When the woman patted his shoulder and made mention to discuss this another time, Grey gave a snort, or huff, of disbelief and shook his head. The man knew his words had held very little effect over the woman. He wasn’t blind to his surroundings and while he was certainly angry he wasn’t complete without control of his facilities. Past that outburst, Grey had reined in some of his anger. Yet, it was difficult to tell. The man had not yelled or spoken scornfully before. No, that was not in the man’s character. He had seemed more deadly calm and cold. The Potions Professor was not the heated sort, the type who would throw things around or raise his voice above a normal speaking level unless the situation required it. He seemed normally quite unruffled, and unfortunately that was all just a façade to his inner feelings. He was not an open-feeling type of person, which made him all the more difficult to understand. Yet, his temper when raised was often difficult to control, and the man knew how to hold a grudge. Just see his feelings towards his biological father for proof of that.

The frown remained buried over his lips as he regarded the woman with a small shake of his head. “Go if you like.” He had no intentions of following the smaller Professor back to the castle. Grey had left the confining stone prison for a reason, and he was far from ready to return to it. Open spaces were better, and unlike Catherine, most of his students gave him wide berth—the faculty as well, not that it really bothered the man.

Grey had turned towards the lake, fully expecting the woman to leave. He had effectively scarred—or even scarred—her for one meeting. He did not begrudge her a safe retreat. He knew he was not fit company in that moment. He had even given her subtle warnings at the start of this particular meeting. Should have just walked away from the start. Surely that rude action would have been better than this outcome?

However, Grey’s musings were cut short when the woman spoke again. Grey turned his head to look at her, a brow arching briefly while things began clicking into place in the woman’s mind. She took it about as well as he expected her too—at least from what he knew of her personality thus far, which was admittedly not much. Grey shrugged his shoulders briefly before turning back to stare at the lake, allowing the woman a few moments to bask in her apparent humiliation. “It’s of no consequence,” he stated briefly. “Merely a past event.” Grey had not dug too deeply into that situation and had simply written it off as inconsequential as nothing had arose from it.

“Though I doubt you’re seeing it that way…” he then muttered to himself, keeping his gaze locked on the lake. He wasn’t certain what to expect in that moment, and quite frankly, Grey was strongly analyzing the idea of a retreat from the woman in that moment.

It seemed things were never easy when it came to the Herbology Professor. Grey sometimes wondered if she just came across that way to him or if she caused everyone around her to be so off balance? The man wasn’t sure, and frankly, he wasn’t even really in much of a mood to contemplate it. However, Grey had a wealth of experience of burying his true emotions and acting in another manner. Pretty much the opposite of the petite blonde professor. Grey had to be responsible given his position as Deputy Headmaster. He had to forge relationships with other staff members, even if he found a couple of them particularly grating to deal with. One would think Catherine would fall into this category, but surprisingly she hadn’t yet. While their relations seemed strained, the woman had yet to really annoy or rub him the wrong way.

Even now, with his mood low and temper brimming at the surface, he still couldn’t say that the woman would be demoted to that list of people he hated dealing with. Perhaps it had been a harsh form of trying to make the woman understand before, but then she seemed particularly dense when it came to accepting certain ideas. She was stubborn in her own right.

After everything that happened, Grey expected the witch to leave. It seemed the correct course of action at this point in time, and it would fit with their past dealings. However, nothing ever went according to plan with Catherine Dunham, and Grey found the woman calling his attention back as she sat upon the ground, hugging her torso to her thighs as a panic attacked descended upon her.

“Bollocks,” he man cursed, turning his form to hers, and kneeling down to her level. While his presence might make things worse, Grey could not simply stand there and do nothing. He placed a gentle hand to her shoulder, to bring her attention to him. “Catherine,” he stated, before repeating her name again to make sure he had her attention. His face was gentled in that moment in his concern for her, to get her to calm down. “Catherine, take a deep breath,” he instructed her, waiting for her to follow his prompting before speaking again, “and another… and another…” his voice was quiet and patient. The man searched for something for the woman to focus on other than her internal dealings when a gust of wind brought itself back to his attention. The wind had been blowing steadily for a while now.

“Keep breathing, in … and out … focus on that,” he continued. When he was sure she was doing as told, he spoke again, “keep breathing, but pay attention to the wind now. Listen to wind…” He was sure this was probably sounding completely stupid, but the woman needed a different focal point.

Comforting to the small Professor and helping her through a panic attack had not been on the list of Grey’s things to do that day. To be honest, the day was supposed to be an easy one of remaining in his office brewing. However, his temperament had thrown that plan off. He hadn’t been about to risk ruining every potion he touched or other possible accidents when he couldn’t seem to hold onto his bottles without one ending up broken. A walk outside had seemed to better option, but even now Grey thought if he knew he’d have run into the Herbology Professor he probably would have sought a different path. Yet, none of that could be change, and Grey was not the type of man to just walk away when another was in trouble—despite what some people may have thought about him. It wasn’t just because of his responsibility to the school.

But that didn’t mean the situation hadn’t made the man uncomfortable. When the woman grabbed hold of his hand Grey had pushed it from his mind, especially his desire to extricate his hand from her grasp—even more so when he grip turned vise-like. But the man didn’t. He focused on seeing the woman through her moment of panic, focusing himself on the smaller things. However, things just seemed to remain awkward after the pair of them stood up.

Grey was not a people person. This was a fact, so when the woman’s hand hovered over his heart it took his entire being not to take a few steps back away from her. However, when she did touch him, that inclination wasn’t held back. So much so, that he literally struck out against whatever thing the woman was trying to do—not physically, as the man didn’t strike her or anything of that nature, but his inner being did not accept the warmth of feelings she was trying to send into him. To be honest, the woman hit a wall on that front as the man did not accept the foreign feelings trying to enter him.

Instead, Grey did untangle himself from the woman, removing her touch from his person as he spoke, “You’re welcome. Now, if you’ll excuse me…” It was time to beat a retreat as the situation had turned entirely uncomfortable and confusing for the man. He started to walk away.