Disclaimer: I don't own any of the characters in this story (more's the pity--they could help pay my student loans) except for Eve Berger. Nor did I come up with the plot of PoA, and the scenes and dialogue included in that fab book, which I humbly reproduce at certain points herein. All that belongs to J.K. Rowling, Warner Bros., Bloomsbury, Raincoast, Scholastic...the list goes on! The line from a "favourite play" is from Oscar Wilde's An Ideal Husband.
A/N: I know, rather short chapter, and no Snape. Trust me, it's just one of those necessary chapters you have to go through before getting to some good stuff in the next one. evil authorial laugh
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Chapter 13: An Interesting Proposition
No one in Gryffindor Tower slept that night, instead remaining in the common room for a few hours amongst the refuse of the party to vent their worries about Black's ability to get into the school. Ron must have told his story a hundred times before McGonagall returned to say that they hadn't found any sign of Black, yet again, and to send everyone to bed.
But though everyone obeyed, the tired faces at the breakfast table the next morning showed that not many had actually slept, and if they had, they hadn't slept well.
The mood was subdued that day and few students left the tower, though that could have been as much due to the security trolls that were guarding the reinstated Fat Lady's portrait, as to their uneasiness at Black's ability to sneak past the previous defences. If he could find a way into the dormitories themselves...
Trying to get her mind on something else, Eve worked on schoolwork for most of the day, brainstorming ideas for the research essays that some of her teachers had assigned. These were large, more challenging end-of-term essays assigned to her in lieu of those her classmates had been given and which were to be more in-depth than those expected from the other first-years. They weren't much different than the ones she'd had to do in university, really, but she had always found the hardest part of essays simply trying to think of something interesting to study.
She spent some time puzzling over what to do for her potions essay, trying to think of something that Snape wouldn't likely scoff at the moment she proposed it to him. The easiest to decide so far was History of Magic, though the sole truly interesting idea she'd had was something that she wasn't sure she'd be able to do.
When Professor Binns had assigned her the essay she had immediately decided to mix Muggle and magical history. From her reading, she could see how much the two were obviously linked and she was fascinated by where witches and wizards turned up in mostly Muggle events. She had been nicely to surprised to see that there were even a couple wizards involved in one of the historical events that she had long been interested in: the sinking of the R.M.S. Titanic. Two wizards had been travelling on board the ship, escorting across the Atlantic the seventy-six cases of "Dragon's Blood" listed on the cargo manifest which had caused much head-scratching amongst historians in coming decades. They had survived the sinking by encasing themselves in a warming charm and swimming to an upturned lifeboat, not knowing that they were swimming close enough to the ship's baker for the charm to rub off on him and allow him to stay in the freezing water for a few hours. Luckily for the wizards involved the baker had been drinking rather heavily and his survival in the water had been accredited to the warming properties of liquor, at least until people knew better.
But the Titanic story, interesting as it was, was too Muggle-intensive for this essay. Instead she'd decided to pursue an altogether different tactic, comparing two similar events; one Muggle, one magical: the Nuremberg trials of Nazi leaders after World War II and the Death Eater trials, after what she had taken to calling the Great Wizarding War. No other dark wizard had ever been as feared or as destructive as He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named and it was so recent that she would likely be able to find some good primary sources for the essay.
But therein lay her problem. Was it perhaps too recent? Too fresh in people's memories for her to be meddling with it, particularly for a first-year Muggle-born? It was unlikely that anyone other than Professor Binns would ever read it, or that anyone beyond Dumbledore and perhaps McGonagall and Madam Pince would even know what she was researching. But then rumours tended to spread like wildfire in Hogwarts; everyone there knew about almost everything that happened.
She had her usual meeting with Dumbledore later that week and mentioned her concerns. When she'd explained her essay idea, Dumbledore was silent for a moment, his blue eyes looking in her direction but not at her.
Eve could feel apprehension rising in her--she had pushed her limits too far and Dumbledore was going to tell her so, she'd presumed too much, she could almost hear him saying that she'd better pick something else.
Finally, Dumbledore spoke. "Why do you want to do this topic in particular?"
Eve had been so certain that he'd say no that for a moment she couldn't think of what to say, before grasping at her responses as they started to surface.
"Well, I want to do something comparing Muggle and magical history, mainly because that's how I understand a lot of magical historical events, by finding similarities with Muggle ones. I don't know if I could have understood the situation with You-Know-Who--"
"His name is Voldemort, Eve," Dumbledore interjected gently. Eve was reminded of a line from one of her favourite plays: Let us call things by their proper names, it makes matters simpler.
"Er, the Voldemort situation, at least as well as anyone could have who didn't live through--or maybe I should say who didn't know about it, since I did live through it, only I didn't know it at the time--" You're babbling, Eve, her mind prodded, but she couldn't help it--she always got rather nervous when on the spot. Taking a deep breath, she paused a moment to try and get her thoughts in order again. "I couldn't have understood it if I hadn't already learned about the Second World War, and been able to see the similarities between the two. As for this topic in particular...I will admit that I wanted to do it because I've been doing some reading on the subject, so I already have a bit of a grasp of it. I'm not deluding myself into thinking that just because I'm a Muggle I should write it because I might have a different perspective on things--more removed, you know--at least, not in the sense that my perspective might be somehow better than others or something, though I would like to think that I might be looking at it in a different way. And, well...this is just the topic idea that grabbed me--I can't really explain it more than that. It's not much of a reason really, just that as soon as the idea came to me, I could think of ways I might format the essay, what I wanted to cover, et cetera." Realizing that she was babbling again, she stopped and waited for Dumbledore's response while trying to think up a better argument and resisting the urge to fill the silence with explanations.
Dumbledore waited a moment, apparently considering her reasons before speaking, looking at her with an expression of the utmost seriousness.
"I am loath to restrict any of the students in this school in their research, it seems to go against my role as someone who promotes the education of young people, and I do not want to start doing that now. But if you are to do this essay, I must lay down some guidelines before I give you access to the materials you need. The primary of these is that you must not tell any of your fellow students what you find out. There are children at this school whose families were involved in either side of the battle, and who, for various reasons, would be harmed if some information about their families became general knowledge. Some of their parents may not even have told them about events that happened to their relatives during the conflict, waiting until they are ready to know. Unfortunately, I cannot really restrict what materials you look at to prevent this--the size of the magical population in Britain means that all those of magical parentage had relatives somehow involved, some of whom would naturally have different surnames and not be obviously connected to those students. For that reason I make my second request, that you not allow anyone save Professor Binns, Professor McGonagall or myself to ever see your essay or your notes. I ask that you not work on this in your common room, or in the public sections of the library, but keep all your materials in your room or in your rucksack during school hours, or when walking between your room and the restricted section of the library. I also ask that in case someone does ever read any of your research, that in all your notes and your essay, you not use any more personal information than is absolutely necessary. Names and positions are obviously completely out of the question. Anything more than that I leave up to your discretion, but I ask that you err on the side of caution in every instance.
"Please understand, my requests are made not because I do not trust you. I must be honest, I would not let you pursue this line of research if I thought that you were likely to tell other students about it, even without my asking you not to do so. If I was not convinced of your ability to handle what you may find or to bear this responsibility that I have asked of you, nor the absolute necessity of your seeing the materials I am going to give you access to, I would not give you the privilege and responsibility.
"As you have no doubt heard, Hogwarts is one of the safer places in the magical world, and the Ministry of Magic has over the years had us host a number of different collections which should be preserved at all costs. Most of these are in the restricted section, and many are so precious or provocative that they cannot be taken outside it. Only those students pursuing serious research, such as those in their upper years, are ever allowed to access this material. Truthfully, most students never ask for this access or would require it, their research best served with materials that happen to be more readily available, or they are simply not concerned with those topics. This year there are only eight students in the school who have asked for this sort of access, and I have given it to all of them. The restricted material that I offer to you is the edited edition of the Ministry's Death Eater trial records. In return for your agreement with, and compliance with the guidelines I mentioned previously, I will give you access to the edited version of the trial records. If you are worried about the edited version compromising the integrity of your essay, you should not be. It is edited only in that the names of the innocent are removed from its pages. Do I have your word that you will follow the rules I have given you? I must ask you to make a wizards' contract on this; do you know what that means?"
Eve couldn't believe that Dumbledore was actually doing this. She'd never imagined that she'd get this sort of access, and was determined not to let him down.
"I do. I promise to follow the rules you have mentioned." It was not a light promise. Eve knew enough of the wizarding world and the way it operated to know that when a witch or wizard gave their word on something after another invoked a wizard's contract, they were bound to follow their promise by a very powerful sort of magic. Not only was there the usual threat of legal and personal liability if a magical contract was broken, but they also operated somewhat along the same lines as the idea of "karma": break the contract, and very nasty things would be visited back on you tenfold.
But Dumbledore hadn't said anything that Eve couldn't agree with or would find hard to follow, and so it wasn't much of a hard bargain. Besides, even if she had had to consider it, she was still surprised that he was giving her as much latitude as he was.
The next day, Madam Pince showed her where the edited trial records were kept, as well as the spell to disarm them: tapping a certain gilt ridge on the leather spine with one's wand four times and saying "Pace" on the third tap. Madam Pince didn't say what would happen if the spell was done incorrectly or not performed, but from her tone it sounded rather gristly. Eve had enough practice that afternoon opening the indexes and a couple of the introductory volumes that she was reasonably certain she'd remember the spell later.
Eve began her research for her essays the next week, spending a lot of her time in the library, as she now even found her room too distracting. She had too many of her favourite books there and too often wanted to simply read one of them instead of the books she was using for her essays. Erik also had a knack for distracting her once she'd settled down at her desk. He would rub against her legs, meowing pitifully, begging for attention; or he would jump into her lap and put his little face right up to hers, making it rather hard to read.
Instead she chose one of the more isolated tables in the library, when she wasn't in the restricted section, and took copious notes in print as tiny as she could make it, to save parchment. As she began her research she was comforted by the fact that she now had a much larger base of knowledge about the wizarding world to work with, which certainly helped. She didn't have to worry so much about knowing the background, things that most witches or wizards did not explain because they took them for granted. However, she was to learn that there were still a few things she did not know about the world she now lived in.