An emergency meeting (Tag all staff but especially Nathan) on Sonora Lounges

DH Skies

January 19, 2018 4:28 PM

An emergency meeting (Tag all staff but especially Nathan) by DH Skies

Andrew James was waiting in her office. Cleo was in the third year dormitory crying. It was a hideous start to the year and it was about to get a whole lot worse. There was telling the staff - that was bad enough, hard enough. And that was only going to be the start of actually dealing with this problem… With keeping Cleo and those around her safe, and with trying to somehow get her putting her life back together. And then there was the final blow he’d dealt her. The fear not of what was going to happen next but what had happened up until now, and the very difficult questions she was going to have to ask people... She had called an emergency staff meeting, even pulling Nathan away from orientation - the new kids were mingling and could be supervised by one of the prairie elves for a while - and she had to talk to them all, but especially to him.

"Cleo James' father came to see me this morning," she began, once everyone was assembled and sitting down - she felt that them sitting down was a vital component given what she had to tell them. "As you may be aware, Cleo lives with her father, and her mother has not been involved in her life. Mr. James has just disclosed to me that Cleo’s mother was - is…. Is a veela. Her father has struggled with knowing how to tell Cleo. He hadn't told her when she started school, which is why he didn't tell us. He told her over the summer when he started to notice that people were… taking an interest in her.

"The first thing to be aware of is how upset Cleo is. She started several accidental fires over summer, and keeps talking about herself as if she’s some kind of monster. You will need to keep an eye on her, both in terms of emotional support and potential magical accidents.

"We will also need to put measures in place for her and other people's safety - we have a hormonal teenage half veela with no idea how to control her powers,” she added, in case anyone really hadn’t thought that through. The concept of veela tended to get so romanticised - seen as exotic little mascots for Quidditch teams and the like. They were fun, and far away. The consequences of having one around in reality were somewhat different. “The prairie elves will be helpful in supervising her, but the question is how much supervision? How do we balance her and other people's safety with her freedom? How do we have her adequately supervised without making it obvious to other students that it's her that's being monitored? She needs time to come to terms with this and should be allowed to tell people in her own time. Please don’t disclose this to other students.

“Before you all start telling me she’ll be fine with you, I’m not looking for this to get into personal territory. I don’t want people to feel forced to admit that they aren’t attracted to women - or that they are. That is not something that should be a group discussion. It’s not even something I particularly feel the need for you to tell me when I speak to you on your own,” she added. Those conversations were going to get rather more personal, but simple ‘no’ answers would suffice. There did not need to be any ‘becauses.’ She hoped to Merlin there were no ‘yeses.’

“Speaking of which, that’s what’s going to happen now. I need to speak to all of you one by one about- about this. We can come back to what we do about Ms. James’ safety afterwards...

“Grayson, I’ll be borrowing your office, if I may,” she added. “Andrew James is still in mine, and you’re less likely to have visitors than the heads of houses,” she added, feeling it was polite to explain why she was commandeering her colleague’s space, even if she didn’t really need his permission. She tapped her wand on the staff room wall, and a door appeared, leading through into Gray’s office.

“Nathan, you first,” she added, gesturing him inside. Selina was often a serious person, though more so with the students than with her colleagues. She had a definite “don’t you dare” stare. Around her colleagues, she was usually more lighthearted. However, now she looked downright grim. Not her usual serious face, the one she wore when a student earnt her displeasure or caused her concern, but one that suggested a very unpleasant task was now before her.

“Nathan,” she began, and there was regret and apology in her voice as well. “I… I know you’re probably still dealing with the shock of this. It’s…” she allowed herself to trail off. What the hell adjective covered this? “But I need to ask you a few questions. I will be asking all your colleagues the same ones,” I’m not singling you out. “You should know that Ms. James will also be interviewed regarding her relationships with staff members. You are therefore advised to answer honestly. Given Ms. James’.... Situation, you would be unlikely to be held accountable, but any attempt to disguise any incidents that have occurred would be regarded with suspicion.”

She was sure by now that he understood perfectly well what she was asking him. But there could be no ambiguity.

“Nathan, I’m sorry,” and she really sounded it. This was horrific. This was the first day of term… Friends reuniting. New students being sorted. A feast. A celebration. And this… She had never had to have such a horrible conversation with her staff before. “I have to ask you…. Have you ever had physical contact with Ms. James outside of what would be considered normal in a teacher-student relationship? Have you experienced any sensation of being disoriented, or having missing time when you were around Ms. James?”

OOC - if anyone except Nathan wants to respond, you can assume that Selina asked them exactly the same questions, possibly with slightly less apologetic pre-amble. After all the staff had been spoken to one by one, she would have come back to a group meeting for any comments on what happens next, and you’re also welcome to post as if things are at that point.

Subthreads:

Oh this is not good at all by Nathan Xavier with DH Skies

Emergency indeed by Daniel Nash with DH Skies

Not as bad as it could have been. by Grayson Wright

13 DH Skies An emergency meeting (Tag all staff but especially Nathan) 26 DH Skies 1 5

Nathan Xavier

January 19, 2018 6:14 PM

Oh this is not good at all by Nathan Xavier

Nathan was surprised to be summoned away from the orientation shortly after he finished his speech. The new students didn't seem to need him much at this point, and it would still be over an hour before the tour was due to begin, so he left the elves in charge, and tasked a prefect he saw in the hall on the way up to the staff room to head over there, too. In all the years he'd been at Sonora, they'd never had an impromptu meeting like this on the first day of term - with an Orientation in progress no less - and it did not bode well.

It was as bad as he'd feared. No, it was worse.

Cleo. Sweet, garden loving Cleo, was part - no, not part, half Veela. That was bad enough right there, but . . . Nathan couldn't help just one moment of selfishness: why did this have to be about one of his favorite students? Though, at least she wasn't actually in his House. That would make this much much more awkward than it was already, with her just being someone he thought of as an Honorary Teppenpaw.

Poor Cleo. She must be feeling terrible, poor girl.

He had no idea what kind of suggestions to make when dealing with this problem, so he was initially grateful for the individual meetings, until he walked into Gray's office with Selina, and she laid out what it was they were there to discuss. His expression of horror was as much for the idea that Cleo might have already run into problems of this nature before they'd been aware of a problem as for the fact that this was happening. To him. To all of them really. But to him, especially. To him, first.

"Oh God," he blasphemed, an utterance he almost never used, but was heartfelt right now. "No, not that I remember, but . . . Geez, Selina, she was my gardening assistant since first year. She swings by my office just to chat. I forget she's not a Teppenpaw sometimes. There's countless hours we were alone together. There were usually elves about, but not always, not at first anyway. After the Concert, when her father gave me suspicious looks and made a comment, I made sure there was an elf, a prefect, another student or staff member around, whenever I knew I'd be working with her, but sometimes she showed up unannounced. Nothing untoward ever happened. We were just gardening and talking. I don't recall ever loosing time. But . . . I don't know. It might look bad." He ran a hand through his hair.

"This probably isn't relevant, but should I mention I'm dating Isis?" It wasn't, so far as he knew, a strict secret, but they were being discreet, and he wasn't sure it had come to the deputy's attention before now. He wasn't quite sure that it mattered at all, but if he were to be investigated, Isis could probably at least provide partial alibis for some of the time people might have otherwise thought he'd been alone.

1 Nathan Xavier Oh this is not good at all 28 Nathan Xavier 0 5

DH Skies

January 19, 2018 7:33 PM

There are not site-appropriate words for what it is by DH Skies

Selina waited, letting Nathan let it all out. It was no thankfully. In spite of his panicking, she was pretty sure of that. She felt lost in spite of it. She had had no idea how Nathan was going to react. A small part of her had expected him to be angry with her for even asking, and she was glad he wasn’t. But she had no frame of reference for this. Was this going well? Of course not. There could be no ‘going well.’ It was just all so horrible.

“If there’s nothing you remember, it’s because nothing’s happened. You would know, even if you had missing time - you’d have felt disoriented. If you’ve got no missing time, and you’ve never… found yourself in a compromising position with Ms. James, you have nothing to worry about.

“You don’t have to make an account of yourself to anyone but me,” she assured him, when he talked about it ‘looking bad.’ “We have no reason to believe anything has happened. But we have to check. If someone had… I mean, it’s likely they’d be very confused about the situation. They might not have known how to say anything… I’m sure her father will be reassured to know that she hasn’t been alone with you as often as he feared-” was ‘feared’ a bad choice of word? It probably was, but it was accurate. But judging by Nathan’s comment about the concert, he was well aware of Mr. James’ feelings towards him. “It’s been worrying him a lot,” she admitted what Nathan already seemed to know, “I think partly it’s because he knows it’s his own fault. He should have said something sooner, and now, if anything has happened to Cleo… It wouldn’t be just that. It would be living with the guilt.

“Cleo will be made to understand that she cannot pop in on you unannounced. But with one of the elves present… Does that sound like something you can-” can what? What verb did she need? Cope with?. Nathan seemed so panicked. And she understood his fear. He didn’t want to hurt anyone, and was being told that he might lose all ability to keep that within his control…. “It would be good for her, if the relationships she has built don’t just crumble away from her now. She’s half veela, but she’s half lost, frightened little girl too. We have to manage both,” she sighed. That was it… The whole crux of it. How to comfort Cleo? How to continue to treat her like a person. How to convince her that she wasn’t a monster, whilst making sure she couldn’t do monstrous things, that would damage her and others?

“Really?” she blinked, when he disclosed that he was dating Isis. She normally would have had more tact, but she supposed she must have used up her reserves. “I must be out of touch with the gossipmill, I had no idea,” she added, hoping that that made convincing enough cover for her surprise, which in truth stemmed from the fact that there was a sizeable age gap between the two of them and, well she wouldn’t have exactly considered Nathan to be Isis’ type. But then, what did she know? She knew certain things about Isis that were confidential… Or rather, that were about Nevaeh. Did Nathan know that, she wondered? “But no, that’s not any of my business.” It didn’t matter to the case at hand - all it proved was that Nathan was attracted to women, which meant he was someone who needed supervising with Cleo.

13 DH Skies There are not site-appropriate words for what it is 26 DH Skies 0 5

Nathan

January 19, 2018 10:36 PM

Couldn't agree more by Nathan

"Okay, that's good. Then nothing's happened." Nathan said after Selina clarified that he'd know it if something had. "Not with me, anyway," he added with a grimace. "Not that I think or have reason to believe anyone else has, it's just . . . this is an awful situation all around." He rubbed his temple. "Gah. Not that it's Cleo's fault, poor kid."

He grimaced again as Selina confirmed Nathan's fears that Mr. James had fears about Nathan, and worse, had told them to the deputy Headmistress. Not that Nathan blamed him; if a parent had those kinds of concerns, they very definitely ought to report them. But it was never a comfortable position for the teacher, or the administrator, for that matter, even if nothing was going on, as nothing was in this case. But there would be oversight now, always, between him and Cleo. "It's awkward," he admitted, when Selina asked, well, started to ask if that was okay. "And feels like I'm not trusted with my own student, but yes, I understand the necessity, for both our protection, and the elves are less intrusive than anyone else." He shifted in his seat uncomfortably, not enjoying this line of conversation at all.

He nodded, feeling more comfortable - at least in relative measures - as the topic shifted to Cleo herself, as a person. "Yes, of course," he agreed with feeling. "Absolutely. She's a great kid. I want to help her through this with as much normality as we possibly can."

Nathan looked mildly uncomfortable at Selina's obvious surprise at his dating status and partner, but fortunately she disavowed any need to know about it, so he didn't feel compelled to try to justify the obvious mismatches between their ages, backgrounds, races, and past experiences to his effective boss. "Oh, okay. Good. I mean, we keep it discrete, because we don't want the students talking about us and speculating, but I don't mind you knowing. Our three year anniversary is in just a few days." He smiled faintly in memory. They counted the potted plant gift as the starting point of their courtship, even though Nathan hadn't termed it dating until later. But that had undeniably been the start of it.

1 Nathan Couldn't agree more 28 Nathan 0 5

Daniel Nash

January 20, 2018 9:50 AM

Emergency indeed by Daniel Nash

This was only his second year as staff at Sonora on opening day, so he wasn't thinking the unscheduled meeting was anything too unusual. Maybe Professor Tarnasay had called in with a creature emergency and they were fishing for volunteers to handle the Aladren Head of House duties tonight, or there had been a gnome infestation in the Gardens and Nathan needed someone to help take care of that before he brought the first year tour through. So expecting a fairly mundane emergency, as far as emergencies went, the revelation about Cleo James was . . . disturbing.

Not least because he felt like, as the DADA professor, even a temporary substitute one, he was kind of expected to have noticed this kind of thing before now. So he shifted a bit guiltily in his seat and tried not to draw too much attention to his incompetence.

When he was called in individually, somewhere in the middle of the pack of such interviews, he slunk in with slumped shoulders and dropped into the seat across from Selina (he was mostly used to calling the staff by their first names, now, which was helped a lot by almost everyone being different from his time as a student; even so Selina had taken most of year before he started using her name and he still didn't quite dare to do so with Mortimer) and a guilty look. "I'm really sorry," he apologized, sounding miserable. "If you want me to resign, I can."

Without waiting for her to ask her own questions, he just started talking, sounding ashamed. "I know I'm just a substitute, but I've been the acting DADA professor for a year and a half, and I feel like I failed at my job. Spotting a half-Veela in my own class seems like something a DADA professor ought to have been able to do. I mean, obviously, I noticed the propensity toward fire, but Jozua has that, too, so -" he froze for a moment, considering Jozua, then shook his head, "No, he's fifteen. There would have been other signs by now. And he's not attractive enough. But anyway, I should have figured it out, about Cleo, and I didn't. I'm sorry."

1 Daniel Nash Emergency indeed 130 Daniel Nash 0 5

Selina

January 20, 2018 10:26 AM

Right. Well then. by Selina

He got it. That, surely, was half the battle. There was a whole barrage of issues to deal with here… Some people might not take it seriously - or rather, wouldn’t be able to see the danger they posed, the reason why they all had to be treated like potential threats. Then there were those who would take it too far the other way. Prejudice against people like Cleo still existed. Nathan got it though. With him, it was more or less going to be fine.

“Thank you,” she smiled at him. “I’m glad she’ll have you,” she reassured him.

“And congratulations,” she added, when he explained that he and Isis were coming up for their three year anniversary, this time at least managing to keep her surprise internal. Three years. Wow. That was pretty serious then. And she was wildly out of touch. Or had just been worrying more about what Alfie Pye was up to, rather than solid, reliable Nathan. That one had had ‘heartbreaker’ written all over him, and if he and his younger colleagues thought she hadn’t noticed their occasional sore heads and the longing looks they were giving each other… The less she knew about their nights out and their hookups and breakups, the happier she was but she did need to keep an eye for trouble amongst the staff. She was glad that group had dissipated without any issues - or at least, none so big they’d reached her level of scrutiny. Not to mention him probably being the kind of teacher the students would get crushes on. Not that his replacement was exactly lacking in that department either…

“Is there anything you want to discuss about this?” she asked him. If not, she would move onto interview number two.

13 Selina Right. Well then. 26 Selina 0 5

DH Skies

January 20, 2018 11:11 AM

There might be about to be a second one by DH Skies

Her third interview was Daniel. She had decided to do these in the order in which they were most likely to have something awful to tell her. Nathan had been an obvious first, and she felt a huge relief in knowing that nothing had gone on there. She doubted that any of the other staff had even really spent time alone with Cleo, although she had to be sure, and there were other things too. Their reactions to the news. Whether they were alright. Whether they were going to be alright in the way they treated her. It had been an imaginary coin toss between Rory and Daniel for second and third. She wasn’t sure whether it was private, irrational bias that had led her to rank Grayson as less of a threat than the other men - he was quiet, and she couldn’t imagine him talking to many women under normal circumstances, not that these were normal circumstances - or whether there was something to be said for the theory that the kind of testosterone fuelled male who spent their time wrestling dangerous creatures or duelling for fun was more likely to be susceptible to the charms of a veela than the bookish little charms professor, especially as she couldn’t decide whether she could picture him more easily with the kind of girl who wore exceptionally sensible shoes all the time, or with some flamingly camp boyfriend to counter him (or which he’d rather have, because it was entirely possible that he was an Aladren spinster who hadn’t taken his nose out of a book for long enough to find either). After Grey would be Philpott (who hadn’t been on staff very long and wasn’t one of Cleo’s full time teachers), followed by the two female members of staff, both of whom she now knew to be in relationships with men, followed by Tarquin, who was openly gay (as much as anyone who hid in a room full of books and didn’t interact with their colleagues was openly anything) and Mortimer, for whom she felt she might change the line of questioning to simply ‘Do you even know which one Cleo is?’ and leave it at that.

Her feeling that she was through the worst part of all this hit a rock, when Daniel started apologising and talking about resigning. Oh Merlin. Oh Merlin, no. She assumed that the rest of the staff were curious about what was going on in here, and whilst she was interviewing Rory, they would have had plenty of time to hear from Nathan what it was all about. She hadn’t forbidden him from saying so…

“Daniel, just-” tell me what you did she began, more calmly than she felt - it wasn’t his fault, whatever had happened, and she had to keep calm - but she had only got half way through her sentence before he carried on. And he was rambling about how he should have spotted the signs, and making some frankly stange and catty comments on Jozua Sparks which might have made her question her running order if she hadn’t been too preoccupied with worrying about the point he was building up to… And then she realised. This was it.

“Daniel,” she took a deep breath, trying to override the screeching panic that had surged through her body when he’d started talking and pull her thoughts back into some kind of coherent shape, “No one is judging you for not noticing anything. I think, until this point, there has been very little to notice. Except, as you say, the fire and that happens with a lot of people.
“Are there any other signs or symptoms you need to tell me about? Have you noticed other students being drawn to Ms. James. I mean…. More than average for kids their age. Or have you ever… experienced any symptoms yourself. I have to ask everyone, Daniel. It’s not a judgement on you, and you wouldn’t be facing resignation given the circumstances. But have you ever had missing time around her, or had any physical contact with Ms. James outside of what would be considered normal in a teacher-student relationship?”

13 DH Skies There might be about to be a second one 26 DH Skies 0 5

Daniel

January 20, 2018 12:29 PM

Oh yeah? by Daniel

For a second Daniel just stared at her uncomprehendingly. Then the penny dropped. "Oh. Oh! Oh no. No." He shook his head quickly in denial. "No. I've never even seen her in office hours, never mind - no. Nothing like that." His eyes widened in sudden realization of how his opening statements must have sounded if that was the kind of thing Selina was asking everyone about. "I am so sorry. I have nothing to declare about that. I mean, I've noticed she was pretty, but I'm from Hollywood. My parents are both actors. Appearance is the first thing I notice about anyone. It doesn't affect how I treat her. I try not to touch anyone at all - well, except Jasmine, in private, in totally niece-appropriate ways - because I don't want to encourage student crushes on me. She's a middling student at best, with no drive to improve her grades, so I don't really pay too much personal attention to her except to make sure she isn't burning anything down. But, I don't know. DADA professor. Veelas are in my curriculum. I just, even if there weren't obvious signs this early, it just, I felt like I'd messed up by not realizing it."

He took a deep breath and calmed himself down, thinking hard over the past year, trying to remember if there actually had been any other signs besides the fire. "I can't remember there being any other indications, obvious or otherwise. She is more fire prone than Jozua, but that could have been explained by their relative ages, and his better mastery with a wand - actually, there are times, I wonder if Jozua isn't doing it on purpose, but I can't prove that - but even the accidental fire wasn't really remarkable enough that it seemed indicative of anything more than poor wand control. She seems to prefer the company Parker Fitzgerald more than anyone else, as best as I can tell, but I haven't seen any signs that they're anything more than friends. I wouldn't exclude a schoolboy crush or admiring looks, but nothing that isn't normal for the age with an attractive classmate. I'll keep an eye out, especially now that she's going into intermediates."

"I assume we'll have some kind of oversight from here on out?" he guessed. "Elves, ghosts, a portrait, someone just keeping an eye on her classes in case something does come up and someone gets compromised?"

1 Daniel Oh yeah? 130 Daniel 0 5

Selina

January 20, 2018 1:44 PM

I'm either going to have a heart attack or break your nose by Selina

Had her desperation for a Defence professor blinded her, she wondered, or had Daniel simply not been anywhere near this weird or vapid when she had interviewed him? Dear. Merlin. She really wished he would stop talking. She didn’t want to know that he knew Cleo was pretty (and that Jozua wasn’t) - yes, they all noticed that some students weren’t winners in that regard, but they didn’t frequently comment on it - and she’d forgotten that Jasmine was his niece until he clarified that, so could have done without the momentary palpitations that caused. On the plus side, even though he was irritatingly aware of his own good looks (rarely an attractive quality), he seemed to at least have some sense regarding them. And nothing had happened with Cleo.

“Right. Good,” she managed, when Daniel finished his extensive ‘no.’ The Parker Problem had been raised by Cleo’s father too. But she didn’t think there was anything to be gained by discussing it individually with Daniel. Isis, maybe. She was Parker’s Head of House… Just to remind her to look out for him too. She wasn’t sure whether Cleo would tell him, but whether she did or not, their relationship was about to get very confusing. “Thank you for the information,” was all she said to Daniel about it.

“Elves most likely. Ghosts maybe. They could shock people back to their senses. Not sure a painting shouting at someone will do much against the lure of a veela. Ghosts though… They hang around. Students are used to seeing them about. Might be helpful as a way of having her supervised a bit more subtly…. Thank you,” she added, deciding that perhaps panic made people stupid, and giving Daniel back a little of the credibility he’d lost in the opening minutes of their conversation. Compromised, was also a usefully delicate word.

“About the fact they’re in your curriculum… Are they covered in intermediate classes? Apparently one of the casualties of the summer was Cleo’s first copy of her Defence text book, but I wasn’t sure whether it was a topic you cover, or it just had… passing references. The things it had to say about veela were… Well, from a Defence perspective. It doesn’t exactly make for pleasant reading.”

13 Selina I'm either going to have a heart attack or break your nose 26 Selina 0 5

Daniel

January 20, 2018 11:05 PM

Can we avoid both those outcomes? by Daniel

Daniel nodded in understanding as she confirmed elves or ghosts would be sitting in on his intermediate classes this year. "Yeah, they're in the sentient creature unit, with werewolves and vampires, though they have a shorter class discussion than either of those, taking only about half a period, while those both get two or three full periods. But veelas, yeah, not really something that I'd want to talk about the way I did last year, if there's one in the room taking the class." He winced slightly at the thought.

"This year, I can probably just leave them out. The fifth years covered them last year, so they'll be all right for their CATS. There may be a question or two on the prep exams at the end of the year, but for now the topic can be avoided, while she gets used to the idea. It really ought to be covered next year though, and not just for testing reasons - the rest of the kids really need learn what they can do to defend themselves from that kind of attack, especially if there is one in their midst. That's my job, teaching kids how to defend themselves from magical threats that they might run across in the wizarding world. As that gets closer, I can go over my lecture notes with you beforehand, maybe suggest she not be there that day, but I'd be remiss in my teaching if those in her year and the year directly above and below did not get a very strong lesson on how to protect themselves from a veela."

He realized he was assuming he'd still be here next year, but this 'temporary' job he'd taken on was starting to look more and more permanent. He hadn't gotten any better offers in a year and a half, and neither had the school hired an actual DADA teacher in that time. But he doubted any other DADA professor would be inclined to think differently on this point, if he did get replaced.

1 Daniel Can we avoid both those outcomes? 130 Daniel 0 5

Selina

January 21, 2018 6:53 PM

Seems to be moving that way by Selina

“That sounds like a good plan, thank you,” she nodded, as Daniel explained that he’d leave them off this year, and they’d work out an action plan for the future. He was still very… Defence Professor about the whole thing though. She got where he was coming from, she really did, but it still sounded so cold and harsh.

“I know it’s your job to think that. But please… still try to treat her as normally as possible in the meantime. Especially as she might come to you with questions. She keeps talking about being a monster… The description in the textbook really got to her. I’m not suggesting we keep the truth from her, but please have a think about what you can say that might reassure her. Read it over. Make sure you’re ready for that conversation,” she advised. She wasn’t sure that Cleo would seek out the defence professor. Selina had the feeling that her father might have put her off speaking alone to any male for the rest of her life. But she was afraid of herself as well, and Daniel was probably the person best placed to answer some of her questions. “The things veela have done are not the things she will do. She can be a half veela and still be a good person. I don’t think she believes that right now.

“If there’s nothing else, you can send Grayson in.”

13 Selina Seems to be moving that way 26 Selina 0 5

Grayson Wright

January 22, 2018 2:41 PM

Not as bad as it could have been. by Grayson Wright

One of the things Gray liked about working at a school was how well-organized everything was. With scheduled meetings and classes, he knew any time he got to sit down and write was precious and his output had increased substantially from what it had been when he was unemployed as a result. He’d even gotten back on the radio briefly, guest-writing an episode of a friend’s show, and hoped he might get more of that sort of work – if he wrote episodes here and there as a freelancer, and kept publishing stories, and kept this job, he might actually be able to save enough money to someday do the stuff people tended to think writers did, like sit in a big house (not mansion, but still) by the beach and drink wine far too early in the morning while listening to chamber music. Gray didn’t think wine tasted nice and had not, to the best of his knowledge, ever heard any chamber music, but he thought it was one of the things writers were supposed to listen to, along with a lot of violin stuff, so he would give it a shot if he ever got that big beach house.

When his furtive pre-Feast scribbling was interrupted by the notice that there was to be an emergency staff meeting, then, he thought terror was a logical response. They were supposed to have already had all the pre-term meetings and gotten everything organized and…everything. They weren’t supposed to have a meeting right now. What had happened that they needed to have a meeting right now?

A parent, it turned out. Cleo James’ parent. Gray frowned slightly in concern – had she had some sort of magical accident over the summer and hurt herself? He felt responsible if so – he was the Charms teacher, and Charms and Defense were the two classes he thought were most in charge of teaching the kids to control their powers. He glanced at Daniel, but then his eyes went back to Selina abruptly, widening behind his glasses, when his boss said the word veela.

He supposed terror was the appropriate reaction now, too, but he was mostly just shocked. Veela appeared in stories from time to time, usually as villains or plot devices to break up happy marriages or distract heroes at critical moments. Cleo was a sweet kid who called her father ‘daddy’ and had Gray’s old shows on record at home. Listening to records, working in a garden – that was the stuff of literary fiction, not bad bad melodrama. He winced as Selina elaborated that Cleo was also horribly disturbed by the idea of being in a bad, bad melodrama – God, as if being a kid wasn’t hard enough for most people. Gray hadn’t found it that bad, really, but he was reliably informed he was a freak of nature and that normal people found it all rather horrible even without all this….

Poor, poor kid. Of course the things Selina was saying made sense – Gray had no idea what it was like in practice even with fully human women, he just wasn’t wired that way, but he had read about how veela affected men who were wired properly and he had to admit that he was not particularly eager to test whether his wiring was really non-existent or just kinked up at some point – but they just made him feel worse and worse for Cleo, even after Selina said that while they all did have to have some kind of Discussion with her, they did not have to discuss their sex lives with her. Gray assumed he would be totally on the same page as the other professors in finding the thought of chatting about that with his boss, despite the fact that his didn’t exist. He’d had to deal with rumors that he was gay a lot in his old life, and people tended to assume he was lying when he told them he just wasn’t interested in anyone, especially if he mentioned in exasperation that he had actually gone to gay bars a couple of times in his twenties just to be sure he wasn’t. He’d gotten drunk enough at one of them that Anne had yet to let him live it down, but even that hadn’t made him want to touch anyone, or have anyone touch him. He could not even imagine what sort of reaction he’d get if he tried explaining that to his boss….Didn’t really fit the image of a proper professor, getting drunk in gay bars to establish that he in fact had no sexuality at all. Or for any other reason, actually. Professors were not supposed to get drunk, period, and never mind that he hadn’t been one at the time.

Deeply uncomfortable, he scribbled a bit more while other members of staff were interviewed, trying to figure out why they were being called up in the order they were. His best guess of what these interviews were about would involve Daniel being an unambiguous first – there was nothing wrong with his ability to perceive beauty, including in the human form, and he sometimes even thought he might do a better job of it than normal people because he wasn’t distracted with all that stuff they were apparently always distracted with. Instead, though, it was Nathan who went first, and Nathan was…not exactly an Adonis. Neither was Gray – it was just a fact, not a judgment on the man. Perhaps it was reverse-alphabetical? No – Gray himself would have been first if that had been the case. He was still puzzling this out when Daniel emerged and it was his turn to be interviewed.

He was not naturally a particularly serious person, but Selina’s manner reminded him enough of the one time he’d gone to watch a case in open court for research that he found himself sitting up very straight and trying to feel more like he was in trouble with a teacher than like he was under arrest, even knowing perfectly well that he hadn’t actually done anything.

Thankfully, the questions were fairly easy. “No and no,” he said, very slowly and carefully so his childhood stutter didn’t recur, as it sometimes did under stress. “She did really surprise me one time – she’s, er, apparently a fan of my wireless series, you know, I used to write those – but I knew what time it was. It was right after class, so I wouldn’t call that disoriented – “ Oh, no. He was rambling. “No physical contact with anyone, though. I tried to give her some encouragement about her – fire problem. She was doing a little better with it in my class, I thought.”

16 Grayson Wright Not as bad as it could have been. 113 Grayson Wright 0 5