Untitled Ravenclaw Story

(c)2005 by Josh Cohen. May not be reprinted except for personal use. JK Rowling owns the Potterverse; I\'m just here to play.

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YEAR THREE: TIME PASSES

Warning: No sex in this chapter. Sorry.

“Mr. Goldman?”

I turned around in the corridor and saw Professor Dumbledore half-waving in my direction. I went back to meet him halfway. “Yes, Professor?”

He handed me a folded letter. “You are on your way to Muggle Studies?”

“Yes, Professor.”

“Good. If you would bring this to Professor Stein, I would be grateful.”

I nodded. “Will there be anything else, Professor?”

He winked at me. “Lighten up a bit, David.”

“Um. Yes. All right, then.”

Dumbledore walked back the way he’d come; I continued down the corridor to Muggle Studies.

But slowly. So I could examine the letter.

This wasn’t the first time I’d been asked to carry post to one of the professors. In fact, many students were asked to deliver things in passing. But it was the first time I’d felt wards holding the letter closed. Just simple ones, really; wards that no one without a full magical education should be able to safely break.

I had more trouble with the sealing wax, eventually resorting to a Warming Charm to get the wax to the consistency of freshly-chewed chewing gum before I bent it back and carefully unfolded the letter.

Madam Stein:

It is with great pleasure that we invite you to join us at the twenty-five year reunion of the 1969 graduating class from Saint Augustine’s Magical Academy.

It went on for some time about locations, times, dates, and so forth, but none of that mattered. I had the first bit of information I needed. I knew where Aunt Natalie had gone to school.

Now I just had to find out why her witching status had been kept a secret.

I resealed the letter, reset the wards, and walked quickly to Professor Stein’s classroom to deliver it.

After Muggle Studies, I went to the library and found the latest Magical Education Monthly. At the end of it was a list of all the articles from the previous twelve months, and a bit of digging in the magazine rack brought me to last July’s issue.

The one with a piece on Saint Augustine’s Magical Academy.

As I read it, I started to understand why I hadn’t been told.

Saint Augustine’s specialized in the Dark Arts. Specifically, learning how to use them so that students could learn to defend against them. If the article was telling the truth, Aunt Natalie knew – and had used – Unforgivable Curses.

After dinner, I went to Aunt Natalie. She was in her office, grading papers from one of her fifth-year classes.

“Ah, David,” she said. “Come in. Have a seat.”

I closed the door and slid into a plain wooden chair in front of her desk. “Hi. How are things?”

“Good enough.” She set aside her quill and the essay she was grading before sliding a small biscuit tin in my direction. “Want one?”

“No, thank you. Just ate.”

“Ah.” She popped one into her mouth and moved the tin out of the way. “So, what’s on your mind?”

I decided the best way would be to come out and say it. Aunt Natalie had never appreciated prevaricating about the bush. “Why didn’t Mum and Da want me to know you went to Saint Augustine’s?”

I can’t say she appeared shocked. “That was their decision, David. Not mine.” I thought more of her for not trying to deny it. “If they’d listened to me, you might be there right now as well.”

“What? Why?”

Aunt Natalie took her wand out of the pen cup she’d had it in and cast a quick spell on the door, followed by a silencing spell. “I’ll tell you, but you must promise that what I do tell you never leaves this room.”

“All right, fine. I’d just really like to know.”

As you probably know, your grandfather was a German expatriate wizard who left just before World War II with his parents. Even at his young age, he was still working within Germany’s magical intelligence branch, designing new spells and new magical weapons. He was a prodigy.

He was also upset when his parents – your great-grandparents – pulled him out of the life he enjoyed and brought him to England. But what bothered him more was that, in England, there were more restrictions on the Dark Arts. Your grandfather ran away several times, and because his parents were a muggle and a squib, it wasn’t all that easy to find him, but they did. They tried all sorts of ways to get him to conform to the rules of England’s wizarding community, but he resisted. Finally, when he was seventeen and of age, he left for good.

It is believed, but not known for certain, that he was a contemporary of He Who Must Not Be Named.

In any case, during the forties, your grandfather met your grandmother, and they stayed together for twenty years. I was born in ’52, as you know, and your mother was born in 1960. Dad – your grandfather – kept much of his Dark Arts secret from her, and from us, but he did do enough to convince your grandmother that I should go to Saint Augustine’s. I think he was hoping that I would follow in his footsteps.

But he died just after I started there. I had already made some friends and fought bitterly with your grandmother to avoid coming home. As I continued through school, I started to realize that the value system at Saint Augustine’s was very different from the value system your grandmother had instilled in me. I also learned about some of my father’s exploits at school.

When I came home after my fourth year, I sat down with my mother and, using what little Legilimency I knew, I uncovered some of the memories that your grandfather had tried to erase. It was enough to start a virtual avalanche of them, and that’s when I learned all of this.

We went to the Ministry and spoke to an Auror Advisor. He recommended that I stay at Saint Augustine’s and complete my training. After I finished schooling, I returned here to go to Oxford, but some sort of back-room deal was made for me to return to America and marry another alumnus of Saint Augustine’s.

The official story is that I divorced him a few years later, but that’s not true. Actually, I was forced to kill him. He was doing unspeakable things to wizarding families in America, trying to prevent them from having healthy children so that only Dark wizards and witches would remain. I stayed in America for years after that, trying to undo the damage he’d done, and it was only recently that the Magical Bureau of Investigation allowed me to hand in my badge and return home to England.

“And that’s why I’m here. Professor Dumbledore heard about my return and wanted to bring me on as a teacher because he knew I’d spent a lot of time dealing not only with witches and wizards but also with muggles in my time at the MBI.”

I was speechless.

“Oh, come on, David. Say something. You finally know the truth, and isn’t that what you wanted all along?”

“I…” I swallowed. “You just told me that I’m descended from an extremely-powerful Dark wizard. That is not what I had in mind.”

She reached across the desk and laid her warm hand over mine. “Yes, I realize that. But you’re not a Dark wizard. You’re not even slightly dark. Your mother went to Hogwarts, and Professor Dumbledore took great care in teaching and advising her about the Dark Arts. Your father’s family has worked for the side of light for as far back as we can trace.” Her blue eyes deepened, growing warmer. “David, you will never turn to the Dark. I have faith in you.”

But I had to turn away. I had to pull my hand away. “I wish I did.”

“Oh, David, you’re still young. You’re still feeling your way along. But you’re a good person, and I know you’ll turn out just as good as your parents.”

I tried an experimental smile. “I hope so.”

“I know so.”

But later that night, I couldn’t concentrate on my Arithmancy diagrams as Hermione and I sat in the library, working together on our assignments.

Eventually, I had to put my quill down. “Hermione, can I ask you something?”

“Hmm?” She looked up and pushed her hair away from her face. “What?”

“Do you think it’s possible to be a slave to your destiny?”

“Well, I don’t know. What do you mean?”

“Like, for instance, if both your parents are Dark, are you going to be stuck Dark no matter how hard you try to fight it?”

She shrugged. “If you look at Malfoy, I suppose it’s conceivable. But a sample of one isn’t the best option.”

“Yeah, Malfoy’s a dodgy character, all right. But I mean, what if Ron’s parents had been Dark?”

Hermione actually laughed. “Be realistic. Can you imagine Molly Weasley as a Dark Witch?” She affected Mrs. Weasley’s tone of voice. “\'All right, now, I’m going to ask you one last time: where are the diamonds? Won’t tell me? All right, then; Scourgify!\'”

We both laughed again. “I see your point. But seriously. What about if it was Parvati and Padma, or Justin Finch-Fletchley? What if their parents had been Dark? Would it be a part of their makeup, or would they be able to overcome?”

Hermione smiled at me. “What are you so worried about, David? It’s not like your parents are Dark. You have nothing to worry about.”

I ached to tell someone, but Aunt Natalie had sworn me to secrecy. I could only shrug. “It’s just been… on my mind as of late, I guess.”

“Well, don’t worry about it. We have plenty of other things to get on our minds. Like this bloody probability tree. I’m at a complete loss as to where to turn next.”

I reached over and drew a couple of branches onto the tree we’d mocked up on a scrap piece of parchment. I managed to make it through the assignment on auto-pilot, but a good portion of my brain was stuck thinking about my own background.

I had been sleeping with the curtains drawn on a more-or-less regular basis these days. Tonight was no exception. I lay in bed, my hands behind my head, looking up at the draperies hanging over the top of the bedframe, thinking.

My grandfather had been a Dark wizard. My aunt had fought Dark wizards. My father had helped in the downfall of He Who Must Not Be Named. My mother had been watched carefully to ensure that she followed the proper path.

Darkness suffused my history. Why would I be any different?

I couldn’t get it out of my head. Even using the old pocketwatch to tune into Karen and Lauren as they made love wasn’t enough to get my mind back to normal things. Oh, it was exciting, but the whole time I was wondering what sort of wizards and witches were in their ancestry, and if they had the same propensity as I did to become Dark.

Shit.

For three more days, I stewed over this. Then, one Friday, after Defense Against the Dark Arts, I went to Professor Lupin and asked to speak to him about Dark history. He agreed, and we made an appointment for the next Thursday at 9:00.

I tend to get to places fairly early, so it was no surprise that I was knocking on Professor Lupin’s door at 8:45. I heard a vaguely-familiar sound coming from within, and then a muffled shout. Silver light burned out from under the door, and then I distinctly heard Lupin call out “Harry!”

I drew my wand and threw the door open, turning into a dueling stance, ready for anything.

Except for Professor Lupin sending what appeared to be a boggart back into a trunk and Harry Potter of all people leaning against a pillar, gasping for air.

“David, I believe you’re a bit early,” Lupin said calmly.

“Sorry, Professor. I heard shouting, and I thought… I thought…”

Lupin smiled guiltily. “Sorry about that. I should have cast a Silencing Charm so that wouldn’t happen. I was just tutoring Harry here. I assume you two have met.”

I nodded. “In the last match, at least.”

“Right. That.” Potter had the decency to look apologetic. “Look, Professor, we could just work on this more next week.”

Lupin’s eyes flicked from Potter to me and then back again. “All right,” he said. “I’ll see you in class, then.”

Potter holstered his wand – he seemed to keep it in his pants pocket – and left the office quickly, closing the door behind himself.

“All right, then, David. Have a seat.” He waved me over to a wooden armchair, and he sat in one a few feet from it. “What’s on your mind?”

As quickly and vaguely as possible, I outlined the problem.

Lupin’s kindly face creased into a smile. “David, I don’t think you have anything to worry about. When I was at Hogwarts, I was friends with two wizards from historically-Dark families, and they never showed me any sign that they would turn. In fact, my friend Peter Pettigrew died trying to stop one of You Know Who’s lieutenants.”

I let out a breath that I didn’t know I’d been holding. “Who was the other? Would I have heard of him?”

“Yes. He came from an ancient family known for producing pureblood Dark Wizards, including You Know Who’s second-in-command. But while I knew him, he seemed to be just a young man like myself, or Peter, or James Potter, who was also a friend of mine.” I must have made some sort of face, because Lupin tsked at me. “Really, you mustn’t allow your dislike of someone simply because of their publicity to override the fact that they might not be such a bad person. There’s nothing wrong with Harry Potter.”

“As you like, Professor.” I realized that I’d just been deflected. “Sir, who was the other? You said I’d know of him.”

Professor Lupin’s lips compressed into a thin line. “Yes, well. You would.

“It was Sirius Black.”

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This was a fairly short chapter, I know. But don\'t worry. The Fiona situation comes to a head -- in more ways than one -- in the next chapter.