Still Not My Forté

Tai scratched his chin with the end of his quill, scrunching up his face as he looked down at the newspaper on the table before him. He drummed his fingers on the table, still thinking exponentially hard on what word could possibly fit within the rows of symmetrically arranged squares that people seemed to complete for fun. He really didn't see why Crosswords were something someone even created let alone something one would spend a great deal of time on, or in Tai's case, all damn morning.

He sighed and placed his quill down. Words were never his forté, as he had once told Ursula, but he did try to finish one every now and again. Tai expected to feel some sort of immense accomplishment if he could see all the squares filled with letters that he, himself, had placed there, but alas, today was not going to be his "I finished a crossword" day.

He stretched his arms above his head, and yawned. Now he was brain-dead and tired. Great.

Erika went to Tai's office to find him but he wasn't there, so she presumed he was in the staff room and went to go check. The twins and Ben were with her parents for the weekend since they hardly got to see them. Sure enough, he was in the staff room when she got there.

"Hey you," she kissed the top of his head and perched herself on the arm of his chair. She eyed his crossword with interest and, just to push his buttons, leaned over and pointed to one of the lines. "Quixotic," she grinned at him, giving him the answer for that line. She had a gift for crosswords, a gift that tended to drive him a bit insane.

Tai sighed. He didn't even know how to spell that word, let alone knowing it to be the definition of being exceedingly idealistic; unrealistic and impractical.

"Well, this crossword is quixotic," he mumbled, placing an arm around Erika's waist as she sat on his armchair, using his free hand to push the crossword far away from him.

"Why do I bother with these, seriously?" Tai asked. "They never change into something easy and I can never do them. Perhaps I should do the one in the children's section, but if I can't even manage to complete that, then what good am I?" Tai glanced at Erika and then added, "Don't answer that."

Erika opened her mouth to answer Tai's question with the snarkiest, most teasing answer she could and laughed when he told her not to answer it; he knew her so well.

"Oh come on," she said, pulling the crossword back toward them to have another look. "How long did you spend on it before you gave up? Did you even read all of the clues?"

Tai nodded as a small child would when asked if they ate all their vegetables but instead slid them under the table to the hungry dog awaiting a feed.

"I have spent a good hour on this stupid thing, and have only got one answer out of it. Well..." he started, looking at the word quixotic which Erika wrote in for him; her small cursive writing a stark contrast against his own, barely legible scrawl. "Now there is two." He stared at the almost blank puzzle, and sighed again.

"I give up. Crosswords and I don't mix. Like oil and water."

Erika rolled her eyes but nodded at her husband. He was a very intelligent person when it came to potions and things like that, but anything like this, he was hopeless with. "What have you done today besides this?" she asked him while absent-mindedly picking up the quill again and starting to fill in the answers. "Oh, I caught three more students in the Forbidden Forest," she said as she remembered. It seemed that the students just couldn't stay away from it. It would seem that the word Forbidden was too alluring...

Tai watched as Erika filled in the puzzle as if the questions were based towards a five year old. It was something that Tai still struggled to admit; that his wife was far smarter than he. He half wanted to snatch the paper away from her, but decided against it. She would just find a way to get the paper back; she was far too good at getting her own way.

"Nothing much. I had a meeting with some very dry people earlier today, and I thought that my brain was already so depleted of anything remotely interesting, that I'd try my hand at a crossword afterwards. To drain myself of all conscious thought completely, you see."

Tai looked at Erika. "The Forest again?" he asked, although he had heard her clearly. "You'd think the speech I made at the start of the year would have knocked some sense into some students. Who were the three?"

Erika was puzzled by Tai's logic. He hated meetings and he hated crosswords even if he kept telling himself that he was going to get good at doing them, and somehow in his head, it made sense to mash the two of those things together into one fun-filled morning of pissing himself off. She rolled her eyes at him but didn't verbally comment; the eye roll was enough to say what she needed to.

"Allison Walker, James Wilson, and Sami Criss," she replied. She was disappointed in all three of them, but particularly so in Sami, because she was one of Erika's Ravens. "They were just sort of wandering around out there. I shudder to think what would have happened if something had happened to them. I doubt they would have been able to defend themselves. And Allison looked like she was perfectly ready to shove the other two at anything that might have attacked them, which makes me worry even more."

Tai laughed at Erika's eye roll. He knew that she was aware how much he hated both of the activities he had participated in this morning, but he still continued to do them.

"A Slytherin, a Gryffindor and a Ravenclaw," Tai stated, thinking aloud. "That's an odd assortment of students, and Sami is a third year, correct, whilst the other two are seconds?" Tai asked, wondering what would bring three students from different houses and in different years together in the Forest.

"Hmm... I'll have to keep a close eye on Miss Walker then. Seems to me like she may be the ringleader of this group, despite being younger than Sami. I'll have a chat to Ariana about her as well, when I get a chance. I take it you're handling the detention?"

She nodded in response to the question. "Yes, I think I'm going to have them fertilize every plant in the greenhouse, but I'll be there in case the Venomous Tentacula gets out of hand," she replied. "Unless you have a better suggestion."

She continued to fill in answers as they chatted. She was making rather short work of the somewhat difficult puzzle. When she realized this, she slowed down a bit, just so that Tai wouldn't feel too bad about her being so good at it.

Tai shook his head. "No. That sounds perfectly fine to me," he said, watching as Erika sped through the crossword. Tai had to wonder how she still could talk and fill in answers, but placed the thought of Erika's word power out of his mind. It would just make him feel useless, not that he didn't already think that.

"Have you met the new Ancient Runes Professor? Bridget Bryant?" he asked her.

"No, not yet. What's she like?" Erika asked. She normally liked to poke her head in on the interviews, usually under the guise of "not knowing" there was an interview going on, just so she could get a sense of the potential employees and give Tai her opinion, but somehow she'd missed this one completely.

Tai gave a small shrug, never any good at describing what people were like using more then a few words. He usually opted for something along the lines of, 'she's okay, or he's good, they're fine,' but he knew that his lack of description wouldn't go down well.

"She seems the 'take no nonsense from anyone' type; much like Matt, which I think should be a good thing," Tai remarked, wondering how an encounter with Matt and Bridget would be like. Probably equated to a maelstrom; unpredictable and chaotic.

Tai's brain sparked an 'Ah-ha' moment and he pulled the paper towards him. He grabbed the quill from Erika and bent over the crossword slightly, which was rather difficult, as he still had his arm around Erika. He pulled back, grinning childishly.

A scene or state of confused and violent movement - Maelstrom

Erika was about to protest when the quill was plucked from her hand, but she realized that Tai was actually going to contribute to his own crossword again. When he pulled back and smiled, she couldn't stop herself from ruffling his hair playfully; the look on his face reminded her of whenever he actually did his homework when they were students, just so self-assured and proud of himself.

"Any plans for this weekend?" she asked playfully. "Because you know, the boys will be with my parents all weekend and Gwen will still be in Gryffindor tower..."

Tai raised an eyebrow at her question, taking in her facial expression. He placed the quill back on the table and wrapped his other arm around his wife's waist, tilting his head to the side. The thought of getting another answer from his crossword was placed far from his mind.

"Hmm... I didn't have anything specific planned. I do like the idea of some time for the two of us, though." Tai was now definitely looking forward to the two days at the end of the working week.

Erika laughed lightly as Tai readjusted her position. "Fabulous! You can help me grade essays!" she grinned. She knew it probably not his idea of the best weekend ever, but he would have to deal, because she had fallen very far behind thanks to the twins. She'd hardly had time to breathe, let alone grade homework that was piling up on her desk. "And if you help me, I promise that I'll make you those cookies you like," she bribed with a grin.

Tai's face fell. That was not exactly what he had in mind when she asked the question. He screwed up his face, childishly. He hadn't graded an essay for the longest time, and the thought of grading Herbology essays didn't change his opinion on the matter; Potion essays were bad enough, but Herbology... Urgh.

"I have a better idea in mind. How about we stay in bed all day and not mark essays? Sound good?"

"I have an even better idea in mind. How about we combine the two, and we stay in bed all day while marking essays!" Erika suggested with false enthusiasm.

She took Tai's face in her hands and gave him a firm kiss to numb the pain of his idea being shot down. "Besides, you're the Headmaster! Shame on you for encouraging your teachers to not do what they're paid to do," she mock scolded.

"Riveting as that sounds," Tai began, "I'd rather not." Tai already had a mountain of paperwork of his own to catch up on and the thought of marking essays really wasn't high on his list of priorities. He could have overlooked the long list of things to be done, had Erika gone down a different path for their weekend plans, but she seemed adamant about grading papers.

"Well... Some of my teachers deserve a break every once and a while. What kind of Headmaster would I be if I didn't accommodate for stress relief?" Tai smirked for what he had in mind was definitely stress relieving.

Erika rolled her eyes again. Her husband only thought about 3 things- his children, food, and "stress relief". Work came in at a distant fourth place; it was a wonder that he'd managed to achieve anything at all (though it was possible that it was because Erika tended to push him into doing things that he didn't necessarily want to do). "Tell you what, if you help me with my essays, I promise I'll take a nice, long break and help you out with your stress relief," she negotiated.

Tai chuckled. Erika always had a knack for getting her way, and Tai was usually happy to oblige, especially if there was something for him at the end of it.

"Hmm... I certainly am rather stressed," he admitted, with a smile. "I think this is a done deal. Mind you, I'm going to be more of a hinderance than a help for these essays. I don't think I have to remind you how bad I was in that class."

"You'll do fine, dear. I'll tell you exactly what to look for," Erika promised.

Although it was a bit unnatural for them to be the only two people in there at this time of day, she was glad for the empty staffroom. Alone time with 4 kids was tough, but alone time in a school with hundreds of kids was damn near impossible.

"Who knows? Maybe I'll need some stress relief tonight," she teased.

Tai watched Erika glance around the staff room, obviously thinking what he had thought earlier; that it was strange no one was in here at this time of day. He had thought that previously, when having finished the dry meeting with governors three times his age, he'd sort out the staff room for something entertaining to do, but meeting no one inside. He side-glanced at the crossword on the table, rolling his eyes at his own choice of entertainment.

Tai coughed as he heard Erika's statement. Having watched her previously scan the room, Tai's face flushed. Even though she had said tonight, he couldn't help but imagine other goings on in the staff room involving him and his wife.

He coughed again to clear his throat, and smiled as though he didn't just have unchaste thoughts. "Well, as I said, I'm often very stressed."

Erika cocked her head to the side and looked at Tai; she knew exactly what he was thinking. She was his wife, meaning she was all too familiar with how often Tai got stressed. Sometimes he got stressed three or four times in one night...

"Tonight. Maybe," she repeated, highlighting the key words from her last statement. She loved to tease him while standing her ground, but they both knew that it he kept it up long enough or tried hard enough, she would give in.

Tai smirked again, which he seemed to be doing often, but Erika causing his face to constrict in that way. She really should have learnt that Tai would always get his way when it came to this. In the end, Erika always wanted what Tai wanted; a win-win in his mind.

"Maybe equals yes?" Tai asked cheekily, smiling. She walked straight into that one.