Fic: The Getting of Magic (X-Men First Class/Harry Potter fusion) Chapter 4
Back to Chapter 3
As far as Raven could tell, most of the Hufflepuffs had got into that House in exactly the same way she had: the Sorting Hat had asked her what she most wanted at Hogwarts, she'd replied, "Friends," and straight into Hufflepuff she went. Mariko said that she had told the Hat she wanted to not shame her family, but apparently that worked too. They had spent an excellent afternoon in a dark dungeon making a cauldron full of smelly potion that was supposed to keep rabbits away, then the hearty Professor Slughorn had taken them all outside to paint it around empty garden beds to see whose was effective. He cast a spell to summon dozens of rabbits - much to the delight of the students - and most of the potions did, in fact, make the rabbits hesitate before they went for the cabbage leaves they'd placed in the empty beds. Raven and Sean's potion made the rabbits have three tries before finally hopping over to eat the cabbage, but two of the Slytherin students, Selene and a plump Egyptian boy named Amahl Farouk, managed to brew such a good potion that their rabbits stayed out completely. For that, they won five points for Slytherin and an exemption from their homework. Slughorn's class was so much fun that no-one really minded, though, and the homework wouldn't take long.
Raven had just sat down on one of the squashy bumblebee-striped sofas in their common room, thick slice of date loaf in hand, when an older student came over to her.
"You're Raven Darkholme?" At Raven's nod, she continued, "I've got a message for you from Professor Black: he's going to meet with you tomorrow afternoon for tea. He says I should take you to his office."
"Oh!" Raven remembered him from Platform 9 ¾ but had thought he was just being friendly when he talked about metamorphmagi. "Um, of course. Petra, what class do we have tomorrow afternoon?"
"Charms," Petra told her.
"Fine, I'll find you there," the older girl said. She sounded a bit cross, and Raven was worried.
"Did I do something wrong?" she whispered to Petra and Mariko.
"I don't know!" Mariko said. "Professor Black teaches Divination and we don't learn that yet - maybe it's a breach of etiquette for teachers to talk to students who aren't in their classes."
"She was cross with me, not with the Professor."
Mariko laughed. "You really haven't been to school before, have you? She can't be cross at Professor Black, because he's her teacher, so she'll be cross at you instead."
"Or she's got a crush on Professor Black," Petra giggled.
"He's so old! And he's got a beard!"
Zenobia Smith leaned over their couch. "Was everything okay today, girls? Any questions?"
"Um, yes, when do we do our homework?" Petra asked.
"You've got free time now, after dinner and on Friday afternoon, plus the weekend. But we have lots of House activities on the weekend, so I wouldn't plan on having too much time then! Do you want to go to the library?"
"Yes!" Raven replied. She wanted to find out about metamorphmagi and Professor Black's family, at the very least.
"Righty-o, grab your things and I'll take you down there. It's easy to find after you've done it once. Oh, and wash your hands. Madam Fletcher is very fussy about clean hands in her library."
The three girls ran off and did as they were told, then followed Zenobia off to the library. She was correct that wasn't hard to find at all - unlike most of the classrooms it seemed to remain in one place - and there were dozens of students going in or out at any one time. The three girls hurried in and were immediately pinned to the spot by the dark-eyed glare of the librarian, Madam Fletcher.
"You will walk quietly and slowly in my library, girls, or you will be thrown out."
"Yes, Madam Fletcher," they chorused, automatically forming a row in front of her.
"Now, if you wish to find a book on a particular topic, simply ask the catalogue. If it is not helpful, you may ask an older student - quietly - or ask me. Is that clear?"
"Yes, Madam Fletcher."
She had been indicating a series of large hearing trumpets affixed to a wall when she mentioned the catalogue, so Raven headed over there when Madam Fletcher took her eyes off them to tell off a Gryffindor boy for "hurtling".
Glancing around, Raven saw other students speak into the hearing trumpets, so she followed suit. "Excuse me! I would like a book on metamorphmagi, please. One that's not too hard."
A ticket spat out of a small brass slot beneath the hearing trumpet. It said "Magical Beings Among Us! by Winford Wemble. Aisle 46, third bookcase on the left, second shelf from the top."
Raven showed the other girls. "Well, that's very precise! Come on!" They walked, quietly and slowly, down the aisles to their destination. The shelves were stuffed with books of all shapes and sizes, and there were a few flying overhead, as if their open pages were wings. Not all the books were leather and paper, either: there were scrolls of sewn-together leaves, wool-worked tapestries, letters etched in glass plates, and Raven was sure she'd spotted a bejewelled abacus, though she had no idea how that counted as a book.
The book was exactly where the catalogue had said - there was even a stepladder there to let Raven reach the second shelf from the top - and it seemed to be a new book, with a jolly-looking wizard waving and smiling on the front cover. When Raven peered closer, it turned out that the man had bright pink rabbit ears sticking out of his head. Petra took a book at random, Mariko had her homework - she was worried about keeping up in English, though as far as Raven and Petra could tell, her English was perfect - and they all sat at one of the big study tables. As they sat, the chairs rose up to a more comfortable height so that, although their feet were dangling, they could comfortably prop their elbows on the table and read their books.
Winford Wemble, according to his book, had been born with rabbit ears, as members of his family occasionally were. There was a rumour that an ancestor had been cursed, but Mr Wemble seemed to think this was unlikely, as he'd never found rabbit ears to be much of a problem. His brightly illustrated book went on to talk about wizards from different nations and their different customs and wizards who were part giant, part goblin or just looked a bit different, like himself. There was a chapter on werewolves, who had a disease that made them very dangerous at the full moon but not the rest of the time, and on wizards who lived very long lives for no apparent reason. Finally, there was a chapter on metamorphmagi, complete with an illustration of a long-faced man in a frock coat who changed into all sorts of people and even turned his nose into a pig nose. Raven giggled at this, and tried to do the same to show Petra and Mariko, but it didn't really work. Still, she could practise!
Metamorphmagi, as Charles had always said, were most common in very old families who had been marrying other wizards for a long time. Raven frowned at this, but over the page there was a picture of a woman in a pretty sari who changed her shape just as easily as the man in the frock coat had. The text said that she had been born to Muggle parents in Bangalore who were very surprised by her shape-changing, but a local guru (a word which the books said sometimes applied to Hindu wizards) assured them that she was perfectly healthy and advised them to send her to school.
"I wish I was a Hindu, then," Raven grumped.
"Your parents still might not have found a guru." Petra tried to console her.
"Also, you wouldn't be at Hogwarts," Mariko told her. "My parents considered sending me to the new academy in New Delhi. Wealthy Indian wizards and witches used to send their children here, to Hogwarts, but now that India is independent they've developed their own school. It's supposed to be very good, but my cousin Shiro's parents were set on Hogwarts."
"Well, I do love Hogwarts, but India sounds fun!" Raven changed her skin to look as if she was wearing jewels in her ears like the woman in the picture wore in some of her guises. She'd practised jewellery before, copying Mother's, so it wasn't too hard to do. "And I wanted to meet more children before coming here. I kept changing my shape all the time and Mother was really embarrassed. So I was stuck in the house."
Mariko patted her arm. "No-one is embarrassed here. Did you see how excited the entire House was when you were Sorted here?"
"Yeah, that's true. I guess Professor Black can't have anything too terrible to tell me, like I'm his long-lost daughter or something!"
Petra smirked. "Then you'd be Raven Black and we'd think you were a tin of boot polish!"
They all giggled, immediately quelled by a hard glare from two older students, obviously potential librarians themselves, and tiptoed away to put the book away.
---
Erik greatly enjoyed the meals at Hogwarts. He could actually choose what he wanted, though there was nothing he hadn't at least tried so far, and eat to his heart's content, surrounded by other students doing exactly the same thing. The one time he'd glanced up from his plate he'd caught a worried expression from the older Jewish student in Gryffindor, Arnold Astrovik, so he made sure not to look further than the dishes in front of him again. He didn't want someone coming to tell him he should keep kosher, or he was embarrassing the other Jews, or even worse, that they were worried about him. Gabrielle, across from him, was eating just as heartily, though since she was more than a head shorter, not nearly as much. At the end of the evening meal, Erik was still ploughing through a plate of custard and rhubarb when a small stone appeared on the edge of his plate. He picked it up, and heard Dumbledore's voice in his mind.
"After dinner, please come to my office, near the Transfiguration classroom. There is an issue we need to discuss."
Erik looked up at the teacher's table but Dumbledore didn't appear angry or worried, sitting at the head table and laughing with the Potions master, Professor Slughorn, so maybe it was news about someone he knew. Or that Schmidt was dead. That would be good.
He slowed down a bit as he shovelled in his dessert so that he'd finish after other students, who were starting to wander out of the hall; several of the teachers, including Dumbledore, had gone, too. When most of them had departed, and Ignatius the prefect had checked that Erik would be able to get back to the dorm on his own, he scraped his plate clean and made his way out of the Great Hall. Erik had a flawless sense of direction that not even Hogwarts could befuddle - though he was frequently frustrated by stairs or passageways not going as far as he needed them to go, and having to take another route - and had no problem finding the Transfiguration classroom, even if he did have to go over the library because a staircase had moved. Dumbledore's office was a little further down the hall, and Erik knocked on the door.
"Come in, Erik!"
Erik did so, unable to stop himself staring around the room in amazement. It would have been a fairly spacious office, except that Dumbledore had filled it with magical items from all over the world. There was a large metal basin on a stone plinth at one side of the room, a rug that glowed as he stepped on it, intricate banners and tapestries with writing that Erik couldn't read - there was one in Hebrew script that he could sound out but he didn't understand it - and a painted mural of various magical animals prancing around on the ceiling. Hanging over Dumbledore's desk was a large golden cage with the door open; inside it was an ugly, almost featherless bird, though it wasn't a chicken.
"That's my friend Fawkes - he's a phoenix. Not at his best at the moment, I must admit, but that's what he is."
"Oh. Does he burst into flame?" There had been a picture of a phoenix in the book Brendan and Diarmuid had used to teach him English.
"Indeed, on occasion. Please take a seat, Erik. There are sweets on the desk if you would care for any."
Erik sat, and took a handful of sweets from the bowl on the desk. The sweets were clear, firm jellies each with a leaf or flower inside, and when he ate one it was flavoursome but squishy in his mouth.
Dumbledore's face suddenly became very serious, and Erik tensed.
"Erik, do you remember what I told you about Doctor Schmidt?"
"Yes. He's also known as Shaw, he used to teach at Durmstrang, he had an obsession with so-called raw magic, the kind that doesn't use a wand."
"Yes, you would remember that well. Do you recall what I said about his plans?"
Erik nodded again. "He pretended that he was too scared of Grindelwald to fight him, so he's probably not going to jail."
"What I did not expect, Erik, was that Shaw would be so happily accepted back into the wizarding community. He found several other Muggle-born wizard children before you, all of whom I believe he experimented on before taking some of them to safety."
"I thought I was - did he have any of them after me? I thought you said you'd stopped him!"
"We did, Erik. You were the last of his victims. But those other children he rescued, well, he leveraged that into some kind of heroism."
"Heroism?"
"Shaw claimed that he saved as many Muggle-born wizarding children as he could, taking them out of the queue as they came to the camps. The other five children he 'saved' were apparently not as interesting to him as you were: as far as I can ascertain, he kept them for a period of two to three months each, then cast a powerful memory charm on them and released them in a village near Durmstrang where they would be quickly found by wizards."
"What kind of memory charm? Can't you undo it?"
"Memory charms, as with all spells that work on the mind, are very difficult to reverse, and attempting it can cause irreparable damage. Shaw claimed that he had to remove their memories to keep his cover - from both the Muggles and Grindelwald's forces - and this has been widely accepted."
Erik felt very cold, the kind of cold where he didn't shiver anymore. "So Shaw is a hero for saving those children. What happened to their parents?"
"Erik, I'm sorry."
"I understand. Where is Shaw now?"
"He interviewed for a position at Durmstrang and they turned him down. They are understandably paranoid about being seen working with anyone with even the slightest association with Grindelwald, as several of the faculty did in fact work with him in one capacity or another, though not always willingly. Instead, the Austrian Ministry of Magic has given him a job, as International Co-ordinator in the Department of Games and Sports."
Erik shrugged, feeling helpless. "I know you don't want to go to kill him, but at least he's probably not going to hurt anyone there?" He wasn't entirely sure why Dumbledore wouldn't kill him, though he expected that it was a combination of the war being over, and Dumbledore being highly identifiable since his defeat of Grindelwald. Dumbledore was probably correct to think he could do more good in his current position as a national hero than throwing it away taking down Shaw. It still made something inside Erik burn cold., though.
"That job gives him access to every school of magic in Europe. I still don't understand why, exactly, he's so interested in young wizards, but there is no doubt that he is."
"He always said he wanted to draw out my power and make me strong. What you said about wands focusing power? I could do more in my lessons today than Schmidt, I mean Shaw, ever taught me."
"That you remember," Dumbledore said, eternally kind and patient.
"Oh."
"In any case, Shaw isn't aware that you survived at all, let along that I found you in a DP camp and we tried to track him down. I have invited Shaw here, to Hogwarts."
Erik got to his feet and promptly sat down again. His voice was meant to be steady but came out as a hoarse whisper. "Why?"
"I need access to his memories, to prove all that he did: your testimony alone is unsupported, and so much of the camp was destroyed. And then, since he's on British soil, he can be sent directly to Azkaban."
Dumbledore had told Erik about the wizard prison, the one from which no-one had ever escaped, where people died quickly rather than live on with all hope gone. It sounded familiar, and it was deeply satisfying to imagine leaving Shaw there. Erik wrapped his arms around himself. "Good. How can I help?"
"You can stay out of the way. If he recognises you, he will be immediately suspicious and my work will be made much harder. It's easy enough to cast a charm to avoid him hearing any casual mention of your name."
"I understand. May I go now?"
"Yes, of course, my dear boy. I will give you notice well before Shaw arrives, of course." Despite his sparkling blue and gold robes, Dumbledore looked far more like the powerful man who had found Erik in the camp than he did the cheerful Transfiguration professor, and Erik was glad of that.
He went on to the library, where he'd promised to meet up with Charles, though he felt strangely as if he was floating like Nearly Headless Nick, their House ghost. It only took a few minutes to get to a busy section of the school, but no-one seemed to notice him, and he had the feeling - one he'd had many times before - that he'd died and no-one knew it.
As soon as he got to the library, though, Charles jumped to his feet out of a bright orange reading chair and waved frantically.
"Hello! Erik! I thought you weren't coming!"
Erik felt a little warmer again, and his feet were definitely on the floor. "Here I am."
"Shh!" hissed the librarian, and they scurried away down an aisle of strange books. There were tables and chairs, desks and armchairs, scattered all over the library and, although there seemed to be quite a lot of students here tonight, there were plenty free. Charles sat down at one and plopped his satchel on the desk.
"Oh, you haven't brought your things! Don't worry, I have spare." He handed Erik a piece of parchment and a quill. "And we can share the ink."
"I got started earlier - you met Shiro. He was insistent that we all do our homework straight away."
"I started too!" Charles rubbed at his temple and looked quizzically at Erik. "Are you all right?"
"Fine!" Erik snapped. "Don't ask stupid questions."
"It's not…I'm sorry. I didn't meant to poke at you."
"Well, don't then."
"Did you hear that my sister was attacked by a ghost?"
"They attack people?"
Charles laughed. "Trust Raven to find the one that does! No, it was a ghost haunting a toilet, of all things, and the ghost tried to scare them and threw water on a girl. Raven was thrilled, but I don't think she should be attracting the interest of ghosts!"
"Our House ghost isn't aggressive. I mean, his head is hanging off, but he's very friendly."
"Our ghost sets us riddles! And that Slytherin ghost with all the blood looks dangerous, but Angel - she's the American girl, we met her on the way over here - she says he's protective of them."
"I met Angel."
"Did you hear Dumbledore found her flying over the Brooklyn Bridge? She had a terrible black eye when he brought her in with all the other Americans. And me, I suppose I count as American."
"You talk a lot."
"Does that make me more or less American? No, don't answer that."
Erik was surprised to realise that he'd relaxed as Charles babbled on, the dread of Shaw retreating to the back of his brain where it usually lurked. There was something very open about Charles - it wasn't weakness or desperation or foolishness - and while Erik didn't understand exactly why this was good, he certainly found it very calming. Charles demanded nothing in return, not appropriate House behaviour, not the bravery Dumbledore wanted, not all the contradictory things that everyone else had ever told him to do.
"Did you know Dumbledore has a phoenix in his office?" he said, suddenly, wanting to share it with someone.
"No! That's amazing! I wasn't aware that they ever lived alongside humans. What did it look like?"
"An ugly plucked chicken with a big black beak!"
Erik sketched out a picture on the piece of parchment Charles had given him.
"It's staring at you even in the picture! Do you like drawing? Filius said there's optional art and music classes, and everyone's welcome."
"I don't know if I need extra classes."
"We should go along and try it! All I can draw is copies from my father's old biology textbooks, so if they want me to draw the inside of a rat, I'm set."
"All right. Our prefects said there'll be notices put up when things are happening."
A small bell rang in the library, but only the very youngest students seemed to hear it, judging from the reactions. Charles sighed. "I suppose that means we have to return to our dorms now. I suppose this homework won't take long to finish, and we have desks in the dorm."
"We don't! But there's plenty in the common room, if we're allowed to stay up for that." Erik was used to strict curfews and restricted movements, but being singled out to be sent off to bed with the eleven-year-olds still chafed. "Come on."
Along with the other first years, they filed out of the library and headed to their respective common rooms. Charles waved to Angel before meeting up with Hank McCoy and heading off up the spiral staircase; Erik went towards his dorm only to find that the staircase had turned ninety degrees and no longer went to the correct corridor. A few other Gryffindors joined him at the base of the staircase, including Suzanne and Gabrielle.
"How do we turn it around?" Gabrielle asked one of the older students.
"It comes back when it's ready. Let's go the other way over the library, near the Charms classroom, then we can get onto that staircase there." She pointed, and the whole group had to turn and follow her the long way around, until, getting rather footsore, they made it all the way up to the Gryffindor dorm.
"First years off to bed!" As they entered the common room, Ignatius was sending Shiro and Armando up to their dorm.
"I want to finish my homework first," Erik told him, looking him in the eye. He thought Ignatius was about to say something, but then he shrugged.
"Fine. Just don't stay up too late."
Erik knew it would only take a few minutes, but he felt proud of that tiny victory. He was not a child - just a student - and he needed to remember that.
He woke up in the middle of the night, covered in sweat but freezing cold, with resolve in his mind: there was no reason for the British authorities to arrest Shaw, because he'd done nothing wrong in Britain, as far as Erik knew. That meant that Dumbledore had a plan, some way to draw him out. If his plan failed, though, Erik needed to be ready to stop Shaw instead. He desperately wanted to kill him, but there was a part of his brain that stayed calm no matter what was happening, something which had helped him survive all this time. That part of him said that it was highly implausible that Erik, an untrained boy, would be able to kill Shaw, a very powerful wizard with decades of practice behind him. If there was a way, he should try to find it, but the higher priority had to be making certain that Shaw would be taken away to Azkaban.
Erik lay down again, pulling up the covers that he had kicked away. All of his fellow students were at risk, too, but he couldn't tell them: one of them would be sure to blab, and that would ruin Dumbledore's plans and any hope of putting Shaw where he belonged. Erik would have to observe them very carefully and see who would both be useful and be able to hold their tongue. He rolled on his side and evened out his breathing, tipping himself quickly into sleep.
---
Charles was thrilled to have made a friend. While he enjoyed the company of his own House very much, there was an element of competition there that he found troublesome. He suspected that all eight of the new Ravenclaws had been used to being head of their class, and it was troubling to not only realise that there were other people as smart as they were, but subjects they knew nothing about. Ravenclaw had less bonding and far more reading than Hufflepuff, according to Raven's report. Charles and Amelia had both won points for Ravenclaw yesterday, but this seemed to draw envy rather than camaraderie, an unpleasantness which Charles dearly hoped would be a short-lived phenomenon. Hank McCoy didn't seem to care about points, at least, but he was also terribly didactic in his interactions, which Charles thought was probably due to intense shyness combined with social awkwardness. He was friendly, though, and Charles liked him better than Larry Trask, whose main interest was attempting to outdo his sister Tanya. Right now, Larry was berating his Potions partner Amelia for not writing up her report in the exact format he'd found in the back of their textbook. Amelia didn't seem cowed at all - in fact she looked torn between ignoring him and slapping him - so at least Charles didn't have to worry about her.
"Hank, do you want to come down to the library?" Charles asked him.
"No, sorry, uh, I'm reading about jinxes now and I've got two chapters to go…"
"Don't ask me," Moira snapped. "You just want to chat all the time."
"Tessa?"
"Last time we went to the library, you spent the whole time waiting for your Gryffindor friend to show up. I am going to the library, but not with you." She took Tanya's arm and off they went.
Charles sighed. He wished the Sorting Hat had put him in Hufflepuff. To be honest, he was mostly worried about Raven: she'd be meeting with Professor Black this very minute, and he didn't want the Professor to be mean to her, or tell her anything nasty about metamorphmagi. According to other students, Professor Black was downright mean, and his Divination class was horribly difficult. Charles had asked Raven if she wanted him to come along, but she just laughed and told him no. An older Hufflepuff girl had picked her up after their shared Charms class and taken her away.
"What are you so mopey for?" Moira snapped at him.
"My sister has a meeting with Professor Black. Apparently his great-aunt was a metamorphmagus the same as Raven."
Moira didn't seem concerned in the slightest. "I'm sure she'll be fine. Here, come and help me with my chart."
Charles hurried over to her desk, excited at the prospect of working with someone. "What kind of chart is it?"
"An inheritance chart. I'm trying to work out why some people are born wizards or witches and some people aren't."
"It must be inherited to some extent - there's not many Squibs around."
Moira showed him the chart. It was her own family tree, on which about a third of the people were marked with a W. "It gets more complicated further back, when there's people that were known as healers or wise women or just plain witches but it doesn't really give me an answer about whether they were magical in this sense."
"That is tricky. Maybe there'll be a pattern in these four generations," he gestured at the bottom of the chart. "Then you'll be able to work out more. Are there any squibs?"
"There could be? Is a child a squib if it has no magical power but only one wizard parent? What if it dies before the age of 10?"
"I wonder if we could do this with the metamorphmagi families? Maybe we could see which families Raven might come from?"
Moira smiled. "That's a very interesting plan. We could do that next?"
"Great!"
Charles settled down to mark more people at Moira's direction, taking the upper half of the chart that Moira couldn't reach from her seat, and thought about Raven: what if she wasn't abandoned by Muggles at all, but the child of a forbidden relationship? As far as Charles could tell, wizard marriages were taken very seriously and expected to produce children: the family line was important. On the other hand, two men or two women could be married in exactly the same way, and Charles was really not sure where the children came from, in that case.
Chava Prydeman jumped out of her seat by the window as if she'd been stung.
"Charles Xavier!" she called.
Charles got to his feet and hurried over. "Yes, Chava?"
"Prefect communication. Zenobia from Hufflepuff has said I should take you to their common room."
"Oh no, is Raven all right?"
"Sorry, that's all the message I received. Come on!" She hurried off out the door and down the spiral staircase, and Charles followed, as fast as he could.
They went most of the way down the stairs, then across a small balcony and along a downward-sloping corridor full of really ugly still life paintings. Chava seemed to know where she was going, so Charles just hurried after her. He could smell dinner cooking somewhere close, and his stomach rumbled. When they got to a small door, Chava knocked on it four times, and the male Hufflepuff prefect opened it.
"That's Charles?" he asked Chava.
"Yes, he's in first year, too."
"Thanks - I'll send him back when Raven's okay."
"Raven's not okay?" Charles frowned, wanting to just run past the older boy and find his sister.
"She's just had a fright." He led Charles down a round, low tunnel: he had to duck, and even Charles had to consider it as the corridor became smaller. "Now, we don't show our common room to outsiders, but we do have a parlour for visitors, and that's where Raven and Zenobia are." He opened a round door set into the wall, and led Charles inside.
There was a glimpse of a warm, wood-panelled room with a deep gold carpet, but Charles only had eyes for Raven, who was curled up against an older girl as if she had been crying.
"Raven! What happened?"
"He wanted to take my hair!" Raven wailed, throwing her arms around Charles and burrowing her wet and snotty face into his shoulder.
"He can't have it!" Charles was furious, and glared at the nearest authority figure, Zenobia. "Did he hurt you?"
"No…" Raven snuffled and wiped her eyes with a big white hanky. "And he didn't get my hair either. I ran away. Am I in trouble?"
Zenobia patted her arm. "No, you're definitely not in trouble. I'm going to talk to Professor Black and get this all sorted out, okay?"
Charles sat Raven down on the couch and hugged her firmly until she stopped crying. "Raven, please tell me what happened? Do you want to go home?"
Raven shook her head fiercely, then wriggled free of Charles and blew her nose loudly into the hanky. "No! I just don't want to go and see Professor Black again. He made me tea, and he had chocolate cookies, I mean biscuits, from the kitchen, and he told me about his great-aunt. She died about 15 years ago, but he had some photos - they were really funny because she didn't quite look the same in any of them."
"But you're the same unless you're concentrating."
"Yeah, that's what I said, but he said that she was that way when she was younger, but the older she got, the more she just changed her face around for fun. So I copied her face, to show him what I did, and he said I needed to practice more if I was copying from photos."
"Everyone said he was mean."
"He said it in a helpful way. Then he said his family had had more metamorphmagi than any other family in Britain, so I was probably related to him, so he needed a lock of my hair to find out." Raven scowled ferociously. "And he had a pair of scissors out and he didn't even ask! But I remembered what Kurt used to say."
"If they have a piece of you, they have power over you?"
"Yes! So I said I would have to ask you, then he said not to worry, it would grow back, so I threw my cup of tea at him and ran away!"
Charles almost laughed at the idea of the elaborately dressed and coiffed Professor Black getting a face full of tea, but Raven's lip was quivering again, so he didn't. "You did the right thing, Raven. He might be a teacher, but he doesn't get to take your hair!"
"Knock knock!" called Zenobia, at the door. "I've spoken to Professor Black, and he understands that he frightened you, but he wants you to apologise for throwing your tea at him." The corner of Zenobia's lips were determinedly quirking upwards, and she was obviously struggling not to smile.
Raven thought about it for a few moments. "I suppose I am sorry I threw the tea at him. I didn't want it to get on his photos. Okay! I'll apologise, if Charles comes with me."
"That's fine, probably for the best," Zenobia agreed, and escorted them out of the parlour, down the hallway.
The Divination classroom was accessed by climbing up a ladder and through a trapdoor. It was an imposing room, round with no tables or chairs, just cushions on the floor. The walls, floor and ceiling were painted a stark white and there were no windows: the dim light seemed to come from the walls. The only other items in the room were a large silver teapot and two dozen small white teacups on a small round table standing by one of the walls. Raven slipped her hand into Charles', and he was surprised how odd it felt for her hand to be scaled when they were in the presence of other people.
Zenobia knocked on one of the walls - peering at it, Charles could see a faint door-shaped outline - and a voice called out, "Come in, Miss Smith."
The door slid silently aside, and they all went up the small staircase to the office of Professor Black. He greeted them with a nod, his robes as immaculate as ever, and the door slid closed again.
"Miss Darkholme. I trust you are willing to apologise?"
"Yes, sir. I'm very sorry that I threw my tea at you."
"Indeed. In return, I apologise for startling you."
"Thank you!" Raven smiled at him, shyly, and Charles kept hold of her hand.
"You must be Raven's brother?"
"Yes, Professor. I'm Charles Xavier."
"Please, sit down, all of you. Yes, you too, Miss Smith."
Now that Professor Black had moved, Charles could take in more of the office. Unlike the pristine classroom, the office was crowded but tidy, stuffed birds and bundles of feathers neatly placed alongside crystal balls and strings of beads; several large canisters of tea next to bottles marked "poppy capsules", "bone char" and "Spiders, dried: Eresus cinnaberinus". The furniture was of dark wood, and the chairs were just as hard as they looked, as Charles, Raven and Zenobia pulled them up to the massive wooden desk. Professor Black's chair was the same; all of them had a crest carved into the wood, but Charles could only make out the words "Toujours Pur" at the bottom.
Professor Black steepled his fingers. "The reason I am so interested in Miss Darkholme's history is twofold: the possibility that she might be a distant relative is, of course, the first. The second is that metamorphmagi tend to manifest their abilities at birth, or during toddlerhood, and wizards who can do such things are very rare indeed. Grindelwald considered wizards who could perform wandless magic, such as metamorphmagi, to be the purest form of wizard, and resented his reliance on a wand."
"But he's in jail now." Charles felt uneasy, but he wasn't sure what relevance this had to Raven.
Professor Black laughed. "Yes, he is, but he had many followers, and many more who disagreed with his methods but accepted his overall goal: for wizards to rule directly and openly over Muggles. It disturbed him that almost a third of every generation of wizards come from Muggle families, and he believed that wizards and witches like Raven, those whose power comes early, would be the key to revealing the reason behind this."
Zenobia frowned, her cheeks turning red. "Professor, I'm sorry, but doesn't your family promote Pureblood-only marriage?"
Professor Black's mouth was a thin line. "Yes, Miss Smith, but there is a great difference between encouraging appropriate marriages and experimenting on young children."
Zenobia nodded apologetically and said no more.
"As Miss Smith has informed you, some families such as mine - and hers - do indeed believe in keeping wizarding in the family. If Miss Darkholme proves to be a Black, no-one will dare touch her. If she is not, well, I will certainly endeavour to aid her should she be in danger, but my family name will not be invoked."
"Is that a threat?" Charles was very dubious about these stories about Grindelwald. All he'd heard about that part of the war was that Grindelwald had killed a lot of wizards who'd tried to protect Muggles or had stood against him, until eventually Professor Dumbledore had duelled him to defeat. He'd never heard anything about experimenting on children.
Professor Black stroked his forked beard. "No, Mr Xavier. My speciality, as you see, is Divination. Miss Darkholme is under threat from Grindelwald's followers, though my best efforts cannot tell me why or when. While I have considerable abilities myself, I would most likely not be able to defeat one of Grindelwald's battle-hardened thugs."
"Why do they want to hurt me?" Raven muttered, her golden eyes narrow with anger. She seemed to be taking this better than Charles was.
"Because you have powers that they do not, and they will see you as a gateway to more. I doubt you are in any danger at Hogwarts, but you will not be here forever."
"Would your family really not protect Raven if she's not related to them?"
"They would not. Perhaps if you had been in Slytherin - my son Orion is a prefect there - but you are not. Nonetheless, you have my assurance that I, personally, will protect Miss Darkholme as I would any student under my care."
"Um, is there a way to tell if I'm related without taking my hair?"
"Yes, though it will take longer. Then again, the threat does not seem to be immediate, so I see no difficulty in that."
Charles was surprised at Professor Black's expression - almost paternal, and not in the way that Kurt Marko had been, controlling and harsh. Instead, he seemed almost fond of Raven. Letting his thoughts lean out towards the Professor, Charles tried to feel anything negative: there was anger, definitely, but it was not directed towards Raven. He couldn't find anything more clearly; like many wizards, his thoughts were locked tidily away. A mirror on the Professor's desk flashed in Charles' eyes and broke his train of thought.
"Raven, should we find out?"
Raven knelt up on her chair and whispered in Charles' ear. "But you're my family. If I'm related to them will you still be my family?"
Charles hugged her. "Of course I will! I would still be your brother even if you were related to a weasel and a rhinoceros."
Raven giggled, punched him in the arm with her hard fist and turned to Professor Black. "Okay! Let's do that! Do you need my help?"
"Excellent. No, not at present - a potion will need to be brewed. I will send a message to you when it is ready."
"Thank you, Professor!"
He waved his hand dismissively and Zenobia shooed Charles and Raven towards the door and down the narrow stairs.
Zenobia took them through the classroom and into the corridor before taking a deep breath. "All right. Charles, I'm going to take Raven to the dorm now so she can clean up before dinner. You head off to your House and tell one of your prefects when you get there, okay?"
Raven looked up at Zenobia. "Am I really in danger?"
"Well, Professor Black isn't actually a Seer, but he is supposed to be very good with Divination. I'm doing my NEWT in Divination next year, and I can tell you that it's not a precise science, not like Potions or Charms. So yes, you will be in danger, but it might not be until you're forty."
Raven and Charles both giggled at that idea, and Charles gave Raven another hug before hurrying to Ravenclaw Tower to collect his satchel - he wanted to go straight on to the library after dinner, without running all the way back up here.
Moira, Hank and Amelia were waiting for him.
"Is Raven hurt?" Moira was genuinely worried.
"She's fine - Professor Black frightened her but it's all sorted out now. I don't think he meant to, but he is quite scary." Charles didn't want to spread the idea of Raven being in danger all over the school: what if the danger came from people knowing that she might be valuable to Grindelwald?
"Good." Amelia was very firm. "I've heard he's a mean old man."
"Amelia! He's a professor!" Hank was appalled, though he didn't disagree.
"All the more reason not to be mean," she replied, and the two of them began arguing, not an unfamiliar sight. Charles drew Moira aside.
"Actually, it was a bit weird, and it's sort of to do with your inheritance project."
"Really? Professor Black heard about that?"
"Oh, no, not at all. But he told me that Grindelwald had been really interested in working out which children were wizards, and children like Raven who showed magical abilities earlier would help him. And then he'd steal them."
"Not unless he can find out how magic is inherited," Moira corrected, crossly. "Stealing children with blue eyes won't teach you where blue eyes come from. Then again…" She trailed off in thought.
Charles tried to follow her. "If he did have some way to tell, that could work."
Moira nodded. "But no-one's ever been able to invent a way. Well, that's not exactly true: Hogwarts has a magical quill that writes the names of wizards and witches as they're born, but that's old magic and no-one understands how it works, now. The only other magical school that has one is Tripoli, and theirs is even older."
"So there is some way, even if we don't know what it is! Why does it matter so much?"
Moira cast Charles a look that obviously meant she thought he was an idiot. "You really didn't get to hear much in America, did you? Grindelwald thought wizards should rule over Muggles -"
"Yes, everyone knows that."
"And by 'rule over' he meant 'enslave and kill'. He killed hundreds, maybe thousands of people. At least a hundred wizards who opposed him, too."
Charles' eyes opened very wide. "I know why this is important, then. If Grindelwald could work out where the Muggle-born wizards come from, he can kill the rest of the Muggles."
"Oh, no! Even after Professor Dumbledore defeated Grindelwald, there were rumours that most of his followers had survived, and only a few of them were arrested and imprisoned. My dad said that everyone wanted to put it behind them and move on." Moira made a face. "I think that people who do things that bad should be locked up."
"Me too," Charles agreed.
"We need to find out as much as we can about Grindelwald's followers so that we can watch out for them. Would Professor Black will help?"
Charles shifted uncomfortably. "He doesn't think much of Grindelwald. But it sounds like most of his interest in Raven is that she might be a Black and family is very important to him."
"The Blacks are rather notorious for marrying their cousins," Moira agreed. "And the funny thing is, nobody can trace their family further than the Founders anyway: there wasn't really a community in Britain before that, and no-one really kept records of who was a wizard and who wasn't. The whole idea about blood being pure is just ridiculous in light of evolution."
Filius approached and gave both of them a prod towards the door. "Moira, Charles, you're going to miss out on dinner." He continued his round of extracting Ravenclaws from their books and sending them on downstairs, and Charles joined the crowd.
After dinner, Charles caught up with Raven. "You're feeling all right?"
"Oh yes, I'm fine! Don't worry so much, Charles."
"Do you want to come to the library? Moira and I are going to find out about Grindelwald's followers."
One of Raven's friends, Mariko, waved at her from the door.
"No, one of the Third Years is teaching us knitting with magic! Hufflepuff is going to send five hundred scarves to refugees in Europe! And we can make the wool extra warm, and any colour!"
"Okay! Hufflepuff seems to have a lot more House activities than Ravenclaw." Charles would have quite liked to learn magical knitting, but it didn't seem to be on offer in his House.
Raven punched him gently. "Don't be sad! You've got a million books to catch up on!" She ran off to join Mariko, taking her hand and running off towards her House. Moira had already headed off to the library, so Charles went to join her.
Moira was chatting with the catalogue through its hearing trumpet. "Do you have newspapers as well? The library in Ullapool keeps all the old newspapers, but they're Muggle newspapers, of course. Well, if you have newspapers, I want to read about the followers of Grindelwald, please."
"I suppose there's not going to be much in the way of books about Grindelwald, yet," Charles said as they waited for the catalogue to spit out directions.
"We've got a class called History of Magic later this week - maybe the professor there will tell us more?" The card popped out of the slot and Moira took it. The writing was tiny and densely packed with dates and page numbers, but at the top were directions. They followed them up a flight of stairs that were as steep as a ladder, to a balcony containing a row of large scrolls tied with ribbon. The handles of the scrolls were stamped with The Daily Prophet and each was dated with a six month period.
It took Charles and Moira's combined efforts to lift it off the shelf and onto a long desk nearby, which had a notch at one end to hold the outer staff of the scroll. Once they had rolled it out, though, it turned out to be a long ribbon of all the front pages stuck together, starting from the first of July and running to the thirty-first of December.
"We can only see the front page? That's mostly headline!" Charles complained.
"I don't think the catalogue card would say 'page 6' if there wasn't a page 6." Moira pursed her lips and unrolled the scroll to 20th July 1946. Charles touched the page and was surprised to find that it wasn't smooth, but the rough texture of rationed newspaper, and he could turn the page. They flicked through to page 6, where there was half a page with pictures of wizards with a short paragraph underneath each. Some of them were pictures of dead people, but many were moving around in their photos, glaring at the camera or trying to turn their faces away. Others were perfectly calm.
Moira took out a small notepad and a pencil. "I suppose what we need to work out is who isn't locked up or dead. That's Grindelwald at the top, so let's move down from there."
They started noting down names and quickly noticed something rather odd. Almost a third of the people on the page had not been convicted: they had not even been tried. Even a few of those who had been tried had not been convicted. Moira recorded the names, then she and Charles unrolled the scroll further to the next reference on the catalogue card, 10th October. Just as they did, they heard someone coming up the stairs. It wouldn't be possible to hide what they were doing in time - the scroll was just too enormous - so Moira quickly put away her notepad and they flicked forward a few days.
Charles relaxed again when it turned out to be Erik coming up the stairs.
"Erik! Hello! How did you find us all the way over here?"
Erik smiled. "I asked the card catalogue. Hello, Moira."
"Hi! I've been meaning to ask you: that potion you and Armando made in class this morning went bright green, but it still worked. Why?"
"You'd have to ask Professor Slughorn - as far as I could tell, we followed the instructions. Anyway, you and Hank got the house points for best potion."
Charles cleared his throat. "Actually, I'm glad to see you, Erik. Something rather alarming happened this afternoon and you have good ideas. You might be able to help us with it."
Erik was immediately alert, his wand-arm twitching slightly. "What happened? How's Raven?"
"She's fine," Moira answered.
"Remember Professor Black, who spoke to her at the station? They had tea and talked about metamorphmagi, and he said she's in danger."
"From one of Grindelwald's followers," Moira added, "Though we have no idea how or when. Apparently - Erik, are you all right?"
Erik had turned dead white for a moment, then blood rushed into his face. "How does Professor Black know this?" he whispered, his voice hoarse.
"He's the Divination teacher. Zenobia Smith, she's a Hufflepuff prefect, she said that he's not a Seer but he reads omens. Does that make sense to you?"
"It does to me," Moira agreed.
Erik grabbed Charles by the arm and pulled him away from Moira, to the other end of the balcony. Charles tried to be manly about it, but Erik's grip really hurt.
"Ow, let go of me!"
Erik didn't until they were as far away from the rather cranky-looking Moira as they could get without jumping down to the floor below. "Can you trust her?" he whispered, his voice still rough.
Charles was about to complain, but then he caught a glimpse of Erik's face: he was absolutely terrified, and no matter how hard he tried to hide it, he couldn't. "Moira? Or Raven?"
"Moira."
"She promised not to tell anyone about our investigation, and I believe her. Professor Black said that Grindelwald's allies were very interested in studying children who manifested magic early. Moira is interested in inheritance and family trees, so I requested her help working out who would want to hurt Raven and why."
"It's true, and one of Grindelwald's followers is coming here. To Hogwarts." Erik had steadied himself, but Charles could see the whites all around his eyes, as if he was about to panic at any moment.
"We can trust Moira, and she was in Scotland during the war so she knows more about it that I do. You were in Ireland?" Charles started walking over to where Moira waited impatiently.
Erik followed. "No. I was in Germany."
"Have you sorted out your secret boy problems?" Moira snapped. She'd turned the newspaper scroll to the issue they'd been about to read before Erik interrupted them.
"I've been told not to tell anyone about this. By Dumbledore." Erik was deadly serious, and both Moira and Charles listened intently. "You have to promise that you won't tell anyone else unless we all agree on it."
"I promise," Charles said immediately.
Moira thought about it for a moment. "If someone's in immediate danger, can we tell Dumbledore?"
Erik nodded. "If it's really important, Dumbledore should be told."
"Then I promise."
Erik stared at the newspaper, open to the page with three men and two women being given medals by an elderly witch. He pointed to the one on the far left, a handsome older man with a broad smile. "That is Sebastian Shaw, also known as Klaus Schmidt. He's a wizard, but he worked with the Nazis so that he could get access to children in the concentration camps."
Charles had heard about camps where thousands and thousands of people had been killed, but he wasn't aware of the details - his mother had objected to having Muggle news in the house. He didn't dare ask where Erik's family was.
"It would have to be Muggle-born children," Moira added. "Wizarding children were evacuated as soon as possible - a few were killed in skirmishes with Grindelwald's forces, but I don't think they went into camps."
Erik looked as if he wanted to draw his wand, but didn't. "They got out everyone they could, but then there were the Jewish and Gypsy children that hadn't been identified as wizards or witches yet. No-one rescued us. Dumbledore said Grindelwald watched the camps closely for Jewish wizards coming to help the Muggle Jews, and those who did were all killed." His face was entirely blank now, as if he was recounting things that happened to other people. "Everyone in the camps was very weak and sick, so most likely many children died before Shaw found them. Dumbledore said that Shaw found a few and took them to his laboratory, then eventually released them with powerful Memory Charms taking away what happened in that time. That's what he's getting the medal for in this photograph - he claimed he found them and saved them from the Muggles."
"So how does Dumbledore know what happened?" Charles asked, his stomach sinking.
"Because the last child Shaw experimented on was me. I'm not sure what he was trying to do - he saw me magically pull down a gate when they separated me from my parents, then he tried to make me release magic at his command. It didn't work very well, but he kept trying."
"But he didn't have the chance to alter your memory?"
"Dumbledore thinks he might have tried, but Shaw was in a big hurry with the camp closing down and the Russians coming - they have witches all over the place - and it wasn't very thorough. When Dumbledore found me in the DP camp later, it had pretty much unravelled." Erik shrugged. "Anyway, Dumbledore wants to make Shaw face justice but people think he's a hero. Dumbledore is luring him to Hogwarts to force the memories out of him so they can prosecute him and send him to Azkaban forever. He hasn't accepted yet, but Dumbledore is sure he will."
"It all fits together," Moira nodded. "Raven has had magical abilities from a very early age, and much stronger than most underage wizards. Most metamorphmagi belong to powerful old families such as the Blacks and Shaw wouldn't dare go near them. Raven doesn't."
Charles put a hand on Erik's arm. "What are you supposed to do when Shaw is here? Isn't he going to notice you?"
"Dumbledore said he'll cast a charm to prevent Shaw hearing my name by accident, and I'll stay out of the way."
Moira frowned. "That doesn't sound like a very good plan. If it was my plan, I'd send you away from Hogwarts to make sure you were safe. You had somewhere to live in Ireland?"
"Dumbledore sent me there to learn English and so I'd get to go to Hogwarts. I suppose I could go back if I needed to. But I'm sure that's not Dumbledore's real plan." Erik spoke quite slowly, working out his theory as he spoke. "Maybe he's going to want me to confront Shaw or something, so that Dumbledore can get the right memories out of his head. So he has to have me there when he springs his trap. Otherwise Shaw might be thinking about something else, his dinner or the weather or whatever it might be. I don't know how memory reading works, but I don't think Shaw would have experiments on the brain all the time."
"But what about Raven?" Charles was confused. "Shaw obviously wants to appear respectable - he's not just going to run in and kidnap her."
Moira poked at her notepad uncomfortably. "There's plenty of spells that make you obey someone else. And, with Dark Magic, there's spells that make you want to obey someone else. He could easily enchant Raven to make her want to go with him."
Charles could feel Erik shudder slightly, and took his hand, just for a moment. "The thing about magic, though, is that anything short of death can be undone. If there's a spell, there's a counter-spell. We just have to find it."
"We all have Defence Against the Dark Arts tomorrow," Moira noted. "I'll ask the Professor how to research prevention and counter-spells."
"Won't she be suspicious?" Erik sounded tired.
"I'm a Ravenclaw. We're supposed to be interested in all kinds of random things. If you wanted to know a spell, that would be suspicious."
"Gryffindors aren't stupid. Well, not necessarily."
Both Moira and Charles laughed, and Moira said, "Of course not. It's not brains that gets you Sorted into Ravenclaw: it's the kind of things you want to discover and why you want to discover them. If a Gryffindor asked a that question, I'd presume they were planning to use the spell. My parents were both Gryffindors, and you're all very pragmatic people. And Charles might be the most talkative boy in Ravenclaw and both his siblings are in Hufflepuff, but he still came straight to the library to research his problem."
"That's true," Charles agreed, feeling a little better about not being in Hufflepuff.
"We're going to get thrown out of the library soon, so we should make a plan now." Erik pointed his wand at the newspaper, as if he was spearing Shaw with it.
Moira nodded. "Right. I'll ask about the spells in class tomorrow. Charles, you warn Raven to stay away from visitors. Should you tell her about Shaw?"
"You shouldn't. Dumbledore told me to keep this a secret, and while I trust you, I don't trust Raven."
"She's a good girl! She's very loyal and she doesn't lie." Charles protested.
"She can't keep her mouth shut. She told me all about herself within a few minutes of meeting her. And you should keep a better eye on her - you just left her with me at Kings Cross Station, and you didn't know if I was a good person or not."
Charles couldn't argue with that, but he tried anyway. "Actually, I sort of have a magical ability myself. I can sometimes see, well, not what people's thoughts but general impressions about them. My stepfather said it's a skill called Legilimency. It's not very common, and I can't do it very well, but it's what Aurors use to interrogate people. So I knew you wouldn't hurt her."
"Would you pick up the thoughts of someone who was going to hurt her?" Erik sounded very interested as he helped Moira roll up the heavy scroll. "Grindelwald never made it to the British Isles but that doesn't mean he doesn't have sympathisers here."
"If the thoughts were strong and specific enough, and if I can concentrate. Maybe I can try at breakfast tomorrow, if I can get a quiet spot?"
"We'll both look out for you, if you need to close your eyes or something." Moira promised.
The bell for the First Years rang and they headed for the steep stairs down from the balcony, splitting up to go to their respective dorms.
"See you in class tomorrow," Charles called to Erik as they went to their separate staircases, and Erik waved back, looking almost cheerful, if exhausted.
On to Chapter 5
This entry was originally posted at http://lilacsigil.dreamwidth.org/90949.html - comments are welcome at either location.
As far as Raven could tell, most of the Hufflepuffs had got into that House in exactly the same way she had: the Sorting Hat had asked her what she most wanted at Hogwarts, she'd replied, "Friends," and straight into Hufflepuff she went. Mariko said that she had told the Hat she wanted to not shame her family, but apparently that worked too. They had spent an excellent afternoon in a dark dungeon making a cauldron full of smelly potion that was supposed to keep rabbits away, then the hearty Professor Slughorn had taken them all outside to paint it around empty garden beds to see whose was effective. He cast a spell to summon dozens of rabbits - much to the delight of the students - and most of the potions did, in fact, make the rabbits hesitate before they went for the cabbage leaves they'd placed in the empty beds. Raven and Sean's potion made the rabbits have three tries before finally hopping over to eat the cabbage, but two of the Slytherin students, Selene and a plump Egyptian boy named Amahl Farouk, managed to brew such a good potion that their rabbits stayed out completely. For that, they won five points for Slytherin and an exemption from their homework. Slughorn's class was so much fun that no-one really minded, though, and the homework wouldn't take long.
Raven had just sat down on one of the squashy bumblebee-striped sofas in their common room, thick slice of date loaf in hand, when an older student came over to her.
"You're Raven Darkholme?" At Raven's nod, she continued, "I've got a message for you from Professor Black: he's going to meet with you tomorrow afternoon for tea. He says I should take you to his office."
"Oh!" Raven remembered him from Platform 9 ¾ but had thought he was just being friendly when he talked about metamorphmagi. "Um, of course. Petra, what class do we have tomorrow afternoon?"
"Charms," Petra told her.
"Fine, I'll find you there," the older girl said. She sounded a bit cross, and Raven was worried.
"Did I do something wrong?" she whispered to Petra and Mariko.
"I don't know!" Mariko said. "Professor Black teaches Divination and we don't learn that yet - maybe it's a breach of etiquette for teachers to talk to students who aren't in their classes."
"She was cross with me, not with the Professor."
Mariko laughed. "You really haven't been to school before, have you? She can't be cross at Professor Black, because he's her teacher, so she'll be cross at you instead."
"Or she's got a crush on Professor Black," Petra giggled.
"He's so old! And he's got a beard!"
Zenobia Smith leaned over their couch. "Was everything okay today, girls? Any questions?"
"Um, yes, when do we do our homework?" Petra asked.
"You've got free time now, after dinner and on Friday afternoon, plus the weekend. But we have lots of House activities on the weekend, so I wouldn't plan on having too much time then! Do you want to go to the library?"
"Yes!" Raven replied. She wanted to find out about metamorphmagi and Professor Black's family, at the very least.
"Righty-o, grab your things and I'll take you down there. It's easy to find after you've done it once. Oh, and wash your hands. Madam Fletcher is very fussy about clean hands in her library."
The three girls ran off and did as they were told, then followed Zenobia off to the library. She was correct that wasn't hard to find at all - unlike most of the classrooms it seemed to remain in one place - and there were dozens of students going in or out at any one time. The three girls hurried in and were immediately pinned to the spot by the dark-eyed glare of the librarian, Madam Fletcher.
"You will walk quietly and slowly in my library, girls, or you will be thrown out."
"Yes, Madam Fletcher," they chorused, automatically forming a row in front of her.
"Now, if you wish to find a book on a particular topic, simply ask the catalogue. If it is not helpful, you may ask an older student - quietly - or ask me. Is that clear?"
"Yes, Madam Fletcher."
She had been indicating a series of large hearing trumpets affixed to a wall when she mentioned the catalogue, so Raven headed over there when Madam Fletcher took her eyes off them to tell off a Gryffindor boy for "hurtling".
Glancing around, Raven saw other students speak into the hearing trumpets, so she followed suit. "Excuse me! I would like a book on metamorphmagi, please. One that's not too hard."
A ticket spat out of a small brass slot beneath the hearing trumpet. It said "Magical Beings Among Us! by Winford Wemble. Aisle 46, third bookcase on the left, second shelf from the top."
Raven showed the other girls. "Well, that's very precise! Come on!" They walked, quietly and slowly, down the aisles to their destination. The shelves were stuffed with books of all shapes and sizes, and there were a few flying overhead, as if their open pages were wings. Not all the books were leather and paper, either: there were scrolls of sewn-together leaves, wool-worked tapestries, letters etched in glass plates, and Raven was sure she'd spotted a bejewelled abacus, though she had no idea how that counted as a book.
The book was exactly where the catalogue had said - there was even a stepladder there to let Raven reach the second shelf from the top - and it seemed to be a new book, with a jolly-looking wizard waving and smiling on the front cover. When Raven peered closer, it turned out that the man had bright pink rabbit ears sticking out of his head. Petra took a book at random, Mariko had her homework - she was worried about keeping up in English, though as far as Raven and Petra could tell, her English was perfect - and they all sat at one of the big study tables. As they sat, the chairs rose up to a more comfortable height so that, although their feet were dangling, they could comfortably prop their elbows on the table and read their books.
Winford Wemble, according to his book, had been born with rabbit ears, as members of his family occasionally were. There was a rumour that an ancestor had been cursed, but Mr Wemble seemed to think this was unlikely, as he'd never found rabbit ears to be much of a problem. His brightly illustrated book went on to talk about wizards from different nations and their different customs and wizards who were part giant, part goblin or just looked a bit different, like himself. There was a chapter on werewolves, who had a disease that made them very dangerous at the full moon but not the rest of the time, and on wizards who lived very long lives for no apparent reason. Finally, there was a chapter on metamorphmagi, complete with an illustration of a long-faced man in a frock coat who changed into all sorts of people and even turned his nose into a pig nose. Raven giggled at this, and tried to do the same to show Petra and Mariko, but it didn't really work. Still, she could practise!
Metamorphmagi, as Charles had always said, were most common in very old families who had been marrying other wizards for a long time. Raven frowned at this, but over the page there was a picture of a woman in a pretty sari who changed her shape just as easily as the man in the frock coat had. The text said that she had been born to Muggle parents in Bangalore who were very surprised by her shape-changing, but a local guru (a word which the books said sometimes applied to Hindu wizards) assured them that she was perfectly healthy and advised them to send her to school.
"I wish I was a Hindu, then," Raven grumped.
"Your parents still might not have found a guru." Petra tried to console her.
"Also, you wouldn't be at Hogwarts," Mariko told her. "My parents considered sending me to the new academy in New Delhi. Wealthy Indian wizards and witches used to send their children here, to Hogwarts, but now that India is independent they've developed their own school. It's supposed to be very good, but my cousin Shiro's parents were set on Hogwarts."
"Well, I do love Hogwarts, but India sounds fun!" Raven changed her skin to look as if she was wearing jewels in her ears like the woman in the picture wore in some of her guises. She'd practised jewellery before, copying Mother's, so it wasn't too hard to do. "And I wanted to meet more children before coming here. I kept changing my shape all the time and Mother was really embarrassed. So I was stuck in the house."
Mariko patted her arm. "No-one is embarrassed here. Did you see how excited the entire House was when you were Sorted here?"
"Yeah, that's true. I guess Professor Black can't have anything too terrible to tell me, like I'm his long-lost daughter or something!"
Petra smirked. "Then you'd be Raven Black and we'd think you were a tin of boot polish!"
They all giggled, immediately quelled by a hard glare from two older students, obviously potential librarians themselves, and tiptoed away to put the book away.
---
Erik greatly enjoyed the meals at Hogwarts. He could actually choose what he wanted, though there was nothing he hadn't at least tried so far, and eat to his heart's content, surrounded by other students doing exactly the same thing. The one time he'd glanced up from his plate he'd caught a worried expression from the older Jewish student in Gryffindor, Arnold Astrovik, so he made sure not to look further than the dishes in front of him again. He didn't want someone coming to tell him he should keep kosher, or he was embarrassing the other Jews, or even worse, that they were worried about him. Gabrielle, across from him, was eating just as heartily, though since she was more than a head shorter, not nearly as much. At the end of the evening meal, Erik was still ploughing through a plate of custard and rhubarb when a small stone appeared on the edge of his plate. He picked it up, and heard Dumbledore's voice in his mind.
"After dinner, please come to my office, near the Transfiguration classroom. There is an issue we need to discuss."
Erik looked up at the teacher's table but Dumbledore didn't appear angry or worried, sitting at the head table and laughing with the Potions master, Professor Slughorn, so maybe it was news about someone he knew. Or that Schmidt was dead. That would be good.
He slowed down a bit as he shovelled in his dessert so that he'd finish after other students, who were starting to wander out of the hall; several of the teachers, including Dumbledore, had gone, too. When most of them had departed, and Ignatius the prefect had checked that Erik would be able to get back to the dorm on his own, he scraped his plate clean and made his way out of the Great Hall. Erik had a flawless sense of direction that not even Hogwarts could befuddle - though he was frequently frustrated by stairs or passageways not going as far as he needed them to go, and having to take another route - and had no problem finding the Transfiguration classroom, even if he did have to go over the library because a staircase had moved. Dumbledore's office was a little further down the hall, and Erik knocked on the door.
"Come in, Erik!"
Erik did so, unable to stop himself staring around the room in amazement. It would have been a fairly spacious office, except that Dumbledore had filled it with magical items from all over the world. There was a large metal basin on a stone plinth at one side of the room, a rug that glowed as he stepped on it, intricate banners and tapestries with writing that Erik couldn't read - there was one in Hebrew script that he could sound out but he didn't understand it - and a painted mural of various magical animals prancing around on the ceiling. Hanging over Dumbledore's desk was a large golden cage with the door open; inside it was an ugly, almost featherless bird, though it wasn't a chicken.
"That's my friend Fawkes - he's a phoenix. Not at his best at the moment, I must admit, but that's what he is."
"Oh. Does he burst into flame?" There had been a picture of a phoenix in the book Brendan and Diarmuid had used to teach him English.
"Indeed, on occasion. Please take a seat, Erik. There are sweets on the desk if you would care for any."
Erik sat, and took a handful of sweets from the bowl on the desk. The sweets were clear, firm jellies each with a leaf or flower inside, and when he ate one it was flavoursome but squishy in his mouth.
Dumbledore's face suddenly became very serious, and Erik tensed.
"Erik, do you remember what I told you about Doctor Schmidt?"
"Yes. He's also known as Shaw, he used to teach at Durmstrang, he had an obsession with so-called raw magic, the kind that doesn't use a wand."
"Yes, you would remember that well. Do you recall what I said about his plans?"
Erik nodded again. "He pretended that he was too scared of Grindelwald to fight him, so he's probably not going to jail."
"What I did not expect, Erik, was that Shaw would be so happily accepted back into the wizarding community. He found several other Muggle-born wizard children before you, all of whom I believe he experimented on before taking some of them to safety."
"I thought I was - did he have any of them after me? I thought you said you'd stopped him!"
"We did, Erik. You were the last of his victims. But those other children he rescued, well, he leveraged that into some kind of heroism."
"Heroism?"
"Shaw claimed that he saved as many Muggle-born wizarding children as he could, taking them out of the queue as they came to the camps. The other five children he 'saved' were apparently not as interesting to him as you were: as far as I can ascertain, he kept them for a period of two to three months each, then cast a powerful memory charm on them and released them in a village near Durmstrang where they would be quickly found by wizards."
"What kind of memory charm? Can't you undo it?"
"Memory charms, as with all spells that work on the mind, are very difficult to reverse, and attempting it can cause irreparable damage. Shaw claimed that he had to remove their memories to keep his cover - from both the Muggles and Grindelwald's forces - and this has been widely accepted."
Erik felt very cold, the kind of cold where he didn't shiver anymore. "So Shaw is a hero for saving those children. What happened to their parents?"
"Erik, I'm sorry."
"I understand. Where is Shaw now?"
"He interviewed for a position at Durmstrang and they turned him down. They are understandably paranoid about being seen working with anyone with even the slightest association with Grindelwald, as several of the faculty did in fact work with him in one capacity or another, though not always willingly. Instead, the Austrian Ministry of Magic has given him a job, as International Co-ordinator in the Department of Games and Sports."
Erik shrugged, feeling helpless. "I know you don't want to go to kill him, but at least he's probably not going to hurt anyone there?" He wasn't entirely sure why Dumbledore wouldn't kill him, though he expected that it was a combination of the war being over, and Dumbledore being highly identifiable since his defeat of Grindelwald. Dumbledore was probably correct to think he could do more good in his current position as a national hero than throwing it away taking down Shaw. It still made something inside Erik burn cold., though.
"That job gives him access to every school of magic in Europe. I still don't understand why, exactly, he's so interested in young wizards, but there is no doubt that he is."
"He always said he wanted to draw out my power and make me strong. What you said about wands focusing power? I could do more in my lessons today than Schmidt, I mean Shaw, ever taught me."
"That you remember," Dumbledore said, eternally kind and patient.
"Oh."
"In any case, Shaw isn't aware that you survived at all, let along that I found you in a DP camp and we tried to track him down. I have invited Shaw here, to Hogwarts."
Erik got to his feet and promptly sat down again. His voice was meant to be steady but came out as a hoarse whisper. "Why?"
"I need access to his memories, to prove all that he did: your testimony alone is unsupported, and so much of the camp was destroyed. And then, since he's on British soil, he can be sent directly to Azkaban."
Dumbledore had told Erik about the wizard prison, the one from which no-one had ever escaped, where people died quickly rather than live on with all hope gone. It sounded familiar, and it was deeply satisfying to imagine leaving Shaw there. Erik wrapped his arms around himself. "Good. How can I help?"
"You can stay out of the way. If he recognises you, he will be immediately suspicious and my work will be made much harder. It's easy enough to cast a charm to avoid him hearing any casual mention of your name."
"I understand. May I go now?"
"Yes, of course, my dear boy. I will give you notice well before Shaw arrives, of course." Despite his sparkling blue and gold robes, Dumbledore looked far more like the powerful man who had found Erik in the camp than he did the cheerful Transfiguration professor, and Erik was glad of that.
He went on to the library, where he'd promised to meet up with Charles, though he felt strangely as if he was floating like Nearly Headless Nick, their House ghost. It only took a few minutes to get to a busy section of the school, but no-one seemed to notice him, and he had the feeling - one he'd had many times before - that he'd died and no-one knew it.
As soon as he got to the library, though, Charles jumped to his feet out of a bright orange reading chair and waved frantically.
"Hello! Erik! I thought you weren't coming!"
Erik felt a little warmer again, and his feet were definitely on the floor. "Here I am."
"Shh!" hissed the librarian, and they scurried away down an aisle of strange books. There were tables and chairs, desks and armchairs, scattered all over the library and, although there seemed to be quite a lot of students here tonight, there were plenty free. Charles sat down at one and plopped his satchel on the desk.
"Oh, you haven't brought your things! Don't worry, I have spare." He handed Erik a piece of parchment and a quill. "And we can share the ink."
"I got started earlier - you met Shiro. He was insistent that we all do our homework straight away."
"I started too!" Charles rubbed at his temple and looked quizzically at Erik. "Are you all right?"
"Fine!" Erik snapped. "Don't ask stupid questions."
"It's not…I'm sorry. I didn't meant to poke at you."
"Well, don't then."
"Did you hear that my sister was attacked by a ghost?"
"They attack people?"
Charles laughed. "Trust Raven to find the one that does! No, it was a ghost haunting a toilet, of all things, and the ghost tried to scare them and threw water on a girl. Raven was thrilled, but I don't think she should be attracting the interest of ghosts!"
"Our House ghost isn't aggressive. I mean, his head is hanging off, but he's very friendly."
"Our ghost sets us riddles! And that Slytherin ghost with all the blood looks dangerous, but Angel - she's the American girl, we met her on the way over here - she says he's protective of them."
"I met Angel."
"Did you hear Dumbledore found her flying over the Brooklyn Bridge? She had a terrible black eye when he brought her in with all the other Americans. And me, I suppose I count as American."
"You talk a lot."
"Does that make me more or less American? No, don't answer that."
Erik was surprised to realise that he'd relaxed as Charles babbled on, the dread of Shaw retreating to the back of his brain where it usually lurked. There was something very open about Charles - it wasn't weakness or desperation or foolishness - and while Erik didn't understand exactly why this was good, he certainly found it very calming. Charles demanded nothing in return, not appropriate House behaviour, not the bravery Dumbledore wanted, not all the contradictory things that everyone else had ever told him to do.
"Did you know Dumbledore has a phoenix in his office?" he said, suddenly, wanting to share it with someone.
"No! That's amazing! I wasn't aware that they ever lived alongside humans. What did it look like?"
"An ugly plucked chicken with a big black beak!"
Erik sketched out a picture on the piece of parchment Charles had given him.
"It's staring at you even in the picture! Do you like drawing? Filius said there's optional art and music classes, and everyone's welcome."
"I don't know if I need extra classes."
"We should go along and try it! All I can draw is copies from my father's old biology textbooks, so if they want me to draw the inside of a rat, I'm set."
"All right. Our prefects said there'll be notices put up when things are happening."
A small bell rang in the library, but only the very youngest students seemed to hear it, judging from the reactions. Charles sighed. "I suppose that means we have to return to our dorms now. I suppose this homework won't take long to finish, and we have desks in the dorm."
"We don't! But there's plenty in the common room, if we're allowed to stay up for that." Erik was used to strict curfews and restricted movements, but being singled out to be sent off to bed with the eleven-year-olds still chafed. "Come on."
Along with the other first years, they filed out of the library and headed to their respective common rooms. Charles waved to Angel before meeting up with Hank McCoy and heading off up the spiral staircase; Erik went towards his dorm only to find that the staircase had turned ninety degrees and no longer went to the correct corridor. A few other Gryffindors joined him at the base of the staircase, including Suzanne and Gabrielle.
"How do we turn it around?" Gabrielle asked one of the older students.
"It comes back when it's ready. Let's go the other way over the library, near the Charms classroom, then we can get onto that staircase there." She pointed, and the whole group had to turn and follow her the long way around, until, getting rather footsore, they made it all the way up to the Gryffindor dorm.
"First years off to bed!" As they entered the common room, Ignatius was sending Shiro and Armando up to their dorm.
"I want to finish my homework first," Erik told him, looking him in the eye. He thought Ignatius was about to say something, but then he shrugged.
"Fine. Just don't stay up too late."
Erik knew it would only take a few minutes, but he felt proud of that tiny victory. He was not a child - just a student - and he needed to remember that.
He woke up in the middle of the night, covered in sweat but freezing cold, with resolve in his mind: there was no reason for the British authorities to arrest Shaw, because he'd done nothing wrong in Britain, as far as Erik knew. That meant that Dumbledore had a plan, some way to draw him out. If his plan failed, though, Erik needed to be ready to stop Shaw instead. He desperately wanted to kill him, but there was a part of his brain that stayed calm no matter what was happening, something which had helped him survive all this time. That part of him said that it was highly implausible that Erik, an untrained boy, would be able to kill Shaw, a very powerful wizard with decades of practice behind him. If there was a way, he should try to find it, but the higher priority had to be making certain that Shaw would be taken away to Azkaban.
Erik lay down again, pulling up the covers that he had kicked away. All of his fellow students were at risk, too, but he couldn't tell them: one of them would be sure to blab, and that would ruin Dumbledore's plans and any hope of putting Shaw where he belonged. Erik would have to observe them very carefully and see who would both be useful and be able to hold their tongue. He rolled on his side and evened out his breathing, tipping himself quickly into sleep.
---
Charles was thrilled to have made a friend. While he enjoyed the company of his own House very much, there was an element of competition there that he found troublesome. He suspected that all eight of the new Ravenclaws had been used to being head of their class, and it was troubling to not only realise that there were other people as smart as they were, but subjects they knew nothing about. Ravenclaw had less bonding and far more reading than Hufflepuff, according to Raven's report. Charles and Amelia had both won points for Ravenclaw yesterday, but this seemed to draw envy rather than camaraderie, an unpleasantness which Charles dearly hoped would be a short-lived phenomenon. Hank McCoy didn't seem to care about points, at least, but he was also terribly didactic in his interactions, which Charles thought was probably due to intense shyness combined with social awkwardness. He was friendly, though, and Charles liked him better than Larry Trask, whose main interest was attempting to outdo his sister Tanya. Right now, Larry was berating his Potions partner Amelia for not writing up her report in the exact format he'd found in the back of their textbook. Amelia didn't seem cowed at all - in fact she looked torn between ignoring him and slapping him - so at least Charles didn't have to worry about her.
"Hank, do you want to come down to the library?" Charles asked him.
"No, sorry, uh, I'm reading about jinxes now and I've got two chapters to go…"
"Don't ask me," Moira snapped. "You just want to chat all the time."
"Tessa?"
"Last time we went to the library, you spent the whole time waiting for your Gryffindor friend to show up. I am going to the library, but not with you." She took Tanya's arm and off they went.
Charles sighed. He wished the Sorting Hat had put him in Hufflepuff. To be honest, he was mostly worried about Raven: she'd be meeting with Professor Black this very minute, and he didn't want the Professor to be mean to her, or tell her anything nasty about metamorphmagi. According to other students, Professor Black was downright mean, and his Divination class was horribly difficult. Charles had asked Raven if she wanted him to come along, but she just laughed and told him no. An older Hufflepuff girl had picked her up after their shared Charms class and taken her away.
"What are you so mopey for?" Moira snapped at him.
"My sister has a meeting with Professor Black. Apparently his great-aunt was a metamorphmagus the same as Raven."
Moira didn't seem concerned in the slightest. "I'm sure she'll be fine. Here, come and help me with my chart."
Charles hurried over to her desk, excited at the prospect of working with someone. "What kind of chart is it?"
"An inheritance chart. I'm trying to work out why some people are born wizards or witches and some people aren't."
"It must be inherited to some extent - there's not many Squibs around."
Moira showed him the chart. It was her own family tree, on which about a third of the people were marked with a W. "It gets more complicated further back, when there's people that were known as healers or wise women or just plain witches but it doesn't really give me an answer about whether they were magical in this sense."
"That is tricky. Maybe there'll be a pattern in these four generations," he gestured at the bottom of the chart. "Then you'll be able to work out more. Are there any squibs?"
"There could be? Is a child a squib if it has no magical power but only one wizard parent? What if it dies before the age of 10?"
"I wonder if we could do this with the metamorphmagi families? Maybe we could see which families Raven might come from?"
Moira smiled. "That's a very interesting plan. We could do that next?"
"Great!"
Charles settled down to mark more people at Moira's direction, taking the upper half of the chart that Moira couldn't reach from her seat, and thought about Raven: what if she wasn't abandoned by Muggles at all, but the child of a forbidden relationship? As far as Charles could tell, wizard marriages were taken very seriously and expected to produce children: the family line was important. On the other hand, two men or two women could be married in exactly the same way, and Charles was really not sure where the children came from, in that case.
Chava Prydeman jumped out of her seat by the window as if she'd been stung.
"Charles Xavier!" she called.
Charles got to his feet and hurried over. "Yes, Chava?"
"Prefect communication. Zenobia from Hufflepuff has said I should take you to their common room."
"Oh no, is Raven all right?"
"Sorry, that's all the message I received. Come on!" She hurried off out the door and down the spiral staircase, and Charles followed, as fast as he could.
They went most of the way down the stairs, then across a small balcony and along a downward-sloping corridor full of really ugly still life paintings. Chava seemed to know where she was going, so Charles just hurried after her. He could smell dinner cooking somewhere close, and his stomach rumbled. When they got to a small door, Chava knocked on it four times, and the male Hufflepuff prefect opened it.
"That's Charles?" he asked Chava.
"Yes, he's in first year, too."
"Thanks - I'll send him back when Raven's okay."
"Raven's not okay?" Charles frowned, wanting to just run past the older boy and find his sister.
"She's just had a fright." He led Charles down a round, low tunnel: he had to duck, and even Charles had to consider it as the corridor became smaller. "Now, we don't show our common room to outsiders, but we do have a parlour for visitors, and that's where Raven and Zenobia are." He opened a round door set into the wall, and led Charles inside.
There was a glimpse of a warm, wood-panelled room with a deep gold carpet, but Charles only had eyes for Raven, who was curled up against an older girl as if she had been crying.
"Raven! What happened?"
"He wanted to take my hair!" Raven wailed, throwing her arms around Charles and burrowing her wet and snotty face into his shoulder.
"He can't have it!" Charles was furious, and glared at the nearest authority figure, Zenobia. "Did he hurt you?"
"No…" Raven snuffled and wiped her eyes with a big white hanky. "And he didn't get my hair either. I ran away. Am I in trouble?"
Zenobia patted her arm. "No, you're definitely not in trouble. I'm going to talk to Professor Black and get this all sorted out, okay?"
Charles sat Raven down on the couch and hugged her firmly until she stopped crying. "Raven, please tell me what happened? Do you want to go home?"
Raven shook her head fiercely, then wriggled free of Charles and blew her nose loudly into the hanky. "No! I just don't want to go and see Professor Black again. He made me tea, and he had chocolate cookies, I mean biscuits, from the kitchen, and he told me about his great-aunt. She died about 15 years ago, but he had some photos - they were really funny because she didn't quite look the same in any of them."
"But you're the same unless you're concentrating."
"Yeah, that's what I said, but he said that she was that way when she was younger, but the older she got, the more she just changed her face around for fun. So I copied her face, to show him what I did, and he said I needed to practice more if I was copying from photos."
"Everyone said he was mean."
"He said it in a helpful way. Then he said his family had had more metamorphmagi than any other family in Britain, so I was probably related to him, so he needed a lock of my hair to find out." Raven scowled ferociously. "And he had a pair of scissors out and he didn't even ask! But I remembered what Kurt used to say."
"If they have a piece of you, they have power over you?"
"Yes! So I said I would have to ask you, then he said not to worry, it would grow back, so I threw my cup of tea at him and ran away!"
Charles almost laughed at the idea of the elaborately dressed and coiffed Professor Black getting a face full of tea, but Raven's lip was quivering again, so he didn't. "You did the right thing, Raven. He might be a teacher, but he doesn't get to take your hair!"
"Knock knock!" called Zenobia, at the door. "I've spoken to Professor Black, and he understands that he frightened you, but he wants you to apologise for throwing your tea at him." The corner of Zenobia's lips were determinedly quirking upwards, and she was obviously struggling not to smile.
Raven thought about it for a few moments. "I suppose I am sorry I threw the tea at him. I didn't want it to get on his photos. Okay! I'll apologise, if Charles comes with me."
"That's fine, probably for the best," Zenobia agreed, and escorted them out of the parlour, down the hallway.
The Divination classroom was accessed by climbing up a ladder and through a trapdoor. It was an imposing room, round with no tables or chairs, just cushions on the floor. The walls, floor and ceiling were painted a stark white and there were no windows: the dim light seemed to come from the walls. The only other items in the room were a large silver teapot and two dozen small white teacups on a small round table standing by one of the walls. Raven slipped her hand into Charles', and he was surprised how odd it felt for her hand to be scaled when they were in the presence of other people.
Zenobia knocked on one of the walls - peering at it, Charles could see a faint door-shaped outline - and a voice called out, "Come in, Miss Smith."
The door slid silently aside, and they all went up the small staircase to the office of Professor Black. He greeted them with a nod, his robes as immaculate as ever, and the door slid closed again.
"Miss Darkholme. I trust you are willing to apologise?"
"Yes, sir. I'm very sorry that I threw my tea at you."
"Indeed. In return, I apologise for startling you."
"Thank you!" Raven smiled at him, shyly, and Charles kept hold of her hand.
"You must be Raven's brother?"
"Yes, Professor. I'm Charles Xavier."
"Please, sit down, all of you. Yes, you too, Miss Smith."
Now that Professor Black had moved, Charles could take in more of the office. Unlike the pristine classroom, the office was crowded but tidy, stuffed birds and bundles of feathers neatly placed alongside crystal balls and strings of beads; several large canisters of tea next to bottles marked "poppy capsules", "bone char" and "Spiders, dried: Eresus cinnaberinus". The furniture was of dark wood, and the chairs were just as hard as they looked, as Charles, Raven and Zenobia pulled them up to the massive wooden desk. Professor Black's chair was the same; all of them had a crest carved into the wood, but Charles could only make out the words "Toujours Pur" at the bottom.
Professor Black steepled his fingers. "The reason I am so interested in Miss Darkholme's history is twofold: the possibility that she might be a distant relative is, of course, the first. The second is that metamorphmagi tend to manifest their abilities at birth, or during toddlerhood, and wizards who can do such things are very rare indeed. Grindelwald considered wizards who could perform wandless magic, such as metamorphmagi, to be the purest form of wizard, and resented his reliance on a wand."
"But he's in jail now." Charles felt uneasy, but he wasn't sure what relevance this had to Raven.
Professor Black laughed. "Yes, he is, but he had many followers, and many more who disagreed with his methods but accepted his overall goal: for wizards to rule directly and openly over Muggles. It disturbed him that almost a third of every generation of wizards come from Muggle families, and he believed that wizards and witches like Raven, those whose power comes early, would be the key to revealing the reason behind this."
Zenobia frowned, her cheeks turning red. "Professor, I'm sorry, but doesn't your family promote Pureblood-only marriage?"
Professor Black's mouth was a thin line. "Yes, Miss Smith, but there is a great difference between encouraging appropriate marriages and experimenting on young children."
Zenobia nodded apologetically and said no more.
"As Miss Smith has informed you, some families such as mine - and hers - do indeed believe in keeping wizarding in the family. If Miss Darkholme proves to be a Black, no-one will dare touch her. If she is not, well, I will certainly endeavour to aid her should she be in danger, but my family name will not be invoked."
"Is that a threat?" Charles was very dubious about these stories about Grindelwald. All he'd heard about that part of the war was that Grindelwald had killed a lot of wizards who'd tried to protect Muggles or had stood against him, until eventually Professor Dumbledore had duelled him to defeat. He'd never heard anything about experimenting on children.
Professor Black stroked his forked beard. "No, Mr Xavier. My speciality, as you see, is Divination. Miss Darkholme is under threat from Grindelwald's followers, though my best efforts cannot tell me why or when. While I have considerable abilities myself, I would most likely not be able to defeat one of Grindelwald's battle-hardened thugs."
"Why do they want to hurt me?" Raven muttered, her golden eyes narrow with anger. She seemed to be taking this better than Charles was.
"Because you have powers that they do not, and they will see you as a gateway to more. I doubt you are in any danger at Hogwarts, but you will not be here forever."
"Would your family really not protect Raven if she's not related to them?"
"They would not. Perhaps if you had been in Slytherin - my son Orion is a prefect there - but you are not. Nonetheless, you have my assurance that I, personally, will protect Miss Darkholme as I would any student under my care."
"Um, is there a way to tell if I'm related without taking my hair?"
"Yes, though it will take longer. Then again, the threat does not seem to be immediate, so I see no difficulty in that."
Charles was surprised at Professor Black's expression - almost paternal, and not in the way that Kurt Marko had been, controlling and harsh. Instead, he seemed almost fond of Raven. Letting his thoughts lean out towards the Professor, Charles tried to feel anything negative: there was anger, definitely, but it was not directed towards Raven. He couldn't find anything more clearly; like many wizards, his thoughts were locked tidily away. A mirror on the Professor's desk flashed in Charles' eyes and broke his train of thought.
"Raven, should we find out?"
Raven knelt up on her chair and whispered in Charles' ear. "But you're my family. If I'm related to them will you still be my family?"
Charles hugged her. "Of course I will! I would still be your brother even if you were related to a weasel and a rhinoceros."
Raven giggled, punched him in the arm with her hard fist and turned to Professor Black. "Okay! Let's do that! Do you need my help?"
"Excellent. No, not at present - a potion will need to be brewed. I will send a message to you when it is ready."
"Thank you, Professor!"
He waved his hand dismissively and Zenobia shooed Charles and Raven towards the door and down the narrow stairs.
Zenobia took them through the classroom and into the corridor before taking a deep breath. "All right. Charles, I'm going to take Raven to the dorm now so she can clean up before dinner. You head off to your House and tell one of your prefects when you get there, okay?"
Raven looked up at Zenobia. "Am I really in danger?"
"Well, Professor Black isn't actually a Seer, but he is supposed to be very good with Divination. I'm doing my NEWT in Divination next year, and I can tell you that it's not a precise science, not like Potions or Charms. So yes, you will be in danger, but it might not be until you're forty."
Raven and Charles both giggled at that idea, and Charles gave Raven another hug before hurrying to Ravenclaw Tower to collect his satchel - he wanted to go straight on to the library after dinner, without running all the way back up here.
Moira, Hank and Amelia were waiting for him.
"Is Raven hurt?" Moira was genuinely worried.
"She's fine - Professor Black frightened her but it's all sorted out now. I don't think he meant to, but he is quite scary." Charles didn't want to spread the idea of Raven being in danger all over the school: what if the danger came from people knowing that she might be valuable to Grindelwald?
"Good." Amelia was very firm. "I've heard he's a mean old man."
"Amelia! He's a professor!" Hank was appalled, though he didn't disagree.
"All the more reason not to be mean," she replied, and the two of them began arguing, not an unfamiliar sight. Charles drew Moira aside.
"Actually, it was a bit weird, and it's sort of to do with your inheritance project."
"Really? Professor Black heard about that?"
"Oh, no, not at all. But he told me that Grindelwald had been really interested in working out which children were wizards, and children like Raven who showed magical abilities earlier would help him. And then he'd steal them."
"Not unless he can find out how magic is inherited," Moira corrected, crossly. "Stealing children with blue eyes won't teach you where blue eyes come from. Then again…" She trailed off in thought.
Charles tried to follow her. "If he did have some way to tell, that could work."
Moira nodded. "But no-one's ever been able to invent a way. Well, that's not exactly true: Hogwarts has a magical quill that writes the names of wizards and witches as they're born, but that's old magic and no-one understands how it works, now. The only other magical school that has one is Tripoli, and theirs is even older."
"So there is some way, even if we don't know what it is! Why does it matter so much?"
Moira cast Charles a look that obviously meant she thought he was an idiot. "You really didn't get to hear much in America, did you? Grindelwald thought wizards should rule over Muggles -"
"Yes, everyone knows that."
"And by 'rule over' he meant 'enslave and kill'. He killed hundreds, maybe thousands of people. At least a hundred wizards who opposed him, too."
Charles' eyes opened very wide. "I know why this is important, then. If Grindelwald could work out where the Muggle-born wizards come from, he can kill the rest of the Muggles."
"Oh, no! Even after Professor Dumbledore defeated Grindelwald, there were rumours that most of his followers had survived, and only a few of them were arrested and imprisoned. My dad said that everyone wanted to put it behind them and move on." Moira made a face. "I think that people who do things that bad should be locked up."
"Me too," Charles agreed.
"We need to find out as much as we can about Grindelwald's followers so that we can watch out for them. Would Professor Black will help?"
Charles shifted uncomfortably. "He doesn't think much of Grindelwald. But it sounds like most of his interest in Raven is that she might be a Black and family is very important to him."
"The Blacks are rather notorious for marrying their cousins," Moira agreed. "And the funny thing is, nobody can trace their family further than the Founders anyway: there wasn't really a community in Britain before that, and no-one really kept records of who was a wizard and who wasn't. The whole idea about blood being pure is just ridiculous in light of evolution."
Filius approached and gave both of them a prod towards the door. "Moira, Charles, you're going to miss out on dinner." He continued his round of extracting Ravenclaws from their books and sending them on downstairs, and Charles joined the crowd.
After dinner, Charles caught up with Raven. "You're feeling all right?"
"Oh yes, I'm fine! Don't worry so much, Charles."
"Do you want to come to the library? Moira and I are going to find out about Grindelwald's followers."
One of Raven's friends, Mariko, waved at her from the door.
"No, one of the Third Years is teaching us knitting with magic! Hufflepuff is going to send five hundred scarves to refugees in Europe! And we can make the wool extra warm, and any colour!"
"Okay! Hufflepuff seems to have a lot more House activities than Ravenclaw." Charles would have quite liked to learn magical knitting, but it didn't seem to be on offer in his House.
Raven punched him gently. "Don't be sad! You've got a million books to catch up on!" She ran off to join Mariko, taking her hand and running off towards her House. Moira had already headed off to the library, so Charles went to join her.
Moira was chatting with the catalogue through its hearing trumpet. "Do you have newspapers as well? The library in Ullapool keeps all the old newspapers, but they're Muggle newspapers, of course. Well, if you have newspapers, I want to read about the followers of Grindelwald, please."
"I suppose there's not going to be much in the way of books about Grindelwald, yet," Charles said as they waited for the catalogue to spit out directions.
"We've got a class called History of Magic later this week - maybe the professor there will tell us more?" The card popped out of the slot and Moira took it. The writing was tiny and densely packed with dates and page numbers, but at the top were directions. They followed them up a flight of stairs that were as steep as a ladder, to a balcony containing a row of large scrolls tied with ribbon. The handles of the scrolls were stamped with The Daily Prophet and each was dated with a six month period.
It took Charles and Moira's combined efforts to lift it off the shelf and onto a long desk nearby, which had a notch at one end to hold the outer staff of the scroll. Once they had rolled it out, though, it turned out to be a long ribbon of all the front pages stuck together, starting from the first of July and running to the thirty-first of December.
"We can only see the front page? That's mostly headline!" Charles complained.
"I don't think the catalogue card would say 'page 6' if there wasn't a page 6." Moira pursed her lips and unrolled the scroll to 20th July 1946. Charles touched the page and was surprised to find that it wasn't smooth, but the rough texture of rationed newspaper, and he could turn the page. They flicked through to page 6, where there was half a page with pictures of wizards with a short paragraph underneath each. Some of them were pictures of dead people, but many were moving around in their photos, glaring at the camera or trying to turn their faces away. Others were perfectly calm.
Moira took out a small notepad and a pencil. "I suppose what we need to work out is who isn't locked up or dead. That's Grindelwald at the top, so let's move down from there."
They started noting down names and quickly noticed something rather odd. Almost a third of the people on the page had not been convicted: they had not even been tried. Even a few of those who had been tried had not been convicted. Moira recorded the names, then she and Charles unrolled the scroll further to the next reference on the catalogue card, 10th October. Just as they did, they heard someone coming up the stairs. It wouldn't be possible to hide what they were doing in time - the scroll was just too enormous - so Moira quickly put away her notepad and they flicked forward a few days.
Charles relaxed again when it turned out to be Erik coming up the stairs.
"Erik! Hello! How did you find us all the way over here?"
Erik smiled. "I asked the card catalogue. Hello, Moira."
"Hi! I've been meaning to ask you: that potion you and Armando made in class this morning went bright green, but it still worked. Why?"
"You'd have to ask Professor Slughorn - as far as I could tell, we followed the instructions. Anyway, you and Hank got the house points for best potion."
Charles cleared his throat. "Actually, I'm glad to see you, Erik. Something rather alarming happened this afternoon and you have good ideas. You might be able to help us with it."
Erik was immediately alert, his wand-arm twitching slightly. "What happened? How's Raven?"
"She's fine," Moira answered.
"Remember Professor Black, who spoke to her at the station? They had tea and talked about metamorphmagi, and he said she's in danger."
"From one of Grindelwald's followers," Moira added, "Though we have no idea how or when. Apparently - Erik, are you all right?"
Erik had turned dead white for a moment, then blood rushed into his face. "How does Professor Black know this?" he whispered, his voice hoarse.
"He's the Divination teacher. Zenobia Smith, she's a Hufflepuff prefect, she said that he's not a Seer but he reads omens. Does that make sense to you?"
"It does to me," Moira agreed.
Erik grabbed Charles by the arm and pulled him away from Moira, to the other end of the balcony. Charles tried to be manly about it, but Erik's grip really hurt.
"Ow, let go of me!"
Erik didn't until they were as far away from the rather cranky-looking Moira as they could get without jumping down to the floor below. "Can you trust her?" he whispered, his voice still rough.
Charles was about to complain, but then he caught a glimpse of Erik's face: he was absolutely terrified, and no matter how hard he tried to hide it, he couldn't. "Moira? Or Raven?"
"Moira."
"She promised not to tell anyone about our investigation, and I believe her. Professor Black said that Grindelwald's allies were very interested in studying children who manifested magic early. Moira is interested in inheritance and family trees, so I requested her help working out who would want to hurt Raven and why."
"It's true, and one of Grindelwald's followers is coming here. To Hogwarts." Erik had steadied himself, but Charles could see the whites all around his eyes, as if he was about to panic at any moment.
"We can trust Moira, and she was in Scotland during the war so she knows more about it that I do. You were in Ireland?" Charles started walking over to where Moira waited impatiently.
Erik followed. "No. I was in Germany."
"Have you sorted out your secret boy problems?" Moira snapped. She'd turned the newspaper scroll to the issue they'd been about to read before Erik interrupted them.
"I've been told not to tell anyone about this. By Dumbledore." Erik was deadly serious, and both Moira and Charles listened intently. "You have to promise that you won't tell anyone else unless we all agree on it."
"I promise," Charles said immediately.
Moira thought about it for a moment. "If someone's in immediate danger, can we tell Dumbledore?"
Erik nodded. "If it's really important, Dumbledore should be told."
"Then I promise."
Erik stared at the newspaper, open to the page with three men and two women being given medals by an elderly witch. He pointed to the one on the far left, a handsome older man with a broad smile. "That is Sebastian Shaw, also known as Klaus Schmidt. He's a wizard, but he worked with the Nazis so that he could get access to children in the concentration camps."
Charles had heard about camps where thousands and thousands of people had been killed, but he wasn't aware of the details - his mother had objected to having Muggle news in the house. He didn't dare ask where Erik's family was.
"It would have to be Muggle-born children," Moira added. "Wizarding children were evacuated as soon as possible - a few were killed in skirmishes with Grindelwald's forces, but I don't think they went into camps."
Erik looked as if he wanted to draw his wand, but didn't. "They got out everyone they could, but then there were the Jewish and Gypsy children that hadn't been identified as wizards or witches yet. No-one rescued us. Dumbledore said Grindelwald watched the camps closely for Jewish wizards coming to help the Muggle Jews, and those who did were all killed." His face was entirely blank now, as if he was recounting things that happened to other people. "Everyone in the camps was very weak and sick, so most likely many children died before Shaw found them. Dumbledore said that Shaw found a few and took them to his laboratory, then eventually released them with powerful Memory Charms taking away what happened in that time. That's what he's getting the medal for in this photograph - he claimed he found them and saved them from the Muggles."
"So how does Dumbledore know what happened?" Charles asked, his stomach sinking.
"Because the last child Shaw experimented on was me. I'm not sure what he was trying to do - he saw me magically pull down a gate when they separated me from my parents, then he tried to make me release magic at his command. It didn't work very well, but he kept trying."
"But he didn't have the chance to alter your memory?"
"Dumbledore thinks he might have tried, but Shaw was in a big hurry with the camp closing down and the Russians coming - they have witches all over the place - and it wasn't very thorough. When Dumbledore found me in the DP camp later, it had pretty much unravelled." Erik shrugged. "Anyway, Dumbledore wants to make Shaw face justice but people think he's a hero. Dumbledore is luring him to Hogwarts to force the memories out of him so they can prosecute him and send him to Azkaban forever. He hasn't accepted yet, but Dumbledore is sure he will."
"It all fits together," Moira nodded. "Raven has had magical abilities from a very early age, and much stronger than most underage wizards. Most metamorphmagi belong to powerful old families such as the Blacks and Shaw wouldn't dare go near them. Raven doesn't."
Charles put a hand on Erik's arm. "What are you supposed to do when Shaw is here? Isn't he going to notice you?"
"Dumbledore said he'll cast a charm to prevent Shaw hearing my name by accident, and I'll stay out of the way."
Moira frowned. "That doesn't sound like a very good plan. If it was my plan, I'd send you away from Hogwarts to make sure you were safe. You had somewhere to live in Ireland?"
"Dumbledore sent me there to learn English and so I'd get to go to Hogwarts. I suppose I could go back if I needed to. But I'm sure that's not Dumbledore's real plan." Erik spoke quite slowly, working out his theory as he spoke. "Maybe he's going to want me to confront Shaw or something, so that Dumbledore can get the right memories out of his head. So he has to have me there when he springs his trap. Otherwise Shaw might be thinking about something else, his dinner or the weather or whatever it might be. I don't know how memory reading works, but I don't think Shaw would have experiments on the brain all the time."
"But what about Raven?" Charles was confused. "Shaw obviously wants to appear respectable - he's not just going to run in and kidnap her."
Moira poked at her notepad uncomfortably. "There's plenty of spells that make you obey someone else. And, with Dark Magic, there's spells that make you want to obey someone else. He could easily enchant Raven to make her want to go with him."
Charles could feel Erik shudder slightly, and took his hand, just for a moment. "The thing about magic, though, is that anything short of death can be undone. If there's a spell, there's a counter-spell. We just have to find it."
"We all have Defence Against the Dark Arts tomorrow," Moira noted. "I'll ask the Professor how to research prevention and counter-spells."
"Won't she be suspicious?" Erik sounded tired.
"I'm a Ravenclaw. We're supposed to be interested in all kinds of random things. If you wanted to know a spell, that would be suspicious."
"Gryffindors aren't stupid. Well, not necessarily."
Both Moira and Charles laughed, and Moira said, "Of course not. It's not brains that gets you Sorted into Ravenclaw: it's the kind of things you want to discover and why you want to discover them. If a Gryffindor asked a that question, I'd presume they were planning to use the spell. My parents were both Gryffindors, and you're all very pragmatic people. And Charles might be the most talkative boy in Ravenclaw and both his siblings are in Hufflepuff, but he still came straight to the library to research his problem."
"That's true," Charles agreed, feeling a little better about not being in Hufflepuff.
"We're going to get thrown out of the library soon, so we should make a plan now." Erik pointed his wand at the newspaper, as if he was spearing Shaw with it.
Moira nodded. "Right. I'll ask about the spells in class tomorrow. Charles, you warn Raven to stay away from visitors. Should you tell her about Shaw?"
"You shouldn't. Dumbledore told me to keep this a secret, and while I trust you, I don't trust Raven."
"She's a good girl! She's very loyal and she doesn't lie." Charles protested.
"She can't keep her mouth shut. She told me all about herself within a few minutes of meeting her. And you should keep a better eye on her - you just left her with me at Kings Cross Station, and you didn't know if I was a good person or not."
Charles couldn't argue with that, but he tried anyway. "Actually, I sort of have a magical ability myself. I can sometimes see, well, not what people's thoughts but general impressions about them. My stepfather said it's a skill called Legilimency. It's not very common, and I can't do it very well, but it's what Aurors use to interrogate people. So I knew you wouldn't hurt her."
"Would you pick up the thoughts of someone who was going to hurt her?" Erik sounded very interested as he helped Moira roll up the heavy scroll. "Grindelwald never made it to the British Isles but that doesn't mean he doesn't have sympathisers here."
"If the thoughts were strong and specific enough, and if I can concentrate. Maybe I can try at breakfast tomorrow, if I can get a quiet spot?"
"We'll both look out for you, if you need to close your eyes or something." Moira promised.
The bell for the First Years rang and they headed for the steep stairs down from the balcony, splitting up to go to their respective dorms.
"See you in class tomorrow," Charles called to Erik as they went to their separate staircases, and Erik waved back, looking almost cheerful, if exhausted.
On to Chapter 5
This entry was originally posted at http://lilacsigil.dreamwidth.org/90949.html - comments are welcome at either location.