Hogwarts Story: Part 21
Jan. 27th, 2006 01:40 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
unforthThis entry is EVEN LONGER THAN THE LAST FEW, coming in at almost 6 typed pages. See, my classes are really boring, so I sit and write instead of pay attention. It's sad, though, cause this one doesn't have computers, so instead I have to cramp my right hand holding a pen, and I write so much slower when I'm not typing. Ah well. (Current count: single spaced, 12 point times new roman, without lines between the paragraphs, the story is 41 pages long, and 26,000 words. I haven't written a story this long since HS!)
Also, I decided that it would take only four things to make Bloomington perfect for me: my three close friends from Binghamton, and SNOW. I don't like cold weather in particular, but winter isn't winter without snow. It's depressing somehow.
Anyway, I am very sleepy, so I'm heading off.
Oh, and I've been meaning to mention, I don't know who reads this story, exactly, but if you read it, and your character is in it, and you think I've eithr misrepresented them, or left out something important that happened that my character would have known about/was involved in, or any other such thing, please please let me know in a comment or in person or some such. :)
Katrina and Fred both nodded to show that they understood this was not representative of proper upright behavior, though both looked like they were having trouble restraining laughter. With a nod, Marcus turned away from them, and he and I headed down the hall, back towards Professor Tremen’s office.
“Do you mind if I cast a spell on?” Marcus asked politely as we approached a window that we hoped would allow us relatively easy access to the roof. “You see, it will be considerably easier to navigate the roof if we are squirrels.”
“Levitating squirrels?” I couldn’t help but smile.
“Indeed.”
“That is fine with me,” I said. We reached the window in short order, and, with a little bit of effort, we managed to prop it open. Outside was dark and clear, and a chill breeze was blowing. The eaves and shingles of the roof wavered strangely in the moonlight, shadows constantly shifting. Silently, I passed Marcus one of the potions, forcing myself not to look down.
Drinking the potions, Marcus muttered an incantation, and suddenly I felt a craving for acorns. Dismissing it with a fluff of my tail, I watched as Marcus metamorphosed himself, and we both headed out the window, half running and half floating.
Though I had been concerned that the chimney might be blocked, we discovered in short order that it was clear, and we arrived in Professor Tremens’ office without any difficulty at all. Scampering around for a few moments, we soon reverted back to our normal selves and began to search the office in earnest.
I had been to the Professor’s office before, but never to look for her personal information. I knew it was too much to hope that she would have a convenient sheet of paper in an obvious location like on her desk that would list her alibi and why she couldn’t possibly be responsible for the crimes she had been accused of, but it hadn’t really occurred to me how difficult our task was. Marcus and I quietly poked around, asking each other questions quietly, working quickly so that our potions would not wear off before we had left, for if they did we would be trapped here. It didn’t take long at all to establish that there wasn’t anything obvious, and that her desk drawer, which seemed the most likely location for her papers, was securely locked. I was beginning to worry that we would find nothing at all when a slight glimmer of light from one of the bookshelves caught my attention. Intrigued, I approached the shelf and could see that the books were being propped up by a somewhat large silver heart. I called Marcus over, and together we inspected it closely.
“I think,” Marcus paused, his fingers tracing a pattern over the base of the heart, “that it opens.” With a click, the heart broke into two pieces, and a book and a silver key tumbled out and landed on the floor. I leaned down and picked up the key as Marcus grabbed the book. As he began to page through it, I headed over to the desk and tried to unlock it.
“It doesn’t work,” I said, frustrated. Pocketing the key, for I felt convinced that it was important even if it wouldn’t unlock her desk, I turned to start to look around the room some more when I noticed that Marcus was staring, wide eyed, at the book.
“This is Professor Tremens’ diary,” he exclaimed.
“What does it say?” while I felt guilty examining something so personal, at the same time I was rather fascinated by the idea of one my professors’ personal writings, and I hoped the book would provide evidence of her innocence.
We paged through the diary quickly, and were thoroughly amazed by the story it told. The pages were filled with precise, neat handwriting interspersed with sketches and schematics and technical notes. In short, the tale it told was a sad one. As a young student, Professor Tremens had worked in close collaboration with her mentor, Palucid Nox (I blinked in surprise when we read that). Together, they built a number of Automata, and in many ways they were the creators and innovators of the field. Furthermore, it was clear from the professor’s writing that the two had shared more than the normal teacher-student relationship. After working together for some years, the decided to build together an automata in the form of a girl. There were numerous drawings of the “daughter” that Professor Tremens and Palucid Nox built, and I was stunned to see that such a thing was truly possible. Indeed, the two built many automata shaped in specific ways, including one shaped like the professor herself (which Marcus commented on, saying that he had encountered one similar on the WAP mission to France).
We were in a great hurry, so we couldn’t quite finish our reading, but it was clear that things went wrong with Palucid in some horrifying fashion, and that our own Professor Patronius was involved, and that the matter concerned in some way how he came to be flesh again. Professor Tremens was sorely wounded and she fled from the workshop that she and Nox shared. I could find no record of what happened to their child.
Finally, I sighed. “This doesn’t really help.” I thought on the robot automata shaped like the professor. “In fact, it might hurt her case.”
“Indeed,” Marcus sighed also. “We should go.”
We started to leave when suddenly, an idea occurred to me. Withdrawing a potion from my robes, I headed over to the desk. “Wait,” I said. “I think I can open the drawer.” Taking the shrinking potion, I poured it carefully over the lock mechanism and hoped for the best. The potion was not specifically designed for such application, for it was meant to be ingested, but with a little bit of luck it would cause the components of the lock to shrink and allow us to open the drawer.
Sure enough, the drawer yawned open a moment later, and we saw that it was filled with files labeled all sorts of unhelpful things, most seeming to do with automata. Marcus and I began to scan through them as quickly as we could.
Eyeing Marcus, the thought of the ball came back to me. It occurred to me that there was no one more appropriate to ask, for he was smart, handsome, well liked, and pureblooded. I further thought that, as far as I knew, he didn’t have a girlfriend, and, as such, was much sought after by the female members of the student body. I realized that if I didn’t approach him quickly, then someone else would ask him and that would be that. I thought of how Katrina had behaved towards him, and how she had talked about “noble Marcus,” and how she was always around him because they were in the same house, and realized that I was almost certainly in direct competition with her. Looking at him across the file drawer, I realized that this was an opportunity that I would foolish to pass up.
“Um…Marcus?” I asked, surprising myself with how timid I felt.
“Yes, Delia?” he looked up.
“I was wondering if you might be interested in going to the ball with me.” I tried to sound calm, but I felt very foolish, a feeling I didn’t like at all.
Marcus looked shocked, and did nothing but blink for several moments. “You’re asking me…now?” he sounded truly mystified.
“Yes, well,” I blushed, glad of the darkness. “Katrina isn’t here right now.”
“Ah,” he replied, and I was pleased, for it sounded like he really did understand. “Well, it’s a little complicated,” I was surprised, for he sounded somewhat embaressed. “I would be perfectly willing to go with you, but there is something of a problem, in that I have already said yes to somebody else.”
“I see,” I felt a strange combination of relieved, ashamed, and slightly annoyed that I hadn’t somehow managed to act even more quickly. “Do not worry, I understand that, as Head boy, many girls would want to ask you, and it is very reasonable that one already has done so, and just as reasonable that you would accept.”
“As to that,” Marcus sounded even more embaressed. “I don’t think you quite understand. I actually would rather like to go with you, but for this problem, that is to say, I might be able to find a way, if you don’t mind, that is.” He looked sheepish. “I must seem like a terrible scoundrel,” he said apologetically, “telling two girls that I will go with them to the dance.
“That’s acceptable to me,” I said matter-of-factly without a moments hesitation. All I needed, I reminded myself, was a date so that my parents wouldn’t start scheming. If I decided to pursue this further – and it occurred to me that doing so might be an excellent idea, for I was unlikely to find a better match than a pure-blood Hufflepuff Head Boy – all I had to do was impress him, to out-do this other girl.
Marcus looked truly surprised. “You are sure you don’t mind? You don’t think me wicked?” He laughed a little nervously. “I don’t think that she would be this understanding.”
I shrugged. How to explain this? Most girls would be horrified at such a suggestion. “You are obviously in a difficult position, but I would like to go with you. If this is the only way to accomplish that, it is a sacrifice I am willing to make. After all, the alternative is to not go with you at all. Furthermore, I appreciate your honesty and straightforwardness. You have not attempted to mask things from me, and I like that.”
“That makes sense,” he smiled slightly, nodding. “When I know more about the details of how it will work out, I’ll let you know.”
“Thank you.”
“Well, we should go.”
Nodding, I put down the file I had been looking through, and had started to close the drawer when I noticed one very thick folder tucked near the back that we hadn’t examined yet. All of the files we had checked had contained schematics, and this one was no different. However, unlike the others, which had mostly been animals and the like, the drawings here were of the specifications of a little girl. The file was labeled “cherished.” Grabbing it, I closed the drawer. “I don’t want anyone who searchers her office to have this,” I explained, though I couldn’t have said exactly why I felt that way. The file and its contents seemed so personal, and the thought of them falling into the wrong hands appalled me slightly. Marcus seemed to feel the same way, because he nodded.
Moments later, we were squirrels again, floating squirrels, and a few moments after that we were back on the roof. Despite the chill, it was a beautiful night, and we lay on the roof for long minutes staring at the stunningly clear stars.
Everything changed in an instant, though. There was a booming sound, a flash of light, and smoke rose into the sky.
“Bombs!” Marcus exclaimed. “Muggle bombs!” He summoned a shield around us as more bombs went off all around. Stunned didn’t move, simply watched the horrible bursts of fire light the sky. Shock didn’t prevent us from seeing what happened, next, though. Off on the far side of the castle, the North Tower swayed under the onslaught, the stones seeming to shiver, a dull rumbling sound permeating the air. Horrified, we watched as a bomb went off at the midpoint of the tower, a direct hit, with a resounding explosion, and, all at once, the tower simply seemed to collapse in on itself in a horrible thunder of noise, grating of rock, and huge cloud of debris.
I stared at Marcus, my eyes wide. “We…” he swallowed hard. “We should go back inside.”
“Yes,” I gathered my wits. “Yes, the WAP boys will be acting, and I should…I should help.” I wished I knew what I should do.
Quickly, we climbed back in through the window, and Marcus hurried towards Professor Patronius’ office, where the WAP boys would be gathering. I stood for several long moments, gathering my thoughts, smelling smoke, listening to the crash of the artillery outside. First, I needed to hide the “cherished” folder, which I did quickly in a side classroom, I could retrieve it later without difficulty. Then, I decided the next thing I needed to do was make sure that someone knew what had happened to the tower, so I headed through the corridors looking for a teacher.
I couldn’t find any teachers, but I quickly discovered numerous students wandering the halls in utter confusion. Realizing the danger that they were in alone and in small groups, for they could easily get lost or forgotten or any number of other fates, I began to gather the students I found together, and as an ever-growing group we traveled the passageways of the castle. Eventually, I encountered Professor Lestrange. She looked terribly harried, her hair in disarray, her face smudged with dirt, her expression terribly concerned. She stopped in her tracks when she saw us.
“Ms. Prince, take these students down to the shelter,” she said. Her voice was strained with sorrow and worry.
“Yes, Professor.” I paused, and took a deep breath. “Professor, the North Tower…I saw…” it was too difficult to say, and I was glad I didn’t have too.
“We know,” Professor Lestrange’s expression became one of deep sorrow. “Go now.”
Forcing away how upset I was, reminding myself that I had responsibilities, that there was nothing I could do there, that the Headmaster and the Professors were working on it, I led the students down and down into the dungeon where the school had a shelter designed for times when the students were threatened. Outside, the dull thud of bombs persisted, and I wondered what was happening. Were the WAP boys alright? What was attacking us? How did these “bombs” work? How had the muggles found us? What will happen now? There were no answers, though, and so we waited in the dim light of the shelter.
Most of the students of the school were already here, and I tried not to think about whose faces I didn’t see. Many students frequented the North Tower, and I knew in my heart that there was no way that some hadn’t been killed, but the thought was too distressing to think on now, not while the stones still shed dust at each explosion. I tried to take heart in who I did see. Most of the students from my house were here, as were numerous others, including the Lunari’s and Reginald Farnsworth from Gryffindor, Deletrious Grindelwald the giant and Alexis Crowley from Slytherin, and, I was relieved to note, Katrina and Fred had arrived safely. The room was packed tightly with students, all wearing matching terrified, weary, wary looks, and I headed over to a corner where my friends Celestine, Galatea and Lycia sat. Lycia stood as I approached, and I realized with a sick feeling that she was holding a dismembered arm. She looked thoroughly shocked, her skin pale, her eyes wide.
“The tower,” she said hollowly.
“I, I know,” I swallowed hard to keep from being sick as the arm dripped thick blood onto the ground. “Why don’t you sit down?”
“Ok…” she sat, looking like her thoughts were a million miles away, the arm resting in her lap.
We all sat together, talking quietly, listening to the sounds of the battle above us. We hoped against hope that the fact that we had heard no other horrifying sounds like that when the tower had fallen was a sign that the rest of the building remained intact. I tried to take comfort in those who I did see around, and noticed as I looked that Professor Patronius had joined us at some point. He explained to many students who asked about his presence that he couldn’t fly a broom, and so he had come down here to keep an eye on things while Professor Singh flew with the WAP boys.
Time passed slowly.
Suddenly, all the lights went out. Several students whispered nervous, terrified, “Lumos!” and several dim lights cast thick, wavering shadows over the room. The temperature dropped abruptly, and a sick wave of panic went through the students in the shelter.
Without any warning, a figure stepped through the closed shelter door. It was tall and gaunt, draped in thick, gauzy robes that obscured and yet showed of its frame. Its face was skeletal and was mostly hidden by a deep cowl, but we could still see in the faint light that it had a huge, black, gaping maw. It was followed almost immediately by three more things that looked just the same.
The room was as cold as the grave, and terror of the students were palpable as the things made it clear that all they were interested in was the warmth of flesh. One grabbed for Deletrius Grindelwald, the tallest boy in the school and the strongest. He attempted to grab it, and his hand went straight through it. Furious, he tried again, and landed a solid hit which the thing seemed unphased by. I quailed, for if Deletrius couldn’t hurt it we were in serious trouble, for he was hugely strong.
“Expecto Patronum!” shouted Katrina into the eerie silence at one that was approaching her. A wisp of silver came from her wand, but nothing more happened. The thing started to grab for one of the Lunari twins.
The third moved towards the back of the room, I didn’t see exactly where, for I was far to concerned with the fourth, who was moving towards where myself and my friends were. Stealing myself, I stepped forward, pulling a potion from my robes. I wouldn’t let it approach the other Ravenclaws, it was my duty as Prefect to defend them. I had a plan, a good plan, I told myself. I threw the potion.
I had yet to try to freezing potion I had learned in the dungeon, and I was both pleased and disappointed with the results. Rather than stopping the wraith in its tracks, it did little more than cause the robes over the lower part of its body to solidify, an effect which it ignored without any difficulty. However, I did get its attention, which was more to the point. If I could get close to it, I would stuff a Choking Gas potion down its throat. Somehow, I didn’t think it would be able to ignore that. Withdrawing the potion from my stash, I prepared myself to get close to the thing and the hideous chill terror that it seemed to emanate.
Things happened very fast then. It bore down on me with all haste. Lycia tried to cast something on it, but the spell failed; I noted morbidly that the arm lay beside where she stood, forgotten. Celestine flung herself at its back and latched on and tried restrain it, but it was so large and she so small by comparison that she had no effect, and I told her urgently to stop for I feared for her safety. Professor Patronius swung his sword at the thing, but it passed straight through. Elsewhere, I heard Fred shout “portfuzuo”, and felt a wave of horror that little Fred might be facing one of these things alone, but there was nothing I could do to help her. “Expecto patronum” echoed through the room once, twice, but still the spell seemed to be ineffective.
It was one me, then, wrapping its arms around me in some sort of hideous embrace. I had thought I was prepared, and I struggled desperately to raise the potion to its mouth, to force it to imbibe the choking, blinding gas within it, but I couldn’t seem to find the strength, and even as I fought its arms enfolded me, its head lowered towards mine, and I felt weak, terribly weak. Somewhere in my mind were voices, angry voices, speaking out of some endless darkness. They were angry with me, I wasn’t good enough, there was nothing I could do to make them be anything other than angry with me, and I was miserable, and there was nothing but endless black night in front of me.
The dreadful ghoul’s sucking maw, lipless and black, descended over my lips, and with it came the pitch black silence of oblivion.
Also, I decided that it would take only four things to make Bloomington perfect for me: my three close friends from Binghamton, and SNOW. I don't like cold weather in particular, but winter isn't winter without snow. It's depressing somehow.
Anyway, I am very sleepy, so I'm heading off.
Oh, and I've been meaning to mention, I don't know who reads this story, exactly, but if you read it, and your character is in it, and you think I've eithr misrepresented them, or left out something important that happened that my character would have known about/was involved in, or any other such thing, please please let me know in a comment or in person or some such. :)
Katrina and Fred both nodded to show that they understood this was not representative of proper upright behavior, though both looked like they were having trouble restraining laughter. With a nod, Marcus turned away from them, and he and I headed down the hall, back towards Professor Tremen’s office.
“Do you mind if I cast a spell on?” Marcus asked politely as we approached a window that we hoped would allow us relatively easy access to the roof. “You see, it will be considerably easier to navigate the roof if we are squirrels.”
“Levitating squirrels?” I couldn’t help but smile.
“Indeed.”
“That is fine with me,” I said. We reached the window in short order, and, with a little bit of effort, we managed to prop it open. Outside was dark and clear, and a chill breeze was blowing. The eaves and shingles of the roof wavered strangely in the moonlight, shadows constantly shifting. Silently, I passed Marcus one of the potions, forcing myself not to look down.
Drinking the potions, Marcus muttered an incantation, and suddenly I felt a craving for acorns. Dismissing it with a fluff of my tail, I watched as Marcus metamorphosed himself, and we both headed out the window, half running and half floating.
Though I had been concerned that the chimney might be blocked, we discovered in short order that it was clear, and we arrived in Professor Tremens’ office without any difficulty at all. Scampering around for a few moments, we soon reverted back to our normal selves and began to search the office in earnest.
I had been to the Professor’s office before, but never to look for her personal information. I knew it was too much to hope that she would have a convenient sheet of paper in an obvious location like on her desk that would list her alibi and why she couldn’t possibly be responsible for the crimes she had been accused of, but it hadn’t really occurred to me how difficult our task was. Marcus and I quietly poked around, asking each other questions quietly, working quickly so that our potions would not wear off before we had left, for if they did we would be trapped here. It didn’t take long at all to establish that there wasn’t anything obvious, and that her desk drawer, which seemed the most likely location for her papers, was securely locked. I was beginning to worry that we would find nothing at all when a slight glimmer of light from one of the bookshelves caught my attention. Intrigued, I approached the shelf and could see that the books were being propped up by a somewhat large silver heart. I called Marcus over, and together we inspected it closely.
“I think,” Marcus paused, his fingers tracing a pattern over the base of the heart, “that it opens.” With a click, the heart broke into two pieces, and a book and a silver key tumbled out and landed on the floor. I leaned down and picked up the key as Marcus grabbed the book. As he began to page through it, I headed over to the desk and tried to unlock it.
“It doesn’t work,” I said, frustrated. Pocketing the key, for I felt convinced that it was important even if it wouldn’t unlock her desk, I turned to start to look around the room some more when I noticed that Marcus was staring, wide eyed, at the book.
“This is Professor Tremens’ diary,” he exclaimed.
“What does it say?” while I felt guilty examining something so personal, at the same time I was rather fascinated by the idea of one my professors’ personal writings, and I hoped the book would provide evidence of her innocence.
We paged through the diary quickly, and were thoroughly amazed by the story it told. The pages were filled with precise, neat handwriting interspersed with sketches and schematics and technical notes. In short, the tale it told was a sad one. As a young student, Professor Tremens had worked in close collaboration with her mentor, Palucid Nox (I blinked in surprise when we read that). Together, they built a number of Automata, and in many ways they were the creators and innovators of the field. Furthermore, it was clear from the professor’s writing that the two had shared more than the normal teacher-student relationship. After working together for some years, the decided to build together an automata in the form of a girl. There were numerous drawings of the “daughter” that Professor Tremens and Palucid Nox built, and I was stunned to see that such a thing was truly possible. Indeed, the two built many automata shaped in specific ways, including one shaped like the professor herself (which Marcus commented on, saying that he had encountered one similar on the WAP mission to France).
We were in a great hurry, so we couldn’t quite finish our reading, but it was clear that things went wrong with Palucid in some horrifying fashion, and that our own Professor Patronius was involved, and that the matter concerned in some way how he came to be flesh again. Professor Tremens was sorely wounded and she fled from the workshop that she and Nox shared. I could find no record of what happened to their child.
Finally, I sighed. “This doesn’t really help.” I thought on the robot automata shaped like the professor. “In fact, it might hurt her case.”
“Indeed,” Marcus sighed also. “We should go.”
We started to leave when suddenly, an idea occurred to me. Withdrawing a potion from my robes, I headed over to the desk. “Wait,” I said. “I think I can open the drawer.” Taking the shrinking potion, I poured it carefully over the lock mechanism and hoped for the best. The potion was not specifically designed for such application, for it was meant to be ingested, but with a little bit of luck it would cause the components of the lock to shrink and allow us to open the drawer.
Sure enough, the drawer yawned open a moment later, and we saw that it was filled with files labeled all sorts of unhelpful things, most seeming to do with automata. Marcus and I began to scan through them as quickly as we could.
Eyeing Marcus, the thought of the ball came back to me. It occurred to me that there was no one more appropriate to ask, for he was smart, handsome, well liked, and pureblooded. I further thought that, as far as I knew, he didn’t have a girlfriend, and, as such, was much sought after by the female members of the student body. I realized that if I didn’t approach him quickly, then someone else would ask him and that would be that. I thought of how Katrina had behaved towards him, and how she had talked about “noble Marcus,” and how she was always around him because they were in the same house, and realized that I was almost certainly in direct competition with her. Looking at him across the file drawer, I realized that this was an opportunity that I would foolish to pass up.
“Um…Marcus?” I asked, surprising myself with how timid I felt.
“Yes, Delia?” he looked up.
“I was wondering if you might be interested in going to the ball with me.” I tried to sound calm, but I felt very foolish, a feeling I didn’t like at all.
Marcus looked shocked, and did nothing but blink for several moments. “You’re asking me…now?” he sounded truly mystified.
“Yes, well,” I blushed, glad of the darkness. “Katrina isn’t here right now.”
“Ah,” he replied, and I was pleased, for it sounded like he really did understand. “Well, it’s a little complicated,” I was surprised, for he sounded somewhat embaressed. “I would be perfectly willing to go with you, but there is something of a problem, in that I have already said yes to somebody else.”
“I see,” I felt a strange combination of relieved, ashamed, and slightly annoyed that I hadn’t somehow managed to act even more quickly. “Do not worry, I understand that, as Head boy, many girls would want to ask you, and it is very reasonable that one already has done so, and just as reasonable that you would accept.”
“As to that,” Marcus sounded even more embaressed. “I don’t think you quite understand. I actually would rather like to go with you, but for this problem, that is to say, I might be able to find a way, if you don’t mind, that is.” He looked sheepish. “I must seem like a terrible scoundrel,” he said apologetically, “telling two girls that I will go with them to the dance.
“That’s acceptable to me,” I said matter-of-factly without a moments hesitation. All I needed, I reminded myself, was a date so that my parents wouldn’t start scheming. If I decided to pursue this further – and it occurred to me that doing so might be an excellent idea, for I was unlikely to find a better match than a pure-blood Hufflepuff Head Boy – all I had to do was impress him, to out-do this other girl.
Marcus looked truly surprised. “You are sure you don’t mind? You don’t think me wicked?” He laughed a little nervously. “I don’t think that she would be this understanding.”
I shrugged. How to explain this? Most girls would be horrified at such a suggestion. “You are obviously in a difficult position, but I would like to go with you. If this is the only way to accomplish that, it is a sacrifice I am willing to make. After all, the alternative is to not go with you at all. Furthermore, I appreciate your honesty and straightforwardness. You have not attempted to mask things from me, and I like that.”
“That makes sense,” he smiled slightly, nodding. “When I know more about the details of how it will work out, I’ll let you know.”
“Thank you.”
“Well, we should go.”
Nodding, I put down the file I had been looking through, and had started to close the drawer when I noticed one very thick folder tucked near the back that we hadn’t examined yet. All of the files we had checked had contained schematics, and this one was no different. However, unlike the others, which had mostly been animals and the like, the drawings here were of the specifications of a little girl. The file was labeled “cherished.” Grabbing it, I closed the drawer. “I don’t want anyone who searchers her office to have this,” I explained, though I couldn’t have said exactly why I felt that way. The file and its contents seemed so personal, and the thought of them falling into the wrong hands appalled me slightly. Marcus seemed to feel the same way, because he nodded.
Moments later, we were squirrels again, floating squirrels, and a few moments after that we were back on the roof. Despite the chill, it was a beautiful night, and we lay on the roof for long minutes staring at the stunningly clear stars.
Everything changed in an instant, though. There was a booming sound, a flash of light, and smoke rose into the sky.
“Bombs!” Marcus exclaimed. “Muggle bombs!” He summoned a shield around us as more bombs went off all around. Stunned didn’t move, simply watched the horrible bursts of fire light the sky. Shock didn’t prevent us from seeing what happened, next, though. Off on the far side of the castle, the North Tower swayed under the onslaught, the stones seeming to shiver, a dull rumbling sound permeating the air. Horrified, we watched as a bomb went off at the midpoint of the tower, a direct hit, with a resounding explosion, and, all at once, the tower simply seemed to collapse in on itself in a horrible thunder of noise, grating of rock, and huge cloud of debris.
I stared at Marcus, my eyes wide. “We…” he swallowed hard. “We should go back inside.”
“Yes,” I gathered my wits. “Yes, the WAP boys will be acting, and I should…I should help.” I wished I knew what I should do.
Quickly, we climbed back in through the window, and Marcus hurried towards Professor Patronius’ office, where the WAP boys would be gathering. I stood for several long moments, gathering my thoughts, smelling smoke, listening to the crash of the artillery outside. First, I needed to hide the “cherished” folder, which I did quickly in a side classroom, I could retrieve it later without difficulty. Then, I decided the next thing I needed to do was make sure that someone knew what had happened to the tower, so I headed through the corridors looking for a teacher.
I couldn’t find any teachers, but I quickly discovered numerous students wandering the halls in utter confusion. Realizing the danger that they were in alone and in small groups, for they could easily get lost or forgotten or any number of other fates, I began to gather the students I found together, and as an ever-growing group we traveled the passageways of the castle. Eventually, I encountered Professor Lestrange. She looked terribly harried, her hair in disarray, her face smudged with dirt, her expression terribly concerned. She stopped in her tracks when she saw us.
“Ms. Prince, take these students down to the shelter,” she said. Her voice was strained with sorrow and worry.
“Yes, Professor.” I paused, and took a deep breath. “Professor, the North Tower…I saw…” it was too difficult to say, and I was glad I didn’t have too.
“We know,” Professor Lestrange’s expression became one of deep sorrow. “Go now.”
Forcing away how upset I was, reminding myself that I had responsibilities, that there was nothing I could do there, that the Headmaster and the Professors were working on it, I led the students down and down into the dungeon where the school had a shelter designed for times when the students were threatened. Outside, the dull thud of bombs persisted, and I wondered what was happening. Were the WAP boys alright? What was attacking us? How did these “bombs” work? How had the muggles found us? What will happen now? There were no answers, though, and so we waited in the dim light of the shelter.
Most of the students of the school were already here, and I tried not to think about whose faces I didn’t see. Many students frequented the North Tower, and I knew in my heart that there was no way that some hadn’t been killed, but the thought was too distressing to think on now, not while the stones still shed dust at each explosion. I tried to take heart in who I did see. Most of the students from my house were here, as were numerous others, including the Lunari’s and Reginald Farnsworth from Gryffindor, Deletrious Grindelwald the giant and Alexis Crowley from Slytherin, and, I was relieved to note, Katrina and Fred had arrived safely. The room was packed tightly with students, all wearing matching terrified, weary, wary looks, and I headed over to a corner where my friends Celestine, Galatea and Lycia sat. Lycia stood as I approached, and I realized with a sick feeling that she was holding a dismembered arm. She looked thoroughly shocked, her skin pale, her eyes wide.
“The tower,” she said hollowly.
“I, I know,” I swallowed hard to keep from being sick as the arm dripped thick blood onto the ground. “Why don’t you sit down?”
“Ok…” she sat, looking like her thoughts were a million miles away, the arm resting in her lap.
We all sat together, talking quietly, listening to the sounds of the battle above us. We hoped against hope that the fact that we had heard no other horrifying sounds like that when the tower had fallen was a sign that the rest of the building remained intact. I tried to take comfort in those who I did see around, and noticed as I looked that Professor Patronius had joined us at some point. He explained to many students who asked about his presence that he couldn’t fly a broom, and so he had come down here to keep an eye on things while Professor Singh flew with the WAP boys.
Time passed slowly.
Suddenly, all the lights went out. Several students whispered nervous, terrified, “Lumos!” and several dim lights cast thick, wavering shadows over the room. The temperature dropped abruptly, and a sick wave of panic went through the students in the shelter.
Without any warning, a figure stepped through the closed shelter door. It was tall and gaunt, draped in thick, gauzy robes that obscured and yet showed of its frame. Its face was skeletal and was mostly hidden by a deep cowl, but we could still see in the faint light that it had a huge, black, gaping maw. It was followed almost immediately by three more things that looked just the same.
The room was as cold as the grave, and terror of the students were palpable as the things made it clear that all they were interested in was the warmth of flesh. One grabbed for Deletrius Grindelwald, the tallest boy in the school and the strongest. He attempted to grab it, and his hand went straight through it. Furious, he tried again, and landed a solid hit which the thing seemed unphased by. I quailed, for if Deletrius couldn’t hurt it we were in serious trouble, for he was hugely strong.
“Expecto Patronum!” shouted Katrina into the eerie silence at one that was approaching her. A wisp of silver came from her wand, but nothing more happened. The thing started to grab for one of the Lunari twins.
The third moved towards the back of the room, I didn’t see exactly where, for I was far to concerned with the fourth, who was moving towards where myself and my friends were. Stealing myself, I stepped forward, pulling a potion from my robes. I wouldn’t let it approach the other Ravenclaws, it was my duty as Prefect to defend them. I had a plan, a good plan, I told myself. I threw the potion.
I had yet to try to freezing potion I had learned in the dungeon, and I was both pleased and disappointed with the results. Rather than stopping the wraith in its tracks, it did little more than cause the robes over the lower part of its body to solidify, an effect which it ignored without any difficulty. However, I did get its attention, which was more to the point. If I could get close to it, I would stuff a Choking Gas potion down its throat. Somehow, I didn’t think it would be able to ignore that. Withdrawing the potion from my stash, I prepared myself to get close to the thing and the hideous chill terror that it seemed to emanate.
Things happened very fast then. It bore down on me with all haste. Lycia tried to cast something on it, but the spell failed; I noted morbidly that the arm lay beside where she stood, forgotten. Celestine flung herself at its back and latched on and tried restrain it, but it was so large and she so small by comparison that she had no effect, and I told her urgently to stop for I feared for her safety. Professor Patronius swung his sword at the thing, but it passed straight through. Elsewhere, I heard Fred shout “portfuzuo”, and felt a wave of horror that little Fred might be facing one of these things alone, but there was nothing I could do to help her. “Expecto patronum” echoed through the room once, twice, but still the spell seemed to be ineffective.
It was one me, then, wrapping its arms around me in some sort of hideous embrace. I had thought I was prepared, and I struggled desperately to raise the potion to its mouth, to force it to imbibe the choking, blinding gas within it, but I couldn’t seem to find the strength, and even as I fought its arms enfolded me, its head lowered towards mine, and I felt weak, terribly weak. Somewhere in my mind were voices, angry voices, speaking out of some endless darkness. They were angry with me, I wasn’t good enough, there was nothing I could do to make them be anything other than angry with me, and I was miserable, and there was nothing but endless black night in front of me.
The dreadful ghoul’s sucking maw, lipless and black, descended over my lips, and with it came the pitch black silence of oblivion.
