The Things You Hear (Vic, PG-13)

James had invited Vic to come down to his own personal lab behind the Potions classrooms, still the same as he'd left it (as far as he could remember, anyway) from his work on the disease. The house elves had kept it clean, although one of his experiments that he'd left to go to Lugarmago had to be Vanished, and the cauldron it refused to come out of with it. That was disappointing, he'd liked that cauldron.

Setting out the notes James had from his work on Vic's case on a table, he also pulled up some chairs and cleared a space for food, which he asked a house elf to bring. She returned with hot chocolate and some little cakes. He thanked her politely and she disappeared with a bow and a smile. Everything was set up, but the notes were far enough off to the side that the two could have a conversation first, if they were so inclined.

There was a knock on the door and James opened it with a smile. "Hey Vic, how's it going?" he said as he showed her into the lab.

James grinned. "Peter is fine. He's with Zalea right now, since she's the one who asked me to teach in the first place." As Vic entered the room past him, he suddenly realized that this situation was probably highly inappropriate, with him being a professor, but shrugged it off. He and Vic were friends from before, when he was a student, so he decided it didn't really count. He left the door open anyway, so they could be seen.

Sitting across from Vic, James poured them both cups of hot chocolate, taking a sip from his own. He preferred coffee, but really any warm drink would be nice in the sightly chilly dungeon. "My lessons went well enough. There are always troublemakers, but I think I dealt with it well." He shrugged. That was how some kids were, having to test the authority. "How about you, have you learned anything interesting? Have any questions on anything?" he asked, doing his professorly duty. Besides, he wasn't a Wormwood for nothing.

James laughed. "Yes, I suppose he is. He won't want to leave his auntie to come back with his dad once Zalea's done with him." He knew Peter would always be in loving hands if Zalea had him and she turned into Momma Bear when she had a child to protect. He took a moment to laugh internally at the image before turning his attention back to the conversation.

Vic's enthusiasm made James smile. It was something he vaguely recognized from his old school days, and even more from now, when he was still curious about everything. "That's good then. I just hope everything continues to be interesting when you're doing your homework!"

James shifted a bit uncomfortably in his seat. "About a boy?" he asked. "Well, you can ask, but I don't know how helpful I'll be." He really, really hoped he wouldn't get too awkward over this, but he resolved to answer the question if he could. Going through life ignorant of any of the numerous things Vic's question could be about would just leave her vulnerable. If it was too bad, he'd just send her to Zalea, reservations be damned.

James had, in fact, seen Jake when children were around and grinned. "Yeah, I don't think your brother would be too keen on keeping Peter forever." He wondered if that would ever be a problem in Jake and Azalea's relationship, but decided he'd help Zalea cross that bridge if and when they came to it.

At the truly Wormwood answer, James had to laugh. "Knowledge is life," he agreed. "The Wormwood creed for the Wormwood pair." He knew of the feeling, the insatiable drive for knowledge, accompanied by the freedom of pursuing it. He knew that Vic was much like him, even if he didn't fully understand who he was.

Squirming in his seat, James thought about how best to answer. "Well, um, there's- you see- Zalea's talked to you about- about sex, right? About the basics of what happens? You know the part that makes babies and that's the most basic form. But there are other kinds too..." He trailed off, rubbing the back of his neck, trying to think how to phrase this. "Um... Sometimes, a lot of the time, actually, people don't do it because they want babies. They do it because they like it. It's a very physical kind of want that lots of people have when they get older, because of hormones released by the brain. And you don't necessarily have to have sex with private parts together. It can be just, um, touching other people... there with hands and it makes them feel good, but just really, really make sure you're ready for any of that and don't try it for a long time Vic, ok?"

James fidgeted uncomfortably as Vic announced her conclusions out loud. "Um... yeah, basically. It's just... something people do, I guess." He wasn't about to go into anything more in depth, especially not anything she hand't asked about already. He just really hoped that this boy didn't hint to her about anything else or that he'd tell her himself next time. Speaking of... James frowned. "This boy who said these things. He wasn't talking about doing them to you, was he?" He was all for making your own choices and Merlin knows he couldn't talking, having gotten a girl pregnant while they were both in school, but he didn't think the young Wormwood would be ready for anything like that.

Face tomato red, James tried to think how to answer. "Um, well, I mean- First of all, 14 is the legal age of consent. N- not that it doesn't happen anyway, but I think we'd all rather you waited. Second, you'd need someone to try it with and you're not in a relationship right now, right? So you don't have anyone to try it with. Third, Jake would kill me if he heard I'd told you any of this and that you'd gone and tried it." Her second question made his blush even darker, not that he'd know that was possible. "W-well I d-don't exactly know. I'm not a girl, am I?"

James let out a silent breath of relief. He wasn't sure how he would have felt, had this boy, Jax, been talking about Victoria. While she was beautiful and vivacious and deserved to be loved, he wasn't sure he wanted her getting into this sort of stuff so young. Or so innocent.

James almost choked as he realized what she was getting at. How on earth did she manage to say these things with such matter of fact innocence? At least she recognized that there was nobody else she should really be trying this with. "Well, that's different, I suppose. You can do whatever you want to yourself," he answered, trying to match her stoic statement of fact, though he didn't quite achieve it at her level.

"I'm not," James muttered. "I think I would have noticed by now. Besides, if I was a girl and Jynx was a girl, how would we have had Peter?" James was fairly sure Zalea had covered that bit in her lesson to Victoria. "I don't think you need to check."

Once he got past being shocked and uncomfortable, James had to admit that it was a pretty amusing conversation. Nevertheless, he jumped at the change in topic. "Yes." He turned to grab some of the papers, showing them to her. "Now you see, it was a simple matter of accessing the DNA information already present in your cells and activating it..."