Meeting of the minds (The Doctor and Briony)

The Doctor led Briony out of the meeting area of the minister's quarters into another room within the quarters. This one was much cosier, with a few leather sofas and a coffee table. The Doctor gestured to one of the sofas with a small smile,

"Please take a seat Mrs Romain." he offered her before sitting down on a sofa opposite to her, "If you would like a drink the elf's name is Ripple. Now then... in the meeting you said that you had a proposition?"

Briony altogether felt more comfortable with this room, it was homier and it made her happier to be in it, well, as happy as Briony ever got when she was doing something to do with Germany, and it did not involve having to kill someone.

Sitting down she nodded towards The Doctor and thought that she would be needing a stiff vodka after this meeting was done, and she fumbled for her silver cigaretter case;

"You mind if I smoke?" she asked gesturing to the case "But yes I have a proposition, I know that nothing is as important to you and I than making sure these children are touched as little as possible by this war, as so, I propose we make a truce, at least between our two organisations."

The Doctor sighed a little bit as he relaxed completely in the chair. He never liked high powered meetings and the meeting between the leaders of two countries at war was the meeting with the most amount of tension. He hoped that Vikki still remembered how to give those awesome back rubs. Seeing her go for the cigarette case he waved at her with a nod,

"Go right ahead. I smoke cigars so it won't bother me." He paused in his relaxing to listen to her proposition, or the pretext before it at least, "So we should try to improve relations between our two schools so that the students are affected less? I like where this is going. What do you have in mind to accomplish this?"

Briony smirked a little when the Doctor said that he smoked cigars, he did not look like the type of man to smoke at all, and this was a little nugget of information that she really quite liked, after all it was something that made him appear more human.

Lighting up one of the cigarettes, Briony took a large drag and breathed out the smoke, with a small smirk on her lips, she was glad that the Doctor was open to what she was going to suggest.

"I was suggesting that perhaps we have a sort of competition between our schools, students get to meet students, relations grow between them, when this generation is over and done their generation will know the difference between political influences and the truth. That the opposing country isn't as scary as they seem."

The Doctor had to chuckle a little bit. The fact that he smoked cigars was a closely kept secret and giving it away for free helped to establish something of a relationship of trust. To prove his point, The Doctor took a cigar from his inner pocket and lit it as Briony lit her cigarette. He let out a puff of smoke, sighing happily at the sensation of smoking one of his cigars,

"A competition between our two schools eh?" he paused to take a drag from his cigar, "I like the idea of breaking down the ideas that have been plaguing our children. Demonising the enemy doesn't work if the enemy is your friend. So it's kind of like the twi-wizard cup? But we're not including the French, thank god."

Briony smirked when the Doctor, as if to prove his point, took out a cigar and began to smoke it, she had never thought him to be a man to smoke, but it made her feel less awkward than her just smoking on her own, people always looked at her funny when she smoked.

"Exactly like that, although I propose that we have four challenges, and a student is elected from one of yours to compete against one from mine. Sound interesting enough?" she asked her head cocked to one side.

Unable to stop a dry chuckle, Briony nodded her head; "Oh we wont know the difference only the fact that they'll not be running around and screaming about their wrecked hair."

The Doctor hadn't been able to smoke one of his fine cuban cigars in months because of his image as the Highmaster. What kid would choose not to smoke if even his teachers were smoking? No he wasn't really allowed to smoke at school which kind of limited him seeing as he practically lived there,

"Four challenges instead of the three and two schools instead of the three. I like this so far Mrs Romain." he admitted with a grin, "It sounds like we'd be able to sell memories of the competition as a motion picture so far."

He grinned a little bit,

"That's true but it's also a bit mean..." he laughed, "That's why it's so funny. But getting back on track... where would we hold such an event?"

Briony took a deep drag of her cigarette and she hummed lightly to herself, where would they hold this event, she supposed Hogwarts was out of the question, although the Board of Directors could be persuaded, there were different factors to consider.

"Well regardless of it being a motion picture, perhaps we should hold it in your school, after all I think the parents would have a pink fit if I ordered you back to our school after the first little 'visit'." she smirked lightly.

With a tap of her cigarette on the nearest ashtray, Briony thought a little bit more and she pointed with her cigarette at The Doctor, a larger smirk on her lips grew and she continued;

"I think, to make things fair, you design two challenges, and I will design two, although we must be sure to keep this agreement safe from the press until such a time arises that we need to disclose it."

The Doctor liked the idea and was more than willing to hold the event at Durmstrang. Thankfully one of the highmasters before him had been a real nasty piece of work and had cursed the positions of the board of governers so the decision was his alone,

"Well thankfully I don't have any pesty board like you do so I can say 'yes' right now and that's my school all ready for it." he grinned before grimacing a little, "Yeah... I guess you're right. My school it is then."

The Doctor didn't bother with an ashtray, he simply vanished the waste from his cigar with a wave of his hand every now and then. He grinned,

"A diplomatic solution that pleases us both. You certainly are the brains of the British delegation." he remarked before nodding, "True, we shall have to keep this away from the press. What age group? Or shall we open it up to all our students?"