Ollivander Blood

Authors' Note: The dialogue from the Muggle Studies class comes from Act V of George Bernard Shaw's Pygmalion, it is used without permission.

Also without permission is the reference to a certain brand of shampoo, taken from Katinka's 'Interwoven,' on the Sugar Quill. Check it out because, although outdated, it is perhaps the best fic I have ever read, ever.

Also, the film of 'Deathly Hallows, Part One' made Professor Charity Burbage out to be a woman with a definite appearance, and quite a bit younger than the one that I write. This actually makes a lot of sense. But for the purposes of my story, Charity Burbage is a slightly different character. Don't be alarmed.

Also, Happy New Year, one and all! Cheers!

DON'T PANIC.

I'm not kidnapped or away on an emergency, I've taken my Stone Cloak and am going to Hogsmeade/Hogwarts, to visit Dora, Professor Burbage, and Severus Snape, and to ask them about Benedicte. I have got to find out. That's it. I will be very careful. I will be home before nightfall.

Linus

Calliope and Mark stared at the note on the door, dumbfounded. Calliope was still in her dressing gown and pyjamas; Mark had called her out of her room when he saw it.

"I don't believe it," she said. "What does he think he's doing?"

"Did he forget a 'P.S. We're no longer criminals'? I can't believe it! He's playing fast and loose with his own safety and with mine!" Calliope looked at him, startled by the anger in his voice. Mark's hands were balled into fists and his face was livid. "He would never accept this sort of behavior from me, never, what is his deal –"

"Mark, calm down," Calliope touched his arm and he glanced at her, briefly contrite, but not pacified.

"Sorry – but I can't believe he would do this. He's always following the rules, living by the books – if he's going to do this, why don't I just go back to Edinburgh and see how the Festival is carrying on?" He turned jerkily away from her, away from the door.

"You're right," Calliope said steadily. "This isn't like him, usually. But you don't know him like I do – this isn't against him, either, against his nature, I mean."

Mark nodded.

"He – this, this memory must really mean a lot to him. He knows the risks. I'm sorry, but it may be that he acted without thinking of you."

Mark's facial expression did not change. "Still an idiotic thing to do. Self-centered."

"Now, Mark…"

"He could have sent you."

In Hogsmeade Linus was answering that exact same idea to himself, "If you want it done right you do it yourself." He undid and redid the star-shaped clasp on his collar. "Don't sent a mermaid, don't sent a centaur, even a house-elf won't do it the way it needs to be done." He turned the corner past Zonko's joke shop – and stopped, backtracking to look on the windows again. There was a grimly neat row of 'Wanted' posters, for pettier criminals, such as embezzlers, arsonists, and…

Two posters, side by side, displayed caricatures at the B&B level of animation (breathing & blinking), showing a grim-faced manikin in a Stone Cloak with a pointed little beard and melodramatic air; the other showed a dim-looking fellow who wore a New York Yankees T-shirt and a large, rather disturbing smile.

Linus stared. "The horror…" he whispered.

A noise – a dog barking – brought him back to reality. He shook his head, blinking. Then he headed up to the castle.

Morning, and the Obliviator and Paramnesiac's Department was busy already. One poor squad was returning from an all night repair on the memories of a threatening, shapeshifting piece of graffiti scrawled on the side of a Muggle publishing house (a house that specialized in fantasy and speculative fiction books).

As the last of the Apparition pops had sounded in the entrance chamber, T. R. opened the door.

"Welcome back, welcome back," he said. "If I may make a slight demand on your time? Please, come into my office. I think you all deserve a little break for all your hard work, so I've called up a small tea service." He smiled at them all.

A. Tweak followed the others, but thought to herself 'He's got a plan going on…'

And when she stepped into the office, the dumpy form standing by the samovar, clad in a hideous salmon-colored cardigan made her shudder. She was about to spin on her heel and walk out when a timid voice by her shoulder asked "Tea?"

Amity turned to look. A plain, young woman – seeming too young to be out of Hogwarts – was holding out a tea tray to Amity with an almost pleading smile.

Amity was about to refuse, but the scent caught her attention. She had forgotten lunch, spending the hour among the copious folders of the M.L.E. "Is that – chai?"

"Yes, ma'am."

A pause; the scent wafted up, and Amity and loathed herself for her weakness. "That's good chai."

"Only the best, ma'am."

Amity gave in. She took a cup of tea, and poured out honey. She graciously thanked the girl who had served her – or started to, when Umbridge barked "Julietta!" from the other side of the room. The girl gave a quick curtsy. Amity watched her mismatched shoulders with pity as she curtsied and hurried her way across the room, and took a place against a wall, trying to be unobtrusive.

"A.T., I hope you're enjoying yourself?"

A.T. looked up into the face of her employer. "Ah, Sir! Thanks very much for this reception, T.R. Very thoughtful of you."

"Of course. Is everything going well?"

"As well as can be expected."

"Might I have a word?"

"Of course." Her smile was rather fixed.

"Well, A.T.," he said, "You've served the Obliviators and Paramnesiac's Division well for the five years since you joined our ranks. Today I meet with my fellow Omniamnists, and one of our topics will be you."

"Me, sir?"

"Yes, you and the work you are doing on behalf of your colleague and friend, Linus Ollivander."

"Yes…" 'Funny how now his full name is used…' Tweak looked to the swirling flecks at the bottom of her cup, trying to focus on them to the exclusion of all else. 'Occlumency,' she could hear her instructor saying, 'Is shaping your mind to what it has to be. Leglimency shapes, prods at the mind from the outside. Occlumency fires the mind, makes it unbendable.' "This is very good tea, sir," she said meekly, taking another sip. 'I am unbendable.'

"Thank you. Now, at the meeting I will probably have to admit that your actions, such as they are, in no way represent the opinions of the London Branch of the O & P Division; we do not wish to defy the rulings of the Wizengamot."

"Oh, no sir."

"However, I must say that I find your actions – admirable."

"Sorry?" A.T. looked up from her cup and for a second met T.R.'s eyes. They were brown, creased in a smile, and glittering with triumph? She recollected herself, focused on the intricate clasp at his neck – two moons, one white and one black, facing away from a star.

"Certainly. You rush to defend a friend, even though he has been convicted – although his actions indicate him to be guilty – you still search for the truth in the overlooked corners. That deserve commendations."

"Th—thank you sir."

"I'm sure that with your work overtime, you'd also deserve one or two days off. Good days off, not more time spent researching the trial."

"That's generous of you, sir…"

"So sorry, could you repeat that?"

"I said, that's generous, sir."

"I'm not commanding you to take the day off, mind – just allowing it, should you think you need one."

'Yeah, right,' she thought. "Sir, with all due respect, considering the five patients shivering in St. Mungo's psychomagical ward, with their memories all addled, I feel that they will need a day off – a day to get back to their lives – much sooner than I will."

"You may change your mind about that." Why was the color in his cheeks so vivid? It made him look very… unhealthy. She made herself smile and nod as T. R. moved away. She finished the tea quickly, and told her buddy E. C. she was heading back to work.

She was rattled, and decided work would be the best way of dealing with it. T.R. did not approve of what she was doing. He wanted her to stop. Why was he being so obtrusive? But at least he couldn't make her stop working.

Hunched over her desk, rereading the hearing's transcript, A. Tweak coughed.

"Coming up in this half-hour, some rockin' oldies from the Glam Grimmers, and then a sampling of the Weird Sister's upcoming album, 'The Brocaded Broom' that we think you'll like. But first, a public service announcement…"

Dora Tonks adjusted the volume on her small, orange-colored Wizarding Wireless, turning it down slightly. She then let it fall to dangle from her black overcoat again. She was the only figure in sight on the Hogwarts lawn, closest to the Hogsmeade border, and in the very early, yellow light smearing the sky, she shivered, and focused hard to lengthen her hair so it would cover the tips of her ears.

'It shouldn't be this hard,' she thought, willing her hair to extend.

She didn't hear the footsteps behind her.

Mark was finishing his breakfast, having put aside (briefly) his fretting over Linus' actions, and as he called to the kitchen, "This was a great meal, truly, excellent hot chocolate in particular," Calliope came down the stairs. She had dressed casually, in a long-sleeved black turtleneck and a long, autumn-colored skirt. Her hair was half-tied back. "Good morning," she said.

Mark looked up, smiling involuntarily when he saw her. "Good morning. You look nice."

"Thanks. By the way – so you know, there's no need to compliment Scurry so loud like that."

"Oh?"

"No. The polite thing to do, at a dinner party, is to just say that the meal was delicious and compliment the master of the house. House-elves like praise, but most of all in praise of their masters. And – it's generally considered kind of gauche to mention house-elves in polite conversation."

"Oh."

"Hello, Dora."

Dora gave a start and spun around "Linus! What do you think you're doing here? What is the address of my parents' house?"

"8089 Pratchett Street, Oxford."

"Good."

"So my Stone Cloak worked."

"You think that's supposed to reassure me? When the last I heard of you was on the radio news bulletin?"

"It's way more complicated than that, but that's not what I'm here to talk to you about." He paused and looked at her. "Dora, calm down."

She took a deep, practiced breath. "I'm very surprised to see you here. Today. Wearing your uniform. You have broken the law, and I'm supposed to turn you in."

"Yes, I know, but listen –"

"Does Calliope know you're here?"

He consulted his watch. "She should by now."

She lowered her voice. "Have you been staying at Hollywyck?"

"Yes."

"With Mark what's-his-name, the Muggle?"

"Yes. Dora, can I interview you while you're on the job? Right now?"

Calliope sat down opposite him and spread her palms on the table. "Mark, today, I'm going to write a letter to the Wizengamot, to persuade them to give you another trial, with me as your witness."

"Great!"

"Yeah. We'll say that you never presumed to magic, that you never knew that wizards existed. I took care to never let you know. And as for the car accident – I'm willing to admit that I know nothing of American Muggle traffic laws, and acted recklessly, putting myself in danger."

"And that you dropped your wand?"

"Splinched, and dropped it. I still have the scar on my hand to prove it."

"Yeah. And that I've been trying to get it back to you all this time."

"Exactly. I'll take some breakfast – Scurry?"

"Linus…"

"This is really important."

"So is my job."

"All the more reason we shouldn't prolong bickering and get to the point."

"How important is it?"

"What if I told you that I had news of a person gone missing?"

"That'd be important. But –"

"But it's not a person. It's a memory, a whole stack of them, an entire life's worth, gone."

"Whose…?"

"The memory of someone, the memory of a certain person. And you, and a couple of professors up at the school, are the only ones who can help me."

She frowned. "So you want to actually enter Hogwarts when this is done?"

"Yes, exactly."

"This had better not take long – either with me or with them. I will give you the timeframe of when you go and stay, got it?"

"Yes."

"Now whose memory is this, and how have you worked it out?"

"Okay. Dora, answer to the fullest extent of your knowledge. Do you remember anyone named Benedicte Ollivander?"

Dora paused, tilting her head to the side, and then said, "Of course, yes."

An hour after he began to speak with Dora, Linus was running to the school carrying a specially enchanted note in his hand – signed by two official guards. The note stipulated that he could stay in Hogwarts, but only until two in the afternoon, an hour before most classes let out. He took the stairs to Professor Burbage's classroom two at a time, then had to stop when he arrived at the door and saw that a class was in session.

The students were acting out a scene from a play – ah, yes! He remembered this one, from that story about the flower-girl who learns to speak like a lady. Professor Burbage always said this was an extremely important play in English literature for… some reason.

Linus leaned closer to the door to listen. The students were in Victorian Muggle costume – or what could pass for it in a dimly lit room. Apparently they had rehearsed this over the summer – something like this had happened back in Linus' day. Later they had staged a gratis performance in an empty classroom and had asked the kitchens to provide treats.

FEMALE STUDENT: … apart from the things anyone can pick up (the dressing and the proper way of speaking, and so on), the difference between a lady and a flower girl is not how she behaves, but how she's treated. I shall always be a flower girl to Professor Higgins, because he always treats me as a flower girl, and always will; but I know I can be a lady to you, because you always treat me as a lady, and always will.

OTHER FEMALE STUDENT: Please don't grind your teeth, Henry.

MALE STUDENT: Well, this is really very nice of you, Miss Doolittle.

F. STUDENT: I should like you to call me Eliza, now, if you would.

M. STUDENT: Thank you. Eliza, of course.

F. STUDENT: And I should like Professor Higgins to call me Miss Doolittle.

The bell rang.

Professor Burbage looked up. "Well! That was a wonderful note on which to close today's lesson! We'll resume Act Five tomorrow. Class, the paper I assigned earlier is due Friday, don't forget. Have a good day."

Linus saw his chance. He went forward when the students have dispersed.

"Professor? Do you have a moment?" He quickly loosened the clasp on his Stone Cloak]

"So sorry, do I know you –?"

"Linus Ollivander, ma'am. You taught me in 1984, '85…"

"Oh, yes! I do remember you! How are you! I see you're wearing an Obliviator cloak, splendid, I always knew you'd go far…" She shook his hand. "But how did you get in?"

"Professor, I don't mean to seem rude, but there is a matter of some urgency that I wish to talk with you about."

"Of course, what is it?"

"I was told that you have an essay written by my sister… Benedicte?"

"… Yes, I do as a matter of fact. Funny… funny you should ask that."

"May I see it? Do you mind if I make a copy of it?"

"Oh, of course you may. I know it's right in this pile here – not too far from the top…"

He nodded, then yawned, to his great horror.

The professor chuckled. "Old habits die hard, don't they?"

Linus shook his head. "No, it's not that, it's just – I didn't sleep very well last night. Have been sleeping poorly for a while now, in fact…"

"Oh, I'm sorry to hear that. Say, Mr. Ollivander, did I hear your name on the radio recently, or am I hallucinating?"

Behind his back, he made a tight fist. "Maybe you're the one with sleep deprivation! I'm sure I haven't been in the news recently…"

" Really? All right, then. Aha! Here it is. Do you mind duplicating it yourself? My next class, you know…"

"I don't mind at all, Madam"

"Here's some paper – your sister really did give a splendid essay there – a shame… Well, Mr. Ollivander, isn't it odd, that when I asked Professor McGonagall, Head of Gryffindor, if she remembered your sister, she said no?"

"Oh?"

"And neither had Flitwick or Sinistra, or even Hagrid. Slughorn couldn't recall either, when I asked him." She shook her head. "It was very strange."

"Did you recall?"

"Actually, no. Even after I found that essay, I could never remember what Benedicte may have looked like, or been like. There's a plaque, though, in the trophy room, with her name on a list of Head Girls."

"Really?" Gingerly he picked up all four duplicated rolls of parchment and straightens up to look at her. "And none of the teachers could remember her, you say? Even those who should have taught her?"

"Precisely." She looked at him keenly. "What makes me think you were already performing an investigation into this subject?"

He shrugged, trying to be nonchalant.

"Well, I'm sure you'll be able to pry deep into the job and find out everything. Take care."

"Thank you. You take care, too, Professor."

The statue of Eustace the Garrulous appeared to be set on a backdrop of frosted glass; actually, it protected small passageway to a nook with generous windows (not, at this height, for the agoraphobic), a room where three people might sit comfortably and read, four if they were first-years. It was here that Linus retreated, placing a light spell for secrecy across the threshold.

Once inside, he sat and read the essay. As he started, he wondered, 'What is Peter Pan about? How does it end? I wonder if I could remember that? Mark would know. I wish I could ask him.' It did not take him long to read it.

When it was done he sat back a little. There had only been four individual mentions of him, which were inherently interesting (granting for Linus' bias). Well, the essay was not about him, it was about a play-acting group of Muggles as seen through the eyes of a bright and articulate young woman with a sense of humor and a tendency to digress from the topic at hand. She was a complete stranger to him, yet, she seemed like the kind of person that Linus' parents might have raised, with the confidence gained from having been an only child for most of her life. She seemed… really nice.

'I wish I could have known her,' Linus caught himself thinking – then he reminded himself that as little as four or five days ago (how many sleep cycles had he gone through? That was a bad question…) he had known her, known her history, known her face, known her by little scraps and smiles from the beginning of his memory.

"Enough of that," he said, standing up (with some effort, the room spun a little) "I don't have time."

He left the room quickly, removing the spell from the threshold as he went.

The Omniamnist glanced at his watch, saw that the time was right, and changed, invisibly, into the Death Eater. He cleared his throat, then faked a very good cough. This was the fifth such episode, carefully timed. Everyone at the meeting looked at him.

"Are you quite sure you're all right?" Someone had asked.

"I'm not quite feeling to my usual self, but –" another cough interrupted him.

"This is the season for coughs," someone farther up the table had pointed out. "It may be contagious."

"I heard someone coughing just as I was coming in…"

"Not to drive you out, but you had better go," the chairwizard said solemnly. "If it's contagious, sorry, we can't risk it."

"I understand. I apologize for –" He stood up –"having exposed you to me." A sudden doubt gripped him: had he been too eager to leave? No time for that; he was told to go, and so go he would. The Death Eater turned his back on the council of Omniamnists and marched away under the lamps of the hallway.

"What's this we have here?" The Hollywyck study. Sunshine comes in through the windows. "It looks like a radio. One of those big old-fashioned ones from World War Two."

"It is a radio. A Wizarding Wireless, and… yeah, it probably is about that old."

"… Is it safe for me to touch it?"

"You're learning. Yes, but – you can't turn it on."

"Oh. Um…"

Calliope pointed her wand at it. "Ovrit ecout," she said, and the box began playing classical music, which had sounds and turns of pitch unlike any Mark had heard before. "Thank you," he said, his hand already on the knob.

Calliope resumed her writing by the window. She was carefully trying to reconstruct her friendship with Mark and her last night in Boston at the same time. From time to time she would look up at him, fiddling with the dials.

"Ktttccccch…. This is a special bulletin of interest to all in the Thornfield area, do not, we repeat, do not… Cccchhh… 'Whatchoo talkin' bout, Mom?' [Laughter of audience]…"

… As she watched his face, looking at nothing but intense in concentration, a smile would bloom on her face that she would not notice.

"Ccchhhh… With je ne sais quoi and lots of panache-s, I'm a natural beauty from hair to galoshes… The stock for goblin-made jewelry has sunk twenty points this past weekend, a record low… Ktcccchhh… I had a sense that someone was following me, so I reached for my trusty wand and readied…"

"Calliope?" Mark turned the volume down.

She looked up at him. "Yes, Mark? What is it?"

"If my memory of the Wizarding world is – suppressed – if – what will you do? And assuming we win this war, too."

Calliope sat back and set her quill down. "You seem pretty sure we'll win."

"Well, I have no idea, but good usually wins, I've noticed. Definitely where magic is involved, you know, in stories."

"Hmph."

"No need to hmph."

"Well, if it is a story, sorry, Mark, but you and I aren't the heroes. That'd probably be – mm…."

"Who?"

"Well, Harry Potter, but I don't want to say it out loud, someone might get ideas. Anyway, what would I do, if we won the war…."

"And I had no memory of this world."

"But – you remember me?"

"Well, of course, yeah." Mark sat back on his heels, eyes fixed on her.

"Mm… well, I'd have to see, whether I wanted to stay in England or go back to the U.S."

"Say you came back…"

"Of course I'd come and see you."

"Of course." Mark was quiet, then nodded. "That'd be nice." A longer quiet. "Have you ever had to – um, talk to someone whose memory had been Modified, but yours wasn't?"

"No. You're the first real Muggle friend I've ever had."

"Oh. Well, thank you for the distinction."

"You're welcome. But of course I would come and see you. It might hurt, to remember things that you don't, but I'm sure I'd be all right. I'd manage. Millions of wizards have done the same."

"Yeah… okay."

He turned the radio up again. "Ktttcch… You never know what kind of a day your hair will have. Use Gilderoy Lockhart's Scrubbly Bubbly, in Essence of Raspberry and new –"

"I'm going to try and find a news station."

The windows that lit the dungeon, scarce that they were, let in only a hazy light, smeared by the smoke from years of Potions classes nearby. Linus could hear Professor Snape's voice ahead: "In the second semester of class we will study beings such as giants, veela, and kitsune, which are not Dark by themselves but have destructive or dangerous habits, as well, we will cover the curses found in –"

Linus stopped in his tracks. 'Defense Against the Dark Arts?' He thought. 'Snape? But it was the one subject – could that be someone else?' He tiptoed to the door and glanced inside – no doubting it, that was Severus Snape. The class seemed to be in no danger of finishing, so Linus found a seat, half-concealed with a torch nearby, to reread Benedicte's essay.

Walden MacNair's house, before his capture at the Ministry of Magic, had been open to any Death Eater. They were free to come in for a strong drink and Quidditch broadcast, or at least a simple hour in the company of Death Eaters but without the company of the Dark Lord. In Walden's own way, he had let them be freely themselves, but without the red eyes of the Master watching their every move and word.

However, Turpentine had never availed himself of the opportunity to visit MacNair, and nor had his brother. It was an unkempt, out of the way place in a rural backwater, not the sort of place where either one would be seen. However, it did have one thing that served Turpentine's purposes now: a herd of thestrals in a nearby forest. Once he had Apparated there, he strode into the woods with all the confidence he could muster.

The woods were shadowed and Turpentine shivered a little. He opened his briefcase, enchanted to hold things much greater than its seeming capacity. As he took out a package wrapped in brown paper, he could already sense something not too far away. He laid the unwrapped package on the ground: a flank of beef, raw, fresh, and partially drained of blood.

He waited.

It was not long before the thestral came out of the shadows and into the little clearing. It began to quietly tear the flesh away from the bones and chew meditatively, keeping its opaque eyes on the human nearby. He was fascinated by the bony structure of the wings and face, by the blackness of the hide that did not shine or gleam, but merely absorbed light dully. But soon he realized that the fantastic beast was finishing with the flank. It was time for stage two.

From his briefcase he took out a small, simple bowl carved out of oak wood, and the small, filled bota bag of mooncalf leather. His mouth tightened as he opened it and poured out some blood, still dark red. Mr. Ollivander's blood.

The thestral stepped closer, interested. It sniffed the air experimentally.

He did not let up in pouring, not until the bag was halfway drained, but he did arch his body as far away from the winged horse as he could. When he was done, he corked the bag again at once and stored it upright so that not a drop was lost. Then he carefully pushed the bowl towards the thestral, which began to drink greedily.

He waited.

When the thestral was as the bottom of the wooden bowl, Turpentine took a deep breath and put his hand on the thestral's head. He then scooped his hand behind so it was holding the creature's jawbone.

He said, in as authoritative a voice as he could muster, "You like that blood, did you?"

The thestral, licking its lips, regarded him quietly.

"I gave you that blood, so now you owe me something."

If the thestral thought this was legally unsound, it didn't say anything.

"There is a patch of land that is bound to that blood. Bound to it deeply. You can find that place now. You will take me there."

The thestral said nothing, and did not protest when Turpentine packed up his things (including the bag of blood) and (with difficulty) swung himself up onto its back.

There was an awkward pause where the thestral seemed intent on nosing along the ground to seek any tasty morsels it may have missed.

Turpentine, a little flustered, cleared his throat and said, "Giddy-up."

Wings extended suddenly on either side of him. They beat a few times, throwing up leaves and dust motes to spin madly in the light, then after a light canter, the thestral and its passenger took off.

Turpentine clung tightly to the horse's neck, willing himself to be strong of mind and strong of stomach. The thestral felt the prospect of a brisk flight ahead of it, along with a hardy storm coming in from the north-north-west, which made for some very appealing air currents.

And so, a temporary bearer of Ollivander blood flew, with a guest, towards Hollywyck.

Huo Quinn, in the Gryffindor common room, looked up from his Arithmancy assignment. He sat back and surveyed his two best friends. Debbie Martindale was clipping and re-clipping her wavy brown hair to keep it out of her eyes as she attempted to memorize potion ingredients. Benedicte Ollivander was carefully composing an essay. The fire was roaring in the fireplace. Rain was spattering the windows. Christmas was coming.

Quinn sighed. "All is well with the world."

Then he looked again at everything – and something caught his eye.

"Benny."

She looked up guiltily. "What?"

"What do… small… ribbons… have to do with Arithmancy?"

"It's not ribbons! I'm trying to draw snakes."

"And Arithmancy relates to snakes… how?"

"It… it doesn't, okay. But it's a present I'm planning on for Linus and the baby. And in fact, I need your help."

Quinn raised an eyebrow. Benny saying the words "I'm planning" and "I need your help" in the past had led to trouble. "How can I help?" But then again, what are friends for?

"I've decided to make a project out of the Rod of Asclepius. You're the best at History of Magic, so I need to know all the possible facts about it. I'll give you credit as a research consultant, how's that?"

"Tell you what. I'll go the library tomorrow with you before your Care of Magical Creatures class and see what we can dig up."

"Thanks, Quinn! You're the best!" Benny gave him a bright smile. "This is going to be a great gift, you'll see. Linus and the baby are going to love it."

"You seem to know this baby pretty well already," Debbie quipped from behind 'Magical Drafts and Potions.' "Considering she's not even born yet."

"Of course I do," Benny replied simply.

And now, as Quinn returned to his quadratic exorcism assignment, it was Benny's turn to look out over the common room and take a moment to reflect, and be grateful.