Juliette glanced at the clock hands, which had finally crawled toward the dinner hour. Mondays were sluggish, but it was no surprise for someone who worked in a school. In the laboratory, she could go hours without realizing the time had even changed; here, the numbers had ways of playing dodgier tricks, so that the clocks became as guessable as the Hogwarts staircases.

Peeling her gaze away from the time, the professor perused the near-illegible handwriting of the poor soul who had decided to turn in the travesty of an essay she was about to award a T. Juliette didn't like handing out failing grades-- it reflected badly upon her. But she was not a soft and cuddly teacher-- maybe physically, depending on the vantage point-- and she was not going to coddle a student who would rather fling gummy dementors at the ceiling than ask Landis Morgan for a supplementary text.

Not that Juliette could blame a teenage boy for not wanting to speak with Landis Morgan.

Juliette was feeling quite in synch those teenaged boys of late.

The audacity of the man...

Did he think she was so stupid... ?!

The Troll dished out to the prize of an essay, Juliette relieved herself of the quill tinged with Error Red ink. She stood and stretched her neck, eyelids fluttering shut while she welcomed new oxygen into her lungs. She readjusted view of the world-- of the dimly lit cellar room, her neatly placed candles, and the empty tray where a stack of ungraded papers had sat until a few hours ago. Success.

Gliding through the now-familiar dungeons, Juliette emerged on the ground floor, and made her way to the Great Hall. Children were often late for classes, but food was apparently not something one was willing to postpone. It were as if someone was offering House Points for every bite of roast chicken or kidney pie.

The allure of hot food was universal; Juliette strode straight up the aisle between the Ravenclaw and Slytherin tables, ignoring any lingering underage eyes. She was in the mood for... more seasoned company.

Stealing a chair beside the one where she knew Georg customarily sat, the Potions Mistress ordered a canter of deep red and crossed her legs, stretching them gracefully beneath the high table.

"Juliette." Ignan greeted, spying his colleague had taken a seat in a different position to her usual. There wasn't a set seat for anyone really, bar Analiza who had the more grand throne in the centre, but the Professors tended to frequent particular sides of the table or have favourite chairs.

He wasn't at all upset that Juliette had selected a chair beside where Georg usually sat, as the one the other side of Georg's happened to be where Ignan would often sit when his old friend was also eating at dinner. For the times that Tapendra ate with them in the Great Hall, he'd often be sat nearby too. Other nights they'd sit elsewhere to speak with staff on matters - Landis, Myrni all colleagues he would on occasion discuss matters with over meals.

Actually, Juliette had become increasingly good conversation for the two older Professors, and like the new Herbology Professor, easy on the eye. She also had mutual acquaintance in Johann from Paris, which was pleasant to know (and yet another nail in a coffin the family had a bet on, but that was another story)

"Have you got many coming to you to hear how they haven't the aptitude to be what they dream to be?" He asked, taking a seat, one chair between them, which would belong to Georg when he arrived shortly. "So kind of Hogwarts to dedicate a week to crushing dreams, I tend to do it daily, so I'm making an extra special effort given the school's support." He smirked, pouring some water - lecturing had been thirsty work.

Finding the young and very appealing Potions mistress had taken the seat next to his was not something Georg was going to question too much - and he was certainly not going to complain. He strode into the Great Hall and up the line of tables, arms folded behind his back as his boots echoed on the flagstones.

"Mm, evening, Ignan. Miss Vaillancourt." His greeting to Juliette was considerably more cordial - Ignan, in comparison, was greeted with the gruffness born of familiarity.

"You really shouldn't be so harsh on them, Ignan. Crush only a few dreams. It makes all the wishy-washy ones sod off," he said, as a teacher who didn't have to deal with many. Ignan was getting most of the Auror hopefuls, given his past record, and Georg's profitable travels weren't exactly a realistic career nowadays.

"How are the young hopefuls treating you, Miss Valliancourt?" He asked, tone cordial but with a hint of teasing. "Crowding the dungeons for your advice, I imagine - but how much of it is career related?"

“Hello, Ignan.” Juliette looked up from the canter that had just magicked its way from the kitchen to the table before her. “Wine?” Conveniently, they had thought to send up four glass goblets-- though Juliette suspected they might only need three. Two men were the perfect number for entertaining one’s self during dinner... and the tales that came of their mouths when the Durmstrang alumni got to talking. Juliette felt rather at home, in an odd way.

"Have you got many coming to you to hear how they haven't the aptitude to be what they dream to be?"

Her laughter rang lightly as an empty cup when one drew one’s finger over the brim with perfect softness. “I think I’ve crushed enough dreams myself, yes, but--” Not in the way he’d meant. However, Juliette paused, allowing Kirchlehner to supply that answer. Or, rather, imply it.

"[...] Crowding the dungeons for your advice, I imagine - but how much of it is career related?"

“Was that a slight or a compliment, Georg?” Juliette drew the wine glass away from her lips to pose the question, holding it in a sort of inquiry of its own, the stem fallen between two graceful fingers, the vessel cradled gingerly against her palm. “I doubt I’ve seen so many as either of you. But I don’t have quite...” Her eyes lingered on his face for a moment, studying it carefully-- particularly the feature that had become her favorite, and an ongoing bit of banter with one now emotionally exiled librarian. “Your experience.”

The woman set down her goblet and poured two more, sending the drink zooming with an easy flick of her wrist, so that the bewitched glasses rapped abusively at the fingertips of each man until he chose to accept.

“I’ll have you know,” she added, picking up her own glass and pausing to take a sip. “My relationship with my students is purely professional, and any... off-topic... conversation is promptly discouraged. What about you? Do you find their hormones easily distracted?” She tilted her head, eyes swimming from Georg’s mustache to Ignan’s deep blue gaze. “Nothing a little drop of Calming Solution can’t fix, of course. But sadly, it’s not in our own best interest to provide such illicit intoxication, I believe was the phrase I heard before I was hired. Not to the castle’s innocents, at least.”

Juliette tapped her wand against her empty gold plate, and murmured her choice of dinner for the evening. She set the cover over the reflective metal, and when she unveiled it again, the main course had found its way there. Elves. Bless their little hearts, they weren’t as useless as some of the creatures the young woman had met since early January.

“Really, though, anyone with such lofty goals as some of these pupils have should know by age fifteen that cracking open a book is required.” In other words, ambition was required. “How many aurors have your turned down? When were you an auror, by the way. Either of you. I don't think I've pegged that down, exactly.”

"Cheers." Ignan murmured, raising the wine goblet which insistently tapped at his fingertips from Juliette.

"Hormones, no, not in the same way you do I'm sure." Ignan almost laughed. He was well aware the teenage boys of the castle paid attention in potions far more for Juliette's stunning looks than a real interest in brewing. Though not all of them, but a number...

"Really, though, anyone with such lofty goals as some of these pupils have should know by age fifteen that cracking open a book is required. How many aurors have your turned down? When were you an auror, by the way. Either of you. I don't think I've pegged that down, exactly.”

"He wasn't I was." Ignan replied swiftly, "But he's a warlock and record holder for duelling," He shrugged, and smirked, keeping eye contact with Juliette, ignoring Georg between them for a moment.

"I went straight in from Durmstrang, but that's how it differs from here, the whole education is set up so the Ministry can hand pick students into the appropriate role, and apparently mine was to knock heads together in the Black Forest during the first Voldemort rising, and then over here very briefly to assist. All in all, just over a decade of service, ending in the seventies. Less familiar with British aurors but the expectation is broadly the same." He shrugged.

"Georg is a rather more well-read and respectable wizard though, Juliette, author of spells, books and moustache conservationist. The students are queuing at his door upstairs already." Ignan smirked, elbowing his best friend gently from the other side to Juliette.

Georg laughed. "Hah, I'm afraid with younger professors like Mister O Morain, Mister Morgan, and the like, we're deferred to for wisdom rather than a different kind of admiration," he said, and part of him was glad of that. "Not like the old days, eh Ignan? Well, maybe for you..." He snorted. "If only the little cherubs had seen us 20 years ago, they wouldn't be asking for career advice," he added, smirking. "Or, perhaps, they would."

He glowered as Ignan mentioned Durmstrang's system; in Ignan's case it had apparently been a good placement. In his... "Yes, well, being studious and respectable got me placed in the prestigious and advantageous position of paper pushing. There was a reason I never accepted their job offerings." Aside from his grandfather's interference. Crazy old bastard.

"Queuing up? Perhaps. Sadly, note of them seem to wish to learn my arts," he said, sadly, and absently teased the ends of his mustache as a hint to which art he meant. "One student claims they're out of fashion," he added, sourly. "Hrmph."

"Hah, I'm afraid with younger professors like Mister Ó Móráin, Mister Morgan, and the like, we're deferred to for wisdom rather than a different kind of admiration [...] Not like the old days, eh Ignan? Well, maybe for you... Or, perhaps, they would."

"Ah, are there pictures to confirm this?" She teased, as if the idea shocked her. Her eyes and smile, however, told the truth. Both were charming, both distinguished, and where children might not glance past boy band heartthrobs, Juliette knew a good man when she saw one. Or, she thought she had...

"Hormones, no, not in the same way you do I'm sure."

Tilting her head with a quiet smile that was meant to suggest she neither agreed nor disagreed that the students treated her differently, she instead steered the conversation toward the topic of aurors. Ignan, apparently, had not been one-- though Juliette had no doubt his career before Hogwarts had been engaging and was full of past skeletons.

"[...] But he's a warlock and record holder for duelling."

"Oh? I must remember not to anger you..." Unlike certain other wizards who would remain unnamed. And yet, this pair seemed to have few qualms divulging bits of their past, nevermind the secrets they did keep. Juliette wondered if it was merely their maturity, or if Landis was a creature unto himself. She had rarely-- or never-- been so entangled, so enmeshed with someone so close to her own age, and for all their differences they were sometimes too alike for comfort. Stepping back, cooling off from her near-duel with the librarian, she had come to decide that their blowout was not only nerve-racking, but highly suspicious.

"[...] apparently mine was to knock heads together in the Black Forest during the first Voldemort rising, and then over here very briefly to assist..."

Taking another sip, she contemplated this. France did not operate like England, either, but it was hardly the great east. Beauxbatons was a little more removed from the government in that regard, if out of stubbornness as much as principle. Also, Juliette's parents had re-rooted themselves across the channel, affording her certain opportunities to make her own decisions... even if they were not always happy with the ones she made. She was not the firstborn son.

"They chose your side for you," she noted at last, casual in her remark. Not that she believed he would have chosen otherwise, but Durmstrang had a certain... reputation... for the dark arts, one to which Hogwarts and Beauxbatons both paled. She grinned, teeth flashing kindly, but with a hint of mischievousness. She had stayed out of the war; she had been young, as it were, but her family had remained perfectly neutral, shipping their children back to the homeland when Voldemort rose to his second fit of glory. She often wondered, though, whether their sympathies weren't with the Death Eaters. She was sure she knew the answer, but it was best left out of conversation. "Did you return for the second war? Or were you more of a traveler, like Johann?" For that matter, how many on staff had been in the first war, the second, or both? And why were certain colleagues of theirs so suspicious of these two, if Ignan had fought nobly on their behalf? It was a queer thing, academic politics. A game of ambition.

"Georg is a rather more well-read and respectable wizard though, Juliette, author of spells, books and moustache conservationist. The students are queuing at his door upstairs already."

The more light-hearted direction of their dinner conversation-- namely Georg's immaculate mustache-- made the woman laugh. "Don't be so hard on the government, Georg." Sarcasm danced in her throat, washed down with the vintage wine. "With this you would have been quite the memorable paper pusher." Her fingers ghosted over her own pale skin, the delicate place between her lips and nose where (lucky for Juliette, she supposed) no facial hair had ever thought to grow. "What's the..." Longest? Biggest? "Thickest its ever been?" As decade morphed into decade, the styles evolved with it. Surely there were some interesting photos of the pair of them laying around somewhere in the castle... "I'm sure our pupils and their peach fuzz would secretly kill to know your trade secrets."

"I'm sure our pupils and their peach fuzz would secretly kill to know your trade secrets."

Ignan shook his head slightly, bemused at Juliette's fascination with his best friend's facial hair.
"Don't give him ideas, he'll be writing a gentleman's grooming guide. Though I suppose the two of you could go into business - his experience and often proclaimed youthful looks, and your skills and equal visage."

The two of them made him feel old, and he busied himself with eating for a few moments, his gaze turning to the nearby students who averted their gaze, interested by the nearby laughter amongst their Professors.

"And, no, I didn't serve during the second war - I was elsewhere. But I did come here briefly and saw some of what had been done. Dark times indeed. You did good to  stay out of it." He assured Juliette. It didn't need elaboration. Georg knew what Ignan had been up to, and Juliette did not need to know.

"Hrmph. I wouldn't have had this," he twisted one of the ends of his beard to emphasize, "If I pushed paper! One doesn't get a mustache of this quality sitting around. I do believe the waters of the Amazon had a considerable effect. Bravery and adventure, madam! That is what grows one a proper mustache."

Of course, getting flung into the river at high speed might have been part of that, too. Bloody dragon and its expanding qualities. And as for what his mustache-less grumpier colleague had been up to during the second war, well.

"Perhaps I should. My other books went down well, after all," he said, goading Ignan. "Come down, Ignan, don't look so dour. You always had a way with ladies, or was that just your youthful good looks?"

“Gryffindor’s bravery must be broken, then. I haven’t seen a decent bit of facial hair come out of that tower all year.” Not that she’d been looking too particularly hard. Juliette’s tastes ran older.

Juliette laughed, lifting her glass to the idea, pausing before it reached her lips. “There are worse types literature,” she noted. Gentlemen seemed to dwindle with every passing year. They were hard to come by, mustachioed or not. “The leisurely work hours and income would make this castle seem small.” Though it was no small feat, teaching men how to be men. Juliette had three brothers and oft thought she could do a better job of it than they. (Though she did love and admire each of them; her teasing had been more sour in her teenage years.) "You'll join us, of course, Ignan. It's your brainchild."

“I’m sure you both had and have your way with the ladies.” It was amusing to see them banter, though. Too few of the professors were friendly with one another on the level Georg and Ignan were. If it was community they sought, they need look no further.

Nodding pensively, she wondered what Ignan might have been doing a decade or so go. If he’d thought it a topic for the dinner table, he would have elaborated, Juliette assumed. Still, it did not quench her curiosity.

Juliette lifted her fork, resuming her meal as the three of them quieted down. The fact that the walls were still standing after all these years was a testament to this place and the students it produced, however few and far between the ones whose maturity surfaced by graduation seemed to be. Juliette couldn't say the boys at Beauxbatons had been any different, though her generation was perhaps slightly less aloof than the one that followed.

"So- I haven't had a chance to look. Are your books here in the Hogwarts library?" She asked Georg.

"Come down, Ignan, don't look so dour. You always had a way with ladies, or was that just your youthful good looks?"

"Hmph, I never had that much trouble before you came along. What do the students call it, wingman? You were forever swooping in and clearing up." He glanced to Juliette with a raised eyebrow.
"I blame it on him being younger. But he's right, we were rarely short of company when we were twenty years younger, just don't let on to the students, otherwise they'll be convinced Snark's declared the exams cancelled."

"So- I haven't had a chance to look. Are your books here in the Hogwarts library?" Juliette asked Georg politely. Ignan busied himself with refilling their glasses as his friend answered.

Georg seemed pleased by Ignan's assessment; he stroked his mustache in a way so overbearingly smug it was a wonder Ignan didn't splash soup right in his face or pour it down his waistcoat. Perhaps it was the years of solidarity that kept him safe; more likely, it was the fact Ignan didn't catch his expression.

"What? I suppose they might be, though I confess I haven't a chance to check that they are," Georg said after a sip of wine and a few moments of thought. "Most likely they'd be considered boring things for the students, anyhow. Travel diaries and the like, notes of native magic, sketches of the noble savages and the like. Papers on some very gory African rituals - actually, the students might find that interesting, but I doubt our Librarian would approve."

He chuckled, the laugh of someone who wasn't aware of the subject he'd mentioned. "From what I've seen of our Mister Morgan, he'd keep that book to himself!"