Hurriedly, Arabella made her way down the hall, her brow furrowed and mind reeling. Beside her, Professor Dumbledore strode in his midnight blue robes, his long beard gently swaying from side to side. Behind his half-moon spectacles, merry eyes twinkled at her in reassurance.
"What will happen to him, sir?" she asked, slowing her pace as the Headmaster's office entrance came into view.
"Whatever Professor Dippet thinks is best, Arabella," the old man replied calmly. "He's a very understanding man."
She bit her lip, waiting impatiently as the staircase swivelled downwards after the head of Gryffindor House had murmured the password. "He's not going to be expelled, is he?"
"No, I don't think so," Dumbledore shook his head. "Perhaps your brother will be. . . . relieved. . . . of some of his privileges, with several months' worth of detention -- but no, I think not. You should have nothing to worry about, Miss Travers."
Together, they entered into Professor Dippet's study, an orderly room decorated with stacks of books and the odd roll of parchment. Arabella thought it a sad place, without any knick knacks of any sort like Dumbledore's small office.
At the large desk before several stained glass windows sat an ancient looking man, his thin shoulders hunched forward slightly, one frail hand resting atop the rune-covered pages of an open book. In front of him, she could make out Nikolai's untidy mess of brown hair; his posture was straight as a rod, with hands gripping tightly onto the edge of his chair.
The wizened old man lifted his head at the sound of visitors. He smiled, his thin lips pressing together into a tiny line under his wilting moustache. "Ah, Albus," he exclaimed abstractly. "And Miss Travers, I presume?" Arabella nodded. "Please, take a seat, both of you. We've much to discuss about Mr. Travers here."
Nikolai's eyes did not lift from the corner of the massive desk, where they trained intently with the purpose of avoiding contact with anybody else's. His sister noted the soot that covered his school robes, the gash that ran from the tip of his right eyebrow to his cheekbone, the blood and grime in his fingernails. She nudged him gently, but he still refused to meet her questioning gaze.
"Two students were found with excessive blood loss," Professor Dippet finally said, breaking the tense silence. "A brother and sister."
Arabella frowned. "But I'm fine, I didn't get into any scrapes --"
"Not you and Nikolai," Dippet interrupted her. "Miss Aenwyn Yaxley and her brother, Tantum."
Dumbledore rested his hand on his chin, absent-mindedly stroking his beard, deep in thought. "Were they found together, Armando?"
"No, Albus," he responded. "The girl suddenly started coughing up blood in the Slytherin common room, and the boy was found unconscious in a deserted seventh-floor corridor amidst rubble, but nothing was found to have been destroyed."
"Curious," Dumbledore commented. "It almost reminds me of --"
"How I was found," Nikolai finished, suddenly meeting his sister's wide eyes with shame. "We -- we didn't tell you. Didn't want to give you a scare."
Arabella glanced from his face to Dumbledore's, then Dippet's, and back to Nikolai. All lowered their eyes. "I. . . . I don't understand, Professor."
"In the autumn," the headmaster began, "your brother was admitted to the infirmary. Much like his friend, Mr. Yaxley, he had severe blood loss and was confused. It took months for him to recover his strength."
"Then the reports from Grindelwald's army, intercepted by the Ministry, came in," Dumbledore added gravely, lacing his skeletal fingers together. "They mentioned that your father had been discovered in a dreadful state, alone in an unused room covered in blood stains, pale and sickly. We monitored the reports carefully, listening for any further talk of your father.
"Your father, however, has not been as fortunate as Nikolai. He is ailing, bedridden. Should Grindelwald decide to relocate his forces, it is likely that your father would be left behind with all others being medically treated, captured, put on trial, and banished to Azkaban, where he would be too weak to survive any longer than maybe a month, at most.
"I've deduced that this curse, judging by the two known cases of its occurrence that we've thus far encountered, is performed on not one person, but two."
Nikolai closed his eyes, leaning back into his chair, nervously crossing his leg across his knee. "That's not possible, Professor."
"I'm afraid it is, Mr. Travers," Dumbledore said sombrely. "The target directly hit by the caster has a connection, one of the strongest there is, to the second victim -- a connection of blood, of love, of kinsmanship. By cursing one person with this spell, a family member is directly affected by the curse as well, no matter the distance."
Arabella's mind absorbed the new information slowly, continually reprocessing it. "But why would anybody target our fam--"
"Don't be dense," NIkolai snapped. "Don't you know who our father is? What he's done?"
"But what about the Yaxleys?" she asked softly, looking at her brother with a hurt expression; he ignored her, his chest rising and falling rapidly, fists clenched in his lap.
"We are still trying to work this out ourselves," Professor Dumbledore said with a sigh of defeat. "This is very Dark magic, I'm afraid. Whoever the perpetrator is shall be most severely punished by the Ministry -- if this spell ended up in the wrong hands, which it looks like it already has, then untold damage could be done across the wizarding world. You both are already in great danger."
Dippet rose from his seat, his chair scraping across the stone floor with the sound of nails on chalkboard. "Albus," he said sternly, his usually kind green eyes blazing with untold fire.
"They need to know, Armando," the Transfiguration teacher insisted quietly. "What kind of men would we be to hold back this kind of information from them, when their lives are at great risk, when the culprit is still lurking in the shadows, waiting to be caught?"
Arabella and Nikolai watched the argument between the two most revered professors at Hogwarts with different narratives unfolding in their eyes: hers, with alarm; his, with resentment.
"They need not be afraid," Dippet contended, as if the twins were not within earshot. "They are here at Hogwarts. What could possibly hurt them here?"
At that moment, Dumbledore forcefully pushed back his chair. "Need I remind you that there have been three attacks within these castle walls? Whoever is behind this is already at Hogwarts, be they student or staff. They're just as safe here as anywhere on earth."
The Headmaster settled back into his chair, resting his head in his hands, the rings on his fingers glinting in the candlelight. "I don't know what to do, Albus."
"That makes me feel so much better," Nikolai remarked loudly, folding his arms across his chest, lifting an eyebrow at Arabella's steely glare. "Especially after how you told me that I was perfectly safe last time. . . . but now I might die in my sleep. Or perhaps when I'm walking to class. Just the way I wanted to go, y'know -- on my way to fall asleep to Binns' rambling. There's no other way I'd rather kick the bloody bucket. Maybe I'll be like him, though -- not noticed that I died and just keep on attending all my lessons. That'd give everyone a right good scare, wouldn't it?"
An uncomfortable silence resonated within the study. Dippet's mouth twitched as if was trying to string along a scolding but couldn't find the right words; Dumbledore smiled to himself, but it wasn't his usual cheerful smile; Arabella gaped at her brother as if he had just sprouted antlers and begun speaking fluent Chinese.
Nikolai shrugged at all of them. "What?" he demanded, flicking a speck of dust off his shoulder with a slight frown. "This meeting has been very reassuring. Now I know to plan what my tombstone shall say, I can go ahead and order myself a nice casket -- heard those take months to come in if you want a proper one, they're so backlogged -- and I can finalise my last will and testament, trim Arabella out of it completely and donate to a worthy cause, like dragon breeding."
"Nik, that's been illegal since the Warlocks' Convention of 1709," Arabella muttered, aghast at his blatant scorn.
"Does it look like I care?" he inquired, reaching into his robes' pockets and pulling out a cigarette. "Light me up, will you?"
"Smoking is not permitted within Hogwarts!" Dippet exclaimed, his thin nostrils flaring.
Nikolai laughed as he pocketed his lighter, swinging his feet up so that they rested on the massive desk, blowing smoke in the Headmaster's direction. "Yeah, and neither is torturing people, but look at how well you enforce rules here."
Dumbledore bowed his head slightly, looking down at him with twinkling eyes. "I think it's about time that we head down for dinner. I'm famished."
"Excellent idea, Professor!" Nikolai grinned, discarding his cigarette on the floor carelessly. "I haven't had anything to eat since breakfast -- couldn't have lunch since I was called over here. Shame, it was rumoured that shepherd's pie was to be on the table."
Dippet sputtered indignantly at the still burning cigarette that was very near to a leg of his desk. "Mr. Travers!"
Nikolai disregarded his cries, sauntering through the door, only stopping to look back at his sister. "Aren't you coming? Or would you rather be stuck here all night with that senile toad?"
Arabella got up, walking to him swiftly. "Who are you?" she said with disgust, purposefully bumping into him.
"Nice seeing you too!" he called after her as she went down the stairs. "And would you put a good word in for me with that Hufflepuff friend of yours? She's rather fit."
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This chapter was really fun to write, oh my gosh. Hope you liked it! Vote and comment if you did :)
Today's Question: Why do you think Nikolai is acting so differently?
He's probably my favourite character, honestly. Cahill as well. Who are your favourites, now that we have a fair amount?
Thanks for reading,
-o