Winifred was tired- drained, even. She'd been practicing her wand work for most of the afternoon- feeling the pressure of the upcoming OWLs now that her fifth year was already half over. It was hard to believe, really, that after this year she might not even be at Hogwarts anymore. Winnie had always assumed she would just up and leave after her fifth year- but now she wanted to be able to stay. Even if she couldn't take more than three or four NEWT classes. She wanted to stay and learn more about Divination especially.

She had come down to the kitchens late in the evening after dinner- it wasn't long until curfew- but she needed a snack and something to drink. Winifred took up space at a table in the kitchens, watching the house elves scurrying around. She always felt like the house elves were so interesting and fun to watch- and had always envied the fact they were better at magic than she was.

The Hufflepuff had some toast with jam in front of her along with a very large glass of orange juice. What she really wanted was a huge plate of pastries and cookies, but she knew that eating that many sweets before bed would bother her stomach. It didn't used to. Maybe this was a sign of getting old? She hoped not. But the jam was delicious- blackberry, her absolute favorite. And of course lots of butter.

"Hey Sophie!" she waved when the Gryffindor came into the kitchens. She liked Sophie. Sophie was also a seer, she was very pretty, popular, and was a good person. Winifred really looked up to the seventh year girl- and had looked up to her since some time in her fourth year. "Come sit with me and have a snack."

Sophie was feeling restless, the way she did most night after lessons. NEWTS seemed to impact everyone differently but by February the fatigue was starting to show for most around the edges, even just coming off Winter Hols. That didn't even touch on the other things that had been happening in their little world. Thinking about any of it at all made her brain hurt, literally a physical pang at just all the effort of everything. She'd taken to regularly using calming draughts, even after Zel was found and life seemed to return to normal.

The only side effect thus far from her current batch happened to be the desire for something to nosh constantly. One of the elves had remarked she was getting a little pudgy about the middle just two nights before when she'd come sniffing around for something to nibble. She'd held out tonight for as long as possible until she felt her stomach actually fizzy at her and decided a little something wouldn't be too bad for her.

She was in luck then that one of her favorite faces seemed to be hanging around the kitchens as well, "Winnie!" She was genuinely happy to see the fifth year though she was looking a little worse for the wear, less perky than her typical self - though Sophie remembered well how terrible O.W.L.s had felt leading up so she understood implicitly.

Dropping into the seat across from the redhead she rested her chin in her hand and heaved a big sigh, "How are you, tell me everything? We haven't had a chance to catch up in forever, I only ever seem to catch a glimpse of you out of the corner of my eye!"

Winifred scrunched up her nose. "Oh god. Things have been just awful. OWLs are coming up and I am just absolutely helpless." She frowned and took another large bite of her toast and chased it down with orange juice. "I've been trying really hard to study so that I don't fail absolutely everything- but I know I'm going to just get Trolls in mostly everything. The only stuff I'm any good at is Divination and Muggle Studies and there's not many jobs out there for that."

Winifred shrugged a little. "I guess I can always work in my aunt's pub if I need to. But you know I had always hoped to do something more than that. I thought of telling fortunes- but I'm not really good enough at it for all of that. I mean, what if I can't even stay at Hogwarts anymore? I used to always think I'd just leave after my fifth year. That I'd just stay bad at everything forever. But I've been working hard and I'm getting better- I'm just not getting better fast enough to do well on my exams at the end of the year."

She pushed her toast around on the plate she had. "But now I kind of want to stay. I want to learn all I can about divination. I want to learn more about muggle studies. I used to want to take a year after school to live among the muggles. They're so fascinating and so nice. I enjoyed it a lot when I stayed with Cy... But I don't know what I could do with the muggles."

Winifred loosed a loud sigh. "I'm just a mess right now is all. I'm sure you don't hear me moan about OWLs when you've got your NEWTs coming up. That has to be like ten times more stressful than what I'm going through."

Sophie listened carefully, resting her chin in her hand as Winnie bemoaned the impending O.W.L.s. She really felt for her. Fifth year had been so stressful for so many reasons it was a bit of a miracle that Sophie had done as well as she had. She's always known that the academic part of life at Hogwarts was hard for Winnie but it made her sad to think of not seeing her smiling face around the halls every day.

Of course then Sophie remembered she wouldn't even be there to see Winnie's face anymore and suddenly a wave of sadness sort of washed over her. Everything was changing and Sophie felt like she was the only one who wasn't ready for it to change. Still, she felt more sad for Winnie, who was trying so hard and still felt like she just maybe didn't have it in her to stay.

Reaching across the table Sophie gave her fingers a squeeze, "You're smarter than you give yourself credit for. I know it's hard but look how much better you've gotten since you got your second wand! I mean I've seen a change just in how you carry yourself and the magic you've been able to make. I really believe in you, and you know there's always the Muggle Affairs Office at the Ministry? You could maybe get an apprenticeship? Your uncle probably knows Eleors, one of them heads it up. He's really nice. He's a seer too! So, you know, all hope is not lost."

She made a small face at the mention of N.E.W.T.s, shrugging her shoulders, "I'm less worried about the actual tests and more worried about what comes after. Everyone seems to know what they want to go after we graduate but I just realy haven't the foggiest. I could always just move home to St. Mary's and help Nan with her brewing but it seems so... pale in comparison to the things everyone else wants to do. Even Virgil has stronger set plans than I do, and he's basically a good looking lump."

Winifred couldn't help but smile when Sophie squeezed her hand. She definitely needed the reassurance right now. She felt like everything was going to fall apart at the end of the year- and the idea of that just made her miserable and sick. "I don't know if I'd say I'm smart by any stretch, though. And my magic still isn't up to snuff for my being a fifth year. It's taken forever to even figure out how to do fourth year spells, and I still mess those up most of the time." She would never be a talented witch, Winfred knew that.

"I don't know if I could do muggle affairs stuff, though, since I'm such a bad witch. What if they need someone who can fix stuff I can't fix? I don't know. I mean, I could ask, but I just don't know if I'm really ministry material, you know? I was just thinking I'd end up waiting tables somewhere and telling futures on the side with my divination stuff. I'd like to be a great seer someday- but I know it doesn't work like that, you don't just know how to see things or control it. Not most people anyway."

Winifred squeezed Sophie's hand in return when she said she was worried about graduation. "There's so much you can do, though. Maybe you could find someone else to live with if you wanted to stay in London or somewhere. I'm sure there are a lot of people in your year who are looking to figure all that out. And I don't know I'd consider Virgil to be a good looking anything- that's an insult to lumps everywhere."

It was good to be realistic, but Sophie worried sometimes about the way Winnie talked about herself. Sophie hadn't ever struggled the way she had, there had always been things she was good at, then she could put the effort into to be better at, but just accepting at fifteen you'd never be a good witch seemed very sad to her. Though she did have to admit Winnie struggled more than most, she just didn't want the girl to give up on herself and her potential.

"Well you know, Seeing isn't like most other magical skills. It isn't a think you can practice exactly. There are elements you can practice but when it takes hold of you... it's not like being an Animagus, or Occlumency and Legilimency. Those are skills you can practice, there are lessons for them and with a good deal of dedication you can use them unobtrusively at will. Seeing won't ever be like that. Of  course that doesn't mean you can't or shouldn't learn all you can about it. You would always write to Professor Elphik? She seemed to know quite a lot and I think she went back to working for the Ministry after leaving her post here".

She smiled faintly as Winnie squeezed her fingers back. She really was a great friend and maybe...maybe if she didn't make it past her O.W.L.s it wouldn't be the worst thing for either of them, "I've been thinking about interning at one of the Wrock labels? My Da mentioned heading out on tour with his band again but..." she trailed off and wrinkled her nose. Over the summer it'd been fun but that wasn't really the life she wanted for herself. It was too sad watching her father lose everything that made him who he was trying to outrun the memories of her mother.

She sorted a little at Winnie's insistence she wouldn't call Virgil good looking, "You don't think? Not even a little?" She shrugged. Perhaps he wasn't conventionally so, but there was something about his eyes. They were soft and a little sad. Sophie was a sucker for that kind of thing... and the way he looked when he'd actually really smile. She shook her head, "Alright then Miss. Oliver, if not Virgil than who has caught your eye this year? Not still pining after Dax are you?"

Winifred frowned. "I could never do any of those things, though. I'll never even be good enough to apparate much less that kind of transifguration or other stuff. I'll be stuck with travelling by floo for the rest of my life- because I can't even ride a broom." Even though she was finishing up her fifth year Winifred still hadn't managed to pass flying. Remedial flying made her feel like an absolute fool.

"But I got some good books about seeing from this lady at the ministry that my uncle knows. And it talks a lot about learning how to tell when you're having some kind of vision and a lot about prophetic dreams and stuff. I like learning about it because I know it's one of the few things I have about me that's special. Which is silly, I know. Because sometimes it can be the absolute worst- it can be scary- but at least it's something I've got that other people don't have."

Winnie perked. "That would be so fun! Wrock sounds like a cool thing to be involved with. I mean you'd get to know all the cool bands and all that stuff. That sounds a lot more fun than working at the ministry or something else like that. Different. Less boring. I feel like ministry life has to be the most boring thing in the whole wide world."

"Not even a little," Winifred insisted. "I mean Dax is still super gorgeous but that ship has sailed," she said with a dismissive gesture. "I mean, I guess nobody really. I still think Zel is super cute but that ship sailed, too. I still don't like how that all ended. He insisted that his being a werewolf was just too dangerous for me but I think he just didn't like me anymore... It's just, you know, none of the guys my year are cute- I just like older men- but the seventh years haven't really caught my eye, either. But I haven't really been looking because I've been trying to focus on school instead of boys. But it is so hard." She sighed dramatically.

"Fair enough. Though I think my prophecy is almost always negative. The dreams are the worst. But then that time I was in Charms with Ruby and had a vision of her in the middle of the lesson being devoured by a creature wasn't particularly nice either. I can't believe after witnessing how hysterical I was there are still people who don't believe in Sight. I feel like you can't really make this stuff up you know? Not really," of course there were people who did, she'd met a few "fortune tellers" in Paris and Rome over the summer. She'd wanted to tell them they were awful people but had ignored the impulse.

Taking a deep breath she gave a shrug, "I feel like going into music though, people are going to assume things were just handed to me? Being Duncan Flickwick's daughter I've always felt like I had to prove myself more. Like Johnny was just straight up good from before he was even walking and he nabbed the title of 'Flickwick Prodigy', then I came along and it was seen as cute and trying to 'imitate daddy' rather than having any actual skill. It's not that I mind the hard work, it's just hard work for half or sometimes none of the credit is kind of a shit way to spend your life you know?"

Actually Sophie had sort of assumed she'd work at the Ministry. She had thought originally with werewolves like her mum but then they'd realized she had The Sight and she assumed something with the Hall of Prophecy. Now, well now she understood that change had to come from outside the Ministry. If you tried to work within the red tape you'd go gray and constantly have an upset stomach by the time you were twenty-six. She was too personally invested in the cause... and on more than one occasion someone had questioned how much she could have really loved her mother if she could still support the Were-cause. Which was absolute bullshit.

Nodding at Winnies reply, she tried not to smirk too broadly. It was so funny to hear 7th years referred to as 'older men'. She just couldn't jive that wording with the image of basically any time Eli opened his mouth. She supposed you could say that about Theo but even he still had boyish good looks more than a commanding male presence in Sophie's opinion. "Focusing on school is good though, especially if you don't want to just end up chasing pavement you know? I was so consumed with falling 'in love' my 5th year it was ridiculous. I had a huge thing for Devlin Matthews, then it was Matteo Amherst, and then it was Chance Ryker before I finally ended up dating Figaro. Other than Chance I honestly have no idea what I was thinking. Like when Figaro asked me out he basically said, 'like your tits in that top. we should makeout' AND I SAID OKAY, WINNIE. How is that a reaction to anything?!"