Early this Monday morning, Aileen opened the door to the empty staff room, and spotted the large teapot by the cabinet. Her gaze took in all the details - cups lined up on the shelves, napkins stacked, counters dry. Setting her papers and other belongings down at a table, Aileen moved closer to the pot, her fingers hesitating on the cover.

Could it be?

It could! An empty, clean teapot. Aileen was apparently the first to the staff room. Which meant that she'd make the tea to her liking, and she could be confident in the knowledge that no cigar butts, quill feathers, or chalk would sully the water while she was here. The strangest things ended up in this pot throughout the course of the day.
   
Once she'd heated the water and let the tea seep, she poured herself a cup and leaned against the counter, taking a sip. The morning was quiet. This school year had been relatively quiet so far, despite the tournament, though that was entirely from her perspective. She no longer needed to worry about the Headmistress's schemes since her uncle had taken Snark's place. Abby seemed to be enjoying her Ministry internship. Aileen was getting along well enough with Professor Maras and the foreign students. And Myrni and Tapendra were still here, which was more of a comfort than she'd ever admit.

She eyed her papers on the table with resentment, when the door opened. Maiko Biladeau-Yukawa, the new Hogwarts counselor, walked in.

Aileen offered a perfunctory smile to the short, talkative woman with the French accent. They had made small talk before, mostly along the lines of introducing themselves. She couldn't imagine that they would have much in common besides their shared workplace. Aileen did her best not to share her problems, while Maiko voluntarily listened to others' all day. But at least the counselor was young enough that Aileen hadn't had the chance to torment her while they'd been students. What she might have done in the past was no reason to be unfriendly now.

"Fresh pot of tea," she gestured toward the counter. "It's safe," Aileen added with a slight smirk, moving aside to give her room.

"One of the benefits of getting here early." That and peace and quiet, though she doubted it would last long with Maiko in the room.

Mornings, how she dreaded mornings. They were the worst part of the day, yet when she woke up today, she could not manage to get back to sleep. It was quite frustrating, and it left Maiko feeling exhausted and run down. She hoped that a little bit of community tea and morning small talk in the break room would wake her up, before she actually had to function so she could do her job.  She didn’t have any appointments today. Mondays were surprisingly, not very busy for her. It was just the first day of the week where she had to be awake. Under one arm, she carried a folder with some paperwork, and they were most likely notes on different students—written completely in French, of course.

When she entered the break room, she was absolutely delighted to see the drop-dead-gorgeous Ancient Runes professor, whom Maiko had been harboring quite a crush on. In her eyes, Aileen was mysterious. To others, she would be seen as an ice queen, or a frigid bitch of sorts. Mai gave the woman a giant, beaming smile, though her eyes still carried hints of exhaustion. “Good morning, Aileen.” She made no attempt to sound peppy, but did her best to show that she was actually glad to see someone else here. The counselor put the folder on the break room table, and made her way over to her coworker.

Her eyes lit up at the thought of tea. Caffeine, yes—that was just what she needed. “There’s no dead animals floating in it, right?” Of course there wasn’t, Maiko couldn’t imagine Aileen drinking any tea that had been contaminated by rotting animal corpses. She made a point to casually brush her arm against Aileen’s while pouring herself a cup of tea. “There’s no benefit to getting here early, unless…” She paused, “It’s a benefit to see you in here. You’re not exactly sore on the eyes. You've got a lovely face.” Maiko winked and poured some sugar into her tea.

Aileen raised her eyebrows slightly at the woman's joke about corpses, wondering why people thought she was the one with the odd sense of humor (or nonexistent sense, but there were a few things she couldn't help but laugh at - camels spitting at Tapendra, for instance).

She noticed the brush against her arm but politely took another step away, assuming that Maiko didn't have the best coordination in the morning, or had already spent her energy grinning at fellow staff members.

Then came the very odd comment! 

Aileen threw her a funny look. "Thank you?" She said warily after a moment, taking a seat at the round staff table.

At least no one else was around yet to overhear it. Aileen was just going to pretend that she hadn't seen that wink, and she was going to hold on to the possibility that counselors like Maiko were ridiculously concerned about giving everyone an ego boost. Not that she needed it. Aileen already knew she had a lovely face!

Small talk to the rescue!

"Have you been settling in alright? Keeping busy, I take it?"

Aileen glanced at her and flipped open a folder of Ancient Runes assignments, somewhat curious if the counselor was dying of boredom or swamped with teenage angst. She did look tired, which might have been due to the weekend and not the work week. But Maiko wouldn't last here for long if she was worn out by the end of September.

When Aileen gave her a strange look, Maiko couldn’t help but smirk inwardly. Well, this woman had obviously not been flirted with much, and probably not by a woman. She sat down at the table and took a sip from her tea. She was curious as to what exactly Aileen was looking at, but decided that the papers were probably some assignments that needed to be graded. Aileen taught Ancient Runes. Maiko had gotten OWLS in Ancient Runes when she attended Hogwarts, but then dropped it when she was doing her NEWTS.

“I’ve been settling in just fine.” Maiko said, “I’m not a morning person, but I’ll get used to waking up early soon enough.” She took another sip of tea, and set the cup down on the table. She grabbed her folder and started taking a look at the papers within. They were just case notes, written completely in French with a couple of English words here and there. “I’m not too busy. I actually wish I was busier sometimes. I wish students had more problems.” Maiko realized how horrible that sounded, and couldn’t help but laugh at her own mental vomit.

“What about you, love? Keeping busy?” Small talk was so boring sometimes.

Aileen moved her things over when Maiko joined her at the table, nodding when she admitted that she wasn't a morning person. She didn't mind mornings, and had gotten into the habit of waking up earlier so she could take Abby to the Ministry and pick her up in the afternoon. It was nice that teaching an elective allowed her to be flexible about her schedule.

Raising her eyebrows at the overly familiar use of 'love', she took another sip of tea. "Busy enough," she gestured at the stack of papers before her and uncapped a bottle of red ink. As she scanned the first page of assignments, her optimism that she wouldn't have to make too many corrections dimmed.

"The addition of foreign students has certainly made things interesting. Some of my students seem more inclined to put forth effort and prove themselves, at least, while others treat it as a chance to expand their social circle. I've had to tell them to calm down more often. But it's amusing to see a few of the studious sorts send the loudmouths glares to rival my own."

Aileen smiled. "Professor Maras has also been quite helpful in keeping order. Some of the Hogwarts students act intimidated by her. Makes it easier for me," she shrugged one shoulder. "I must not seem so unreasonable in comparison," she widened her eyes in mock innocence.

She glanced down at the parchment to underline a translation in red. "I'm surprised the Champions have not stormed your office, considering the first task is this weekend. I suppose that's a good sign?"

She was admittedly very curious about how Sasha the Boy with No Luck was coping, though she kept her tone casual, and only glanced up once she was finished making a correction on the parchment.

She nodded, “I’m honestly surprised too. But I suppose they’re getting ready for the first task in other ways.” Maiko shrugged. She understood why—there was almost a stigma associated with asking for help in this culture, and psychology was such a squishy subject, and on top of that it was a muggle science. Muggle sciences alone were enough to make any magic folk rather skeptical. There had been a few students that she had been able to help, but none of them had been from other schools, and none of them were champions.

“Do you enjoy teaching? I’d imagine it can be stressful at times.” Any job involving, well… People, could be stressful. Others could argue that Maiko’s job was one they would never want to have, since it involved problems. If problems did not exist, she would not have a job in this field.  She loved helping others, and although she had enjoyed working at St. Mungos, it hadn’t been her passion. Working in the muggle world was also not exactly something she was passionate about either, and she felt like being a counselor in a wizarding school was an almost-perfect fit.

Maiko would have enjoyed teaching some sort of psychology or sexuality class, but that was doubtful. At the most, she might guest speak in a muggle studies class. Her eyebrows furrowed together with concern at the mention of a teacher intimidating students—she didn’t think a threatening environment was conducive to student learning. But by the sounds of it, Aileen was getting good results. Maybe the students weren’t as scared as she thought.  Mai was simply going to lay off the flirting just for a couple minutes, though she had every intention on starting up again.

"I wouldn't be much of a teacher if I didn't enjoy it," Aileen replied dryly, thinking it a funny question, and just the sort of thing a counselor would ask.

She did enjoy it, though. Most of the time. Aileen was attempting not to be as aloof as she had been last year, and she'd found that supervising the students during the summer trip had helped with that. She couldn't say she liked every professor at the castle, but being around like-minded people was nice, if only for the scholarly respect they tended to show each other, which she didn't get from most of her family or the few friends she kept in touch with outside of the castle.

"It can be stressful, certainly, but it depends on who is here. If you're lucky enough to teach a few promising students, and get along fine with the other staff, things will generally work themselves out."

Perhaps it was similar for Maiko. Aileen had heard she'd used to work at St. Mungo's, and wondered why she'd chosen to come to Hogwarts.

"What drew you to counseling, if I might ask?"

She glanced up, waved the paper in the air to dry the red ink, set it aside, and looked over the next assignment. 'Helping students' was the standard answer, but Aileen couldn't relate to helping just for the sake of helping. There must be something more to it.

The more that Aileen spoke, the more interesting that she became. Aileen seemed like she was not quite used to socializing, but that did not throw Maiko off. She enjoyed people with all sorts of different personalities. Doing something because you enjoyed it really said a lot about Aileen’s character. It meant that she was able to find and do a job that she loved, and didn’t allow herself to get into a dead-end career that meant absolutely nothing to her.

“Me? Well…” She had to think, “I became a ‘ealer because I was interested in ‘elping people. My younger brother had leukemia—so I’ve always been fascinated with healing. Ma Mère was a psychologist, so I was fascinated with that field as well.” Maiko hoped that she didn’t sound like a nut, but then again, if Aileen looked down on her because of what she was passionate about, Aileen may not have been worth her time.

“After I graduated, I was in training to be a ‘ealer, but my grandparents wanted me to continue on to university. I went to Cambridge, barely got any sleep, and got a couple psychology degrees. I was a fourth floor ‘ealer for a bit, and I loved studying their minds. I realized that… Although I enjoyed my job, it wasn’t right for me. I became a full-time counselor in the muggle community, though I really wanted to do work with magicfolk as well. So, now I am ‘ere. I just feel like ‘ealing minds is just as important as ‘ealing bodies.” Maiko gave Aileen a smile. She doubted that the woman was asking for her life story, but many people questioned why a witch would want to quit a good job as a healer, and focus on… Muggle science.

“I feel like students are under a lot of stress, and need to learn different ways to manage it early on. I’m also a seer, so it makes it easier for me to look out for someone who may face some serious problems in the future. The mind fascinates me—and the more I ‘elp, the more I learn.” She blushed a little—“Ah, Aileen.  Pardonne moi. I get carried away. Why did you become a teacher?”

Aileen raised her eyebrows at the wealth of personal details Maiko offered so readily. Though Aileen was past the days when she'd be petty enough to use the information against someone who had done nothing wrong, she filed away the chatter in her head. Her profession made more sense now. Not only did Maiko enjoy helping people, but it seemed to make her feel needed, and she liked understanding how the mind worked.

So she was a seer, a psychologist, and a Healer, who clearly made family a priority - a family with plenty of muggles, by the sound of it. Aileen neglected to ask if her brother had survived, since that was the kind of thing she felt Maiko would offer on her own.

"It's quite alright," she reassured her with a small smile when she apologized.

"I needed a change," she answered simply, flipping over the next page of parchment. "Before Hogwarts, I worked at the Ministry on Level Nine." Once an Unspeakable, always an Unspeakable, and notoriously secretive.

"Which certainly had its perks. If you can wade through the political squabbling, there's often time to work on your own projects, and you're the first to know about new research and developments. There's job security." If you didn't blow yourself up. "Level Nine has never had to worry much about funding, either." 

"I hear it's somewhat similar at the University, depending on which department you're in," she nodded at Maiko. A worrisome sign of how much she paid attention to Tapendra's rambling.

"But I knew I didn't want to stay there forever. When things started to stagnate, I decided it was time to consider other options." She left out the part where she'd hated her boss.

"This school year is going more smoothly than the first one. The only other 'teaching' experience I had before coming here was supervising employees on expeditions. It's just not the same," she smiled wryly.

Because Kohaku was very much alive, Maiko did not feel the need to elaborate any further on the leukemia situation. He was studying biology, living in a dorm, and was an all around good student. She would have liked to think that if he was a wizard, he would have ended up in Ravenclaw. If not Ravenclaw, he would have been very close—like Maiko had been during the sorting. She had a feeling that Kohaku would have been torn between Gryffindor and Ravenclaw. He did care about people, but he valued bravery and strength just as much as he valued education, loyalty, and friendship. The more that Mai thought about her brother, the more that she missed him. She was glad that Aileen was feeding into the conversation topics—it was a good way to get distracted. 

Ninth floor? That sounded stressful— Maiko did not know very much about what exactly happened there. She just assumed the job was a lot of work, whatever they did. Considering that Aileen taught Ancient Runes, Maiko believed that maybe her job involved heavy translations, or some strange discoveries of new runes. It was always hard to tell. The whole unspeakable thing made the teacher seem that much more mysterious, and that much more attractive.

“Someone knows a bit about Muggle schooling.” Maiko couldn’t help but grin. Many wizards did not care much about muggle education, so it was fascinating that one of her co-workers knew a little bit—especially one that did not teach Muggle Studies. “Parts of the psychology department were not very well funded, though the programs were still strong.” She did agree that overall, funding was not a huge issue in most departments.

“I’m curious, Aileen—what made you realize that you did not want to be there forever?” Maiko leaned in, eyes gazing at her inquisitively. Yes, things started to ‘stagnate,’ but that term was so vague, that Mai was left unsatisfied with the answer.

"Only a bit," she told her with a smirk. Maiko was likely unaware how ironic it was that she knew anything at all about muggle life and was even willing to briefly include the topic in casual conversation. A year ago, Aileen wouldn't have thought it possible, but Tapendra, Sasha, and her younger sister had influenced her to the point that she no longer turned her nose up so quickly.

Politeness kept her from mentioning the things she'd heard about psychologists, which fell along the same lines as Diviners - impractical fluff!

When the psychologist studied her like she was some rare specimen in a jar, Aileen tilted her head and gave her a look that said she knew what she was up to. She dipped her quill into the ink before answering. 

"Ideally, a career should give you the chance to move up eventually, or at least take what you learn and apply it elsewhere," she lifted one shoulder. "When I was there, I did not see that kind of opportunity. The work itself was challenging and new, but the environment was not exactly conducive to growth."

In other words, the animosity between herself and Snark had been mutual, and Aileen had disagreed with her extreme methods of getting things done.

Aileen smiled politely, "As I'm sure you can understand, I'm glad to be at Hogwarts again this year."  Most people were happy enough to talk about themselves that they didn't notice or care to question Aileen's purposefully vague responses. Maiko seemed insatiably curious.

“Oh, there was some workplace drama.” Maiko nodded. Well, that could be interesting. However, she didn’t want to push into that more, and make Aileen irritated. Frankly, Mai was simply more curious about why Aileen knew about Muggle education. If it was only a little, it probably wasn’t from any kind of Muggle Studies class—it was probably something that she had heard elsewhere. The look that Aileen flashed her was, well—cute.

“Ah, Aileen. You’re adorable.” Maiko shook her head. She glanced up at Aileen and attempted to make eye contact again. That was the first rule of flirting—massive amounts of eye contact. Looking at the party you are interested in is always a hint that you may be attracted to her. “So, do you ‘ave anything you like to do in your free time?” Well, personal questions couldn’t hurt, could they? The more that Mai knew about Aileen, the better. The longer they spoke, the more opportunities she had for flirting.

She wished that she had a wingman of some kind; someone who knew Aileen, but was not romantically interested in her. There were very few co-workers that she had actually had extended conversations with. Maiko ran through the list of wingmen in her head, but she could not think of any that she knew for sure, were friends with Aileen.  “Do you ‘ave friends you like to spend time with?” Maybe the teacher’s answers could give Maiko some hint as to who to talk to.

Adorable? She’d heard ‘beautiful’ before. ‘Pretty’ at times, though she considered faint praise something of an insult. ‘Adorable’ was just… oh. She’d seen that look before too!

Only years of hiding her emotions kept her from shifting in her seat and curling her lip. Aileen quickly looked down at her papers instead, studiously avoiding her gaze. 

"Of course," she answered coolly to both questions, giving her the briefest glance.

“I’ve kept in touch with a few friends from the Ministry and people I knew before then.”

She rarely mentioned them in conversation. They were people she met with regularly to keep up the pretense that they'd been buddies since Hogwarts, and to give her mother no reason to scold her for severing important ties. Strangely enough, Oz was the only pureblood from that group she still had any feelings for one way or another - mostly annoyance and resentment, but there was something comforting about the thought of causing frown lines on his face whenever the Reid family owl paid him a visit.

"I sometimes spend time with colleagues here, too," she nodded. "You would like Professor Levartian and Professor Trishna, if you haven't gotten to know them well yet."

Glancing at the door, she'd said it as a diversion, but she could actually see those three getting along. Tapendra could babble on about muggle things and give her his trademark sappy smiles, and Myrni could confide her worries to someone and get more than a calm nod and a few words of reassurance. Actually, she could get more than she bargained for! Aileen resisted a snicker. All in all, the slight flirting made her uncomfortable, and she wasn't sure her methods in shutting down advances from men would work here.

It had been, so far, a refreshing sort of morning. Tapendra had a bizarre sort of sleep schedule; he slept from roughly 3am to 5am, and then got up for his morning routine - which, since this summer, consisted of swimming the lake. Hooray for having a wet suit to make the chilly water bearable.

He was on his way back to the tower, and the grumbling in his stomach made the smell of tea coming from the staff room far too tempting to resist. Hair still wet, he turned on his bare heel and headed to the doors, drying his hair with his wand. The gargoyles outside simply looked at each other as he passed by, thankfully choosing not to question him or his appearance. He was in a slight hurry - a long sleeved tee-shirt and jeans pulled over a wet suit wasn't exactly dignified for a teacher to be seen walking the halls in - and could only hope desperately that Headmaster Reid was elsewhere. He didn't need another O'Morain Incident.

The people inside were a pleasant and welcome surprise, however, and he opened the door in time to hear Aileen say something about him. Well, that was...expected?

"Gossiping about me to the new help, Aileen?" He asked, cheerfully, and nodded to Maiko. "Good Morning."

Not that niceties was entire why he was here; he quickly had a move on the tea kettle, only pausing when he picked it up to ask, in a very cautious tone, "Has this made either of you feel weird? Only someone was brewing potions in it awhile ago." He didn't need to mind up in the Hospital again.

“Oh, Professor Trishna? He seems intelligent and fun. I like ‘is beard.” She said genuinely, the corners of her mouth curling up into a petite smile. “I’ll make a point to talk to Professor Levartian. She teaches Arithmancy, correct?” She wanted to make sure that she at least knew what her staff members taught before getting into deep conversation. After all, she had been working here for several weeks—it would be sad if she didn’t know what the other staff members did. 

When Tapendra entered the room, she couldn’t help but smile. “Quand on parle du loup!” Maiko exclaimed, clapping her hands together. She eyed the tea, and then looked down at her own cup. “Aileen made it, and I'm not ill yet. I'd say it's safe, and about as perfect as it can be, coming from the communal teapot."  She paused, and then looked at the tall male in all seriousness.

“Is Aileen always this cute and mysterious?” Mai asked, glancing over at the woman, and then back at Tapendra. “She’s quite charming.” Sadly, there was no sarcasm. Her words could not have possibly been more sincere.