DH Skies

November 23, 2018 7:02 PM
 
Subthreads:
0 DH Skies Fast and Furious threads here! (nm) 26 DH Skies 1 5

Grayson Wright

November 23, 2018 9:32 PM
Gray could never figure out where to grade papers. Sometimes he worked in his room, but then he remembered that was supposed to be bad for his odds of sound sleep, plus it felt bizarre. Sometimes he worked in his office, but he almost always got distracted and ended up reading or locating cookies or something instead. The library had the same problem. Sometimes he worked at the table, but then he felt asocial, to a greater degree than he wanted to.

Often he got his papers scored over the course of several days, with bits and pieces occurring in each location, but lately he had begun to favor the staff room. It was a place which was obviously all about the job – it said ‘staff room' on the door, it was for employees – and which was not any of the other locations. This was how he came to spend his planning period in the room on a Friday afternoon, a student essay held close to his eyes so he could read faster, eager to finish the heap before the end of the official workday.

He succeeded and put the final paper down with a flourish. At this point he spotted another person and smiled, willing to share his happiness with finishing on time with the world. “Afternoon,” he said. “Happy Friday.”
16 Grayson Wright I am the champion on the scoring world. 113 Grayson Wright 0 5

Tabitha Hawthorne

November 23, 2018 9:42 PM
Tabitha was in a crisis. The crisis being that she had run out of tea in her private quarters. It had been half an hour since the end of her last class and she had a mountain of essays that all needed reading and grading. However, she simply couldn't face them until she had a hot steaming cup of tea in her hands.

Knowing that the teacher's lounge was likely to keep a supply of tea, as well as keeping her fingers and toes crossed, she marched quickly to the room. She'd only just walked through the door when she flicked her wand in the direction of the collection of tea things, making them perform their familiar tea-making dance.

It was then that she noticed that she'd been greeted by fellow professor, Grayson Wright who looked rather pleased and happy with himself. "Hi," she murmured, her tone probably giving away that she was stressed. "Tea?"
20 Tabitha Hawthorne I am the champion of... well, making it through the day? 1417 Tabitha Hawthorne 0 5

Grayson Wright

November 23, 2018 9:56 PM
Professor Hawthorne, Gray quickly realized, did not seem to share his good humor. In fact, she looked like someone staring at the front end of a stack of papers, rather than the end of one. He hoped it was nothing worse than that, but sympathized anyway.

“Sure, thanks,” he said when offered tea. He rarely drank the stuff, but it wired him up less than coffee, it didn't really matter if he slept well tonight or not (no marking to do tomorrow!), and she was British, so it was a cultural thing, he thought, and a gesture of…something amicable. “Long day, I'm guessing?” he hazarded.
16 Grayson Wright *applauds* 113 Grayson Wright 0 5

Tabitha Hawthorne

November 23, 2018 10:07 PM
"I've just spent the best part of an hour avoiding many misfired spells," she told him with a heavy sigh, feeling far more grateful when a cup of tea floated over and landed delicately in front of her. "I'm sure I have a few singed hairs at the back..."

She ran a brief hand over the back of her head, trying to work out if her hair had indeed become any shorter before she shrugged. Tea was more important. She sipped at it and felt much better, finally returning the man's earlier smile. "At least it's the weekend now though! Do you have any plans?"
20 Tabitha Hawthorne *slumps* 1417 Tabitha Hawthorne 0 5

Grayson Wright

November 23, 2018 10:42 PM
“Ouch,” said Gray, somewhat redundantly. “Remind me never to come in your classroom without a Shield Charm up.”

DADA was a subject he was glad not to teach, he thought. There were incidents with backfiring charms and accidental spontaneous conjurations very occasionally and that kind of thing, but these were not daily and rarely involved injury to his person. Defense, reasonably speaking, had to at least often be calmer than Tabitha made it sound like it had been today, but still.

For a moment, after Tabitha revived, he contemplated his weekend, then contemplated his life choices, then found the silver lining. “I'm planning to grade absolutely nothing,” he informed her, pointing to the stack of papers in front of him. “I am officially caught up. No outstanding papers at this time.” Bragging was unseemly and also was practically asking his inbox to breed so that he found a bunch of papers he'd forgotten to score there by the end of the afternoon, but did feel nice at the moment. “How about you?”
16 Grayson Wright Drink tea, it will straighten you up again. 113 Grayson Wright 0 5

Tabitha Hawthorne

November 23, 2018 11:00 PM
Tabitha gave a small laugh and then tried desperately not to think of the stack of marking that was waiting for her in her private quarters. At least she had the weekend to get through it all - though that did mean that it would eat into time that she could (and would) spend with Mary and Ailuros. Somehow, she'd have to find the will to power through it all later on, perhaps after dinner. Maybe Mary would join her with some wine...

"Oh, I'm not sure yet..." she murmured. She was still temporarily lost in her thoughts, Mary dominating them. "I'll have to see what Mary's thinking of doing..."

She blinked before her eyes widening slightly. She really hadn't meant to say that. A combination of tiredness and thoughts about the Potions professor had caused the slip. It was time for a very quick change of subject. Now. Immediately.

"So, how long have you been teaching here at Sonora?"
20 Tabitha Hawthorne Tea is powerful stuff that way. 1417 Tabitha Hawthorne 0 5

Grayson Wright

November 23, 2018 11:23 PM
Well, at least he wasn't the only one without real plans for the weekend. That was something. Though he suspected it might be characteristic of the sub-species of humanity he had joined here – working in a school, some of them were always needed to monitor the residents, make sure the inmates didn't start running the asylum, and free time often meant planning or marking lessons, so they all rapidly, he imagined, became tired, boring people.

He did not take much notice of her mention of Mary Brooding. If he had thought about it, he might have assumed they were good friends who'd been thinking about a road trip, or that they shared an off-campus residence or the like. However, the truth was, he didn't really think about it.

“A few years,” he said. “I was a private tutor for about a year before that, but – don't do that. Seriously. It's horrible. I only did it because – see, I used to work for a wireless company, but they were bought out, restructuring and rebranding and all, so…” he shrugged, not wanting the drama of announcing so there went the entirety of my adult life to that point even if it was true. “Did you plan to be a teacher, or did it just sort of happen?” he asked, curious, wondering if anyone actually deliberately set out to end up here.
16 Grayson Wright Wonderful stuff. 113 Grayson Wright 0 5

Tabitha Hawthorne

November 23, 2018 11:39 PM
Tabitha felt a relief when Gray did not comment on her slip up or push the matter - the reason why, she didn't know nor particularly care. At least he wasn't going to be spreading it around the faculty.

Private tutoring was awful. Well, from her only experiences as a student. She'd had a Pureblood education - her parents, while not being a Pureblood family, were determined to behave like they were and that included making sure that their only daughter would behave in the 'appropriate way' - and the only lesson she had enjoyed had been her dancing ones, simply because she had been up on her feet and moving. She wasn't one for sitting around.

"A wireless company?" For a moment, the words didn't make sense. Then, a light switched on. "Oh, the radio! That sounds pretty cool! What did you do?"

"It just sort of happened," she admitted, in terms of her becoming a teacher. "I had never been a teacher before but... circumstances led to me needing money and Selina was good enough to hire me."
20 Tabitha Hawthorne Indeed. 1417 Tabitha Hawthorne 0 5

Grayson Wright

November 24, 2018 12:25 AM
How did he keep essentially admitting to his old life to colleagues? Did he actually want to discuss that? It was pointless to do so, but here he was.

“I was in the original scripted material stuff,” he said. “Producing scripts. But my shows weren't kept on, so there you go.”

He nodded when she explained that she had ended up here out of need for money. “Money is a good reason to do things,” he agreed. “If I had a lot of it, I would…well, I probably wouldn't refuse to do anything, that would get boring, but I might do very little while inside a beach house, write some fake memoirs, try to figure out why wine collecting is a thing.”
16 Grayson Wright It makes us smart so we can talk around things. 113 Grayson Wright 0 5

Tabitha Hawthorne

November 24, 2018 9:21 PM
It was clear by the short nature of Gray's response that the Charms professor didn't particularly want to talk about that part of his life. That was fine with Tabitha and actually made her feel a touch better. They both had secrets or, at least, things they'd rather keep private. This, she felt, was a good thing.

"A beach house sounds rather luxurious," Tabitha commented thoughtfully. "But perhaps a well-deserved luxury?"

She had no idea if Gray had faced any hardships in his life and decided that, if he had lived any kind of worthwhile life, he probably had. Everyone suffered something at some point.

"My father is somewhat of a wine collector," she admitted. "He enjoys boasting about the bottle of Chateau Latour from 1904 to all of his friends. I don't know why. He's never opened it to share so no one knows if it'll taste good or not. I prefer spirits myself."
20 Tabitha Hawthorne Firing up the old braincells. 1417 Tabitha Hawthorne 0 5

Grayson Wright

November 24, 2018 10:13 PM
“Honestly, I suspect it would be more trouble than it's worth,” said Gray about beach houses. “Hurricanes, earthquakes...but it's apparently the thing you do when you're rich.”

He had no idea what a Chateau Latour was, but assumed anything from 1904 was very expensive. He didn't want to try drinking it, either, though of course, he was biased. He had tried wine a few times and found it viler each time than he had the time before, or thought so in retrospect at least.

“I...have yet to find an alcohol I'd say I prefer,” he admitted. “I don't look very often, but whenever someone's persuaded me to try some, it tasted bad, so I didn't go back for seconds. Another reason wine collecting could be lucrative if I were rich - I'd never be tempted to drink it.”
16 Grayson Wright Wine will not help with that. 113 Grayson Wright 0 5