HA 11a: Prejudice

HIM AGAIN: Chapter 11: Moving On - Prejudice

Minerva looked up as Professor Read and the wayward student entered. Around her, the portraits mimed sleep, snoring convincingly - but ever ready to listen in and get a piece of the gossip. Doubtlessly after Brian Potter had left, either Dippet or Nigellus would insist on airing their opinions on the child.

She glanced at the essay, sat ready on her desk, and nodded at Professor Read to leave. There was no point in becoming any more irritated than was necessary. Nevertheless, cheating was a serious matter, and the purpose of the interview was impress upon Brian the need for honesty in the future. Once the door had closed she looked up at the boy himself, to see what impression being summoned to the Headmistress’s office was making on him.

The child’s face was deathly pale and his blue eyes were wide; he was standing as far away from the desk as possible, seemingly transfixed by the sight of her. Minerva was put in the mind of shocked and terrified mouse being hynotised by a snake. Surely she wasn’t all that frightening?

The urge to soften the blow came to her and she frowned at the impulse. There was no sense in being gentle now if it simply resulted in Brian’s expulsion if he cheated at his OWLs. The problem had to be nipped in the bud.

“Mr Potter, please sit down,” she said crisply, fixing him with a disapproving glare.

Brian gaped at her, and she found herself thinking how dissimilar to his parents he was - and yet, how familiar his eyes seemed. He walked across the room and sat himself in the chair slowly, and ripped his face away from Minerva’s, turning it to his lap.

“Mr Potter, are you aware of why you have been summoned here today?”

The boy shook his head, his half-moon spectacles almost falling off. Minerva blinked; the glasses were an odd choice for an eleven-year-old.

“I think you are.”

He looked up and gave her a searching look with his sapphire eyes. She waited but he was apparently unable to speak, so she continued.

“Brian Potter, I would like to impress on you-” She stopped, suddenly remembering exactly who the boy was named after. What would He have thought, she thought bitterly, if He had known that the boy named after Him would turn out to be deceitful? Anger sharpened her words. “I would like to impress on you the seriousness of cheating at Hogwarts. We do not tolerate such deceit here.”

The boy stared at her insolently; he was obviously still pretending ignorance. Minerva felt her nostrils flare in irritation, and she picked up the essay and waved it at him.

“I want you to tell me whom or what you copied - for there is little doubt, Mr Potter, that you have copied. Trying to pass other people’s work as your own qualifies as theft. I am deeply shocked and disappointed in this behaviour, and further attempts to cheat will result in me contacting your parents.”

The child’s face suddenly sagged in horror as he gazed at the essay. Minerva gazed at him coldly; he had been found out, the lie had been unearthed.

“What do you have to say for yourself?”

“I - I-” the student gulped.

“Yes?”

“I’m sorry, M-Professor.”

The Headmistress blinked and narrowed her eyes. M-Professor? Had the boy just been impertinent enough to try and address her by her name? A fire roared into life in her chest.

“Mr Potter,” she found herself whispering. “I will not suffer this impudence.”

His silence infuriated her.

“Explain yourself.”

Brian’s mouth worked. Then-

“I apologise, Professor. It won’t happen again,” he said smoothly.

Minerva stood up. Students who did wrong and denied it when caught were bad enough, but students like the one before her - who at first pretended ignorance and then apologised so slickly, insincerely - were beyond the pale. The boy was nothing like his parents, she thought fiercely, nothing at all. This was a reborn Draco Malfoy at the peak of his insolence and disregard for authority - that the child she had once held in her arms should turn into this-! She placed her hands at opposite ends of the desk and leaned forward, so that the boy sank back in his chair.

“I’m afraid that more than cursory apologies are needed here! I will not tolerate such lack of respect, Mr Potter! Detention, on Saturday at five o’clock with Mr Filch! Now tell me what source you copied from!”

“I d-didn’t, P-Professor! I honestly s-swear I didn’t copy from a-anything!”

There was something wrong about the stutter, as if the voice’s owner didn’t naturally stutter but had felt it necessary to produce a passable rendition. Minerva felt herself becoming incensed. She stared into the pale, shocked face, suddenly feeling as though the whole display was an act designed to placate her.

“Then I would very much like to know an alternative explanation!” She drew herself up to her full height. “You have blatantly either copied from a book or gotten someone else both older and cleverer than you to write it instead! Provide me with the source or I shall be forced to contact your parents.”

The boy gazed at her silently. His pale cheeks were beginning to flush and the blue eyes begged her not to do anything of the sort, but the pointed jaw remained clamped.

“Very well,” she said quietly. “I’m writing to your parents tonight. You may go. Don’t forget your detention on Saturday.”

He got up from the chair and left the office. As he did so, Minerva was satisfied to see that his small limbs were shaking very slightly. The moment the door closed behind him, the portraits began to mutter as she sat back down at the desk.

“Disgraceful behaviour,” declared Dippet. “Simply shocking.”

“In my day,” said Everard, “he would have been hung upside-down in the dungeons by his ankles and left there for a couple of hours.”

“Well, Headmistress, you certainly had him cowed,” commented Derwent, shaking her painted silver ringlets.

“On the contrary, Dilys,” Minerva stated coldly. “I believe he was considerably less frightened than how he appeared. A cold and calculating student.”

“Doubtlessly just the sort of boy Lestrange would have approved of,” Phineas Nigellus drawled, looking over at the mentioned former headmaster’s portrait only to find it empty. “But then, I never understood Dumbledore’s fixation on the father-”

“-Who has little to do with his son, personality-wise,” interrupted Minerva, irritated. It saddened her that He would most certainly have thought of the boy as a grandson - how disappointed He would have been!

She ripped a sheet of clean parchment from the roll inside the nearest drawer, and dipped a quill into some ink, wondering how to begin chastising the boy to his family. She was about to set point on paper when a small voice broke the overhead clamour.

“I wouldn’t dismiss the boy out of hand if I were you, Headmistress.”

Minerva looked around, at first confused - and then saw the Sorting Hat twitching on its shelf across the office. It was unusual for the hat to speak at all, and the portraits were automatically silenced.

“I saw some very… unusual things in his head. He won’t go through Hogwarts unnoticed, that’s for sure.”

She sniffed and turned back to the parchment. “Unusual, yes, but not desirable.”