It was breakfast time at Hogwarts, which meant most of the staff was currently seated with a meal in front at the High Table in the Great Hall. Lucrezia could not fathom enjoying the pleasant cooking of the house elves with some hundreds of eyes set upon her, and so preferred to not partake in this specific Hogwarts ritual. However, the dungeons proved rather cold, and while she enjoyed the solitude and quiet of her chambers, constantly keeping warming charms upon her person was a rather tedious affair.

Which is why she'd decided to enjoy a strong cup of black coffee in the hopefully empty Staff Room. The Potions Mistress was a woman of few words, but, lately, even more so in the mornings. She was in fact a morning person, usually waking before the sun slithered lazily on the sky, but it was the quiet eerie sort of air Hogwarts emanated that kept her even more silent than usual. She had been here a few weeks, but apart from classes she had kept to her dungeons and her state of the art private laboratory, deeply caught in her research, which was proving more fruitful than ever. Soon, she'd be able to publish her five years of studies on belladonna and local poisons.

She entered the room with a determined gait, going straight for a chair near the fireplace. It was only halfway into the room that she realized the room was not empty as she'd hoped, but there was in fact another occupant. She slowed down to eye the man suspiciously, eyebrows drawn in concentration as she studied him. The Slytherin Head of House, and... librarian? She'd had no need of him in his Librarian duties, but there'd been enough detentions handed out to Slytherins already, to have vaguely acquainted herself with him.

A strange man in appearance... Rather mortuary chic, with sunken cold blue eyes, razor sharp cheekbones, but pretty, almost feminine facial features otherwise. She had half a mind to offer a constant supply of Draught of Living Death... Inquire whether the man slept at all, because he certainly didn't show it. Then again, she couldn't really be bothered with anybody's sleeping patterns, there was an infirmary for that. She subtly inclined her head in greeting, as much as her high collar could allow and continued to her desired place. As soon as she was seated, legs crossed and back straight, a house elf popped up with her coffee. She took her preferred mug in a leather clad hand without even glancing at the creature, as the latest issue of a Potions journal was already levitating lazily at eye level.

It was early in the morning. Those who ate at the staff table for breakfast had gone off to do so and those who simply stumbled in for a cuppa before class had not yet awoke. Landis was alone. It was his preferred state of being and the best time of day to ensure it in the typical coming-and-going usage of the room. There was something preferrable to the solitude here than that of his own rooms for this morning's fast, even if it was just variety that made it so.

When another entered, it was one towards whom Landis was surprisingly neutral - a new staff member who mostly kept to herself was not conducive to familiarity with he who usually did the same. Lucrezia de Luca's manner was serious and secretive and so though he did not know her nor did Landis feel cynical distaste at her appointment, as he had in the past with more extroverted individuals. He was willing to wait to get to know her, if indeed such a thing should or must be done.

The last replacement Potions Mistress had not lasted long. He wondered if this new one would be but the second in another long string as was so typical to Hogwarts teaching posts. Maliciously, he took pleasure in seeing yet another Potions professor. The fickle and uncomplimentary turnover was satisfying balm to that part of him annoyed by the beaucratic red tape forbidding Juliette's return. One could only hope the consequence of inconstant teachers shone forth in the students' upcoming exams.

He had been cool to Juliette's replacement. Of course, he was a generally cool man. He couldn't deny it had been somewhat of a relief to have separate his personal and professional lives again, not to meet McGonagall's eyes at the staff table and in them disapproval or the smirks of those students who'd witnessed their public breakup last year. But it was the way of things, and the way of loyalty - he could hardly seem welcoming of a woman who was a quiet but otherwise unremarkable replacement. That was over now with her dearth. It had been long enough that Landis was growing wistful over his past access to the dungeon's potions labs. A new face was a fresh start for a professional relationship that might include such access perks. Potentially. Perhaps that was too optimistic.

At any rate, Lucrezia's entry to the staff room was met with the rare honor of his looking up from his paper for longer than an acknowledging glance. Landis returned her gesture with a slow, respectful nod. His eyes lingered, not in any particularly obtrusive way but as though he was deciding measuredly and without hurry whether to speak. He himself came to the staff room instead of the staff table on mornings he felt particularly unlike socializing. It was not unreasonable to believe this other felt the same, and he had always despised those cheery staff members who ignored the art of body language - a book or paper's clear invitation for everyone else to sod off.

Distractedly, deeply focused on a rather intriguing article on Wolfsbane, she lazily raised the mug to her lips. But as soon as the dark liquid touched the tip of her tongue she quickly pulled the cup away from her, frowning at it as if it had just stated that education was a pointless endeavor. That was insulting, to say the least. The hovering journal soon fell to the floor with a rather loud thump as her attention had drifted completely to the lacking coffee. At the disturbance, her gaze flicked to the floor, eying the book with distaste. With one swift motion of her wand, it quickly resettled itself on the closest surface, an end table left of her armchair.

With that taken care of, Ezia's eyes once again drifted to the offending cup of coffee. The furrow of her eyebrows relaxed slowly as realization dawned upon her. Of course, it was missing an essential ingredient. She uncurled her fingers from around the handle, the cup remaining still in midair and set to fumble with the pockets of her robe. Eventually, her right hand reappeared holding a small crystal vial, filled with a thick, viscous purple liquid, so dark it was almost black. She uncorked the recipient, and leaning as far back in her chair as possible, delicately poured the contents into her caffeinated drink.

The second the first drop hit the surface of the coffee, a black smoke started idly raising from her mug. It was only when the last remnants of the vial had moved to her cup, that the reaction took a more startling nuance, a violent puff of black smoke darting high in the air. She scowled at the obviously dramatic backlash, waving her hand in the air to clear the air around her nose and mouth. She was suddenly reminded that she was not alone, and the smoke -hovering idly around the room- could be viewed as rather cumbersome. And given its toxicity to susceptible individuals, it should be.

She cast a vacuuming charm towards the meandering cloud of black, and directed her gaze to the other man. Oh, jolly, now she'd have to socialize. How... lovely. "I apologize for the discomfort" she dead-panned, apologetic being the last thing one could get out of her tone. She offered a tight smile, tilting her head for just a fraction. She raised her cup -darkly colored steam still raising from the inside- for the librarian to see, "The tincture is rather—" melodramatic? ridiculous? flashy? "temperamental in combination with slightly acidic matters" she offered as explanation in the same bored voice, eyes focusing accusingly to the blamable mug.

Barely had his attention returned to his paper that a loud thump summoned it again: Di Luca had dropped her journal and was sneering down at her coffee as though better accustomed to beans first passed through the intestinal track of a small Indonesian animal. Interesting. Landis, despite the game he played of it with Juliette, did in fact drink coffee from time to time. Though he preferred tea for almost every occasion, he didn't consider the Hogwarts coffee particularly awful and so the grimacing made a great deal more sense when di Luca drew out a vial to add to her cup.

Well, marginally more sense. Landis' brows rose as he recognized the color of the liquid and the amorphous, poisonous cloud that formed in the air that she impatiently waved away. It drifted towards him and his eyes narrowed, hand going for his wand before Lucrezia intervened to suction it up. A good deal of that liquid - if not all of it - was composed of belladonna. It was a distinctive ingredient, and not one he particularly wanted to breathe in. Belladonna was useful in too many potions to name and he couldn't certain what it was exactly the new Potions professor was imbibing, but it certainly was lax of her to risk exposing others to the fumes of her handiwork. If she was so careless in the classroom, he wouldn't be surprised should the Potions position be open again come summer.

She apologized, not particularly believably. Her cutting smile was an invitation to offense. Landis, due to the necessity of his criminal activites, tolerated nastiness better than good-natured stupidity; he did not take her up on her invitation, though he did wonder now if her allowing the smoke to come so near him had been deliberate rather than incautious. Her bored drawl was one intimately familiar to him as he used it often himself to inform others that conversation with them could not possibly be wasting more of his time. Landis' stark figure, his posture on the couch, the slow look he favored her with, became ever-so-delicately flavored with disdain. It was difficult not to answer with sarcasm or a similar dry deadpan. He had no particular desire to make enemies of a new staff member, but her condescension was a biting fly in the otherwise peace of the staff room.

"Belladonna tends to be," he said in his low, toneless way.  "Frequently. One might say predictably." He tilted his head and his gaze slid from one side of the room to the other, as if to say, and you chose to mix it here. "Should I expect dinner at the staff table to become a breathless affair?"

Now he knew of the nature of the potion, not a potion at all but an extract. It made little sense. There was nothing beneficial about ingesting belladonna on its own, nothing even like beneficial. Was she trying to be beautiful, to make her skin more pale? To accustom herself to the poison? To commit slow suicide? It gave Lucrezia more depth in his eyes, but not of a particularly flattering sort. An eccentric. Fantastic! Hogwarts didn't have nearly enough of those.

"Oh?" she said, interest piqued at the realization that the man had actually identified the herb. It was quite a feat, seeing as Hogwarts, in general, had severely disappointed Lucrezia's expectations. "But you see, Mister Morgan, you're wrong. Belladonna has suffered a lot of prejudice during the ages, but truthfully, it serves more benign purposes, rather than harmful ones. And although it may be temperamental—having a good thing, without having to go through some obstacles to achieve it, is a rather droll affair" she smirked subtly, tilting her head, and raising her eyebrows just a fraction, before taking another sip of her coffee.

"I'd say every dinner in the Great Hall is a breathless affair, without my mithridatism practices" she scoffed, this side of rolling her eyes, thinking of just how much of an unpleasant activity meals were at Hogwarts. Having to suffer through those ordeals was one of Lucrezia's most anguishing drawback, since having taken this job. The staff, the children—every eye on you and your mouth, the chattering, the attempts at conversation... It was tedious and irritating. A meal was something to be enjoyed in silence and quickly.

"But no, Mister Morgan, if my intentions were to poison the Hogwarts staff and student body, you can rest assured that my methods would raise to the expectations of a potions Master and wouldn't be so easily traceable" she said with complete calm and an amused sort of glint in her eyes. "For quite some years now, I've been working on an extensive encyclopedia on the Solanaceae family, with emphasis on the Atropa belladonna species and their use in potions and brews, and as such have been forced to spend quite some time around it, working with it and having to research it by various means of the human senses. Therefore, I've been gradually self-administering non-lethal amounts of belladonna with the purpose of building up immunity to it" she explained, not wanting to make any enemies of the Hogwarts staff. Not yet, anyway. Surely, she'd have more than her share of enmity towards some individuals. Didn't mean she'd have to start from her first week, however.

"I apologize, really" she said once more, this time sincerely... almost. "I'm not in the habit of taking my meals, or beverages with company. Thought this would be a good way to start getting accustomed to the daily practices of meals at Hogwarts. You see, however, I'm in need of a lot more practice" she huffed, smiling darkly and with almost pity for herself. How did these people do it?

"Benign purposes such as...?" he persisted, too knowledgeable in the art of Potions to resist. It was true that he himself had never taken belladonna on its own, for obvious reasons, but there were hundreds of years of experimentation backing its reputation as deadly unless paired with other ingredients. "Naturally I'm not asking after its properties when combined in a potion. But I fail to see the benefit in consuming it on its own." Though his phrasing was arrogant, he was curious as to whether she had an actual, logical explanation. If she had spent years researching the plant, then he was open to hearing the conclusions she'd drawn.

"But no, Mister Morgan, if my intentions were to poison the Hogwarts staff and student body, you can rest assured that my methods would raise to the expectations of a potions Master and wouldn't be so easily traceable."

"Comforting," he drawled. It actually was. If only because it reassured him a little as to her intelligence.

"Surely that also reduces the affects of the beneficial potions you might take," he said, curious despite himself as to her reasoning. The pros of her decision seemed vastly outweighed by the cons. It wasn't as if mithridatism hadn't ever occurred to him with his suspicious, nasty nature. He was simply too paranoid to ever choose one. Why, he'd have to imbibe dozens of poisons to be properly satisfied. Besides that, it was as he'd said to Lucrezia - seeing that many of those poisons were repurposed in potions (healing or otherwise), to dull their effects seemed more likely to hurt than to guard against.

"Pure Belladona tinctures, decoctions and powders can be used as pain relievers, muscle relaxers, and anti-inflammatories. They're still commonly used in most wizarding households to treat menstrual complications, peptic ulcer disease, histaminic reactions and motion sickness" she said matter-of-factly with an arched eyebrow, daring him to contest the facts. It seemed rather strange for one that was able to identify the plant in the first place, not to know about it's most common uses. Hmm.

"And while it is true that in my own case, the ingestion of belladonna no longer has benign or harmful effects, I do rather prefer it as such" she continued with a nod and a little tight smile. She took another sip of her laced coffee and sighed softly into her cup. "However, it is certainly preferable to tropane alkaloid poisoning. I find cardiopulmonary arrest to be a rather sad way to go" she mused, lost in thought, and almost clinical in her expression.

"Regardless. Belladonna is only one of many other herbs, some a lot more potent, that can be used with the exact same purposes as far as its healing capabilities go." She shrugged a little and pulled her gloves tighter, interlacing her fingers to make sure they came to a snug fit.

She leaned back in the armchair, one hand in her lap the other tapping softly at the small table next to her. With her eyes on the journal she let out a little humming noise. "You seem to know your potions, Mister Morgan" she commented casually, lifting her eyes to him, an eyebrow slowly raising in question.

Landis regarded her unblinkingly for a long moment, unsure as to what to say. Arguing against an "expert" seemed a poor path to travel. He had not studied the plant for years as she claimed to - he only knew what he did from his own potions work. Still, he was quite certain straight belladonna - even tinctures - did more ill than good. It possessed elements helpful to treat those problems she'd named but those elements needed to be separated from the others, or the plant's roots and leaves combined with something else, in order for belladonna to be purely beneficial. He would have debated that airy pronouncement of most or even some wizarding households commonly using pure belladonna tinctures, debated it thoroughly with his particular brand of withering scorn, but the fact remained he did not know so much as her on the topic and that made it difficult for him to challenge certain claims. He'd need to do a bit of research first before he could accuse anyone of talking out their arse.

The silence dragged, each regarding the other. Lucrezia's brow was arched expectantly and Landis' own expression was flat and mildly skeptical. Finally he dropped it with the faint shrug of his shoulders, bowing - seemingly - to her superior knowledge. His expression smoothed out and was unreadable again.

So she really was taking the tincture solely as a way to inure herself to the poison, that specific poison, and perfectly happy to spoil herself for beneficial effects too. It was a bit odd, but he supposed much less so than some of the professors here. Then again, the vicious curses on the doors to his office and quarters could rival some of Gringott's finest so probably he shouldn't throw stones.

"I've always had an interest in them," he replied. "I worked with experimental potions for a few years before my employment here, and continue to brew in my free time." He sold some potions, too, difficult and expensive things such as wolfsbane or polyjuice which required horrendously long brewing times and great care. He never had more than two or three potions going at one time - limited as he was with space in the library's backroom - and so what he made to sell had to be something worth the price of the materials and the time. He was no Dazmond, but he did all right.

"Is that so?" she inquired politely, if a little disinterestedly, eyes cast down to her lap where a minuscule thread had escaped the seam of her skirt. Her lips twitched as she batted away at it, now almost obsessively wanting to deal with it by means of fire. Tho, she supposed after her earlier faux-pas with the coffee, it wouldn't bode well to light a fire just to deal with a tiny little thread.

"May I ask what sort of experimental potions?" she asked raising her head to watch the man and carded her fingers together, placing them over her knee. If he was a competent potioneer, she wouldn't mind offering him her private laboratory. She might need assistance in the future and after all, favors came at a cost.  It would work to her advantage, and offering before asking usually appeared better.

She didn't quite know if she tolerated the man yet, never mind liked. There was a rather constant state of being completely uninterested about him, that she could definitely relate to. Wasn't he in his mid twenties? Had she been so blasé at his age? She probably had... She could use a drink one of these days.