SPOILER!!: Flamsteed
Airey leaned back in his seat a bit to allow her to speak and he was trying his best to not let his ice cream distract him from the conversation at hand. It was sort of hard to do since this sort of social interaction was foreign and awkward to him. Why couldn't professors just profess? Or, um, not profess exactly...just teach. Education. Facts.
Although he had been told that this was also part of the whole education picture and was actually part of why he had been interested in returning to Hogwarts as a professor in the first place. He had been lucky enough to have had one to point him in the right direction, so if he could do even a fraction of that for students then he would consider himself a successful educator.
But he was obviously doing the opposite for Miss Wheatborn.
Waiting until she was finished speak, Airey took a long sip from his cup and then set it down next to his bowl. What to say? Where to begin? Why couldn't there be a formula for this sort of thing? "I have one question for you, Miss Wheatborn. This failure, as you call it, what do you want to do about it? My concern is not over just your grades, but whether or not you are content with this failure." He paused just for a moment to lean on his desk a bit and fold his fingers together. "As the great muggle bucketball player once said, I can accept failure, everyone fails at something. But I can't accept not trying."
Which was his round about way of sending her a message and pointing her in a certain direction without saying it outright. Kids were supposed to come to these conclusions on their own, right?
Minerva waited.. and waited.. then shifted uncomfortably.. and waited a bit more in silence. Was he trying to figure out the best way to yell at her about how awful she was at this subject or what was going on. Feeling a bit awkward she put a spoonful of ice cream in her mouth. Then she tried to make eye contact with him, but shifted her eyes to the desk instead.
Finally he spoke and Minerva listened, now she wasn't going to look up. Failure hung in the air, she had failed at something. Opening her mouth and shutting it again she felt the shakiness of her voice before it even came out,
"Well no I would never be content with a failure. This not something I've ever done before when it comes to class work. So I don't really know what to do about it." She sat silently thinking, she wanted to take the OWL again, was that even possible, probably not. Taking a deep breath and swallowing hard she finally looked up,
"As for what I'm doing about it, I really can't just go back and erase it, so I guess I'm still attending class and trying to learn."
Then something made her tilt her head confused.
"Sir not to be rude, but what is bucketball?" She listened some more when it hit her,
"Oh do you mean basketball? I'm sorry.. I was raised muggle and I just have never heard of bucketball, unless that is something that isn't played in the States." She knew that wasn't the point of what he was trying to say, but it had just thrown her for a minute. Okay.. okay back to the actual thing he was saying. Was he saying it was alright to fail..
"Professor, are you saying it's alright to fail as long as you try, because.. I just don't know.. Failing shouldn't happen, should it?" Well not in her book at least.