A Little Knowledge

Martin was sitting on the bottom step of the staircase that led to the office of the headmaster from the Entrance Hall, which luckily did not move very often on the weekends, when Alastor Moody returned with his duffel and a less than cheerful look on his face. The girls had retreated to the library to study, leaving Martin to wait alone, which he didn’t mind at all.

“Up with you, lad,” said his uncle, giving him a nudge.

Martin scrambled to his feet and asked, “Have they found a place for you?”

“Of course. There are a few empty rooms, old staff quarters, on the fourth floor. I expect the house elves are hastening to make them livable again as we speak,” Alastor informed him. “I’m going there now. Would you care to come along?” he asked.

“Of course!” Martin replied.

“Good,” nodded the Auror, gesturing for him to follow, “because I’ve got a lot on my mind. Questions, if you will, that I mean to have answered. I believe you can do that for me.”

Martin felt his stomach drop. He knew that his uncle would want to know more about the vampire. The topic made him understandably nervous and a bit afraid.

“All right,” he replied.

Alastor cut his eyes at Martin as they walked and saw the downcast expression that had come to his face. “You can help me get settled in first, if you’d rather,” he suggested.

Martin nodded mutely, but looked grateful, although he knew it was only putting off the inevitable.

“The dreams I’ll have tonight,” he thought grimly.

The rooms were spotless, but a bit bland in their decoration. Alastor sniffed the air as he walked inside and tossed his duffel onto the nearest couch. A fire had been lit in the hearth, but it had yet to provide warmth to the normally vacant and unused room, which had been in days long past the private rooms of the professor of Occlumency and Legimency. Those studies had been discontinued in 1898 under mysterious circumstances. The rooms had remained unoccupied ever since.

“Very thoughtful of the headmaster,” murmured Moody, taking in the sight of the sitting room. He had been very curious about the room as a student and had nearly broken into it twice. Unfortunately, he had been caught both times.

“I’m sorry?” questioned Martin, who had not quite heard. His uncle, he knew, had a habit of talking to himself, but one could never be sure when he wanted to be answered.

“Nothing,” said Alastor dismissively. “I haven’t bunked in a place this fine since my last leave,” he added with a smile.

“Really?” asked Martin, wrinkling his nose as he looked around at the old furnishings and drab curtains and so forth.

“We don’t have the creature comforts out in the field, you know. Hasn’t your mum ever talked about bunking in tents and the like?” he asked.

Martin looked at him blankly and shook his head.

“Never mind then,” said Alastor, rubbing one of his scars thoughtfully.

He was never sure how much information about her job his former partner imparted to her son. This told him that the answer to that question was ‘not very much’. He wasn’t sure he entirely approved of her sheltering the boy like that.

“Can I help you put your things away?” asked Martin, gesturing to his bag on the sofa.

“Certainly. I thank you for the help, laddie,” answered Moody, hefting the duffel up again and walking toward the bedroom. He sniffed the air again at the door with a half-curious, half-suspicious look. “Interesting accommodations to be sure,” he said to himself.

Martin thought it best not to inquire about his uncle’s interest in the rooms and asked instead, “How long will you be staying?”

“Until I’ve either destroyed the creature or worn out my welcome,” Alastor replied with a smile. “Whichever happens to come first.”

“Oh,” said Martin softly, “then perhaps a while then?”

“Perhaps,” Alastor chuckled as he began taking things from his duffel and handing them to Martin be put in the bureau.

“I’m glad you’re here,” he confessed.

“So am I. Your mum wanted to come ... but that’s another matter,” said Alastor, shaking his head thoughtfully.

Martin wanted to ask Alastor what he meant, but the Auror was a master of evasion. If he didn’t volunteer an additional explanation, then there would be none forthcoming.

“I miss her too,” Martin admitted.

“It’s not easy, coming to school and all, leaving your home and parents behind, and making new friends. I guess you got a break with your father being here,” said Alastor with an easy smile. “Of course, you’ve had a particularly rough start, haven’t you?” Moody asked, taking a few odd gizmos from the duffel and placing them on his bedside table before rolling up the bag and stuffing it under the bed.

“I guess you could say that,” said Martin, shuffling his feet.

Alastor placed a heavy hand on his shoulder and said, “Let’s have a talk, lad. We can sit in the parlor by the fire. It’s rather drafty in here.”

Martin nodded mutely and allowed Alastor to steer him into the other room. He sat down heavily on the couch with his uncle.

“I’m sorry about what I said earlier in the hall. I didn’t realize how close your brushes with the vampire have been. I was out of line to even joke about you trying to apprehend it,” he said in an apologetic tone. “Neither of your parents cared to explain the situation to me in terms of your involvement. It was Professor Dippet who chose to enlighten me. I didn’t understand how close ... I’m sorry, lad,” he said again.

“It’s all right,” said Martin, glancing up at him.

“Then you won’t do anything rash on my account?”

“Of course not. I don’t plan to do anything rash on anyone’s account,” Martin replied, though he chose not to add that he thought it was rather expected of him. That thought, coupled with the dozens of others he was learning to live with, gave him chills.

“Good,” said Moody.

“People expect me to go after it, don’t they? Try and be a hero like my father,” he said, shifting uncomfortably.

“Don’t be silly, Martin. You’re only eleven, going on twelve. No one expects you to be a vampire hunter at your age. Though perhaps they do expect you to want to do something like that. It simply isn’t the same thing,” Alastor explained. Putting his arm around Martin’s shoulders, he added, “I certainly don’t expect it of you.”

“What do you expect me to do?” asked Martin curiously.

Alastor furrowed his brow for a moment and said, “To be true to yourself. Nothing more nor less than that. I’m sure your mum would say the same.”

“Not easy though, is it?”

“No,” Alastor admitted, “but I think you’ve done all right so far.”

“Thanks.”

“You’ve seen the vampire three times, right?” asked Alastor, removing his arm and becoming more business-like in his tone. He was switching into Auror-mode, something Martin had not often seen.

“Sort of, but I only got a good look at it once,” Martin explained.

“And once should be good enough,” said Alastor. “Professor Dippet passed a long your description, so I got the gist of it: pale, red eyes, altogether vampire-like. But he couldn’t describe for me precisely what the man looked like, the mortal who became the vampire. You probably know as well as anyone that they don’t all look alike.”

“Right,” nodded Martin in agreement.

“How tall was he?” asked Alastor, taking a quill and parchment from within his robes.

“Not quite as tall as my father, but still rather taller than average,” said Martin.

“Heavy? Thin?”

“He was very thin, but broader at the shoulders. He looked ... strong,” he answered.

“His face, what did that look like?” asked Alastor, who had questioned dozens of people over the years about attacks by Dark Wizards and Dark Creatures. He tried not to badger Martin, though it was in his nature to question people after that fashion, and he was rather good at it by all accounts.

“Sharp and sort of square,” said Martin with a frown as he squinted to remember exactly what the being who had invaded the Aerie looked like. “His nose was a bit pointed too, and he had a strong chin,” he added.

“Any scars or identifying marks?”

“None that I could see,” Martin shrugged.

“How old would you say he was?”

“Younger than my father, but older than you are, maybe a lot older,” said Martin.

“Did he happen to say anything ... to you or anyone else?” asked Alastor, looking up from the parchment curiously.

He was quite impressed by Martin’s memory. Most people who encounter vampires could only say that they looked like vampires, which was deucedly unhelpful to law enforcement officials.

Here Martin hesitated. He could recall much of what the creature had said to them, to his roommates and himself, but he had not passed those words along to anyone. He had not mentioned them to his father nor the headmaster. He had not even shared them with the girls.

“Yes,” he whispered.

“Can you remember what? You don’t have to remember everything word for word. Just the gist of it might be helpful,” coaxed Alastor.

“The vampire taunted us ... He said that he was going to bite one of us and that he liked to have fun with his prey,” Martin told him, touching his throat as though he could feel the cold, groping fingers from the previous encounter still there, tugging at the collar of his robes. He wanted to gag. “Then he said, as we were driving him away, that he was coming back for us,” Martin choked.

“This is important, lad,” prefaced Alastor, “but did he seem to have a particular interest in ... any of the students present at the time?”

“He was looking at me, nearly the whole time,” said Martin, closing his eyes as he remembered how those glowing red orbs had never wavered in their gaze, always upon him as though transfixed.

“I’m sorry,” said Alastor as he pulled Martin into an embrace. “You’ve been very brave, laddie, and I know how much you probably want to forget about all of this.”

“Do you know why he ... it has such an interest in me?” questioned Martin in a hoarse whisper.

“I can’t tell you that,” said Alastor sternly.

“I had a dream about it, you know,” he said, sniffing slightly as his uncle rubbed his back.

He felt like a child again, but it was all right. He didn’t feel foolish or silly. Just oddly young. It occurred to him that he wasn’t even twelve yet. That he was still young for all of this.

“Maybe I still am a child,” he thought, and for a moment he didn’t want to grow up if it meant facing the dangers he had seen and terrors he had experienced since coming to school.

“Did you now?” said Alastor in a low, comforting voice.

“Yeah ... It was really strange,” said Martin.

“And scary?”

“Yes,” he mumbled into Alastor’s shoulder.

The Auror smiled a little sadly and kissed the top of his head.

“Do you want to tell me about it, lad?”

Martin had fallen asleep in his uncle’s lap, curled up on his side, breathing softly and peacefully. Alastor didn’t mind so much as it was obvious that he had not slept at all the night before nor well the night before that. Martin’s dream, which he had scarcely finished recounting before dozing off, had unsettled Alastor to say the least.

“That a child should remember such things,” he thought, shaking his head sadly and brushing the tidy auburn curls away from Martin’s face.

All those years ago, he had been called to the Dumbledore household not long after the incident had been reported. He had arrived hours before Albus and had sat with his wife and young, squalling Martin while Aurors and Unspeakables combed the house for clues to the identities of the Dark Wizards. The young woman who would all-too-soon become an Auror herself and his partner gave a very precise description of one of the intruders:

“He had brown hair that was graying at the temples and cold blue eyes. He was very well-groomed. I saw his hands. There was no dirt underneath his fingernails. I would say he was a gentleman if I had met him under other circumstances. Just goes to show, doesn’t it? He had very thin lips and an aquiline nose. From his manner of speech, I believe he was an Englishman educated abroad. Maybe at Durmstrang or the Akademie. There’s no way to be certain. His fellows, on the other hand, didn’t speak English among themselves, so we both know what that means. I’m not surprised. But -- and this might have been my imagination -- he seemed familiar somehow, though I can’t say from where.”

And a little more than eleven years later her son gave a strikingly similar description of a vampire who was after his blood.

“I wish it weren’t so,” muttered Alastor, looking at the sleeping boy in his lap.

He chose to let him sleep and watched the fire crackling in hearth as he gave some thought to his next course of action. Above all, he wanted to keep Martin from harm, and he could see no sure way of doing that as of yet.

Knocking quietly on the door of the classroom where Professor Mallaghan preferred to work, Corinna fervently hoped that he would have time for her. She was anxious about the dream Martin had had, not to mention the suspicions they had conjured, and about the newcomer to the castle. The only cure for her anxiety, she believed, was a conversation with Mallaghan.

When the door opened, the professor did not look surprised to see her. He smiled and ushered her into the classroom.

“I’ve been expecting you, my dear,” he said warmly, offering her a seat by the window.

“You have?” she questioned as he joined her.

“And I half-expected you to bring a friend,” he said mock-mysteriously.

“I thought you were only an expert at reading palms,” she said with a puzzled frown.

“Oh, I have my flashes of intuition from time to time,” Mallaghan chuckled.

“Then if you know what’s happened ...” she began.

“I am only aware that your young friend, Professor Dumbledore’s son, has asked you to interpret a dream for him and that you suggested coming to me instead,” he interrupted.

“That’s right,” she nodded.

“Tell me about his dream then, and I will do what I can,” said the professor.

Corinna did as he asked and passed on what Martin had told her, although it felt odd to be explaining someone else’s dream.

When she had finished, Joseph nodded thoughtfully and said, “It is quite interesting. I haven’t heard anything like it in many a year.”

“Then what should I tell Martin?” she asked.

“That sometimes dreams mean exactly what they mean. Sometimes there is no deep and mysterious meaning hidden in them, waiting to be discovered. Only the manifest meaning. Only the reality,” said Mallaghan, looking out the window with a day-dreaming gaze and a soft, secretive smile.

“Then ... what Martin saw in his dream ...”

“Could very well have been the truth,” answered Mallaghan with a shrug, turning to look at her again, “but I can hardly say that with complete certainty. Nothing can be said about dreams that is completely certain.”

“But if his dream is true, then he isn’t safe. He won’t be until the thing’s destroyed,” said Corinna unhappily.

“That, I cannot say, though I fear you may be correct,” he told her. “Have you anything else on your mind?”

“His uncle ... I’m concerned that something will happen to him,” she admitted. It was far easier to tell Joseph such things. She thought that Martin would have been angry, or else terrified.

“Eh?” asked Mallaghan with a slight frown.

“The Auror who arrived today. Martin calls him his uncle,” she explained.

“I had not heard,” he shrugged.

“Never mind then ...”

“Miss Bellew, just because I don’t know anything doesn’t mean that you do not,” he said, raising his thin, white eyebrows.

“His road is going to be very hard. Full of pain and terrible trials and ... things I don’t understand,” she said, looking down at her clenched hands where they rested in her lap.

“Will you tell him so?”

“I don’t think I had better, at least not until I understand more,” she said, shaking her head.

“Use what you know wisely,” he counseled her.

“I try,” she said, looking up at him, “but it doesn’t always work out.”

“Such is life,” Mallaghan shrugged, patting her knee gently. “Would you care for a spot of tea before you go?”

When Martin woke up, he felt vaguely childish. He sat up and rubbed his slightly bleary eyes as a blush crept into his face. Alastor chuckled and nudged him with his elbow.

“Have a nice nap, lad?” he questioned.

“Er, I suppose,” Martin replied, combing his fingers through his hair. He wasn’t sure how long he had been sleeping, but he actually felt much better.

“I’ve had a while to think,” said Alastor, “and I’ve come up with an idea to help keep you safe.” Martin looked at him expectantly. “I’m going to ward my room,” he said, nodding toward the door, “but instead of using one password, I’m going to use two of them: one for me and one for you. Yours could only be used by you and no one else. That would mean that these rooms, which I plan to ward very well against intruders, would be a sanctuary and safe haven for you, no matter what happens.”

“And my friends?” asked Martin with interest.

“If they were with you ...” said Alastor.

Martin sighed softly and said, “Thank you. But I hope I won’t need to use it.”

“Best to be prepared for anything, Martin,” warned Alastor. “We shall set the password before you go, but before then I want to give you some advice if you will hear it.”

“Of course,” said Martin.

“You have friends. But it’s not in your nature to depend on anyone. Now, is it?” chuckled Alastor, who was all too aware of Martin’s often lonely childhood. “Those girls that you’ve taken up with ... from what I’ve heard, they’re capable of taking care of themselves, and as much as you may want to do otherwise, let them. And as they are a mite older, they may as well take care of you too.”

“But ...” Martin objected hotly.

“Peace, lad,” said Alastor sternly. “I know it goes against the grain, but five are stronger than one, and Professor Dippet and your father speak highly of them. Of Miss Howard in particular in your father’s case. It is my opinion that you should stick by them. They have shown truly enough that they will do the same for you.”

“They’re very ...loyal and brave,” said Martin with a slight ironic smile.

“It’s not as though Gryffindor has a monopoly on courage nor Hufflepuff on constancy,” said Alastor with a smile.

“No, it isn’t,” he agreed, wanting very much to add a similar statement about Slytherin and cunning as he thought of Sissy. His uncle would probably have appreciated the sentiment.

“You should also do your best to avoid Krohn,” he said with a somber look.

“Why?” asked Martin, remembering Alastor’s earlier remark about the potions’ master making people nervous.

Alastor rubbed his chin and said, “That story’s long in the telling. Suffice it to say that he was once thought to be a spy sent from Grindelwald, and I was never quite able to prove to my own satisfaction that he was not a Dark Wizard, in league with Grindelwald or no.”

“You can just leave it at that!” exclaimed Martin.

Alastor frowned thoughtfully for a moment before shrugging in reluctant agreement.

“He came here hardly even two years before the Muggle war broke out. Nary three months before Grindelwald made himself known to the wizarding world for what he really was. As Krohn came from Grindelwald’s own country, the matter seemed suspicious at best. I was sent here by the Ministry to question him. My first job as a fully qualified Auror, you know,” said Alastor.

“And what did you find out?” asked Martin.

“That he had a miserable attitude, a diseased personality, and a mean spirit, but anyone could have told me that. He did not take kindly to my questioning, but I must confess that, when I think about it now, I might have been too rough with him. In short, I determined that he was in all probability not a spy, but he was still what I considered to be serious trouble. Professor Dippet had taken a real liking to Krohn, so I could not get him to dismiss the poisonous little shite. Of course, after much of his family was killed by Grindelwald,” and here Alastor shrugged nonchalantly, “it was generally agreed that he was not in league with the powers of darkness and we let him alone. But there was never any love lost between us to be sure. I would stay away from him, if I were you, Martin, and advise your friends to do the same.”

Martin looked uncomfortable as he said, “But he’s Sophia’s favorite professor, and like I told you before he’s a decent enough teacher.”

“You are, of course, entitled to your own opinion,” said Alastor with slightly pursed lips.

“Next you’ll be warning me away from Professor Knowles.”

“Knowles was always something of a prat, especially when we were in school, but underneath that, he’s a good and decent man or at least he was when I last knew him. He did his part in the war instead of hiding as others chose to do, but I doubt he’d be any protection to you in his current state,” said Alastor.

“Blind, you mean,” said Martin with a bit of a frown. Sissy would be livid. Or at least as close to it as she got. He could almost imagine the smoldering fire in her gray eyes.

“Even so,” nodded Alastor.

“He’s still managing his classes, you know, and without any help,” Martin told him. His tone was ever-so-slightly argumentative.

“Is he now? How does he read assignments and give marks?” asked Alastor.

“Well, he hasn’t exactly since the accident,” said Martin, scratching his head. “He says he just needs to get that part worked out.”

“He never lacked ingenuity,” shrugged Alastor. “That was the last of my advice for now. I suppose we’d better set that password and hie you back to the dormitories,” he said, clapping Martin on the shoulder.

Martin nodded silently, thinking how different the world was before he had come to school. He would never have questioned his Uncle Alastor back then, those scant months ago, but now he saw the world wasn’t as black and white as he had thought. His uncle and the two professors had all apparently been on the same side in the war, but they appeared to hate each other. It was all very strange to him.

“I wonder what Sissy and Sophia would make of it,” he thought as Alastor drew his wand and prepared to set up wards for his chambers.

---