Michael Corner and The Education of Wizards

Michael Corner and The Last Head Boy

Penny Clearwater caught me before we had even got to the Feast. There had been a delay when the carriages refused to go past the shadowy things that were surrounding the school walls. The result was chaos, pretty much, in the Entrance Hall as we jostled into our House queues.

'Hi, Mike,' she said. 'Good Hols? Can you do me a little favour?' she went on before I could take a breath to answer 'No'. A few months earlier these words would have reduced me to a quivering emotional slave, but stuff had happened since then.

'Sure,' I said, sounding enthusiastic but feeling wary.

'I need you to keep an eye on Luna,' she said. 'You don't need to be as hands-on as I had to be last year, but I need someone to keep an eye open and she likes you.'

'That's nice,' I said.

She frowned. 'Don't be like that,' she said. 'She's perfectly okay and independent, and Professor Flitwick says he's sorted out the bullying when you all went to see the Head, but she's likely to be affected by these horrible Dementors more than almost anyone.'

'I don't understand about these Dementor things,' I said. 'What do they do, apart from guard things?'

'They don't guard,' she said. 'They're emotivores. They eat emotions. If you go near one it eats all your positive emotions first but if you get too close it'll eat the negative ones as well and leave you an empty husk. At least that's how I understand it. They're only used as guards because they keep prisoners depressed and docile. It's pretty inhumane, if you ask me.'

'So what's with Luna,' I said. 'I thought she was just a bit weird.'

'She's not weird. Well, she is, but that's not the problem. She's had a pretty horrific experience. Her mother died in front of her in appalling circumstances and her father's gone completely off the rails. She copes by being weird. The worry is that the Dementors might get to her and send her off the rails as well.'

'How will I stop them?' I asked. 'I mean, nothing seems to stop them.'

'There are ways, apparently, and I dare say you'll be taught them. You don't need to escort her everywhere like I was last year. You only need keep an eye out for her.'

'Just me?' I said, wondering what I'd got into.

'See if you can get one or two Huffs in her year to watch out for her in classes,' she said. 'Don't try to recruit any of our lot. That was where the issues came from last year. Maybe a Griff, if you know any in her year.'

The bell sounded.

'I've got to go,' she said. 'Thanks a lot!'

Actually, it had been a lousy hols. The 'backwash' from the basilisk's stare took ages to wear off and I felt lousy right up to a couple of weeks before we got back, but by then we were home from Provence and the weather had turned.

The Dementors were the only topic of conversation. Everyone seemed to have a theory about them, but Potter was the only person who had been attacked. It just always seems to happen to Potter.

Luna was sitting with some other second-years and I found a place with Tony Goldstein and Patti Patil where I could keep an eye on her. She looked up, caught my eye and gave me a small smile, so she knew what I was doing. I occurred to me that people would get the wrong idea if I spent too much time with her. We got along fine but I didn't want anyone to think that I had a crush on her.

The new Dark Arts Defence teacher was a real oddball. He looked like a zombie, but Boot assured me that he was more or less alive.

'He's a repressing werewolf,' he said. 'I've seen one before and they always look stressed.'