Alistair yawned, wide and long enough his jaw actually popped. It was 8 bloody AM, and for a man so used to working through the night, 8am was far, far too early for this kind of thing. The fact his new job also mandated late hours did not help this much.

He wasn't sure why he'd gotten the short stick on this one. Well actually, he knew why. He just wished it wasn't the case. Apparently Hogwarts was low on teachers who could teach outside their discipline, and so he'd been required to step up. He'd actually like to keep this job, he reminded himself. It paid well, he didn't have to rent out his rooms in the castle, and he had free access to the potions cabinets. It wasn't a bad deal.

Of course, being Landis's lackey wasn't exactly sweetening the deal, either. Damn.

The greenhouse he'd been directed to was a few rows over from where the actual class was taking place. It also was very clearly a spare one; plants were less manicured and what appeared to be old student projects sat on the shelves. There were also rather noticeable burn marks on one of the walls, which he regarded with caution. The plants he need were present, though, locked away at the back.

Alistair bound his long hair back as he looked around, lips pressed together. Blair had sent him a rather alarmingly large set of parchments on what this kid was supposed to be learning, and he'd glanced over them. It was pretty basic stuff - well, basic for a Herbologist. From what he'd heard of this kid, it wasn't going to be so simple.

He pulled the packet of paper out of of his baggy coat, frowning at the Professor's handwriting. The parchments had encountered a water spill the night before and the ink had run, but he could still make out the name.

The door opened, and Alistair stood up from where he'd been leaning against one of the shelves. He glanced at the name again for a moment, before regarding the child suspiciously. "You O'Dirty?" He asked, arms crossing.

Casey had thought, given that Blair had Trolled him out of Herbology, that by agreeing to have tutoring in response to making up the required class, he would have some leeway with the terms of the tutelage he would suffer. Perhaps he could have conned a friend, well, associate into giving him all of the notes on class some hour of the week. Hell, he would have accepted this happing on the weekend, if he meant he didn't have to subject himself to the early class time of the Herbology Tuesday and Thursday periods, freeing the work week to glorious open mornings where he could do the truly important stuff like spell regimens.

No such luck. Damnation.

Instead, his modified schedule had been exactly the same, only in the Herbology slot he was told to go to an old greenhouse. That made no sense, Casey was fully supportive of how clear Professor Blair had said he was never to step into a greenhouse again. Walking across to the run down greenhouse, he almost expected a Caterwauling Charm would trigger the moment he came within twenty feet of one of the other greenhouses. That's how he would have done it.

It became apparent on entering the dingy greenhouse that Casey was the cleanest thing inside it. His tutor was given a glance over with raised eyebrows. This hardly seemed fair, it appeared Blair had gotten a cousin or sister of hers to cover Casey's remedial work.

"You O'Dirty?"

It was stupendous how Casey's grinding teeth could not be heard. "No, but this place certainly is. O'Do-hert-ee," he said in crisp tones. He consulted his modified schedule, frowned, but continued. "Miss Grey."

What kind of name was Alistair for a woman?

Alistair glared at Casey silently for a long moment, lips pressed into a line so thin it could have been used as a ruler. His hair seemed to gain even more of a messy quality, giving him the appearance of a cat with its hackles raised.

It wasn't an unusual mistake. People just usually refrained from using indicators and called him 'you' until he clarified. He wasn't called a girl that much and it wasn't exactly welcome when it did happen.

His nostrils flared but he forced himself calm; he slowly relaxed, sighing in a quite put-upon manner, and checking the parchments again. The ink-smeared name was still mostly illegible. "Well, O'Doherty, it's Mister Grey," he said, icily. He stashed the papers back in his coat and put his hands on his thin hips.

"Dirt and greenhouses are - shockingly -  inseparable, and unfortunately for you you're going to be getting into the dirt quite a bit today," he said, tone making it clear he had no issue with that and would probably enjoy watching. "Blair wants you to learn how to treat plants with respect, or some codswallop."

He turned on his heel and marched to the end of the greenhouse, stopping before what appeared to be a cage covering part of the floor. He pulled his wand out and stood back, lifting the cage via a quick levitation spell. The plants revealed below hissed and snapped. They were flowers with what appeared to be mouths, lined with rows of sharp thorns that looked like teeth.

"Fanged Geraniums," Alistair said. "She wants you to harvest their buds without hurting the plants."

Mister Grey. That certainly brought raised eyebrows. Casey performed a rapid diagnosis on why. It must be the hair. Casey never like the look of long hair on men, he vowed his would never grow beyond his neck. That, and now that Casey noticed it, Mister Grey was a rather narrow fellow. Barely padded bones. And his face...was not much of a 'his' face. Further speculation gave Casey an image that disgusted him. What if he looked like that when he was older? Oddly comforting was the notion that his body had form. Well, one body.

"Of course, that bit is true. Unless they've invented plants by now that grow completely in air. I was merely commenting how it looks like this place receives zero in the way of maintenance." He wasn't about to explain while he needed to 'treat plants with respect' and that codswallop.

Casey eyed the fanged geraniums with the most disdain he had used on anything in the place thus far. Without hurting the plants. Yet it was still a plant that could hurt back. "Privy, is there anything about my protection in the lesson plans? Or is this an attempt to do away with me entirely?"

Alistair just shrugged, squatting down just out of the plants' reach. The plants hissed and snapped, aiming for his exposed fingers with an eagerness one would usually ascribe to frenzied fish.

"Your protection," Alistair said carefully, "Is learning how to harvest them properly. The point of it is not to get hurt, kid. Besides, you're fine." He shuffled in his coat for a moment and produced a small vial, which contained a blue potion that bubbled in the early morning light. "You get bit, this'll fix you right up. It's not that painful, anyway." The look he gave Casey made it clear he figured the kid would scream and faint after the first scratch, though.

That said, he shrugged off his coat, leaving him in his baggy white shirt. He took a moment to roll the sleeves up, eying the plants with a rather calculating glare.

"Got in trouble for using your wand, didn't you?" He asked as he did this, pulling out his wand again. "Better hope you can use the damn thing properly, then. Here's what you do."

With that, he fired off a very quick Stunning spell, the small plant in question stopping just long enough for him to slash off its seed packet with a slicing charm and catch it before the other plants caught on and snapped at his retreating hand. They got with in a hair's breadth, but Alistair was clearly well practiced at this, and his arm returned unscathed.

"Think you can manage that, kid?" He asked, tossing the seed packet up and down casually. He smirked; the Herbology professor had either chosen this on purpose or O'Doherty had chosen a bad point to need tutoring.

"Oh, well if I'm allowed to use magic..." Casey brandished his wand. Again, no security enchantments sounding the alarm. He would get along as far as he could using magical methods. Obviously Mr. Grey hadn't been told the full story and this suited Casey just fine. Herbology was stupid as a class effort anyways, everybody got in the way.

Grey's tone was far too condenscending than what Casey would have liked. So he just smiled in the way that let his folllowing actions speak volumes more than his words. Mr. Grey would not be holding the impression for long that Casey was forced into remedial because he was useless with his wand.

"If we follow your method of stunning them, it may was well be an efficient use of the time." Casey had yet to crack the All Stunner, where he could take out multiple targets with silver light, but he knew the gist of firing regular stunners in quick succession. He did so, and in seconds all of the fanged geraniums were incapacitated. He could have done the same with severing spells but he was feeling overzealous. He could be dinged even further if he 'hurt' the plants.

Instead, Casey began picking off the pods by hand. The least prickly parts of the plant but mildly irritating all the same. "Managed enough for you, have I?"

Alistair's expression flickered, his smug air deflating a bit and eventually reasserting itself as a kind of grochy annoyance, as if a storm cloud had gathered around him and thunder was rumbling in it. He was...well, he was impressed, in part of his shriveled heart. The kid was faster with his wand than most kids his age and had damn good aim.  Damn better aim than he'd ever had as a kid.

Not that the twerp was better than he was now. Alistair might have had to hurt himself if that was the case.

He pressed his lips together. "That was...not...bad. For a kid," he said, through grated teeth - his tone so terse it was clear even admitting that was basically like pulling a tooth. It was his bloody job, though. Alistair wasn't going to get sacked just because he wasn't providing useful feedback or some other bloody bollocks. It didn't make the little streak of piss any less of a giant waste of-

"Hand me one of those," he added, trusting out a thin hand demandingly and very handily interrupting his own line of dark angry grumbling. "Did you even get shown how to harvest the seeds?" He asked, swiping one and casually popping it open with a careful but quick press of his finger. He inspected the seeds inside - they were greenish in color instead of the desired reddish color. 

"Even for a kid, when compared to the two present spell casters in this shed I think that was rather stellar. Unless the strangling vines learn how to grip a wand and show us both up."

Casey wondered what salon and spa they had dragged this girly man out of. If he was this cranky all the time it was a wonder he had made it past the job interview. Grey had that distinctive Slytherin air about him so no doubts he was full of hidden depths.

"Possibly." If he had Casey had not been paying attention, probably marveling at why you would want seeds to plant more of these things. One of the pods was passed to Grey. Apparently to open the Godric forsaken pods it was a matter of squishing the pod in the right place. Casey squeezed but nothing happened. Further strain only pricked his skin.

And now his hands were itchy. Which was annoying as the only way to relieve itching was to use one's hands.

Alistair gave the kid a look of utterly unmasked disdain, mixed with the same sort of sarcastic disbelief of an adult being told that they didn't have any power over a teenager...by the whiny teenager.

"Unfortunately for you, being an arrogant twat will get you no where, kid," he said, coldly. Sometimes job descriptions were so petty. It was kids like this that made him wonder how much harm he'd really do if he accidently burned the castle down. Bet the little idiot thought he didn't need to know any of the spell casting principles to cast NEWT level spells, either. There was a reason they thought things for seven years. Nope, it was just wand waving and words to this little pig's testicle. How slow his classmates must be not to be as good as him!

Alistair knew this type; he'd been a Slytherin, after all. They were the ones who bombed their OWLs because they were too good for their own year and thought they could just read ahead in the book. And, for some reason, usually thought they were the only ones who'd tried that.

Oh well. This kid was clearly one of those who thought he was hot shit, so so be it. The kid'd learn eventually that magic wasn't everything. Actually, now seemed like a good time. No wonder this idiot had gotten kicked out of class. Well, this'd be a lesson on something, even if it was just why not to be arrogant to your tutor.

He stuck his hand out. "Hand me your wand, O'Doherty," he said, matter of factly. "Now."

Casey flung off the accusation with ease. "I know being an 'arrogant twat' as you put it will get me nowhere, that is why I actually do something. Intensified study into magical theory, effectively acing wandwork courses, hard wrought fruits of my labors because it will be my magical might I am remembered by." Casey's study habits and priorities where skewed in one direction, to be sure, but you could not call him lazy. He had a drive equal to the Durmstrang Orbietel in the Spellworks discipline. Learned the spell book front to back cover without shortcuts...excluding a small but standout list of incidents like magically induced growth spurts or the mess in Herbology that landed him here in the first place. Plus, if he didn't have the magic to do something he had the wealth and subsequent resources.

So Casey O'Doherty was going to go far indeed.

The palms of his hands were tingling like mad, the most annoying thing about this remedial class until Grey said those words. "Hand me your wand, O'Doherty. Now."

Whatever the intention of the action, it was the tone, the demand, that made Casey defensive. He smiled but it was not a pleasant smile. A smile he could hide behind while imagining what kind of horrors and punishments from a history of dark lords and overzealous past Hogwarts caretakers that liked to give detentions he could use to turn the tables on Grey who had the gaul of thinking he could simply hold the ancestral O'Doherty wand that had forged a clan, let alone even try to use a wand that played favorite allegiances, the most stubborn of ancient wandlore.

"And why should I do that?" Casey said simply, searching for a reason.

Alistair's expression didn't waver. Who did this kid think he was? What a self important little twit. Bet he thought his daddy would just buy him out of any trouble. Authority-shmority, huh?

"You'll do it because it's an order, O'Doherty," he said, icily, hand still outstretched and held steady. "From someone one who outranks you, and is in charge of reviewing your progress to your professor."

His eyes narrowed slightly. Part of him was begging for the kid to test his patience - and the other half was wishing he was still in his shop. If this kid had pulled that there...well, he was always in need of human body parts and chopping this kid up would have been very, very satisfying.

"You've got a choice, kid. I'd recommend making the smart one."

Outranking, that was Grey's big answer. He was only saying that because he was an adult talking to a fourth year student. If they wanted to talk ranks, Casey was halfway along his school career, outclassed by upperclassmen but better than the pathetic younger students. The student 'ranks' were separate from the hierarchy of the Hogwarts staff. Sure, Grey was an adult but he was the lowest of the low. Not Headmaster, Head of House, or even a professor. Grey was the Caretaker, right at the bottom of the barrel. Even the gamekeeper outranked him, since with the oaf Hagrid back into his former niche at Hogwarts he outranked Grey by being a professor, unsophisticated half giant that he was. Still, Casey would handle Hagrid shouting at him longer than the 'instruction' from Grey.

And Casey could still beat him. He'd rather have Dingy hold onto the wand because it was safer than trusting it to Grey. One command an he could summon the elf and dismiss him before Grey could react. Or to really mess with Grey, Casey could open one of the windows, make of show of how he would toss the wand rather than give it up and as he turned to toss it order Dingy as quietly as possible to retrieve the wand and get out of here with it as fast as possible...

Casey sighed at the thought. For once his schemes seemed so exhausting just to get his way. Victory at any cost. "FINE." That word could have etched into stone, as if Casey had cast 'Avada Kedavra.' He gingerly passed the wand to Grey. "I'll have you know that if any harm comes to that wand you'll have more than me to deal with. The entire O'Doherty clan, people that don't recognize your authority. And this isn't because 'spoiled arrogant son' or whatever you think of me got his wand confiscated, it is because that wand is their property. You'd survive just as miserably as if you had decided to rob the manor."

He hated this fact, that while the wand was his during his education it was still 'owned' by his grandfather. For once he could use it as leverage against Grey, otherwise there had been times at school like last years finals where Casey had to give up the wand whenever his grandfather or uncle got caught in a duel. But Hornbeam was a very stubborn wood that would cling to one master. For the amount Casey used it, he could sense that allegiance had transferred to him, given how long it took its other owners to acclimate to the wand again when they confiscated it.

Casey would rather move on and be angry at something else so he could stop loathing at someone like Grey holding the wand. "So," he continued no less indignantly, "I take it we have come to the non-magical portion of the lesson?"

Alistair turned the wand overin his long, thin fingers, watching as Casey whined he wasn't a spoiled brat...and then immediately acted like one. Kids. They were so cute.

He looked at Casey and smiled, in a bemused sort of way. "So you're one of those O'Dohertys? How adorable," he said. "No wonder you think you matter. Did Daddy teach you all sorts of scary spells?" He let out a short, sharp laugh. "If you're not a spoiled brat, then don't act like one," he said, without ice in his tone. He was much more amused than anything else, and it showed.

As if he gave a shit about the O'Dohertys. They might even thank him for teaching this little streak on their line a very well-deserved lesson, because if this kid thought this attitude would get him through life, he'd be dead 6 months out of Hogwarts. The O'Dohertys weren't the only heavy weights in the ring; there were plenty of people who wouldn't mind seeing their heir very, very dead. And when the heir was a useless priss like this kid, they were doing the world a favor.

"This might be your property," he said, looking at the wand again, "But given that your actions and attitude make it very clear you couldn't give less of a shit about other people's property, why should I care about yours? Because your big scary daddy will be mad?" He chuckled, and cocked his head to the side. "I don't respect your or your family, kid. You don't respect mine or me. But here in this school, I outrank you regardless. All of the staff outrank you. Get used to the idea, and lean how to bow to authority without getting your panties in a knot, and school will be much easier for you. Because here on campus, your name means nothing."

He pocketed Casey's wand, and nodded to the seed pods. "Get harvesting. You saw how I did it, so I hope you weren't so busy whining you missed it."  He picked up his paperwork and withdrew a quill, beginning to absently write.

Casey could feel his blood boil. The burning. Even with his wand gone he expected he was getting close to that moment where the fire just burst wherever he wanted it, like a bonfire of old dresses. But even as the anger mounted, he felt so incredibly tired. As if anger was a strain he could no longer muster. And then it became like the initial aftermath of his fight with the baybarb in Herbology. The rest of the world didn't matter. It faded away because it wasn't important.

Still, there was one thing Grey needed to get straight. "My father is neither scary, mad, or stellar in the magic department." The words still carried an enraged tone but it rang subdued and hollow, dropping Casey to the vicinity of ticked off. "He's a spineless coward that could never survive on his own when there was--your assessment of my upbringing is null." Casey had nearly said how father was never there for mother. He was not about to dredge that wrinkle up in front of Grey.

Figures that the O'Doherty's had more enemies than friends. Or peons quaking in fear. So much for that line of reasoning. Grey used one of the old pathetic arguments of 'if you don't, why should I?' Even if the threat felt legitimate, even Grey could not get away with harming a student's wand for no reason. This was where Casey remembered that he was on probation and not expelled.

He continued to rage in his brain only for some reason the voice was high pitched and girlish. It wasn't me not giving a shit about school property! That destruction was unintended on my part and will people STOP BRINGING IT UP!! The mention of panties being in a knot was also not helping.

There was nothing else to do but to buckle down to the task. The geraniums were still stunned, so it only took a minute to collect all of the pods. He dumped them on a workbench and began prying the pods open with his fingers. It was annoying. The burrs on the outside of the pods kept pricking into his hands. It felt like he was plunging his hands into bowls of needles. Casey was not about to complain, that old silence had taken ahold of him again. Most of the seeds harvested were red but plenty were green.

Of course, this would be something else to be allergic to. Casey's hands stopped functioning altogether, he struggled opening a pod with clumsy fingers.

Alistair's eyebrow quirked; if what the kid said was true, then his father was also an easy target. There was useful information, right there. And the O'Dirtys were filthy rich, weren't they...interesting.

He just smirked at Casey, however, making it clear he didn't believe a word the kid was saying. So far he hadn't demonstrated anything that made Alistair think his assessment was null. He was still an annoying, overprivileged brat; it didn't matter if his father was spineless or not. In fact that probably contributed, because his father never hit this little twat when he deserved it.

Still, Casey seemed to quiet down and glower and then finally got to work, which was just fine with Alistair. He leaned against the wall of the greenhouse, watching from the corner of his eye. He absently picked up one of the pods, his fingers moving deftly over the surface and avoiding the tiny thorns, popping it open and inspecting the contents.

He glanced over again and noticed the stiffness in Casey's hands, and raised an eyebrow. "Someone put a potion in your oatmeal, squirt?" He asked.