Muggle Studies

Muggle Studies

Sirius Black enrolled in Muggle Studies because James Potter bet him four Butterbeers, half a year's subscription to Witches and Wenches, twenty-three Chocolate Frogs, and the password to the Ravenclaw girls' Quidditch locker room that he wouldn't survive one term in the classroom of Professor Tuttle D. Kipfer.

All of the professors at Hogwarts had their quirks. Professor Mirador wept with joy when one of her predictions came true, and the Hufflepuff fourth years had pitched in to buy her a set of lovely embroidered handkerchiefs. A complicated wagering scheme had developed over when Professor Kettleburn would lose his next limb (odds were 35:1 in favour of the left leg during the Slytherin second years' Tuesday morning class in mid-May). Professor McGonagall -- well, Professor McGonagall could turn into a cat, which was really all anybody needed to know.

Professor Kipfer, too, had his quirks. He hated purebloods. He hated students. He hated the other professors. He hated small children, purring kittens, daisies, teacups, rainbows, holidays, cinnamon, sunrises, shiny coins, laughter, patchwork quilts, and music. In fact, Professor Kipfer hated everything that (he believed) stood between himself and his ultimate goal of Overthrowing The Oppressive Pureblood Menace That Has Trampled On The Rights Of Witches and Wizards For Thousands Of Years And Heralding The Magical World Into A New Age Of Truth, Justice And Equality.

On a wall in Professor Kipfer's classroom there was a list that filled over twelve feet of parchment and stretched from the ceiling to the floor right next to the blackboard. At the top of the list, in the professor's tiny handwriting, were the words: Here follows a Comprehensive Detailing of Criminals, Perpetrators, and Vile Offenders who thwart the Cause of Freedom.

No more than two inches down the list: Number 5. The Black Family. London, England. Crimes too numerous to list.

~

After the first week of classes third year, Sirius returned to the dormitory in a whirlwind of anger. He broke the bathroom mirror, ripped the curtains from James' bed, threw all of Peter's shoes out the window, then turned Remus' broom into a pitchfork and impaled his own pillow until the filling fled in silent, downy surrender.

"What's his problem?" Peter asked, examining his big toe through a hole in his sock.

"Muggle Studies," James and Remus answered in unison.

~

After the last week of classes third year, Sirius returned to the dormitory, tackled James to the floor and sat on his chest, insisting that James had, in fact, meant fourteen Butterbeers, a full year of Witches and Wenches, twenty-three Chocolate Frogs in a gilded Liquorice Lattice box, and unlimited use of James' camera to go with the stolen password.

James agreed and, gasping for breath, asked how Sirius had told Professor Kipfer that he was dropping the class.

"I'm not quitting," Sirius snapped. "I won't let him win."

~

During the first week of classes fourth year, Sirius joined his friends for lunch in the Great Hall. He smashed two plates, tripped one Slytherin prefect, spilled an entire pitcher of pumpkin juice on Penny Lindell's robes, and stole the last ginger biscuit out of Remus' hand.

"That's my biscuit," Remus said calmly, stealing it back.

"Muggle Studies." Sirius glared at his goblet, his voice no more than a mumble.

Remus hesitated, then gave the biscuit to Sirius without a word.

~

Sirius spent the first week of fifth year dusting and polishing every item in the Trophy Room, every plaque in the Duelling Hall, every statue in the Seventh Floor Gallery of Implausible Scenes, and the frame of every portrait in the Hall of Devoted Lapdogs.

When Professor Kipfer paused by the Gryffindor table during supper on the seventh day, his muttered comment about the insufferable arrogance of those unused to honest labour was drowned by cries of alarm when an unidentified number of students inexplicably lost control of their tomato soup.

Students at other tables began to shout in amusement.

"When the revolution comes, the Gryffindors will be the first to go!"

"Oppressing the people with tomato soup!"

"Soup is the strong-arm of the pureblood regime!"

"Down with the Gryffindor menace!"

The school erupted with laughter. Professor Kipfer strode angrily out of the Great Hall, wiping his spectacles on the sleeve of his robes.

Nobody saw James Potter slip his wand back into his pocket.

~

Two days after the Christmas holidays of sixth year, Sirius sat in Professor Kipfer's classroom, his arms crossed over his chest, staring out the window, watching scant snowflakes tumble from a steel-grey sky

"...very important distinctions between the Christmas traditions. Would you care to enlighten us, Mister Black, if it isn't too much trouble?"

Sirius turned slowly and stared at the professor.

"We are discussing the differences between the Muggle and magical ways of celebrating the winter holidays," Kipfer said patiently, as though explaining the correct usage of finger paints to a toddler. He stood at the front of the room as he always did, his grey hair sticking out in every direction, his hands in the pockets of a cardigan the same colour as the winter day outside. Professor Kipfer never wore wizarding robes. Rumour had it that he even owned a car, a real Muggle car powered by petrol, which he drove during the summer holidays. Pacing slowly in front of the blackboard, Kipfer didn't take his eyes off Sirius as he continued. "Perhaps you would like to share your own viewpoint? The society pages of the Prophet claimed that your aunt's Christmas Ball was the event of the season."

"I don't know anything about it," Sirius said. He kept his voice careless and disdainful, shrugging his shoulders as if he had no interest in the subject at all. "I don't live with them anymore." He turned his head deliberately to stare out the window again.

Heedless of the gasps and whispers from the other students, Professor Kipfer looked at Sirius for a long time, his expression unreadable.

~

In the last days of summer before seventh year, Sirius and James were sprawled facedown on the grass in the Potters' garden. Two Hogwarts letters were crumpled on the ground between them, and Sirius had spent the last hour and a half coming up with every dirty pun he could think of involving the words 'head' and 'boy'.

James mumbled something into the earth, then turned his head, picked some grass out of his mouth, and repeated, "Mum says we can go to Diagon Alley tomorrow to get our stuff."

Sirius lifted his head and read his letter again. "There's about thirty books here."

"All those Muggle books?" James asked, rolling onto his side. He shut his eyes against the bright afternoon sunlight and yawned hugely.

"Yeah." Sirius read through the list and snorted in disbelief. "Only about two dozen for that class alone."

As soon as he said it, he felt uncomfortably nervous. The Potters had been nothing but kind to him. From the very moment he'd showed up on their doorstep just over six months ago, they had treated him exactly as they treated James. Even though he had his inheritance from his uncle, Mr. and Mrs. Potter refused to let Sirius pay for anything.

"You're part of our family now," Mrs. Potter had said one day, after bringing home new school robes for both boys. "Stop being silly and see if these fit. Go on!"

The robes fit. Sirius never tried to give the Potters money again, though he felt vaguely guilty every time they bought something for him. Even worse was the fact that while Flourish and Blotts did stock the books Professor Kipfer required, they had a handsome mark-up for the cost of 'importing' Muggle literature. Sirius tried to remember if he knew of any Muggle bookstores in London, but nothing came to mind. His mother's voice echoed in his thoughts: We have no need to visit such places, Sirius. Do stop being ridiculous.

Sirius resolved to write to Remus and Peter as soon as he went inside. Peter's older sister had taken Muggle Studies with Professor Kipfer a few years ago, and Remus' father owned more Muggle books than any wizard Sirius had ever met. Between the two of them, he might not need to buy any at all.

"Don't know why you're even still taking that class," James said. "You hate him, he hates you, and it's not like you need to know any of that stuff anyway."

Sirius opened his mouth to give his standard replies: he couldn't let Kipfer win; he was in too deep to quit; he wouldn't want to deprive Kipfer of the joy of mocking Sirius thrice weekly. But the words stuck in his throat. Sirius rested his head on the grass again.

"Did'ya know his family--" he began, then stopped.

James opened one eye.

Sirius hadn't told James about the articles he found when they were researching their Defence project last term. They had spent hours poring over old issues of the Prophet, looking for information about a magical epidemic of paratyphoid poisoning during the 1930s (believed, but never proven, to be the work of the disgruntled Lancastershire Alchemists Guild). Through the yellowing pages and heavy dust, the familiar name had caught Sirius' eye.

The story was never a headline, buried well on page eleven. A pair of young wizards, unlikely friends from different families, different social tiers, different blood backgrounds, fell in with a bad crowd. There was a terrible accident, a storm of accusations, no happy ending waiting on the last page. It sounded like something out of one of those mystery novels Andromeda liked so much. One of the lads died in Azkaban before the Ministry finished its investigation. Two weeks later his friend -- whose father's wealth and influence had kept him out of prison during the trial -- was declared innocent of all wrongdoing. The Ministry issued an apology to the dead boy's family. The matter was forgotten.

Rolling onto his back, Sirius stared up through the branches of an old oak. The hot August air was still and heavy; no breeze stirred the leaves overhead.

"Never mind," he said.

James grunted in reply. "We'll go to Diagon tomorrow."

"Right." A grin spread slowly across his face. "I hear there's this place off Knockturn where a 'head boy' can earn a few galleons -- well, a few sickles, if he's new--"

A balled-up Hogwarts letter hit him square in the forehead. Sirius laughed and threw it back, twice as hard.

~

At five o'clock in the morning on the first of June in seventh year, every inhabitant of Gryffindor was rudely awaken when the tower was engulfed in a spontaneous magical thunderstorm.

Leaping from his bed with a startled yelp, James stared out the window, wide-eyed and furious. "Not again!"

Yawning, Sirius groaned in agreement. "You'd think a bunch of brilliant wizards would be able to handle a little storm." His words were lost under the booming of the thunder.

Nobody knew the strange old blokes who had been visiting Hogwarts for the past week or so. They seemed to be friends and colleagues of Dumbledore, and the rumour was that they were helping him develop either a complex weather enchantment or some sort of weapon. Whatever the purpose, their experiments in atmospheric magic had, for five days straight, interrupted the sleep of the Gryffindors and Ravenclaws, leading to much nodding off over the morning porridge and frequent class-time naps.

James and Peter quickly cast Muffling Charms on the windows, dampening the noise of the thunder somewhat. But all four boys were wide awake and slightly electrified; there was no going back to sleep now.

Peter stood at one of the windows, staring into the maelstrom of electricity with a rapt expression; he loved storms of every variety and never flinched when the thunder shook the stone of the tower. Remus took out his Arithmancy textbook and began to finish the assignment for that afternoon. It would be, Sirius reflected, the first time in about three years Remus had ever finished an Arithmancy assignment before breakfast on the day it was due. After a few minutes of cursing and glowering, James finally gave up on trying to humiliate the storm into silence and flopped on his bed with the latest copy of Quidditch Illustrated. He began tracing moves and tactics in the air with his hands, looking like some sort of sleepy, bespectacled mime who didn't quite have control of his limbs.

Sirius watched the lightning for a while, the blinding flashes in every colour of the rainbow, then reached over and withdrew his Muggle Studies essay from where he had safely stowed it in his book bag. He unrolled the parchment and smoothed it flat on his bed.

"That old thing again?" James asked. "You know, the words haven't change in the night, mate."

"Stuff it," Sirius replied mildly. "I was just checking something."

"Don't know why you bother." James slapped the magazine shut and threw it aside. "It's not like he's even going to read it. He'll just see 'Black, Sirius' and give you the lowest mark possible."

"Stuff it," Sirius repeated. He had a fleeting moment of worry that the storm was causing the Offensive Insults Centre of his brain to malfunction. He looked at Peter's fair hair, charged with electricity and sticking out from his head, and at Remus' bare foot tapping rhythmically to a tune only he could hear. He looked at James, staring blindly at the canopy of his bed, probably thinking very disturbing James thoughts that the world was better off not knowing.

Sirius rolled up the essay and tied it with the string. Probably won't even read it. He fell back on his pillow and yawned while thunder shook the tower again.

~

Though he would have let himself be torn limb from limb by a giant before admitting it, Sirius thought that Professor Kipfer's office was the most interesting at Hogwarts. In addition to the expected jumble of books and scrolls, the room was crammed with strange Muggle objects, with bits of wire and metal sticking out every which way and little stickers with funny symbols and instructions. There were tools for childbirth, cooking, and dentistry (Sirius could never tell which were used for which) that looked more like torture devices than anything that could deliver a child or bake a cake. One shelf contained nothing but electronic gadgets: telephone, television, wireless, lamp, electric torch, and a dozen other things Sirius couldn't name.

Sirius let his eyes roam over the room. Slouching in the chair and adopting an expression of perfect boredom, he pretended not to have noticed his own essay unrolled on Kipfer's desk. He couldn't see the grade or any sign of Kipfer's red marking pen. Not that it mattered, he told himself. NEWTs began in two weeks. Kipfer wasn't giving the exams, so Sirius had nothing to worry about.

"Mr. Black." Professor Kipfer sat down across the Sirius, folding his hands on the desk before him. He was wearing what the students called his Spring Cardigan: dull lichen-green and the most colourful piece of clothing anybody had ever seen him wear. "I would like to speak to you about your final essay."

Sirius didn't think that deserved a response.

"I am certain you already know that you have not precisely addressed the topic," Kipfer went on, his voice as mild as milk. "The assignment was quite clear, yet you choose to disregard it."

"I--" Sirius sat forward quickly.

"However, one could argue -- as I see you are about to -- that discussing the entire width and breadth of the International Statute of Secrecy is a fair interpretation of the question, so I shall let it go."

Scowling, Sirius swallowed his protest and leaned back again.

Professor Kipfer pushed his glasses up his nose and peered at Sirius' essay closely. "Yet there are other things I wish for you to clarify. You state, in the first paragraph, that the original purpose of the statute was not to hide the magical world from the Muggle world, but to provide a legal method by which wizards and Muggles could interact safely. Tell me, how did you reach such an extraordinary conclusion?"

Sirius hesitated for a moment. He knew he was being tested, he knew Kipfer was out to trick him, but he didn't have much choice except to play along. Kipfer always did this, called students into his office to pick apart their work -- probably got off on it, the creepy bastard. So Sirius shrugged and said, "It was that bloke, Fuddleson, in his book about the whole thing. He said he only wanted a way to keep wizards from using the Muggle laws to get back at their enemies, and a way to keep Muggles from going after other Muggles and accusing them of witchcraft." He paused, but Kipfer seemed to be waiting for more. "That's the idea he told to the Ministry and all those people from other countries."

"Ah." Kipfer made a mark on the essay with his red pen. "That source was not listed at the end of your essay. But another question -- you say here, in your third paragraph, that many of the laws that have been adopted under the precedent of the statute are in fact contradictory to its original purpose. A curious thing to claim, one with which the Minister for Magic and her predecessors would surely disagree. Would you care to explain?"

"It's--" Sirius stopped. Growling It's bloody obvious, that's why wasn't going to make this stupid meeting end any sooner. "Well, just look at what the statute says," he began, sitting forward in his chair again. Might as well play the part of the diligent student, even if it's lost on Kipfer. "It says that no Muggle should be subjected to unwanted magic without a way to protest, but instead of giving them a way to protest the bl -- the Ministry just decreed that every Muggle who saw magic had to be Obliviated. 'Course, they don't remember it to complain, but that's unwanted magic, isn't it? And then it says that no wizard can expose another wizard to Muggles or put him in danger of persecution, but the laws -- the, um, Secrecy Extension Laws -- decided that meant he couldn't tell anybody about himself, either. So a bloke -- a wizard -- wants to get married, he can't even tell his wife until after they're married, because otherwise she's not immediate family, she's just a Muggle who's not supposed to know."

"Yet that law," Kipfer said, scratching again on the essay with his red pen, "is rarely enforced."

"That's not the point," Sirius protested. "It could be. If somebody -- some family -- didn't want their son to get married to this girl, they could report the Muggle to the Ministry and she would be Obliviated, never remember the bloke at all."

"Something similar happened to your father's uncle, Arcturus Black, did it not?"

Sirius clamped his mouth shut and glared at the professor. He'd let himself get carried away, but he should have known that Kipfer would bring his family into it sooner or later. He always did. It was a little weird, actually, how Kipfer knew so much more about the Blacks and other pureblood families than those families themselves. Crossing his arms over his chest, Sirius shrugged again and said, "Yeah, I guess. That was long before I was born." He didn't add that his mother had told that story as a warning to him and Regulus when they'd been caught playing with the Muggle kids in the neighbourhood.

"Hmmm." Kipfer didn't look up. He made a few more notes on the essay.

Sirius began to fidget in the lengthening silence. He let his gaze wander around the room again, reading the titles of the Muggle literature on the shelves, studying the line drawings of automobiles and airplanes and ships. He wondered idly if he'd ever want to go in an airplane or across the ocean on a boat. It was a stupid and slow way to travel, but they were kind of like the motorbike, only bigger.

"Yet, Mr. Black," Kipfer said, "there remains the problem that you have not adequately addressed the assigned topic. You were asked to discuss how the legislation -- the International Statute of Secrecy, in this case -- affects modern Muggle-wizard relations. Have you any thoughts on the matter?"

"I think it's--" In for a sickle, in for a galleon, he thought, "--it's rubbish, the whole idea. There's no such thing as Muggle-wizard relations. Anytime wizards think about or make laws about or even talk about Muggles at all is when we're trying to avoid them. Trying to make them think we don't even exist and wondering why it's such a problem, that's bloody stupid, if you ask me. That's all the whole Ministry does, just makes laws so people have to hide. Instead of training more Aurors to fight Dark Wizards or doing research to help -- to help people who are sick -- they just make more and more laws about shrinking keys and underage magic and other rubbish. What's the point?"

Kipfer raised his eyes then and looked at Sirius, cocking his head to one side as if he were examining a particular interesting tropical insect. Some small part of Sirius' mind scolded his mouth for cursing in front of a teacher, but the rest of his mind was too busy hoping Kipfer was as bored as he was.

Kipfer merely said, "What's the point, indeed?" He looked down at the essay again, writing a few more words. Then, with a quick glance, "You may go, Mr. Black."

Sirius didn't hesitate. He jumped up and started for the door. He had one foot in the corridor when he heard Professor Kipfer's voice behind him. "If you continue to use your mind in this manner, Mr. Black, you may be capable of something worthwhile after all."

The door slammed shut behind him.