Under Better Circumstances

[rachel]

3:55
November 2nd

Rachel liked her office. It wasn't too messy, it wasn't unbelievably neat, and it sure kept her warm and comfortable. She figured that it was the way she had dressed it up, with the seashell theme, but it was also that she was reminded of her home, of the family that she had left behind, as there was letters, pictures and even presents that her siblings and parents had given her. It was a sad thing, leaving her family, but she couldn't turn down the opportunity to come back to Hogwarts, the place that she had called her home for seven years.

Rachel just wished that she could have been in her office under better circumstances. It wasn't that she didn't like her students, but as the Ravenclaw Head of House, she figured that it was her job to get an explanation towards all the wrong-doings. This afternoon, Rachel was in her office waiting to see a one Andrew Thornton, the Head Boy of Hogwarts, over a deduction of points. She wasn't trying to be mean and horrible, but some of the other professors had kind of pressured the girl into meeting the boy. Besides, there were other things that she could talk about with him, his career, for instance.

After writing a letter, giving the boy four days notice, Rachel made sure she was at her office at the said time. Getting out her book, so that she had something to do whilse the boy arrived, she clicked her tongue, hoping that she wasn't forced to rouse, if Drew chose to be late. It was already 3:55 in the afternoon, and the meeting was to start at 4:00.

[ Closed for Drew ]

[Drew Thornton]

It had been a while since Drew had been called into his Head of House's office. Actually, it had been almost a year, when Raynor had been the Head. It wasn't that he hadn't done his share of messing up, it was just that the past Head, a nice enough guy who had taken over after Raynor, hadn't been totally there.

But Kinsley... Kinsley was on the ball and when Drew got his note requesting a meeting, the Head boy let out an audible groan. There were only a few things that could have prompted such a formal request and seeing that he was not a fifth year about to take OWLs, it was most likely the 50 points he lost at Griffith's hand. The curse of having a Head of House who actually knew what they were doing. Drew had a feeling Felicity wasn't getting called in by her Head...

Drew was in front of Kinsley's door at promptly four o'clock. His sleeves were casually pushed up to his elbows, but the white shirt he wore underneath his sweater was tucked in and his tie was straightened, something he probably wouldn't have bothered with if it was Raynor he was meeting. Of course, if it was Raynor, he probably wouldn't have bothered with knocking either, but knock he did, taking a deep breath and rapping his knuckles on the door just as the clock in the tower rang out across the school.

[rachel]

Continuing to read, Rachel wasn't exactly taking in the words. She didn't really know how to phrase what she was going to say to the boy, without sounding like she was really horrible. Placing the book down on the table in front of, Rachel yawned, still trying to come up wiht a way. Tapping her fingers one by one on the table, The Ravenclaw HoH would have to wing it; the clock was about to sound. "Ten, nine, eight, seven, six, five, four, three, two, one, zero." Rachel counted down, using the clock that was sitting on her desk for guidance. Rachel smiled, hearing the knock on the door sound, and opened her mouth to speak.

But what did she say? Was she to go up and greet the boy, or merely call out to him. There were those two options, but what was considered to be correct of a professor? Should she had gone up, then there was the chance that she was acting a little too immature, but if she stayed, then it may have seen like she was angry, and he was in trouble. Deciding to go with the second option, because she had pasued to thik about it too long, Rachel grimaced. "Come in!" She called out, in a polite tone.

[Drew Thornton]

Drew took another deep breath, collecting his thoughts before actually opening the door. His first meeting with the woman hadn't gone all that great, and while he thought things had gotten better sitting in her class, he really wasn't sure what to expect on this one on one meeting. If this was about what had happened in History, would she believe his side of the story, or would she blow him off as just another goof-off kid? Figuring she had probably read his records, Drew thought his chances were for the later rather than the former.

Another deep breath and he turned the knob, swinging the door open and walking through. She was seated behind her desk, looking more formidable than she usually did in classes. "You wanted to see me Professor?" he asked, smirking crookedly out of nervousness.

[rachel]

After Rachel heard the knock, she sighed. This was hopefully going to go alright, and he wasn't going to think of her as a mean teacher. It was very immature for the adult to be thinking like this, but there was no other way that Rachel knew of. Rachel's call seemed inappropriate, but it was two late to be thinking about that. Still tapping her fingernails on the desk, to the well known tune of twinkle, twinkle little star, this slightly relaxed her. Stopping, after she finished the tune, Rchel picked up a couple pieces of paper, with what she wanted to talk about written down on them. Folding, them, the young woman was really nervous.

You wanted to see me Professor

"Yeah, Drew, Don't worry, you aren't in trouble." She began, trying to start on agood note. "Take a seat. I wanted to see you about the deductions, I figured that you had guessed that." Rachel smiled. "Well, what happened?" She politely asked.

[Drew Thornton]

Her casualness set him a bit on edge and he nervously bit his lip as he made his way towards the offered seat. He wasn't sure what he had expected from the woman, but told himself that she wasn't supposed to be like Raynor. He placed his bag on the floor next to him as he sat down and for a moment he just looked at her, not sure what to say. Not in trouble? He had lost 50 points on the first day of classes. How could he not be in trouble. It was almost the definition of trouble.

He continued to bite his lip as he tried to figure out what to tell her. He had no reason to lie to her other than the plain and simple fact that he didn't want to come off looking like some spoiled brat who had issues with authority figures. The truth was that he had gone into class with an open mind, looking forward to finally having a decent History Professor. His anticipation hadn't lasted very long.

"I mouthed off to Professor Griffiths," he finally said, not sure what else she wanted to hear. It wasn't like she could take the points back and she'd probably end up telling him it was his fault anyway, so he might as well get that part out of the way.

[rachel]

Rachel didn't know what else to say. True, he was not in trouble with her, with others maybe, but the Ravenclaw Head of House just wanted to discuss what had happened. It was simple; she was not going to get angry at the seventh year, or she had no plans of doing so anyways. It was just a case of seeing what happened, as she had heard a few different stories from Teachers and a couple of students that she had asked. It was funny, the way the stories changed the further it was from the event. The last story that Rachel heard was that Drew yelled at Griffiths accusing him of being Deva as he spoke parseltongue.

Rachel couldn't imagine any of this to be possible; firstly, she didn't think that Drew, the head boy, would accuse someone of that, as Rachel knew Griffiths, and knew that he wasn't Deva. Such claims would have to be investigated and so on, Rachel knew that it wasn't true.

I mouthed off to Professor Griffiths

Rachel heard, happy that it confirmed the first story she had heard. "As you'd probably know, there have been a few rumors floating around. You're not in trouble, with me, anyways, I just want to know what actually happened. What did you say to Griffths? Unless it is worse than I thought, than you don't have to repeat the words, but just give me the jist of the situation." Rachel smiled sympathetically.

[Drew Thornton]

Drew shrugged at first, not sure he wanted to explain. All he needed was another professor to believe that he was a mouthy, disrespectful, know-it-all. So far he felt that Kinsley didn't have a problem with him and Drew really wanted to keep it that way.

On the other hand, he didn't want her believing some of the rumors he had heard, that he had turned Griffiths into a sombrero wearing jackass (his favorite version actually), or going off of what Griffiths had most certainly told her.

"It was stupid really," Drew finally answered, thinking that he had probably over reacted, but at the same time, wasn't sorry for what he had done. "Griff... Professor Griffiths was going to have a lesson on Ancient Rome and told us to change our robes into togas. Some of us had a problem with doing this and asked why." When it came down to it, that was all he and Felicity had done. "I mean, I probably could have worded it better. I think I said we were supposed to wear the school uniform during class and he said if we didn't, he'd change our robes into togas permanently. Then he tossed the book to us and said if we didn't like it, we could teach the class. That's when I mouthed off and asked if that meant he wasn't going to teach us."

"I just didn't want to do it and I didn't see the reason why we had to change," Drew said, feeling slightly defeated. "He got really mad and actually said we were lucky he wasn't going to take points, but by that time... by that time he had kind of gotten..."

Drew paused, fishing for the right word. He hadn't been violent. That hadn't been until the detention. But Drew had gotten a bad vibe and had wanted out of there as soon as possible.

"... Rough, I guess," Drew finally concluded. "I just didn't feel like it was a good place to be. A couple of us felt that way, so some of us left. Three of us actually. I feel bad I left Celina behind to deal with him by herself." It was the only thing from that incident that he was truly sorry for.

[rachel]

Still fiddling her thumbs, Rachel looked up at the seventh year. He didn't really seem to be scared of her, which was always a plus. It was hard to rouse on people, and still have them like you, but so far, Rachel seemed to be going pretty good with all her students. She definitely wasn't the meanest teacher, but she wasn't the one that no one respected, but she didn't give them a reason to. Trying not to smile at the boy, Rachel really didn't want Andrew to think that it was okay to do this sort of thing either.

Nodding, as the boy finally answered, Rachel took in everything that the head boy said. She didn't really know the situation, but she thought that the boy was going to tell her the truth. She wasn't intimidated the boy, and she was his head of house, and Rachel just figured that the Head Boy wouldn't lie. She trusted him, like she trusted all of her students not to do anything stupid.

Once the boy had finished, Rachel continued nodding, only subtlely, but she was definitely still nodding. Andrew may have thought that it was a nervous twitch sort of thing, but she was just trying to comprehend everything, and find an reply to the boy's story. She too felt bad for Celina Jedynak, as she was left to deal with the professor, and even though Rachel knew that the students shoudl have stayed, she knew what they were going through.

"If you felt threatened, intimidated, nervous, or anything like that, you had every right to leave the room. I'm not taking sides or anything, it's just that if you didn't think it was right, that's okay. I wished I could have spoken to you about this sooner, but I didn't have the time. Who else was it, that left the room?" Rachel smiled, wanting to talk to the other Head of Houses about this as well.

[Drew Thornton]

He knew he had the right to leave, which is why he didn't feel it was fair to get busted for it. It was like the profs could bully the students all they wanted and the students couldn't do anything about it. No, he didn't expect Kinsley to take the points back any more than Raynor would have... but it sure would have been nice if the real perp had gotten in trouble instead of the victims.

But Drew kept that all to himself. All he needed was for his new Head of House to think he was a whiner. He told her the truth, tried to be as objective as possible, and hopefully got her to understand why he had done what he did.

"Uh... it was me, Felicity Hjort, and Connor Manning," Drew answered carefully. He had heard enough comments about the badges the three of them wore, but in his opinion, it waas their position that made it more important to stand up to something they saw as wrong. "Felicity got a detention and she and I both lost 50 points over it, but Connor... I think he only lost five or something." The total inequity of the punishment had been another thing Drew had been upset about. It wasn't very fair they had gotten into trouble (but Drew was well aware that many peopole got busted for doing the right thing), but it really wasn't fair that they had each gotten three different punishments for doing the same thing.

[rachel]

Rachel didn't know what to say. She recognised the names of the two other people, but she didn't really think of them as being able to cause aggression. Xander seemed like such a nice man when she had met him, but he may not have been showing hte true extent of his personality. She trusted him though, but she also trusted her students. She knew that Andrew would never lie to her, especially when there was other ways for Rachel to be able to find out the truth. Smiling, Rachel began to speak. "I'd give back points, but I really don't have the right to. Plus, they made me promise that I wouldn't make favourites with my ravenclaws." She winked to the boy.

"Okay, is there anything else that you need to say about that situation? If not, I'd like to talk to you about your future, and what you would like to do."

[Drew Thornton]

"Yeah, I think the Ravenclaw Heads are the only ones who actually keep that particular promise," Drew grumbled with a small roll of his eyes. It just really didn't seem fair he and Felicity had lost so many and the only reason was because Griffiths was a jerk. He had a right to intimidate and bully students, but no one had the ability to fix it. Great...

He wasn't happy about the lacking solution to the matter, but knew that Kinsley was right. She couldn't do anything about it.

But there was one more thing he needed to say, mostly because he didn't want Felicity to get into any more trouble.

"I told Felicity not to finish her detention time," he said, before taking a deep breath and biting on his lip a bit. "She was going, but he scared her really bad, using dangerous stuff around her and then getting into a fist fight with the Quidditch ref. I don't want her alone with him. She's not going anymore and I'm finishing it up for her."

[rachel]

Feeling slightly disheartened by the boy's next comment, Rachel looked down at her hands. Was she really the only one who stayed with this promise, and is that why her Ravenclaw's didn't seem to like her. She had met one kid that was incredibly polite to her, but the others weren't sseming to like her at all, as if she was just another professor that they'd forget the name of. Rachel had made a promise to her students that she wouldn't let that happen, and that she wasn't going to be that kind fo teacher but heck, she had gone against it already.

Smiling, Rachel looked back up at Andrew as he began to speak again. Nodding as he did so, Rachel knew that this was a time that she could step in. "Now that I know that, I'll make sure that Felicity doesn't get any more punishments. And you, as my student, I think that I'll have a talk to Professor Griffiths. Are you going to a detention with him?" She said patiently, meaning every word that she said. This wasn't the best solution ever, but she was trying. Rachel was definitely trying.

[Drew Thornton]

"I took over her detention for her," Drew answered, slowly getting more frustrated by the whole situation. How come students couldn't stand up to unfair professors? How come they were punished and nothing could be done about it? How come they were looked on as disgruntled kids while the adults got off just to do it again.

But again, Drew knew it was pointless to dwell on it. No one cared as long as you were a student. His goal in life was to fight injustice and work for equality, but at the moment, his hand were tied. It was useless trying. Here at Hogwarts, he was just another dumb kid.

"Please. Please, don't talk to him," Drew asked, knowing it would just make things worse. The guy already had it out for Drew and if she said anything, the man would just find some other stupid reason to dock points from him. "But thanks... thanks for watching out for Felicity. I know she's not your responsibility, but I don't want her getting in more trouble for any of this."