A Little Knowledge

Corinna dusted the snow from her shoulders as she returned to the castle after Quidditch practice the following morning. Her face was rosy from the cold, neatly hiding the lingering pallor.

Practice had been grueling despite the fact that the team would not be playing Gryffindor until sometime in late March or early April. Ambrose wanted to make certain that they would win. As Gryffindor was undefeated thus far, Corinna considered the prospect of besting them an unlikely one. While she had not voiced this opinion out loud, Alec Sexton had, leading to row between him and his captain.

But the argument between her teammates left her mind quickly as she stepped into the warmth of the castle. She glanced toward the Great Hall, knowing that her friends would be waiting for her, and made a decision. They could afford to eat without her for one morning. She was going to pay a visit to Professor Mallaghan and see what he made of her dream from the night before.

Due to changes in the scheduling of Quidditch practices, all four of Corinna’s close friends usually met her for breakfast on the weekends, and as she did not show up at the expected time, they were all becoming a bit nervous, except Sissy, who had brought a book to breakfast.

“This isn’t like her,” said Martin with a frown. His stomach growled quietly.

“She had a nightmare last night. She’s probably just lagging behind a bit this morning,” said Olivia, glancing at North and Parker at the end of the table. They were already having their breakfast.

“It wasn’t a nightmare. It was a prophetic dream,” corrected Sissy, flipping a page in her book: The Complete History of Hex-Deflection.

“About what?” asked Martin with more than a little interest. He was fascinated by the idea, despite the fear the had been evoked by the fainting episode in his uncle’s chambers.

“Her own death,” said Sissy coolly, still not looking up.

Sophia may have given her a quick, disapproving look at her nonchalance, but no one noticed.

“She’s going to die?” asked Martin in a surprised croak. “When? How? What are we going to do?” he asked.

“In about twenty years, from the unforgivable Killing Curse, and nothing at the moment,” replied Sissy as she closed her book with a snap, “because there’s nothing we could do to influence the future so far in advance.”

“We could try to keep her out of the Department of Mysteries,” suggested Olivia.

Sissy scowled and said, “Joining tomorrow is she?”

“Maybe if you stopped tutoring her so much in defense, she wouldn’t be able to get in and then she wouldn’t be killed,” said Olivia.

“I will not! Corinna needs all the help she can get,” snorted Sissy, not believing that making Corinna even less able to defend herself would help matters in the least.

“I don’t understand any of this,” said Martin, shaking his head in frustration. “It’s stupid. No one can know when they’re going to die.”

“Are you certain about that, Martin?” asked Sissy with the barest trace of contempt in her voice. “Maybe you or I couldn’t, but Corinna isn’t like us, or haven’t you noticed?”

“I’ve noticed,” he said quietly, looking down at the table.

“Well, you can all argue about this as long as you like, but I’m going to look for Corinna,” said Sophia, standing.

“Why do you get to go?” asked Olivia.

“It was my idea,” she shrugged, walking hurriedly away. They were beginning to give her a headache.

Sophia wasn’t sure where precisely to start her search. She didn’t fancy walking out to the Quidditch Pitch in the snow, especially without a coat, but as some of the team had already returned to the castle, she imagined, or at least hoped that Corinna had done so as well. That in mind, Sophia started up the stairs that led toward the Aerie as it seemed quite likely that Corinna had returned there to change clothes, or to brood about her dream and skip breakfast, which was not at all like her.

As Sophia walked down one of the corridors between the main stairs and the hall leading to the library, she heard footsteps coming from a side passage. She glanced that way to see Professor Krohn with his arms full of parchments.

“Good morning, professor,” she said.

He looked at her with an irritated expression. They had not spoken since the incident with the Constrictus Curse. Krohn had neatly avoided any attempt on her part to thank him for helping her whether before or after potions’ class or in the corridors. Sophia was becoming rather certain that he didn’t wish to speak with her at all. She believed that the incident had in some way embarrassed him.

“Good morning, Miss Colville,” he said brusquely.

The professor was about to walk past her, continuing on his way, when she asked, “Are you angry with me, sir?”

He stopped dead in his tracks and turned. “Why on earth would I be angry with you?” he questioned with a puzzled, albeit still irritated, look on his face.

“I don’t know,” she shrugged awkwardly, “but I get the feeling that you are. I’ve wanted to tell you how ... how grateful I am for your assistance ever since ...”

He held up a hand and stopped her before saying, “You are quite welcome as it was part of my job, especially considering that it was one of my students who had cursed you.” Krohn took a deep breath and shuffled the papers that he held before continuing. “But I should explain that I have lost good students before. One here and one when I was briefly a teaching assistant at the Akademie. I am forced to learn the same lesson over and over again, Miss Colville. This time I finally think I’ve got it.”

“What lesson, sir?” she asked.

“When teaching, never invest one’s personal feelings in one’s students,” he stated simply.

Sophia looked at him blankly, trying to determine what he meant by that. “I don’t understand,” she said.

“Don’t you?” he asked with a slight sneer. “You are, for what it’s worth, one of my best students. I ... I worry about what will become of you because of your involvement with those little hooligans you hang about with. I really shouldn’t, because any professor who wears his heart on his sleeve like that will surely go mad.”

“Your heart on your sleeve, sir?” she repeated with a confused look.

He laughed, perhaps a bit derisively, and said, “I only mean to say that none of us can afford to be sentimental about our students. Going about thinking, ‘Oh, isn’t she just like I was at that age?’ and other ruddy nonsense of that sort will only make any of us who do it go stark raving.”

“I’ve never known you to be overly sentimental about anything, professor,” she said, though she felt very much complimented by the comparison.

His sneer deepened as he said, “Good. I’d have it no other way.” Then Krohn rubbed his eyes with his free hand and added, “But you don’t know everything, do you, Miss Colville?”

“Not yet,” she replied coolly, “and you still haven’t answered my question.”

“Which was?”

“What’s the matter?”

“Was that it? I seem to remember something else,” he sighed. “I’m certain that this is difficult for you to believe, but I find the idea of losing one of my few competent students .. unsettling ... at best. Perhaps if I have been ignoring you in order that I may stop holding you in so high esteem.”

Sophia smiled, deciding that his words worked themselves out to be a compliment of sorts. “I don’t plan on going anywhere, sir. You will have me in your Newts classes in four years. Count on that,” she told him, inclining her chin in a mildly defiant manner, but continuing to smile.

“Would that I could count on it,” he said with a wry expression.

Sophia remembered then what he had told her about young people believing that they were immortal and wondered if this attitude, her attitude, was what he meant by it. Then she realized that she was supposed to be looking for Corinna, not trying to patch things up with her potions’ professor.

“I should be going,” she said.

“As should I,” he nodded, turning abruptly on his heel. “Good day to you then, Miss Colville,” he said as he walked away.

She couldn’t help but watch him as he strode away quickly down the corridor. He was rather strange, and a bit sad, she decided before going on her own way as well.

He had never told anyone of Myrtle Meeks’ aptitude for potions, and the subject remained too sore to broach even now, nearly twelve years after her untimely death. She, like Sophia, had also been a Ravenclaw.

Of course by this time Corinna had reached the Divinations’ tower and climbed the long stairs leading up to Professor Mallaghan’s office and classroom, where she knocked upon the door and chewed her lower lip as she waited. She imagined that he might be busy, although it was rather early, or worse yet, still sleeping.

And Corinna had just begun to feel foolish. She had had a dream, nothing more. At the time it had felt very real, but nevertheless it was only a dream. Why should she disturb the professor at a half-indecent hour just for that? She could just as easily return in the afternoon ...

She was about to turn and go when the door to the office swung slowly open. She started as Professor Mallaghan stuck his bald head out into the narrow hallway.

“I thought I heard someone moving about. Half a moment, Miss Bellew,” he said with a smile, ducking back into the office.

She had the impression that he was still in his dressing gown and was going to his rooms, wherever they might be, to change..

“Of course,” she said, mostly to herself, as the door closed with a click.

Corinna paced back and forth in the hallway as she waited. Had she a quill and parchment she might have left a note and scuttled away, despite the cold gnawing in her stomach that told her she was right to be afraid and right to seek the advice of someone far more experienced than she was in these matters.

It was relatively soon thereafter when Professor Mallaghan reappeared in slightly rumpled robes.

“Sorry to keep you waiting, my dear. I wasn’t expecting you so early,” he said with a kindly smile and a look in his eyes that told Corinna that he already knew something.

“I’m not intruding, am I?” she asked as he unlocked the classroom door.

“Don’t be silly. You are always welcome here, no matter the hour nor the day,” Mallaghan told her.

“Thank you, sir,” she said quietly, making her way to the soft, comfortable chair by the window.

She smiled to herself as she watched the snow falling faster outside. Thank Merlin that Quidditch practice had finished before the blizzard started.

“What brings you here this morning?” asked Mallaghan, drawing up a chair for himself as always. “It must be important or else you’d be having breakfast with your house mates,” he added with a smile.

“How did you know that?” asked Corinna.

Joseph chuckled and said, “You do the same thing every weekend. I have breakfast occasionally too.”

“I’ve never noticed ...” she said.

“Nor should you. I don’t like being seen doing ordinary things,” he said with a joking smile. “Divination instructors are expected to have a certain ... mystique, you understand,” he added.

“Of course,” nodded Corinna, struggling not to giggle.

“Would you like to have morning tea while we chat?” he inquired.

“No thanks,” she said, not wanting to admit that she was afraid that she couldn’t keep it down. Her stomach had knotted painfully.

“But you wouldn’t mind if I had a little something ...” he said with a smile.

“Of course not, professor,” she said quickly.

Professor Mallaghan left his seat stiffly and went to prepare a cup of tea and send down to the kitchens for a plate of eggs. He glanced at Corinna, who was staring out the window again, and shook his head. He wasn’t oblivious to her anxiety, but he knew by experience, mostly with his own son, that it would lessen given a few minutes sitting comfortably and quietly. Joseph was tempted to prepare two cups of tea and feign forgetfulness. It had worked before, but the temptation to put a mild Calming Draught in her cup along with the tea was too great.

“Not my place,” he murmured, pouring only his own tea. A plate of warm eggs appeared nearby.

Returning with his breakfast, he watched Corinna for a few minutes longer, waiting for her to choose to speak.

“You asked me if I had ever foreseen my own death ... the first time I came here, you asked me that,” she said.

Professor Mallaghan nearly choked on his eggs. He held up a hand as she looked concerned.

“Caught me off guard,” he said after a moment of coughing. “Care to tell me why you’re bringing up the topic again, my dear?” asked Joseph.

Corinna shifted uncomfortably in her seat as he set his breakfast tray aside.

“Sir, have you really foreseen yours?” she asked.

Mallaghan understood why she was asking him that question. It was very obvious that she had had a premonition or something regarding her own death, but was not ready to tell him that in such explicit terms.

“Yes, yes, I have,” he admitted with a nod.

Corinna looked at him with an odd mixture of dread and anticipation in her bright blue eyes. Mallaghan sat back in his seat and took a deep breath.

“It happened when I was nearly forty years old and teaching at the Akademie der Zauberei in Germany. I saw myself as a rather old man, going to bed one night and never getting up again. Despite the circumstances, which were not so terrible, I was quite shaken up about it. From what I recall I drank myself into oblivion and was severely reprimanded the next afternoon,” he told her with a half-smile.

“Did you know how old you were?” asked Corinna.

“More than one hundred and thirty-one, obviously,” he said, still smiling, “but, no, I wasn’t certain at the time.”

“But it still frightened you, even though you knew you were going to live for a very long time?”

“Only naturally. Almost every Seer or expert in Divinations I’ve known, regardless of their specialties or professional proclivities, has seen known their end before it came upon them, and every single one of them was frightened by it. Sometimes I think that it’s knowledge that we aren’t meant to have,” explained Professor Mallaghan.

“Then why do we have it?” she asked.

His smile saddened at the use of the word ‘we’ as it confirmed his suspicions.

“I loaned you a book on visions and dreams ...” he reminded her gently.

Corinna blushed and said, “I’ve glanced at it, sir, but I haven’t had very much time.”

“Chapter Eighteen might be of some interest to you, when you do have the time,” he told her kindly, “though it might be a bit advanced in terms of theory.”

“I’ll remember that,” she nodded.

“Good. Now your turn, Miss Bellew,” he said, patting her knee.

“I dreamed about it ...” she said cautiously.

“Mine was a vision brought on by the wind in the trees,” he told her, trying to get her to open up.

“Sounds more pleasant,” ventured Corinna.

“I came around with a third year prodding me with a stick to see if I was dead or drunk,” he chuckled. “I scared him nearly out of his wits. I believe he might have been Professor Krohn’s maternal grandfather,” Mallaghan added. “But do go on, Miss Bellew,” he said with a gentle smile as the momentary nostalgia passed.

“I was in London ... I suppose near Diagon Alley. I was walking with three wizards, and all of us were wearing robes from the Department of Mysteries ... I was an Unspeakable,” she said with a slight smile.

Corinna had never imagined doing anything as prestigious as that when she grew up. Despite the fearfulness she experienced when thinking about the dream, that aspect made her just a bit proud of herself.

“Congratulations,” said Mallaghan with a smile of his own.

“Thank you,” she said.

“Then what happened?” he asked.

“All of us were laughing, but I couldn’t hear properly, or at least I couldn’t hear everything that was being said,” Corinna told the professor.

“That’s not at all uncommon,” he assured her.

“I felt ... very happy,” she said, deciding to omit the portion about going home to her husband. She thought it sounded very silly. “Then we walked past this shop window, and I looked at my reflection ...”

“You were how old?” he probed curiously.

“Possibly thirty, I suppose, but I can’t be sure,” she said as her smile faded.

“Of course not. Then what?”

“There was a green light from behind me. Then everything went cold and dark.”

Mallaghan regarded her very thoughtfully. He felt a pang of regret as he took both of her hands in of his, not knowing precisely what to say to her. He had hoped that her revelation would have been like his: a peaceful, merciful death in old age. But it appeared that it would not be so if she were right.

“I am very sorry, Miss Bellew,” he said quietly.

He did not doubt the authenticity of the vision at all. The detail alone was sufficient as he had already verified that she possessed the talent. And in these matters, Seers were far more often right than wrong.

“Then there isn’t anything I can do?” she asked.

“To cheat fate? I’ve never known anyone who has,” he said solemnly, “but don’t let that stop you from trying.” He gave her left hand a comforting squeeze before letting it go.

“I won’t, sir, and that’s a promise,” she said.

There were unshed tears in her eyes, but he could tell by the way she clenched her jaw that she would struggle to change things and do so with great mettle and bravery. He squeezed her other hand again and absent-mindedly dabbed at his own eyes. He wondered if Thomas, his son, had tried to do the very same thing when he went to warn the people of Sedan. He could never be certain.

“Good, lass,” he murmured.

“I ... I have another question for you, sir, if you don’t mind,” she said hesitantly.

“You have only to ask,” he replied.

“I saw something ... a vision ... in one of the old teacher’s quarters on the fourth floor. It’s the one Mister Moody is using at the moment. I wanted to know who lived there before,” she said.

Mallaghan’s eyes widened and asked, “What did you see?”

“A man. I think he was a professor here a long time ago and stayed in those rooms,” she replied.

Corinna did not think it wise to tell him that she was almost certain that the wizard had become a follower of Grindelwald and then a vampire.

“If you mean the seldom used chambers ... then you would be referring to former Professor Christoph Somerville, who instructed students in Occlumency and Legimency for a time,” said Mallaghan with an unpleasant look.

“What can you tell me about him?” she asked.

“Not very much. We both kept to ourselves, you see, but I suppose that any man who taught such things could be accounted as strange,” he answered. “But I would chance to guess that you know the end of his story,” said Mallaghan thoughtfully.

“Hardly,” she replied, wondering if he meant by that that Somerville had become a vampire. Not exactly the end though, was it?

“Rumors persist for a long time. I am surprised,” he said.

“Rumors?”

“Somerville practiced Legimency on himself ... as a way to uncover his own forgotten memories, discover his deepest thoughts and desires, or so they say, and to steel his mind against others practiced in the art. Very dangerous thing to do. There are much safer means to achieve those ends. Would that he had used them,” said Mallaghan ruefully.

Corinna thought of the wizard she had seen standing in front of his mirror, blood coming from his eyes, and shivered.

“What became of him then?” she asked.

“At first we thought he had driven himself mad and run off and drown in a bog. All of the professors searched long and hard for him that spring. 1898, I believed it was. Long before your time, I know, my dear. But he was not found. And he was only here a scant eight years,” said Mallaghan with a shake of his head. “Of course, little did we know then,” he added.

“He wasn’t dead,” said Corinna.

“No, he wasn’t. No one heard from Somerville for years and years, until the rise of that Dark Wizard,” said Mallaghan, referring to Grindelwald. “Then it was learned that he was one of his most loyal soldiers and trusted followers.”

Corinna shook her head as she grappled with the knowledge that a trusted Hogwarts professor had become the ally of Grindelwald.

“How did this happen?” Corinna asked.

Joseph sighed and said, “I’ve asked myself that a few times. Professor Dippet was the defense instructor and deputy headmaster at the time, so he can hardly be blamed for the hiring of Somerville, but he did get along with him better than most. Professor Dumbledore, for one, was rather suspicious of Somerville. He never said why though. I imagine it had to do with his skills. People don’t like mind readers in general, you know.”

“But why did he join Grindelwald?” pressed Corinna.

Mallaghan winced at the use of the dreaded wizard’s name and remembered that she was a Half-blood and knew comparatively little of the conflict, which had lasted nearly nine years and cost hundreds of lives in England alone, not to mention what had happened on the continent.

“I don’t know how to answer that, Miss Bellew. Perhaps because of the promises for a better life. Perhaps for revenge against those whom he believed had wronged him. Perhaps some combination of many factors, including those,” said Mallaghan.

“Someday I will teach all of you a lesson.”

Corinna gave a small shudder and realized that vengeance might have been Somerville’s motivation. But for what wrong, she did not know, and she doubted that Mallaghan did either.

“When you saw him in your vision, what was he doing?” asked Joseph curiously.

“He was in his rooms at the mirror. Then he laid down on his bed. His eyes were bleeding,” she said succinctly. “It was really frightening,” she added.

“Ah, practicing then,” nodded Mallaghan thoughtfully.

“Do you know very much about the stuff he was doing?” she questioned.

He smiled and said, “No, my dear, I’m afraid that one seldom finds persons skilled in both those skills and ours.”

“Oh,” she said softly.

“But if you are interested ... Professor Dumbledore takes students from time to time,” he said, “although I don’t want to get your hopes up.”

Corinna frown hard and asked, “But you said that the professor doesn’t like mind readers.”

“Your point?”

“But if he is one ...”

“Ah, well, it’s a funny gift,” Mallaghan shrugged. “Almost as bad as ours,” he added with an amused smile. “Now, I think it’s time for you to return to your friends before they become worried ... unless you have more questions.”

“I don’t believe I do,” said Corinna, leaving her seat.

Joseph rose as well and put a hand on her shoulder.

“Do be careful, Miss Bellew, if you choose to pursue the matter of Professor Somerville. He was a very disturbed man, the likes of which you should not concern yourself with,” he told her.

“Of course,” she said neutrally.

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