When the Time Comes

Appearances

3

Despite what one would expect, or lead you to believe, girls could be rather... solid. Not that she was heavy or an extreme burden, but to say he didn't have some difficulty maneuvering the girl into his arms as she lost consciousness would be a lie. A limb body was dead weight.

Carefully he bent down and slid his right arm behind the girl's legs as his left arm remained hooked behind her shoulders. Once he felt he had a firm grip, and stood up again, he cursed himself for not having cast a weightlessness spell on her first, especially since his Head Boy badge had caught her robes at an odd angle and was now puncturing him in the chest. To cast the charm on her now would require putting her back down. Figuring the maneuvering would cost him possibly precious time, he instead started off towards the Infirmary at as fast a pace as was humanly possible.

Fortunately, the journey seemed shorter than he expected, but then he was so preoccupied with getting the girl there, he probably wouldn't have noticed Peeves if he had walked right into him. When he arrived, it was pitch black and he had to call for Madam Dillwyn, sending the middle aged woman running out of her office in a panic, wand lit in her right hand.

"Oh dear heavens!" was all the woman said as she quickly waved him towards the nearest bed, her white cotton nightdress trailing the ground a bit behind her as her bare feet padded the floor. Several long trendels of dark hair peeked out of her nightcap and brushed against the pillow of the bed as she drew down the sheets. "Come, come, my boy set her down now!"

As he laid the girl down, Madam Dillwyn quickly lit the surrounding lamps on the walls with a wave of her wand, causing them both to squint their eyes for a moment as the girl was bathed in warm light. Once their eyes had quickly adjusted, it didn't take long for either of them to notice things were out of sorts.

"Who... who is this child?" Madam Dillwyn asked, looking up at him for a moment and when he face registered the same lost look, returned her gaze to the unconscious girl, her eyes roaming over the odd clothing she wore.

"I don't know Madam, I only just found her in the Entrance Hall, collapsing on the floor," he said, his eyes just as transfixed on the strange jumper and extremely short skirt the girl wore. "I thought that with the robes she was a student but..." he noticed the dark red lining of her robes as Madam Dillwyn straightened the left breast side of her robes.

"She is," she spoke airily, as if her breath was being drawn from her as her fingers traced Hogwarts' crest and an all too familiar Head Girl badge.

His mind was scrambling for answers. A girl he had never seen before, but was apparently in his house and Head Girl was lying before him in clothing that was far from within the tasteful bounds of modesty. It was boggling enough trying to figure how he could have ever missed such a housemate in all his six years of schooling, but for her to go out in such a lack of covering, confused him more.

"Head Girl? But how..." he found himself saying.

"Never mind that," Madam Dillwyn interrupted, her bearings apparently back in place. "She needs attention," she spoke decisively and with a note that ordered him to do likewise. "Go and fetch the Headmaster. You know the password I take it?"

"Yes Madam," he replied, giving the bushy haired girl one last look as Madam Dillwyn prepared to clean her wound, and then spun on his heel and headed towards the Headmaster's Office.

It was far past curfew, only he and the prefects would be able to move about the halls at this hour without fear of detention, and few of those privileged few would be out this late besides. So it was that his journey to the staircase went by quietly and uninterrupted.

"Toddle Woddle."

The staircase opened and he quickly ascended them two at a time, the last image of the blood staining her jumper jumping to the front of his mind. Reaching the door, he knocked three times before hearing a reply.

"Enter."

Quickly he passed into the circular room, tables covered in scrolls, parchment, and an array of inkwells sprouting quills lined either side as he swept past. "Headmaster Torin, sir... I found a girl in the Entrance Hall, injured and now unconscious. She's in the Infirmary and Madam Dillwyn is tending to her," he quickly announced as he came to stand perfectly erect before the Headmaster's desk.

Torin looked up from the parchment his quill had been hurriedly scratching across. Long salt and pepper hair cascaded down either side of his face while a perfectly manicured goatee and whiskers adored his otherwise ordinary face. Drawing his gaze up at the boy, Torin's dark brown eyes caught his and held their usual dull emptiness despite the candles lighting his desk brilliantly.

"If Madam Dillwyn is tending to the girl, what is the need for this immediate report? Is the girl in grave danger?" he asked, a look of having been bothered, and not appreciating it, crossing his face.

"Not that I know of, sir," he replied calmly, remembering to not break the man's gaze. "Madam Dillwyn sent me because the girl appears to be a student."

"Appears?" he asked mockingly, dropping the quill from his left hand. "Either she is, or she isn't." His annoyance seemed to be doubling by the minute.

"Well, sir, she bears the Hogwarts crest on her robes and Gryffindor colors, but I've never seen anyone wearing clothes such as she." Only he could keep so calm and collected in front of Torin, and despite his effects, the Headmaster knew this, and even respected it.

"The crest on her robes? Not her house crest?" Torin began to ask, though ended up asking more to himself before mumbling, "Don't recall the last time the robes bore Hogwarts' crest."

Knowing better than to reply to something Torin said to himself, he stood there, quietly, waiting for the inevitable. However grumpy, temperamental, and otherwise unsociable the man was, Headmaster Torin never questioned Madam Dillwyn.

"Fine, fine," Torin grumbled, waving him towards the door. "Tell Madam Dillwyn I'll be there promptly." And with that Torin pushed back his chair and walked to the stand on which his heavy navy blue robes hung.

As the boy was about to close the door behind him however, Torin called out, "Oh, and wait for me there... I'm sure I'll have further questions for you Mister Dumbledore."

"Yes, sir."