Chapter 9: May 2014

With the arrival of May came the arrival of much stress upon the students of Hogwarts. Exams were coming and the Professors were piling on the work in preparation for the end of the year. Defence class was no different. Professor Leftbridge had decided to assign a special end-of-year project. In groups of four, the first years would be choosing one famous wizarding battle and writing a research paper on it. Dominique and Miles had already agreed to work together and Dominique had recruited Brooke while Miles had recruited Tom.

"The Battle of Hogwarts," Brooke suggested as a topic for their paper. "1998."

"Too obvious," Miles said. "That's going to be everyone's first choice. We want to do something unique."

"Dumbledore vs. Grindelwald, 1945," Tom suggested.

"That's got to be the second most popular battle," Miles disagreed.

"Vincent the Vile vs. Thomas the Treacherous, 1304," Dominique suggested.

"I think we should try to stay a little more recent than that," Brooke said. "We aren't going to have any sources for a battle that took place in the 14th century."

"What about the goblin rebellions?" Tom wondered. "There's got to be some good battles that happened during that time."

"It's supposed to be a wizarding battle," Miles reminded him. "Wizards vs. wizards, that's the assignment."

"What about one of the more obscure battles from the second wizarding war?" Dominique suggested.

"But there weren't really any battles," Brooke said. "Wasn't it basically a hostile takeover that ended in the Battle of Hogwarts?"

"Not exactly," Dominique disagreed. "Some of my Aunts and Uncles fought in a few battles before the final one."

"Like what?" Tom asked.

"Well there was the battle in the Department of Mysteries in 1996, and then there was the battle here in 1997 that ended in Dumbledore's death," Dominique listed the two she could think of off the top of her head.

"True," Miles agreed. "But there aren't too many reliable sources on those. There's almost no eyewitnesses for either of them that were ever willing to sit down with the press. It's not like the big battles that happened in plain view of hundreds of people."

"Well what do you suggest Miles?" Dominique demanded. "I haven't heard any suggestions from you yet."

"What about the Battle of Hogsmeade?" Miles volunteered.

"Remind me about that one?" Brooke requested.

"It took place during the first wizarding war. I think it was in… the winter of 1978. If I remember correctly, it happened during a Hogsmeade weekend and a bunch of Hogwarts students got caught up in it too," Miles explained.

"That's actually a pretty decent topic," Tom admitted.

"Yeah, I like it," Brooke agreed.

"Domi?" Miles asked, turning to the last member of the group for confirmation.

"Let's do it," Dominique agreed.

Over the next few days, the four Gryffindors spent lots of time in the library pouring over history books from the first wizarding war. They divided the assignment into four parts, one for each of them. Tom would be working on an overall narrative of the major aspects of the battle. Brooke would be writing profiles on all the major players involved in the battle. Miles would be working on a general history of the events leading up to the battle and following the battle and Dominique would be writing about the after-effects of the battle.

At present, Dominique was looking at a list of all the Hogwarts students that had been injured during the battle. She'd asked Madam Eldridge for the hospital wing records for the students, but had been informed that patient records were only accessible to adult family members.

"Having fun?" Miles asked, appearing behind Dominique and causing her to jump in surprise.

"Not really," Dominique muttered. "What am I supposed to do with this? It's just a list of names. I don't even know what happened to these students."

"You could always steal the patient files when Madam Eldridge isn't around," Miles suggested. "It's not like any of those people would even care. They'd have to be in their forties and fifties by now."

"But even if I did that, I wouldn't be able to cite my source without getting detention," Dominique sighed. "I'll just have to find some other source with better information I guess. How's your research going?"

"Pretty good actually," Miles replied. "I think me and Tom got the easy parts. You and Brooke have the more challenging assignments."

"Yeah, Brooke's been a little frustrated, trying to find out information about people that are long dead," Dominique agreed. "Especially the Death Eaters. At least the Order members that showed up to fight were remembered. Most of the Death Eaters at the battle were in masks. She might have to change her section to just being about the heroes."

"Maybe we should all meet together after dinner to pool what we have so far and see how much there is left to do," Miles suggested.

"Yeah, that's probably a good idea," Dominique agreed.

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"Hey Brooke," Dominique greeted her friend as she entered the first year girls' dormitory. "So I was just in the library with Miles, and we thought the whole group should meet up after dinner to see where we all are in terms of the paper and how much more we need."

"Yeah, that sounds good," Brooke said agreeably. "At least then I'll know how much more research I still have to do or whether I have enough."

"Great!" Dominique smiled. "We figured we'd go to the library."

"Awesome," Brooke said. "Actually, I think I should probably head down there now. I want to finish one thing before we all meet up."

"Oh, okay sure," Dominique said as Brooke scrambled off her bed. "I'll catch you at dinner."

Brooke disappeared, leaving Dominique alone in the dormitory. Dominique contemplated studying for Herbology or Astronomy or something, since exams were coming up soon, but she wasn't much in the mood for studying. Instead she decided to head down to the common room to see if anyone was around.

To her disappointment, the common room was relatively empty when she descended. Miles was probably in the library too and Brittany, Joy, and Holly were all probably off working on their own projects. Even Victoire was missing, though Dominique suspected that her older sister was probably up in her own dormitory with Kara and Brianna applying nail polish.

Just as Dominique was about to give up and return to her dorm to stare at the ceiling until dinner, she noticed Tom laying across one of the less popular couches in the corner of the room with a book propped up on his stomach. He looked like he might be studying, but he also looked extremely bored, so Dominique figured he wouldn't mind if she interrupted.

"Hey," she said, plopping herself down on the opposite end of the couch where Tom's feet were. "What's up?"

"Not much," Tom confessed, pulling his feet towards himself to give Dominique some space. "I was pretending to study Potions, but really I was fighting the urge to take a nap."

"Well if you want to nap, I can leave," Dominique offered, hoping her presence wasn't unwelcome. She didn't know Tom that well on an individual level, but she'd been working with him for a while now on the Defence project and he and Miles were pretty good friends.

"Nah, it's fine. Dinner's in about half an hour anyway, so I'd either have gotten a worthlessly short nap or else I'd have missed dinner altogether," Tom said.

"Can't have that," Dominique said, unsure whether she meant the short nap or the lack of dinner. It didn't matter though, because Tom chuckled.

"So what brings you over here?" Tom wondered.

Dominique shrugged. "I was bored and nobody else is around."

"Well gee, don't I feel special," Tom joked.

"Oh, I didn't mean it like that!" Dominique hurried to assure him. "I just meant – "

"It's fine Domi, I know what you meant. It's cool," Tom calmed her.

"So…" Dominique muttered, casting around for a topic of conversation. "Excited for the end of year?"

"Yes and no," Tom shrugged.

When Tom didn't elaborate, Dominique raised her eyebrows at him.

"I mean, it'll be great to be done with classes," Tom continued, "but it also means that my only year of independence will be over. My brother Brendan starts next year."

"Oh," Dominique nodded. "Totally. Lucky for me, my brother doesn't start until the year after next, so I still have another year without him."

"Yeah, but don't you have your older sister here?" Tom asked.

"Yeah," Dominique shrugged, unsure of the relevance.

"So you're not really on your own. Because she's around too," Tom clarified.

"I guess so," Dominique agreed. "But it's different. She doesn't bother me, I'm the one that bothers her. Once Louis starts, he'll be bothering me and then I'll never have a moment to myself again."

"But don't you think it would be nice to have even just a term where there's no family around at all?" Tom wondered.

"In my family, that could never happen," Dominique groaned. "If it wasn't my brother or my sister, I've got like, a thousand aunts and uncles and million cousins. There's no hiding from that."

"I don't know if I could take being in such a big family," Tom confessed. "Even just the four of us – my parents, my brother and me – can sometimes be overwhelming."

"I guess having a big family can be overwhelming at times," Dominique agreed. "Like at Christmas when we can barely fit into the living room to open presents. But it's also nice knowing you have so many people that love and care for you."

"Yeah, I suppose that would be nice," Tom agreed. "Hey, I think dinner's started, want to head down?"

"Oh yeah, definitely," Dominique said, bouncing up off the couch and grabbing her bag eagerly. She hadn't been sure how much longer she could talk about families without running out of things to say.

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After dinner, Dominique and her group trekked down to the library to pool their research for their paper and hopefully put some of it together. As it turned out, Dominique and Brooke actually had plenty of information, despite their research struggles, and since Tom and Miles had been finished researching already, they were ready to write their paper.

They began to lose track of time as they worked long into the night, hoping to finish the paper and have it out of the way so they could focus on studying for their exams.

"Alright Dominique, we just need one more paragraph for your section," Miles muttered as he wrapped up the previous paragraph. "How many more accounts do you have?"

"I've got three…" Dominique said, sifting through her notes. "There's one about a shopkeeper named Theodore Bainbridge whose leg got stuck under a pile of rubble when his shop was hit with a curse. He was taken to St. Mungo's and they healed it pretty quickly."

"That's kind of boring," Brooke pointed out. "What else have you got?"

"There's one about a patron of the Three Broomsticks who got some serious burns from being thrown into a stove by a wayward curse," Dominique added. "I think her name was Beatrice something, I forgot to write it down."

"What's the last one?" Tom asked.

"That one is an account of a seventh year Hogwarts student named Lily Potts who apparently was hit by a Cruciatus Curse. Apparently she was writhing on the ground when some other seventh year – they didn't give a name – threw himself in front of her and took the rest of the curse for her. I tried to get more information about their treatment, but Madam Eldridge wouldn't release the patient files," Dominique said.

"We don't need the patient files," Miles said. "I think we should go with that last one anyway though. We can spin it into a tale of love and sacrifice. Do you want to work on that Domi?"

"Sure," Dominique agreed, pulling a fresh sheet of parchment out to draft the paragraph that Miles would later copy out onto the official parchment with the rest of their paper – he had the best handwriting.

"Hey guys?" Brooke said all of a sudden. "Does it seem darker in here to you?"

Dominique looked up curiously to find that Brooke was right. It was significantly darker than it should be. In fact, the candles were completely extinguished and they hadn't even noticed.

"It must be closing time. I've never been in the library this late, but it must be Madam Maxwell's subtle way of telling us all to get out," Dominique noted.

"I don't think so…" Tom said slowly. "I've been in the library at closing time and usually Madam Maxwell's pretty good at coming around and yelling at everyone to leave. Something's not right here."

"Guys," Miles said in a panicked voice, looking down at his watch. "It's nine thirty. Curfew was half an hour ago."

"Oh my gosh," Brooke cried. "We're so late. How did we not notice how late it was?"

"We have to go before Mr. Clarke catches us," Dominique insisted. "I've already gotten two warnings with him and I don't think he's going to be inclined to give me a third."

"Come on," Tom said, shoving his things into his bag.

The other three Gryffindors followed his lead and they all hurried to the library exit. Dominique was at the head of the group, so she went straight for the doors and pushed against them only to find that they wouldn't budge.

"Guys, we've got a big problem," Dominique said, her voice filled with dread.

"Don't panic," Miles said. "We know a spell to unlock doors."

"Oh, right, of course," Dominique said, relief flooding through her.

"I'll do it," Tom said, pulling out his wand and pointing it at the doors. "Alohomora."

Nothing happened.

"Let me try," Brooke offered, copying Tom. Still nothing happened.

"Domi, you're the best at Charms," Miles noted. "You should try."

Dominique grabbed her wand from inside her robes and took a deep breath before casting the spell. When still nothing happened, she cried out in frustration.

"What are we going to do?" Dominique wailed. "We're trapped in the library and we can't get out."

"Okay, don't worry, we'll figure something out," Miles said. Dominique could see the wheels turning in his brain, trying to find a way out of the conundrum, but there was no solution.

"There's nothing to figure out," Brooke said, throwing up her hands and dropping into a chair. "We're trapped. We can't get out. There's nothing we can do until someone comes to do the nightly rounds and find us here."

Reluctantly, Dominique sunk into a chair too. Brooke was right; there was nothing they could do until Mr. Clarke or a prefect came to find them.

"Someone will notice we're missing," Tom added, taking a seat himself. "Our dormmates will be wondering where we are. They'll let someone know we're missing."

"Maybe not," Miles pointed out. "If they do they risk Gryffindor losing points. More likely they just hope we find our way back without getting caught."

"Look, someone has to come and round on the library, right?" Brooke asked. Miles shrugged. "Exactly, so someone's probably on their way right now and we just have to wait until they get here. We probably won't even get in trouble, because it's not our fault we got locked in here. Madam Maxwell should have noticed that we were still here before locking up."

"But what if we – "

"Just sit Miles," Dominique pleaded. "Just sit and wait. There's no other way out of here."

With a sigh, Miles sat down and crossed his arms across his chest in protest. "There has to be a way out," he muttered.

"There isn't," Brooke sighed, shaking her head. "Face it; we're trapped."

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Two hours later, the four Gryffindors were still waiting to be discovered.

"These rounds sure are taking a while," Tom noted.

"Are we sure they're even going to check the library?" Miles wondered. "I mean; the doors were locked so tight that we couldn't even open them with magic. If students can't get in, and the library's supposed to be empty when it gets locked, then what would even be the point of checking it?"

"Don't say that," Dominique insisted with a frown. "Someone's coming."

"But – "

"Someone's coming," Dominique interrupted.

"Alright," Miles surrendered, leaning back in his seat. "Someone's coming."

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By one o'clock, all four of them agreed that nobody was coming to find them. Dominique had pulled a series of chairs together to form a kind of bed that she was now laying across. Brooke had claimed the tabletop as her bed-space, and the boys were stretched out on the hard stone floor, which Dominique was sure couldn't be all that comfortable at all.

"I need a pillow," Brooke complained from the tabletop. "I can't sleep without a pillow."

"There aren't any pillows," Tom reminded her. "Try counting sheep or something."

"Counting sheep never works," Brooke whined. "Sheep are boring."

"Then count Quidditch players or something," Tom amended, too tired to start an argument.

"Ugh, why would you want to count Quidditch players?" Dominique grumbled. "Quidditch is so boring."

"I can't believe you just said that," Tom practically gasped. "Quidditch is amazing."

"I'm way too tired to have this conversation right now," Dominique groaned.

"Fine, but we aren't done with this," Tom warned. Dominique rolled over in frustration. The chairs weren't as comfortable as she'd hoped and she was stiff and sore already.

A loud snore came from Miles' direction.

"Well at least we know someone's going to get some sleep tonight," Tom muttered, shifting around on the floor in an attempt to find a better position.

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Finally, morning came. The Gryffindors awoke to the sound of the library doors being opened and they all scrambled up eagerly as Madam Maxwell entered the room.

As soon as she saw the four first year students in her library, Madam Maxwell froze.

"Merlin's beard! What are you all doing in here?" she asked in surprise.

"We got locked in," Tom informed her. "Last night. We were in the back corner of the library and we didn't realize the library was closing and by the time we noticed it was so late, the doors were locked and we couldn't get out."

"I could have sworn I checked every aisle," Madam Maxwell gasped. "I'm so sorry children, I never would have left had I known you were still inside."

"Would it be alright if we went back to our dorms now?" Brooke wondered. "Unless we're in trouble or something…"

"Of course, please feel free to leave," Madam Maxwell said. "I'm sure you want to get out of here and back to your comfortable beds. I'll have to speak to the Headmistress about this of course, but you must all be exhausted."

"Thank you Madam Maxwell," Miles said as the Gryffindors trooped past her and towards Gryffindor Tower.

Climbing the stairs was painful as the first years were stiff, sore, and exhausted from a night of little sleep. As soon as they arrived in their dorms, they fell right onto their mattresses and were immediately fast asleep. All too soon, they were being awoken by their roommates, insisting that if they didn't wake up soon they would be late to breakfast.

"I have the worst headache ever," Dominique complained in the Great Hall that morning as she ate some buttered toast.

"It can't be worse than mine," Miles yawned. "I think I banged it on the floor in my sleep last night. It won't stop pounding."

"I don't know how we're going to make it through classes today," Brooke complained.

"At least we have History of Magic first," Tom pointed out. "We can sleep through that."

As they were heading out of the Great Hall and towards their first class of the day, the first years were intercepted by Headmistress McGonagall. She assured them that she was extremely sorry for what had happened and assured them they weren't in trouble. She added that they had recently stopped doing rounds in the library in favor of simply locking it at night, but that in light of what had happened, she was reinstating library rounds effective immediately.

Dominique didn't hear much else of what she said and only really cared that she wasn't in trouble. By the end of the day, she was more than happy to crawl into her bed and curl up and sleep the night away.

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"Alright, the paper's finished!" Miles exclaimed happily about a week later. After their night in the library, none of the four had wanted to revisit their research project for Defence due to the bad memories. Eventually though, they'd had to sit down – this time in the common room – to wrap it up, and now it was completely finished.

"Finally," Dominique said, throwing her quill onto the table dramatically. "I never want to think about the Battle of Hogsmeade ever again."