A Little Knowledge

The final class of the day for the girls was Transfigurations with Professor Dumbledore. But when they walked into the third floor classroom, they were in for a surprise. Martin was there, sitting at a table on the side of the room that the Ravenclaw students had chosen -- opposite the Gryffindors, with whom they would be having class. The quartet all exchanged puzzled looks and joined Martin at the table.

“I think you’re in the wrong class,” said Olivia in a low voice.

“I’m not,” said Martin, blushing and giving her his schedule.

“How in Merlin’s name did this happen?” asked Sophia as she looked over her friend’s shoulder to verify that Martin was indeed scheduled for Transfigurations. She was certain that there had been a mix up or an outright mistake.

“Mum ... she sent a letter to the headmaster ... explaining that ... that I’m good at this,” he explained awkwardly. “I didn’t know. Father just told me,” he added, glancing toward the front of the room where Professor Dumbledore sat reading behind his desk, which was piled high with what appeared to be ... leaves and twigs?

“Really?” asked Sissy. “Just how good are you?”

“Er, well, I was only allowed to do a little real magic, because of the restrictions, you know, but the theoretical stuff ... out of books ... mum says that I’ve a fine head for it,” said Martin, blushing furiously.

“We’ve embarrassed him,” said Sophia with a slight, but kindly smile.

Olivia gave his shoulder a playful punch and said, “He’ll get over it.”

And with that, the last of the students took their seats and Professor Dumbledore began class.

“This year you will be learning more advanced transfigurations involving changing living or organic objects into inanimate ones, and vice versa,” he explained, taking a small twig from his desk and holding it in his hand. “For this lesson we will be turning a twig into tie pin. Observe ...”

With a quickly spoken incantation, the twig changed into a silver tie pin with a red stone. Dumbledore was, of course, showing off a bit as he did not expect his students to transfigure a simple piece of garden debris into anything nearly so ornate. He held the pin out for them to see before changing it back again.

“Please come up and select a twig. The leaves are for later, should we have time. You may work in pairs and make use of your textbooks,” he announced.

As the students scurried to the front to collect their supplies, Dumbledore made a quick count and noted that there was an odd number of students.

“And there may be one group of three,” he amended.

“You’re with us then,” said Olivia, pointing to Sophia and herself as they picked up their materials from the table.

“All right,” he agreed without hesitation. More than anything he didn’t want to be the only one working alone.

He didn’t happen to catch the vaguely annoyed look on Sissy’s face. She had wanted to ask Martin to pair up with Corinna and herself. Corinna was quite good at transfigurations, but it never hurt to have an extra head to solve a problem, especially if Martin were some sort of prodigy. And, though Sissy would hardly admit it, she did enjoy his company and found him to be a potentially welcome addition to their little troupe.

Back at their places Olivia and Sophia both immediately removed their books from their satchels and began thumbing through them for the section of transforming organic matter into inorganic objects. Martin watched them for a moment before posing a question:

“Why not give it a go first?”

They both looked up at him, watching him toy with his wand, before Sophia answered, “Because we might accidentally make it explode or something, and I don’t fancy asking for another twig.”

“Oh,” he commented, weighing the consequences before fetching his own copy of A Beginner's Guide to Transfiguration.

The information on the topic, which recommended an assortment of practice transfigurations ranging from what they were doing to vastly complicated ones, was rather fascinating, but nothing, Martin decided, could beat actually attempting the actual transfiguration.

“Should we stand back?” asked Olivia in an amused voice as Martin closed his book.

He knew that she was only teasing and just shrugged, “You never know ...”

Sophia chuckled softly and said, “Just remember to concentrate, Martin.”

He nodded and spoke the incantation, “Ramusverto,” with a wave of his wand.

Martin frowned. Nothing had happened. He lifted the twig to examine it, feeling quite puzzled.

“Well?” asked Olivia impatiently.

“It’s still a twig,” he said, showing it to her.

“Were you concentrating?” asked Sophia.

“Yes,” he insisted.

As he returned the twig to the table in front of him with a sigh, Corinna, who wasn’t very far away announced, “I’ve done it!”

Martin turned and saw her hold a very plain and simple tie pin up to the light. It still looked slightly brown, but she managed the transfiguration. About that there was no doubt.

“Very good,” Sophia congratulated her with a smile.

“I’ll take a turn at it now,” said Olivia, who was a decent student in the subject, but certainly not as good as Corinna.

She cast the spell and the twig changed ... into a copper-colored half-twig, half pin. She stuck out her tongue and made a disgusted sound at the mutant object.

“So much for that!” she said.

Sophia picked it up and examined it carefully.

“Well, it looks sort of ... modern,” she said, trying to find something nice to say about the result of Olivia’s spell.

“Oh, do stop it, Sophia! It’s a monstrosity. Let me change it back,” sighed Olivia in frustration before doing just that.

Sophia’s attempt met with strikingly similar results as she was apparently still thinking about her friend’s failed transfiguration.

“Oh, your turn again, Martin,” Sophia told the young wizard, who was reading over the material with renewed interest as he watched their attempts out of the corner of his eye.

He wasn’t envious exactly, but he wished that something had happened on his first try. Maybe, he thought, it was just nerves. He closed the tome and picked up his wand again.

Just as he lifted his wand to perform the spell, Martin became conscious of a towering figure standing just to his left. He glanced up to see his father watching him carefully. The professor had been walking around the classroom, measuring the success his pupils were having at the task. Now it was finally Martin’s turn.

“Ramusverto!” he spoke carefully, feeling as though all the blood in his body was rushing into his cheeks and ears as he blushed.

Magic can be performed in a variety of circumstances to either good or bad results. And under the pressure to perform that Martin felt as he tried desperately to change the twig into a tie pin, the result was not an especially good one. The twig changed into a pin ... just prior to melting into a tiny puddle of metallic goo on the desk. Martin winced and lowered his wand.

“You are trying too hard, Mister Dumbledore,” said the professor with twinkling eyes. It was all he could do not to laugh at Martin. The temptation would not have been so great if the young wizard in question was not his own son. But looking at Martin, who was still staring blankly at the goo, it was very difficult to maintain his composure. “I must admit. I have never seen that happen before,” he added in an even voice.

Sophia and Olivia were both attempting to look like serious students, but grins were tugging at the corners of their mouths.

“I’m sorry, professor,” said Martin.

“No matter,” said Dumbledore, waving his wand and restoring the twig. “Try taking a deep breath next time,” he suggested before walking to the next table.

Olivia punched his shoulder encouragingly and said, “That was blinking fantastic. I’ve never seen anything melt like that either.”

“I was ... nervous,” Martin admitted quietly, poking the twig with his wand.

“Who wouldn’t be? Cripes! If my dad was here ... I’d hate to see what would happen,” said Olivia.

Martin managed a bit of a smile and said, “Thanks.”

That was the last class of the day for the second years, who had a ‘study break’ thereafter, but Martin, who never managed to transfigure a decent tie pin, trudged onward to Defense Against the Dark Arts, which Sissy promised he would enjoy. He took a bit of comfort in that.

He was beginning to like the girls quite a bit, more than any of the students in his own year, who seemed a bit aloof, possibly because his father was a professor, not to mention famous. That had never been particularly hard on Martin, that people knew and respected his father, and to a lesser degree his mother. She had not slain the infamous Dark Wizard Grindelwald and ended the war, after all, but she was respected for her work as an Auror.

But at Hogwarts, his father’s fame actually seemed to bother him a bit. Every conversation he had with the boys in his year eventually turned into questions about his father. They wanted to hear war stories. They wanted to hear about the great professor’s adventures. They wanted to know about dragon blood and alchemy. They didn’t want to hear about him, about Martin Dumbledore, at all.

Of course, he didn’t have the answers they wanted. His father never told him how he won the duel with the worst Dark Wizard of the age. Nor any of the other stuff. They talked about what Martin considered to be traditional father-son things, like Quidditch and what Martin wanted to be when he grew up or what kind of books they both liked. Not about that horrible war, which had ended eleven long years before, or about any of those other things.

It made Martin more than a bit uncomfortable. His year mates seemed so insistent that he tell them things. Then when he couldn’t, they were disappointed and maybe even a little upset. He hoped they would stop asking and learn to accept him for who he was, not because his father was famous.

But at least he had the girls. They had asked a few questions too, but Martin supposed that in their place he would be a bit curious. And he didn’t mind so much since they also seemed interested in being his friends as well, and that was all that he could ask for.

After classes ended for the four young witches, they went their separate ways for a while. Sissy went to the library with the intention of pouring over texts on dueling techniques and associated charms. Corinna retired to their dormitory to read in solitude and perhaps work on her broom, which certainly could use it. Olivia lingered in the common room with the intention of studying her transfigurations’ text as she was not at all pleased with her classroom performance, and she wanted to have tips to offer to Martin, who had left class in similar spirits.

But while the others lingered indoors, Sophia left the castle and went out to read by the lake, one of her favorite places, while the weather was still warm and fair and she could enjoy spending time there. It was rather cool for the first week of September, but Sophia didn’t mind that. The peacefulness and the almost delicious solitude made it well worth it. Sophia was by nature perhaps a bit more solitary than her friends, though the other members of the quartet were very dear to her. Her feelings for them did not, however, negate her need for a few hours to herself, away from the hurried life within the castle in general and the Aerie in particular.

She smiled to herself as she opened her potions’ textbook to prepare for the next day’s class. It was one of her favorite classes, not to mention one in which she received very high marks, higher than even the Slytherins of her year, and that was saying something. Of all the types of magic they studied from charms to transfigurations, Sophia considered potions to be one of the most logical. One simply needed to learn the properties of the ingredients, the basic techniques of brewing, and how to follow instructions to become proficient at it. But try telling that to the young Lions they had shared a classroom with during the previous term, or to Sissy and Corinna for that matter.

“Diligent as ever, I see,” said a low voice from just behind her.

Sophia started, dropping her book, and turned to see Professor Krohn towering above her. Her surprise seemed to amuse the potions’ master.

“Professor ...” she stammered, uncharacteristically tongue-tied, “I didn’t hear you.”

“I suppose not,” he said with a slightly smirking half-smile that made his heavy, but once handsome features more pleasant. “I often come here myself. There are usually fewer students under foot,” Krohn commented, looking out at the lake.

Picking up her book, Sophia scrambled hurriedly to her feet, and said, “I ... I’ll go immediately.” She had seen Krohn’s wrath unleashed upon her Gryffindor year mates often enough to know that she would do nearly anything not to be on the receiving end of it.

Krohn held up a hand and said, “I wasn’t ordering you off. I was simply making a statement. If sitting out here with your book is how you manage to perform so adequately in my class, then by all means, stay.”

Sophia paused and frowned. It wasn’t like him to give compliments, not even ones so meager as that.

“Actually, sir, I think it does help ... because it’s so quiet here,” she said timidly, taking a seat on the grass again.

Krohn clasped his arms behind his back and nodded thoughtfully as he gazed out over the water and toward the high hills and mountains that surrounded the school. Something about that view reminded him of the home he had left in Germany so many years ago, just before the muggle war and wizarding one. He had never dared to go back. He wasn’t sure if he could face the tremendous changes that had occurred since then.

Sophia watched him for a moment before returning her attention to her book. When she looked up again, Krohn was gone, returned to his dungeons and his duties.

“Olivia? Are you busy at the moment?” asked Corinna, watching her friend tapping her quill against an open text book, which she seemed to be staring at, but not actually reading.

Olivia looked up and grinned, offering her a seat on the couch, which she still had all to herself, although students were beginning to trickle in slowly from class.

“Not too busy,” she said.

“It’s about Quidditch ...” said Corinna with a wince. She glanced meaningfully toward the stairs to their dormitory.

“Ah, I see,” said Olivia, gathering up her things and following Corinna back to their room.

As they walked into the dormitory, Olivia’s cat leapt down from the windowsill where he had been sunning himself and regarded his owner curiously. Olivia tossed her things onto her bed and scooped up the small cat with a chuckle.

Corinna glimpsed Sukie peering out from beneath her owner’s bed. Sissy’s owl, she imagined, was sleeping in the Owlery and would come in through the window sometime after dark. She wished that she had a familiar.

“You’re already worried about the first game, aren’t you?” asked Olivia. “You shouldn’t be,” she added, “since it isn’t until mid-October sometime. I haven’t even checked the calendar yet.”

“No, that isn’t it,” said Corinna, “but I am a bit nervous about practice on Monday.”

“So Ambrose came up with a schedule?”

“A grueling one,” said Corinna with a soft sigh, thinking of all those cold and early mornings and possibly late suppers she had to look forward to. “But that isn’t it either.”

Olivia gave her a questioning look.

“I mentioned to Ambrose that you want to be a Beater next term. He suggested that you might train with the team in the spring. I thought I should let you know before he mentioned it. And it slipped my mind yesterday,” explained Corinna.

Olivia grinned and said, “Thanks for putting in a good word for me, Corinna! I don’t know what I would do without you.”

“Break some noses at try-outs?” she suggested with a smile.

“I can still do that ... maybe,” chuckled Olivia, who was rather brutal with a Quidditch bat. They had played a friendly match with some Gryffindors during the Easter holidays the year before and Olivia had ‘accidentally’ broken a second year’s nose with a Bludger.

“Ambrose seemed rather relieved that I knew someone interested, but he will have a lot of positions to fill after graduation,” said Corinna.

“Two Beaters, with one reserve to step up, possibly a Chaser, and, unfortunately, the Seeker,” said Olivia, who kept up with such things.

Ambrose was only a fifth year, but he had received the captaincy despite that because the graduating players didn’t want to take the honor from David Clearwater, who was one of their own, and knew that a younger captain could keep the team together better after they had gone. He had also been on the team for three full terms and knew the game and players very well.

“So if we don’t win this year ...” said Corinna.

“Don’t say that! Just because the team will be younger next year, doesn’t mean that it won’t be better too,” objected Olivia.

“Well, at least we’ll have you.”

“Us,” she corrected with a grin. “Although, we’ll be stuck listening to Ambrose for years to come,” she added, wrinkling her nose.

“He might make a decent captain. You never know ...” said Corinna, but privately she wondered if Olivia might be right about Ignatius Ambrose.

---