When it rained in Scotland, it seemed to rain for a week straight.  It had only been three days but it had been long enough for Camille, especially since it had only stopped for a handful of days in the past fortnight and a half.  It had added a particularly gloomy backdrop to the abducted students, though the weather had been the least of everyone’s concerns.

She’d not even been too directly involved in it all, and she’d found it hard to sleep.  Goodness knows what the families had gone through.  Her colleagues had been more than anxious, expressing guilt.  When she hadn’t been teaching, Camille had tried to make herself available and supportive to others who needed it, students and staff, even though she only knew a small proportion of the students from her classroom.  The past few nights she’d dreamt a lot about her own family, mixed in with students, and put it down to worry.

It was just after lunch on a Thursday afternoon, and Camille was contemplating whether to risk a brisk walk around the grounds since she had no lessons to teach, and no duties until later.  As she climbed the stairs from the fifth to the sixth floor, she became aware of another set of footsteps just behind her, and glanced over her shoulder. It was odd to have another come up here unless it was to seek her out.

The golden-haired teenager ascending behind her gave the arithmancy professor a start.  Only the other night she’d dreamt about Virgil Carstairs.  He’d appeared right in the middle of dreaming about her family on new year’s eve - a throng of excited children including her own, and her husband. A scene of merriment and confusion and Carstairs inserted right into it clear as day.  She didn’t teach him, but he was one who had been taken.

“Good afternoon Virgil,” she greeted, wondering if the Slytherin prefect was on patrol, “how are you - how’s the Divination Club doing?” One way to get over the strangest feeling of dreaming about one’s students was to talk to them.  Perhaps it was a sign that she needed to speak to Virgil, or that he wanted to speak to her.  It couldn’t do any harm.

Virgil Carstairs had, in this last week, been able to sleep well for the first time since the kidnappings. This was partly thanks to the soporific atmosphere that the constant downpour had spread across their sleepy school but mostly because his talk with Maiko[1] had helped ease specific concerns about the nature of his dreams.

Which was to say, he would let them take their natural course without forcing the road to recovery. The Slytherin climbed each step on the stairwell with his soft and inoffensive stride - aimless but for the way in which he arched his neck back to catch sight of the older witch mutually ascending to the sixth floor.

He had stumbled into one of her dreams recently. A sensitive Legilimens, his ability often manifested itself in sleep when Virgil would lower the walls of his own reveries and go wandering in the dozing minds of other people in the castle.

"Professor Duerr," the blonde boy smiled languidly at Camille as they met on the landing. "I'm as well as the club- periodically active and living in disdain of disbelievers."

His gaunt eyes surveyed her countenance curiously; on approach, he couldn't help gleaning from her thoughts that she had spotted him in the dream. Not everyone did, or remembered. Virgil had been a most peculiar figure in the family scene when he walked into the festive atmosphere wearing periwinkle blue pyjamas, buttoned all the way up the way he had worn them as a child. His dreamwalking uniform.

He considered a confession. "I was wondering if I could please have a word with you on the subject," the prefect glanced down the corridor to note that nobody else was around to overhear them. The rain outside gave their conversation a pleasant cover at any rate. "Specifically... that is, my reading tells me it is called molybdomancy but I suspect you might know better."

Virgil abstained from touching Camille's mind just then - he did it unconsciously but admired the professor enough that it did not feel gentlemanly to hold a conversation with unfair advantage.

At least he was more awake than he had been in the kitchens with Maiko, and could exercise that restraint.

1.	My Face is Hungry - Feb 19th

“… periodically active and living in disdain of disbelievers.” The professor’s lips curled into a smile at the description, far more witty than she had initially anticipated she might receive.
“Super,” she replied automatically, though it sounded soft in her accent than the abrupt English way of expressing such delight.

“I was wondering if I could please have a word with you on the subject,"
“On the Divination c-?”
“Specifically... that is, my reading tells me it is called molybdomancy but I suspect you might know better."

Camille’s lips hung open where she had abandoned her intercepting query to Virgil, her eyebrows lofted towards her dark curls. It was the strangest feeling, as if she had missed a whole part of the conversation, like someone had skipped a page while reading a tale aloud. For a long few seconds she stared at Virgil, mute.

“It is, how do you - I didn’t mention-“ The Professor’s brow lowered, blinking rapidly. Her posture changed from the open address of earlier to bring her shoulders forward, examining him. A moment of self-awareness of how she might be peering at him brought her back to the request. “Of course, come, come this way.”

They ascended the last round of the tower steps to the sixth floor, Camille stealing the odd glance back to Virgil, a slight frown on her face, but not untoward in her expression. At the top and to the left of her classroom, she reached out to another and with a graceful flick of her almond wand, sprung the lock and led the prefect inside.

Professor Duerr’s lodgings in the castle were modest. Ahead of them from the doorway, beyond a very tidy desk was a window beneath the eaves, framed with pale blue curtains which let in a lot of light. Two blue, but mismatched armchairs decorated with embroidered runes faced each other beside a small round table. The hearth was empty, but the mantle above it saw a line of family photos and an oil painting of stags roaming a highland scene. A further door to their left remained closed. There was not a terrific amount of room to move, and as the door swung shut behind them both, cloaks hung on the back, the lack of echo only emphasised this.

“Do sit down,” the Professor suggested, gesturing to the seat bathed in pale daylight, nearest the Slytherin. Her rooms smelled of her perfume, warm, woody, citrus and cinnamon, simple, professional and not overpowering. “Forgive me my dear, but did someone suggest you speak to me on the subject?”

Virgil hadn't known where to look at her confusion, pressing his red mouth into a soft but brittle smile as his gaze fell on the steps instead of the witch standing across on the stairwell. He was familiar with the long pause - all at once aware and helpless of the way his sentences connected dots that weren't wholly visible.

Professor Duerr gave him an appraising look that he recognised, although it was softer on her countenance than it had ever been on anybody else. " “Of course, come, come this way.”"

A quick, quiet nod before he followed her the rest of the way up the tower. Virgil liked Duerr very much in spite of the fact that he wasn't a student of Arithmancy. It had nothing to do with her ability as a teacher - though from what he understood she was a capable one - but with a general sense of admiration.

She was a personality who lent itself to kindness of a specific variety. He found it soothing to simply watch her.

The prefect paused at the threshold of the unlocked door, hesitating, and then entered the private rooms beyond in long, soft steps. It never occurred to him to picture what Duerr's lodgings would look like but the homely space complimented what he already knew about her.

His eyes swept past the unlit fireplace, modest furnishings, framed photographs. "Thank you," he replied politely as he took a seat in one of the armchairs and held his pale hands interlaced on his lap like a schoolboy waiting to be called into the Healer's room.

He glanced out of the window, blinking sleepily at the rain, what light it afforded turning his expression melancholy. It felt safe here. Safer than most places in the castle or even the nooks in his mind. “Forgive me my dear," she began in a way that didn't necessitate forgiveness, "but did someone suggest you speak to me on the subject?"

"You d--" Too quiet, Virgil cleared his throat. "You did. Not directly but I think you wondered why I was at... new year's, was it?" he narrowed his gaze: looking at her but really at something not inside the room. "I didn't mean to. It's easier to let it happen than to stop myself."

Deciding that he had better be clear with how he was connecting the dots at this junction, Virgil crossed his arms diffidently and set his shoulders straight. He'd told Maiko so it felt sound to tell Professor Duerr as well. "I'm a Leglimens. Sometimes it, um, it manifests when I am sleeping. I call it dreamwalking."

Professor Duerr’s lips parted in surprise, and she sat quite straight in her armchair, observing Virgil with alert curiosity. The vivid nature the Slytherin had inserted himself into her dream the other night had not been her own mind trying to tell her something, but rather Virgil wandering into her head. It brought both relief and an uneasy undercurrent for the arithmancy professor.

“Dreamwalking!” She tried the word in her own accent, hands clasped to her chest, “How absolutely fascinating! Do you have your own dreams, or do you find you only walk in those of others?” Her right fingertips twisted the wedding ring on her finger as she studied Virgil. Her stare was not hostile, entirely intrigued at the concept.

“You did give me rather a start - in blue pyjamas right in the middle of new year’s eve. I was dreaming of being at my sister’s in Paris, a near annual tradition. I fell asleep contemplating to write her, you see, and there you were, bright as day. I was only thinking to myself on the way up here that perhaps it was a sign I needed to speak with you, and here you are.” She extended her hands towards him in the opposite armchair.

“Do you wander many dreams on a night? If you cannot control it, do your dormitory companions not wonder if they have grown …” she tried to think of the word in English, “… verdwaasd.. how to say it - that they think about you too much?”

Virgil leaned back into the armchair, visibly relieved at her reaction to this detail of himself. He suspected that not many people would appreciate knowing that he sometimes wandered into their heads.

Professor Duerr's immediate curiosity was encouraging and he liked the idea of speaking to someone about it - at least outside of Alex and Theo (whose Legilimency didn't manifest as his did) or Maiko, who had been more interested in how it affected his Sight. The Slytherin fingered the edge of the table between them unconsciously and smiled a genuine smile, teeth and all, at the description of himself in her dream.

"I do have my own dreams," he clarified and scratched an imaginary itch behind his ear, distractedly noting the way she twisted the ring on her wedding finger. "But I don't stay in them. I make a door or I lower the walls. Sometimes I find a dream I like and I stop to watch. Sometimes I hop around." Virgil shrugged.

He didn't like to remain for nightmares unless he could help the dreamer; and he was more than happy to let people believe they were simply dreaming about him instead of anything more sinister.

Virgil frowned a moment to wonder at the German... or was it Dutch? word but he understood, more or less, the implication of popping up in other people's reveries. His mouth twisted into a smirk.  "They don't always remember. I can't choose whose mind I enter but I can always choose to leave one."

His gaze slid away from Camille momentarily to the rain outside, then back, quickly mulling over a thought. "Sorry. I don't mean to be vulgar by... eavesdropping on your dreams," he sat a little straighter and did not quite meet her in the eye. "And I'd never stay if it were too personal a one."

“Of course not,” Professor Duerr agreed. “You have manners.” The way she placed those words would successfully suggest to Virgil that he ought to consider his manners if he let curiosity and autocratic interests take charge. A motherly guilt-trip. If one could not always remember, and Virgil felt the need to approach her on this occasion, he must have felt sure she would remember that dream at least - but maybe not in the past.

“And this is every night? Or just when the conditions are right?” Camille asked, a thoughtful frown crossing her features as she tried to imagine what it would be like to travel the dreams of others. “That must be exhausting - to be …” she gestured incoherently with her right hand, searching for the word, “conscious, in your navigation.” This conversation was certainly using some English words she hadn’t had much use of to date.

“Do you journal your observations, draw oneiromanic predictions from them?”

Virgil wasn't convinced that he had manners but he was going to attempt having them, if only because he didn't want to disappoint Professor Duerr. The Slytherin tried not to look guilty as he tucked a strand of blonde hair behind his ear and followed the movement of her hands as she spoke.

He thought that people's mannerisms while they talked were telling, especially if they weren't paying attention to it themselves.

Their Arithmancy professor used them as a kind of string, delicately pulling back together the disconnect between languages. "Not every night," Virgil assured her and rubbed one of his eyes tiredly. "I dream normally too but... yes. It's tiring. I sleep a lot." His lips pulled into a dry smile - it was well known that he napped whenever possible, able to fall asleep just about anywhere.

The habit wasn't just out of laziness. He raised a hand to his lips, almost biting the nail of his thumb and then remembering himself.

"I keep a journal[1] for dreams and... other things, experiment." Virgil admitted as he sat back in the armchair, slouching a little. "But I try not to dabble in their divination. Counselor Biladeau-Yukawa tells me I have the gift of Sight, so some of the dreams are different. Feel different. I try to interpret those."

Legilimency, Sight. Virgil felt uncomfortable professing to both at once - it made him feel unusual, an aberration that should never have existed. He tried to change the subject around. "They aren't necessarily accurate. Does your molybdomancy ever ring true?" he stumbled over the pronunciation. "And can it only be practiced on new year's?"

1.	Kindly Return to Virgil Carstairs

"...Counselor Biladeau-Yukawa tells me I have the gift of Sight..." Professor Duerr made a quiet noise of approval to Virgil.
"Gosh, so very gifted Virgil, you are blessed." She marvelled at him. In Camille's world, the gift of sight was something to be celebrated and cherished. Her niece Ondine had sight and Camille took her readings seriously.

"Does your molybdomancy ever ring true? And can it only be practiced on new year's?" Virgil asked, wishing to change the subject. Camille allowed him. It was his decoy for turning up to apologise for wandering into her dream.

"It is a wide interpretation," the Professor admitted, "but when one divines for a whole year ahead, it can be very vague. It can be used at any time of the year, it's just become a popular tradition in northern Europe to use it on New Year's Eve." She looked at Virgil kindly. "We have dinner as a family, it is not all about parties there. I do remember doing it once at midsummer as a girl. We were trying to divine the profession of our future husbands." She wet her lips, dropping her gaze, "divined mine would be to do with money, which in retrospect was somewhat accurate. But as for new year, I am yet to discover if it has rung true, only two months in."

She gave the Slytherin a kind smile.
"If you would like to try it with your club, I would be very happy to demonstrate and source the materials."

He wasn't sure where to look upon being called gifted, more used to the way his parents treated either of those abilities - as great responsibilities or burdens. Even Maiko gave it a sense of consequence and solemnity, something that performed a function you couldn't ignore, which would interfere on your everyday life.

These things weren't untrue but thinking of them as gifts somehow made them... lighter. Special but not in a way to be pitied.

Virgil desperately wanted to believe in that version: the version that meant he could see into a world few others did, and that his life was better for it and not just more complicated. He returned Professor Duerr's smile, the pull of his lips more brittle than her kindness but still genuine.

As a girl, she said, but somehow he imagined that little about her smile had changed since she was a young girl. You could tell with some people of evergreen goodness. "I hope that if your prediction for this year was a good one, it will come true." Virgil offered quietly and then laughed lightly at being reminded of the Divination Club.

"Yes," the humour reached his eyes. "Please, it will be a reprieve from reading coffee grounds[1] and tea leaves..." he trailed off into silence, the patter of rain from the window to his side.

His gaze dropped from the older witch's countenance to her hands, not with any intent - but he caught the glint odf her wedding ring again. "May I ask," Virgil's brow furrowed because he couldn't understand it (and he hated not understanding things),"why you still wear it?"

He heard himself ask this the moment the words left him, and touched his lips as if though they had just been scalded. That wasn't a smart question: not a question you asked anyone, much less a professor.

"Sorry. Manners, I forgot." A look of alarm crossed his face. "Pretend I didn't say it," he rambled on, afraid she would withdraw the hospitality he'd happily accepted. "I should learn not to pry."

1.	Believe Everything You Read - Jan 15th

“Wonderful.” Professor Duerr replied, smiling brightly. She’d been a quiet supporter of the club since hearing about it, only she’d never felt quite confident to approach it. The students should run their own things where possible, in her opinion. “I will order in some things and let you know when they arrive.”

“May I ask, why you still wear it?”
“Hmm?”
“Sorry. Manners, I forgot. Pretend I didn't say it, I should learn not to pry."

Professor Duerr’s eyebrows drew together in concern and confusion over what Virgil had meant. Her right hand fingertips were still pressed to her wedding ring which sat beside her engagement ring.

“At least you’re asking,” she commented, a tentative smile returning to her face beneath the confusion of what he was asking, and then why he felt he needed to. Not even her family had ventured into that conversation topic, though she knew they had thought about it, and thought better. Or perhaps made their own conclusions.

“Habit, partly.” She admitted, and smoothed her skirt self-consciously, voice swallowed in her tight throat. “And because despite how it finished, he was the love of my life, and the father of my son.” Professor Duerr’s gaze had dropped to her hands, and she blinked hard before swallowing audibly. “You saw him, of course. He never understood divination, thought it was for children, the only time he’d…” She left her sentence unfinished, remembering Virgil was a student, and this was just bubbling up because it was at the top of her mind right now.

“Some day.” the Professor spoke a little more firmly and lifted her face, forcing a stronger expression, "Now, you’ll need to let me know if Mr Morgan has suitable texts for the readings,” she moved on with the subject, a heat behind her eyes.

He regretted the question as soon as he discerned Professor Duerr's expression, heard the swallow in her voice and the emotion behind it. Virgil knew that he had treaded on tender territory - his cheeks warmed in embarrassment of this blunder but, admirably, the witch continued to answer the question.

She only stopped short of a more personal response. The Slytherin felt frozen to his seat as he stared at her a little unhappily.

"Some day," he echoed in a softer voice and stopped himself from trying to reach out to her mind. She had been right about manners; and Virgil could see now that they weren't there for show. Better than most, he should know that it was unkind to infringe on a private barrier.

Their return to the subject of molybdomancy was a relief. His brow cleared of worry and he smiled a little at the mention of their Librarian - technically cousin Landis to him. Any reason to pester the stony faced wizard. "Right. Yes, um, I will." Virgil felt more conscious than ever that he had been abhorrently inappropriate and glanced at the door by which they'd come in.

"I should probably go. Thank you," he cleared his throat anxiously. "For humouring me. Us. I'll tell the club to look forward to a session with you."

"Not at all," the Professor echoed, putting on her bravest face, "I look forward to it." She smiled at Virgil, as if nothing had happened. "Do drop by again, in person, I mean. I'll keep my eye out for your pyjamas."

She got to her feet politely as the young wizard stood to leave and watched him depart, closing her door behind him. As her cloak on the back swished back into place post-momentum, she glanced to her left to the mantle, where the family photos were. Her eyes caught her late husband nestled amongst, not prominent, and her fingers worked at her rings, pulling them over her finger joint.

"Some day." She told herself, slipping them back on.

End