Albus Dumbledore groaned and peeled his face off the pages of the book he had fallen asleep against. He stretched his arms out, before rubbing the sleep out of his eyes and looking around his dormitory.
Well- he should have been looking around his dormitory. He was starting to become suspicious about that. The fourth year dormitory did not have so many books, or bookcases, or a barred door, complete with magical and mechanical locks. Come to think of it, he was quite certain his dormitory had more beds, and usually there were other people in it.
In fact, Albus Dumbledore was now almost entirely sure that he was not in his dormitory and was actually in the restricted section of the Library.
Still trying to kick his brain into action, Albus looked around from his seat, taking in the stack of books in front of him - all on fairly unknown and slightly unsavoury potions- the scrolls of parchment and coagulated ink, and a stone-cold lantern.
The next thing to be noticed was that there was daylight streaming in through the library windows. The room was bright, so it had to be quite late in the day. Especially given it was winter in Scotland.
Altogether, this made Albus slightly nervous. It could not be the weekend yet. It had to be a Tuesday, no Wednesday!
With a sinking feeling, Albus pulled out his pocket watch and flipped open the cover.
10.30.
Not good.
Wednesdays meant a double period of Potions with Professor Jigger. It was almost time for the second of those periods to begin. One was never late to Jigger's lessons, not if they wanted to have any free time. He was the head of Ravenclaw house and widely acknowledged as being the strictest teacher in the school. If Albus was lucky, he might get away with detentions and essays, if not...
He looked at the pages in front of him. Of course his homework wasn't finished.
He wasn't really sure what to do. Turning up to the lesson an hour late, in yesterday's clothes and without his assignment would get him in trouble faster than you could say 'kneazle'.
He could stay here and complete the work- but then he would have to account for missing the whole class. No doubt his dorm mates would have informed his head of house of his absence by now too.
He could go to the hospital wing, although Albus was sure the new Matron would not believe he was unwell. She took no nonsense from anybody and it was widely said that she could sniff out a skiving student at 50 paces. And Albus had always been a lamentably poor actor.
There was a clank of chains and Albus jumped up out of his seat, suddenly alert. He span around the edge of a bookcase just as the door opened and Madame Dupont entered the restricted section. Trying to keep his breathing quiet, he cast a silent disillusionment charm over himself. There was a few footsteps, then silence.
"Dumbledore, come here."
Albus slapped his hand to his forehead, he was officially an idiot. He had left his homework on the desk, complete with his name.
"Mr Dumbledore!"
Albus walked back around the corner, sheepishly. When she made no reaction, he realised that she couldn't see him and cast the counter charm. The librarian's angry scowl intensified as he came back into view.
"Bring your things." She snapped, waving her wand to send the books back to their shelves. After he had swept everything into his book bag, crumpling his homework as he did, she jabbed her wand maliciously. There was a sudden, intense pressure pulling on his earlobe. As the librarian turned and marched out, he was dragged along behind her. She kept up such a speed that he was almost jogging to keep up.
"Unbelievable," She said. "I have never seen anything of the like, young man. Breaking into the restricted section? Sleeping there overnight? You are lucky you didn't wake anything up!"
"Sorry ma'am. Yes ma'am." Albus kept up a string of apologies, hoping to calm her a little. It didn't seem to work, she marched him straight past her desk and out along the corridor.
Albus hoped they were going to his head of house. Professor Pranton was a kind young lady in her thirties and usually her Gryffindors had quite a lot of leeway. She would most likely be impressed that he had been able to bypass the new wards on the restricted section. She had cast them herself, after all.
He wasn't in luck though. They were heading away from the Charms classroom and they passed straight by the marble staircase to Gryffindor Tower. Now Albus had to admit to himself that he was being taken to the Headmaster's office. He winced, it was never good to disturb Headmaster Black before lunch, and even then...
They reached the entrance to the office and Dupont gave the password.
The spell tugging Albus along was beginning to be quite irritating and he was sorely tempted to throw it off with a Finite. Instead, he continued up the spiral stars, following the librarian into the headmaster's office.
"I did not give you permission to enter my study, boy."
Albus tried to smile cheerfully at the dour headmaster.
"No, Sir. I am sorry, Madame Dupont brought me along, Professor."
The man's eyes were narrowed with dislike as he took in the student in front of his desk. Taking note of how the boy tried not to wince as some spell tried to drag him closer to the librarian.
Professor Phineas Nigellus Black was not a kind man, nor was he patient. The pure-blooded Slytherin was guilty of favouritism, nepotism, elitism and indolence. Albus could think of a hundred ways off the top of his head which could make the school a more interesting and enjoyable place to be. Surely a headmaster should do more than sit in his study and insult people from afar?
One thing that could be said for the Headmaster's methods was that the running of the school was smooth, albeit strict. The caretaker was particularly enthusiastic about locking students in the dungeons for minor infractions. The punishments for major rule breakers didn't even bear thinking about, so Albus tried not to.
"I suppose you didn't just apprehend him on the way up Madam?" Black asked, somewhat reluctantly. Albus finally gave in to the tug on his ear, which was becoming quite painful, and took a step closer to the librarian. "Stand up straight, boy! You look ridiculous."
Dupont seemed to remember the charm and ended it herself. "Headmaster, I found Mr Dumbledore in the restricted section this morning when I went in to settle the Necromancy text- it's been playing up again this week, you see..."
"Madame, I am sure you are as busy as I am. Would you tell me about this student? Not that I can blame you for wanting to avoid the subject." The headmaster spared an impatient gesture for Albus.
Albus meanwhile was getting irritated, he knew the headmaster was aware of his name. The man was deliberately not using it just to annoy him.
Dupont looked a little flustered but missed the obvious direction to hurry up. "Headmaster, he had a stack of restricted potions books and scrolls. There was a cold lantern on that desk as well- so he must have been there at least overnight. Dumbledore must have arrived after curfew, broken through both sets of locks on each of the doors, and locked them behind him. Not to mention, not having a pass for the books he used, and his falling asleep in the restricted section." She gave Albus a stern look, "You are incredibly lucky that none of those books felt threatened."
"I could have handled it if they had." Albus muttered under his breath.
"Oh, of course you could have handled it." Professor Black cut in sharply. "After all, what is the difference between being able to unlock a door and being able to fight off a mental attack from an unknown source in your sleep? Negligible, I am sure."
Albus sighed, "I know some Occlumency, Sir. And I had a ward set up around my desk. I checked each of the books I picked up too. Only one of them had anything remotely dangerous and that was a Snapping Hex, which I disabled."
Black scoffed, "No fourth year student could disable a Snapping Hex. There is no way you could manage that, even if you are some sort of child prodigy as Professor Pranton would have me believe."
"No, I wouldn't claim that, Sir." Albus said mildly, mentally congratulating himself on his return to sense. Finally his mouth had caught up with his knowledge that the best way to deal with the headmaster was to be genial and polite. The headmaster wasn't too keen on the jollity, but it was well worth it to see him get more and more confused.
The headmaster shuffled a pile of parchment on his desk.
"What lesson are you currently missing, Dumbledore?" Ah, finally the Professor deigned to use his name, it had only taken the man ten minutes.
"Potions, Sir. With Professor Jigger. It was a double period."
Professor Black almost smiled, almost. You could see some of the irritation slip away as he realised he didn't have to deal with the issue. "Excellent. Well in that case Dumbledore, I will assign your detentions." He made a quick tally on a spare scrap of parchment. "That was curfew, two locked doors, restricted section, the books, sleeping and magic in the library, not attending breakfast and your first two classes. Ten, I believe. Let us make it a round dozen. And Professor Jigger may give you whatever he wishes as well, as it is him you have insulted by sleeping through his class."
"Yes, Sir." Albus bit his lip for a second. "With whom will I be serving my detentions, may I ask?" The headmaster usually assigned students to the caretaker. Occasionally though, he made other decisions- usually picking something the student would hate, if he knew enough about them to do so.
Black shrugged for a second, he obviously hadn't thought through the implications of assigning detention. "I suppose you might report to Professor Diggory, he was whingeing about the house elves not cleaning his classroom well enough. Maybe after you do a terrible job at it, he will be content with the elves."
Albus frowned, did that mean Black wanted him to do a bad job? Diggory was head of Slytherin House, his transfiguration teacher. The man was nit-picking, notoriously organised and had impeccable dress. Albus wasn't sure how it was possible for anything to be acceptable for his levels of cleanliness...
"But if you do not tidy it to his standards," Black said thoughtfully. "I suppose he might assign you more work to do." He leant back in his high-backed chair, "That is your problem. Good morning, Madame Dupont. Dumbledore, get out of my office and go to class.
"Dumbledore."
Professor Alfred Jigger stood in the doorway of the potions classroom. His arms were folded over his lab-robes and his grey hair was standing on end as it was wont to do. The man was holding a long, wooden stirring rod in one hand, and was tapping it slowly against the opposite arm. Behind the professor, Albus could see his classmates trying to peer around their cauldrons to get a good look at what was happening.
Albus sighed.
It was the wrong thing to do.
Jigger's eyes narrowed dangerously.
"What time do you call this, Boy?"
Albus swallowed, "About eleven o'clock, Sir?"
"Hah," the man barked, "Eleven? No, not quite. It is in fact twenty minutes past eleven by my watch. Do you believe my watch is wrong, Dumbledore?"
"No, Sir."
"Then we are quite agreed that it is twenty minutes past eleven?"
"Yes, Sir." Albus almost sighed again, but some sense of self-preservation kicked in.
"And do you know what time your potions lesson begins on a Wednesday, Dumbledore?"
"Half past nine, Professor."
Jigger put a hand to his chest as a sign of mock surprise.
"Why, that was what I thought, Dumbledore. And yet, we are both agreed that it is now twenty minutes past eleven, are we not?"
"Yes, Professor. I am sorry to be late."
"Late? Oh, no, surely you aren't an hour and fifty minutes late for my lesson? I would never believe that for a moment. Perhaps instead, you have been moved down to my first year class? They are coming next after all, and it makes far more sense for you to be fifteen minutes early for that, does it not?" The professor arched an eyebrow, staring down at Albus.
The Gryffindor couldn't think of anything to say to that. He dropped his eyes a little, biting at his bottom lip. Something snapped into place in the professor's face, and he stopped the sarcasm, dead. He put out an arm and dragged Albus into the classroom.
"Stop being such a blithering idiot and get in here, Dumbledore. I don't have all day, and neither do you- however late you decide to turn up. No, not that way-" Jigger directed Albus towards the front of the class, when the boy tried to make an escape towards his desk.
The whole class was watching with transparent anticipation. Nobody ever dared to cross the Potions Master, and they were eager to see what was going to happen.
"Homework?" Jigger demanded, holding out a hand.
Albus bit his lip, "It- uh- it's not quite finished, Professor."
Jigger's lip curled in a sneer.
"Why am I not surprised?"
Albus felt this was a little unfair. He was obviously having a pretty ridiculously bad morning, but other than that he hardly ever did anything wrong at school.
Apart from baiting Aberforth into a duel in the Entrance Hall a couple of weeks ago, and that incident with the Gryffindor curtains, and maybe breaking into the Staff bathroom from outside hadn't been the cleverest idea…
"What do you think I should do with you, boy? I could give you detentions of course, that would take up the most of your obviously too plentiful time."
Albus glanced around the room, and a couple of his housemates had the grace to look away. The Ravenclaw half of the class were sitting back and enjoying the chance to see their Housemaster in such a mood.
"I've already seen the Headmaster, Sir. He's given me twelve detentions."
Jigger didn't look impressed, "With that old goat of a caretaker? He'll probably forget by the third one."
"With Professor Diggory, Sir. Apparently his classroom needs cleaned."
"Hah," Albus flinched. "Well you won't have such an easy time of it after all. When will he be informed that he has the delight of your company?"
"I have Transfiguration next period, Sir."
"Oh? And were you planning on getting there before lunch?" Jigger didn't pause for an answer. "Has the Headmaster dealt with you for missing my lesson?"
Albus considered lying for a second, but there wasn't really much point. The whole thing would be around the school by lunch anyway. "He added two detentions for it Sir." The next sentence he had to force out. "But he did say that you could assign something else as well, Professor."
"How kind of the Headmaster." Jigger "I do so like to give these things the personal touch."
Albus's eyes were drawn inexorably towards the stirring rod in the Professor's hand. The man was not above rapping the rod over the knuckles of students who were not behaving well. And caning was a fairly commonplace punishment throughout the school. Usually such a thing was left to the student's head of house- unless the Professor was feeling particularly aggrieved.
Jigger smirked as he realised what Albus was looking at. The man started twirling the rod between long fingers.
The bell rang. Students finished tidying their desks and stood behind their seats until the Professor dismissed them with a wave. Some left reluctantly, wanting to wait a little to see what happened to their classmate. After the last student had left the room, Jigger put the stirring rod down on his desk with a sharp click.
"Well, you needn't look so worried, Dumbledore. I am not going to beat you- not this time."
Albus swallowed and nodded up at the man.
"Thank you, Sir"
"Oh, you don't want to thank me either." Jigger smiled nastily. "I have far better plans for you. You, boy, can make yourself useful."
"Sir- I have class in five minutes."
"Then you can run, boy, can you not? I do not want you now. You will come here every morning before breakfast for the next two weeks. Six thirty, sharp. Every minute you are late will mean another ten minutes earlier for the rest of the mornings, you hear me? That should make you get up early enough for my lessons."
"Yes, Sir."
"And you will hand in that essay tomorrow, boy."
"Of course, Sir."
"Get on to your next lesson then. Make sure you tell Professor Diggory I insist on your time in the mornings."
"Yes, Professor. Sorry."
Outside the door, Albus walked into a couple of curious looking Gryffindors.
"You took your time." The smaller of them said. He was a thin boy, with a shock of brown hair. He was about a foot shorter than Albus, and probably the smallest in their year.
The other was a lean girl Albus knew to be from Uganda, leaning nervously against the wall, "Yes, he took his time." She snapped, "And now we are going to all be late for Transfiguration because of him."
Albus smiled at the open door to the Potions classroom, "I could have made my own way, of course. You didn't have to wait. Did you know that a very wise, very wrinkled, very old man once gave me some good advice."
The other boy pulled a face. "And what was that exactly?"
"'You can run.'" Albus took off, his long legs carrying him away from the others. This was probably a good thing, because the next second Professor Jigger had appeared at the door to the classroom, brandishing his stirring rod.
"Dumbledore, I heard that! You are asking for more than detention, boy!"
The boy and girl exchanged quick looks, and legged it before the Professor turned his ire onto them.
Albus, true to form, was waiting for them a couple of corners away. He knew the other two couldn't match him for speed, so he paused for a minute to make sure they were still following him. They didn't disappoint and both powered into his corridor, giggling.
"Kijai, Elphy, this way."
Albus led the way, slightly slower this time, so that his friends could keep up, to one of his favourite passageways. It was the best way from the dungeons to the rest of the school. Hidden behind the statue of a wizard with a funny hat, was a very steep spiral staircase which descended about ten metres. Somehow – Albus wasn't sure how – at the bottom, it managed to come out on the fourth floor, in the corridor next to their Transfiguration classroom. Well, it went there on most Wednesday mornings. Every so often it turned out somewhere entirely different, Albus hadn't quite worked out the trick to it yet.
The three of them entered the transfiguration to the raised eyebrow of their teacher. With a wave of his wand the door shut behind them, almost hitting Elphias's foot.
"Well, get to your seats then. What are you waiting for?"
The boys moved to their seats on the left of the class, and Kijai to the right with the girls. Professor Diggory was not the only one to still separate his classes by gender rather than house.
Again, the students stood behind their seats, patiently, as they did every lesson.
The Professor didn't seem to be in a hurry, despite his annoyance at his students being almost late. Professor Diggory was not a man of great stature, but he definitely had a strong presence in the room. He was as neatly turned out as you might reasonably expect a professor to be; his green and gold robes finely pressed, not a hair out of place, and completely clean shaven as was the fashion. The man was sat behind his desk with a stiff posture, ignoring his students and making notes on some expensive white parchment with a gold-nibbed quill.
Albus rather liked the man. He was the epitome of a dignified Slytherin, and well suited to his position as Head of House. It was a rare thing for him to raise his voice, but he was a clear speaker and people really listened when he spoke. He had very little patience for those who were slow at learning, and he demanded the same standard from every student.
Diggory finally put his parchment aside to take attendance, glancing over each student as they answered, before telling them to sit down. When he got to Albus's name, he didn't even bother to read it out, skipping straight to the next person on the list, leaving the boy standing there.
Diggory asked the class a few questions about switching spells which they answered in unison, the way it was expected of them. Albus felt a bit foolish, standing in the middle of the room as he was and a little sorry for the short Hufflepuff boy who was trying to see past him.
The professor gave a boy and a girl the task of handing out some closed boxes with marbles inside, and a pile of small stones. Giving the class permission to begin casting their switching spells. He hinted that he might give points to whichever house collected all of their marbles first, and promised to take points away from the other house.
Professor Diggory finally came over to stand on the other side of the desk from Albus, clasping his hands neatly in front of himself.
"Mr Dumbledore."
"Professor?" Albus smiled in a way which was probably too hopeful.
"Might I enquire as to why those clothes look like they have been slept in?"
"Because they have, Sir?"
Diggory inspected Albus's appearance more closely.
"I see."
Diggory was silent for a moment. Albus was going to wait for the man to speak but felt it might help if he were to explain the situation first. He did wish that the rest of the class didn't have to hear it too, but that couldn't be helped.
"May I explain, Sir?"
"That might be prudent, Mr Dumbledore."
"I was studying in the library last night." Albus stumbled over the words a little. "In the restricted section and I fell asleep. I slept through my first class, and the librarian reported me to the Headmaster. He sent me down to my next class. Professor Jigger kept me late-"
"Mr Dumbledore, the concise version?"
"Yes, sorry. I thought it would be more important to come here than to go past Gryffindor tower and change and be late… again."
"Anything else of import?"
Albus could see people looking up from their tables with interest, and he was sure there was a similar level of scrutiny from behind as well. The class was suspiciously quiet for what was supposed to be a lesson with verbal spells.
"Erm, yes. The Headmaster has given me twelve detentions, he said you might want to supervise them, in order to have me clean your classroom? He suggested you were having problems with the elves?" Albus looked at the professor for a sign of recognition. Diggory gestured for him to continue. "And I have detentions with Professor Jigger too, he requested that I be in his classroom before breakfast each morning. For two weeks, although I'm not sure if that is for ten days, or fourteen."
There was a low whistle from the girls' side of the room and Diggory spun around to search for the culprit. There was a sudden flurry of spell casting from all around them and the Professor turned back, satisfied that his students were doing some work. Albus saw Elphias shoot an exasperated look at Kijai behind Diggory's back.
"And Professor Jigger prefers me to detain you at other times?"
"I believe so, Professor."
Professor Diggory tapped the table in an irritated way. Albus swayed a little, he had been on his feet since he woke in the library and it was starting to get to him.
"Very well. You may come to this classroom at half past five every weekday. Come to my office at the weekend."
Albus grimaced, a detention starting that early in the afternoon usually meant whichever professor was supervising was going to keep you there for a long time.
Diggory gave him a challenging look, waiting to see if he would protest.
"Oh- Yes, sir."
The Slytherin nodded, satisfied. "Then take your seat, Mr Dumbledore, and hurry with your spellwork unless you wish to be the one who loses Gryffindor its points."
Albus almost collapsed into his seat. He was so looking forward to lunch.
The teacher wandered over to the girls' side of the class to make sure they were all focussed on the task. There were a few giggles as the professor thwapped Kijai lightly over the back of the head with a textbook.
Elphias turned around in his seat the moment he was sure that Diggory wasn't paying attention to them. The boy passed one of the sealed boxes back to Albus, who shook it to listen to the rattle.
Albus wondered if it would be easier to try use the switching spell, or to simply transfigure the stone into a marble. Glancing around at the rest of the class, he saw a Hufflepuff boy who was best at charms covertly break the lid off his box, swap the marbles for stones, then fix the box again with a Reparo.
Thinking about it, the Gryffindor decided that Diggory might examine the boxes for any cheating, so it was probably for the best if he actually did the assigned work. It would be embarrassing to have the box opened and for him to have no marbles anywhere.
After ten minutes of this task, Albus spotted a flaw. He had only been given three pebbles, but he had no idea how many marbles might be in the box. He had successfully swapped two of the pebbles, but when he tried to swap the third, he simply found a different pebble on his desk. Switching spells could only swap one object for another, so he couldn't swap his pebble for everything in the box. Another problem was that without seeing the object he was swapping, there was no way to tell if he was going to bring out a pebble or a marble.
Albus was on the receiving end of some strange looks as he held his box up to his ear and tilted it carefully. When he was fairly sure he knew where at least one marble was, he directed the spell at that instead. A glass marble replaced the lump of granite on his desk.
Now what?
Albus weighed whether Diggory would be more annoyed if he put up his hand, or if he walked to the front of the class to get some more pebbles. His brain conjured a third option and he pointed his wand at the teacher's desk, summoning a few from there (narrowly missing a Hufflepuff's hand as they tried to raise it to ask a question).
He pulled a quill out of his bag and used it to make small marks on the box where he thought the stones were. Then he picked the pebbles up and labelled each of them. After all of that, it was a simple matter for Albus to swap the stones for what was inside.
After he had recovered another two marbles, and every time he tried swapping after that he kept finding stones, Albus guessed that he had found everything he was supposed to. Everybody else seemed to be giving up when they had swapped out all of the pebbles they started with.
With ten minutes until the end of the lesson, Professor Diggory called an end to their practice. He called on one Gryffindor and one Hufflepuff to collect all of the boxes for their house into two stacks on the front desk. Diggory then cast Priori Incantatem on each stack of boxes. Three of the boxes glowed with a red light, showing the cracks where the boxes had been split open and then repaired. With a flick of his wand, these went flying back to sit on the desks of their owners. The two shamefaced Hufflepuffs and one Gryffindor had housepoints deducted for attempting to cheat.
One of the Gryffindor boxes started rattling, and Diggory frowned at it.
"Which of you attempted to summon the marbles out of the box?" He asked, more confused than angry. "You all know that objects cannot be summoned if they are contained within a sealed environment of a greater weight?"
Albus stood, "Professor, I summoned more of the stones. There were more marbles than I had enough to swap for."
Diggory smiled, "I wondered if any of you would work that out. Very well, Dumbledore, you may sit."
Albus nodded, glad that he wasn't in yet more trouble.
The professor transfigured the stack of boxes into two tall glass columns, containing the contents of each house's boxes. The professor removed five of the stones from the Hufflepuff column, and three of the Gryffindors'.
"For using charms," He smirked, "You might at least have the decency to cheat with transfiguration."
Both houses had managed to collect more of the stones than they had marbles remaining, which seemed to please Diggory at least a little. The Gryffindors however had managed to collect eight more than the Hufflepuffs, so it was the Hufflepuffs who lost the housepoints.
The Hufflepuffs were furious with the two members who had cheated. Albus was decidedly happy that he had chosen to actually do the work.
The bell rang for the end of the lesson and Diggory released them after they had reset the classroom to its normal appearance. The Professor had already lost interest and was back at his desk, writing again with his gold pen.
Kijai appeared beside Albus and the three friends headed to Runes before they could get any later.
Elphias laughed as they made their way down the stairs.
"You know Albus, I think you might have set some kind of record. I haven't heard of anyone earning 28 detentions in one morning before."
"It might only be 24," Albus pointed out, glumly. "But you might be right. Do you think I have time to run upstairs and get changed before charms?"
Kijai shook her head, "Not unless there are more of those passageways that you have not told us about. Ten minutes would only get you there, not back."
"And you don't want to make it 29," Elphias said.
"I don't think that Professor Briggle has ever given anybody a detention, but it would not be good to be the first."
"You should leave some records for others to win, Albus." Kijai said, smiling.
Albus laughed, "No, I want all of the records!"
"Widest variety of detentions, most different Professors for detentions, highest detention in history." Kijai reeled off.
"I think I do have the highest one!" Albus interrupted, "Pranton made me reattach the lightening conductor on the Owlery once."
"That must have happened before I was transferred." Kijai said. "What on earth did you do to get that?"
"It was second year." Elphias grinned, "He tried to sneak in through the infirmary window on his broom and Diggory saw him through the window along with some Slytherin's parents."
"I was just checking up on you, since you were so bored."
"I know," Elphias said. "It was certainly very entertaining watching you get yelled at by Diggory and Pranton."
Albus huffed, pretending to be offended, and strode easily ahead of the other two into the Runes classroom.
He missed them grinning at each other behind his back before following him in.