2nd September
After Breakfast before 1st Lesson
Tulip had been expecting the summons, the OWL had been waiting for her when she had made it back to her dorm, just a time and a location. After 5 years Tulip knew most of the owl's the staff used, she recognised this from contles COMC creatures detentions. Although as classes hadn't started yet it was clarly from Gryffindor's new Head of House. She took the letter from the owl giving it half a ginger snap (from the few she'd snagged from the opening feast) for it's troubles.
Tulip knew exactly where Gryffindor's head of house was, that was the benefit about being a resident trouble marker you knew where everyone's office was. This was why what had arrived in August had made no sense, a prefect's badge. A prefect's badge for her, someone who deliberately ignore authority, practically rebelled against it, and often for no good reason other than she felt like it. The badge was clearly meant for someone else. She'd woken to it on her robes again, and once again she'd taken it off and put it in her pocket. She fully intended to make it a little lead coffin and sink it to the bottom of the black lake just as soon as she was able to rob some lead off the roof.
She arrived at the office more or less on time, knocked on the door and opened it with a nonchalant "I got you summons from your owl" she said as she stepped into the office, "I think he could do with some greens in his diet he's looking a bit mangey" she said talking about the owl.
Tulip looked around the office, a different decor to the last two, less paper everywhere, which was a shame you could get a lot of information reading things professors left on their desks. "Like what you've done with the place, looks less cluttered." she mused, this was her third Head of House, respect for the position vanished sometime in her second year with the utter loon they had at the time and it hadn't returned even with a change in Head of House last year. She knew this meeting was outside of office hours so he clearly wanted to yell at her before anyone else this term got the chance, but she would not allow the earliness of the meeting to dent her usual level of annoyingness.
"I got you summons from your owl. I think he could do with some greens in his diet he's looking a bit mangey"
And so his year began.
Liquid blue eyes remained in place, fixated on the day's lesson plans. There were more of them now, more classes in general, and less time to be popping by to check in on the creatures that were now under someone else's care. It also meant more time with the students of his former house than the man would ever care for. Already, there were five he needed to speak with, another three he had to check on and one that couldn't seem to remember what house they'd been sorted into.
"Your concern is unnecessary," he replied dryly, his gaze never rising to meet hers. Asquith was on one, and he didn't intend to get on it with her. Oz's plumage showed no signs of disease, nor was his diet something to be questioned. Nutritional. Well-balanced. Indulgent when the moment called for it. Should she choose to pay more attention in creatures class this term – he knew she was fond of them – she might not jump to such obnoxious conclusions in the future. Even in jest.
With a final check of his quill, he laid the parchment flat against the surface of his desk and gave a subtle flick of his wand to close the door behind her.
"Like what you've done with the place, looks less cluttered."
How perfectly mundane. "Have a seat," he said, waving a hand toward one of the two chairs that sat opposite him at his desk.
No badge.
She hadn't been wearing it the night before, either. Not at the feast and not later in the evening on the walk up to the common room. He hadn't been pressed, and he hadn't wanted to be bothered before the term could officially begin. Maddox knew, of course, that he would have to sit with her. There wasn't a bone in his body that believed the girl who took pleasure in being an intentional pain would be jumping for joy at the thought of 'responsibility' and 'accountability'.
Elliot had been the same. An unexpected – ill-advised – choice that, thankfully, never blew up in their faces in any monumental way. The girl continued her roaming and, when sufficiently required, did as was required. He suspected Asquith had the same potential and wasn't as irredeemable as perhaps even she thought herself to be.
"And you can tell me what you've managed to do to your badge so soon into the school year."
That was as good a place as any to start.
It was like a game the blonde played especially at the start of term, see where the boundry lay and then send the rest of the year picking at it with varying levels of success. It seemed her fith year would be no different.
"Your concern is unnecessary,"
And the first boundry was established, Tulip met it with a wry grin, this was an easy one to hit, she spent enough time deliberatly getting detentions to hang out in the paddoks to know the old CoMC proff was soft on his animal friends. To be fair she wass, she liked animals of all kinds (not just the especially venomous ones like her sister Briar), they were less judgy than people and didn't lie half as much. They also had more freedom than she ever would even those in cages. She was somewhat glad Barlowe wasn't going to be running CoMC this term the number of deliberate dtions she got was probabily more than a little obvious.
Have a seat
Tulip felt a moment of confusion, she was never normally asked to sit down professors usually liked to yell at her with her standing up, which was fine,it was easy enought to stare over their heads. Sitting down well that was new. Tulip took one of the seats ooposite the professor, she straighted her uniform and sat neatly. She may have been a reprobate but she at least had some manners.
And you can tell me what you've managed to do to your badge so soon into the school year."
Ah the badge, she knew it was going to come up at somepoint and she wasn't surprised that it was so soon into the conversation. But the question was slightly different than she had expected, not the give it back but the what had she done with it. She had a couple of options, she could lie, offer to go get it, or she could tell thr truth. The inner voice that egged her on wanted to push another boundary. "Well I've chucked it in a lake, burried it in a field, flushed it down the loo at least twice, and I locked it in a box at home while I headed for the train. And then like some shiney red boomerang it keeps reappearing on my robes." she said quite openly, her sister had been enraged that she'd been given the badge. Rose had lusted after a prefect or head girl badge her entire tme in the upperschool, Tulip was the ooposite. She didn't feel the same need for power or for the respect people thought they would get from it. "It's in my pocket now, I was thinking of trying some destructive spells on it later." she had use of her wand now it it opened up lots of opertunity.
"You're not very good at this, are you?"
It was his fourth year at the castle, his fourth year of knowing No-Longer-So-Little Miss Tulip Asquith. In all that time, there remained a consistent pattern of operation. If she could defy, she would. If she could grate the already frayed edges of one's nerves, she would. The girl derived whatever pleasure she could from the aggravation of others, bolstering (in her mind, at least) her reputation as a wild child, unaffected and untamed.
In his younger years, Maddox would've easily seen the appeal – to however small an extent.
He'd been reckless, too. Active, always getting into things. Merlin knew the man had had enough detentions to last him a lifetime, but that might have been where the similarities ended. Maddox couldn't discern an 'end' or goal for Tulip's actions outside of being an agent of chaos with a taste for opposition.
He'd simply been a Gryffindor with too many terrible ideas he was always convinced would work and desires to give others a good time.
Asquith, he suspected, never went further than the momentary rush that came with that defiance. The girl was one for thrills, less so for clear thinking. Take her many detentions. Each time she'd shown up to the paddocks, she'd walked by the sign-up sheet for volunteers. There hadn't been a need for all her fuss.
Then there was the badge.
Maddox nodded toward her pocket, gesturing for her to take it out. "Had you done any of those things, you'd be without a badge now." He leaned back in his chair, waiting for the badge to be produced. "You'll find, Asquith, that the professors aren't nearly so concerned with the level of responsibility our prefects possess. We hand you the badges and lose no sleep. Lose the badge, and it's gone. We won't waste magic on needless enchantments." The lake, the field, the loo – any of those would have done for a final resting place.
There would've been no coming back.
"Why didn't you?" Maddox wasn't sure how the girl had spent her summer, whether she had access to lakes or fields, but every home had a loo should she have really wanted to. Out of sight, out of mind, and he would consider himself one prefect short. It was all truly that simple.
"I don't believe you're as upset about that badge as you'd like to be." The man tapped the desk, indicating where he'd like the badge placed. "So forgive me for wanting to skip the part of the story where you're scandalised and uninterested." They were already back at school; they had been since the night prior. Had she wanted to, she could've sneaked onto the grounds and taken care of it after curfew.
All it took was a 'bombarda' to get her...destruction fix.
"And get to why you've decided not to wear it."
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