A/N: Sorry for the unreasonable delay in updating! I've moved and settled, which means I'll be updating this more regularly now. Thank you so much for the reviews, follows, and favorites! Your continued interest really means a lot to me!
CHAPTER XXII
The Scentless Apprentice
[Hogwarts | February 1995]
"You will comply! I will have order!" A harsh, high-pitched voice squeaks from inside the caverns of the Transfiguration classroom. Professor Spektor's passing by, on her way up to the owlery, and pauses outside the door to listen in for a bit.
"I will not stoop to these unreasonable standards." Professor McGonagal counters, followed by a thud that Spektor imagines is one of those watered-down Ministry-approved doorstops Umbridge is pushing. "My students are here to learn, and they have every right to be educated."
"These new guidelines are not to hinder education, Professor. Merely to ensure that the course material is suitable for these impressionable young minds." Dolores Umbridge quips.
"And tell me, how is learning how to transfigure a canary into a teakettle unsuitable for fourth-year students?"
"It's because the Ministry doesn't want these kids to be able to do any actual magic. Isn't that right, Dolores?" Professor Spektor slips in, allowing her arrogance to get the better of her.
"This is a private meeting. Please leave." Umbridge orders.
"Not very private when you leave the door wide open..." Spektor mutters, jerking her thumb over her shoulder at the entryway.
"Enough! I will not tolerate insubordination." Umbridge draws her wand.
"Heh. Insubordination?" Spektor laughs.
"She's got a point Dolores. It does seem as though you are trying to impede practical magical education at Hogwarts." McGonagal says, "I can't imagine why the Ministry would be behind such an initiative..."
"The Ministry is behind no such initiative." Umbridge mutters agitatedly. "And I wouldn't suggest such things if you don't want to be put on trial for treason..."
"Treason. Good God what year is it?" Spektor arches an eyebrow.
"Oh, look at that. Time's up. I'm very busy, and if you'd excuse me, I have more pressing matters to see to." Umbridge quips, and bustles out of the classroom, clipboard in hand.
"I see you're the latest target of the Pink Menace." Spektor says to McGonagal, who's resumed her seat behind her desk. "Nice to see you're taking a stand..."
"Don't you have something you need to do?" McGonagal snaps.
"Not really. Uh... Was just about to send a letter..." Spektor shrugs.
"Well if you'd kindly leave me to my work..." McGonagal says. There's a bitterness in her voice that has not faded with time, a bite Spektor remembers well.
"This is called an olive branch. I'm extending it, see..."
"I don't want your friendship."
"This isn't because of that stupid rumor about O'Connor is it? Because that is literally ancient history."
"O'Connor? You mean Edward?" She hasn't thought about Edward in a long, long time.
"You know it never happened. That it was just Tom..."
"Just Tom..." She drops the words like heavy stones upon the floor.
"Ok look I know you didn't like him—"
"That's an understatement."
"Right. True." Spektor sighs. "And also ancient history, by the way..."
"Not from what I heard."
"Well..." Spektor's getting the feeling she's fighting a losing battle here. Perhaps backed herself into a corner... "Gonna go mail this...letter...then."
"To be clear, I don't want your friendship because I'm not stupid enough to befriend a devil." McGonagal calls after her, her slim figure framed in the doorway.
"What. Did. You. Just. Call. Me?" Spektor blanches, swivels around, letter crumpled in her now-clenched fist.
"Your brother, Barnaby, was doing some research and left his materials in the Gryffindor common room. I was tidying up... Got a glance at his notes...by accident, of course..." Spektor's wand is drawn, and she's advancing on the prim old woman.
"It was you." She growls. McGonagal jumps from her chair, drawing her own wand in self-defense, and putting as much distance as she can manage between herself and her now-infuriated former classmate.
"I never told anyone!" The professor's voice is quavering. "Well, not until recently..."
"First I thought it was Barnaby. Then Severus tells me it was Tom. Now you're saying..." Spektor's ranting, wand trained on McGonagal's heart, which is beating a reckless tattoo against her ribcage.
"I don't know what you're talking about, but I can tell you this. The only person I've told is Dumbledore, right before the holidays. I'd been meaning to tell him sooner but I couldn't bring myself to..."
"And why's that?" Her outer calmness is only betrayed by an undertone of seething rage.
"Because, well, quite frankly...I'm terrified of you, V." McGonagal cringes, not wanting to admit it, but also understanding the importance of being honest at a time like this.
"Terrified?" Spektor laughs. "You?"
"Do you blame me? After what you did to that poor girl. And those kids... And not to mention, the people you chose to surround yourself with..." McGonagal sighs.
"That's right. You would remember that..." She lowers her wand. "Listen, Minerva. I don't think you understand what you've done..."
"Oh, I think I do." McGonagal says, keeping her wand leveled at the devil before her. "And I suggest you go to Albus if you wish to discuss the matter further." Spektor stands there for a moment, trying to think of something, anything, to say. But before she can, McGonagal says, "You can leave now." Her head nodding in the direction of the door. Is she really going to skulk out of the office like a scolded schoolgirl? Yes. But that doesn't mean she won't get the last word. Eventually.
It's starting to feel like it used to—the good ol' paranoia creeping in, making her nerves twitch, her blood itch... The walk from Professor McGonagal's office to the owlery is almost impossible to complete with her nerves being what they are. Every step she hears behind her echoes in her mind, every voice a knife aimed at her back, her senses conspiring against her. No. These kids don't know anything. They're harmless. She takes out the small mirror Dumbledore gave her for Christmas and glances apprehensively at her ow reflection. The woman gazing back at her looks drained, and worse—scared. She finally makes the climb up the winding staircase and into the tower of fluttering owls, drawing the now crumpled envelope from her pocket, smoothing it out, and tying it to the leg of a large tawny with a penchant for nipping fingers. After the owl takes off through the window, she stands there for a moment, looking around at the rest of the birds on their perches, and gets the intense feeling that Penelope Fairchild's about to barge in, that stupid grin on her face, those eyes so full of light they can't help but leak. Looking down at her feet, she remembers the letter to Tom she found on the floor, the one from the Embassy. The one she tore up. Wait, hold on a second... How exactly did the a letter from the Embassy get into Hogwarts? Devils don't use the owl post...
The torches are burning low in their brackets, their light flickering off the rough hewn stone along the quiet halls. With a slim book tucked under her arm—L'Apprenti Inodore (The Scentless Apprentice)—feet treading soundlessly on the flagstone, Victoria Spektor roams the corridors of Hogwarts quite like she used to in the good ol' days, habitually with one eye over her shoulder, her ears perked for the soft sounds of other humans lurking in the shadowed corners. And what do you know, a flit of a cloak across the intersection just ahead, and then another, and a third. She quickens her pace, stealth an afterthought since it comes so naturally. The three students have no idea they're being followed until she's right behind them.
"What are you doing out here, Potter? It's past curfew." She says quietly. The poor kid almost has a heart attack. He spins around, surprised to hear a woman's voice and not Professor Snape's.
"Just going back to the common room." He says, "We were studying...in the library..." Ron and Hermione, who are standing just a few paces behind him, nod in agreement.
"The Gryffindor common room is that way." Professor Spektor says, pointing in the direction they had just come from.
"Right. So it is." Harry says, looking to Hermione for help.
"And, pardon my curiosity but, I just came from the library and I don't remember seeing you three there." She cups her chin in her hand.
"Wellllll if it isn't little Miss Victoria!" A sinister singsong in an all-too-familiar voice from several feet above their heads. Peeves the Poltergeist's got a grin stretched ear to ear. "Oh has Peevesy gots a story for ya!"
"Oh get lost." Professor Spektor groans, rolling her eyes.
"Just like her hubby, she's fond of some troubly..." He cackles.
"And you'll get out of here on the fuckin' doubly." She raises her wand and shoots a curse in Peeve's direction, which rebounds off the wall and knocks one of the torches to the floor, a small pile of flames that Hermione, with serendipitously quick reflexes, promptly extinguishes. Peeves drifts away, blowing an unnecessarily wet raspberry, before finally disappearing.
"Did I tell you to put that out?" Professor Spektor barks at Hermione.
"Um...no..." Hermione's confused. She was only trying to be helpful...
"Ten points from Gryffindor." Professor Spektor grumbles. Too bad Poltergeists are already dead...
"Hey, wait—that's not fair!" Harry pipes up. "She was..."
"Answer my question." Professor Spektor orders.
"We told you. We're going..." Harry starts.
"You're lying." She cuts him off.
"Hey, I didn't know you were married..." Ron interjects.
"Surprised?" Well, she's not the most likable person, to be sure.
"Why do you go by your maiden name then?" Hermione asks.
"None of your business." Professor Spektor snaps. "Where are your books?"
"What?"
"Books. You were just at the library, right? I don't see any books." It's becoming clear Professor Spektor's not going to let them slide. But around the corner comes another Professor that Harry never thought he'd be so happy to see.
"I smelled fire..." Professor Snape says, noticing the group standing in the middle of the corridor.
"Of course you did. With a nose like that..." Professor Spektor quips.
"I see you've got this under control, then." Snape says, his cheeks reddening.
"Actually, would you mind escorting these three back to the Gryffindor common room? They seem to have gotten lost." She winks. And without even waiting for a response from Snape, she's already gliding down the corridor and out of sight.
She's walking into a dark room, candle held out in front of her. When she raises it to see the room better, the feeble flame brushes against the spine of a hefty book and, in an instant, it is aflame. The fire's leaping now, from one book to the next, down the line of spines that stretch on and on, from shelf to shelf, and she's standing now in the middle of a burning library. Pages flutter around like charred leaves. The wooden shelves break like brittle bones, cracking along the grain, sighing with the relief of years of weighted words lifted from their arms. Up in smoke, the words gasp, their shapes lost to the hunger of the flame, consuming them all the same.
