Wednesday evening, after dinner, still before curfew

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Wednesday, half way through the week, and looking to the weekend where the Halloween celebrations were in preparation. Ignan had taught a busy day of first, second, fourth and the eldest students, and as he had Thursday without classes, he had elected to begrudgingly spend time with his colleagues.

It didn't do him any harm to do this, he knew, as colleagues talked of students and disagreements and he became most informed about goings on in classes in a different angle to what he heard in corridors amongst the idle chatter of students. Ignan would sit aside for that to work best, pretending to read the newspaper undisturbed. 

The Hogwarts Staff Room was filled with mismatched chairs which had increased in number over summer, and also moved. Initially this had unintentionally irritated staff who wished to restore a familiar order in chair positioning and grouping - the hierarchy. Now things had settled, and their international counterparts were joining in the unspoken rules of chair ownership - where one never sat in the chair of another.

Ignan, on this evening, disobeyed the rules, knowing that few, if anyone would complain due to his reputation. Seating himself in the main group of chairs around a low table, he placed a deck of cards upon it and watched as newspapers and books lowered, and his colleagues were intrigued.

"If I have to dictate the rules of seven bats in the steeple to any of you, I will be appalled.[1]" He announced.

1.	Obviously not a real game, but a wizarding one. We can suggest its similar to blackjack or twenty-one, though it is just a mechanism to gather staff together to interact on this occasion.

He didn’t give one flying rats rear about seating order, nor about the politics that came along with it. Gale knew well he was the new blood, but he would be damned before he would allow some other professor to tell him where he could or couldn’t sit. The gypsy born, mixed not only of muggle blood, but of a rainbow of nations. Nightingale couldn’t have been more a mutt in the land of pure breeds, but tonight he wore those color with pride. His rich Picardie accent sounded off on well cultured lips, and smiled (a rare sight to the assistant headmaster.)

“Roll your sleeves up, Strom. I know you keep an ace there.” He chided playfully, kicking his leather bound feet up in the chair next to him to keep it clear. He wasn’t about to get stuck beside Landis. Not if his life depended on it anyway, and especially not after their trip in the wood. Landis was scared, no matter how much he tried to admit it. How miserable it must have been to get his hands dirty with soil for once and not just the blood of his enemy.

As the young blood, he tried to fit in, but now as the drama around his classes started to unfold Nightingale did well to keep himself hidden; not yet ready to return to the politics that came along with teaching, but not hiding either. He simply, just as he was now, waited to be dealt a perfect hand.

Landis sat with his usual paper, undisturbed by his colleagues. The influx of foreign staff had found him coolly reserved, with a tendency to keep to himself unless directly engaged. Despite his cutting reputation with the students, he was not often rude to his coworkers - he preferred to keep a neutral workplace no matter how personally offensive the idiocy he overheard. Fortunately, with the exception of some of the more eccentric folk (always a risk in wizarding communities), the newcomers were refreshingly sharp. He particularly liked the ones from Durmstrang.

Not to say he was always successful with his intended treatment of his fellow staff. He was certainly sharp and snappish in the evenings, no patience for Trishna's bumbling or Sandusky's good cheer, and by now everyone knew he was more than friendly with Juliette. Ignan was one of his most warmly-regarded colleagues, and when the older man entered the staff room and set down a deck of cards he was immediately interested. It helped that he had had a thorough education on all things with stakes thanks to over a decade spent at the hands of Dazmond, Dolly, and the Knockturn crowd. It surprised anyone else he played with that a man so stiff and prickly as Landis could be such a cardshark, but he'd learned young out of sheer self-defense. Landis' friends were merciless, and he had never been particularly fond of losing all his clothes.

Unfortunately Kesali had joined right in, but given the public locale some unsavory company couldn't be helped. Landis left the paper on a table and joined the group with hardly a glance for the other man, all his good regard for Ignan.

He gestured once, attentive, not with impatience. His voice was smiling even if his mouth was not. "Deal me in."

“And I, as well,” another voice spoke up, its tone quiet—but even—as its owner looked up from her own papers before her. Although she normally chose to complete her work within the peace of her own office or at Hagrid’s, that wasn’t always. Today the staff room found her present, seated at Ignan’s table in a lush, high-backed bergère as she set down her quill.

Though card games were an activity she rarely participated when at school, they were something the professor was quite familiar with; due to her own experiences in places best left unheard of—some of them so luxurious there had been no room for taste, others… quite the opposite—she was sure of her own skills, but infrequently felt moved to use them. With the game proposed by the elderly Defense professor who carried himself with dignity, Bai found herself interested in participating—despite the inclusion of the Charms professor (she eyed his propped up feet with veiled distaste) and the possibility of certain other eccentrics joining in as well.

She eyed Ignan curiously. “Which variant shall we be playing?”

Oh good, he hadn't actually scared them off.

The prospect seemed something of an excitement to Kesali who quickly joined, but carefully reserved the chair beside him with his feet.

"Roll your sleeves up, Storm. I know you keep an ace there." The Charms Professor announced, to Storm's mild amusement given his expression in return.

"Deal me in." Landis joined them, with not a glance to his counterpart.

"And I as well." Bai added, joining the three men at the low table surrounded by armchairs. "Which variant shall we be playing?"

"Hogwarts, of course." Ignan replied without hesitation. "We'll save the embarrassment of a bet until you're versed and we're in Hogsmeade where such things would not be frowned upon. However…" He looked at his colleagues, "Loser of this round takes a detention for the winner."

As he spoke, he removed his jacket, placed it over the arm of his chair, revealing a neat, faintly pinstripe waistcoat. He then, in honour of Kesali, pointedly unbuttoned his shirt cuffs and folded them up, before tilting his head and giving Nightingale a look of 'happy now?' before shuffling once more and dealing. His movements exactly as he performed his spell casting, precise and fluid.

"You're all too soft with detentions, so I'm almost tempted to lose and demonstrate suitable punishment, though one can never be sure what Landis does in those dungeons…"

More the merrier, and no need to describe the card game since its completely fictional. Cheating, and accusations of are of course encouraged.

Sissel was in the middle of a Quidditch Illustrated article when the call for a game came about. He pulled up his sleeve to check all of his contrasting timekeepers. Old training died hard from TTI days. Even if his Time Turner wasn't present he kept no fewer than four watches.

Chair hierarchy meant nothing to Sissel because his chair was only about when he wanted it. Placement was another thing entirely. One foot kicked at the ground, sending his seat to spin. When both legs were tucked in by the wall he gave a calculated kick, the push sending HoM professor and chair rolling across the Staff Room to the table, where he rotated into place.

Sissel's favored method of seated transportation: wooden office chair.

"Deal me in, I've got time until eight." He fingered the cards shot his direction into a neat stack. "They've got me teaching until 9 PM, how bizarre. Even when I was a student in NEWTs, we never had a class after dinner unless it was Astronomy."

Cards were such a large part of his life, they passed time, they shared stories, they told of futures unknown or well harbored fears. They knew more about yourself than your own reflection, and when he was dealt his set he worried through the suits with a weary eye. (One that he had to keep from rolling at the sound of Landis’s voice. It has certainly been an interesting year thus far, and it wouldn’t have surprised him more if he’d been dealt all in red.

Bai Li Yang, had a reputation just by the way her heels clicked across the stone. Even Judy Garland would have been envious of the way she could call them all home. A woman like this didn’t just walk by, not without making you feel as if you were nothing but a speck on the wall. Gale couldn’t help but be envious of even the stone as her feet struck, the chair that encased her, or even Ignan as she spoke to him.

Gale pulled his feet down after Landis was seated, and smiled as Storm rolled his sleeves. However it was when Sissel made his appearance did Gale truly grow quiet with admiration. His own love of old movies, and silver screens had him travel time in his day dreams. But what Jowd specialized in was something he himself wanted more than anything.

“I don’t think I would have been a very good student after dinner. I’m surprised we have so many dedicated students who are. Dinner meant we were finished, and the parties always started at dusk.”

Landis took note of the two other arrivals, offering a shallow nod to whichever met his eyes. Neither were, in his limited experience, objectionable. Kesali, suddenly alert, removed his feet from the furniture and followed Bai Li Yang hopefully with his eyes; Landis' lips tugged up in wry amusement as she sat elsewhere, an expression which he leveled at his cards.

As Ignan outlined his terms Landis felt a faint thrill of horror at how very fair and desirable playing for detentions sounded now. A job was a job, but this one placed him in a group in which he'd never expected to be included. But on the other hand, the part of him that regretted going from Unspeakable to glorified childsitter was by now very small and schadenfreude wasn't enough to counter the tediousness of an evening spent chaperoning detentions.

"You're all too soft with detentions, so I'm almost tempted to lose and demonstrate suitable punishment, though one can never be sure what Landis does in those dungeons…"

He flicked through his cards, sorting by suit. "No need for concern; the manacles left with Filch. But if you'd like to throw the game, Ignan, I certainly won't object." He glanced up, raised a brow, showed the shadow of a smirk. "Though losing a game of cards doesn't seem quite up to your fearsome reputation. In public, no less."

"No need for concern; the manacles left with Filch. But if you'd like to throw the game, Ignan, I certainly won't object. Though losing a game of cards doesn't seem quite up to your fearsome reputation. In public, no less." Landis teased. He'd always had time for the Head of Slytherin, and respect - they shared a twisted sense of humour at times.

Ignan returned the smirk and settled into his seat a little better now he was accompanied, and Sissel had joined them.
"It depends if you want a demonstration with those manacles subsequently, I'm sure you'd commit to my reputation despite the card game."

He rearranged his cards and rubbed his chin with his thumb and forefinger thoughtfully,
"Do manacles feature in Salem detentions, or do you all sit round and 'talk things through'?" He asked Bai, laying down his hand on the low table.

With quiet amusement tugging faintly at her lips, Bai surveyed the exchange with interest. In this group she did not know any of them—only of them—and fewer still had piqued her interest; that her status as a foreigner only furthered her detachment from the subtle nuances at work.

However, it placed her in a unique position as well. Despite her own irrelevance to their dynamic, her outsider’s perspective granted her a rather… closer view, so to speak, and what she observed, intrigued her.

Looking up from the hand she’d been dealt with, Bai turned to Ignan and smiled.

“There are some of us who employ the latter, yes,” the professor conceded, as she rearranged them in no particular order. “I myself am guilty of it, when it seems to be all that is required,” -though her tone often depended on the student in question. “However, when words fail…” The smile twisted with just the faintest note of irony. “Where we lack in manacles, we compensate with twenty-page essays and labor.”

Calmly, almost demurely, she lowered eyes as the rest of her cards were slid into place. “Our stables are vast, and they are not the only places where we keep animals.” Her own personal menagerie aside, their greenhouses frequently counted as such, too; with so many Herbology-inclined students enrolled that a program had been made for them, the ‘houses were often filled with things more beast than vegetation. “The alternative is paperwork—which is its own department, so to speak.”

She looked up at Landis then, those dark eyes lit with polite inquiry. “You are the Head of House,” she said, collapsing her cards into a single stack with one, fluid motion, “of one that is quite outspoken.” Casey’s peevish face—and Naomi’s own sleek brand of harshness—rose to mind, starkly different with that one, peculiar similarity. Delicately, she raised a brow. “If not manacles, then what do you use, may I ask?”

Gale shuffled through his cards, realizing how badly his lips burned for a smoke, and his tongue watered for a bit of whiskey. It came natural seeing a spade--on should always walk on the wild side when walking through trumps.

"All bark and no bite. The lot of you. I've yet to have one student crying in my office come running from one of yours."

"Who says they'll come running to you?" Ignan quipped back and smirked at Kesali. "They're too busy licking their wounds or finding somewhere safe to rock back and forth." His smirk grew into a rare grin - he was joking, the worst he'd done was risk students being poisoned, or hang them upside down for lengths of time when they were tested on subject mater. Well, those were a couple he could bring to mind.

"As for Morgan's methods, I'm not sure he'll share. Slytherins require a certain brand of punishment from their Head of House, and Landis is only too well equipped to deliver it." There was the regular slip slap of cards on the table as they continued, each contemplating cards a moment as they appeared.

"Are you trying to insinuate you don't issue detentions, Nightingale, and that your student behaviour record is spotless? I'll have to drop in unannounced one day..."

Landis shook his head, both brows rising. He raised a hand, the one not holding his deck, lips quirking up in a rueful smile. "I'll pass." He would be much happier without a demonstration from Ignan on the matter of manacles.

Disregarding the jokes, the Salem professor's answer more accurately described Hogwart's usual detentions. Essays, labor, and points taken were the usual lot. Despite his growing reputation, Landis himself rarely had to do more than "talk it out" with his students. It was amazing what light words and a harsh look could accomplish; his Slytherins just responded so well to reason and carefully-crafted inquiries into their intelligence.

Of course in that light, blackmail and bribery also counted as words.

Bai turned to him with an elegant but pointed inquiry. “You are the Head of House of one that is quite outspoken. If not manacles, then what do you use, may I ask?”

"Yes," he agreed - not unfortunately, because unfortunately implied that he didn't take some small pride in the fact that his house was so intelligent and outspoken. Outspoken particularly in things no one else would say, because the world preferred bland pleasantries to uncomfortable truths. If they were difficult, it wasn't usually because they were dumb. Usually. As for the second part, her question... Landis shrugged, close-mouthed as ever. He knew his colleagues wondered what he'd said to Callum Knight to prompt the complete transformation from brutish academic nightmare to polite pureblood prince, or the task he'd taken now in getting Erin Harper's disruptive fighting under control. But as Ignan helpfully informed Bai, that was his secret. Different Houses, different tricks.

"Most are too proud to accept punishment for punishment's sake," he said, characteristically vague as he drew one card and discarded another, laying a trap on the table for an unwary hand. "They respond better to reason. My methods, even when harsh, are only what they deserve." Landis was all right with either fear or respect; mutiny was what he didn't allow, and his punishments were engineered to make a twisted kind of sense even to the most stubborn Slytherin. Mind-numbing repetition or senseless labor was perfectly all right for the other Houses, though. He didn't take such care with students who weren't his own.

His eyes flicked disdainfully to Gale, politely appalled. "I should hope they don't come crying to you."

'Who says they'll come running to you?

"Because I myself remember what it's like to have a horridly mean and overbearing Professor, and wish to only please them." Gale spoke to Ignan. "It wasn't too long ago since I graduated." He with a small shy smirk, and placed his cards down on the table before moving to the topic of his own detentions. Ugh, it was terribly intoxicating when Ignan called him by his true name. He'd disobey just to hear it again.

"No I'm not saying that, but I've not had too much trouble out of them really. Not with disobeying me. It's been the bickering between them that I find troubling. Yeah they are divided by houses now, but you would think after everything this school has been through they would realize that colors and heraldry do not matter in the end. This is where I struggle the most with them." The last part was spoken quieter more reserved as he shuffled his cards in his hands. This was the most he'd ever spoken out right, especially to a larger group, since his being here, but Gale felt more comfortable--at least until Landis spoke. Oh Slytherians. How they did captivate all the dark corners and eerie expanses of the school. However, he had known fear in Landis--knew that he wasn't as severe as he thought himself to be.

"And why is that Mr. Morgan? Because I treat them with respect and dignity no matter what house they come from? Or is it because I myself do not have a stick up my ass?"

She slanted the librarian a smile – one that agreed, that understood – and turned it onto her cards once he had finished speaking, fingertips ghosting over them until they plucked one out and slid it forward on the table. From what she had seen of his students, his words were true enough; she wouldn’t have taken one of them under her wing, if they hadn’t been. It seemed only fitting that the truth would be characteristic of the girl’s House, instead of mere fact.

Unfortunately, it did not seem to be true for many who weren’t of said House—or had never been. The Charms professor’s normally breathy, ponderous tones cut through the woman’s musings, an unwelcome interruption:

“-you would think after everything this school has been through they would realize that colors and heraldry do not matter in the end…”

Dark, delicately winged brows inched higher and higher as the pallid man spoke on, until that last parting shot had their owner staring blankly at him. The note on which his spiel ended, Bai couldn’t help but observe, had leaked dreadfully of feelings.

With her own feud with a certain Athletics Director still very much alive, the magizoologist knew she had no leg on which to stand on; their fights – spats that varied from muttered exchanges to full-on screaming matches – had often been a source of great entertainment for both their headmaster and fellow staff. Even their students weren’t unaware, to the point that they learned to avoid mentioning one aound the other (unless they wanted to analyze an entire treatise on the complex mating habits of the Atlantean Bogglefish for dinner, or spend an entire Saturday morning completing suicide runs around the Institute), and no one, perhaps, knew that better than she.

But on the other hand, she had never sought to argue so openly - so carelessly - in such a manner, either. And certainly not without provocation.

And so wordlessly, unblinkingly, Bai stared, letting the full weight of her gaze settle on the man like a sack of stones. It was smooth, blank, and gave nothing away, except perhaps the impression that she was noting every little detail and circling all the ones she found wanting in terrifying red ink.

“Pass,” she finally murmured, and discreetly shot Landis a glance.