Imani had been pleasantly surprised and flattered when she received a letter from the school asking her to tutor a Hufflepuff first year. Although hardworking and studious, the curly-haired witch would be the first to admit she wasn’t the brightest wand in the box; there were students in the castle with sharper intellect and greater magical prowess, possibly some of the most brilliant minds of their generation. However, a brilliant mind alone couldn’t inspire the likes of a relentless tomboy like Kella Carmody. She needed a tutor able to see the world through childlike eyes, someone who could channel the girl’s hyperactive energy into a positive. If there was ever a person at Hogwarts fit for the job, it was the ‘Badger Mum.’ Or so Imani hoped.

She had already taken note of and had several interactions with Kella, and she found the girl to be a carefree ball of energy, with a daring streak that was at once admirable and disconcerting to Imani’s budding maternal instincts. Sitting in the library and poring over the yellowing pages of some dusty magical tome simply wouldn’t help Kella with her studies at all, and would inevitably bore both tutor and student. While it wasn’t Imani’s subject of choice, she decided to start off with assisting Kella in History of Magic because she needed the most improvement in that class.

Wanting to avoid the stuffy solitude of the library, Imani gave Kella instructions to meet her in the empty classroom on the sixth floor an hour before dinner. Although, when Kella arrived for her tutoring session, she might not have recognized the older Hufflepuff girl. In fact, Imani didn’t quite look like a girl at all; her tall, lanky form was hidden by gaudy purple robes that didn’t even belong on the ‘one knut’ rack of the secondhand shop, a matching pointed purple wizard’s hat covered her curly head of hair, and her face was entirely obscured by a grand silvery beard so long it trailed on the ground beneath her feet.

The newly bearded sixth year girl patiently waited for her pupil to arrive, and inwardly preyed to Merlin that her bizarre appearance would amuse and intrigue Kella, rather than frighten her and make her question why her tutor wasn’t locked up in a padded cell at St. Mungo’s.

This wouldn't be the first time that Kella Carmody had worked with a tutor. Back home, when she'd still attended muggle school full-time, she'd worked with an older student on spelling. She just couldn't seem to grasp it, and when she tried to go over it with either of her parents, things tended to dissolve into a whole mess of frustration. Working on spelling had definitely been less of an overwhelming mess when she began working with someone outside of her family, and while she still wasn't a master speller, her mistakes were far less embarrassing these days. It had been a long time since she'd last needed tutoring, though, and while she'd admit that having a tutor had helped her in the past, it still seemed particularly boring to have to pause everything and do schoolwork after she finished with school for the day! Kella liked Imani, but she did not like homework, so she was not the happiest camper as she dragged her school bag up to a classroom. She certainly didn't look the part of the high energy Hufflepuff first year whose greatest joy involved climbing on the furniture in the common room. She looked more like she was marching to her death.

But wasn't she? School was really sort of a bummer sometimes. The day was long and the material was hard and she was still too young to play quidditch, so attending school in a giant magical castle was actually beginning to wear on her. Back home there had been no such thing as being too little to play! She stared longingly out the windows that looked out toward the quidditch pitch as she made her way toward the classroom. It may have been raining and freezing cold out there, but sometimes even pneumonia sounded more fun than homework! She blew a stray piece of fringe out of her face as she came upon the correct corridor and adjusted her poor, abused bag on her shoulder. It was now or never, she supposed – and mum and dad were going to be angry if she went with the 'never' option. Plus, Kella really did want to do better. It was just so hard!

When she turned the knob on the door, she definitely wasn't expecting the sight that met her eyes. She couldn't restrain the confused little giggle that escaped her when she took in the sight of her new tutor, dressed to the nines in what looked like a bad halloween costume. She chuckled again, but it wasn't entirely because she was amused by the costume – it was almost a tic, an auditory manifestation of her confusion and mild discomfort. Kella had never been into costumes much. The popular fashions of the wizarding world still seemed far too gaudy to her, and even her school robes made her feel like an idiot most of the time. She just liked looking normal. Not fancy, not girly, not weird – just plain normal. Imani did not look normal at all.

“You look strange,” Kella declared as she lingered in the doorway, rocking on her heels a bit. She was not entirely sure how she felt about what she was looking at, and it showed. Her eyes kept darting toward the corner of the room, like she thought someone might come offer her an explanation but, as far as she could tell, they were alone.

Tutoring was going to be... interesting.