On the noticeboard in every House commonroom was a new notice. Each was identical, and called the attention of the oldest students in the school. It read:
ATTENTION SEVENTH YEARS
An opportunity has arisen for any interested seventh years to gain teaching experience within this school. Supervised by a staff member, seventh year students may work on their own or in a pair to plan and execute a lesson for the younger students. If you would like to be involved, please sign your name below, along with the classes you would be happy to cover.
If you require more details, please see the Headmistress or your Head of House. Thank you.
Below this short note was ample space for any seventh year students to sign their name.
Great power, as a Muggle might have said it, meant great responsibility. Or, at the very least, a great number of inconveniences. Geoff had known from the start that what benefits he got from being Head Boy would be paid for in full when he'd challenged Saul for the position, but the price was one he had felt he was better off paying. Just having the badge on his résumé would open doors that, by what many would call rights, would normally be shut to a middle-class kid from a six-room house in South Carolina.
Now, however, he was seriously wondering if his brains and ambition might have served him just as well. This was very much because now, he was in the position of having to keep a room full of underclassmen under enough control to teach them something and act like he liked it.
Geoff was not a kid person. He hadn't liked most first year students when he was one, and his unfortunate birthday gave him about seven full calendar years on most of Sonora's new firsties. He had a feeling those seven years would not have improved the light he viewed an average eleven-year-old in. Plus, as his sister would probably tell anyone, he wasn't a prime example of a good tutor. If he understood what he was doing (which he usually did), he tended not to have tons of patience for people who didn't.
Unfortunately, however, he couldn't explain all of this. He was Head Boy, and that meant supporting any reasonably sane program the administration whipped out. This was awful, but not completely insane. So he was just going to have to grit his teeth, chalk it up to preparation for politics, and get through it.
Geoffrey Layne - Potions and CoMC.
16Geoffrey LayneDoing my civic duty.72Geoffrey Layne05