Professor Mockrum seemed determined to see her fail.
It wasn't so much he wanted her to fail but he simply wanted to challenge her for he knew the secret of her name sake.
He knew of her heritage and although he had never met Raveena Rakaan ever in his life, he remembered the many countless hours he had spent in the library readings of the Rakaan family history.
Raveena was the one of the founders of the Nahum University that had been established over 1,000 years ago.
This pretty young student of his was one of her descendents.
He had to smirk slightly through his usual grimace when he read the name, Sovereign Folly.
A ridiculous name if I ever saw one.
Sovereign, do let me guess she's from one of those ultra religious families, the kind that thinks magic is a forbidden fruit either that or they must have had complete faith that their daughter was destined foe greatness.
Egotism. Complete and utter Egotism.
It disgust me that parents have such blind faith in their children.
No doubt she's a privileged little princess who thinks she can just fly right through my class.
Professor Mockrum knew very little of this woman besides what the paperwork told him but still he was determined not to like her when she came.
Mockrum was a grim individual, a intellectual, some even said he was a genius but unfortunately he was not a very approachable person, since he rarely socialized and he often remained silent during any social gatherings.
He had a deathly glare, a angry brow set over brooding eyes so dark they often appeared to be pitch black.
He had a long cruel roman nose that was often condescendingly looking down at his students.
His mouth was forever frowning, a lifeless crescent curved in eternal disgust and disappointment.
His skin was so washed out that he almost glowed especially in contrast with his dark attire.
The most striking feature was his hair.
He took great pride in it, he may not of cared of how pasty his skin was but he cared for his hair.
His hair was opaque, it had been specifically layered, two locks waved forward around his chin while the others curved upright, in sort of a frantic spike.
He often looked like he'd gotten out of a wind storm but eveyone had to admit that he had style especially when it came to the way he wore his hair.
It wasn't professionally done as some thought, it was something that he done himself, it was a careful processs despite the fact that in the mirror it appeared he had done so in a awful hurry followed by a brisk brushing as he fled out the door.
He took comfort in the fact that no one mocked him for his hair; it was his face and seemingly bad personality that was the problem.
If someone was being nice They would simply say that Mockrum merely had a cloud hanging over his head but in all honesty Mockrum was the cloud over everyone else's head.
He identified as the darkness and he knew if he had to keep this up he would have to be unmistakably and undeniably cruel to everyone he met.
He wasn't exactly darkness itself but rather he was a shadow, a shadow that simply begged for light.
However, the thing about shadows is that once you expose them to light, they disappear so was his predicament.So he clung to his dark cloaks, he ran to darkened corners, he retreated to unlit rooms in fear that people might discover his secret.
You see he had everyone convinced that he had a black heart, he pretended he had a insatiable bitterness, a incredible disinterest, he portrayed himself as being empty and villainous, incapable of compassion or mercy.
Why had he done this?
So be could keep people away because you see in his head it was humanity that had hurt him. It was humanity that had abandoned him and it was humanity that had mistreated and misjudged him.
He had every right to feel the way he did for his life had been tragic, It was full of silent tears and emotional neglect.
His voice was never heard and his presence was rarely acknowledged.
He was ignored for most of his childhood, his father thought him ugly and his mother saw him as a burden.
The sad thing is these people that raised him weren't his real parents, they were merely caretakers that the foster system had hired to look over him.
They were in it for the money he later found out but what truly stung the most was that he was the last to know that both his true parents were dead.
They told him to call them mother and father since day one.
It was confusing and mortifying to finally realize thst the reason the other children avoided him was because he was a orphan.
Later he discovered that the two people that had been appointed as his parents were nothing more than common criminals.
Just common trash really, they were the sort of disreputable people, that everyone avoided like the plague.
Yellow crooked teeth, spotted and discolored skin, crude voices that sounded like they were about to spit on the ground; that was the sort of prople that raised him.
They were the kind of people Charles Dickens warned you about.
Enough about that, meanwhile
Mockrum looked over the paperwork, leering at it in disgust yet again but this time he seemed to be putting on a certain air of arrogance.
He wondered why he had ever become a teacher in the first place.
It was rather enjoyable to see their disappointed faces when they recieved a grade they didn't expect but that joy soon faded but now be had a new student to torture. The fun had just begun and so he decided then and there that he would proceed to challenge this Sovereign Folly with every sort of mental obstacle he saved up in his unique curricular arsenal.
However the results were surprising.
He had hoped she'd give up but there was nothing that seemed to discourage her in tbe slightest.
Sovereign was a spunky kind of girl, she loved to laugh, she smiled often, her eyes were a sparkly murky blue, slim and skeptical, her mouth was slim as well but it was a rather extensive one nonetheless.
She was rather clumsy at times but she had no shame, she didn't care if her feet slipped or if her laugh was too loud, she was always keen on finding the humor in everything she did which made it rather difficult for Mockrum to insult her since she took criticism so well.
She had no problem admitting when she was wrong and she rarely took anything said to her personally because she rarely took anything thrown at her too seriously.
Overall she was quiet, awkward but usually quiet especially during school hours. However Mockrum once during class had sat there and speculated if her hair was natural.
It was soft, it had a few handsome rolls here and there, that escaped past her shoulders and in this dim light it appeared to be a dark auburn.
Sovereign noticed his staring, she squinted one eye and allowed one side of her lip to to drop in contorted confusion.
Mockrum blinked off his trance like speculation and pretended he was merely lost in thought rather obsessing over the true color and form of her hair.
It was not becoming and he didn't even like her.
She was prissy little princess that everyone was expected to like.
He had noticed that everyone at the University did in fact Adore her.
Miss Adorable, was what he called her.
She was that type of girl he had avoided in highschool, the bubbly Disney Princess, the Belle of the school and for someone as austere as himself there was no one more insufferable.
However there was no escape from her bouncy lilting voice, her cherry blossom cheeks, her outrageous laughter, the heavenly smell of gardenia's that follwed her wherever she went, there was nothing that could rid that face from his mind.
He tried to shake the image from his mind but her face kept creeping back especially during the late hours of the night.
What was worse is this wasn't just some weird obsession, it was the fact that she had just so happened to move into a house that was right across the street from him.
He would have these moments of peace but then he would he would hear her laughter, he'd see a streak of auburn disappear from the lawn, he often would have to hide because she often would be outside in the front lawn across the way.
He'd open his curtain, absently look around at the outside world and everytime no matter how idle his gaze was, he would catch sight of Miss Adorable.
It was a nightmare and for a great while he avoided her, he waited for her to leave, then he would rush down to get the mail yet most days he barely left the house unless he had a class to do.
He quite liked his solitude and since he was a introvert by nature, avoiding people came quite naturally.
Secretly though he was rather embarrassed since the house he lived in was rather forlorn and worn down.
It was a nice house or it had been, it needed new shingles, a new coat of paint, the window panes needed to be replaced and the porch had collapsed on the left side due to unchecked wood rot from years of rainy days no doubt.
He had bought the house for himself about 10 years ago, although he had come from nothing, he had made quite a bit of money over the years, he had worked hard for it of course but how he had earned the money for such a house was a real mystery.
It had been a bit of a fixer upper yet he made the repairs, put up the wall paper and he even replaced the floor boards as well.
He had done this all on his own and he prided hinself on his handiwork and his overall decorating skills.
It was cozy, their were salmon colored shag carpets, the kitchen had stone gravel floors, the living room had a pleasant avocado green wall paper and the bedrooms were red gothic with black lacy Fleur de Lis patterns accompanied with oriental rugs.
The green had to go since it reminded him too much of Avant-garde Apartment style from the 70's.
Besides being a massive undertaking it was also happened to be haunted which is why the house had been so affordable.
However ghosts were not a problem for him for he had seen far worse which is not so surprising since he did in fact happen to be a Wizard.
