In every job that must be done

Damon tickled the pear that opened the portrait to the kitchens and led his modest group of students inside. It was probably better that so few had turned up for this lesson as it would make the house elves less nervous. They were edgy enough as it was.

Taking them over to a teetering tower of dirty dishes and cooking pots, Damon stopped and turned to his class with a smile.

"All right everyone, any guesses as to what charm you're learning today?"

((I know right, I wasn't sure whether or not you would be fine with me writing that so I had a backup preamble ready in case he wasn't Irish, there were no hints in the app haha. <3 Black books.))

A trip to the kitchens. This was going to be a fun lesson, that was for sure, certainly at the very least it would be different, and with almost all the classes the school offered being taught by boring, dull teachers, he couldn't help but feel like almost wanting to go to class, if Professor Ambrojze, or "Sir" ended up teaching interesting lessons like this all the time, so far so good, at the very least he was now more interested in this class than he had been in his previous three that day, all put together.

So yes, where was I. The Kitchen, that's right. Sam walked down with the rest of the class, though it could hardly be considered to be called that, with just 3 students there it was highly more realistic to call it a study group, or just a group, probably more fitting. Yes, so Sam followed Professor Ambrojze into the hole and looked around, noting that the House Elves looked less freaked out when he visited with a teacher, then when he snuck down here late at night to get grab a snack.

Hearing the question he raised his hand, then realised how stupid a movement that was given the size of the class..group.thing. "Sir," he said, "Are we here to grab snacks for our lesson?" He asked hopefully, certain that the answer would in fact be a negative one. "Either that, or we'll be telling the elves to be faster in washing their dishes," he added, knowing that this, while still completely wrong, was edging closer to the true goal of the lessons, which almost certainly revolved around the out of place stack of dirty dishes.

Keith followed the teacher and two classmates into the kitchen (two classmates! A new record! Must not be much else going on if people were actually showing up for class)

He eagerly nodded as Samuel asked for snacks - snacks were excellent. And he was hungry, he hadn't eaten for at least two hours.

It wasn't difficult to figure out what charm they were going to be learning, though Samuel pointed it out first. Keith suppressed a groan. "Cleaning is a woman's job," he muttered to himself. "Do we really have to waster class time learning something this pointless?" This, Keith decided, is why people didn't go to class more.

They seemed to have lost someone along the way, but Damon thought that was okay; she'd probably find her own way back to the classroom, or her common room, or the Great Hall.

He smiled at them, but this time his smile may have been more toothy. The kitchens were a mess and Damon's eye was beginning to twitch as what a muggle doctor would have called OCD kicked in, though he knew it better as "what that bastard did to me."

"You never know," he said, "the house elves might have whipped up something tasty by the time we've finished here."

And with that, he pointed at the small one, whose name he'd already forgotten and imparted to him a secret every man should know.

"A woman's work is much more appealing when you consider the end result, and I don't just mean dishes."

They were all lads here, after all, and a bit of joking eased the way into the main show. Thank Merlin that girl had disappeared on the way down.

"Now on to the scouring charm!" he cried.

"Just point your wand at the dirt you want to get rid of and say scourgify with gusto. Don't hold back or you'll end up with greasy pans."

“What sort of trickery is this?” Nerissa whispered.

A portrait, a corridor, a set of four stone steps- it was after that single staircase, if that was what the small thing was properly called, when Nerissa had been separated from the group of three that she’d been following silently. The pattern had continued on; a portrait, a corridor, a set of four stone steps. Again and again it repeated itself as the small redhead desperately attempted to catch a glimpse of the Charms “class” once more.

A portrait, a corridor, a set of four stone steps, and Nerissa was lost.

As she slowly turned on her toes, eyeing her surroundings, an expression of horror took over her facial features, though her widened eyes and quivering lips had only put a dent in the fright that had overwhelmed her.

“No, no, no, no, no…” she spoke to the air before her face, as though there were a chance that it could be withholding the answer to her question- that question being, of course, “I live here. I live in this school and it has been so for years. Yet, I have lost my way. How is that possible?”

She sighed unsteadily.

“Oh, dear…”

Nerissa had no difficulty exploring the many cabinets within the Greenhouse on her lonesome, or watching over her beloved trees from the Owlery before any student within Hogwarts had risen from their beds, but to be alone and to be lost at the exact same moment was not an experience that any creature would enjoy. It was not in the nature of any species, and certainly not a cowardly, pessimistic child.

“Sir?”

OOC: Nerissa is incredibly near; she is simply “around the corner”.

Sam couldn't help but stare incredulously at the professor. He was in love, that had to be it, if love didn't feel as good as this he didn't know what to believe in, for this professor was truly the coolest he'd ever met. Imagine that, Innuendo in a first lesson, and bribery. He must have died and gone to heaven, if this is what school was like when he wasn't in one of the dull staff's classes, maybe it wasn't as bad as it was made out to be.

Then he shattered it by telling them they were cleaning. Still, maybe it wouldn't be too bad, with a good teacher anything could be fun, or so he'd heard. And of course he had always hated dirty dishes, and he knew that the longer they were left to pile, the more work there eventually would be. Plus it always felt nice to eat off plates you knew were clean, not just washed half assed by someone else.

So with a shrug he stepped forward and picked up his first pan, frowning in concentration as he struggled to recall what the instructions had been - he'd been too busy idolising the professor to listen - then pointed his wands at the pan. "Sourgi," he said, smiling as the pan instantly turned gleamingly clean. "I did it," he shouted, holding his pan above his head. "First go and," he said said, cutting off as the pan disintegrated, the remnants of the pan falling on his head. "Oh," he said with an annoyed look on his face.

"No, no, no," Damon corrected briskly. "It's Scourgify. Good first attempt, at any rate. At least you got rid of the dirt. Five points."

He turned his head sharpish, hearing some whisper near the door. Perhaps their little friend wasn't so far off after all? Damon summoned a nearby house elf and ordered it to go find the poor child.

"Now you," he pointed to the boy in blue. "If it's only a women's spell you should have no trouble casting it, eh?"

Keith rolled his eyes and snorted slightly.

"Yeah, I can do it," he said, waving his hand. "Watch and learn."

He pulled his wand from his back pocket and pointed it at the stack of dishes, imagining them clean. Visualization, he had found, was an important part of magic - it helped him focus the magic so things did what they were supposed to instead of randomly exploding.

"Scourgify!" Keith muttered, twisting his wrist. The plate rattled slightly, and Keith thought he saw it clean itself a little...before promptly exploding into a thousand pieces. "Oh God not again!" Keith shouted, dropping to the floor."Duck and cover!"

He could have cast a shield charm, but what would anyone learn from that? Damon ducked and hoped the other boy had the sense to duck too. The house elves could take care of themselves, though they probably wouldn't appreciate red hot pieces of ceramic flying across their kitchen. Maybe it was time to wrap this lesson up.

"Er... good effort!" he clapped the boy on the back. "I suspect your resentment is getting in the way of your focus, though. Next time you practice, try remembering that muggles have to do this by hand."

At that moment, a house elf scuttled up to Damon, bearing a platter piled high with brownies. Although a house elf would never dream of suggesting a human do anything he or she didn't want to, they had other ways of showing their discomfort with this situation.

"Oh, and look, Binky has made us a parting gift," he went on jovially. "Take one and be sure to say thank you before you leave."

With a yell Sam dropped to the ground, smacking his head on a nearby bench on his way down and cursing to himself. At least he'd not been burnt by Keith's attempts, that was a plus in itself. "Good job kid," he said with a chuckle as he stood up. "Seriously, definitely a woman's job this," he said, his voice showing a newfound respect for the stereotypical roles of women, maybe it wasn't as easy as it appeared.

"Oooh, Brownies," he said, all hints of seriousness in his tone disappearing as he saw the sweet chocolatey treat. "Don't mind if I do," he said with a thankful look at both the elf and professor. "Thanks Sir," he said as he walked past the professor, "And thank you... Bertie was it?" He asked, taking a brownie and biting into it. "Mmm, it's great," he said as he walked through the hole in the wall.