Potions Office Hours: Valentine Feels Bored and Scholarly

[degeneratewolfe]

Valentine had some time back returned from his year away, scouring the world for new and interesting substances and experiences. And oh, what a year it had been. But he was here now, back to the large, odd castle and the house elves who cowered justifiably every time he walked by, and life had regained a pace of a sort.

Valentine hated monotony

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[i_am_harkonnen]

The Baron Vladimir Harkonnen was intrigued to notice a sign on the door of the Potions classroom as he was passing by- he hadn't been sure if there was an active Potions teacher, or not, and figured that as he was there, he might as well introduce himself. He'd been making a point of meeting as much of the staff as possible, as some sort of improvements were definitely needed in the school. Lately, however, he'd been more interested in studying his own subject than bothering with organizing a faculty meeting, although the "Office Hours" sign was a reminder. It was a reminder to get his own lesson plans in order as well

[degeneratewolfe]

Valentine's first thought was that Gregor Shreck had come to Hogwarts. But the impression only lasted a moment. For one thing, Gregor's fashion sense had always been appalling.

"A fellow teacher, and even better, a fellow noble!" Valentine shook the hand briefly and then stood, sweeping his lanky frame into a courtly bow just a few degrees short of being insulting; while Valentine had a certain image to protect, there was no sense in making enemies. Yet. A lifetime in the Iron Bitch's court had made him a consummate courtier, and that included playing coy long enough to determine who your allies were this hour. "Lord Valentine Wolfe, Potions Master and Slytherin at your service, my dear Baron."

[i_am_harkonnen]

The Baron's fashion sense, although lavish, only tended to enter the realm of 'appalling' once he became comfortable around people, and then mainly due to the lack of clothing. He was known to wear nothing but his suspensor harness and a cape while sitting around his own rooms, but he at least tended to get fully dressed before venturing out

[degeneratewolfe]

Valentine's long-fingered hands fluttered excitedly. It had been so long since someone had bowed to him. If it hadn't been for some concoction or other that perfected his recall, he would have said he'd almost forgotten how it felt. "And might I say that the pleasure is mutual. I'm afraid that I've been surrounded by commoners here, and while the nobility of my time were a lot of dull, inbred little shits I do miss being surrounded by my peers from time to time." Not that they were truly his peers, not when it was questionable how far he had taken himself from baseline human, but that went without saying

[i_am_harkonnen]

Vladimir was pleased with Valentine's reception- for once, here was someone with culture, rank, and a sense of wit, difficult to find at Hogwarts. He chuckled at Valentine's comments on nobility, which he could empathize with. "I entirely understand the sentiment- although the Imperium of my day is best described as a tedious bunch of pricks, I do miss the games. They made things interesting, and were a good reminder of exactly why to play." Imperial games of course consisted of the cordial, diplomatic smile in public, and the poisoned drink or assassin's knife in the dark. "I always enjoyed bending the rules, myself- nothing quite like the unexpected surprise to spice things up." Vladimir believed in playing dirty- after all, it was what everyone else did when they got the chance. He just took the chances more often, with excellent results. As he spoke, he looked around for a comfortable chair, not too far from Valentine, naturally. The man was intriguing, and one decadent could sense such tendencies well enough in another. A

[degeneratewolfe]

((Reposted for the entire reply this time.))"The Imperium? How familiar. We had one of those in my time, as well. Empress Lionstone XIV was presumably its last ruler, since I doubt the competency of anyone who attempted a coup after me, especially after Shub decided to open its robotic little heart to humanity." He sniffed in disgust. Really, Shub had been such a wonderful ally to have, all cold unfeeling desire for genocide. "I do miss the challenge," he added wistfully

[i_am_harkonnen]

"I've heard of a couple of other Imperiums since my arrival- yet, they all appear to have their similarities. A female in the seat of power would have been unheard of in mine, however- unfortunately, most Houses don't understand that they need to be kept in their place, which for our women, is well away from all things political." Especially the bedroom, since that was where they usually plied their schemes. "We also had banished all computers- we turned humans into them instead. With the right training and drugs it was quite effective." He sighed rather wistfully at the thought of coups, which he'd been plotting himself before he ended up at Hogwarts. "I can only hope that I'll reappear where I left off, or that my heir's carrying on better than I anticipate- if all goes as planned, there shall be an Emperor Harkonnen on the throne soon enough." Little did he know that a combination of scheming women and unanticipated religious movements would severely screw up his extremely well-made plans

[degeneratewolfe]

"What a shame," he said wistfully. "Strong women can be... intriguing. I was engaged to one, though she tried to have me killed, punched me during the ceremony, and claimed sanctuary with an order of nuns. Such a pity that dear Saint Bea didn't go through with it... she still owes my Family for the wedding, you know." He sighed heavily and theatrically. "And I doubt that anyone collected on that debt after my departure. And it would have been such a beautiful wedding. I look exquisite in white

[i_am_harkonnen]

Vladimir listened to Valentine's tale as he finished off the muffin, starting to feel a pleasantly relaxed buzz- it would take more than an opiated muffin to do much to a man of his size. "Your women don't sound too far off from ours, if attempted murder, public embarassment, and running off with Sisterhood-type orders are their way- problem with ours is, the Sisterhood's gotten far too powerful, and is able to play the Imperial game while breaking all the rules with near-impunity." He shrugged, and chuckled slightly, explaining, "It's an ingenious ploy. There's a powerful organization of women that have set themselves up as something of a school, and something of a religious order, and they sell themselves out to the Imperial houses as trained concubines, advisors, truthsayers and the like. But their foremost loyalty's of course to their Sisterhood, and, they can then use the Houses they manipulate from the bedroom to get their order's agenda accomplished

[degeneratewolfe]

"Hm." He pinched off another bit of blueberry muffin, more for something to do with his hands than anything. "Sounds like a monogendered Blue Block, except out in the open. How very odd." Blue Block, close-guarded secret of the Families, thought for generations to be a rumor until very recently before Valentine's death. It had taken children from certain families and brainwashed them to be loyal beyond reason to Blue Block, sending others to shadow organizations like the Hundred Hands to undergo treatments and become sleeper agents. Their entire purpose was to bend the Families, and therefore the politics of the Imperium, to their benefit

[i_am_harkonnen]

((My apologies for the slow reply, and Vlad's frequent TL;DRing!))

"I'd be interested to hear more of your native Imperium, if it would please you to speak of it at some point. There's little to do at Hogwarts besides seeking ways to relieve boredom, but it is and interesting place for comparative sociology, which can be useful. It's always intriguing to learn exactly how things work." Especially people. It helped to pull puppet's strings- people who thought they were making a choice, no matter how constrained and unpleasant, could be amazingly effective. The right well-phrased words and motivations could sway anyone- he took particular pride in having used this to suborn the supposedly unbreakable loyalty of a Suk doctor

[degeneratewolfe]

((Arg, browser crashed and ate the reply where I said basically no problem since I'm not a lightning-tagger myself lately and I rather like reading the TL;DR :-P Making it not so much DR.))"Perhaps, at some point." Some time not now. The past was exactly that, and in no danger of going anywhere. The Spice, however was right here. He watched the Baron's actions and listened to his description of the substance, eying the granules greedily

[i_am_harkonnen]

The Baron had no interest at all in poisoning Valentine, but in his Imperium, poison was a daily concern, as it was an exceptionally popular method of assassination. It was just standard politeness to let someone choose their cup, and, Vladimir still stuck to many of the habits that living in the Imperium had conditioned. He lifted his own glass to Valentine and took a deep draught of the familiar substance, which never actually did seem to become boring, and a faint smile lingered on his lips as he enjoyed the sensation of the Spice atop the pleasant relaxation already induced by the opiated muffin

[degeneratewolfe]

((Aaaand I fail at anything resembling punctual tagging.))

Any other time and Valentine would have been more aware of the Baron's feelings. Their banter moments previously would certainly give him an inkling, later on. For now, he was too wrapped up in the sensations give to him by the Spice to look too deeply into anyone else's affairs, even if they did deal with him personally. New drugs were, naturally, priority.

"Ever? What a pity." He opened his eyes, staring dreamily into the glass and taking another sip. "It's divine. It almost reminds me of one of my pre-death projects, the esper drug. Almost, because this is... well, as incredible as that was, this is... indescribable. The esper drug was incredibly addictive, highly lethal, and--" he smiled, oh so proudly-- "it was made from large quantities of human brain tissue. I destroyed a planet to mass-produce it." He sighed happily. "To good times," he said, raising his glass again.

[i_am_harkonnen]

((No worries! RL comes first. =D))

Valentine's fascination was a lovely thing- he was plainly a man who sought to extract as much from an experience as possible, a trait that the Baron could appreciate. It added to his overall qualities, which to all appearances, were profound- Vladimir was growing ever more curious about the man's history, and listened intently as he lauded the Spice and described his esper drug. His oh-so-proud smile was incredibly charming, especially when followed with the explanation about its production- there were few things that Valentine could have said that would have cemented the Baron's attraction further. He chuckled lightly, and smiled at Valentine as he raised his own glass, "To good times indeed! That sounds like a simply splendid endeavor." He clearly meant it, as there wasn't a trace of sarcasm in his tone, only admiration- this was clearly a man after his own heart. It was somewhat unfortunate that in Vladimir's time, synthesizing Spice was still believed to be impossible- a few millenia later, the

[degeneratewolfe]

"Oh, it was," he said, beaming. "It was wonderful, being in the control center, enacting and watching the deaths of billions as my beautiful war machines made their way across the fields. Virimonde was a farm world, the type of agrarian beauty that some people cherish. It was glorious to watch it burn." He shrugged. "Of course, there were Empire-wide problems with food imports after that, but it was hardly my idea to use that particular world as an example. No, credit the Iron Bitch, mad dear that she was, with that bright idea. She had to get her revenge on a Lord from that world who hadn't even been there in some time, and so she sent me." He giggled. "Not that I'm complaining, mind