Closed The Implications of Tenure

[Wilfred Lichester-Raven]

Wilfred really shouldn't have been passing notes in class, but he couldn't help himself. It wasn't his fault that History of Magic was a rather boring subject, especially when one of your parents was especially knowledgeable in European history. He was supposed to be setting an example for his fellow Hufflepuffs, but that sentiment flew out the window the moment Professor Binns started on the delicate negotiations of the French and British ministries during 1856. There was absolutely nothing more boring than being lectured to be someone that was likely there at the time of the discussions. Wilfred's parchment was better spent writing notes to his good friend, Aria.

They were on the same broom in many ways, he and Aria, and it was comforting knowing that he had such a good friend in her. His tata teased him about it, as he knew Wilfred well enough by now that he didn't blush when discussing all of his other friends, but the Hufflepuff absolutely refused to listen to his jeers. Really, as a grown man, he should know better. He was almost as insufferable as his younger siblings could get about it.

Wilfred folded up his note carefully when he thought that Professor Binns wasn't watching. It was hard to tell, as his otherworldly appearance made it difficult to decide if he could see through the back of his head, but Wilfred hoped that the professor was oblivious to the fact that a small paper bird found it's way to the other Hufflepuff's table. He quickly got back to work, scribbling notes on how the British minister campaigned for more support, all whilst watching from the corner of his eye as his note reached the intended recipient.

'Do you think he's here because no one considered the implications of giving tenure to a wizard?' Wilfred's note to Aria read in neat, small writing. 'Or maybe it's because he is a primary resource, himself?'​

 

[Aria Kovac]

Aria Kovac could not believe that she was listening to this. It was about to put the prefect to sleep. Professor Binns was a nightmare, and only because he was a ghost, and teaching the worst subject in the world. She had no idea how she passed the OWL though. She didn't know why she even took up with this class. She was feeling a little tired, almost dozing when she saw a paper bird land in front of her. She opened it, and a light pink touched her cheeks, which almost matched her hair. She glanced over her shoulder back at him, and covered her mouth for a small giggle. While the professor was going on about the lecture, she dipped her quill into some ink, and started working on the note, while also going back to her notes at the same time. After she was done, she took out her wand and waved it discreetly to send the small paper bird back to Wilfred. She tried to hide the giggles, but it was starting to get really hard to hide her growing affections for her good friend.

"I think he lived it, actually. His outfit has to be 300 years old, at least. But I kind of want to ditch the class. Think a ghost would notice?"

 

[Wilfred Lichester-Raven]

Wilfred smiled as Aria's letter came back to him, but as he read it, his eyes became wide. Aria seemed to be suggesting that they skip class, and the Hufflepuff prefect found the idea to be absolutely out of the question. Professor Binns may be the least interesting thing on this planet, and he was entirely confident the ghost was likely barred from the afterlife, not from fear, but from whatever was beyond not wanting such a bore for the rest of eternity, but still. It was the principle of the matter. They had responsibilities, and sure, they weren't doing their OWLs anymore, nor did they have NEWTs yet, but they were going to next year, and what if this class was where the learnt something terribly important?

On the other hand, he was about to fall asleep, and Aria would likely leave without him, anyway. It wouldn't be the first time that someone gave up and left. Wilfred could lie. Wilfred was a great liar - probably. Well, he once succeeded in lying about when he had stayed out after hours, he had just failed to lie at every other instance of his life.

"Oh, who cares," he muttered to himself, using his quill to reply to Aria and sending another bird to her with a wave of his wand and an incantation. He then excused himself, shuffling past his friends and classmates, until he was out in the hallway. His letter let Aria know where he was headed.

Settling neatly on her desk, Wilfred's letter read: 'Sounds good. Meet you at the Prefects Common Room?'​

 

[Aria Kovac]

Aria was being a little bit brave, since her older brother would have never considered leaving class. He was a stickler for rules. Aria, on the other hand, was restless now, and she felt a little brave. Something about leaving from the most boring lecture just brought out the bravery within her. Perhaps it was the Snow side of the family, so who knows. She saw the paper bird land on her des, and she opened it. Oh, the prefects common rom. Aria folded it and stuffed it into her robes. While Professor Binns was not looking, Aria cast the disillusionment charm on herself, and her things, before she slipped out of the classroom. Once she was out of the classroom, she walked down the corridor, and used Finite to end that spell. She was surprised that she had not thought of this before. She walked into the prefects common room, with adrenaline pumping through her veins. Aria approached Wilfred and squealed, "I can't believe that we did that!" Aria hopped up and down on the soles of her feet. The only thing she had done really exciting lately was have her hair pink with transfiguration, color change spell. No way she would use chemicals on her hair. The Hufflepuff then felt the adrenaline fading. "Now what?" she asked, clearly not thinking things through.

 

[Wilfred Lichester-Raven]

Wilfred paced the Prefects' Common Room like a trapped badger, anxious for his friend to arrive so that he felt a little less dirty about the whole ordeal. He didn't regret sneaking out - sort of - but it was much easier to start second guessing yourself when you were standing alone in the Common Room, waiting for your friend. It felt like Aria took a million years to arrive, too, which didn't help. He knew that it was simply his mind warping the passage of time, but that didn't actually manage to change anything. His concerns eased off greatly when Aria came bursting into the room, but one problem still remained. Now that they were here, what were they going to do? Where we they going to go?​

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Wilfred was once again beginning to wish that they had thought of the plan better, but what was done was done, now. All he could think of was homework, which was the worst suggestion anyone could possibly ever have. He certainly couldn't suggest they do homework after ditching Professor Binns' class. There had to be something better, something fun, something that would be interesting for the both of them. Something like... he was drawing a complete blank. Why couldn't he think of anything?! He couldn't just keep standing there, staring at her in silence, that would be so, so weird.​

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"Well, maybe if you have homework to catch up on?" Wilfred just wanted to be transfigured into a mouse so that he could find a small crevice to curl up in and sleep forever. "We could, um, do it together?" Yes. He may as well go all out and really dig himself into the ground. He had already blown it by offering up the most boring suggestion known to wizard kind, what worse could he do?​

 

[Aria Kovac]

The moment that Wilfred mentioned homework, Aria did her best not to giggle. Homework, after leaving Professor Binns classroom? They could have done that in there, though they couldn't do it together. Although the next thing made Aria flush red in her cheeks. Without context, that sounded really wrong. Aria placed her hands behind her back, before smiling, trying to overpower that blush. "Um, yeah, sure, I guess we can do homework together." She was in complete denial of her feels, since she didn't want to ruin her relationship with her best friend, but it was impossible not to. Though, doing homework wasn't really something fun, since she was sure that she was caught up anyway. Aria walked over and sat down on one of the couches, and took off her school robes. Aria leaned back on the couch, and looked to Wilfred. "What do other people do when they sneak into rooms to be alone? Cause, I hear it is always fun, but no idea what they do. I bet they practice charms." She felt that Charms was always fun. It was one of her favorite classes after all.

 

[Wilfred Lichester-Raven]

Okay, great. Aria agreed to the homework idea - maybe it wasn't the worst idea in the world? They were, after all, just friends. Buddies. Like siblings. Platonic companions. Sigh. Just friends. They'd been this close since they first met, after a particularly harrowing encounter with the local poltergeist, Peeves. Wilfred was certainly grateful that the chaotic spirit took less interest in them, these days, though he did feel bad for the next wave of first years. He had survived the poltergeist's antics, so he was sure that they all could, too.​

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Wilfred could feel his face starting to burn as Aria considered what others often did when sneaking off together to be in a room by themselves. He wasn't going to entertain such ideas for too long, and decided that Aria's first thought was the only answer - charms. Wilfred liked Charms class, he was also very good at charms. Yes, they could do charms work together. "That's a great idea," he agreed, keeping his eyes locked with her own. Just as Aria removed her robes to get more comfortable, Wilfred did the same. Being older students, they didn't really have to wear their school robes full time, and many didn't, but the pair agreed that, when representing Hufflepuff House to younger students, they should both wear their robes with pride. Whilst in the Prefect's Common Room, though, it wasn't necessary. He placed his robes on a nearby chair and rolled up the sleeves of his sweater, until the fold reached his elbows.​

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Wilfred sat beside his friend, overthinking the fact that he didn't want to be awkward. "Oh!" He had had an idea. There were two spells that they were learning in charms that were quite difficult - Levicorpus and Incarcerous. Levicorpus was out of the question - Aria was wearing a skirt - but Incarcerous was fine! "We can practice Incarcerous, if you like? You can go first," he added, standing up again.​

 

[Aria Kovac]

Aria could not help but breathe a sigh of relief when he said that was a great idea. Last thing she wanted to be considered was a nerd. Then her best friend recommended Incarcerous. That was the one that tied people up. Shouldn't be too hard, since they went over the spell before. She stood up, and picked up her wand. She never once thought that this would be a bad idea. What could go wrong? She dusted herself off and smiled, "Ready?" She waited until his approval, before she intoned, "Incarcerous!" Ropes burst out of her wand, and wrapped around Wilfred. But to her horror, Wilfred was tied up a bit much, where he fell on his face with a thud. "Oh my god, Wilfred!" Aria cried out. "Okay, hang on, I'll free you!" She knelt down and turned him over onto his back, and crouched down so that she was almost sitting on him. "This was such a bad idea, oh my god." Aria dropped her wand and worked on tugging on the ropes, to get him free. "I am so, so sorry!"

 

[Dittany Belrose]

Dittany was on a free period today, since she didn't have History of Magic with the rest of them. It was such a boring class. Instead she tended to use the time to head up her patrols, though it was hard to do so when all the other sixth years were in class. Still, she had Oceanus with her and though she was trying her damndest not to make eyes at him, it was very hard. "Do you think the Herbology Professor is dating the Charms Professor, because I saw them being all sneaky in the corridors the other day," Dittany told Oceanus as she tried to get her mind off of other things. She still wasn't sure what she wanted to do with her life, Peony was off traveling the world for her education and being all cool with Duelling, so she didn't have her sister around anymore, which was basically a blessing and Cordelia had her heart set on being a Dragonologist and Dittany dearly wished her friend well. She knew how disappointed the other prefect would get if she somehow managed to flunk out of her NEWTS next year. Dittany had already Trolled out of History of Magic and Arithmancy, but they were boring classes anyway. "My sister is heading into the North American championships after Christmas, I hope she does well, Dad thinks she might give him a run one day!" Peony was terribly excited about that, since she had always wanted to face her father on the platform in tournament. Dittany stopped at the Prefects door and frowned. "Do you hear something?" She asked her companion, pulling the door open and freezing at the sight. "Oh goodness!" All she could see was Aria sitting on top of Wilfred, and was that ropes? "Aria, what are you doing?!" She almost hoped it was what she thought it was.​

 

[Oceanus Kingston]

Oceanus Kingston walked next to his best friend, since they were once in NZ together. Not that he followed her to Hogwarts Scotland. It was just a coincidence. When Dittany brought up the two professors possibly dating, he shrugged his shoulders. "Professors don't really have social lives, but does it matter anyway?" Oceanus asked Dittany in his usual serious tone. He didn't really care much about things like that, though. He had other things on his mind. Oceanus had a free period, though it was a little rare since he was taking several different classes in the NEWT level. That was just because he enjoyed it. Mainly the theories. She talked about her sister, and smiled toward Dittany. "Really? And how do you feel about it?" Oceanus asked, to see if she was jealous or anything over Peony. Oceanus glanced up at the prefects doors, and heard what sounded like shouting. As the two entered the prefects common room, Oceanus could not believe what he was looking at. "Are you two serious?" Oceanus asked bluntly, and turned around. He definitely did not want to see that mess. "Is that how you two decided to finally get together?"

 

[Wilfred Lichester-Raven]

Wilfred thought he had been prepared, but he certainly wasn't. He was staring at Aria's eyes when he should have been watching her wand and listening to her voice. "Woah!" The Hufflepuff prefect came crashing down, hard, landing on his chest on the floor and narrowly avoiding hitting his face. His Tata would have been very disappointed in him had he broken his noise - the former acrobat had taught him how to fall in various directions without breaking something, and whilst managing to avoid breaking his face required a fair amount of neck and core strength, the fit young wizard managed it. That didn't mean it didn't hurt though, and as Aria rolled him back over, the blond grunted.​

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The Hufflepuff squirmed as Aria tried to untie him, trying to help her out. "It's okay, it's okay!" he assured her. "Maybe a diffindo?" Although, he wasn't sure he wanted her casting that when she was clearly in a bit of a rush - he didn't want her cutting more than just the ropes, after all. What made the entire situation more humiliating was the fact that Dittany and Oceanus, of course, just had to enter, and rather than being reasonable and obviously concluding that this fiasco was all an innocent mistake, they leapt right to the worst.​

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"Nothing! She's doing nothing!" Wilfred said frantically, so embarrassed he was going redder than Gryffindor robes and almost screaming at his friends. Oceanus was a Seventh Year, and he was the calmest person Wilfred knew (excluding his papi), so if he was going to trust anyone to cast a diffindo right now, it was the stoic Hufflepuff. Then Wilfred would ask him to Obliviate him. "Oh, Oceanus, can you cut this off me with a diffindo? Would that be okay, Aria?" Why did he just ask Aria if it was okay? Would it have been more embarrassing if they had locked the door behind them? Wilfred needed somewhere quiet to go and wallow after this.​

 

[Aria Kovac]

When Wilfred suggested a diffindo, the Hufflepuff shook her head. "No! I don't want to cut you! I'll just try to-" Aria paused as she heard the door open, and heard a familiar voice. Dittany Belrose. She asked what she was doing, and she turned her head around to see not only Dittany, but Oceanus too, the overly serious Hufflepuff. Aria blushed heavily at their words, since Oceanus' sounded a little more blunt, which was normal for him. She looked to the pairing, and then back to Wilfred, before it all clicked. It helped with Wilfred nearly shouting that she wasn't doing anything. She turned beet red, and immediately stood up and taking a step back. "I- We were just... We skipped class and wanted to practice charms... And yeah, we are together! We came in together and practiced charms together. Geez." Aria huffed for a moment, before she realized what Oceanus meant. "No! We are best friends! That is a silly assumption to make!" Aria pointed out. Although when Wilfred asked if that was okay with her if Oceanus cut the ropes off. "Uhh... okay?"

 

[Dittany Belrose]

Dittany had been staring at both of her friends like a creeper for a good three and a half minutes - complete with creeper smile. She elbowed Oceanus conspiratorially, careful where she nudged him as he was taller than she was by a fair margin. "Oh. My. God." She said, finally letting the shock wear off as she broke out into a huge grin. They were never not going to hear about this. This was going straight on the notice board. She almost wished she had a camera with her right now. She remembered a boy a couple of years ago who always seemed to have a camera on him, she wished he was here right now. "Are you sure she's not doing anything?" She asked, biting her lip to her cheek in jest. This was simply too funny. She was absolutely writing home to her dad about this. Maybe he could chat to his reporter friend? She seemed like a nice lady. "So... you admit you're together huh, Aria? I thought so." Dittany said nodding, taking her notebook out of her pocket and dabbing her quill on her tongue. "The time is two twenty four in the afternoon. We're almost half way through History of Magic period," she said aloud as she pretended to write this information down. This was amazing. Absolutely amazing.​

 

[Oceanus Kingston]

Oceanus felt Dittany nudge him, which made him cast a cold look at her, but those looks were always cast with jest with her. He turned around to see and hear Aria sound rather squeaky which meant that she was completely embarrassed as she should be. Wilfred too. His eyebrow raised when Aria corrected herself, but it was too late. Dittany was already jotting it down like a time of death, though this was far from that. “If we had not interrupted, who knows what they would have done, Dittany.” Oceanus smirked a little bit, showing his less serious side. He was asked to use diffindo to free Wilfred from the ropes. Though he asked Aria if it was okay. Oceanus approached the younger Hufflepuff and whipped out his wand. He cast the spell to cut the first set of ropes off, where the others would fall apart easier. “Next time you two want to.... ‘practice charms’,” Oceanus air quoted, “Lock the door,”

 

[Wilfred Lichester-Raven]

Who needed enemies when he had friends like this? Being simultaneously the youngest and oldest of a substantial amount of siblings, Wilfred had somehow managed to find the sweet spot in sibling relations where he didn't actually get teased by anyone. At least Dittany and Oceanus were here to make sure he didn't go getting a big head. He felt very much like a little brother that had found himself dangling by the ankle in a tree. The Hufflepuff continued squirming after Oceanus had finally cut some of the ties, and it was with great relief that he felt his binds loosen and eventually release him. The sixth year lay on the floor, his limbs tired from fighting Aria's magic, but he was soon inspired to get up at Oceanus' later comment.​

The Hufflepuff's feathers were quite ruffled at the clear implication that anything untoward had happened - except skipping class, but that was completely justified - especially with Aria insisted - rather firmly; his pride was wounded, admittedly - that they were only friends. Platonic companions. Best friends. Of course, Dittany looked about ready to mark their engagement on the school calendar, and wasn't that a terrible thought?​

"Nothing happened," Wilfred said firmly, perhaps a little too firmly considering he didn't want to inadvertently make it seem like Aria had overstepped a mark, somewhere. Perhaps this was why duels usually required an audience - not for the physical safety of the participants, but the social safety. He would die if rumours got out about this, as they were sure to be unfounded and ridiculously exaggerated if they were coming from Dittany. "We were just practicing Incarcerous. That's it, and I got-" He was going to say 'distracted', but that only sounde more implicating. "-I wasn't, um, fast enough at blocking. Don't you guys have a class or something?" Rich, coming from the boy that had snuck out of History of Magic.​

 

[Aria Kovac]

Aria never felt so embarrassed in her life. She was still red as a beet, and looked to the three of them. Wilfred seemed to feel like she did, and she was just ready to leave. She was so frustrated! She felt like Wilfred, but she couldn't get the words out. Oceanus had her in a bind, and Dittany was making things a little worse! "We don't like each other in that way!" exclaimed Aria, though it sounded like she was just trying to convince herself at that point. She stammered incoherently for a moment. Then she took her wand from the floor, and her robes. She stomped her foot. "You know what? I'm leaving! I... I-I am going back to class!" Aria walked by the three of them, and out of the common room. Well, she tried, but she kept trying to push a door that was meant to be pulled. She figured it out after three tries, and huffed. She slammed the door behind her, but then immediately felt bad. She sighed and opened the the door, slithered back in and lowered herself onto the floor. "I can't be seen sneaking back to class..."

 

[Dittany Belrose]

Dittany had to keep pinching herself as the events unfolded in front of her. Cordelia and Thala were going to absolutely love this, assuming Thala didn't already know from lurking about somewhere. She was a wee bit creepy that one, but Dittany dearly loved all of her friends. Cailin on the other hand... she and Cordelia often fought, poor dears, probably going to be related come next Christmas. "Wilfred, dear, dear, Wilfred, when one is practicing charms, one often does so in the duelling chamber, or outside where there is a more comfortable setting, not in an exclusive room where, why, anything could happen." She told him, grinning wickedly. If she timed this right, she could get it out to the rest of the school by breakfast tomorrow. What fun. "That's rich," she said, laughing at comment about class, "coming from you. I trolled out of History of Magic last year, should've come with me, then you could have... hm... studied your abilities in a much more favourable light." She was enjoying this way, way too much and they knew it. "Oh, get up off the ground Aria, Binns won't even have noticed. I once threw a replica snitch through his head and he barely even bat an eye."​

 

[Oceanus Kingston]

Oceanus shook his head as Wilfred kept insisting that nothing happened. Then, there was Aria squeaking, going off, trying to leave only to come back in saying she couldn't sneak back to class. "Seems redundant to sneak back in," Oceanus remarked, almost under his breath. But Dittany was right, they should have practiced in the dueling chamber, with dummies and targets. Not on each other. Oceanus chuckled at Dittany chucking a snitch at Binns' head. Although he took that class, his was on another day, and he spent more time reading than anything else. He looked to Dittany and said, "I think they have done enough to each other. I have about ten minutes to get to Charms, so I better duck out." Oceanus patted Dittany on the shoulder before helping Aria off of the floor. "Dittany, make sure the two Hufflepuffs play nice," he smirked as he walked out of the prefects common room.

 

[Wilfred Lichester-Raven]

Wilfred was relatively easy to fluster, but he did see the light at the end of the tunnel, so to speak, when Aria left. It made it seem like he could reasonably leave the situation, too, without seeming like a massive child. Oceanus and Dittany had had their fun, and Aria had the right idea about going back to class - right up until she came back. Wilfred hadn't considered the logistics of sneaking back into class, but he was willing to believe that Dittany had the right idea. He was sure Professor Binns wouldn't notice anything, but maybe to avoid any other awkward assumptions, they should enter at different times. Especially with Oceanus now gone (though his final comment did leave Wilfred pouting in annoyance), the Hufflepuff decided he really needed to get out of this room.​

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"I'm going to go back to class," he told the girls, though mostly Aria. "Maybe come back a bit after me? I think Dittany's right, Binn's doesn't notice anything. I'll, um, see you there, then!" He smiled awkwardly at Aria, and then sheepishly at Dittany, before grabbing his robes and leaving the Prefect's Common Room.​

 

[Aria Kovac]

Aria immediately got up from the floor when Dittany told her to. Following orders came easily to her, for some reason. She was just so submissive. Binns likely would not notice. She nodded when Wilfred said that they should not sneak back in together. She watched as he left, not long after Oceanus. Soon after, she bid Dittany farewell for now and snuck back in using the same charm she used to sneak out. So embarrassing this was.

Fin!​