These mornings are for the birds [Edward Perrault] on Cascade Hall

Sophie O'Malley

July 17, 2016 5:04 AM

These mornings are for the birds [Edward Perrault] by Sophie O'Malley

Sophie was not a morning person. Never had been never would be. And while her husband was a night person, she was not that either. She was a sleep person. Morning, noon, night, she liked being asleep. Of course, the amount of sleep she’d actually gotten in the last couple years had been less than ideal for a couple reasons (namely her two sons who were rapidly approaching their third birthday and my babies are growing up oh God), but she supposed it was all actually worth it.

The latest interruption to her sleep was her employment at Sonora, and the nature of its class schedule. Advanced Potions was a 9am class Monday, Wednesday, and Friday. Today was a Monday. This was her life.

She supposed it could be worse. At least she only had to get up for the first class of the day three days a week. Alfie Pye and Edward Perrault had their Intermediate and Beginners classes respectively every day. That could not be horribly pleasant, unless the two men were weird morning people. Ryan’s aunt Lilac was like that, and Sophie had never understood it.

As she entered the Cascade Hall for breakfast--a feat she did not always perform; it was hard to escape her house without waking up the boys and then having to eat toast while convincing them to stop crying, Mama would be home soon--she spied the latter of the two aforementioned professors, Edward Perrault. The Charms professor had not been at Sonora very long, but it was time, Sophie decided, to befriend her coworker. Maybe they could share in the morning-time misery. (Plus, talking to him was an excuse not to talk to Alfie, who seemed friendly enough but was a bit too flirtatious for the married woman’s comfort.)

The young blonde professor grabbed a cup of coffee off a table and began to walk on, but she stopped and grabbed the pot as well as an extra mug before actually taking off. She headed over to where her coworker sat, placing pseudo-breakfast beside him on the table but not sitting down right away. She stood behind the chair next to him, although she was hardly intimidating looking down at him. After all, Sophie was quite small, maybe five foot tall on a good day. “Are you a coffee person, or a tea person?” she asked in lieu of proper greeting, mustering as much enthusiasm as was possible from an exhausted twenty-six-year-old mother. “I brought a plethora of coffee, but if you’d rather have tea or something, I can go get it and just keep the coffee for myself.”

12 Sophie O'Malley These mornings are for the birds [Edward Perrault] 34 Sophie O'Malley 1 5

Edward Perrault

July 20, 2016 3:37 PM

Flutter flutter. by Edward Perrault

Edward didn’t always set essays for homework, merely when he thought a good topic arose that his students could really divulge into and come up with their own ideas about things. It stimulated their brains and encouraged extra research as well as developing essay-writing skills such as creating debate and practising good grammar (particularly helpful for the handful of foreign students in his classes, he believed). The Charms professor was well aware that he was rather known by the students for being rather fond of setting essays, even in beginner lessons, and was sometimes met by reluctant groans whenever he did so but that didn’t deter him.

Although he was very keen to put a great deal of his own time into helping his students to reach their full potential, the Canadian gave himself a lot more marking to do by requesting work be handed in so often. He could hardly complain - he’d chosen teaching over acting for a reason. It felt so much better to help others than oneself, that was for sure.

Edward did feel rather tired this morning, however, as he’d stayed up late the previous night finishing marking some essays so he could hand them back to his Intermediates in today’s lesson. He had managed it and now he took the liberty of using his breakfast time to skim through all the now-marked essays to record their grades in his mark book.

“No, no, coffee please,” Edward beamed at his coworker, glad to have some company. He liked his coffee in the mornings, particularly this morning (not that he would ever admit to feeling tired), and wasn’t about to tell Sophie O’Malley that he’d had a mug already. The idea of her going out of her way to get tea for him did seem absurd but it was very nice of her to offer to do so. “Thank you,” he added courteously.

“Take a seat,” he encouraged, since she was still standing - probably due to her kind offer to run and fetch him some tea if that were his preference. “I’m just about done, I’ll clear some more space.” He glanced down to finish adding the final grades next to the respective students’ names in his book before setting it down and neatening his stack of essay papers to make more room for him and Sophie to eat.

“Pleasant day ahead for you?” he inquired casually before lifting a tartine from his plate and taking a hungry (but polite, of course) bite.

8 Edward Perrault Flutter flutter. 35 Edward Perrault 0 5

Sophie

July 21, 2016 1:07 AM

Oh God, you're one of <em>those</em>. by Sophie

“Don’t mind if I do,” Sophie grinned, falling into the seat beside him. As he swept up the mess of essays he’d been grading, she slid the second mug in front of him, leaving the mostly-full pot in the middle of them and fastening herself to her own mug. Raising the white porcelain delicately with both hands, she sipped. Ahh, liquid energy. Caffeine was her friend.

“Pleasant day ahead for you?”

The Potions professor gulped down the coffee in her mouth. “About as pleasant as any other Monday,” she said ruefully. “Don’t get me wrong, I love teaching, but it’s such a pain to try to get back into the swing of things again after the weekend.” This was never really where she thought life would take her, but Sophie honestly couldn’t say she’d want it any other way. She was married to her best friend, employed at her alma mater, and the mother of two amazing little boys. She kinda had it all.

“What about you? Looking forward to anything in particular? Aside from handing back homework, of course,” she teased lightly. But before he could answer, Sophie happened to glance down at the table and came to a realization. “Oh, shoot! I forgot to grab any creamer. Most people with souls don’t drink their coffee black like I do. Wait, maybe I don’t have to get up.” She cracked open her bulky purse and began digging, wading through things like Juliet’s sunglasses and a teething toy that hadn’t been used in probably a year and a half. Eventually she produced a few small packets of creamer and sugar. Sophie made a moment of eye contact with Edward as she sat them on the table. “I’m a mom,” she offered as if it were an explanation.

“...I’m sorry, what were we talking about?” she asked with half a laugh. “Oh, right! Your day! Sorry about that. You can go ahead now.”

12 Sophie Oh God, you're one of <em>those</em>. 34 Sophie 0 5

Edward

August 12, 2016 4:43 PM

You say that like it's a bad thing. by Edward

“Thank you,” Edward repeated, gladly accepting the mug of coffee that Sophie provided him with.

Edward smiled at his colleague’s response. He could understand the difficulties of Mondays since he had in the past had weekends so wonderful he hadn’t wanted them to end, but these days it was better to keep his mind occupied with teaching than to let his eyes wander and land himself in the same situation that he had run from.

He gave a light chuckle when Sophie referenced the homework that he’d just finished marking. “Oh, giving back homework is always the highlight of my day,” he told her, clearly joking.

Edward’s instinctive response to Sophie’s exclamation about forgetting the creamer was to tell her not to worry but she already delving into the depths of her bag on the hunt. He smiled when, after all her rootling, she located some packets of creamer, which he gratefully accepted, and then proceeded to explain to him that she was a mother. But then she returned to her original question so he thought he had better respond to that, rather than asking her questions concerning the information she had just revealed.

“I’m rather looking forward to seeing my advanced class today,” he said, still smiling. “I set them a research task on any charm of their choice that they have not yet covered, you see, so I’m interested to see what they’ve chosen and what they’ve found out about it. I am also curious to know whether any of them have tried their chosen spells out themselves, and to what outcome,” Edward’s bright blue eyes twinkled at the last part because he imagined his advanced students would have the confidence to at least try new charms, although depending on the difficulty of the charm they had found, they might be surprised by the result they got upon their attempts which might mean he had some amusement ahead of him.

“But enough about work. How old is your... son? Daughter?” Edward asked with interest. He knew he’d never have kids of his own but since he had chosen to become a teacher, it was fairly obvious that he liked them. The closest thing he had to a child was his niece and she was adorable.

8 Edward You say that like it's a bad thing. 0 Edward 0 5

Sophie

August 18, 2016 4:25 AM

Don't worry, I'll try not to hold it against you. by Sophie

Sophie sipped her coffee contentedly as Edward talked. Her only impression of him thus far was that this man was born to be a teacher. The way he rattled excitedly about an assignment he had given his sixth and seventh years, in a weird way, filled her heart with smiles. Maybe she was born to be a teacher, too. “Interesting,” she commented merrily.

She felt her smile grow as he reintroduced to the conversation the only thing more important to her that Sonora: her family. “Sons,” she answered, emphasizing the pluralization. “Twin boys. They’ll be three this summer. As much as it kills me to see them getting so big, it’ll be nice when these terrible twos are done.” Wally wasn’t too much to handle, but Stanley was quite fussy nowadays. Still, even as she mentioned the relative difficulty of this stage of parenting, Sophie was smiling. She loved those boys more than anything.

Happy for the opportunity, she dug into her bag for her wallet, which she found and unfolded with relative ease. From there, she produced a family photo. “That’s Stanley,” she said, her slender finger hopping between faces. “And that’s Wally. The other little one isn’t mine. He’s my baby brother, Tommy. He’s about a year younger than my boys. That’s my step-mother Tabby holding Tommy, and next to her is our father. And that,” she added, gesturing to the last unidentified face, “is my husband, Ryan.”

“We actually met here as first years, believe it or not.” Sophie remembered her Sonora days fondly; admittedly, they weren’t that long ago, although she and Ryan were scarily and quickly approaching the ten year post-graduation mark. “He was in Crotalus, and I was in Pecari. That’s partly why I was so enthusiastic to work here. It was already my home.”

“But what about you?” she asked as she returned the photo to her wallet and, in turn, her wallet to her bag. “Any family waiting for you at the end of the day?”

12 Sophie Don't worry, I'll try not to hold it against you. 34 Sophie 0 5