On doors and faking love (tag librarian). on Library

Professor Wright

March 14, 2018 9:02 PM

On doors and faking love (tag librarian). by Professor Wright

Technically, Gray was not an Aladren anymore, and had not been for some time. It was a matter of public record that he had attended Sonora, of course, but as a staff member, he was supposed to be impartial to all the Houses, which essentially meant pretending that he had never belonged to any of them. This made his current situation a problem.

He had not touched the book - a battered old tome called Birds of Prey; fortunate that he found it difficult to imagine anyone but an Aladren finding it interesting - which, in his day, had opened the door to the Aladren Common Room. Of that, he was entirely certain. That there were no invisible students, he was also reasonably certain. This year had been a bit chaotic, but the culprit had always been quite obvious, and invisibility cloaks were rare and not even fully reliable, depending on age and whether they were made with demiguise hair versus charms or whatnot. Also, unless something had dramatically changed, Aladrens were smart. If one wanted to sneak an unauthorized person into the Common Room under an invisibility cloak, he or she would presumably walk beside the intruder and be the one who opened the door, the better to prevent, well, this - a professor standing a good five feet away from the door, staring into the Aladren common room in utter confusion.

Geoff Layne’s niece was standing on the stairs coming down into said common room, and she looked just as confused as Gray felt. He waved awkwardly and she returned the gesture. He hoped she was not in the habit of writing her uncle; Gray had always felt slightly inadequate around Geoffrey even when he didn’t happen to look like he was the most sentimental fool ever to walk these stacks….

He muttered a couple of charms, but none of them revealed a hidden person. Perplexed, he walked over to the door and (scanning the common room quickly, taking in how little it had changed since his day with some pleasure; he’d give a pretty to go examine the old communal shelves and see if he could find any of the several books he’d lightly doodled on in said day...) addressed the people within. “Hello everyone - just passing by. Don’t know how that happened. I’ll send one of the elves up to examine the hinges,” he added in what felt like a stroke of utter brilliance. “Carry on,” he added, pushing the door to send it on its way toward closing.

Still confused, he picked the books he’d been looking at up and headed toward the front, thinking he should ask the librarian if this was a new problem or warn him that it was one now or...something. Reaching the desk, he put the books down, looked around for Fox-Reynolds, and was briefly distracted by the sight of pamphlets he didn’t think he’d noticed there before. Picking one up, he had just realized more or less what it was about when movement out of the corner of his eye made him jump out of his skin before he realized it was just the librarian, the very fellow he’d come up here to speak with.

“Hello,” he said, and bit his tongue against the impulse to add I am not gay as though that were the natural extension of the phrase ‘hello.’ It was true, he was reasonably sure, but announcing it tended to convince people otherwise, especially when such an announcement was unprompted. Not for the first time since starting this job, he considered buying himself a wedding ring sometime and making up a ‘wife’ and planning out contingencies for why she could never come around... “I was just in the back - I might borrow some books for one of my Beginner lessons - and the door to the Aladren common room opened by itself. Thought you ought to know, keep an eye on it in case it happens again - don't want - everyone running across the place.”

OOC: I'm allowed to mention Amelia doing something (in this case, waving) because I write her too. The pamphlets bit is in reference to Tarquin and Kir's co-write (the thread immediately below this one) about the McLeod Foundation.

16 Professor Wright On doors and faking love (tag librarian). 113 Professor Wright 1 5

Tarquin Fox-Reynolds

March 18, 2018 9:57 AM

I am not an expert on either by Tarquin Fox-Reynolds

It had taken a couple of doses of fever-be-gone to bring Danny back to his usual self. The cups had been more easily fixed with a simple ‘finite’ although he still had trouble trusting them, and not automatically getting That Damn Song stuck in his head whenever he looked at them, regardless of whether they were whistling it or not. He realised he was humming it as he made a cup of tea in his Oscar Wilde mug, and scowled.

Tea in hand, he left his office, and - there was someone there. Right there, in front of his desk. Which, whilst it wasn’t unusual, still had the capacity to surprise him. And the other person jumped, which made him jump and nearly spill his tea. In fact, he was quite sure that given how suddenly he’d moved, his tea should, logically, have spilt. But, quite happily, it seemed not to have, somehow. He slid the mug onto the desk.

“Hello,” he greeted. “Oh. That’s inconvenient,” he frowned, when Professor Wright mentioned the door to the Aladren Common Room being open. He thought about asking whether Professor Wright had mentioned it to… that Scottish man. Tarquin had committed to memory the fact that said man was Head of Aladren house because, as a former Aladren, he liked to know these things, and because the cheerful, adventurous Care of Magical Creatures Professor had struck him as a wildly incongruous match for the nice, bookish Aladrens. But apparently he hadn’t committed the man’s name to memory. So that made asking about him rather awkward. “I’ll keep an eye on it,” he promised, unsure of what he would actually do if it continued to be a problem, and making a mental note to maybe mention it to someone else who might know better than he did, “I’m sure the Aladrens will mention it too… If it keeps happening,” he added.

As he searched for something more to say, or tried to evaluate whether saying more was necessary, he found himself glancing down, and noticed the pamphlet in Professor Wright’s hands. His own name was on the poster, as someone people could speak to. He had assumed it was more likely to be students. He hadn’t really thought about… Though he supposed when he had been Professor Wright’s age… Well, he had known what he was, but he’d still been having some trouble dealing with it. And there was the way Professor Wright had jumped when Tarquin had approached… Which might have suggested he was feeling.. Not guilty, exactly. It wasn’t something to feel guilty about. But… on edge. Of course, Tarquin had jumped too, so there was every chance that Professor Wright was just as socially neurotic as him without them necessarily having other things in common. Though the man taught, so he couldn’t be that bad...

“Was there uh… anything else?” he asked as casually as possible, lifting his eyes back to Professor Wright’s and hoping it wasn’t necessarily obvious that he’d noticed, in case this really was just about the Aladren Common Room.

13 Tarquin Fox-Reynolds I am not an expert on either 1464 Tarquin Fox-Reynolds 0 5

Professor Wright

March 19, 2018 8:01 PM

We have this in common. by Professor Wright

Gray nodded when the librarian described the situation with the door as ‘inconvenient’ and agreed to keep an eye on the situation. “Probably,” he agreed about the Aladrens probably mentioning it if the problem continued. “Can’t have Pecaris wandering around the common room. Though what we’ll do if they do….” That would be a much more serious problem than just the door malfunctioning. What would they do with that?

He was busy thinking about that when he realized a) he still had his reading material in hand and b) the librarian had looked at that for a moment. Oh, hell…. To address it or not to address it? Fox-Reynolds was listed on the thing as interested in all this -

“No, that was all - this is just that I’m an Aladren,” he explained. “Or I was, anyway. If something’s lying around, I’m probably going to read it.”

This was, unfortunately, a situation he knew from experience was going to be a lose-lose for him. If he explicitly denied being gay, that would just convince whoever he was speaking to that he was lying. If he said nothing - who knew what the man would think of him then. Damn Aladren tendencies. “It’s good that you have things for students,” he added, carefully returning the pamphlet to the selection. Maybe that would prevent suspicions that he was vehemently opposed to people - doing whatever. “I have to admit, I’ve never heard of half of this - people are complicated, I guess.”

16 Professor Wright We have this in common. 113 Professor Wright 0 5

Tarquin Fox-Reynolds

March 31, 2018 6:26 AM

Along with Awkward Aladren Tendencies by Tarquin Fox-Reynolds

“Hmm,” Tarquin frowned. He liked the idea of Pecaris marauding - and Pecaris did maraud, there was no other verb for them - through the Aladren Common Room very little indeed. “I do have faith in the average Aladren to mount a suitable defence,” he decided, “Especially if reading materials, or the peace and quiet in which to enjoy them, are threatened. But no sense worrying.. To fear the foe, since fear oppresseth strength, Gives, in your weakness, strength unto your foe,” he cautioned, his mind travelling, as it was wont to do, through the pages of preferred books and weaving them into the conversation. He had attempted enough conversations with humans over the years that he knew this behaviour wasn’t always considered entirely normal, but that had rarely reduced his tendency to do it.

He was subsequently quite relieved when Grayson explained that he was a former Aladren, and thus probably encouraged that sort of behaviour rather than being confused or off put by it.

“Ah. Yes, I do the same. And quote Shakespeare at people whether they’ve asked for it or not. Perilous place for one’s social skills, Aladren. Or perhaps that’s why we ended up there to begin with, but then I think being around other like-minded people rather encourages it. Not that that’s a bad thing…” He accepted that Grayson’s explanation was entirely plausible, and he himself had definitely been caught out before by his tendency to pick up and read everything in sight. But it didn’t mean that the professor hadn’t found the literature interesting, or relevant. As his colleague slid the pamphlet back, he wondered whether he should have just pretending he was coming out to get a random item from the desk and disappeared again. Had he realised what Grayson was looking at, he might well have done, but it had been too late by that point. Hopefully, if he was interested, he would come back later.

“For whoever,” he added mildly, “And yes… seems like they add new letters every year. We’ll have the whole alphabet soon. I suppose they are…” he mused the idea that people were complicated, “Though in some ways… Most people just want happiness, but it’s happiness that’s complicated. Or the world makes it so by saying ‘no, that kind of happiness is wrong,’” he subconsciously twisted his wedding ring. “Sorry… you just came to report a broken door, not get a philosophical discussion,” he added. He didn’t really go out of his way to talk much with the staff or students but once he got going, he could be hard to shut up. He wondered whether he should just retreat and leave Grayson to the pamphlets that he wasn’t really reading. But equally, he, Tarquin, was allegedly someone useful to talk to. Or, if Grayson really had just been idly browsing, he might be perfectly amenable to idly chatting. “You’ve probably got lots to do with your day,” he suggested, trying to work out whether his presence, or the thought of further conversation with him was a welcome one or not.

13 Tarquin Fox-Reynolds Along with Awkward Aladren Tendencies 1464 Tarquin Fox-Reynolds 0 5