Chapter Seven

Study Habits

It was late Thursday evening after Sparring Club when Andrew's prediction came true. Jeremy shook Quintin awake, gently at first and then more rigorously until Quintin stared at Jeremy's blurry face questioningly.

"Quintin! Do you know any secret passages I can use to sneak down to the library? I need to go grab a book for my essay tomorrow," Jeremy said. Quintin grabbed one of his pillows and put it over his head. "Oh, come on, you have to help me!"

"Not at twenty-eight minutes after eleven, I don't! Go away! You know how I am about sleep!" Quintin said.

"Please, Quintin! I don't know the secret passages yet!" Jeremy said. "It'd look bad on the whole house if I get caught, you know. But I'm going down there whether anyone likes it or not. You can't stop me..."
"Jeremy, you idiot, why don't you just ask the paintings and a ghost to do it for you," Quintin said.

"But I don't know any ghosts," Jeremy said.

Quintin got up with exasperation, throwing on his robe and tiredly leading him out to the Common Room and walked over to the Sirius Black painting.

"Uncle Sirius, is Janus Craw in the library? Jeremy needs to check out a book after hours," Quintin explained.

"Oh, what book?" Sirius asked, and Quintin gestured at Jeremy to say something.

"I don't have a specific title, I'm just trying to find a second source like she wanted," Jeremy said.

"Well, who are you doing a report on?" Quintin asked.

"Buddy Rose," Jeremy explained.

"It's not even a difficult subject. He's a newspaper man and author," Quintin complained. "Someone into journaling and writing and stuff like you are must know all about him."

"Yeah. But that doesn't mean I could find two sources," Jeremy said.

"What's the first source?" Quintin asked.

"Famous Wizards of the Nineteenth Century," Jeremy said.

"That's just a general encyclopedia," Quintin said.

"Sure, but like you said, I knew the rest," Jeremy said. Quintin turned to the painting with a pained expression.

"I think you should let him crash and burn," the Sirius painting suggested.

"Quintin never lets his friends down. Everyone knows that," Jeremy defended.

"Promise you're not going to do this again?" Quintin asked critically.

"Sure. I won't," Jeremy replied.

"Sure, he won't," the Sirius painting repeated more sarcastically.

"Could you relay the message, please?" Quintin said.

As Sirius stepped out of the painting, Quintin waited sleepily, while Jeremy waited anxiously. Finally, Sirius came back.

"Okay, Janus is bringing some, but he says you owe him for this, Quintin," Sirius relayed.

"Yeah, okay. Wait here, Jeremy. I'm going back to bed," Quintin informed him, going back to his room.

Twelve minutes and eight seconds later, Quintin woke up from where he crashed on his bed because Janus Craw was making throat clearing noises. Quintin put his pillow back on his head.

"Get a hint!" Janus snapped at him. "It's not like I have a real throat to clear!"

"Why doesn't anyone want me to sleep tonight? I have classes tomorrow!" Quintin complained.

"I want to call in my favor," Janus replied. Quintin threw his pillow at the ghost only to have it sail right through him. "You really are sleepy, aren't you?" Janus said curtly. "You know that doesn't work."

"Can't you wait until a more convenient time to call in your favor? Like over the weekend?" Quintin complained.

"No, now is better. We don't want your father to get suspicious," Janus decided. Quintin frowned, rubbing his eyes awake.

"Suspicious about what?" he asked.

"Put your specs on," Janus suggested, and Quintin sighed, reaching over and putting on his glasses. Then he couldn't help but stare at the painting on the wall.

It was the painting of Caprica Dusthorn.

"Good evening, Quintin! My, how you've grown since I was last awake!" Caprica greeted him with amusement.

"Good morning," he corrected. "And whatever you want, I'm not interested," Quintin said.

"Ah, ah, ah. You owe me a favor now," Janus reminded him. "And my favor is to hear her out."

"Why should that be what you want?" Quintin asked suspiciously.

"We're friends," Janus said with a shrug. "I realized once I got that book request from the painting that the likelihood of entrapping you into a detention is going to be next to none, because you know how to work the system around here," he explained. "It would have been easy enough catching Jeremy sneaking to the library and get him assigned to detention in the Trophy Room, but it was you she was after. So, I figure I'd just cut to the chase and simply ask you to owe me one so that I could pass it along. Is that a good enough monologue to satisfy you?"

"Does Dad know you're awake?" Quintin asked her flatly.

"Oh, he knows something as momentous as a new house would most decidedly wake me out of a slumber, dear boy. He often comes in to check on me... daily, in fact, which is why we have to do this now," she explained.

"You have five minutes. I've wasted enough sleep time already, and I have two doubles tomorrow," Quintin informed her irately.

"Well, what I really need right now is an informant and a pair of legs to do some investigating for me," Caprica said. "And you have been highly recommended by a pair of ghosts whose names will remain anonymous."

"Janus, fine. Why would Ick recommend me? I haven't seen him since I was a kid. He avoids me now," Quintin said, not buying it for a minute.

"He hasn't been avoiding you, he has only been pretending to avoid you. It's not the same thing," Janus informed him. "There's really no way to stop a ghost from visiting someone in their territory, you know, other than bottling them or exorcising them, and Severus wouldn't do that to Ick... not while he has classes to teach, at any rate. Ghosts check on relatives all the time without anyone knowing about it, including the ones they're checking on. While he's not manifested in a way that's visual to you, that doesn't mean he hasn't been keeping an eye on you. It's a bit like Severus has been doing lately, really. He's been checking on you constantly, despite how busy he is and despite professionally treating you like other students."

"Really? My dad's been checking up on me?" Quintin said, gazing at Janus searchingly.

"Would I lie to you about that?" Janus asked. Quintin let out a relieved sigh, leaning back on his pillows.

"I didn't know. He's been avoiding me, they both have. I figured they were still angry with me about what happened at the Sorting Ceremony," Quintin admitted.

"Why would they be angry with you? If anyone, they should be angry with the Sorting Hat," Janus pointed out.

"But it wasn't just the Hat," Quintin confessed. "You see, the Sorting Hat and I have been planning this whole thing for years, you know. I've always wanted to find a way for all of the houses to get along and to stop fighting each other and be friends, even when I was little. And I don't like it when someone gets off that stool being disappointed or worried or embarrassed because they weren't in the house their parents wanted them to be in. I read it in their faces year after year sitting at that side table, and I watched how uncomfortable they were for days and sometimes weeks afterwards. Everyone should be proud to be in any Hogwarts house and, at the same time, they should also respect the other houses instead of demeaning them."

"I agree, and it's quite commendable for you to feel so strongly about fixing that," Dusthorn replied. "But I don't see what that has to do with adding another house."

"To help bust things up, of course. To add an unknown that throws the balance off," Quintin said.

"Is that your reason, Quintin? Or is that the reason the Sorting Hat gave you?" Dusthorn questioned him. Quintin hesitated. "Oh, there's no doubt in my mind this school was overdue for another house, and I can see plainly that you specifically are better off in a different house altogether. But there's no reason to blame yourself for something that the Sorting Hat more than likely was plotting since before you were born. He simply saw that you had the potential, the determination, and the motivation to do this... and he had easy access to convince you to help by convincing your friends to go along with it."

"The Sorting Hat is one of my best friends in all the world, and I don't like how it sounds like you're accusing him of something," Quintin informed her icily.

"I'm not implying that he harmed you in any way. If anything, you and your friends benefited from this arrangement entirely," Dusthorn assured him. "All I am saying is not to blame yourself for the fact there's a new house, regardless of what anyone says. It was the Sorting Hat's idea, and even if you had schemed this whole thing up single handedly, it wouldn't have made a bit of a difference if the Sorting Hat hadn't gone along with it. He could have simply Sorted you into Slytherin and been done with it."

"Do you really think he'd have been in Slytherin?" Janus pondered.

"Don't you?" Caprica inquired.

"It has merit, although I always thought he might have fit in Ravenclaw considering how much he's like his mother, although I was also afraid he'd end up in Gryffindor, as bold as he is," Janus mused. "Still, he has moments he seems a bit unsure of himself..."

"Hard enough worker to be a Hufflepuff, but he's such a cynic, isn't he?" Dusthorn teased. "No no, this fifth house is the one for you, Quintin, and for all of your loyal, brave, ambitious, and hard-working friends."

"I don't know about the hard-working part," Quintin said critically, and Dusthorn laughed at that.

"They won't have a choice if you're going to work together to get this house up and running!" Dusthorn assured him. "So! I know we're well over five minutes. Are you going to work as my personal informant and researcher or what?"

"What do want me to research?" Quintin asked suspiciously.

The next day, only a handful of students managed to follow Quintin to breakfast on time, the others wandering in sporadically. Jeremy was one of the last to arrive, and Quintin attempted to ignore him as he finished his breakfast.

"Why does Friday have to be the roughest school day of the week?" Jeremy complained grumpily. "From the looks of this dining room, nearly half the students didn't have an early class today."

"I'm sure they all do sometime, and you'll get no sympathy from me," Quintin said. "I tried to warn all of you about the amount of time it was going to take to do our homework this week, and it's your own faults for not listening to me. Is anyone else ready to head to Charms?"

"Oh, I am, Quintin," Oscar said after downing his own breakfast, getting up so he could walk with Quintin to the classroom.

"Did you get all of your homework done?" Quintin asked.

"Easily! I'm a super fast reader," Oscar boasted.

"Oh? How many words a minute?" Quintin asked curiously.

"No idea, maybe you can time me sometime," Oscar suggested.

"Sure, if you like," Quintin said.

Quite a number of Slytherin students were already in class when they were arrived, and they were quick to shake their heads when some of the new house students came in at the last minute, including Jeremy, who was a bit out of breath when they took their seats. Professor Weasley glanced at him curiously. She had expected them all to look better rested than when they had to sleep on the Gymnasium floor, but quite a number of them looked rather tired. Even Quintin looked a bit tired, and she wondered how many of them stayed up too late rushing through their homework the night before.

"Alright everyone! Hand up your latin worksheets, and then we'll get started with a quiz on the reading and memorization!" she announced, the worksheets returning in a wide variety of conditions and level of completeness. They stacked themselves neatly on the desk as the quizzes shuffled out like a deck of cards, a copy landing on each students desks. "Very well, begin!"

After glancing over the entire quiz, Quintin decided that it was relatively easy, covering the material by asking questions from each section before including the entire list of charms they were to memorize. He turned his in first, followed not long behind by Villin and then Bulstrode. Oscar was the second of his house to finish, followed by Libby, and pretty soon everyone began turning them in, except for Jeremy. Hermione heard sniggers and looked up to see he had fallen asleep on his paper. She sighed, walking up and shaking him.

"Are you about finished? Did you stay up too late studying for this class?" she asked him knowingly.

"No, Professor. A different class," Jeremy said, earning a few more sniggers as Jeremy filled out the last three. Looking over his shoulder, Hermione saw that most of his answers did happen to be correct. Coming to the conclusion that one of his later classes would prove disastrous enough, she decided to let it go, collecting the papers and waiting for the last to be turned in before having them stand for wand movement drills.

After Madame Brittle benched Jeremy for nearly crashing into the side of a Quidditch Tower, Quintin decided to take a chance and led him to the Potion Room before Defense Class, sneaking in long enough to get two paper cups of coffee and handing Jeremy one.

"Here. We still have a long way to go today," Quintin warned.

"I know, I know. Thanks," Jeremy said, then winced after a sip.

"Don't like coffee?" Quintin asked.

"It's fine, it's just hot," Jeremy complained. Quintin sighed at him with exasperation before taking out his wand and tapping the rim.

"There, try it now," Quintin said. Jeremy cautiously sipped it.

"Better. How did you do that?" Jeremy asked.

"It was in our Charms homework, what do you mean how did I do it? I thought you did alright on that test," Quintin sighed at him, leading him up the back stairs towards Defense.

"Oh, right. I guess I am really tired," Jeremy admitted sheepishly, following him in the Defense classroom. Then he stopped short when he saw the newspaper stand.

"What's wrong?" Quintin asked, then saw Jeremy's expression. He had been busy working on his History essay, he had forgotten about the essay they were supposed to write on current events in Defense. Quintin sighed on him with exasperation.

"You do have seven minutes and forty seconds if you want to try to get something on paper," Quintin informed him.

"No," Jeremy said with resignation. "I think I'm just going to own up to the mistake... but I don't want to do it in front of everyone if I don't have to," he added, noticing the door to Professor Laura's office was open. Quintin smiled at him as Jeremy put his books down and walked over, knocking on the open door and going in. A few minutes later, he walked out with the professor.

"I have to admit, you and your housemates seem to be an honest bunch of students, even if some of you can be a bit too forward about it sometimes," Laura said as Jeremy took his seat.

"Was that directed at me?" Pete asked flatly.

"I thought it was at me," Oscar admitted.

"There's nothing wrong with being honest, just remember that tact can also be an important part of Defense as well," Laura informed them.

"Yeah, because you don't want to offend the wrong person and get flattened for it," Oscar suggested.

"Something like that," Laura said, making sure that everyone had arrived before instructing them to get their periodicals.

As they were leaving class, Quintin asked Jeremy about what happened before class.

"I have an extra paper due next week," Jeremy admitted ruefully. "A twenty inch scroll on how not doing my Defense homework is not within by best interests when it comes to my personal Defense. And if I don't get it done, I lose fifteen points and have to sit detention."

"How many points did you lose this week?" Quintin asked.

"She deducted ten for not doing my homework and then gave me ten for coming to her and owning up to my mistake," Jeremy replied. "She made it clear she wasn't going to let me off the hook next time though."

"Doesn't sound like it," Quintin agreed as they stepped into History class.

Professor Scribe waited at the door, collecting every essay as they came in. Then it was all quill practice until she had a chance to give them a cursory look, separating them into two scroll piles. After a long lecture with plenty of note-taking involved, they were all relieved when the day came to an end and they were able to write their assignments on the board.

"I have here a small stack of papers that need to be redone, either because of being too short, too generalized, too illegible, or because they didn't have two sources," Scribe informed them. "If I hand you your paper at the door, I expect you to rewrite them and turn them in by Sunday at 4 p.m. either by Owl or by inserting it in the box in front of my office door. Next week, I will have all of your papers marked. Pay special attention to all grammar marks on those essays for we will be going over them. If I run into too many persistent problems, don't be surprised if I recommend that you take Mr. Tinker's Technical Writing course next semester," she informed them, taking the small stack of scrolls and standing by the door like she had at the start of the class. "Very well! Line up to be dismissed," Scribe said.

It was a bit nerve-wracking to pass the teacher, knowing that any minute that her arm would move and she would hand a scroll out. Most, it seemed, had to do with being illegible or not having enough resources, Quintin mused, passing by her without receiving a comment. But right behind him, a scroll was flung out in front of Jeremy.

"Illegible and too generalized, Mr. Miller. Rewrite it and more specifics, if you please," she informed him.

"Yes, Professor," Jeremy said glumly, taking it before joining Quintin with a pained expression on his face. "Sunday at four," Jeremy sighed. "There are Quidditch Tryouts this weekend."

"Then I suggest you plan your time accordingly," Quintin said. "She didn't ask you to change or add any sources, Jeremy, which means you probably have the information you need to add more details already. That means you'll only need to set aside an hour to edit it and another to copy it neatly. If you don't wait until the last minute, you're unlikely to run out of the time you need to finish it."

"I think I'll work on it right after dinner tonight," Jeremy decided. "And then if I have time, I'll finish my reading for Monday."

"I have a few things to finish up for Monday as well. Library after dinner?" Quintin suggested.

"Sure," Jeremy agreed, and the two of them hurried to catch up with the rest of their housemates.