89. Career Advice
He went straight to the library the next morning. Mrs Highbury was going to be disappointed, but there was no point in putting the confrontation off.
It was very early, and the rooms were empty except for the staff. That was why he was surprised to hear raised voices. Before he could make out what the argument was about, a door slammed and then there was silence.
One of the library assistants – a short, chubby woman with random streaks of artificial red in her otherwise light hair – stopped Draco on his way to Mrs Highbury's office.
"Wait, Mr Malfoy. I wouldn't go in there right now if I were you," she said in hushed tones. A bit louder, she added, "Good morning and welcome back."
"Good morning, Mrs Shaw," Draco said. "Good to see you. But what seems to be the trouble?"
"She's fuming. Jeffrey riled her up – again. If he continues in that manner, he'll get himself sacked one of these days."
"I'm sorry to hear that."
"If you want to talk to the boss," Miss Shaw went on, eying the envelope in his hand, "come back in an hour or so. Emma never stays angry for long. Perhaps that's the trouble. She's too good for this world."
But it was already too late for a retreat because the door of the office flew open and Mrs Highbury emerged. She looked livid.
"Oh dear..." Mrs Shaw murmured.
"One request for an inter-library loan came in last Friday," Mrs Highbury said without prelude. "The other one dates back from almost three weeks ago. Try to sort this out, Helen, please. I can't deal with this mess right now; I'm expected at the vice chancellors in ten minutes."
"I'll see to it," Mrs Shaw assured her boss. "But listen to me, Emma. Give him a written warning this time. That's the only way to get him to see that you mean business. If not, the same will happen all over again. And then he'll whine and make those puppy dog eyes and you will relen-"
"I won't! I swear the next time I'll catch him idling around-"
Mrs Shaw raised her hands in a soothing gesture.
"I'm only saying that having something official on paper can be to your advantage."
"I can't dismiss him, Helen. In less than three months, Rachel will be on maternity leave. We need him."
"I doubt anyone would notice a difference. Honestly, what amount of useful work does this man do?" Mrs Shaw said with a shake of her head before she hurried away.
Mrs Highbury turned to Draco, who had stepped a little to the side, feeling that if he couldn't avoid listening in to the exchange he should at least not be obvious about it.
She looked him up and down. Her gaze came to a rest on the envelope.
"Good morning, Mr Malfoy," she said, sounding calmer but still somewhat exasperated. "What brings you here? Your exam results?"
"Yes, Mrs Highbury," he answered as politely as possible. "Good morning. It's-"
"How many GCSEs did you get?" she interrupted.
"Nine. I failed two subjects – ICT and Chemistry. In English Literature and Social Studies I didn't manage more than..."
Seeing her frown, he trailed off. He even felt a pang of shame – as absurd as that was. His performance had clearly fallen short of her expectations – but so what? He didn't need a bloody grade in Chemistry or English Literature!
"Mr Malfoy, shouldn't you direct the focus on the nine subjects you passed instead of stressing that you didn't do too well in two others?"
He stared at her. This wasn't the telling-off he had expected.
"You have nine GCSEs," she continued. "A year ago, you had none. Don't you think that's an improvement?"
"I thought you'd expected more of me," he said, sounding as confused as he felt.
"I expected... How can you tell what I expect? And what I expect is not the point, anyway. What matters is what you expect. What do you want to do? In which area would you like to work? And if you aren't pleased with a specific result, you can always re-sit the exam." She paused, trying to compose herself. "Sorry, I'm ranting. It's not your fault, though. I had a run-in with one of my staff earlier this morning. Perhaps we should discuss your exam results another time – or perhaps right now is as good as any other time. I doubt I'll be in a much better mood after the meeting with the vice chancellor. So, I promise to try and stay calm. Where is the problem, Mr Malfoy?"
"I'm not sure," he said, taking the report sheet out of the envelope. "It's just not overly brilliant. Perhaps you should have a look for yourself."
She scanned the page – and shrugged.
"That looks good enough to me. There should be no problem with continuing Maths and French although – I have to admit that – I thought you would get an A* in French effortlessly. What was the trouble? Exam nerves?"
He didn't know how to answer. He mustn't reveal the true reason – the fact that he was an alien who didn't have the faintest clue about all that weird technology stuff – and any other excuse would only generate the need for more lies.
"Well, probably yes considering the way you take things seriously," she answered her question herself when he stayed silent. "A more relaxed approach has its benefits, too, Mr Malfoy."
With a small smile she gave him the report back.
He cleared his throat.
"Do you have some advice for me?" he asked.
"If you wish to heed a piece of advice then re-do ICT. There will hardly be a career in the future where you don't need computer skills. I'm afraid Jeffrey wasn't much help. I should never have assigned him the task of tutoring you. Perhaps you can find a private tutor among the engineering students. As for Biology – just apply for the A-level course. The worst they can do is turning you down. But I don't think they will. As far as I know, a minimum of five GCSEs at grade C or above is enough to meet requirements." She gave him another smile. "Stop worrying. Focus on what lies ahead, not on what is past."
"Thanks," he said softly.
"You're welcome. Oh, and by the way... wait, I'll just go and fetch the list."
She nipped into her office and was back a moment later with a piece of bluish paper.
"Here, I believe we had a deal, Mr Malfoy," she said, holding the paper out to him. "You kept your promise, and I kept mine and made a comprehensive compilation of worthwhile reading material for genetics. The first book is an introduction, aimed at the general public rather than at experts. You should start with that one. From there on, it gets more detailed and specific and thus more demanding. I also added a number of recent papers putting forth new findings that haven't yet found their way into the textbooks. With the Human Genome Project having gone on for a while now, there is an increase of related articles in the periodicals. But, Mr Malfoy, I must ask to be excused now; I have an appointment."
"Of course," he managed. "Thank you."
"Always my pleasure."
Draco watched her walk off. To say her reaction had surprised him would be a clear understatement.
...
90. Biology and Genetics
He applied for the A-level course in Biology.
The city clerk with whom Draco had to negotiate the matter didn't make a fuss about the low GCSE grade but about a deadline Draco apparently had missed. However, there were several vacancies in the Biology course, and the man allowed Draco to sign up belatedly. He also accepted the tuition fee in cash although he said that wasn't standard procedure.
The lessons – there were up to five per week – started invariably at half past seven in the evening and took place in a narrow, red brick building situated near the marina. It was a brief walk from the campus, even though Draco didn't opt for the shortest route. He preferred a slightly longer one to avoid the busy roundabout.
The teacher, a scraggy man in his late twenties, was very zealous. When he talked he hardly paused to breathe. In his first lesson he detailed various theories – reaching from totally fanciful to moderately plausible – about how life had come into being.
After that, the teaching turned to all sorts of creatures that were too minuscule to be visible to the naked eye. The topic wasn't exactly uninteresting because a fair number of the tiny organisms seemed to be useful in making wine or cheese, brewing beer, and baking bread whereas other ones caused highly unpleasant diseases and had to be poisoned with special substances, collectively named antibiotics.
Then there came topics with which Draco was a bit more familiar. He could tell a fern from a fungus, and he already knew how tadpoles transformed into frogs.
He attended the lessons, did his homework and perused the relevant chapters in the textbooks like a good student should. Apart from that he devoted his time to the books from Mrs Highbury's list. He didn't just read them but took meticulous notes, drew diagrams, and tried to keep up with the many complicated formulas and calculations. He immersed himself into his studies to such an extent that he did almost nothing besides eating, sleeping and learning. Even when he did his jogging rounds or walked to the Biology lessons, he thought about a passage he had read earlier that day or analysed the details of a complex chart.
...
The days became weeks and the weeks became months. It was the morning before the winter solstice when he was startled out of his routine, and that happened literally with a bang.
He was reading about the influence of co-dominant alleles on the phenotype of a heterozygous individual when, all of a sudden, a loud argument disturbed the peace of the library. He tried to tune it out but couldn't help noticing Mrs Highbury's angry voice that rose above the din.
"With immediate effect!" she shouted.
The crash that followed her words evoked the mental image of glass splintering.
Draco left his desk to find out what was going on.
A rather large crowd had gathered just outside the staff area. People were standing on tiptoes and craning their necks. Joining them, Draco caught a glimpse of glass shards lying on the floor before he was shoved aside by other spectators.
"Would you have thought such a delicate little person had it in her to smash a pane of safety glass?" somebody behind him asked in a low voice. "It's safety glass. It's supposed to be unbreakable no matter how hard you slam the door."
"She smashed it?" somebody else asked back in what sounded like awe.
"Yeah, she did," a third voice confirmed. "Highbury. Fancy that."
Draco spun around to find the speakers, but people were milling about. Somebody was talking about going to lunch. A girl laughed for no discernible reason.
He didn't know what to make of this. Why had Mrs Highbury broken into her own office? And why did the glass shards lie outside? If she had tried to get in by force, the glass should be inside.
He was jostled backwards when the crowd suddenly parted to make room for Jeffrey's wheelchair. Jeffrey, a stuffed plastic bag lying in his lap, rolled slowly out of the staff area. Mrs Smith and Mrs Shaw ushered him along.
"... certainly been lenient towards you. Far too lenient if you ask me," Draco heard Mrs Shaw say as he pushed closer. "She's given you more than just one second chance. So, stop whining."
"Tell her she can kiss my arse," Jeffrey spat.
Mrs Smith gasped for air; Mrs Shaw looked ready to explode.
"That's enough!" she yelled. "Leave! Just leave and begone!"
Jeffrey manoeuvred the wheelchair around and rolled to the lift without another word.
"How dare he!" Mrs Smith exclaimed. The elderly lady was still fighting for air. She was bright red in the face in a way that seemed unhealthy. "What cheek!"
"Calm down, Annie," Mrs Shaw said, putting a hand soothingly on the arm of her colleague. "You know you mustn't get worked up like that. We're rid of him, and that's good."
Draco was near enough now to address the women at normal volume.
"Mrs Smith and Mrs Shaw, I'm grieved to find you both upset," he said, resorting to a formal phrase he had once been trained to use.
"Did you need something, Mr Malfoy?" Mrs Shaw snapped angrily. "Now is definitely not a good time to see the boss."
"I have no intention of troubling Mrs Highbury," he answered. "I'm afraid it was plain curiosity that brought me here. I heard the splintering of glass."
"Well, I suppose the commotion couldn't be missed," Mrs Shaw replied, giving the dispersing crowd a dark look. "Damn the git. As if the mess wasn't big enough already, he had to go and start a shouting match."
"What happened?" Draco asked. "What did Jeffrey do?"
The Mrs Shaw snorted in a rather unladylike manner.
"That's the wrong question, Mr Malfoy. You should ask: What didn't he do? Well, he's failed for months to send back a number of items – a couple of books and nearly a dozen journals – that we borrowed from other libraries. He stuffed them into a drawer of his desk where they got buried beneath a jumble of half-eaten chocolate bars, Mayfair magazines, stationery, and loose papers. Emma sacked him on the spot. I've never seen her that infuriated before, and I've known her for a good ten years."
"His negligence... no, his laziness has damaged the reputation of all of us!" Mrs Smith exclaimed. She was still bubbling with indignation. "Just think – I phone Janet Trimble in Exeter – she's an old acquaintance of mine; we've known each other since the early sixties when I was still an apprentice – well, I phone her about an interloan request and what does she tell me? We won't lend you anything before you've returned the journals that were due in July. In July! Can you imagine that? I felt like a schoolgirl being told off. Oh the shame! I can't believe it!"
"Yes, that's how we found out," Mrs Shaw went on. "It appears that in all cases the patrons were exchange students who are no longer here. That's probably why nobody complained about getting a reminder even though they returned the borrowed items on time. Look, it's not as if Jeffrey wasn't aware of his responsibilities. For heaven's sake, he's a fully-fledged librarian, university degree and all! Emma doesn't have the time to always check on everyone's work, especially not on the work of people who are well qualified and experienced and... Argh, it's just so frustrating!"
"And the impertinence on top of it!" Mrs Smith added, shaking her head. "But I must ask to be excused. I've got work to do, and unlike some other people I do know my duties."
She ambled off, muttering under her breath.
"Me too," Mrs Shaw said. "Please excuse me; I have to get back to work."
With that, she went over to her workstation where she started pressing keys at amazing speed.
...
91. Contemplation
About to go as well, Draco chanced a quick look at Mrs Highbury's office. The light inside the cubicle was turned off and the light outside reflected off the wall-sized windows. Only where the door had been, he could see a part of the interior. Mrs Highbury sat at her desk, hunched, and her shoulders were quavering.
He turned away sharply.
Heat rose to his cheeks; he wished he had not looked at the woman.
But he had. The single glance had been more than enough. She was crying. Strong, poised, competent Mrs Highbury was crying.
Torn between the absurd impulse to comfort her – albeit he hadn't the faintest idea how – and the urge to run, he staggered back to his reading corner.
He glared at his notes, the open book, and the half-drawn chart.
There was no use in continuing right now; his concentration was gone. He closed the book and shoved the notes into his bag.
...
He resorted to his customary means for dealing with inner turmoil. Lap after lap, he jogged through the park, but the mental image of Mrs Highbury crying was hard to dispel. He knew all too well how it felt to fail.
Had it been in her power to make Jeffrey Oldfield less of a sluggard?
Had it been in his power to make Vincent Crabbe less of a dunce?
Maybe. There was no way of knowing.
But there were always those who would blame you nonetheless, saying you should have tried harder.
You need to try harder or you need to apply yourself more were words he had heard countless times – not in the beginning, but later. In the beginning he had learned that he was, due to his lineage, better than most everyone else, and that anything a Malfoy did was well done because doing things right came to them naturally. Later he had been blamed for the lack of congruence between these teachings and reality.
And right now he was faced with the same old dilemma all over again – the goal was beyond his reach. It didn't matter how hard he tried or how much he applied himself – he would never understand genetics in full. The knowledge accumulated within the last hundred years was much too vast to be obtained by a single individual.
The scientists weren't even done researching, yet. Yes, Gregor Johann Mendel had merely been the first to discover that there were rules determining what properties got passed on to the next generation. Thousands of geneticists had followed in his footsteps, and today it was agreed that Mendel's findings were only a piece in a gigantic puzzle.
...
Dusk fell by mid-afternoon, and Draco went for a stroll through the pedestrian precinct. As usual at this time of the year, the area was crammed with little market stalls. These stalls as well as the regular shops were generously decorated with mistletoe and all sorts of glittering ornaments. Electric lights replaced enchanted candles and torches, but the effect was nice nonetheless. Smells of food wafted through the air.
He treated himself to a cupcake with custard topping. Leaning against the side of one of the wooden stalls, he ate. While he did he mused about the actual progress he had made studying genetics. After having read the introduction back in September, he had been confident that he would soon know everything about the subject matter. He had believed a bit of background reading should be enough to clear up the hazy points. But he had been thoroughly mistaken.
No branch of knowledge he had ever come across in the wizarding world had remotely the same complexity as genetics. Countless scientists all over the world – not only in Great Britain and on the continent but also in Japan, China, and the United States of America – were working on the project of deciphering the human genome. The deoxyribonucleic acid molecules of humans were said to consist of three billions of base pairs. A billion was a mind-boggling, ten-digit number. If you jotted down three base pairs in a space the width of an inch, you would need for a display of the entire code a scroll of parchment that went more than halfway round the earth. Draco wasn't sure whether the magnitude of the task or the level of cooperation by scientists from so many countries astonished him more.
And what could he, a lone, disgraced wizard, accomplish regarding genetics? He could perhaps catch a glimpse of the dragon's tail.
...
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to be continued
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Author's note:
Many thanks for beta reading and for advice regarding library procedures go to TheMightyKoosh and Nooka.