Another One Bites The Dust (Open)

[roxanneashford]

Yawning a bit to herself, Roxanne carried a few boxes along the corridors of the fifth floor, intention of reaching her office. The woman hadn't been in her office for about a month; probably poor planning on her partm anyways. Her summer had been practically full without needing to prepare for the new term. She had spent the whole summer back in San Francisco, where she was forcefully clung to by Sydney and Abigail, her two best friends, who outright refused to let her return to Hogwarts on a count of her being gone way too long. All of her old students also insisted on lessons with her, which she of course gave in to on a count of her truly missing everybody.

It had been hard to pry herself away from Syd and Abby, but they did understand in the end. Emma had a hard time leaving as well, especially because she had become close to Sydney through the days she had spent at the studio while not in school. Roxanne also had a difficult time explaining why she didn't just stay in San Francisco, continue her job as teaching dance to the advanced students, and send Emma to the local public school. Syd and Abby had no idea about magic, so it wasn't a simple open and shut case to explain. Roxanne, despite the few bad moments, also thouroughly enjoyed her job as well.

Using the edge of the box to attempt to open the door, it flung open as it seemed to open without difficulty, having Roxy have to drop the box to catch herself from tumbling over. Merlin! Her office almost looked worse than how she had left it. Right. Should she clean it? She did hate a clean office, and she even hated the whole cleaning process more. Sighing, as she tried to decide exactly what she needed to do, Roxanne got down to her knees to pick up the spilled contents from the box she had dropped.

Thank Merlin classes hadn't started yet.

[Layla Jimenez]

The Sorting Feast was an evil thing. It really was. Layla had walked in as a formality and her own wishes to see the Sorting, but she wasn't planning on eating. Her mother had fed her a ridiculously large breakfast and she'd snacked the whole train ride to Hogwarts that she'd arrived to the feast with no desire to eat another morsel. But she'd eaten anyway. How could she not? Hundreds of students around her had been diggin in and she was supposed to shun the piles of delicious food made just for that occasion. That would have been rude and her mother had taught her better. Yes... that was it...

Layla had eaten so much that night that she'd forgotten the small notebook she'd found on her way to the Great Hall. She'd stashed it in her pocket and had planned to turn it in right after the Sorting. But after she'd eaten so much, she left the Hall with the reflexes of a whale and no memory of the small book in her robes. She'd taken her robes off once she'd gotten to Ravenclaw and had forgotten about its existence until she found the book on her night stand. The elves must have thought it was hers.

So she had made her way towards the Hufflepuff Head's office, with a palm-sized steno pad with hand drawn Hufflepuff crests across the front and back covers. She'd flipped through quickly before landing on the fifth floor, but found no name. As she turned a corner, she saw the Professor's belongings fall out of a box she'd been holding, and the Professor herself in an odd position in attempts to keep her balance. Speeding to a trot, Layla got to her as she had knelt to pick everything up. Layla did the same and took hold of the box to bring it closer. "Are you alright, Professor?"

[roxanneashford]

The box was pretty much a means to an end at the point of dropping.

Roxanne hadn't been to her classroom much as of yet, only briefly to grab said box to bring it up to her office. She had many things in it, ranging from old textbooks, piles of papers students have written for her Charms classes in the previous year, nicknacks, small gifts from last Christmas...you know, all the really important things that she just had to keep. Half of her just wanted to kick it out of the doorway and into the hallway so she wouldn't have to deal with it. In only a matter of weeks, Roxanne could see all of these papers readily floating around her office, as if it were by magic itself, with the books abandoned on the shelves and the presents thrown into storage.

As she casually tossed a few books into the box, she noticed a girl come up behind her and attempt to help her. Roxy smiled a bit at the girl, glad that she had come over to help her. "Hey...Layla, right? Thanks..." she offered pleasantly, as she proceeded to finish picking up papers, casually tossing them into the box as if they were unimportant.

"Well, classes haven't even started yet, everything is so hectic around here!" she started, as she gave a blank stare into her office, before reverting her attention to the Ravenclaw. The house elves actually cleaned up my office over the summer break, so they had a grand old time when I sent them back in to mess it up. I couldn't find a thing..." she shook her head. "But yes, thank you, I'm alright. Just don't grow up to be like me...learn your organizational skills now."

She yawned once more, as she stood up. Roxy used her foot to push it into the room, right smack dab in the middle where it hit a pile of papers, knocking them over. Merlin. Those were her old school essays, too. She raised her eyebrow, as she pointed her finger over the papers and guided them back into a pile. Wandless magic had saved the woman a lot of difficulty in times like this.

"Sorry about that" she said, smiling. "How were your holidays?"

[Layla Jimenez]

Layla smiled in amusement as the Professor seemed to be just unprepared to be standing up at all. She figured the box was an isolated incident, but when Layla looked into her office she was convinced otherwise. She nodded when the Professor called her by name and nodded even more when she'd offered her advice. In general, Layla was pretty organized. She usually let things pile up a bit before she realized that they bothered her and she fixed them. And even then, she'd still know where everything was and she wasn't too much of a pack rat. She stood there with the small notebook in her hand, but had completely forgotten that she'd brought it to turn it in.

"Um... I'm usually pretty neat, Professor, thanks." She looked at the Charm Professor's office and giggle. She probably didn't know all that was in there. She looked back when the she was asked about her summer. "The Holiday?" she repeated. It wasn't her favorite, but it had had its highlights. She didn't want to bother the Professor with her troubles anyway. "My summer holiday was... good, Professor. I got to go to New York. How about yours?"

[roxanneashford]

Roxanne let out a small laugh at her mention of already being pretty neat. "Well, that makes one of us. Perhaps you could let me in on the secret sometime..."

An extremely loud cawking noise suddenly emerged from her office, which caused her to glance in irritably. Retarded bird. It was flying around her office, landing on piles of paper wherever it pleased. It had been Samantha's bird from the previous term, and when she had gone off for a new job she didn't have anyone to care for it. Of course, Roxanne being the good friend accepted the retarded bird into her office. The thing was an eagle, but it truly was the oddest thing you had ever seen. The thing had plastic wings, and was retarded. She couldn't get over it's retardedness. It would randomly jump up and fly into windows. It would talk to you as if it were giving advice, and it remembered and repeated conversations like a parrot.

"Tarnie..." she mumbled in harsh tones, as she reached out and escorted the lovely bird by a spell back into the cage.

Roxanne smiled pleasantly back to Layla, nodding a bit. "Sorry about that. Ah, New York, I used to be in NYC for a good bit when I was still dancing. Lovely city, it was. I spent my holidays home in San Francisco, working at my studio, mostly. Have you ever been to California?" she inquired.

[Layla Jimenez]

Just as Layla had stepped closer to the door to folow the Professor in, she stopped herself in response to a loud cawk! She looked in as the older woman mumbled. There was an eagle of the oddest appearance. She'd taken how many years of Care of Magical Creatures? She'd never seen something like that. But it seemed to make itself quite comfortable in the Professor's office, though a bit disoriented.

Layla took on a look of concern, she wondered if the bird was prone to hurting itself thrashing about like that. But the Professor seemed unmoved and continued talking about the Holidays after she'd set the bird in it's cage. "Oh no, Professor. This was my first time out of the UK. We were visiting Charlie for a bit in the northern part of the state."

She tried to avoid the subject of why they had gone to Leger's Woods, so she toook a new piece of information and went with that instead. "You were a dancer? What kind of dancing?" Layla had taken a few lessons of almost everything as a child, but Layla wasn't much for commitment and never stuck to it. But she still liked it now and wished she had taken a few more lessons. It seemed like Layla couldn't picture the Professor as anything than.. well... her Professor. A dancer was completely off the wall.

[roxanneashford]

Roxanne nodded in response to Layla at first, smiling a bit before turning her eyes on the bird in a death glare as it started to ramble off pointless conversations once again. The conversations it remembered baffled her...you ask the bird what it had for dinner the previous night, and it will only get the correct answer because it indeed gets fed the same thing. If Roxanne had switched it up, it would forget. At random times, Tawnie would spout off conversations it eavesdropped on when Samantha had the wretched thing as a student. It's favorite phrase, one that it knew annoyed Roxanne to the utmost was 'James Craven is sooo hot'. James Craven, an alumni of Hogwarts, had been in Roxanne's class and the two had somewhat dated for a while in their sixth years. He was in Slytherin, no doubt, and the four or so years before that it had been that fact alone that had kept Roxanne from saying anything to anyone but Samantha, who had that bird. Big mistake.

It was spouting it off in a sing-songy type of voice, and anyone so far that had heard it certainly didn't know who James Craven was. At least, she could only hope. She highly doubted Layla knew who he was, but it still annoyed the living daylighs out of her.

"I never got to go to the top of the state, really" she commented. "I crossed a few times into Canada, but never stayed more than a night."

This bird was really killing her now. It's wings were flapping wildly and it had branched off into screaming and cawing different phrases. Did it realize it was still in a cage, anyways?

"Yes, I've danced all my life, actually. Had my first class when I was three or so. I've done everything; Ballet, Tap, Jazz, Hip-Hop, Hula, Ballroom, Tango, the works..but I turned pro for ballet. That's what I focus on, mostly." she nodded. "Keeps the summers busy, I tell you that. I taught so many of my students back home, I barely got a breather" she smiled, remembering how great indeed it had been to be back.

"You will have to excuse the bird. It's a right piece of annoyance and burden if you ask me."

[Layla Jimenez]

Layla could only nod as she held her breath and prayed to the gods that she just wouldn't laugh out loud. This was probably the best part of her day. Not just finding something in common with a well-liked Professor, but to see her composure almost fall apart at the antics of such a rowdy bird.

"Oh it's ok, Professor. He seems to really like this James person, though," she said grinning.

She wanted to ask the Professor more about her dancing experience, but her senses caught the rough binding of the small book she was holding. "Oh! I'm sorry Professor. I had come to see you for this." She handed over the small book and turned it over to reveal the Hufflepuff markings on it. "I found it by the Entrance on my way to the Sorting Feast."