For the first time in longer than Deus could really remember, he felt acutely uncomfortable in his skin. This, from a boy whose easy confidence was so assured he could flirt with people who'd happily sectumsempra his throat, was unusual. As he stopped outside of Professor Reid's office, he paused to figure out why. It wasn't like this was his first gamble, and he'd been able to bluff with the big boys far earlier than his first day at Hogwarts.

And that was it, wasn't it? He was about to call his own bluff and tip his cards to the whole table. And that, for a boy who liked his secrets will hidden in a tangled web of half-truths, was unsettling. His hand twitched. The black skin on the back of his hand and the three cursed fingers had sloughed off to leave gray, and the gray had started to flake at the jagged scar edges, leaving something between green and a darker tint than his usual skin tone. It gave him hope that it was getting better, but he kept it wrapped in beige bandages nevertheless.

For five years, Deus had carefully cultivated a reputation of slacker, troublemaker, the kid more likely to be snogging a seventh year behind the Quidditch Shed or smoking something filched from the Herbology greenhouses than in class or studying. And yeah, there'd been plenty of that, but for every escapade out to the greenhouses, there was one to the library. For every wand he pickpocketed as a joke, he filched a textbook. Plus, Merlin knew his summers were nothing but a 24/7 hands-on education. Defense against the Dark Arts (sometimes just the latter part), Charms and Transfiguration that came along with magical smuggling, and Runes. Which was why he was here.

'Borrowed' textbooks, trial and error, and an innate aptitude and gut understanding could get you pretty far, but lately Deus had been feeling a little less than invincible, and more than a little like he was working blind, and the clock was ticking down to when his luck blew up in his face. Possibly literally. Not just about enchantments--his whole life seemed to be teetering, and while he was trying very hard not to get overdramatic about it, he was painfully aware something needed to change, for good or ill. So here he was. He was humble enough to be amused that, on his second day as a legal adult, he felt more lost about what he was supposed to do with his life than when he'd been an eleven year-old kid.

Shoving the damaged hand in the pocket of his robes, Deus raised the other to knock. For once in his life, he'd had the courtesy to look up someone's office hours before showing up.  "Oy, Professor Reid, ye....ye got a minute?"

At the knock on her door, Aileen glanced up, a bit surprised that a student was visiting her during office hours when it was just the first week of class. She heard an 'oy', and frowned, both at the greeting and the unfamiliar voice. If that was Figaro Sellaphix, his voice must have changed significantly over the summer.

"Come in," she called, setting aside her grading book and quill.

Aileen blinked at the Slytherin, running through names in her head. Dan? Dave? No, something unusual. He didn't take her class. Some professors said he rarely attended theirs, even if he was enrolled. But the first week had come and gone, and Aileen would have noticed a slouchy Sixth Year with an easy grin and a penchant for funny haircuts suddenly popping up in her NEWT lessons.

"This is a surprise," she gestured to the seat across from the desk and smiled coolly at him.

"I would think on a Friday afternoon you'd be celebrating the weekend with your friends, Mr. Deres," she finally remembered his name.

"To what do I owe the pleasure?" If he was in league with Miss Dagon and the Hogwarts Howler, this was going to be a very short visit!

This is a surprise.

Deus couldn't help the quick flash of a lazy grin that flashed over nerves--wasn't it just? Deus flopped uneasily into the chair, and only years of automatically hiding nervous tics kept him from running an anxious hand through his hair. He took his hands out of his pockets and dropped them in his lap, sternly telling himself not to fidget. To ease the strain out his shoulders and the smooth the tension from the planes of his face. Geez. Where did he start?

She knew his name, which, he thought with a vague resignation, was probably a strike against him. "E'eryone's too busy gawkin' at all the guests tae celebrate, I reckon." He said, a sly shrug accentuating the thought. On any other occasion, the shameless, fearless flirt in him would have grabbed the word 'pleasure' and ran with it right smack unto detention, but with immense effort, he restrained himself.  "Donnae think pleasure's the right word for it." He sat up, chin tilted in angle that was too steady to be defiant, but too strong to be anything but proud. "But, I'd like tae sign up fer your class." The boy managed simply. And then, humiliating as it was, he kept his gaze steady and ground out the second bit. "I...I don't mind it none if I 'ave tae take it wit' the younger years."

He meant it. Unequivocally.  If he had to sit with the fourth years and endure the titters from his fellows, well, he was a hard boy to embarrass,  and his Slytherin ambition, slippery and buried as it seemed, was the sort that would ensure he didn't stay at that level for long.

'Course, that wasn't exactly Plan A.

"I do know some," he added quickly, but before he pressed his case to detail just what, precisely, he wanted to wait and hear her response. He didn't see the point in tipping his hand if he didn't have to.

Aileen's eyebrows spiked up. Deus Deres asking to take her class was the last thing she'd expected to hear.

She opened her mouth, then shut it, letting him finish speaking. There was something strangely earnest about that chin tilt, and the hesitance in his voice gave her pause.

No older student ever offered to sit with the fourth years, even if they were on the brink of failing and facing their parent's wrath. What were the chances that a troublemaker like him had discovered a preference for Runes? It was more likely that he was failing another elective at Hogwarts, and needed to enroll in a different subject so he'd have the requisite four classes to continue his schooling. Runes was still an unusual choice for a slacker. Though of course, that had never stopped the slackers from testing her.

"Some," she repeated in a neutral tone, studying his face. She couldn't help but jump to the conclusion that the extent of his knowledge involved carving the sight rune on the door of the girls' lavatory. But he was a Slytherin, and she'd been a Slytherin too. Mr. Deres had acted courteously, if casually so far, and Aileen decided she'd take the time to listen. No need for warnings and lectures yet.

"What would you expect to get out of a class setting, especially this late in your school career?" She tilted her head, making an effort to keep the skepticism out of her tone.

He was a sixth year, wasn't he? If he was an overgrown fourth year, she'd feel bad about it later.

"Why the sudden interest in taking Runes?"

Professor Reid hadn't kicked him out yet. That was a good sign. But then, she sort of seemed like the type who would hear you out and then shut you down with a smile. Unquestionable rejection, delivered with class. The sort of professor he was inevitably going to clash with. Well, that was something to deal with later.

Now how did he answer the professor's question without giving himself away? The answer, as it always seemed to be, was a half-truth. The truth, and nothing but the truth, but not the whole truth. "Because I realized it wasnae sudden. Here, this—" Deus pulled out his wand, and carefully traced the raido rune. "This? Ye put it on a broom, smooths th' ride out. Or, if ye carve it ahn then cast it again with th' right charm--wingardium leviosa usually works, and ye extend th' motion o' the flick on the end intae th' symb—intae the shape of the rune—," he corrected himself, "It'll get a stick in th' air when ye cannae find yer broom and donnae 'ave a long ways tae go." Or because someone hexed your spare to splinters during a botched getaway, and you don't trust anyone enough to teach you to Apparate illegally.  That had been a particularly interesting ride back home, but he'd managed it. He shrugged and raised his hands, so the damage on the left one was clearly visible.  "Just got tae figurin' this summer that maybe I oughta nae mess around with shi—stuff and…focus a bit more. " Sort of. Something like that. Hopefully it was enough of an explanation.

"What I'd like tae get out of it, Professor," Deus smiled charmingly, and merged two truths into a cheerful lie, "Is tae maybe nae get blown tae bits next time I start poking around in the auld cliffs by me home."  He had enough visible, freshly healing scars to make the statement viable. It wasn't like he couldn't keep learning out of filched textbooks, but he didn't know where his holes were in what he knew—and he didn't particularly care to keep figuring them out by way of exploding protection spells. Deus didn't particularly want to take class with the fourth years. But he also didn't want to get his hands nearly blown off by another botched interaction with runes.  His pride came second to self-preservation, and he didn't have a choice, his family was going to keep making demands of him, and he was going to have to keep obliging them. For now.

Well, that was a unique perspective, Aileen thought as he demonstrated how he could cause a branch to float a short distance home. The corner of her mouth twitched up, but any amusement faded the instant she saw his bandaged hand.

That could be a problem. She pushed back the urge to scold him for messing around with magic that he couldn't handle. As he smiled, Aileen couldn't deny that it took a certain kind of maturity to admit that he was in over his head and needed a class, though she still doubted his motivations.

Aileen nodded, even smiled. "I see. So far, it seems to me that your interest in my class is mainly precautionary, to avoid further harm to yourself as you escape troublesome situations," she raised her eyebrows. If that sounded as ridiculous to him as it did to her, perhaps she was getting through to him.

"I have to ask, however, is there something that drives you to explore those cliffs besides a predilection for danger? Have you thought about what you want to do after Hogwarts, and how Runes might help you?" Oh Merlin, here she went again, attempting to find purpose where there probably was none. Her implication that he was going to graduate was a leap of faith, too.

"Forgive me if I sound discouraging. But even a fourth-year class is bound to be a challenge for someone with no formal training, and I can tell you right now that it will take more than clever flying tricks to catch up. Half the battle is finding your motivation, doing the work necessary to succeed," Aileen paused. "I'm assuming you've not taken Runes before I started teaching here."

Aileen could advise him on how to avoid dangerous areas, if that's the information he was looking for. The class was supposed to be for those who would use the education in their future careers, or for those who enjoyed learning for its own sake, and somehow, Mr. Deres didn't strike her as fitting either category.

Deus licked his lips and finally said out loud what he'd been trying to avoid. It was difficult to lie when you weren't entirely certain that what you were saying wasn't the dead truth. "Ye ken much o' me family, Professor Reid?" He didn't know which professors knew, which hadn't, and who cared one way or another. He presumed most of them knew his legal guardian spent more time in jail than out of it, and that may be enough. " I seem tae have an aptitude for it, and I figure I better get good at whatever I can. If I told ye I didn't much know what I'm doin' and didn't much care, except as a way out, would ye get it? "

Probably not. Pureblooded, rich, used to status and used to power, and the circles that smiled politely and hid fangs under velvet tongues--it was a far cry from Deus's life of bar brawls and slurred hexes, where loved ones were targeted first and bodies didn't get found because no one bothered or cared enough to look for them. The unspoken 'or' after the first sentence remained so, because the reality of life in his summers seemed distant and tinny compared to the civilized unreality of school, where proper witches smiled coolly and the assumption was there was nothing worse in the world than a touch homework essay and losing a Quidditch match. But Deus had been judged more times than he could count, and he didn't much care to do it himself, which is why he was here, giving a go at building a case, despite what he'd heard.

"Nae formally. Done a lot of reading." Did one or two of your homework assignments for classmates who paid me for them.  He figured he could lie, spin some gilded tale about a passion he wasn't going to admit he had for mucking around with these strange shapes, and try to appeal to what he knew about her. But Deus didn't like accepting help from people, and if he was going to do it, his perverse and distorted sense of honor insisted he go about it more or less honestly, and be granted such or dismissed in kind. But he was beginning to think this was a waste of time. Maybe the world just looked weird out his eyes, and all his reasoning didn't mean much after all. It was hard to say why he wanted this so badly, difficult to admit out loud, and impossible to explain his motivation without revealing more of himself than he was willing.  He knew exactly what he wanted out his life, but he hadn't yet breathed a word of that hesitant dream even to himself, and he'd be hanged if he was going to bring it up now.

But damn if he wasn't tired of pussyfooting around. Whatever had sustained him thusfar to dip his head was wearing thin, and a wry impatience was winning out. He hadn't exactly earned the right to ask for a chance, but he wanted his answer so he could move on for better or worse.

"Look. It's got a place in my future, one way or another, and yeah, it probably ain't gonna be one ye'd likely approve of, but if I'm gonna be muckin' around--and I am 'cause they're mortal interestin' and bloody useful," And I ain't got much of a choice about it, "I'd like tae ken what I'm doin'. Give me a test, Professor. Give me an assignment. And I if I donnae perform tae yer satisfaction with regards tae me motivation or ability, or ye just donnae want to tae deal with me, then we can both stop wastin' time and I'll go back tae me books and ye can get back tae..." His imagination, vivid as it could be, failed him, "Whatever ye were doin'." And some of what he was thinking was dead clear on his usually shuttered face. She wasn't his only option he had to do accomplish whatever it was he was trying to gain from this.

She was just the best one.

Aileen stared at Mr. Deres in surprise when he made his case with passion and a touch of desperation. She'd been approaching this as she would with any typical student: questioning his ambition, waiting till she heard the right answers with the right tone, and dismissing his flying tricks as child's play. But he wasn't a typical student. He wasn't much of a student at all, as far as she knew. She'd paid little attention to gossip about his family or his situation at home, instead focusing on the students already taking her class, and assuming that someone else would manage the rest.

Face to face with him, she couldn't subtly glance around for a more openly caring professor to come along and take him under wing. No matter his murky motivations, he had reasons for being here, and even if he told her she wouldn't approve of them now, perhaps she could... well, at the very least, she could give him that test he was asking for. 
 
Aileen glanced at her papers as the silence stretched on, a line between her brows.

"You make a convincing argument, Mr. Deres," she conceded, opening a desk drawer and rifling through the files until she found the proper packet. Aileen hefted the weight in her hands - not too terrible, and dropped it on the desk in front of him. The space was already fairly clear, so she only had to move her things a few inches off to the side to give him more room.

"No one," Aileen shook her head, "in the year that I've been teaching, has offered to take a test they didn't need to, or sit with the fourth-years. So be careful what you wish for," she added with a hint of humor.

She leaned back in her seat and gestured at the parchment before him. "A fourth-year test from last January. It was never actually distributed." They'd spent that month reviewing December's material. "I have an extra set of stones and carving tools, and a rune dictionary if you need it. I'll work on this," she lifted up her gradebook. "You work on your test, and I'll check to see how you're doing in about ten minutes. You don't need to complete the entire packet. Just make some headway."

Aileen flipped open her book, reached for her quill, and glanced at him as if it were all settled. "Sound good, Mr. Deres?"