Donald mused on how he came from a working class family and how his family did struggle to make ends meet. His parents always made sure that Amy and himself were provided for and he considered that maybe his parents went without so him and his sister could go with. He thought about the old broomstick he own, a Cleansweep series from the mid 2000s. It was certainly not top of the range, not by a long shot, but he did look after it very well. A new sense of how much it must have cost his parents to even by him that came over him and he felt ashamed about all the times he felt annoyed by his broomstick. If his parents were there he would start apologising a million times to them.

He raised an eyebrow when Nick said he brought his sister’s broom to Hogwarts. The Ravenclaw was certain that would be against the rules and that the prefect was risking his position by doing as much, it also surprised him that Nick would break the rules in such a way. He always thought his friend as someone who didn’t break the rules. Maybe he did not know him as well as he thought. It did occur to Don that he could grass up Nick and his sister to one of the Professors and sabotage Liz’s training for the year. It would certainly remove any further edge she might have over other students and, more importantly, it would make it harder to be a risk for the Ravenclaw quidditch team next year. But he quickly decided against that. It would be an extremely mean thing to do, probably ruin his friendship with Nick and upset a little girl. He couldn’t do that. Even if he was inclined to remove protentional competition for Ravenclaw next year.

”How is she even going to get onto the quidditch pitch? If any teacher or any other authority figure sees a first year flying they will ask questions. And probably confiscate her broom” he told the Hufflepuff logically. Maybe Nick had thought this through and had a plan already, or perhaps he was going to let his sister do her own thing and hope for the best? He supposed that he shouldn’t even be interfering in things like this. ”Sorry…” he started apologising but stopped himself before he got carried away.

He smiled when Nick said he was fascinated with Donnie’s mini lecture on the perception of time. Most people would have been bored to the back teeth with that. Maybe the Hufflepuff prefect was being a Hufflepuff and being nice, or maybe he genuinely was interested. In any case Don was grateful for it. Suddenly the 13 year old went into a bit of a hushed voice ”Sadly, I don’t think muggle books are allowed in Hogwarts under the currently climate…” he wondered if he should have even been talking about muggle science like he was? He did so without thinking, but on reflection it might have gotten him into a lot of trouble if the wrong sort of person heard him. The Ravenclaw boy considered Nick for a moment before determining he was the right sort of person.

”…it so sad what happened. The muggles have a lot of good ideas and theories…” he looked around himself a bit more before learning closer to the prefect and talked in an even more quiet and nervous whisper ”….I wish the school still had muggle studies. You know?” he would love to find some old muggle studies text books but he didn’t know where to start and was too scared to try to do so anyway. His heart was already racing outside itself as he told Nick what he did. He really hoped he not made a mistake.

The pale skinned boy winced at the bone breaking, it looked extremely painful and the fact that it was the nastiest curse there was made him feel uneasy, but he was still fascinated by it. ”Healing is important” he nodded ”We not up to anything like that yet. A curse that causing the victim to vomit blood is the worst so far…” he was certain that there was far worst to come though. ”Sooo….” Don attempted to sound casual ”…what is the nastiest curse you learnt?.....” he continued trying to sound just as casual ”….and what is the nastiest one in the book?” the 3rd year was desperate still not to sound too eager or interest. But he found the whole thing every fascinating. 

He planned, quite a lot, and even then there were times where things didn’t entirely go the way Nick wanted them to. He had organized a lot of the previous year, he had documented which hours he wanted to study and had attempted to keep himself on a rigorous schedule in order to make sure that things went perfectly. In typical fashion everything ended up rebelling, he didn’t have the time that he had thought he would and the end result of his fifth year was quite a good amount of stress. Amelia and Atha’s separation from one another had been an issue as well; he had known that his two friends were going their different ways, but he had assumed that strong bonds as twins would have kept it from being too volatile. But Nick got caught up in the middle, he tried to figure out what he wanted and what to do… And it really hadn’t gone too well for him, he had been stuck in the middle while trying to figure himself out. He hadn’t been himself last term, he had been more negative and stressed out, he had been someone different. He wasn’t the gentle and happy Nick during his O.W.Ls, and he was really trying to steal that personality back from where he had left it in fourth year. His sixth year was supposed to be easier for him, he had dropped a bunch of courses in order to keep himself from being too stressed, he had picked up leadership of two clubs to make sure that everything was going to be fine…

He didn’t acknowlege Donald for a second; he was too distracted to think of the much younger student in front of him. He had a lot on his mind, he had to catch up for the school year… And, really, he had much more important things than to fully explain his younger sister’s convoluted plan to fly whenever she wanted to. It somehow had to do with Carin’s relationship to Marcus Flint, but he had tuned his sister out when she had mentioned it… And he thought it had something to do with the Room of Requirement, but when he had asked how she knew it existed she had clammed up rather suddenly and had refused to comment. So she might not have known exactly where it was, but apparently she and Carin and Henry knew it existed… And that was far too much for Nick to really think about for the moment. His sister and her friends were difficult to deal with at times, he had already had to warn the other prefects to take away points without a thought. Lizzy knew the difference between right and wrong, but right now she was holding her house’s strict sense of adventure to her chest. “They’re not,” he responded gently, glad for the turn of subject- albeit a dangerous one. Clearly Donnie was planning on being just as difficult as his sister this term. “And the old librarian isn’t here, and he was far more lax about those things.” He wasn’t going to rat Kasey out, though, and say that she may have a few Muggle books on her.

“Well, you’re still young,” Nick said, knowing that his voice had likely taken on a “big brother” tone. Lizzy always got annoyed by it, citing that he turned into a rude stick at times. For his sister that was colorful language, ironically enough. “I don’t expect you lot to learn anything like this for a little while.” They would probably learn about dark creatures at some point and how to protect against those. Nick had personally found the banshee lesson to be a bit petrifying, but that was just him. “In the book? It’s definitely not something I would show a third year.” He wasn’t stupid. Too nice, but not stupid. He wasn’t going to risk showing something so dangerous; the bone-breaking curse was bad enough.

Donald watched Nick for a moment, he seemed distant and distracted by something. The Ravenclaw lad wondered if he was distracting Nick someone and felt the urge to start apologising again, until he remembered that it was Nick to sat with him and not the other way around. Of course, both students came to the library to library to learn stuff, be it on quidditch in Donald’s case or to study. Perhaps they should both get on with their own work and stop disturbing each other. Although Donnie still wanted to learn more about the advanced years of dark arts classes and Nick seemed relatively willing to show him.

The 13 year old was relieved that Nick seemed to be on his wave length when it came to muggle books. He was worried for a second that he might have talked too much and could have landed himself in very deep trouble. The pale skinned lad made a mental note to not talk about stuff like this in public too much, especially with people he did not really know. Nick what a lot older than he was and he didn’t really know him apart from chess club. As far as Donald could have known the Hufflepuff might have been a fully signed up, card carry member of the death eaters that have taken over the wizarding world. Don might have ended up putting himself and, more worryingly, his family at risk all due to his own carelessness.

”Indeed…” he looked about now a bit more nervous than before. Like some unseen entity might be paying attention to them. This was too dangerous of a topic to carry on in a public place. ”…but I think we should drop the topic actually. I am sorry for bringing it up.” the spikey haired lad hoped that Nick would understand and agree with his concerns. He was sure that the 6th year did not to get into the kind of trouble this conversation might land them in if the wrong kind of person overheard it. Or worse.

A small frown came on Don’s face when Nick took on a big brother tone. It was a tone he knew, well kind of. He knew it from the “big sister” tone that Amy sometimes took with him, but it was odd hearing a similar tone come out of the older boy. ” Well…” he said ”…there are always unofficial ways to learn about such things….” he said hopeful that Nick might just be willing to show him a bit more.

Unfortunately, it seemed that Donnie’s hopes were not going to be realised. ”Awww….” he said disappointed ”…I can take it….but if you are not comfortable then I won’t pressure you.” Don didn’t want to upset Nick. It was his choice in the end. However, it didn’t mean that Donald wouldn’t get the information another way. The third year would attempt to find out the name of the book so he could get hold of a copy for himself. There was more than one way to skin a cat after all.