Magic Theory

The Condiment Question

Professor Cavaille had asked Matthew to stay behind after class. He thought nothing of it at first. Perhaps she wanted to see how he was coming along in preparation for the Fall Play, or to get back to him about the extra credit he asked about despite it only being October.

He was very wrong. Now he wished he had not sat across from her as his classmates filed out. Matthew sat across Azalea with his shoulders slumped over. "So, what's going to happen?" he asked.

    "You know I can't say." The term was only a few days in, but Matthew felt ten years older. His teacher would not look at him, but simply continued grading papers as if she had not just told him hell was upon them. "You look upset."

    "You're leaving! Are you coming back?" His voice was higher than he would have liked.

    "I've foreseen two possible outcomes," she disclosed, "and neither has me coming back anytime soon." She set her quill in ink and folded her arms on the desk, finally looking at him. "Why does it matter to you so much?"

    "You knew it would matter," he tried to explain. "That's why you told me, right?"

    "Yes, but I still don't understand why you care." Professor Cavaille set her chin on her hand. She raised an eyebrow as he furrowed his. Why did he care? How could he not? She was his favorite professor, he considered her a mentor and a friend. She was really not much older than him. How could he just let her leave to fight a war and not care? Wars were for soldiers. They were for grown-ups. They were not for young, petite women. She often said herself that she still felt like a child. Azalea related to the students more than her own co-workers. She spent more time among his peers than her's.

    Matthew met her bright eyes. They were hazel, like the Frog Pond in the greenhouse. They were also impatient and fiery. She was ready to go, always ready for the future to be the present. "One of those outcomes... You die, don't you?" He could barely get it out. He had not dealt with death much in his short life, but to imagine it was too painful.

    She stared at him with sad eyes. "Does it matter? Why do you want to feel the sting of death before you should have to? Just don't worry about it. One day I will leave, and when I do, I just wanted someone to know what I've seen. I wanted to leave something behind."

    "Why leave it to me?" Matthew's hands felt shaky and his chest heavy.

    "You like to know things," Azalea said. "I want you to know things, but you should also show caution towards knowledge. Some power is to great to wield. Do you understand?" Matthew nodded, but still felt he had not been told the whole truth. "Good. Stay vigilant, Matthew. The troubles plaguing Europe are closer than you may think. You should go now." He knew the professor well enough to do as she said. Matthew stood and prepared to leave when she caught him at the door. "That Thunderbird girl... Interesting, isn't she? Someone like her only comes around once every decade... Maybe? If I were you, I'd be curious." Azalea continued on with grading papers.

    That was a strange thing to mention, thought Matthew as he walked out of the classroom. He adjusted his glasses as he went to the dining hall for lunch. They were only a month into school, but Professor Cavaille had told them on the first day of class that she would be leaving them with a substitute towards the end of the year. She had to return to England for personal reasons.

    Over the summer, he had taken to writing Azalea after he sent her questions about the homework she assigned. At one point he brought up what his father had mentioned about the dark tone the papers had recently taken. With her next letter came a copy of what he assumed was a British newspaper called The Daily Prophet. All her letter said was "Muggle= No-Maj."  He had not been aware of the atrocities consuming the UK. Generations of families were being extinguished, children were being slain, unwitting No-Majs tortured in their own homes all in the name of blood purity. This had hardly been mentioned in his father's favorite paper, The Sorcerer, The worst headline Matthew had seen in The Sorcerer was "War Rages in Europe," but it hadn't touched on the extensive torture and near genocide occurring. What was worse was the fact that the world's fate rested on a boy hardly older than Matthew.