fandom_lounge | Faculty lounge, Monday, February 13

Faculty lounge, Monday, February 13

Everything Josh knew about feeding a crowd he learned from working on campaigns.

Thus: pizza, sandwiches, coffee and soda.

It worked for college volunteers. Maybe it'll work on teachers, too.

He tacked up a sign on the bulletin board:

WANTED:

Faculty members to help chaperone the Valentine's Day dance this Friday night.

Please, oh, please, don't make me be there alone.

Sign up below.

Josh sat down with a copy of the Washington Post, flipped the television to C-SPAN and prepared for the day.

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Josh looked up from his paper. "I could find a water balloon to chuck at you or something, I guess."

"That's all right," Rita said genially, helping herself to some coffee and settling down with her own newspaper and sighing.

Josh glanced over. "Wilbur?" he asked. "Or is one of those charming children giving you a hard time?"

"Not Wilbur, no," Rita said, rolling her eyes as she looked up from the paper. "And nothing new with the adorable children since last week, though I have an interview for the paper lined up later. I was actually just reading about the idiots at home. The Prophet's gone downhill since I left."

"The Prophet?" Josh repeated, looking over at what she was reading and blinking a little rapidly to see the pictures moving.

Were Josh to look closer, he might notice that the paper's date reads as February 13, 1995.

"The paper where I used to work. The most widely-read publication in the wizarding world," Rita said proudly.

"And so interesting you're reading the archives?" Josh asked, pointing at the date. "Or just reliving glory days?"

"What? No, this is today's," Rita said, shaking her head. "Or at least, from when I left. We seem to be a bit ahead of my time here. But the owls still deliver newspapers from '95."

"Wow," Josh said. "I think something important in my brain just broke thinking about that."

He peered over her shoulder. "So what's going on in your world? With the guy with the bowler hat who still manages to be more competent that the guy running this version of the United States at the moment?"

"The headmaster of my alma mater's gone insane," Rita said lazily, gesturing to a picture of an elderly man with a long beard, who appeared to be delivering a speech of some sort. "One of the most powerful wizards in the world, and he's gone off the deep end. Always knew he was batty, even when I was at school there."

"Yeah, watching the president of your alma mater saying or doing something stupid is hard," Josh said. "The President of Harvard--you've heard of Harvard, right?--gave a speech saying that women aren't good at math and science because they're women. The alumni were about an inch away from getting out the tar and feathers."

"Harvard?" Rita asked dubiously. "I think I overheard that obnoxious Ms. Gilmore talking about it. But honestly, that's ridiculous. When I was at school I had a similar problem, with a teacher telling me I couldn't possibly have an aptitude for potions or transfiguration because they're complicated work."

She rolled her eyes and smiled a bit smugly. "I rather showed them."

"Oh, Rory's a good kid," he protested. He watched her expression. "Yeah, I can't imagine a way that telling you that you can't do something would lead to anything but tears and pain."

"Well, not so much tears and pain as...my becoming the best journalist in the magical world. And that teacher finding himself experiencing unpleasant side effects from drinking some slightly doctored pumpkin juice," Rita said sweetly. "Tell me I'm bad at potions, find yourself mysteriously babbling nonsense. Obviously unrelated events."

"Check. Note to self: don't make the roommate cranky."

"Probably wise," Rita said, poking her lukewarm coffee with her wand to heat it a little.

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Faculty lounge, Monday, February 13

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