au_hogwarts | The Three Broomsticks; Late Night

The Three Broomsticks; Late Night

Jo is Bored. Adulthood is sometimes Boring.

Fail, Adulthood, Fail. And the empty bar.
Where she "has to stay" for the time being.

To counteract this, Jo is sitting on one end of the bar reading her mail. Indian style. Wearing a cowboy hat only those who went to school with her would remember from their fourth year.

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Leah snorts. "Oh yes, I heard a few people complaining about that."

She thinks, tappiing her lips with a finger of the hand still holding her new toy. "This year's seventh year has Dinah Drake's daughter in it, doesn't it? She needs the challenge."

"I have too many students who are getting irritatingly difficult to challenge anyway. Some trickery won't hurt them!"

Unless, of course, it does. But if they study properly, they won't have anything to worry about!

Grinning again, Sokka reaches over the bar for a glass and bottle. Even if Jo minds, he can bear the scowling. "Maybe give them the wrong ingredients, see who questions me!"

"That is a great idea," Leah says cheerfully. "Makes me wish I had a more practical compon... ooooh."

Sokka very nearly chokes on his whiskey at the excitement in her voice. "Ooh what?"

"Oooh, if the second years are doing context and origin of the major thread of magical theory, they should be able to replicate some of the earliest spells from each school," Leah says, her smile wide.

"...I have a list of South American variants of common potions," Sokka offers helpfully.

"...I want that list," Leah replies.

"Not until after Christmas holiday. After I hit Greece, I'll have a fairly comprehensive world list. I refuse to give you things that are less than perfect."

Leah blows out through her closed lips. Pffffft.

"You'd never give me anything, then."

"Oi, who's got a perfectly perfect Deluminator in her hand?"

Leah tightens her grip on it, and grins up at hm in satisfaction.

"Me."

"Damn right you do."

There is grumping and sulking, though a light version of both considering her satisfied grin.

Leah bumps his arm with a fist.

"Hang on," she says, and turns away slightly so she can flip the homework she was marking into one pile. "There. That's corrections out of the way. They can have their first drafts back tomorrow - hold this."

She presents him with the deluminator while she sets about doing something that's rather digusting, but she doesn't care - her eyes are itching again and they have to come out.

It's the sort of disgust that is entirely acceptable once you know the reasons why in great detail. Besides, it gives Sokka some more time to play with the deluminator before she takes it away from him forever.

"You assigned papers already? Unnecessarily cruel. This is why you're never up for Teacher of the Year."

"I'm never up for Teacher of the Year because I don't teach underaged wizards how to blow shit up," Leah points out. "And these were their sumnmer projects anyway. Bloody awful, too. I'm never doing that again."

"For Merlin's sake, Leah, you teach history. If anything has more of an excuse for explosions than potions, it's history."

But he is grinning. Somewhat evilly.

"Besides, one of my Gryffindor Seconds mouthed off today. Had them making Doxycide all afternoon."

"Alright," Leah says. "I'll take you up on that challenge, Professor Aquam. If I can get explosions into all of my curricula by the end of the term, you're buying the drinks for the staff party."

"Done!"

Prompt acceptance.

Perhaps too prompt.

"...all right, secret time." The bar stool beside her scrapes as he pulls it out and Sokka flops into the seat with a very serious frown. "M'actually cutting down a bit on explosions this term. They were mostly for rewards anyway, but I'm gonna enforce that a little more now.

"So feel free to fill up the gap!"

Leah looks shocked. SHOCKED.

"No explosions? Then what are potions for?"

"I heard something once about the 'delicate power and subtlety of a proper potion bewitching the mind and blah blah blah,'" Sokka replies with a wave of his hand. "Something like that. And there's certainly a place for subtlety, but you've got to get the kids in the right state of mind to give half a damn about it."

"Pah subtlety."

Leah is quite capable of subtlety when she wants to be. "Subtlety's for when you don't have enough holycrapthat'samazing."

"Well, that's what I've always said, but the Headmaster's had a different view for quite some time."

Soft, mild frowning goes here. The Headmaster is...

...

...his boss. That's the most important thing.

Besides, Sokka's grinning again. Never a terribly long pause. "But mostly? I've got a few students showing serious potential and I want them to be my lab rats this term."

"If you're talking about Leonardo da Vinci," Leah says, "You can feel free to give him all the challenge you wnt, now it's not my class he'll be 'forgetting'."

"He's been here long enough for me to expect more out of his participation in the club than anything he actually does in class," Sokka admits with an amused smirk. "And I don't think he's even in club, he just shows up now and again. Brilliant, though, if he could focus on one thing for more than an hour."

A hand is lifted, fingers near her lips in a 'shush' gesture.

"I am completely aware of the hypocrisy in that statement. Point stands, though."

Leah grabs his hand near her mouth, and keeps it grabbed.

"Yeah, like I'm in a position to talk about people's attention spans or something. Look who you're talking to."

It's true; an hour is good for Leah.

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