A Little Knowledge

From that morning in September when Ogg’s goat was found dead with two telltale puncture wounds in its neck until the first week of October, there was no sign of the vampire. The prefect schedules for Gryffindor, Hufflepuff, and Ravenclaw houses remained the same -- patrols were conducted only in pairs after dark. But whenever Martin had lunch with his father, he could tell that Professor Dumbledore was no longer as concerned about the threat, that he believed or at least hoped that the vampire had moved on, but Martin didn’t pursue the issue very far. When more than three weeks had passed without a single sighting, the five Ravenclaws began to feel safe again.

Corinna began to adjust to the life of a Quidditch player. She still felt miserable when she crawled out of bed for weekend practices, but the regular afternoon practices no longer bothered her very much. They were simply part of life, nothing more nor less than that. She was managing her studies, although she sometimes wished that she had more time to spend in the library or just reading in the common room.

And just as Sissy predicted, they earned back the points lost in the confrontation with the three Slytherins. Sissy earned extra points in defense, thanks to her superior knowledge of jinxes, although she suspected that it rather put Professor Knowles on his guard, so much so that she imagined that she would never be asked to demonstrate dueling techniques in his class ever again. But at least Chang, her partner for a second time, was a good sport about it.

Sophia was likewise showing continued promise in potions’ class where, had she been a Slytherin, she would have undoubtedly been Krohn’s favorite pupil in her year. But how many other students consumed books on the subject with such voracity? If it had been allowed, Sophia would certainly have been brewing potions after hours when all of her housemates were relaxing or engaged in more trivial pursuits. But unfortunately, or fortunately, depending on the point of view, it was not permitted.

Olivia was the only one who seemed a bit down as she was making surprising little headway in Transfigurations, which although not her favorite subject was one in which she had received decent marks the previous term. As it was, she could not manage to transfigure a strange muggle object, a rubber duck, into an actual living duck, which was considered a relatively simple non-living-to-living transfiguration. Corinna’s duckling had actually quacked and attempted to fly. Olivia’s attempt had resulted in a rather unsavory, moving, albeit rubbery, duck creature that had frightened some of her classmates. She was not eager to repeat that performance and was spending much of her free time in the library to prevent it.


It was a terrible thing, Corinna decided, to wake up in the middle of the night, on a Friday night no less, knowing that something dreadful was going to happen or perhaps had even already happened. She shivered and looked toward the bed opposite her own. Yes, Olivia was gone. And Corinna thought she knew why, for all the good it did her. Olivia was working on a Transfigurations essay and had fretted about not having time to go to the library to find a particular text to help her. Where was she then? Probably skulking around the library. And this was a very bad thing.

“Sissy!” hissed Corinna in the near darkness, glancing toward the moon lit window.

“Go to practice and leave us alone,” groaned the other girl, turning onto her side.

“Sophia!” said Corinna a bit more loudly.

“Go back to sleep, please,” mumbled Sophia more politely.

Corinna was beginning to panic as she left her bed, tossed on a rumpled robe, and took her wand from the night stand. They were going to hate her for this, and she could hardly blame them.

“Lumos!” she said, putting a lot of power into the spell.

A brilliant flash lit the room, rousing Sissy and Sophia instantly.

“What the devil!” yelled Sissy, shielding her eyes as she bolted upright with color in her pale cheeks.

“Olivia is gone! And ... and something is going to happen to her!” said Corinna plaintively.

Sissy and Sophia stared at her for a moment before dashing for their own robes and slippers. Corinna wasn’t always right, but it was usually worth taking a chance that she was. Especially if it seemed this serious.

“Do you know what?” asked Sissy.

“Or where?” asked Sophia.

“No, none of that ... only that ... that she’s not in where she should be,” said Corinna, indicating the empty bed. Her tone of voice urged them on as they grabbed their wands and tucked them away.

They rushed from the dormitory to the common room and paused.

“Are we going to the library? The kitchens? Where?” asked Sissy, who had a more strategic mind than the other two.

“I don’t know for certain ...” said Corinna, closing her eyes. “The library ... I think. But I cannot be absolutely sure,” she said. She knew that Olivia would never pass up the opportunity for chocolate, especially so late at night when the house elves made it the best.

“Oh, hell, we’ll have to split up then,” said Sissy.

Then they heard a door creak open. They held their breaths, realizing only then that they had been talking very loudly.

“What’s the matter?” asked a low voice from the stairs.

“Martin!” exclaimed Corinna.

“Shush! You’ll wake the whole tower,” he cautioned them as he stepped from the shadows.

“Olivia is out of the Aerie and ... Corinna says that something’s going to happen to her,” said Sophia quickly.

“Right,” he nodded, growing more somber, “just tell me what to do.”

“Sophia, you should go to the library,” said Sissy. “Corinna and I will go to the kitchens,” she decided, imagining Olivia with a ‘borrowed’ volume and a cup of something warm. “And in case she comes back here ...” Sissy began.

“No!” Martin interrupted. “I want to help too!”

“Then stand watch at the bottom of the tower,” insisted Sissy, not wanting to drag a first year into a potentially hazardous situation.

“I can go with Sophia!” pleaded Martin.

“Sorry, but I’m going on the usual route, and prefects patrol almost half of it,” said Sophia, glancing at the clock.

It was only a quarter after eleven, although it felt like much later. They had gone to bed early so that they could have breakfast with Corinna as it cheered her up. The prefects would still be about, and Sophia imagined that she could talk her way out of a serious loss of points if and only if she were caught alone.

Corinna looked at Martin for a moment and said, “You’re better off here. Remember what nearly happened ...”

“Bollocks! Nothing happened!” said Martin, growing red in the face.

“Stop it! You’re just slowing us down,” snapped Sissy. “Corinna, you are with me, and, Sophia, do be careful. You are only just adequate at defense,” she reminded her.

The halls were not so dark as they were after midnight, when the prefects doused some of the torches and everyone, even the caretaker and his apprentice, went to bed. But they were dark and deserted enough to make Sophia’s heart pound as she ran stealthily and quietly toward the library, which was not particularly close to the Aerie, especially after the staircases went through their evening shift. Most inconvenient.

She was almost regretting leaving Martin behind in a secluded nook not far from the tower stairs. It would have been nice not to be alone as she raced toward the library, which she knew would be dark and quite creepy after curfew.

And there was the additional threat. If Olivia were in danger, didn’t that mean the vampire was back in the castle? And didn’t that mean that they were all in danger?

“Why? Oh, why must she be so studious?” Sophia asked herself as she ran, keeping her ears pricked for sounds of the prefects ... or anything else.

Sissy and Corinna made use of the secret passage that they had utilized during the misadventure at the beginning of the school term. This time Corinna didn’t have a stitch in her side as they ran. She was momentarily grateful for her Quidditch training as she kept up with Sissy’s long strides.

They were nearly to the entrance to the kitchens when Corinna stopped and gasped.

“We’ve got to turn around,” she yelled at Sissy, disregarding their need for silence and secrecy.

Sissy skidded to a halt, whirled around, and asked, “Why?”

Corinna ran her hands through disheveled hair and tried to make sense of the premonitions she was getting. The whirl of images, colors, and feelings were never easy to make sense of. They were a muddle to her, as ever, but she made as much sense of it as she could.

“Everything’s changing ... We’re changing everything ... We must get back to Martin,” she said before taking off in the opposition direction, racing back toward the Aerie at full speed.

Sissy had no choice but to follow her.

Meanwhile, Sophia had reached the library without being seen by any of the prefects on duty that night. There was a quiet shuffling sound in the Transfigurations’ section. She smiled with relief and drew her wand to cast a Lumos spell so she wouldn’t trip over anything.

“Olivia!” she called in a loud hiss when the sound of pages being turned stopped.

“Sophia? What in Merlin’s name are you doing here?” asked Olivia, emerging from the stacks with her own wand, and reading light, out.

“Corinna thought you might be in trouble ...” said Sophia with a shrug.

“Not yet ...” said Olivia, thinking she meant being caught out after hours. “I guess we should go back then,” she sighed, looking longingly toward the shelves.

“I’ll help you with that essay, I promise, but right now we can’t afford to linger here,” said Sophia firmly.

“I know, I know ...” sighed Olivia.

“You haven’t seen anything strange have you?” asked Sophia as they both walked toward the door.

“Not especially. Should I have?”

Just as Sophia reached to open the doors, they heard voices outside.

“Oh, no ...” she groaned quietly, stepping away from the doors and dousing her wand with a quiet, “Nox!”

Olivia followed suit, and they waited, holding their breaths.

“And then the constable says, ‘you blokes can’t leave those brooms here!’ and I says, ‘but it’ll only be for an hour,’ and he looks at me real odd like ...” said the voice of the sixth year Hufflepuff prefect as he walked by with another prefect from his house.

His voice soon faded into the distance.

“That was close,” said Olivia.

“Tell me about it! We had better give them just a moment to pass by,” said Sophia, taking a seat at the nearest table.

When Sissy and Corinna reached the wall that when opened would take them back to the main corridor near the Aerie, Sissy had to pause and think. They had not returned that way since sometime in mid to late May. She frowned and pressed a stone, hoping it would be the one that was the trigger. Nothing. On this side there were no clues, only what intuition and memory could provide. Sissy always hated that.

“And how did I become in charge of secret passageways and trick doors?” she asked herself as her frown deepened.

“Hurry!” hissed Corinna plaintively.

The urgency in her voice spurred Sissy on as she began pressing stones at random that seemed to be in the proper area. After a frantic moment or two, the wall slid open almost soundlessly.

Sissy’s heart was pounding in her ears as they took off again. She risked a sidelong glance at Corinna. She had always been somewhat pale, but even after their dash through the halls, Corinna remained almost ghostly white. Sissy wanted to ask what she had seen or what she knew, but Corinna was seldom very comfortable with details. Not even with small predictions. With something like this, she would be positively secretive.

They didn’t see anyone as they made their way back to the tower as quickly as they could. Sissy was more than a little surprised that they didn’t encounter any of the three prefects out that night, but then why would two Hufflepuffs and a Slytherin patrol near the Aerie?

When Sissy and Corinna rounded the last corner between them and the tower stairs, they saw two figures in the dim light. One was Martin, lying on his back on the cold stone floor of the corridor. The other was a black cloaked figure that was leaning over him, tucking its wand back into the folds of its heavy garment.

Sissy had her wand in her hand before realizing anything more than Martin was in danger, without stopping to think, without screaming, without giving her or Corinna away.

“Contorqueo!” Sissy shouted with all of her strength after taking careful aim at the vampire.

The spell was one that she had discovered in a third year defense text from fifty years earlier. She had always liked the sound of the incantation and had been wanting very much to try it, although she had had those irksome Slytherin boys in mind. She had savored the mental image of Black or one of his friends being thrown the length of a corridor.

Of course, she had not cast the hurling spell on a mere third year student nor on an ordinary mortal. The vampire did not whiz through the air, but he was knocked back a few feet and away from Martin, who Sissy noticed was not moving.

The vampire hissed at them, but he could see that he was facing two determined young witches who were obviously not afraid to fight him. And Sissy imagined that the skinny boy on the floor did not seem worth the trouble to him in face of those odds.

They both gasped out loud as he transfigured into a bat and swooped down the hallway, but fortunately away from them.

“Check him; check Martin,” said Sissy, keeping her wand raised. She wasn’t letting her guard down nor taking any chances.

Corinna tucked her wand away and felt her mouth go dry. Sissy grabbed her by the shoulder and shoved her forward with a hard, impatient expression. Corinna knelt on the floor, feeling the cold seeping through her robes at the knees.

“Martin?” she questioned, shaking him fervently by the shoulders. A thousand horrible thoughts ran through her mind. She could only wonder which ones, if any, would prove to be true.

“Is he breathing?” asked Sissy.

“Yes,” she said with a nod.

“Has he been bitten?”

Corinna’s hands were shaking as she checked his neck for fang marks. There were none that she could find.

“No,” she answered, glancing up at Sissy, who was towering above them as she stood watch.

“Wrists,” said Sissy curtly. “Vampires can take blood from more places than just the jugular,” she added as Corinna looked confused.

The other girl only nodded and rolled up his sleeves. Nothing again. She breathed a sigh of relief.

“He’s not bitten,” Corinna insisted.

“Good. Try rousing him again. It’s not safe to stay here,” said Sissy.

“He won’t wake up,” said Corinna, shaking her head. “We have to get him to the hospital wing. The vampire might have hurt him somehow,” she said insistently.

“I have to be ready in case that thing comes back. And I don’t think either of us could manage a levitation spell that far alone. Certainly not Mobilicorpus. We just ... don’t have the experience,” said Sissy, sounding quite frustrated, but rather sure of her assessment of the situation too.

Suddenly they heard hurried footsteps coming from the direction of the library. Sissy swung around and steeled herself for the worst. Later she realized that this was quite absurd.

“Sophia! Olivia!” cried Sissy in surprise. She felt a great deal better seeing them as they rounded the corner.

“What happened to Martin?” asked Sophia, dashing past Sissy and kneeling with Corinna.

“The vampire ...” said Sissy ominously.

Olivia took her cue from Sissy and removed her wand from the pocket of her robes. She looked around nervously as though expecting it to step out of the shadows and attack them.

“Someone has to go for help,” said Sophia. That much was obvious to her.

“No one goes alone,” said Sissy sharply.

Sophia scrambled to her feet and took Olivia by the arm.

“We saw some prefects not so long ago. We’ll try and get them to help us,” said Sophia. Her voice was confident, but the fear and horror were easy to see in her dark, expressive eyes.

“And there’ll be hell to pay,” said Olivia.

“Thanks to you!” Sissy hissed, unable to contain the outburst.

Olivia opened her mouth, but closed it without making a sound. She nodded and hung her head before rushing away with Sophia, who seemed to know what she was doing and where she was going.

“That wasn’t necessary,” commented Corinna quietly.

“But true nevertheless,” said Sissy, glowering down at her.

Corinna brushed a few stray locks of auburn hair away from Martin’s face as she tried to think of something to say to that. His skin was very cool to the touch. That worried her quite a bit.

Sissy just glowered harder for a moment and said, “I’ll apologize later. It just slipped out. None of us would be out here if not for Olivia. If something has happened to Martin because of her ...”

“He’ll be fine,” Corinna cut in almost desperately.

“I certainly hope so,” said Sissy, biting her lower lip as she looked up and down the corridor anxiously.

Olivia was holding back tears as she followed behind Sophia, who had set a brisk pace, although she didn’t have a specific destination in mind. Olivia couldn’t help but sniffle a bit after what Sissy had said. They were all in danger and Martin was hurt because she couldn’t wait to get a silly book from the library. Olivia felt horrible.

“We should have tried carrying him to the hospital wing,” said Sophia, shaking her head as she slowed to a jog and glanced over her shoulder at Olivia, who was beginning to trial behind.

“Maybe,” said Olivia softly.

“You shouldn’t take what Sissy said to heart. We all thought it was safe. We were talking about raiding the kitchens again, weren’t we?” said Sophia.

“But I’m the only one who was stupid enough to leave the tower ...” said Olivia, rubbing her eyes.

“Stupid? I don’t believe that,” snorted Sophia.

Just then they heard voices ahead of them in the hallway. They quickened their pace.

What happened next can only be described as fate, or more bad luck than any two people, meaning Sophia and Olivia, should ever have, especially in a single night.

They dashed heedlessly around the corner, in the direction of the voices, and slammed into two significantly larger individuals, landing in a disorganized heap in the floor. Sophia almost instantly found herself in a position that muggles referred to as a ‘head-lock’ while Olivia was forcibly restrained against the floor with one arm pinned behind her back.

“Bloody hell! It’s students,” said the person that had instinctively grappled with Sophia, loosening his grip.

Olivia turned her head to see Professor Dumbledore, who glasses were slightly askew. He seemed to blush, much in the same way as his son, as he released Olivia and helped her to her feet with a murmured apology.

“Cyrus ...” said Dumbledore, giving his younger colleague an unpleasant look as he left Sophia on the floor.

Professor Knowles narrowed his eyes and grudgingly gave her a hand up.

“I suppose you two realized that you are in very serious trouble,” said Knowles in a toneless voice.

“It’s Martin,” Olivia blurted out. “The vampire ...”

Dumbledore’s eyes widened in concern and he asked, “My son? Is he hurt? Has he been bitten?”

“No, sir, I don’t think so, but we can’t wake him up. He’s at the bottom of Ravenclaw Tower with Sissy and Corinna,” said Olivia, wiping her stinging eyes with the back of her hand.

“This does not seem good,” stated Knowles.

But Dumbledore was already hurrying in the direction of the tower with his wand drawn. He was wasting no time.

“Come on,” instructed Knowles, taking off after the professor.

Sophia and Olivia were quick to follow, but they had very little choice really.

Corinna looked up when she heard the sound of someone fast approaching. Sissy had her wand ready again, but she wasn’t as jumpy as before. She was just worried about Martin. He was still unconscious, and neither of them could think of anything to do for him.

When Corinna saw Professor Dumbledore she clambered none too gracefully to her feet. She was almost afraid of what the older professor would say or do if his son were injured. Then she remembered how Dumbledore had believed them about the vampire. Surely he wouldn’t blame them for this.

The professor didn’t pay them any attention as he raced to his son. For a moment Corinna was certain that he had not even seen the rest of them. He checked Martin’s throat just as Sissy had instructed her to do. The professor breathed a soft sigh of relief and tried to awaken Martin.

As he was doing so Corinna glanced down the hall to see Professor Knowles, Olivia, and Sophia jogging toward them. The defense professor had slowed to his steps to allow the girls to keep up, not wanting to leave them behind with a vampire on the loose.

“What’s wrong with him, professor?” asked Corinna hesitantly as Dumbledore glanced up at her.

“A simple sleeping spell, I think. The vampire probably just wanted to keep him quiet,” answered Dumbledore grimly. He lifted Martin in his arms as he stood. “You should come to the hospital wing with us,” he said, looking at all four of the girls.

“You won’t need me then,” said Knowles. “I plan to do a little hunting,” he added, raising his wand in an antiquated salute.

“Be careful, Cyrus,” urged Dumbledore before taking off toward the hospital wings with the four Ravenclaws in tow.

---