Friday Dec 18th, 5pm

Skipping Astronomy wasn't as usual as Tapendra would like, but at least it was...well, it was understandable, to some extent. The most (usually attempted, rather than successful) skips were for the late-night portions of star charting, when it was late, cold, and they were expected to sit on cold stone at the top of a cold, windy tower and stare at the sky for an hour. An hour that was an hour past when most students went to bed. And it was cold. (Tapendra found himself hating star charting at this time of year, too)

But skipping the lecture portions, which took place in the afternoons or just before dinner...that was more unusual, and Miss McBoid had done it twice. He'd left her a stern note the first time, but the second time landed her in detention.

He'd skipped a class in school, once; it hadn't worked out well for him. Trying to avoid a Transfiguration class had been an education in not annoying McGonagall - and now that she was again in charge of him, he had no intention of recanting that lesson.

The classroom was quiet, the tall sealed archways closed but their screens showing the outside of the tower. The sun was setting, but a thick slayer of snow had settled over the Hogwarts grounds, the towers below capped with soft white. The setting sun turned the scene purple and pink, and as much as Tapendra loved stars he wasn't going to miss out on that.

Besides, the Yule Ball was tomorrow and the butterflies in his stomach seemed a permanent fixture. And then the plans for break...ugh. This winter wasn't going to be the least bit relaxing, was it?

Footsteps echoed up the tower's spiral staircase, and he looked over as the girl in question appeared at the top of the stairs. He adjusted his glasses, shooting her a smile that still somehow was stern. "Ah, Miss McBoid. There you are."

A little before five Moira, still avoiding students, made her way up to the Astronomy tower. She didn't know what would be in store for her in detention, but whatever he had decided on she deserved it. It was highly uncharacteristic of her to skip classes, and here she had been almost making a habit of it before Midterms. Whatever punishment her professor's decided for her she'd go along with quietly.

Normally, whenever Moira had problems with her memory she'd feel back to normal within a day or so, but this time it persisted. Since she ended up blurting everything to Sasha that morning of the first though, she had noticed... differences. Like it wasn't suffocating her anymore. Almost like if someone she knew she could trust to keep quiet asked, she could tell them. Well, professor's maybe. Sasha had been an accident, and she didn't know him as she did her other House mates and she wouldn't trust any of her House mates with it.

Today everything was seeming just a little bit better, and Moira almost felt back to her usual self. To be honest, she was getting tired of feeling like garbage for so long. Reaching the top of the stairs she looked over at Professor Trishna. He was mad at her, at least partially, and she couldn't blame him. "Hello, Professor."

He looked at her a moment, and then offered her a sunny smile. "Good evening," he said. Skipping or not, he didn't have much reason to be openly angry with the girl - though he found himself rather annoyed with her skipping. She'd been doing well in his courses until then.

"I apologize for the hour of this detention," he said, realizing after he said it how bizarre it was for a teacher to apologize about punishment. "I'm sure you'd like to have attended the Seminars tonight. Unfortunately..."

He walked to his desk on the far side of the classroom. His classroom was clearly in a state of some disassembly; instead of being mostly clean, books had been taken off of book shelves, the desks were nowhere to be seen, trunks lay open and half-filled, and his desk was an utter disaster of paperwork. He shuffled some of the papers on his desk, finding (after nearly tipping over several stacks) the homework from the 4th years.

"You get to spend the seminar period helping me organize things," he said, nodding towards the book shelves. "Sort the books by author, and then by subject - in alphabetical order." It was a step up from his normal detentions, he had to admit. He usually just made people do math and refused to let them leave til they finished. "And perhaps you'd like to tell me why you chose to skip class?"

Well, obviously he wasn't too mad at her which was good. When he mentioned her probably wanting to have attended the Seminars that evening she had to admit, "Not really." Going to an overly crowded room with students of all ages and listen to teachers talk about something she wasn't even going to bother with... she could think of better things to do with her time.

Apparently one of those things was helping Professor Trishna organize his classroom. Moira could do that. He was right too, the bookshelf would be the best place to start, though she paused when he asked her why she skipped. She had just been thinking about it, and of course he'd be curious as to why she skipped. Moving to the bookshelf Moira didn't simply shut down as she would have a few weeks ago and instead looked thoughtful, if troubled, on what to say.

Everything she'd heard led her to know the professor could be trusted and he wasn't likely to go telling the first person he saw. "I've been... dealing with something." That was extremely vague. Shaking her head she cleared off the first shelf and started to organize. "My māthair died in an accident when I was five. An accident that I inadvertently caused. I remember it rather vividly." Working steadily in grouping books by subject first she continued, "There was an incident in Professor Kesali's extra credit class. You may have heard about it. After that I just... broke down."

She followed his instructions quickly, without protest. That was a nice change from the usual student protests to any punishment he doled out. He'd grown used to groans, to rolls of the eyes and even muttered comments. Or in the case of Sasha, resigned obedience. McBoid simply went to her task.

She looked troubled, though, and he frowned as he sat, moving the 4th year's midterms to the center of his desk so he could get to grading them. His gaze snapped back to her when she began speaking, though, and he leaned forward with his elbows on the desk, fingers intertwined.

What she said wasn't quite what he'd expected to hear, especially from a 4th year - the majority of them tended towards the dramatic (even his own daughter, truth be told) but rarely were their disciplinary issues caused by such personal tragedy. Which was a good thing, naturally. Still...

He had heard about the incident - his daughter was friends with Winifred, after all. Admittedly, it had been...the account he'd gotten wasn't exactly likely to be accurate, being second-hand and the source being Winnie herself. "I'm sorry, McBoid," he said, and meant it. His own awakening magic had gotten him in plenty of trouble, but it had been normal - he wondered if that had been the case for her. "What happened in Charms?" He asked, wondering what the story was without the Oliver-isms.

Professor Trishna, she noted, didn't ask about what happened when she was five, and instead asked about the much more recent incident. The corner of her mouth quirked up faintly, as Winnie still was avoiding her and watching her closely whenever they were in close proximity and that couldn't be avoided. She had to admit to herself that behavior was rather... amusing. Moira glanced over as she finished sorting the books by subject, on the first shelf at any rate.

"Well, I didn't come away unscathed from the accident, as it were. The brute left a rather nasty gash on my head and a constant reminder." Looking to the books again she started sorting by authors, all alphabetically as he said. "Ambrose had accidentally caused his apple to explode instead of moving it with the banishing charm, and a bit got in my hair. Winnie was going to remove it but... she got too close to my scar and I reacted before I could even think about it. Ended up hitting her with a temporary paralyzing spell and then I was on the other side of the room. Stars above that girl can shriek."

Now that she wasn't all upset and whatnot, she found it extremely humorous. After all, anybody who knew her, which actually mostly just consisted of her dad and uncle, knew Moira wasn't a likely candidate to harm anybody. She would much rather just keep to herself and away from the crowds of people, like in classrooms but she couldn't exactly get out of that and at least she had the personal space of a desk.

Tapendra, distracted for a moment by a confusing answer on one of the midterms, glanced back up when Moira spoke again. In the confusion of thoughts - and the somewhat off topic nature of Moira's first comment - he assumed she meant Winnie had scarred her. This was Oliver; it was probably possible for her to accidently scar someone while trying to clean apple out of their hair.

Of course, part of him was also questioning the wisdom of letting Pepper and Oliver practice the Banishing charm in a crowded room. He rather liked both of the children (though Winnie tried his patience more often than most) but they were not particularly adept with their wands.  He'd have taught them that sort of spell separately. Preferably while in a room with padded walls.

"I wouldn't call her a brute," he said, though after he'd said it he realized that probably wasn't what she'd meant. He put his quill down, interlacing his fingers on the papers in front of him. "From what I hear, she also fell and broke her nose," he said, adjusting his glasses. "Which, while she tends to over-react, certainly explains the shrieking..."

He frowned slightly. Winnie did tend to shriek at full volume, no matter the occasion.

"Your scar is from the accident, then?" he asked, tone more gentle.

Moira paused at what he said, losing her place in where she was at sorting the books and she looked over, blinking. "Winnie didn't hurt me." When he mentioned her having fallen and broken her nose she nodded. "It happened when I hit her with that spell. All I wanted to do was get out of there and avoid notice and she brought everyone's attention to the matter, claiming I had tried to kill her. Naturally Professor Kesali dismissed everyone else and made me stay behind for a chat."

All that said she resumed working, finding her place and picking up from there. When he asked about her scar being from the accident she nodded, "The accident when I was five, yes." It was far from her favorite memory but over the past few weeks, bit by bit, she was getting better about it.

Tapendra muttered an embarrassed apology, flushing slightly. He wasn't always the best at context cues, it seemed - something that tended to pop up in this sort of circumstance. Usually when he was thinking too hard and not listening quite as closely as he thought he was...

Still the idea that Kesali had talked to her was, well, interesting. He wondered what the man had said - he'd heard from Cyhirae that the man had apparently over-reacted (and what a surprise that was; was the man even capable of a rational, thought-out reaction to anything?) but he doubted he'd yelled at Moira. Or at least he hoped he hadn't.

He chose not to ask, though. If the man had acted untoward towards a student he'd find out about it soon enough, he reasoned.

"Oliver does tend to jump to that conclusion rather quickly, yes," he said, running a hand over his chin. "Still - hexing other people isn't something one should be doing so eagerly. Why did you jump to that instinctively?"

Seeing the professor blush was new, even if it was slight enough to be hard to notice. She didn't pay it much mind though, sitting down as she reached the lower shelves and continued to organize as he wanted. This kind of work... Moira didn't mind it. It was methodical and perhaps tedious when there were shelves upon shelves of books to organize, but at least one always knew what to expect, what needed to be done, and what the end results would be. This kind of work was so very, very unlike life.

Moira listened as the professor go to the why she did it. There was no easy explanation for the emotions that had run through her then, but she could still give a simple and easily understood answer. "When she got close to my scar, Professor, I flashed back. All I could see was my mother dying, and for a few moments I forgot where I was."

His eyebrow quirked again. Admittedly - McBoid was a full, wand-bearing witch now; perhaps such reflexes could be more quickly picked up than he assumed. He'd certainly taken longer to subconsciously jump for his wand. It'd been 6th year when he'd finally started casting spells as a twitch reflex rather than a decided course of action.

And then he'd promptly unlearned it after moving out of the wizarding world. Nowadays he was probably more likely to punch someone than hex them.

At least Moira's hex had been - relatively speaking - harmless. Broken noses aside.

"Have you apologized to Miss Oliver?" He asked, gently. He wasn't sure it'd help, but in Winnie's case it would probably help shush the girl's hysterics, which were otherwise likely to continue for some time. "We all have flashbacks, though rarely that severe. Do they worry you?"

"I apologized after it happened. ...I doubt she'd give me a chance to apologize again anyway." It was true enough. There were so many wards on Winnie's bed now to protect her from her 'evil' self it was borderline sad. Otherwise the other Hufflepuff girl made it a point to keep as many people as possible between them. Moira didn't mind any of it though. She was happier left to her own devices instead of being pulled into other people's situations.

Coming back to the matter at hand when he asked if they worried her she sat quiet but thoughtful for a few moments. "To be honest, that night was the worst it had ever been before. It wouldn't stop playing out in my head and I ended up sick the next morning." She made sure to leave out that she had actually been outside all night and that Sasha had been the one to find her and help her. He had seemed rather reluctant to be there for the most part, after all.

"If this conversation were a month ago, Professor, I wouldn't have told you any of this. I wouldn't have been able to. So as terrible as that night was... it was a good thing."

Tapendra leaned forward on his desk, chin rested on a fist as he considered. Winnie with charms 'round her bed...sounded about right, really. It was a wonder she hadn't had those up before, with her concerns about Storm being out to get her. Hopefully, Cyhirae of Juni or one of the other girls had assisted her; otherwise, he suspected instead of caterwauling her wards would just...explode.

"It's worth a try," he said. When in doubt, he could just have Cyhirae try to nudge Winnie into calming down. As much as his daughter's friendship with the other girl perplexed him a bit, it wasn't something he was going to shut down...and in the case of students like Winnie, the friendship was useful. "Oliver tends to be...kind of over reactive. But I don't think she'd persist if you were clear you were sorry." He hoped, anyway.

He tilted his head slightly, and smiled a bit. So it had helped - that was likely a good thing, then. Bottling up tragedy didn't do much to aid it, something he knew all too well. Still..he hadn't exactly made a lot of effort to cope well himself...

"Have you ever spoken to Madam Nadge?" He asked, having first thought of the school's counselor. While official counselling was useful, he doubted McBoid was interested.  "She's remarkable, if you haven't. I think you'd find her an excellent listener."

"Honestly, I think it would just be easier if I switched dorm mates or something. I may talk to Professor Sandusky about it after we get back from holiday." Moira wasn't running away from the problem. She was simply removing herself from further complications and problems. There was always the possibility that would help ease and calm the other Hufflepuff down as well.

Reaching for the last book she paused when he mentioned Madam Nadge. She had seen her at the start of November due to being incredibly ill from falling into the lake one evening[1], but other than that she couldn't say that she had. Perhaps she was a good listener, but just going and talking still seemed rather... odd to her. "Perhaps, Professor."

Sliding the book onto the shelf Moira looked over to Professor Trishna, "What next?"

1.	The scene where Moira saw Nadge was never rped due to lack of internet, so Moira never made it to the hut.

Tapendra raised an eyebrow. Switching dorms was one of those things that had never been an option for him - Hogwarts crowded its students all into the same dorm, if they were the same year. He'd certainly never had the option, and he'd have taken it in a heartbeat if he did- how often had Graham broken into Tapendra's personal things, thrown stuff on his bed or otherwise gone out of his way to make his life miserable?

He shrugged slightly. "If that is an option," he said, "Does it really solve anything? Running away form an issue simply leaves it unsolved, McBoid," he said, as he gestured her to the next bookshelf over.