The serpent's heir

Studying and (stu)dying

Adrian knew that it wouldn’t be too hard to settle into his new life at Hogwarts, but the little group of friends that he had quickly accumulated made that task all the easier. Although he had met Elizabeth, Sophia, Felix, and Grant on the train ride here, he also hadn’t wasted any time in being friendly with everyone he met. As it turned out, the Prewett twins made up two of his three dormmates, and the third was Charlus Potter.

Charlus was a particularly strange boy, and that’s coming from Adrian. He has a mop of curly brown hair of his head that honestly looked almost as untamed as him. As far as purebloods usually go, Adrian couldn’t imagine anyone further away from the stereotypical image of them. Charlus was loud, and wild, and fun. Oh, he was so very fun. Within five minutes of meeting the boy, both the twins were cackling on the floor, and Adrian was attempting to escape the pillow fight he was being very embarrassingly beaten in. In all honestly, it was rather refreshing. Whilst the Prewett twins were certainly entertaining, they were also very used to just having each other to talk to and sometimes did a weird thing were they just communicated as if they could read each other’s minds (and Adrian was convinced that they could in fact do this). But Charlus wasn’t like that. Much like Adrian himself, the boy was an open book. And Adrian loved it. He already knew that they would be best friends. An exciting prospect for someone whose never had a friend that wasn’t a magical or non-magical creature.

Adrian had spent his whole life so far with mostly adults as company because he had spent most of his childhood being home-schooled in America. In fact, the only times he met people that weren't his family was when they went shopping, when his mum brought him to work with her, or when his uncle Jacob let him help out in the bakery. He wouldn't count the few times he has travelled with his dad though, because meeting and befriending magical creatures isn’t really the same as socialising. Either way, it was safe to say that Adrian had never really had any friends, nor the opportunity to properly make some.

And so, one of the first things that he did once he had gone to at least one lesson for each class was to start a study group with his new friends and anyone else that wanted to come.

They were supposed to be the best ways of making friends according to uncle Theseus. Although Adrian was starting to think that his uncle just wanted to trick him into studying properly. Which wasn't really a bad idea.

Because if there was one thing he didn't want to do, it was fail his classes or get expelled like his dad. Don't get him wrong, his dad is awesome, and everything turned out great for him, but Adrian knew that he wanted to keep his options as open as possible for the future, just in case he ever decided not to follow exactly in his dad's footsteps. Like the thoughts he sometimes had about being a teacher, or a healer, or even maybe working in a dragon reserve. He was still a kid, and when you're young, your dreams can change all the time. Or at least, Aunt Queenie and his mum always told him so.

Either way, a study group was always a good idea, and if all else fails, maybe he might make more friends along the way.

And let it be known that Adrian was most definitely the studious type. At least, he was when the subject of his research interested him. Like all the times he spent doing his own studies on magical creatures and making personal notes in his copy of his dad's book. And all the hours he 'wasted' reading articles about all the influential and dangerous people in the wizarding and muggle world. It was safe to say that he came out of that fixation a history nerd.

And so it was to nobody’s surprise when he threw himself into not just revising for his new classes, but also a brand-new subject of curiosity, Tom Riddle.

One of the first things he had done upon learning Tom’s name was ask his friends if they knew anything about his family (because everyone somehow knew everybody in the British Wizarding Community), and he quickly figured out that Tom must be a Muggleborn given that none of them recognised it, and how 'Riddle' wasn't as pompous or strange sounding as most Wizarding last name.