Severus instantly puts a hand over his nose again. "I retract the offer. My days of having my nose broken were buried with Potter the Bastard,* and after too often being broken in the same place, bones start to resist magical healing. Or so Poppy used to say." He looks judicious. "In fairness, I think he would have said that his toadying was a way to promote his student's interests by landing them suitable positions which he would later be able to exploit for the benefit of future students--as well as his own interests and his own benefits, of course; he wouldn't have denied that. He did get me that interview with Belby, you know. And he stepped aside when I asked him to, although we needn't attribute that to more than plain common sense."
"Well, I should hope. As long as she didn't set her rubies in gold; we can't let them have the color as well as the combination, I suppose."
He snerks slightly, relieved that he hasn't stirred up any PTSD. "Perhaps it depends on their preferences? Unless the story about the race needing humanity to reproduce is the true one. Succubi are the female ones, at any rate."
"It does need a transition period where some people are left who can explain how things work," he points out. "The paper does not actually have parasitic telepathy, as far as I'm aware, although I've heard about those brains in the DoM... Certainly," he says, not too hastily, not actually being in favor of GBH except for other people when the other option is death.
Severus, who knows at once that he really should have expected that, nonetheless not only had not but had very unfortunately been sipping at his drink at the time. He chokes, hard, and starts coughing.