#;chapter three

“Nope. Real name.” the guest instructor casually refuted, as he passed his bag of Fizzy Wizzy to Hunter. The groundskeeper looked content not adding to conversation as he helped himself to the bag of sweets.

“Because you were born in Idaho.” Skye guessed.

He shook his head once. “Nope. I was born in Puerto Rico.”

“But you grew up in Idaho.”

“Jacksonville, Florida.”

This time, Hunter threw his hands in the air in abject frustration. “Bloody hell, man, do I know anything about you?”

“Nope. And let’s keep it that way.”

Crestfallen, he pocketed the rest of the Fizzy Wizzy, despite Idaho’s protest. “I thought we were mates.”

“Well, we are,” he said as he reached in to Hunter’s robes and pulled out his bag of treats before getting up and made his way out of the staff room. “That’s why you can never know my true identity.”

She actually felt bad – yes, she’d panicked and broken a jar or two of cheap but messy ingredients, but she hadn’t actually wanted to not teach the lesson with him.

It was just that watching him teach was, well.

She’d made the mistake of ducking into his last class of the day two days ago, just five minutes before the end so they could iron out details of their joint lesson after and he’d been –

He’d had his robe off and his button down sleeves rolled up and she was fairly sure that sort of thing was illegal. Not to mention how animated he’d been, talking the second years through simple defensive spells. It was especially nice to see when most of the time these days the first thing she noticed about him was how tired he looked.

And so then she’d scattered the ingredients. 

And now she was sick, and she really was ill but that didn’t stop her from feeling guilty. Guilty that he’d think she didn’t want to teach with him, even though she had half-heartedly tried to get out of it. (Not that he knew that, of course. Or, at least, she hoped he didn’t. She’d have to kill Skye, if he knew.)

Which was maybe why she’d tried to escape the infirmary and had to be wrangled back into her bed by an exasperated Streiten, who had assured her, yet again, that he’d inform Professor Ward that she wouldn’t be able to make it to their lesson and that she was very sorry. And then he’d dosed her with…something.

It wasn’t one of her potions and she was a little put out that he was getting them elsewhere, that was rude. Potions were her job. Did he not trust her potions? 

Her thoughts wandered and she thought she must have lost time, based on how much further along the sun was on the stone when she blinked her eyes open again.

And Ward was there. Or, well, for a moment she thought Ward was there but it was the middle of the day and he had a class (she had to know his schedule so they could meet up to lesson plan! That was the only reason she knew his schedule, really!) so maybe he wasn’t really there. 

Still, she informed him that it was insulting if Streiten wasn’t using her potions, and then she was sure it wasn’t him. Because she was sure that Ward would never be so improper as to sit on her bed and brush her hair out of her face and kiss her forehead and tell her to get better.