Norah had changed her mind about coming down here a hundred and four times before finally going all the way down the dungeon corridor and plopping herself down in one of the black armchairs. Okay fine, it hadn't exactly been a hundred and four, but the number of times she'd marched to the door and marched right back in the opposite direction because she'd changed her mind made her legs FEEL like it'd been a hundred and four. Maybe even a hundred and five.

Her knees bounced up and down as she sat, staring at the door and wondering if it'd fly open and Professor Culloden would come out and yell things. Or something. She wasn't entirely sure if she'd even seen Professor Culloden yell things but there was a first time for everything, or so her mum always said. Wait. Was she supposed to knock? She hadn't done that yet. The fourth year got up from the chair and held a fist near the office door, changed her mind, and sat back down again. No. She had to do this, he was THE potions dude. She got up again even though her legs still weren't very happy with her from all the pacing, and held a fist at the office door for a second time. Come on, Norah, KNOCK. Fourteen year olds were not scared of knocking, nope nope nope. She let her fist fall lightly on the surface of the door before scrambling back to her seat. If she ran super duper fast she could get out before he even came out, right? This was a bad bad bad bad bad idea.

One wouldn't believe how many parenting books there were on sale, but ever since Cosgrach had heard Vic was pregnant, he'd begun reading them. He was on book #10 and got the gist of how to raise a kid. He felt securer AND more worried at the same time. What if he made a mistake with this much information circulating in his head? What if he had got all the books all wrong in the first place? What if - wait, was someone knocking on the door? Cosgrach's hand froze in the mid air. He wasn't... sure... he hesitated. He lowered his hand, and called "Anybody there?" Was he going insane with these many parenting books???

Norah had moved to sit in the doorway by now, still physically incapable of deciding whether to stay or go. SIGH. Why did professor have to be so scary all the time? And then he said something. Uh oh uh oh um um um um um was anybody there? Did she count as somebody? Was she even HERE? The fourth year shot the door a panicked look and began to crawl towards it until her nose was nearly touching its surface. "Maybe" She sat cross legged in front of the door and stared at it, inwardly telling the butterflies in her tummy to calm DOWN and stop having a party in there. This was why she never came to talk to professors. This was exactly why. But she was fourteen now and that meant she needed to be brave for some weird reason. Grown-ups didn't get scared about talking to grown-ups, right?

Getting help was so overrated.

...

......no answer?

Cosgrach released his breath that he had been holding to hear better. His door didn't let him hear whispers, but he did hear the knock. He was also tired by reading, so he got up and slowly approached the door with his wand in his hand. It didn't hurt to be cautious, especially when people knocked on but didn't answer.

Counting to three in his head, he opened the door and directed his wand at whoever it was behind it, not shooting a spell just yet.

Norah, who was dying of boredom from all the sitting and WAITING, had lifted her robes and was inspected a scab on her knee when all of a sudden the door was open. Ooh! It took her a second to tear her eyes away from the scab (it was shaped like an ELEPHANT if you squinted really hard!) and looked at what was behind the door with wide eyes. Okay, a very large pair of shoes. That was totally normal. Her hazel eyes travelled slowly upwards until--a wand? Is this what Professor Culloden did when people came to visit him?? Turn their ears green? Turn them into turnips? Curse them to PIECES?

She scooted backwards on her bottom until her back was against one of the squishy black chairs, putting her hands on her ears because even if they weren't very special she really didn't think her mum would like it if she came home with green ears. "Hiiii Professor Culloden." she said slowly, putting on her most angelic smile. She liked her ears the way they were, okay? And turnips were gross. "I can go, if you're, um, busy." Or did he do this to everybody? Norah slowly removed her hands from her ears so she could hear him answer. Nothing to see here. Carry on.

Just like how it took Norah a while to look from his feet to his face, it took Cosgrach equal time to look from his own eye-level to the ground to find the girl. He laughed a little as she started scooting backwards and put his wand back in its place. She was... funny. And maybe scared. Well, she should have been louder when he asked if there was anyone outside. At least she didn't try to break his door like Kevin (always in our hearts) did.

"No, come inside," he said, and cocked his head to the side. Why... had she been holding her ears? Because he might yell at her or something? Pffft, he wasn an angel! These kids... Expecting her to come, he stepped inside to sit back on his chair.

Marsha was excited. Not only were her classes over for the day but she was going to see Professor Culloden. She didn’t really have anything specific really that she was going to talk to him about … really. She just had a question for him… almost a question? Sort of?

Frowning, Marsha wondered if her thoughts even made sense - and then decided that twelve year olds contained too much awesomeness to need to worry if their thought processes worked well or not. Hehehe.

Knocking on the Professor’s door, she moved to sit down on one of the amazingly comfortable and cosy looking chairs. She opened her first year potions book and started reading where she had left off. She had plenty of time to wait for him to arrive back.

He had only had one visitor so far, so Cosgrach was more relaxed about leaving his office. Today was no different. He'd dropped by the owlery, then strolled on the grounds for a while, chatted with the people he saw and when he felt he was thoroughly tired, he decided to return to his office...

...to find Marsha waiting for him!

He didn't know hw long she had been waiting for, but he figured it hadn't been long. He'd started the day early, and if she had waited for long, she would have left anyway.

"Hello," he greeted her as he unlocked his door and opened it, "come in!" He gestured for her to follow him in as he entered his office.

Having just received a very peculiar owl from her mum and had a good laugh over it, Sophie decided to go see someone who would get just as big of a kick out of it as she had: Culloden. She had sent an owl to Tobes first to let him know of the events as they unfolded, but the potions master was next on her list.

The old man always needed a good laugh, didn't he?

With the prophet in her hand, Sophie banged her fist a few times on the man's office door and announced her presence, "Hey. You've got a DARK WITCH AT YOUR DOOR."

Certainly he would know it was her, but the REAL question was: had he SEEN the article already?

Sophie was laughing at it, but Cosgrach found the article very alarming. He'd of course read it, but before he could really think about it, the very person was here. He looked at the door in worry, and he certainly didn't rush to it. Instead, he just waved his wand to open it and called "Come in." He didn't think she was really a dark witch, but Sabel was an able man and... he didn't want to think about it.

Holy.

FREAKING.

Merlin!

Months. He had been waiting for MONTHS to hear SOMETHING. Everyday had been a matter of checking through his mail, only to be more disappointed than the idea of a feast that only comprised of overly healthy food. Swear to Merlin, the last couple of months had been difficult, man.

But all of that didn't matter because IT ARRIVED! FREAKING YEEEEEEES!

And, naturally, the first person he had to come and see was Culloden himself. Grayson ran down the dungeon corridors from the Slytherin boys' dorm all the way to the Potions master's office. It wasn't a long journey but exercise, man. C'mon. Running was awful, everyone knew that.

When he reached the door, the boy raised a hand and.........

BANG BANG BANG

C'mon, Culloden, open up!

BANG BANG BANG!

Cosgrach had fallen asleep at his desk while reading the world's most boring report, so when the door was - well, hit by a grenade; he suddenly jerked, gasped, opened his eyes big and muttered unintelligible things in his panic. Awake now, he blinked sheepishly and looked at the door. He knew it was banged on, and he knew he should open it, but it took him a full moment to stop being sluggish.

"Come in!" he croaked (his throat did that after waking up ew), expected whoever it was to open the door themselves and poured himself a glass of water.