"Swim or get out of the ocean?" She asked disgusted. Really? That's how he was going to treat her? "Then I suggest you find yourself a new Potions Professor. This one will take her non-issues somewhere else." She told him, standing up. "I will pack up my office and be out of the ocean, as you so eloquently put it, by nightfall."

"Good day to you, Lafay. I hope you find another job that meets with your expectations," Tate let the front legs of his chair slam back to the floor. Scooping up a quill, he immediately set to work on a piece of parchment.

He had someone in mind already. It was sad to see Lafay go, especially with her expertise, but if his priorities were to keep the kids alive... well. He needed less drama.

She didn't bother answering him. He obviously wouldn't have cared. She turned on her heels and left the office.

Feeling pretty nervous, Jake entered the headmasters office, kind of worried about this... but he'd do this.

"Errr..." he spoke, voice quiet.

"Have a seat, young man," Tate gestured to the chair across from his as he rolled up the parchment and tossed it into the Floo.

"What can I do for you today?" Hopefully this conversation went better than the last.

His eyes following the progress of the parchment as the headmaster threw it (hadn't that happened last time? Or was Jake imagining it?) Jake stepped properly into the office and closed the door behind him.

He was DETERMINED to keep his cool this time.

Taking a seat before the headmaster's desk, Jake pushed his glasses further up his face a little and took a steadying breath. "I want to ttttalk to you about... about..." the boy paused here, his face flushing slightly. "See... I've got this... issue. Rrreading and writing. I'm wwworking on my reading for my OWLs... bbbut writing..." Jake paused, looking down at his feet. What with everything, he couldn't spare time to learn all that. "It's... it's a cccombination of dyslexia and... nnnnever actually learning. I was in Muggle Sssstudies, and Lawson said I cccouldn't use my qqqquill unless I got permission fffrom you."

At this, the boy pulled out his electric blue coloured self-writing quill. "It wwwrrrites what I think. I... I was wwwondering if I could uuuuse it in ccclasses and... my OWLs... and also..." Jake took a breath; this was the one that would be a no, if anything. "If I cccould have extra ttttime in the exams. Mmmmuggle schools do it..."

Yeah... he threw that one out there just in case.

"I think that sounds reasonable, but we'll have to set up some parameters. You can use the quill for taking notes in class and for taking exams, but I'd like you to do your homework with a regular quill. If that turns out to be an issue, we'll reevaluate, but that should cover and possibility of anyone accusing you of cheating."

Tate leaned forward and watched Jake carefully. The boy seemed much calmer, which was good. "I think you can have extra time on exams, but you'll need to discuss it with the professors. What did you have in mind?"

At once, Jake breathed a sigh of relief and visibly relaxed. Using a proper quill for his homework could help him to get better at writing too. He'd just spend a long time on it. He would. Yus.

"Thank you sssir," the boy smiled, leaning back a little. Man, that felt better. As for the question about extra time, Jake looked a little puzzled before answering. "Errr... well, in mmmuggle schools... they can gggive up to 25% in cccases like mine. I ggguess how much isn't rrreally up to mmme. It's ob-ob-obviously only on wrrrritten ones." He'd have to deal with practical stuff on his own.

O.O

After that, Jake trailed off into silence. After his question; the rest was up to the staff. Or, you know, whatevs.

"So we'll play it by ear. Start with an extra fifteen minutes for every hour long testing period and see how you feel about that," Tate mused. "And you come let me know if it isn't working out for you."

Hmm. That seemed reasonable to him. "How does that sound?"

"That ssssounds very fair, sir," Jake replied, a wide smile now on his face. Guhhhh! That made him feel so much better; a little more worry was solved and sturff.

"Thuh-thank you vvvery much... I appp... appp... appreesh-ate it," the boy added, leaning forwards again. This day was win.

"You're welcome," Tate grinned, standing and offering his hand across the desk for a shake. "If that's all, you're dismissed. You can let the next student know to come on up."

That went so well!

Standing up once more, Jake stuck out his hand and shook the Headmaster's hand with a satisfied nod and a grateful smile. After stepping back and towards the door, Jake gave a mock salute and headed on out.

Win.

"Headmaster Tate, sir?" Celandine knocked gently on the doorframe and stuck her head around it, expression hopeful. "Could you spare a few minutes?"

"For you? I suppose I can spare twice that," Tate glanced up from the work on his desk. He had formerly arrested men and written warrants and filled out scrolls and scrolls of parchment, and it seemed that he had at least twice that to do now.

"Have a seat, Miss Toussaint. What can I do for you today?"

Well good. Because she required informaaaation. Celandine sat down, parchment on the desk in front of her.

"I have two homework assignments with which I need the help of a staff member and I chose you sir." She told him earnestly, not bothering to add how much of a wait there was at practically every professor's office at the moment.

"For Arithmancy I need to calculate any of the four core numbers, and for History of Magic I need to know a story about your history here at Hogwarts sir." Pleaaaaaaase Headmasterrrr?

She batted her eyelashes at him just a tad. Help a 'claw out?

"Ah," Tate actually looked a bit nervous at her request, even going so far as to slip a finger along the neck of his robe, pulling it away from his neck. "Well, I'll help insomuch as I am able. Does the Arithmancy require... a birth date?"

That would be bad news.

"And what sort of story are you hoping for?"

"Depends what calculation I make." Celandine told him cheerfully. "Twenty thirty.... three? four? five? You went to school with Professor Lupa and Professor Truebridge right?" And she'd done calculations on them in the past. "Its either date of birth or full name, including middle names. Maybe you can choose what calculation and interpretation you'd like to hear, and then I'll tell you what information you'll have to give me, sir." She added a bright smile and then elaborated on the other part.


"The story can be anything about your time here in the past. Its for History of Magic." A Lainey assignment, you dig?

"I guess as a student." ZOMG did he have tales about the OTHER PROFESSORS?????????

"Well. My birthday is 1 September. 2034," he nodded in agreement at her calculations. He wondered how close it would turn out to truth with a sort of... arbitrary date like that. Ah well... she'd make it work.

"And a story. From my youth..." Merlin, most of his stories weren't suitable for the Head Girl's ears. "You want a story about how much I loved it here at Hogwarts, or something to make Professor Lainey's toes curl up?"

Celandine gave the headmaster a thoughtful look. 1st of September? Okay. She'd do the life path calculation and see what happened.

"Toe curling." She agreed cheerfully. "Professor Lainey doesn't like boring stuff and if you tell me something boring, I'll make it more exciting myself and that might not look good for you, sir." Honest.

She began her calculations while she listened.

"Okay, I have a story," Tate sighed. Probably going to get in big trouble for this one. Especially if Lainey didn't have a sense of humor at all.

"So, let's begin with... do you remember Professor Kade? He and I were Gryffindor troublemakers back in the day. One year, we watched the first years practicing their Wingardium Leviosa, and we got into an argument about how much weight the spell could bear and about how far away you had to be to cast it. Are you with me so far?"

He really DID look like a Gryffindor. Celandine nodded fervently. It made sense to wonder such things, but she had wondered them as a first year. Anyway, she listened expectantly, even as she finished the calculations for Tate's life path number.

"So we... thought it would be a great idea to test the limits of the spell. For the sake of boyish curiosity. We took turns climbing out of windows and being levitated down. First, Kade climbed through the windows of the Great Hall. Then I pried open a window on the first floor. I used one of those battle axes from a suit of armor. And then Kade on the second floor. Well. You get the picture."

"No, what else? What did you find out? What year were you in at the time? Who was better at the charm? Did you get in trouble?" Was he going to get sick of questions soon?

"And." Cela examined her workings, "your life path number is one. One represents..." She flipped open her arithmancy book, "A pioneering spirit, direction, strong-willed, originality, innovative, ambitious, courageous, determined, adventure, and is symbolic of beginnings." She skimmed until she found the right bit and read from the book.

"A life path number of one will take you down the road to independence, and you'll learn its benefits standing on your own two feet and becoming a strong individual. Once you've honed these traits, you move to the next level - leadership. You're a born leader and your path in life will present you with many opportunities to demonstrate your ability. Your strong pioneering spirit, courage, and determination will serve you well along this road."

She peeked at the headmaster. "So now I attempt to interpret it and personalise it to you, sir."

"That's not wrong. It's actually..." He blinked at her. It was... pretty close.

"I'm not DONE yet, Toussaint. There's more to this story. To answer your questions, though... we were fourth years. Kade's always been better at charms, although... in this case... when we got to the third floor, it was my turn to jump out the window again. Kade would float me to the ground. It went well the first couple times, but now he was further away and we couldn't see each other's signals anymore. He gave me the 'no no no' arm wave because the Headmaster was out on the grounds with the Groundskeeper. I thought it was the 'go go go' signal. So I jumped. And he wasn't ready."

He rubbed his left arm absently. "I broke my arm, but it would have been much worse if the Headmaster hadn't managed to cushion my fall. I spent the night in the infirmary, and we both spent the next two weeks in detention. I had to write an essay about levitation charms." Scrolls of parchment. Scrolls and scrolls.

"You're allowed to call me Cela, sir." Celandine told him and then listened more to the story. Obviously they should have used a better signal. Like coloured sparks from their wands. Green for go and red for no. "I broke my arm before my first detention." Celandine offered with a thoughtful look and then the sweetest smile anyone ever saw. Innocent. Obviously. "Have you had a lot of detentions, sir?"

She glanced over the textbook answer again and then ventured her own interpretation of the life path number one in relation to the headmaster.

"You've done lots of different things in your life, haven't you sir? You were with the international task force before this job and then they sent you here to watch Thomas Duskurk, right? And then you adapted and did stuff well so you stayed? I think you take whatever path presents itself to you, sometimes spontaneously and mostly without having a long term goal in mind. You like new things and you like testing yourself and showing yourself to be successful. You aren't about to back down from a challenge, judging by the circumstances that brought you here as headmaster, sir. I'd guess that you've travelled a lot, mostly based on the task force thing since thats definitely an international job and one that involves moving around to lots of exotic locations. Maybe you intended to get into that all along, or maybe it just happened organically, but either way every time someone challenged you or offered you something new and different to master, you wouldn't say no. Maybe sometimes with all this determination and your adventurous nature," Cela paused thinking of the story he'd just told her, "You don't always think things through properly and other things might fall by the wayside while you go up and onwards to the next challenge. And as for the leadership part, well. Here you are, headmaster."