This chapter is going to be fairly short, only about 2000 words, but pretty interesting, in my opinion- a twist in the tale. Or, well, tail. You'll see!
A month came and went. It still snowed, occasionally, but mostly the days were clear, just bitterly cold. It was one such day on March the eighth, which is why Herbology was canceled that morning- due to the cold, the Puffapods we were supposed to be working with were acting too sluggish to be handled. On the way back to Ravenclaw Tower (minus Polly and Oscar, of course), two different suits of armor came to life and tripped two different people- Eric first, and then Helen second.
The latter, who hated the cold in general, was moaning and complaining by the time we got back to the common room. "This is the worst day ever!" she grumped after we couldn't figure out the answer to the entrance riddle. (A passing fourth-year saved us.) She rubbed her head where it had struck the floor when she tripped. "Ever!"
"It could be worse," Eric quietly pointed out, rubbing his bruising elbow as we entered the commons.
We were greeted by Rowen as Helen challenged, "How?" He sniffed each of us, as if to check that we were all Ravenclaws and that we carried no food. When he got to Eric, who was in the back, his skeletal nostrils flared in- fear? Hate?
"What, boy?" Eric said gently, reaching forward to pet Rowan's nose with a soft, small hand. "Is something wrong?"
Out of all of us, Eric got along best with the thestral. Rowen adored him. To my knowledge, in the past few months, Rowen had only ever left Ravenclaw Tower once- to take soft-spoken, monotonous Eric for a ride around the school grounds in late February with the three other House thestrals and their favorite students, all of whom were much older. Today, though, Rowen seemed agitated, and I wish I could say truthfully that it ended well when the tips of Eric's fingers brushed Rowen.
It didn't.
Rowen reared back and neighed, a loud, shrill sound that actually shattered the glass windows of the common room. The wind and freezing cold rushed in, enveloping us, sweeping through the room. Moments before, a roaring fire had been burning in the fire pit; all of a sudden, every bit of warmth it had afforded us was gone as the flames were tamped down by the gust. Shrieks of shock split the air and my teeth started chattering fiercely, the cold immobilizing everyone as we watched what happened next.
Rowen landed on his hooves again, slamming one into Eric. Our friend went down with a gasp. And then Rowen's teeth were ripping into Eric's flesh, and there was blood everywhere, and no one was moving because our feet were all glued to the floor in shock and from the cold-
-and then there were two blurs, streaks of red light in front of us, and Rowen was on the ground, unmoving. I glanced over to see Isaiah Bramson and a seventh-year girl I didn't know, both with wands out and pointed at the still thestral. Isaiah's was more like a club than a wand, which was incredibly fitting for the stocky Beater. As he ran forward to check that Rowen was indeed- well, what had they done to him? Stunned him?- the girl glanced around. "Well?" she shouted as she moved to help Isaiah. "Move! Someone go get Madam Pomfrey!"
Three fourth-years who still had their wits about them- Kitty among the group- slipped out the door, which closed with a heavy slam behind them. The seventh-year girl crouched by Eric. "Someone give me their jacket," she ordered, holding out a hand and examining Eric's bleeding body with the other.
Those who were wearing jackets were horrified. I didn't have a jacket on, but Art did. He peeled it off and handed it to the girl, who used it to staunch some of the bleeding. Dark red liquid was already beginning to pool beneath Eric, and I bit down so hard on my lip I tasted my own. Was he going to- going to-
Art's jacket was a light brown with blue fur trim- probably faux- and as I watched a dark stain appear and spread rapidly over the thin fabric, my head began to spin. I pressed my hands to my temples, the movement catching my friends' attention.
Lanie scooted closer to me. "Are you okay?" she whispered, worried, eyes still fixed on Eric's broken form.
I nodded weakly, my own green gaze pinned on the same thing. "I'm just feeling a… little lightheaded…"
"That's not good," she murmured back. "You should go lie down."
"And leave Eric?"
"We can't do anything to help him," she argued.
Just then, Kitty- followed by Madam Pomfrey- burst in. Madam Pomfrey's round, kind face went white. "I warned Headmistress McGonagall about those thestrals," she mumbled as she levitated Eric into the air. "Has anyone told her?"
"Levi went to fetch her, and Thomas is getting Professor Maduthy," Kitty replied, her own face paling considerably when she saw the amount of blood soaking into the carpet.
"Good. Nobody move until they arrive." Then she and Eric were gone.
A particularly biting squall of wind swept through the broken windows at that exact moment, making our teeth chatter and goosebumps prickle on our skin. Art looked at his blood-soaked coat, abandoned on the floor, like he wished he hadn't donated it to Eric's cause- but he didn't dare go get another jacket.
It was only another few seconds, anyway, before Headmistress McGonagall (accompanied by Professor Maduthy and the two fourth-year boys who had gone to fetch them) entered the commons. Minerva McGonagall's mouth opened slightly in an involuntary manner as she took in the destroyed windows- Rowen unconscious on the floor, Isaiah and the seventh-year girl crouched over him- a pool of blood next to them- a stained jacket in the middle of that dark liquid, blood still creeping into the light blue fur around the collar- and, of course, the temperatures. She raised a hand to her mouth and whispered softly, "Godric above."
Professor Maduthy approached Rowen and did a quick examination of him- and by that, I mean she glanced the thestral over. "His posture and prickly skin indicate that he's gone back to his carnivorous tendencies," she noted as she bent down and brought her head next to his wide, white, pupil-less eyes. "Oh yes, he's completely back to normal. Even the training Hagrid gave him is completely gone." She looked up to Headmistress McGonagall. "I ought to check the other thestrals. Even if they aren't showing the qualities he is, they oughtn't be around so many humans. Casey Humphries from the Department for the Regulation and Control of Magical Creatures will want to see this- I hate to call him back so soon, but I expect he's nearly done testing the Cupids by now, it's been nearly a month- anyway, he should be able to run tests on the thestrals."
Headmistress McGonagall had stopped listening to her after the first two sentences, having moved to repair all of the windows, and was now rekindling the fire in the fire pit in the center of the room. "You all must be freezing," she said brusquely. "What in the world were you standing here for so long for?" She frowned and then turned to us first-years. "I expect you eight were with Mr. Montgomery when he was attacked?"
We all nodded. She nodded back. "I would like to see you all in my office, please. But first, grab coats from your dormitories. Miss Salinger, your teeth are chattering so loud I could hear them halfway across the room, and Mr. Grimm, you look half-frozen." The kind headmistress turned to Professor Maduthy. "What was it that you were saying, Jamesina?"
Fifteen minutes later we met Headmistress McGonagall outside of her office, dressed in significantly warmer clothing. She whispered words to the gargoyle that guarded it- her breathy speech sounded almost like a name, Doug something- and the huge stone statue gladly slid aside to let us pass. She led us up, up, up, up what seemed like hundreds of stairs- more than were necessary to get up to Ravenclaw Tower, even- and through a heavy door, finally, into her office.
It was a large and beautiful circular room, rather airy, the walls full of arched bookshelves and the floor made of white marble, with a few steps up past beautifully carved columns to a raised podium on which Headmistress McGonagall's desk sat alone. The walls behind the desk were covered with portraits of old headmasters and headmistresses- I noticed Albus Dumbledore and Severus Snape among them- and while most were asleep, two witches were awake and speaking in hushed tones. They silenced almost as soon as we entered the room and eyed us with wide, curious gazes. My eyes, though, were immediately drawn to a glass case with an open front behind the desk, in which resided an old, grubby hat. The Sorting Hat.
All in all, it was not unlike Ravenclaw Tower, and I liked her office immediately.
Conjuring up eight uncomfortable-looking chairs for us to sit in, Headmistress McGonagall sat in her own seat and faced all eight of us. "What happened?" she asked, not being one to mince words. "Mr. Grimm? Why don't you tell your side of the story first."
Kevin looked quite uncomfortable at being put on the spot so quickly. Rubbing his arm, he mumbled, "A thestral attacked Eric. He just petted it and it attacked him."
"Did Eric do anything to provoke the thestral?" Headmistress McGonagall asked, making notes on a piece of parchment with an emerald-green quill that matched her trademark robes. When Kevin shook his head, she evidently decided she wouldn't get anything more from a boy whose best friend had just been maimed horribly by a carnivorous skeleton horse. She turned her gaze to Millie. "What about you, Miss Thresher?"
Between the eight of us, she ended up with the full story and as many details as we could remember. Eric had been attacked by an agitated-looking thestral after attempting to soothe it by calmly petting its nose. Isaiah and that seventh-year girl- Will claimed that her name was Amelia Warner- had Stunned Rowen and saved Eric by staunching the flow of blood from the wounds on his chest caused by the thestral's teeth, using Art's 'favorite' jacket to do so.
When the last of us- Art- finished complaining about the amount of magic he'd have to do to restore his jacket to full cleanliness, Headmistress McGonagall nodded thoughtfully. "Thank you, Mr. Grimm- Miss Thresher- Miss Kelling-" After thanking us each personally, in order, she said, "I believe your friend will recover well, and not suffer any sustained injuries. He may have to stay in the hospital wing for the next few weeks, but Poppy Pomfrey is a strong Healer, and he will be back with you in no time. Now, it's nearly time for your next class, I believe." At our cries of protest- we wanted to see Eric, make sure he was okay for ourselves- she shook her head. "Poppy does not like guests when she has patients to tend to. You can visit Mr. Montgomery later. Now go! You don't want to be late to Transfiguration."
So we went. We did, after all, not want to be late to Transfiguration.
I slid into the last available seat in Professor Descoteaux's classroom three minutes later just as class was beginning- someone had stolen the desk I usually sat at, so I ended up next to Oscar. He frowned at me. Oscar Fitzgerald was a funny sort of fellow, always doing one of three things: blurting out random facts, disappearing, or remaining completely emotionless. Right now, he was doing the first.
"Thestrals do not have eyelids," he whispered to me as Descoteaux began his lecture on matchboxes and how to Transfigure small creatures into them. "It is also a possible, if rare, corporeal form of the difficult Patronus Charm, and are related to aethonans."
By now, I'd gotten fairly used to Oscar, because whenever he was around that was how he spoke. It was like a riddle, and I was a Ravenclaw, so I was good at solving Oscar's riddles. Generally he just talked about the subject he wanted to know about but in an abstract form of some sort. "Headmistress McGonagall thinks Eric will be fine," I whispered back.
His brown eyes affixed on me. "Thestrals are attracted to the smell of blood."
"Eric will be fine," I asserted. "He'll be fine."
Like I said- only one big point of action this week, but, well, when I have big action points I write them huge.
What did you think of this chapter? What do you think will happen to Eric? Why do you think the thestrals are going back to normal now? Let me know answers to these questions, and any questions you may have, in the review box below!
~atrfla