Waiting for Professor Windwaltz

[Hayzie]

Earlier that day

"Okay that's it for today. Class dismissed." Finally Professor Windwaltz had finished the lesson, finally it was lunch. Hayzie's stomach had been playing up all morning because she had overslept and completely missed breakfast and had been looking forward to lunch all morning. Putting her books back into her bag, and attatching it to one of the handles on her wheelchair, she was stopped by the Professor calling her name.

"Miss Roberts. Can I see you in my office after classes today. It's about your latest homework assignment." Hayzie's eyes shot around to Talon. She had thought her latest homework assignment had been relatively decent. Laura had helped her on it, yes, but they hadn't wrote the exact same thing. Nodding to the Professor and giving him a quick smile, Hayz took the breaks off and headed out of the classroom, going in the direction of the Great Hall.

Now, the blonde girl was heading back through the thankfully quiet corridors to the History of Magic classroom, within which was Professor Windwaltz's office. Sighing, Hayzie knocked on the door to the classroom twice, before entering. Sure enough the classroom was empty, but her old friend, turned Professor, would be in his office. Unless he had gone. After all, she was a few minutes late...

Using the railings on her wheels to travel over to the office door, Hayzie knocked again, waiting for an answer.

[Professor Windwaltz]

Talon was not within the classroom. He had been busy in the Library with Aidana, and had just completed his transformation into a lightning mage. His hair was spiked up in the air like lightning rods, burn marks covered his face and hands, and his robes looked even more worn and tarnished than usual. Lightning sparked from all over his body, and a baby bird was perched on his shoulder.

He had completely forgotten about asking Hayzie to see him after class - the scene in the Library did away with that - but he thought it for the best when he saw Hayzie at the far side of the hall, knocking on his door. "Hold on!" He shouted, walking over to the girl in the wheel chair. Lightning shot from his heels as he charged up toward the door. "All right Hayzie?" He said, despite his strange appearance and knowing that she was probably going to comment on it. "Sorry about not being here, I had almost forgotten after the library today."

He was about to turn the handle and open, but he was interrupted by the baby bird's mental voice. "Talon! Don't touch the metal, you'll get us all killed!" Talon muttered to himself as he reached into his robes and pulled out his wand. "Yeah yeah," he muttered forcefully, "Like being killed would be a problem for you. Alohamora," The door swung open, and he stepped inside. "Okay then, step inside..." He said to Hayzie. The inside of the classroom was a bit different than it was today. He had obviously packed up for class.

The armchairs that once littered the room were no longer there, replaced by rather used and soft emerald couches. His desk in the front of the classroom was still there, but many candles were placed on it to light the room instead of textbooks. The historical artifacts still littered the walls, but most had jumped aside to make room for several photographs. Within the photographs were five people: in the front was a bossy looking teenage girl with long brown hair who was holding a broomstick, next to her a boy with soft straw-colored hair wearing scarlet robes and shining gold boots, a girl with short brown hair and a smiling face holding a crystal ball and a wand, and two girls standing together, one a blonde with green eyes who had a mischievous but happy smile on her face, and the other a brunette with green eyes who seemed to hold the same mischievous smirk. The broomstick girl, the straw-haired boy, the crystal ball girl, and the blonde haired girl each had the Prefect's 'P' badge attached.

In the corner, of course, was Talon's own bed, and a small perch beside it for the young baby bird to rest. The room no longer looked like a classroom - instead it looked like a room for Talon himself to relax in. For it was, after all, his own room, and the small emerald bag in the corner of the room was the best piece of interior decorating available. "Make yourself comfortable," he said to Hayzie, while pointing his wand to the emerald bag, which spat out a kettle. "I presume you like tea?"

[Hayzie]

Step inside... Hayzie rolled her eyes at those two simple words. It was a phrase nearly everyone used, but somehow it upset the blonde. However, as usual, she didn't let it show, but instead wheeled herself into the classroom, which looked very different to how it did earlier that day. Spotting the picture on the wall, Hayz smiled. Those were the days... but things seemed to have changed now. Though the five of them were together again, everything seemed different.

Turning back to the Professor, as he asked her if she liked tea, Hayzie's light coloured eyebrows raised. Nodding in answer, as not to be rude, the breaks were once again applied, and she began fiddling with her fingers.

"Err... Professor? Can I ask why you wanted to see me about that assignment?" The girl requested, her curiosity showing through. Maybe he had noticed she had Laura had put near enough the same thing after all... though why would he be asking her about tea just over a homework assignment?

Noticing the little baby bird on her friend's shoulder, Hayz gave it a small smile, before noticing that Talon looked a little... different. "What... happened to you?" the Prefect asked, a slightly amused tone behind her voice.

[Professor Windwaltz]

"Most excellent," muttered Talon at Hayzie's response, and he pointed his wand at the kettle again. It seemed to grow hotter and boil whatever was inside, no matter if there was no fire beneath. Before he chose to get into the matter of the assignment, he decided to answer her question. "Do you know Aidana Hawkins? Well, I've been training her in elemental magic. I mentioned it in the Library earlier today that I was training her. She's a Fire elemental at heart, and me being a Wind Mage, I decided to study Fire magic as a second element. Needless to say, I succeeded. Fire and Wind make lightning so...here I am. Lightning Mage." He fell back onto one of the emerald couches, and found that a bit of a flame came from the spark on his hair.

"Agh!" He shouted, and stomped on the fire. It disappeared, but Talon pulled out his wand once more. "Nolo Ardere!" He shouted a bit too hysterically, and all the furniture in the room began to glow with a red light. The next moment everything returned to normal. Talon collapsed back onto the couch again, but the lightning just seemed to be absorbed. His face took on a more serious look as he finally came to the subject that he had been worried about. "Yes, the assignment...now I want to tell you first off that you didn't do anything wrong academically speaking. I called you here as a friend."

He felt a wave of sympathy toward his old friend when he read the paper earlier that day. His assignment was meant to be an interesting look at how an adventure can be considered history, but for Hayzie it seemed her greatest moment as a Gryffindor was her transformation into a Lycan. Talon had never known about this, and it was obvious that Hayzie wasn't quite ready to tell him. So that's why she left. She had not meant to simply leave, or disrupt, she just wasn't ready. But it still didn't make sense to him...

"I talked to Amy earlier today," he said after a few moments of silence, "I told her about you...you know, you being bitten. She told me she knew about that. She said you told her when you got back from St. Mungo's a year ago. Now I knew about you being in the Hospital, but I never actually heard why. Bitten by a Lycan? Why didn't you tell me?"

[Hayzie]

Hayzie blinked as Talon told her of Aidana and his training in the library. Had he said something about it earlier? Maybe she was daydreaming at the time. Who knew? But a lightning mage? The blonde wasn't sure if she had heard of one of those before, but it looked like her friend was one. She couldn't help but giggle as the couch Talon lay on caught flame a little, but after a frantically cast spell, it seemed to be unaffected.

Shaking her head, Hayz said: "Professor, about earlier in the library--" but was cut off by the mention of her assignment. If she hadn't done anything wrong academically, then why had he called her?

...Ah.

At his words, Hayz looked down at her knees and began fidgeting with her hands, one the original, one a medically regrown one. Why hadn't she told him? Maybe the same reason Adhara never found out. "I didn't want people to know," she whispered. Even though the news had reached the ears of some people in the school, a lot of Hayzie's closest friends, excluding Kelly, Amy and Laura, never found out about the curse that had plagued her for over a year now. They never found out because... "I was scared of how you'd react."

[Professor Windwaltz]

A small smile creeped over Talon's face as he heard Hayzie's reaction. It was indeed the most obvious choice, and the one that shined brightly in Talon's mind. But, of course, there was always the thoughts that plagued him...that perhaps there was a deeper reason behind her keeping it secret from them all. Now he knew better, and so he got up from his seat, walked over to Hayzie, and gave her a pat on the shoulder. "It's alright then."

He tried to seem as comforting as possible as he continued. "Hayzie, you're one of the best friends I've ever had. Since we began school you've always been there for me. To welcome me back whenever I had some crazy mishap, to pull some kind of prank that'd make a situation much more humourous than otherwise. We were voted in Prefects together!" He was starting to speak faster, as if he were trying to convince her of something instead of comforting her. As if to top it, he pointed to the picture on the wall.

"See that picture? That's how much your friendship means to me. There's no way that this could ever make me shun you. It wasn't even your fault that they bit you - well, technically it was, I don't condone trying to stop a Lycan's war, you should've left it to the Lycans - but I know that you wouldn't leave us for the Forest Lycans. You're just not like that...you're too good of a friend." He took a step back and crashed onto the couch again.

"See what I mean?"

[Hayzie]

"I guess so," Hayzie replied quietly, the months that she had spent as a captive in the forest coming back to haunt her once more. The night she had been informed she was Rikka's captive had been the worst. However, the continuous daily death threats had come up quite high in her list of worse memories.

Thinking back over what her friend had said, Hayzie began to lightly twirl some stray blonde hair around her finger. "Adhara never found out, either," she explained, keeping the same quiet tone, if not with a hint of disappointment behind it. "Though how she didn't realise I was missing for months is beyond me." A small smile accompanied these words, but nothing more. There had only been the once where Addie almost found out, only the once where Hayz thought she was going to have to explain the whole story from start to finish, and that was only because Song had told her to.

Again, she thought back, Talon's words repeating in her head. You should have left it to the Lycans. "What would you have done in my place though, Ta-Professor? Would you have sat back and let them carry on? Would you have let them continue to threaten the school? I knew I could do something... and things seemed to calm down after the accident, didn't it? Therefore something had been done, Professor... and I wouldn't take that back."