A Little Knowledge

Martin and Sissy were discussing the advantages and disadvantages of going to look for Corinna within the confines of the Divinations’ Tower when Corinna emerged from around a corner and they spotted her. Martin knew something was off immediately by her slow and shuffling gait, which reminded him of the professor she had just been to see.

“Corinna, what’s been keeping you?” asked Sissy, who also noticed that something was amiss with her friend. If there was an impatient edge to her voice, it was because of what Black had done earlier. She was still more than a bit peeved and intending to make certain Black knew it ... and as soon as possible too.

“Visions...” she answered in a low voice.

“Really?” asked Martin, raising his eyebrows. “More of them?”

“Several, actually,” Corinna replied with a certain false nonchalance that made her voice somewhat shrill and strained.

Mallaghan had not wanted her to go, for fear that she was more disturbed or more affected by the experience than she would let on, but he would not keep her against her will and asked only that she return to her own tower and rest.

“They must have been unpleasant,” observed Sissy.

“Not all of them...” said Corinna, thinking of Professor Mallaghan and Rosie.

Those visions had been colored by other emotions, including Somerville’s anger and the overwhelming sadness caused by his disappearance, but seeing them together had made Corinna feel happy. She was glad to see that Joseph had once had someone who cared deeply for him and about whom he felt the same.

“Just some?” questioned Martin.

“One,” she said, trying not to think of it. She shivered slightly nevertheless.

Martin and Sissy exchanged a look of concern.

“Olivia and Sophia are probably waiting for us back at the Aerie. It’s been some time since we left them in the library to find you,” said Sissy, taking Corinna by the arm, and adding, “and we shouldn’t keep them waiting. They will be quite worried enough as it is.”

Olivia and Sophia were waiting in the common room, but they weren’t worried. In fact Olivia was giggling to herself while Sophia was struggling to maintain a stern expression, and failing miserably. Sissy eyed them with a peculiar expression as Martin and she sat down and Corinna curled up on the divan, looking quite exhausted and more than a bit sickly.

“You won’t believe what we saw!” chortled Olivia, leaning forward in her seat and holding her stomach. She had been laughing for a very long time.

“What did you see?” asked Martin, who was seated next to Sophia on the couch in front of the hearth.

“Astrophel Black ... with Flint and Bulstrode leading him along by the hand ... and with scratches all over his face!” laughed Olivia. “It looked like he had been mauled by a pygmy hyppogriff!”

Sissy preened a little at this description, though the scratches, she knew, had been caused by the Slytherin’s own fingernails.

“Someone had got him with the Conjunctivitis Curse,” added Sophia as she had been the one to figure this out.

“I bet it was someone in his own house this time. Nasty little prat,” said Olivia.

“Erm...” said Martin indistinctively.

Sophia raised her eyebrows and looked at Sissy, which was an only natural reaction considering the situation.

“You didn’t!” she exclaimed, taking note of the cat-who-ate-the-canary expression on Sissy’s face, which was quickly replaced by one of mock-innocence.

“Sissy!” Olivia hissed in shock.

“I had no choice really. That curse was the very first one that I could think of, given the ... situation,” she said in a very calm and neutral tone.

“Situation?” prompted Corinna from the divan.

There was an unmistakable flash of ire in Sissy’s eyes as she answered that prompting.

“He was harassing Professor Knowles in a most ungentlemanly and barbaric fashion,” she said coolly, betraying none of the emotion that she felt.

“Black scattered some parchments he was carrying and was moving them around so that he couldn’t find them. Then ... he got the professor tangled up in his own robes and took his cane,” Martin explained with a very grim expression.

Sophia was rather impressed by that description of the incident. Most boys Martin’s age would have found it quite funny. But Martin was obviously much better than them.

“Black got what he deserved,” said Olivia with a nod.

“Krohn is going to keep the curse on him for a few days as punishment,” said Sissy.

Sophia’s eyes widened slightly at this. It surprised her, not that she thought it was too harsh of a punishment, not by any means. She simply wasn’t certain that Krohn would be willing to use such severe measures on his own students. She would never have openly charged him with favoritism, but sometimes she had cause to wonder, although not in the matter of Astrophel Black, generally speaking. Sophia imagined that Krohn knew what sort Black was and acted according. Nevertheless ... leaving a curse on a student?

“Good,” said Corinna.

“Right! That ruddy idiot ought to know better by now,” said Olivia enthusiastically.

“I’ll see that he does,” said Sissy in a steely voice.

Sophia happened to notice that she had one hand in the sleeve where she normally kept her wand. She didn’t need any special talent to know that this was going to mean trouble for all of them somehow.


The following day was rather strenuous for Corinna as her mind inadvertently wandered back to her visions, especially the one that had included Grindelwald in all of his decadent malevolence, making it difficult for her to concentrate on her schoolwork. As luck would have, it was a Monday, which meant double Potions class with the Hufflepuffs. It could have been worse, of course, as they didn’t have to keep a constant eye on their fellow students and rarely had to duck under the tables because of mischief. But this was not Corinna’s best subject by any mean nor was she well liked by its instructor as she had already established a reputation for day-dreaming in his class the year before.

That particular Monday afternoon the second years were preparing a Scintillating Solution, which supposedly could make very dull objects or person vastly more interesting, although it was quite a challenge for students to make as it required precision timing and was known to explode more frequently than the average draught prepared during that year.

Corinna and Sophia were working together, but with separate cauldrons as Krohn appreciated individual effort more than most of his colleagues and was enamored with the old expression ‘too many cooks spoil the soup.’ Because of their disparate skill levels, Sophia and Corinna often paired-up on the more difficult potions so that Sophia could provide her friend with a bit of assistance from time to time. They had in that way avoided many, many mishaps and saved their house incalculable points.

What happened that afternoon could best be explained by the fact that Corinna was absent-mindedly adding ingredients, without any supervision, as Sophia was checking her textbook to see how fine the flowering narcissus stems needed to be chopped for the potion. Was three-quarters of an inch sufficient or were quarter inch sections better?

The potions’ master looked up from his desk where he was reviewing an article in The Journal of Experimental Potions just in time to see Miss Bellew drop an unskinned shrivelfig into her cauldron as she gazed off into the distance.

He leapt up from his seat, dropping the journal and shouting something he usually reserved for his Gryffindor students: “Everyone, down! Now!”

The Hufflepuffs were quick to obey without question, ducking underneath their tables and shielding their heads with their arms -- they had had class with the Slytherins the year before. But the Ravenclaws stared at him for a moment, trying to determine the cause of his outburst and their motive for complying with his request before deciding that something was probably going to explode and following the Hufflepuffs’ lead.

And then there was Corinna, who simply stood there, blinking dazedly at Krohn, who had removed his wand from where ever he had been keeping it lately, and was striding purposefully ... toward her ... for reasons Corinna could not quite figure out ... until she looking down at the ominously bubbling cauldron on the table in front of her.

“Get out of the way!” Krohn bellowed at her, raising his wand to take care of the cauldron, which was on the verge of exploding at that moment.

Corinna stumbled back several steps as he vanished the potion. A few stray droplets fell on the desk where they sizzled, burning deep gouges out of the wood. She looked up at Krohn, waiting for another sort of explosion, that of his temper, which she knew was sure to come. His nostrils flared as he glowered at her, slipping his wand into a pocket as he did so.

“What were you thinking? Were you thinking?” he asked her in an acerbic tone, towering over her menacingly.

Corinna paled as she looked at him. The cause was not his anger, which did frighten her a bit, but rather recognition. She knew at that moment whom that severed head on Grindelwald’s table had reminded her of, why it had seemed so familiar. It had borne a striking resemblance to Professor Krohn. She suddenly found that she couldn’t stop shaking as she looked up at him.

He scowled down at her and asked, “Well, Miss Bellew? Explain yourself.”

Given the situation, Corinna did the only thing she could do; she ducked underneath the table behind her and covered her eyes with her hands, attempting in vain to will away the memory of what she had witnessed.

Krohn flushed crimson as he realized that all of his students were staring at him. He glanced under the laboratory table at trembling Miss Bellew and tried to think of something appropriate to say.

“You silly little half-wit, come out from there this instant!” he told her in a very sharp tone.

Corinna cringed, but avoided looking up at the professor as she continued to try to clear her mind of the gruesome image, which she had not imparted to her friends. She wanted to deny ever seeing it, but that was quite impossible, especially now.

Of course, Corinna’s friends were watching this display, and more than one of them took exception to Krohn’s characterization of her as a half-wit. Sophia might have been content to give him a disapproving look and Sissy held her tongue as well, though her eyes flashed with anger, but Olivia was not cut from the same cloth as those two.

“You leave her alone!” yelled Olivia as Professor Krohn reached under the table to drag Corinna out.

She pushed past Sophia and seized the back of his robes, obviously meaning to pull him away from her friend. The potions’ professor was a very large and imposing wizard, but this did not matter one whit to Olivia, whose temper was not unlike Krohn’s on her better days. None of the other students, for various and sundry reasons, would have ever dared to attempt this.

“Get a hold of yourself, Miss Scarrow!” he barked at her, swatting Olivia away with one hand and yanking his robes from her grasp with the other. “Have you both gone stark-raving mad?” Krohn snapped in an incensed and incredulous tone.

Olivia was going to call him a brute and horrible a bully, but Sissy, who along with Sophia rather fancied that she knew better because of how Krohn had behaved on previous occasions, including the one just the day before involving Professor Knowles, grabbed Olivia by both arms and pulled her away with a very stern look.

This left the professor free to fix the other problem: cowering Corinna, who still would not open her eyes nor leave her position beneath the table. She could not bear to look at Krohn, knowing that the wizard Somerville had murdered was somehow related to him. She vaguely remembered a comment someone had made in passing, possibly Martin, about how much of the professor’s family had been killed during the Grindelwald conflict, the horror of which she at long last understood.

Krohn glanced at the students watching him for a moment and considered ordering them out, but decided after some hesitation that removing Bellew would be simpler. He lifted the table by its edges and shoved it away from both the cringing girl and himself. She shuddered as it squeaked loudly upon the stone.

“Get up,” he ordered, reaching down and grasping her by the collar of her robes to haul her to her feet. “I’ve had quite enough of this nonsense. You are to report to Madam Pomfrey and God help you if there isn’t anything seriously the matter with you,” he added, thrusting her toward Olivia. “And you, since you’re so keen on helping her, can escort her there, Miss Scarrow,” Krohn instructed sharply.

Olivia simply looked at him with a burning hatred in her eyes before putting her arm around Corinna and guiding her toward the door.

Krohn followed a few paces behind and shouted after them, “And that’s twenty points from Ravenclaw for being bloody nuisances!”

All of the Scintillating Solutions were ruined, of course, but the class was not dismissed until the full amount of time had elapsed. Krohn sat glowering at his desk while his students cleaned up their cauldrons in absolute silence. None of the Hufflepuffs would risk their instructor’s wrath, and Sophia and Sissy had little to say to one another concerning the matter. They were worried about Corinna, but there was nothing they could do about that until class was dismissed.

“Miss Colville, a word, if you please,” said Krohn as the students were leaving at the end of the double class.

Sophia tried her best not to feel vexed as she looked at the smirk on Sissy’s face. She knew that Sissy would be going directly to the hospital wing, presuming that Corinna was still there. She wasn’t so sure, but nevertheless, she was somewhat displeased by the fact that Krohn had asked her to wait, knowing that she certainly would want to see Corinna as soon as possible.

“Yes, professor,” she replied coolly, approaching the desk as the classroom emptied.

Professor Krohn noticed the look in her dark eyes. It was a smoldering sort of fire that might have been missed by others, especially given her otherwise tranquil expression. He could tell that she was a bit angry, or at least quite irritated, whether she would admit it or not. It occurred to him that he might bear part of the responsibility for that ire, but he simply did not care. His class had been interrupted in what he considered to be a most unusual fashion, that he suspected was only marginally related to Miss Bellew’s lack of skill in potions, and he wanted very much to know why.

“Miss Colville, I am at a loss,” he said, looking up from his desk.

“Oh?” she questioned.

“What happened to your friend? I hardly yelled at her at all and...”

“You know that she has a certain talent in the area of Divinations, don’t you?” inquired Sophia, not wanting to reveal too much, but wanting to give a satisfactory answer just the same.

“Of course. That fact is well known,” said Krohn with a grimace. He was not especially partial to the art. His favorite grandfather had always told him that practitioners of Divinations were very strange, abnormal people who were to be avoided at all possible costs.

“She had a very trying weekend,” she replied enigmatically.

Krohn raised an eyebrow and asked, “Would you care to elaborate?”

“No, professor, I don’t think I should, but perhaps if you had a talk with Professor Mallaghan, he could...”

“No thank you,” Krohn interrupted with unpleasant expression.

“Then suffice it to say that Corinna is having difficulty with her abilities and the sort of things that they make her privy to,” said Sophia slowly. She suddenly had the horrible feeling that Corinna knew something unfortunate about Krohn himself. She shifted uneasily.

Krohn had not made that connection, but observed his student’s discomfort.

“I am sorry that I was so hard with her then,” he told Sophia.

“Should I pass that along, sir?”

“By all means,” he consented.

They looked at one another for a moment with somber, yet impassive expressions on their faces before Sophia asked, “May I go now, professor?”

“Certainly,” he answered, gesturing toward the open classroom door.

Sophia did not find her friends in the hospital wing, but Madam Pomfrey, who was putting away a bottle of Calming Draught, informed her that they had all returned to Ravenclaw Tower. She was grateful for this information and made her way quickly thither, hoping that Corinna would be willing to tell her what was wrong.

Her friends, unable to claim their favorite seats in front of the hearth, which was not lit due to the unexpectedly and unseasonable warm temperatures outside, were sitting near out of the windows. Corinna, she noticed as she approached, was still looking pale, not to mention a bit bleary-eyed, possibly thanks to the potion Sophia assumed Madam Pomfrey had given her for her nerves. She smiled slightly as she saw Martin perched on the window seat next to her with an anxious look in his eyes.

“So devoted,” thought Sophia.

Of course, she didn’t see the slightly sour and perhaps envious expression that graced Sissy’s face as she glanced up from her defense text.

Corinna managed a half smile as she noticed Sophia, who took a seat in a vacant chair between where Corinna and Olivia were sitting.

“All right?” Sophia questioned tactfully.

“Better,” shrugged Corinna.

“But she won’t tell us anything...” murmured Sissy, not bothering to look up from her book again. Possibly she did not deem it worth the effort.

“It hasn’t anything to do with the vampire or with the future. I’m not obligated,” countered Corinna.

Sissy arched an eyebrow and was about to ask how she arrived at that conclusion, but Sophia spoke first.

“Of course you aren’t,” she agreed, despite her desperate desire to know what had caused her to have such a reaction in potions’ class.

Martin nodded in agreement to this, but there was a look of reluctance in his still worried eyes.

Corinna looked at Sophia and frowned, almost to herself, as though debating some great internal question, and said, “Maybe someday...” and simply left it at that.

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