Loyal | Tom Riddle

22: Dragon Breeding

Hurriedly, Arabella made her way down the hall, her brow furrowed and mind reeling. Beside her, Professor Dumbledore strode in his midnight blue robes, his long beard gently swaying from side to side. Behind his half-moon spectacles, merry eyes twinkled at her in reassurance.

"What will happen to him, sir?" she asked, slowing her pace as the Headmaster's office entrance came into view.

"Whatever Professor Dippet thinks is best, Arabella," the old man replied calmly. "He's a very understanding man."

She bit her lip, waiting impatiently as the staircase swivelled downwards after the head of Gryffindor House had murmured the password.  "He's not going to be expelled, is he?"

"No, I don't think so," Dumbledore shook his head. "Perhaps your brother will be. . . . relieved. . . . of some of his privileges, with several months' worth of detention -- but no, I think not. You should have nothing to worry about, Miss Travers."

Together, they entered into Professor Dippet's study, an orderly room decorated with stacks of books and the odd roll of parchment. Arabella thought it a sad place, without any knick knacks of any sort like Dumbledore's small office.

At the large desk before several stained glass windows sat an ancient looking man, his thin shoulders hunched forward slightly, one frail hand resting atop the rune-covered pages of an open book. In front of him, she could make out Nikolai's untidy mess of brown hair; his posture was straight as a rod, with hands gripping tightly onto the edge of his chair.

The wizened old man lifted his head at the sound of visitors. He smiled, his thin lips pressing together into a tiny line under his wilting moustache. "Ah, Albus," he exclaimed abstractly. "And Miss Travers, I presume?" Arabella nodded. "Please, take a seat, both of you. We've much to discuss about Mr. Travers here."

Nikolai's eyes did not lift from the corner of the massive desk, where they trained intently with the purpose of avoiding contact with anybody else's. His sister noted the soot that covered his school robes, the gash that ran from the tip of his right eyebrow to his cheekbone, the blood and grime in his fingernails. She nudged him gently, but he still refused to meet her questioning gaze.

"Two students were found with excessive blood loss," Professor Dippet finally said, breaking the tense silence. "A brother and sister."

Arabella frowned. "But I'm fine, I didn't get into any scrapes --"

"Not you and Nikolai," Dippet interrupted her. "Miss Aenwyn Yaxley and her brother, Tantum."

Dumbledore rested his hand on his chin, absent-mindedly stroking his beard, deep in thought. "Were they found together, Armando?"

"No, Albus," he responded. "The girl suddenly started coughing up blood in the Slytherin common room, and the boy was found unconscious in a deserted seventh-floor corridor amidst rubble, but nothing was found to have been destroyed."

"Curious," Dumbledore commented. "It almost reminds me of --"

"How I was found," Nikolai finished, suddenly meeting his sister's wide eyes with shame. "We -- we didn't tell you. Didn't want to give you a scare."

Arabella glanced from his face to Dumbledore's, then Dippet's, and back to Nikolai. All lowered their eyes. "I. . . . I don't understand, Professor."

"In the autumn," the headmaster began, "your brother was admitted to the infirmary. Much like his friend, Mr. Yaxley, he had severe blood loss and was confused. It took months for him to recover his strength."

"Then the reports from Grindelwald's army, intercepted by the Ministry, came in," Dumbledore added gravely, lacing his skeletal fingers together. "They mentioned that your father had been discovered in a dreadful state, alone in an unused room covered in blood stains, pale and sickly. We monitored the reports carefully, listening for any further talk of your father.