By the Pricking of My Thumb

[Pandora Winterdowne]

• At least she wasn’t writing OWLs in the morning, Pandora realize as, glad in her nightgown, she ascended the stairs from her dormitory to the Hufflepuff common room. At four in the morning, the only figure present was a slumbering Mr. Plum—she thought it best not to wake him, as he would surely need to be well-rested for his Transfiguration OWL in a few hours’ time—but even that company was better than none.
  
  Ordinarily, Pandora Winterdowne was a cheerful and optimistic girl. Her dreams, on the rare occasion she remembered them, often involved quidditch, her family, or sweets—good things, all. Since the quidditch match, though, her dreams had turned to nightmares, alternating between the sight of Mr. Gallivan’s impalement and the possibility of her own impalement, or that of her loved ones. The Quidditch World Cup had brought the Hufflepuff weeks of troubled nights, and it seemed this incident—event though the Ravenclaw had certainly survived—seemed intent to rival it.
  
  And so, when the fourth year had woken with a start, damp with sweat, she had thought it best to simply ‘call it a night’ as it were, which saw her now in an overstuffed chair with some needlework in hand. Though far from a task Dora was good at, it at least kept both hands and mind busy—a welcome distraction from a poor slumber.
  
  The sound of the door opening startled the girl, causing the needed to slip and prick her thumb. A wince and an ouch were the result as Pandora quickly moved finger to mouth to stem the tide of blood brewing at her fingertip.

  

[Luitpold Striebel]

Poldi was usually a fairly deep sleeper. Every night, he fell asleep minutes after his head touched the pillow and he didn’t wake up until morning. Even as a child, he could sleep through storms, after beatings and in unfamiliar places (he had even slept through the majority of the crossing to England despite the fact that it had been his first time on a boat). But, in the past few days, that pattern had, rather unfortunately, been broken.

Though exams were less stressful this year than they were last year with the OWLs, he still had to pass all of them to keep the classes that he wasn’t sure that he could manage it. He barely had a grasp of the spells that they were learning in charms and he had no idea what they were learning in Astronomy. He had honestly tried to understand. He must have read the textbook fifty times, but all the words were unfamiliar. It was as if it were written in Greek rather than English (which was hard enough already but at least when things were in normal English, he could understand the lectures). Even in Muggle Studies, he’d struggled with lessons on the British Muggle Government. He’d sent one of his essays home to Gogo to look over before he’d turned it in and it had come back a field of corrections to both facts and grammar. From his nine year old brother. It really was quite grim.

To make things worse, his sister, Sophie Luisa, was about to have her child in a mere two weeks’ time and he’d started to become concerned about how she and the child would fare. There were plenty of stories around of friends and family members who hadn’t survived childbirth and, while that sort of thing hadn’t happened in his immediate family, it was still a possibility and that possibility weighed heavily upon him.

As a result, every time he closed his eyes, thoughts of exams, babies and childbirth (on which he had a unique perspective for a man, as he had been present for and assisted with Gogo’s birth years earlier) continued to swirl in his head, keeping him awake for hours on end. When he finally did fall asleep, he’s been having strange and unsettling dreams which woke him after little more than two or three hours of sleep. Tonight, he had dreamed that he had been sitting in a test and doing terribly when he had looked up and realized that his sister was the proctor and that she had gone into labor. He had helped to deliver the child, who he had realized to his relief, was healthy, walking even, only to have it stand up, grab a pen and write a big, red T on his paper with the blood that covered it from the birth. At that point, he had woken and after trying futilely for about an hour to go back to sleep, gathered his Astronomy textbook and headed downstairs to read through the key sections of it again (or least attempt to). Perhaps, he thought, the fifty-first time would be the charm.

He was certain that he would encounter no-one else at this time of night, or rather this time of morning, but the faint voice of a young woman as he opened the door promptly proved him wrong. He briefly considered retreating into his dorm. Studying would be difficult with someone else in the room. He did his best work in seclusion, but the girl’s vocalization had been one of pain and he felt obligated to at least ask her if she was alright. Slowly, he made his way down the stairs towards a chair which contained the form of a blonde girl who he eventually recognized as Miss Winterdowne, a third or fourth year who he saw around the common room on occasion. He stared at her for a moment, not sure what to say. She didn’t seem terribly injured. She was only nursing a possibly injured finger. Still, it would be polite to inquire about, particularly considering that he might have caused it. “A…Are you alright?” He finally forced out, shifting his text book to his other hand nervously.

  

[Pandora Winterdowne]

• “Oh, it’s more an inconvenience than anything,” she assured before turning to look at the newcomer. Had her attentions not been divided between speech and nursing her thumb, the accent surely would have tipped her off more quickly to the fact that it was Mr. Striebel who had entered the common room. In the corner, Mr. Plum stirred briefly, but did not wake.
  
  Dora had had little enough to do with Mr. Striebel in the past; he did not play quidditch and had sat separately from her in the classes they had shared, and his two years of seniority over her (not to mention his sex) ensured that they were in possession of entirely different friends. Still, the fourth year was a friendly sort, and Mr. Striebel had always seemed nice enough. As if to punctuate how alright she was, she flashed the sixth year a quick, but bright, smile.
  
  “Just a prick—see?” she offered, holding up the wounded appendage. “It’s not even bleeding anymore!”

  

[Luitpold Striebel]

Poldi leaned forward very slightly and squinted at her finger. He felt rather silly doing it. He really would have just taken her word for it, but this seemed to be what she wanted. He couldn’t actually see in the dim light anyhow, but he pretended that he had and gave her a stiff nod. “Yes, alright.” He replied in a rather hurried and anxious tone. Though he was relieved to know that she was neither seriously injured nor noticeably cross with him about her minor injury, he was still pointedly uncomfortable being down here with her in the first place and her friendliness only made it worse. Certainly, it was improper for a man and woman to be alone together, in the dark at night, conversing amicably. What if someone walked in on them and thought that there was something more going on than what there was? Her reputation could be seriously affected and it would be all his fault. That said, it would be rude for him to simply leave at this point. She would know that she had driven him away and would undoubtedly hold it against him. Not sure exactly what to do, he allowed his eyes to roam around the room as he continued to stand wordlessly near her chair, for quite awhile, his hand, which were shaking slightly from anxiety, betraying his discomfort with the situation. Even after six years, he never quite felt that the common room was his unless he was entirely alone in it. It felt more as if he was visiting Miss Winterdowne’s home and was bound by courtesy to speak only when spoken to and to sit only when asked. At least, those were the rules that he had to follow at his parents’ friends’ houses or his parents’ when Vati was home (save for in his own room, of course).

  

[Pandora Winterdowne]

• Satisfied that the other party was no longer concerned for her safety, Dora cast one more wary glance at her thumb before inquiring brightly—if only to break a rather awkward cloud of silence that had formed—“What keeps you up at this hour, Mr. Striebel? You’re in sixth year, aren’t you—too old for OWLs?”