Dresden Academy

Who: Professor James Walsh and Bill Ford
What: Parents Weekend! Old friends catch up.
Where: Professor Walsh's office, St George's Pub
When: Afternoon-to-evening, Saturday 24th September.
Rating: PG? SFW...ish? Those teachers are a lot more interesting out of student earshot.

Parents’ Weekend was a yearly ritual that James Walsh could do without. It had originally started as a way for the new students to reassure their parents that they were in good hands and to show them the type of environment they were leaving their children in, but had soon become almost a publicity event for the school. Advanced students were poked and prodded into showing off the marvelous things they’d been taught, and the sporting teams played rough to show off who was the toughest and best before any in-season punishments could be dealt out. He’d very strongly encouraged (read: ordered) the Champlain Quodpot team not to participate in the exhibition match because knowing Lars, he would have very carefully not recommended that the Clemons players take out their biggest rivals by means of in-game ‘accidents’.

The worst part though, was the overinvolved parents who took the opportunity to harrass the teachers about their child’s progress (or in most cases, lack thereof). He got it more often than other professors, if by virtue of the classes he led. Wandless Magic was a particularly difficult subject at the best of times, and because of the dangers an irresponsible user presented to other witches and wizards, he did not take even the slightest misbehavior lightly. Just as many kids had been thrown out on their asses as had passed the class.

Apparation was far worse, because any student at all could take it. Pass/fail with no room for error; the students were either ready to send themselves through nonspace or they were not and it was a matter of their own safety that they were forbidden to do so unless they made that passing grade. It didn’t stop irritated mothers coming to him to badger that ‘Wesley has taken this class five times now, surely he knows how to do it by now’. Clearly Wesley didn’t, if he kept failing.

He took to hiding out in his ‘official’ office, which he never used. If any of the students tried to take their parents looking for him, they’d go looking in the spare room attached to the Wandless classroom and find it empty save a desk piled high with So You’re Thinking About Apparation information scrolls. Here, at least, he’d find some peace.

Bill figured he'd give Bernadine and Tim some time to hang out with her friends... Abby's friends... without parental supervision. There was at least one person on campus that he definitely knew besides his children, though it took awhile with the school map trying to figure out where his office was. Twenty minutes later and he stood before a door with gold lettering on the frosted glass that spelled out Professor James Walsh.

He knocked, hoping that James would choose this weekend to hide in plain sight.

He’d blasted off that lettering hundreds of times, and every last attempt had been thwarted. By the next morning the thin gold paint had somehow repaired itself, somehow neatly reapplied itself to the glass. It was as if the building itself was opposed to his not wanting the room.

At the knock at the door, he sighed. He supposed it had been too much to hope that someone wouldn’t come to the office once they found the alcove in the Wandless room empty. He hid his book under a stack of papers and reluctantly went to answer the door. Seeing a familiar face there surprised him beyond reason. “Bill Ford!” He exclaimed. “It’s been years!”

"James Walsh!" Bill hollered in response. "Far too long." Most men would garner a hand shake or a slap on the back from Bill. James Walsh got the coveted bro-hug. "I figured I could finally show my face on campus this year." The most rueful grin of his life appeared on his face. "The proverbial cat got out of the bag and the fucker scratched me on the way out."

“Well.” He tended not to be the kind of person to say ‘I told you so’, and even if he was this wasn’t exactly something he’d commented on to be able to say it. What Bill did or didn’t want to share with his children was absolutely nobody else’s business. “At least it’s all out in the open. Maybe now you can teach Abernathy some of your tricks on how not to get caught pulling stupid stunts, huh?”

"That girl," Bill replied and let the thought hang on the air. As much as he wanted to tell James about Bernadine and Abernathy's harebrained scheme and how his troublesome daughter had put her wand aside for now... He couldn't bring himself to do it because it wasn't his secret to reveal. "Well, maybe she'll get her shit together this year," he finished simply. "But enough about my shit. How the fuck are you?"

“‘That girl’ my ass. She’s just as horrific a prankster as you are; it’s like looking at you on Freaky Friday.” He ushered Bill inside the office and shut the door firmly behind them. “I’m fine. Same old. Definitely not hiding out from Momzillas like a giant pussy.”

"Afraid of a little momma drama?" Bill teased and then guffawed that those words had come out of his mouth. "Trying to disprove the James Walsh is so awesome he taught Chuck Norris how to punch theory?"

James squinted in deep thought. “Chuck Norris? What house is he in?” The name was vaguely familiar but he didn’t recall having a student by that name. And he certainly hadn’t been teaching any of them to fight, at least not intentionally. “Has he been causing shit?”

Bill clapped his friend on the back. "You gotta get out into the muggle world sometime my friend. Chuck Norris is the standard for badass." He laughed then and plunked down on the edge of James' desk. "Don't you ever hear the kids whispering about how fucking awesome and terrifying you are? You've cultivated yourself the perfect image for a prof." He winked at his old friend. "I'm surprised there's not an internet shrine dedicated just to you."

“Say what now?” He pulled out the creaky old desk chair and leaned back in it. He’d heard nothing of the sort, but apparently Bill had... and given that he didn’t spend much time around the wizarding world he must have heard it from his daughter. “What are Abernathy and her friends saying about me?”

Bill touched the side of his nose now that James had found the source of this curiosity. "You know if AB is talking about it it has to be a campus wide phenomenon." Bill just grinned at his friend. "These kids think you're a god among men. Dunno how you pulled it off and I'll be damned if you out do me sir, but I am impressed."

James just shrugged. “I am a god among men, but it surprises me that the students know it. Must only be a matter of time before I get a payrise for it then!” He laughed, because a salary hike for the teachers, badass or not, was the last thing Dresden Academy would be doing with its funding. “Hey, check that the coast is clear. I’ll take you down to the pub for a few.”

Bill popped his head out the door and saw that the hallway was empty. "Quick, man. If anyone sees us I'll pretend I'm yelling at you for something Abby did."

“Hey, if anything I should be yelling at you. Letting your kid run wild like that, seriously. Anyone would think she was growing up with a troublemaking lunatic for a-- oh wait.” He laughed, shutting the office door behind them. “I can’t decide if she’s actually worse than you were, or if it just seems that way because I’m on the other side of the fun.”

He puffed his cheeks out, making a goofy face. "Don't tell my other kids. They think I'm just a humble hick out in the country making dressers and chairs out of bark." He nudged James with an elbow to the side. "Can't let them find out about the dark and shady underbelly of my life. You know, the parts where you were involved."

As for Abby: "some days I can't tell either." Every time the phone rang it was usually Abby getting in trouble. There was just too much of her to fit in the wizarding world neatly. She had too many opinions and not enough room to express them. "One of these days she'll turn into a wood carving hermit. If history holds true."

James shoved him back. “Dark and shady? I was the only thing keeping you out of detention most days and you know it! Without me you’d have been kicked out on your ass and firmly on the way to becoming Bill Ford, fugitive-at-large.” He shook his head and sighed, looking out for wayward groups of students and their parents and trying to give them a wide berth. “That’s going to be the rest of my career; keeping generation after generation of Ford kids on the straight and narrow.”

"If there ever is another generation of Ford kids. I might strangle them all before they get the chance." They managed to avoid any parents on the way to the pub and grabbed seats near the end of the bar. "First round on me," Bill promised, though by the time they were done drinking they were never really sure who owed what.

“Remember that one time,” James started, taking a moment by the pub door to separate the memory in question from about a dozen similar incidents swimming around in his mind, “you tried to scale the outside of the clocktower and Old Man Jeeves came at you on his broom in his footie jammies with the assflap?” He giggled in a most uncharacteristic fashion. Good thing none of the students were old enough to be in the establishment to overhear.

"Oh no. No no. Do you remember that time at the quodpot field, getting shitty with the cheerleading team and waking up in the shrubbery bare ass naked and covered in mud?" That was a great time.

Try as he might, he just couldn’t isolate that incident. “‘Remember every Saturday night ever’ isn’t going to help me pinpoint which time you’re talking about, Bill. Wait, are you talking about the time Freddie fell into the blackberry bushes outside the girls’ dorms and thought the puncture wounds were five thousand snakebites? So you told him he had to roll in the mud to stop that shit and run to the nurse without stopping to put his uniform back on.”

"Oh shit, not that time, but that was some good shit." Bill took a good slug off his beer and ordered two shots of whiskey. He could pick the poison well. "I was thinking of that time that Veruca didn't speak to either of us for three weeks." It took her years to let that one go.

James shrugged. That he remembered well. Not being talked to for three weeks back then had seemed like an eternity. “Well, in all fairness, we did almost set her familiar on fire. Twice.” And then the curtains had caught flame, and the alarms started going off... yes, in hindsight he could see quite well why she’d chosen to blank them, and was actually quite surprised she’d resumed speaking terms so cordially. She never could keep mad at Bill though.

Bill laughed, passing a shot to James and downing his own. "Not quite as bad as the time we tried to sell her underwear on wiz-Bay. Magical fancy panties. Pre-worn for the perfect fit." She beat the shit out of them. His chest hurt just thinking about it.

“I think the asking price was too low. I mean, if you think about it, she was probably really insulted we didn’t try for triple figures.” Merlin’s beard, if any of his students tried half of the shit he and Bill had pulled at school... he didn’t even know what he’d do. “I’m still surprised she didn’t have us killed, to be honest.”

Bill laughed because it was just so true. "She might still," he added. "Veruca believes revenge is a dish best served well and cold." And that woman could hold onto a grudge. Even though she'd forgiven him for many things, there'd always be that underlying everything else. His smile started to fade and he downed another shot, chasing it with his beer. "Half the shit we got into for women, and where did that ever get us?"

James shrugged, considering the bottom of his flagon. “You did all right.” He chose not to comment on the fact that most of the things they did at school were to the girls, not for them. Teenaged boys could rarely tell the difference.

Bill shrugged away the little sadness that always accompanied thoughts of his wife. He did do all right, better than all right. But things had changed. Life caught up with him. He was still alive, but raising three kids mostly on his on through the difficult teenage years... He was just grateful that they were almost grown. "You've got a better reputation," Bill said, changing the subject and ordering another round of drinks.

“There are used broom dealers with better reputations than you!” The lighter subject was a welcome change. “I think everyone was rather relieved you didn’t show at the last reunion, to be honest. I could see some of the cheerleaders anticipating a reenactment of that knicker-knotting jinx you pulled at graduation. Eileen was prepared, no panties there.” He downed his drink fast, hoping to erase that memory again. “I didn’t check. It was horrifically obvious.”

Of all the skanks James could think to mention. There were some places even the terrible twosome of Walsh and Ford wouldn't go. "Then I didn't miss anything," Billy confided with a clap to James' back. "I think the very sight of me would spin the old crew into terror."

James looked at the clock over the bar and winced. Probably had been a great deal too early to start drinking, but Parent’s Weekend was the kind of stressor that really called for some kind of altered operating. “I think it’s soda for me now. Won’t do to be caught stumbling back onto campus.” It really was just like old times.

"Oh Christ. Me too. Shouldn't try to apparate drunk. Might end up lodged in the wall." He kicked of the last of his drink and switched to water, practically a sin in this bar. "Though that'd be a fantastic story."

“‘The time you had your head put through plasterboard and not by an enraged boyfriend’.” He laughed. “That would certainly be a new one for the roster of stories. Do you even have any that you can retell in polite company?”

"Certainly none I can tell my children," he admitted. "Though now that they're older..." Bill raised his water as if it were alcohol to toast. Tim was curious about Bill's tenure at high school and all the shenanigans he'd gotten up to at magic school. Bill had only indulged his son's curiosity a few times and those were usually the less memorable stories. "Do you ever regret it?"

James shook his head. “Don’t go giving Abernathy any ideas, now. She doesn’t need the help.” He was already surprised as is that the University dorms hadn’t been set on fire in the midst of some epic battle. “Regret what?”

"Oh honestly. That girl has ideas of her own." A whole plethora of them. Though he couldn't yet tell James that Abby was enacting this overabundance of ideas at Burnham University and not here at Dresden. "Not having kids," he finished.

“Not if they’d be anything like you and me,” he retorted quickly. He honestly didn’t know how he and Bill had managed to escape being sold off to the circus or the underground slave trade, because endless detentions and being grounded never worked. “I don’t need the early grave.”

Bill grinned. "Well, maybe I can finally tell Abernathy and Bernadine that Violet insisted you were named as their godfather." Bill had never bothered much with such things, but James had always been there for Abernathy since she started school at Dresden. He didn't need to designate the man with an official title. That he supported and protected his kid was more than enough.

“See if that doesn’t frighten them into line.” If he was rumoured to be so terrifying... well, it was an off chance. Somehow he doubted that would change Abernathy’s behavior at all. She was just as stubborn as Bill had every tendency to be. “And what is Bernadine up to? Off to college?”

"Uh... Yeah." It was true enough. She was at college. Albeit, she was pretending to be her sister, here at Dresden. "She's doing well, I think. Expanding her horizons. It's good."

“Good for her. It’s definitely an eye-opener, that’s for sure.” He’d definitely found going from big man on campus to a little nobody freshman quite the shock. “How’s she adjusting?”

The lying was killing him. "Good," he said vaguely. "At least that's what she tells me." Bernadine was really enjoying it here, even if pretending to be Abby was exhausting. He had to assume Abby was doing well; he hadn't gotten any angry phone calls from her college and it wasn't as if she would tell him anything herself.

He finished his water and clapped his friend on the back again. He missed these evenings with his friends. Maybe now he could spend a little more time with the wizards and witches in his life. "Come on Jim, let's gander back up to campus and find my kids before they burn the place down."

James pushed away the last of his drink; he’d only been nursing it because he wasn’t particularly in the mood for lemonade. “If she hasn’t done it by now, I’d say the school’s in good hands. Unless they just get worse around each other-- what did you do to make them like this? Shame on you Bill. Shame.” He laughed and stood from the bar. They could put whatever was still outstanding on his tab. “All right, should we check the guardhouse on the way in; see if they haven’t been locked up first?”

Bill raised his hands as if to admit his guilt, but taking no responsibility in the process. "It's in the genes, man." He meandered out of the bar with his friend, making his way toward the path that led back to campus. All he had to do was follow the small knots of students and parents lingering in the evening and slowly making their way back. "I'm sure they'll be fine," he answered. "Otherwise I'll ground her into her dorm room and I'll ground him away from his little lady friend on campus."

“Oh my. Look what trying to avoid the magical world got you,” he teased. “The guards probably have you on speed-dial. Found this beating up everyone who looked at her sideways, found this in the girls dorms.”

"They don't even call me anymore," Bill said with a little shrug. "They have a crib sheet in the shed that tells them exactly what my response will be and exactly how much they need to punish her this time. As for Tim... Well, I'll just banish him from campus forever." It might be considered cruel and unusual, but Bill had the temperament for that sort of thing.

“Different game now. She pulls too much shit now that she’s in the university program, they’re not going to look the other way.” The school had yet to remove anyone from the program before they decided for themselves that they were ready, but they were also very clear about the behavior they expected of the more senior students.

"I think she knows that," Bill replied, even though it applied to the wrong daughter. Bernadine was old enough to make her own mistakes, even if Abernathy had laid the foundation. On the flip side, Abernathy was free now to have a fresh start. Bill offered his friend a polite nod of the head. "She'll figure it out. Enough about my kids," he said with the most mischievous smile. "What the fuck have you been up to besides teaching kids how to survive in a combat zone?"

“Same old fuck-all as ever.” He had really never intended to make teaching his entire life, but it had just kind of turned out that way.

"Jesus man, you have to get out more! Get laid," he added a bit more quietly. "This school is too isolated."

James let out a hearty laugh. “I don’t even know if I should point out the irony in the fact that ‘get out more, get laid’ is coming from you, man.”

Bill blinked as if he had no idea what James was talking about. He tried not to think too hard about how the last time he'd been laid was over eleven years ago and that he hadn't tried since then. "I don't have the face for it anymore," he replied smartly, running a hand through his pre-winter beard stubble. With a laugh he leaned against the wall near James' office. "When did we get so sad?"

“Probably around the same time we got old.” Which was something he’d never envisioned happening-- not that he thought either of them would die young (despite the dangerous pranks), just that he somehow never thought of them as... well, ever having matured past their glory days at school. Though he supposed no one really ever pictured themselves ageing in any great respect. “At least I can proudly say I don’t have a single gray hair,” he added as an afterthought. “Still young.”

Running a hand through the hair on top of his head, Bill laughed. "Abby helped me earn all of these." He was only slightly streaked, mostly pretty silver threads that seemed to make his hair autumnal. "I take pride in my gray."

“‘Grays are hereditary, you get them from your kids’,” James teased. “Same with heart attacks, I believe.”

Bill knocked on the frame of the door as if to knock on wood. "I'll go down kicking and screaming if I go down at all." With that he grinned at his friend. "I'll tell you what my friend, we need to do this more often. Especially seeing as the kids know. Might freak AB out a bit that the James Walsh is my oldest and dastardliest of friends, but that's her problem."

“Absolutely. Just so long as she doesn’t get any ideas about me going easy on her,” he joked. “Can’t be playing favorites now.” Especially seeing as he had to deal with her archenemy on a near-daily basis; that was not a volcano he wanted to throw rocks into. Those two had a rivalry that even the faculty were in awe of.

"She might expect the opposite." Bill laughed, because again, it was the wrong daughter and before long he hoped Bernadine could turn the tide on Abernathy's record at Dresden. "Seriously, those kids have built up an aura around you. I bet you could walk in a room and break up a fight with one well placed glance. You don't even have to announce your presence. They just feel it." And now he was teasing James, but that was half the fun of seeing his friend again and having this silly little secret to share.

He shook his head. “Come now, you’re giving me god-like powers that you know I don’t have.” Especially given that at school he’d always found the quickest way to end a fight was to jump into it. “I swear on Merlin’s beard, the next time I have to pull Ryder Balston off a freshman I’m going to ‘accidentally’ break his face.”

"I'll never tell," Bil replied. He nodded at an approaching parent making their way directly to James' office. Bill turned his back and winked. "Least you've got a few shots under your belt," he said in a hurried undertone. He stood up straighter as the parent got closer and raised his voice quite a bit. "I would have expected that you'd have my kid well in hand by now."

Ah, now this was familiar territory. “Well if you can’t keep her in line how are we supposed to?” He snapped back, watching out the corner of his eye as the other parent started in shock. Maybe they’d change their mind about paying him a visit if they saw how prickly he was with this parent.

Bill slammed his fist into the wall, not so much as a threat but in mock frustration. "I'm going to speak with your headmistress about this," he said through clenched teeth. Then he sauntered off down the hallway like he was on a mission.

James watched him go, amused, before turning to the now-alarmed woman waiting to see him. “Did you want to see me?”