A Matter of Black and White

DISCLAIMER: This story is based upon the works of JK Rowling. Anything you recognize is hers. I’m making no money off of this. I’m just having some fun adding my own little corner to the amazing world she has already created.

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CHAPTER 12—BACK TO THE ALLEY

A thin Scottish sunlight trickled into Aurora’s new chambers in Hogwarts castle on Saturday morning. Technically, the weather was less gray and drizzly here than in London, probably because there weren’t as many loose Dementors up in the sparsely populated north. All the same, though, the Highland sun seemed perpetually capped by a filmy caul of clouds which weakened its light and prevented it from ever heating the cold blocks of granite with which the ancient castle was built. Aurora had magicked the stone floors in her rooms into lush carpet, but the thick fibers still seemed to soak up a chill like they had in their pre-transfigured state. She pulled her set of optimistically cheery yellow curtains open to their widest, hoping to give the anemic sunlight its fullest chance at warming the room.

The broader beam of sunshine might not have made the floor warm enough to walk across barefoot, but it did cast a homey glow upon the room. Her chambers weren’t as gilded as even a broom closet at Beauxbatons, but, in this morning light, they did at least seem livable. The space was large and impeccably clean—a certain improvement upon her cramped and cobwebby rooms at the Leaky Cauldron. The furnishings that had come with the place had required few alterations. They weren’t exactly new, but they were over-stuffed and comfortable—Albus’s doing, no doubt. If only this place weren’t so cold….

Aurora was contemplating how best to heat her chambers, short of positioning a fire-breathing dragon outside her window, when she heard a knock at the door. Wondering who could want her on a Saturday morning, she wrapped a lacy shawl around herself and answered the door. She was met by Horace Slughorn in a paisley dressing gown and matching silk pajamas.

“Horace!” she said in surprise, eyeing the velvet slippers on his feet. “Is everything alright?”

The old man’s mustache twitched under a wide smile. “Yes, of course. I just thought you might like some breakfast.”

“Breakfast?” she asked in confusion. “Well, I was about to head down to the Great Hall shortly.”

With a wave of his manicured hand, he said, “Rubbish. What I’ve brought is far better.”

“What you’ve brought?”

Horace lifted a wicker basket. “A former student of mine is the Curator of Magical Paintings at the Louvre. Every Saturday, she owls me fresh croissants from a fabulous little bakery on the Boulevard Berthier. I thought if anyone here could enjoy them as much as I do, it would be you.”

The idea of tearing into fresh croissants straight from Paris while up in the Scottish highlands with Hogwarts’ silk-pajamaed Potions professor was a little too much for a Saturday morning. “Oh, I couldn’t eat your croissants….”

“Nonsense,” he tutted and cracked open the basket, allowing the rich aroma of buttery pastry to waft into the room. “It’s a heat-sealed container. They’re still hot from the oven.”

Oh, that really wasn’t fair. “Well, maybe just one.”

She opened the door wider and allowed him inside, where he went immediately for the fireplace and threw a pinch of Floo Powder from the mantle into the flames. “The kitchens,” he said and popped his head inside. To a house-elf somewhere in the belly of the castle, he instructed, “Please deliver my breakfast to Professor Bernard’s parlor.”

No sooner had Horace removed his round head from the flames than a tea-toweled house-elf popped into the room, carrying a silver tray of jams, fresh pineapple and strawberries, and piping hot coffee. Oddness of her breakfasting companion aside, it didn’t seem a bad way to start a morning.

“I’m assuming you don’t take butter,” Horace said, once the house-elf had popped back to the kitchens and they were tearing into the crescent-shaped rolls. “I myself prefer them in the Parisian fashion.”

One could tell a lot about a man according to the way he ate his bread. His croissants were light, golden, and fresh-baked—he obviously had good taste. What he put on his bread, however, that was the real test of character. Of course, Aurora knew Parisians who thought that buttering a croissant was close to sacrilege, but she knew even more non-French individuals who thought so. Inevitably, such people lorded their knowledge of “authentic” French culture over their less worldly acquaintances. Such individuals, however, usually hadn’t spent seven years at Beauxbatons, where plenty of students and teachers enjoyed a little pat of unsalted butter with their weekend croissants. As far as Aurora was concerned, people could do whatever they wanted with their breakfasts, so long as it made them happy. Fortunately, though, she didn’t fall into the buttered croissant camp unless the bread was exceptionally bad, which was hardly the case here. These little baked bits of heaven practically melted in the mouth.

“Mmm, these croissants are perfect as they are,” she answered, savoring the sinfully rich flavor. “You said a former student sends them? Was she a member of your, um, club?

“Ah, yes, Daphne Meriwether was most definitely in the Slug Club. Those were wonderful years for the Club; the Muses were at their finest. We had our Euterpe—the pan-flutist Sonia Trillney; our Terpsichore—that delightful little Maypole dancer Aislynn Blair; and our Erato—Necia Lucy—who just came out with another titillating volume of sonnets. Have you seen it? It’s called Amorentia in My Veins. I gave her that title myself”

Aurora had, in fact, seen the book of poetry. It had been behind the counter at Flourish and Blotts, along with a collection of other items considered to risqué for general display. This meant, of course, that the book was selling like Butterbeer on a hot summer day. Popularity aside, though, she could hardly imagine sharing what appeared to be highly erotic writing with any of her professors from Beauxbatons. Hypocritical it might be, now that she was a teacher, but it was difficult to think of her former professors as sexual beings, and she still wasn’t quite yet over the idea of Madame Maxime having an affair with Hagrid. Trying to shake that thought from her mind, she asked, “What exactly is it that you do in the Slug Club?”

Horace forked a ripe chunk of pineapple. “Oh, teas, socials, the like,” he answered before biting into the juicy yellow fruit.

Aurora certainly hoped that Horace showed up in more than just his pajamas for the Slug Club socials. “So you don’t do any, um, projects?” Translation: Don’t you do anything worthwhile?

“Oh, I consider it a mentoring program. I give them career advice; they get to make connections, get to know the right people. You know, I like to groom all kinds of talent, but you can be as powerful as Merlin himself and you won’t be more than a Newt if you don’t have any social sense.” He chewed on some more pineapple, his mustache bobbing in whiskered waves. “Now you, my dear, I would have invited you into the Slug Club the moment you were Sorted—charming, talented, and, if you don’t mind me saying so, quite lovely.”

Aurora blushed and wondered if looks were always a prerequisite for membership in the Slug Club. If she were a Head of House, she would keep a very close eye on whatever girls were invited to join.

“You must have all kinds of talents, I suppose, if you’ve come to us from Das Institut.” He patted some pineapple juice out of his mustache with his napkin. “You’re a Runic Mistress, I’m assuming?”

“Yes, I got my certificate from Das Institut and was then invited to stay on to teach and research.”

“Well, well. You must have done well at Beauxbatons. Did you win any prizes?”

“Oh, a few.”

If Horace noticed Aurora’s discomfort at his prying, he didn’t seem to care. “Well, don’t be modest. What in?”

Aurora took a sip of her coffee. “Well, Runes…and History…and Magical Languages of the World.”

Horace smiled widely. “Marvelous, a linguist! What do you speak?”

“Oh, Gobbledegook, some Mermish, ancient Hebrew and Egyptian, most of the modern European languages….”

Horace Slughorn, Keeper of Talents, lit up at this lengthy list. “Most impressive! It’s no wonder you’re a Holdahexe. I must say, I’ve never met one before. I have some close personal acquaintances who work in the Department of Magical Antiquities who would be delighted to meet you.”

Aurora nodded politely and helped herself to another croissant. This line of interrogation made her feel as if Horace were accumulating a list of credentials that he could drop behind her name when he identified her as a “close personal acquaintance.” She decided then and there that she wouldn’t like to have her face on a Chocolate Frog card. She didn’t like being collected.

“What exactly have you been researching lately?” he asked, a little web of affluent connections already springing up before his eyes. “I would love to see some of it.”

Now that wasn’t such a bad idea. Aurora was getting increasingly worried that Horace was going to start quizzing her on her bloodlines as well in the hopes of unearthing some more persons of interest. Sending him off with a pile of her old papers seemed a convenient way of dodging that uncomfortable moment. “My last paper was on runic symbology. It won a prize at the International Rebus and Rune Conference,” she added tantalizingly. “Just a moment, I’ll get it for you.”

Aurora went into her bedroom, where the remainder of her unpacked luggage sat waiting for her attention. Funny, hadn’t she put those papers in the little red trunk? It was no where to be seen. She went out into the living room, certain that it must be in there. She had already gotten this room neatly arranged, however, and the trunk was quite obviously nowhere in sight, nor was it in either her cloak or linen closets. She Flooed the house-elves downstairs to ask if they had stored any of her belongings, but they assured her that they had brought everything in the carriage up to her chambers. That left one of two places that her trunk could be—all the way back in a dusty corner of the Leaky Cauldron or somewhere along the Magical Railway System. Given her luggage-hurling accident with Lilitu on Platform 9 ¾ and her subsequent rush to board the train, the latter seemed more likely. Unfortunately, this also meant that her belongings were probably stowed somewhere like the women’s lavatory in the Croydon train station.

“I’m sure your trunk will show up somewhere,” Horace assured her, pouring himself another cup of coffee. “Sit back down and don’t worry about it. Why don’t you tell me how a successful witch of the world like yourself has ended up here at Hogwarts?” He patted his mustache with a napkin fastidiously. “Surely there must be a few disappointed young gentlemen in Switzerland who were sad to see you go?”

Alright, that did it. It was officially time for breakfast to end. “I think I should head to London this morning. I don’t know what I’d do if I lost those papers.”

“But surely there are additional copies,” Horace objected.

“Das Institut has duplicates, but trying to get anything out of their archives would be like trying to break into Gringotts.” Honestly, it was probably more on par with infiltrating one of the goblins’ less subterranean vaults, but Horace didn’t need to know that. “The sooner I start searching, the better the chance that my things won’t be floating in lost-and-found limbo.”

Within a few minutes, she had breakfast cleared away and Horace ushered out of her rooms with assurances that she did not need an escort into the Big Bad City. Fortunately, returning to London was much easier than departing from it. Without any luggage, she was able to Apparate easily to Platform 9 ¾. What was not so easy was getting any closer to finding her trunk. It took five minutes of walking up and down the empty platform to find a janitor-elf who could inform her that Customer Services was located at Platform 1/10. It took another twenty minutes to actually find the platform, which seemed as hidden from wizarding customers as it was from Muggle ones. After a fifteen minute wait behind a befuddled old wizard who wanted timetables for seemingly every line in Great Britain, she was informed that lost articles were handled by a separate office downstairs.

“Downstairs” consisted of a damp, goblin-worthy subterranean cavern somewhere below the Picadilly line, which, without the convenience of a Muggle escalator, took twenty more minutes to reach. The Office of Lost and Found Items, Persons, and Familiars was a hoard of misplaced gloves and umbrellas, and it even housed a yipping Crup that had worn a rutted circle in the floor from chasing its forked tail. Possibly retrieving anything from this treasure trove required filling out nine forms and getting stamps from seven different officials, after which she was finally told that nothing matching her trunk’s description had been turned in since Monday but that, if she would care to fill out three more forms, they could contact her if anything showed up.

It was a long climb back up to ground level. Apparently someone thought all those mismatched gloves were so priceless that they required Anti-Apparition wards for the area. In retrospect, it was probably good that she hadn’t recovered her luggage, because the office and the steep passage that connected it to the above-ground world were probably so excessively warded that someone had set Anti-Levitation Charms as well.

Once she had ascended to daylight, out of breath and feeling like her legs were several-ton steam engines minus the steam, it took all the energy she had left to manage a short-distance Apparition. This took her to the Leaky Cauldron, where there seemed one last slim chance of finding her belongings. Not surprisingly, though, the inn’s proprietor simply gave her a dull look and told her that nothing had been found in her room.

Still exhausted from her visit to King’s Cross Station’s Office of Lost and Found, she paused for an unappetizing Leaky Cauldron lunch of pea soup and took stock of the items she had almost certainly lost forever. Besides her research, the trunk had contained her stationery set, her household potions kit, and a few miscellaneous books. Of course, she would have to write to Das Institut for copies of her research right away, meaning that she would have to stop at Flourish and Blotts to get something to write with. Leaving half of her goopy, green soup in its bowl, she set out into Diagon Alley to replace her lost possessions.

New stationery was easy enough. Scribbulus Everchanging Inks had a lovely assortment of quills and fine linen paper, all greatly discounted given the drop in business due to the current Death Eater madness. Slug & Jiggers Apothecary, however, had taken a different approach to its decrease in customers and seemed to have stopped restocking any merchandise besides a few dubious Protective Potions. The shop was all out of Jiggers’ Jumbo Home Brewing Kit, and she had to settle for the last of Slug’s Standard Set, which consisted of a measly collection of flobberworm parts and dried herbs—enough perhaps to brew some headache tonics or insect repellant. Well, at least she knew Horace would be delighted to lend her anything else she needed from the school cupboards.

After the apothecary, she decided to go to Flourish and Blotts on the off chance that they might carry any of the books she had lost. Walking down the street, though, she stopped short when she heard a gruff voice call her name.

“’Rora!” Hagril beamed at her. “What’er yeh doin’ here?”

Aurora smiled at the Hogwarts Gamekeeper, who seemed extra large in proportion to the three young people flanking him—Ron Weasley and his friends, Harry and Hermione. “Oh, I’m just replacing some odds and ends,” she explained. “One of my trunks got lost on the train. What about yourself?”

“Just helpin’ this lot get ready for school,” he said with an affectionate nod to the teenagers. “Harry, Ron, Hermione, I’d like yeh to meet yer new Runes Professor, ’Rora Bernard.” Bending down to their level, he whispered, “She’s come teh help out the Order.”

Aurora started and glanced nervously over her shoulder. “Hagrid!” she hissed warningly.

“S’pose I shouldn’ta said that,” he mumbled guiltily. “It’s alright, though,” he added with confidence. “These three are practically Order members already.”

Ron chuckled. “Guess Mum didn’t have to get so worked up about strangers after all.”

“Yeh already know each other?” Hagrid asked in confusion.

“Yeah,” Ron answered. “Fleur invited her home for dinner last week.”

No wonder Molly Weasley had been so upset with Fleur for bringing home guests unannounced. Aurora had stumbled upon a den of Order members. She wondered how many spy points she accumulated for that maneuver.

“It’s good to see you all again,” she said. “Ron, have you been to your brothers’ shop yet?”

“Not yet,” he said, looking eagerly down the street at the store lit up like a Filibuster Firework. “We’re saving the best for last.”

“Make sure you check out the Daydream Charms,” she advised him. “I can say that,” she added conspiratorily, “because you’re not in Runes. Now you, Hermione,” she said with a sly smile, “you should just stick to the Self-Inking Quills.”

Hermione gave her an all-too-solemn nod as if she would never dream of daydreaming through a class and would much rather spend her money making sure she could take a continuous stream of notes.

“And what about Ginny?” Aurora asked. “Is she here too?”

“She’s with Mum,” Ron explained. “They’re probably at Flourish and Blotts right now.”

“Fantastic. I was just headed there. Maybe I’ll run into them.” She was far more enthusiastic about mixing with Molly Weasley now that she better understood the reason behind her strange outbursts at their first meeting. She made her goodbyes to Hagrid, Ron, Hermione, and Harry and then headed off to the bookstore.

No sooner had she walked into Flourish and Blotts than she heard a shrill, very Weasley argument brewing.

“No, you do not need another book on Quidditch,” Aurora heard Molly Weasley saying firmly.

“But, Mu-um!” the teenage-girl whine of her daughter bleated. “I don’t need this day planner either. Why can’t I get this instead?”

“Because I do not want you going the way of your brothers. You need to give more time to your studies, not Quidditch.”

“But I need this book to make the Quidditch team this year,” Ginny protested.

“You’ve nothing to worry about, dear,” Molly responded with motherly confidence. “You already played last year.”

“But that was only because Umbridge kicked Harry off the team. I was only reserve. I want to be a regular player this year.”

“And I’m sure you will be, book or no,” Molly answered firmly, “what with Harry as Captain.”

Aurora did her best to shut the door silently behind her, not wanting to get drawn into yet another Weasley argument. The cowbell above her, however, seemed charmed to ring no matter how gently the door was settled back in its frame, and it jingled merrily in the almost deserted shop. Both Molly and Ginny instinctively looked toward the source of the sound.

“Aurora, dear!” the matriarch of the Weasley family cried, momentarily forgetting her disagreement with her daughter. (Aurora caught Ginny dropping her Quidditch book into the shopping basket and wondered just how long Molly’s forgetfulness would last.) “What are you doing here? I’d have thought you’d had enough of Diagon Alley after the last several weeks. I hope everything’s alright at Hogwarts?”

“Things are fine at school,” Aurora reassured her. “I just have to replace some things lost in the move. Your right, though, I certainly never expected to be back here so soon.”

“It’s dreadful what’s become of this place,” Molly said with a frown directed out the window toward the empty street lined with boarded up shops. A WANTED poster drifted idly along the pavement. “I understand why you didn’t enjoy your time here. I wish we had gotten everyone’s school supplies by mail order this year.”

“But Mum!” Ginny protested. “Then we couldn’t see Fred and George’s shop!”

“Don’t think I wouldn’t like them home too, what with the latest prisoner escapes.”

“Prisoner escapes?” Aurora asked.

“The Death Eaters are coming and going from Azkaban these days. The prison could have spaghetti for bars and it would be more secure.”

Well, that was good to know if this spy plan got bollixed and she was accidentally arrested.

Molly gestured to a rack behind Aurora. “See for yourself. It’s all right there in the Prophet.”

Aurora turned to face a series of black and white mug shots, each of a scowling witch or wizard in prison-striped robes. They were certainly not the sort of individuals one wanted to meet on a shopping excursion for The Standard Leaves of Herbology, Grade 5. Then Aurora spotted the photograph of someone she didn’t want to meet on a shopping trip or anywhere else. There, second from the right, was Antonin Dolohov—her godfather.

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AN: Many, many thanks to Trickie Woo for reviewing.

In case you haven’t noticed, Slughorn gives me the creeps.

Also, I just realized that my footnotes did not make it onto my AFF postings and have just added them. If you are interested in the translations of any of the previous passages in French, you might check them out. My apologies for my utter lack of mastery of the language. Aurora would probably give me a Troll if she were my French teacher. As it is, she has to suffer through me putting words into her polyglot mouth.

You might also have noticed that I’ve finally figured out how to add italics--thanks to theblackspot--meaning no more asterisks! I hope everyone is as excited about this as I am. Maybe some of you will show that excitement with some more reviews…please? Either way, thanks for reading.