A Little Knowledge

The hospital wing was dark when Professor Dumbledore entered carrying his son in his arms, but the lights flared and sprang to life through some unseen force that gave Corinna a bit of a thrill. Wandless magic, she surmised. It had made Dumbledore something of a legend as it was a power that few witches or wizards possessed.

At that moment an aura of power that was normally well disguised seemed to radiate from the professor of Transfigurations. All of the girls, not just Corinna, could sense it as they hurried after him into the hospital wing. Then, as quickly as it had come, the aura was gone and Professor Dumbledore was just a worried father with an injured child in his arms.

Dumbledore carefully deposited Martin on a hospital bed before turning to Sophia, and she had no idea why he chose her, telling her, "Go and fetch Madam Pomfrey. I imagine she's sleeping."

He pointed her toward a little hallway that lead to the hospital wing office and back to the mediwitch's quarters. She nodded and went swiftly to do as he asked.

"Sir?" questioned Corinna timidly. "Couldn't you just say a counter spell or something?"

Olivia and Sissy had been wondering much the same thing since Dumbledore had announced that only a sleeping spell had been cast on his son.

"Have you ever been told not to wake a sleepwalker, Miss Bellew?" he asked.

"Er, yes, sir, I believe I have," she replied in an uncertain tone.

"This is much the same thing. He will awaken naturally by morning, if not sooner, or Madam Pomfrey will recommend a course of action, such as a cordial or other draught," explained Dumbledore patiently as he took seat on the edge on the bed where Martin was sleeping. The professor took his son's hand and gave it a tender squeeze.

"This is my hospital wing, professor, and you will not be giving out prescriptions, no matter what time of night it is," said the crisp, forceful voice of Madam Pomfrey as she emerged from the office area with Sophia just behind her. Her voice softened as she asked, "What's happened?"

"Our intruder cast a sleeping spell on him, I believe," answered Dumbledore, who found young Poppy's brusque manner oddly comforting.

"Then he was very lucky," she said as she walked around the bed to have a proper look at Martin.

The girls lingered as close as they dared, but knew that it was only a matter of time before Pomfrey threw them out.

"Yes, very," said Professor Dumbledore, looking at the quartet of Ravenclaws.

Olivia glanced away guiltily and blinked back tears.

"I'll give him a potion, if Reynard has it in stock. We don't keep that sort of thing up here. He needs it more than I do ... usually ... for when the brewing of sleeping draughts goes amiss and so forth," Madam Pomfrey informed him.

"You had better contact him by floo. Cyrus is tracking the vampire at the moment ... and it may not be safe in the corridors," Dumbledore told the mediwitch.

"Thank you for the warning, professor," she said with a grim look before retreating to her office as quickly as she had come.

"It can wait, of course, but would any of you care to tell me what happened?" asked Dumbledore, turning toward the young witches again.

"It would have been so nice to have had five minutes or so to get our stories straight," thought Sissy with a little sigh.

"It's my fault. I left the dormitories to get a book from the library ..." Olivia started. Her shoulders were shaking. It required everything she had within her not to break down and cry. "I just meant to be gone for a few minutes ..." she sniffed.

Professor Dumbledore gestured for her to be silent.

"Miss Scarrow, I assure you that very little harm has been done," he said in a calm manner. And he believed it, though it was admittedly a close call.

Of course, he knew his son, or liked to think so, and knew that no one could have forced Martin to leave the safety of the tower unless he had chosen to do so. Martin, much like his mother, could be very obstinate at times.

"Yes, sir," she said reluctantly. Her eyes drifted toward Martin.

"Actually, it was sort of my fault that Martin left the tower too," said Corinna miserably. She was going to take the blame for Sissy and Sophia too, but knew they would never allow it. "I talked everyone into looking for Olivia," she added before Dumbledore could ask.

"And the three of us talking in the common room woke Martin up," said Sophia.

Dumbledore sighed and pinched the bridge of his nose beneath his spectacles.

"We aren't assigning blame. I believe I shall be leaving that task to Professor Knowles as he enjoys it so. I merely wish to ascertain what happened," said Dumbledore with the barest hint of impatience in his voice.

Sissy made something of a face and said, "The three of us split up to look for Olivia, knowing she would either be in the library or kitchens. We left Martin at the bottom of the tower in case Olivia should come back ..."

"Wait a minute;" said Dumbledore, "there's something I don't quite understand. You were acting as though Olivia were in danger. Were you not?"

Sissy shifted uncomfortably and deferred the question to the other girls. They all turned toward Corinna, who was staring at her slippers as though they were the most fascinating things in the world. The silence grew heavy.

"You've got to tell him," said Sophia gently.

"I know ..." said Corinna, looking up with a frown. She took a deep breath. "I know things," she said, hoping that it would be enough.

"I beg your pardon?"

"I know things ... sometimes. Or I think I do. I thought Olivia was in danger, so I got Sissy and Sophia out of bed to go look for her," said Corinna.

Dumbledore looked at her thoughtfully and said, "You sometimes know the future?"

"Yes," she nodded, not wishing to look him in the eye.

"Quite extraordinary," he said softly.

"But I was wrong. Nothing happened to Olivia," said Corinna. "We did something to change that, putting Martin in danger instead," she added unhappily. She had never wanted that, though she had wanted very much to protect Olivia.

"You can hardly be faulted for wanting to save your friend from danger," said Dumbledore. It was a very Gryffindor sentiment. Corinna shrugged, not knowing what to say to that. "Now, Martin was left at the bottom of the tower ..." he prompted.

"Sophia went to the library and found Olivia. Corinna and I were on our way to the kitchens when she got another premonition and we turned back. We found Martin lying where he was when you came, but the vampire was standing over him," said Sissy with a shiver that she hoped the professor did not notice.

"You saw it then?" he questioned.

"Yes, but it was rather dark. I didn't get a very good look at it," answered Sissy with a solemn frown. "I didn't have time," she added.

"Why not?" asked Sophia, who had been trapped in the library during this portion of the adventure.

"She was too busy hexing it across the corridor," answered Corinna, brightening just a bit at the memory. She had been very impressed.

"It wasn't exactly a hex," said Sissy, coloring slightly and pursing her lips. She wasn't especially keen on telling the professor that she was practicing such things, minor curses and the like, in her spare time.

"You drove it away?" asked Dumbledore.

"Yes, and it changed into a rather large bat and flew away ... down the corridor, I mean," she explained. Sissy did not particularly care to brag about driving it away. To do so would be unseemly.

"I am impressed," said Dumbledore. "There are few students who could keep their wits about them in such circumstances," he added with a deferential nod.

"Professor Dumbledore," called Madam Pomfrey as she returned to the ward, "Reynard isn't answering his fireplace."

"He doesn't like to be disturbed at night, but he will usually answer if only for the pleasure of giving the person trying to contact him a piece of his mind," said Dumbledore with a thoughtful frown. He looked more than just a little worried as did the mediwitch.

Of course, the students would never know what the two staff members were planning to do about the situation as at that moment the doors to the hospital wing flew open, extracting a startled shriek from Madam Pomfrey and causing everyone, except sleeping Martin, to start.

Reynard Krohn stepped through the doors, which he had unceremoniously kicked open. He had his wand gripped tightly in his right hand and a student slung over his left shoulder. Perspiration was running down his face. His expression was one of mixed strain and unmitigated panic.

"Thank God! Poppy! You're awake!" he gasped, striding into the hospital wing. "It's Andrea Zabini. He was attacked ... bitten by a vampire while he was on his rounds," continued Krohn as he settled the semiconscious student onto a bed. Zabini groaned in protest and in pain. "We have to do something before the transformation is complete!" he said, turning to look at Poppy as she hurried over to the bed.

"If he's been bitten, then there's nothing that can be done," said Pomfrey.

"Blood purification? An antidote? An infusion of some kind?" asked Krohn rapidly, firing one suggestion after another.

"There is no cure," said Poppy firmly.

Sissy stood on her tip-toes to watch. Her stomach turned as she saw a smear of blood on Zabini's neck. The source? Two close set puncture wounds. She turned away quickly.

"But something must be done," argued Krohn, running his hands through his mop of blond hair. "He is becoming a vampire," he said as though the mediwitch had not grasped that crucial fact.

Sophia stepped closer, curious and unable to look away as Sissy had done. Zabini's skin, normally a healthy olive hue much like her own, had turned to pale white, but his lips were as red as blood. He was changing. His mouth opened as he moaned aloud in pain and discomfort, revealing two sharp fangs that appeared to be growing before her very eyes.

"Do something!" shouted Krohn, flailing his arms in desperation.

"I can't!" Pomfrey told him sharply. "There is nothing that can be done for him. He is a vampire now."

Krohn bowed his head and passed a trembling hand over his eyes. For a brief moment Sophia thought that he was going to break down and weep.

"I'm sorry. I shouldn't have yelled," he said in a soft, but strained voice, taking deep and calming breaths.

"It's all right," said Madam Pomfrey.

"And nothing can be done? Not even to make him more comfortable?" asked Krohn, reaching down to grasp Zabini's hand.

"We will need to take him to the dungeons before dawn or else block the windows," said Poppy, "but nothing more can be done. A sleeping potion might help, but I don't know if we have anything strong enough to work on a vampire."

"And I must contact his parents ..." said Krohn, rubbing his eyes with his free hand. "He probably won't be allowed to stay. It's so dangerous ... and how could he possibly cope?" said Krohn to himself.

"We had a vampire in the student body when I was in school," commented Professor Dumbledore. "It is possible for them to live relatively normal lives, if they want to do so," he added.

Krohn looked over his shoulder in surprise. He had scarcely noticed that Albus was present. His eyes drifted to the small figure on the bed where his colleague was seated. He swallowed hard. The older man was his rival, or so Krohn believed, but he couldn't help to feel a twinge of compassion as he looked at the professor's son lying there so pale and still.

"Was he ...?" Krohn began to ask anxiously.

"No, but it was a near thing," admitted Dumbledore.

"I should go and find that sleeping potion," said Poppy, watching Zabini twitch as his body underwent incredible and painful changes.

"And Armando and Filius should be contacted," said Dumbledore, reluctantly leaving his son's side to walk with Poppy into the office area.

"Of course," she agreed.

"And Cyrus ... must check on Cyrus," Dumbledore mumbled mostly to himself, shaking his head.

This left the girls alone with Professor Krohn, who was still agitated, sleeping Martin, and Andrea Zabini, the seventh year prefect, whose skin has lost the last of its pigmentation, leaving him a ghostly white.

Corinna and Sissy didn't want to look at Zabini. It was too frightening. But for a few seconds that would have been Martin. The two girls glanced at one another and stepped nearer to Martin's bed. They had considered him pale earlier, but compared to Zabini, his skin was almost rosy. Corinna reached up and took a blanket from the shelf above the bed and spread it over Martin with a little assistance from Sissy. It was chilly in the hospital wing. Or maybe they were imagining the cold.

Sophia and Olivia merely stayed out of the way, glancing hesitantly toward Krohn from time to time. None of them knew Zabini, but it was impossible not to see the prefects around the castle, identified by their badges. It occurred to Olivia that she had seen him often enough laughing happily with his friends in the corridors.

Sophia, as she watched them, student and professor, unobtrusively, was not surprised to see the careful concern on Krohn's normally impassive face. She knew that he cared for his own students a great deal. She glanced away for a moment as Krohn smoothed his student's hair and hushed him softly. It seemed too personal, too private somehow, like they shouldn't be there or shouldn't be observing what was happening.

"What are all of you doing here? Shouldn't you be in your dormitories?" asked Krohn, looking over at the girls as though seeing them there for the first time.

"We came with Martin," answered Sophia. It was a simple answer and quite true.

"It seems that the five of you can't stay out of trouble," he said flatly. "Or he can't and the rest of you get taken along for the ride."

"Yes, sir," said Sophia.

"I suppose he's lucky in that respect, if I understand what went on tonight," said Krohn, clenching and unclenching his fists.

Sophia nodded mutely as he glanced down at Andrea again.

"This is my fault ..." Krohn said softly.

The girls all exchanged glances as he said that. In the quiet hospital wing his voice carried. And they knew all too well what he meant. He had opted not to go along with Dumbledore's safety precautions. He had sent his prefects out alone. Sophia had thought it was pure arrogance, but there was no point in saying that now. Krohn was already beginning to lose his composure, and the presence of four second year students from a rival house was the only thing, she imagined, that kept him from losing it entirely. He was too proud to go to pieces with such witnesses.

"Nonsense, Reynard," said Professor Dippet, who had just walked into the hospital wing from the direction of Pomfrey's office.

The headmaster was wearing a navy blue dressing gown and conservative slippers. He didn't look sleepy or even disheveled in the least, but he had surely been called from bed and had taken the floo from his quarters to the infirmary offices. Few students knew that their headmaster kept later hours than most.

Dippet strode quickly across the wing to stand with Krohn by the bed side of Zabini. The older wizard put a comforting hand on his colleague's shoulder.

"You couldn't know this would happen. I was beginning to have doubts myself. The other heads were going to go back to the old schedule in two weeks without another sighting. This has taken us all very much by surprise," he assured Krohn.

"Will he be expelled?"

"The board of governors may insist ..." said Dippet with a perturbed look.

They had been trying to get rid of Dippet himself for more than five years because of his advanced age, but without success as he had the confidence of most parents and much of the wizarding community at large.

"I understand," said Professor Krohn with a barely perceptible nod.

"No, you don't, my boy, but that's good of you to say given the circumstances," said Professor Dippet.

"But you will try? Zabini finishes up in the spring ..."

"I will do what I can," agreed Dippet with a very determined look on his face.

He then turned and looked at the four girls, who were watching with some interest as he spoke with Krohn. He frowned at them.

"This is the least likely crowd of troublemakers I've ever seen. Ravenclaws, one and all," he said, shaking his head. Behind the sadness in his intelligent brown eyes, they could see a spark of humor. Or was it pride that he could express no other way?

"Troublemakers? Isn't that a little harsh, Armando?" asked Filius Flitwick, who had just arrived. He had taken the trouble to dress. Or else he had not yet retired for the night. It was nearly midnight.

"Perhaps," Armando agreed with a nod to his fellow Ravenclaw.

"I would arrange an escort back to the dormitories for all you, but Professor Dumbledore says that he may have additional questions ..." Flitwick shrugged apologetically to the quartet.

"Of course," said Corinna softly with a troubled, knowing look in her eyes.

"Any word on Knowles? Dumbledore indicated that he went after the vampire," said Krohn, looking rather expectantly at Flitwick.

Both Dippet and Flitwick looked bothered by the notion. Knowles' enthusiasm for his job and subject matter could hardly be questioned. He had volunteered as an Auror during the war with Grindelwald, and some of his deeds were still worthy of renown, although he had been badly injured in the final years of conflict and forced into an early retirement. He was still very willing to do dangerous things, and on his own time too, which made him unpredictable. And to a pair of aging Ravenclaws like the headmaster and Charms' professor, 'unpredictable' also meant 'reckless', which was not a good thing, not even in a Defense Against the Dark Arts professor.

"Not that I am aware of," answered Flitwick nervously.

"He has gone into the Forbidden Forest, I'm afraid. I just contacted Ogg and he spotted tracks, two sets of them, leading into the trees," said Dumbledore as he entered the room with Madam Pomfrey, who had a sleeping draught for Zabini, although the young man was resting quietly and appeared not to need it any longer.

"The Forest? At night? Is he mad?" exclaimed Professor Flitwick in a slightly shrill voice.

"Possibly," Dumbledore conceded, "but in any case, a search party should be formed. Ogg is rousing Hagrid, Mister Pringle, and Filch."

"Isn't that a bit premature?" asked the headmaster, who seemed perhaps a bit put off by the fact that he had not been consulted in the matter. "Knowles is an expert in defense," he reminded his deputy.

"The forest is not a healthy place for anyone at night," countered Dumbledore.

"Perhaps you're right, Albus," nodded Dippet a bit tiredly, "but I don't intend to lose half of the staff out there. Everyone must exercise caution."

"Everyone?" asked Krohn as he watched Poppy administer the potion to Andrea. "Some of us have even less pleasant duties to perform. Mister Zabini's parents ..." he said, closing his eyes for a moment as he spoke.

"Of course, Reynard, and send my condolences as well. I'm afraid I cannot get in touch with them until morning at this rate," said the headmaster with an understanding nod. He turned to Dumbledore and added, "And you should stay with your son. He'll be frightened when he wakes up."

"Thank you," nodded Albus, "but I believe we shall return before he awakens; however, I have some other business ... with Filius' students that should not keep me long."

Sissy's heart sank when she heard that. All four of the students in question had been watching and listening unobtrusively to all that was going on. It was rather fascinating, in a morbid way, but now Sissy imagined that it was time to discuss their punishments.

"I understand," said Flitwick with a shrewd look at the young witches. He paused as he looked at Corinna. "Miss Bellew, consider yourself excused from tomorrow ... this morning's practice session. I will see to that Mister Ambrose knows that you will not attend."

"Am I off the team, sir?" she asked before thinking better of it.

"No, not as of yet," he said, "but it seems rather unfair to send you out there after a night like this."

"Thank you," said Corinna quietly.

"Does that mean you will be helping with the search, Filius?" asked Dippet.

"It does," he said, sounding not at all enthusiastic.

"Very good. We shall meet the others down at Ogg's in, let's say, fifteen minutes?" asked Dippet, plucking at his dressing gown. He had to change before he could go carousing through the Forbidden Forest.

"Certainly," agreed Flitwick.

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