Ananke was sitting at her desk in the pit of her theatre-stadium-stepped classroom. The simple and dark curtains of the room were pulled away from the tall Victorian windows to let the light pour into the room, shelves and cupboards were closed, and students' desks were empty, but the red-headed professor was still at work to keep up with them--she was going through a difficult stage of balancing teaching with her own research endeavors. Hopefully she would get the hang of it soon.

Her desk was neatly organized with parchments and a neat little notebook she used for recording class relevant information about students, and their individual progress in her class. Due to Ananke being new at this, she often had to reorganize tables and notes accordingly, but she was keeping up with everything all the same.

She had just finished making a list of fourth years and their current development with Divination techniques. A few of them had come to see her and discussed the topic; some were confused, and some weren't sure why or when their arm bands got warm or cold, leading to long and drawn-out discussions, but at least it showed students made progress. Connor Todd was a Ravenclaw who had an aptitude for physiognomancy, divining faces; and Naomi Foley was a Slytherin with a natural inclination towards schemotomancy, divining with the human form. Then there was Neely Woofolk, who was making headway on her project's thesis by discovering she was good with both with reading leaves (of any kind) and xenomancy--Ananke was sure the girl's skills as a social butterfly was partly to blame for that.

Pen pal letters and other various assignments were also sitting on her desk, waiting to be reviewed. It seemed that being a professor seemed to come down to a lifestyle, and not just a career.

And with the open and closing thud of a door, the professor had also gotten a visitor! It was the new counselor--ah yes, socializing: it was often a relaxing and carefree art, but it was often forgotten when work was to be done.

"Miss Biladeau," the ginger witch gave a small smile before gesturing to one of the chairs at the students' desks, "Do you need a seat? Or is this a short and simple visit?"

She had just gotten finished with talking to Mister Casey O’Doherty, and was now ready to socialize with, well, adults. Yes, she did enjoy her job immensely—but she had no plans for the day, and it wasn’t often that students would spend their weekends in her office.  It was usually in the morning before school, or in the evening between classes. Sometimes, appointments had been made that overlapped classes, and in that case an excuse note was written.

 Maiko was very curious about this divination teacher, but at the same time she was also hesitant. Divination was not something that people could simply catch onto if there was no natural talent.  When she entered the classroom, she admired the layout—it looked comfortable, and it seemed like a good learning environment, at least, as good as divination could be. She had always been rather skeptical of divination, though she respected it as a useful tool for those who were gifted. It was helpful for her, but at the same time it could also be extremely vague. From her experience, people often would see what they wanted to see, or what they feared to see.

“Bonjour, Madame Cosmos!” Maiko greeted, enthusiastically taking a seat. “I don’t know ‘ow long I will be ‘ere, but I do fancy those purple curtains.” Purple was her favorite color—her own wand had a purpleheart shaft. “Are you busy?” She didn’t want to be intruding—but she did want to get to know more of her coworkers at the school. After all, she wasn’t planning on leaving this profession anytime soon.

Ananke gave a soft smile at the compliment. She was much more accustomed to combating arguments and criticisms on her work, rather than receiving compliments on her interior designs. Of course she never had stayed in one place long enough before to really focus on such a thing until she arrived at Hogwarts. "Thank you," was the short and lighthearted response, "The black interior tends to have a calming effect on people, and the brighter colors, like purple makes it less creepy and keeps the students awake." Then the witch shrugged her shoulders, fluffing wavy red locks up to her ears as she did so, "I'm not really busy though."

"I'm just trying to get organized--have a seat," she pulled out her wand and pulled up one of the student's black chairs next to her own as she crossed her legs together and casually straightened her posture. Then she put her wand away and pointed at her work, "My third and fourth years are developing any skills they have with divination, and I have a few sixth and seventh years who have taken on a similar task in order to work on their projects."

Then a sigh escaped her lips, more critical with a hint of disappointment, "Apparently the last professor did not try and work with the students to understand or cater to their needs and skills and how they might pertain to the subject--something I learned a theo end of last year," she raised an eyebrow over her blue eyes that she then directed at Maiko with a helpless shrug. Some people were just like that about teaching Divination, even Seers--a rubbish perspective in Ananke's opinion. If you didn't give the subject much weight then why teach it? "So I've been doing a lot of hands-on work in class, to help them review and keep them on task with their assignments."

"So not busy, just taxing on the mind," she shrugged her palms out and regarded her desk with a devil-may-care attitude. Talkative though Ananke was about her woes she was rather positive about improving them and therefore dismissed them after she had found an appropriate solution for them. Of course Ananke could talk at length about anything given the opportunity.

"Though nothing so taxing as counseling--am I right?" She gave a small smirk--Godric knows she lacked the appropriate sympathy to coddle and cater to students like a counselor would or could.

She frowned slightly—the idea of a teacher not teaching students the subject matter was disturbing. Even if she believed that Divination was rubbish, it did not mean she would refuse to teach the subject to those who wanted to learn, but simply did not have the talent or skills needed.  In fact, she probably would not have taken a Divination job in the first place with her own personal beliefs. “What kind of Divination teacher does not teach?” Maiko said, not at all masking how taken aback she was at the thought of a teacher, well, not teaching.

“I personally am a bit… Skeptic about the subject. I don’t think it’s useless, but I do feel like if you do not have the natural talent, it is obsolete.” Maiko paused, “I’m not saying that if you aren’t a seer, you can’t be good at it, but it takes a special sort of intuition. You would think that a teacher would not be teaching Divination if it went against any personal beliefs. It’s just as ridiculous as a pure-blood elitist trying to teach Muggle Studies.”

Maiko raised her eyebrows. Hands on activities were indeed the best way to pick up whether or not someone was naturally talented with divination. Merely reading from a book and trying to figure it out would not help, unless it was paired together with actual activities. “What lessons are you teaching your students, then?” She asked. “Have there been any fun assignments or tools?” When she was in school, she had been quite skilled in this subject—and she still was. It came to her very naturally, though it was not something that she ever considered making a career out of.

"Oh-- there's nothing taxing about counseling. I love it." Maiko's face seemed to glow at the thought of her work. "Yes, it can be difficult, but I love helping people; 'ealing the mind is just as important as 'ealing bodies. After all, your body won't be fit, if you are not mentally fit."  She could talk about her job forever. The mention of counseling made her think of Sasha, and how she wanted him to drop Divination. Perhaps it was time to ask Ananke how Sasha was faring in her classes.

Ananke poked a finger onto her upper lip and kept her thoughts to herself as Maiko responded with her own musings. Once the counselor had finished, Cosmos tilted her finger away from her lips and firmly pointed it at the other witch, "Ah! and there is where it is taxing, in that it demands an emotional understanding and investment from everyone involved," Ananke quickly squeezed her shoulders into a shrug and waved her hand as she continued speaking with a calm air, "Whether or not one enjoys it is another matter, but I prefer tackling worldly problems more than personal ones."

Then Ananke let her eyebrows rise as she pressed her fingers against her chin, "But this is also where the main problem with the art of divination arises... Because it is as subjective as it is objective, you cannot move forward in the subject without a strong sense of yourself, or a personal identity." She then pointed her finger at Maiko again, "And that is what I classify as a sense of intuition," with a nod Ananke continued to explain her point, "Because without that you can grossly misinterpret what you may experience while divining or experience in day to day life."

Ananke tilted her head at this, wondering if Maiko drew enough of a difference between Divination and what Seers experienced to find offense in what Ananke had said. Of course, Ananke was not quite fond of a person's word choice when dealing with differences between different wizarding cultures either, especially of those where blood was concerned. If people continued to perpetuate stereotypes that divided wizards among themselves, then one had to wonder if people in the magical world would ever stop fighting about anything, "Then like a 'pureblood elitist' might complicate muggle studies, a person believing that divination is a matter of natural talent or something mysterious complicates the subject to some level of 'seer elitism'--" Ananke then nodded to the other witch with an amiable tone, "to turn your choice of words on its head, of course," then she continued.

"So purebloods with strong personal beliefs are quite capable of teaching muggle studies if they are aware of their own personal limitations, because then they will not affect the depth of the material taught in the class," Ananke's mentor had been such a man even, though he didn't teach muggle studies he taught her enough about them during her travels. The witch then leaned farther back in her chair as she regarded Maiko under her cerulean gaze, "Just like a quite capable seer can be very incapable of teaching a class if they do not recognize how their own personal beliefs or limitations can create a narrow-minded approach to what they teach--"

Without missing a beat, Ananke returned the conversation back to the realm of Hogwarts, "Now the last teacher did teach the class things, but it was akin to a Defense Against the Dark Arts class reading adventures from a book rather than applying or understanding any practical skills behind the story," and she bobbed her head to the side dismissively.

"To remedy this problem, I have given my beginner students affinity aids to help them develop any skills they have in the subject, and my older NEWT students will be doing research projects and creating types of divination tools for personal and worldly uses," She nodded as she continued, "Some seem to be doing very well with these kinds of activities outside of class so far, I just hope the effect works well on others."

Despite the fact that being a counselor could be taxing, she truly loved it. She thought she was happy in this job. Working with students was something that she always wanted to do, and Maiko was feeling a sense of fulfillment by being able to do it. As Maiko listened, she understood completely where Anake was coming from. Yes, the better one knew oneself, the better that ‘intuition’ tended to be. That was how it worked with her. However, she did not think that was always the case, and felt like some people were simply not meant to be involved in divination. She also felt this way about many other subjects; individual people have individual talents, and individual weak points.

She raised her eyebrows at the words, ‘seer elitism.’ Yes, Maiko knew that it existed. However, she didn’t think it related to divination at all. Most seers were simply better at divination, because they had the natural, raw talent. That’s not to say that non-seers could never learn divination, but Mai felt like it would be much more difficult.  Maiko did think that if a seer believed that it was not part of human potential to be able to do divination without being a seer, that s/he should not be teaching that subject anyway. Mai understood Ananke’s point, but at the same time did not exactly believe it was relevant.

Mai’s green eyes narrowed—apparently the teacher before was not effective, and apparently did not try to be effective. That was something that she very visibly disapproved of. Everything in the woman’s body language hinted towards it.

“A hands on approach will definitely cater to different learning styles of individual students.” Maiko nodded in approval, though she doubted that Ananke felt like she needed approval. “Is it the only approach you’re taking? Are there students that seem to be struggling with this teaching method?” She wanted to know how the classes were going, and eventually she did want to ask about Sasha. After all, Mai wanted him to drop the class, feeling like it was detrimental to his mental health at this point in time.

Ananke curiously tilted her head at Maiko who said that a hands-on approach would cater to different learning styles and if she was doing anything else, as if the technique were solely responsible for how students learned. There were only so many methods to take towards classwork hands-on, lectures, or both--or completely hands-off for quizzes and tests--anything learned outside of class was almost entirely dependent on a student's individual effort.

Maiko was appearing to be very strange to Cosmos, simply over-assuming, or fishing for information (and she asked very loaded questions.) The Divination professor's only response was for her to raise her red eyebrows at the other woman and to give a short shrug.

"Without a survey or several years of experience teaching these children I cannot say with any amount of confidence who is struggling with what," the red-headed professor turned up a closed hand and, with her other hand, tapped her forefinger against her fist that uncurled a finger with each tap, "Because there are numerous reasons students may be be struggling: personal life, post summer laze disorder, that they simply don't like the subject, aren't paying attention in class, the tournament--" with five points counted and five fingers uncurled, Ananke splayed out her other hand towards Maiko.

"There are too many reasons to assume students are struggling from one thing at the moment,"  Ananke then raised another finger as she repeated what she had said earlier, "Now, I use a hands-on approach in class, but I mix it with lectures and outside of class I expect my students to read, research, and learn the proper material, terms, et cetera, that I assign."

She shook her head and wove her fingers together, "No teacher can rely on simply one approach, neither can a student. Learning is a two-way street." While traveling with her mentor if there was anything Ananke knew about learning, it was that.

Mai listened to Ananke, and simply shrugged. “That’s fair. It’ll be interesting to see how your teaching methods work. After all, it is just the beginning of the year.” Mai got the feeling that now was not quite the right time to ask how Sasha was faring in these classes. It seemed like it was too early to tell—classes had only been going for a few weeks.  Perhaps in a couple weeks she would return to the subject. For now, she was honestly getting tired of this conversation. She wanted to get to know her co-workers, instead of talking all professional-like.

“Is divination something that you’ve always enjoyed?”  Maiko asked, grinning widely. Her whole body relaxed and she had a much more casual air about her. “Oooh-oh!” She said excitedly, “Do you ‘ave a family?” Maiko was very much a family oriented person. She loved children, she loved babies, and she loved being close with blood relatives. She was the sort of person who wanted everyone around her to have babies, just so she could babysit. 

Whether the conversation was professional or personal, it all felt casual to Ananke. Pleasant conversation could always turn into an argument with the right instigator and well-laid diction and syntax. Ananke made it a habit long ago to catch it and react to like it was any other casual conversation. The world thrived on variety and she saw no reason to embrace it, even when she disagreed with it and preferred her own style.

The red-head nodded and Maiko as she said it'd be interesting to see how the class panned out--the witch truly did not expect to see results until the end of the year. Divination was such a murky subject at times and thrived on the abstract whereas Arithmancy relied on more concrete interpretations derived from literal computations and formulas. Sometimes other professors seemed to have it so easy.

At the next question Ananke only hummed, and then raised an eyebrow at Maiko's quick addition. Ananke immediately snorted, "Hah! Hardly," she smiled shamelessly and waved her hand dismissively at the subject of family, "No time, no interest," she held up her hands as if she were stopping some large object from rolling into her, "I have parents and students--they are enough right now." Of course while Ananke was at a precariously late age for having children, she'd much prefer to live her life, do her job, and enjoy her own creature comforts, than settle down and start a family.

"I've never really thought abou how much I enjoy Divination," Ananke shrugged her shoulders as she lowed her hands onto her knees,  "it was just something I wanted to try, so i did. Then I got carried away by the whole subject, cultures, the community," she nodded her head and let her carefree blue eyes rest on Maiko, "Its really a lifestyle for me now. If i need something i use Divination, if i want to try something new i figure out how to do it with Divination."

The professor smiled and shook her head as she sarcastically added, "Its hardly as glamorous as your love affair with counseling."

Mai’s eyes widened and her jaw dropped a little. No babies? No family? That was almost… Sad. She understood that not all people were as baby-crazy as she was, but still. For as long as she could remember, she wanted to have a big family. Mai would have loved to have babies of her own, and she would absolutely love to foster or adopt children.  “No interest? But babies are so cute and squishy~” She practically cooed. “I do understand that they don’t have a sense of self until about eighteen months of age, but they’re still so adorable.”

She blushed at the thought of how cute babies were—just like she did at the thought of anything that she felt was ridiculously endearing. Then, Mai thought about it. “I suppose parents and students can be enough.” Mai admitted. After all, taking care of children was a huge responsibility. Mai definitely understood all the reasons that someone may not want to have children at certain points in their lives.  “When I see a baby, I just melt inside.”

The counselor snapped back to the subject of divination, and whether or not Ananke enjoyed it. It definitely seemed like she had a love affair with the subject, and Mai loved the usage of that phrase—love affair.

“Oh, counseling is my secondary passion.” Maiko replied, “First and foremost, I love ballet. I love watching ballet, I love performing ballet. I love to dance ballet in my spare time.” With her build, though, it was highly unlikely that she was ever given the chance to dance professionally. 

Ananke listened to Mai's baby talk with a quirky tilt of her head and pressed her lips together curiously--the woman seemed to have a strange and overwhelming interest in babies. It was one the Divination professor didn't really share with the other woman at all, but Cosmos was not short on her own opinions on the matter--but then the woman liked ballet the most? How strange, Ananke supposed not everyone could professionally indulge in a career choice or passion they liked. But of course, she had spent her life chasing a subject no one thought much of.

"Clearly babies must be a third passion then," Ananke raised her head straight again and leaned back in her chair again, "I think it takes a very dedicated mood to be interested in babies, one that must override overwhelming commitment of a lifetime of effort, grand expenses, and endless attention the what the things truly need." No Ananke did not love children, but she did know what they required and needed--physically and mentally.

Ananke smoothed her hand in the hair as she gave a short nod and a smile, "I only take comfort that whenever I see a child that it is not mine and it will not be coming home with me." She was shamelessly proud of the fact she had absolutely no motherly instincts, but she had the up-most respect for the women who had it and handled it well.

"But ballet?" Ananke asked with a light raise in her voice, "If you love it so much, why not teach it? I'm sure Beauxbatons would adore you for bringing some classical art to the halls of Hogwarts," she shrugged her shoulders as if she were admitting some silly secret, "When I visited France wizards always seemed to have some some grand show going on for it anyway--plants growing from every footstep, snow falling with every spin," Ananke spun a finger in the air before she gave a soft smirk, "Some tasteful flourish of magic."

She laughed, yes-- one could say that babies were a third passion. “You could argue that cooking is also my third passion, but that may be because I always feel like feeding people. Babies could be my fourth passion. Apparently, I’ve got many passions.” It was true, there were so many things that Mai enjoyed doing, and it was hard for her to list what her favorites were, past loving ballet and psychology. “Is there anything you like to do, besides Divination of course.” People had a tendency to enjoy more than one thing, so of course Maiko was interested about what Ananke did in her free time.

One thing that Ananke said definitely caught Mai’s interest-- teaching ballet. That was a fascinating idea, and she was well suited for it.  Mai would have loved to teach ballet at some point, but she wasn’t sure just how interested the students would be. There was also the matter of bringing it up to the headmaster. “It’d be wonderful if I could do that.” She mused, “Though I’d need to bind my breasts down. I don’t think L’headmaster would find it appropriate if my bosoms flop all over the place during a lesson.” She joked. Oh, the small problems that curvy women had.

“I ‘aven’t spent much time with French wizards, just French muggles. My mom’s family is French, and they were muggles.” She explained, “Though I can see French wizards trying to make everything as fancy as sophisticated as possible.”

The counselor's attention as flighty as ever when it came to things to talk about, she asked if Ananke had anything else she liked to do before diving into answering Ananke's own questions. Of course the word 'flop' made the Divination professor give the other woman another puzzling expression before she curiously placed a finger on her cheek, "Then you clearly need to try out a bra made the fashion designer Victoria Geheim[1]."

And then the professor pressed her lips together as she gently, though hesistantly added, "Even though I'm sure there are some interesting muggle underwear..." the red-head then lowered her hand from her face as she enthusiastically added another point, "And male fashion designers like Darian Morgan can really break into female fashions quite fabulously," then she held up a finger as she pointedl continued, "But my motto when dealing with any female products is, 'make sure the swish was cast by a witch'."

"Geheim makes some lovely lingerie as well as various sport bras that she tailor-makes for her customers to reduce or completely rid a woman of..." Ananke's blue eyes became lost in some technical stare as her eyes fell to her breasts, and then to Maiko's bosom, and then to her face again as she fished out a slightly less robust word, "Jiggling..."

"I guess other than comfortable wizarding underwear I can't say if I enjoy anything besides Divination, I don't really think or talk about what is enjoyable I just do it," Ananke indifferently bobbed her head to the side, "Because some days something that might be enjoyable might be an absolute chore or nightmare."

1.	Made this up as a parody of Victoria's Secret

Well, Ananke sure was showing quite a bit of knowledge in the realm of unruly bosom control. Mai made a mental note of the brands, and agreed silently when the professor mentioned that it would probably be best if a witch made the products, as opposed to a wizard. After all, it was easier to understand a body if you grew up with a similar one. That’s not to say that men could not understand how female bodies worked. “I’ll ‘ave to look into that. Maybe it’ll make it easier for me to find a casual dancing partner.”

Maiko was always looking for somebody to dance with, and it didn’t even have to be ballet. She loved blasting music and just dancing, and when it was with people, she always felt like there was some sort of special, fun, lighthearted bond between them. There was just something about dancing with others that was special to her. Her younger brother had been eager to dance with her when they were younger, but as he has gotten older he has grown out of it. He would probably dance with her once this summer when they met up again, but it wouldn’t be enough. At least, not for her.

“You really don’t ‘ave any ‘obbies other than Divination?” Maiko was sure that there must have been something else that Ananke enjoyed. Only enjoying one thing just sounded sad to the counselor.

Ananke tilted her head to the side with another roll of her shoulders, "Reading?" she raised a palm out helplessly, "Like I said, I prefer to enjoy life as it gives me things to do, as they happen. Understanding it, playing with it, and comprehending it in my stride. I don't see any point in overindulging in one thing--I enjoy everything in moderation."

She wasn't sure what kind of answer to give Maiko on the subject of hobbies. It wasn't that she didn't do anything, just that she didn't really classify anything as a 'hobby.'

"As far as dancing partners go," she smiled with a quirk of mischief to her lips, "Honestly, I think you should have a round with the new Headmaster, I think he would be an interesting dance partner. He seems to be rather amiable if you catch him at the right moments."

Then she closed her eyes and folded her palms together, "You should tell him it's a great stress reliever--doesn't hurt to try and have some fun with colleagues at least," she gave a chuckle, indicating the idea might be a little ridiculous--but amusing regardless of the outcome.