Teenagers needed privacy.

Ferreole, on some level, understood that and respected it. Unless, of course, they were canoodling a bit too enthusiastically, at which point their broom cupboard would invariably blow open and the poor hormone rattled witches and wizards would be subject to the full and entire Talk, complete with magically animated puppets and discussions of Urges and Feelings and Changes and This is All Natural and Okay. He was a Healer, after all. Couldn't just let students run around namby-pamby. For the most part, though, he allowed his students their mischiefs and secrets. But it was so dreadfully hard not to swoop in and hover, and every now and then, his desperate concern and worry for his students and their well-being overwhelmed him, and there was much descending like a deranged howler monkey to scoop his students off for one-on-one horror sessions.

Clearly, this was one of those times.

He had, draped over his brilliantly purple shoulder, a scarlet-faced fourth year who was stiff as a board and attempting to do their best imitation of being invisible. Whistling merrily, Ferreole deposited the student, who stood frozen in place. "Fruit flies like a banana and all dat." Ferreole said fondly, slapping the fourth year heartily on the back, which seemed to break the paralysis, and they went sprinting blindly down the hallway. Ferreole watched him go with wide smile that only looked moderately disturbing, and a laugh that was a tad maliciously gleeful.

The best part about being rather universally accepted as being a wee bit batty in the brainpan was people took your threats seriously. You never quite knew if Ferreole would follow through with some of the more crazier things he implied. There were people who had sworn they'd seen him toss that first year over the edge of the castle to demonstrate the effectiveness of a Bouncing Charm, and still more who hadn't forgotten coming across the senior Salem student who had tried to steal his staff. Of course, Professor Yang had put a stop to that sort of punishment with a full signed, dated, and sealed affidavit, but he was old, and had lots of time under his belt spent deeming up creative ways to wreak havoc and incite chaos.

"YOU." His cane stopped an inch from another student's face, exiting the portrait, and a hand darted out with surprising strength to grab their collar. "Next!" A few steps, a spinning secret passageway, and the student was deposited in a large, comfortable chair across from a desk that was no doubt Ferreole's. He didn't sit behind it. Rather, he settled himself crosslegged on top of the scar wood, peg leg sticking out an odd angle from the sparkling absurdity that was his robes, cane in his hand still, poised to wallop.

"SO." He barked. "T'oughts. Concerns. Hopes. Dreams. All that blathering nonsense betwixt dem 'oles in you 'ead, you."  The Earth was round. Dragons breathed fire. Muggles couldn't do magic. And nothing said in the confines of this spell would be repeated. These were facts of life, irrefutable and obvious. There was no quill taking notes, no sense of a listening charm. "Go."

And then his gnarled hands interlocked over the carved monstrosity he carried, and his heads lowered to the even height of his student, and he stared.

Intently.

In such a way that suggested silence would not bode well. The sort of stare that incited hysterical rambles. The sort of stare that suggested if one did not start talking, then their Headmaster would slowly dissect their soul and feed it bit by bit to his stuffed crocogator, who, incidentally, dropped from the ceiling like a floppy paperweight to land in the unsuspecting student's lap, draped conveniently, unmoving, over the edges of the chair not in the least bit like a guardrail intended to trap them inside.

Kayla tumbled out from behind the portrait, bag clutched in one hand, and nearly fell backwards again as a cane came whipping out of nowhere and stopped an inch from her nose.

"Holy shit," she breathed, before she realized it was in fact Headmaster LeBeau's cane and went a color not unlike the poor forth year's flush. He grabbed her by the collar and yanked her towards a section of the wall which whooshed aside and then turned her right and left and the corridor spun and geez, she was never gonna get used to this castle.

Before she'd even realized she was not in fact on her way to meet Odie by the fountain in the second courtyard, she found herself barred firmly down like a seat in a roller coaster in Ferreole's office. Only the Headmaster was staring intently at her and instead of a steel bar there was a crocogator, so really more like the kind of roller coaster where there was a terrible engineering flaw and everybody died and they had to hush things up in the papers. And now no one knew where she was, did they? Good God.

Maybe he just wanted to talk about grades?

"SO. T'oughts. Concerns. Hopes. Dreams. All that blathering nonsense betwixt dem 'oles in you 'ead, you. Go."

Not about grades.

"Um," she said, and mused for a second on the sensibility of trying to wriggle her hands free as they were currently trapped under the weight of the Headmaster's crocogator. Kayla generally liked Boris as one tended to do with semi-animate mascots but sort of on a, a, a like long-distance basis. Right now he was giving her a grinful of teeth that said she should probably keep her hands where they were, i.e. under his belly.

"Stop that," she told the gator sharply, and wriggled out anyways. To prevent hard feelings, she stroked him gingerly on the hard leathery planes of his broad head. She'd been to see the Headmaster before for academic awards and stuff, this probably wasn't any different. Although, blinking back at him now, she could not be certain he remembered any of that. He was a good old boy, as her Da would have said, but privately and not without the warmest of affection Kayla knew that actually he was completely insane. It was an opinion she'd been working on for the past 6 years and possessed a lot of really solid evidence by now. He'd probably be impressed with it, and not just because she couldn't think of anything else to talk about. Well, she should take advantage of this and have a little fun. Judging from Boris' glassy yet strangely unsettling gaze, she wasn't going anywhere soon.

"I'm wondering if I know more backcountry expressions than you do," she said, straight-faced. "Up for the challenge?" Undoubtedly he was; the Headmaster's grasp on inane conversational phrases was really remarkable. Which was why she wanted to hear them all. This was a learning experience.

If he noticed her language, it was ignored—highly unsurprising, given his language when the other professors weren't around to censor him. He rather got a kick out of it—though it was of not that freshman rarely heard anything more offensive than a gordarnit. Ferreole turned his head to stop the watery waterworks that immediately began as he filled with inordinate pride. There was a lass! There was a girl! Backbone! Grit! Humor! Oh, yes, there was a girl. Bright spark of a thing. Kayla Austin, Cliodne Hall. Outspoken, clever, brave—loyal, so loyal. Liked to help people, not a bad trait at all unless she stretched herself to thin and then, well, she was a bit prone to keeping quiet when she was hurting and that was why she was here. Ferreole wanted to see for himself, make sure she was alright. Oh yes, he knew precisely who she was, and if she'd asked, he could have recited each and every academic award she had received, and though it would have meant taking some liberties with syllables, he could have done so in iambic pentameter.

Ferreole dropped his stare to glare, momentarily, to the unmoving crocogator. "Up to m'ass in alligators." He scoffed. His peg leg shot out, and he shimmied Boris off of Kayla's lap. The stuffed creature flopped on the ground like the overlarge scaly animal that it was., though there was a distinct aura of wounded pride and general displeasure. Ferreole ignored it. And then a hyena-like bark of laughter escaped, and the old man rocked back and forth on his seat on top of the desk. "Eeeheehee, no no, p'tit. No jou don't, jou. Mad as a wet hen, cold as a hag's tit. One good turn gets most o'de  blankets. Love many, trust few, light  you own floo," He paused, stroked his beard, "Prettier'n'pixie piss an' slicker den greased doxie shit on a door knob!"

His eyes narrowed and he banged the floor. "Wait, now, wait! Eh? Which backwoods? Pets plus élevé que son cul! Perissótera apó éna kokaliáriko chortofágos dráko! Több olyan, mint egy dühös szarvas szörnyeteg! Spraoi níos mó ná—" He paused, abruptly.

"On second t'ought, dat one ain't appropriate fer a youngin's ears." As if the others were.

"Well." Bang. "Let's hear jours den, p'tit! Heard anyt'ing good since jou landed on dis side o' de pond?" It was a slightly less than subtle pry. Was she alright? Was she happy? Was she enjoying classes? Making friends? Oh he worried, did Ferreole, like a mother goose.

---

<sub>Various Translations: To fart higher than the ahem. Skinnier than a vegetarian dragon. Meaner than a pissed off manticore (roughly). More fun than a—

...I'm sorry he's so inappropriate, darling.</sub>

"I might," she said impishly, to fan the flames of contention. But the Headmaster didn't need much convincing: he immediately set upon proving her wrong but disappointingly without any of the more colorful examples she was expecting. Although that last one was rather good.

But then - was that even - what, Creole? Hungarian? Chinese? Kayla was immediately much more impressed. She grinned at his competitive spirit. Loopholes, she thought happily - well, she hadn't expected him to switch languages. That was an automatic win.

"All right, all right," she said. "Six one half dozen or another, mean as a sackful of wet cats. Bet you a dollar to donuts she was so ugly she had to sneak up on a glass of water to get a drink . There's more than one way to choke a hound, I'm mad as spit on a griddle, wound up tighter than a two-dollar watch. He died once but Hell wouldn't have 'im. If you're not gonna go, then get off the pot. So good you'll wanna smack your momma. Happier than a dog with two - ahem." She pondered a moment, then ended with, "Bless your heart, sir. Those're all Muggle."

"Oh, yeah, I love hearing the kids here talk. Some of the students from the foreign schools are a little... haughty? But most of them have been really nice." She'd actually been back in the dorms to change her uniform, heading out with fresh stockings and skirt when Ferreole had grabbed her. Kayla'd gone outside, she'd gotten a little muddy, well it was only expected given everything was so wonderfully damp. But on her way back up some of the Beauxbatons girls had looked at her like she'd blood all over her knees instead of mud - she guessed at Beauxbatons they were a little more formal. They'd obviously never been up to their elbows in potting soil. "Oh, oh, Headmaster, guess what! There's this tree here that likes to maul people, some sort of huge animated willow. Isn't that wonderful?"

Ferreole scowled in silence as Kayla went through her recitation, disguising (badly) his snorts of amusement as coughs or sneezes. Even his dignity dictated that he open his mouth to interrupt her as she got to the two dogs--he knew that one, thank you very much--but she mercifully stopped herself before he had to. A snicker that slipped out was turned into a cough.

 "Horrible. Affreux Hogwash an' rubbish." The old man snorted imperiously, nose haughtily in the air. "Jou lose." He decided, with a nod finality. And then  while his head was still down, his eyes closed and the Headmaster, for all intents and purposes, appeared to take a mini powernap during his student's  discussion of the foreign students. With a shake, he roused himself.

"Git jou gone, den." He barked before mumbling something with a scowl that sounded suspiciously like 'foul-mouth young rapscallion', but there was the tiniest upward quirk to his lips, and his proud, dramatic sniff (intended to come off as dismissive) was woefully inept in its disguise. "Go scandalize someone wit' de patience for it." His wand was suddenly in his gnarled hand, a shimmer of light emanating from the tip. "Shoo!"

The chair on which young Kayla had been seated abruptly vanished as a trapdoor opened beneath her, a merry little slide that would deposit her comfortably back in the Salem common room, provided no one had moved the overlarge stuffed armchair maneuvered under the re-entry chute. "Watch you elbows, you!" Ferreole bellowed helpfully, gravelly cackle of mad amusement echoing down after her. And then, proving he had not been sleeping, he bellowed imperiously, "Stay away from de damn tree, Austin!"

The door vanished, the chair returned, and for a lengthy stretch of silence, Ferreole sat somberly atop his desk, chin resting on his hands which in turn tapped restlessly on the head of his cane. His expression was quietly inscrutable as he sat in reflecting silence for several long minutes. He grumped, once, and then waved his cane and wand. The chair reappeared, and Ferreole turned, addressing a particularly gnarly looking gargoyle mounted in the corner of the nook he had appropriated. "Send in de next one, eh?"

There was a grinding grumble of stone, and another slide opened, sending an unsuspecting student hurtling into Ferreole's chair where he glowered imperiously at them.

"Well?" Bang, went the staff. "Talk!"

Oh, goodness this was not how Vex had expected to spend his Friday. There he was, minding his own business in the commons when the floor decided to stop existing, dropping the boy onto a damned slide. Of course antics such as this usually were signs of  the Headmaster. Joy... what Vex wouldn't give to avoid something like this. Sure enough he found himself deposited upon a chair across from Ferreole's desk. But, wait. That didn't make any sense. Both were on the same floor... which meant that he fell down and some how ended up sliding upward at some point. Gravity, how did it work? Obviously not at all when magic had a say. 

"Sup, Headmaster," Vexillarius asked cheerfully. Not the most formal of greetings, but then Vex usually wasn't the most formal of people. Similarly he didn't consider being dropped into a position without due consent to be formal. But all the old coot did was bang he staff and demand he talk, to which Vex frowned slightly, crossed his arms and muttered "Talk is cheap, ain't it?"

With a sigh Vex leaned back slightly. "Well, guess I can think of somethin'." Plenty had gone on thus far. "Had some fun messing with my relatives. Me and Cy played a prank on her older brother." Not that it had been anything spectacular. All they had done was make it so those ridiculous headphones of his blasted a car-horn mid song. But still, while not amazing it was a pretty good laugh seeing him flinch like a startled cat and fall off of his seat in the middle of lunch. Vex gave a wicked little smile at the thought of it.

"Oh yeh," Vex said as the memory hit him. "Heard they got a horse teaching Astronomy. Was thinkin' of hoppin' up to the tower sometimes to take a peek."