[Alchemy] You can't change the truth, but the truth can change you (all years)

Zeke was in a spirited game of tic-tac-toe with Ryan — three–nil, three to him of course, ha — when Ilya walked in with the coffee and cupcakes. The two friends exchanged a look, striking a silent but mutual understanding that someone would get his perfectly styled hair mussed up later in the common room for being such a brown noser. Salinger better be generous and give Thunderbird extra points or something.

His own stomach growled when other kids in class started digging into their cupcakes. He doesn't really care for them (they're basically just muffins with fancy frosting, and muffins are the worst) but Brain Heller did and remembering that fact made his mouth twist unpleasantly like he's just sucked on a lemon. Now in one of his moods, he flipped Ryan off under the table when prodded for another round of tic-tac-toe, and felt somewhat cheered-up when he got an understanding eyeroll. He didn't know how an eyeroll could be understanding but it just was. 

Salinger was blabbing off about relationships again, and Zeke stopped paying attention. He pressed his cheek to the desk, turning away to face the wall instead, and felt instantly comforted by the coolness of the wood. Hiding behind his textbook wasn't the cool thing to do, but he'd already finished all his homework (which was, yeah, real cool of him) and there wasn't anything else to do but be cynical. "Talking," he muttered under his breath to himself, remembering the awkward holidays where his parents did anything but, "yeah right. Not even as effective as pinot noir."

Ricky had been in one of the kitchen storerooms, preparing ingredients for his underclassmen's next lesson when he heard a student arrive and request coffee and cupcakes. That wasn't so unusual; he'd snuck down here a couple of times during his sixth and seventh year when he'd needed something to keep him motivated for his NEWT studies. But it sounded as if the boy had said something about 'Professor Salinger' and immediately Ricky was alert. He was sure Gideon was supposed to be teaching this morning, and if the boy was getting coffee for him, that sounded...well, it was concerning enough that Ricky quietly cast a disillusionment charm and followed.

His worst fears were confirmed. Gideon was clearly the worse for wear, which in itself wasn't necessarily a problem but if he was sending students out of class to fetch him coffee in order to be able to teach...Ricky waited quietly by the door, hoping the lesson wasn't really going to descend into the chaos he feared it might.

Ah. They were talking about relationships, or rather...Gideon was talking about relationships. Ricky didn't want to hear any more, he wanted to slip away right now, but he also didn't want the students to start putting two and two together, either. He took a few steps back, dropped the charm, took a deep breath, and approached the classroom for a second time, this time stepping inside.

"Professor Salinger?" he said, loudly enough that many of the students turned to see who was making the interruption "an urgent owl has just arrived for you in the staff common room. I can mind your class while you deal with it, or if you prefer to set their homework and dismiss them early I can remain here until they leave..." he willed his best friend to take the way out, head back to his quarters and take a restorative draft, but in the meantime, he simply remained where he was, looking calm and cheerful as if all he was really doing was delivering a message to a fellow teacher.

“Veritaserium,” Gideon echoed as finally a student gave the answer he had been looking for. “Yes,” he muttered and then repeated louder, “yes!” He took another sip of his coffee, suddenly feeling strangely nauseous. He swallowed hard. The professor realised that his chances to get through the entire lesson were slim. He might need to excuse himself at some point.

As though magically summoned, suddenly Ricky was in the room. Gideon looked at his friend, not quite comprehending where he came from and why he was here now. However, while he only slowly processed what the fellow professor said, he was immensely grateful when he realised that Ricky gave him an excuse to leave the classroom for a seemingly valid reason.

“Oh,” he said, putting the cup down and getting to his feet. “Right,” he said as he ran his hand through his hair. “For the next lesson please write an essay on the use of veritaserum and…” his voice trailed off as he fought for an addition to make. “Put in your personal opinion on whether you think there are legitimate reasons to use this potion or if you think it should be forbidden and… should be viewed as a criminal offense if it’s used.”

As he walked past Ricky, he put his hand briefly on his friend’s shoulder. “Thanks mate,” he whispered, “I really owe you.” Then he left the classroom.

[out]

OOC: Feel free to make a closing post with your student.

Having read the same paragraph three times without having the slightest idea what it was about, Isis was entirely frustrated by now. She decided to look in the index and see if there was anything specifically aobut relationships, or talking... She ended up on the page describing how to brew a babbling beverage, which was at least interesting, if not useful. It at least occupied a couple of minutes before she gave up and started staring around the classroom for inspiration. A couple of boys were playing a game, whispering to each other, and Isis wished she'd sat further back so she could get away with something like that.

When Professor Salinger's name was called, she immediately turned in her seat. Finally somthing interesting was happening! And, to Isis, it all made sense at last. Clearly something had happened which had caused their teacher to have a sleepless night - and probably drink a couple of beers as well, she admitted to herself - and now he was receiving news about whatever-it-was. She expected Professor Cortes to take over, but apparently he was just going to hang around long enough to be sure that everyone left the room. She carefully wrote down their homework before repacking her bag and, almost as an afterthought, balling up the cupcake paper and conveying it to the trashcan with a respectable hover charm.

If she got back to the common room quickly, she could probably make a start on that essay before her next class.

[Isis out]

What was happening? Forget Veritaserum, forget cupcakes and coffee, forget all the ridiculous nonsense everybody had been pulling out of their orifices this whole lesson, something was seriously happening with Salinger, and it wasn't a death in the family, or he wouldn't have been going on about relationships and honesty. Of course, he chided himself as soon as the good professor was out the door, he wasn't about snoop around. He had a little respect and, more importantly, he didn't really care about his professors' personal lives. Still. He smelled petty drama, and as Salinger was no stranger to being an obnoxious busybody about his students' lives, Adam thought he was entitled to just a little bit of curiosity.

For now, though, they had to write an essay, but apparently they weren't even being made to write it right now, which meant Adam could his Cryomagic homework. Still not the best day ever, anymore, but at least they were being asked for their opinions; Adam loved being asked his opinions. Unlike his parents, usually the professors didn't have a wrong answer in mind for that kind of question and he did think that Veritaserum was a kind of messed up potion to force on someone. He thought that of a lot of magic crap.

He leaned back to renegotiate the terms of their bet with his roommate (they weren't getting anything else out of today's lesson, definitely) and then swung his bag up and squirmed through the gap between his desk and the desk in front of him, put the desks back into their proper positions, and waited for Joaquim to walk all the way around the back end of the row so they could leave. Now he wished he had gotten a cupcake, but -- he supposed -- there was enough time to go and get one before he had to get started on his work.

[out]