Fred scurried into the library, glancing at his watch as he panted.  He’d run up the stairs from the common room after he’d completely fallen asleep on one of the couches.  He just hoped he wasn’t too late for Cara’s session.

He’d absolutely promised to meet her to work on their herbology homework and getting ready for OWLs and now he was running late.  He tugged at the collar of his shirt, his tie shifting in place, as he shrugged his backpack over his shoulder.  His books rattled against his back and he tried to be as quiet as possible as he made his way inside, avoiding eye contact with Professor Morgan at the circulation desk. He was terrifying.

Fred ducked his chin down and shuffled through the library toward the study tables in the herbology section.  “Sorry!” he breathed as he approached the table, putting his pack on the chair.  “I fell asleep and I tried to get here as quick as possible…” he was still panting.  Fred put his right hand to his chest and held in a cough as he shook his head, face still beet red. 

Not used to being late, he was totally sweating.  His palms were definitely sweating and thankfully he was wearing his hufflepuff jumper or his white undershirt would have been soaked through.  He felt like a mess, “Sorry.” 

Cara sat solitary at one of the handful of tables intended for study. Now past dinner, she'd eschewed her uniform in favor of a sea blue henley—sleeves rolled to her elbows, naturally—and a very dark skirt, settled at the exact three-inch limit above the knees. She would look rather cute, were it not for the glower darkening her countenance.

She had her feet up on another chair, one ankle crossed over another, arms crossed in front of her chest. Cara seemed to be combatting boredom by slowly shifting the hue of her thick, shoulder-length locks: bright blue, then fiery red, then bubblegum pink, then neon green.

Once Fred took a seat, Cara pulled her feet down onto the floor, letting her hair settle back into its usually night-black shade.

"It's fine," she replied sullenly.

Thinking better of it, she amended: "No, it's not. Very tactless, mate! We set a date, please abide by it, won't you?"

Cara fixed the sweaty prefect with a withering stare for several long moments—but her resolve broke after a time, and her expression softened. It was clear that Fred was about as remorseful as any human had ever been about anything... and that sucked a lot of the pleasure out of admonishing him!

"I changed my mind," she said with a huff, lilting voice now far friendlier. "It is fine."

"So—Herbology—been a real cock-up at it since my first year, yanno? Too... too delicate. My paws weren't made for delicate work, Radley! They were made to throttle boys that are late! Sorry—just a joke, sweetie—but I am utter rubbish with the... plants and whatnot."

She paused, and then as an afterthought added:

"Y'any good at Potions, by the by? I could really use a heads up in that, too. Ah—if I can squeak out an O.W.L. in Potions and Herbology this year it'll be well good, mate."

Fred felt instant relief when Cara said it was fine he was late.  He let his shoulders relax and he started to pull his books out of the bag so they could get right to work.  Of course, his grip on the books faltered when her tone changed. 

Juggling the book in his hand, he snapped his palms against it to hold it into place and looked at her with a sheepish expression.  He didn’t mean for this to happen! He’d just been studying so hard and… oh Merlin’s left sock, she was messing with him.  It registered moments late, because she was already softening up, but Fred still felt on edge. 

 Perhaps a little louder than he intended, but Fred let out an anxious laugh, “I’m uh… I’m glad it’s fine!” he dropped into the chair and looked over at her as she explained her predicament with herbology.  He didn’t think she had… paws… necessarily, but his eyes did dart to look at her hands to confirm. 

They were definitely hands, but oh my.  His eyes widened and Fred gulped as she explained she could throttle someone before tending to plants.  Probably true, but he didn’t like that at all.  It was sort of (definitely) frightening, even if he tried to laugh it off.  “Well, I’ll definitely help with the plants,” he replied, somewhat lamely, sitting up straighter as she added something about potions.

“I uh… well…” Fred wasn’t the type to brag about himself or anything… but he had been invited into potions club by the Head Boy, “I would say I’m pretty good at potions,” he nodded, “I uh… I tutor Hattie Woolfolk too,” he pointed out, just to prove it in a way that wouldn’t seem like he was a prat who had nothing to go on.  His cheeks did light up a bit at the mention of Hattie.  After break, he hadn’t really seen her for much outside of their study sessions.  You just couldn’t look at the person you got arrested for stealing some… suggestive sunglasses with. 

Reaching up behind his head, he scratched at the back of his neck.  “We can definitely add potions to the list,” he informed her, “An A isn’t too hard to get, after all.  We can make it happen.” 

"Oh, wonderful!" Cara replied, enthused, and offering Fred a warm smile.

"You're a real life saver, yanno," she went on, twisting her trunk around to reach the satchel dangling from the back of her chair. She fished a couple of books and some spare parchment—as well as her quill and a stoppered bottle of ink—out of the bag, setting it all up on the table in front of her somewhat haphazardly.

Cara pulled her legs up into her lap, sitting crosswise and hunching slightly over the table, resting her cheek on her left hand, supported by her elbow. She nibbled on the tip of her quill thoughtfully, fixing Fred with a pointed stare.

"So," she began, raising her eyebrows. "Where might we begin, my badgery friend?"

Able to finally relax a bit, Fred got the rest of his supplies out from his bag and settled into the chair.  He felt significantly less sweaty, which was good.  He rubbed his palms over the fabric of his trousers a final time, attempting to wipe away any residual moisture that was there. 

Surveying the landscape of the desk, Fred just needed to get his bearings.  He reached out for his textbook and held the spine in his hand so it flipped open to the exact right spot.  A folded piece of parchment was tucked into the book and he extracted it with a small flourish before snapping the textbook shut. 

Fred unfolded the paper and laid it out on the middle of the desk.  “Here are the revision topics,”[1] he informed her, glancing over at her casual posture.  “The exam has a practical section – we’d need to schedule time in the greenhouse to work on that, but the theoretical bits… I marked those with stars…” he explained his methods and realized how crazy he must have sounded. 

A rash of heat came up over his neck and he cleared his throat.  “So um… it’s really about what you feel like you need the most.  Otherwise we can start with some basic identifying and collection norms…” it was just an idea, but it was definitely something they could study. 

1.	Curriculum

Cara reached out, pulling the parchment closer and letting her gaze slide across it slowly. Once she'd finished, she turned her eyes up at Fred, and—far and away from thinking him insane—she offered him a sweet smile.

"You're rather good at this, aren't you?" she asked, thinking it was a good job that he was—she'd need every ounce of help he could muster.

Cara unstoppered the ink bottle she'd set on the table and dunked her quill point into it a few times, tapping off the excess ink before scratching tiny lines in the parchment next to the various subjects that they had covered in Herbology that she knew she needed to cover again.

She passed the sheet back, running a hand through her thick, dark hair.

"Those are my weakest points, I think," she clarified, "but we can start with whatever you'd like, love. I've got a pretty packed schedule, this year, but ahm... I reckon we could take lunch or dinner in the greenhouse and then work on those practical bits 'til meal time's up, huh?"

Fred was blushing again.  “I uh… I tutor a bit, yea,” he tried to be humble about it.  It was hard to accept compliments for him.  It felt boastful, and Fred had the sort of keep your head down, humble hard working attitude about him that made compliments super uncomfortable.  So, he ignored it. 

Well. For a second anyway. 

Surprised, when she held the parchment back out to him, Fred took it in trembling hands (as if he could have anything else). His eyes scanned the page: that was kind of a lot of stars, wasn’t it? 

Okay, he’d make this work, even with the limited schedule thing.  “That’s a good suggestion,” he needed, “we’ll do that.”  He tried to calculate all of this in his head, but it got too much and then he’d been quiet for too long and that just made him look ridiculous.
 
His mouth went dry and Fred smacked his lips together as he tried to form words.  “Let’s uh – just start at the beginning and we’ll plan around how far we get, right?”  That seemed like the easiest solution.  Thumbing through the front end of his textbook, he glanced back at the list.  “Let’s start with carnivorous plants,” he decided.  It was toward the beginning of the year and pretty cool, if Fred said so himself.  “What do you remember about Self-Fertilizing Shrubs?” he asked as he continued to look for the chapter. 

Cara cocked her head ever so slightly as Fred paused, silent for a few moments. She wasn't rendered uncomfortable by the silence; indeed, behavior thus far suggested that Cara might well be incapable of social discomfort.

“Let’s uh – just start at the beginning and we’ll plan around how far we get, right?”

"Sure, love!" she replied brightly, smiling. The beginning seemed like a logical place to start, given her woeful inadequacy.

“What do you remember about Self-Fertilizing Shrubs?”

"Er..." Cara began, knitting her brow together.

"Well, I know they self-fertilize by... ack... consuming flesh," she regurgitated, looking decidedly disgusted. "I know we wrote an essay about 'em. I don't think I did particularly well on it, surprise you as that might."

Cara was right.  He wasn’t surprised.  Based on everything she’d said thus far, it seemed pretty predictable that she knew the basics but not much beyond that.  “It’s a start!” he attempted to put a positive spin on the fact that Cara knew essentially nothing, but that was fine.  That’s why he was here! 

Finding the pages on carnivorous plans, Fred propped the book on the stand at the desk.  “But the different kinds all have different methods of trapping their prey,” he informed her, pointing at the section in the textbook.[1]  There’s likely to be some kind of essay question on identifying the types of trapping methods, so you’ll want to go over this section, for sure.” 

Fred made a face when he saw the picture of the flypaper style trap on the page.  “Wouldn’t want to deal with that,” Fred motioned to the picture with a grimace, “Imagine just getting stuck and waiting to be digested alive…” the image in his brain of getting caught up in that and just waiting for death…

He shook his head, trying to get rid of it quickly.  A slow, shaky exhale punctuated his discomfort with the idea.  “Guess it sort of feels like being in class sometimes though,” he tried to joke, “or around some of the girls in this school, you know?” he turned a little pink and then turned his eyes back to the book. "Maybe you don't know... but uh.. yea..." he reached up and scratched the back of his neck uncertainly, "sorry."

1.	Reference.

"But the different kinds all have different methods of trapping their prey."

"Right, yes, of course," Cara replied. That did sound familiar—and as she perused the section on carnivorous plants' methods of trapping their prey, she began to recall the lessons in which they had learned these things.

"Imagine just getting stuck and waiting to be digested alive."

"I'd rather not," she mused, wrinkling her nose. "'course, I might prefer that to the... lobster-pots... eugh."

She shuddered slightly, highly displeased by the subject matter—but pushing that notion aside, as she knew very well that she needed to learn these sorts of things if she had any hope of passing her O.W.L. in Herbology.

"Guess it sort of feels like being in class sometimes though, or around some of the girls in this school, you know? Maybe you don't know... but uh... yeah... sorry."

Cara smiled as he flushed pink, at least mildly amused by his discomfort—which she felt bad for, but... well, it was rather adorable. Poor fellow.

"Who's to say?" she asked, and then lowered her voice to a conspiratorial whisper. "Maybe those girls make me nervous, too."

She offered him a wink, and then grinned, but quickly turned back to the textbook, leaving the honesty of that statement up in the air.

He understood that the topic was totally gross, but it was an O.W.L. necessity.  The whole thing was rather grotesque though, and the section about indigenous carnivorous plants in the rainforests of Borneo was really traumatizing – some so big, a witch or wizard who wasn’t paying attention could just get scooped up and turned into liquidized plant fertilizer. 

Though, as he had admitted to Cara, he sort of understood that feeling.  There was that weird feeling when you were standing in front of someone you liked and it made your knees kind of tremble and everything felt jellified (without the jinx)…

But he was supposed to be tutoring her, not being weird and talking about his crushes.  That was weird.  He was making this all extremely weird.  The more he thought about it, the hotter his face got and the more sweat he felt accumulating on his palms and under his arms.  He was so glad he had a jumper on; otherwise his shirt would have been visibly soaked through. 

Of course, as he overanalyzed everything he had ever said and would ever say again, Cara leaned in and whispered to him and that made his cheeks go as bright as a Christmas tree.  “Really?” he practically squawked in disbelief, “I mean – you don’t look like you get nervous at all!”

“Really? I mean – you don’t look like you get nervous at all!”

Cara giggled, placing a hand in front of her mouth for just a moment. She shook her head vehemently.

"We all get nervous, Fred. Some of us are just... better at hiding it, yanno? Anyway—I've never fancied anybody all that much, until... well... until recently, I suppose. They—oh, trust me, they make me nervous."

The genderless pronouns were, perhaps, perplexing, but Cara moved on:

"My heart starts beatin' all fast-like, and I kinda feel like I can't breathe, so I get a little dizzy, and it makes me say silly things... when I get nervous, though, I just get even more brash, and forward. It can be a little frightening, I think!"

Cara blinked, staring at Fred for a moment, as if considering something. Whatever it was, though, she let it go, shaking her head and peering down at the table.

Fred looked at Cara with big, wide eyes.  Being good at hiding your anxiety?  That was such a foreign concept.  “Teach me your ways,” he grumbled, lowering his head down on the book in front of him for the moment.  He was miserable at hiding anything.  The Radleys were not known for keeping their emotions in check. 

Of course, as Cara went on to describe her feelings, Fred lifted his head and his jaw sort of relaxed.  She was saying everything he felt all the time.  Of course, for Fred he didn’t just feel that way around people he fancied.  He felt that way around everyone who intimidated him, strangers, anyone who was evaluating him for anything…

She looked a little embarrassed though and Fred shook his head.  “I feel that way all the time,” he assured her.  “Even with professors,” he added, looking away because it was absolutely totally embarrassing, “and my hands get all sweaty and it feels like I have a toad stuck in my throat – sometimes it even sounds like it,” his cheeks started heat up. 

He rubbed his palms over his eyes and let out a shaky sigh.  He totally knew how terrible these feelings were.  “Makes you feel absolutely nutty, doesn’t it?” 

“Teach me your ways.”

Cara giggled.

"I don't know that it's a skill you can learn, sweetie. I've just... always been that way, huh? Maybe it's part of the reason I'm in Gryffindor—nerve and bravado and whatnot."

She shrugged, and motioned towards the books on the table.

"You've got plenty of skills that I wish I had, though! I'm not a hard worker. Only thing I've got any discipline about are the subjects I love—as you can see, anything that I meet resistance in falls by the wayside."

“I feel that way all the time, even with professors... and my hands get all sweaty and it feels like I have a toad stuck in my throat – sometimes it even sounds like it.”

"Well," she started, chewing on her lower lip. "Not everybody is great at socializing, yanno? There are worse things to be bad at. At least people like you—at least you get good marks. Right?"

“Makes you feel absolutely nutty, doesn’t it?”

Cara giggled again, nodding her head slowly.

"Sure does."

She paused, looking at Fred thoughtfully, and then went on:

"I could try to—er—help you, yanno? Maybe try to tutor you on how to, like, deal with people... or if there's a girl you like, maybe I could help you figure out how to talk to her? I'll help however I can—if you can get me an A in Potions and Herbology, I'll owe you more than I can repay, honestly!"

 Nerve and bravado.  Fred was probably the opposite of both of those things.  He wasn’t sure where people summoned those feelings from, but he preferred to be understated, be cautious, think then act.  Sure, those might not always be the adjectives people wished to be, or thought highly (or at all) of the people who were described that way. 

Cara seemed to have some pretty positive associations with the terms she used to describe him though, which did make his cheeks pink up.  “Classic hufflepuff,”  he shrugged it off and scratched behind his neck again. 

She was speaking the understatements of the century.  He was the absolute worst at socializing.  “Good marks don’t exactly uh… fill your nights, do they?” he snorted.  Of course, it was only after he’d managed to smile that he realized what that sounded like and he flushed.  “I mean… like… you know, after classes… and… ugh!!” the sound got stuck in his throat. 

“It wasn’t uh… it’s not like that,” he wasn’t that type of guy, really.  He didn’t think like that – well, not on purpose!  It just happened all of a sudden out of nowhere… and then he was a total creep, but he tried his best. 

Being 15 was so hard. 

He wasn’t sure about many things, but he was at least reasonably sure he could get her that A.  The prospect that she could help him though, that seemed far-fetched.  “I mean uh…. There isn’t a specific girl I fancy right now,” not necessarily true, “but uh…” he shook his head, “I’ll definitely get you that A,” he grinned at her, as wide and sincere as possible. 

“Besides, from what you said, sounds like you can’t act half right in front of the person you fancy either. Why should I take lessons from you?” he tried to make a joke that would fall more along the lines of Cara’s sense of humor.  But, guilt panged in his stomach almost immediately, “I’m kidding!” he blurted, “I’m sure you’re uh… I’m sure you’ve got them uh… quite charmed, eh?”