He nodded at her request. "I am. I'm takin' 'em. I don't know how many of 'em I'll pass, but I'm gonna take 'em. I am pretty sure they would track me down if I tried to skip." There were not that many  fifth years. They would notice one missing from an OWL session.

Devin had not been studying for his exams. But he had gone to his classes. Well, most of them. Some he skipped-- but not Charms, or Herbology, or Care of Magical Creatures. He even went down to the greenhouses in his spare time some. Not just to smoke, either! He liked getting his hands into the soil. It was calming. It helped ground him.

It was too bad that they couldn't get a place with a little garden in the back. He would have liked to be able to grow some things on his own. Maybe he could get some pots for the terrace. The wizard had already set his mind to building an herb garden box--and there was a neighborhood garden on the block, too. He could go there from time to time.

The flat really was nice. Especially to him. He looked forward to being able to call a place his home permanently. It truly would be a first for him. And it was made all the better by the fact that he was going to be sharing the home with Sasha. The boy was really taken with her. He had been for a long time...and somehow, despite the mistakes he had made and who he was, she was willing to be with him. He still couldn't believe it most days. 

She was used to so much more...so much better. How could she settle for him and what he could afford? He feared it was too good to last--that she would wake up one morning and decide to go back to being an Augustine. But he wasn't letting that fear consume him. He was enjoying the time with her and doing everything to make every day good and happy. He hadn't told her he loved her, but the words were in his mind. He was just waiting for the moment to say them. 

He smiled at her when she said it wasn't a downgrade. Devin leaned in, closing the distance between them. A sweet kiss was placed on her lips in thanks. "I know it's just not what you are used to. I'm just going to try to make it better in the ways I can." He gently caressed her cheek, marveling at her beauty. She took his breath away. 

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She didn’t know why she was even bringing up taking up his exams or bothering him not to skip them. It wasn’t as if she was a big supporter of schoolwork. If she could tempt him away from work and toward her in bed, then she would do it. Not that it was all that challenging to do. If she could text him a naughty picture while he was in class, in hopes that he’d ditch out early to come back to the dormitory, then surely she was not one to talk about the importance of schoolwork. But here she was.

She nodded at his words, glad that she didn’t have to convince him on that front. He had just gotten this far. It seemed silly to her not to at least go sit the exams. Even if he didn’t try all that hard. As long as he tried on the ones that he actually cared about. That would be enough if he had a reason to need those results in the future.

She knew that their interests did not line up on that front. He loved Herbology. She had dropped it at the first chance she got, and it wasn’t just because her assigned job when registered had been a gardener. It wasn’t just because she was forced to weed and plant and fend for plants for the purists. No, she had hated getting her hands dirty and ruining her manicure from her first Herbology lesson.

Somehow, despite all of the reasons that she knew Devin shouldn’t like her, he still did. As much as she looked like a girl with an excess of confidence — and in many ways she was, she had her moments. Moments where she knew that she was materialistic, high-maintenance, shallow, and a bit of a bully. Yet somehow, she still had Devin. Merlin knew why he had put up with her as long as he had.

She shifted closer to him while she kissed him back, closing the distance between them even further. “You don’t need to make it better. It’s going to be good. Great, even.” She was a little worried about the area. She wasn’t sure if it was a bad area of town or if she just had no perspective on that given the side of London she was from. “It’s... I mean... I’m not going to get mugged walking to the grocery, am I?” It might have been a silly question, she just figured he knew the area better than she did.

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