I found this chapter really difficult to write for some reason. I'm still not entirely happy with it as a whole, but there's bits that I really like and will be returning to in the future...

Thanks for reading and especially for reviewing! :)

Enjoy!

CHAPTER NINE

In the darkened kitchen Mildred was huddled down, as close to the floor and the wall behind her as she could get. Her hands were clapped to her ears, and her eyes tightly closed despite the blackness, for the echoes of the flaming skull still lingered in the air if you looked hard enough. She hummed to herself in a further effort to block out the sounds of shock and fear around her, and even though she could barely hear the noise she made, the vibrations in her throat and chest provided their own kind of comfort.

Someone shook her, and she whimpered, unwilling to break through her bubble of false comfort.

'Millie!' the someone screamed in her ear. 'You can't stay here; get up!'

Mildred did not move; in truth, she could not. During her time at Cackle's she'd found herself in a number of uncomfortable and occasionally terrifying positions, but never had she been so entirely paralysed as she was now.

She continued to hum, pulling her cloak tighter so that she could immerse herself in the cocoon of her own mind.

xxx

Constance found herself being clutched by two people at once. One of them was talking and the other was screaming. It took a moment for her confused mind to work out that the screamer was Ethel Hallow, and the talker Imogen Drill.

'Quiet,' she ordered at last, trying to put as much power as she could into the order. For once she did not expect it to have an impact beyond her immediate vicinity, but it did succeed in reaching the two clutchers, and Constance relaxed as she felt them release their painfully tight hold on her arms.

'Sorry, Miss Hardbroom,' she heard Miss Drill say in strained tones.

'We must remain calm, Miss Drill,' she told the other woman distractedly, while her left hand reached out, seeking Ethel in the darkness. She caught at fabric, and tugged it gently, hoping it was attached to her erstwhile pupil.

'Ethel?' she called.

No-one answered, and the cloth slithered through Constance's fingers before she could grasp it firmly, disappearing into the anonymity of darkness.

xxx

'Sybil,' an unfamiliar voice whispered into the Second year's right ear. 'Sybil….'

Sybil Hallow froze. 'Clarice?'

'Yeah?' came in Clarice's matter-of-fact tones from her other side – or as matter-of-fact as one can be when it is necessary to shout.

Sybil swallowed, and fiercely blinked away the easy tears that came to her eyes. Thisisnotthetime. 'Did you say something?'

'No!' Clarice yelled in an effort to be heard above the general din. 'Waste of time! Why aren't the teachers doing something?'

'Sybil….' the voice cajoled in a voice like honey, a voice that could not but appeal to the musical girl. 'Sybil Pythia Hallow.'

'P-erhaps they c-can't,' Sybil yelled back at her friend, trying to think of something ordinary, trying not to think of the longing that filled her when that mysterious voice called her name.

A puff – a breath? – of cold air caressed the back of her neck, and she shuddered violently and tried to step away, but only succeeded in stamping on Clarice's sock-clad feet.

'Ouuuch!' protested Clarice loudly, making Sybil wince from the sudden onslaught of volume whilst she tried to get her pounding heart under control. Breathe, she thought, remembering the panic attack she'd had the week before starting at Cackle's. Justbreathe.

She had just managed to calm herself when a hand grabbed her shoulder; startled, she jerked back, away from the touch.

'What was that for?' Clarice demanded, sounding offended. 'I was only trying to get my balance.'

Sybil gave an unsteady giggle. 'Oh. I thought you were – never mind.' Naming a thing gives it power, she thought. I will not give thatthat thingpower over me, or Clarice.

She arranged the flap around the top of her cloak so that it covered her neck, and firmly pulled her hat down low on her head, ensuring that no patch of skin in the area remained exposed. Then she pushed back against the wall, against Clarice's human warmth, and wondered who – or what – had called her name.

It knows my name, she realised as her mind revisited her thoughts of a moment ago. It knows my full name, and that means it has power over me

When her eyes filled again, she allowed the tears to fall in silent protest.

xxx

It's the same darkness, Amelia thought as Davina moaned beside her, a keening that was oddly reassuring by virtue of its consistency.

The same darkness I felt outside. The kind that sucks all light and happiness from the inside of you, as well as the outside.

At least the screaming's stopped, she thought with relief as her pupils got over their instinctive vocalisation of panic. After a fraught pause, the murmuring of young voices rose again, and a momentary smile crossed Amelia's face: bless them,they're just going back to their chats – until it registered that the tone of the murmurs was neither friendly nor comforting.

She strained to hear over Davina's muted but constant wails:

'Get away from me!'

'That was my foot!'

'Get your hat out of my eye, you clumsy idiot!'

In the dark, it was easy to misinterpret speech, she knew. And the girls were frightened enough; the atmosphere was so tense that all it would take for the bickering to turn into something more was one tiny spark…

There was a lull in the squabbling, and two voices could be heard with crystal clarity – older girls, Amelia thought, which only made it worse.

'I told you to get off my foot!' one girl hissed, her volume dropping as she ended.

Her companion had no such reservations. Her response was clear and brutal, cutting across the quiet with the precision of a scalpel: 'Oh, shut up, you whining Mudblood.'

Amelia's entire body sagged as she heard the epithet, almost never used within the walls of Cackle's Academy, although it was sadly all too common in the more aristocratic sectors of the wizarding world beyond. 'Mudblood' was a name, an insult, aimed at those witches and wizards who did not come from magical families. It was an implicit declaration of superiority, an assumption that only those with magical talent had any worth.

The flat silence that greeted the Fifth year's sneering remark was both eternal and all too short. Before Amelia had time to consider how to respond, the air was alive with the shrill sound of girls fighting: screaming, insults, howls of pain…

She covered her face with her hands, trying to spur her shock-sodden mind into action.

And then help arrived from a most unexpected source: Davina's wavery soprano lifted in the first verse of Onwards, Ever Striving Onwards.

xxx

Mildred remained huddled in her near-catatonic cocoon, trying to escape the nightmare that her school had become. Slow tears slid unseen down her cheeks, soaking the collar of her cloak where she had pressed it against her face. Dimly, she was aware of Maud and Ruby talking and pleading, but Mildred did not respond – until the familiar strains of the school song filtered through her fog of terror.

She sniffled as she straightened, forcing herself to focus on the sound of music, on Maud's well-known voice beside her. I'lljustpretendwe'reinassemblyandI'mclosingmyeyes, she told herself firmly as she slowly got to her feet.

'Are you OK, Millie?' Ruby's voice asked anxiously.

Mildred became guiltily aware that she had worried her friends. 'I'll be fine,' she told Ruby staunchly.

She shuddered as the sounds of girl fighting girl came a little too near, and one hand reached out in Ruby's direction, her fingers tentatively seeking the other girl's. She was relieved when Ruby's hand embraced hers; after years of running together, helping each other into and out of scrapes, she knew the feel of her friend's hand, knew the calluses on the thumb, formed from hours of playing with gadgets when at home.

'Mudbloods together, yeah?' she whispered.

A squeeze was her only answer, but Mildred felt comforted, her fears beginning to recede. Darkness had come, literally and metaphorically, but as long as she had her friends…

She gave Ruby's hand an answering squeeze and joined her voice to Maud's.

xxx

Constance was scarcely paying attention to either the fighting – there was little she could do about it, after all – or the singing. Her mind was occupied with Ethel Hallow's whereabouts. She was now certain that the girl was no longer near her – was, in fact, no longer in the kitchen at all. Suspicion crawled through her mind, trailing a slime of foreboding in its wake.

Her mind went back to a conversation with the Hallow girls the day before in the Headmistress's office. Miss Cackle had reiterated that their father would be coming for them as soon as the weather cleared, but in the meantime they would be expected to behave as if they were still pupils of the academy.

Ethel had responded with an insolent lack of concern, but Sybil's distress was palpable.

'I don't want to leave,' she'd insisted, her large eyes flicking imploringly from Miss Cackle to Miss Hardbroom. 'Please.'

'My dear, your father –' Amelia started, but Ethel interrupted her ruthlessly.

'Sybil, this place is no longer worthy of us,' she'd said, her pointed nose in the air. 'Daddy says that Cackle's will probably be closed, as it's become an utter disaster. He's going to send us somewhere better, perhaps even L'Academie Beauxbatons in France.'

Sybil turned on her sister.

'This is all your fault!' she shouted, her eyes blazing. 'I told you and told you not to tell Daddy about the magic bug, and you said no, you had to, because he was the Chair of Governors, and in any case we're Hallows and shouldn't have to put up with this sort of thing. And Daddy called Broomhead in, I know he did, and now – and now –'

'Cackle's is finished,' Ethel ended, a smirk hovering at one corner of her mouth. 'Do pull yourself together, Sybs, and try to pretend that you're a Hallow.'

'Well, I'm not, then!' Sybil flung back fiercely, apparently forgetting the presence of the Headmistress and her deputy. 'I told you before: I wish Mildred Hubble was my sister, and now I'm saying that I wish I wasn't a Hallow at all! I wish I wasn't a Hallow..' she repeated.

Constance had exchanged a glance with Amelia as an odd expression flashed over the Second year's face. Did Sybil know?

Evidently, she did. She pulled herself erect, looking uncannily like the portrait of her great-great-great grandmother in the Great Hall, and spoke with the perfect diction of the aristocrat she had been trained to be: 'I, Sybil Pythia Hallow, do relinquish the rights and privileges attendant to the ancient name and dignity of Hallow. There!'

'Sybil –' Miss Cackle tried, only to be interrupted by Constance's peremptory demand: 'Girl, do you know what you've just done?'

Sybil looked defiant. 'Yes! I meant it, too!' She turned on her stunned sister. 'You hear, Ethel? I meant every word!'

'Well, you've definitely done it now,' Ethel sneered. 'You've completed the ritual: disavowed your family three times. Fine. I'm never speaking to you again, and I'll do my level best to prevent Mummy or Daddy or Mona from having anything to do with you ever, ever again!'

And she had turned on her heel and left the room, slamming Miss Cackle's door with a resounding bang that rattled the door frame and vibrated through the floorboards.

Constance winced from the impact of the door, and forced herself to stop staring like a 'demented goldfish'. Her startled gaze then switched to the younger Hallow sister, who was still standing in front of Miss Cackle's large desk, her posture defiant.

Her eyes, however, were pleading as she looked from one mistress to the other.

'She betrayed us,' she said as the stunned adults tried to find words. 'Maybe she didn't mean to, Ethel's not great at thinking things through, but she's not stupid. She did it anyway.' Her eyes became huge and haunted, staring into some abyss only she could see. 'How many will suffer and die because Ethel Hallow could not hold her tongue?'

Constance shivered, but not from the cold. Was that the voice of a disgruntled child – or a premonition? She looked at Amelia, uncharacteristically lost.

'What will we do about this, Miss Cackle?'

Amelia had studied the girl for a long pause, her horn-rimmed glasses perched firmly on her nose. 'There's nothing we can do,' she said at last. 'Sybil is a Hallow; she's had some grounding in magical law, and she knew what she was doing.' She eyed Sybil, her gaze turning unwontedly severe. 'I believe you've something to ask?'

Sybil's head dipped. 'Sanctuary,' she said, her tone suddenly quiet. Her eyes flicked up again, and Constance could see the now-familiar shine. 'Will you grant me sanctuary, Miss Cackle?'

Constance had stared as Amelia rose to her feet, her small figure acquiring a rarely used dignity. 'I do,' she said formally.

Sybil inclined her head. 'Thank you, Miss Cackle.'

The two shared a long look as Constance blinked, thoroughly disconcerted by the turn of events. 'Is that it?' she demanded, looking at the Headmistress. 'She disavows her family and stays here? Now?' The last word was almost a muted scream.

'Go back to your form, Sybil,' Miss Cackle ordered.

'Amelia!' Constance expostulated as Sybil departed, resorting to the rarely used given name in her shock. 'What have-'

'What else could I do, Constance?' Amelia asked gravely. 'You know Mr Hallow. He's a narrow minded man with an over-inflated sense of his own importance – not unlike his oldest daughter, in fact. He's always out for the main chance, and that could result in some veryunsavoury alliances. I don't blame Sybil for wanting to escape.'

xxx

Back in the dark kitchen, Constance remembered those words and another shiver rippled through her body, the tension winding every nerve into a fever pitch of agony.

Ethel's been rescued, she realised with a sickening jolt. Whatdoesthatmeanfortherestofus?

She did not have long to wait. The tumultuous racket that still filled the kitchen as the sounds of hopeful singing chimed discordantly with the cries and screams of ongoing fights stilled abruptly when a light appeared at one end. It was held high, casting two figures into ghostly shadow.

Constance peered, trying to make them out. One figure seemed insanely tall, the top of his – or her! – mask-like headgear brushing the sides of the arced stone doorway. Next to this personage stood a much smaller figure, and Constance's sense of foreboding moved from the realms of fantasy to reality, for the smaller figure's hat pointed at a rakish angle, and this, teamed with a short cloak, proclaimed its identity.

It was Ethel. Safe in the arms of the enemy.

The taller figure moved forward, the lantern casting a perfect circle of light amidst the darkness. 'Trapped,' it observed with satisfaction, its voice neither male nor female. 'Like rats.'

The inhabitants of the kitchen remained motionless. Constance found that she could not lift a finger, and her voice was stilled, her larynx frozen.

A variation of the petrification spell, she thought automatically, while another part of her mind mocked her preoccupation with spell identification.

'Someone wants to speak to you,' the tall figure said, sounding all too pleased at the prospect.

The lantern was now at an angle that revealed more: the height was largely from the high cone-shaped mask that came down all the way to the chin, leaving only holes for eyes and mouth. The rest of the figure's attire was equally concealing; even his or her hands were hidden from plain sight.

'What? Not a word of debate or argument?' the voice taunted. 'Not even from the estimable Amelia, or the supposedly formidable Constance? What a disappointment,' it drawled. 'We were hoping for a challenge… but there's going to be no challenge here. What a pity; no amusement for the Dark Lord tonight.'

Constance was numbly aware that she should feel something, but her emotions were as frozen as her body. All she felt was an overwhelming, enervating sense of inevitability.

This is where we've been heading all term, she thought wearily. This is why we were infected by the magic-draining virus. This is what the Swoop girl risked her life to warn us ofto no avail.

Something flashed – a spell from a wand, perhaps.

'Move,' the voice hissed. 'You are to move, insilence, to the castle walls. Outside the castle walls,' it amended. 'There you'll watch us make our victory complete.'

Constance watched as the school moved on the word like automatons. It took an instant for her to realise that she was also moving, her body acting of its own volition. She could see that she was hemmed about with bodies as they walked – or limped, in her case – through the dungeons and up the stairs, but she could not feel their warmth. The experience was akin to moving underwater, every step taken with resistance.

Perhaps it's my body fighting back, she thought dully as her hands skidded along the slime-infested wall that encircled the staircase.

Then they passed through the front hall, out of the double doors, and Constance saw what Amelia had mentioned earlier: a swamping, choking mist that all natural human instinct recoiled from. Yet her body continued to move, seeming to know where it was going, even though her mind was increasingly disorientated with every step.

It was almost a relief to pass through the dimly-seen Walker's Gate, although Constance blinked when the movement dispelled the mists and she could see clearly, blinded by the white light of the moon.

She glanced up, and everything seemed to stop, for hanging above Castle Overblow was the most feared symbol of the wizarding world: Voldemort's Dark Mark, a black skull with a snake protruding ghoulishly from its jaws.

The wave of despair that washed over her was subdued, but her mind was remained clear, and it comprehended the significance of the Dark Mark: a declaration of victory.