A stroll through Hogwarts

Jess glanced at his watch for a second before resuming his path around the Middle courtyard, his wandlight extinguished as he chose to exercise a level of discretion. After all, what would everyone think if he were to be seen wandering around late at night, alone, around the Middle Courtyard. Questions would be raised, people would be called... no, no, far easier to simply wait for the other half of his meeting to arrive in silence and darkness.

However pacing had never really been Jess' thing. It distracted him too much, and with the school in its current state, mixed in with the uneasiness the dark was giving him, Jess knew that being distracted was not something he particularly wanted to be.

So with that thought in mind he strolled over to one of the benches, plonked down on it and attempted to refrain from any of his annoying little habits...

which only really lasted for a second or two before he gave up and started tapping his fingers. He knew he was the early one, but gosh he wished Amelia would arrive soon.

Amelia had never been one to sleep much, so the castle at night was a familiar sight for her. Leaving the dormitories after hours had been the one rule of Hogwarts that Amelia had broken while attending school here, and considering that was the sum total of seven years of potential bad behavior, the redhead considered it a small discretion. Her older brother had broken nearly every rule in the book before his fourth year.

Typically, Amelia used the nighttime to run, or to go up to the room of requirement to play piano or violin. The concentration on perfection allowed the music to consume her, while the running allowed her to wear out her body to the point of exhaustion, finally allowing sleep to overcome her. Tonight, however, Amelia was breaking her habit of venturing out with the intention of avoiding others, because tonight, her presence had been requested by a fellow member of the staff, Jess Potter.

Amelia did not know Jess well. He had been her professor off-and-on during her years at Hogwarts, in much the same way many professors had been. Staff seemed difficult to maintain at the magical school, and after a term of teaching, Amelia now knew why. The job was trying in and of itself, but all the red tape and administrative mandates made the job even more difficult. The young professor felt she was always walking on eggshells, either to avoid the scrutiny of her superiors, or to prove her authority to people who remembered her as nothing more than a fellow student.

But being at the bottom of the figurative authority hierarchy meant that when someone of higher standing asked you to meet them, you went. Amelia was especially prone to do as authority told her, which was possibly the reason she had managed to adapt at all to the new climate at Hogwarts. Her parents had ingrained in her at a young age that you performed without question for those who held the power, and in her current situation, Amelia held next to none.

The courtyard was empty when Amelia arrived, or at least she thought so for a few seconds until her eyes landed on a shadowy form on a bench off to the side, and the young woman took a deep breath to steady herself before crossing over to him. Without an invitation to sit, Amelia could not (ingrained social norms), so she pushed her hands deeper into the pocket of her overcoat as she stopped in front of Jess.

“Evening,” Amelia said by way of greeting. She didn’t know what else to say, so after a few awkward seconds of trying to figure it out, she merely fell quiet, waiting for Jess to tell her what was going on.

Jess' eyes flicked up from the ground as he heard the clacking noise of shoes on cobblestones reach his ears, his hand straying towards his wand for a few seconds as he tried to ascertain whether or not the source was friend or foe, before recognising the approaching figure.

"Good evening," he responded after a short, awkward pause filled the air between the two of them, "I'm sure you're wondering why I asked to meet you, thanks for coming by the way," he added as he stood up and stretched out for a second, the cold had set in further than he'd realised and his joints felt oddly stiff. "Especially given the weather," he added with a low chuckle.

He looked at the figure that was standing before him and noted how closed off she seemed, her hands, arms almost, deep in her jacket's pockets, her expression overall a little a little closed off, and of course the silence. There was an unmistakeable air of awkwardness around them, and from what little experience he had with this sort of thing, with awkwardness often came nervousness, buried somewhere in the mix.

"Umm," he then said, scratching the back of his head for a second as he pondered over what he was trying to say next. "Do you, here." He said, frowning as he became slightly... very quite tongue tied. "Would you walk with me, even if it's just around the courtyard... my bones are killing me," he finally managed to blurt out, a broad grin crossing his face before he laughed at himself, trying to bring the mood down a little bit.

Truth be told he wasn't sure how he was going to brooch the real purpose of their meeting. It wasn't to comment on the weather, nor was it to go for a walk, or just to enjoy each other's company, and she was bound to know that herself.

He’s as awkward as you are, Amelia’s subconscious said incredulously, as though there could be a person on the planet that could possibly fulfill that role. But Jess was stringing together sentences with little grace, and talking about the weather in the first 30 seconds. Even Amelia knew that was a bad sign.

“You asked, so I came,” Amelia said simply, giving a small shrug of her shoulders. That was the truth of it, and she wasn’t about to give Jess a line about how it was a pleasure to meet with him or that she didn’t mind at all. He would see straight through it anyway; it was the middle of the night, and it was cold, and Jess simply wasn’t that gullible.

Jess was older than Amelia, but not by much, and his youth was showing as he stumbled through his thoughts and words, trying to start a conversation. Amelia wasn’t going to do him any favors, though, not that she probably could have been much help anyway. Jess sounded much like she would have if their roles had been reversed, but given the temperature, the hour, and the lack of information Amelia had been provided, she wasn’t feeling particularly sympathetic.

Finally, Jess spit out what he wanted, or rather, in Amelia’s opinion, a sideline to what he wanted. Jess hadn’t called her out here tonight to take in the grounds. He knew perfectly well that she ran these grounds nearly every day, and that after seven years of schooling at Hogwarts, she didn’t need a tour. But if it got him to tell her what he was trying to get at, she would at least be less confused and more likely to be able to go back inside sooner.

One could hope.

“Sure, I can do that,” Amelia said, though slow to commit. She still hadn’t figured out what Jess wanted, and Amelia wasn’t sure what her role in all of this was. Amelia was a paranoid person anyway, and her ability to trust was damaged goods, but Grindelwald and the Hogwarts administration had made her that much worse. For all Amelia knew, Jess’ intentions could be less than pure, and she didn’t want to get stuck in a situation she couldn’t figure her way out of.

“Shall we go this way?” Amelia asked, indicating with another shrug in the direction that would take them toward the arches with a view of the lake. She still hadn’t taken her hands out of her pockets, and her fingers were wrapped tightly around the hilt of her wand in one of them. Until she knew better what her position was in all of this, she didn’t want to be caught without a defense.

Jess nodded, standing up and shifting his own coat so it sat comfortably on his shoulders, before beginning a casual stride in the direction Amelia had indicated, his heartbeat calming as he came to terms with what he was about to do. After all, this was his job, and the worst that could happen was she said no... perhaps, quite possibly, he'd end up jobless, if it swung completely in the other direction, but he'd already resigned himself to the possibility that the outcome could be exactly that.

"Amelia," he said, pausing where he stood and turning to face her, "you and I both know that as lovely as the black lake is, it is not the object of our meeting tonight, forgive me if you were led to believe that it was," he began, bowing a little in the direction of the lake before resuming their walk, albeit at a much slower pace.

"We're at war," he began, "You know this, surely. A false Minister sits at the head of our Government and walks all over everything we, as a nation, should be holding dear to us in times like this... the peace that many of us fought for last year has been shattered, and rather than restoring our country to the status it deserves to hold, our actions here... out there," he said, pointing out towards the grounds, "were in fact the ones which paved the way for Grindelwald to walk in and denounce us, and our country," he told her, glad he'd found slightly more confident footing... he had never been good with small talk, at least having a goal would keep him focused and less prone to bumbling and tripping on his words.

"Of course, you probably know this," he added with an apologetic smile he doubted she would see through the darkness, "and you probably also know that I've not brought you here for a history lesson... I apologise for that, I have a bad habit of getting off topic," he told her with a small chuckle, "It all ties in though, don't worry about that," he said in what he hoped was a reassuring tone.

Jess allowed a small pause to settle between to two of them as he gathered his thoughts and decided on just how he was planning on getting his point across. "Amelia," he said abruptly, "whose side are you on?" he asked

Jess seemed unsure of himself as he stood up to lead her in the direction she had indicated. It took him nearly a minute to say anything at all, and when he did speak, it was to give a vague introduction to the main event, and Amelia was growing tired of vague. People lately seemed to dance around the issue, and Amelia was much more of a to-the-point kind of person. Even if she didn’t like the point Jess was getting to, she still would rather he hurry up and get there.

“I was under no impression that we were out here to take in the scenery,” Amelia replied, keeping her eyes forward and they resumed walked, “You know perfectly well my familiarity with the grounds, and I know perfectly well that if you were going to offer me a tour, it would have been before now.”

And it seemed that this reply was the kick that Jess needed to make himself heard, because a moment after Amelia’s reply, the older professor said the first thing that would indicate to Amelia the direction the conversation might be taking. His first statement was an obvious one, because you would have to be living under a rock for the last decade not to see war coming, or arriving in the last year or two. Jess gave what Amelia would have dubbed a quick, but apt summary of what had been going on with the ministry lately, but he wasn’t exactly telling her anything she didn’t already know. Amelia knew the ministry was struggling to adjust to their new administration, and that the administration was struggling to gain control over all its subjects. Her father occasionally worked with the ministry, and his letters had included allusions to the tensions there, though never anything specific. Her father never entered a fight that didn't belong to him.

Amelia had nodded throughout Jess’ history lesson, as he called it, just to indicate she was indeed listening, but up until now, there had been no real reason for her to reply. He hadn’t asked her anything or told her anything she found surprising. But then, abruptly, Jess stopped walking and turned to her with a question she had been asked already this week, by a stranger she had met in London.

Why does everyone want to know the answer to that question? Why do I need to be on a side? Amelia thought, exasperated. Why was no one content to let her play the sidelines, be a wallflower?

“I’m on my own side,” Amelia replied, giving the same answer she had provided for Whight, “I’m in the business of doing what is best for me, at least as often as I can manage it, and it seems to me that picking a side puts a target on your back.”

“What is this about, Jess? Why do you need to know?” Amelia asked after a momentary pause to let her words sink in. She needed to get to the bottom of why, all of a sudden, the powers-that-be were so interested in her. She had never even registered on their radar before, and if Amelia was honest, she liked it that way. It was why being an auror hadn’t panned out – too much potential for attention from people who wanted her dead.

Jess nodded as he received Amelia's response, a feeling of relief washing over him as he considered the implications of her decision.

Her decision was a wise one, depending on the way that you looked at it, he supposed. To some, the choice to retain neutrality could almost be seen as an act of aggression. The "You're either with us, or against us." sort of mentality really came into play there. But then again, he'd never really been one to deal in such extremes. Rather, he saw the move as a good one, by simply sticking in there, particularly given the current environment, you served yourself, and often others a whole lot better than if you simply chose the side you thought was good.

He didn't have to much time to think, however, as after a brief pause she turned the conversation to her own purposes. "Why? Why wouldn't I need to know?" He asked, his brow furrowing as he considered the question. "The students need protection, and in the next few months I believe change will be afoot. I do not ask for any reason other than to assure that the safety of this school will be upheld after the transition of power," he said, carefully deciding what points of information to let loose, and which ones to keep to himself.

"I applaud your decision to remain to yourself Amelia, I do. By staying out of a fight which probably isn't yours, you are doing yourself a greater favour than you may realise," he told her. "For fighting for a cause which is not your own is a sure way to taste defeat," he finished, his voice slowly trailing off as he finished speaking.

Amelia waited for Jess to try to argue with her, like Whight had, about why she should be on a side, why she needed to get involved, how she could be useful, but it never came. The young professor was accustomed to people telling her what she ought to do – she had been raised on it, then indoctrinated to the Hogwarts ‘do as I say, not as I do’ policies that the professors tended to employ, and then fallen under the regime of Grindelwald and his cronies as a professor. So when she didn’t give Jess an answer that put her into a clearly defined box, she expected him to fight it.

But he didn’t.

Instead, he commended her on the decision to remain loyal only to herself, instead of swearing allegiance to one cause or another. This was not at all what Amelia had expected, because she had her own inklings that Jess was not neutral himself. At her own graduation, Jess had shown definite tendencies to dislike certain things Grindelwald had been preaching. That, along with the rumors that filled the Hogwarts like they filled the wizarding world, told Amelia that Jess had a certain amount of power with one faction in particular, though how much power Amelia wasn’t sure of. She wasn’t even sure that the rumors were true at all; Amelia tended to put little stock into what people whispered.

“Thank you,” was all Amelia could think of to say when Jess admitted she was making a smart decision in not choosing a side. He understood that this war did not belong to her personally, and until it did, Amelia wasn’t about to throw herself into a position where she would become the enemy of people she didn’t even know.

“But as to the students,” the redhead added, wanting to clarify for Jess what she meant by her neutrality, “My position as a professor automatically prioritizes their safety in my eyes. Whatever ‘changes’ may occur in the near future, I will never shirk my duties as a teacher. I am as much responsible for their safety as I am for their knowledge of the uses of lacewing flies in potion-making. I will protect them and this school from harm, no matter which side it comes from. That is part of the agreement I made when I took on this position,” Amelia concluded, imminently practical in her response. She knew in becoming a professor that she would be taking on responsibilities that meant caring about people beyond her own person, and as she had told Jess, she took those responsibilities seriously. Amelia was capable enough to believe in her ability to protect her students, even in spite of the last time she had tried to protect…

…No. We are not thinking about that. Not now. Not ever again.

Jess noted Amelia's apparent surprise to his response, clearly she'd not been expecting him to accept her declaration, clearly she thought that he'd argue, try to recruit her, force her into submission... that sort of thing.

But he hadn't.

It was this sort of expectation Jess was beginning to get concerned about. People had always thought whatever they wanted of the Order, of what they stood for, what they did... but as long as he'd been around he'd not known people to expect them to strongarm the innocent... to intrude on people's lives and force them to do their bidding. The reputation they seemed to be gathering, as far as he could tell, was the kind of him he resented in every way possible.

Her conclusion, however, drew him from these thoughts, changing his train of thought easily as he took in what she was saying.

"I would expect no less," he replied, a small smile appearing on his face as he looked at his younger associate. "As long as you remain... pretty much what you are... or don't, but retain that view," he said, stopping for a second and frowning as he tried to get his message out clearly. "As long as you stand for the students. For their wellbeing and their freedom, you will always be welcomed at Hogwarts... at least as far as I am concerned," he finished. Amelia's care for the students was not something he took lightly. It spoke volumes about her character, and even now his own impression of her was shifting completely. Whilst he'd never doubted her intentions as a professor at the school, having her confirm what they truly were set his mind at ease.

Amelia nodded in acceptance of the responsibility Jess bestowed on her with his words, though she had known long ago that she was taking on that kind of pressure. The young professor had been proving all her life that she operated well under pressure. Her parents had always had high expectations of her, her professors had learned to expect more from her because of the promise she showed in her early years, and now she was teaching under the reign of a man whose idea of appropriate punishment for non-compliance was a trip to see his ‘head of security’ – not a pleasant experience, from what Amelia had been told. But it was true that Amelia understood what kind of pressure she would be under if it ever came time she had to protect the students and the school, and at least in theory, she was ready to take on that responsibility.

Jess fumbled a bit through his explanation of his satisfaction with Amelia, but when he finally got the words out, Amelia rewarded him with a small, but rare smile. Jess was an important member of the faculty because he had been teaching for some time now, and he carried weight with the students and the rest of the staff. His approval was just as important to her now as it had been when she was a student; she was never done seeking the approval of her superiors, and now that she knew Jess was in favor of her decision to remain neutral, she could feel better about it.

“Thank you, Jess. Your welcome means more to me than you know,” Amelia said, refraining from adding that this was the first honest words of welcome she had received. Yes, Grindelwald and his staff had welcomed her to the position, but she had never felt as though they were particularly warm or hospitable about it. On the contrary, she often felt like she was walking on eggshells just to avoid saying or doing anything that might cost her the position, and confirm her mother’s suspicions that this career choice had been a poor one.

“If that’s all…” Amelia began, uncertain if Jess had more to say, “… then perhaps we should head back in? I wouldn’t want anyone to be getting the wrong impression of us being out alone so late at night,” the younger professor said hastily. Amelia knew Jess was seeing someone, though Amelia had never met her personally, but rather just heard gossip among the faculty, and also, this was not an administration-approved meeting, which meant brevity was of the essence.