Evening, after dinner.

---

Whereas he could bother the younger years quickly after their lessons about pulling up their socks and improving their grades, with the seventh years, it required a little more discussion. Sky O'Connor had scored a pathetic poor on her exam before Christmas, and this simply wasn't good enough.

NEWT students didn't fail. He would not let them. But he wouldn't approach that matter like Kesali with hugs and pastries - he'd heard the stories of the latter, and suspected the former wouldn't be far off.

He'd asked Sky to come and see him that night, having seen her early afternoon for a lesson, and he was using the time until her arrival to refine the lesson plans for the younger years after assessing what they remembered from the previous term in a surprise test. Some of them had good recall, others were struggling to remember what they did yesterday.

Eventually, the knock came and he called for her to come in, and gave her a nod as she opened the door and stepped inside the office. The curtains were drawn at the window behind his desk, and the light was coming from a couple of lanterns, spilling warm, yellow light onto a desk which had many piles of paperwork on it, a sandtimer and other functional items, but was devoid of any personal touches like family photographs.

Around the walls were book cases, including one with a set of the student reference books and other often referred to texts behind the Professor's desk. Along with books there were odd items and artefacts dotted about, casting odd shadows. The fire in the grate emphasised these, uplighting and flickering. The heat was just reaching the level of comfort for the size of the room, not long lit.

"Good evening, O'Connor. Thank you for coming, take a seat." He greeted the seventh year Gryffindor. He set aside the planning a moment and sat back in his chair behind his desk regarding her.

"We need to discuss your examination result from before Christmas." He informed Sky with a firm tone, "It was very disappointing. Could you explain?"

Sky really wasn't looking forward to this meeting with Professor Storm, she may have never been spectactular in her studies, but she'd never did this bad before. She had knocked on the door and heard the professor call her in.  With a slight scowl on her face she entered the classroom and sat down at a desk at the front of the classroom.  When the professor asked if she would care to explain why her exam grade was so poor, she got a little testy.

"No professor, I wouldn't care to explain." she told him and slumped down in the chair.  She didn't really want to be here.

The professor's mouth pressed itself into a straight, firm line. The polite, diplomatic gesture had been cast aside easily by the Gryffindor. This was quite typical of her, always trying to coast along in her sibling's shadow, take the easy life. She'd amount to nothing post-Hogwarts, but, she would pass her Defence exam with Acceptable if there was a method to.

"Let me rephrase that, O'Connor." He restated, an edge of danger to his tone, that this was no longer a polite, easier conversation by her choice.

"Explain."

Behind Sky, the door to the office quietly locked, the Professor's wand in his hand. He knew too well about the older students trying to bolt when put under scrutiny as much as the younger ones dashed out of his classroom door.

"I am not giving you a choice."

Sky's first reaction was to blow up and rant and rave until he unlocked the door and let her out.  But she knew Professor Storm, he wouldn't unlock the door now even if his life depended on it.  So she tilted the chair back and leaned on the back two legs as she looked him in the eyes and mumbled, "Been goin' through some stuff."  That's all she was going to say, and even though she knew he'd get it out of her eventually, right now, that's all he was going to get.

Ignan tried not to show how peeved he could get when he not only had to resort to discussing emotions with teenagers (who, in his opinion, had far too many, and far too often), but also had to draw them out like blood from a stone. Then again, he knew too well this was the case with Sky O'Connor, who did her best to remain anonymous in his lessons, save for her attire.

"Stuff?" He responded with an edge of sarcasm. "This is your final year at Hogwarts, and you need to leave here with NEWTs if you are to become anything, O'Connor. I suggest you push whatever 'stuff' you have on your mind aside and focus on your studies."

The Professor frowned.
"Although I anticipate it is frivolous and transient, what is going on up here that prevented you from performing adequately at best in your winter examination?" He tapped his temple to illustrate 'here' in his sentence.

Sky wasn't sure she wanted to tell Professor Storm about what was going on with her.  She was so sure he wouldn't understand, that he'd use her feelings against her.  "Just stuff." she said, not willing to let him know what was really bothering her.  That letter, the one that was the cause of all her issues of late, was folded and stashed in her pocket, slowly burning a hole in it.  Even as she answered the professor she was aware of the piece of paper in her pocket.  "Not really any of your business anyway."

"Frivolous and transient as per my estimation then." The Professor retorted rhetorically, and leaned forward slightly in his chair, fingers laced.

"If you do not wish to pass your examinations O'Connor, then you are free to leave the school at any time, now you are of age, you realise?" He tilted his head sharply and fixed her with a sharp eye. "No reason to waste your time or mine. However, if you do wish to pass, you need to shift whatever silly notion that preoccupies you from your head and concentrate." He rapped once on the desktop at 'concentrate' and looked displeased.

"If it isn't inconsequential, then for Merlin's sake, speak it, and we can work round it. If one thing is for sure, you will not be permitted to put in a similar performance come your next examination."

Sky stood up from the chair she was sitting in and paced a little back and forth for a moment before taking a deep breath and looking at the professor.  "It's family stuff." she began, looking down, "I found out who my brother and I's biological family was and not in a good way." 

Finally, an answer of some sorts. It had taken a few tough words (though on the scale of nought to the worst he could, they'd been on the tamer end) but something had chimed and O'Connor admitted what was on her mind.

"I found out who my brother and I's biological family was and not in a good way."

Professor Storm always trod the boundary of not giving a damn about a student's background and accepting that he had to have some idea due to his role of in loco parentis. Generally he tried to forget, and let the other staff take that role while he focused on ensuring the lot of them would survive five minutes outside of a classroom.

Sometimes, just sometimes, the students elected him for their little wobbles, instead of the whole raft of soft touches in Tapendra, Gale, Althea, Maiko... more than that. The staff seemed to be made up of them, to the point he found himself missing Hildegard and the other icy professors.

The O'Connors, not their birth names, questionable family status, two twins always close, the brother with more in his head than the sister.

"And this has proven a significant distraction?" The Professor asked keenly, the student still on her feet. "Will it prevail?"

She couldn't take it anymore, she had to get this feeling off of her shoulders before it drove her mad. "Our biological grandfather was just..... so .... evil." she drew out the words, emphasizing the word evil.  "He tortured people for the fun of it, even our parents just because we weren't pureblood children and our father wasn't the man he picked out for our mother."  She paced back and forth, "Then to top it all off, upon his death he had this,"she flung the letter out of her pocket onto the floor, almost relieved that it wasn't on her person at the moment, "letter to the bank so we'd get it right before our 7th and final year of school."

Her pacing was getting frantic, she really just wanted to curse someone or something, but knew that the Professor would stop any attempt she tried to do so and wisely left her wand in her pocket.  "What kind of sick, demented, egotistical human being would describe how he tortured people and send it to their children." She took a deep breath, "I wish he was still alive so I could curse the hell out of him." she finished in a low-steamed yell, but a yell nonetheless.

Merlin, Ignan thought to himself as the witch before him paced back and forth, agitated. He listened in silence, careful of how he composed his face.

"What kind of sick, demented, egotistical human being would describe how he tortured people and send it to their children. I wish he was still alive so I could curse the hell out of him."

As the letter had fallen to the floor, he couldn't see exactly what she elaborated to within the text, and neither was he sure he wanted to read.

"Unfortunately we don't get to choose our family." The Professor replied quietly, his voice as calm as he could keep it as he watched her pace back and forth. "Nor can we change the past, O'Connor." He swallowed and lowered his eyes, dwelling a moment on her scathing remarks about torture for fun.

"I am sorry that you have had to receive such a distasteful piece of correspondence. It has clearly made a profound impact on you." He steepled his fingers, her pacing was making him feel a little seasick.

There was a pause as he considered his options, to ship her off to Maiko, or her head of house, or Tulojow for some calming draught. If she weren't a student, he'd have poured her a whiskey and extended his patience to her for a while until her rage blew out.

"Do you drink tea?" He asked quietly, eyes rising from his desk, voice altogether brighter and more assured, interrupting her agitation. Having caught her attention sufficiently, he gestured firmly to the chair the other side of the desk.
"Sit down, you're not a dog but the pacing is as bad as one. I may not be able to provide you any comfort or kind words as some of the Professors might offer you, but I consider myself more than qualified on sick, demented, egotistical dark wizards." The Defence Professor quirked an eyebrow, and with a tired sigh, left his own seat to boil a little water. This wouldn't do much for his reputation as most feared professor, but if it meant he could give Sky O'Connor a bona fide reason to pay attention and apply herself for her Defence Against the Dark Arts NEWT, he was willing to make tea and listen to her for half an hour.

Perhaps.


End