HH_mirror

*Albel looks around as he walks in. Once, after the war ended, he'd been in the library in Castle Aquaria. While this library is slightly smaller, it projects a much warmer air (probably partially to do with not being painted entirely in shades of blue). He scowls irritably at Henry when the other man's gaze drifts his way.* What are you looking at, worm?

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'Apparently,' Henry says in that low, cultured voice of his, 'at a man much ruder than myself. Why do you ask? Are you yourself confused?'

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You know, there's something called a rhetorical question. Perhaps you've heard of it - you know, when you ask a question without expecting an answer?

((OOC: I apologize in advance for Albel. He somehow contrives to be rude and angry regardless of how he's actually feeling.))

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(Heh, no worries. Henry's just plain creepy and refuses to be apologised for.)

'Yes, I have heard of it,' says Henry, putting his glasses back on and standing. He's a tall man. Maybe he's intimidating. 'But they tend only to be used among people who never want to hear the answers. I pride myself on being in a different band entirely.'

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*Albel, however, isn't easily intimidated. Of course, having red eyes and a metal claw means that he's rather intimidating himself, even if he does wear a sarong. He sticks out his good hand.* The name's Albel. Albel Nox.

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His Classics-entrenched brain briefly translates Nox and back again. He takes the hand coolly--it's the way he does everything.

'Henry Winter,' he replies. Very much NOT wearing a sarong. 'Might I ask you how long you have been here?'

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Quite some time, although I seem to have spent most of it as a piece of popcorn. I was just revived recently.

*Albel blinks at a random thought. It just struck me that I seem to spend an inordinate amount of time in castles.*

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Henry's eyebrows hover somewhere above earth and orbit the moon for a bit.

'As popcorn?'

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If I knew why, I'd gladly tell you. It makes just as much sense as turning into anything else, I suppose.

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Camilla had believed herself a deer that night, he knows. But that was about being wild and free and surrendering to madness.

'I wonder what believing yourself popcorn must say about you.'

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Believing? If I wasn't really popcorn, I defy you to explain why I awoke surrounded by popcorn and covered in butter. *The warrior shudders for a moment at the thought of some of the people he knew being in the same room as him when he was covered in butter. Some noblewomen display a shocking lack of self-control.*

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aquilus-albel.livejournal.com - Date: 2007-03-31 09:35 pm (UTC) - Expand

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Someone else was indeed around. Albus Dumbledore, resurrected from the dead, might as well have been a ghost, the way he haunted Hogwarts.

"My, what an impressive pen," said Albus, intending nothing phallic whatsoever in the remark. "Generally we use quills."

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'I couldn't be having with all that stopping to refill the ink,' Henry says, a flicker of a smile on his face. 'I would lose my trail of thought.'

For some reason, the man reminds him of Julian. Henry inclines his head a fraction. 'Henry Winter, sir.'

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"How very nice to meet you, Henry," said Albus. The use of a first name was deliberate. It connoted not disrespect but immediate warmth.

How genuine the wellspring of this warmth might be was another question entirely. Henry Winter reminded Albus of someone, too.

"I am Albus Dumbledore, once headmaster here. You might say I have entered my years of retirement. One never does leave learning behind, though, so here I am. Would you care for a sherbet lemon? Hard sweets do no damage to the books," Albus twinkled.

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'And risk sticky fingers?' Henry asks. Ex-headmaster--commands respect, then.

'I could never mix the worlds of now and then to such an extent,' he says, seriously. 'Lemon drops could not have been consumed in the Graeco-Roman cultures.'

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Ah. The asceticism of the young scholar. Dumbledore smiled a little enigmatic smile. "Over the years, one learns the deftness necessary to avoid sticky fingers," he said. "One also learns simple cleaning charms. One also learns to carry a handkerchief." He popped a lemon drop into his own mouth thoughtfully. "That's quite an abstruse text you have there. I would be surprised if an instructor here assigned such a thing. Reading for pleasure, then?"

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'I have not taken myself to look for a wand,' Henry replies coolly. 'Reading for pleasure and future knowledge, indeed. Sadly, I don't seem to have remembered my handkerchieves. I expect you've read it?'

He would expect nothing less, after all.

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(( The book's identity supplied by Henry-mun. ))

"Indeed I have read it. I have taught from it, myself, the good old Guide to Advanced Transfiguration (http://www.hp-lexicon.org/wizworld/books.html#guide_to_advanced_transfiguration). I taught Transfiguration here once upon a time. That book I would not have assigned except to the more expert among the students, those whom I gave private tutorials." He stroked his beard. "Oh, so many wonderful tutorials, in all manner of things, magical and historical, everything under the sun. It was one of my chiefest joys."

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'And do you still give them?' asks Henry, suddenly keen, shutting the book after marking his place with a pressed leather bookmark. 'To able--expert--students?'

There's something in it for him. He listens.

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"I am a kind of professor emeritus, you know," Albus allows, still stroking his beard. "Anything is possible."

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'For one who picked the profession of teaching, surely you would not ever want to completely leave it,' Henry offers, putting the cap on his pen.

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"I never have left it," Albus replied with a firm nod.

So, Henry Winter had undertaken advanced study in transfiguration, without the guidance of an instructor, and without a wand.

Henry Winter also had no interest in sweets, which meant he was not familiar with Albus's Chocolate Frog card. Considered by many the greatest wizard of modern times ...

It behooved Albus to Keep An Eye on this young man.

"May I?" he asked, for the sake of politeness, but he was already taking the seat beside Henry's, and peering at the page to which the text was opened.

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