As you wander down the Hallways you notice a new door along the Eastern wall. Was it there last term? Quite possibly....as you approach the door you see a notice attached which reads:

Attention All Students!

This is the Staff Room. Under no circumstance should a student pass through this door. Any student caught on the other side will be sent to detention immediately, no questions asked! Continous violations could result in suspention!

Being a curious student you try the door knob....locked! Well, better not try again or risk detention....

Hecate slipped into the staff room... Who knew students would come bother her in her office. But the sign on the door was clear, no students. She drew her wand and fixed herself a cup of tea with lemon and honey, and made it levitate towards her before sitting in one of the comfy chairs. Ahhhh peace and quiet.

How a room on top of a large tower could become oppressive, Risu did not know. But his office had, in fact, turned into the architectural equivalent of a tax return - arduous and exhausting and full of papers - so he had grabbed a set of data sheets and the latest edition of the Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society from his desk for some light (there were several articles in there about stars) reading and made his way downstairs to the staff room.

The large wooden door did not look quite as forbidden as he remembered it from his student days - possibly because he was not a student anymore - but he still had to suppress the urge to knock. Trying to pass it off as a momentary stretching of his arm for the benefit of any invisible students, prying ghosts, or curious self-aware stones, he grabbed the door handle and pulled the door open. He stepped inside.

The door fell into the lock behind him with a soft thud. Risu glanced around. The room seemed to be empty. No, he corrected himself, nearly empty. One of the luxurious armchairs was occupied by a young woman. Risu cleared his throat. He'd seen her at the feast, sitting far away from him at the other end of the staff table, but he had not talked to her. "Erm, hello there. Don't think we've been introduced... have we? Risu Antares. The Astronomy Tower is my domain." He smiled his amused smile.

Hecate looked up. Ahhh yes. The Astronomy professor... at least he didn't look like a teenager the way some of the other staff members did. Astronomy... what did he have that would come useful to her... nothing really... He couldn't control the heavens. He was no use to her at all. But she figured she'd be nice to him all the same... you never know... he may have a pet acro... Acrom... She couldn't even think of those eight legged creatures.

"I don't believe we have... Hecate Lafay, Potions." She said and nodded her head but didn't offer her hand. "Would you like a cup of tea? I'm a wiz at brewing..." She smirked... the pun was intended.

Hecate. There was an asteroid with the lyrical name 100 Hekate. Risu's brain imparted this amusing fact before it wandered off to join its friends Charlie Chaplin once lost a Charlie Chaplin look-alike contest and Centipedes don't really have 100 legs.

"Nice to meet you," he said, dropping his reading materials on the table and sitting down. The chair was almost too comfortable. Risu could feel himself slide down into the cushions immediately. To think that he, as a student, had had to sit on wooden benches all day long!

He wanted to continue reading, but thought it a bit impolite to do so while talking to his colleague. It was probably a good idea to be on good terms with someone who knew a hundred different lethal recipes. Similarly... Risu eyed the steaming cup of tea in front of the Potions instructor. "No, thank you," he said politely. "No need to work on my behalf. I have had too much coffee today anyway." He grimaced and prodded his stomach.

"Risu... that's an..." odd "...interesting name... It isn't a common British name, is it?" She asked sipping her tea. "I don't think I've ever heard of it... does it mean something?"

"Oh, I don't think it's a common name anywhere in the world, er..." Risu hesitated an instant before continuing, "Professor." Hecate Lafay looked like the sort of woman who did not accept the first-name basis as a matter of course. It probably had to be earned.

Another brief smile scuttled across Risu's face like a lizard. "As it happens, I wondered about that myself once-upon. Risu is a Finnish word, it means..." the smile widened, turning into an almost boyish grin "... dry twig. Believe me, it's the envy of all my friends. I think - hope - my parents just liked the sound of it. And I am not British. I was born in Sweden. But I doubt you will find many Risus there, either."

He spread out his hands. "And that was my brief foray into anthroponomastics. Dry twig. And sometimes people are more confused about my name than they are about astrophysics." Risu wondered briefly whether he would have to present his name to his students for inspection. No, he decided, "Professor Antares" would have to do. "But what about you? Have you been teaching here for a long time?"

Hecate took another sip of her tea. "This is my first year... teaching... at all..." She said unsure of how that would go over. "I'm a potioneer... I discover new potions, I test new ingredients... but I've had to, change my direction..." She said and smiled, "and I love educating." That was true enough...

"I assume you are new as well?" She said crossing her legs and taking another sip of her tea. "You didn't seem to know I was new, so I only assume..."

"So I am, so I am," Risu confirmed lightly, leaning back in his chair even further. It was very comfortable, and he could imagine that, come wintertime, he would spend more time in here, reading in front of the giant fireplace. It was still unlit now, making the room smell slightly of old ash.

As he listened to his colleague talk, he suddenly found himself thinking of how other people sometimes appeared to be bored (if one could imagine such a thing!) when Risu told them about his work. But now he thought he could understand - if not accept - their reaction, at least on an intellectual level. Risu was interested in a lot of things, but he realised that he had always imagined potioneering to be a little more... well, interesting. Professor Lafay made it sound as if she just randomly threw dead plants (dry twig) into a cauldron full of bubbling water.

But Risu himself essentially spent his time staring at rows and rows of numbers, obtained from what was essentially a giant magnifying glass that was observing nothing. So maybe now was the time to apply some curiosity and expel ignorance. "I admit I don't know much about the, er, art of potion-making," he said apologetically, "so how does this all work? How do you discover new potions? Or ingredients?"

"Don't let me bore you with the details of Golpalott's 9th Law" She said with a sweet smile... "you'd end up thinking I'm some weird person who was way too dedicated to her job." Suddenly and out of no where a black cat jumped onto her lap and curled up there. "Mephisto..." She said petting the cat. "Professor Antares, this is Mephisto, my cat." She said smiling.

Risu smiled again. It was obvious that doing so came easily to him. "I'm sure neither of us would be here right now if it weren't for the dedication to our respective professions. For the same reason that you spend your time in a smelly room hoping that the next ingredient isn't going to blow up the cauldron. I put up with uncomfortable camp beds, ice-cold weather, and constant financial fears to study the cosmos. For two decades at least."

He thumped the upholstery of the chair approvingly. "My time for scientific contributions is done now, I should think." Risu's smile became a little rueful as he remembered his time as an active scientist - a period of his life now mostly behind him. For some reason, his facility's financial troubles and the Spartan living conditions had only added to, as it were, the magic of science. He scratched the corner of his eye a little self-consciously when he realised how he must look; like an old man, reminiscing about the proverbial good old days.

"Education plus a little astrophysics on the side doesn't sound bad for someone in his early forties, though," he amended, and brightened up even further as he espied Professor Lafay's cat. It was blacker than the space between galaxies. "Mephistopheles, the demon prince," Risu said, waving at the cat. "How do you do." He winked at it. "You have a much more agreeable appearance than the unlucky Faust, if you don't mind me saying, Professor."

Ahhh... he knew his history... She ran a hand down the legth of the cat's back and up its tail. The animal kept it's eyes focused on the man for a moment, and then closed it's eyes and purred at his owner's touch. Wait... Was he... saying in his own very geeky way that she was attractive? It was no surprize to her. She knew she was attractive, and she'd been told many times. It was just... Odd how he had put it. "I don't mind at all and I assure you my potions lab is charmed to repel unpleasant odors at the end of the day..." She smiled and scratched behind the black cat's ear.

"Oh, no need for any assurances," said Risu, adding privately that the reason for that was that he would not end up in the Potions classroom if he could help it, odour-repelling charms or not. He had enjoyed his time at Hogwarts, but there were some parts of the school he did not particularly relish visiting again. Embarrassing memories of some of his more spectacularly failed potions were apt to pop up were he to wander around in the dungeons.

The cat was purring loudly, content on his mistress' lap. As he opened one huge eye to look at Risu, Risu got the distinct impression that this cat was very smart, even by feline standards. He felt a momentary pang of sympathy for any rat or mouse that found itself being chased by Mephisto - and he made a mental note to make certain he would never step on the cat's tail. Risu didn't put it past Mephisto to open doors, and he didn't fancy getting his face clawed off one night in revenge.

"So, er... What can one do as a potioneer? Other than teach, I mean," he asked, moving his gaze from the cat to the professor.

"... Do?" She repeated with a smile on her face... Didn't she just tell him that? "You mean other than creating new potions, testing ingredients, becoming a hero, or in my case a heroine for the good of the community?" She said. "Or are you asking what can you become? As you said, apart from being a teacher? Well... we can become nurses, or persue a healing career... some potioneers have gone into the culinary arts... " She looked at him as the cat raised its back. She took her hand off of the animal and leaned over to touch the man's hand. "Am I answering your question at all, Professor Antares?"

Risu nodded. "Yes, other than all that," he said, and listened to the professor's reply. And she had very... refined hands, he noticed. Smooth. Not at all how he had expected the hands of a person who was handling hot metal cauldrons all day to feel like.

He smiled faintly. "Yes, you are. My understanding of the life of a potioneer, formerly opaque like a cloud of interstellar gas, has been greatly improved. But..." A preoccupied look drifted across Risu's face, as if he were troubled by something. The expression was believable enough, but his eyes flashed in amusement. "But, er... here at Hogwarts... the potion-making and the meal-cooking are two separate affairs, right? From now on I would be worried to have another cup of soup if that wasn't the case."

Well, he trusted Professor Lafay on that account, but to Risu, saying that an ability at potions enabled one to be a good cook was the same as announcing that, because Risu had worked around telescopes, he was able to, say... repair a Muggle car. Sure, both employed technology in the broadest sense (such as the lowest common denominator of potions and cooking being, perhaps, boiling water), but he would not climb into a driving contraption he himself had fixed. Similarly, with someone who could whip up either a deadly potion or dead tasty soup, Risu wanted to be sure that person remembered which was which.

She looked at him and blinked twice, then laughed. Not a loud laugh, not a giggle either, just a closed mouth, nasal laugh. "My, you are a peculiar man. Not in a bad way, I hope I didn't offend you, I find it quite... charming." in a geeky sort of way anyway. "Of course potion-making and meal-cooking are two separate affairs here at Hogwarts, or in any good potioneer's lab. Besides not wanting to be poisoned, it's good not to taint experimental potions."

Risu smiled at this. "Peculiar..." he said to himself. "Why not." Another smile - his facial muscles were getting a workout today - tugged on the corners of his mouth. "Peculiarity has a way of making itself shown in my field, I suppose. One cannot, to appropriate Nietzsche, gaze into the Universe without the Universe also gazing into you. But in my case - it winked." He snorted with genuine laughter. Mephisto the cat flattened his ears and stared at him.

Risu leaned back in his chair and considered the professor's words. Personally, he would have been more concerned with experimental potions tainting his food than the other way around. But still, even with their priorities reversed, anything that kept food out of potions and potions out of food was fine by Risu.

"But tell me about some of the discoveries you have made, Professor," he went on. "I've returned from the Muggle world after more than twenty years, surely some potioneering breakthroughs have been made that I wouldn't have heard about on the BBC."

"Well, I've found a cure for Galman Fever, I also perfected a new barrier potion, but nothing that you would hear on a muggle television." She said to him... but that's not what she was famous for... unfortunately her discoveries weren't at all what her name was associated with.

"I must congratulate you then, Professor Lafay," Risu said in his best attempt at a high-minded voice. "Your... solution, pun unintended, seems to have proven to be extremely effective. I mean, I have never even heard of 'Galman Fever'!

"And," Risu continued, although his voice had long abandoned its high-minded tone and plunged into fatuousness (Risu was certainly enjoying himself), "I have to confess that there's, er, a barrier of ignorance on my part surrounding that second potion you invented." He dropped the pretence now, and laughed openly again. "I'm sorry. Please don't think I'm mocking you, Professor. I just don't know anything about your subject. I took Potions at school, of course, but I was never very good at it. Afterwards, I went to a Muggle university, and then a Muggle research facility, and I had practically nothing to do with chemistry."

He tapped a finger on his papers and the scientific journal he had brought with him. "This is where my expertise lies. So... what is Galman Fever, and what's a barrier potion?"

"I can't help but think you are mocking me." She said a little curtly. "I didn't say invented, I said perfected. I worked on a potion that was 98% effective and made it 100% effective." She said sharply. Mephisto stood from her lap and jumped off but remained at Hecate's feet, rubbing himself against her legs. This seemed to calm her anger. Maybe his humor was... weird. "Galman's Fever is an illness transmitted by the ingestion of engorged food or water contaminated with the charm of an infected person. The bacteria then perforates through the intestinal wall and destroys the wizard from the inside out. It isn't pretty." She said standing and refilling her cup.

Ouch. Risu had apparently gone too far. Not that he felt particularly bad about it, but it was good to know - in the case of a Potions master, maybe important to know - how far someone's sense of humour went. The cat had caught his owner's mood too. Mephisto uncurled himself and, with a reproachful look at Risu through his huge feline eyes, dropped onto the floor.

Risu bit back his first reply ("That's certainly a two-percent improvement.") and merely inclined his head apologetically. Watching the Professor with his back to him, handling the teapot and cup, with a blank expression on his face, Risu decided not to rise to her horrid description of this Galman Fever either. The Universe had any number of gruesome and inventive ways to kill someone, some spectacular enough to earn them their own descriptive word, but he did not feel like going into a wand size-measuring contest over whose subject offered more horror.

"It, er... sounds like an ugly way to go, yes," Risu ventured when Professor Lafay had returned to her seat. "It's certainly reassuring to know that a cure has been found."

Her head turned to her left shoulder, not enough to catch him in her sight, but enough so he could see she was talking to him. "Indeed." She said and finished adding lemon to her beverage. "I watched my second husband die from it while I was still developing the formula... I was a few months too late." She said and turned to him. "Oh well... I should return to my lab." She said extending her hand to him. "It was a pleasure meeting you Professor Antares."

"Oh, er... My condolences," Risu said automatically, even though the professor had seemed rather unmoved when she had told him. The lemony smell wafting over from her cup put him in the mood for a cup of tea as well. He was just about to get up when Professor Lafay announced she was going to leave.

So he did get up, but as a matter of courtesy, not to procure a beverage. "It was a pleasure meeting you too, Professor," Risu said, shaking the woman's hand. "I'm sure I will see you around." He smiled and slid back into his seat.

The door creaked open, then clicked shut again, as Professor Lafay left. Risu picked up the journal he'd come here to read, and, thirty seconds later, had forgotten all about his earlier desire for a cup of tea...

Ah the staff room, the one place he could take a little nap without being disturbed.

Slipping inside the room, Lawson closed the door behind him and made a beeline for the couch and threw himself onto it.

Once upon a time staying up till all hours of the night never used to bother him but now...he found himself struggling. Obviously he was getting old.

Closing his eyes, he snuggled down and waited for sleep to overtake him.

Hecate walked into the staff room. She needed a break from all those kids. In her office she could see one, and when she was done two more had sprouted from somewhere. She closed the door and went to get some tea when... oooo a sleeping Macus Lawson... She sneaked behind him and poured herself a cup of hot water adding her own blend of tea. It was very aromatic and she charmed some of the aroma to float under his nose.