Absit Omen RPG

“You’re working late?” Professor Duerr posed it like a question. Since Professor Storm had married and his wife had insisted, he no longer lived in the castle during term time, so came and went between the school and the village. Despite this, his presence never seemed to be lacking when students were up to mischief. She would not ordinarily disturb him, but their family relationship emboldened her to call on him for more than school business.

“Needs must,” the wizard replied, seated at his desk in the cluttered office, lit by clusters of candles. His attention hardly lifted from his work which he was bent over with quill in hand. Either genuinely busy or a ploy to discourage an interruption.

Camille slid her hand down the edge of the heavy office door, glancing about his desk, the lines of his forehead and the presence of an empty teacup beside his inkwell. No, she had let men dictate her behaviour and curiosity before, she would not lose confidence now. With that decided, she stepped inside, the door creaking in protest on its hinges, before she pressed it home and released the latch. The occupant of the office paused in his work long enough to glance at his visitor’s waist height, avoiding unnecessary eye contact.

“When were you going to fill me in then?” Her question was posed inquisitively, but somewhat directly for her usual. She felt rather bold speaking to Ignan in such a manner, but she had begun and she would jolly well continue.

The interruption would not be leaving him be any time soon. At the desk the silver haired wizard paused in his work, and raised a thinning eyebrow. He could appease her with a little information, or he could ask her to leave. Camille’s manners would dictate she had to leave, but her wrath would be an irritation to deal with. He bit.
“… on what?”

“Feliks and the girls at the weekend,” Camille answered swiftly, sinking into the chair opposite the office occupant. Out of context her statement might have sounded like her grandson had made friends or begun misguided romantic liaisons. But Camille had heard this was much more serious, so she fixed Ignan with her blue gaze.

“The children are saying he got out to Hogsmeade and attacked the Gryffindor girls.”
“Children will tell tall tales.”
“But this was real, those … werewolves… were attacked.” She persisted. Eyebrows drawing together, her concerns lining her forehead, “And you were there.”
“And Feliks wasn’t.” Ignan’s voice was quiet, just enough to be firm, to convey his power. Backed up by finally meeting her eye with his own cool gaze.

“But someone wanted us all to think he was there.” Camille fussed, still frowning, crossing one leg over the other. “Has this got to do with those dreadful parcels? Why has it got to do with werewolves?” They were her least favourite topic of conversation of late.

Resigned that it was an impossibility to escape this conversation, Ignan sat back and sighed. His quill was still in his hand, and he looked to it, ordering his thoughts before entering the conversation fully.

“There’s no confirmation,” he began, “but it is not a huge jump to such a conclusion I agree.” The office fireplace gave a crack and a hiss, stirring the slightest of jumps from his visitor. Her gaze did not break its intent examination of his response.

“What are they trying to gain?” She persisted, on the defence of her grandson. “To besmirch his name? Goodness his late mother already did!” Ira Almasy had been a horrific woman on near Voldemort proportions in Camille’s eyes. She had forbidden herself from reading any more about the woman once Feliks came along. She did not want to know or even think about her when she looked upon her only grandchild.

“And whatever is the utter fascination with werewolves?” She asked, as Ignan had not yet replied, dealing with the rapid fire of her questions. He visibly drew breath and set aside his quill, resting it beside the inkwell.

“Someone who holds the same views as your late husband,” the older wizard explained, referring to Wolfgang, who had also been involved with Ira Almasy it was claimed. The true cause of her late husband’s death in the courtroom had never been accurately traced to Ira.

“Or a group,” he added, for a group of people would explain the regularity though not some of the messages which inferred an individual. “The parcels, the Daily Prophet flyer, the attacks on the safehouses, on Grant and Temple, even the joke shop…”

Ignan grasped a bright orange note from Zonko’s complaining about the protest at the weekend, addressed to him, rather than Greyfriar. It wasn’t something Ignan wanted to deal with - there had been no witnesses inside the shop as to which student had planted the stink bomb, and if the shop stocked said product…

Camille eyed the bright parchment with frustration. She had heard about what had happened at the joke shop from other professors. It was that SAWS group that Zeta Pepper headed up. That had been the start of all this disagreement with Ravindar, too.

“The trouble with that group is dweilen met de kraan open[1],” Camille replied, exasperated. Then, naturally recalled Ignan did not speak Dutch, “Everyone wants to treat the symptoms but not the cause  If these safe houses are not safe, then nobody can trust them.”

She threw up her hands for emphasis and scowled uncharacteristically. “Ravindar’s decided I need to do my research, we’re not speaking over it, for goodness sake.”

Both of Ignan’s white eyebrows climbed up this time, surprised at this admission. Professor Singh had infinite patience as far as he knew, so to not be speaking to Camille over something was practically an impossibility. She was either exaggerating or had completely misunderstood the situation. Either way, he perceived Camille was actually more irritated with Ravindar questioning her views than any actual risk from werewolves at this point.

Given he was a grumpy old wizard, he didn’t offer her any advice or words of consolation but lowered his gaze instead and wished he was finishing his paperwork rather than having this conversation.

“Feliks is just a boy,” Camille persisted, “he doesn’t need to be caught up in this.” She shook her head, thinking of how young he was, and as ever, underestimating the boy’s resilience, and implored “Have you spoken to him about this?”

Ignan let out a long low sigh.
“At the time, but this is more Greyfriar’s domain.” Knox did the pastoral chats, the father-figure type, Ignan was the disciplinarian.
“No, no I think it should be yours.” Camille insisted, less of a request, more of an instruction.

She got to her feet, and folded her arms, turning away to prowl the cramped space between door, chair and shelves of books and strange objects Ignan had kept from his travels for teaching or slim sentimental value. Behind her, sat still at his desk, the Deputy Headmaster shook his head, unseen. The wind would drop from her sails eventually, he hoped.

“Your father told me stories about you, you realise,” Camille continued, he gaze settling on a photograph of Ignan and Georg in a group crowded around a hunted nundu they had taken down. “About what you got up to.” The tone she used had an edge of threat which didn’t suit her.

“Did he,” Ignan replied flatly, in effort to cast doubt, “before or after he was senile?” His father had been looked after by a house elves in his final years, one had perished in the house and Gerda, the elf he retained in the tiny Hogsmeade cottage with Miranda, had been its replacement. Camille had visited from time to time with Wolfgang, given they had not lived all that far by apparition.

“That you used to hunt them, werewolves.” Camille explained, looking up, past a pickled snake head, with oversized fangs, there was still persistence behind her tone, a determination to see this conversation through. She looked over her shoulder and turned back.

“Why did you do that? Did you ever kill one?”
“It was a long time ago, cousin.” He drew his hands from the desktop blotter to his lap, feeling lethargy at this whole pursuit.

“So you did, and you must have had reasons.” Her eyes were alight, not just from catching the light of the flames in the fireplace. “I’m trying to understand you see, it’s not that I want them dead, but if one creates another, why the first is not … ended.” Her curiosity and frustration had grown rapidly the last few days with events and conversations. She was sure there had never been so many werewolves in her childhood as there were now!

“Cousin Wolfgang brought his affliction on through his own choices, he and young Feliks are entirely different situations.” Ignan countered, trying to think two steps ahead of her, and comparing her experience of her late husband being turned at a werewolf fighting ring with her grandson being radicalised against werewolves. Her look darkened to something more reminiscent of her husband.

“I haven’t said they are the same Ignan, will you answer the question.” She should have demanded he answer, rather than will you - despite her irritation and determination to seek answers from him her polite habit got in the way. He gave way, more because he was alarmed to see her look this way.

“Yes,” he nodded once, “yes I hunted them.” He spoke softly but surely, and elaborated in a fuller tone, “When they were viewed as cursed without any possibility of control. When wolfsbane was a possibility for only the minority, before there were such things as ‘safehouses’.” These more modern possibilities had felt like foreign concepts when he had encountered them.

“A wolf could slaughter a family, turn others. The average wix is unprepared to face that. Sometimes it was a mercy to the afflicted, who was more beast than being in time.” He lifted his shoulders in a slow shrug, “but now there are laws. There is a whole Ministry body here to address it, and to a point, we accept it as a curse which can be controlled, that they are victims and nothing more.”

“And do you think it is a curse which can be controlled?” She grasped the back of the chair, leaning over as if to study him.
“Far more than it ever was in my day.” He countered, holding her gaze, unsure as to which side she wanted him to take here, or if she had firmly chosen hers.

The tension was punctuated by a rapping at the door which led from the classroom, rather than the corridor which Camille had entered. The tempo, and a tentative but purposeful tone behind the wood sounded like a Prefect, citing Peeves. Ignan let out a low rumble of frustration as he drew up from his chair, wand in hand. The poltergeist was paying him an unwitting favour.

“I will speak with him, if it is so important to you, cousin,” he added quietly, given the potential audience, “but on my own terms. I remind you the promise you made not to share my history with him or any other here, for we are still colleagues despite our family ties.” Camille nodded, though bit back frustration.

“Thank you, Ignan.” She uttered, “see that you do.” Setting her jaw, she turned away, and left through the door she had come through. Behind her, he frowned thoughtfully and hauled open the other to discover what fresh havoc greeted him.

1.	Literally, “to dry with a floorcloth with the tap open [= while the tap is open]

"My pleasure." Camille heard her voice as if it belonged to someone else. Politeness was a routine and a comforting one at that. Like making tea. Only their tea was now cold, and their friendship as colleagues also felt it too.

"I will let you get on, Ravindar. See you later at dinner." She collected her things and left without more words, her stomach feeling heavy rather than at all hungry for the forthcoming meal.

As she closed Ravindar's door behind her, Camille wished Zeta Pepper had never walked with them to Hogsmeade.

End

“No, it’s not fair,” Camille agreed, her voice breathy, not her usual. It felt caught in her throat, like a hand was clamped across it.

“But fair does not counteract that they are a threat, even if they don’t wish to be.” She drew a sharp breath. “If they were perfectly contained then we would have no new werewolves. No children with the curse in our classrooms.”

She reached out and placed the books she had brought into her lap. It wasn’t that she was intending to flee from a difficult conversation, but that she did not want to prolong it and lose what had become an enjoyable friendship with her younger colleague.

Alright, maybe she was, but she was not Ravindar’s student, but his equal. His elder if one split hairs.

“Let us not fall out over this,” Camille appealed, looking up to the wizard across the table, “but accept our experiences are very different, Ravindar. Please.”

To Camille’s delight, but also considerable surprise, Ravindar got in on the joke! She had always thought him far too patient and straight-laced to take a pinch at the stoic Ignan, who often deserved it. He looked a little rabbit caught in wand-light when he realised, especially when Ignan turned his pale glare on the Transfiguration Professor. This only delighted Camille further - was a new development in their friendship!

Despite their ribbing, they became a quartet for tea.
“I doubt an abacus poses much of a threat in your classroom.” Camille chuckled, her cheeks rising up to narrow her eyes with laughter.

“… it was a quiet morning other than your two.” Emma confirmed, and to Camille’s continued delight, stood up to Ignan. “I’d be grateful of some warning before any particularly dangerous lessons.”

“A daily owl then,” Camille couldn’t resist muttering, before hiding behind her teacup. Ravindar had meanwhile come to his patient senses and was navigating the jibes away from their Deputy Head.

“My subject has sent you a few…” He intervened. Camille listened, but also found herself studying the fabric of his robes once more. “One of my third years lost all her hair trying to change it a fortnight ago.”

“Helaas![1]” Camille muttered. “Was it reversed or did it need to grow back?” She asked Emma.

1.	Alas/Too Bad!

"No, no!" Camille heard herself protest. Her voice had taken a strained quality. She gripped her knees and hunched her shoulders, most unlike her usual poise.

The older witch took a breath, her lungs feeling shallow. Let her head dip. She had never seen him change, but she had seen others change. Camille very much disliked to disagree with kind, thoughtful Ravindar. She felt like she was his intellectual inferior or a student in his classroom receiving sharp correction. Camille had not come her to debate, but be heard by a friend.

"No," she said again, and lifted her head. "You are different. You make a choice. You are in control when you change." She nodded unconsciously to emphasize her points. Frustration was pricking the corners of her eyes.

"Werewolves are out of control when they change. Tell me I am correct. If they were in control of their actions then they would not need to be locked up every full moon. You do not change and attack the students. If they are not enclosed they are a threat to us all."

Emma made her way into the cluster of seats around the fireplace while Ravindar shed his cloak. It drifted across the room of its own accord to the hat stand as he enquired how Emma took her tea.

Camille returned to her still-warm armchair near the fire. The sound of teacups and bubbling water accompanied the crackle of the fire in the hearth. It was one of her favourite parts of working at Hogwarts - spending time with colleagues in a social moment away from the students.

There went the latch again, and in came the Deputy Headmaster. Ignan always looked like he was in a bad mood, and often was too busy to linger, so Camille merely glanced at his arrival. Instead, she shot Emma a knowing smile. Camille blew on the ink on her half-completed letter to her sister, and carefully folded it away.

"Is the infirmary empty?" Ignan's sudden question and the tone in which it was phrased made Camille look up and round at him in surprise. She glanced between her colleagues, intrigued at how this would play out.

"It is, and I'll be alerted if anyone arrives there for help." Emma replied with barely a hesitation, seemingly unphased by the grumpy professor.

"Has it been a week of theory in your lessons, Ignan?" Camille asked, posed mischievously. "Word is you tend to keep Hogwarts healers busy." She winked at Emma. "Isn't that right Ravindar?" She drew her other colleague back into the conversation.

"Well, no, I didn't necessarily mean I was in fear of our students..." Camille hurried to clarify, blushing at the suggestion. She wasn't the best of teachers, but she tried very hard and was improving quickly.

"Just that something I merely read about, and happened in textbooks and perhaps in newspapers in foreign countries had happened to my family. I don't know whether it is down to the fact back home they were more in hiding or if there were not so many, but there are more werewolves here. In Britain."

Perhaps if they hadn't moved here, Wolfgang might still be alive. But knowing what he did, Camille wasn't at all sure she would have prefered it. Perhaps living in ignorance, but once known, one cannot truly forget such sins of those you love. At least not in her book. A line had been well and truly crossed.

"The other month, some escaped from the Ministry houses, and a Ministry wizard killed in his own home by a wolf too." The January events had worried Camille deeply, especially since young Balfour had replaced the aforementioned wizard in his post.

"It doesn't sound at all safe, Ravindar. These people are still dangerous, deadly beasts at full moon, however kind and polite they are the rest of the month."

For a fleeting moment, Camille wondered if she had offloaded too keenly on Ravindar when prompted. ‘A heavy load to say the least’ he had put it. Though he was not evading her gaze, there was a silence between them. She glanced back and forth to read his reaction, as ever rather stoic. She had never seen anything really rattle Ravindar.

“It is that hate which SAWS oppose.” Her friend and colleague spoke at last. She nodded and hummed in agreement. Yes, that seemed reasonable. Nobody could really support werewolf fighting rings in their right mind. Not even widows who had seen their husbands’ mauled limbs.

“… Fear is powerful. Do you fear werewolves?”

She paused, fingers knotted in her lap. Considered the question, gaze turned away from him. After several seconds she gave a meek nod.

“Yes, yes I do. Is that wrong?”

“… You can just leave me here.”

Camille’s crouched posture suddenly straightened, a little confused by the suggestion anyone would leave another on the floor prostrate.

But after a moment Emma came to her senses and began to peel from the floor, uttering thanks for her concern. She took Camille’s hand and they ascended together.

“Good afternoon.” Ravindar arrived in the fireplace and addressed the room. He was dressed impeccably as ever. Camille had to admire his robes. One day she would have the money to go to the same tailor.

“Good afternoon Ravindar,” Camille greeted brightly, and then turned back to Emma, lowering her voice, “There now, in one piece.” She squeezed the witch’s hand before she released it out of social awkwardness, not wishing to draw further attention to the misstep, and to allow Emma to answer the Head of Gryffindor’s question.

Camille met Ravindar’s gaze, a little stunned, but not entirely surprised. There was a watery sheen to her bright blue eyes.

“You are so very right, Ravindar. As you are about so many things,” she replied, voice quiet. She shook her curls in disbelief that the wizard the other side of the table could be quite so wise at his age, but she was glad to be at the receiving end.

“I have been carrying that burden. I have got used to carrying it and I forget it is there. But this society brings it back.” The teaspoons tinkled against the china as they stirred by charm.

What did she have to lose to explain? It would drag it all up, but it was a year and a half since it had happened, since he had passed, and longer since the … event.

“His name was Wolfgang. Brought up through Durmstrang, traditional wizarding values. Sharp edges. Believed those afflicted were lesser beings. They were different times. People hid it. I imagine many did not survive their injuries to turn. It was no great issue in our lives.” Her mind’s eye returned to their home in Frankfurt. To simpler times when all there was to fret about was working late and keeping tabs on Johann.

“But then our son, Johann, a little younger than you, he got engaged to a clever young witch. The only difficulty was she was a werewolf. Instead of the joy at the possibility of marriage and grandchildren, my husband could focus on nothing else.” Her fingertips went to work an engagement and wedding ring she no longer wore. They found bare flesh between the joints.

“Well, to cut a long story short. Their engagement did not last long. We fell on hard times and made a move over here. I did not know, but Wolfgang had not let it drop. The whole matter had awoken such hatred in him I am unsure how I recognised him. One July full moon I was summoned to St Mungo’s with the news he had been attacked by a werewolf.”

She took a breath, shoulders rising, and forced them down. Her gaze had lost focus on Ravindar’s study and was instead focused on her inner eye recalling the bruises and bandages in a hospital bed.

“He had excuses, but when it came down to the investigation, he had become involved in a werewolf fighting ring. The werewolf would be abducted days before the full moon and caged. They would take homeless muggles and pit them against the wolf at the full moon. Take bets on the outcome. Sport. Only he had been attacked.”

Attacked by the slight witch he had pursued so relentlessly in retaliation for ever becoming engaged to their son. Detail she declined to include in this retelling. She looked to her fellow professor. Finding his gaze as she reached conclusion on her account.

“So I know the brutality of what a wolf can do, Ravindar. I have seen the outcome with my own eyes. I saw my husband through two transformations before he passed. He was a changed man, but perhaps he had changed beyond recognition before he was attacked. Now I look back. Time brings clarity.”

Camille could never fault Ravindar’s professionalism as a teacher. He took their role very seriously, and was a calm, considered mentor for the Gryffindors. With some of the characters in that house, she could only imagine it took remarkable strength to stay that way.

When they had finished discussing the books, and Camille had drunk a good amount of her first cup of tea, a silence fell. One of those awkward, elephant in the room ones. Ravindar was 20 years her junior, and of similar age to Johann and Balfour, yet their professional relationship made Camille feel like the junior.

“About the other day…” Her reaction was immediately move to meet his apology, that it wasn’t necessary, out of sheer awkwardness. “… I should have realised.” At the respectful dip of her colleague’s head, she realised he was referring to Wolfgang, her late husband, and the heat of embarrassment and fluster suddenly turned to a cold pool of dread in the pit of her stomach. She turned away and averted her gaze anywhere, anywhere but the other human in the room. Unfortunately the elephant was now pressing its back on the ceiling, and its trunk had wrapped around her chest.

“Well I,” she managed in a voice which was caught in her throat, “well I did not have all that experience when… when it happened. But the circumstances…” She took a breath and rearranged her hands on her lap. “I’m sorry, it is a difficult subject.” She flinched to wipe an eye threatening a tear. “It destroyed him, and because of that it is hard for me to entertain the positives.”

Over breakfast, the Daily Prophet had forecast fog in London and an unseasonably warm Thursday for mid March, but as ever in Scotland the weather hovered somewhere above freezing and still cold to need the winter robes. The sky was dotted with intermittent blankets of cloud all morning, the sixth floor arithmancy classroom gave an excellent view. As much as the view remained second to none, the isolation rather got to Camille some days.

Thursdays were her afternoon off, of sorts, though she had no reason to visit Hogsmeade, and still had some trepidation at long distance apparation to London. The floo was one of her least favourite methods of travel, so she had elected on this occasion to stay put, but relocate to somewhere more sociable.

The staff room on the ground floor was a long, panelled room, with mismatched dark wooden chairs. There was a fire crackling in the grate, as it seemed to be all year round. Camille had chosen an armchair grouped near the fire and had enjoyed the conversation of her colleagues until they had been drawn away to teach, or other duties. In the absence of continued conversation, she had begun a letter to her sister in Paris, though set it aside when conversation presented.

At the sound of the door handle turning, she had looked up expectantly, and gave a start when the arrival suddenly pitched forward and vanished below the furniture between them with a squeak. The letter was discarded with quill, and Camille was up in an instant, hurrying across the flagstones to the prone figure in green robes.

“Gracious!” Camille exclaimed, more in alarm at the poor face pressed into the floor, than anything sarcastic. “My dear, are you quite alright? Are you hurt - here let me help you up -,” her motherly attention came quite as second nature, as she crouched to reach out to Emma.

There he was, polite as ever. Though a certain formality between them once more, as if in the presence of students.

“Will you take tea?”
“Yes please,” she replied eagerly, and then more calmly added, “thank you,” as she navigated his chambers to the gestured seat. She placed the small stack of exercise books down on the edge of the table with the tea tray, and smiled at the way he prepared their refreshment. By hand, and with such grace. He really was something to watch, which only made Camille suddenly more self-conscious that she might be staring. So she glanced elsewhere. What a quandary!

If Ravindar noticed he didn’t let on, instead serving them both and studying the book she had brought to lend him, treating it like a small child or treasured possession.

“Are you well today? How may I assist you?”

“I am well, thank you. Though I count the days until the end of term, or at the very least those brighter, sunnier days which are few and far between in Scotland.” She had somewhat adjusted to the climate now after so many months, but she would very much prefer to be teaching in the warmer, sunnier climes of her old school, Beauxbatons.

“I have brought some books to show you from the Gryffindors. I know you like to know how they are doing, good or bad, so I picked out a few to let you see. Would you prefer the good or the not so good first?” She asked, splitting the small stack in half.

Sunday afternoons had a pre-emptive hangover for the week ahead, apart from it if it was proceeded by a school holiday. As much as Camille enjoyed some aspects of teaching, there were others that filled her heavy heart with administrative lead. She had once tried to engage the students in something fun for a Sunday evening, but their own shenanigans seemed apt until the older ones were cramming for exams and the younger ones needed some diversion not to wind them up.

Carrying a small stack of exercise books under one arm, and a book selected from her very modest collection, Professor Duerr headed down the spiral staircase from her tower rooms, not for the first time wishing it were possible to apparate in the enormous castle. She wore neat navy robes over a pale blue silk blouse, her glasses perched on her dark curls.

After some minutes, the Arithmancy Professor found the door of her colleagues rooms and rapped her knuckles on the wood. Invited in, she greeted Ravindar with a polite, but slightly more professional and detached formality to her words. Last month they had disagreed in the presence of a student and she rather felt their friendlier relationship had not quite been the same since. Silly really, Professor Singh had impeccable manners, to match his taste in attire.

“Thank you for taking the time to see me, Ravindar. How have you been?” She remembered the books in her grasp. “I brought that book I mentioned at lunch earlier this week. Here, no hurry to return it. You must be very busy.” She felt like she was treading on broken glass, though she wondered if she just happened to be overthinking it all.

Rather than embarrassed, Professor Wandsworth shrugged off the suggestion she might be late for a whole day’s lessons. Camille blinked several times in quick succession while the newcomer spoke to the Transfiguration Professor about the food.

A sudden movement at the Slytherin table caught their attention as they were seated nearest that house table. One of the Prefects was on her feet, pointing something out, looking up at them and then was pulled to sit down again by her housemates. Camille wondered what the students had noticed, or decided. What had first impressions done?

“And who might that lovely young woman be?” Professor Wandsworth asked.
“Oh,” Camille snapped out of her stunned silence, “That’s, Meredith, Meredith Misslethorpe. She’s one of my arithmancy students. One of my good ones.” Camille only had a select few, especially those who went on to take their NEWT. She had been so very proud of the results from her first year’s teaching, even if she had only taught the third and final year of their OWL studies. “Gosh, you must have a lot of names to learn, like Ravindar.”