Jesús wasn’t good at being friendly. Melanie was amused at how awful he was at it, actually. She had taught Jesús since he was a first year. All of the current students she had taught since first years; she’d been there eight years now. “Jesús,” she began, almost the minute he’d started talking. ”You are not on my bad side. Not yet. Calm down,” she said the words in a smooth, even tone. “I have no desire to give you detention today, or ever, but sometimes it’s necessary.” But to her, this seemed extremely paranoid. Had he already done some rule-breaking? Or was he just covering his bases, so to speak? This whole discussion was doing nothing to lessen yourself as someone to watch in her eye, Rodriguez.

She was officially not multitasking. Not paying attention to her book. Distracted. Jesús was an enigma. He had potential, to her, at least, and she would need to speak to Duncan about Jesús. Eventually, he might be useful to them. For now, though, he was her student, and she did care for her students. Even Kathleen Yang, who was appalling 95% of the time. All of her time and energy was wasted on useless crud. Wasted.

“Enticing,” she said in response to his reading. “Something I would have read at your age,” she commented casually. Her brain was whirling, and suddenly, she found herself snapping her book shut in one hand while also standing to stride past where he was sitting. She tucked the book under her arm and pointed her wand at a plant, watering it. Just a gentle stream. Plants were not big Melanie Williams fans; they all died on her at some point. “Jesús...what do you want to do after you graduate?”