Please Talk With Me [Aleta & Romulus]

Today was a banner day for Romulus. He had forgotten to grade the remaining 60 percent of last chapter's homework. He found a gray hair this morning. The Charms teacher had attempted to reprimand him for teaching too loudly {though in all likelihood said Charms teacher was definitely jealous of his musical stylings demonstrating proper conjugation}. On top of that, his time of month was coming up. However, once he opened the staff room to find a lovely female coworker, all that negativity blew away like dust in the wind. If lovely things such as her existed in the world, it was a good day.

A genuine smile settled on his face as he made his way into the room and took his customary seat; the table. Sure, it wasn't comfy but he was subconsciously attracted to any seating that was higher than the rest of the chairs in the room. Plus, it was close but not shady close to the lovely female professor.

Romulus waved at her from his place on the table and gave her a friendly "Ciao~!"

Unlike certain nameless other teachers, this lovely woman seemed happy to see him. Bonus. His smile brightened even further, if humanly possible{then again, Romulus did tend to defy most human logic}, "I'm fantastic, and you miss?" Yes, this will effectively cure his less than wonderful day. Also, she did not seem to mind that he used a table as a chair. Life was grand.

The man hummed a little to himself, as he often did. Whether it was a constant need to make noise or expressing happiness the prompted the subconscious habit, Romulus did not know."Hey, what do you teach, miss?" He recalled seeing her at meal times but other than that, the Italian had no recollection of coming across her before.

"That is spectacular to here, dear. I, Miss Herbology Professor, teach Ancient Runes." He was also the head of Gryffindor but, well, he didn't want to brag. At the moment at least. In five to ten minute that was most likely subject to change. He had no doubt in his mind that this the conversation was more than worth interrupting her work. Okay, not 'interrupting' per se, just giving her a little break to refresh her mind. How amazing that if he slightly changed the wording in his mind that all, if any, guilt in his mind was spirited away.

He leaned back a little onto his hands, erasing any and all thoughts in his mind related to teacherly obligations to do work or all that jazz. In the long run, it really wasn't worth it. Sure, his student were coming to expect late work returns but correcting things on time did nothing positive to his mental state!

Romulus' face lit up a bit at her apparent interest in Ancient Runes. He could count on one hand the people who genuinely loved his subject- oh wait, that was an exaggeration, he needed two hands. Still, it was refreshing none the less for him. He was grinning from ear to ear at her, needless to say. "Oh, it is! Singing conjugations and sculpting; all that fun stuff!" It also went without speaking how much he detested teaching out of a book and went to great lengths to ensure it was a rare occurrence.

"Ah, less than a year," he rubbed that back of his neck. Although being one of the oldest staff members, he was the least experienced in teaching. It was a tad embarrassing for him to have to ask professors up to two decades younger than him for help on occasion but he grinned and bore it well. What he lacked in experience, he more than made up for in pizzazz! Pizzazz made all the difference.

At the giggle and her comment about thinking the students were fond of him, he couldn't help but chuckle and grin broadly. "Ah, I hope so~!" He liked the idea of being a favorite teacher among the students very, very much. Especially after the previous professor in his position was, from what Lovino said, more of less and incompetent fool. He knew the students in his class actually got to have a bit of fun while learning and he took great pride in them. On the flip side, every time a student struggled, he felt like a bit of a failure and that put him in quite the awful mood. For now however, he was in a little bubble of happiness, even though he had yet to learn the lovely Herbology teacher's name.

He flashed another grin at her when she informed him that he wasn't the subject of petty gossip and rumors. So far, his reputation stayed golden: just the way he liked it. Though, he had to admit, one or two sordid rumors would be interesting to have float about. Maybe he could start one himself. . .Naw, that'd be a bit foolish. "Lovely to hear, it's nice to know the name 'Romulus Vargas' isn't smeared!" There, that was a subtle way to introduce himself, right?

While contemplating what sort of juicy gossip to hypothetically spread, he noticed something he didn't really like out of the corner of his eye. A cold draft had caused the lovely miss to wrap her robes even further around herself. Romulus was admittably guilty to appreciating women more than is usually advisable and it made him a bit sad to see her so covered. Okay, maybe he was a borderline pervert but he was, above all, a gentleman. So much so that he took off his outer robes and offered them to her.

"Almost one hundred percent? Coming from a lovely lady like yourself, that is more than good enough for me." Of course, he had to flirt. Hopefully she wasn't the type to start a harassment lawsuit over it. It was not a crime to inform a woman she was beautiful, no?

"Ah, Lovino and Feliciano," he couldn't help but say fondly. It was amazing how quickly he switched from flirt to overly doting grandfather. Unfortunately, neither of his grandchildren told him anything about the Herbology professor, let alone her name. Romulus had enough trouble trying to talk to them already as neither of them were in Gryffindor and, sad as it was, Lovino outright avoided him like dragonpox. "I hope my grandsons aren't handfuls, they really are good boys deep down."