Tragedy Strikes the Tower
A/N: I do not own anything related to the world of Harry Potter.
This ficlet was written for the Diagon Alley II forum's Sacred Stone Competition. The prompt used was magma, coming from the 'fire' round. I struggled for a couple of days thinking of what to write, taking the literal idea of magma and volcanoes. This was the best that I could come up with, and I hope you enjoy it. It is currently in the process of being beta'd, but for the fact that my internet is playing up and I would like to enter this before the competition ends soon, I am posting now. As such, any helpful reviews would be most welcome :)
Word count: 1000-1500 words, 1495
It was late on a Sunday afternoon and all was peaceful in the Gryffindor common room. Outside the rain gently fell, leaving crystal trails on the closed windows and creating a soothing pitter-patter sound as it hit the castle's roof. Inside a warm fire crackled merrily, allowing sleepy students to snuggle up and play Wizards chess. Even the sixth years couldn't continue grumbling on about how much work they had to complete that weekend; the moaning about the ridiculous amount of work required in a year between their OWLS and NEWTs had long subsided.
Harry flicked through his potions book, ignoring the filthy looks Hermione sent his way as she gently stroked Crookshanks. He had been trying in vain to figure out just who the Halfblood Prince was, hoping that one of the textbook's tattered pages would give him a clue. Obviously whoever it was was a wizard, for not only did the title 'Prince' suggest that the original owner was a male, but some of the notes made were extremely intelligent in helping him successfully complete his potions without any unnecessary fuss. Of course Hermione had pointed out that witches were just as smart, huffing indignantly when he had told Ron his view.
One particular page, number 394, had the top corner bent inwards as if to mark it. Harry's green eyes eagerly flew over its content, determined to discover something, anything, that he had not seen the last forty times he had scanned it. Just as he re-read the fifth instruction of how to squeeze bat's eyes rather than crush them, a loud scream penetrated his thoughts.
"Ahhhhhhhhhhh!"
It was high-pitched and came from the girl's dormitories. His heart began to beat fast as the shriek came again and around him his peers sat up in alarm.
Before anyone could say 'Quidditch' he was on his feet and pounding up the staircase- however, before anyone could say 'snitch', he was sliding back down in a heap. In his panic he had completely forgotten about Hogwart's inner workings of forbidding males to enter the females' dormitories.
He looked around for help, his heart still thrumming wildly in his chest. Someone had to get up there and see what was wrong before it was too late; Katie was already comatose in St Mungo's and he did not want to think what else Malfoy could have done. There was no doubt in his mind that the blond ferret had done something terrible- he knew it was he who had placed the cursed necklace in his teammate's possession earlier.
Hermione appeared to be the only one who remained calm. She rolled her eyes and snatched her Charms essay away from Ron, who in the chaos, had attempted to copy her paragraph on correct wand movements. Standing up and ensuring that there were no creases in her uniform, she brushed past Harry as he pulled the Marauders Map from his back pocket.
"Honestly, I will go find out what's wrong, although it's probably just another fashion emergency or something," he watched as Hermione's frizzy hair disappeared up the staircase as she continued muttering about 'panic mongers' and 'nonsense'.
Harry paced the room, trying not to allow the hurried whispers of his peers drown out his own worries. Malfoy was shown to be in the dungeons with Crabbe, Goyle and the rest of the snakes, but he was sure Dean had mentioned something about him being near their tower earlier that day. Surely he didn't know the common room password, but perhaps he had managed to force one of the younger years to do his bidding.
Just as he began to stare suspiciously at any first or second year that remained in the room, looking for a guilty or blank face, Hermione returned. She was holding a photograph and did not look amused one bit.
"This is what Lavender was screaming about. It seems our room has been infected with this 'ghastly monster' as she calls it."
"Why don't you get rid of it? It doesn't look safe to keep it up there," Colin Creevey asked wearily, making a fearful face as he peeked at the image.
Hermione sighed in annoyance, "I would but I'm afraid this is beyond my capabilities- not even Hagrid could prepare us to get rid of this. Besides, I do believe Harry over there thinks wizards are smarted than witches; I think you can manage to get rid of it."
The crowd of boys now surrounding her all looked at him horror struck, clearly wondering why in Merlin's name he would say such a thing to Hermione. He shrugged helplessly as she pressed the photograph of the beast into his hand and stalked out of the portrait hole.
As soon as she was out of sight, the group crowded around him, an innate need for them to view the image again despite its alarming subject.
"What is that thing?" Seamus asked, holding a sleeve to his nose as though he could smell it.
"Good golly that's huge! I've never seen one so big!" Dennis gasped, shielding his eyes.
"Blimey that's disgusting!"
"How could that get there?"
"It looks like the rear-end of a blast-ended skrewt!"
Repulsed, the boys turned away. Dean began to gag and Neville had turned a slight shade of green. Harry felt his own stomach knot up but squelched down the feeling for the sake of saving his peer from it.
"Look guys, we have to do something- it looks like it could explode any minute. Does anyone have any suggestions?" he asked, not knowing what to do.
As the boys mulled the situation over, Neville finally piped up.
"We could stun it? That way it'll be easier to destroy without it attacking us."
"No, no, a potion might be better- I'm sure those things can be melted down," Ron offered.
The boys continued throwing around ideas- some better than others. Seamus, for one, wanted to burn it, only to have the group immediately shout 'no!'
"Guys, guys! Quickly, just tell me what we should do. Lavender is getting really teary now; she's barricaded herself in the room with it, refusing to let it out. Just hurry and give me an idea," Parvati had joined them, her own face set in fright as she looked up the stairs towards where her friend was.
"Um, uh, squeeze it! Tell her to squeeze it," Ron broke in, chewing on his nails.
"I don't think she's even going to want to touch it!" Parvati squealed, looking at the ginger as though he had said something scandalous.
Harry knew he had to jump in before they broke into a fight. "Look, that's the best thing for now- just get it over and done with. Tell her to use tongs or a wand if she has to, just do it soon."
Parvati rolled her eyes at him but nodded, quickly ascending the stairs.
He wandered over to a chair, allowing Colin to take the photograph and snap his own copies of it. However Malfoy had managed it, he had certainly found the correct target. Although Lavender had proven herself brave in her willingness to commit to the DA the year before, he didn't think she could cope with this situation. He made a silent vow to keep an even closer eye on his nemesis than before, to ensure that nothing like this could ever happen again.
It wasn't for another few minutes that Parvati reappeared, Lavender in toe. The latter girl's eyes were red from crying, and she had wrapped a silk scarf across her mouth.
Seamus ran to her, a look of excitement plastered on his impish face as he eagerly asked her what had happened. "So, did you defeat it? Is it gone? What did it do to you?"
Lavender heaved a shaky sigh, slowly bringing her arm up to untie her scarf. She revealed her face dramatically, pointed to a large red mound on her chin still oozing with white puss. Harry tried not to look at it, feeling vile reach his throat- it looked worse than the picture had shown, reminding him oddly of a volcano spurting lava, the crust around it alike magma.
"This is all your fault! I can't go anywhere now looking like this! Squeeze it, you said- it will get rid of it, you said. Well no, it didn't!" Lavender shrieked before crying into Parvati's shoulder.
Leanne, Katie's friend, came hopping down the stairs at that moment, clearly unaware of what had happened in the last hour. Taking a look at everyone before turning to Lavender, she burst out laughing.
"Oh honey, you did not just squeeze a pimple! Every girl knows you shouldn't- whoever gave you that dumb idea?"
As Lavender turned to him, Harry quickly gathered his books, as did Ron and the other boys. They made for the safety of the school hallways, hoping that the more public areas would save them from the girl's pending wrath.