There was still a couple hours before their midnight Astronomy class when Sasha left the courtyard with Baldur.  With curfew in effect, Sasha had two options: return to Ravenclaw tower or head to the Astronomy tower early.  The conversation with Clarencieux still heavy in his mind,[1] Sasha followed the shepherd up the long flight of stairs to the familiar warmth of the Astronomy tower.  The classroom was open though the tower was empty; Sasha assumed Professor Trishna had slipped downstairs to his office for a few minutes. 

He crossed the room to the alcove and let his bag drop to the floor between the familiar couches and the coffee table.  Baldur trotted over to stretch out in front of the fire and Sasha crossed the room to the record player before dropping onto the couch.  Paul Simon’s Bridge Over Troubled Waters[2] was one of the handful of albums Sasha had slipped into the professor’s collection.  His personal sophisticated brand of emo music; at least that’s what he like to think. 

He hadn’t seen as much of Professor Trishna in the last few months though not for any specific reason.  It was true he’d avoided the tower for a short while after the uncomfortable conversation with Professor Storm but that hadn't been enough to keep him out of the Astronomy tower.  Since then, the quickening rush to the end of the year had taken over.  A full schedule of N.E.W.T classes and, now, the early stages of A-Levels had him focused on little else.  As the semester wore on, Sasha’s attention grew even more focused on studying and exams, if that was possible.  Any time he spent in the Astronomy tower had his nose buried in books, scrolls and piles of notes. 

He should have been studying that evening, as well, but the conversation with Clarencieux had left him too unfocused and scattered.  He needed a break - a distraction, if only for a couple hours.  Murmuring quietly to the music, he slid off the couch and took his usual posture: sitting on the floor  in front of the coffee table with his back leaning against the base of the couch.  He pulled a pencil and a scrap of paper from his bag and, for the first time in what seemed like months, leaned over the table and started sketching[3]. 

The Ravenclaw glanced up when he heard the door open and watched Professor Trishna enter the classroom.  Once Sasha was assured the professor was alone, the Ravenclaw pushed himself to his feet and, with an awkward grin, crossed the room and hugged Professor Trishna.  "I'm sorry," he offered, a blush rising in his features as he glanced around the classroom awkwardly.  He gestured towards the record player as he turned back towards the couches.  “You’re welcome to turn it off.  Or, you know … sorry.”  He really was a pathological apologizer.  But, he'd only realized after speaking he'd given his head of house to change the music in his own classroom.  Luckily, Sasha wasn't the type to take advantage of the slightly fuzzy boundaries in the professor-student relationship. 

1.	Just A Little Tennis Ball Therapy
2.	Only Living Boy In New York
3.	Sketch

The quiet transit from the office to the tower had become such a mundane task that Tapendra could almost do it in his sleep, now. Walk down stairs, open door; walk across landing, open door, grab...books, papers, whatever he needed. It was as thoughtless and wandering to the bathroom at 2am, and tonight he was going back and forth with books and paperwork as he usually did. He’d long ago surrendered to the fact his office was going to be a mess. He’d brought too many things with him and didn’t have the space to keep all of them really truly organised.

It was the music that threw him off, as quiet as it was. Standing in his office he’d thought for a half-second it might be drifting up from the castle far below - as distant sounds often did. Usually it was the chants of divination being taught in the rooms just below them that made it half-intact, though.

Since the argument with Ignan Tapendra had drawn back into himself a bit more - and certainly been seen around on the weekends a bit less. London was becoming more of a release than ever, and he wasn’t ready to admit to himself that the lifestyle there was more and more appealing entirely for how removed it was. Darian was a bright spot in a confused and otherwise tumultuous world...a bright spot that still confused him. Just...less so than it had a few months back.

He’d found he rather liked being confused by Darian. It was a release in more ways than one.

He headed back up the stairs as the music raised in volume, recognizing it vaguely - any concern about the music dashed away when Sasha approached. It was both good and strange to see the boy so open.

He let the book he was holding fall to his side, returning the hug one-armed. He didn’t catch the implication of Sasha’s words, even if Sasha did - certainly there was enough fighting over his record player as it was. He could swear Georgiana was slipping records into his collection and purposely mislabeling them.

“Don’t worry about it - I don’t mind,” he said, smiling, his usual sunny expression. He patted the top of the boy’s head. He seemed...alright - which made the affection doubly odd and welcoming. Such was the juxtaposition that was Sasha. “Is something the matter?”

Another brief grin flickered across Sasha's features and then he smiled, taking a few steps back until he'd reached the back of the closest couch.  He half leaned, half sat against the top of the couch and hitched his shoulders up in an awkward shrug.  "Would you really believe me if nothing was the matter?" 

He was quiet a moment before belatedly chuckling at his own joke.  It was, perhaps, not the most tactful joke given the broader circumstances but his head was just too tired to worry too much about it.  He couldn't quite remember a time when there wasn't something that was the matter.  But for some strange, entirely inexplicable reason, this was the closest he'd felt in a very long time. 

Sasha recognized a hint of Professor Trishna's confusion and shrugged his shoulders in a wordless apology.  "I don't know.  I just had one of the strangest conversations and ... I don't know.  I needed a break from thinking."  It was a very odd and slightly unfamiliar feeling.  For once, he didn't feel the need to keep him mind going and focused on something.  "I'm okay." 

He didn't know how much the conversation with Clarencieux had helped her; he understood fully how much she may not have been ready for it to help.  Or, even if it was the right kind of help.  For some, inexplicable reason, it didn't matter.  It had helped him step back and focus and see he was actually doing alright. 

Grinning sheepishly, Sasha shrugged, betraying his own bewilderment at the situation.  "I was goofing off."  Perhaps that was one of the take away messages of the previous conversation.  Professor Trishna would understand the significance of that statement better than most.  Sasha didn't have to explain. 

How odd and strange was the relationship he had with this boy that Sasha being completely alright, or goofing off, were the things that surprised Tapendra the most? He stared at Sasha with his eyebrows raised, a smile teasing the corner of his lips. It was the first time in a long time - maybe ever - that he’d seen Sasha act...well, his age, like a boy in that momentary hold off between rounds of exams who understood about free time.

Tapendra gave up and smiled. Casual shouldn’t have had that much of an effect on him, but it did. He put the book down, heading for his desk. His tea set was there, and he started the kettle with a wave of his wand.

“Oh? How was it strange?” He asked, cheerful in tone himself, hoping to keep Sasha on whatever it was that had invoked this. “Someone other than Abby ask you out?”

It was rare he teased Sasha, but he did now, with a slightly cheeky smile.

Remaining perched on the back of the couch could only be comfortable for so long so, just as the Ravenclaw’s calves began to tingle from resting on the narrow top of the couch, he shifted himself to sit on the cushions properly.  The shepherd in front of the fire stretched his head across the floor to look at Professor Trishna and flopped his tail a couple times in greeting but remained where he was on the rug in front of the fire. 

“No.  No dates.  No miracles performed.”  He grinned back and shrugged.  "It was - I’m still processing it.”   Sasha admitted.  He wanted to be careful and respect Flo’s privacy and had no intentions of revealing her story.  But, he did want to talk about his end.  “We had a weird incident in Divination.  No surprise, right?  But, I was talking with a pureblood afterwards and it was like…like having a conversation with myself in fourth year.  Just her family was wizarding and mine wasn't.” 

Sasha had to remind himself that he hadn’t actually known Professor Trishna that long.  They’d only just met, little over a year ago, after his parents’ deaths.  Professor Trishna now seemed such a fixture that Sasha frequently forgot they hadn’t known each other before everything with Rita Skeeter.  Back in that life that Clarencieux had mirrored back to him. 

“Family expectations.  Not feeling like … you matter beyond being a front man for family virility.  All the normal stuff.  Stuff I thought was devastating once but now...it seems so simple.”  Sasha shrugged.  “I started giving them advice and it just felt a lot like a list of all the places I went wrong and the mistakes.  It was sobering and … but it wasn’t depressing like I would have expected?  It … it was clarifying.  I don’t know.  I guess, in explaining things, I didn’t … given everything, I’m doing alright.  I’m not a complete screw up.  It’s going to be okay."

As the kettle heated up, Tapendra watch Sasha, eyebrows raised slightly as he was unable to mask his surprise at the boy’s words. It took him some time to process them, to try to form his mind around the image and idea they represented. And, of course, to choose what to say.

It warmed him to see this side of Sasha at last - to have confirmation that is existed, that the boy could survive without the fear that seemed to drive him everywhere. That he could goof off and not instantly guilt-trip himself. Tapendra’s smile was as soft and warm as it was uncontrollable.

“I’m glad,” he said at last, as steam started to escape the kettle. “Sometimes seeing your mistakes or worries from the outside helps more than examining them from the inside.”

He picked up a cup and then grabbed another, lifting it with a questioning look as he continued. “I’m also glad it wasn’t a girl. I wouldn’t want to have to explain that to Professor - well, Miss Reid, now.” The castle seemed emptier without her. Strange how that worked, what with Aileen being a walking iceball at the best of times.

“How are you finding goofing off, then?”

Oh, the British and their tea.  There was one tradition that Sasha held to with near rabid determination whenever he first stepped off the Hogwarts Express after a long term at Hogwarts: find a real, good, properly brewed cup of coffee.  Nothing signaled a break from the school year quite like settling onto the Eurostar train, barreling through the Channel Tunnel, with a nice cup of coffee.  Until then, he could make due with tea. 

But, after a nod and a quiet, "thank you," the prospect of drinking something warm was quite appealing. 

"I don't know how much I helped.  She likely thinks I'm a bit off.  It's hard not to get all-"  Sasha pantomimed a pair scales balancing - an analogy that, perhaps, only made sense in his mind.  "...doomsdayish about things.  I mean, lots of kids feel alone.  Twilight.  90210.  Doesn't mean she's going to end up going to a Broadway show with a stranger."  He'd tried his best, and had managed to some degree, to keep his own messy side in check, despite the occasional comments about family.  Most of what he'd contributed openly had centered on events similar to her own challenges. 

The conversation had managed to illuminate one fact that Sasha hadn't quite been able to organize into coherent sentences before.  "I don't know how to talk to them, anymore.  My classmates.  What do I have to contribute to a conversation about family ... or  ... summer plans or normal stuff?  If I'm in the common room, studying, they know to leave me alone.  If I'm not - what do I have to say to them?"

He couldn't help but blush, dropping his gaze awkwardly.  "Well, it was a girl," Sasha admitted.  "But no, you know, nothing like that."  It had been quite some time since he'd spoken with Abby; he assumed pressure from her parents had finally intervened.  Again.  First Fergie, now Abby.  As for Neely, he'd had no one to blame but himself.  "I think I'm quitting purebloods for a while on that front.  Besides...maybe things still might change."  It had taken him some time to accept Fergie wasn't coming back to him and the same would likely be true with Abby.  He loved her.  He hadn't quite figured out where the 'love off switch' was located.

"Have you heard from them?"  Sasha asked, trying to look and sound like it had been a purely casual question.  "Have you told Professor Reid a Fern has taken over her office?  She's very...optimistic."   

"I'm not sure," Sasha admitted, reaching over and picking up the sketchpad.  "I've never been very good at it.  Even before...everything...I usually had to get conned with cat funerals.  I used to kick a football against the castle wall, a lot."  In fact, he'd been doing just that when he'd met Dreogan Eleor as a fourth year.  "I think my ball is still under my bed.  It's- I should practice more."  Whether he meant practicing goofing off or football, specifically, he didn't elaborate.

He busied himself with prepping the tea was the boy spoke, chuckling softly at the remark about purebloods. Tapendra’s own preferences in tea were probably not Sasha’s - so for Sasha, he made a plain cup. His own he doused in sugar and milk. He’d never been the most refined tea-drinker.

The boy’s words were worrying, again - and as he often found, identifiable. Sometimes he wondered if they’d have been friends if he was a teenager at the same time as Sasha. Certainly they could have identified over falling for the machinations of crime lords.

He didn’t really want to think about that.

He sipped his own sweetened tea as he sat on the couch, lounging against the arm with his cup held gently in both hands. “I have, though Aileen is reticent as always as to what drew her away. Family business, from what I understand.” He sipped. “I try not to pry. Pureblood families are...messy.”

He sipped again, considering what to say. Not being able to talk to others was an issue, he knew. But…

“I think you’ve got as much to talk to them about as you allow yourself to have, Sasha,” he said, setting the cup on the coffee table. “When I was your age I asked myself that same question - everyone else’s lives seemed so...normal, so unlike mine.” Aside from Harry Potter’s, anyway. “But I still had summer plans. Hobbies I found interesting, goals I wanted to reach. And…”

He stroked his beard as he considered his next words, looking up at Sasha. “Despite everything you’ve been through, Sasha, you’re not that different from them. You’re still going through many of the issues they are - NEWTs, girls, what you’ll do when you graduate. You’re still a part of this world, even as you’ve seen some of the world beyond it.”

Only a small splash of milk went into Sasha’s own cup of tea.  With only the small amount of milk, the tea was still on the almost undrinkable side of hot so he set it down on the coffee table before remembering his half-eaten pocket dinner.  With an apologetic grimace, he withdrew the cloth bundle from his bag.  “Do mind?” he asked.  He doubted Professor Trishna would - after all, it was fairly common place for him to eat and sleep in the tower.  “I didn’t get through much of it while discussing fate with a Slytherin.”

Sasha took a deep breath and rubbed his chin.  “So much of it is bordered or surrounded by secrets.  I know I should be used to that by now - that’s always been the case.  I mean, I don’t really have plans for summer.  Most of what I have is trying to avoid going home - but, I can’t really talk about why with anyone.  My hobbies-…goals-“  The Ravenclaw grew quiet a moment as he recognized where his own line of thought was going and took a sip of tea. 

After a moment, he shook his head and, after kicking off his shoes, pivoted on the couch so he was sitting cross-legged and looking at Professor Trishna.  This was not the first time, nor would it be the last, that Sasha would find himself frustrated by his own lack of eloquence.  “But, see that’s the thing.  The conversation … it wasn't like gee everything's horrible, I can't talk to anyone.  It was more ... I could really see why it was a problem.  It … I want to be able to?  And, you’re right.  I just need to remember…”  Somehow remember it when someone was standing there in front of him. 

“Do you … do you think, you know, talking to Ms. Biladeau might help?  I mean, that’s what she does, right?” 

“Oh!”  Speaking of hobbies and goals.  Sasha’s eyes brightened a moment and he bent over, quickly rummaging in his pack.     In the fast pace of the quickly waning school year, every time Sasha remembered about showing Professor Trishna the big pieces of news from the spring holidays, the Professor had been away from Hogwarts.  He pulled out the distinctly muggle envelope from the GCSE board and handed to Professor Trishna.  Grinning, he handed the already opened and well-read mailing[1] to the professor.

1.	GCSE Scores

Maiko, for all her exuberance and...pushiness, at times, might be a good resource for Sasha with this. Tapendra himself hadn’t really run into a feeling of not understanding why people considered their issues issues; he’d been jealous of them for them instead, wanted to trade his problems for theirs. And as the years had passed...his issues had become theirs, anyway. Children and marriage did that.

Not that he was about recommend marriage and kids to Sasha.

“She might be able to, yes - provided you approach her with that goal in mind,” he said, leaning across the table to take the sheet, his eyebrow slightly quirked. He’d had to pull some strings - and fake more documents than he’d liked - to get Sasha into GCSEs, and in a way he was glad they were over, but -

He smiled at the scores. They put Sasha right where he needed to be - ready to move on, as far as the muggle world was concerned. Tapendra beamed proudly at the boy. The C mark for literature didn’t really draw his attention as it might have drawn that of others; for him, the line of As superseded it. 

“You did really well, Sasha,” he said, still beaming warmly as he handed the paper back. “Especially so considering your schedule. I’m glad we got you out to take those.” He smirked a bit. “Now all you’ve got is the end-of-year exams for here and you’re free for the summer.”

The Ravenclaw nodded his head, hesitated a moment and nodded again.  “I know there’s a lot I can’t talk to her about, but-“  Perhaps what the conversation had illuminated was how much of the past couple years - and even before his fifth year - had been focused on surviving. 

So much of the conversation with Clarencieux had been past tense.  He had survived.  Now, with GCSEs in hand, OWLs behind him and NEWTs and A-Levels ahead of him, he was starting to feel the forward momentum of where things were going.   

“I’ll try,” Sasha confirmed.  “It’s still not easy to forget all the shrinks are bad stuff.  I’ve survived worse, though.  Even if she’s more … bubbly than seems natural."   

The Ravenclaw took the sheet of grades back, grinning broadly.  He’d definitely been one of those whose attention had been drawn by that miserably little “C.”  It had taken a few days to really convince himself that literature grade wasn’t some permanently marring scar on an otherwise solid record.  It was still one of twelve passing GCSE scores.  And twelve solid OWLs. 

“Ja.  My schedule.  Not surprisingly, there wasn’t a lot of time for novel reading.”  The Ravenclaw grinned, sheepishly, the reminder more for his own benefit than Professor Trishna’s.  “Thank you.  It feels good.  Just one more step before University.  I can’t wait.”  His grin broadened to a full smile.  University!  “Was it weird?” he asked, a new almost gossipy eagerness to his voice.  “University after Hogwarts.  Did you have to remind yourself not to pull out parchment or ink wells?  I mean.  Ink wells next laptops probably doesn’t make you popular.” 

“Now all you’ve got is the end-of-year exams for here and you’re free for the summer.”

“I won’t know what to do with myself.”  He admitted.  “I don’t think I’ve ever been free for a whole summer.  I don’t know how to be without obligations for that long.” 

Tapendra chuckled softly at the boy’s assessment of Maiko. Unnaturally cheerful was an apt descriptor. He sometimes wondered at the fact Aileen hadn’t put her house up for sale and run for it; their personalities seemed downright incompatible.

Sasha’s eagerness was a little nonplussing, now, but Tapendra was always the sort to enjoy blathering about his experiences. Though for him…

“Everything was weird after Hogwarts,” he said, with a matter-of-fact tone that nonetheless had humor to it. “University especially so. It took some time before I got used to it and learned what, uh, well - what not to do. Thankfully most of the other students passed off the occasional feather quill as mere pretentiousness.” He sipped his tea, raising his eyebrows pointedly. “Not what I wanted them to think, but - it worked. It was fun after the first year, once I got used to things.”

As for obligations - knowing Sasha, he’d invent some. Tapendra tilted his head. “Show your horse again, perhaps?”

The Ravenclaw blinked and grinned, broadly.  "You really used a quill?"  Sasha tried to picture the scene though it did come more readily than he would have thought.  After internally acknowledging it wasn't as hard to imagine as he first believed, he shrugged and nodded.  "I remember we always did have that one kid in primary school that was really into classics or Shakespeare or something.  I don't think anyone actually used a feather quill but some kids seemed to go through a calligraphy phase."  In retrospect, Sasha realized they might have even been halfbloods.   "Of course, my school was mostly for the pretentious, so..."

"I suppose, you didn't really grow up in the muggle world.  It must have been even stranger.  How long did it take you to figure out computers?  Or DVDs ... VCRs?" Sasha corrected himself, realizing he wasn't entirely sure how old Professor Trishna was.  Cyhirae had always provided some context clues but nothing too definitive.

Show his horses, again.  Sasha blinked, his brows raising slightly in thought.  He could.  In fact, he could now even hit the circuit on his own.  Sasha shrugged, slightly, a slight grin settling on his features.  “You’re right,”  he admitted.  “I mean, I’ve spent summers living out of the lorry before.  No reason I couldn’t do it this year.  Just travel around to shows.  Maybe stop to see people?”  He glanced towards Professor Trishna, shrugging, again.  It still felt a little displaced but at least it was a familiar displacement. 

“Definitely stop to see people. Won’t be much of a summer if you don’t spent some of it with other people, would it?”

He grinned when the boy made him think of those early years after Hogwarts. Not the best set of memories he had but they were good in their own way. “I thought ballpoint pens were magic at first,” he said, shrugging. He wiggled his shoulders to soften up the pillow behind him, a habit as his heavy frame sank into the relatively firm cushions of the couch. Sasha’s question made him laugh softly, deep in his chest; it was hard to remember what it’d been like, in a strange way.

“Oh, I was exactly like you’d expect, I think,” he said. “I grew up in pureblood households, after all. It took me months before I was really sure the people in the television couldn’t hear me.” He tilted his head. “And video games threw that one into question again. I’m glad I’m not getting introduced to it all now, honestly. I’d be like Ignan and never truly believe things like Siri aren’t magic.” They certainly seemed to be magic, even to muggles. “My friends explained VHS to me as being like a photograph with sound, and that helped. After that I got interested in how they worked without magic, and well…”

He raised his hands to the bookshelves and classroom around him, and his smile took a bit of a smirk into it. “Here we are.”

The Ravenclaw smiled and nodded.  The smile broadened when he tried to picture a younger Professor Trishna staring, mesmerized, at a simply ballpoint pen.  Of all the things that could stand out in the muggle world.  Amidst all the food processors, ATMs, automatic doors and thermal carbon paper, it was the ballpoint pen.  "Given how possessive some people can be about their pen, one might think muggles thought they were magical.  And, when one first ran out?" he asked. 

"I guess it's not really that different from coming here," Sasha admitted.  Though, perhaps that statement would have been more true for his sister.  "I had to navigate all of this on my own," he glanced around the tower classroom though Diagon Alley had really been the first hurtle.  "As a first year.  I think I just ... went with it.  The only thing I didn't quite get was the wand.  It probably gets stranger as you get older, though." 

For a brief moment, Sasha's brow furrowed in thought.  What video games would have been around when he was at University?   "Would that have been, like, original Warcraft?" he asked.  Surely, they weren't talking original Mario brothers.  Professor Trishna wasn't that old.  "Nintendo 64?"  Either way, nothing like games were now.  "Things change so quickly there.  And, here, it's like a time warp.  Come to school.  Go home and the only thing that's stayed the same is Wolverine's haircut." 

"After that I got interested in how they worked without magic, and well…”

"You ended up coming back here to tick off a lot of parents."  A turn of events Sasha was more than a little grateful for.  And, Sasha finally had an idea of where he wanted to go and what he wanted to do with his arguably over-abundance of schooling.  With a sly grin, Sasha shrugged.  "...and, well, maybe it'll lead one day to figuring out how they might work with magic."  He shrugged, awkwardly.  After all, isn't that why some people became teachers and professors?  To see where things would continue going beyond them?