There was one thing everyone who knew Sloane Sage understood.
When she committed herself to something...
She committed completely.
There was no halfway. No balance. No "I'll do a little today and finish it tomorrow."
When Sloane threw herself into a task, it became her entire world. She would eat while thinking about it, walk while planning it, fall asleep with it still circling her mind and wake up determined to continue where she'd left off.
Sometimes it wasn't healthy. Sometimes it meant she forgot to eat, forgot to sleep or forgot that the world existed beyond whatever project had captured her attention.
But sometimes...
Like now...
It was exactly what she needed.
Because work gave her something incredibly precious.
Normality.
Following everything that had happened beneath Hogwarts, every member of the group had found themselves buried beneath a mountain of missed work.
Between the kidnapping...
The rescue...
The overnight stay in the Hospital Wing...
And Madam Pomfrey's insistence that absolutely nobody touched a textbook while concussed...
Almost an entire week's worth of education had quietly piled up. There were lecture notes to copy. Essays to complete. Homework assignments that had doubled in size while they'd been away. Reading lists. Practical evaluations. Several pieces of coursework.
And, to Draco's immense annoyance, one missed class test that couldn't simply be excused because he'd helped save the school.
Apparently professors had standards.
Who knew?
Unlike Hermione...
Or Draco...
Sloane didn't naturally absorb information after reading something once. She wasn't the sort of student who could memorise an entire textbook overnight. She understood concepts well enough.
She worked hard.
Very hard.
But everything she achieved academically came through determination rather than effortless brilliance.
Which meant she threw herself into catching up with almost frightening intensity. Every morning she was one of the first people awake. Often arriving in the library before Madam Pince had even finished unlocking the doors.
Other mornings she worked from her counselling office instead, enjoying the quiet while the rest of the castle slowly woke around her.
Her evenings were no different.
Every spare moment found her sitting cross-legged on her bed or curled into an armchair, surrounded by towering piles of books, parchment scattered across every available surface as she scribbled page after page of notes.
Sometimes she practised wand movements. Sometimes incantations. Sometimes she simply stared at an essay until inspiration eventually struck.
Almost every evening...
Draco sat beside her. Working just as hard. His own books spread across the table.
Occasionally glancing over to check she hadn't forgotten to eat.
YOU ARE READING
The Hollow Beneath Hogwarts
FantasyThe Hollow Beneath Hogwarts When the war ended, Hogwarts was supposed to be a place of healing. Instead, it became a place haunted by grief. Sloane Sage arrives at Hogwarts carrying scars no one can see. After losing her family in the war, she dedic...
