The Need for a Teacher's Lounge ((Julius))

[Professor Laryssa Miller]

Laryssa's first few weeks at Hogwarts were going rather smoothly, aside from the feeling that all her students hated her. She always felt that way, though, so it wasn't something that she had to get accustomed to. Laryssa wasn't new to teaching, but she was new to teaching at Hogwarts. She hadn't had the time to socialize with any of the other professors, which was alright - because she wasn't very social, anyway. One thing that really caught Laryssa off guard, however, was the fact that there was not a Teacher's Lounge. There was a Student Lounge, but not one for teachers and that was something completely new to Laryssa. So, for the first few days, Laryssa had stayed in her office - working on her material and tests... thinking about how to make Astronomy challenging for these students. She ate her lunches in there, and was in there until she felt it was time for her to go to bed. She actually even had a shrunken bed in her office that she could make actual size if she needed to sleep in her office. But she hadn't had the need to use it quite yet. Yet, being the key word.

Today, Laryssa had decided to take an adventure through the school, looking for an empty room she could possibly fix up and name it the teacher's lounge. Of course, she would have to run it passed Dumbledore but she figured it might be alright with him. She just figured that having a place the teacher's can call their own while grading papers would be nice, especially for all the work they go through. Ok, so maybe Laryssa just liked pampering and rewarding herself - but it wouldn't be just her she would be rewarding. Laryssa smiled softly at the thought, and pushed open a door to a random room. It was empty, and square. But one that she figured could be spruced up a bit, which was exactly what she was looking for. Laryssa took out her wand, deciding to make it a bit more cozy so she could grade the large pile of papers her class had left for her in a comfortable environment. She would clean it up when she was finished.

She conjured up some lamps, a book case, a rug, two large armchairs - a counter with a coffee machine on it, and a few other must have's in a comfortable room. Soon, she was finished, and she smiled at her accomplishments before turning on her heel and closing the door - heading back to her classroom and into her office to get the papers. Yes, she could have just accio'd them to her, but Laryssa liked to walk - especially in her comfortable shoes. As she made her way back to the 'teacher's lounge,' the tower of papers toppled in her arm and got in her line of vision. She reeled around in a small circle, slipping on something a student must have spilt on the floor, and collapsed right into someone walking toward her end of the hallway. The papers flew out of her hands, and her mouth opened to let out a small shriek. When the last paper fluttered to the ground, Laryssa let out a lengthy sigh and looked to see who she had run into; "I'm so sorry," she said - recognizing the person as Julius Foxcroft, another professor at Hogwarts.

((Izy told me there is in fact a staff room. But I don't wanna have to rewrite everything. Can we just go off this?))

[Professor Julius Foxcroft]

The man walking along the corridor was one you would never have said was the same person if you'd met him two years ago. The grumpy and depressing man who looked as if he carried the weight of the world on his shoulders and had wrinkles around his eyes that made him look ten years older than his actual thirty years was a relic of the past, someone even he would no longer admit he had been, a bad nightmare, a very long one, but one that had finally ended. Julius had finally crept out of the hole of misery he had dug for himself, the turtle had looked out slowly and liked what it had seen; it had finally learnt that hiding in its shell was not the solution, perhaps it would always walk through life slowly and always need a push to really get anywhere, but at least it was willing to let people see it and listen to their advice. Julius Foxcroft was a new man.

I'm a father. It was strange the amount of emotion that simple thought filled him with, incredible pride, a few concerns, but most of all a blazing fierce kind of love he'd never ever felt before. It had shattered his belief that all he could feel was negativity; that he could never be anyone's mentor, caregiver and place to fall. Julius rounded a corner, his intelligent blue eyes shining. He had a little reading to do, and now that there was no staff lounge and he was resisting the temptation to sit alone in his office he was thinking of perhaps heading to the courtyard to do his reading. A young woman in a bit of a rush bumped right into him and Julius' book fell form his hand. Julius held her elbows to stop her from slipping herself onto the floor, a little self-conscious of being that close to someone, and then bent down to help her pick up her papers. They looked like charts of some sort, and there was also stacks of parchment that Julius could tell was homework.

"Don't be," he said affably. "Julius Foxcroft, I teach Defence," he said with a smile. He extended his hand to the young woman, his eyes looking into hers for just a glance. He fancied he could see determination there, but he had never trusted first impressions. He felt keen on getting to know her though; it was time he talked to more people, he had almost forgotten how it was done.

((They decided to turn it into a conference room, didn’t you hear? ))

[Professor Laryssa Miller]

Laryssa smiled softly at Julius as he helped her with her papers, she gathered some in her hands and picked up his book that had flown out of his hands as well. She situated her papers in her hands as he introduced himself, quickly Laryssa stopped fidgeting with her papers and shook his hand, "Laryssa Miller, I'm the new Astronomy professor; if you couldn't tell by my constellations." She pointed to an image of Hercules and then handed him his book. She continued to fix her papers and then sighed, giving up. It wasn't like they were going to stay in perfect order. She would grade them, hand them back and they would be thrown away or used for spitballs. Students were so inconsiderate of how much time professors actually spent on grading papers, tests, and essays. It made her think back to when she was in school, and how she had meticulously kept every assignment, test, and essay that was returned to her in a box. It was evident that she had wanted to teach, even in her early years. Here she was now, suddenly regretting going into teaching - with how the students at Hogwarts were. Sure, Laryssa had been a student at Hogwarts as well, but she didn't remember ever being this disrespectful. Regardless, she could deal with them - which was proven when she took the job of handling detention this past weeked, but she had a feeling teaching at Hogwarts would be like nowhere else she had taught.

"I was just on my way to grade these," she waved a rather lengthy assignment in the air, glancing it over a bit before returning her attention to Julius, "but I realized there wasn't any place to grade them. I conjured up a temporary staff room, and was just about to head back and settle down with horribly written papers and a cup of coffee. Would you like to join me? I could use some company." It was then Laryssa thought he might have had something else with more importance to do, "That is, if you don't have anything else to do?" She figured it was time to become more social, especially with the whole new job and not getting along with the students in the least bit. Sometimes she felt like she was the only one in the world who knew what it felt like to be hated by most, if not all, of her students. Maybe Professor Foxcroft had the same problem? Or maybe he was one of the professors the students adored...

[Professor Julius Foxcroft]

So it isn’t really that hard after all. Julius almost grimaced as he remembered the last time he had talked to a new teacher. It had been last year, and the person in question, Sandra Tyler, well you could safely say that she had seen the worst of Julius and she hadn’t taken it lying down. The meeting had assured Julius that he wasn't ready to talk to people yet. But the time had passed, and finally things had changed for him, and he'd finally opened the door to the life he had shut away – or at least left it half-open. Oh God she actually asked me if I could sit with her. I'm torn between who is more pathetic – she talking to me because she doesn’t know what she's in for, or I because I'm nervous about having a conversation with a person without making them lose faith in the human race. Julius looked up at her and thought he saw a little strain in her face, but couldn't be sure. Answer her question idiot.

"I have some reading for a future class to do, but it's nothing I have to finish urgently. Mind control – actually I've been trying for a while to use it on my students, but unfortunately judging by the essays I've received, much to my chagrin and the disappointment of the other teachers who bribed me to do it my attempts have been in vain," he said, shaking his head in mock sadness. You could smile now. Believe it or not, your cheek muscles won’t tear. People tend to do that right after they say something funny. "Oh you know Hogwarts, you don’t know when a room is going to turn out to be cursed by student, teacher, ghost or goodness knows what else. You’d think McGonagall, Flitwick and I checking it would be enough but Dumbledore wants to take a look himself," he said. Do I sound more annoyed than the situation calls for? Is she wondering if I'm a grouch already? "I'd certainly like some coffee," he said aloud.

[Professor Laryssa Miller]

Laryssa grinned at him as he talked about mind control, "There are some students who don't have a mind to control." The moment she said that, her smile faded, "That wasn't very nice of me to say but I have to let it be known that I have some real dunces in my class - I have to give them credit for trying though," Laryssa sighed a small sigh and shook her head quite like he had. When he had continued on about the rooms being cursed and Dumbledore having to check it before it became anything really, Laryssa smiled once more; "And with his busy schedule he can never find the time to do just that, I take it?" It was certainly understandable, Dumbledore was a rather busy man - especially with all that was going on in the wizarding world and him being one of the best wizards. Then again, it was rather irritating having to wait for something that would almost literally take two seconds. Laryssa wasn't a very patient person, it showed in her classes how impatient she actually was - it was one of the elements that made her a good teacher.

When he agreed to coffee, Laryssa grinned again, "Lovely, um... right, where was that room?" She looked over her shoulder and then down the hall. After a moment she remembered and took the first step forward, turning her attention back to Professor Foxcroft. "So, how long have you been teaching here at Hogwarts? You aren't new this year, that's for certain. So how have you out lasted the curse that has befell upon every other Defense the Dark Arts professors?" She tilted her head in a questioning manner and then faced forward again as she came to the door which led to the room she had furnished. She opened it and stepped inside, setting her papers down on the table and making her way to the counter, getting out two mugs and pouring some of the coffee into both of them. She pulled out the cream and sugar and carried it over to the table in between the two arm chairs.

[Professor Julius Foxcroft]

"Oh no, you're right there, but personally the ones who really grate my nerves are the ones with the brains that are too lazy to use them. So much potential just goes to waste, and sometimes there's just no talking to them, they will be what they will be. But I give them a rough deal if that's the way they want to play it," said Julius, smiling a small smile at Laryssa. It was hard being a teacher, your first year especially. He wondered if she'd had any experience with teaching before or if she was a brand new to teaching and if she had been a student at Hogwarts. He couldn’t remember if she was, but then she might be considerably younger than his twenty nine years. "This is my fifth year at Hogwarts. I started off teaching Muggle Studies, and took on Defence last year," he told Laryssa.

Ah, the much-asked question. "My guess is as good as yours. All I know is I'm not allowed to teach until Harry shows up. Dumbledore didn’t exactly forbid me, he knows I know the job is cursed, but he's been giving me other odd jobs with Aurors - training them, and checking on Dark items hoping for some information or some thread that will lead us to Harry or Voldemort. No-one is volunteering for the job so I've just been advising students what to do, it's all very unofficial and I doubt anyone's actually following any of my advice except a few of they very good ones. I don’t know what's going on exactly, but it seems as if – well this is a rather dramatic phrase – but the end of it all is very near. Dumbledore's being quite vague, but I can tell that he feels that way," said Julius. It was not a topic he wanted to discuss at all; it filled him with worry and made him rather unbearable to be with. He leaned over the arm of the chair he had taken conversationally. "What's your story?" he asked, looking into her eyes for just a moment.

[Professor Laryssa Miller]

Laryssa listened to Foxcroft talk about the curse as she sipped her coffee. She hadn't really known what she had gotten herself into when she had accepted this job. After she had graduated from Hogwarts, she had dropped out of the wizarding world - finding Muggle jobs as she made her way through school and then finally reached her teaching career at certain grade levels. Over the summer she had received an owl about teaching at Hogwarts - and blindly, Laryssa agreed. She took another small sip of her coffee, suddenly craving some coffee treat - but not really feeing the urgency to get up and look through a cabinet for one - or to conjure one. She sighed and set the cup down on the table before folding her hands in her lap and thinking about her response. What was her story? It wasn't anything intersting. Nothing that would make a good book. Yet, she felt that maybe it was a good thing her ife wasn't too dramatic. Maybe it was refreshing to everything that was going on in this world.

"Well, it is my first year here at Hogwarts but not teaching. I've been teaching for awhile... mostly at muggle schools. So the teaching method is a bit different here, it's a lot to get used to. A lot to deal with and adjust to. I attended school here, so I'm rather familiar with the place - but it's still rather new. I don't know what it is about being back here, but the moment I stepped in memories nearly drowned me. Many of them weren't good, too." Laryssa looked around the walls of the room they were, but she was seeing past the four and out to the rest of the castle, "This place has seen me at my worst and at my best. I'm just afraid it's going to spill all my secrets one of these days and all the embarrassing and horrifying memories will destroy me, again." Laryssa smiled softly as she pulled herself out of her reverie, realizing she had maybe said too much - or that perhaps he really didn't care about her years at Hogwarts. She reached forward and gently picked up her coffee cup - taking another sip. A nervous habit she had when she felt like she had made a fool of herself. "Did you go to school here?"

((Sorry for any typos. My L isn't working.))

[Professor Julius Foxcroft]

Julius looked down at his cup of coffee, his index finger slowly trailing the brim, and when he looked up at Laryssa it was with a wondering contemplative look in his eyes. Their experiences at the school had been so different, or at least the ways they remembered them. "I – yes I did. But though Hogwarts has certainly seen the worst and the best of me, it has always been a place I have looked upon fondly. When – when I came to a point in my life where everything had just lost whatever attraction it had had for me and when I just needed a soft place to fall, Hogwarts was my sanctuary. It still is. Overly dramatic as it may sound, I found myself at Hogwarts," he said. Laryssa was sipping her coffee now but he could detect her discomfort and Julius knew how rough your first year of teaching could be. What painful events coloured Laryssa's memories of Hogwarts and her school life? And what had made her come back to this place if it made her feel so bad?

He didn’t know how to ask her, so he decided perhaps he could explain a bit more about how he felt. "I have always found it difficult to let go of bad memories. I don’t know why it is that Hogwarts meant so much to me when I was a student that I decided to give it a shot as an adult to be the place where I could seek solace. I've certainly had my share of bad memories, run-ins with teachers, pranks pulled upon me, and tests before which I couldn’t sleep and did very badly. I know why I love Hogwarts so much now, but why it meant so much to me then I'm not sure. I think it's just I remember all the friendships, the victories, the laughs along with all the things that made me miserable," he said. "What were the times when you were at your best?" he asked.

[Professor Laryssa Miller]

Julius' voice filled the room, and although she was paying complete attention to him she needed to get her papers graded. She accio'd them to her and pulled a red pen from behind her ear. Although a muggle contraption, it was something Laryssa preferred over quills and ink. She took another sip of her coffee as he continued to speak, and she looked up after marking a question wrong. Her eyes locked onto his for a moment and she grinned, "You don't mind me grading do you? I really need to do this and well, I tend to become a tinge psychotic if I get behind on something. If someone makes me late, I go crazy..." She wasn't being herself - maybe it was the coffee that made her a bit more talkative to this man she had just met, who knew? But she wasn't necessarily complaining. She smiled assuredly at him and then sighed, putting her pen down. "I'm sorry, I don't know what's wrong with me. I'm usually much more calm, I think the coffee's completely jittered everything. This is my fifth cup today. It's just everything's so hard."

She took another sip and looked at her fingers before even considering talking about her ups and downs at Hogwarts. He had told her some of his, and although they were most of what hers were - Laryssa had a bit more. She smiled softly, and decided maybe it was okay for her to take a chance. Maybe it was okay for her to tell him why Hogwarts had more bad memories than good. She breathed in, "I was a fairly good student, quite excellent at Astronomy and rather horrible at Potions like most Gryffindors. Teachers didn't pay me any special attention and I wasn't a troublemaker. But the other students always found something to pick on me about. Whether it was me being an orphan, or that I lived with an elderly woman who was rather poor. People who thought they had trump over me, treated me like I was nothing to anyone, to the world." She lifted her gaze to meet his and smiled, "One night I had enough of their teasings and tauntings and I got in a rather big fight with one of them. I was given detention for the rest of the year and was watched very closely the following years." Laryssa sat in silence a moment and then took another sip of her coffee. She sat up straight and grinned, "Of course, I've grown up some since then and I don't fight any longer." She laughed lightly, "But I returned... because whether I like it or not... Hogwarts is my home."

[Professor Julius Foxcroft]

"Oh no, not at all, teaching seven years can really make the work pile up," he said with the understating of one who had been through the same experience. Is she running away from the conversation? Reminds me of someone. Julius looked at her in concern when she put her pen down and admitted to how difficult everything was. Julius wondered how you played the role of the sympathetic and comforting listener. It had been so long since he'd tried to comfort someone, to understand the pain and hurt of others, no, not understand, that he was fully capable of, it was dealing with and supporting someone that had been something he hadn’t done in a while – Charles Driscoll had practically forced him to help him and that was what it had taken for Julius to slowly let people in and start listening to them. He leaned a little closer to Laryssa and said in a low voice, "Beginnings are always scary." But was it that was so hard for her? There was more, it was more complicated. There was uncertainty and pain from some deep wound that had not quite healed evident in her manner and eyes.

Julius had never been bullied as a student, but he'd seen it happen, and before he'd become a teacher he'd read about the subject, and it was painful to realise the impact it had on the victims of bullies. It was nothing you never forgot, the way it made you feel, the doubts it filled you with, the constant worry and bracing oneself for the new insult that was going to be thrown at you or the name you were going to be called. "And yet they never stopped to think why you should act so out-of-character. Dumbledore would never stand for that sort of behaviour nor would most of the other teachers, but I bet you had someone like Severus deal with it," he said. Julius felt a mixture of anger and sadness. Laryssa had known so very little happiness from what he'd heard. People complained about their parents all the time, and yet they never stopped to think of how blessed and lucky they were that they had them. "I'm surprised that you could come back here to Hogwarts. But I reckon that's what makes you a Gryffindor," he said, a note of admiration in his voice now. "I – my late girlfriend and I, we had a little place in Edinbrugh, and when she passed away I packed everything I needed at top speed and left before I let myself sit and think – think of – " Julius didn’t know until now what he might have thought of. "I've never been back there since," he admitted. It was something he'd never told anyone, even Charles didn’t know about that. Wow. And the admission didn’t make him feel as weak or as scared as he had thought he would.

"That's the spirit. It took me a very long time before I realised that that was what Hogwarts was for me, as a student I never really saw it that way; it was school, the place I had to be and then would move on. And then when I came here just over four years ago it was a where I came to hide, my barricade from the rest of the world," he said, the words sounding funny to him now as he said them. But they were the truth - what a strange thing life was. Julius had found teaching, he'd found his students, and last year he'd found his son. "But then I found the joys of teaching, and slowly I came to love this place as a home. Some students gave me nightmares, but a few of them gave me pride and gave me something to do everyday when I woke up. And there are still bullies and prejudiced people at Hogwarts, perhaps now you'll stop other people from going through what you went through, and find strength in being the person you needed when you were here instead of the one who didn’t understand what you were put through," he said.

[Professor Laryssa Miller]

Laryssa smiled softly and continued to grade as he said it was alright and the work really gets piled on, “Yes it does, especially if you’re teaching all grades at one time, probably more so than if you were just teaching one or three. But there really isn't any other way to teach Astronomy. It's alright because I enjoy it, though, I like challenges.” She shifted her gaze to look up at him and sent him a mischievous smile. It was true, Laryssa liked challenges. She liked when her students debated with her over something, not that Astronomy left much room for debate; it was mostly cold hard facts, and sometimes that disappointed her. But the good outweighed the bad and disappointments, and she continued teaching – feeding off the challenges she was given when students arrived late to class or broke out into reckless behavior. She smiled once more at Julius and then returned to grading her papers. So far a student had gotten one question correct. It was really pathetic how someone could take an easy subject such as Astronomy and turn it into the most complicated thing on Earth. She looked up again as he leaned a bit closer toward her and told her beginning’s were always scary. She couldn’t help but smile softly, he was more right than ever about that. Even when Laryssa was a young child, her beginnings were scary. Having to live and learn on her own, she quickly grew up and quickly realized that things were going to be harder for her than they were for many other children her age. Now, it wasn’t much different. Other professors had an easier time handling their students because the students know what to do to avoid the teacher’s evil side;, Laryssa was certain Julius, although he was probably the only teacher she would carry a conversation with, had the kids under wraps as well when he taught.

She had shifted her gaze back to the papers but when he started speaking again, she lifted her eyes and locked hers with his; listening intently. He spoke of the authorities who had handled the situation and she shrugged. Perhaps she had gone to the wrong people about the problem that had presented itself to her, but then she didn’t want to cause anymore trouble and she really didn’t care who handled the situation as long as it got handled. Julius was right, again, about someone handling it in a wrong manner. The other student got off scotch free, and Laryssa was the one who was treated as a criminal. “That, which does not kill us, only makes us stronger.” She recited her voice quieter than it had been before. That quote was true for her; it had been for as long as she could remember. All the teasing and the bullying she had received while at Hogwarts made her a bigger and better person, even if meant the tears and the pain would always be a part of her memories. Her eyes smiled as her lips formed into a thoughtful frown, it was a rather odd mixture and her eyes dimmed into a lifeless colour as Julius began speaking of his late girlfriend. Laryssa tilted her head, slightly confused as to why he would run from it. When someone is lost, don’t the people in mourning like to remember all the good things, memories, and thoughts they had with the deceased person? Laryssa wouldn’t know, having only lost her parents when she was two years old and having been in the system from then to when she was 11. Her thoughts might have shown through, Laryssa was never very good at hiding her thoughts, so she figured she might as well tell Julius what she was thinking. She took a sip of her coffee, “Did running help? Did immersing yourself in your work distract you enough that she never enters your mind again? I don’t mean to pry, or to be a bother, but I always thought that when someone loved dearly is lost… the person who has lost them would want to remember as much about them as they can.” She held his gaze, “Not run from the memories that might bring pain and heartache into their lives.” Perhaps it was rather bold of her, but she couldn’t help it. She was naturally curious about these things. Deep down Laryssa felt it might be wrong prying about his personal life; that it might be wrong to satisfy her curiosity at his expense…but it was too late now; too late to take it, any of it, back.

Laryssa laughed out loud when Julius stated some students gave him nightmares, her eyes twinkled with merriment. Sometimes it was amusing how fast she could change moods and go from being completely serious to someone who is giddy and happy. She ran her fingers through her hair, a smile still on her face as she listened to what else he had to say. Her smile remained on her face, but it wasn’t the laughing one, when he had finished speaking. She took another sip of her coffee, only to realize she hadn’t anymore. She sighed and slid her cup to her right, she didn’t need anymore coffee. “One more cup and you’ll really think I’m crazy, but I suppose you’re right… I can stop people from bullying other students and there are still prejudice and bullies in this school, but they never occur in front of me and what am I to do? Go searching for it?” She raised a quick eyebrow before grinning and letting it relax again, “I suppose that’s one reason why I came back to Hogwarts, the idea that no one was there to protect me – and that maybe no one was here to protect any students here. Though, now I see I was quite wrong. You seem to be doing a wonderful job at protecting the students who need it…” She smiled at him as she turned to a new assignment, returning to her grading.

[Professor Julius Foxcroft]

"Do you know how much I used to hate it when people said that to me?" said Julius commenting on the German saying. His voice was low, his words unguarded, but he had to make an effort to get them out – he had just met Laryssa, and then he was pouring out his heart to her. He almost thought it was pathetic that he was doing this, pouring his heart out to a complete stranger. He hadn’t allowed anyone in, friend or family member or student or professor for two years. And then by a series of events – fortunate events – people had come across his path, that was the only way to describe it, for Julius had not at all tried to seek help in any way, in fact it had been the other way round, Charles had come to him, and he'd slowly reviewed his decisions and way of living. And a year later Amaryllis had come – with much needed advice that he'd been finally been ready to hear, and that protective armour around Julius had finally eroded. The notion of getting everything off your chest in a meeting with someone for the first time was something you read about in romance novels, or an idea that came into your head at times when you were in that kind of mood, but it was just that, a fantasy. And yet Laryssa had opened up to him though she hardly knew him. And it had been so very long since he'd been so personal and honest. So it really wasn't that pathetic nor was it such a far-fetched idea – she wasn't really a stranger to him right now. This was just one human who'd been through pain describing it to another human who seemed to understand; without restraints, without doubts, without regrets. "I just couldn’t believe it. I though whoever had said that just hadn’t been through my pain. I thought it was just something that someone made up to make people feel better, but looked at closely, it was dragon dung. Only recently have I begun to understand what it means," he told her. "Have to if you’re a teacher," said Julius, sharing a look of understanding with Laryssa. The challenges never ended when you worked in their profession.

There was a pause before Julius answered her next question. He sipped his own coffee and then passed hi hand over the surface of this book, thinking of how to answer her question. He hadn’t given the matter thought for quite some time now, but things had been happening, and he had been wondering if he should return to his apartment. And then slowly he began to speak. "I was afraid of acknowledging all I had lost. I was afraid of the smell of her that would still be there, in her clothes, on the dresser, on the bedclothes," he said, and as he said the words he found that he missed all those things - and that he needed to say goodbye properly, he felt inside him a vague uneasiness that one feels when one has unfinished business that is long overdue. "She added life to every little thing. She painted you see, and it was such a big part of her life and her paintings were hanging all over the house. And I couldn’t bear the thought of being surrounded by her – essence I suppose - I don’t know - like that, I thought it would drive me insane with grief. And so I couldn’t go in there, I instructed a friend to get me what I need, and then left straight for Hogwarts when I heard the Muggle Studies position was vacant and applied for it. And then immersing myself in the teaching and the lives of my students kept me busy and satisfied me, it allowed me to stay away from the world and yet still feel I was working, it acted as an excuse for me to not deal with my grief and hurt. And it also allowed me after some time to begin to regain some of my confidence and pride in myself," he admitted.

"Oh no, I just hope you get some sleep tonight despite of all of that caffeine. Thank you, I do my best. I only hope the end is near – and that we will not lose as much as we lost in the First War to vanquish Voldemort, or at least, Harry does," he said thoughtfully. "And I need all the help that I can get," he added.