A Little Knowledge

The following week in Transfigurations Professor Dumbledore announced that they would be turning cushions into kittens, which would be one of the more difficult transfigurations they would attempt during that portion of the term. On Thursday they studied quite a bit about changing relatively uncomplicated objects, in examplurum cushions, into substantially more complex living objects, such as kittens. The process was not a simple one nor were the three part incantations. But they were considered, oddly enough, part of the foundation for both conjuring and vanishing such objects, and therefore were an integral part of a second year student’s education.

It was not until the following Tuesday that Professor Dumbledore actually brought in small cushions, borrowed, presumably, from the staff room, his office, and the Gryffindor common room.

“There are enough for each of you,” Dumbledore told them as they approached his cushion covered desk, “but, please, try not to explode any of them by accident as I do not have replacements.”

“That means you,” said Olivia into Martin’s ear.

He went pink and answered, “What? I was sure he was talking to you.”

It was very fortunate that Martin did not notice the amused twinkle in his father’s eyes or he might not have done as well on the lesson that day.

Corinna and Sissy at the other end of the table were not having quite so much fun as they began the assignment.

Sissy had chosen a well-worn green cushion that had come from a slightly moth-eaten chair in the staff room where Professor Sprout did her knitting in the afternoons. It was already giving Sissy trouble as she realized that she would almost certainly need a color change along with the basic transfiguration. As she wasn’t very fond of these transfigurations, common household objects into small animals, she hoped that she would get a break, but there had been almost no white, black, or brown cushions, much less anything in a tabby.

“Bother. I need to concentrate,” said Sissy shortly. “You have a go at it first,” she told Corinna, who had a small, beige colored cushion from Dumbledore’s office. It was rather dusty as it had lain in a corner since the previous term, forgotten and unused.

Corinna frowned and looked up the text book they were using and asked, “Are you sure?”

Sissy gave her a look that said she was quite sure and to get on with it.

Corinna removed her wand from her pocket and took a deep breath, keenly aware that Sissy was watching her and trying to learn from what she was doing. That certainly didn’t help matters. She repeated the incantation twice to herself before speaking it and waving her wand evenly over the cushion. Then she closed her eyes for a moment.

“Meow?”

Corinna grinned when she opened her eyes to see a small off-white, almost fawn colored kitten, about the same size that Max had been when Olivia had first brought him to school, sitting on the desk and staring at her with inquisitive golden yellow eyes. She reached toward it, and the kitten leaned toward her hand, almost begging for her to tickle underneath its chin. Corinna giggled and picked it up, cuddling the kitten as she examined it for defects in the transfiguration.

“You’re disgusting,” said Sissy enviously. “It looks and sounds exactly like a real cat.”

“It feels like one too. It’s even warm,” Corinna commented.

Sissy rolled her eyes and said, “Well, you’re going to be of no use for the rest of the lesson.” She knew how very much Corinna wanted a cat, or a kitten, of her very own.

“I can still help you ...” she began, trying to get the small cat to take its claws out of her robes as she attempted to return it to the desk.

“I think I can manage,” said Sissy with a slight smirk.

Near the end of the lesson, Professor Dumbledore began making his way around the room, assessing the varying degrees of success his students had had and awarding house points accordingly. All but a few of the students from his own house had failed to achieve the desired result, but the Ravenclaw students seemed to have done better. Chang and his partner both had small, oddly colored kittens on their desk that were very docile and not very physically coordinated, but had been adequately transfigured given that it was the first part of their practical lesson. Another day would be spent on the topic. His son had also achieved a similar degree of success.

After Dumbledore had finished examining Miss Howard’s listless, greenish kitten, he frowned and asked where her partner had got off to. He was looking forward to seeing what Miss Bellew had accomplished as she was certainly one of his better students.

“Over there,” said Sissy, nodding toward a quiet corner of the room before looking at her transfigured kitten with an expression of dissatisfaction.

The professor found his student seated on the floor and playing with a rather energetic kitten that bore no resemblance whatsoever to the cushion from whence it had come. He observed for a moment before stepping close enough to get her attention. When she looked up, he was surprised to see tears in her eyes. Corinna hastily blinked them away and gathered her kitten into her arms.

“May I see it?” asked the professor.

“You’re going to change him back, aren’t you?” she asked in return.

“I’m sure you know that the transfiguration will wear off on its own eventually,” Dumbledore informed her.

“I know, but ... I really wanted to keep him. Silly, isn’t it?” she sniffed, holding out the kitten to him. She had already thought up a name for him and everything.

Dumbledore took the kitten from her and started examining it, choosing not to answer her question until he had done so. The little cat apparently didn’t like being handled by the professor, who was not nearly so gentle as Corinna had been, and tried to give him a scratch, which rather surprised him. The kitten had tiny, but perfectly formed claws, and a bit of a temper too.

“Not very silly, Miss Bellew,” he said as he returned the animal to her. “I’ll award you ten points for the precision and detail,” Dumbledore added.

“Thank you, sir,” she said, but it barely seemed as though she meant it. “I always wanted a kitten of my own. How long do you think he will last before he turns back into a cushion?” Corinna questioned.

“Maybe a few days, if you’re lucky,” said Dumbledore.

“Not very long then ...” she sighed, giving the kitten a scratch behind the ears. He responded with a loud purr and what appeared to be the cat version of a smile.

“I suppose I could attempt to make the transfiguration permanent, but ... if yours was not perfect, he will eventually become sick and die,” he said with a rather uncomfortable look.

“You mean if his insides still contain bits of stuffing?”

“That’s right,” said Dumbledore.

“He seems all right ...” Corinna hedged hopefully.

The professor nodded slowly in agreement. If he had not known that the animal had been transfigured, he would never have guessed, which said something about Corinna’s skills in the subject. And about her desire for a feline familiar.

“Give him to me, and I will see what I can do,” said Dumbledore.

“Really?”

“Of course, although you do understand that it will need to be taken care of like a normal cat, don’t you, Miss Bellew?” he questioned.

“Yes, certainly, professor,” she nodded, giving the reluctant kitten back to him.

“Please come by my office to collect him immediately after dinner this evening. I should be finished by then,” he instructed her.

That night when Corinna walked into the dormitory with her kitten, which she had named Oscar, for the first time, she looked as happy as any of the other girls had ever seen her. They knew, of course, about how much she wanted a pet of her very own, preferably one of the feline persuasion.

“I can’t believe Professor Dumbledore did that for you,” commented Sophia, watching as her own cat Sukie and Olivia’s Max stared up at the kitten in Corinna’s arms. The two cats seemed to ... exchange wary glances, almost as though they could tell that something was not right about this newcomer.

“It was really nice of him,” agreed Corinna with a huge smile.

“Well, you are his best student, at least in our year,” defended Olivia, giving Sophia a bit of a look.

“Have you named it?” asked Sissy from her bed. “Morsel-for-Zubin might be nice,” she thought to herself, watching her owl, which had already returned from a successful hunt. Zubin was eyeing the small kitten with an unusual expression. “We must have a talk,” thought Sissy unpleasantly.

“Oscar,” said Corinna with another smile.

“It’s a nice name,” said Sophia, nodding in approval.

“Very Ravenclaw,” Olivia agreed.

“Copernicus is very Ravenclaw. Oscar is ...” Sissy disagreed.

“Gentleman in his Study’s first name is Oscar!” protested Olivia vehemently, crossing her arms over her chest.

“You’ve got me there,” admitted Sissy, rolling her eyes slightly. That little fact was something only Olivia would have known.

“Oh! I saw Martin down in the common room. I said I would try to get all of you to join him,” said Corinna, suddenly remembering.

“Ah! A cure for boredom,” said Sissy with an amused smile.

“Wait. Wasn’t he supposed to be working on an essay ... in the library?” questioned Sophia with a frown.

“He’s finishing up in the common room instead ... before the lights go out. He wanted company,” explained Corinna.

“Let’s go then,” said Olivia.

“Should I leave Oscar here?” asked Corinna, looking down at the sleepy kitten she was holding.

“Er, not until I explain some things to Zubin,” said Sissy.

The owl looked at her with an expression of betrayal.

Martin was still waiting for them, albeit a little impatiently, when the girls found the nook he had chosen. His finished essay was in front of him as he was letting the ink dry. He smiled when he saw Corinna, who was still focusing all of her attention on her new kitten. He was unfortunately a bit on the allergic side, which was an unending source of ironic jokes in his family as his mother’s Animagus form was feline in nature.

“About time!” he joked as they found seats.

“Patience,” said Sissy with a little smirk, eyeing his parchment, which was covered in a hastily scribbled script that could hardly pass for true penmanship.

“Herbology?” asked Corinna to be certain.

“Yes, Madam Sprout wanted eight inches on something carnivorous,” he answered.

“So unnatural,” murmured Sissy under her breath.

“I thought they were sort of interesting,” said Martin a bit defensively.

“Same here,” agreed Corinna.

“Is this why we’ve come down here?” asked Sissy, wrinkling her nose at the topic of conversation.

“No, actually I wanted to ask all of you something,” he prefaced, shifting uncomfortably in his seat.

Even Oscar seemed to perk up a bit at this.

“What?” asked Olivia.

“There’s been talk that Professor Dippet won’t be headmaster for very much longer ...” he said.

“Just talk,” Sophia told him solemnly.

“Yeah,” Olivia quickly agreed.

“Maybe. But if he leaves the school ... if that happens, will my father be ...” he said, trailing off and wincing visibly. They all knew precisely what he meant.

“It’s almost a sure thing. You father would be our next headmaster,” said Sissy calmly.

“Because he’s the deputy headmaster?” he questioned.

“That’s right,” she nodded.

“I don’t understand something. How did he get that position? I mean, I’m sure some of the professor have been here longer, right?”

Sophia and Corinna looked mildly puzzled, as though they had never really given the subject much thought before. They hadn’t actually.

“Flitwick and Mallaghan both have seniority,” said Olivia.

“Then why isn’t one of them Professor Dippet’s deputy?” asked Martin.

“Professor Mallaghan? In charge of the school? You must be mad!” Corinna blurted out. She was the only one of them to have significant contact with the Divinations’ professor. And though she was very fond of him, she knew that Mallaghan would have been hopeless at the Herculean task of running Hogwarts.

“Not everyone can do the job,” clarified Sissy.

“But Professor Flitwick could,” said Martin. He rather liked and respected their head of house. He wasn’t alone in that sentiment.

“He could, but ... he can’t,” said Olivia.

They all looked at her rather oddly after she made that seemingly contradictory statement.

“That makes a lot of sense,” said Sissy.

Olivia blushed slightly. It was a somewhat rare occurrence, and as she wore her hair in a bun, she always seemed to blush from the tips of her ears to the collar of her robes and everywhere in-between.

“I did some research about the professor’s dueling career after I had those detentions with him, and I realized why he isn’t in a better position, you know,” said Olivia, clasping her hands in her lap.

Sophia checked to make sure no one was listening before she asked, “Why then?”

“He accidentally killed a wizard in a duel,” Olivia admitted in a low voice.

“He killed someone?” said Martin incredulously.

“Accidentally,” corrected Olivia as her head snapped up. She was glaring just a bit.

“Did you happen to stumble across any details in this research of yours?” asked Sissy in a curious, but cautious tone. She could tell that Olivia’s temper was going to flare at any minute.

“If any of this got out, it could seriously undermine his position as our head of house. I mean, this would certainly be something we aren’t supposed to know,” said Sophia in a very serious tone.

“It was only a Stunning Spell that hit his opponent just right. It stopped his heart. Flitwick tried to revive the other wizard himself, but it was simply no use,” said Olivia.

Sophia looked a bit relieved at this news. Sissy seemed ... disappointed. An interesting contrast of temperaments on display. Martin, not to mention Corinna, found all of the proceedings unnerving to say the least.

“Then why would it affect his career?” asked Sissy.

“Think about it. Would you want someone who’d killed a man teaching your children?” asked Sophia.

Sissy raised an eyebrow and opened her mouth to speak, but Corinna cut in: “For the love of Merlin! Don’t answer that!”

“Fine,” said Sissy, who wasn’t necessarily thinking ‘yes’, but certainly was not thinking an unequivocal ‘no’ either.

“I see your point,” said Martin with a nod. “I was only curious, and I didn’t want to ask my father how he got his job,” he added.

“I don’t think Professor Dippet is going anywhere,” said Sophia. Olivia nodded her agreement. “So you won’t have to worry about being the headmaster’s son for a while yet,” Sophia said with a bit of a smile, and perhaps laughter in her dark eyes.

“Shows, eh?” questioned Martin with a lop-sided smile.

“Perhaps a bit,” she replied.

“You can’t imagine how the other boys would probably tease me,” he said, glancing toward a cluster of first years.

“Of course we can! We have loads of imagination!” said Olivia a bit indignantly.

“That’s not what he meant,” said Sophia.

“Well, at least you get along with that Woodward fellow. He wouldn’t say anything about it, right?” said Olivia.

Martin smiled and said, “No, he wouldn’t. He’s rather nicer than the rest of them.”

“Are they still bothering you then?” asked Sissy.

“Not really. They’re terrified of that hex Woodward claims to know,” said Martin with a shrug.

“You should learn a few good hexes,” suggested Sissy.

“Sissy ...” said Sophia in a warning tone.

“I know some, but I can’t threaten as well as he does,” Martin admitted.

“I should think not,” said Sissy, “as it is a fine art, you know. Hardly something you can just pick up on your own.”

“She’s right. My father ...” Olivia began to tell them.

But the other girls made groaning sounds and stopped their ears, even Sophia, who was usually above such things. To the best of Martin’s recollection, this was the first time Olivia had mentioned her family. He was puzzled by the other girls’ reactions to say the least.

“What’s this about?” asked Martin.

“Her father is in the Department of Magical Cooperation. Don’t ever let her tell you her stories,” Sissy warned, unplugging her ears.

“I didn’t know you were a Ministry brat too!” Martin exclaimed heedlessly.

“That’s a nice expression,” Olivia laughed.

“That makes three of us then,” said Sissy, remembering that Martin’s mother was an Auror, which was a far more glamorous job than either Olivia’s father or her own father had.

Just then the lights dimmed and Olivia and Sissy sighed. It was time for them to retire for the evening, according to the sensibilities of their head of house.


Sissy acknowledged, much later when her normally unremarkable temper had cooled, that such an incident was nearly guaranteed to happen. It was unavoidable. It was to be expected. It was only a matter of time. But that made it neither more acceptable to her nor more fair. No matter how many times she told herself those things, it still made her angry.

The incident in question took place in a corridor not very far from the Defense Against the Dark Arts classroom sometime after midday on Tuesday of the following week. The girls were walking from the Great Hall to the Transfigurations classroom, taking the usual route in so much as the constantly changing staircases permitted a ‘usual route’.

As they entered the main corridor, Sissy was the first one to realize that something was the matter as many of the students in the crowded hallway were struggling to stifle or contain their laughter. A few students, Gryffindors and Hufflepuffs mostly, were frowning and looking around as though they were trying to figure something out. Sissy glimpsed Astrophel Black and his two friends slink down a side corridor. Black was smirking and just tucking his wand away, which did not bode well at all.

Then she spotted Professor Knowles standing rigidly against the far wall between two windows. He looked very angry and confused. It was only after a moment’s pause that she realized that he didn’t have his cane. And he never left his office without it.

Forgetting her friends, Sissy pushed and shoved her way through the crowd until she reached the professor, scouring the floor as she walked. The cane was no where to be found. Somehow, she decided, Black was responsible for this, but she did not know how or why.

“Sir, are you all right?” she asked Knowles in a low voice.

“Did you see who did it?” he asked her.

“I’m sorry, sir?”

“Someone cast a Reductor Curse on my cane. Did you happen to notice who did it, Miss Howard?” he questioned impatiently.

“No, sir,” she replied, coloring at very idea of Black obliterating the defense professor’s cane. Of course, she had not witnessed him doing anything and therefore had no right to accuse him.

“Blast!” he muttered through gritted teeth.

“Can I help you to your office, professor?” Sissy asked, suddenly conscious of the fact that her friends were standing with her and that some of the other students in the corridor, mostly Slytherins, were still snickering.

“I have a class in just a few minutes, if you could simply point me in the direction of my classroom,” he said with a very forced smile.

“We’re going that way,” said Sissy.

“Indeed? Are you really?” asked Knowles with a look of indecision.

He had been disoriented by the small explosion that had destroyed his cane, otherwise he would not have considered accepting the assistance of a second year student, even if the student in question was Miss Howard. He would not have needed it either as he had learned to find his way about in much of the castle. But the unexpected event had startled and disoriented him more than he would care to admit. He wasn’t certain of anything at that moment, including the direction in which his classroom was located.

“Yes,” said Sissy, reaching and taking his arm. She held her breath, hoping that he would not shrug her off or lose his temper.

He did neither. Knowles merely nodded brusquely and accepted her guidance. His expression softened when he realized that Sissy was not the only person walking with him. There were carefully cadenced footfalls on either side of him and both before and behind him. He assumed that they were her three friends.

“An amusing escort they must look,” he thought to himself, trying very hard not to feel touched by the gesture.

When they reached the classroom, it had yet to fill with his students, who were unfortunately going to be Slytherin fifth years, not that they were a bad lot as far as Slytherins went, but he imagined that many would be aware of what had happened in the corridor. Knowles removed Sissy’s hand from his arm.

“Your assistance is appreciated, Miss Howard,” he said with a genial nod.

“Of course, sir,” she said neutrally.

“Knowing your penchant for taking revenge on the behalf of others, I would suggest that you forget this incident ever happened,” he told her a bit more sternly, just in case she should have an inkling of who had blown up his cane. Olivia tried to stifle a giggle and failed. “Apparently your friends are similarly aware. I trust they would encourage you to do as I have asked, especially Miss Scarrow as she seems to find my advice so very amusing,” he added, pursing his lips. Olivia had a very recognizable giggle.

“I shall keep that in mind, sir,” said Sissy with a carefully arched eyebrow.

“See that you do. Now run along to class,” he instructed before turning his back and slowly retreating into his classroom.

“He knows you pretty well,” commented Sophia, who had also witnessed the retreat of Black. “Let it go,” she advised somberly.

“I’ll try,” said Sissy, feeling a flash of anger directed at callous and cruel Astrophel Black.

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