Chapter 26: Gryffindor Vandals

Alex and I ignored Mr. Clarke's designated separate routes that night in favor of combining the two so we could walk together. Over the course of the afternoon, the hurt and defeat that I'd felt had turned to anger. I'd been trying so hard to do my job well, and I was. Headmaster Slinkhard had supported me in everything I'd done thus far, the wand ban included. As far as I knew, Tessa, Hannah, and Donnor Dalman were the only ones with outright problems with me. Even Andromeda Tonks, the Head of Slytherin house, seemed fine with my presence here and my teaching style.

"You just have to ignore them," Alex counselled me. "I don't care what they said, they're not going to change the Headmaster's mind about you unless you give him a reason to question you."

"But what if I do?" I insisted. "I don't know this world. I don't know where the line between acceptable and unacceptable is. What if I cross it?"

"I'll warn you," Alex assured me.

I shook my head. "That's nice and all, but you're not necessarily going to be around every time I make a decision, and I can't be running every decision I make by you."

"Just trust your instincts," Alex said. "They've been working fine until now. Besides, I don't think there's much you could or would do that would cross any real lines."

"I guess," I muttered. It wasn't the most comforting, but his words helped a little. "I still need to do something about Donnor Dalman."

"What are you going to do?" Alex asked. "You can't give him detention because you overheard Tessa saying he was spying on you."

"Well I can't just pretend I don't know what he's up to!" I protested. "I should kick him out of my class!"

Alex shook his head. "That would be just the ammunition Tessa would need to make a stink. Unless he actually does something, he has just as much a right to be in that class as anybody else."

As usual, Alex was right. He was being much more level-headed than me. Then again, nobody was threatening his job at the moment.

"I can't just go back to teaching him like nothing's changed," I insisted.

"Nothing has changed," Alex reminded me. "Apart from your knowledge about the situation."

We rounded a corner and came across a patch of wall that had been covered in graffiti. The writing was in red, and there was a large Gryffindor lion painted next to the words Ravenclaw sucks. I sighed. It seemed that I was coming across graffiti like this more and more during my patrols. Mr. Clarke said it was a common occurrence given the upcoming opening of the quidditch season with the Gryffindor vs. Ravenclaw match.

I got out my little notebook that I carried around and began to make note of exactly where we were so that Mr. Clarke could come and clean it up later tonight when Alex took out his wand and waved it at the wall causing the graffiti to vanish, as if it was being soaked up by the stone of the wall.

I grumbled to myself as I scratched out the notes I'd made. Of course Alex could take care of these things easily. I was probably the only teacher here who had to make a thorough report every night of places Mr. Clarke should investigate. All the other teachers were perfectly capable of handling anything they came across themselves.

"The vandals may still be out and about," Alex said. "We should split up and search the rest of the floor in case they're hiding out nearby."

I nodded my assent and we split up, each going a different direction with plans to meet back here in fifteen minutes. I didn't know how much use I would be. If a student were, say, invisible or something, I would have no way of detecting that. Not that I knew if invisibility was even possible in the wizarding world, but it seemed plausible given everything else I'd witnessed thus far.

As I poked my head through the doorway of a classroom, I heard movement from inside. I called out to see if anyone was there, but if there was, they weren't letting their presence be known. Tentatively, I moved further into the room, checking under desks for anyone that might be trying to hide.

"Go!" a voice cried from behind me. "It's the muggle!"

I whirled around and all I saw was a flash of movement before the door of the classroom slammed shut. I raced over to the door to pull it open only to discover that it was locked. Furiously, I started banging on the door, screaming for whoever was on the other side to open it. But the students were long gone and Alex was on the other side of the castle right now, searching the rest of the floor.

Realizing it was no use, I stopped my banging and started to examine the lock, trying to figure out if I could pick it. I did have a bobby pin in my hair, so I pulled it out and bent it, poking it into the keyhole. As I did so, a zap of magical energy pulsed out of the lock and pushed me backwards and into a grouping of desks. I landed hard and I winced as the corner of one of the desks banged into my side. I was definitely going to leave a bruise.

Angrily, I threw the bobby pin at the door and it clattered unsatisfactorily to the ground. It was obvious that the door could only be opened by magic, and I didn't have any. Frustrated, I sat down and dropped my head into my hands, trying to figure out what to do.

Alex would eventually come looking for me when I didn't meet back up with him. I just had to wait until I heard him yelling for me and then I could call out and he'd be able to let me out of this classroom. It wasn't completely the end of the world.

What annoyed me the most was how easy it had been for those students to get the drop on me. The words of the one student still rang out in my head. Go! It's the muggle. Knowing that I didn't have magic, they'd known that they could take advantage of me. I remembered Tessa's comments from the first time we'd had night patrol together, about how I shouldn't be permitted to do patrols because I wouldn't have the abilities necessary to control any misbehaving students. Maybe she was right. Whoever these students had been, they'd gotten away. I hadn't even had a chance to identify them.

It was another twenty minutes before I heard Alex's voice calling my name. I ran up to the door and called out, telling him I was locked in and that he needed to use magic to get me out. Once he knew where I was, it took him all of five seconds to cast the spell that released the door latch, and the door flew open, giving me my freedom.

"What happened?" he asked in confusion.

I sighed and explained how I'd come into the room to search for the miscreants only to have them get the best of me.

"You didn't notice any identifying features?" he inquired.

I shook my head. "I mean, I assume it was the Gryffindors who vandalised the wall," I said. "But they weren't wearing their robes or ties, so I couldn't even confirm house colors."

"They're not going to get away with this," Alex said angrily.

"They already did," I muttered.

Though I'd been angry at first, now I was just dejected. I didn't even blame the students for what they'd done. If I'd been in their position, I'd have done the same thing. They were just trying to keep themselves out of trouble. I was mostly upset with myself, that I was so helpless. This just reinforced how completely out of my depth I was here. If I'd been any other teacher, those students would have been rounded up and would all be facing detentions.

"We have to do something," Alex insisted. "We can take points from Gryffindor."

"We don't even know for sure they were Gryffindors," I pointed out. "We can't take points on a guess."

"Then we take points from all the houses," Alex said.

I couldn't help but let out a snort of laughter. "Well we definitely can't do that," I said. "Besides, it wouldn't really do anything in the long run. The houses maintain the same point differences between them. It would be a complete waste of time."

As Alex continued to search for a way to make this better, I felt my resolve set in. As much as I appreciated what Alex was trying to do, there was nothing that could be done. It was no use pretending that I wasn't a muggle, because I was one. And sure, it gave me some advantages, but it also gave me a lot of disadvantages.

"Maybe I shouldn't be allowed to patrol at night," I said then. "If I can't handle the students that are breaking curfew."

"Nonsense," Alex scoffed. "You've handled other instances of broken curfew. Look, any teacher could have lost them. Even just the extra seconds it would've taken me to unlock that door could have cost me the ability to catch them. Students can be slippery, and nobody expects you to be a god. You may be a muggle, but we're all human."

I sighed, and was again reminded of just how much I appreciated Alex. He always knew what to say to make me feel better when I was growing discouraged.

"You're a great teacher," he insisted. "Your students love your classes; they say so all the time."

"They do?" I asked in surprise. Nobody had ever mentioned what my students said about my class when I wasn't around.

Alex nodded. "I don't have all your students in my classes," he said. "But I have enough of them to know that yours is one of their favorites. I have students that are jealous of their friends for having chosen muggle studies as an elective."

"But Hannah said there were a bunch of second years who didn't want to take my class next year because of the wand ban," I insisted.

Alex shrugged. "Maybe," he allowed. "But there's just as many that don't care. And you can't expect everyone to choose your class as an elective anyway. There are four elective courses and only two elective slots in the schedules."

I nodded. Alex was right. I couldn't expect complete popularity, with the students or amongst my colleagues. I had to be content knowing that there were a large number of students that enjoyed, and even looked forward to my classes, and that the Headmaster thought I was going a good job. Hannah and Tessa were just teachers. It didn't matter what they thought about my teaching style.

And as for the patrolling, Alex was right about that too. I had to stop berating myself for things I couldn't control. Not having magic put me at a disadvantage in certain situations, but there were other times that it was actually an advantage. In the classroom, for example. My fifth and seventh students were sure to be better prepared for their Ministry exams than any fifth- or seventh-year class before me, and for life beyond this castle. That was what I was doing here. I had to trust in that and stop doubting myself all the time.

"Thank you," I said to Alex.

"Of course," Alex returned. "And for what it's worth, I'm really glad you're here."

I smiled and glanced down for a moment to gather myself before looking back at Alex.

"Me too," I said, swallowing thickly as I became suddenly very aware of my breathing.

Alex wasn't that far away. We were completely alone, and he was looking at me with a look that made me excited and nervous all at the same time. My breathing picked up as he refused to break eye contact and my heartrate picked up as well.

I felt like I was glued to the spot, unable to move and just completely focused on Alex. And then he took a step closer, something shifting in his eyes as he went from looking at me like I was someone he really liked to someone he really wanted.

My body moved as if of its own accord, gliding forward to meet Alex in the middle. He was so close now, so close that another step would have us touching. We both stopped and my breathing stopped as I waited for him to make the first move. In that moment, I didn't feel like a muggle anymore. I didn't feel other, or alien, or out of place at all. I felt like I was right where I belonged.

"What do you think you're doing?" a deep voice called out.

The spell was broken, and in panic I spun around to find Mr. Clarke lumbering towards us.

"We weren't – that's to say we were just – there were these kids and – "

I stammered terribly and felt my face heat up in shame at being caught in such a position when we were supposed to be patrolling the corridors.

"You're supposed to be in the dungeons," Mr. Clarke pointed at Alex. "I don't make up these patrol routes for nothing you know."

"Sorry," Alex said sheepishly. "I'll head down there right away. I was just giving Katie some pointers."

"Hmph," Mr. Clarke grumbled. "Pointers." He glared at us both with something akin to exasperation.

Alex gave me one last apologetic look before he turned and headed in the direction of the staircase to get started on his own rounds. Mr. Clarke waited until he was sure Alex was gone before nodding gruffly at me and beginning to lumber away.

"Wait!" I called out after the night patrolman. "You should know, there were some vandals up here not long ago. I tried to chase after them, but they got away. I think they were Gryffindors, and they might still be out and about."

Mr. Clarke nodded stiffly. "I'll keep a lookout," he assured me.

I thanked him, and as he disappeared again, I consulted my own patrol route and began walking it once more. The whole time, I couldn't get Alex out of my head. He'd been about to kiss me; I was sure of it. I'd started to wonder, after all these weeks, whether perhaps he wasn't interested in me after all, given that he hadn't made a move. But now I knew. There was something there and it was undeniable. I felt myself grow excited as I anticipated our next encounter.

The rest of the patrol was uneventful and when I returned to Mr. Clarke's office, he informed me that Alex had already turned in his report and gone to bed. Disappointed that I wouldn't get the chance to talk to him again tonight, I returned to my own quarters and stretched out on my bed, exhausted but happy, and looking forward to the good dreams I was sure to have.