welcome to chimera!

[Carling Whisp]

The lingering worry that Astronomy would hold her back a year had blossomed into a fully-formed fear, lately. With the material only getting harder in fourth year and Carling's capabilities not growing proportionally, her marks had been especially poor. Though she'd managed to get by in third year with Professor Black, things had simply taken a turn for the worst and escalated in the past few months. Her complete nervousness and fear when it came to class and Professor Black's watchful and sharp eye certainly didn't help, but more than that she'd simply been too scared to talk to her professor about finding a tutor and too embarrassed to mention her marks to anyone else. Even Kenny didn't know and with his concern and her oversharing there was little that he wasn't aware of in her life.

It was her third T that finally pushed Carling to speak to the professor. As much as she wanted to, she couldn't put it off any longer. As formidable as Professor Black might be, she was still the professor and it was her job to help her students succeed, wasn't it? Carling realized on some level that her strictness in the classroom was surely rooted in this somehow, but for her it only had the opposite effect. Instead of encouraging her to be better, it just made her too nervous to answer or participate and she'd spend the whole class doodling faulty star charts on her parchment, trying to remember the constellation names, appearances, and locations.

Her palms were sweaty as she approached the door to the Astronomy classroom, her stomach knotted and her fingers wrinkling the very-marked-up essay she clutched. On top of the months of school where she'd already deliberately avoided speaking to Professor Black outside of the classroom, she'd put it off for a few more minutes, hovering uncomfortably just outside the door. But it was time. She didn't want a letter sent home to her mother, after all, or for Beardsley who'd already graduated to see his youngest sister not make it to even her fifth year. Swallowing hard, she raised her free hand to knock timidly at the door, waiting a moment and then opening it just enough to peer around it.

"Professor Black?" she called anxiously, doing her best to keep her voice steady. "Can I, erm, speak to you about my last essay?"

[Professor Black]

Cedrella was not, contrary to popular belief, lacking in sympathy. Nor was she lacking in a sense of humour, and she considered herself to be a reasonable, logical sort of a person on most days. She couldn't, however, abide poor manners, no matter the reasoning for them, and she was beginning to think that the student population at large were in need of basic room entering etiquette lessons. Undeterred by the experience she'd had with Nathaniel Ulby, which had culminated in her dragging him unceremoniously by his ear from the basement to the top of the tower, she pressed her lips together and looked up.

"Miss Whisp, I highly doubt -- despite all appearances to the contary -- that you were raised in a barn. If you wish to speak to me you may, but first close the door, knock it, and wait to be called to enter."

Her insistence upon respect and decorum did not extend to meetings by invitation or appointment only, at least. She didn't mind being interrupted, and she would gladly listen to whatever Miss Whisp's concerns happened to be. She was a little surprised to see her, her class work had been lacklustre and her interest in the subject hadn't seemed keen, so Cedrella had quietly written her off as likely to switch out in fifth year. There was only so much coaxing one could manage in a class that was full.

She chewed the inside of her lip, leaning down to concentrate on the stellar model she had before her. It was a constellation in miniature, tiny balls of glowing gas held floating over a plinth by magic. Following the destruction of her solar system model by Gilbert Weasley Cedrella had wondered at the benefits of using these sorts of displays instead of star charts in the classroom. It would be more interesting, more illustrative of why stellar parallax was crucial, and likely more engaging for those that were lacking the imagination to translate dots on a page into the full wonder of the heavens above.

Logistically, however, she knew she would see far more people destroying the things than constructing them. She was still in two minds about it, and had elected to trial the idea with Nathaniel, who was due to begin his one-on-one lessons the moment his mother returned her permission.

When she heard the second knock, and waited for a beat -- just long enough, she imagined, for the student to consider knocking a second time -- and then said "Come in."

OOC: I figured Carling wasn't the type to be argumentative about the door dance, haha, but let me know if I'm wrong and I will edit!

[Carling Whisp]

Only the top half of her face was visible as she peeked around the door, but the whole of it flushed at Professor Black's scolding. She knew Professor Black had very high expectations of her most of her students and held manners as the utmost importance, but she hadn't realized she was acting especially out of line. Mortified, she immediately pulled away from the door, shutting it in front of her without so much as an apologetic squeak to explain herself. This meeting was not starting off the way Carling would have liked.

Carling cringed behind the closed door, too embarrassed and shamed to work up the nerve to knock again for at least a fully minute. It had certainly been hard enough to knock the first time, but to be expected to muster the courage to do so again (and after being chided) was almost too much to ask of Carling. However, she knew it would be ruder still to simply run away and disappear after disturbing the teacher, and it was with that in mind that she made herself politely knock again.

Professor Black didn't answer immediately and Carling's hope for the meeting to go well slipped a little further. If Professor Black hadn't made such a strong impression when Carling first knocked, she might almost doubt that the teacher had been there at all and that she hadn't simply imagined it. Instead, she simply waited, shifting her weight from foot to foot, too uncomfortable to knock again and too scared of being reprimanded further.

Eventually the teacher answered and Carling let herself into the room, standing awkwardly in front of the now shut door. She'd been scolded for entering the room prematurely and, faced with the decision to speak from the doorway or approach Professor Black's desk without permission, she couldn't decide which might be ruder. She settled for taking a few measured steps forward, hovering in the gray area between the door and the desk, and slowly raised her slightly crumpled essay until she was holding it out in front of her.

"Sorry," she started, the flush still not entirely faded from her cheeks. "I didn't mean to interrupt you, Professor. I was just hoping that, erm, I could talk to you about my essay," she repeated.

[Professor Black]

"Have a seat," Cedrella said, and made no move to reassure her otherwise. She set the model to one side and opened the drawer of her desk, extracting a brown paper folder from inside. It was bulging with paper -- Cedrella kept a detailed register of attendance, grades, and other pertinent information for each class in each year that she taught; it was bordering on obsessive, but though she had a good mind for faces and names it was impossible to remember the individual issues of hundreds of students. She would have no other room in her brain if she tried.

Whisp... Whisp... Ah. Cedrella trailed a red-painted fingernail down the list, tipping the folder towards her to keep the student from reading it upside down. She wondered at family connections, sometimes. Miss Whisp's elder brother was generally a well-organised boy, he did well enough to evade her regular notice and his work was usually acceptable; his grades were generally good, too. Carling Whisp was wholly another matter, though in the column marked for 'noticeable issues' she had only written typical Hufflepuff.

"Is it the physics or the academic structure of the writing that's troubling you?" Cedrella asked directly. She considered assignments unacceptable if they were structured informally, some of the best scientists in the class went to pieces if required to appropriately reference their work. Privately she didn't think Carling was especially interested in the subject, which always rankled her a little inside -- but there would be no easy way to bring her marks up, that much was certain. It might be more pleasant if she was interested, but regardless it would be hard work and long hours that were the answer.

[Carling Whisp]

She took the few necessary steps forward to reach the chair at her teacher's direction, but her stomach tightened uncomfortably as she sat down in front of the professor, in the direct line of fire. Swallowing hard, she smoothed her parchment out with her hands, flattening it in her lap so it would look vaguely more presentable and she could reference it if necessary. She took extra care with the corners, pressing them between her fingertips to erase the folds in them, taking the extra measures if only to avoid having to look up and watch in torturous suspense as Professor Black calmly looked through her files.

Her head snapped up when Professor Black addressed her, and she swallowed again, her throat dry. The question didn't have an easy answer, though, and Carling again looked down to the parchment in her lap, covered in corrective marks as it was. "I don't know," she mumbled, going pink again, too embarrassed to speak up properly. "I'm not sure what I did wrong - besides everything," she continued miserably in a quiet voice, still unable to look back up and meet her professor's gaze.

It was already November and she already had three Ts on assignments, the most recent of which sitting in her lap. She was awful at the subject, being too determined to ask for a tutor when she should have and too embarrassed to ask for one when she needed one. Now, she was worried that it was simply too late. After a long moment, she finally looked up, forcing her fingers still in her lap. "I'm not going to pass, am I?"

[Professor Black]

"This is Astronomy, not Divination," Cedrella said, with a twitch of her eyebrow. "I can't predict your results, although I can tell you that if you carry on as you are you almost certainly won't."

Cedrella had no knack for being nurturing or reassuring, for her the most important thing to do was to lay the terms out as plainly as they needed to be. She would set goals that she thought were achievable, but she would make no move to offer false comfort.

"Perhaps a better question is if you intend to take the subject in sixth year," she added. "The difference between fourth and fifth year is significant, the amount of physics involved increases considerably. By the time seventh year arrives you'd be expected to conduct self-led study -- allow me to be clear, I don't think it is beyond your capabilities. I'm asking whether you mean to put in the effort. May I?"

She leaned forward and opened her hand to gesture for Carling's essay. She couldn't recall the issues with it, but she suspected -- as with most children who grew up in wizarding families -- that the science was just a little confounding. The whole world as wizards knew it was made up of reactions without cause, magic had its own rules, of course, but it was nothing like chemistry and physics. Wizard children did not expect to have to rationalise, and when they were asked to they found it incomparably difficult.

She wouldn't be the first or last.

[Carling Whisp]

Carling nearly flinched at the sharp, direct answer but controlled the automatic result, instead hanging her head to look down into her lap. As rude as it might be, she simply couldn't maintain eye contact with the teacher. Professor Black was simply too intimidating, too dispassionate about it all for Carling not to be ashamed of the guilt and embarrassment welling up inside of her. She took the moment to do her best to compose herself before glancing back up, her face flushed again and going splotchy in that horrible way it did when she got too upset.

She gave a short nod as her professor continued, nearly brightening at the beginning of it and certainly at the comment about how Professor Black believed she was capable. It was a short-lived moment followed by another rush of embarrassment as Professor Black questioned whether or not she would be inclined to put the effort in and Carling swallowed hard to try and keep herself in check.

Her fingers was only trembling slightly when she handed over the essay and she tightened her jaw, willing herself not to let her bottom lip start trembling as well. It was only as the professor took her eyes off of Carling, turning instead to the essay, that Carling finally pressed her eyes tightly shut against the hot tears she could feel beginning to gather behind her lids. She gave them a moment to disperse and then blinked the rest of them back, determined to act like the fourteen year old she was and not the child she felt like.

"Professor," she started, only further disheartened by the hint of wobble in her voice. "I really do try, I just don't - it doesn't make any sense to me. But I really do try, please," she continued, the slight chattering of her teeth sneaking in between words as she twisted her fingers in the hem of her shirt, perhaps just too far past composure at this point.

[Professor Black]

"Very well," Cedrella said, in a manner that exhibited disbelief, "we shall endeavour to get to the bottom of the issue."

She took Carling's essay and skimmed it, finding at once that she recalled the issues within -- she had decent form, but clearly found it difficult to envision the scale of the universe, and certainly appeared to have some trouble working with equations and other scientific terminology; the difference between mass and volume, and how something might be incredibly small but high in density. All things that plenty of wizards found baffling, she had noted -- it wasn't within their culture to look at why things happened, or even how. They were accustomed to casting a spell to achieve an outcome. Spell casting was the sort of magic that was entirely about how one felt and was able to focus inner energy. How hardly entered into it, for everybody achieved it differently.

It was, she noted with a certain degree of discomfort, how Septimus Weasley was so good at Charms and yet failed spectacularly to function otherwise. He knew his own feelings well and was accustomed to expressing them, so channelling them was never an issue for his... sort. Cedrella was not an incompetent witch by any stretch of the imagination, but she knew she had no special flair for it, her results were always what was expected, never exceptional.

She gestured at the model. "Perhaps it would make better sense to see for yourself. In fifth year we begin with black holes, it's imperative that you understand gravity and what its pull does to keep everything together -- or apart -- up there. The slightest change in position or pull could be catastrophic."

She nudged a star on the model, wincing slightly as it singed the tip of her finger -- and then watched as it engulfed the two on either side of them, and then sucked the entire model into oblivion.

It was a good thing, really, that Cedrella enjoyed building -- and rebuilding -- those things.