Tramping up the stairs, her robes muddy, Briony Wexler does not look pleased. This is her third detention this year! The girl can hardly believe that her own mother was the cause for this one. She sighs as she knocks on the door leading into the office. “Professor Hargrove?” she states, rather quietly. “It’s Briony Wexler. I’m here for my detention.” The girl says all of this in an unusually quiet voice, hoping the Headmistress will not have heard her. Of course, stomping up the stairs didn’t help the matter, but this never crosses Briony‘s mind.

Trailing behind Briony, red-faced and gasping from her hurried climb up the steep staircase, is Katherine NicholsHer robes are similarly disheveled, but with a diffuse layer of brown powder that coats not only her robes, but her straggling dark curls. Halfway up the stairs, she is forced to pause as she gasps in – in – “ACHOO!” The little girl’s sneeze echoes up and down the hallway, and her steps sound even louder in the wake of the silence that follows. “Oh. Hullo, Briony,” she greets the other girl as she reaches the top, her voice hushed and subdued. As she draws closer, a faint scent grows – cinnamon. She smells overwhelmingly of cinnamon.

“Come right in, girls,” the headmisstress calls. Behind her desk she sits, veiled by high stacks of books. As she stands to step around the desk, all that is visible is the top of her frizzy head. Amelia pulls two candies out of a box in her drawer and sets them on her desk in front of her as she waits for the two ‘perpetrators’ to enter her office, which, just now, shows signs of rather early Christmas decoration. “Have a seat, please, and then I’ll have to you tell me what it is that got you sent to me.”

“Yes, ma’am,” Briony answers, opening the door and stepping in past the plump Hufflepuff. She takes a seat in one of the chairs — the red one, as she’s not much a fan of green — and glances around the office. Briony gawks at the decor of the office, finding it shocking how insane she feels the headmistress must be. Her eyes spot the candy, however, and all thought of the christmas spirit emanating from the room is forgotten. She glances at the woman who is standing over her for a moment, then her eyes glance back at the sweets.

“Yes, ma’am,” Katherine echoes the younger girl, standing politely aside to let her go first. She hovers uncertainly inside the door, brushing at her cinnamon-dusted robes with hands so covered with the spice that they seem to add more than they take away. Finally, she gives a deep sigh of resignation and plunks down in the green chair. The odd appearance of the headmistress’s office doesn’t shock her – she’s been here too many times to be surprised by anything, and despite her dejection, Katherine can’t help but smile a little at the sight of the signs of Christmas. An eager gleam lights her eyes as she too catches sight of the candy – but she says nothing, just folds her hands neatly in her lap and sits, waiting patiently. But then – “Ah- ah – ACHOO!” Another sneeze bursts out of her, and she mumbles a sheepish, “Sorry.”

Amelia Hargrove chuckles and conjurs a handkercheif in an obnoxious shade of yellow. She hands the object to Katherine and leans against her desk. “Now, tell me, what brought you here.” She pauses a moment. “Ms Nichols, why don’t you begin?” the woman asks, eyeing her dusty and pungeant robes with a raised eyebrow. “Then Ms Wexler can enlighten me.” Amelia takes the two peices of candy — them having had the desired effect, and holds them in her hands, as if she has no intent of giving them to the girls at all.

“Yes, ma’am,” Katherine says again, reaching out to take the handkerchief. “Thank you, ma’am.” She snuffles into the handkerchief for a moment, wiping an almost-clean spot around her nose on her cinnamon-dusted face. “Well, it was…I was working on the assignment that Professor Calwern had given me,” she begins. A slightly stricken expression crosses her face as the candy is withdrawn, but she swallows hard and continues, reciting the events as if she were presenting a lesson in class. “She had these little umbrellas, you see. To put in drinks.” Her chubby hands wave in the air, miming the opening and closing of a tiny umbrella. “And I thought that they would be marvelous in hot chocolate – made of peppermint sticks and candy floss and things like that.” Enthusiasm begins to bring a smile to her face as she gets carried away with the telling of her own story. “Or that opened up to conjure little marshmallows or cinnamon or chocolate bits. And Professor Calwern said that she’d give five points to Hufflepuff if I could make one that did that. And she said that she liked cinnamon, and…” Katherine is starting to lose momentum as she gets closer to the unhappy ending of the story. “And, well, I made a bit too much cinnamon.”

Briony Wexler stifles a giggle as Katherine tells her story, and scoots back a bit in her chair. To tell the truth, she hasn’t even noticed yet that the candies have disappeared from the table, until she looks at the headmistress, in whose hands are the suckers. Ohhh, sweets… Briony pauses for a moment in the silence of the room, until she realizes — after a stern look from the headmistress — that she should be divulging her reason for her detention. “Well, uh, I was trying to find my kitten, and I wasn’t paying attention to where I was going, and I sort of… ran into a prefect. A Slytherin prefect. And she hit me because of it, so I fought with her.” Briony pauses. “But I won! And she hit me first!” The girl settles back into her chair, fuming again, at the memory of the situation. “My mum fixed me up, and sent me to you for detention.” Another pause. “That girl is still in the infirmary, though.” A mean grin crosses her face, a t the thought of overcoming a fifth year.

“I see,” the headmistress says. “Well, we’ve got some fun planned for today. You both are going to help me research for my next seminar.” She pauses. “I suppose it would be helpful for you to be my assistants when it comes off as well.” She nods. “Now, all of these books are about animals of extraordinary means. I need all the information you can glean from them about Kneazles. We will begin to compile it in one hour. And when you’re finished… then, you may have these sweets.” For all Amelia‘s sense of duty, she still can’t help slipping the occasional sweet to the children.

“Yes, ma’am,” the girl answers with a sigh. She scoots her chair forward and takes a book, and finds, before she can ask a question for it, that a stack of parchment appears to her right, in addition to an inkwell and some quills. She sighs a bit, trying not to breathe in too deeply, for fear of being afflicted of the same cinnamon ‘disease’. “Oughtn’t you have cleaned up before coming up here?” Briony asks congenially, taking a bit of parchment and poising her quill in her left hand as she opens the book, ‘A Study on Kneazles’.

Astonishment opens Katherine‘s mouth and hope lights her eyes as she looks up at the headmistress. Not the promise of being the headmistress’s assistants, but more sweets? “Yes, ma’am!” Katherine replies, and stifles another sneeze with the gaudy handkerchief as she too reaches forward to take a book. She stuffs the handkerchief into a pocket for a moment as she searches through the other pockets of her robes for a quill, coming up with several bright pink sugar ones before finding one that will actually write. “Professor Murphy told me to come directly to the Headmistress’s office,” she whispers, in response to Briony’s question, as she follows the younger girl’s example and flips open her book.

“I need as much information as possible so that the demonstration will be interesting and informative for the whole student body.” The woman nods and deposits an inkwell down in front of Katherine. She doesn’t even seem to notice the cinnamon emanating throughout the room. Her head disappears behind the stack of books on her desk, and scratches from a quill can be heard. There seems to be some whispering and the occasional ‘mew’, though nothing is visible, from behind the books where Amelia sits. If one was not accustomed to her nature, it could be quite disconcerting.

Briony Wexler nods at her classmate and glances at the big pile of books. “Did you lose points for it, or did you just get a detention?” she whispers gently. “My mum took points away. She said I ought to know better. Five whole points.” The girl’s posture fails a bit as she slumps lower in the chair, scribbling a half-hearted note onto the paper. Detectifying was much more fun than this. For that, she enjoyed taking notes. “By the way, when we’re out of detention, I think I’ve found a few leads on the badger. He’s a sneaky little devil, but I think we’re getting close.” The girl nods and tries to find another ‘important’ fact to scribble onto her notes.

“If they can’t get the cinnamon out of the carpets, then I’ll lose points,” Katherine sighs, giving the younger girl a sympathetic glance as she reaches across the table to dip her quill into the inkwell. “I can only imagine how many points I’d lose if my mum worked here,” she murmurs. “The Howlers are bad enough…” Scattered, disorganized notes begin to take shape as Katherine flips back and forth between several books at once, decorated with arrows pointing from one paragraph to another, and little pictures in the margins. “Where do you think the badger might be?” she whispers, leaning closer so that she can keep her voice low, but trying – and failing – not to sprinkle too much cinnamon on either the Headmistress’s floor or the other girl.

“If you’re going to talk, make sure you’re productive while you’re doing it!” Amelia‘s voice echoes from behind the large stack of books. The woman seems to have magical hearing, as the girls are speaking quite softly. One might wonder if she has the disposition for this job, which would appear to require a much less friendly and giving disposition. These girls, though, have not angered the woman, and still are promised sweets at the completion of their detention, despite the stigma of being in trouble.

“It appears that he’s hiding down next to the potions room. I think, anyway.” The girl pauses. “Gabe says that it couldn’t possibly be there, but he seems to like it in the cold area. Maybe badgers like cold weather. I don’t know.” The girl shrugs and scribbles a paragraph down, just filling up her first length of parchment. She puts it in front of her for the ink to dry, and scribbles some more. “I didn’t know people researched kneazles so extensively,” Briony whispers to Katherine, shaking her head in disbelief.

“They do. And tunnels and things,” Katherine whispers back, with an authoritative nod on the subject of badgers. “I’m not surprised he’s near the Potions room. Or she. I’m still not sure. And maybe he – or she – knows that Professor Sedgewick is our Head of House, or something, so it wants to hide near her. ” She pauses for a moment, drawing a curly arrow to connect two sections of notes, then adds, “And Kneazles are interesting! They’re ever so clever. Smarter than regular cats, even…”

Amelia Hargrove rifles through several more books, putting down two more books which she has finished investigating. Hearing the girls continue to chatter, she does nothing to quell their talk, feeling that it must be a healthy thing if nothing else, for such conversation to occur between young girls. Amelia‘s notes far out-do the notes that the two collectively have gathered, but this does not concern the headmistress, who is merely eliciting their help because a detention was necessary. One could hardly say she enjoyed making the students do pennance.

“I’ve never seen one myself, not up close. My dad wouldn’t let me go near it in the shop, because he told me I wasn’t allowed to buy such a thing. He told me I could get a pet, then he wouldn’t let me get a kneazle.” Briony sighs rather dramatically about this. “But that’s alright, maybe there will be one at the presentation, and we’ll all get to pet it!” The girl looks hopeful about this and scribbles a few more notes in her disastrously uneven handwriting. “I’ve heard that they know the good people from the bad people and they will only associate with good people.” She nods sagely, obviously believing herself and her comrade to be in that special group.

“Oh, they do,” Katherine whispers back, with an earnest nod and a smile that shows that she has just as much confidence as Briony about which category they would be placed in. She pauses to scrawl down a few more lines of notes, her careful round handwriting becoming sloppier as her excitement rises. “I wasn’t allowed to have one either,” Katherine continues, wrinkling her nose in a sympathetic grimace. “Just an ordinary cat. Although I wonder if Nina wasn’t maybe part Kneazle after all, the way she acted. Still, I would like to see a real one up close. I hope we’ll be able to pet the one at the demonstration.. .” She lets the sentence trail off, daring to send a hopeful glance up towards the Headmistress at the end of it – and another hopeful look towards those sweets that sit so tantalizingly close.

Amelia has been listening to the conversation going on over on the other side of the book piles, and smiles to herself. Now, where could Aristos be? The woman glances around, and then makes a bit of a clicking sound, quiet enough to go unnoticed, and Aristos comes trotting in. The little cat-like creature is a sight to behold, quite a bit larger than an average cat, with thick, fluffy fur, and dark purple spots covering her back. The creature jingles a bit as she jumps up onto the desk allowing her fur to be stroked. “Never seen a kneazle, eh girls?” Amelia asks, a curious and suspicious glint in her eye. She stands, taking the fluffy cat-like creature in hand, and takes it around the desk, setting Aristos down directly in the center of where the girls sit. The creature sits, looking quite regal, glaring from girl to girl.

“Whoa, you have a real kneazle?” Briony‘s voice is full of awe as she gawks at the large animal. She reaches out gingerly, suddenly not quite so bold as to outright pet Aristos. “What’s its name?” she queries, softly touching the fur on the kneazle’s shoulder, almost frightened, as if she can sense that the creature doesn’t like her. And, indeed it does not, as Aristos is a peculiar kneazle, who trusts only adults, finding children to be particularly untrustworthy.

“Oh!” Katherine lets out a squeal of excitement and surprise, and her mouth remains open in a wide, wondering smile as she gapes at the creature on the desk in front of her. She exchanges a quick, happy glance with Briony – their request has been answered! – then continues staring wonderingly at the Kneazle. “Oh, it’s lovely!” she breathes. “May I…?” The question is asked more to Aristos herself than to the Headmistress – Katherine looks straight into the cat-like beast’s eyes as she reaches out a chubby hand, hovering a few inches away and waiting for permission before actually touching it.

A small growl can be heard emanating from the large cat-like creature’s chest, though it does not move at all to attack in any way. “Behave yourself,” Amelia scolds at the kneazle and the growling dulls, now hardly audible. “You may pet her as long as you are gentle. If she begins to growl, remove your hand at once. She has very sharp claws.” Amelia watches carefully, her eyes like those of a hawk’s, taking in every movement, every breath, every look. She knows her kneazle far too well.

Looking a bit more nervous, Briony removes her hand back to her lap, merely looking at the majestic kneazle. “Go ‘head, touch it, Katherine,” she encourages, sitting back in her seat a bit. The girl is simply not brave enough to touch the creature yet, not wishing her arm torn up by the scary beast. She instinctively pulls her pile of notes from the table, so as to save them from shredding, should there be a bloodbath.

“All right,” There is a quiver of apprehension behind Katherine‘s agreeable tone, and she swallows hard at the Headmistress’s warning about the Kneazle’s claws. But the little Hufflepuff girl keeps her eyes steadily on Aristos’s, and says to the creature, “It’s all right. I’m not going to hurt you, and I’m not going to hurt the Headmistress. I just want to pet you. She’s said that I might.” Katherine moves her hand a little closer, searching the Kneazle’s impassive expression for any signs of hostility or assent – and listening intently for another growl – until finally, she touches the animal’s thickly-furred side.

No growls are heard at this juncture while Katherine gingerly presses her fingers against the fur. “It’s fine, Aristos. She’s a good little girl.” Amelia‘s voice is confident. Aristos looks back at her owner with an impassive look, tolerating the affection she is receiving for the time being. The headmistress looks on, watching carefully as one girl shys away from petting the creature she had previously expressed interest in seeing.

“It looks so cool,” Briony whispers, watching intently from the back edge of her seat. The girl obviously does not want her arm torn open today, by any chance of luck or lack thereof. “She sure is pretty,” she tells the headmistress, a leery smile on her face. One might be unable to tell whether this is an attempt at flattery, or whether there is sincerity behind the comment, but Briony looks more terrified than anything else. She clearly did not expect the beast to be quite so big and intimidating.

“There you go,” Katherine murmurs to the Kneazle, her smile returning as Aristos accepts her touch. “Good girl…” She lets her hand flatten out, touching Aristos with more confidence now, and beginning to move her fingers in a gentle stroking motion – but she still keeps her head tilted, listening for the first sign of a growl. “There you go,” Katherine says again. “Here, Briony, do you want to try too?” Katherine takes her eyes off of the Kneazle just long enough to glance back at the younger girl, then looks back quickly, not wanting to break her eye contact with the creature for much longer than a second or two. “She’s nice! Yes, you’re a good girl.” Her voice starts to take on a sing-song cadence as she continues speaking to the animal. “And you’ve got lovely purple spots…”

“Alright, I think that’s enough,” Amelia says, reaching out and plucking the unhappy looking kneazle from the desk and placing her onto the floor, watching her trot away. “Alright, I think that’s enough for today. If I could have your notes, that would be marvellous. And you both will, of course, accompany me for the seminar and help me make my presentation.” The woman smiles nicely at the girls and takes the sweets from the desk, holding one out to each of them. “Please make sure you go get yourself cleaned up promptly, Miss Nichols, else Miss Scott finds your cinnamon trail and sends you directly back to me.” Amelia smiles at them and waves her hand as if to shoo them on out of her office, to attend to important headmistressly duties.

Briony Wexler takes the sweets slowly, smiling at the woman. So this wasn’t the worst detention she has yet had, and the girl is certain that it won’t be the last, either. She stands and smiles at Katherine, almost offering to go out and have a romp, but then deciding against it, remembering the excess of cinnamon on her being. “I’ll see you around soon, and we’ll try to find that badger.” Briony giggles and turns, walking rather quickly out of the room, as if she has somewhere important to be.

Katherine‘s brief disappointment at the Kneazle’s retreat dissolves almost instantly into a pleased smile – she is going to be helping the Headmistress? And getting candy, too? Is this really a detention? Katherine reaches eagerly out to take the sweet, remembering only after she has popped it into her mouth what the Headmistress’s other request was. “Mmph! ‘orry!” she mumbles indistinctly around the candy as she hands her notes across the desk. “Nnnk you, m’m!” She gives the Headmistress a bright, candy-stained grin, bobs a curtsey, and hurries out after Briony.