You are Patchouli Knowledge, a physically frail and sickly magician of profound aptitude and power. You live in the Voile Archives of the Scarlet Devil Mansion, though you have constructed an attached tower elsewhere, without internal fixtures as yet, which you may or may not inhabit much. You are Friends with Remilia, the vampire who owns the mansion, who considers it entirely too much effort to try to feed off you. Your Magical Potency varies somewhat from day to day, depending on how long of an incantation you can manage before breaking off into a fit of coughs, and how much strain your body can handle in addition to the rigors of illness. You currently have a box of ninety four vials of Medication stored in the library to offset the worst of the days, however, though it will later exact a toll, and your new Magical Focus eases use of magic to a significant degree. It seems that Luck can play a reasonable part in keeping yourself healthy, though effects may vary, as can the Hakurei Hot Spring.

Your magic is based on Elementalism primarily, though you are also skilled in Diabolism and Other Summonings, which can be surprisingly versatile, particularly in combination with Golems. You can also create Homunculi, if you have the materials to hand. You do not have any suitable samples of the key ingredient, however.

The date is Aug. 30. It is Tuesday, day of Mars, of War and Fire and Conflict of every sort. Through dint of long and methodical practice, you find the use of Fire-natured elemental magics to come a touch easier on this day.

-----

It's not much of a difficult question.

After all, when all is said and done, you don't really care about who gets what, when, beyond your own schedule. And while this one is structured in such a way that you'll have to put in more effort on some days than others, aside from that it's...

Elegant. Streamlined, and nearly symmetrical, though you can forgive the failure in perfect arrangement as that would have left fourth year in a poor slot, and then your number of 'bad' classes would have outweighed the 'good', albeit only slightly, rather than being perfectly balanced and weighted neither to one side or the other.

It's... neatly, and aesthetically presented in a fashion that you can't help but admire a little. Moreso, it's a masterful stroke, which Severus had to have planned out on the spur of the moment, both occupying multiple of the superior time-slots with your classes and denying them to Minerva and her allies, while at the same time rejecting accusations of foul play and favoritism by lodging you into an identical number of unpleasant timeframes which, in that move, he was then assured not to have to take himself.

In that same breath, your own complaints at being obliged to take poor times were silenced by the fact that those slots were filled with those students that could, theoretically, just deal with keeping their minds on work rather than dinner, and if not can be chastised for the lack of personal discipline with fewer raised eyebrows.

You think that cold water would be a reasonable deterrent. Cold water is usually very good at shocking a subject into focus on the here and now, even if that usually turns quickly to indignation at having been splashed with cold water. On the other hand, fire is also very good at getting attention, as are large rocks, and sharp bits of whirling metal. In the end, though, cold water is generally less of a final attention-grabber, so you'll probably default to that.

In any case, the man is fairly good at making sure that everyone... does not get everything they want. In fact, that nobody gets anything near what they would consider the best of all available options. But, in turn, that they do get... enough. Just barely enough, in the end, that even those who he's deliberately shafted in order to make others just... the slightest bit more pleased with the situation, are still begrudging, not happy, but accepting that it is 'good enough'.

It's all very political. The point gets across, but at the same time it's almost scrupulously.... 'fair'.

Not fair like the neutral parts of things, of course, where it seems like they actually don't have any little grudges or snubs gathered throughout the year to pay back, but... 'fair', and at the same time, making a point out of putting a little thorn here and there just so.

Minerva, by contrast, is much more direct about things, and in the absence of subtlety, a pretense at 'fairness' just goes right out the window as the focus begins, ends, and remains at all times on driving the knife home somewhere painful. The 'fairness' there is that the woman is so singlemindedly focused that Sprout ends up slipping time-slots around here and there that she's not paying much attention to, since she's more set on making sure that her opponent 'loses' than moving to ensure that she 'wins'. Like a cat so focused on playing with a baby rat that it doesn't notice until hours later that the rest of the family has come and gone from the larder.

Oh, it's a fun little assortment of personalities in this room.

Even so... all the options have something going for them, and drawbacks. But it's the one that Snape has outlined that most appeals. So that is the one you push for.

It's not the ending blow right there, but the flash in Flitwick's eyes shows that he knows as well as you do that, even if it takes another thirty minutes and there are some further minor adjustments to make, the general outline has now been decided. You suspect that Snape would also be showing the subtle gleam of victory, if he were not occupied with a not-quite-shouting match with McGonagall.

Someone mutters something about 'just snog already', though it doesn't seem to be particularly noticed over the current argument regarding where clarity of thought is most required: In a class where one might accidentally turn their hand into a hawk, or where errors would instead cause caustic and toxic fumes to erupt from a cauldron set over incorrect heat, possibly killing everyone in the room within one hundred and eighty seconds.

.... Presuming the word to mean anything similar to what you suspect, you do not actually see anything resembling sexual tension, yourself. Just the normal sort of tension, that comes from incompatible personalities rubbing against each other, where each refuses to be ground down by the other.

Even so, the woman looks like she's swallowed a lemon when things wind down and she finally takes a proper, long look at what she's agreed to. But as you've already noted, Snape is quite good at arranging things such that even if people dislike them, they do not abhor them enough to complain, or start another argument over it right from the very beginning of the last one. Especially when this will upset all of the other people who are more or less satisfied with the outcome, and will not be well pleased to return to square one.

Naturally, she quickly excuses herself, stalking out like an aggrieved housecat that has just been splashed with cold water, and Snape almost smiles at the victory.

Barely a heartbeat passes before the room is abuzz with what has to be over a dozen separate conversations.

"You will all recall, of course, that the match is scheduled to begin at noon. As there is no particular fanfare involved in one of the early-year games, and athletes being the impatient sorts they are, it is likely that it may actually begin so much as even a full half hour before then." Severus says, seeming pleased enough to be more forthcoming with words than he might otherwise be. "Arriving early would be advisable. You will also note that there are two tickets per person to go around, so there should be no issue with bringing a friend or associate... or, hm, simply scalping the spare ticket immediately before the match proceeds. There is always some ill-prepared bungler who makes preparations, travels, and even waits patiently in a tent for a day or two to discover at the last moment that they have entirely forgotten to purchase tickets to the event."

"Yes, yes, ah. Miss Knowledge, you mentioned a duel?" Flitwick interrupts.

"An exhibition match, indeed. I believe the students would benefit from such a demonstration... though I am afraid I don't know exactly when the best time would be to schedule such matters, obviously after the students have arrived-"

"Oh, I do enjoy these batteries." Burbage chuckles. "They run all manner of quaint muggle devices... though, you know, I haven't the foggiest how they work?"

Is, you aren't certain if that's a question directed at you? You decide to answer anyway.

"I recall that they store electrical current, something to do with the interaction of a metallic rod placed inside a specific 'battery' acid?"

"Oh my, how ingenious." Burbage responds, in much the same way as one might praise the finger-paintings of an amusing nephew. "Dear me, I wouldn't have put it together. Though I do recall burning a finger, once, when I opened one up to examine the insides. However did you know so readily?"

Aside from prizing Knowledge in all it's variations? You frown a little.

".... Long ago, I was... romantically entangled, you might say, with a scientist." You allow. "It ended... poorly, for all involved."

Idiotic hypocrisies of the age. Unseemly if you pretend something, quietly offensive if you don't, really you just couldn't win. You're surprised that more people didn't end up burning things through the frustration of it all.

You'd really though you'd meshed quite well, too. Shows what you knew.

In any case, you desperately try to carry on two separate idle chatterings with the astronomy and arithmancy instructors, involving math and the current star positions, even as madame Burbage tuts, somehow conveying in the mouth-noise both sympathy for your circumstances and a distinct interest in knowing more that isn't quite voiced.

..... You're getting a little dizzy. There is just too much talking, trying to keep track of everything that is being said all at the same time is... well, you almost always have some sort of headache simmering, so you can't really say that it's giving you one, but it is starting to bring the one you have to a slow boil.

Conversations should be held one-on-one, or at least with the number of participants properly minimized. There should be a law requiring that.

------

[ ] What do you do?