How had the Ravenclaw boy’s life gotten so busy, so quickly? It was simply unfair, and not at all fun. He hadn’t heard from his family in days, he hadn’t even had a chance to chat with his twin sister, for the sake of Merlin! Finals for a NEWT student were exactly what the name promised: nastily exhausting. When he wasn’t trying to cram notes or practice his wandwork, he was cooped up in the dungeons practicing his potions or out on the chilly grounds trying to carefully cultivate this plant or that. Eli was even afraid that he’d obtained a permanent addiction to pepper-up potions.

Stifling a yawn, Elijah made his way down to the great hall, hoping to catch a bite of lunch before the lunch hour ended and he was left munching on stale sweets in his dorm like he’d been doing for the past three meals. He didn’t mean to miss food, he was just always busy when it was time to eat, and he knew that he could just nip down to the kitchens and the quirky little house elves would supply him with a full course meal, much better than he could get upstairs, but he was loathe to bother them. Besides, he had too much to do to sit around and eat.

With his nose pressed tightly into his arithmancy text, Eli stepped into the noisy great hall, where most of the students were primarily done with their meals and just milling around or heading toward their afternoon classes. Not Eli, he knew he’d have to scarf something down, but that just encouraged him to finish faster so he’d have time to head to the library and cross-reference this text to another. It was always better to have more than one source.

Mind cluttered, he didn’t even notice as he walked smack into someone… Ouch!

“Oh, sorry mate,” He said, looking up from his book with a sheepish grin.

They were all so frantic, it was rather comical watching the younger years, especially the sixth years run around like chickens with their head cut off. Elian couldn't help but laugh as he sat in the Great Hall slowly eating his meal. He had been in class or out by the lake practicing all day and finally decided to take a break. A few of the students who sheepishly came to ask an opinion about how to get though their testing or how to study he helped, giving them what advice he could offer. When they weren't deciding if they could approach him or not he was busy reading a book.

Finished with his meal, he stood up and began walking out of the hall before the wind was knocked out of him and a solid "whump" was heard as a kid ran into him the book digging into his stermun. Coughing lightly he looked down at him ready to at least tell him to keep his nose out of a book for a moment to be safe he noticed who it was.

"Eli, you freaking out again?" he asked taking the book away and glancing over what the younger boy was reading. "You need to learn to relax, it'll help in the long run when you get to sitting down and actually taking the test."

Elijah looked up at the older boy with eyes glassed over. It took a moment for Eli’s brain to disconnect from numbers long enough for him to recognize who was speaking to him in such a friendly tone, after just getting the kuspah knocked out of them with a book and a boy. “Oh, sorry Elian. Didn’t mean to try to tackle you,” The younger Ravenclaw closed his book and lowered his arms to his side, book cradled gently in the right arm. “Have a spot of lunch with me?” He asked, though if he’d been paying any attention at all, he’d have realized that Elian was leaving the great hall while Eli was going in.

“Er… or… I guess you don’t really wanna eat twice, do ya?” He said with a small chuckle. He chose to ignore the boy’s comment about calming down. Elian wasn’t a Ravenclaw, was he? He didn’t understand the pressures! As a Gryffindor, he could get an ‘A’ in his classes and it would be perfectly acceptable, whereas Eli couldn’t get anything less than an ‘E’, and even then some of his housemates might laugh at him for the poor performance… especially those that did better than him.

He raised his left arm and ran his hand through his already messy hair. Why did Hogwarts have to be so freaking difficult?

Elian grabbed the book from the Elijah's hand and smacked him playfully over the head with it, smiling all the while. He knew there was pressure on his friend to succeed, but he also knew that he would end up exhausting himself or addiciting himself to those energy boosters. Motioning to a free seat he sat down and pulled Elijah to sit beside him. He didn't mind to sit with his friend a while, it gave him an excuse to make sure he was actually going to eat this time and not just saying he did.

"I'm serious, I know it's tough for Ravenclaws but still, you need to realx. It'll give your brain time to absorb the infromation you've been cramming away. You need to rest a bit too, you're going to exhaust yourself," Elian said as he looked worried at his friend.

He held up a hand to stop Elijah from arguing. He wasnt going to hear the excuses this time. "I don't care if I have to make you sleep with some form of potion. You need rest, I'm not saying all day. Just enough to get yourself going and healthy again."

Vampire, huh. Eli looked more like the other version of the undead: zombie. That’s why he didn’t really even care when Elian guided him to a seat. He didn’t look and see which table they were at, didn’t even realize that he was seated next to a Gryffindor. Obviously not following house rules by sticking to your own table. A smile filled his features when the archer threatened to drug him to sleep and he snapped out of his funk. “Y’know, threatening to drug people isn’t really what a friend wants to hear in their time of need,” He said playfully, grabbing a bit of everything in sight.

He filled his plate with all sorts of yummy goodness and started shoveling food in his mouth like he hadn’t eaten in days. Actually, he really hadn’t eaten much in days, so the real food he was scarfing down was a welcome surprise and it did quite a bit to rejuvenate his spirits. “Whachoodo?” He said, mouth full of potatoes, “owooschudortets?”

Realizing he sounded like a troll after having a root canal, Eli swallowed quickly and tried again. “Sorry, what do you do? How do you study for tests? I can’t seem to remember anything. It’s like someone’s slipped me a forgetfulness potion or something. I mean, sure I know that Gornok the Great was one of the best metalworkers in goblin history and can easily procure an exemplary babbling beverage, but there’s just so much I don’t know!”

Elian watched his friend shovel food into his mouth like he hadn't eaten in weeks. Shaking his head, he figured that Elijah probalby hadn't been eating right and this was likely the first good meal he'd had in a long while. He sat back and let his friend eat for a while. When Elijah turned to him as asked him what he did he paused for a moment bringing a glass to his lips as he thought of the best answer.

"Well...sometimes I just sleep for a while and let it all sink in, sometimes I play a game with my arrows, I have someone or use a spell to aim it at me, then have a friend quiz me. If I get it right it drops if its wrong I get shot, in my foot at least."

Elian sat back and thought for another moment as he tapped his fingers on the table. He smiled and stood up grabbing Elijah's arm as he dragged him up. "You stay here and I'll be back."

Eli looked incredulously at the Gryffindor boy and let his mouth fall open.  Thankfully he had just swallowed a rather scrumptious bite of potatoes and so he didn’t look like an indigent with food falling out of his mouth like a mother bird feeding her babies. He guessed that Elian took his momentary lapse in chewing as a sign that the boy had finished his meal, because next he knew Eli was on his feet again and the other boy was headed out of the hall.

“Uh… okay, but I’d rather not be shot!” He called, not sure what the boy was playing at. He stood for a couple moments, but then decided that standing not only made him look stupid, it was preventing him from eating. He took a nice swig of pumpkin juice and continued to munch on his meal, waiting on his friend to return, hopefully without any weapons in hand.

Elian returned a few moments later with a stack of books in his arms. He sat down next to his friend and looked over at him. He pushed one off the top to the table and opened it. The sides were filled with scribbles, notes, and annotations. He nudged the book over to Eli with a smirk.

"Not all Gryffindor's are lazy. These are some of my books from classes. It's another way I study. If you want to borrow them and see if they help you're more than welcome to them," he said with a smile.

He set back and flicked a toothpick at his friend's arm next with a smirk. He knew Eli wouldn't want to take the getting shot method even before he had yelled it at his back, but that didn't mean Elian couldn't hit him with something.

"Ok so what do you need help with?"

First, when Elain returned, Eli was mortified! Why, in the name of Merlin almighty, would you write in a book? That’s like… one of the cardinal sins or some such, and even the quirkiest of Ravenclaw students wouldn’t be caught dead scribbling along the sides of their texts. It was simply unheard of. Then his mortification turned quickly to envy. These notes, these… naughty scratches were like the purest of gold!

The Gryffindor would have noticed things that Eli didn’t, and Eli had already memorized pretty much EVERYTHING there was to know out of his own notes. He ran his finger along the dried ink, mouth agape with astonishment. “Huh…?” He asked, looking up, only realizing after he did so that Elain had been speaking to him.

“Oh, uh… well… everything really. I mean I’ve read all my notes … wait… did you just say that I can borrow your books?” Eli sucked in his breath, air whistling between his lips. “Really? You don’t need them for studying or anything?”

Elian watched as Eli stared at the books absorbed by the writing in the margins, he knew that Eli would find it almost offensive. However, the look of envy that flashed across the Ravenclaw's face was priceless. He had always tried to get the upper hand in thier arguments over studies and now it seemed that he had a way. Of course there were things that he was taught that Eli wouldn't have been just yet but other things they tended to have friendly debates over.

He couldn't help himself anymore so when Eli asked for confromation he broke out into a laugh. Stopping himself after a moment he shook his head.

"I've done my studying for the next little bit, if I need them I'll just find you and read over your shoulder or something," he said waving his hand dismissivly.