A Little Knowledge

Another week had passed in a flurry of classes, assignments, and added security precautions. Students were not allowed out of their common rooms and dormitories after six in the evening nor before seven in the morning without a prefect or in a group of fellow students smaller than four. Curfew was strictly observed. More than a few house points had been lost by Slytherin and Gryffindor for tardiness. Students were escorted en masse from supper in the evening by the prefects of their house. No one, Quidditch teams included, was allowed outside the castle after five o’clock, which meant that the Ravenclaw team had barely an hour to practice every day, although their captain was doing his best to reschedule.

Professor Knowles had taught them lessons on vampires all week, though it was quite apparent that this was not a field in which he specialized. Most everyone agreed that it was better than nothing. Professor Krohn had doled out the foul tasting garlic potion to every single student at the beginning of class each day. He reminded them with some constancy that it only lasted twenty-four hours at most and that they were unprotected at times. He did so with less than expected harshness. Professor Mallaghan had several afternoon talks with Corinna, probing with cautious and kindly words to find out if she had had any premonitions or visions regarding the vampire. She had not.

And help had yet to arrive from the Ministry by the end of the week. Olivia overheard Professor Flitwick tell Professor Binns that it was because the Aurors were all in the field, because there had been a rash of Dark Magic attacks in Wales. Binns told his younger colleague that this was rubbish.

“They’re setting Armando up to fail. They want to see him out of his job in disgrace. It isn’t good enough that he resign. They must drag his good name through the muck and make him look like a fool first as well,” said grim Professor Binns.

Martin had taken his lunch with his father on Tuesday and had questioned the professor about the Auror who was supposed to be coming to safeguard the school and its students from further attack.

“I’ve found an Auror on leave, thanks to your mum, and the headmaster and I have owled him. With any luck, he’ll arrive later in the week,” answered Dumbledore candidly.

As Friday came and went with no sign of this Auror, Martin and the girls began to doubt that anyone would ever come to help them.

“But aren’t we all right on our own?” asked Olivia. “I mean, our professors are powerful witches and wizards. What do we really need an Auror for?”

“They’re professionals,” said Sophia, frowning at her friend’s cocky attitude.

“Some of them probably even have experience with vampires,” added Martin with a slight shiver. It was difficult for him to imagine anyone wanting a job like that, despite the fact that his own mother was an Auror.

“Not unless they served some time on the continent. We get precious few vampires here,” commented Sissy, whose attitude was more similar to that of Olivia.

That same night Martin repeated a habit from his childhood. He had a nightmare ...

He was standing in the front hallway of his childhood home. It was dark and quiet, but not peaceful. There was a feeling of tension and dread in the house that he had never known to be there before. Then he heard the quiet squeak of the front door being opened. He turned and watched in horror as a group of men in dark cowled robes with strange, arcane symbols on them stepped inside with their wands drawn.

Then he turned and glanced up the stairs that led to the upstairs of the house. His room and his parents’ bedroom were up there. Martin gasped as he saw his mother standing on the stairs. She was younger than he ever remembered seeing her. Her dark hair hung loosely about her shoulders, cascading down her scarlet dressing gown. And she was holding a bundle in her arms, making soft hushing sounds. The bundle had fuzzy auburn hair.

“It’s me,” Martin thought incredulously.

The robed wizards, followers of Grindelwald, started into the house. A pair of them walked down the hallway that led to the kitchen, his father’s study, and the rest of the house. Another pair made their way toward the stairs. The remaining two stood guard near the door.

Martin expected them to spot his mother as she sidled silently down the stairs within arm’s reach of the dark wizards. They gave no sign of seeing nor hearing her. Her face was pinched as she passed them by. She was angry, and perhaps a little afraid. Her small, dark eyes flashed as she watched them go into her son’s nursery, and she held the infant closer.

She followed those who had gone down the hall, passing so close to where Martin stood riveted to the spot, watching, that he could have reached out and touched her. He wanted to do so. He realized that he missed her a lot since coming to school, which made him wonder why he was home again and what was going on.

“A dream,” he thought idly. “I must be dreaming.”

He followed his mother as though drawn to do so. She was close behind the robed figures. He could tell by her expression that she was listening to them as they spoke in low tones. What they were saying seemed garbled. Then he realized they were speaking another language.

They searched each room of the house with Martin’s mother only a few steps behind them, always careful to stay well out of the way and quiet, though Martin suspected that they could not have heard her. She was being cautious nevertheless for his sake.

Then Martin felt suddenly cold. The other two had returned from the upstairs of the house. He shuddered as one threw back his cowl. He knew that cruel and angular face. He recognized the broad-shouldered wizard to whom it belonged. Though he was still a mortal man, there was no disguising the fact that this was the vampire who had attacked him and had invaded the Aerie.

“They aren’t here, but we’ll get them eventually. Leave no traces that we were ever here. Touch nothing,” he commanded before turning on his heel and disappearing down the hallway.

Martin awoke with a start and sat up in bed, fighting off the covers and gasping for air. The darkness was heavy around him. He felt stifled, trapped, and very confused by the dream, even as it faded and reality took its place.

“Just a dream,” he told himself, rubbing his face with both hands.

The curtains that surrounded his bed, which had been closed because of the growing cold, and Wainwright’s incessant snoring, suddenly opened. Martin startled again, scrambling away from the gray gap in the darkness.

“All right?” asked a familiar voice. It was Julian Woodward.

Martin smiled slightly in relief and said, “Of course. Just had a bad dream.”

“You shouted,” said another voice from just outside the curtains: Middleton.

He wasn’t teasing Martin. He wasn’t trying to make his life difficult or bully him. It was merely a statement of fact.

Since the vampire incident the other boys had begun to look upon Martin with a grudging respect. They had even offered him a spot with them at dinner one night. He had politely declined, but they all remained civil just the same. The invasion of their dormitory had brought them together. That included Woodward who was slowly becoming less aloof.

“Did I?” asked Martin sheepishly.

“It’s all right,” said one of the other young wizards. “I suppose what’s been happening would give anyone nightmares.” It was little Prentice who was speaking.

“Thanks. You should all go back to bed. There’s Quidditch in the morning,” he reminded them. The Ravenclaw-Hufflepuff game was to be played that Saturday.

“Good-night then,” said Woodward, closing the curtains again.

Martin could hear the sound of them all climbing back into their beds. He was no longer sleepy. He was thinking about his dream and still feeling stifled. Once he was sure his roommates were sleeping again, he climbed out of bed and crept down to the common room.

Martin only naturally expected the common room to be empty as it was nearly one o’clock in the morning, but Corinna always had a way of surprising him. She was sitting on the couch in front of the fire, which was crackling pleasantly, and reading her Herbology book. She smiled and closed it when she saw Martin.

“I knew you would be coming,” she said in a slightly amused voice. There was a day-dreaming quality to it as well. Corinna gestured to the couch and said, “Have a seat. I imagine you will want to talk. I know you could use some company.”

He blinked, shook his head, and sat down heavily beside her.

“I don’t think I’ll ever get used to that,” he told her bluntly.

“Good,” she laughed softly.

“I wasn’t going to sneak out, you know,” Martin commented, hunching forward and resting his chin on his hands as he stared into the fire.

“I know that too,” she said. “You had a nightmare and woke everyone in your dormitory. You came down here because ... well, I don’t know that, but I willing to wager it was because you wanted to think.”

“Right in one,” he chuckled dryly. “So what are you doing here? You have an important match in the morning.”

“As if I could forget,” Corinna sighed, rolling her eyes, “but I didn’t want you to be alone.”

“Maybe I want to be alone.”

“Do you?”

“Not really,” he answered after a pause.

“What was the nightmare about?” Corinna questioned.

“The vampire ... sort of. I dreamed he came to my house with men in dark robes when I was very little ... during the war. I think he wanted to hurt my mum and me,” Martin explained.

“Rather scary,” she remarked.

“Yeah ...” he agreed, bowing his head and wrapping his arms around his middle. “I’ve dreamed about those men ... those Dark Wizards ever since I can remember. None of them ever had faces before. It was ... eerie ... dreaming about all my worst fears at the same time,” Martin admitted to her. “Bet that sounds silly,” he added, giving her a sideways glance.

“Not really. I’d be having nightmares too in your position,” she said, squeezing his shoulder.

“The funny thing is, I know ... I think that what happened in my dream might have really happened, that those people really came looking for us, but I shouldn’t be able to remember it, right?” he asked.

“Memory is a strange thing, Martin. I would discount it entirely. But then, dreams are like that too. Maybe you’re trying to tell yourself something,” said Corinna.

“That the vampire knows my father or something of that sort? That it was once a Dark Wizard in league with Grindelwald?”

“Perhaps,” she said.

“You don’t know anything then?” Martin asked her hesitantly.

“No,” she replied, “that isn’t the sort of thing I can know. It’s the past, not the future. I don’t think I’m allowed to know the past the same way I sometimes know what is to come ...”

“Of course,” he ventured, “it could have just been a dream and nothing more.”

“True,” acknowledged Corinna, “but would you be this upset if you really believed that?”

Martin turned and looked at her before answering, “Probably not.”

“I’ve read a bit about the war ...” said Corinna after a moment. “There are photographs of lots of the captured Dark Wizards. Maybe if you looked through them ...”

“But if he’s a vampire and on the loose, he would have avoided being captured somehow,” said Martin, shaking his head.

“You could ask your father,” she suggested.

“I ... I’d rather him not know that I still have dreams about the things that happened back then,” he said with a frown. “I don’t want him to know I’m afraid either,” he added silently.

“I don’t know how to help you then,” she said. “I could ask Professor Mallaghan about your dream, but ... that’s not really his specialty,” Corinna added as an afterthought.

“Do you think he would be able to tell you what my dream meant or something like that?” asked Martin.

“It’s possible,” she shrugged, “and unless tomorrow’s game lasts a long time, I’ll see him in the afternoon. I’ll ask him for you.”

“Thanks,” said Martin with a relieved smile.

“Don’t thank me yet,” she said with a wry look, remembering the professor’s talent with tea leaves, or rather the lack thereof. If he was the same way with dream interpretation ...

“You should probably go back to bed, what with the match tomorrow and all,” said Martin.

“And you’ll go back to bed in a few minutes, right?” she asked, although it sounded as though she already knew the answer.

“Of course,” he agreed with a quiet chuckle. The fright of the nightmare had worn off, and he no longer felt stifled.

“Good-night then,” said Corinna with a yawn as she left the couch.

She frowned as she walked back to the stairs leading to her dormitory. Corinna was thinking something that she was afraid to share with Martin. She couldn’t call it a premonition. It was more like an intuitive reaction to what he had shared with her. A gut feeling. And as much as she wanted to do so, she could not shake it.

The door to her room was open, and someone was waiting for her, leaning against the jam and looking a bit cross.

“What was that all about?” asked Sissy in a low voice.

“Martin had a bad dream about the vampire. I thought he could use some company,” answered Corinna.

“Anything else?” she questioned, knowing the troubled look in Corinna’s light blue eyes.

“I think the vampire has come here for Martin. It wants him. It isn’t just here to feed ... I think it’s here for revenge,” she said in hushed tones. This was the fearful thought that had come to her.

“If that’s true, then it won’t stop coming back until it has either killed or changed him. Until it’s done whatever it wants or someone destroys it,” said Sissy in a toneless voice.

The game against Hufflepuff was the longest played at Hogwarts in nearly five years, lasting almost until the sun had set, which had made the professors more than a little nervous. In the end something unexpected happened. The game was a tie. Ravenclaw had lost its Seeker within the first hour to a Bludger to the head hit by a very contrite Rose Midgen. After that, the game had been in the hands of the team’s Chasers and its Keeper, all of whom performed admirably. The Hufflepuff Seeker, Cecil Lockhart, a third year who was a little dim, had played terribly, losing the Golden Snitch no less than twenty times, but he was all that the Badgers had. It was pure luck he caught it at all. The final score was one hundred and eighty for each team.

The Ravenclaws had played very well without Manfred North, who had a concussion and spent two days in the hospital wing. The rest of the team, not to mention the Hufflepuffs, caught colds from the inclement weather. It had rained throughout the entire game. This was remedied with several doses of Pepper-up Potion from Madam Pomfrey after the match. Corinna still felt off color for a few days.

---