May 30th, 1895 — Meserimus Office

The air in the Potions Office was thick with the mingled scents of lavender oil, dragon’s blood, and slightly scorched nettle. The end of the school year always brought with it a curious blend of relief and unease: examinations concluded, essays marked, discipline reports filed, house cup awarded —yet still the feeling that something, somewhere, had been forgotten - that would subside as soon as the train departed.

Meserimus stood at his tall desk, hunched in that impossibly long-limbed way of his, pale fingers sorting and labeling tiny vials with neatly written Latin abbreviations. Archimedes, perched moodily atop a shelf near the fire grate, let out the occasional huff of protest and annoyance at not yet being on the way home. He was like this every year, even though he KNEW that MEserimus couldn't leave until at least after the students did.

"Yes, yes, we’ll be rid of them soon enough," Meserimus muttered in response to the unspoken huff from his younger sibling, eyes narrowing as he held one vial up to the light. The draft of Enervation looked correct in hue, but the viscosity felt a touch sluggish. Perhaps the leech extract had been too old.

He jotted a quick note in a leather-bound ledger, then dipped the quill again, only for—

Knock. Knock.

His head lifted. “Enter, if you must,” he called, not unkindly, the quill still poised between his fingers.

When the door swung open and Anne Moony stepped into the room. His eyebrows rose in something close to amusement.

“Miss Moony,” he said, leaning back just slightly, “to what do I owe this charming interruption? I was just conversing with someone far less articulate.”

Archimedes again grumbled, insulted.

Meserimus waved a long hand to the chair before his desk. “Sit, if it’s not poisonings or expulsions. I find I’ve just enough tea left to pretend I was expecting a guest.”

Anne Moony

  

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Bee is amazing

Anne didn't know how to feel as she made the familiar walk toward the Potions classroom and the attached offices. Today was different.

She'd decided over the long nights in the library and bent over her cauldron. She knew in her bones that she'd given everything she had to her OWLs. She knew she would take Sirius's place as quidditch captain. She already mapped out the potions for next term's Potions Club quizzes. Anne had planned ahead, built her case, and gathered evidence. She was ready to defend her position.

And she hadn't told anyone her plan. That had been the hard part.

Anne walked into her House Head's office with her head high and her shoulders back. She still wore her Slytherin robes. "Thank you, Professor, but I won't be needing tea." Anne did have the sense to take the offered seat, her posture impeccable, even as she looked prepared to spring to her feet.

"I apologize for interrupting you, but I needed to speak to you before summer." Anne counted in her head, slow and controlled, to measure her breathing. She wasn't sure if that was a habit from mum or dad. She had prepared her words, had memorized her script. Anne consciously relaxed her hands on her knees, looked the ancient wizard in the eyes, and made her purpose clear.

"Professor Valenduris, I want to be prefect and I need your support." Anne felt she deserved some recognition for not scowling at the last bit. "I'm prepared to explain my suitability for the role, this year and last." Fine, Anne's diplomacy could still use a bit of work.

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MJ about made me cry with this one!
Thread Log | Help Anne Blame the DJ

Still in her robes. Still precise in her manner. Still possessing that indefatigable certainty that her preparation alone might bend the world toward her will.

Ah, youth.

Meserimus folded his long fingers together and leaned back in his ancient chair, its spindly legs creaking in quiet protest. “My dear Miss Moony,” he said at length, in a dusty timbre that echoed faintly in the office, partially emptied as it was for his summer decampment. “You arrive with such... momentum.”

He studied her over his spectacles, which were not strictly necessary for reading but had proven useful in giving him the ability to assess his students. "You are, of course, known to me. Your stewardship of the Potions Club has not gone unnoticed. It is no small feat to maintain order when the younger years treat powdered hellebore as if it were icing sugar. Nor has your academic record suffered for it.” He adjusted a parchment on his desk, gaze flicking over its contents with practiced economy. His lip twitched. That may have been a smile.

He folded the parchment away and rested his full attention upon her once more. Behind his pale eyes, gears turned—slow, methodical. “Now then,” he said, finally gesturing with a skeletal hand, “by all means—make your case.” She had come here with this intensity to make her case, the least he could do was listen to it with equal solemnity

  

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Bee is amazing