"Duuuuuuude."

Jake grinned at Antares, not feeling awkward at all. "I do my homework, Professor. I think that's persuasion enough, right? Plus, it's my last year. Surely you'll want Hufflepuff to win, be being your favourite student and all."

Jake?

Somebody's favourite?

HA!

"Ohhh, so THAT'S what it is. So when people say something is so many lightyears away... do they mean in distance, not like, how long it would get there?"

Hm. Yeah, Astronomy had been neglected. "Looks like I've got a fair bit of catching up to do," Jake pointed out, but in a light-hearted manner. It was a good job he could read...

Risu raised an eyebrow. "I do not play favourites," he said. "Except in one case, perhaps," he added as an afterthought, nodding in the direction of the photograph of himself and the blond witch on the edge of the desk.

"Besides, what if I am bad luck? Could be I'd send Hufflepuff into a ten-term losing streak if I support you, Jake," he said seriously, as doubt began gnawing at his mind immediately. He wouldn't put it past the Universe to play this kind of karmic trick on him - hadn't Friedrich Nietzsche said something to that effect? Gaze long into the cosmic abyss, and in return it'll punish your favourite Quidditch team? Risu shrugged to himself. Something like that.

"Ah, that's the tricky part. Due to the subtleties of spacetime," he continued with his lecture, "they are talking about both distance and time. Something, say, one lightyear away would have a distance from Earth of ten trillion kilometres. But you could also say that it has a distance of one year, as measured by the speed of light. Light, you see, is the calibrating factor between space and time. Information about events, for example, do not reach us faster than light, either."

Maybelle...still sitting outside needed something to do. She took our her wand again and whispered, "Expecto Patronum." She needed to practice. A lot. A small bit of blue light came from her wand. Then, she thought of a memory of her sister. It was a time when they were in California. Sitting at the beach, laughing having a good time. Then she re-cast the spell and Patronus was a small turtle. Her reaction was amused. She finally got her Patronus charm down. Maybelle whispered a small "Yay." She was completely excited! But...still waiting.

"You can still have them if you don't play them," Jake responded, looking over at the picture. He was a little stupid when it came to figurative speech and the like, so he'd kind of responded without knowing what he was going on about. "Who's that in the picture? I've seen her somewhere, I'm sure of it."

Pfffffff... bad luck? "No such thing as luck. Only skill. Besides, who cares about winning? It's all fun," Jake pointed out. Sure, he USED to care about winning, but why bother? It wasn't like, the end of the world.

Hopefully.

And if it was... who would be around to care?

"Ohhhh, I seeeeee," Jake nodded, as it clicked in his mind. "Spacetime. Gotcha."

He had just oooooone more question. "Also, sir... I didn't know who else to ask this, but you know you can't apparate overseas, yeah? Well... could you apparate to the moon or another planet? You know, if you were wearing one of those muggle suits. It's something that I've wondered for a while."

Just because he was... well... bored a lot of the time.

"Oh, I've heard people say that," Risu said, looking at Jake, "but once you are on the Pitch, with your entire house cheering you on, are you still that aloof?" He grinned. "If you are, see the nurse about checking whether you still have a heartbeat."

His grin turned into a mellow smile as he touched the silver frame of the photograph fondly. "Avery Bennett. She owns Florean Fortescue's in Diagon Alley. I'm sure you've been there. We're..." he paused, unsure of what the protocol was in these situations, but then decided that Jake wouldn't be fooled. Shouldn't be fooled, probably, he was not some nosy first-year student after all. Risu shrugged. "Well, she's my... significant other, as they say. I'll leave 'girlfriend' to the younger generations."

He leaned back in his chair, tapping the edge of the desk reflectively. "I am not a magical theorist, of course, but I believe there is debate about whether the range limit of Apparition is simply due to the difficulty of getting the jump right - which increases with distance - or some final distance border inherent to Apparition itself. That is, at some point there might be no way to Apparate further even if the destination was known to the witch or wizard."

With a shrug, Risu continued, "I am... undecided. The question is certainly interesting, but only theoretically to me - in practice the distances I bridge by Apparition, from Hogwarts to London and the likes, are too small to consider. However, I would have to say that I'd be very sceptical as to whether it was really possible to Apparate to other worlds, even if the first hypothesis was the correct one. The distances between the worlds are unimaginably huge, Jake. I doubt the human mind can meaningfully grasp them. The Universe as a whole is empty, almost literally, and I cannot see how it would be possible to know, say, a distant planet's location exact enough to Apparate there. Just the smallest miscalculation or lapse in concentration would send you into the interstellar void."

"I s'pose it is nice to win," Jake shrugged, a teeny smile on his face. "When I was younger... losing made me cry. But I've only lost two quidditch games before," he added. And he'd only cried over it once. Yup. OOH. Except when they won. Yeah... he probably cried then. "But it's not as big a deal for me as it is for most of the other quidditch players. Like I say... I just think it's fun. And as seeker, way up in the sky, you get the best seat."

He... kinda hoped he was Seeker this year.

Ahhhhh, the pretty lady from the ice cream place. "She's super nice. I had my 17th there, summer just gone and she was real helpful," Jake looked back at Antares and grinned. "Significat other... that sounds really posh." But... yeah... interesting. The ice cream lady and the Astronomy dude.

The young man listened to what Antares had to say and nodded, leaning back in his own chair. "Yeah... I think, despite anything, the co-ordinates would mess you up. Best case scenario, you could splinch and leave, like... a leg on Earth."

Jake shuddered.

"And yeah... probably a leeeeeeeettle too far, even just to the moon, and that's ages away. Like, even more than one end of America to the other. I do think it's cool that outerspace is only 62 miles up... but it's probably hard just to Apparate into the atmosphere."

Heh.

"She is, she is," Risu said with a faint smile, looking at the photograph. "Most people here would recognise her... I guess I'm with a person who's somewhat of a celebrity, huh."

Not a red carpet kind of celebrity, of course, but delicious ice cream was a very close second. And he, Risu, could have it for free. It was such a pity really that he was about 25 years beyond his ice-cream phase.

"Well, I'm sure you could Apparate into the atmosphere, or even the edge of space, but what would you do then?" Risu shrugged. "You could even try to Apparate further out with proper equipment, I suppose, a space suit and so forth, but what then? Even if you concentrated hard enough and did not splinch yourself, would you be able to focus again to return to Earth?" He raised an eyebrow. "I'd be hard-pressed to accept a gamble of that kind.

"Now," he added with a sigh, "do you have any other questions? I do not mean to cut you short, of course, but it does appear as if I have another visitor..."

"I'm with a celebrity of sorts too," Jake added, quite proudly. And one in the sweet-tooth business. "Bott... Neptune Bott."

Wasn't it fitting that Jake of all people was dating the heiress of a HUGE candy company?

The answer is yes.

Doopdoopdooooooooop.

Jake could only really nod at what Antares was saying. He DID understand, but there was really nothing more he could put into the conversation without sounding like he was trying hard not to sound dumb or left behind. Which... happened a lot. "Maybe one day..."

Yeah. That was it. Oh Jake...

Other questions?

Jake stood up at that, giving a small smile. "No, that's about it sir. I'll let you get on with your day," he added, holding out his hand for a shake. "It was good to have a conversation again... been a while..."

Only over a year. >.>

"Bott?" Risu asked, "As in... the bean dynasty Bott? I'm sure that has its... perks." Jake surely could get to test the more enjoyable new flavours the manufacturer was putting out, right? He wondered briefly what Jake had to offer an heiress like that, but dismissed the thought. After all, he was a rather old and carelessly dressed astrophysics lecturer. What made Risu appealing in any way?

"Maybe one day!" he repeated cheerfully, and got to his feet as Jake did the same. Risu shook hands with the boy energetically, then gently steered him in the direction of the door, which swung open obediently. "It is nice to have you around again. Best of luck with Quidditch and the studies in your final year."

He nodded at the student who had been waiting for him so patiently outside the door. "Come in, please," Risu said with a friendly smile, gesturing her inside.

Maybelle smiled and got up...her butt went numb...GREEEAT!! She walked inside and stood somewhat awkwardly. She didn't really know what to do. "Thank you for talking with me Professor Antares, you must be very busy." Maybelle said. She felt lucky because stars are cool and this guy looks at them for a living! Well, and those other things called planets and galaxies, and moons....ANYWAYS!!

"You could hardly call me busy," Risu said with a slight smile. He watched Jake disappear around the corner. Then he turned to his newcomer, who looked a little forlorn, standing in the middle of the office. "Have a seat, please," he said, pointing at the chair in front of the desk that Jake had just vacated a minute ago. The door closed with a small click, and then Risu was wandering back to his desk.

"Unless you prefer to stand, of course," he added. "I'm very sorry for your wait. It seems my conversation took a little longer than expected." He would wait for her to make the choice before he would sit down or remain standing.

"What can I help you with today?"

Maybelle was tempted to release a huge sigh! She loved how people made her feel welcome. She looked at Professor Antares and smiled. "Well, wouldn't you be busy with studying the stars and such?" Maybelle asked. She looked at the chair that he pointed to, it looked quite comfy. "Oh, thank you Professor," Maybelle said as she sat down. "Oh, that's fine I didn't mind waiting." She replied, and this was true. Maybelle was used to waiting for things she wanted...such as her favorite books.

Right, what Maybelle came to talk about..... "I was wondering, when Astronomy will start? I love stars and planets and such...but mostly stars," Her last words, a joke....even though it was true.... "And I want to learn more about them, and well I thought it would be fun, an-" She cut herself off....babbling. A specialty of Maybelle's. That and misspelling, a lot. "Sorry, I babble a lot....but I just wanted to know that so I could prepare?" She didn't know exactly how to phrase it but, hopefully it would make sense.

With a woeful smile, Risu said, "I'm mostly a teacher these days. There is not, on average, a lot of time left for stargazing." He wandered around his desk and sat down. "I can offer you some tea if you want."

He refilled his cup with more water and drank thoughtfully as he listened to the student. "I might be in trouble if a few sentences are already 'babbling' in your book," he said with a light laugh. "I do get very excited about my subject at times... Now, to answer your questions." He tapped a finger against the cup. "There is still some last-minute planning to do, if you will, but my lessons should begin very soon.

"This term the lessons should be mainly about life in the Universe. The possibilities of life, detection of it, communication if possible... Topics like those. If you are interested, I can provide some materials on stars and planets for you as I suspect they will not be covered extensively in class."

Maybelle smiled back at Professor Antares. "Well, I think you should always find time, the stars are amazing." She said. "No thank you. I'm fine." She said, not much of a tea fan. "Well, I stopped myself before the 'babbling' got worse." She said with a slight giggle. Maybelle listened as Professor Antares spoke. "I hope they start very soon, I loove stars and astronomy." She said, taking pleasure in her fascination to the subject. "So, like the 'Big Bang Theory'?" She asked, the Big Bang Theory was an interesting topic, you know, how our world was created, the Earth and moon and such. "Yes I would be very interested to learn more about stars and planets, but the theory of how the Universe was created, WOW!" She said, her eyes widening. She just LOVED Astronomy.

Deputy Headmaster Vindictus climbed the winding flight of stairs, his designer dragonhide boots clattering on the stone. It wasn't that he was in a big hurry, it was just that he couldn't be bothered to waste time by strolling. Too much to do before the weekend's Quidditch match.

On the door to the Astronomy office, he posted a sign.