Stars and symbols [Tag Nigel!]

[Professor Dorado Bootes]

The teacher's lounge was one of Professor Dorado's favorite place in Hogwarts. Next to the library, but being a professor he tended to avoid actually hanging around in there. Instead he opted to go to the library, take out a stack of books, and then bring them into the teacher's lounge which was often surprisingly quiet. Usually when professors snuck to the safety of the lounge they just wanted to have a cup of tea in private- Dorado had never much cared for the stuff - but he did appreciate the general atmosphere of the room. And the big couches, Dorado loved those.

He loved them so much that he was sprawled out across one of the plus red couches as though it were in his own home. His robes were off and hanging over the back of the couch, underneath he was wearing a suit shirt: which he had rolled up the sleeves on, and unbuttoned the top few buttons. His black tie had been loosened around his neck. It was at moments like that when it certainly was not difficult to see why he had formed a reputation as the 'hot professor.' He managed to look well put together even when he was in a state of disarray.

At the moment one of the most recent books that he took out from the library open in his hand; his other hand was wrapped around a cookie, and judging by the half eaten plate of cookies on the table in front of him it wasn't his first one either. His mother, who was quite the chef, had made them the muggle way- his favorite. He loved how even though he was 28, his mother still cared enough to make sure that he always had cookies from her.

With a brisk action he flipped to the front cover of the book to inspect the title once again He was almost certain that he had read it as a student. Nevertheless, he pressed on to be sure of suspicion. The book was on divination, which he was certain was pure Hogwash, but he wanted to understand the theory behind it. However, in all his research so far he had figured out that theory was just as illogical as he expected it to be.

When he got to the section on crystal balls he had enough. There was only so much divination he could took in a day before he'd be tempted to traipse up to Headmistress McGonagall and demand an explanation as to why it was still taught. Of course, with that he always risked 'why are ancient runes still taught?' So, he avoided throwing a hissy fit (though to be fair, he thought ancient runes did have some function quite unlike divination).

Dorado's blue eyes darted over to the stack of papers sitting on the wooden table. He needed to finish grading them, but from the first half of the papers he didn't even want to see what the second half looked like. His fifth years appeared to be struggling with simple translations. This was not good, the teacher previous to him had obviously not taught some of the basic, very fundamental, concepts of runes.

Dorado realized his knowledge was a burden.

The young professor sat up on the plush red couch, and swung his legs over so he was sitting up. He reached forward and grabbed his inkwell on the other end of the small table and moved it towards him along with the stack of papers in front of him.

His scanned the first student's paper. No, he thought bitterly to himself and picked up his quill. He scribbled "don't translate so literally" on the student's paper. "Yes, Isa literally means ice but it also means; Treachery, illusion, deceit, betrayal, ambush, among others." He ran out of room to write them though.

Only another 15 more to grade.

[Professor Nigel Tenning]

“I told you, Towler. I don’t care who your mother works for, it’s not my fault you missed a test because you couldn’t be bothered to get out of bed.” Nigel growled, trying to escape the student doggedly tailing him. He’d been up practically all night with his second years, stargazing and impressing upon them the importance of keeping your telescope clean and the couple hours of catnapping he managed to sneak in before a staff meeting weren’t enough to dispel a rather foul mood. It didn’t help matters that his bad leg had stiffened up at the first real chill of winter, forcing him to use that stupid cane. Even that wouldn’t have been so bad if he’d been allowed to use it to stave the annoying Towler kid off, but assaulting students was generally frowned upon.

But, ah, sanctuary! The door to the teacher’s lounge loomed just up ahead. He didn’t really frequent it all that often, but never had he been so glad to see it. Perhaps he’d grade those fourth year start charts he’d been avoiding…or take a nap. Hmm…yes, he was really starting to favor the latter option. “Oh, look here, time for me to go. Sorry, no students allowed.” He opened the door before shooting the student one last glance. “Try doing your homework, Towler, it’ll do wonders for your grade.” Was his last parting shot before closing the door. Ah, blessed peace at last.

…Except not.

Of course, the one time he wanted to use the lounge it had to be occupied by Professor ‘Witch Weekly’s Most Charming Smile’. Three consecutive times, of course! Heaven forbid he forget about that. Needless to say, Nigel Tenning and Dorado Bootes were not the best of friends. He had half a mind to turn right around and just deal with the Towler annoyance instead and probably would have if his leg hadn’t been complaining from all the walking around he’d been doing. No, he needed to sit down for a moment…except Bootes was on the favorite couch. Just smashing. He eyed the one parallel to it, making no effort to disguise his sigh. It wasn’t so much the occupied one was amazingly better, it was the fact that he wanted it and Bootes had it. Petty? Extraordinarily so, but such was life.

“I suppose I should say hello,” Nigel said almost grudgingly, a highbrow sort of aloofness tinting his tone. Without further ado he made his way toward the free couch, the corners of his mouth tightening at the solid clunking sound his cane made against the floor in the quiet room. Oh, but surely Professor Perfection was used to being surrounded by the inadequate, he thought snidely, he shouldn’t mind a little noise. “Forgive me for interrupting your…” His rested briefly on the Divination book, one eyebrow twitching upward ever so slightly “…fascinating task.”

[Professor Dorado Bootes]

"I assure you that's not necessary." Professor Boots blurted out rather quickly. He wasn't exactly a fan of Nigel Tenning. Largely because he felt that the man had created a prejudice against him for very little reason at all. Oh wait, no, it was the Witch Weekly thing, it had to be. It seemed like a lot of people disliked him because of that; which was stupid in his mind, because Dorado had not asked to be most charming smile, he just hadn't denied the honor either. Frankly, why would he?

Oh well, Tenning wanted to dislike him, Dorado could live with it. This other man's opinion of him didn't effect who he was, or how he did his job. Dorado had never been at all concerned about other people's opinions of him outside the academic realm, and when people cut him down in that realm he would usually fool himself into believing that it was his incredible smarts that caused their jealousy. There was a reason Dorado didn't have a lot of friends growing up.

"However," He started with a sigh. "You did say something, unfortunately, so it's only fair that I reciprocate." The man wrote a grade on the top of the paper and moved onto the next one.

His charming blue eyes traveled upwards to the other man just in time to see him look distastefully at the divination book sitting on the table. "That's how I feel about it too." He said honestly just to clear up any doubt about how he felt about divination. It wasn't exactly magic[/s] so much as just making stuff up. At the very least Ancient Runes had some basis in reality.

Dorado set his quill back in the inkwell and leaned back on the couch, leaving the paper he had just started, half graded.

[Professor Nigel Tenning]

“You’re too kind.” He drawled sarcastically, taking a seat on the empty couch. Oh, so quick to answer, was he? Normally Nigel would have made some bitter assumption that if he had neglected to great his colleague, Dorado would have taken offense, but in this case he wasn’t so sure. It was well known, at least among the staff, that there was no love lost between the two professors. His therapist claimed he was projecting his feelings of inadequacy on Bootes or something like that (he usually wrote off whatever the man said as psychobabble bullshit, so it didn’t quite stick), but Nigel wasn’t buying any of that. Bootes got way too much recognition for what he did. Ooh, traveling around studying a bunch of musty old runes for years? Writing a whole boring book on them and looking pretty for the press? Give the man an award! Oh wait, they did. Three times. There were a lot of things Nigel couldn’t care less about, one of them being who Witch Weekly thought had the best smile, but it still proved to irk him. He’d served the Ministry as an Auror for a little over a decade, and what did he get in return? A pension and a bum leg. Yippee. He might not have taken it all so badly if Bootes didn’t come across as such an arrogant prick about it. Huh, jealous. He’d show him jealous…

“No need to be defensive.” Nigel said loftily, an air of contempt lurking in his voice. “What you choose to waste your time on is certainly none of my business.” Well, just because it wasn’t his business didn’t mean he wouldn’t hesitate in judging the other man for it, but he didn’t think that needed to be said outright. At least Bootes had had the good sense to put aside and instead focus on what appeared to be grading. Not much better than reading up in Divination as far as entertainment went, but at least it was productive. Promising himself he’d just ignore the other professor, Nigel laid his cane on the ground before swinging his legs up to stretch across the couch. Ooh, that was nice. It even had a throw pillow he managed to maneuver under his head in such a way that he could stare comfortably at the ceiling while still watching Bootes out of the corner of his eye.

Ideally he would have pounced upon the opportunity to take that long-awaited nap, but Bootes presence put him off. Some might call it paranoia, but he still didn’t want to let his guard down around someone who had an established dislike for him. He actually didn’t know Bootes that well aside from their limited interaction since the beginning of the term and the excited tangent his sister had gone on once she found out he’d be working with the Dorado Bootes. He had no idea if the man was mean-spirited or tricky enough to try to mess with him while he was asleep, but Nigel didn’t want to take that chance. Fine, he thought, loosely crossing his arms over his chest as he lay there. If he wanted a fight heated debate Nigel would show no mercy, but if it was silence Bootes was going for he’d just have to do his best to make it as stony and awkward as possible.