| Jarvey
Join Date: Jun 2011 Location: Oceanic Flight 815
Posts: 558
| 
Ok, so this chapter is liek you're going from Hogwarts from General Hospital, but I hope you enjoy!
*SPOILER* You find out about Professor Ports' tortured past.:gollum:
Chapter 11
That Saturday, I woke up early, got dressed and headed down to Professor Ports’ office for my detention (not without stopping at the Great Hall for an early breakfast.)
As I walked over there, my heart was pounding. What would I be forced to do during my first detention? Or what will be done to me? Will it be worse then orc torture? Or maybe he’ll make me listen to modern music. Oh that would be evil.
As I finished these thoughts going through my head, I found myself knocking on the Professor’s door.
When I heard his voice tell me it was okay to come in, I did so subconsciously.
His office was rather small. It was very plain and simple, but all there were pictures all over his desks. I couldn’t see those pictures inside the frames, but I’m sure they were of people that he loved. His desk was made of what looked like pine, along with the cabinets lining the walls. He was sitting at his desk, with a chair across from him on the other side of it.
“Mr. Gardner, please take a seat,” he told me, gesturing to the chair.
I sat down and asked, “What will I be doing today Professor?”
“You’ll be doing some lines for me,” he answered solemnly.
He gave me a piece of a paper and I took out my quill to begin writing. “What should I write,” I questioned.
“‘I shall not be tardy.’ I think if you write it about two hundred times it will be sufficient,” he replied.
I then dabbed my quill in ink, and began to write down the words, “I shall not be tardy.”
It truly wasn’t as bad as I imagined it being. I thought he would’ve done something truly horrid.
Occasionally, I would look up, and I would see him looking at the picture frames. When I had finished the sentence for the one-hundredth time, I decided that I should try and sneak a peak at one of the pictures. The one closest to me, it showed a woman, a beautiful woman. She seemed to be petite, and she had beautiful gray eyes and long, shining, auburn hair. She smiled up at him warmly. He smiled back, with more sadness than usual in his eyes.
Finally, I had plucked up my courage, “Excuse me, Professor Ports?”
His eyes suddenly changed back to being stern. “What Mr. Gardner?”
“Umm… Who is that woman?” I pointed to the photo with the end of my quill.
He sighed. “Never you mind!” he answered me after a pause.
After writing five more lines I inquired him further, “Please sir, I’m truly curious.”
He took a deep breath and answered, “Fine, but listen closely.”
I stared at him with a great concentration, as if I was about to be told a bedtime story. “This was my wife,” he told me simply.
I looked at him. “What do you mean by ‘was’ sir? Has she… passed?”
“Yes Mr. Gardner she has.” The sadness was back in his eyes, and I began to pity him.
“What did she die from sir?” I continued to ask.
He looked at me as if I was torturing him. “From grief, Mr. Gardner.”
When I had opened my mouth again, I suppose he realized what my next question would be, so he answered it before it even came off my lips. “You see, our daughter, had run away. Only left a letter. Apparently to marry some boy she had just met. I had never even seen the boy. We never saw her again. It was a large blow for the both of us, but it hit my wife hardest. Our daughter’s name was Natalie.” He then turned around another picture, and my heart stopped. She looked so familiar. She was rather stout with black hair and black eyes that bore straight through me. She wasn’t very pretty, but her picture was smiling. Not just any smile, but my smile. My mother it was.
For a time I couldn’t breathe. Professor Ports was my grandfather. There was no way around it. How could fate tell me this in such a cruel way?
Finally I asked, after taking a much needed breath, “So you know nothing about what happened to your daughter, Professor Ports?”
He looked at me suspiciously. “She could be dead for all I know.”
My mind was racing. She was dead and he didn’t even know it. My heart ached for him. What a life to have. I decided the best thing to do was get out of their as soon as I could. I finished the last 95 lines of my punishment quickly, and dashed out of there as fast as my large hobbit feet could take me. |