David. After scarfing down a sandwich of my own, I saw him heading out of the Great Hall, so I jumped out of my seat and headed towards him.

"Hey! David!" I called. He stopped and turned to me, and I slowed a little as I got close to him. He seemed to be looking through me a little more than at me, and the circles under his eyes were as dark as ever. I stopped just in front of him with a concerned look. "Hey, are you alright?"

"Yes, yes, I'm fine," he said, sounding a little out of it. "It's just been a lot of research and work with St. Mungo's, it's turned out to be a bit more strenuous than I was expecting."

My brow furrowed, and I instantly felt some sympathy exhaustion. My dad and I (and several other family members) had been there before when it came to crazy research.

"Alright, well, I feel like I might suddenly know the answer to this, but I want to make the offer anyway," I started, giving David a wary look. I needed to be ready to act in case he just passed out standing up. "Jackson and I are going to host one-on-one muggle science club meetings in place of WWHRS. If you're interested, we'd love to have you be part of the schedule!"

David shook his head, slowly at first and then a lot faster. "I'm so sorry, Alexa, but I can't. I... I just don't think I have room for anything else on my plate..."

I put my hand on his shoulder to cut him off. "Hey, dude, don't worry about it. I know the feeling when you really can't take on another responsibility. Just let me know if you change your mind, or if there's anything I can do to help ease the load a little for you."

David smiled, and his eyes finally focused on me. "Thanks, Alexa. I will."

"You know, we have double Herbology together later today," I started as the two of us headed for our next classes. "And Professor Sprout is pretty cool. We can partner up for whatever our project is, and you can take a quick nap under the table while I take care of it."

David literally sagged with relief. "Alexa, that would be fantastic. You're a lifesaver."

I just laughed as we headed down the corridors.

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I followed through on my promise in Herbology, and the one time Professor Sprout noticed him laying in the dirt taking a nap, he seemed exhausted enough that she let it slide. He was out for most of the period, until I finally woke him up at the end and a few of his housemates helped him back to their Common Room.

After classes finished, I wanted to go upstairs and finish a schedule for WWHRS, then knock out some homework and finish off a few college applications. Unfortunately for me, before I could do any of that, we had Quidditch practice.

It was pouring rain when we stepped onto the pitch. We magicked Harry's glasses so he'd still be able to see, but it was absolutely miserable weather to be flying around on brooms in.

"This has to be some kind of a safety hazard!" I yelled over the wind to the twins. "Like, isn't there a risk of getting hit by lightning or something?"

They both just shrugged (I got the impression they couldn't really hear me), and took off to where we could barely make out a Bludger streaking down the pitch.

As soon as practice ended, I took as fast a shower as I could, then booked it to the Great Hall to grab some food. My friends were just arriving to the Great Hall as I left, having decided to eat dinner in the dorms and get some work done.

Now that Jackson and I were doing regular one-on-one WWHRS meetings, my lesson planning would have to get a lot more precise and happen a lot more frequently. That, on top of all the homework and college things and planning Howlers and other activities to fight back against Umbridge, came out to a lot of work for me to try and get done. I needed to make a lot more progress than I'd been making, which meant just grinding through as much as I could tonight.