Everything
you can think of is true
The
dish ran away with the spoon
Dig
deep in your heart for that little red glow
We're
decomposing as we go
Everything
you can think of is true
And
fishes make wishes on you
We're
fighting our way up dreamland's spine
With
red flamingos and expensive wine. . .
(Alice:
Everything You Can Think ©Waits/Brennan 1992)
". . . Mr. Longbottom?"
Frank lifted his head from his notes at the sound of his name. His quill hand stopped over the i, as he glanced toward the head of the classroom. "I uh. . ."
Professor Minerva McGonagall had pinched her lips together in the utmost concision awaiting the answer she knew would not be coming from Frank Longbottom. She and Frank regarded one another, he narrowing grey-blue eyes cold and unforgiving as she began to pace again, "We are waiting, Mr. Longbottom."
"I'm sorry, Professor," a sheepish blush painted his cheeks a fresh shade of pink. "I wasn't paying attention."
"That is most obvious, Mr. Longbottom. Perhaps it will help your attention span if we spend detention together here this evening after dinner," she suggested, and within moments she had started her lesson again, calling on a know-it-all Slytherin girl by the name of Edora Flank to answer the question she had taunted him from his daydream with.
This was bad, and he knew it. Detention from McGonagall would not look good in the headmaster's eyes. The Head boy was not supposed to receive detention at all, and most certainly not for something so silly as daydreaming. He was to be the exemplum of good behavior. Frank remembered two nights prior, his bumping into Professor Dumbledore on his way to sneak out of the castle after hours, and groaned inwardly. Perhaps the professor would rescind his head boy privileges, or suspend his position as Gryffindor Quidditch captain. All he did know for certain, was that by the end of Transfigurations, he had a painful knot in his stomach about it that only worsened when he passed by Professor McGonagall's desk on the way out.
"Mr. Longbottom?" she stopped him. "Might I have a moment of your time, please?"
"Of c-course, Professor," he hadn't even realized that he'd stuttered, even when she squinted curiously and narrowed her eyes into silvery, grey slits of disapproval.
For the most part, Frank's experience with Professor Minerva McGonagall, head of Gryffindor House and Deputy Headmistress to the school, had always been amicable, if one could in fact consider being one of the few pupils on her list that had never received a detention from her amicable relations. Being a rather avid Quidditch fan, she had congratulated him heartily the year he'd been named Quidditch Captain, but aside from that, they rarely spoke unless he was answering a question in class.
She was well known for her lectures on proper conduct, but before she had a chance to begin whatever speech she had in store for him, he cut through her defenses with a meager apology. "I'm really sorry I was daydreaming during your lesson, Ma'am. It's just that. . . well, I haven't been sleeping right lately, and with the holiday break coming up, I haven't been able to focus on much anything, I'm afraid."
Professor McGonagall blinked uncertainly at how open and forthcoming he was, how willing to accept blame, "I see," she said. "I understand that the holidays have excited you, Mr. Longbottom," she began, "you and every other student in this castle, but I cannot excuse one of my star students from daydreaming during a very important lesson. Human to animal transfiguration is considered a necessary requirement to pass the N.E.W.T.s, and I don't mean that you must become an animagus."
"Of course not, Ma'am," he looked away—no longer able to bear the scrutiny of her hard-edged stare. "We are required to be able to successfully transfigure another human being into an animal, and then transfigure them back."
"That is correct," she tightened her mouth again, a long pause creating tension between them. "I consider you one of my most gifted students, Mr. Longbottom. We have already discussed the requirements you must achieve to even be considered this summer for the Auror training program."
"Yes," he replied.
"Well then, in the future I expect you to take your time in my classes more seriously," she said. "Do I make myself clear?"
"Perfectly clear, Professor."
"Good," he wasn't sure, but he thought she had smiled then, the corners of her mouth twitching just so as the features of her face softened from their stone façade. "Now, about your detention. . ."
He groaned on the inside, the knot in his stomach tightening in anticipation of whatever horrible punishment she had already devised for him to undergo.
"I have a group of fifth year students coming in this evening for tutoring," she explained, "but I have a prior engagement elsewhere and will not be able to make it. I expect you will show them everything they need to know." He didn't understand at first. For his detention she has having him tutor her students? Perhaps she had lost her mind or maybe she had been inspired by the uplifting spirit of the holiday season. The first instance seemed more likely. Everyone he had ever known who had been sentenced to detention with McGonagall did everything they possibly could to ensure they never had to go back. Tutoring was nothing compared to the torturous hours in which Ted and Merry had been subjected to cleaning animal dung (without any magical use whatsoever,) from the many cages the professor kept in her classroom.
He swallowed, "Of course, Professor."
"Good," this time he was sure she had smiled. She stood up from her desk and began walking him toward the door. "And never let me catch you daydreaming during one of my lessons again, Longbottom. The next time it happens I can assure you a far worse punishment."
Geoff was waiting for him in the hallway outside when he emerged, "Bad luck, Frank," he moaned sympathetically. "Detention with McGonagall's a real blow."
"It won't be so bad," Frank shrugged, shifting his books to the other arm. They were on their way to their final class of the day, Frank's favorite, Defense Against the Dark Arts.
"That's what you say now," Geoff himself was a repeat offender when it came to detention with McGonagall. He claimed to enjoy spending time with the professor so much that he made it a point to land himself in her office on a weekly basis. "Trust me when I tell you, no matter how simple she made it sound, it will be your worst nightmare. Everything you can think of. . . the worst of it all, it will be waiting for you."
Now that Geoff had told him this, he reflected on how easy Professor McGonagall had made it sound, just tutoring some fifth year students. . . maybe Geoff was just pulling his leg, he thought as they ducked into their seats.
It was just tutoring. How bad could it be?
Four hours later. . .
Frank stood at the front of the Transfigurations classroom with his tongue so swollen in his throat that he was absolutely positive if he swallowed his anxiety, he'd swallow his tongue too. Geoff had been telling the truth. It was the worst thing he could think of, and in his mind he could see McGonagall smiling again, almost knowingly, and most definitely with a gleaming hint of malice in her stone-grey eyes. One by one the students had entered the classroom, a Hufflepuff boy he knew from Quidditch by the name of Howard Jorgensen, a Ravenclaw girl he'd never met before and would probably never remember her name, and two Gryffindors: Peter Pettigrew and Alice Delaney.
"Hello there, Frank," Peter said anxiously. He took the seat closest to the door and asked, "Where's the professor?"
"Er. . . uh. . ."
Alice was looking up at him innocently, her vivid blue eyes expectant, but calm as the sky on a perfect day.
"She. . . er. . ."
She shifted the waves of her hair over her shoulder and looked back down over her shoulder, into the bag she had brought with her. She started shuffling through it, but now that she had broken away from his gaze, his mind cleared.
"The professor had a prior engagement and couldn't be here tonight. She's asked me to tutor you," he spoke quickly, too quickly he realized, because inside his head it sound as though he'd just waggled his tongue and made a bunch of hokey, meaningless noise. "So, maybe you could all start out by telling me where it is you're having problems and I'll do the best I can to explain them to you."
"We'll have to go back to first year if you want to help me," Peter snickered sarcastically.
Frank squinted curiously at the boy who seemed to be trying on the confidence he usually wore in the company of his friends, "Right then," he replied. "I don't think we'll be going back that far, Peter. Why don't we start with your most recent lesson? What is the professor teaching you right now?"
The nameless Ravenclaw girl spoke up, "In our last lesson we were transfiguring fish into flatware."
"Fish into flatware?" Frank wrinkled his nose.
"Most specifically spoons," Alice smiled sweetly.
"All right then," he cleared his throat. "Fish into flatware," he repeated. "Well, who can tell me what the word is for that particular transfiguration?"
"Pescadilly?" Howard asked.
Easing into the role of tutor with more ease than he'd ever though he could, Frank chuckled thoughtfully, "Not quite, Howard, but you're close."
"Oh," Alice's little hand shot into the air, but on the way up, she somehow managed to knock the book off of her desk. Instinctively, Frank bent down to pick it up, but so had Alice and halfway down they bumped heads. "Oh, I'm sorry," she backed up, but the movement of her hair fluttered by his face and he caught the scent of berries and spring.
Frank rubbed the top of his head, "It's all right, Alice," he said. He started to bend down again, "Here, let me get that for you," she stayed in her seat. Retrieving her book, he laid it atop her desk and smiled shyly. "Before your book fell, you were going to say something."
"Yes," she was still smiling, and Frank couldn't deny that it was the most wonderful sight he had ever seen. It was like sunlight cresting the horizon after a sleepless night, he thought. "It's Pescansortio."
"Very good," he nodded. "Let's everyone get a fish from the professor's collection over here, and start practicing. Pescansortio, everyone say that out loud."
It was amazing, he realized. At first he had been cursing Professor McGonagall for this, thinking it was the worst thing in the world having to go through with his. He wondered how she could put him in the same room with Alice in a position that might embarrass him, reveal his feelings in some way, and expose him to her, but by the end of the tutoring session, he wondered if there hadn't indeed been some method to the professor's madness. Had she known what he was writing over and over again when he should have been taking transfigurations notes? Did she know that spending time with Alice would be both punishment and reward?
"Thank you, Frank," she was the last one to leave the room, having dropped her books several times in an attempt to organize them. "I think I'm finally getting it."
"You seem to have picked it up just fine," he couldn't look her in the eye now that they were alone. It was strange, when there were other people in the room, when he had been tutoring them all, he felt normal, like she were just another student. . . well, not just another student, she was still Alice, but he'd felt confident and strong, almost like she might not think he was an idiot. "Good luck on your exam tomorrow."
"Thank you," she smiled back over her shoulder at him just as Lily Evans appeared in the doorway.
"Ready, Alice?"
"I think so," she said. "Bye, Frank."
"Good bye," he started to lift his hand to wave, but stopped himself for fear of looking ridiculous. Lily regarded him with bemused green eyes, she smiled and waved, and then they disappeared.
There was a little red glow in his heart, and its name was Alice. Like a fire she was burning at his soul from the inside out and it was the most glorious sensation he had ever felt. It was a long time that Frank sat there in the Transfigurations classroom going over and over every moment he had spent in her company, until Argus Filch came in and threatened to have him flogged if he didn't make his rounds on the castle and head off to bed where he belonged.
He was just coming out of the classroom when he heared, "Where have you been?" Narcissa Black stood impatiently at the top of the stairway that led into the dungeons where her house was kept. "I've been waiting nearly forty minutes for you here, Longbottom."
"Why?"
"So we could do our rounds together," she said this as though it should have been the most obvious thing in the world. "I don't like doing them alone, you know that."
He felt more confident with her than he did with Alice, but it was a bold confidence, a kind of brevity that made it easy for him to resist whatever charm she used on all the other boys in the school so they fawned after her. "Why didn't you have one of your boyfriends accompany you? I'm sure Rabastan Lestrange would have happily escorted you."
Stunned, her changeable blue eyes blinked with disbelief that he had been anything but cordial with her. "Rabastan Lestrange is only a prefect, and you are the head boy, Frank. As head boy and head girl it is our duty to walk the castle every night to make sure all of the students are in their place."
"All right then," he shrugged. "You take the dungeon through the third floor, and I'll go fourth floor and beyond. Good-night, Narcissa."
He knew exactly what she had meant, that she wanted him to walk with her, but he had no interest in walking with her anyway, or in listening to the sound of her holier-than-thou prattling as they did so. Before she could stammer a disbelieving word, he had walked off and left her alone and infuriated in the corridor to inspect the castle before heading off to bed.
Thoughts of Alice accompanied him through the hallways. She carried him so that his footsteps were lighter than air, and now that he had spent time with her while she was away from her friends, and she hadn't laughed at him. . . well maybe now he might find the confidence he needed to ask her to Hogsmeade with him sometime. Maybe he would ask her after the holiday break. He imagined this over and over in his mind, even as he burrowed down into the soft comfort of his pillow, and when he closed his eyes, he dreamed of her.
