Sasha stared down at Johann, the mild absurdity in the man's words distracting Sasha from his own confusion, if only for a moment.  Did Johann really think he was grieving...something?  That, after all, couldn't be what it was - there wasn't really anything to grieve.  Right?

No.  This was probably all a part of Johann's attempt to say something while having no idea what he was actually saying. 

"Change my-" Sasha started to repeat back when the combination of Johann's sudden exclamation and retreat to the other side of the couch drew Sasha's attention to the entrance.  Sasha had been expecting Professor Trishna's arrival at some point - the man had sent him up here.  For a variety of reasons, he had not been expecting Professor Storm and he made no attempts to hide his surprise. 

The Ravenclaw got to his feet to face the two men but, unlike Johann, stayed where he was.  He wasn't sure if he was supposed to speak first or let Professor Storm speak.  But, as unnerving as the current setting might be (or, as unnerving as Johann seemed to assume it was), Sasha knew whatever was to come couldn't be worse than any number of incidents he'd had with his stepfather.  Especially not with Professor Trishna there. 

That realization helped steel Sasha's nerves and he shook his head, speaking first.  "I am sorry, sir.  I did not mean to be insolent.  I just ... I needed to know and I didn't know how to warn you without ..."  Sasha's shoulders hitched up slightly in defeat, entirely unsure where, exactly, that sentence had been headed. 

"I am sorry, sir.  I did not mean to be insolent.  I just ... I needed to know and I didn't know how to warn you without ..."

Ignan raised a hand to silence Sasha, and looked to Johann and Tapendra,
"Would you give us a moment?" He implored his friend and relative, and then sank down beside Sasha on the sofa the Ravenclaw had just jumped up from. He placed Sasha's bag down at the young man's feet.

"I apologise, Sasha. I didn't know quite how to react, and it had to take some courage to approach me alone about this." He leaned forward and placed his elbows just above his knees, clasping his hands. He couldn't bring himself to look at Sasha at first, finding this horrendously uncomfortable. He was forcing himself to do this, he couldn't leave things.
"Its not every evening you discover you have a son." Ignan added, his voice wavering slightly. He looked round at the boy beside him apologetically.

"Your mother was very kind to me, though I only met her briefly. I wish I had known her better, considering what - who - resulted." The older man gestured to Sasha with both hands, and then sat up straighter and twisted to look at his newly discovered offspring, no longer feeling the murderous intent.

"You must have many questions."

Professor Storm raised his hand and Sasha visibly tensed and grew quiet.  The Ravenclaw watched, anxiously, as both Professor Trishna and Johann filed from the room, fully expecting Professor Storm to pick up where he'd left off moments before.  The door shut behind the two and Sasha braced himself for a second round as he turned back towards the man. 

But, Professor Storm's demeanor was completely void of the previous anger and aggression when Sasha finally turned back.  The man he found seated on the couch seemed humbled.  Almost - Sasha wasn't entirely sure - vulnerable?  It left the boy even more uncertain of how he was supposed to proceed.  The anger and accusations were, at least, familiar turf.  This was entirely new.

"Sir?"

Sasha hesitated a moment then tentatively sat on the far end of the couch.  He shook his head, dismissing the apology.  "It was what I was expecting.  Actually, I expected it earlier.  They both offered to ask.  About the test," Sasha admitted, glancing pointedly towards the doorway.  "But, it didn't seem right."  Perhaps, that had been a mistake.  Sasha wasn't entirely sure.

"Its not every evening you discover you have a son."

Sasha opened his mouth but quickly shut it, again, before the habitual apology could escape him.

"She was?"  Sasha turned towards Professor Storm, clearly caught off guard by the description of his mother.  "I ... oh."  Sasha looked down at his hands, frowning as he shook his head.  "I didn't actually know her that well.  And, there's no way ... you ... it would have made things worse."  On a few occasions, Jacoba had speculated whether their mother would have been different - or different towards them - if it hadn't been for Gerhard. 

Questions.  Now that the initial firestorm of emotions on both side had settled, it was easier to look at such things.  Assuming he didn't overstep his bounds, again. 

"I ... yes," he admitted.  "I have a few.  I mean, I know some of it.  At least, my mother's side.  My sister had pieced together a good bit of it when she told my stepfather and me.  But, I ... I don't know what I'm allowed to ask.  I don't know what the rules are."

"There are rules?" Ignan replied, looking surprised. "Oh, I see, you mean, if I have objections to you asking certain things."

He contemplated a moment, staring at the box on the desk which Tapendra had left for Johann to collect.

"Can I reserve the right to choose not to answer, or to explain at a later date if I cannot answer?" The older wizard asked, looking back at his newly encountered offspring. "I too, will have questions, though, in the circumstances, I probably have the upper hand in pre-established knowledge as a Professor." He looked sorry to admit this, particularly as much of his background of Sasha would be on what his colleagues had discussed and he had been informed about upon his new role as Deputy. Thankfully the most pastoral elements were undertaken by heads of houses, it wasn't Ignan's strong point.

"You have my attention..."

Of course there were rules.  There were always rules.  But, Professor Storm promptly offered the information Sasha was looking for and the Ravenclaw nodded. 

Even after the initial answer, Professor Storm seemed to pick up on the added complications.  Professor Storm was his professor - there were guidelines and expectations that came with that.  This conversation, though, was proof the expectations had changed, perhaps only slightly.  But, to what?  That vague unknown was part of what made things so confusing with Professor Trishna.  Sasha knew that same dynamic was supposed there - that those rules, spoken and unspoken, that governed professor-student dynamics were supposed to apply.  But, they didn't, anymore. 

"Of course," Sasha agreed. 

But, where to even begin with questions?  Sasha finally settled back into the corner of the couch.  "Did she know?" It was probably not the most logical starting point but it had been the one question that kept coming to mind first since that initial test with Johann.  "That you were a wizard?  I mean, how well did you know her?"

"Did she know? That you were a wizard?  I mean, how well did you know her?"

Ignan shook his head sadly.
"No, she didn't know. It was a chance meeting, and the circumstances meant I didn't want to draw the attention to my possession of a wand." He could see he would have to explain a little better and paused a moment in thought of the best way to phrase the bastard I'd been asked to dispose of had more fight in him than expected in a different way.
"I had been injured by another wizard, and had apparated out without really concentrating on my destination - a mistake. Your mother came across me and tried to help, and I accepted, wanting to find a safe location to recover. I hadn't intended to be with her long, just to reach somewhere out of the open to treat wounds."

He paused, contemplating his phrasing.
"I wish I could say I knew her better, to provide you some comfort."

"I had been injured by another wizard, and had apparated out without really concentrating on my destination - a mistake."

"You'd ended up in Munich?"  Sasha asked.  It had been less of a question and more of a request for confirmation.  Sasha closed his eyes, trying to match up the pieces of what the professor was saying with what little bits he'd gathered from Jacoba.  "And, she just took you in?"

Slowly, the Ravenclaw shook his head, looking again at the man.  The scene the man was describing seemed so distant, so discordant with what he knew of his own mother.  Stopping to help a stranger.  Taking a strange man in.  He and Jacoba rarely talked about their family - neither seemed to know what to say to the other when the topic surfaced - but, once or twice, he'd  heard his sister speculate that their mother was very different when Gerhard wasn't around. 

"Did you know she was married?"

Sasha shrugged, shaking off the man's attempt to offer comfort.  "You couldn't have known her better.  She - I accepted that a long time ago.  Pretty much since I found out I ..."  He'd never known how to put it.  "- wasn't legitimate.  I'm surprised she got away with hiding it for as long as she did." 

"Did you know she was married?"

Ignan screwed his face up in thought, trying to remember if he had consciously noticed a wedding ring or a mention of another man.

"At the time, no, I don't think I did - or perhaps it didn't cross my mind." He replied honestly. "It took me by surprise that I would stay as long as I did. Perhaps it was one of those moments of fate."

"You couldn't have known her better.  She - I accepted that a long time ago.  Pretty much since I found out I ..." Sasha seemed to struggle with the words suddenly "- wasn't legitimate.  I'm surprised she got away with hiding it for as long as she did."

Ignan looked sadly at the younger wizard sat beside him. Sasha had been struggling with this for some time it appeared, and this sudden discovery and his anguish at being revealed as a blood relative was only tearing wounds open again.
"I am sorry for what consequences I caused your mother, and that you had to find out or discover things in this way," the Professor uttered sincerely, and then reached a hand over and lightly rested it on Sasha's arm nearest to him, "but I am not sorry of what became of that chance meeting." He lifted his hand and gave Sasha a curt nod.

Merlin, it was the nearest he would get to 'if I was going to find out I had a son, then I could do a lot worse than you'.

"How long did you stay?"  Sasha asked, scowling slightly as he considered the question.  "And, this ... this was in Munich?  I assume it wasn't in Berchtesgaden or Schonau.  The Waldgrafs are too well known.  I assume you knew she was noble."  Someone would have noticed.  It would have been the gossip of the town, not a sordid secret that had laid hidden. 

The man sitting next to him had known his mother.  Sasha shook off the man's apology as the implications of that reality were suddenly starting to sink in - implications beyond the present reality.  Sasha knew and understood their meeting had been little more than a chance encounter and, had it not been for him, it would have remained nothing more than that.  Even still, in some strange and inexplicable way, there was some comfort in knowing that someone from this world had known her.  Even if briefly. 

"But I am not sorry of what became of that chance meeting."

Sasha was drawn out of his thoughts and scowled down at the hand on his arm in confusion.   "But ... I thought you'd said not to expect ..."  He'd known the nature of the man's reaction had been fueled by the surprise but he'd assumed the underlying message hadn't changed. 

"You're really not disappointed?"

"You're really not disappointed?"

"Well, maybe you can rely on Johann for the 'warm family welcome', hmm?" Ignan replied with a hint of humour to his tone, "No, I'm not disappointed, but if you need it in writing after my outburst, I wouldn't blame you." His expression was humble. "Its a shock, but that was more disbelief that life could catch up on me like that." There was an uncomfortable pause, before he uttered "Please accept my apology for those words."

His anguish subsided, Ignan rubbed at his chin.
"Look, perhaps we better discuss this again soon, let the dust settle on either side, and give Tapen- er, Professor Trishna, his classroom back. I have the feeling you have more questions about your mother than I can possibly answer this evening." Well, not without revisiting the memory in a pensieve and deciding which bits were safe to explain.

The Ravenclaw shook his head, dismissing the man's apology but, after realizing the gesture might be misinterpreted as a refusal, he quickly changed tactics and nodded.  "Of course.  You wouldn't have been the first to be disappointed; I wouldn't have held it against you." 

Sasha blinked and looked down at the floor.  It was odd how, only moments before, back in the professor's office, Sasha had seen nothing but similarities between Professor Storm and Gerhard Schlagenweit.  An image Sasha was as more responsible for creating than the man next to him.  He'd gone in expecting to find those similarities.  It had been part of the explanation Sasha had concocted when he'd been trying to hypothesize all the reasons his mother might have been drawn to Professor Storm.  But now, he was starting to see the key differences.  Perhaps, those had been when had attracted his mother. 

Unfortunately, it was unlikely he'd ever know. 

"I'm glad, sir." 

Sasha nodded.  His own mind was struggling to process everything from the last little bit and he'd had forewarning.  "Thank you, sir," Sasha offered, earnestly. 

"What's ... what now?" He asked. 

"I said," Professor Storm repeated a little more clearly, "we should perhaps talk about these things another day, when there is time to discuss them freely." He raised an eyebrow. "If it doesn't give you time to think things over and compile a hundred and two questions for me, it will certainly give me some time to collect my own thoughts so I can provide you with answers to those hundred and two questions." And the suitable cover stories too.

To convey this more firmly, he stood up from the sofa and stepped away two strides before turning on the spot and addressing the younger man.
"Saturday or Sunday. You are the one who runs a tight ship of studies and student clubs, so leave me a note as to when suits. I will make time. Perhaps you might head to bed, Sasha, it looks as if you could do with some sleep." He tugged his shirt cuffs down and drew himself a little straighter, into the formal posture he was most recognisable in.

Collecting the kit from the top of the desks, he exhaled slowly as he walked across Tapendra's classroom towards the door.

Sasha nodded, glancing down at his hands.  He didn’t like not having a clear understanding of what the rules were – of the expectations even though, for the most part, they seemed fairly self-explanatory.  There were very few he’d consider breathing a word of this to and the majority of them could be counted amongst those that had known before the professor himself.  He didn’t need a new flock of rumors following him throughout the school so discretion seemed apt.

“I – yes, sir,” Sasha confirmed with a dip of his head.  “I’ll send word.” 

Bed, however, was a long way off though Sasha refrained from admitting such.  Sleep was elusive under the best of circumstances; it would like be several hours before his thoughts settled enough to allow for rest.

The Ravenclaw watched as Professor Storm crossed the room with the test kit, then turned his attention to the fire in the empty classroom.