Flitwick's office resembled a menagerie of charmed artifacts. The entire room was filled with various pieces of furniture and paraphernalia that crawled, walked, flew, slithered, or hovered. Various pieces made noise, watched people, or tried to escape by hiding amongst a visitor's effects. The result was that the office was the single worst place in the school to converse or study. How the diminutive Professor managed to accomplish anything in such a room mystified Tamblin. Even as he came in the Professor was trying to write on a parchment while his quill struggled to get free. Every time Flitwick looked up the desk sidled half an inch away from him.
"Professor?" Tamblin had his head poking in through the door.
"Please come in, Mr. Demosthene. I'm quite pleased with your marks so far this term, my boy. I think you've finally settled down and started applying yourself. Good work! Keep it up!"
Flitwick's high pitched voice was nearly lost in the twittering of a flock of books that were disturbed from the perch on a book case by Tamblin's entrance. Tamblin got in and closed the door quickly to prevent any of the charmed items from escaping.
"Sir, I've spoken with Dumbledore. He's allowed me to pursue a special course of study." Tamblin held out a parchment.
Flitwick took it and read it. His normally jovial face became clouded.
"Memory magics? Most unusual. And you requested this course of study?"
"Yes, sir."
"May I ask why?"
"Is something wrong, Professor?"
Flitwick's face seemed to relax.
"No. I'm sure you must have good cause if Dumbledore agreed, it's just…"
"What, Professor?"
"Memory Magic is not the most dangerous line of study. Not like, say, time magics. Now there's a field with a long history of catastrophe. But still Memory Magics have a bit of a nasty reputation."
"Why is that?"
"Well as you might expect it's a favorite topic of some disreputable types. Nothing wrong with the topic itself, of course. But how it's used has often left much to be desired."
"The Ministry has a department of memory modification…"
"Of course. It's necessary to protect our world from Muggle discovery. But even when done with good cause we should always tread that ground with the utmost caution. The power to remake people into what we want them to be… It can be a terrible temptation."
He seemed to be getting melancholy again.
"I'm sorry, my boy. Here you are displaying a healthy interest in knowledge and I burden you with cynicism. Alright, well for a good introduction to the topic we'll need a few different books."
Flitwick got off his chair, which promptly shuffled off to a corner, and approached one of the tall bookcases that lined most of the walls. He scanned titles for a while until he noticed what he wanted far out of reach of Tamblin, much less Flitwick.
Flitwick gave the bookcase a good solid kick and the books took to the air en masse.
"There it is! See the one with the green cover? It's just banking past that shoal of treatises on mythological monsters. That's the one. You'll have to stun it."
Tamblin drew his wand. Carefully tracking the book in question, amongst all the books stirred up when Flitwick disturbed their roost, wasn't easy. A big thick black tome nipped at the green book and it dived away and into the open.
"Stupefy."
A red beam from Tamblin's bloodwand lanced the book which promptly fell to the floor.
Flitwick fetched it and dusted it off.
"None the worse! Good. Now we need…" He stared at the mass above them for a while.
By the time they were done Flitwick had complimented Tamblin on his stupefying charm control and Tamblin had Mnemasthesia for Mnemasthetes, Remember When: A History of Magical Memory Modification, and Tricky Magic Ethics: What Not to Do Volume VII as well as several parchments. Tamblin stuffed each in his bag before it could recover from stunning and attempt to escape.