drowning in the dust [dominick]

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Zytka knew that changes were coming to Hogwarts; she felt it in her bones. Some could claim that it was because there was a new Headmistress, but Zytka thought that it was more than just the change in leadership that had resulted from Headmaster Longbottom falling ill. She couldn't fathom what else there could be, but she felt...uneasy, especially considering most of her colleagues had already met Headmistress McGonagall in some capacity due to their attendance of Hogwarts in their school years. Zytka was behind the learning curve, and normally that didn't bother her, but today it did. She was sure that the new headmistress was fine, since everyone was singing her praises and she was a well-known and obviously talented witch, with her work in Transfiguration gaining worldwide renown, but there was a difference between a fine headmistress and someone that Zytka could trust and work under. There were other things to be thinking about, though, like finding Professor Riveras. The Arithmancy professor had only joined the staff recently, and after teaching for nearly a decade, Zytka was more than happy to talk to him about the job and students when he asked for assistance, like today. Zytka had checked his classroom, but he had been nowhere to be found, and now she was trying to decide where to go next to find him.

@dominick

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Dominick was standing anxiously on the moving stairs as they changed directions to, hopefully, move him up to the fourth floor where his classroom was. He felt terrible because he'd asked Professor Kamuntu to meet with him today just to chat and maybe even for him to ask advice about this whole teaching thing. She'd done it much longer than he had so he was sure she'd have some good advice. He'd spoken to both Astoria and Minerva and they'd both given him really good advice on what he could do better. Getting more advice couldn't be an bad thing and it was just a great opportunity to get to know her. Especially considering she was one of the few professor he only seemed to see and chat with during meals in the Great Hall. He'd wanted to do something nice so he'd headed down to the Kitchens to bake some cookies. He'd underestimated the time it was going to take to make those cookies. Well... actually he'd gotten carried away and worried she wouldn't like chocolate chip so he'd also made oatmeal raisin and peanut butter. So here he was with a box of freshly baked cookies in hand running late to this meeting. The staircase finally reached its destination and he quickly ran the rest of the way up. Great, this was the third floor. Not quite where he wanted to be. This was sure to put a damper on things. He started to turn around to wait for another set of stairs when he realized she was actually not too far down the current corridor. "Professor Kamuntu," his voice carried a little in the corridor and he winced and waved apologetically. He was already off to such a great start.

Tag; @zytka

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Zytka had not expected to find Professor Riveras so soon, but she wasn’t going to complain if luck had chosen to bring him to her when she was performing a search for him. It was certainly easier than scouring the entire castle, especially since the place was so big that she could look over and still not find him, if he was also moving around during the search. “Siku njema, Professor Riveras.” Zytka said, smiling at the other professor, who seemed the slightest bit flustered. “I’m afraid I must have written down the wrong time for our meeting. We were supposed to begin at half after, were we not?” That was not the time that they had agreed on (the real had been quarter past, which had come and gone), but Zytka was hoping to offer Professor Riveras a way to ease his own nerves. Zytka didn’t mind pretending to be the one at fault if it would make the other professor feel a little better, especially since their meeting was supposed to be one that was beneficial to him. Zytka could hardly see how Dominick could derive benefit from their conversation if he went into it already feeling bad about himself. Noticing that the other professor was carrying something, Zytka gestured to it. “What is accompanying you?” She asked with an arched eyebrow.

@dominick

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She greeted him with a warm smile, easing his nerves just a little bit. Her words caught him off guard suddenly though, saying that she may have written their meeting time down wrong? Had he been mistaken? He was certain that he was late by at least fifteen minutes.
"Oh. Oh! Um, sure." he chuckled nervously at her. He felt a little bit worse. She was being really kind about it though even if he didn't deserve it. He was here now though and it seemed she was still willing to talk with him and he was really glad about that. When she gestured to his hands, he beamed happily. "Well this is actually what-- I mean they're cookies that I baked for you. I thought you might enjoy some. Instead of just one flavor I brought three for a better variety. If you'd like we can enjoy some when we get back to my office?" he gestured to the stairs. It would be better to have their planned conversation somewhere that wasn't the hallway where there were students milling about. "Thank you so much for deciding to meet with me by the way. I've only been here for two years now and somehow I doubt this teaching thing gets any easier, right" he asked, partially to just make conversation and partially seriously.

Tag; @zytka

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Zytka blinked a little when Dominick said that the box he was holding were cookies. Ah – everything was starting to make sense. He had been baking, and that was the reason why he was running late. Whether or not Dominick had originally intended those cookies to be for her, Zytka didn’t know, but she was more than willing to accept the treats and pretend that they were indeed originally meant for her consumption. “Yes, let’s do that.” Zytka said, following Dominick to the stairway so that they could return to their originally planned meeting place since they were now reunited and aware of each other’s locations. “It’s really no trouble to meet with you.” Zytka assured the other professor. “I know how stressful the job can be, and it’s better to ask for assistance when necessary.” Zytka was glad that she hadn’t immediately gotten into teaching, because many of the skills she had learned while busking were invaluable in keeping an orderly classroom. Waiting had also given her a chance to grasp the English language better – not waiting would have ended poorly, if she did say so herself. “I don’t think it gets easier, no, but you learn how to do it better.” There were coping skills and strategies to learn, so that even as new students and new situations arose, one could be prepared.

@dominick

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He gave a smile and nod at her assurance that it was no trouble for her to meet with him. She probably had a bunch of things on her to do list. He was certain there was some paper her could be grading and, with the term having started not to long ago, he was sure there was something grading related she could be doing. The grading always seemed so endless. He had to admit he liked it at times. He walked to the stairs, with her following. Once they arrived he stepped on to them to begin the ride up to the fourth floor. "The actual teaching part isn't hard. Of course there is a big divide between those students who are interested in the subject and there are the students who are taking the class just because they needed another elective to take. I know I can't force students to be interested in numbers," he shrugged, gripping the railing a little tighter as the stairs continued to move. "I enjoy getting the lesson plans together and seeing students' excitement when they understand the concepts and when they make a prediction. Not necessarily a right prediction but a prediction nonetheless." Seventh years usually came a bit closer with their predictions though. His fifth and sixth years were always hit and miss but he always helped whenever they asked for it. Being able to help his students was one of his favorite parts about teaching. It was the smile on their faces or the look of astonishment when they find out something was easier than they made it out to be. He smiled just thinking about it. "How long have you been teaching now? Did you always want to be a teacher?"

Tag; @zytka

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Zytka couldn’t help but smile when Dominick said that the actual teaching part wasn’t difficult. It was funny, because that was what seemed to get harder over the years. Zytka wasn’t sure whether it was a plague of getting older, or if years of memory were bound to slur together, but she found that occasionally she wasn’t sure what to say, and ended up repeating herself, or omitting important parts of the lesson entirely, having believed that she already spoke about them. “We encounter the same problem in that way.” Zytka said. Ancient Runes was another class that wasn’t as popular, since it was an elective. Just as Dominick couldn’t force students to be interested in numbers, she couldn’t make them find the beauty in runes. If only their students saw their subjects the way they did, Zytka thought with a small shake of her head. They would certainly be more interested in their homework that way. It was good to see that Dominick was not wholly discouraged by the fact that most of his students didn’t find the same passion in Arithmancy as he did, choosing to focus instead on the joy that they found when they understood something or applied their knowledge. “I think that my students tend to feel relief more than excitement when they finish a translation.” Zytka commiserated. The translations she assigned could be tedious, and there wasn’t much room for joy when you were exhausting. They didn’t have to be exhausting, of course, but since most everyone seemed to procrastinate, they were drained by the end of it. At the inquiries about her beginnings as a teacher, Zytka smiled wryly. “I stumbled into this, actually. I was young, in a new country, and quite sick of street performing. Hogwarts was hiring, and I wanted a stable job…And here we are, a decade later.” Not much had happened in between then and now, if she was being entirely honest, other than shaping ten years’ worth of young minds, which was a feat in itself.

@dominick

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He chuckled in amusement as she spoke about being able to relate to his problem. Of course she could relate, they both taught elective courses so they had to encounter the same problem with students taking their needed to fill their schedules "I was like them when I was younger so I can understand how they fell but now that I'm the professor I can also understand how my professors felt back then." Seeing those students in class he often imagined himself as he was in History of Magic. It was straightforward work but his participation in class was low, sometimes even to the point of falling asleep in the middle of class just out of boredom. He would even do work for other classes instead of that class, missing assignments and more often than not earning himself a stern look from his professor. He tried not to be so hard on those students when they missed assignments. He also knew that he couldn't give special treatment so he tried not to feel bad when he gave them failing marks. When she mentioned her students relief in her class, his chuckled once again. He had students like that as well; the students who wanted to enjoy the class but could not properly grasp the content. "Even the relief makes me feel better. I try to hold tutoring sessions as well for those students who struggle with it but I think they prefer asking their classmates." Those were the students he felt for, seeing them study and ask questions and try and do the work only to come up with wrong answers. He began a slow ascension up the staircase as it moved closer to the fourth level, listening to her speak about how she stumbled upon teaching. His eyebrows raised in surprised. How interesting, to fall into a profession only to learn that you love it. And after street performing. "Street performing? What did you perform? That had to be an interesting transition," he said, mirth lighting his eyes. He'd couldn't say that he'd stumbled on to teaching but it had been a last resort for him. After being a freelance arithmancer and writing a book he'd needed something more steady for income as well as something that would allow him to continue his research for his second book. That was when Neville had approached him about the Arithmancy teaching position having an opening.

Tag; @zytka

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Zytka offered Dominick a smile when he said that he had been like these students when he was younger. “Uagadou was much… different.” Zytka said. It seemed to her that all of the students had been more motivated to do well, though that was probably something to do with the fact that many African cultures had some sort of belief in witchcraft, so keeping powers under control to hide that there really was magic was of the highest priority. Of course, the fact that Uagadou taught higher-level magic at a much younger age, like teaching fourteen year olds to become Animagi, did demand some level of dedication. Zytka couldn’t imagine any of the fourth years she taught becoming full Animagi. Of course cultural differences would make a big difference in schooling, but it was only know that she was thinking about it that Zytka fully appreciated how different Hogwarts was from the school she had grown up in.

“I think it can be intimidating to talk to a teacher. You know, we’re very scary.” She said with a bit of a smirk. Zytka found that the students who tended to approach her were either BSU members who knew her as more than a professor, or Gryffindors, who were naturally renowned for their bravery. “Part of it is I think they assume we’ll judge them for their failings. Their classmates are just as confused, and thus can’t be angry if they don’t understand something.” Being an expert in a subject made it much easier to judge others who didn’t understand it. Zytka liked to think that her natural empathy made her less prone to that particularly failing, but she didn’t know for sure, and she didn’t think anyone would answer her honestly if she asked.

When Dominick asked what she performed, Zytka shrugged. “I took requests, sometimes. Anything flashy was good, because it caught people’s attention.” The trick she had shown Caroline, with the fire and flowers, had been a favorite of hers, because it was hard to ignore a sudden flare of flame, even if you only saw it out of the corner of your eye. “People here are so fascinated with wandless magic. I only got a proper wand in case of an emergency.” Zytka couldn’t remember the last time she had taken her wand out of her desk drawer, let alone actually used it. The fact that everyone seemed so interested in something that was second-nature to her was a little strange for Zytka, but she supposed it was better for them to be fascinated by her command of wandless magic than repulsed by it.

@dominick

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He gave a smile and nod after she stated Uagadou had been different from Hogwarts, meaning the students had been different. That was completely understandable considering that each wizarding school had different cultures altogether. His paternal great grandmother and great grandfather had attended Castelobruxo and Ilvermorny respectively and he sometimes wondered how different he would have been had he attended one of those school. He would not have been a professor at Hogwarts, he was certain. He didn't know if he felt sad at the thought or if the possibility could have possibly opened him to more research opportunities. It didn't matter. He was glad to be where he was now.

He frowned only a little bit at the thought of intimidating students enough to where they wouldn't want to talk to him about struggles they were having with his class. "I understand that but it only hurts them in the end. I try to be as not intimidating as possible. I'm casual in class, I'm not stern nor do I take away house points too often. And I tell them all of the time that they are free to visit me during the times I am in my office," He sighed because he knew he was rambling for nothing at this point. He knew Zytka would understand and he knew she knew better. It was the students that needed to hear what he had to say. Even then he knew that the words would mean nothing and it would change nothing. They would still be intimidated by him as a teacher and their grades would still suffer because they didn't want to ask for the help they needed. "I guess I should be grateful for the students who do understand the subject completely and help their classmates. Those are the students who make it so I don't have to give failing grades all day," though he laughed there was a tinge of sadness in it. He was only on year two and he was feeling the pressure and stress that came with being a professor.

The stairs had finally made it to the fourth floor when Zytka mentioned that anything flashy got the job done while she street performed. He grinned, walking in the direction of his office and making sure he readjusted his hold on the cookies he'd made. That sounded about right. "Did you perform for muggles at all? I imagine that wouldn't be too bad considering muggles love magicians and magic, even if it isn't as fake as they imagine it is," he chuckled. If she had he was sure the Ministry might have kept an eye on her then but it would not have been too bad if she kept her magic simple and around the realms of something muggles thought they could explain. He gave a half smile and not at her mention of her wand being only in case of emergency. "You're very powerful then but that is not surprising considering the school you attended. Though I'm not saying that it is only attributed to you schooling. I have tried wandless magic before. My father tried to teach me a few spells he learned but once your magic becomes attuned to a wand and you've always only used a wand, wandless magic gets harder to learn."

Tag; @zytka

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Zytka gave Dominick a soft smile when he said that he understood that professors could be intimidating. They all knew that they could be, and some took various steps to keep that from being a problem, but it didn’t stop students from being afraid. Power was a difficult thing for most to grasp, and even the power that teachers held over students was difficult for them to approach without fear. “We can tell them that it hurts them all we want, but I think it’s only in hindsight that they realize the same thing.” Hindsight was the only perfect vision, after all. And some of this had nothing to do with the teacher, but just the maturity level of the student. Some teenagers wanted so badly to be self-sufficient that they didn’t seek help when they needed it for fear of being labelled as weak or stupid. Zytka didn’t understand it entirely, but she was trying her best to. Dominick was rambling a bit about the entire situation, but Zytka was content just to listen to him and let him work through his thoughts. Zytka chuckled slightly when Dominick said he was thankful for the students who did understand. “It is much easier to grade good essays and translations than it is to grade bad ones.” It was time consuming to mark and correct every mistake, so anything without errors was a much quicker read. That benefit, of course, paled in comparison to students actually learning, but between two teachers Zytka didn’t think that needed to be explicitly stated.

Dominick asked if she ever performed for Muggles, and Zytka shook her head adamantly. “The village where I grew up was extremely opposed to magic, so I was taught from a young age to hide any and all magic from Muggles, even the kind that could be passed off as sleight of hand.” She explained. “And of course, violating the Statute of Secrecy in name of entertainment is not something I want to do.” Even if the Muggles were clueless to the fact that they were looking at actual magic, it was a violation nonetheless, and Zytka didn’t fancy having her wand snapped, even if she did rarely use it. Any sort of rule breaking would also result in her termination as a professor at Hogwarts, and that wasn’t something Zytka wanted to happen, either. When the other professor said that she must have been powerful because of her penchant for wandless magic, Zytka shrugged demurely. “As you say, I think it might just be a matter of schooling.” If Hogwarts students weren’t allowed to depend on wands in such a way, then maybe they wouldn’t have done so. She was sure that the Ministry and the rest of the school staff wouldn’t look kindly on her trying to teach a cohort of first years how to perform wandless magic, though, so Zytka wasn’t optimistic that she would ever be able to see if schooling really was the only factor in wandless magic aptitude.

@dominick

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Dominick could only nod solemnly at the truths the Ancient Runes professor spoke. He knew that students had to learn on their own how much they hurt themselves not asking for help. He'd had to realize himself, he was sure, at one time or another even if he couldn't remember asking for help. He'd been more stubborn and attempted to be more self-sufficient as as a child especially when he'd been in muggle primary school.Now that he was much older though and better able to take care of himself he always looked back and laughed at the thoughts of younger him trying to do the same things. He laughed along with her statement regarding easy grading. If he could only grade papers and essays that were good he would be happy for a little while but he thought the kids would become too rambunctious and wouldn't pay attention in lecture once they thought they knew everything he had to teach. Much like he did when he was younger. He was suddenly glad he didn't have to teach himself. "Were you a good student? Would you have taken that advice when you were younger?" he asked suddenly as his own childhood came to mind. She hadn't attended Hogwarts and, even if she had, she was a bit younger than him so they would not have known each other.

She was right, of course, in it being against the Statute of Secrecy but that was his fault. He could sometimes forget how powerful the International Confederation of Wizard because there was bound to be someone who would have reported her to them had she done magic in front of muggles. He laughed in an embarrassed manner. "Very true. I'm sure there would be many doubters anyway but you're right. There isn't anything like real magic though," he sighed. At this point they'd been walking for a bit of time and soon enough they were approaching his office door. He took out his wand and waved it, dissipating all of the wards and locks he'd placed on it. He had to keep his research safe as well as the fact that he didn't want any of his students going in and trying to find any answers to homework lying around. "Nonsense, I'm sure you're a brilliant witch all on your own," he smiled cheerfully as he gestured her into the office with the box of cookies.

Tag; @zytka

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Zytka smiled at Dominick when he asked if she was a good student as a child, and if she would have taken her own advice. Her own childhood was complicated by her being orphaned and being raised by her grandmothers, and her living in a village that despised witches and magic. She didn’t want to give Dominick the whole sob story, though, mostly because she had stopped regarding it at a sob story a long time ago. There was a simple way to answer Dominick’s question, though, so Zytka was going to do that. “I was, and I would have.” She said calmly, but firmly. She had been raised to believe that hard work, mixed with a pinch of luck, was all that she needed to succeed in this life, and she had taken that to heart. For Zytka, it had worked. She had immigrated to a new country and built a life for herself, and things had gone well. Funnily enough, though, she had never asked for help in her adult life. Mostly because she had always had things under control. The only thing that she ever really needed help with was her social life, and that was one of the few things that people didn’t see as polite to ask for help in. ‘Help me meet people’ was just seen as a strange request by slightly desperate people who didn’t know how to make friends on their own. Maybe it was similar, slightly overblown, apprehensions that kept her students away.

The Ancient Runes professor nodded with the Arithmancy professor said something about doubters. Despite the evidence of magic in their world, some Muggles still insisted on rationalizing away everything that didn’t fit their narrow perspective of what the world was. Dominick said that there wasn’t anything like real magic, and Zytka nodded. What Muggles tried to pass off as magic was just sleight of hand, which did a disservice to real witches and wizards with real powers, and sometimes altered Muggleborn students’ ideas of what their magic was capable of. Zytka stepped into Dominick’s office after him, glancing around. It appeared that the number six was a running theme in the room, though why Zytka didn’t know. He made a comment about her being a brilliant witch in her own right, and Zytka shrugged. “Brilliance is not easily measured.” She said. Her talents as a translator and a wandless magic user were beyond many, but there was no doubt Dominick was a better arithmancer. So who was she to say that she was more brilliant than he?

@dominick

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Dominick waited until she stepped into his office, an eyebrow raised and a grin on his face at her saying that she would have listened to advice on asking for help as a student. That already made her better than a lot of students, including himself. He'd been difficult as a kid when he wasn't interested in a subject enough to try and learn it so he would fail easy classes just because he didn't do anything in them. He never asked for help or tried talking with a professor about his disinterest in courses so it only reflected negatively on him in the end. "Really now? You were definitely a cut above the rest then," he said with a smile, walking over and sitting down at his desk. His desk was piled high with papers from doing research so, with a flick of his wand, he cleared them and placed the tin of cookies on the middle of his desk and gestured to them. "Please, feel free to enjoy some, I did make them for you after all." The scent of the slightly cooled cookies filled the room, calming him instantly. He wanted to eat one now but he would wait until she picked one up. And if she never did... well he just would have to wait until she left. Or he could save them for any students who came to his office.

"If that is true than wouldn't that equate to neither of us not knowing for certain what brilliance is so neither of us can judge what is an isn't brilliant," he pondered out loud with amusement in his eyes. Either way, he thought she was brilliant just based on the principal that she was chosen to teach at Hogwarts. Hogwarts had always only employed some of the most brilliant minds as professors for each subject so that students received some of the best and most informational lectures. He finally took his seat then. "So you said you stumbled upon this job, did you stumble upon your love for Ancient Runes in turn? Is there another subject you were interested in teaching before?" he asked curiously. He hoped he wasn't being too intrusive, as he often could be, and annoyed her with his questioning. He was always curious about is coworkers, especially considering he had to spend a lot of time with them and his students. Why not make friends?

Tag; @zytka

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Zytka nodded when Dominick asked, probably rhetorically, if that was really what she was like. He said that she was a cut above the rest, and Zytka just shrugged. “I felt as if I had a lot to prove. So I proved it.” It hadn’t been easy being an orphan, and while Zytka had appeared to take it all in stride, inside there was some sort of fire, a need to prove herself. She had been much the same way when she had come to Britain, as a non-English speaking immigrant with not a Galleon to her name. Zytka had mellowed out with age, definitely, but when she was put in a situation where she felt like she had no choice, that was when she reminded everyone that she was more than just her calm exterior. When Dominick offered the cookies, Zytka took one, more to be polite than anything – she wasn’t particularly hungry, but it was rude to refuse, especially since the other professor said that the treats had been baked just for her. Zytka was glad that she had decided to take one; the cookies were exceptional.

“We can judge our own kind of brilliance, can we not?” Zytka asked. “Without sounding horribly self-absorbed, I think it is safe to say that both you and I possess some level of brilliance, else we wouldn’t have been allowed to teach others.” In short, Zytka was brilliant at Ancient Runes, and Dominick was brilliant at Arithmancy. Even if they could do nothing else, they could both easily say whether their students shared that particular brilliance. It was just not their job to say that was the only kind of brilliance that students could possess, or that mattered. When Dominick asked about her love of Ancient Runes, Zytka made a soft clicking sound with her tongue. “I suppose you could say that.” She said. “Uagadou had an excellent Animagus program, so many students specialized in Transfiguration so that they could become Animagi. The idea never appealed to me, so I decided to go a different route.” That route had been Ancient Runes, simply because there was so much history in her country, and much of it felt like it was locked to her until she studied the subject. Zytka looked to the past to help her make sense of the muddled future.

@dominick