It was late afternoon, early evening, and the Professor would have headed straight back to the cottage in Hogsmeade but for one small detail.

Auror Trevelyan had secured any evidence[1] from the scene in the woods, through it was frustratingly lacking any great substance, other than the child’s coffin.

His conjured rain clouds had dissipated and the smouldering limbs of the trees lay quiet[2] other than the drips onto the sodden ground below.

He returned to Hogwarts, not to the Saturday evening meal, where students gossiped about why they had been summoned back from the village before time, but to the hospital wing. His boots were muddy and his the end of his cloak was sodden, but he did not attempt to clean them. Fatigue was firmly settling in, and his old limp caused him to catch the toe of the scuffed boot on the last step of the stairs. He cursed and vowed he would take the floo home once he was done.[3]

The hospital wing was quiet, gossips and onlookers kept at bay by Healer Prince.[4] The Deputy Headmaster closed the door behind him, not announcing his arrival to any of the occupants. Temple and Grant had enough barbs earlier,[5] and he had no wish to linger and chat.

He walked slowly but purposefully down the ward, which he sent students to with far more regularity than he ever visited.

“Grant,” he addressed gruffly, and extended a wand from his robes, holding it by the tip. It still bore smears of mud, but he had wiped the worst of it off when he had recovered it from the gouged earth at the scene. “Yours?”

1.	17th March, 2012 - Whose Woods These Are
2.	17th March, 2012 - And Miles to Go Before I Sleep
3.	17th March, 2012 - I Mark, in Vision of Delight, the Sage
4.	17th March, 2012 - Promises to Keep
5.	17th March, 2012 - The Only Other Sound

Professor Storm dragged in the outdoors with him. The rain, and the damp, and the smoke, and the grave dirt, and the forest she wanted to leave behind, it all trailed in on his shoes and his cloak. Why, what had she done now? She finally felt a little more like herself after a change of clothes and a quick wash up. Greer scrambled to sit up straight on the hospital bed, a crumpled sheet of parchment with not much written on it beside her. Dear Harper...[1]

She should, but couldn't sleep. She would, but couldn't do any magic without her -

Wand.

There it was - a short little thing like her, with a burl in the wood shaped like a sharp tooth.

Greer stared at it for a moment, then glanced at the Professor's face. A trick? No, this was really her wand!

"You found it?" Greer's voice sounded better thanks to the Healer, but she still spoke in a mumble as she reached for her wand. The wand fit easily into her palm, and she tried to ignore the grime on the handle. She'd only just felt clean again.

She waved her wand at nothing in particular. Lumos! A bright light illuminated the row of tidy infirmary beds, the white sheets tucked in at every corner.

Her shoulders lifted. Then she looked at Storm's face. The light lent a warmth to Professor Storm's face that she was very certain he didn't feel.

Greer slowly lowered her wand, letting the light fade. The Headmaster must have asked the professor to search the woods - or maybe the Quidditch pitch where Feliks had claimed to be - for her wand. She hadn't expected anyone to find it. Not today, when so much had gone wrong.

"Thanks," she squinted at him, her brow furrowed, as if he'd just passed her a bowl of peas she weren't going to eat.

1.	Sorry to bug you

“In the hole.” The Professor offered by way of explanation, eyes still narrowed from the bright light from her reunited wand. Better to call it that than grave which it was intended. Had he not been there Grant might have joined her wand beneath the mud.

“Don’t lose it again.” He added in a more familiar brusque tone, which always made his students feel was personal criticism than advice. He knew the circumstances of disarming would have been near impossible to defend against given the disguise and surprise, but it didn’t mean she couldn’t learn from the experience.

Without any further words of reassurance or even an expression of relief that she was recovering from her ordeal, he turned on his heel and strode to the door, merely adding: “And don’t be late for Duelling Club,” without looking back.

Greer scowled, crossing her arms with her wand still in hand. She didn't plan on losing it! What about Storm's mistake? When was the professor going to admit that a first-year had bested him and he was on his way to expel him or arrest him or better yet, hex him into a hole?

The end of his cloak flapped as he turned from her. Flecks of mud sprayed onto the once-clean floor.

When his parting words reached her, her mouth gaped open just like all those other dum-dum students who seemed to forget that Storm was rude. He was a rude, cranky old wizard and one moment of worry in the woods didn't change that.

Greer wasn't in Dueling Club. She didn't do extracurriculars. Watch if she showed up! That club was full of sneaky Slytherins.

Greer sat up straighter, her scowl deepening, her hand tightening around her wand. He was almost at the door.

"I won't do it."

Her chest felt tight. She swallowed a cough, grumbling a little louder.

"You want us to hex Feliks for you! Instead of doing something about it! That's just dumb!"

She lifted up her chin.

He was so close to charming the door open and striding away, but she had to pipe up. If he wasn’t so tired, he might have put her incoherent protest down to a thump on the head.

“You want us to hex Feliks for you! Instead of doing something about it! That’s just dumb!”

But Professor Storm had always been a bit of an arsehole, and his patience had pretty much run dry that day, especially towards these insolent Gryffindors. His step slowed, and he drew a longer breath, pale eyes looking up and closing a moment. Had anyone seen his expression it might have appeared he uttered a silent prayer not to hex the girl into next week.

“You really believe it was him?”

He stopped as he asked incredulously. He stiffly turned ninety degrees to look back over his right shoulder, and extended his wand directly at her. His expression lacked any reassurance and suggested he might instead be about to hex her for speaking out of turn.

“Reflexi!” He hissed, turning his wand sharply in an anti-clockwise circle no bigger than her head. Blue light carved a circle in the air before Greer, seated on the bed, and it lit her defiant features in cold blue-white light before erupting into a quick burst of light, leaving behind a mirror small enough to grasp in both hands, but large enough to reflect her clearly.

“Look into it,” he instructed without any warmth. He paused just a beat for her to be confused as to what she was meant to see, other than her own face, “you’ll see what ‘dumb’ looks like.”