Potter Professions

Sandra sat on an uncomfortable chair at an unremarkable table in a large but windowless room. A small stage was the only sign that this room served various stage-bound groups for rehearsals. One of them was Dragonfly, a fact Sandra didn't know yet.

Today the stage didn't matter. Today her own group might as well have used a classroom or a café, provided they had it for themselves, because today's agenda had just one topic: a preliminary discussion to settle the basics in Hayden's project.

Hayden was the figure who sat on a similarly uncomfortable chair on the stage, but he only sat for a few moments before he would jump up again to walk a few steps, emphasizing his words with his arms - no, with his entire body. Hayden could only be called theatrical, which was okay because he was the director of the Beauxbatons Theatre Group.

Hayden Schaeffer, an Englishman whose main job was English teacher at Beauxbatons, could be held responsible for Sandra's presence here. This had little to do with his own self - he looked quite handsome, if a skinned skeleton with affected gestures could be called handsome, but nobody would have suspected him of inviting Sandra for anything dramatic offstage. Hayden was gay.

He exhibited it as if to say, Yes I am, but only after hours, and now let's concentrate on the matter at hand. Rumour had it that some colleagues with a tolerance as limited as their intelligence had tried to mock him in public, maybe even bully him. Hayden had fought fire with a firestorm. By giving proof of his acting skill, he had mimicked them in such a merciless caricature of their own mannerisms that the mockery had stopped quickly. No more stupid remarks, no more attempts to imitate his unmistakable gait for fear of being imitated back.

Hayden was the one who had given Sandra the witch's role in last year's movie project. His new project, though, which little by little was gaining outlines and simultaneously making Sandra's heart beat go faster, was traditional stageplay.

"... not an ordinary casting, and our evenings won't be ordinary rehearsals. Well, not after the first period when we'll rehearse the play in its standard framework. Only when this has been settled, with all actors who'll have signed within the next two months, only then will we start to work out the personal interpretations ..."

The play Hayden had selected was Antigone, the version of the French dramatist Jean Anouilh. In the original Greek version by Sophocles, Antigone was the daughter of Oedipus and Jokasta, the couple which - unknowingly - was formed by mother and son. When this scandal was revealed, Jokasta hanged herself while Oedipus, after years of being the king of Thebes, blinded himself. Antigone's two brothers, Eteocles and Polynices, battled each other for the succession of the king's throne - unsuccessfully so because they killed each other. Creon, Antigone's uncle, gained the throne. His first decree was to mourn and bury one of them while letting the other's corpse rot in the sun. Antigone defied this decree and buried her brother but was caught. Her punishment was to be immured alive, which meant that she was buried behind a wall to die in the lightless cubicle.

In Anouilh's version, the events were of course the same, but were based on totally different motivations and subject to much discussion and interpretation. In Sandra's limited memory of this piece, the characters just talked and talked, more or less from the first opening to the last curtain.

---

"... uses a contemporary language in his adaptation, so you don't need to bother with the phrases and words of good ol' Sophocles, or what the translators made of them. Because the rule is, we'll keep the original text - Anouilh's text - word for word. Your interpretation, your positioning of the character in a role of your choice, must be made with your contribution - body language, intonation, emphasis, gesture, whatever crosses your mind. If you believe you have to smoke a pipe to make your character believable ..."

Hayden's choice was well selected. Anouilh's version of the drama didn't need more equipment than a table and some chairs, so the characters could sit and talk, jump up and sit down again. That Hayden, of all people, had selected a play with a female hero seemed to surprise some of the promising young men in the group, but the teacher and director knew what he did. The surprising element in his project was the abandonment of a fixed cast for a drama that presented a two-character play for ninety percent of all words spoken on stage. Instead, he wanted different people representing different versions of the same character - under the restriction that all of them used the words as written by the dramatist.

For Sandra, who might not have come within calling distance of a main role for the next three years, it meant that she could play the Antigone, provided she had the nerve and she found an interpretation that was different enough from the others to count as individual.

"... figure is your Creon? Is he a tired manager who tries to see the big picture, only to overlook the human details? Is he your commonplace politician, who came to power more or less by accident and now is determined not to lose it again? Is he ready to kill for that or is there a limit how far his morals can be stretched? And if you really want a challenge, then draw him as the only one who's left to do a job that's two sizes too big for him, a small bookkeeper's soul, but he tries anyway." Hayden smiled diabolically. "And let the text guide you whether he grows with every minute or tries to hide behind his book of rules."

The text, yes ... Sandra knew that she had to read it as soon as possible. But no matter what the words were, they would not influence her decision. Would she dare to step into shoes as big as these, after a well-acclaimed but nonetheless limited role in a movie project?

Someone raised an arm. "And what about the minor roles?"

"My God, yes, the minor roles - I nearly forgot in my enthusiasm for this project. Imagine that!" Hayden exclaimed the last two words so effeminately that Sandra had to suppress a giggle, as always unsure whether he tried to provoke reactions or simply behaved as gay as he felt.

"... roles will be played by the same actors as for the major roles. If you sign for a Creon, you must cover Haimon or any of the guards ..."

Haimon, Creon's son, was Antigone's fiancé. In the original play by Sophocles, he killed himself after arriving too late to save her.

"... if you sign for Antigone, you must cover her sister Ismène or the nurse."

Her friend Héloise, Sandra thought, had a sister by the name of Ismène. But this didn't qualify her any better to play the Antigone than it qualified Sandra, in particular since Anouilh had painted Ismène as a light beauty and Antigone as dark, thoughtful, and altogether unbearably difficult and stubborn.

"... play the messenger myself, and those not engaged in the current pairing will play the chorus. The side effect is that nobody can say, 'Today is somebody else's big scene, I better stay at home and have a rest'."

Hayden imitating voices, or roles, could be terrifying for fear that he would imitate you. The else in "somebody else's big scene" was the whining complaint of a three-year-old being robbed of a toy, the shrill protest of an aging diva for not being treated like a queen, and at the same time Hayden's own voice when playing the caricature of a gay theatre director.

"But of course, if we're going to meet twenty Antigones ..."

Most unlikely. Looking around, Sandra saw three candidates - aside from herself, who didn't really count as such. Marie was the one she would have listed first - had Hayden simply announced that Marie was to play Antigone, Sandra would have nodded and thought, Yes, who else?

Michèle came next. Not quite as convincing as Marie, but maybe it was a matter of time and experience, rather than talent. In this year's constellation with as many alternatives as there were girls to sign up, it was no question that Michèle would go for her chance.

Then there was Denise. She would have given Marie a hard time - well, if not for the thirty-something pounds she carried in addition to what was a healthy weight for a girl her age. She could carry them quickly, agreed, and in a comedy she was a natural, raising storms of laughter. But an Antigone?

Sandra thought she'd better start to find her own picture of this character. Having a clear idea how to draw her seemed to be the most important part of her preparation - more exactly, the ability to find an approach she could cope with would be the determining factor for her own decision.

Antigone had been a girl with two brothers and a sister. Wasn't this a key element in Sandra's own considerations? She also had two brothers and a sister. Unfortunately, the age structure was totally different - had she been a brother to Gabriel and Carlos a sister to Esmeralda, then Antigone might have been the equivalent of Esmeralda, leaving for Sandra only the choice between the corpse that was buried ceremonially and the other one that was supposed to rot in the sun.

"... is all for today. Next week we'll meet again, and then I want to hear your decision - of course as a stage presentation of what you have in mind, how you want to shape the character of your choice." Hayden stepped down from the low stage, and when he sent the group off with the remark that he would answer any further question only while sitting at a table with a bottle of wine, it looked for an instant as if he was sending an encouraging glance toward Sandra.

But then, she thought while trundling after the others in the general direction of the cafeteria, a good director would do that toward every crew member. Even so, assuming she hadn't hallucinated at least he counted her as a potential candidate.

---

"Hey! What's this? Didn't you get the main role?"

Startled, Sandra looked up and saw Frédéric, who apparently had been lying in wait for her. Since his enthusiasm for the Theatre Group in general and Hayden Schaeffer in particular was severely limited, she could take this as a personal compliment. So she showed a pleased smile.

"Sure I did. Why?"

"Well, it looked a bit as if you were ordered to play the corpse in the freezer. I mean, okay, you'd be no doubt the most remarkable corpse in the freezer, even under the blanket. This admirable motionlessness! Would you agree to count it as your first nude role? Despite the blanket?"

She leaned over and stopped his suada with a light kiss. "That was kind of you to wait for me, so I'll forgive you this remark. Now let's go to the cafeteria and celebrate."

Frédéric examined her face. "What, the main role? Never! You'd look different."

"Clever boy. Now come on, drinks are on me."

Sitting in the cafeteria, each of them with a small bottle of beer, Sandra told him about Hayden's project, and that the main role really was within reach if she only could find the spirit to create her own version of this role. "All I need is a perspective nobody else would think of. Do you have any idea? That necrophilic touch a little while ago wasn't bad, but I guess we should work on it a bit longer."

Frédéric's grin in reply to her wisecrack came and went. "Antigone, eh? I'm trying to remember what was the reason that she refused to accept the simple solution at the end. We have to take that into account for sure."

It had been a while since they read the drama in class. In Anouilh's version, Creon had almost persuaded Antigone to give it a rest and to sweep the scandal under the carpet when she became aware that, as part of this hush-up, the guard who'd caught her would probably be killed. So she refused and forced Creon to make the announced punishment come true, even if it was his own niece.

Sandra told Frédéric. "I can't help it," she said, "I can think of a dozen versions for Creon but not a single one for her, for Antigone."

"Maybe you're not the only one with this problem," answered Frédéric with a knowing grin. "Sweet Haydy - pardon, our dear genius Hayden might have selected this unbalanced problem on purpose."

Sandra said with some irritation, "Don't be ridiculous! A drama in which the title role doesn't offer room for interpretation? You can't stand Hayden, that's all."

"True. All right then, what about this? Antigone's sexually attracted by her uncle and violates his decree simply as a means to come in touch with him."

Sandra stared at Frédéric in astonishment. "Say, are you a bit single-minded today?"

"I should be single-minded?" Frédéric faked disbelief. "Would you please remember that she's Oedipus' daughter? Antigone's own mother is also her grandmother from the father's side while her grandmother from the mother's side is her grand-grandmother from the father's side ... Compared to that, being obsessed by your uncle is a sane emotion!"

Despite herself, Sandra had to laugh. Then, suddenly thoughtful, she said, "Yes, I guess that's the perspective I should use."

"What? For Heaven's sake, Sandra, I was only joking!"

She shook her head. "Not her uncle - what you said before! It's a family affair, and that's all that matters to her. For Sophocles they were puppets in the hands of the gods, for Anouilh it was about politics and the only way not to get your hands dirty was to sacrifice yourself, but for Antigone it's something very personal. Her family's involved without anyone left out ..."

Sandra's voice had trailed off. After a moment, she said, "I'm not sure yet which handle to grab. Maybe her presence alone, as a fruit of this scandalous liaison, puts an obligation - "

"Isn't that quite unrealistic? That she blames her own presence?"

"No, she doesn't blame herself. But she faces an obligation and she accepts it - yes, I think I'll go for that. After all, I'm an expert in lifelong obligations, right?"

"Yes indeed."

Quite obviously, Frédéric didn't like to be reminded of Sandra's role as future High Priestess. Understandable as it was, at that moment Sandra only felt impatience. "Listen," she said, "it wasn't my choice, but since it is as it is, stop making a sour face by the sole mentioning of a major fact in my life."

Frédéric nodded. "You're right. I shouldn't have come because I don't share your obsession for the Theatre Group. But I have my own ..."

He stood up. "I'm not as altruistic as this Antigone, that's why I couldn't resist the temptation. If I had any drive to appear on stage, I would play Haimon. I guess I'd be brilliant."

With a quickly added, "See you tomorrow," he left.

Sandra watched him disappear. It wasn't too difficult to guess his obsession, was it? But Frédéric had found the presence of mind not to say it aloud, and for that she had to be grateful.

Did anyone really decide about their lives? Maybe that was the key to drawing the role she was determined to play.

* * *

The news of a Sports teacher using music and dance figures had spread like a bush fire. When Harry entered the gymnasium for the last Sports class he hadn't yet met, fourth-year boys, they greeted him with warnings that they wouldn't dance because they weren't girls, hear me!

With some effort, Harry swallowed a reply of, "I'd never have guessed." Boys this age, as he darkly remembered, didn't respond well to irony. Instead he asked, "Would you agree to warm up with exercises from arts of weaponless combat? It's called aikido."

Oh yes, they would, and yes, they'd heard that name before.

Harry made them go through some stretching exercises. Then he said, "We're out of sync. As you certainly remember from the movies, such classes must move as one, no matter what they do."

Yes, they remembered, only it wasn't as simple as it had looked while watching the movies.

"No, it's not," agreed Harry. "We'll do it slowly, and we'll use a bit of sound in the background to help the timing."

The boys, who would have fought tooth and nail not to move to music, found it a sensible thing to spice up aikido stretches with background sound, in particular since this sound included a bamboo flute and those large temple bells that called Far East quicker than you could speak the words.

Unsurprisingly enough, when the warm-up was over and Harry wanted to start the regular program, the boys demanded a regular training in the arts of weaponless combat.

"If we do that, then it'll be as a voluntary course, not as a replacement for normal Sports classes. But in order to give you an impression, for today it's fine with me, especially because you'll be surprised at what are the first lessons."

The first lesson was about walking and falling - walking in a balanced gait and falling without getting hurt. For the rest of the double Sports, first with mats and in the last half hour without, Harry let them practise in pairs that changed every five minutes. With fixed teams, they would have quickly come to a mutual agreement that they needed a little rest, while the new challenge every five minutes forbade such softy behaviour.

At the end of the class, looking into faces that were sweaty almost without exception, he told them to check out times and conditions for an aikido course for volunteers in the afternoons. Then, before disappearing into his own room, he reminded them of the showers and how grateful other people would be if they'd use them. As he remembered equally well, fourth-years had some trouble with hygiene as well as with appearing nude in public of any kind.

Reaching his floor in the Cayenne building, Harry used the showers himself. As he stood under the inadequate jets of water, he swore inwardly and, als always, fought the temptation to apparate into Carron Lough for his luxury bath. There was little doubt that some people watched a newcomer like him in every detail of daily behaviour, and never being found in this pathetic bathroom while still not developing body odour might raise suspicions.

As he walked toward the Brest building, Harry saw the girl with the cheap wand, Chloé Broussard, some steps ahead. Considering the time of day, she was probably on her way to the canteen. Her walking alone made it clear that even after several days, she had failed - or refused - to make friends who would go to lunch with her.

He accelerated his steps. Having reached her, he said, "Hello, Chloé. How are you?"

"Fine."

The answer had been given with a dismissive voice, accompanied by a cool glance in his direction, but only a short one before Chloé had looked away. Even without his special senses, Harry had no difficulty to interpret the frosty greeting.

"Some minutes ago," he said, "I met the last class that was missing from my collection. I tell you that as an explanation, not as an apology. I've been up to my ears in work. But now I'm through once and can see light at the end of the tunnel, so I can find the time to get that test we talked about."

"When?" The girl sounded as if she were discussing homework, or a detention.

Somewhere inside Harry, anger was rising - toward this girl, who couldn't appreciate his concern, toward a world in which eleven-year-olds could appear as embittered as that, and most of all toward himself, who'd been unable to just go away when sensing a miserable soul somewhere downstairs.

He inhaled deeply. "This afternoon, five o'clock. Which place do you prefer, the gymnasium or my apartment?"

Her face showed that his answer came unexpected. An instant later, it showed some uncertainty. "What do I have to do in this test?"

"Hold a sensor or a device, that's all. This isn't a medical examination, it takes about three minutes, and the sensor won't electrocute you. And when we're done, I have to return the device to where it belongs. All right?"

Harry's own voice had been curt enough to show a bit of his anger. Even so, it raised a smile in Chloé's face. "Yes, all right."

"So then, where?"

"Oh." She had forgotten his question. "I don't know."

"Then let's do it in my apartment. The table there is larger, so it's simpler to place the device."

"What is it? What does it look like?"

"Let me surprise you. Five o'clock, then." Harry accelerated once more, in part because it would be a surprise for himself, too. The true test device was something else, except that he couldn't show it to the girl, and over the next three hours, he had to find an apparatus that could pass as a magic meter.

---

At the entrance to the Brest building, he remembered his original purpose for coming here - the volunteer course in aikido. He marched to the headmaster's antechambre, said, "Hello, Jeannette, you look splendid," and in the time the school secretary needed to open and close her mouth, he had knocked at Fresnel's door and entered his office.

The headmaster looked up from what could have been the thoughtful study of a paper on his desk, or an open-eyed doze while waiting for lunch. He stared at the intruder with a kind of heavy-lided disbelief.

"Bonjour, Monsieur le Directeur," called Harry with the false cheeriness of an insurance salesman. "May I have a word with you?"

Planting his behind on the edge of Fresnel's desk seemed a bit overplayed even for the notoriously bad-mannered Terry Pritchard. So Harry grabbed the uncomfortable chair that was intended for visitors like him and sat down, looking confident that the only possible answer would be, Yes.

The headmaster surprised him by escaping the rhetoric trap with more style than expected. "You have a talent of appearing only minutes before I might have called you - and making these minutes feel like a severe loss. I had planned to call you anyway, so let's use this opportunity to talk about your work here ..."

"Sure, why not?" said Harry nonchalantly, two long seconds after it was obvious that Fresnel would ask for his agreement no more than Harry had awaited an invitation into this office.

"I've been told that you use music in your Sports courses, and that you let the students dance. Where, and how, did you get the musical equipment?"

"Not from the school resources, that's for sure," replied Harry.

"I don't remember having asked where you did not get them, while I clearly remember a remark about how to address me properly."

This man was too good to be true, thought Harry. Yes, he was aware how incredibly outdated French authorities could behave in their insistence on habits which, in the rest of the world, were associated with the late nineteenth century, even outperforming his own countryfellows in this regard, which meant something. But having a legal base, and a cultural one too, didn't make this arrogant attitude any more tolerable.

"It's my private property, Monsieur le Directeur," he said without any attempt to hide his distaste.

"And where did you get it, Monsieur Pri'chard?"

Harry showed the number of teeth that would be needed for a smile. "Won them in a poker game, M'sieur l'D'cteur."

"I was also told that you use this uncommon technique toward girls and boys equally. This gives me the impression that I should remind you, M'sieur P'chard, that this is no goddamned dance school for sissies!"

"Oh, really?" Harry's smile was thin but genuine, a warning signal for those knowing him better than his present boss. "Awfully glad you told me, I mightn't have noticed by myself."

Like after his previous answer, the headmaster lost no time in looking outraged or insulted, this way giving proof that he hadn't really expected a honest or cooperative answer from his employee. "Your impertinence is entirely out of place, and not very efficient either. As the headmaster at this school, I can stop that nonsense any time, and I can't help feeling I should do it at once ..."

For the second time, Harry had to readjust his estimation of the man behind this pompous desk in front of him. Not only was Fresnel more flexible in his own ways, and more difficult to put off balance through insults than it had appeared at first glance, the most surprising discovery was that the Headmaster didn't give a wet frog's fart about the well-being of the students entrusted to him, otherwise he would - at the very least - have asked how Harry's classes had responded.

"... unless there's something of importance in that matter I wasn't told yet."

What sounded like a manager's perfectly normal cross-check to the outside arrived in Harry's ear as an invitation to show remorse at his bad manners and to save the issue with apologies plenty, in particular since his senses confirmed him that the man opposite had a totally different understanding of importance. This insight let his rage mount to a calm glow.

"Being restricted to the news that reaches you inside this office, Monsieur le Directeur, you are indeed in a difficult position ..."

The reaction came and went at astonishing speed. Fresnel, who had registered the implication and the insult at once, showed an expression of undiluted, murderous hate - but only for a second, then his face went flat and noncommittal.

"... but I'm sure that somewhere in these splendid bookshelves we'd find the book from the EMEC where these things are ruled, and even if not - a phone call's all that's needed, I guess I know already whom to call ..."

Harry let his voice trail off. The EMEC, the European Magical Education Council, was the authority above Fresnel, and even without dropping the hint on his feet, the headmaster was aware that somewhere in the anonymous hydra of an administration, a protective hand cared for this Terry Pritchard. Under such conditions, a discussion about the educational value of his methods was fairly meaningless.

After a short moment, Harry continued, somewhat calmer and in the style of a peace offer, "Well, as it turns out, the risk of raising sissies is kind of limited. My students want to learn the arts of weaponless combat, and I said that this is only possible in a group of volunteers in the afternoons. That's why I came here, Monsieur le Directeur, to find out what's needed to establish such a course."

Fresnel's answer sounded a bit mechanical, probably an indicator that his inside wasn't quite as fast in mastering the uproar Harry's remarks had launched. "Of course it can take place only within the boundaries of your contract - in other words, you are as much a volunteer as your students; extra payment or an accounting in exchange for a regular course is out of discussion. But if you want to spend your afternoons that way, I have no reason to object. It can only take place in the gymnasium, so if you make sure not to interfere with the regular schedule, it's agreed. Monsieur Jacquot and Madame Clément are the teachers in charge for class schedule, as you know. Talk with them to get the hours you have in mind."

Harry stood up. "I'll do that. Thank you, Monsieur le Directeur." He left quickly, to his own relief and certainly also to that of the man behind the desk.

---

On his way to the teacher's canteen, he sobered up. The relationship between him and the headmaster had been bound to fail friendship even before this conversation, no question about that. But within the few minutes in the office, he'd made a deadly enemy, and this was a bit disquieting, mostly because Harry hadn't expected such hate from a seemingly harmless difference of opinion.

He wasn't concerned for his own security. Fresnel might be capable of arranging an accident any time, but only after having figured out to whom the protecting hand over Terry Pritchard belonged. More important was the question of whether Harry's undiplomatic approach had jeopardized his chances for his original task, which was to find out what had gone wrong at this school.

As if finding such a headmaster wasn't a result in itself. But Harry didn't need a lecture from Ron to know that any attempt to shake Fresnel's chair was a waste of time.

In the canteen, he filled his tray and then stood there, looking for Jean-Paul Jacquot or Valerie Clément, hoping to find an empty seat near them so he could claim his request, and maybe have a decent conversation during lunch. To his disappointment, he couldn't detect either of them, probably because they were still busy organizing schedules.

Instead, a voice reached his ear that called, "Hey, Elvis, if you move your hips over here, you'll find a seat."

In Harry's current state, this remark had more of an invitation to a fistfight than to a shared lunchtime. But maybe he was just too high-geared, so he decided to play along - not going so far as to imitate the King of Rock'n'Roll, only by walking to that table and putting down first his tray and then himself.

"Hello," he said, "I'm Thierry. We haven't met yet, have we?"

"No, we haven't, but the news about you went round." The man who had said that introduced himself as Laurent, Laurent Clerc, then pointed to his left. "And that's Gilles, Gilles Picabault."

Gilles looked a bit younger than Harry, just as much as Laurent looked older. Aside from that, they seemed to share opinions and habits, with the exception of the speaking role, which was held mostly by Laurent. With a grin that didn't make Harry feel better, Laurent said, "So you make the little girls dance, huh?"

"I'm sorry?" Harry's face revealed small regret at these words.

"Ah, c'mon, no innuendo intended." Laurent's grin changed to the man-to-man version. "We've heard also that you can make the big girls twist and shout, and maybe more than what's good for you, or so the rumour goes."

"I get along, thanks for asking," replied Harry non-committally, however only to the outside. When looking for a lunch in good company, this was definitely the wrong table, while from the perspective of his true reason for being here, perhaps he'd stumbled upon a profitable mine. "And may I ask in return where all this rumour originates?"

"You may."

After a moment of expectant stare, the two teachers looked at each other and exchanged a knowing laughter. Harry felt grateful that they hadn't waited until the disappointment would appear in his face, for not earning a real answer - even faking it felt currently beyond his capabilities.

Gilles, the younger one, opened his mouth for his first contribution. "We can tell you that much, don't blame it on Jeannette."

The school secreteary had indeed been Harry's first suspect, or maybe second place after her boss. Now he watched a very fast and very short exchange of opinions - a warning glance from the older to the younger that even this remark might be too much, an almost defiant and almost imperceptible shrugh of Gilles, followed by a suppressed sigh from Laurent.

To follow this exchange, Harry had needed his special abilities too, because the visible part was much more limited than what he could sense. Had someone forced him to have a guess at this moment, he would have speculated that the younger one had a crush on the woman, or maybe an affair - and this had put him in a position to roam the personal files when Jeannette was somewhere else.

"How's it going?" asked Laurent, interrupting Harry's thoughts. "The dancing, I mean. Are they making progress?"

Harry looked baffled. "I'm here only for a short while. And besides, most of it is just warming up, contrary to what you might have heard. There's only one group that might develop to a real course, or maybe two."

"Which class?"

"Why do you ask?"

"You might be able to make money out of it." Seeing Harry's involuntary reaction, Laurent added quickly, "Hey, don't get me wrong again! It's just about dancing, nothing else. But if they can manage a level where they could appear on stage, I'd know some places where their performance would be welcome ... No fortunes, though, but considering your investment in unpaid overtime, it's certainly worth a thought."

"Money, eh?"

"Yes." Laurent seemed eager to deepen what looked like a notch in Harry's conscience. "And no need to share it, the idea of performing in public is all these girls need to get - erm, excited. The sum's small enough anyway - as I said, you can't expect fortunes for a few legs moved in sync to some music, fortunes are earned somewhere else ..."

Laurent's voice trailed off while his glance, somewhat furtive, rested on Harry.

"Well, that'll need a few weeks this way or the other," said Harry in what he hoped sounded like a thoughtful voice, "because the way they move right now, you'd have to be crazy to spend a single coin."

"You'd be surprised," replied Laurent in a businesslike tone. All traces of a filthy grin were gone. "There are so many interest groups, it's astounding."

"Such as?"

"It can be something as simple and common as the culture club in a country town. Or a meeting of the French Veterans. Or a sales meeting of a larger company - Citroen, Monoprix, whatever. Nobody expects the Folies Bergères, neither in skill nor in dress ... not in age either." A searching look from Laurent tried to check whether Harry had been able to follow the drift.

Yes he had, very much so, while he nodded slowly, his own face lowered toward his dish from where he took a forkful to chew mechanically. He felt almost too sick to swallow, so he was grateful when a moment later the older man stood up, sending a nod toward the younger one to follow his example.

"As you said, Thierry, it needs a little time. But I wanted you to know that there are more places than just our gymnasium here." With these words, Laurent left the table, Gilles in his trail.

Harry waited until they had left the canteen. Then he added another minute for good measure, all the time presenting the picture of a thoughtful person who suddenly had found something more important than emptying his dish. Then he stood up and took his tray to the conveyor belt that would carry it out of sight. He no longer had to fight an impulse to throw up, but his appetite wouldn't return - not at this table.

He'd struck gold, no doubt. The dirtiest gold he'd ever been able to imagine. He already had enough findings to deliver a long report about things that were going badly wrong at the Ecole des Etudiants Magiques Gênés, should Ron ask. But Ron would ask why some boys had committed suicide, and Harry felt hardly closer to this answer than fifteen minutes ago.

And which devil had driven him to put his own children in this school?

* * *

Carlos didn't know how to do spy work. He and his sister had come to this school for the sole purpose of doing undercover work, but nobody had told him what it meant - not in detail.

Once a day their father summoned him and Esmeralda from the washing room or some other inconspicuous place into his apartment, to hear their daily report about what had happened for them. So far, not much had happened - with their English skills, they had been released from the English classes, which would have been with Harry. They could use the time to improve their French, and they could do it in a common room with a rule of silence. This was boring student stuff, hardly what you'd expect in a spy report.

However, at least he had learned the first rule of the successful spy: never be caught in a regular pattern! Their father altered the time of their meeting every day, from early afternoon to late evening and back. He also avoided full hours, always selecting odd times like seventeen past five or seven forty-nine.

Armed with these standards, Carlos tried to improve his skill and gain results in the limited time he had left for his undercover role - after classes, after homework, after meals, after daily chores, after times with Esmeralda and Bolo and of course after satisfying the demands of Dona Gata. Basically the rest was zero, if not negative, so Carlos had to combine the useful with the profitable, wherever and whenever possible.

Daily chores like washing, cleaning, dressing, or going to sleep were the times when he could spy on his roommates. Their room, Toulon two-hundred-and-fourteen, was inhabited by a Serge Maral, a Roland Casar, a Mathieu Lambert, and himself. Spying on them meant asking them questions, only to realize that they all suffered from the same severe shock - not having sufficient magical power - so they couldn't understand from where he got his enthusiasm about this school, and that he please might stop pestering them with all these questions. Either he asked about the school but they didn't know, or he asked about their own situation but they hadn't warmed up enough to exchange truly private information.

While his kitten was sometimes a help and sometimes a burden in these attempts, his close connection with Esmeralda created another barrier between him and his fate fellows. To call it jealousy was certainly wrong, but Serge, Roland, and Mathieu had to reach their own point of recovery at their own speed, and he was simply ahead of them. That was what his father said when he reported rejection, and he should give it more time.

Carlos used this time to walk around and make himself acquainted with the school geography. He had inspected the neighbor building, Dieppe, as far as he could, which meant corridors and staircases. His heart had been beating fast on that occasion, but nobody had stopped him or asked him questions. Since then, he had felt less restrained, or maybe just bolder than before.

"Look busy," his father had explained when Carlos discussed this spy journey with him. "Carry something, look like a delivery boy, and behave as if you were entitled to be there, simply as part of your task or your role."

Carlos understood well, although he found it difficult to find something he might carry. His father had said a paper bag with two baguettes was the perfect disguise here in France, but unfortunately this was true only in the outside world. Within the fences of this school, meals were served in the canteen, so walking around with two baguettes would have raised a lot of attention.

But walking around just so seemed to work well enough, in particular since Carlos was a good player of the game Hide and Watch. Basically it meant hiding in some cover and watch other people, something everybody could do, and old ladies behind curtains better than anyone else. But Carlos had developed into this game's next higher level, which could be called Watch Visibly. True, this version was a knowledge as common as the first, but Carlos had mastered the art of the small footprint. He could behave unimportant, with the amazing result that people who'd passed him sitting in some corner would have sworn holy oaths that there hadn't been a living soul along their way.

Of course it didn't work for the other people in his family, not to mention Bolo. Therefore Carlos benefitted from the cover version of his game when, in time for lunch, four girls with a dog left the St.-Nazaire building. He watched them wander toward the public corral and was about to leave his bush-covered hiding spot when another girl came out of the same building alone, her movements slow and spiritless.

Carlos had no clear picture of a suicide candidate, but this girl seemed about right for such a role. He should spy on her, rather than on people only because they were his roommates.

---

Having reached that point in his conclusions, he was again about to leave his cover and follow the girl when he saw someone else move quickly to reach her, slow down, and talk with her. To his surprise, this someone was his father.

The exchange was very short and, for all Carlos could watch from the distance, it wasn't performed with smiles all over. Then his father sped up even more to leave the girl behind.

Carlos gave both of them a few more seconds, then he left his cover and followed the girl's trail. Spying on his father too seemed a thrilling idea.

When the girl reached the entrance of the canteen, Carlos wasn't too far behind. When he grabbed a tray for his lunch, he had nearly reached her - she moved almost painfully slowly.

From a close-up perspective, he could see that she looked as happy as a wet cat. As a recent owner of a kitten himself, he knew exactly what this expression meant, but there was a difference. When Dona Gata caught her share of drops from Bolo coming out of the water, her face made clear that this was an awful nuisance but nothing to tear the love between cat and dog apart. This girl, in contrast, made a face as if someone had tried to drown her and would soon try again.

Carlos claimed considerably more competence in comforting girls than in spying. Knowing that his sister was in good company - her own roommates had formed a group from the very first day - he felt free enough, skilled enough, motivated enough to do something he wouldn't have done under different circumstances. He let the girl trundle toward a seat, of course in a corner, of course alone, then he made a small show of looking where to seat himself, and finally he reached the place opposite her and sat down.

A short look from her, a trace of surprise as if one had to be pretty weird to join her table, then she looked down again.

Carlos started with the simplest move, available in French or Spanish though not in English. "Bon appetit!"

Another look and a trace of bafflement before her social drill kicked in to let her give a murmured reply.

Searching for an entry, Carlos took the most obvious topic. "You look as if it was a very bad surprise for you."

Her look this time seemed to signal that she wasn't quite sure yet whether to flee, throw the tray right into his face, or just start crying. After a moment, she said, "Wasn't it the same for all?"

Carlos shrugged. "I don't think so. For me - I got a fever, a high one, really high, and when it faded, I had lost my magic."

"Really?" She stared at him. "And then?"

"And then we were sent here. I still think that I only have to wait a bit longer, and then ... Somehow it doesn't feel as if it'd be that way forever. But the fever has been gone for a while already ..."

Carlos voice trailed off because he didn't know how to continue, and also from a sudden start that he might have blown his cover story. For the girl opposite, guessing from her reaction, it sounded as if now it was his turn to fight the tears.

She said, "It will probably come back, if you really could do it before."

"Only for a few days," said Carlos. "Maybe using my magic launched the fever, and when it returns, the same's going to happen again, I don't know. And how was it for you?"

"There was no fever," said the girl, "I just couldn't cast a spell. But maybe ..." She hesitated, then continued, "I remember high fever when I was younger, but they said it was a flu. Could you really cast a spell?"

"Lighting the tip of my wand to have light in the dark - we hadn't come much farther when I got the fever. Why?"

Rather than answering, the girl asked, "Have you been examined?"

Carlos wasn't sure what she meant. But he was no doubt skating on thin ice there, sidetracking the question seemed a good idea.

"For the fever, yes. For anything else, er, you know, we live with relatives because our parents are dead, and they said that this school here is a place where one might find his magic again."

"Oh."

For a short while, they ate silently. Then the girl said, "I thought that maybe you could have told me if there's really an examination to check your magic, because there's a teacher who says he could find out."

"Really?" Carlos fought his excitement, what the girl said sounded very much like his first real news to report. "Which one?"

"I don't know his name, but he's the new one with this large spot in his face, and because he's new and does things differently anyway - he's the one who lets the students dance. By the way, talking about names, I'm Chloé, and who are you?"

Carlos coughed - the surprise from hearing about this particular teacher had sent a tiny crumb the wrong way. Clearing his throat with some effort, he gasped, "Nice to meet you, I'm Carlos Garcia."

"My family name's Broussard. Are you Spanish?"

"From my father's side. My mother was French."

"My parents are still alive, and they're both French. But we don't have money, and ..." Somewhere along the path of this conversation, a dam had broken in Chloé. Maybe it was the trade of poverty for parentless that had done the trick. Suddenly she could talk fluently, ask him questions, tell him things about herself. When she told him that she was in the St.-Nazaire building, on the second floor, he found the time ready to reply, "Really? Then maybe you're next door to my sister Esmeralda."

"You have a sister?"

"Yes, and for her it was the same with the fever and so."

"Oh." Once more, Chloé fell silent.

From the experience with his roommates, Carlos wasn't surprised at this reaction. Having a sister here was a privilege that separated people into different social ranks.

But he was prepared. "An adopted sister. She lost her real parents early, and then she was adopted, and then she lost her adopted parents. That's why I have to take care of her a bit."

"Oh, the poor thing."

"But with her new roommates, it looks as if she's getting along." Sensing his way over this psychological trap, Carlos was able to steer the conversation back into normal territory.

With their dishes empty, he said, "I have a pet, a kitten. She needs fresh air. Would you like to come with me and let her play in the park?"

"Oh yes, I'd like to do that."

The expectant smile on Chloé's face told Carlos that his great experience in smoothing the world for girls had done the trick once more. But even so, somehow it was totally different from doing nearly the same for his sister.