As a general rule, Aaron McKindy was not a person who was especially social and he wasn’t a huge fan of being the person ‘in charge’. It had been somewhat unnerving, therefore, to find out upon his return to the Sonora staff that he was to be Head of Pecari. Coupling that with his newfound role of actual parenthood (as opposed to the strange sort-of-parent area he had been dwelling in for years before), Aaron was most certainly not in his comfort zone when it came to his job and home life. And now, with the drastic staff turnover Sonora had apparently seen in his absence, he was one of the more experienced members of the staff. And that was just plain weird.
Obligingly, Aaron had done his best to step out of his shell and step up to the plate at home and at work, but he couldn’t help but feel a bit lacking at times. For example, despite his attempts to connect with Cooper, one of the two children that had been placed with him and Garen, the Aladren still refused to even make eye contact unless it was strictly necessary. The only people Cooper would even talk to most of the time were his own biological sister and Aaron’s biological daughter, Jessie. In the meantime, Jessie had dropped out of school at Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry to come live with him and Garen and was currently taking day classes at Colorado State University at Boulder in order to earn her Bachelor’s in Veterinary Medicine. That would have been all well and good, except that Aaron highly doubted Jessie’s attention span could last quite that long.
It didn’t help that he knew his daughter smoked and suspected she had inherited the family affinity for alcohol. Even though she was of age in the wizarding world, she was not in the Muggle world, and Aaron more than suspected that most of her activities were taking place in conjunction with her Muggle classmates rather than her wizarding friends. Although, to be fair, the only wizarding friend of Jessie’s that Aaron knew about was Jera Valson, Sadi’s daughter, whom he emphatically hoped Jessie was not rubbing off on.
Anyway, it was a situation at home that had led him to cut his pre-Midterm conversation with Ichabod Linn short. He had set wards on apartment the family had lived in pre-Midterm similar to the wards he had set on the Pecari Commons; they were connected to a set of crystals (amongst other things, Aaron had dabbled in magigeology at one point) which would release a particularly irritating ringing noise should any of the wards be disturbed. His ‘home’ crystal had gone off mid-conversation with Ichabod and Aaron had been forced to cut the conversation off and Floo home, only to discover that Jessie had been experimenting with baking charms and had consequently blown the oven halfway out of the wall.
Now that Midterm was over and Aaron had once more uncomfortably settled into his role as Senior Staff Member and Head of Pecari, all the while trying not to be painfully obvious about making sure Cooper was adjusting to Sonora (which he wasn’t), the Charms professor had decided it was time to make his apologies to the Divinations professor. A small plate of iguana cookies, charmed to wink at random intervals, was the peace offering. With any luck, Aaron thought as he pushed the door to the Divinations room open, he would be able to avoid an actual conver--
“Good morning, Ichabod,” the black-haired man greeted his colleague awkwardly, with a half-embarrassed, all-awkward grin on his face. Good gods he hated social occasions. “Just brought you an apology for running away from you just before Midterm,” briefly, Aaron toyed with the idea of explaining what had happened, but decided to cover that base with “there was a mild emergency at home and I had to deal with it before any Muggles got involved.” True enough, and without having to explain why his daughter was at home blowing up kitchen appliances instead of attending school where she would learn how not to blow up kitchen appliances. “Sorry about that.”
0Professor Aaron McKindyWell, I owe you one [Ichabod]0Professor Aaron McKindy15