Suspicion

Chapter 8

The Friday morning classes were completely normal, right down to the annoying Quidditch jocks whispering to each other in the back of her classes. They knew they were almost completely safe from punishment. Jones had used one for an example of a binding spell earlier in the year. The spell itself hadn't been the problem. The kid had split the back of his head open when he had fainted from the sight of his own blood. While not the best student, he had been clever enough to use the head wound against her, claiming that her actions had hurt him to the point that he was unable to play. She had been hauled into the Headmaster’s office for a very unpleasant discussion. After that, she tried to ignore the few team members who had enrolled in her classes.

She handed out the latest round of homework as the bells tolled for lunch. The Ritual Magic classes were a mixed bag. She had lost the battle of excluding the younger students and allowing only the seventh year students in her classes a year ago. The course had somehow acquired the reputation of being a "fun and easy" class. It was neither, but the myth persisted. Instead of the focused students of her Special Projects classes, the Ritual Magic sections seemed to attract a lot of girls looking for love spells and boys looking for girls. They couldn’t drop the class once the school year started. She wished that they could. It would have saved her from a lot of problems. The back-to-back sections of her Ritual Magic classes could have been interchangeable. Different faces, but the same lack of attention. Their attentions would wander to each other. The weather, although completely a non-factor down in the dungeons, would affect their ability to focus. Forget teaching them anything the day before or after a game. She leaned against her podium and watched them flirt with each other after the bells had ended. She wondered how Haken could stand teaching the first two years’ worth of Introduction to the Dark Arts. Maybe the younger ones were better. Clearing her throat, she wrenched their attentions briefly to the homework and reading assignments. Half of this section was going to fail if they didn’t pick up the slack.

She shooed them out of her classroom and stood in her doorway waiting while the hall emptied out. The hallway smelled vile. Wronski’s Potions room door stood open. They were brewing something exceptionally smelly today. Gagging, she walked down to poke her head into the room. Unlike her room with its semi circles of desks, the Potions room had stone tables with depressions for cauldrons. Wronski had managed to acquire some lab equipment over the years to manage an odd hybrid effect of the old and the new. The room was thick in fumes. Wronski stood next to the wall, an open book in his hand and his wand in the other. He was trying to cast something and was having problems.

"What’s up? What a smell!" She peered at the book. One of the Goshawk book of spells. "What are you trying to do?" She suddenly found herself convulsed in coughing.

Wronski glowered at her and shoved the book into his coat’s pocket. "I’m trying to dispel the fumes. I don’t have a proper hood down here. There are no windows. I guess I’ll just have to let it settle."

Jones backed into the middle of the hallway, still coughing. When she could finally draw a breath without hacking, she took her wand out and said, "Depello!" The fumes began to dissipate. "I know you aren’t going to want me to say this, but I could teach you some of the basics. It isn’t your fault you never had any training. You learned the whole thing on your own."

Wronski’s face went red. Furious at not being able to do it himself, he stormed out of the room.

Jones’ shoulders sagged. She couldn’t win. She looked the room over, trying to decide where to put a little ventilation spell. It didn’t need to be much of one, just something to continually suck the air out of the Potions room and send it away. Where "away" was was the problem. Preoccupied, she sorted through the various options, slowly wandering into the room to look for possible cracks or find a draft that could be used.

"So nice of you to help Professor Wronski. It is a pity that he does not accept your kind offer." Werner’s soft voice sounded very loud. "Soon, we shall need to speak to each other." He turned and left as suddenly as he had appeared.

Damn him! How did he manage to just show up? She wished she could get a hair or something from him. Anything! She knew a few locator spells that would keep them apprised of where the Auror was. However, she was also certain that Werner was well aware of his vulnerabilities. Wonder if he Accios himself every night? She used to do that. Probably should do it again. All of the little hairs, the bits of skin, all the parts of her that fell off during the day would be called and carefully burned. She thought she had left that behind, but obviously not.

She trudged up the long staircases to the hall for lunch. The Dark Arts table, shoved off in its corner behind the huge doors, was full. She wavered for a bit and then decided that they would just have to put up with her. No one made any move to make room for her on the benches. Grabbing one of the few chairs from a nearby student table, she plunked it down at an end of the table. Smiling, she grabbed up a setting and proceeded to fill her plate with the foods she would eat from the serving platters.

It was very quiet for awhile, but soon Haken began to talk about his plans for the summer. She listened to Haken’s monologue. His latest child had been born a few months ago and he was eager to see the baby for the first time. It occurred to her that she had heard almost the same thing last year. Her merciless curiosity got the better of her and she asked how many children Haken had. It was a mistake. No one else had expressed an interest in Haken’s family and it was if a floodgate had opened. Photos were shoved in her direction and Haken happily began to point at little waving children and at his pleasant-looking wife. There were a lot of children. So many that she lost count. I hope he doesn’t expect me to remember their names she thought as more photos were produced. The rest of the lunch hour was devoted to detailed character sketches of each child. The last photo was a group shot. She did a quick count and came up with six children. That was last year. Seven children. Never the maternal type, she tried to change the subject, but it was too late. Haken had decided that she was interested and promised more later. She watched as Haken grabbed the last roll from the basket and left for his next class. As one, the others turned and gave her a very cold look.

"Now, we will never hear the end of it," Rabe sighed. "Thank you, Professor Jones. I look forward to hearing about little Maria, little Eva, little Gunter, little Hans, little Josef, little Stefan and the newest of the Haken pack tonight and the rest of the year. If we are very lucky, we will also hear of the births themselves."

"Sorry," Jones said feeling very much so. "I had no idea…"

"Four children ago, we all learned not to ask. Now, there are many more and it will be at least a year until he stops talking about them." Lowenstein folded his napkin onto his plate and began to gather his coat and papers together. "Ah well, you did not know."

"Are you going to the village?" Gregorov sounded slightly unsure and still gruff.

She regarded him thoughtfully. She knew exactly why he was asking. He didn’t like to go there. She was almost positive he had gotten into trouble at the tavern in the past. With his personality, he must have. Weighing the positives against the negatives, she decided that having them talk to her outweighed feeling like someone’s lackey. "I might."

Gregorov slid the usual amount of coins over to her. She tapped his hand and watched him jump. "Prices have gone up. Put in a few more for your usual." She got a small pleasure in watching him snarl and grub around in his pockets for two more coins. She wondered if she should start charging a little extra to offset the feeling of being used.