"Trishna, a most unexpected pleasure!"

Professor Storm greeted the figure that joined him in the Defence classroom with a mild tone. It was Sunday evening and he was polishing what looked like a large magnifying glass by hand with a soft cloth, a nearby cabinet wide open. On the shelves inside were various strange instruments, a mixture of foe glasses and other dark detectors which he was checking once more before showing them to the third years.

Behind him on the classroom desk a pot of tea was steaming gently in the candlelight, freshly brewed. it was half hidden behind the familiar sandtimer, and the piles of work and standard text books which were piled at either side.

The sun had long set, and apart from a few trailing homework submissions received that afternoon, he had managed to do enough marking that weekend to get back up to date. As such, the tea would do well before he thought about night duties, ensuring everyone settled back in for the week ahead.

"Have you come to give me advanced warning of your intent to leave my next lesson without permission with Mr Pepper?" The Professor asked, smirking, raising the magnifying glass between them both to inspect the glass for blemishes. His features were comically enlarged and inverted from the distance between them.

"It is you, as well, not an impostor," Ignan remarked, setting the glass back down on the stand, gesturing to it "… meant to reveal the majority of concealment and disguises."

He frowned slightly and regarded his almost-but-practically-a-grandaughter with intrigue.

"Is there something you wish to speak to me about?"

“Professor.” Cyhirae nodded respectfully at her unofficial step grandfather. Her relationship with the Defense Against the Dark Arts professor was odd to say the least. Cy didn’t  have any actuall grandparents, at least ones who mattered. Her mother’s father disowned her mother for having married Cyhirae’s father, and she didn’t know anything about her father’s father. The closest to a grandparent she had was George White, her Uncle Ryan’s father.

When Professor Storm had first started their relationship had been one of student and strict teacher, and didn’t change much when her father had struck up his odd, intergenerational relationship with the man. Storm just seemed to be softer, a little less strict and maybe even a little more kind.

The big change in their relationship only started  after her grandmother had been captured and the professor revealed that he and her grandmother were previously in a relationship, that Professor Storm had even wanted to, and still would, marry her. This shift in role, from grumpy friend of her father to almost step-grandfather was something Cyhirae was still trying to navigate. Thought that wouldn’t stop Cyhirae from taking advantage of her connection with the new deputy headmaster if needed.

“Only if you’re planning to give me a zero for that lesson already,” she chirped back, biting back a sigh at the mention of potions. It wasn’t like she expected the incident to be kept quiet, she had walked out in front of the entire fourth year class after all. It was just that she wished it would’ve taken a bit longer to spread among the school.  “Besides, it was only that one time. I’ve stayed for the end of class sense then.” ‘Not that I haven't wanted to.’

“Ah.” She nodded. “Are imposters roaming the school common then?” She smirked, “Should I be worrying about pod people?”

Cyhriae frowned slightly, mulling over how to word her questions. “How did Professor Di Luca get hired anyway?” Cyhirae asked. “Heck, why’d she even accept the job? It’s obvious that she doesn’t want to teach.” The new Potions mistress’ motivations made no sense to Cyhirae. It wasn’t like Di Luca was a student who was forced to be at Hogwarts. She had applied and accepted a position to teach students, she obviously had to want to be at the school. Other wise why accept? Why even apply in the first place? It made no sense.

The Professor, in a generous mood, and generally content with Cyhirae's performance in his own subject and others, let a smirk cross his features in response to her remark about the lesson.

"If you have anyone to suspect, we'll have to try it out. I suspect all the third years are spotty, irritating and legitimate students, sadly, but I'll run it past them all this week either way."

He finished buffing the frame of the large magnifying glass and lifted it and the stand back into the cabinet before latching it, listening to Cyhirae ask about the newest addition to the staff, Professor Di Luca. The two of them had rather hit it off.

"The majority of the students ask the same of me, you realise?" He remarked, turning back and then heading towards his desk where the teapot was steaming.

"She was well qualified for the role, and passed the required interview and paperwork. If she didn't want to teach, I very much doubt she'd have applied for the role." His wand made its way to his hand and the clean teacup on the desk clinked and a duplicate slid out of one side of it onto the desktop.

"But don't spoil the fun and inform the other students, will you?"

The tea bubbled easily out of the spout and into each cup without pausing to ask Cyhirae if she wanted one. It wasn't often she passed over the threshold of his classroom, and much as he found teenage girls perplexing, he wasn't about to turn away the daughter of his best friend. She might come forward with a delightful quip about her father…

"What leads you to believe that she doesn't want to teach? Does she not demand the best from her students, precision, concentration, care and attention?" He asked, pouring the milk and looking up expectantly.

That Cyhirae knew already, though she privately doubted it was actually a majority of students who thought that. Winnie and Ambrose were certainly terrified of her sorta step- grandfather, but from what she could see most students seemed to respect him, especially after he had begun to mellow out.

She took the proffered cup with a smile. “You, at least, don’t express euphoric delight when handing out punishments.” Upon reflection Cyhirae had wondered if the woman was getting off on it. Pushing the nauseating thought away she accepted the milk from Professor Storm and poured it carefully into her cup and set it down on the desk gently.

“It’s…”  Her hands moved slightly, as if to grab the words to describe Di Luca. “It’s her attitude. The way she behaves in class just doesn’t make her seem like she wants to be here.” Cyhirae held her cup in her hands and frowned into her tea at the memory. “She doesn’t allow talking at all, even if it’s on topic. She doesn’t like answering questions at all and she nitpicks so much.” By this point Cyhirae’s body language was becoming quite animated.

“It’s like the woman expects us to be robots rather than humans. Even professionals screw up.” She took a gulp of tea, putting the cup down with a little more force than necessary. “And we’re students, we’re guaranteed to screw up sometime,” especially in this school, “expecting otherwise is just… stupid!”

“I wish I had hexed her, just to wipe the nasty smug look off her face.” Her eyes widened as she realized what she said out loud. “Uh,” she sunk down in her chair a bit, blushing slightly, “don’t tell Dad that I said that, please?” Her father was already Disappointed in her over this; she really didn’t want him to learn that little bit.

"You, at least, don't express euphoric delight when handing out punishments…"

Ignan chuckled and sat down in the chair at his desk, turning it away and folding one leg over the other as he lifted his own cup to his lips. He pushed away a pile of student work to make a little more room at the edge of the desk nearest them both to set down cups.

He rested his own cup down as Cyhirae began to explain, and his wand found his fingertips seemingly from nowhere. Wordlessly a spare chair tottered towards the Ravenclaw with the caution of a dog seeking approval after a scolding.

His attention barely deviated from Trishna's explanation of Di Luca's teaching style. Regrettably as Deputy Headmaster he had to both listen to these concerns and deal with them even if he didn't necessarily share the opinion of the person in question.

Ignan could empathise with Di Luca not appearing to want to be there - he had much the same that first year at Durmstrang, poor students.

He nodded at what Cyhirae was explaining though, but it sounded as if Di Luca was following his own tactic of being strict and only mellowing later. He enjoyed keeping his students on their toes with challenges and perfectionism, but he set them up for making mistakes to learn than prevented them making noise or taking steps to cause them.

"Of course not." The Professor agreed with her request not to tell Tapendra what she had just admitted. "I'm glad I'm not the only Professor you're tempted to hex, and that you learned your lesson with me." His expression had darkened of the memory of her defiance, but the two of them were over it and certainly in social situations had referred to with humour.

"When you're teaching a new group of students, it is to your advantage to be strict, so it may well be that Di Luca is being particularly tight on matters at the moment until she has the measure of you all." Ignan reasoned gently, not dismissing her claims, but providing a view for them from the other side of the desk.

"I don't deny she is quite probably a hard taskmaster, but she's pushing you all. Potions are precise, and volatile at the best of times without mixing them with teenagers." He raised his shoulders in an appealing shrug.

"You're not the only one to comment, shall we say, but perhaps the first student who had the confidence to approach me in particular." The Professor raised his teacup in a toast of sorts to her metaphorical balls.

"Have you managed to stomach her class since?"

Cyhirae flushed slightly at the memory, sinking down into the offered chair. “I don’t want to hex you. Not anymore.” She had been so angry at Professor Storm over what now seemed to be for such small and petty reasons. Her father had been extremely Disappointed in her behavior, which had been far worse than the series of detentions and points lost had been. If only she had tried to hex one of the professors that her father didn’t like. If she had hexed Professor Bombay, Cyhirae would have probably gained points for Ravenclaw. “Thank you.” Cy was in enough hot water that she didn’t need anything else making it worse.

Yeah, well there’s strict and then there was strict. “You were strict.” Cyhirae agreed, thinking back to last year. She took another sip of tea before continuing, “But if you enjoyed handing out punishments you didn’t show it.” Though Cy had heard rumors about that from the older years. “Not like she did.” Defiantly not like Di Luca did.

 “But is it worth being so strict that you alienate your students?” Strict really wasn’t the right word for Di Luca but Cyhirae didn’t really have a different one to use that could be said in polite company.  “Or act like you had bitten into something nasty when someone answers a question you asked correctly? I mean really?! Isn’t that supposed to be a good thing?” Cyhirae to a large gulp of her cooling tea, partially to quash her thirst and partially to stem her ranting.

“I kinda have to, don’t I?” Cyhirae groused, pushed her now empty tea cup away. “Since apparently she’s not going to go away.” Cyhirae paused for a moment and amended herself, “At least for a little while.” With the quick turn over of Hogwarts professors the likelihood of a new professor sticking around for longer than a month was small. Maybe Di Luca would get fed up and be on her way by the end of the month. Cyhirae smiled slightly at the thought, maybe she’d get lucky and Di Luca would be out of her in a matter of weeks.

"That's reassuring." The Professor replied to Cyhirae's assurance that she didn't want to hex him again, but he raised the teacup to his curled lips, indicating he took humour in her statement.

He gave the Ravenclaw his undivided attention as she explained her reasoning, expression thoughtful. The teacup came to rest in his lap, fingers curled round it.

"Yes, unfortunately for you, you do have to. Otherwise, the next chat you and I have wouldn't be quite as cordial with teacups, which would be rather a disappointment for both of us." He placed the item in question back onto the desk and looked away down the classroom thoughtfully for a moment.

"My instinct is that she is just getting the feel of the class, that she is pushing to see how far you will all go. But, perhaps I need to pay a little more attention to Di Luca myself. I've clearly been unseated as top taskmaster in the castle, must try harder." He pressed his palms together, as if in prayer, but considering, eyes not focused on Cyhirae, "Perhaps I could send Pepper swimming in the lake…." Then he remembered that one of his favourite victims was not just a classmate to young Trishna, "of course, no, it'll have to be Oliver then." He studied Cyhirae's expression, "not her either?"

He narrowed his eyes, watching her expression, "Georgiana?" No, he wasn't much good at this lightening the mood lark.

"Well, what if we make a pact thusly - you stomach Di Luca's lessons, stay in the room, but cause her hell if you wish, and I'll make my own investigations from the inner sanctum of the staff room. See how the boat rocks? If you end up with a detention, one could always pull rank, and detention records do occasionally seem to vanish." He picked up the tea again, "and if she really does hate teaching, it'll show soon enough. But it does tend to be a vocation, and even if we're not sure why we're here, ultimately, it does provide a small ounce of pleasure to us teachers." He tilted his head and looked to Cyhirae, "If that gets back to Oliver, I'll assure her my pleasure is only ever gained in seeing her scared witless or shipped to the hospital wing. Though, I think she knows that already."

Cyhirae sighed, “I know, I know. I got the lecture from Dad already about that.” She had nothing really to gain and a great deal more to lose from continuing to skip potions class. In the end her strike would do little to change anything. It might bring attention to Di Luca’s tactics but at the cost of Cyhirae’s reputation with the professors and headmistress along with losing a great deal of her free time to detention; which made the situation all the more frustrating.

She scowled when Professor Storm suggested throwing her boyfriend and Winnie into the lake though she merely raised an eyebrow at Storm’s suggestion at throwing Georgiana. “No, none of them. Gigi especially. She would hex you if you tried that on her.” Though it would be hilarious to see him try. “Besides if you want to be the supreme taskmaster again, just assign massive amounts of homework. Or make them do math, lots of math. That always works.”  And she far preferred the newer milder Professor Storm over his old super grumpy and, at times, nasty demeanor.

“But,” Cyhirae frowned, “it doesn’t really feel like Professor Di Luca is testing us. It feels far too…” Harsh wasn’t quite right; murky also didn’t really fit. She pursed her lips in irritation trying to find the right way to put it for it. “It’s like… like she has this invisible standard for us in her head and expects us to read her mind to know what she’s looking for,” Cyhirae grumbled. “Or maybe she’s just deliberately setting us up to fail.” Cy thought that the former reason was far more likely than the latter, after all a teacher wouldn’t last long if all of their students failed, but she was still cynical enough to not eliminate the latter idea out of hand. “Either way it’s a really bad first impression. And that won’t fly with the second years, especially the Gryffindor’s.”

Cyhirae smirked, “Oh Winnie knows it. She’s still convinced that you’re going to murder us all.” Cyhirae took a small sip of her tea, “Unfortunately I’m pretty sure that I wouldn’t be able to get away with raising hell for Professor Di Luca. Not with Dad being my head of house,” she sighed. Favoritism could only go so far, especially if there was someone who could counteract it. “He’d know that I wasn’t in detention and he’d find some other way to punish me.” She set her teacup down, frowning, “But if you are willing to look into her behavior, then I think I can tolerate being in her classroom.” She gave him a small smile, “I will try my best, at least.”

It was pleasing to hear Winifred still believed he was a threat. Made her all the more enjoyable to teach. Despite himself, he was rather enjoying the conversation with Cyhirae, though he was entirely sure that if Tapendra walked in at that moment, he'd suspect something terribly serious was going on. Funny how they had coincidentally swapped offspring for impromptu visits - Sasha still associating with Tappy far more than he did Ignan.

"Well, if it was raising hell as you put it, I'm sure it would be in your own brand of intelligent defiance." Professor Storm assured her with a twitch of his silver eyebrows.

"Then we are in agreement." He nodded to Cyhirae, "I'll keep a tab on Di Luca to see how she ticks, you attend your potions lessons, and we'll throw Georgiana in the lake another time."

His gaze flitted up the other end of the classroom for a moment in thought, internally comparing this moment between them to one of his visits to the Trishna family home where he'd been laughed at for talking about boxes of eggs. How different things became… Never in his time in Venice did he imagine he'd be talking to practically his granddaughter in such a way - even if they were not blood relations at all.

"And how are other matters?" He asked, pale gaze returning to the Ravenclaw, but voice altogether softer than his usual speaking tone, "anything other than Di Luca in your thoughts?"

For these small impromptu moments of tea and talk with nearly-family, he felt glad. It made all the disaster of his actual blood-family interactions all the less significant. The Trishnas were clearly meant to be his family....

End