Productivity and Prospective Pals PV Finished

@Amadea Campbell

Ana was so ready to be done with school. She was barely caught up on all the schools she'd missed with her sickness and travelling, and exams were barreling towards her like a freight train. She loved most of her subjects (other than Astronomy, that was stupid), but the amount of studying she was doing was going to cause a mental breakdown.

To be perfectly honest, Ana was in the process of a mental breakdown for so many other reasons. Namely that cursed Blossom Ball. Her burns had left no physical scars, but had left more than enough emotional scars. Not to mention the rest of the mess that had happened. Rafa running off and trying to set more fires, that insane blonde chick screaming and sobbing, and Victor...

No, she could not think about that. She had filled all of her waking hours with clubs and homework and reading to avoid thinking about that. She spent the majority of her nights waking up from nightmares about that, and she knew that if she thought about it too much, she was going to fall apart completely. It was far better for her to focus on things that were somewhat helpful like homework. Ideally, she would have filled some of her time with hanging out with friends, but she was avoiding pretty much all of her remotely close friends after the ball. Really, she was avoiding just about everyone she was on speaking terms with. Rafa, Scott, Ivy, Dale... The list went on and on. Logically, she knew that avoiding her friends wasn't the most healthy way of dealing with her problems, but for now, it was working alright.

Entering the classroom she had taken to hiding out while she studied, she began to dig through her bag for her Astronomy assignment when she noticed another girl was already there. A wave of panic went through her until she realized it was a fairly unfamiliar face. She recognized the girl as a third or fourth year Hufflepuff, but beyond that, knew nothing about her. That was perfectly fine with Ana. It wasn't one of her countless enemies or worse one of her few friends.

Biting her lip, she entered the room. On the one hand, this kind of messed with her plan to avoid any and all human contact, but on the other, this could be a welcome distraction from both school work and the ball. She supposed she would have to wait and find out. She selected a seat across the aisle from the Hufflepuff's. It was close enough that the two could talk if that was something that they both wanted but far enough that it would only be slightly awkward if they ignored each other. Ana wasn't usually an awkward person, but she was way thrown off the past few weeks, so for now, she didn't say anything.

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𝓤pon first glance, Amadea did not recognize the other girl. She had that familiar vibe to her, Amadea was sure that she had seen the girl around school somewhere, but she didn't know when or where that might have been. Considering Amadea's knack for remembering people's names and faces, she trusted that she had seen this girl before, but had never interacted with her.

Amadea watched as the girl bit her lip before going over to a different aisle and sitting down. From the looks of it, Amadea figured that she was just as keen on spending the day studying, so she decided not to make a big fuss of the girl coming and taking her space. To be fair, it wasn't her space. It was just that Amadea was always here. She felt as at home here as she did in her own dormitory. She decided to continue her homework, looking down at the Charms assignment in front of her. Amadea wasn't an unfriendly person, per se, but she was notorious for being the shyest of her friends and probably the whole school. As a Hufflepuff, Amadea often felt out of place next to her outgoing classmates, but found that she truly embodied the Hufflepuff kindness once people pushed her out of her shell.

There were many reasons Amadea found to just simply continue studying. For one, she had a lot of homework to do and she had already planned out her entire day. If she stuck to her schedule, she would be in a very good spot with her work and could even possibly take a break the next day. Plus, Amadea's small arsenal of social skills she had collected over her first two years at Hogwarts had all but disappeared after her father's death and her long hiatus from Hogwarts. At the same time, though, there was a small part of her that kept telling her not to be rude and talk to the girl. Even though she was having not the best day, it didn't give her the right to take it out on others.

Amadea decided she would finish her assignment before delving into the possibilities of conversing wit the girl. Unfortunately, her Charms homework was quite simple and it seemed like no time had passed when she set down her quill, satisfied with her work. Sadly, that meant she now had to decide whether or not to talk to the other girl. Amadea snuck a glance over at her, unsure of what she should even say if she were to say anything. Maybe she should start start out simple, with her name.

"Um," Amadea said hesitantly, trying to keep the nerves out of her voice. "I'm uh-" her voice cracked and she cleared it, embarrassed. "I'm Amadea. Amadea Campbell. Third year. Hufflepuff. You look familiar?"

@Anastasia Beckett

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The girl thankfully seemed to have decided not to interrupt Ana's studies. While she was slowly getting back to her normal self after the ball and her stint in the hospital wing, she still felt completely off. She had crammed activities and homework and extra credit into every waking hour to avoid thinking about the ball. She was still haunted by nightmares, which somehow seemed to be getting worse. The Gryffindor was operating on more and more coffee and less and less sleep. She just had to make it to the end of the school year. Then she could hide out and heal over the summer.

To be perfectly honest though, summers were never exactly restful. Still, she just needed something resembling privacy. She needed time to fall apart without all of her friends, enemies and teachers there to witness it. Her parents would scold her and make her miserable, but she supposed she could just spend most of the summer hiding in her room. It would take some juggling, since she knew she couldn't exactly tell them anything about why she was so freaked out. About how she had been forced to acknowledge and deal with her own mortality. About how terribly and completely alone she felt all the time now. About how she had nearly killed someone.

No, none of those were subjects she could talk about with her parents. Not only would it not help, since her perfectly perfect and postured parents wouldn't understand any of what she was dealing with, it would probably hurt. Her parents would run around trying to cover up any evidence of her having been involved in problems, which would lead to them discovering the full extent of her trouble making at school, and she would earn at least one harsh lecture about how nearly killing herself and others simply wasn't a Beckett way of behaving and that they were utterly ashamed of her. She could do without that. Maybe she'd just say she'd had a fight with a friend or make up a boyfriend and say they had a bad breakup. Well, either of those would earn their own scoldings. Maybe just not tell them anything.

As Ana concluded her essay, she glanced over at the older girl. She seemed to also be finishing up whatever it was she was working on. Ana was stuck with a wave of fear that she was about to leave. Since the ball, she couldn't stand being by herself. Even when she was around others, she was filled with loneliness, but it was so much worse when she was actually physically alone.

Fortunately, the other girl decided to speak to her. Her voice cracked slightly which lead Ana to notice how shy and timid this girl seemed. That was normal for Ana around first years and even some other second years, but a third year wouldn't be scared of her. Then again, some of those rumors would be pretty scary. "Lovely to meet you, Amadea," she said, smiling slightly. Her soft voice had a rasp to it that had started after she'd woken up after the ball, and she was concerned that the smoke and screaming had permanently damaged her vocal cords. Still, it didn't necessarily sound terrible, but different. "I'm Anastasia Beckett, but I go by Ana mostly. Second year, Gryffindor. I was a prefect last year, so I'm sure you saw me at events and all that."

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𝓐madea smiled as the girl introduced herself as @Anastasia Beckett. The name seemed quite familiar to Amadea, though she didn't know how she knew her. Maybe it was from events, as Ana had said she used to be a Prefect. Amadea's smile wavered slightly as she thought about this. Just a year ago she was used to introducing herself as Amadea Campbell, Prefect of Hufflepuff. She was less shy, happy to help anyone, and friendly. It wasn't like she wasn't friendly or happy to help anyone anymore. But with everything that had happened since the beginning of her third year, Amadea was no longer the same person. She couldn't help but dwell on how good those times were, when she was a Prefect. Sure, she was probably even more busy than she was right now, with all of her patrolling duties and tasks to complete but she also was quite happy back then. Now, Amadea had given up her position as Prefect and her happiness along with it, so it seemed. Amadea knew that her happiness and her status as a Prefect were not at all connected, but she couldn't help but associate the two together. After all, her year as Prefect had been the best year of her life.

Now, she was just a sad, shy girl again, reminiscent of her first-year self, except sadder. "Ana," Amadea repeated, realizing she should probably say something and not just sit in silence. "Nice to meet you as well. And yes, I'm sure I've seen you around before...you do look quite familiar." Perhaps they had run an event together or seen each other during patrols, or maybe at one of the schoolwide events that always seemed to end in disaster. If there was one highlight to Amadea missing the majority of her third year, it was that she didn't have to deal with all of the crazy events that had transpired during the year. From what she had heard, things were only more crazy than any other year, especially at the BlossomBall, which Amadea had always been wary of, ever since the fire during her first year Ball.

She wracked her brain, trying to think of some topic of conversation to continue the conversation and not fall into one of those awkward silences again. "Though I have been gone for a while, so it wasn't at any recent event," Amadea said. "I heard things have been quite eventful though..."

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The other girl's smile fell slightly when Ana mentioned being a prefect. If she remembered correctly, this girl had also been a prefect at one point, although she really couldn't remember most of the people who had been prefects. Sometimes it seemed like half the school had been prefects at one point or another. She wondered if it was a sore topic. Ana's time as a prefect had been fun, but also incredibly stressful. Her second year was something of a fresh start, since she'd lost contact with a lot of her newer friends and had resigned as a prefect. It was a mess for other reasons, but it was messy for new and different reasons, which was always nice.

Ana nodded slightly when the girl said she had recognized her. Ana generally recognized older students, since there seemed to be far less of them than first or second years. She was mildly concerned that the students were just dying off and that nobody actually made it to their seventh year, which seemed plausible considering all that happened at Hogwarts.

"Oh, really?" she asked when the girl said that she'd been gone for a while. "I missed quite a bit of school this year as well. I just got back in the end of March. Hogwarts is still Hogwarts though." She opted not to mention the Blossom Ball, since that was exactly what she was trying to avoid talking about. "So, what took you away from school? Anything fun?" She hoped it wasn't a sore topic, like the death of a family member or something. That would be awkward. It also occurred to her that the other girl would likely reciprocate the question. Ana decided she would just not mention her aunt's death, since that hadn't been the main reason she'd been gone so long, and death wasn't something she wanted to talk or think about right then.

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𝓦ell shit, Amadea thought to herself as @Anastasia Beckett voiced the question that Amadea had kind of walked herself into. She was hoping that Ana would have just picked up with her last sentence, filling Amadea in on any of the drama she had missed during her third year. But no, she went for the first part of her sentence, asking why Amadea had been away. Immediately after the words left her mouth, she regretted saying them in the first place. Anyone who with a brain would understand that if she said something like that, the other person was clearly going to ask why she was away. It wasn't like she could snap at Ana now; she had offered the information herself and now Ana was just following up.

"Anything fun?" she had asked. Amadea fought the urge to laugh out loud in irony. Right, the death of her father was just so fun. Amadea couldn't even be mad at Ana for asking; she knew she had walked herself right into the situation. But her father was a subject that she left untouched. There were too many other emotions that she would have to unpack if she began talking about him, like the reasons why she was feeling so unlike herself and why she was still crying herself to sleep every night silently in her dorm room. Amadea wasn't ready to face those feelings; she would rather suppress them deep inside of her and keep on going like everything was fine. Because everything was fine. It was. Everything was absolutely fine and dandy.

Maybe she could spin the question around and point it back at Ana, who had also mentioned that she had missed a portion of her year as well. Amadea felt for the girl; she knew personally how difficult it was to miss school. Even while at Hogwarts Amadea felt swamped with the amount of work she had to do and the commitments she had made to different people and clubs. Now that she had missed almost six months of school, she was practically drowning. That explained why both of them were in the abandoned classroom on such a gorgeous day instead of hanging out with friends; they had to catch up on their work. Maybe she could spin the conversation back toward school.

Reazling she needed to say something, as they were now sitting in an awkward silence, Amadea spoke. "Oh uh, just..." she trailed off, desperately trying to think of something to say that wasn't a lie but also didn't delve into the complete truth of the matter. "Family stuff," she ended lamely. It wasn't a lie. She had left school because of family problems, namely one of her family members dying, and then made the decision to stay with her mother and sister for a while after her father's funeral so they could grieve as a family. "You were gone too?" Amadea asked. "Anything fun?" she joked, using Ana's line. "There's so much work now that I'm back though...I feel like I couldn't possibly get it all done." Perfect, she had directed the conversation back toward school. Hopefully Ana wouldn't pry too much more into why Amadea had been gone.

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From the slight changes in the Hufflepuff's expressions and body language, Ana could tell that this was definitely not a subject that @Amadea Campbell wanted to linger on. Ana wondered slightly, if that was the case, why she had brought up the subject in the first place? It wasn't like Ana would have known that she hadn't been around if Amadea hadn't mentioned it. Well, maybe she would have if she'd actually been there, so she supposed it made sense. Especially considering the girl was fairly recently back at school, Ana supposed that would have been a rather noteworthy thing to leave out when speaking to someone. Not that she was one to judge - she didn't actually want to talk about her own travels and she'd brought them up. It wasn't that anything bad had happened, well, other than her aunt dying, but it was more that had been dying to get back to Hogwarts pretty much the entire time.

"Family stuff, I suppose. My parents felt that me traveling was far more important than going to school for most of my second year," Ana said wryly with a slight laugh. She had enjoyed parts of her travels and the food had been great, but she still didn't think that the traveling was more important than nearly a year of education. Obviously, Ana had had a tutor that traveled with them, but it seemed to her that it would have made far more sense for the family to travel over Ana's school breaks and send her back to school the term started. Not any of this was anything that it did her very much good to dwell on. She'd missed six months of school and now she was back, so she really didn't need to go around whingeing about things that were done and over with, and anyway, it hadn't been something within her control.

Ana latched on to Amadea's words about how much work there was. "Right? I've been back for almost two months and I still feel like I'm barely making a dent in my mountain of essays. Of course, it doesn't help that I also have current homework to work on. And some of them, astronomy, for instance, are like pulling teeth to write," Ana said. Astronomy wasn't a subject Ana saw much point to. It wasn't like any of that would ever actually be useful or anything in real life. Most of the various charms and spells they learned were something that would be helpful later on in the real world. Flying and potions both seemed like they would be less necessary for some people than others, but still something that would be valuable to know. Astronomy was really only helpful if you were planning on becoming an astronomer, which Ana certainly wasn't.

It occurred to her that the other girl might like Astronomy and think her passionate dislike of the subject was rather odd, but Ana didn't care much. She found that what classes people liked and disliked said quite a bit about them. Her favorite subject, Flying, was one that she found to be rather polarizing. She had yet to meet anyone who simply liked or disliked the subject. It seemed like half the students were good at flying and loved the class, while the other half had more difficulty with it and hated it.

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𝓐s Amadea studied the other girl's face as she repeated the question that had just been asked of her, Amadea noticed that Ana's face had slightly dropped as well with the mention of being gone from school. Whatever it was, Amadea was definitely not going to pry. She knew all about not wanting to share and she was happy to listen to whatever Ana was willing to say to her.

It did seem like Ana's year had been a little more exciting than Amadea's though, if she had spent it traveling. Amadea hadn't done much traveling as a child; she had made a few trips to the United States to visit her Aunt Stella over the years but family vacations were quite sparse because there was always so much going on at home. Her father was always working...and so was her mother, for that matter. Plus, her family had to take care of her Aunt Emma and her cousin Jake, who couldn't afford to go on vacation with them. Amadea was fine without traveling too much; she had plenty of traveling opportunities now that she was at Hogwarts but she did sometimes feel a pang of jealousy when she heard about all of these wealthy Pureblood families taking elaborate trips everywhere in the world without even worrying at all about money or anything. While Amadea knew she was quite fortunate to have the life she did have without having to worry about making ends meet, her family certainly was not rich by any means.

"Traveling," Amadea repeated. "Well, at least that sounds like some fun," she said. "Where did you travel to?" In her mind, Amadea had a giant bucket list of places she wished she could go to one day and she wondered if Ana had been to any of those places; while she would definitely be envious, she still was eager to hear about the travels, which sounded much more exciting than where the two girls were located now at school. Catching up with schoolwork was a daunting task and she was glad that she could share her burdens with someone who understood what she was going through.

"I know!" Amadea said. "I tried to do as much homework as I could while I was away...but I still have so much makeup work to do plus all of the current assignments," she sighed, looking down at the amount of homework she still had left to complete. Ana mentioned Astronomy, which wasn't one of Amadea's favorite classes, but it also wasn't her least favorite either. "So you don't like Astronomy that much, huh?" Amadea noted. "I don't really love it either, but I don't hate it," she said. "My two worst classes are History of Magic and Transfiguration," Amadea sighed, not wanting to think about the essays she had to write for those classes. Maybe she shouldn't have started off with the easy assignments; it made her lose motivation for the harder classes at the end.

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@Amadea Campbell

Ana laughed slightly when the girl asked where they had travelled. It was like her parents had decided to see how many different places they could shove into the time they had and still manage to get to the maximum number of fancy snobby parties. Ana had enjoyed seeing the various places, but at some point, she wondered what the point of traveling was if you were spending time doing pretty much the same thing with pretty much the same people. She had far more enjoyed doing things that were unique to each place they had visited, like seeing Broadway shows in New York, visiting the Taj Mahal, or eating pierogis in Poland. Unfortunately, the majority of her travels were occupied by tutoring sessions and pureblood balls, so the things that made each place special were far less than she would have liked. If her parents were going to do what they always did at home, Ana didn't see the point of traveling the world to do so.

"Honestly, just about everywhere. All over Africa, and then to India, then China, then Russia, then Brazil. And then on our way back, we went to Spain, France, Italy, and Poland," Ana told the other girl before pausing a moment to make sure she hadn't forgotten anywhere. After a while, they started to blur together and it didn't help that the balls and galas and soirees seemed to be the same to her regardless of theme or location. "Oh, and New York, I forgot." She wasn't certain she wanted to mention New York, since it had been the afterthought on the Beckett world tour, and they had gone there mostly because of her aunt. Still, New York had been fun, and Ana didn't think that she liked the idea of failing to mention it, since she'd spent so much of the spring there.

Ana laughed at the other girl's inquiry about Astronomy. "That's an understatement. I don't think I've ever disliked anyone or anything as vehemently as I dislike astronomy, not even History of Magic. I'm not even sure why, honestly. It just doesn't seem to come as naturally as some other things do for me,"Ana replied. She nodded slightly when Amadea mentioned one of her worst classes was Transfiguration. It was definitely one of the more difficult subjects, but Ana rather liked it. Sure, it didn't help that she had missed several months of lectures, but she still enjoyed it. It was fairly logical, if a bit complicated. Rather the opposite of astronomy in Ana's opinion.

"To be perfectly honest, I don't think anyone's best or favorite class is History of Magic," Ana said with a laugh. It was just so dull and somewhat pointless in Ana's opinion. Who actually cared about the Goblin War or Revolution or whatever it was? Not Ana. "Which classes do you like best?"