The Failed Hunt PV Griffith

When the door finally rang, the professor knew who it was going to be. The little girl who had let her Moke go free and then pretended she had done so accidentally, the one he had summoned to his office. The welshman wanted to know exactly what had happened, what she had been thinking. He wanted to know if he was right about the little hufflepuff, and he wanted to make sure that she did not go off bitter about the situation.

By no means was Griffith a kind man. He didn't much like teaching, or his job, or the kids or the staff. But he had signed up for the job, he was taking advantage of the protections Hogwarts provided and that came at a cost. He had to help and teach the students, and that happened to include making sure their emotional needs didn't go entirely unmet.

As far as he knew, no other professor had put in nearly as much time into helping the little dweebs. But just because they weren't pulling their weight didn't mean Griffith wasn't going to follow through on his end. He had signed a contract and meant to fulfill his end satisfactorily. It was more than just the Moke that made him want to have a talk with the girl, it was also something, well, a few things that she had said in the owl that he had received.

The hufflepuff had been worried about a few things, things that made him worry, in turn, about her. He would have just gone to her Head of house, but he had a feeling the overweight bushy-faced yankee would have more pressing things on his mind. Like how many sticks of fried butter he could eat at once, or how many crawdads stuffed with twinkies he could fit in his mouth without choking. The other professors in Hufflepuff were equally useless. There was the small child who apparently had a lifetime supply of polyjuice that she used to somehow infiltrate Hogwarts as a charms teacher, and the bearded man who seemed to go out of his way to fulfill every russian stereotype ever invented. Even the smell was authentic, permeating the air around the flying professor with the wonderful fragrance of stale ashtray.

That left him, the professor who had noticed the problem, he had noticed partially because of his supreme deductive skills but also because it was so blatantly obvious you couldn't miss it. All it would take is one conversation, or one owl, to find out that something had happened, and something needed to be done about it.

He opened the door, inviting the girl inside by gesturing to the chair by the wood desk.

"I suppose you're wondering why I called you hear today..."

Okay, bad start. He had started with a peanuts quote. Silently hoping that the girl was not familiar with Peanuts, and if she was, that she enjoyed the comic enough to not forever lose all manner of respect for the professor because he inadvertently quoted comic strips when he was trying to be helpful, Griffith just continued on as if nothing had happened. If the girl chose to go sit in the chair he had indicated, he would sit as well, across the desk from her in his own chair.

"...Or maybe you know exactly why you're here. Either way, I'm going to explain the basic gist of why I called you, and then I'm going to ask a favor, alright? I want to know what's going on. As a professor, it's my job to at least report when I see something that isn't right, but I don't think the people I report to would do anything if they haven't already. So what I'm asking you to do is just start wherever, and explain. It can be the mokes, or any other event, on school grounds or off of them. Even something like your favorite book."

Griffith reached into his pocket a moment, pulling out his secret weapon. The one, the only, the fabulous. The little monkey that, as far as he could tell, was surprisingly good with kids. Most creatures were nervous around people they didn't know, but this one was pretty happy to cling to whoever's finger was held up. His other hand dropped a bottle on the desk, with a very small top. People felt better around baby animals. That was a fact that would hold true no matter where he was.

"This is Fuzz Bean the bold, but you can shorten it however you like. If you wouldn't mind letting him hold on to your finger and eat a bit, I would really appreciate it. He likes new people."

Fuzz bean had not been growing as fast as he would have liked, but at least he was making some progress. The little monkey had a pretty gross looking scab on it's back, but it didn't seem to want to scratch or bite at it, which was a bit unusual for most creatures.

He would reach across the desk and hold out Fuzz Bean. If the hufflepuff chose to accept the baby monkey, Griffith would grab the scruff of it's neck, and gently pull it off of his own hand, placing it within grabbing range of the little girl's finger, which it would immediately cling to.

Serena stared at him, blankly, unimpressed by the older man. He did not even greet her. In fairness, she was very mad at him - and everything else right now. So she was bitter about every little action. Nonetheless, she entered the office and sat down in a 'hmph' where he pointed. If nothing else, she was obedient (at the very least).

The Professor spoke to her, explaining why she was here. But... he did not really explain much. He asked more than he gave. She did not like that. He claimed that he wanted to know what was going on but did not explain where to start or what he actually wanted to know. Serena waited for a moment, wondering where to start or what to say. She wanted to be rude and tell him that he made no sense in the meanest way possible but she could not bring herself to do it. In fact, she could not even think of anything mean enough to say. The Hufflepuff was annoyingly more polite than she wished to be.

But she did not need to say anything. Professor Griffith continued before she did. He brought out a little baby monkey, though Serena did not know where the baby came from. Serena glanced to Fuzz Bean, who apparently would be happy to cling to her finger and eat from there. The Hufflepuff had no complaints about that, so she simply nodded and put her hand out for the monkey. The Professor pulled it off his own hand and put the creature into hers. Fuzz Bean clung to her finger. Serena looked into the eyes of the little bean, who she noted was rather adorable. But it did not affect her rage.

Serena lowered her hand a little, placing her wrist on the table so she could easily found the little creature up. She held her other hand out for the food, which she assumed was in the bottle, "Is that the food?" She asked him, not answering anything else at this point. She decided to feed the creature first.

Once she had the food, she set it up so that Fuzz Bean could eat happily as she turned back to look at Professor Griffith and returned the conversation to his original topic. "I don't have a favourite book. I attend a lot of events on and off school grounds. And as I already said, I accidentally dropped the moke, You did say they were hard to catch. It bite me so I let it go and then it escaped. I don't see the issue here." Serena replied, answering his question of what was going on. She focused on the mokes, which she had already spoken to him about. In truth, the moke did bite her. Serena was not lying about that.

"Yeah, that's the food."

She didn't like him. That much he had known from the outset. It was always hard to connect with people if you were scared or guarded, and he knew that Ms. Towers was at least one of those, if not both. The owl that she had sent him had seemed scared, worried, nervous. And then she had just left the event? It was a strange turn of events, to say the very least, and he needed to know what was going on. Well, he didn't need to know, he could just let her go to sort it all out on her own, but that just didn't seem right.

This was someone who deserved help, and wasn't seeming to be receiving any of it. It bothered him the same way it hurt him deeply whenever he saw a creature that needed help, whenever he saw a pet being forced along by a leash. He didn't want to feel responsible for anything, feeling responsible only ever got him in trouble. But here he was, talking to some girl because she had dropped a lizard and sounded sad in a letter. Griffith was partially convinced that he qualified for the loony bin.

It might help, he realized, if he didn't try to interrogate the girl. He would start, he would go ahead and tell a story, and wait for the girl to decide to tell him something that he could use in some way. It would be hard, he knew, especially considering that she wasn't here by choice, but what else could he do? A forced connection was no connection at all, and he needed something if he was going to try and help. Anything at all.

"I found fuzz bean not too long ago. It was a trip I had taken over the weekend, far away from Hogwarts. I hadn't gone there because of him, you know. I didn't know he existed until I found him, by the side of the road. I was running at the time, you know. What I was doing had nothing at all to do with Fuzz bean, and yet, I changed priorities in an instant. A lot of life works that way. You'll be focused on something, you'll be making progress, and all of that will just be thrown out the window because of something that had almost nothing to do with you.

Have you decided on a goal yet? Something to work towards?"

He was patient, he would keep moving as slowly as he felt was required. She needed help, he could tell she needed help of some form or another, even if it was just someone she trusted to tell her that something was going to be fine. Kids were like that, adults were like that, creatures were like that. Even he was like that, as much as he didn't want to be.

Her stomach grumbled a little as she watched Fuzz Bean eat the food that she had offered. Serena somewhat listened to the professor's story as she watched the little monkey eat. She had no idea what his point was but she stayed silent nonetheless. Eventually, he got somewhere with it. Blinking, Serena looked up at him, "Why were you running over there?" She asked suddenly, wondering why he went all the way over there to run - clearly misunderstanding a bit of the story and making her own conclusions or assumptions to it. Mostly because, she was only half paying attention to his words.

She paused as he asked her a question - or two. Did she have a goal? Was there something she was working towards? Serena fell quiet, looking back the monkey whilst she thought. A frown appeared on her face, clearly deep in thought on the matter. "I don't know... Not really..." Serena mumbled under her breathe, though it was audible enough for him to hear in the quiet room. She had honestly no idea what she was going towards. Not dying? Keeping her head down? Not disappointing her parents? Not getting bullied for something she did not do? These were all things that she did but she was not actively working towards them. "Just uh studying and growing up I guess... Leaving this place..." She continued, not sure if that counted as a goal or not.

Serena rubbed her nose with the back of her free hand as she pondered, the frown still on her face. A part of her felt bad. Perhaps she ought to have some sort of goal or something she was working towards. Maybe that was what he was saying. She could not help but wonder if all of the other students already had their goals and knew what they were working towards. Maybe she was the odd one out here? She had no idea but she really hoped not. Awkwardly, she rubbed her feet together under the table, tensing up at the thought that she had messed up because she did not have a goal.

"Oh, I made a mistake a long time ago, and then never really stopped making them. Just stupid things, nothing that affects me here."

The answer that he was pretty sure would come did come, that she didn't really know what her goal was. It made sense, after all, why would a little girl know what her future was going to look like? It was pretty unrealistic to expect anything of the sort, and even if she did have some sort of a dream, it would probably fade in her teen years.

"It's fine to not have a big life goal. The secret is to always have a little goal. Like reading a good book, that's a goal. Or finding something fun to do here in hogwarts. To conquer a little fear, then a bigger one. Little things that you want to do are wonderful goals.

It's fine to want to leave, but for now at least you're going to be stuck here. So try to find something nice about it. Even if that nice thing is just the fact that you share a castle with a adorable little baby monkey named fuzz bean. There's silver lining everywhere, even if it's not very much of it. And if you need help finding it, maybe ask a friend? And besides, you'll leave this place faster if you don't think about it too much."

Griffith offered the little girl a wan smile. She wasn't really all that lost, or depressed. More like adrift and sad. Not happy with her lot in life. It was students like this that needed help, more often than not. Unless he was mistaken there was probably pressure from a gifted child complex running around there somewhere as well.

Serena blinked as the professor explained that he made a mistake but never stopped making them. She pondered for a moment. She had made a lot of mistakes over the years. Well, she felt like she did. It intrigued her that he said they were things that don't affect him here. Perhaps that meant that she could also, one day, say that these mistakes no longer affect her.

The Professor went into a long speech about goals. She listened quietly, waiting for him to finish. Absorbing his words, she thought about them as she listened. Her mind kept running off. Every time he said anything, it started to drift away to ponder on that. Griffith mentioned finding smaller goals that she could aim to achieve, to try and find a silver lining in every cloud. Hogwarts was a scary place, to say the least. It was much easier said than done to find something nice about the castle. "You say this..." She started to reply, trailing off with the implied 'but it's not that easy' lingering in her tone.

"I guess so..." She replied, deciding that he might be right. If she was having fun, things would definitely be nicer and time would go by faster. "I am pretty sure I'm getting white hair and wrinkles though!" She added. It was something she overheard her aunt say when she spoke about getting stressed. Apparently stress adds wrinkles and white hairs. Serena grabbed a small clump of her hair and pulled it forward a little. Not enough to take it off, of course but just to highlight that her dark brown hair was going to turn white, "And you know who has wrinkles and white hair? OLD PEOPLE! I'm NOT old enough to have it!" Serena replied, in a slight huff as she was not an eighty year old woman. Her grandmother had white hair and wrinkles, she was far too young.

Serena sighed softly, "What sort of little goal should I get?" She asked him abruptly, hoping that he had some suggestions that she might be able to steal. She had no idea how to even start to figure out what sort of goal she ought to have.