"Hey," Sofia said, as she entered the tower study room, gently this time.

Cedric looked up from his work with mild surprise, then looked at the clock on the wall. "You're actually on time, congratulations."

Sofia blinked. "I'm actually a little early," she said, glancing over her shoulder at the clock Cedric was looking at. She'd made a special effort not to dawdle around her last class or be held up, since she and Cedric had only 'made up' last session. And after the emotionally taxing not-quite-argument was resolved towards her staying, well, Cedric hadn't really been up to saying much but study-related.

Regardless of her thoughts, Cedric scoffed. "An entire minute early, if that counts." It was nice to see Cedric was taking things a bit more lightly, unless that was him being sincerely annoyed or dismissive?

On the other hand, "I'm not usually more than a minute or so late, either," Sofia defended. She was smiling, but once she put down her bag she crossed her arms. "So if it counts that direction, it should count the other way too."

Cedric's eyebrows furrowed, but otherwise he didn't have much facial expression. After a moment, he folded his arms and said, "Touché."

Sofia found herself giggling at this, though only lightly. Luckily, Cedric didn't seem upset by that, but she still tamped the laughter down a bit sooner than she might have. "So, how's your day been, then? Anything interesting happen?"

"Not particularly," Cedric said. "Shall we get to business then?"

Sofia bit her lip and tried not to sigh, but before she could say anything, Cedric blinked and continued, "Or, ah- was that you wanting to talk about your day? You can just come out with it, you know. No need for dancing around pleasantries, I barely understand them anyhow."

That was surprisingly perceptive, if not quite accurate. Still, it seemed like Cedric was doing a lot better than two days ago even without much being said since their last lesson. However- "I'm not asking to know every little detail all the time," Sofia said, "but I'd like to actually talk with you about things other than controlling my magic skill and the odd other lesson, you know? If you've got anything on your mind, I'd love to hear it, your wants and fears, what you do for fun beyond school work, whatever."

Cedric tilted his head and frowned a bit at that, though he didn't look angry so much as perplexed. "All… right, I suppose. What comes to mind at the moment is the fact that you seem to need to get these- these bits of… these questions that feel like part of a soap opera melodrama asked before we start the actual tutoring of a lesson. The plot relevant bits now, and boring studying later." He took a breath, then added, "I don't mind, it's just peculiar."

That's… not quite what Sofia meant, but she wasn't going to complain, especially given the mental image he described. She was chuckling again as she said, "Maybe? I mean- especially this year since Hexley has creative writing classes, but even in Dunwiddee I was part of the theatre productions when I could be… I like thinking of things like that, structured like the plot of a story. Sometimes it's even fun to think we're just characters, yeah?"

Cedric leaned back in his chair and looked up at the ceiling at that. "It's… occurred to me that reality isn't quite what it seems, but not in that way. It seems unlikely- who would want to read a story of my life. Not much going on here, honestly."

Sofia shrugged. "I mean, of course you feel like you'd be the main character, I do too. Anyone I could talk to would. That doesn't mean we are, though, right?" Cedric looked at her with some sort of expression- he was so hard to read, what did that face mean. It didn't look positive, though, so Sofia continued, "I mean, I think you're interesting enough to be a main character, and would definitely read a book about you- but I'm also a bit biased." It took her a moment to realize that… she'd… actually already read a book about him. An untitled private unauthorized autobiography and collected notes, or in other words: his diary. Sofia felt a warmth coming to her cheeks, and really hoped Cedric wouldn't notice anything off.

It took Cedric a moment to react, but he sniffed a laugh and smiled at her, thankfully. "I don't think I could say the same, for myself or you, but my literary tastes do trend more towards the dramatic. A Song of Ice and Fire, The Once And Future King, The Wicked Years… etcetera."

"Yeah," Sofia said with a snorted laugh. "I should hope our lives don't get that interesting." She paused for a moment, then started getting out her textbooks and concluded, "Speaking of uninteresting, I gueeess we should probably start this whole tutor session thing at some point."

Cedric smiled back and said, "That might be wise, given that that's the central purpose of this time slot."

The two of them worked on power and control of Sofia's magic, with and without the amulet given that Greylock didn't seem to be showing up today either. They also worked on some minor potions homework for Health class, correctly mixing the herbs Sofia had brought from the garden and doing the proper spell to imbue it with the correct magical properties.

"And then we wait," Cedric said, and corked the small bottle. "It shouldn't need any particular environmental care to steep, so it should be fine if you'd like to leave it here- though, on second thought, I have no idea if this tower freezes over each night. Perhaps you'd better take it after all."

Sofia nodded, and held out her hand for the would-eventually-be-a-potion, which he gave to her. "Thanks again," she said. "I could have done this on my own, but it's hard enough playing catchup, you know? Being enrolled in so many classes at once to make up for lost time…" She looked away and rubbed the back of her neck. "I know it's like, Official Credits for you or something, but I don't think I've thanked you lately for doing this? And I really do appreciate it a lot, you know."

Cedric grinned and put a hand on her shoulder, saying, "Thank you, Sofia. I appreciate that I can help you." There was a moment of silence, but it wasn't awkward or uncomfortable, or at least Sofia didn't think so. The weight of Cedric's hand on her shoulder was pleasant, especially given that he was usually so stingy with touch. His gaze wandered off somewhere, likely following some train of thought, until he snapped back to reality. "I'm not much good at speaking about things, but if you'd like to come with me this Saturday to Inventing Club, I wouldn't mind. I'm afraid you won't likely have much to do, but you wanted to know how I spend my spare time, so…?"

With a grin, Sofia said, "Oh, that sounds delightful!"

"Delightful might be a strong word for it," Cedric said, finally taking back his hand. "I hope you're not bored to tears. Also, ah while we're at it- you're free to come to the tower to study on off days, too." Cedric looked away sharply, took a breath, and said, "It's - Greylock has been here those days, but it's not… it's not quite the same without the both of you making your usual racket." Despite the harsh emphasis on the last word, Cedric was clearly smiling.

Sofia looked over her maths homework, comparing the problems assigned by Professor Pi (or at least that were written in her planner) were the same as the ones she'd done; they were. She'd done the reading for history, the potion Cedric had helped her with yesterday was the only homework for the rest of this week in Health so she was set there, she'd written this week's Creative Writing prompt-drabble already, and the Canterbury Tales had been so funny she'd read them very quickly, not just the two assigned for Enchancian Lit. Botany only had the few worksheets assigned, which were thankfully simple, and General Sorcery rarely had homework other than practicing new spells - so that wasn't for a grade exactly, but was something Sofia tried to do on schedule regardless. Especially given that cramming never worked and tended to set off a minor curse from the amulet to boot. That had actually already been done too, though, and… Sofia sat in stunned silence for a moment before announcing to Greylock and Cedric, who both with her in the tower, "I believe I'm actually finished with my homework. Ahead in several classes, even."

All Cedric did was mumble, "Congratulations," and went back to his work, which seemed to be… well, probably the thesis thing he sometimes mentioned, given the multiple books open across his table, the bookmarks, and the scattered notes.

Greylock, on the other hand, sat near the fireplace with nothing at hand but the unbound pages of the script. "Is that so? Grats!" he said, loudly as usual. "Say, if you're not too burned out on things that might feel like homework, would you mind practicing lines with me?"

"...Really?" Sofia blinked in surprise at the invitation for… a few reasons, frankly. "You're not still mad at me?"

Blinking, Greylock said, "Mad? Why wo-" He stopped suddenly, snapped his fingers, and pointed at Sofia. "Right. Last week. No, no, dear Sofia. I, ah…" Greylock rubbed the back of his neck and smiled, broadly but with worried, knitted eyebrows.

Before Grey could find the words he was looking for, Sofia asked, "So, you haven't been avoiding me then?" The tone was a bit more… accusatory than she'd intended, but the question stood, and 'taking back' words wasn't a real thing you could do.

"Well, yes, I had been," Greylock said, "but things seemed settled between you two now. So no more awkwardness! Or so I'd thought, anyway."

Sofia bit her lip for a moment in thought, staring intently at Greylock's face trying to decipher his expression. "And that's really it? No lasting anger at certain mistakes?" She glanced at Cedric, who was still absorbed in his studies. Hopefully, if he was paying attention, he'd just assume she meant the whole Tea Incident in general, rather than what she and (hopefully) Greylock knew she was actually talking about, i.e. the journal.

The way that Greylock grimaced, making a noise as he sucked air through his teeth, and glanced at Cedric made it seem like he did at least get what she was saying. "No, I'm good. You've gone through enough, and I was probably overreacting, really. No hard feelings, pinkie swear." He held out his pinkie finger for emphasis.

Cedric hit his hand against the desk, startling Sofia out of whatever she was trying to respond. He said, "Merlin's moldy mushrooms! Will you two get through your drama somewhere else? I don't particularly give a flying fruity fig whether it's fictional or actual drama between you two, it's distracting and I really can't- I can't deal with words right now, with-with-with sound. Go, go hash it out somewhere else and leave me in peace, won't you?"

Sofia ut her hand to her mouth as she realized she'd bothered Cedric that much, and said, "Sorry." She tried to gather her things as quietly as she could, glancing between Cedric and Greylock, who had been waiting by the oor for several moments by the time Sofia was ready. Cheeky bloke hadn't had much out, so all he had to do was stuff his script back into his bag. Before they actually left, she turned around and said "Bye" to Cedric. He didn't say anything or even turn around from his work, but he did wave a hand at her- in what she was pretty sure was friendly rather than dismissive, but it was hard to tell with Cedric.

It wasn't much later that Sofia had followed Greylock to his dorm room, and she'd remembered the other half of why she'd been so incredulous at Grey's request. "Why would you want to practice with me anyhow?" she asked Grey, as he sat on his bed leafing through his script. "I don't think we even share any scenes, given that you're magic Romeo and I'm furry… Tybalt kind of? Magic forest Capulet, anyway."

Greylock looked at her with wide eyes, then blinked a few times. "I could've been…" He shook his head, then spoke up again, "You know, I hadn't even realized it as Romeo and Juliet, but you're right about that, heh. But you're missing that you're also cast as Juliet herself."

Sofia rolled her eyes and said, "As an understudy. Wow that's so necessary, how did Dunwiddee ever deal without?" Sofia sighed.

At that, Greylock tilted his head. "You went entirely without? I thought it was bad enough that we only had enough actors to understudy the lead characters, but what can you do given school play. What if something happened?"

With a shrug, Sofia said, "The show must go on? I thought that was pretty standard theatre culture."

"It is," Greylock said, "that's why we have understudies, in case someone gets a bad cold."

Sofia had to hold back an incredulous laugh as she said, "A cold? One year, we had the lead go on stage with a cast."

"I should hope so," Greylock interjected, earning a giggle from Sofia.

"A literal plaster cast," she said, "not the actors. He took 'break a leg' a little too literally, I guess."

Greylock's mouth fell open as he blinked in surprise. "He what? Gimli's garters, that is… hard core, Sofia. We're significantly…" Grey paused to chuckle. "Softer than that. I mean, it's still probable that Pinkie will play the lead, but it's not as if it's that unlikely you'll be needed. Honestly, she might just be tired after the friday and saturday performances that she asks for you to do the sunday matinee or evening, or even both. It's not out of the question."

Oh. That was good to know.

"Does that mean you've not practiced?" Grey asked, grinning. "I'm glad we've cleared this up now, rather than in January, that might have been disastrous!"

Sofia found a chuckle bubbling up out of her too, and said, "Yeah, I guess. Still, I'm probably going to be… rusty at this. Maybe you should practice with Pinkie a bit, while I work on it on my own a bit?"

At that, Greylock grimaced. "If you'd rather work alone for a while, I don't mind at all. But, ah… Nice as Pinkie is, I don't like her much. She's too much like me, and I don't like not being The Fun Wizard or whatever. And obviously she's better at that, given I'm such a fairy." Grey crossed his arms and huffed a sigh of irritation, but then shrugged and smiled. "It's not her fault, obviously, but I'm still going to avoid spending more time than necessary with her."

"Uh…" Sofia scrunched her lips as she puzzled over what Grey had just said. "That makes sense, though I don't see what your role in the play has to do with all that." Possibly resentment at folks who'd also wanted the lead, but given Pinkie was also a lead, that wouldn't be doing her any more favors that it was doing Greylock…

Grey just laughed and slapped his leg. "Jokes like that are also part of why I'd prefer to do this with you. It's not just negativity towards Pinkie, but also positive attachment to you. I know I've not shown it well lately, but I really do genuinely like you for yourself."

That was nice to hear, even if Sofia didn't quite buy it. "Which is why you were avoiding me until Cedric and I were on the mend, right?"

A short intake of breath, not quite sharp enough to be a gasp, then Greylock said, "No! I'm not very good at dealing with folks while they're upset, unless that person is Cedric. I want to help, but I barely even manage to help Cedric, who I know like the back of my own hand, practically. Anyone else, the most I can really do is offer a hug, and that's not… very helpful. I want to help but I can't, and then I'm sad and the other person is sad and it doesn't accomplish much of anything, really. So I avoid it if I can." Greylock pulled one side of his mouth up in a sad smile and looked up at Sofia, and shrugged. "For what it's worth, I'm sorry."

Well, that made sense, actually. Sofia was usually pretty okay at talking folks down (if with notable exceptions) but she could relate to feeling useless - especially because said notable exception of Cedric. Honestly, that gave her a window into his friction with Pinkie, too, given that Greylock was better at comforting Cedric than she seemed to be, and that was usually her role. Granted, she didn't feel upset by that so much as glad that Cedric at least had someone that could do that for him, since she herself couldn't, but she could understand why he'd be jealous of his position as The Fun One, or envious of Pinkie's success.

For the moment, though, Sofia sat on the bed next to Greylock and hugged him around the shoulders. "It's okay, and I'm sorry for blaming you." She pulled back, then held a hand towards him in an offer to handshake, and said, "So, friends?"

Greylock blinked and seemed surprised by the whole thing for a moment, but took Sofia's hand and shook it vigorously. "Absolutely! I never meant to not be friends."

"I hadn't realized the club met in Layton's classroom," Sofia said as Cedric pushed through the door.

Cedric scoffed. "Where did you expect us to meet? In the cellars for that real Frankenstein feel?"

Sofia hesitated before answering softly, "You do tend to like that sort of aesthetic."

That solicited a laugh, thankfully. "Professor Layton, however, is much less gloomy than I am. And likes routine - I can hardly blame him, really. So here we are." He gestured at the whole of the classroom, which Sofia now saw had several of the tables pushed against the wall, leaving just enough that each student here had a table of their own, on which their in-progress invention sat.

"What the hell is she doing here?" said grating voice that Sofia recognized, but couldn't quite place, until she looked around again and spotted Rus- T.S. "It's way too fucking late to start something for the competition, you know that, right?"

From the front of the room, Professor Layton said, "Language, T.S."

T.S. rolled his eyes and said, "Yeah, yeah. My question still stands, Cedric."

"Yes, I am aware of that, Sofia isn't here to work. Though honestly there's more to inventing than winning some blasted competition, so I don't see why that would be a problem anyhow."

Given that T.S. still looked unhappy and like he'd stir up a proper argument, Sofia added, "I'm just here to hang out for a bit! I'm not very good at mechanics myself, but I think they're interesting, and I'd like to see what Cedric's working on- and probably you guys' too, honestly! I promise I won't be a bother, though. I know you don't look with your fingers, and I'll shut up if you want me to."

After a moment, T.S. said, "Fine," in in a huffy tone of voice, and turned back to his table. If he was anything like Cedric, she wondered if part of his irritation there was that he couldn't find anything to accuse Sofia of potentially doing, and had to stifle a giggle.

As the two walked past his table, Sofia glanced to see what T.S. was working on, anyhow- but couldn't understand what the jumble of parts was supposed to be. Oh well, she'd just have to ask him later, hopefully when he was less irritable. Or maybe ask Cedric, some time after the club meeting ended.

Cedric went to one of the cabinets on the side of the room and took out several pieces of mechanics, and something that looked more than passingly like one of those foldable fans from Wei-Ling. "So, what is it?" Sofia asked, leaning against the table as she watched Cedric start to work.

"A toy flying machine. Last year I made a flying machine you could ride in, with no magic to it at all. It was unwieldy and difficult to transport, ironically enough. When it got to Lumiose in Kalos - where the international part of the competition was being held - some of the internal mechanisms were damaged, and it couldn't turn properly. If I hadn't crashed because of that, I'd probably have won." Cedric sniffed derisively, and Sofia wondered how accurate that was - not that it particularly mattered. "For the most part, scaling down the machine has been difficult, but doable - but given I'm not in the driver's seat, steering the blighted thing will be an issue that I still haven't decided how I'm going to tackle."

"I see," Sofia said, legitimately interested but not sure what else to say. She didn't exactly have a good perspective to be offering any advice. "So the fan… That's going to be the wings?"

Cedric looked her in the eye for a moment, which was odd enough, before answering, "No, I just wanted to add some flair to this thing, figured I'd save myself the trouble of generating lift by casting a levitation spell on the lot and be done with it."

Sofia scoffed at the sarcasm, but couldn't help from turning that into a laugh. She sat and watched him work for a while, mostly silent.

After some amount of time that was longer than just 'several minutes' but probably not as long as half an hour, there was a minor explosion at one of the other tables. Everyone jumped at the noise, and around the room there was various cursing (mostly in the naughty words way as far as Sofia could tell, thankfully). Cedric dropped the tiny wrench and the piece he'd been working on at the time on the table, but it seemed like he was one of the luckier ones as far as affecting progress went.

Cedric looked up towards the source of the noise after he'd managed to calm down, and groaned. "Heinz, you really need to stop putting self destruct buttons on your inventions."

The brunet looked at the scorched table in front of him in astonishment. "I hadn't even installed it yet, though!" he proclaimed loudly, in a voice much more grating than T.S.'s, somehow. Well, T.S. was more nasally, whereas is sounded like this boy had been gargling gravel. "I mean, I guess yeah, you're probably right. But it's not even there yet, I don't know how this-" He gesticulated wildly, but never actually finished his sentence.

"That was going to be a towel folding machine, correct?" asked Professor Layton, as he approached the scene.

Heinz nodded vigorously and said, "The foldinator! ...Iiis up in smoke." He sighed dramatically and flopped back in his chair.

The Professor tilted his head and thought for a moment, before asking, "How did such a thing explode, anyhow? Stress from moving parts not working accurately might force it to spring apart, but I thought I saw a flash in there, too. What were you working on, specifically, when this happened?"

So the two started talking, and Sofia was interested but they spoke too quickly about things she didn't understand to manage to follow much, and also the author doesn't understand mechanics themself so trying to write what they'd speak of would be nigh-impossible.

It wasn't too long before Heinz and the Professor seemed to root out the problem and work on patching up his invention, not to mention the fourth wall. Sofia found herself wandering off from Cedric, wondering what the others' projects were. Heinz's had been clearly stated, and he probably wasn't in a good place to talk about his invention at the moment, either physically or mentally. T.S. was probably irritated from being startled earlier - he might have cooled off by now, but she figured she'd give him more time on the chance he hadn't. So that left- oh, hey, it was Ferb from the play! He was working with another boy his age, with orange hair to complement Ferb's green.

"What'cha working on?" Sofia asked, hoping she wasn't intruding or that these two would be as acerbic as T.S.

Thankfully, the redhead grinned brightly at her. "Well, you see, Ferb and I have always thought it would be pretty cool to be super strong and fast and stuff, all at once without spell interference or side effects, right? And look really awesome while doing it. We're making a mechanized suit that's way stronger or faster than anyone could reasonably be. Ferb's gonna sit in the torso and control the legs, while I'm in the head and get the arms. Given how the helmet's got to fit over my big nose-" the boy pointed to it, and Sofia did have to admit it was pretty long, amusingly like both Cedric's and Heinz's noses - "we've decided to emphasize the feature, even store some extra tech there, and paint the thing to resemble a bird. We've started calling the project The Beak."

"Oh wow, that sounds really cool!" Sofia said, grinning. "I'm Sofia by the way. I've already met Ferb from drama club, but it's nice to meet you, ah-?"

He took Sofia's hand, which hadn't been offered but hadn't been tucked away or anything, and shook it. "I'm Phineas, glad to have ya. Most of the other kids here can be grumps, but they've got good hearts, so don't be afraid to talk with anyone. We don't bite, I promise!"

Sofia chuckled and said, "I'm dating Cedric, I know how it goes." Then she blinked, and corrected, "-Was dating? I don't… actually know where we stand at the moment." She breathed a small sigh, but continued before she could let things get too awkward, "So, yeah, thanks for the advice though! I do appreciate it."

T.S. worked at a table next to theirs- well, given there were only four tables the furthest one could be was diagonal, but that was beside the point- said, "I am not a grump, thank you very much! I might be a little sarcastic every now and again, perhaps the slightest bit less polite than I might be rarely. And of course I don't bother with folks who aren't worth my time. But I am not, as you say, a grump."

"Oh, please," Cedric said. "It's only us here, plus Sofia who's used to me. You haven't got any reason to pretend. 'Grump' is a perfectly accurate term to describe all of us, juvenile as it may be. Though honestly I'd likely have used a worse word for you, T.S., so give the boy some credit in that regard. Being just 'a grump' is an improvement for you."

"Like you're any better," T.S. spat in response. "Sabotaged or stolen anything recently?"

Several sets of eyes glanced towards Professor Layton, but he still seemed to be focused on Heinz' invention. They were working on rebuilding what progress had been lost, it looked like; either way, the professor wasn't paying attention to idle chatter, which gave Sofia time to wonder. She'd found out that Ceric had been stealing poisonous herbs from the greenhouses for his 'collection,' so there was a decent chance of truth behind T.S.'s accusation, not to mention that sabotage was an oddly specific crime to choose without reason… but what in the world?

The way Cedric's eyes widened in surprise, then narrowed as he grimaced, didn't particularly clear his name. "I didn't mean-" he started. "I wasn't-" and he cut himself off again, staring at T.S. for a few more seconds before huffing an irritated sigh and getting back to work on his own project.

"...That was about the worst I've ever seen in here," Phineas said, after a few moments of silence. "Which, you know. That's not great. But usually when that sort of thing happens, it's mean but it's all in good fun, y'know? Grump-buddies."

Sofia nodded, and recalled the banter between Greylock and Cedric. That was less dual-sided, but there did seem to be an element of truth there.

Thankfully, there weren't any more incidents for the rest of the meeting. Sofia hadn't quite managed to work up the nerve to ask T.S. what his invention was, given that he was apparently nastier than usual to Cedric.

"I don't know whether I should apologize for that being boring or for being more excitement than either of us really bargained for," Cedric said as the two were walking back to the dorms. "And I'm honestly surprised you stayed the whole time."

Sofia shook her head. "No, it was fun! I like hanging out with you, pretty much no matter what we do, but hearing about the other kids' stuff was neat. If you don't want me to come again that's fine, but I'd totally be up for it."

Cedric looked at her thoughtfully for a moment, then said, "We meet every other Saturday. Same time, same place."

A/N: If you read the preceding chapters before 9/13/16ish, go back and reread Ch 15, "He Could Be That Boy" for me, if you would. I noticed as I was fact-checking for this chapter that I'd managed to leave out the first half, a good thousand or so words. I don't know if what had been up before did or did not make sense without that context... idk. Anyway, enjoy!