Chapter 18: Night Patrol
All my classes on Wednesday went mercifully smoothly, and by the end of the day, I'd built my confidence back up. Donnor Dalman had made me question myself, but I was glad to see that nobody else was taking his lead.
I had my first night patrol that night with Alex. We made plans to meet up in the teacher's lounge beforehand, and then together, we headed up to Mr. Clarke's office on the fifth floor, since Mr. Clarke was in charge of night patrols.
"New girl," Mr. Clarke greeted me when we knocked on the door to his office.
"It's Katie, actually," I informed him. We hadn't properly met yet, so I figured maybe he didn't know my name.
"That's right," he nodded. "New girl."
I exchanged a glance with Alex and he nodded, so I figured I should just go along with it.
"Alright, now night patrol is very simple," Mr. Clarke told me. "I will give you a route to walk – it will change with each patrol, so that the students are never able to predict our movements. You will walk it. The patrol will last three hours, at which point you will go to bed and I will continue to monitor the halls alone until curfew lifts at 6AM."
"Sounds easy enough – ," I began.
"I wasn't finished," Mr. Clarke interrupted.
I clamped my mouth shut.
"Now, where was I?" Mr. Clarke muttered. "Oh yes. Typically, night patrols will be done individually so as that the three of us may cover more ground at once. However, as this is your first night patrol, you and Alex will be patrolling together so that he can show you the ropes."
"Wouldn't it make more sense for me to patrol with you?" I wondered. Not that I objected in any way to patrolling with Alex, but as the man in charge of night patrols, wouldn't it make more sense for him to teach me?
"I don't have time to babysit you," Mr. Clarke snapped. "Besides, my patrol is very different from your patrol. I'm in charge of making sure doors are locked and windows are secure while you're in charge of looking for students who might be out of bed by looking behind tapestries and inside suits of armor."
"You think a student would hide inside a suit of armor?" I asked in surprise.
"It's happened before," Mr. Clarke informed me. "Here's your route for tonight," he declared, shoving a piece of parchment into Alex' hands.
"Come on," Alex said, gently grabbing my arm and steering me out of Mr. Clarke's office. "Let's get started."
I waited until we were out of earshot before saying anything. As soon as we'd descended to the fourth floor, I opened my mouth.
"What was that?" I asked in disbelief.
"That's just how Clarke is," Alex assured me. "Don't take it personally, he treats everyone like that."
"He didn't treat you like crap," I pointed out. "Just me."
"Trust me, I got the same thing last year. I think the nights are taking a toll on him. His schedule is completely skewed, he doesn't socialize much because he sleeps all day and is up all night, the only time he interacts with students is when they're in trouble. It's not his fault he's so bad-tempered. He's a product of his environment."
"Well then why doesn't he go get a regular job that happens during the daytime?" I wondered.
Alex shrugged. "Don't ask me, I've never really interacted with the man besides for my night patrols. I can only assume he prefers working overnight. Some people do."
I nodded. Whatever his reason was, it wasn't really any of my concern.
"Come on, I'll show you what night patrol is all about," Alex said with a smirk.
Forgetting about Mr. Clarke altogether, I hurried after Alex, ready to learn.
We spent the next three hours wandering all over the school in search of rule-breakers. Thankfully we didn't find any – after everything that had happened with Donnor Dalman, I wasn't in the mood to do any more disciplining quite yet – but we had lots of fun poking our heads into every nook and cranny of the school that we could find in search of them. Alex had me looking behind stone pillars, checking inside every toilet stall in every bathroom, pulling back tapestries that revealed alcoves I didn't even know were there, and yes, checking inside each and every suit of armor we came across.
By the end of the patrol, I was tired, but I'd also had a lot of fun. We dropped off our report on Mr. Clarke's desk and then I turned to Alex, wondering – and kind of hoping – that there was something more we had to do before turning in. Unfortunately, there wasn't.
"So… yeah," Alex said with a shrug. "That's it. We can turn in for the night."
"Cool," I muttered, not moving. I'd had a lot of fun patrolling with Alex and wasn't ready for it to end. Unfortunately, I couldn't think of any reason why it shouldn't.
"You got an early morning tomorrow?" Alex wondered.
I shook my head. "Actually, Thursdays are my day off, remember?" I replied. "No classes, no patrols, no shifts in the Great Hall, nothing."
"Oh right," Alex nodded. "Well, any plans?"
I shook my head. "I guess I'll prep my Friday classes," I said. "Sleep in. Maybe stop by the lounge at some point."
"Well I don't start until after lunch," Alex volunteered. "So, if you aren't in too much of a hurry to get to sleep… maybe you'd like to hang out a bit longer?"
I smiled. "What did you have in mind?" I wondered.
"I've got hot chocolate," Alex offered. I could sense a tentative hopefulness in his expression that had me melting just a little.
"I love hot chocolate," I replied.
"Come on," Alex said, reaching for my hand and leading me towards the stairs and up.
We arrived at Alex' quarters on the sixth floor and I hesitated. Middle of the night, guy who obviously liked me, his personal quarters… anyone in my position would see the red flag. But Alex smiled at me and I felt myself melting some more.
"Just hot chocolate, I swear," he said.
That was all I needed. I'd known Alex a while now, and I had a good feeling about him. He led the way inside and I took in the room.
It was designed almost exactly like my quarters but flipped. There was the couch, the fireplace, the table laden with snacks, a couple of comfortable looking chairs…
I settled myself onto one of the chairs while Alex set to work making the hot chocolate. It was quite a different process than I was used to. When I make hot chocolate at home, I boil water and mix it with the hot chocolate powder, adding a bit of milk or cream at the end if I feel like it. Instead of hot chocolate powder, Alex produced two small marble-sized pieces of chocolate, placed them in a couple of mugs, and then pointed his wand at them and cast some kind of spell.
In seconds, I could smell the chocolate-y aroma wafting from the mugs. It was heavenly. Alex passed me my mug, and I took a whiff and could have died happy right then and there.
"It smells really good," I told him.
"It should," Alex replied. "It's magical hot chocolate. Way better than the powdered stuff muggles use."
"Hey! I use that stuff!" I protested.
"That's fine," Alex said. "You're a muggle, you'd have to. But after tasting this, you'll never be able to go back."
Taking him up on the challenge, I took a sip of the hot chocolate. To my delight, the heat of the beverage didn't at all interfere with the taste, even though it was still piping hot. I took a second sip and I felt my whole mouth tingling. It was absolutely delicious.
"So," I said after a few moments of sipping the hot chocolate in silence. "Tell me about yourself. What did you do before you started working here?"
Alex swallowed and hesitated a moment before answering. "Well, I was going to be a curse-breaker."
"Going to be?" I prodded, deciding that the conversation of what is a curse breaker could wait.
"Yeah," Alex said with a sad shrug. "I did all the training courses and even travelled all the way to South America – that's where I was going to be stationed."
"South America, wow," I said, impressed. I'd always wanted to travel to South America. I'd always wanted to travel to a lot of places really but hadn't been much of anywhere.
"Yeah," Alex agreed. "You know Chavin de Huantar? Well there's a lot more going on down there than muggles think."
"Really?" I nodded, intrigued.
"Absolutely," Alex nodded. "Anyway, I was supposed to spend three years down there cracking codes and making discoveries, but…"
"But what?" I prodded when he trailed off.
Alex sucked in a breath. "But I couldn't rough it," he admitted. "We were living in tents out in the middle of nowhere. It was just the five of us, and between making sure we were fed and watered and physically taken care of, and also making sure that we kept out of sight of all those muggle tourists, there wasn't really much time left for the fun stuff. I thought I was going to be uncovering rare magical artifacts and scrolls every day, but in reality… well you're lucky if you find something in a year."
"So you came back?" I inquired.
Alex nodded. "I came back. And I heard that my old Ancient Runes Professor had just retired, so I sought out a meeting with Headmaster Slinkhard and he gave me the job here."
"Do you regret it?" I wondered. Teaching ancient runes was a far cry from curse breaking in Peru.
"Sometimes," Alex answered honestly. "I love teaching, and I really do enjoy being here, but I guess a part of me will always wonder what could have been if I'd stayed. Maybe I'd have ended up making the greatest wizarding discovery of the century."
"Maybe," I allowed. "But then again, maybe you'll get to shape the mind of the person who'll go on to make the greatest wizarding discovery of the century. It's not as glamorous, I'll give you that, but it's just as valuable."
Alex smiled. "You're right," he said. "Teaching is an extremely important position. In some respects, more important than any other profession, because we teach and prepare the people that will go on to fill all the other positions later on. Is that why you decided to teach?"
I felt myself turn red and shook my head as I took another sip of hot chocolate. In addition to tasting better than anything I'd ever had before, it seemed that no matter how much I drank, my mug never got empty. I'd have to watch myself or I'd be back and forth to the bathroom all night.
"No, actually, I had no idea I'd even applied to a teaching position until was contacted about an interview," I admitted.
"You didn't know what you'd applied for?" Alex frowned.
I shook my head. "I got a degree in anthropology. Except that I didn't actually want to go on and do fieldwork and get a master's like the rest of the anthropology majors." I could see that Alex didn't quite grasp what I was saying, so I decided to clarify. "It would be like if someone decided to solely focus on taking muggle studies, but then after graduation, didn't actually want to work with muggles."
"But why would anyone do that?" Alex frowned.
"The classes were interesting," I defended myself. "I really enjoyed learning about all the different cultures all over the world and everything. But I guess I just wasn't interested in taking that learning outside of the classroom. I didn't want to travel to some remote part of Africa to integrate myself into some little-known society to study them."
"So instead you came to a magical castle, where you're basically completely cut off from the outside world, and have integrated yourself into a culture you can never fully participate in?" Alex inquired, an amused expression on his face.
"Okay, so admittedly if you look at things that way, I'm doing exactly what I didn't want to do," I agreed. "But I didn't really realize what I was doing at the time. I needed a job fast; this was the only place that had shown interest in me, and I figured going to a boarding school would be like having an adventure without really having one. I didn't know about the magic until after I'd arrived."
"Do you wish you'd said no, now that you know what the job really entails?" Alex wondered.
I considered his question. On the one hand, I'd be home with my family and friends. I'd have access to my phone, my computer, my television. I wouldn't have to wonder what was happening on Grey's Anatomy, because I'd be able to watch it weekly. I wouldn't have all the stress that I had now. I wouldn't have to deal with people like Donnor Dalman for one. I wouldn't have to worry about everyone judging me for being different. I wouldn't be responsible for a bunch of teenage witches and wizards.
But on the other hand, I'd have been admitting to my parents that I'd wasted four years of my life. I'd be stuck living with them, probably working at the supermarket or worse. I'd be pretty much alone, while all my friends were going off and starting their lives and having their own adventures. And I wouldn't have met the people here who had so quickly become so important in my life. Skye and Cam and… and Alex. I couldn't even imagine having not come here and never met any of them.
"No, I really don't," I replied. "I'm glad I came here, even if it ends up only being for one year."
"Good," Alex smiled over his mug of hot chocolate. "Because I'm really glad you came too."