Chapter 25: In the Teacher's Lounge

Third period on Wednesday found me laying down on the couch in the teacher's lounge and staring up at the ceiling while Alex sat in a nearby armchair. Wednesdays were my longest day of the week. I'd started first thing in the morning with a breakfast shift in the Great Hall. Immediately after I'd had two back to back classes. I still had to supervise lunch and teach another class afterward, and then on top of it all I had night patrol. And I was already exhausted.

"So, what do muggles do on work breaks?" Alex asked casually after a few minutes of silence. It wasn't that it was an uncomfortable silence. In fact, over the past weeks we'd grown very accustomed to just hanging out in the lounge, sometimes speaking and sometimes not. If anything, he sounded more curious than desperate for activity.

"Nothing exciting," I assured him. "Scroll through Facebook, maybe watch a YouTube video or post something on Twitter or Instagram."

"You realize I don't know what any of those words mean, right?" Alex asked.

I laughed. "Don't worry about it, you're not missing anything," I assured him.

"Are you?" Alex asked. "Do you wish you still had those things? The face-tube and the insta-book and all of it?"

I had to bite my lip to avoid laughing and calling Alex an old man, but it was hard. He sounded like my grandfather when he tried to talk about social media.

"I honestly don't," I replied. I'd missed them at first. When I'd first come to the castle, I constantly found myself reaching for a phone that wasn't there, itching to see what pictures people were posting and what they were doing. But the longer I stayed away, the less it seemed to matter. And in a place like this, we hardly needed to stay connected through technology. I saw Alex and my other friends every day. I already knew everything that was going on in their lives, because I was a part of it. It was better this way even. I felt more connected here than I ever did back in the non-magical world, which was ironic given that I hadn't spoken to my family or any of my old friends in months.

"What do you miss?" Alex wondered. "If there was one thing you could have back, what would it be?"

I considered the question for a moment. I'd been a student all my life. When I'd finished secondary school, it had been straight to university from there. I certainly didn't miss that. I actually liked being a teacher and being in a position of authority. And I liked having colleagues who were my friends and the fact that I was contributing something to the world. Apart from the lack of technology, I had all the comforts and luxuries I could dream of. I had lovely quarters, much larger than one person needed really. The food here was delicious and my schedule was reasonable. I'd never been someone who'd spent large amounts of time going places like bars or clubs, and I actually quite enjoyed the social situation I'd found myself in here.

"I guess I miss cooking," I finally said. It was one thing I'd always loved to do that there was no need for here. "And baking," I added.

"Really?" Alex asked in surprise.

"Sure," I confirmed. I'd started baking alone when I was twelve, and had started cooking proper meals unsupervised not long after that. Being in the kitchen was calming in a way that many other activities weren't. And I liked being able to throw a bunch of things together that would have been disgusting on their own, and turning them into something delicious. "I mean, it's not like I need to cook here, since the house elves take care of all that."

Alex hummed but didn't say much else. After another few minutes, there was a tentative knock on the door. It had to be a student, since a teacher wouldn't knock, and Alex stood to go and see who it was. I stayed put, comfortable where I was, but popped an eye open to see if the knock had been for me.

When he opened the door, I could just barely see the figure of a boy, probably fifth or sixth year, waiting in the hall. I didn't recognize him, and so I immediately shut my eyes again, deciding that he wasn't here for me.

"Kevin," Alex said, identifying the student. "Can I help you?"

"Professor Campbell," the boy said, sounding relieved. "I was hoping you'd be here. I tried your office, but it was locked and you weren't in your classroom – "

"Slow down," Alex insisted. "What did you need me for?"

"It's the homework you assigned us last week," he said. "I've been working on it, but I just can't figure it out – "

"I have office hours this afternoon," Alex cut the student off. "You're more than welcome to come and talk to me then, but right now I'm on my break."

"Please, Professor," the student, Kevin, pleaded. "This assignment is due tomorrow, and I have other assignments piling up too – "

"Perhaps you need to work on your time management," Alex suggested harshly. "It's hardly my fault that you've left your homework until the last minute. Come to my office after last period, and we can go over the lesson again."

"But Professor," Kevin continued to plead. "Please, if there's any way we could look at it now. It's just – well it's my girlfriend's birthday today and we have something planned for this afternoon."

I could hear Alex's sigh from across the room.

"Katie, I'll catch up with you later," he called out to me.

I smiled as I heard the door shut. Alex had such a big heart. It was one of the things that drew me to him. When I'd first met him, he'd been so eager to help me to feel comfortable here and to settle in. And even though I knew he'd rather have spent the remainder of his free period relaxing in the lounge with me, he'd elected instead to help his student out with his assignment.

I snuggled further into the couch, determined to enjoy a short nap before I had to get up and go supervise lunch. Even though I only had one more class to teach later, I had lots of assignments to grade and I didn't want to fall behind.

The door to the lounge opened and voices drifted through as two of my colleagues entered the lounge. I recognized their voices immediately as those of Tessa and Hannah. Neither of them acknowledged my presence as they walked towards the other end of the room, still in deep conversation.

"I just hope this new fad ends soon," Tessa said. "Ravenclaw play in the first quidditch game of the season, and it's only a month away."

"I know Hufflepuff don't play until December," Hannah spoke. "But they still have to be prepared. Any time wasted will have an impact."

"I mean, I'm not saying the lesson doesn't have its merits," Tessa continued. Remaining still, I tried to figure out what the two women were talking about but found it difficult, not having heard the beginning of their conversation. "But it should have been limited to class time."

"I agree," Hannah said. "There's a time and a place for everything. And the point of the class isn't supposed to be assimilation, it's supposed to be an academic study. Quidditch is our sport, not this football nonsense."

Realizing they were talking about me, I willed myself to become invisible. That they hadn't seen me yet didn't mean they wouldn't eventually notice me and it would be so bad if they found out I'd been eavesdropping. I shut my eyes then, hoping that if they did come to notice that I was lying on the couch, they would think I'd been asleep and that that was why I hadn't made my presence known.

I caught half my quidditch team kicking around that muggle ball yesterday," Tessa said. "They could have been practicing quidditch, and instead they were running around playing a muggle sport."

"It's just not natural," Hannah agreed. "We don't go into muggle schools trying to get muggle students to play quidditch. At this rate, the students aren't going to be able to tell the difference between muggle and magical culture!"

I clenched my teeth. How dare they sit there and disparage my teaching style? I'd been brought in to do a job: to teach the students who'd elected to take my class about muggle culture to the best of my ability. I wasn't trying to erase magical culture, just expose them to something different.

"I think I preferred Carborough's approach," Tessa said. "A theoretical education is sufficient. Witches and wizards don't need to be muggles, they just need to know enough to blend in every now and then."

"Exactly," Hannah agreed. "It's muggle studies, not how to be a muggle. She's crossing the line between education and acculturation."

"I assume you've heard about that ridiculous wand ban she's instituted in her classroom? My students were not happy about that," Tessa said.

"Oh, I heard," Hannah agreed. "I've even had second years saying that they don't want to take the class next year if it means handing over their wands."

"Well, hopefully she won't be here next year," Tessa said then.

"Oh?" Hannah asked curiously.

There was a pause, and when Tessa spoke next, her voice was hushed. "You can't say anything to Neville, alright?" she insisted. There was another pause, where I assumed Hannah nodded her assent. "Well I've been working on a case against her with the help of a couple of my star students. You remember what happened with Donnor Dalman back during the first week of term? Well there's no way he was going to follow her rules and stay in that class. But I convinced him that he could be more beneficial as my eyes on the inside."

"What's he found out?" Hannah asked, her tone clearly indicating that her interest had been piqued.

"Not much yet," Tessa replied. "Just small things. But I have all year. And if this football thing is any indication, she's just going to keep trying to change things. And eventually, she'll do just the wrong thing at exactly the wrong time and I'll be there to pounce."

"Good," Hannah said. "She doesn't belong here. It's not that I don't have an appreciation for her kind. I know many lovely muggles, but none of them are trying to pretend they fit into the magical world. Having her teaching here, changing the way things are done, it's just not right. I don't' know what Silas was thinking when he hired her."

"What does Neville think?" Tessa asked.

Hannah scoffed. "We don't discuss it much," she said reluctantly. "He thinks its very important that we not blur the lines between husband/wife conversations and teacher/deputy headmaster conversations."

"Well if we could get him on our side, it would mean a lot when I finally go to Silas," Tessa said. "You should work on that."

"I will," Hannah agreed. "And I'll start with pointing out how distracting that football field is. He may not care about it distracting his quidditch team, but he'll sure as hell care when I point out that it's distracting students from their studies. I might even give a few of my students lower grades on their next assignment. Just the ones that have been spending a lot of time playing the muggle sport. So that it seems more believable."

"Good plan," Tessa agreed. "Come on, we should get going. Lunch is soon and you have to supervise.

I stayed completely immobile as the two women stood and made their way to the door. It wasn't until I heard it firmly shut back into place that I let out the breath that I'd been holding and sat up.

So, Tessa and Hannah were out to get me. I'd always known Tessa disliked me. And though Hannah had been friendly at first, there had always been a wall between the two of us. Now I knew what it was.

It was completely outrageous that they thought I was trying to assimilate my students. I didn't' expect them to become muggles, I just wanted them to feel what it was like a little bit. From my conversations with Headmaster Slinkhard and the instructions he'd given me, the whole point of my class was to immerse the students in muggle culture as much as possible so that if they ever found themselves in the muggle world, they could blend in seamlessly.

It was hardly my fault if members of the quidditch teams were interested in playing a little bit of football in their free time. It made sense, in fact, given that they were athletes and football was a sport. It certainly hadn't been my plan to leave the football field intact beyond the one class I'd used it for my lesson, but the students had insisted.

And I was furious to find out the truth about Tessa and Donnor Dalman. I'd thought that I'd gotten through to him. I thought that he'd reluctantly accepted my rules and decided to respect me, but all this time he'd just been spying on me for Tessa. I couldn't do anything about it right now, but I wasn't going to let it go. I was going to find some way to get back at them both for this.

Mostly though, I just felt like crap. Every time I'd started to feel like I was fitting in, like I was doing good and making a positive difference at this school, someone came around and cut me down. Sure, Tessa and Hannah hadn't known I was listening, but that only made things so much worse.

What if it wasn't worth it? What if the wizarding world just wasn't ready for me and my muggle customs? I'd thought I was helping to create a new generation of witches and wizards that were more connected to the muggle world, to bridge the gap between the magical and non-magical communities, despite the International Statute of Secrecy. But if Hannah and Tessa would rather hide behind their laws and distance themselves from the wider non-magical world, then maybe I shouldn't be wasting my time. Maybe I should quit trying to be creative and just teach a straightforward curriculum until the end of the year, and then go back to my life like it had never happened.

I'd had such a vision for this course. I'd put so much effort into making my classes interactive and fun and interesting. And after the response to my football lesson, I'd been so encouraged to see my students enjoying themselves so much. Now I was doubting myself. Was I fooling myself to think that any of this had been a good idea?