The next morning I wake up early to shuffling sounds and I blink a few times to clear my vision.

"Hmm?" I mumble and my eyes trail over to Ryder, who is currently standing in front of his bed with his school uniform pants on and his shoes while his button up shirt is hanging completely open and his jacket is lying on his bed.

"Get up," Ryder says.

"R--Ryder?" I blush as I stare at his figure, "What are you doing up so early?"

"The scores for our exams were posted. I always get up early because they get posted the next day and I don't like dealing with the crowd. Come on, get up," He explains as he buttons up his shirt.

"Okay," I sigh and climb out of bed.

"Hurry up and..." Ryder trails off and I stare at him in confusion.

"What?" I ask and rub my eyes.

"Nothing," Ryder says and glances away, blushing slightly and mumbling, "You just look cute like that..."

"What was that?" I ask as I examine my tank-top and shorts for something that might be embarrassing since Ryder trailed off.

"Nothing," Ryder says and clears his throat as he grabs his jacket, "I just said that you should get ready before people start getting up."

"Oh," I say, uncertain, "Okay..."

I go over to the closet and pick out my uniform before heading into the bathroom and changing before attending to my other needs. After I finish getting ready I walk out of the bathroom and the two of us walk past my sleeping familiars as we head out the dorm.

"Where are the scores posted?" I ask.

"They're right down the hall," Ryder says as we walk down the hall together, "Come on."

I follow Ryder down the dormitory hall until we reach the middle of the hall where a podium is placed against the wall. Ryder walks up to the podium and presses the symbol on the front of the podium and a floating piece of paper appears with his name, grade ranking, and his scores.

"Hmm," Ryder says as he scans over the paper and a smirk forms on his face once he reaches the bottom.

"You got first place for your grade?!" I gasp as I read from behind him and he looks at me over his shoulder.

"Yeah," He shrugs, "It isn't that big of a deal."

"You scored a hundred percent on all of your tests..." I whisper as he steps back from the podium.

I know that Ryder was always expected to be perfect and that he's extremely smart, but somehow seeing his results is still breathtaking to me.

"I don't know why you're so impressed," Ryder shrugs, "Either that means you think I'm stupid or it means that you feel like you're stupid, so it's probably the latter. You aren't stupid, Philomena. You didn't need help with anything except for when it came to actually casting the spells. I'm sure you got good grades in your old school, but you were clumsy all the time and made a mess of things, so you felt like a screw up, but you aren't."

"You're right..." I whisper as the idea dawns on me, "I had an A average..."

"See," Ryder smiles slightly at me, "So don't worry so much. Just check your grades already so that we can get out of here."

I nod and walk closer to the podium before pressing the same button Ryder pressed earlier and suddenly a paper appears. I bite my lip and play with the hem of my skirt as I read over my results to find that I scored all A's on my tests, except for three. I got two B's on tests that involved spell casting itself and one C, which isn't too bad, but I wish I would've done better.

"Well..." I trail off.

"Hey," Ryder says as he reads over my paper, "It isn't your fault, you know? You aced the tests that didn't require you to cast spells, and you scored average on the ones that did require you to cast spells, except for one."

"Yeah, I guess," I say, feeling slightly better about my situation.

"And look at your ranking," Ryder says as he points to my ranking.

"I'm the nineteenth out of seventy..." I say.

"Pretty soon you'll be in the top ten," Ryder says and a smile forms on my face.

"Thank you so much for helping me!" I shout and throw my arms around him in a hug.

"Yeah..." He trails off and he stands there for a few seconds before hugging me back, "No problem..."

As he hugs me I can't help but think of how secure and warm he feels as he has his arms wrapped around me and I can't help but blush. I promise I'll find a way to help you, Ryder...

***

"I can't believe we all passed!" Augustina shouts and twirls around as Antheia, Tempest, Solstice, and I all walk down the hallway together.

"What's so hard to believe about it?" Tempest mutters.

"I'm excited to hang out with all of you," Augustina smiles as we make our way to Solstice's dorm.

"Don't you have any friends?" Tempest mutters again.

Solstice sighs while Antheia chuckles and I elbow her in the ribs.

"Ow," Antheia whines.

After a few minutes we arrive at Solstice's dorm and she unlocks the door for us.

"Wow," I gasp as I look around the dorm, which is decorated with a flat screen TV against the left wall, a black couch in front of the TV with a wooden coffee table inbetween the couch and the TV, as well as a purple rug, a black rug, and a pink rug with red designs on it underneath the coffee table and two end tables on either side of the couch that each have a bookshelf on the bottom of them.

Meanwhile, there's an archway on the right side of the wall just a few feet away from the couch which leads to a study, and there's a door in the study that leads to the bathroom. There's also a door on the left side of the wall which leads to the bedroom, which has two beds. And there's a gian;t circle window on the wall that's across from the door. Solstice flicks on the light switch and places her keys on one of the stands by the couch as Antheia, Augustina, and I explore the dorm.

"You and Tempest are roommates, right?" I ask.

"Yes," Solstice nods and Tempest walks over to the couch.

"Alright," Tempest says and summons a bowl of popcorn and several bags of chips and drinks, "Let's get this night started!"

Augustina smiles and summons a stack of movies while Solstice walks over to the study before coming back out with a white rabbit in her arms.

"Is that your familiar?" I ask and Solstice nods as she pets the rabbit's head.

"His name is Cheddar," Solstice says.

I smile and Solstice walks over to the couch and sits down beside Tempest, who finished placing all of the snacks down. Augustina then sits on the floor by one of the ends of the couch and turns on the TV while Tempest and Solstice look through the movies. Antheia sits on the floor on the other side of the couch and opens a bag of chips while her fox ears occasionally twitch. I walk over to the couch and sit in the last empty space on the couch and look through the movies with Tempest and Solstice. After a few minutes we decide on a movie and Augustina puts it in before we all eat snacks and enjoy the movie. A few hours later Augustina ends up painting her nails while Antheia lies on the floor and kicks her legs back and forth in the air as she rests her face in her hands, Tempest sits upside down on the couch, and Solstice reads her book while I focus on the movie along with Tempest and Antheia.

"Wait," Antheia says after a bit and gets up from the floor before walking over to the door and ripping it open.

Suddenly Spade nearly falls into the room from leaning on the doorway and once he regains his balance he smiles and rubs the back of his neck.

"What are you doing here?" Antheia snaps.

"Well--"

"Hey!" Antheia shouts as she sees her brother running down the hallway, "Get back here you good for nothing twin!"

"I'll just be going now," Spade says and tries to back away, "It was nice seeing you. You're still as foxy as ever, Antheia."

"Where do you think you're going?" Antheia says and narrows her eyes as she grabs onto the front of Spade's shirt and pulls him closer, "I ought to smack you and my brother both upside the head for spying."

"Aw, come on," Spade says and tugs on Antheia's fox ears again.

"Hey!" Antheia lets go of his shirt and swats at him, "Stop it!"

"Not again," I sigh as I watch the two from the couch.

Suddenly Solstice grabs her wand as she continues to read and casts a spell that shoots a beam of light in Spade's direction and it sends him and Antheia sprawled out in the hallway.

"Hey!" Augustina gasps, "Be careful!"

I laugh nervously as I sit on the couch and Tempest rolls her eyes. Somehow I don't think that things will ever be boring around here.