The air grew warmer within each passing day, flowers were abloom and the trees were slowly growing back their green leaves. Along with the blossom of spring, of course, was the sound of sniffling and sneezing all throughout the castle. Allergy season, ofcourse, wasn't all too lovely, most especially for Noel, who spent the afternoon averting his sneezes away from his school work.

Florence looked up from her notes as her tutee let out another sneeze again, Noel gratefully accepting a tissue box that Lisa slid his way. The two were now needing Florence's assistance more often than they used to, as O.W.L.s were nearing, and they wanted to be as prepared as they could possibly be.

She had exams of her own to prepare for as well, but she absolutely felt sympathy towards the two, who needed loads of things to improve if they wanted decent grades. It wasn't like Lisa and Noel were hard to teachz

"The world hates me," the Gryffindor boy concluded as he spotted the smudge on his paper due to his instinctive sneezing jolt. Lisa giggled, patting his best friend on the back, "You shouldn't have spent all that time outside yesterday."

"Blaming the victim, I see?" he murmured, before crumpling the tissue into a ball and chucking it into the nearest disposal area he could find. Lisa grimaced, "I don't think Madame Pince is going to be all too happy with your snot balls in the paper bin." she pointed out, making Florence chuckle in agreement. "Well, it's her problem for not putting up a proper garbage can in the library."

"See? Florence gets it!"

They heard a familiar shushing noise from the distance, making Noel frown, "That old hag."

"Noel," said Florence, pointing the tip of her quill at what was written on his parchment, "This bit of the potion isn't right. Try looking it up in your book... I'm sure it says something else. And Lisa, your arithmancy equations, maybe you'd want to make them accurate enough?"

"I haven't got the notes for that," she said, "I was out yesterday. Called to the office because Callan was misbehaving again."

"Well, you could look around for an arithmancy book... I'm sure they have it in there somewhere." Lisa nodded, hauling herself off of her seat and to the bookshelves at the back.

Noel scooted his parchment over to Florence, his ingredients corrected, "Is this right?"

"Replace toad blood with salamander blood for your Strengthening Solution... and that'll be right."

"Right! I completely forgot about that..."

"It happens," she shrugs, "Just try getting it into your head, use key words and stuff..."

Lisa returned with a thick black book, sliding it carefully onto the table before flipping it open to look for her equations, "We're sorry that you have to help us...You probably have your own preparations to do...considering the exams are nearing for you as well."

"Yeah well I don't think sixth year exams are harder than O.W.L.s. I know how much of a pain in the arse it can be...So I'm happy to help," Florence reassured the two, "Besides, it'll be worth it when you two pass with flying colors."

"Oh boy, expectations," Noel gulped.

"No pressure," Florence winked, before picking up her quill to resume jotting down her notes. Her line of sight was then clamped over by two soft hands, startling her. She now knew that she would never get any work done with people constantly interrupting her study.

"Nicolai," she grumbled, "Get off. I have work to do."

The Ravenclaw girl promptly removed her hand, scowling as she took one of the vacant seats. "How are your O.W.L.s children doing?"

"Better than most people preparing for the test," she replied, "You were extremely jittery last year, Nic."

"Snape hated me last year..." she recalled, "Thank Merlin I didn't have to take his class this year. His exam wasn't all too hard now that I think of it."

"Why did Snape hate you?" Lisa asked, genuinely curious since she was yelled at by the professor just recently.

"Because he's a git, that's why." Nicolai said, spotting the arithmancy book parked infront of the Gryffindor girl, "Oh my god, why do people torture themselves with Arithmancy?"

"We aren't torturing ourselves," Lisa quipped in, "It's actually better than Ancient Runes."

"That's what I've been saying," Florence batted her eyelashes at her best friend, "See? It's an agreeable opinion. Arithmancy is easier than Ancient Runes."

"Bullocks," scoffed Nicolai, "I'm sure Xander would disagree greatly if he were here."

"But he is not..." said Florence a-matter-of-factly, before her brows drew together in confusion, "But why is he not here, though?"

Nicolai leaned forward onto the surface of the desk, whispering as low as she could, "Banks is mildly stalking him."

Noel shot her a quizzical look, "Who's Banks—?"

"Shh!"

"Sorry," he whispered.

She tapped the closest bookshelf, "She's right behind this shelf. I swear she's been following us everywhere. She's freaking me out."

"Don't overreact, Nic. Maybe she's just here to study...? A lot of people go to the library every now and then."

"No, I shit you not she's been following Xander everywhere. It's creepy."

Florence sighed, picking up her quill once more in hopes of atleast finishing one paragraph of notes, "Shouldn't you be studying for your Astronomy test tonight?"

"I don't wanna," she replied nonchalantly, before peeking at Lisa's paper, "You might want to use another phrase to assign to this numerical value...I think it would make much more sense..."

Lisa looked at her skeptically, "I thought you didn't like Arithmancy."

"I don't," she confirmed, "Doesn't mean I don't know how to do it." Nicolai propped her feet up on the table, making Florence scowl reprovingly.

"This is not the place to do that, Nic. Feet off." she ordered, yanking a book from beneath one of Nicolai's feet, making her shoe thud loudly onto the tabletop. Another loud shushing was heard from the Librarian's desk, this time accompanied by a curt threat of getting kicked out.

"Rowena's sake..." Florence muttered tiredly, looking up at the ceiling as if begging the high and mighty heavens to give her the few remaining minutes of her free period to actually get some work done.

But, unfortunately, her silent pleas were not heard, the sight of two mischievous redheads making her sigh in dismay. She capped her ink bottle and kept her quill, the chance for her to finish her notes growing dimmer and dimmer by each second.

Fred was now waving a hand back and forth infront of her face, before tapping the tip of her nose with his pointer finger, "Boop."

He managed to do it again before Florence swatted his hand away, "Aww, why do you look so groggy, love?"

"She's tired of you, Freddie. Go on, tell her Flo." George butted in, grinning as his twin brother frowned, "Sure it'll hurt his feelings, but he needs a dose of truth every once in awhile to deflate his ego."

"And this ego you refer to...is the same as yours, is it not?" Nicolai quipped in, a smug look on her face.

"Is not."

"Is too. Twin brothers twin egos."

"Pipe down." chastised Florence, "The children are studying," she said, gesturing to both Lisa and Noel who were led off task as they watched the playful banter unfold. Noel raised a brow at Florence "Lisa and I are barely even a year younger."

"Still children."

"Speaking of studying," said Fred, turning to Florence with the best innocent smile that he could muster, "Love, will you be an absolute dear and help George and I with the study materials that we borrowed from Snape's personal supply."

Florence's eyes widened, "Oh my god....You didn't..."

"We so did." George confirmed.

"But we know that you love us even if we go against every single thing that you believe in..." Fred's voice trailed off.

"...get you to bend your morals for us..." George added.

"Don't you know it." Florence sighed, although she could never say no to the twins, this further proven as she started to tuck her stuff in to her book bag, looking to her two tutees apologetically, but Lisa had spoke up even before words left her mouth, "Don't fret. You've done a lot, Florence. Thank you."

"You know Nicolai can take over for today," Noel suggested, "She's  pretty good."

"I am?" Nicolai questioned.

"She is."

"Best co-tutor in the castle." said George.

"Shut it, Weasley. You're just saying that because you want to borrow my best friend."

"What can I say? She's a bit more decent than Fred and I when it comes to Potions. And we want this finished by this week so we'll have the rest of the weeks before finals to study. Stay tuned for our pre-Third task prank...It's gonna be fun."

"Merlin's beard..." said Florence, "I'm an official Weasley accomplice, aren't I?"

"Don't you know it."

/////////

A.n: I'm terribly sorry that this is all I could do for this week, guys. School is incredibly busy plus I had to help out in Algebra 1 tutorings over the weekend & host a color run for a fundraiser. & my writing is getting shitty I'm sorry I promise I'll make up for it.

-Denise