A Little Knowledge

Martin and Sissy were forced to take the long way around to the Divinations’ Tower that morning as one of the main staircases had switched positions, and in an entirely unexpected manner too. The stairs now led to the Astronomy Tower. They did not seem as though they would be moving back anytime soon either, but then the stairs were all notoriously cranky in the spring, especially when it was damp. Of course, there was nothing for it except to learn alternate routes through the castle to comply with its whims and idiosyncrasies. That was one of the few disadvantages of living in a magical castle.

The two Ravenclaws had reached one of the classroom corridors, hoping to take advantage of the little used route from there to the upper levels of the castle and the winding stairs that connected to the corridor leading directly, more or less, to their destination. It was not a bad plan, because Sissy knew more about the interior of Hogwarts than any girl in her year, possibly in her entire house as the seventh year girls were not so adventurous as those who had left school the year before had been.

Martin was expecting to run into Corinna on their way to the tower as more than the usual amount of time had passed since she left with Mallaghan, but as they approached the intersection of the main corridor where several classrooms were located and the smaller hallway that led to the stairs, they heard a scuffling noise ahead of them that echoed down the corridor.

Sissy motioned for Martin to pause and moved forward very slowly and cautiously, slipping her wand from its position in her sleeve as she did so. Her heart was pounding due to the odd nature of the sound, which she could not readily identify. She was not especially afraid because it was still early in the day and bright outside. It could not be the vampire, but she intuitively felt that she ought to be careful. Martin, despite her attempted warning, was only a few paces behind her.

She had not known what to expect when she had first heard the sound, but this was certainly one of the very last things she would have anticipated seeing.

The floor in the area between the two intersecting corridors was littered with unrolled parchments, which looked more than a bit like school assignments to Sissy. She inhaled sharply when she saw Professor Knowles scrambling about on his hands and knees attempting to collect them while keeping his cane neatly in the crook of one arm while he did so. He was not having much success at the endeavor. His face was flushed and Sissy thought she could see tears of frustration forming in his cloudy eyes.

Just as he reached toward a parchment, it scooted away from him in a very unnatural fashion ... almost as though it had been summoned. It stopped just a few feet out of his reach, but how was he to know that? Knowles merely cursed quietly and continued the search, running one hand across the floor systematically as the other held his cane and the captured parchments, which were in a very disorganized state.

Sissy’s eye bulged as she caught sight of Astrophel Black standing in the shadows across the way, flicking his wand about as he moved the parchments. There was a smirk of delight on his face. Sissy could hardly believe what she was seeing, although nearly anything could be believed of Black.

With a barely suppressed chuckle he waved his wand and Knowles’ robes flipped over his head and face, startling the professor so that a shrill shriek escaped from his lips. He had not expected it. His cane slipped from his elbow and clattered across the floor as Black neatly summoned it too, hiding it against the farthest wall. His expression changed to one of smug satisfaction as he surveyed his handiwork.

“Conjunctivitis!” roared Sissy with all her might, pointing her wand at Black, who had neither the time nor presumably the skill to block the curse she sent at him, which was fueled by an anger so profound that it threatened to overwhelm her. He was lucky she didn’t use something more damaging nor more permanent that the vision-obscuring curse.

Black howled in surprised terror and clawed at his eyes before fleeing down the corridor behind him. Sissy hoped that Knowles recognized the voice of his attacker. She could hear Black crashing into things and felt some small satisfaction as she dashed to her professor’s side.

“Miss Howard, did you just curse ... a fellow student ... again?” Professor Knowles asked in a muffled voice as she knelt beside him and began untangling his robes from his face. And they were quite tangled as he had been struggling with them in an appropriately Gryffindor fashion.

Sissy barely managed to raise an eyebrow at the loose and comfortable clothing he was wearing under the robes, which was rather Muggle in appearance.

“I might have, sir,” she answered. Her hands were still shaking with rage as she righted the dark robes.

“Nicely done,” he commented. “Twenty points for Ravenclaw for assisting your feeble and stupid professor who didn’t even realize someone was there,” he said with a wry look.

Sissy pursed her lips as she smoothed his disheveled hair and unobtrusively used her sleeve to dry his face, which was streaked with sweat and what she presumed to be tears.

“Don’t say things like that. They simply aren’t true,” she admonished quietly, looking over his shoulder at Martin, who was watching them with an uncomfortable expression. “Gather his things. Would you?” she ordered a bit snappishly.

Martin was quick to obey nonetheless, understanding how Sissy felt about the situation. Knowles was not his favorite professor by any means, but what Black had been doing was unconscionable.

“You aren’t hurt, are you, professor?” Sissy inquired.

“Only my pride ... and perhaps my hands. I believe I scraped them on the stone,” he said with an annoyed expression.

“A bit...” said Sissy as he held them out for her inspection. They weren’t too badly scraped, but she imagined that they were stinging quite a bit.

“Would you mind giving me a hand, Miss Howard?” he questioned as she relinquished his.

“I’ve ... I’ve got your cane, sir,” stammered Martin, holding it out to Sissy, who took it from him with a cool, acknowledging nod. He could still see the anger burning in the depths of her eyes.

“Thank you, Mister Dumbledore,” said Knowles as Sissy pressed the cane into the less injured of his hands and he stood up.

“Martin, could you run along and find Corinna? I want to have a word with the professor,” she said, taking the parchments from the younger wizard. He had gathered them all quite quickly. She was grateful for that.

“Yes, certainly,” he swiftly replied. Martin made all haste to leave them.

“I can only imagine what I would have done if you hadn’t come along,” said Knowles, stiffening slightly as Sissy slipped her arm into his. Wherever he was going, she intended to conduct him safely thither. “Something silly, I suspect,” he answered himself with an unhappy expression.

“Your office or your quarters, sir?” she inquired, stuffing the parchments into one of her pockets to keep her wand hand free, not that she fancied she would need it, given what she had done to Black. But she always liked to be prepared.

“My quarters... I’m not in any fit state to work on those assignments now,” he answered with a hint of embarrassment in his voice.

Sissy guided him in the proper direction, noting that his cane was tucked into the crook of his arm again. He was trusting her completely. She felt a twinge of pride at that as her anger began to cool, though certainly a part of her mind was still plotting against Black. She imagined that he would be expelled before she could exact any meaningful sort of revenge upon him.

“You’re being awfully hard on yourself, professor,” she commented.

He glanced in her direction with a rather pointed expression and said, “I was just bested by what I guess to be a fourteen- or fifteen-year-old boy, Miss Howard. That is hardly cause for celebration.”

“It wasn’t a fair fight,” she defended, squeezing his arm almost painfully.

He allowed it as it took his mind off his hands.

“I’ve never been in a fair fight. Perhaps you should show me one sometime,” he remarked cynically.

It was because of comments like these that many students could not stand him. Sissy only naturally took it in stride. She also took his point in that instance. What prevented him from considering his besting of Moody a fair fight was unknown. Or perhaps that had merely slipped his mind given the circumstances.

“My apologies,” she murmured, loosening her grip slightly.

He favored her with a mildly dismissive sneer, but said nothing more for a few moments as they walked quickly and quietly through the castle.

“If I quietly retired at the end of this term, would you still considered me lacking in the qualities that make a true Gryffindor?” he asked her.

Admittedly, Knowles felt a bit silly asking such a question of a second year student, even one so remarkable as Miss Howard, but he wanted an honest answer and thought she might give him one.

She was silent for a long while, groping for the right words, before she replied. “I wouldn’t think that, but I would still be very sorry to see you go.”

Her tone spoke reams about her unhappiness with the idea. But he could let the feelings of one student sway him in his decision, could he? Basing decisions on emotions was folly. Basing them on the emotions of someone else was worse, wasn’t it? Knowles had been struggling with that decision for weeks, if not months, and was no closer to his ultimate answer.

“Sentimentality,” he muttered absently as they climbed the stairs to the corridor where his chambers were.

Sissy only chuckled softly to herself and hoped that it would be enough to keep him at the school just a little longer.

Knowles opened his mouth to say something more on the subject when a breathless voice called out from behind them.

“Cyrus, where the devil have you been? I’ve been waiting for you in your office for half an hour!” shouted the voice of Professor Krohn, who had just rushed up the stairs after them.

“I had an encounter with one of your students,” said Knowles ominously. There was an expression of deadly seriousness on his face as he turned toward Krohn.

And that was when Professor Knowles finally lost his temper, which was something so seldom seen that it could frighten even notoriously ill-tempered and mercurial Krohn.

“If you don’t reign that boy in, I swear to ... to whatever you want me to swear to, Reynard, that I’ll handle the matter myself and when you find all the pieces of that little worm ... if you find them all ... there won’t be enough left to fill a cauldron,” he said in a thunderous voice.

Sissy, in midst of the outburst, released his arm in surprise, having never heard such a convincing threat from anyone, much less from him. She found it quite alarming. She was not alone.

Breathing heavily, Knowles flailed his arm in Sissy’s direction, seeking her guidance again. His face had turned a brilliant shade of red that went well with his house colors. Sissy took his arm again after only a second’s hesitation.

Krohn gaped for a moment and then asked, “Black?”

“Who else, even in your house, would ... would ...” and Knowles found he couldn’t say it.

“Torment and harass a blind man,” supplied Sissy, knowing what he was getting at. She leveled her gaze at Krohn as she spoke.

Knowles glanced toward her with an expression of displeasure, though he was grateful for the forcefulness of her voice and her way with words, saying what he could not.

“What did he do?” asked Krohn anxiously.

“Reynard, do use your imagination,” snapped Knowles. “He used a spell -- I didn’t happen to hear the incantation -- to knock my papers out of my hands. I thought it was a draft. Then as I began collecting them ... I believe he moved them around while I searched. After that he tossed my robes over my face and hid my cane,” he informed the Slytherin head of house. He glared toward Sissy with a sour expression as she squeezed his arm comfortingly.

Krohn was speechless. He thought the matter of respecting one’s professors had been settled once and for all. The punishment Black had received had been quite severe. He had never imagined that this would come up again and so soon.

“I’ll ... I’ll do something about this behavior, Cyrus. You have my solemn oath,” he stammered.

“You had better,” said Knowles in an ominous tone that nearly made Sissy shiver despite the unemotional expression that had returned to his face.

Sissy could tell by the disbelieving and anxiety-ridden expression on Krohn’s face that he understood quite well what had been done to Knowles. He had been shamed and made, for just a few moments, nearly helpless and dependent upon others. Nothing worse could be done to a man of Knowles’ temperament and character. He loathed needing anything from anyone, even his friends and colleagues, if not especially.

“I’ll horse whip him ...” Krohn began in a vehement tone.

“Leave the curse on him,” suggested Sissy.

“Curse?” questioned the potions’ professor,

“She put the Conjunctivitis Curse on him ... to stop him from doing anything more,” said Knowles almost conversationally. “She is amazingly good at choosing punishments that fit the crime,” he added.

Krohn weighed this in his mind and said, “I’ll see to that no one removes it for three days. Then I will have a conversation with him. If he does not ... recognize the error of his ways ... I shall wait three more.”

“But he’s not completely blinded ...” said Sissy almost regretfully.

“That cannot be helped,” said Krohn.

“It should be sufficient,” said the defense instructor, who had seen the curse liberally applied during the war. He was satisfied with its general effects.

“Anything else that I might do?” questioned Krohn.

“I don’t care what you do so long as I do not have another encounter like the one I had today,” replied Knowles shortly.

Sissy glanced at the professor’s injured hands, which were not bleeding any longer, although they looked worrisome. She hated to ask anything of Krohn. It went against the grain despite the fact that he had helped Sophia earlier in the term. She also did not wish to cause her professor any more embarrassment than he had already suffered, but still ... the scrapes needed attending.

“Professor, would you mind ...” she said awkwardly, turning Professor Knowles’s arm so that the injured palm was in plain view. He could not close it before Krohn saw the minor injury that had been done to his hand.

“Deuced girl,” he snarled at Sissy, though there was no venom in Cyrus’ words, only mild exasperation.

“Could you put something on his hands so that they would heal faster or not hurt?” she asked awkwardly.

“Only too easy,” Krohn assured her, taking the professor’s hand from her.

“Reynard ... it’s nothing,” said Knowles with a look of irritation as the strong potions’ master forced his hand open.

“Everything’s nothing until it gets infected,” he muttered with a sharp look at Knowles. “I have just the thing...” he said, rummaging around in one of his pockets.

“You carry potions in your pockets, Reynard?” asked Knowles with a look of disgust that was typical of most Gryffindors when potions of any kind were mentioned.

Sissy watched curiously as he removed a very small bottle of wound-cleaning potion from one of his many pockets. A bit of steam escaped when he opened it. Sissy thought about warning Knowles that it was going to sting.

“Always prepared,” said Krohn, pouring a few droplets onto the scrapes. Knowles hissed sharply as the potion smoked and did in fact sting his injured hand. “The other one, if you please,” he said.

Knowles held out his hand grudgingly and said, “I hope you aren’t enjoying this, Reynard. One would hate to think that you were displaying your sadistic tendencies in front of a student.”

For a moment Sissy thought that Krohn looked hurt by this accusation. Then he sneered slightly and glanced at her.

“I do not think Miss Howard would be surprised,” he commented dryly.

Sissy blushed ever-so-slightly as she thought of the note he had intercepted earlier that spring. She tried to look prim and unbothered despite the color in her cheeks.

Knowles just blinked placidly and withdrew his still smoking hand from Reynard’s, obviously not sure what to make of his colleague’s comment. He imagined that it referred to the punishment he had doled out in regards to Miss Howard and her friends fighting with his students. Instead of feeling displeased by those actions, he now felt rather proud of her for her willingness to take on the older student, who was obviously nothing more than a feckless thug.

“Please be certain not to pick at them, Cyrus, or you’ll need another application of potion,” Krohn informed him impassively.

“I’ll try to restrain myself.”

“Do you still wish to look over those papers?”

“Miss Howard, do you happen to have ...”

“Right here,” she said, swiftly removing the parchments from her pocket. They were rumpled and disorganized but otherwise unharmed.

Krohn took them from her and reluctantly said, “Five points for Ravenclaw.”

He did not add the justification, but mentally he attributed it to her helping his colleague to save face.

“Thank you,” she said quietly.

“Miss Howard, I believe it is time for you to be on your way. I have some business with Professor Krohn, and I imagine that Mister Dumbledore is growing quite concerned,” the defense instructor told her a bit sternly.

Sissy wanted to argue the point that Martin was hardly her keeper, but she knew what he was getting at. It was time for her to go. She had seen him safely to his rooms, which were just down the corridor, and her duty was done.

She glanced at Krohn and wished that he were not standing there, looking at her with his cool, impassive gaze. There was so much she wanted to say to Knowles, who still looked worse for wear and seemed melancholic, though he was struggling to hide it. She wanted to cheer him up somehow.

“Of course, sir,” she answered succinctly.

Then Knowles did something unexpected.

He, knowing quite well where she was standing, reached toward her and squeezed her shoulder and said, “And if you see that wretched little miscreant, do give him hell for me, would you?”

“Naturally,” she agreed with a wide smile.

Sissy did not notice the look Krohn gave her as she walked away, but she did hear his comment: “You know she might very well kill Black.”

“Oh, I believe she would stop short of that, Reynard,” was Professor Knowles’ bored and unconcerned reply.

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