23 January 2012
Monday at 5:30pm
The Headmaster's tower

A big fire roared in the hearth to beat the deepest cold of a Scotland winter. The Headmaster was just now himself arriving in his chambers after finishing with the third years who'd truly outdone themselves in becoming absolute thumbs and forgetting everything they'd ever learned about the Wizengamot. If he didn't know for a fact that Professor Kesali wasn't covering memory work until later, Knox would have assumed some kind of conspiracy.  But the school week was over and dinner wasn't far off. There was only one last bit of school business before the Headmaster could put his feet up.

"Call up Rigel Acrux, would you?" Knox asked the house elf who was gathering cobwebs for the potions stores. The house elf popped away with a wink.

While Knox waited, he got a kettle going. Under his arm was the most recent edition of the Hogwarts Howler.[1] He stood with it at the fire. He quite liked having a read when he could  manage a copy. The tone and quality of this particular periodical varied wildly but it never failed to stand as a perfect artifact to the youthful duality of industriousness and irreverence. Adults lost that at some point, the ability to create something utterly stupid and precious.

He chuckled seeing Elixia Mordent's likeness in print and wondered if she'd seen it before publication. The bit about SAWS asked more questions than it answered but did confirm the stories he was hearing about that revival having a rocky restart. And speak of the devil.

Rigel Acrux got bit by a vampire at Christmas

It seemed the timing was spot on in checking in on the strange and flashy Rigel Acrux, lest the boy be lost to the world and take everyone with him.

1.	20 Jan 2012 - Not Fit to Print

The view from the seventh floor was always Rigel’s favorite. He stood there, dress shoes embedded and drawn to the same spot before the same stained glass window. He looked upon the hills, which flowed like his life; unpredictable and slow tumultuous gradients connected to each other, so much so that one wouldn’t be able to discern where the apogee of the hill began and the nadir started. Remembered the view of the building from those very hills. Which stood tall, grasped firmly by the once green hills. This building and the view it provided one with would have an atypical association if an onlooker knew the history of the deeds that transpired in such a feat in architecture. This view from the hills subverted the stigma of its history and supplanted it with this gorgeous view. Scars only being visible in the cobbled walls, their protrusions acted with malice. They symboled a shift in the structure of its walls, a pernicious and slowly degrading failure of structural integrity.

Hands in his pocket he finally relieved the tension in his shoulders and made his way to Knox’s office.

He knocked on the door and before he heard an answer opened it and sat down, crossed his legs and smiled. He waited for Knox to speak.

Rigel arrived promptly and that was to his credit. If Rigel was anything, he was on time. And, Knox noted, well dressed. The headmaster watched as the polished seventeen-year-old let himself in, walked across the expansive office, past the hearth and sitting area, past the Headmaster, past the pensieve cabinet and the apothecary cabinet to take a seat before Knox's great desk. Silently.

Knox let the newspaper flop over as he peered over the top of his reading glasses at the back of the boy's head. Odd to not hear Rigel Acrux. Right then.

While he waited for the water to boil, Knox got started with the business from right where he was.

"Last term at Hogwarts," the Headmaster observed absently. "N.E.W.T.S coming round. Apparition course. Sorting yourself out alright, Mr. Acrux? All well in hand? Even the stalwart can bend in times like this. Future looming and that sort of thing."

“Yeah, the N.E.W.T.S, when will they ever increase the difficulty on those things?” He slicked backed his hair, then pulled it through towards his face. He was being facetious, still playing with the dangerous truth. He needed to study.

“Mr. Greyfriar am I here because of a certain vampiric rumour?” He sat still and crossed his legs. He was wondering why he was here, he has relatively followed the rules as of late. He operated in the grey and Greyfriar was familiar with that. Maybe it was his distasteful arrogance at the SAWS meeting, that would make more sense.

What he wanted to do was be silient until Knox would answer him, talk as little as possible unless he had something worthy to say.

"I won't need my laywer present will I?" He let out a chuckle, void of nerves and tension and pure in its jocular manner.

Knox acted as if this was the first he'd heard of the vampire rumor, knowing full well his facetiousness was bald-faced. He took the lawyer comment as a bit of cheek, although that could become a strange trend, students bringing legal representation when getting called to the office.

"Vampires? Oh, truly? Well, yes, that is certainly something I'd like to hear about. Very peculiar folk, vampires, those I've met. That is to say, I would consider it a tragedy that a student life would be lost in the process of joining their ranks."

He made a show of looking hard at the boy. "You look well enough. Feeling batty or anything?"

Obviously hadn't become a vampire, that was blatantly clear to everyone. But this whole vampire business was as good as any place to start to unravel this conundrum.

“I am feeling quite the increase of stamina as of late.” He said with an even tone. This was true but he had been working out infrequently.

He might have to break up with Cass as he has taken quite the interest in Ayla. That was a train of thought for another time.

“How often does someone ask, ‘How are you feeling,’ sir?” He faced the man and smiled.

"It's my favorite method of torturing students," the Headmaster said and set down the Howler in favor of drawing out his wand. The kettle was trying his patience. "Badgering about well-being is, in my estimation, the ultimate in cruelty. I evaluate my persistence as grueling and dizzying. Tell me, do you feel at all ..."

Knox snapped his wand at the fire and it blazed up in a flash of yellow and orange, underlighting Knox's face.

"Gruelled? Or Dizzy?"

“A flair for the dramatic suits you as well as it always had, sir.” He smiled at his face being illuminated by the flame.

“I am feeling quite perturbed. As you know the Room of Requirement has recently offered itself to me, or however it works. I’m afraid you should look into hiring a psychologist, our students have a plethora of problems they have no idea how to solve.”

"Thank you, my boy. Just comes to me naturally."

The tea kettle responded and was soon whistling. Knox removed it from the fire and poured two mugs of black tea. He levitated them ahead of him as he finally moved to join Rigel at his desk. Once at the desk, Knox took off his cap and ran his hand through his thick black hair.

"Hogwarts used to have a counselor. Perhaps you remember Madam Biladau-Yukawa.[1] I'll consider filling the position again to start chipping away at your plethora of problems. Observe, by the way, that my torture has worked. Here you are, a wreck in my office. You're haunted, I knew it. Tea?"

Rigel was definitely not a wreck and it wasn't clear or not if the Headmaster had deliberately misunderstood him. It was difficult to get Rigel to talk about himself, but Knox would see the day if it was his last accomplishment.

1.	Maiko Biladau-Yukawa was counselor I think last school year.

“Your tea will always have a special place in my heart.” He smiled. He kept wondering what his purpose here was, or really anywhere.

He took the cup blew a cool breeze over it to persuade the heat to dissipate and in kind took a sip. Smiled with the taste and the warmth of the tea flushing through his extremities.

“I do remember making a visit to her, it’s always so unfortunate that a patient is smarter than the doctor. Even more so that they could even develop that perspective. How would you handle it if I thought I was smarter than you?” He laughed, clearly joking. He utterly respected the man that now sat before him, always valued their banter and nuanced discussions. There would sometimes be multiple going on at once, those were his favorite.

"Oh, I'm very sure you are, Mr. Acrux," Knox said.

"I got to where I am purely on my good looks and bribery. Really, there are no qualifications of substance to hold this post. I muddle along., soft in the head, skating by."

A wizard's work would never be done if his efforts were to correct every wrong-headed, arrogant, or nasty thing Rigel Acrux said. Knox didn't have the patience for it which is why he'd thrown Rigel at Lennie Bretaskógr. Between Lennie and Knox, Lennie was the one actually allowed to fire his wand at children.

Knox sipped his tea and sucked his teeth. "So. Any of your innumerable problems ameliorated by your holiday with Auror Bretaskógr? Or maybe he made you some new ones. He told me just enough to know that it's good he told me so little."

“I think you misread me, I do not think I’m smarter than you, or better. You have no patience to correct me on my myriad of mistakes and the naivety of my actions. I’m sorry that I gave that impression. Seems like you were describing me instead.” He winked and took his tea to his lips before setting it back down again.

“Tell me, what problems before break did I have?”

Knox waved his hand vaguely.

"Of the two of us, I believe you were the first to invoke your problems. You mentioned the Come and Go Room providing you a venue, cited a plethora of problems haunting the castle, and requested professional help."

The headmaster tended to tease with a straight face. The older Slytherin could endure it as well as he could serve it. However, the headmaster had no honest desire to be a pest.

"Truly, though. Were your endeavors with an Auror who owes me money worth your while?"

“I invoked the problems of others that keep me up at night.”

He sat and smiled, symbolizing that he has moved on to be pensive with the next question the headmaster had asked. Was his time with Lennie beneficial.

“I think I convinced him to pay you back in more ways than one.” He wasn’t sure how much Knox knew or really how much he could know. He casted a forbidden curse, given the circumstances Rigel thought it would be okay. Well, he did teeter the line a bit on that one and was ashamed of having done so. The curse was too clean, he had to be more ingenuitive than that.

Knox chuckled and wiped his face. As introspective as Rigel Acrux clearly was, he seemed as nosy as Knox was. He might give the Slytherin the benefit of the doubt and that his motives were more along a Hufflepuff's might be, but then maybe not.

"Tell me more, Mr. Acrux. What did you learn from Auror Bretaskógr? Not too perilous I hope. I'd hate to have broken my own directive to the staff and be the first to cause a student casualty since September."