The cool night's breeze and utter lack of light to read my book by pulled me from back to reality. My gaze had been affixed to the last of my books purchased during my first ever trip to Diagon Alley. Every school related tome for years 1 through 5 accompanied me on that initial trip on the Hogwarts Express.
Next summer would be my first trip back there. Voluntarily anyway, kidnappings didn't count.
It was long past lights out. The final night of the New Moon meant only the stars themselves were there to guide me back into the school.
Blinking into the darkness, I took in my surroundings.
It was only to mild surprise I found that I was actually at the school, and not wandering the Forbidden Forest, Black Lake, or the ceiling of the Great Hall for a change.
But why was I on top of Ravenclaw Tower?
How never seemed to enter into my equations anymore; this is a school of magic, and I'd been casually finding myself in places I didn't belong my whole life anyway.
Mindlessly tucking the book away into the satchel I kept on my side at all times, I had to reach in deep to place it on the top shelf of the nearest bookcase held within. The satchel was one of the first spells I'd ever successfully duplicated in my first year. The patron of Slugs & Jiggers in Diagon Alley were clever in enchanting the take-away crate to hold the multitude of my order. They'd cast upon it what I later found out to be an Undetectable Expansion Charm.
I contemplated for a moment just retrieving one of the Portus charmed bricks I'd created and just using it to teleport myself back to my makeshift dormitory in the dungeons, but didn't quite feel like waking up with a broken nose for the millionth time. Perhaps it was time to create less juvenile Portkeys.
Out of the sky, fell a wand.
It whipped past my eyesight for a split second, then clattered at my feet, bounced once, then pinioned off sideways where it threatened to vanish into the darkness below.
My wand was out of my left sleeve and readied before I would let that happen.
"Accio wand," I uttered, still slightly startled. The short magic-casting stick stopped in mid-air, and hurled itself into my hand. A quick glance told me it was Fir and Dragon Heartstring,9 1/2 inches. A quick flick told me it was Stiff.
I knew this wand.
I'd felt the lash of this wand several times.
'What on Earth,' I glanced skyward, 'Is Headmistress McGonagall doing in the sky over Hogwarts?'
But there was nothing up there. No silhouette's flying on brooms, no thunderous explosions of duels, not a single clue to be found. It was just... silent. And dark.
Digging with my free hand into my side satchel, I kept a sharp eye on the sky, expecting someone coming looking for this wand at any moment.
My hand clasped from the desktop within the bag the heavy, rectangular shape it was looking for.
'A sore nose is the least of my concerns right now,' I thought just before decking myself square in the nose with the old portus-enchanted brick I'd been using to escape punishment and generally uncomfortable encounters for the last 5 years. The core of my being rushed forward into the brick like noodles spiraling down a sink. The familiar sting of pain shot through once on the other side.
The last rush of cold, fresh air dissipated off my back into the cold, dank air of the classroom I'd fashioned into a personal laboratory over the first few weeks I ever spent at the school: over the next few years I would turn it into a prodigious lab, and even add a bed near the end of my third year.
The back of my neck tingled slightly, and I turned around sharply expecting to see the Headmistress, or worse, whomever she'd been fighting catch me red-handed with her wand.
Nothing there.
I suppose I'm just getting jumpy. I still felt as if danger were nearby. Like right next to me. But this was a familiar place, and I knew I was safe here.
Sitting down at my desk, I pushed the warnings I felt aside, and set the Headmistresses wand down.
Carefully, I touched the werewolf tooth-tip of my wand to the Fir wand before me. "Prior Incantato," I uttered. A gold light burst from the point of contact. Out of the tip showed a blurred, but human figure slowly sharpen into the Headmistress herself.
'What in the cul gele' fin d'enfer is that supposed to mean?' I thought fiercely. The miniature fog-like figure from the top of the Dragon Heartstring wand faded away.
The tingling in the back of my neck was a fire now. My eyes clouded over, turned inward. My mind fled my body defensively to the nearest, willing inhabitant across the room to my pet Red English Squirrel, Timothy who'd been watching me closely from his nesting on the fireplace mantle. Through his eyes I could see myself sitting at my desk, just below my normal eye-level. I heard Timothy chitter out a warning.
From the opening of the room, Timothy had spotted a white yew wand with no hand nor handle appear. It slashed down right, then down left, and a blue light shone from the tip.
Gasping sharply, I saw the desk before me again as my vision ended abruptly, and hurled myself aside just before the slightest whisper of, "Reducto," could be heard from the doorway.
The blue light I'd seen a split second earlier enveloped the centuries old desk I'd been sitting at causing it to explode rapidly, hurling wood fragments, splinters, and ages of dust outward.
Landing harshly on my side, I threw up a last second Protego wordlessly to save my skin. The lack of a spoken pronunciation weakened the spell, but did the job nonetheless. Panting harshly, and my pulse pounding in my head I fought hard to focus through the fog of war clouding my lab. Wand at the ready, ready to adjust my aim at the slightest hint of movement.
A second attack did not come. Defensively, I aimed my Aspen wand at the doorway expecting the desk destroyer to press the advantage. But as the dust and shrapnel cleared, nothing came. Even the tingling in the back of my neck was gone.
I slowly let out my breath in an attempt to slow my heartbeat. I didn't feel like there was any more danger nearby, but I wasn't going to take any chances.
After casting Protego Maxima on the doorway I turned toward the mild wreckage.
My lab desk was gone, but the books were intact.
The wand was gone, too. Destroyed or stolen, either way something very dangerous was happening this year. I honestly did not want to be the one to have to solve it.
But I doubted I would have much of a choice.