Artemis Hexley and the Circle of Khanna

Chapter 21: Amends

Once the Aurors had left with Jacob and Rakepick, Professor Dumbledore sent the Circle of Khanna back to their dormitories.

"Except for you, Miss Hexley," he said, and Artemis stopped walking with Tonks and Penny to face him. "There are things that I wish to discuss with you privately, if I may."

Artemis had expected Dumbledore to take her back to his office, but instead, they walked straight past the gargoyle corridor in the direction of the hospital wing. The hospital wing itself was full of people and absent of statues.

"It worked!" Artemis said as she caught sight of Madam Pomfrey walking among her fellow victims of the statue curse. "They've all gone back to normal."

"So it would appear," said Dumbledore, bowing his head. He gestured to the staircase, and together he and Artemis descended the steps to walk out into the Clocktower Courtyard. Once they were standing outside, he raised his face to the heavens and chuckled gently. "I remember one starry night like this five years ago, I stood with a young girl who asked me about the Cursed Vaults. I distinctly recall telling her then - and several times since then, I might add - that she should leave the Vaults well alone."

Artemis shrugged. "I've never been very good at doing what I'm told, Professor."

"And for that, we should all be grateful. Thanks to the efforts of yourself and your friends, the school is safe. I should very much like to ask you, if you do not mind indulging my academic curiosity, what lay within the final Cursed Vault?"

"As in the power inside?" Artemis asked, and Dumbledore inclined his head. "I dunno, sir. We never got to opening the Vault properly, because it was protected by... something. It was horrible, we got these visions. Merula and Ben said they were all their worst memories, but I'm not sure. Some of the stuff I don't remember seeing before, or if I have it was only in a dream, not in real life. It felt real, though, in the Vault. And it felt... awful. Like everything good had been sucked out of the world forever." Artemis shuddered. "The merpeople said it was an evil place. It was. We went out, and we were thinking about how to break through the protection when Rakepick arrived. She wanted to kill me, again."

"As always, Patricia Rakepick proves herself to be highly determined in getting what she wants."

"Yeah. I mean, she could've killed me before, that night in the forest when... I don't know why she didn't honestly. It would've been easy because we weren't paying attention to her, not after Rowan... But anyway, by the time we captured her, we were all worried. So we sealed the Vault. Jacob said it would stop the curse, it just means that eventually someone will have to go back and break all of the curses once and for all. He said that we would do it, but then he..."

Artemis' voice tailed off. Once again, Jacob's actions had left her mystified. And Jacob had left her. Again. Not only that, he had told the Aurors that he was the one who killed Duncan, that he was a member of the cabal. It couldn't be true, but if it was untrue, why had he said all those things to the Aurors?

"If my memory serves me correctly," said Dumbledore quietly, "that night when we first talked, you asked me whether I believed your brother to be mad, bad, or dangerous."

"Maybe. It was a long time ago."

"Indeed it was. But I did not believe it then, and I do not believe it now."

"Do you know why he handed himself to the Aurors?" Artemis asked, continuing without even giving Dumbledore a chance to answer, "Do you know if it's true, what he said about being part of R and killing Duncan? You don't believe that he killed Duncan, do you?"

"I cannot pretend to know what your brother thinks, however I would hazard a guess that he is suffering from a guilty conscience, one that he wishes to relieve by attempting to make amends."