It hadn't actually taken that long for her paper to make it all the way over to Hogwarts, for once. This wasn't quite the place to ask about for Muggle sports news from the US, after all. Nadira had a sent a letter over with it as well, one with Malin had managed to lose twice among the sports pages already. "Hmm, not bad." The score[1] was at least worth a small smile.

Unlike the coffee.

Malin took one sip of it and then coughed, grimaced, and shoved the mug away in short order. She couldn't quite tell if it was for drinking or for preserving animals. Though Hogwarts really didn't seem the place to pull their drinks from tar pits.

Fortunately the pot she'd pulled her cup from was mostly empty, so it wouldn't be much of a waste to start a new one. She emptied the current pot, rinsed it, then went to grab a bit more coffee from the cupboard.

The empty cupboard.

"Please tell me they just misplaced the coffee." She had spent Christmas far away from home with a lot of students, and just wanted her coffee. Maybe it was in another cupboard. She'd hate to resort to instant.

1.	Packers vs Cardinals, January 3, 2010

Early mornings had never been a problem for Headmistress McGonagall. She’d been at Hogwarts for the better part of her life, and had taught students from dawn to dusk – and even beyond. She’d dealt with student deaths, imposter professors, tyrannical takeovers, two wars, and Peeves, so mornings were a rather normal thing for her. Today, however, she simply didn’t feel like moving, and after all – what was the point of being the top dog if you couldn’t take a morning off every once in a while?

So, instead of getting up at 5:30, she got up at 6:30.

By 8:30, she’d been to the great hall, had a spot of breakfast, and then realized that she had very little to do for the rest of the day. She had a few reports to sign off on and a couple orders to put through, but overall this was to be a rather light day, as far as workloads go. So instead of heading up to her office after breakfast, she made her way to the staff room, nodding to the students she passed along the way.

When she strode passed the gargoyles flanking the door, she muttered a quiet greeting. All too often the professors of the castle forgot that most of the fixtures in the castle were really sentient beings and shouldn’t just be ignored. When she stepped through the door, she noticed that she wasn’t alone – “Good morning, professor. I trust your week’s going well so far?” She asked, before taking the seat recently vacated by the ritual magic professor.

She picked up the paper lying there and shook it out in front of her, before pulling a pair of specs from her pocket and placing them delicately upon her face. The first thing she noticed about the paper was that it was a bit… dead. The photos weren’t moving… at all. That, and the words in the paper were… a bit awkwardly phrased. “What in the bloody blazes is this?” She asked incredulously, pushing the paper away from her as if it were poisoned.

Malin still had her head stuck in one of the cupboards  when the Headmistress walked in, and so her response of "Yes, a little quiet," wound up a bit muffled. While most of the other Professors had to deal with starting classes again, most of her teaching at the Tournament involved small group lessons or tutoring for a few of the Salem students.

She was just going to give up and see if McGonagall could help her find coffee-or try a summoning spell and see what cupboards rattled, when she heard a surprised exclamation.

“What in the bloody blazes is this?”

It made her head jerk up enough to hit on the top of the cupboard, just hard enough to sting. Malin shook her head a little, then turned to see her companion pushing the paper away. Well, file that under unexpected. Wasn't like there was anything wrong with the paper, or the letter with it. Malin hasn't brought anything awkward to lose among other paperwork.

"Paper from home. Few days old, they take a while to get over here." Her earrings swung back and forth softly.

As far as the visiting staff went, the Durmstrang ones were a bit too strict, the Beauxbatons ones were too formal… but the Salem ones were just odd.

"Paper from home. Few days old, they take a while to get over here."

“Well I can see that,” Said the elderly witch, still holding the paper at arm’s length, as if it were a deadly snake trying to sink its venom in her veins. Though she didn’t mean for the remark to come out as rude, the tone could have easily been misconstrued. It had been quite a while since the Hogwarts Headmistress had needed to look at a muggle newspaper and she found that even though she disliked the Prophet, it was still more lively than awful muggle ones. The paper wasn’t even parchment; the thin paper felt as if it were about to pull apart in her hands.

She folded the paper carefully back and sat it upon the table in front of her. “I’m sorry professor, didn’t realize that you’d brought in your own reading material. I was simply looking for the prophet,” Minerva had still yet to catch on to the fact that Malin was looking for coffee, the Salem professors never seemed to sit still anyway, so Minerva paid little attention.

Minerva picked up the actual Prophet, sitting only inches from where the bland muggle one was now, but something kept nagging at her. “Professor, if you don’t mind me asking, what exactly were those muggles doing?” When she turned to look at the ritual magic professor, she pursed her lips, “And what exactly are you doing?” finally realizing that Malin was looking to make coffee, but not realizing that the cupboard was empty.

With the knock to her head, it took a moment to turn around and catch the famed Minerva McGonagall holding a newspaper like it was something dangerous. An odd sight, for sure, but Malin wasn't the sort of be easily annoyed. Not even before coffee. "Well, they're trying to...."

She considered a long explanation of football before deciding against it. "It's a game involving getting the most points within so much time. Ball, end zones, that sort. Try to keep up with the home team." So long as she didn't have to explain why they were called cheeseheads. There was no explanation that prevented that from strangeness

“And what exactly are you doing?

"Trying to find coffee. Looks like you might be out?" She rubbed at her head. It was still stinging, but not not enough to worry.

Though many might be unaware, Minerva McGonagall had always been interested in sports. She was an avid Hollyhead Harpies fan, and could get sucked into a Quadpot match and lose herself for hours. She was fiercely competitive, and simply had to win, no matter the game. She could play chess like nobody’s business, in her youth she was a decent gobstones player, and card games were a breeze. This mess with non-moving photographs and unenchanted balls and points that didn’t make sense was just too much. It was nonsensical and Minerva didn’t enjoy things that didn’t make any sense. That’s what Luna Lovegood was for.

While the Salem professor explained herself, Minerva simply shook her head. It was… odd… very odd. Then again, most muggle things were odd. “Coffee? I forget that we’ve a lion for a caretaker these days. Harder to keep cabinets stocked. Check the large cabinet over there,” She pointed toward a large wooden cabinet in the left corner of the room, “Sometimes we have spare in there. If not, I suppose you could summon some from the kitchens,” The usually helpful witch was still thinking about odd muggle sports. Instead of actively helping Malin look, she picked the plain muggle newspaper again – if only to satisfy her own curiosity.

“Professor… in this photo here… do those people have blocks of cheese on their heads?” Muggles were so queer.

"Ah, thank you." Malin headed over to large cabinet, and swung the door open to reveal a wealth of supplies. Stacked vials of condiments, boxes that seemed to contain various sorts of tea, and there, in the back, the precious coffee.

She bent down and reached back there for it. The lion caretaker had been hard to miss recently. Hadn't been what Malin had expected at all, but there had been no mauling attacks at the school and it seemed he still had his mind in there. In  her opinion anyone who'd gone off with the sort of experiments she'd heard rumored about wasn't quite the trustworthy type. But not her school.

“Professor… in this photo here… do those people have blocks of cheese on their heads?”

Malin jerked her head up, bumping it again, then grabbed the back of coffee and slid out of the cabinet. She turned to the Headmistress first, even delaying her coffee for a minute. "It's foam. They just paint it to look like cheese." That hats made to look like cheese might not make much sense either didn't really cross her mind. World had plenty of weirder things in it.