A Little Knowledge

The common room was very crowded when Martin walked in. He noticed a few students, some from his own year, regarding him curiously. He imagined that what had happened was not a secret. Moody had been transported through the main corridors of the school, after all. Anyone could have seen him, and Martin’s relationship with the Auror was certainly no secret either. Everyone was probably putting together the pieces rather rapidly.

He scoured the room for several minutes before finding the girls. They were huddled together in a corner far from the area of the room they normally occupied. They had been sitting there ever since their return to the Aerie.

Sophia was sitting on the window seat with a throw that looked an awfully lot like Sissy’s around her shoulders against the chill as she looked out across the grounds, which were barely visible through the snow in the failing light. Only vague shadows and shapes could be seen. She looked pensive and more than a bit tired.

But Sissy, curled up in an old armchair, was uncharacteristically fidgeting. She seemed more than a little uneasy and anxious. Waiting for Martin to return was taking a more obvious toll on her than on some of the others. She was very interested in knowing how his uncle was doing, among other things, and had only thoughts about those matters to occupy her mind. Her patience was beginning to wear thin.

Olivia was sitting on the floor with her chin resting on her knees. Martin was surprised to see that she had taken her dark hair down, letting it spill over her shoulders. He had only seen Olivia with her hair down once. She still looked very odd like that. Her eyes seemed a bit red and puffy too, as though she had been crying sometime earlier.

In the corner Corinna was sitting slumped on a footstool with her arms around her knees. She was replaying what she had known and what had happened over and over in her mind, wondering if she could have changed anything. She had rebuffed all attempts at a conversation made by the other girls. Her messy hair obscured her eyes and much of her blank expression.

Martin felt a renewed flash of anger as he looked at Corinna just sitting there as though nothing terrible had happened, but he tried to shake off the anger as he approached the group.

“Martin!” exclaimed Olivia as she noticed him.

She scrambled to her feet as Sophia made room for him on the window seat. His eyes remained on Corinna, who had yet to look at him, but he accepted the seat with Sophia and a reassuring punch to the shoulder from Olivia.

“How’s your uncle?” questioned Sissy, noticing his eyes on Corinna. She imagined, from the look on his face, that he was angry with her. On some level, she knew that he had a right to be.

“He’s sleeping at the moment, but he ... he says he’ll be all right,” Martin informed them in a slightly clipped and restrained tone. “Mum thinks so too...” he added quietly.

“We’re sorry about what happened,” said Sophia.

“I know,” he said, wrenching his eyes from Corinna. “I wish that...” he started to say, but he just shook his head when the words would not come. They all knew what he meant. He wished that he had been able to stop the vampire from hurting Alastor.

“Me too,” said Corinna very quietly.

“You could have fooled me,” he said in a bitter and accusing tone.

“I didn’t mean for any of this to happen!” she said defensively. “If I had said something or done something ... what if I had made it worse? What if he had died instead?” She was almost pleading with Martin to understand.

“Well, we’ll never know, now will we?” said Martin. “Because you never gave us the opportunity to decide the better course of action. You just closed your eyes and ... and let it happen ... instead of doing something, anything to stop it! You could have told me at any time. I could have made the decision, and, by Merlin, I would have warned Alastor so that ... that he could have stood a better chance fighting that thing!” Martin exploded at her.

Tears trickled from Corinna’s eyes as she cowered away from him, unable to reply to the charges he made against her.

“Martin, don’t be childish,” said Sissy.

He rounded on her immediately, and said, “And, you ... you supported her decision not to say anything! To keep this to herself. And look what happened because of that!” There were angry tears in his eyes as he made the accusation.

Sissy stiffened and replied, “I did what I thought was right, neither more nor less than that.” There was doubt in her eyes, though no one would have recognized such a thing in the eyes of Sissy Howard.

“I never closed my eyes,” said Corinna through her tears, taking his attention from Sissy. “I never did! When I knew what was going to happen, when I saw it, Martin, I was always looking for a way to help him. For anything that might help. I just couldn’t find anything!”

Martin looked at her hard and scowled through his tears. “You should have tried harder!”

“I did the best that I could, Martin! I like your uncle. I like you. I would never want to see either of you get hurt. Never, Martin!” she told him as tears streamed down her cheeks.

Those words seemed to calm Martin down for a moment. He gave a jerking nod and looked away. His throat prickled again as Sophia put her arm around his shoulder. Everyone was suddenly silent. No one noticed that half the common room was watching the argument.

“Sorry,” muttered Martin stiffly. Something, perhaps the desperate sincerity of her words, seemed to bring him back, make him remember that she was his friend, that she never meant for any of this to happen, that it wasn’t her fault.

“Got it all out?” asked Sissy with a wry look.

“For now,” he nodded as Sophia rubbed his back. A few stray tears splashed out of his eyes and down his face. He brushed them away. The anger was seeping away, and he felt just a bit better for it, though a lingering hollowness remained in its wake.

“I suppose I deserved it ...” said Corinna after a pause.

“I don’t know about that,” said Martin more than a bit apologetically.

Olivia pinched him affectionately and said, “We don’t blame you, do we? I mean, it must be hard ... what happened to your uncle.”

“No, we don’t blame you, Martin,” echoed Corinna, wiping her eyes and knowing that he hadn’t meant what he had said. She had only known him half a year, but she was certain of that.

“Thanks,” he said.

“That’s what friends are for,” said Sophia with a gentle smile.

Sissy glanced over her shoulder where several students were still staring at them and sneered. “I think we’ve put on enough of a spectacle for one evening,” she told the others.

As Martin walked up the stairs to his dormitory, he couldn’t help but notice that all the boys in his year from Woodward to Prentice to Middleton left their seats and followed him. To be perfectly honest, it still made him a little nervous despite the mostly amicable relationship he had developed with his year mates. He rubbed his face with his hands as he walked into the dormitory, preparing himself for a barrage of questions that was sure to come.

“I might as well take this lying down,” thought Martin dourly, plopping down on his bed and stretching out comfortably. The soft mattress felt very good after having a nap on the floor earlier.

He turned his head and watched the other boys enter the room. Middleton, the unofficial leader of their year, was first through the door. He looked mildly surprised to see Martin lying in bed. Woodward, who had come out his shell in recent weeks, was following close behind with Halliday. Prentice and Wainwright brought up the rear with the former looking especially hesitant.

“Out with it, Martin,” said Leslie Middleton, who hated his own first name so much that no one was allowed to use it on pain of a bloody nose or worse. His tone was very brusque.

Martin took his wand from his pocket and placed it on the nightstand. This garnered him a few raised eyebrows.

“I’d rather not, if it’s all the same. You can try to get it out of me the old fashioned way. I’m too ... too something to care,” said Martin. The word he was looking for might have been ‘exhausted’ or ‘drained’ or even ‘burned out’.

“Oh, for the love of Merlin, Martin! We aren’t going to beat it out of you!” exclaimed Middleton, blushing furiously as he had nearly tried to do that very thing earlier in the term.

“He’s just being dramatic,” said Julian Woodward irritably. “Didn’t you hear him downstairs?”

“I’ll have you know that my uncle just lost his leg,” said Martin hotly, propping up on one elbow to scowl at the other boy properly. He stopped immediately as the scowling only made his eyes prickle again. And he certainly didn’t want to cry in front of his mates.

Halliday inhaled sharply and Prentice let out a soft squeak of horror, but Julian just looked slightly abashed.

“I’m sorry. Rotten luck,” said Middleton.

“It wasn’t luck,” shrugged Martin, lying down again. “It was the vampire.”

“The vampire? What? In the castle?” asked Wainwright, scratching his head uncomfortably.

“Again?” asked Halliday.

“That’s right,” said Martin with a hollow laugh.

He wanted to tell them that it was after him, and him alone, but thought better of it at the moment, not knowing how the boys would react.

“Did it ... get anyone?” asked Prentice timidly, looking very pale behind his freckles.

“Change them into a vampire? No, not this time,” replied Martin.

“Good,” said Middleton with a nod. “Er, you don’t want to tell us about it by any chance, do you?” he asked.

“I didn’t exactly see it happen,” Martin told him.

Middleton’s shoulders slumped a little. He was obviously disappointed. The first year student had been very curious about the incident as his step-brother had seen Flitwick, Dumbledore, and Krohn transporting the Auror through the halls.

“Oh, I see,” he said quietly.

Martin took a deep breath and decided that there was no harm in answering the questions that they were asking. In their place he could imagine himself doing the same thing now.

“I heard it,” Martin amended, “through the door. It was awful.”

“Yeah ...” agreed Halliday with wide eyes. “I can only imagine.”

Martin just managed to crack a smile. Imagination was something that none of them were short on.

“What’d it do exactly to ... to your uncle?” asked Julian in a clipped tone.

If he was as unnerved as the other boys, he wasn’t showing it as he leaned against on of the bed posts and looked at Martin with a calmly curious expression that betrayed nothing. Sometimes Martin envied Woodward.

“A Reductor Curse...” said Martin with an uncomfortable grimace.

For most of the young wizards, that spell was well above their skill level, but Middleton, having Slytherin relations and, again, a lot of imagination, recognized both the spell and its intended use and winced accordingly.

“That creature’s got to be stopped,” said Middleton, shaking his head at the horror of it all. He recognized that the curse had probably blown the other wizard’s leg apart, splattering whatever was left of it all over the corridor where it had happened.

The other boys nodded in agreement, but none of the young Ravenclaws offered a plan of action. Given time, they certainly could have devised a plan, but these young men weren’t heroes. They weren’t even scholars yet. They were just eleven- and twelve-year-old boys with better than average minds and a love of learning.

“It won’t stop until it gets what it wants,” said Martin as a matter of fact. Then he experienced a sinking feeling of dread as he realized that he was a danger to those around him, to his house mates, his year mates, and his friends.

“Blood,” said Halliday with a slight shiver.

“Me,” Martin corrected.

“What do you mean you?” asked Julian slowly.

Martin sat up and sighed. It was best that they knew, he decided. Knowing that he was what the vampire was after would help them understand and choose their own courses of action. Knowing was always better.

“The vampire was one of Grindelwald’s followers,” said Martin, extracting gasps from his roommates, except Julian, who was above such things, “and it’s after me ... probably because it wants revenge for my father defeating its master.”

The expression on Middleton’s face was very uncomfortable as he asked, “So it really won’t be giving up then, will it?”

“No,” said Martin, “not unless someone finds a way to kill it.”

“But ... but if it only wants you, why was Zabini attacked?” asked Prentice hesitantly.

“It had to feed now, didn’t it?” said Middleton with a vaguely contemptuous look that was directed at the smaller and more easily bullied student.

“But your father’s a great wizard. If it is after you, then why on earth hasn’t he taken care of it already?” asked Wainwright with an uncomprehending look.

“Vampires are supposed to be very wily and cunning. Haven’t you read that before, Nathan?” asked Woodward.

“And he can change into a bat,” Martin added, mostly in defense of his father and his abilities as a wizard.

Of course, the boys had all seen this for themselves. Martin merely wanted to remind them. He considered adding that it was also an accomplished Legilimencer, but figured they wouldn’t know what that meant.

Wainwright took both their points and nodded slowly.

“Well, you’re in trouble and no mistake there,” said Middleton with a heavy sigh.

“Tell me about it,” said Martin with a wry look. “I just wish so many other people weren’t involved,” he added, looking at the five young wizards gathered around his bed and thinking and the girls in their dormitory and unfortunate Alastor in the hospital wing, all because of him.

“Don’t be such a martyr, Martin!” objected Woodward. “No one’s involved as you so nicely put it because of you. It’s because of that thing, because of the vampire. If you ask me, Hogwarts was due for a catastrophe. It’s been nearly fifteen years since anything really dangerous happen here. Something like this was bound to happen sooner or later,” he said with an exasperated expression.

“I’m not a martyr,” Martin defended quietly, although he grudgingly admitted to himself that what Julian said made sense ... in an odd sort of way.

“Then don’t act like one,” he retorted with a slight sneer that made him seem much older than his meager twelve years.

“Well, what do you think I should do then?” Martin asked. It was a question he had not put to the girls. At least he hadn’t asked them that question yet.

Julian looked at the other first years and said, “Tell us the whole story. We may not be vampire hunters or Aurors, but we’ve got some good heads in this room. I bet we could think of something by putting them together.”

The other first years all nodded, although Prentice looked very nervous about the prospect of more talk about the vampire. Martin looked at all of them carefully, weighing Woodward’s suggestion in his mind as he did so. They weren’t going to laugh or taunt him. They were afraid, but not unwilling to, in some sense, face their fear. And Woodward was right: they were all rather intelligent and resourceful. Maybe some of them were less mature -- this was how Martin explained both Middleton’s tendency to bully and Prentice’s constant cowering -- than he was, but they had not learned the hard lessons he had during that winter and autumn. They were all Ravenclaws, and, apparently, they were all his friends too.

“All right,” Martin agreed somberly, “if that’s what everyone wants.”

“You know, he was a lot less upset than I expected,” commented Sissy as the girls prepared for bed in their dormitory. “Someday, he might even be as even tempered as you are, Sophia,” she added with a slight smile, watching the other girl take down her braids.

“I would never’ve ...”

“Blown up like that? Maybe not,” Sissy interrupted, making Sophia frown just slightly. “But he is a year younger than you. Last year, in his circumstances, you might very well have,” she said.

“Cripes, I’d love to see that. Sophia ... blow up at someone,” laughed Olivia half-nervously.

Sophia looked at them coolly and knew that they were trying to make light of everything that had happened, and not just between all of them and Martin. They were trying not to think about Mister Moody or about the vampire or about how much danger they were all in or what might happen next time.

“Very funny, I’m sure,” said Sophia.

“Do you think he’s really all right about everything now?” asked Corinna, who had already climbed into bed and was tickling Oscar, her kitten, underneath the chin. The kitten was growing up rather fast. He purred contentedly and watched his owner through half-lidded eyes.

“Lest we forget, Martin is a boy, and boys are relatively simplistic. I would say that, yes, he is, for the most part, though I should think none of this will be easy for him to forget,” answered Sissy. Their simplicity was what made many of the boys in their year nasty brutes, in her opinion, but it could also be a positive aspect to their personalities, under the right circumstances, of course.

She imagined that while Martin was unlikely to vent his anger at any of them again, he was going to haunted by the experience they shared for some time to come.

“Well, that’s nice!” objected Olivia. “I though we had decided early on that he wasn’t like the rest of them.”

“Did we really? I suppose he’s not, but he isn’t that difficult to figure out. For one thing, I would be willing to wager that he’s not especially angry with Corinna anymore,” said Sissy impassively.

“I hope not. I never meant for it to turn out this way,” muttered Corinna, holding her head in her hands. All evening she had been thinking about how every time she had a decision to make, she invariably made the wrong one.

“I think we’ve talked about this enough tonight...” said Sophia carefully. “Maybe it would be better for all of us to wait until tomorrow,” she added.

“Of course,” agreed Sissy with a sneer, trying to prove that the topic did not disturb her.

But on some level it did, even after she Scourgified her boots to get the blood off and tried not think about what Corinna had known and kept to herself since presumably before the holidays.

“Unsettling,” she thought to herself as she climbed into bed, “and who knows what else Corinna might know.”

She glanced at Corinna, who was placing her kitten on the floor for the night as Oscar usually slept beneath her bed or with the other cats, and hoped that the young Seer in their midst had learned something profitable from the experience they had all shared that day.

“If not, then I highly suspect it was for naught.”

Meanwhile in a comfortable, fire-lit room near the headmaster’s office, Albus Dumbledore and Minerva McGonagall were having a late night cup of chocolate together at a table by the window. Minerva looked decidedly pensive and sad while her husband merely appeared to be deep in contemplation as he watched the marshmallows bobbing in his cup. They had been sitting there since Minerva had returned from escorting Martin to Ravenclaw Tower, and she was loath to leave, though her place was in her rooms in the other dormitory tower with the students entrusted to her.

“I have a favor to ask of you, my dear,” said Dumbledore.

“I’m sorry, Albus? What was it you were asking me?” she questioned, having been lost in her own thoughts for sometime.

“A favor ...” he said with a soft smile. His bright blue eyes twinkled behind his spectacles.

“Of course,” she nodded.

“I have not selected a deputy as of yet...” he began.

“Oh, Albus, no, surely not me!” she objected strenuously, placing her cup on the table with a muted thump.

“I need someone strong, Minerva. You must recognize that fact at least,” he said, growing more somber and serious.

“I do, but wouldn’t Professor Flitwick do...” Minerva began to suggest.

“He refuses, matters of conscience and so forth,” he interjected a bit enigmatically.

“Then Krohn ... Kettleburn ... Vector ...”

“I said that I need someone strong. You know what Reynard is like: untempered steel. He’s not half as capable as he seems, and I think you know that quite well, Minerva. Patrick, on the other hand, simply isn’t up to the task. He doesn’t have a head for this sort of thing. In normal circumstances Beatrice Vector would be an admirable choice, but these aren’t anything like normal circumstances. An Auror, whether she is on leave or no, would be most handy to have by my side ... as always,” he explained, reaching across the little table between them and grasping her hand.

Minerva pursed her lips and said, “Flattery will get you no where.”

“What about logic and reason?”

“I can’t be the only one in the castle up to the task, Albus. That simply isn’t rational,” she said.

“But you are the right one for the job,” he countered.

“What will people say?” she asked.

“To whom do you refer?” he asked, raising an eyebrow.

“Everyone who knows we’re married,” she replied.

“I see ...” said Dumbledore slowly. “They might think I unfairly chose you over more senior ...”

“And permanent ...”

“Professors,” he finished, nodding.

“Precisely, Albus.”

“That is utter rubbish and you know it. No one who knows us would think that,” he objected. “And why would you care what strangers think?”

“That isn’t the point I was trying to make,” she said.

“So do you accept or not? If your answer is ‘no’, then I must reevaluate my position on Kettleburn...”

Minerva took a deep breath and said, “It will only be until you’ve found a new instructor for Transfigurations.”

“Correct.”

“I accept, but you had better start grooming Beatrice Vector for the position,” she said with an unpleasant, but meaningful expression on her face.

“Of course, whatever you say, my dear.”

---