Tweak

InsaneJournal

Tweak says, "It's got to be a fake!"

Professor Dennis Creevey (thereheis) wrote in ecorridor_rpg,
@ 2009-04-24 20:49:00

Who: Prof Creevey + Prof DeBura
What: Hears a knock at his office door
When: Late Friday night, after students should be in bed.
What: G. They're professors! Nothing ever goes higher than PG-13

It was late by any standards. The sun had long set, he had done his rounds to make sure all of students were safely in the dormitories, and today's staff meeting had concluded with him being bestowed the lovely position of drafting a plan of action to ensure journal security amongst the student network. On one hand, he was quite glad that his suggestion was being taken into account and he felt proud that he was taking a direct role in ensuring student safety, but on the other hand, it was extra paperwork that he probably was going to wait until the last minute to do. Sometimes, he procrastinated more than his students did.

But he couldn't procrastinate on student safety. Before he went to bed, he wanted to at LEAST come up with some kind of outline. A short one. Maybe a sentence or so. Hopefully. Professor Creevey had been at his mess of a desk for some time now when there was a knock at his door as he was aimlessly levitating a miniature Quaffle around above his head, his parchment quite empty in front of him, and his quill limp on top of it.

Taken aback by the sound, the quaffle dropped with a lazy plop onto the floor beside his books and miniature dragons. Scrambling to put his quill in his hand and feign that he had been working, he mumbled a hasty, "Come in! Come in. I'm here."

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thereheis
2009-04-26 04:29 am UTC (link)

Dennis kept his eyes at the door as he scribbled onto the parchment, anticipating that it would be the janitor imploring him to go to bed. Secretly, he hoped it would be a student. Although he knew that if it were a student knocking at his door they would be breaking the curfew rule, he wanted to a distraction from the paperwork. The staff meeting had ended long ago and he was becoming restless in his seat, frustrated with his writer's block.

But it was neither a student nor the janitor. He put down his quill as Professor DeBura entered his office. He set the parchment aside.

"Oh. Annaliese. I was just working on a draft of the plan," he sat up. "What are you doing up so late? Has something happened?"

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debura_potions
2009-04-26 09:26 am UTC (link)

Taking in the slight disorder that was his office, Annaliese allowed the door to close quietly behind her as she walked away from it. "I was hungry and the House Elves kept me in the kitchen later than I had hoped."

"Then I thought to myself vaguely, 'I have absolutely nothing better to do, I might as well see if Dennis has made any progress with the journals.'" Clearing off a space on a chair opposite of his desk, Annaliese adjusted her cloak and sat. It wasn't often that she paid visits to colleagues at this time of night, and she stubbornly refused to admit to herself the obscenity of having been certain that he would be up working.

The corner of her lips quirked in a mixture of a smirk and smile, however, as her eyes landed on the blank parchment, "Would you like help? It hardly seems fair to leave you with the entire workload."

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thereheis
2009-04-26 07:33 pm UTC (link)

"Oh." He slouched back into his seat, sighing a breath of relief to himself. He dreaded every late night visitor to his door, fearing that one night it'll be somebody telling him that his son's been hurt, or any student for that matter.

"I've got some Chocolate Frogs someplace in my office," Dennis offered, searching underneath the parchments, books, and half-graded papers of his desk. "Unless they happened to animate themselves and hop right out of their pouches, I'm sure there here someplace," he grumbled.

"It's been hard trying to come up with exactly what I want to say," He replied to her as he continued searching his desk. His miniature dragons puffed in annoyance and took flight around the room as he shuffled his papers around.

"Eloquence and conciseness never has been my thing. I really just want to put something like, Please students, for Merlin's sake, don't write about where you are. Or where you're going. Or what your owl looks like. Or even address each other by your names. Hmm," he stopped moving about for a second. "That sounds like an idea. Coming up with code names for every student. What do you think?"

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debura_potions
2009-04-26 08:59 pm UTC (link)

Filled to the brim with bread and pumpkin tart, Annaliese watched his search for the chocolate with a faint expression of amusement. She was almost certain that the frogs were under the blanket of parchment at the edge of his desk, but she was not inclined to interrupt him as he spoke and so listened as his words finally tapered off into a question.

Giving him a faint smile, Annaliese leaned back in the chair, her eyes darting after the miniature dragons. "I think we could configure a charm to skew their written words, in case they do inadvertantly or intentionally write where they are. In a sense, have the journals recognize locational words and replace them with randomized ones of their own. Greenhouse One could become Greenland and et cetra."

Pulling the chair closer to his desk, Annaliese sighed and searched for a blank piece of parchment, "Do you have a quill I can use?" In her search, she brushed her hand across the tote cloth encasing the chocolate frogs and held them up for him as they croaked nosily.

"The code names would be tricky due to the fact that we have more than enough students who would blatantly ignore them or make names of their own. We want to be able to monitor them while simultaneously making sure they're safe and code names could make it difficult for us unless we have a master list. But, it could work..."

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thereheis
2009-04-26 10:30 pm UTC (link)

"Oh. Tricky. I like that idea." He liked her idea of having the journals themselves scramble place names. It would eliminate a lot of coordination needed between the professors and the students, as they themselves would eventually understand what was happening to the place names as they inputted it. Of course, there was the problem of somebody having to create such a charm. It definitely wasn't going to be Dennis who created such a thing, he himself never was the best wand yielder in his grade and it still rang true today.

"Quills? I've got plenty." He abandoned the search for the frogs temporarily as he dove his head underneath his desk to open up his drawer full of writing utensils. Sifting through Muggle pens, feathers quills of all types of exotic birds, and even some dangerous looking spindly ones, he fished out a standard issue pheasant feather quill. As he was coming out, however, the sudden sound of croaks shocked him and he hit his head on the bottom of his desk.

"Ow! Merlin." He gingerly rubbed his head as he came back up with the quill. "Oh. I'm glad to see you've found them. Help yourself with a few, I've got plenty if ever a student needs some cheering up." Dennis handed the quill over to her as he idled himself with his now throbbing head, concerning himself more with the search for possible blood on his scalp than listening to her rebuttal.

"Of course, of course," he nodded hurriedly as he idled himself with rubbing the back of his head. "It was a silly suggestion anyway. Having a master list would undermine our attempts at security because it could fall into anybody's hands. It'd be a waste of time then."

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debura_potions
2009-04-27 06:55 am UTC (link)

"It wasn't silly, just incredibly difficult to make work," Annaliese plucked a frog from the bag and tied off the end before setting on the ground beside the quaffle. "I'm afraid we're going to have to leave the use of names to the students' judgment and step in if they become far too ridiculous..."

Staring at the squirming chocolate frog, Annaliese frowned and tapped it on the back with her wand. Moving, lifelike food was not pleasant to bite into, regardless if it was merely animated by a charm. The piece of chocolate fell limp and she carefully took a nibble out of one of its legs, still feeling oddly uncomfortable.

The frog found itself placed in the trash can a moment later, as she clearly wasn't intent on chewing off its head, "Didn't Minerva suggest placing a tracking spell on the journals? Of course, it's only natural that a few would leave them in their dormitories on a regular basis, but I'm certain it would help us locate students out past curfew or create a way to recognize when they are in danger. These journals seem popular enough, and I'm sure a vast majority of the children have them on them at all time."

Straightening her back, she watched as he continued to prod his head, "Dennis, you have possibly the worst coordination of any man I have ever met." A second later she relented, "Are you all right?"

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thereheis
2009-04-27 01:23 pm UTC (link)

Dennis rubbed his head one last time for good measure and found no blood. "I'm quite alright. I've encountered worse with Bowtruckles in Germany. Violent things, they are, in those parts." He turned his attention back to Annaliese.

"Did she?" He had to admit, Dennis idled at all staff meetings for one length of time or another. It wasn't that he didn't care about the content of the meeting; on the contrary, in this staff meeting particularly he had done quite a good job of staying attentive as he had to throw out a couple of his own ideas. But really, some of them would last hours on end and he'd sometimes come without having had a proper dinner beforehand. Tonight's was one of those unfortunate days. Most of the time, it would be when Minerva -- it was still bizarre for him to call her that, even though he had been part of the faculty for some time now -- spoke that his mind drifted off to the land of dragons and hippogriffs. Or today, where it drifted off to the land of treacle tarts and chocolate frogs.

"I thought she was talking about the gnome problem again. Nevertheless, tracking the students is a good idea. I just don't imagine they'd take a liking to it. Are we obliged to tell them that we'd be tracking their every movement?"

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debura_potions
2009-04-27 05:56 pm UTC (link)

Dipping the end of the quill into the inkwell, Annaliese shrugged with a small smirk, "Students...gnomes, sometimes I can hardly tell the difference."

As she started scratching down the basic requirements for the charm she had suggested, Annaliese considered his question in silence. A clause might exist in a hidden Hogwarts tome distinctly specifying that Professors are not to turn a student's personal item into a tracking device. If it did, though, she had neither found nor read it, and the Ministry of Magic had done quite a bit worse for far more skewed reasons to her generation. Which meant she would have absolutely no qualms about following through with the idea. "Of course they won't take a liking to it, no one particularly enjoys having their privacy disregarded. As a Slytherin, I am going to slyly claim that we are not required to inform them that we are tracking their journals..."

Looking up at him, Annaliese winced slightly, "But, no matter how immature I regularly claim they are, our students are no simple-minded idiots. If professors start popping out of the walls at convenient times, they'll piece together the clues and realize that we've done something. We'd have to be careful less we want them to develop a, what do muggles call it? A conspiracy theory?"

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thereheis
2009-04-28 06:21 pm UTC (link)

As Annaliese worked, Dennis busied himself with his miniature Quaffle again, whizzing the ball between his model dragons as they puffed, clearly unpleased by his teasing. But as she looked at him from her parchment, Dennis returned the look, an eyebrow raised, a bit shocked at her shrewd suggestion of secrecy.

"Yes. Not to mention that it would be highly unethical," he responded, his eyes fixed on her, Quaffle idling in the air.

He nodded at her usage of the Muggle term. "Conspiracy theory indeed," he returned to his Quaffle, which he was now vigorously shaking, trying to free it from the jaws of his dragon. "Backlash would be alleviated if we just outright told them that we were monitoring their journals. Is there a rule against that?"

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debura_potions
2009-04-28 09:03 pm UTC (link)

Pursing her lips, Annaliese narrowed her eyes in thought as she tapped the quill against the parchment, "I truly understand your desire to inform the students that we will be tracking them. Consider, though, how many would leave their journals in their dormitories when sneaking out past curfew if we did tell them. I am not proposing that we monitor them every second of the day, and I am certainly not suggesting that we remove any of their freedoms..."

Placing the quill on the desk, Annaliese uttered a sigh and leaned back into the support of the chair. Shaking her head, she pressed a hand to her temple and closed her eyes as she soothed away a headache spurned by thought, "I feel as though we are at war again..."

Her eyes peeked open after a moment and she smiled ruefully, "I just wish we knew who we were fighting."

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thereheis
2009-04-29 05:41 pm UTC (link)

"Who are we fighting exactly?" He spoke, sudden thunder coming into his voice. Some color came into Dennis' face now as he faced her, the Quaffle and dragon landing with a thump as shocking as his change in mood. "I mean, the Dalia was murdered -- murdered in cold blood -- almost eight months ago and we've come no closer to the search for the killer than we have to finding Crumple-Horned Snorkacks. And in the mean time, the Ministry has been sitting here, twiddling its thumbs while more students die! The other day, a horde of their goons threw me out of my office. And for what? For a quiet place to watch the Puddlemere game!"

"It's as if we're dealing with m..." he trailed off. "...magic." Dennis heaved a sigh. "Sorry. Not the best comparison. But you get what I mean. They've been here all throughout the academic year, and nothing. Not even a profile. I just thank the stars that I had the grave misfortune of finding the bodies of one of the students."

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debura_potions
2009-04-30 12:37 pm UTC (link)

Regarding him warily, Annaliese scooped up the Quaffle and rolled it thoughtfully in her hands. The sudden emotion in his voice had been surprising, but only because of his gentle disposition, she could understand where he was coming from. "The Ministry is a thorn in all of our sides," She spoke softly, "it always has, from our years of schooling until now."

Looking up from the Quaffle, she nudged the dragon and watched it take flight, puffing smoke in aggrivation at the two of them.

"I remember the night Lysander was found. You should have seen them, Dennis. It was Claire and Scorpius who had moved him..." she shook her head and shrugged, not knowing what else to say. The Quaffle thumped to the desk as she dropped it, "Perhaps it is time that someone other than the Ministry attempts to uncover the truth."

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thereheis
2009-05-01 03:02 am UTC (link)

He stooped down onto his desk, placing his chin on the back of his hands. Dennis looked up at her, nodding as she continued her story.

"It must have been tough. Seeing somebody you've watched grow up, somebody you've raised, lay there, lifeless..." He sighed and his eyes wandered over to the framed photo of himself and his late wife, holding their newborn son. Dennis knew the pain of loss all too well.

He straightened up at her last statement. "You mean-" He paused, contemplating her words. "You mean to say that we should launch an investigation?"

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(ooc: I fail at getting it right on the first try XD)

debura_potions
2009-05-01 05:00 pm UTC (link)

It had, in a sense, been very tough. Having witnessed quite a bit of death in her early life, Annaliese was reminded of her childhood and the dark ages Hogwarts had faced in the first two years of her schooling. Watching students she had taught for six and seven years deal with the remnants of the second murder, had done more to her than she would ever bring herself to admit. It had spurred her into holding this conversation, one she would have otherwise not have had.

"Yes. But to see two students, shell-shocked and risking their own lives to move him to the hospital wing, that will stick with me for far longer. We can't protect the dead..." Although, I wish we could. Haltingly, she continue, "They're out of our reach. But, we can try to keep others from dying..."

Rubbing her index finger along her thumb, Annaliese thought deeply. To launch an investigation would mean thwarting the Ministry officials residing at Hogwarts, which would cause a great deal of suspicion. "Not a full one. We won't question students, just keep our eyes open." Steal the Aurors' notes as well, but she'd not mention that. If they were caught in that particular act, suspicion would turn to certainty that they played a part of the murders. "First, we must do our best to secure the safety of the students, and once we have done that, we will peek into the nooks and corners that the Ministry has failed to."

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thereheis
2009-05-04 04:17 pm UTC (link)

"Not a full one? I say we ought to go right to it! Headmistress has gone against the Ministry before, I'm sure she'd turn a blind eye to our investigations!" The conversation was beginning to rouse his Gryffindor fervor as he stood up and began to pace up and down the room.

"Of course, of course, we'd secure their safety first. Tracking journals, increasing rounds, all of that, but what good would security do if we don't know what or who we are securing them from? All we know is that students were murdered, and one had his life attempted upon. We need more details." As he paced, he put his finger to his chin, pondering a course of action. This was more of his forte, not the whole mundane sense of protocol that the Ministry and Headmistress McGonagall asked him to go through. He needed more information about the murders. He needed reports, testimonies, and -- although it'd be hard for him to stomach -- pictures. Through them he could at least rule out (or begin to suspect) creatures.

Suddenly, Dennis looked straight at Annaliese, as if struck by lightening. He had a moment of clarity, if it could be called such. "We need to steal Auror notes."

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debura_potions
2009-05-04 05:02 pm UTC (link)

Nearly amused by his sudden liking to her idea (yet simultaneously grateful and a serious spectator of his pacing), Annaliese had to stop herself from grinning at his final exclamation. So, he had come to the idea of stealing the Aurors' notes without her goading, Gryffindor he was, but clueless he was not.

Crossing her legs and leaning sideways on her left arm against the side of her chair, Annaliese answered his first question. "A full investigation will draw attention that we would normally not want or particularly need. Also, if we were to successfully steal the Auror notes without being caught, a sudden investigation conducted by ourselves will clearly tell the Ministry that we partook in the theft."

She briefly considered what they might tell Minerva if she ever inquired about their suspicious activities, not that she would. The Headmistress might have a fair head (one that often called for following rules down to the periods) on her shoulders, but she knew when to turn a blind eye to reckless law-breaking when such acts were being performed to save the lives of students. Still, if she were to ask, Annaliese was certain the two would have to tell the truth, or create and incredibly extravagant lie, one that would cue the older witch into their plans but not the Ministry. She would still rather not outwardly involve Minerva, as Hogwarts could not afford to lose such a great leader due to the whims of two professors.

"Security will still need to come first, despite our lack of knowledge of what we're guarding these children from. Ministry will begin looking towards that staff if actions aren't taken to reduce the possibility of attacks. We'll have an easier time investigating if the Aurors aren't slipping Veritaserum into our drinks. On the subject of truth, if we are to follow through with the investigation, we will have to create...oh, what do the students call it...a cover story?"

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thereheis
2009-05-06 05:09 pm UTC (link)

"Let them arrest me if they find out we've stolen the notes!" he proclaimed. "Then the world could see that I've been sacked for attempting to protect our students!"

It wasn't the most tactful thing to do, but Dennis never was a tactful kind of person. In fact, this idea of his was completely stupid. It'd be quite easy for the Ministry to arrest him if he were caught and put him under suspicion for the murders, having stolen the Auror's notes. The action could easily have been spun the other way.

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debura_potions
2009-05-07 08:13 am UTC (link)

"No, the world would be fed the lie that you stole the notes to prevent the Aurors' from discovering the truth," Annaliese stressed. Reaching out she placed a steadying hand on his arm, hoping to calm him, "It is much easier protecting the students at Hogwarts than it is from Azkaban."

After a moment, she added, "Besides, of the two of us, I believe I'm the better candidate for taking the notes, as you aren't the most...graceful...of wizards."

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thereheis
2009-05-07 06:42 pm UTC (link)

As much as he would have liked to protest, she was right. Between the two of them, he would have gotten caught in an instant, by tripping over some statue or accidentally making some odd noise. But if Annaliese was going to do this, Dennis was willing to do whatever it took to support her in achieving this goal.

He felt the steady hand on his arm, looking at her with unwavering eyes. "I need to know: you and me. We're in this. Together?"

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debura_potions
2009-05-07 09:25 pm UTC (link)

Relieved that he had chosen not to argue with her (as she knew many men who would let their pride get in the way of their reasoning), Annaliese gave his arm a gentle squeeze before releasing it and nodding. There was more to the investigation than stealing the notes, and she very well couldn't do it alone. He could be trusted.

"We're stuck with each other until the end," the slightest of smiles gave her words a kinder delivery. "I know you well enough to say it can't be done without you."

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thereheis
2009-05-08 06:20 pm UTC (link)

Dennis was pleased with her gentle answer. "Great," a soft smile appeared on his lips. He almost blushed at her kind words, but the fatigue of the day's events had taken a toll on him and he was beginning to wear out.

He looked at his clock. It was well past midnight. "Annaliese, it's getting quite late," he turned to her. "Should we talk this over in detail over lunch?"

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	debura_potions 2009-05-12 09:42 am UTC (link)
	Checking the time herself, Annaliese suppressed the quirk of an eyebrow, she had not realized that it was this late. Giving him a slight nod, she began to stand, "It is late indeed. I'll give the topic some more thought later in the morning, and we'll continue this at lunch." Before she walked to the door, Annaliese added, "I think we've come off to a good start." (Reply to this) (Parent)

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