A Little Knowledge

The rest of Sissy’s sentence was served painlessly copying lines for Professor Knowles in his classroom. The lines alternated among ‘Sorcery is an unacceptable subject of study’ to ‘I must not curse my fellow students’ to ‘No magic is allowed in the corridors between classes’, all of which were things with which Sissy grudgingly agreed ... except perhaps that first one. But thanks to his intervention, which she suspected went contrary to his nature, she was no longer feeling so miserable nor so worthless as Pringle had attempted to make her feel. The horror was slowly wearing off, and Sissy was almost herself again.


On the day before Halloween all of the girls were awakened early by hooting as Zubin, Sissy’s faithful owl, entered the dormitory through the window. The owl was clever enough to open the shutters with its beak. And it came bearing gifts: two medium-sized, yet carefully wrapped packages for Sissy on her birthday.

Sophia immediately got out of bed, threw a robe on over her pajamas, and closed the window again with a shiver, watching as Zubin landed on Sissy’s bed with a plop. She studied her friend for a moment as an unguarded smile came to her sleepy face. Sophia chuckled, satisfied that everything was returning to normal after her friend’s ordeal.

“How’s it feel to be thirteen?” asked Corinna, whose birthday was in the summer along with Olivia’s, which made them the youngest. Olivia was actually the youngest of the girls by twelve days.

“It feels all right,” answered Sissy as she untied the packages and gave Zubin an affectionate feather ruffling. The little owl hooted fondly and seemed to yawn. He had obviously had a long and difficult night.

“Open them!” said Olivia excitedly. Gifts from Sissy’s parents were things of legend. Or often very weird. In either case, great cause for excitement.

Sissy untied the twine and ripped the wrapping paper from the first package as the other girls gathered around to watch. She opened the box to reveal a pair of Omnioculars. The expression on her face was one of puzzled amusement.

“What are they?” asked Sophia.

“You look through them to watch Quidditch. Father saw someone with a pair over the summer. He thought they were ingenious,” Sissy explained, looking through them experimentally.

“But why would anyone need something like that?” asked Corinna.

“At the Quidditch Cup if you don’t have good seats ...” said Olivia.

“Indeed,” said Sissy, offering the Omnioculars to Corinna for her to look at while she busied herself with her other present. “This one must be from mum,” she said, tearing into the paper.

The package contained two things, much to her delight: a new jumper from Madam Malkin’s much imitated line and sweets from her favorite Diagon Alley sweet shop. Sissy held up the robin’s egg blue article and smiled.

“Looks wonderful,” said Olivia, peering at her through the Omnioculars that she had swiped from Corinna.

“Mum always knows what color I’ll like,” said Sissy, folding it up and putting it aside to rifle through the accompanying sweets. “Who wants a chocolate frog?” she asked, taking a handful from the box. There would always be more coming in two or three weeks.

“Too early, too early!” protested Sophia as she put both hands over her mouth.

“I think I could scarf one,” said Olivia. “Thanks,” she said as Sissy tossed one of them to her. She opened it, caught the frog mid leap, and popped it into her mouth. One frantic frog leg still stuck out, kicking uselessly until the magic wore off.

“So disgusting,” said Sophia.

“Then don’t watch,” said Olivia around a mouthful of frog, er ... chocolate.

“What card did you get?” asked Sissy curiously.

“Circe again,” she shrugged, holding it up for her to see.

“You can always trade it for better,” offered Sissy.

“You have to open our presents now!” said Corinna, who had avoided the chocolate frog issue by getting her present for Sissy from her trunk.

“Hold on!” said Sophia as Olivia and she scrambled to get their gifts.

Corinna handed her box to Sissy, but she waited until the others returned before opening it. Inside were a half dozen sugar quills. Corinna couldn’t afford an extravagant gift, but she knew how much Sissy liked them and that they often broke when they were shipped all the way from London by her mother.

“Thank you! My favorites!” said Sissy graciously.

“Mine next,” said Sophia, shoving a neatly wrapped gift into her hands.

As with Christmas the year before, there was the great internal debate as to whether or not to tear the paper, but in the end her natural instincts won out and Sissy tore the wrapping paper from the box. She opened the box to reveal a pair of dark blue gloves made of a thick, but stretchy wizarding synthetic.

“Just what I needed,” said Sissy with a smile as she pulled them on and flexed her hands. “Thank you,” she said, removing the gloves. She had a pair that her favorite aunt had bought for her just before school began, but the color was just a little off, too purple or indigo in her opinion. These would match her house scarf nicely.

Olivia was hesitant as she gave her present to Sissy. It was probably a bad idea, but it was too late to do anything about it.

“A Practical Guide to Hexes and Curses?” she read with a chuckle as she removed the last of the paper from the old, leather-bound volume.

“For your collection,” said Olivia with a shy grin.

“I will ... use it well,” said Sissy, flipping through the pages, a few of which had rather gruesome illustrations.

“Sissy!” objected Sophia in a shocked voice.

“Not at school though, right?” said Corinna anxiously.

Sissy and Olivia exchanged a look before the former replied, “Of course not. I think I learned my lesson. But that doesn’t mean I can’t enjoy reading the book and familiarizing myself with the spells.”

“I suppose not ...” said Sophia grudgingly, still having dark misgivings about such a gift.

“I won’t use it to cause trouble. I get enough unpleasant looks from our house mates as it is,” said Sissy with a bit of a sneer.

Martin was waiting for them in the common room. He had something behind his back as the girls came down the stairs to meet him for breakfast.

“Happy birthday, Sissy,” he said, holding out a book tied with a bright red ribbon. Martin had not given much thought to wrapping paper. He was just glad that his selection from Flourish and Blotts had arrived in time.

“Thank you,” she said, removing the ribbon from the hefty volume. “The History of Sorcery and the Dark Arts, Volume One?”

“I thought you’d like it,” he said.

“I do,” she replied, adding silently, “but I really must wonder why all of my friends believe I’m completely enamored with the Dark Arts.”

“There are four more volumes, if you like that one,” Martin added.

“Any spells in there?” asked Sophia, standing on tip-toe to look over Sissy shoulder and she opened the historical text.

“Not really, but it’s got some great stuff on Merlin in it,” said Martin brightly. “Father has an old set at the house,” he explained. “But I’ve heard he’s in the newest edition of volume five.”

“You’ll need that for all those advanced history classes you talk about taking,” said Sophia very practically.

“Of course,” said Sissy with a pleased smirk.

“I can hardly believe you’re almost a year and a half older than me,” said Martin, shaking his head.

“And a good six inches taller too,” she said teasingly, looking down at him.

“Are we still on for tonight?” asked Corinna.

“While you’re at practice, Martin, Sophia, and I will be unobtrusively sneaking food from the kitchens to be kept in our dormitory until such time as we can have the common room for ourselves,” said Olivia.

“What about the cats?” asked Martin, who had already been introduced to Max and Sukie. They made him want to sneeze.

“I’ll ward the food,” said Olivia with a wave of her hand.

“I’ll help,” said Sissy, arching an eyebrow. Even simple wards were complicated spells.

“No! It’s your birthday! You don’t get to help!” protested Olivia.

“Then hide the chocolate. I hear that it does terrible things to small animals, cats in particular,” said Sissy coolly, although she didn’t mean it to sound so sinister.

The house elves, who were models of efficiency and ingenuity, had packed three substantial picnic baskets for them to carry back to the Aerie. To be fair, Martin had expected that they would be shoving biscuits into their pockets or carrying a hastily prepared cake between them somehow. The elves, who were very fond of the castle children, exceeded their expectations, filling the baskets with all sorts of goodies. Martin had watched them stuff his basket with ginger newts, which were his mother’s favorites, cinnamon salamanders, and lemon tortoises, which his father liked. He was grinning from ear to ear by the time he picked up the heavy basket. He only hoped that they were things that met with Sissy’s approval too as they were for her birthday party.

The girls had baskets full of dessert cakes and other baked goodies that were still warm and smelled ever so delicious.

As they were on their way out of the kitchens with their spoils, the door opened to reveal two Gryffindors somewhat older than they were. One was a boy with very tidy red hair and an enormous smile that made his cheeks dimple. He was laughing with his house mate, who was following just after him. His companion was a girl who had similarly colored hair whom Sissy had pointed out to him once as Molly Earnshaw, the exceptional Gryffindor Beater. The smile vanished from the boy’s face as he caught sight of them clutching their baskets.

“What have we here? Raiders in broad daylight?” he asked, leaning down a little to speak to Martin as he was starting to get rather tall and lanky.

“I could say the same to you,” said Martin, inclining his chin slightly.

“Oh, let him alone, Arthur. Can’t you see it’s Dumbledore’s son?” asked Molly, tugging her companion out of the way by the sleeve of his obviously second-hand robe.

Arthur grinned and, once he got his sleeve free of Molly’s grasp, clapped Martin on the shoulder and said, “Your old man’s all right. We’re in his house.”

“Thanks,” said Martin, blushing slightly and adjusting his grip on the basket.

“We thought you were a sure thing for Gryffindor,” said Arthur, earning a poke in the ribs from Molly, who was a bit larger than him, though not as tall.

“But Ravenclaw is a good house too,” she said forcefully.

“Right, of course it is,” nodded Arthur. Then he leaned down and spoke in a slightly conspiratorial voice, glancing at the girls behind Martin. “I hear you’re good friends with that girl Howard who dueled with a vampire and cursed Astrophel Black.”

“Er, I suppose,” answered Martin. Olivia jabbed him in the back. “Yes, yes, I am,” he amended, making a mental note to glare at her later.

“Well, tell her from Molly and me ...”

“Don’t you dare, Arthur!”

“Tell her from me then, that Black had it coming a long time ago,” said Weasley with a wide smile.

“Of course,” Martin stammered, “I’ll pass that along.”

“You do that,” he said, clapping him on the shoulder again, which Martin was beginning to find rather annoying as it smarted and could very well upset the biscuits in his basket.

“We had better be on our way or the halls will be crowded when we try to take this to our common room,” said Sophia.

“And you wouldn’t want to be seen with those,” said Arthur, nodding at the baskets.

“It’s for Sissy’s birthday,” Martin defended.

“That’s very sweet! Why don’t you ever do anything like that for me, Arthur?” asked Molly, whacking his arm none too gently.

“Your birthday’s after school lets out!” he protested with a grimace.

“We had better go,” said Martin, having the distinct feeling that Olivia was about to prod him again.

“Have fun then,” said Arthur, letting them squeeze through the kitchen entrance.

As soon as they had made it out of ear shot, Olivia hissed, “Can you believe the nerve of those Gryffindors talking down to us like that? I can’t!”

“I don’t think they ...” began Martin.

“It’s just their nature. All of them are arrogant. The whole lot,” said Sophia with a shrug. “But if you get past that, they seem sort of nice in their own way,” she added.

Martin frowned. He hadn’t thought the two Gryffindors arrogant. No more so than other older students. Of course, this wasn’t the first time he had noticed sentiments of blatant dislike from his friends and house mates.

“Gryffindors are reckless.”

“Gryffindors are uncouth.”

“Gryffindors smell.”

He had never questioned the house rivalry, but after meeting Arthur Weasley and Molly Earnshaw face to face, he wasn’t so sure that it was fair. Not that he could change things. He was a Ravenclaw. End of discussion.

It was half past ten before the rest of the students had cleared out of the common room and gone to bed, perhaps hoping to get an early jump on Halloween, which was the very next day. Corinna, Olivia, and Sophia all grinned at one another before leaving their seats and scrambling for the stairs to their dormitory. Sissy just chuckled as she made her way over to her favorite chair in front of the hearth.

“Olivia said that we’d have a fire in there pretty soon,” said Martin, nodding toward the fireplace as he made himself comfortable on the couch.

“We could have one now,” offered Sissy, drawing her wand.

“Not cold enough yet,” he answered with a shrug, although it was becoming a bit nippy at night. He just didn’t want Sissy to light a fire with magic as the repercussions could be quite serious. She was bound to over do it.

“It’s unseasonably warm. Not at all like last year. We already had a bit of snow by the end of October,” she told him, curling up in her chair.

“Was it nice?” he asked.

“Indoors,” she said with a slight sneer. “Sophia and Olivia loved it,” she added with a softer expression to which he wasn’t as accustomed.

“But not you and Corinna?”

“No,” she answered, “we preferred watching them from the windows and sipping our hot chocolate.”

Just then they heard the sound of the others giggling as they walked down the stairs, struggling to be quiet as they lugged the picnic baskets. Martin cracked a smile as he watched Corinna heft the basket that he had carried from the kitchen.

“This had better not be full of stones,” she said, noticing his smile as he watched her from the couch.

“You didn’t check?” he asked with an innocent and mock-incredulous look.

Corinna rolled her eyes as they deposited the baskets in front of the hearth.

“What’ll you have, Sissy?” asked Olivia as she began removing desserts from her basket. She was certain that they would never be able to eat everything the house elves had generously, and rather gleefully, provided for them.

“Chocolate cake?” she asked, pointing to the slice she wanted, which was artfully arranged on a small plate.

“There you are,” said Olivia, passing her the indicated portion.

“I’ve got the forks and napkins,” said Sophia, taking one of each from her basket.

“Very good. Otherwise this would be a deplorably messy party,” commented Sissy.

“And the drinks?” asked Corinna, who was dividing the biscuits onto plates.

“Bottled pumpkin juice,” answered Sophia, holding up a bottle.

“No butterbeer?” asked Sissy.

“The elves only had it on tap. They would have had to go to Hogsmeade to get it bottled. But tomorrow night at the feast ...” said Sophia with a smile.

“That’s a treat. They didn’t have any last year,” said Sissy.

“Because some Gryffindors managed to swipe all of the kegs!” said Olivia.

“No matter. Pumpkin juice is just fine,” said Sissy, accepting a bottle from Sophia. She was pleasantly surprised to find that it was still chilled.

“I can’t believe you got ginger newts. They’re my favorites,” said Corinna as she gave everyone a plate full of cookies that would last an ordinary person a week.

“My mum loves them,” said Martin, going straight for the cinnamon salamanders. For the first time Martin pondered how odd it was that the house elves should choose to supply them with his parents’ favorite cookies.

“This is very nice,” said Sissy as she took a bite of her cake.

“Well, after the week you’ve had and all ...” said Sophia with a sympathetic half-smile.

“Almost makes it worth it,” she joked.

“Say, it isn’t Ravenclaw’s night for patrolling the corridors, is it?” asked Olivia, glancing at the clock.

“No, it’s Gryffindor and Slytherin tonight, so we can stay down here as long as we like,” answered Corinna.

“Perfect,” said Sissy, reaching for her plate of biscuits.

The hour was late, sometime past midnight, when they heard a door open with a slight squeak. They all immediately stopped talking and laughing. The thought that they had awakened a prefect flitted through Sophia’s mind as she hunched lower on the couch. The others simply froze where they were sitting, afraid to look toward the origin of the sound. Then Martin realized that someone was walking down the stairs to the first year dormitory. His stomach tightened as he looked over the back of the couch and saw Middleton making his way down the stairs.

“What’s going on down here?” he asked, standing on the bottom stair and looking at them. Martin noted that he didn’t look as though he had come from bed, although he was wearing his pajamas.

“Birthday party,” answered Martin.

“For who?”

“Sissy,” answered Martin, nodding toward where Sissy remained curled up in her chair with a nearly finished plate of cake balanced on her knee. It was only her second.

“You know, I think Wainwright, Halliday, and I might like to join you,” said Middleton, turning back toward the dormitory.

“It’s a private party, thanks,” said Olivia.

“Oh, is it?” asked Middleton with an ugly smirk.

“Yes, it is,” said Sophia, who, along with the other girls, knew that this boy was one of them who gave Martin trouble.

“And you are out numbered five to one, in case you haven’t noticed,” Sissy informed him coolly as she uncurled herself from her chair, put the half-eaten cake aside, and drew her wand.

“As much trouble as you’ve been in? I don’t think you’ll be using that on me. Wouldn’t want to risk expulsion, would you?” he asked in a smug tone.

“I’ve got a clean slate,” said a voice that Martin recognized from the doorway at the top of the stairs, “and those purple spots won’t come off by themselves. Fancy Madam Pomfrey taking a look at your fat bum, Middleton?”

Martin squinted to see Julian Woodward standing in the shadows behind Middleton with his wand raised. He voice was very neutral, except perhaps for a hint of slight irritation as he made his thinly veiled threat.

“Can’t you leave well enough alone, Woodward?” asked Middleton.

“Can’t you?” he shot back. “I’ll give you to the count of three to get back in the dormitory,” he said with authority far beyond that of an ordinary eleven-year-old.

“All right, all right,” muttered Middleton.

“Very good then,” said Woodward. After Middleton had slipped past him into the room, he walked down a few steps and into the dim light of the common room, looking at the leftover desserts curiously.

“Care to join us?” asked Sissy.

“No, thank you. It isn’t healthy to eat so much before going to bed,” said Woodward a bit primly. Then, having satisfied his curiosity, he turned and retreated back into the dormitory.

“Interesting fellow,” commented Sophia.

“I like him. He’s got nerve,” said Olivia with a grin.

“Julian Woodward,” Martin told them. At that moment he quite liked his fellow first year too. He had a knack for putting people, especially Middleton, in their place.

“Do you get on all right with him?” asked Olivia.

“I’m not sure, actually. He isn’t the talkative sort,” Martin explained.

“Well, do try and thank him for us, would you?” asked Sophia with a smile. “I can only imagine the incident we just avoided.”

“I was only threatening. I certainly wouldn’t have done anything,” said Sissy, who had returned to her chair and cake.

“Of course not,” said Olivia, trying to hide a slightly wolfish smile with a napkin.

“Really ...” Sissy sighed.

“We should clean up and go to bed before we really are caught by a prefect or something,” said Sophia.

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