DAY 32
Looking up at the covered portraits in the headmaster's office, they were all still keeping their voices down.
"You've seen what she can do with illusions," Albus said, address all of them. "Chances are, she'll try to use them against you. You might see your parents or people from the ministry saying that they got through the shield or more likely, you'll see me, telling you to stop the assault on the room. Don't believe it!"
They were going to do it. Albus' crazy plan to get Nemesis, and by extension, themselves out of the school was going forward despite the many protests. Albus was the only one of them that seemed confident that he wasn't going to die. The others were all looking at him like he had just been diagnosed with a terminal illness.
Confronting Nemesis inside the room of requirement and trying to keep her distracted while the others worked to blow up that very room wasn't exactly an ideal plan but he was pretty sure that it was going to work.
"Wait five minutes after I leave. Avoid the portraits and statues and you should be able to get close without her knowing. Do not try to come inside," he said looking at Scorpius.
"Just make sure you get out once it starts to become unstable," he said.
"I will."
"And what if she won't let you leave?" Alex asked, still angry about Albus's decision.
"She will," he said simply.
"How do you know?"
"Because she doesn't want me dead," he said.
"That could change when she realizes what we're doing," Dom warned.
"You guys are going to be the ones in danger then, so don't waste your time worrying about me. Focus on the spells and protect each other," Albus said sternly.
"Of course, I'm going to worry about you, you're my cousin!"
"Worry about your girlfriend," he smiled, "and her hair."
Melissa and Dom didn't seem to find that funny.
Albus was resolutely refusing to make a speech or say goodbye in some way. He was still trying to put on the air of someone that was supremely confidant in his plan but it wasn't easy to hide his fear. He knew what was about to happen.
"Right, see ya in a bit," he shrugged and headed for the door.
"Albus," Alex said walking after him.
The two of them moved through the headmaster's door and let it close behind them. They were alone in the corridor and far enough away from the nearest uncovered portraits not to be heard.
"I'll be fine," he said seeing the concern in her eyes.
"You can say that a million times, I'm not gonna believe it until you are," she said.
"Just promise that you'll keep the others safe."
"I'll do everything that I can but if something goes wrong – "
"I'll think of something."
"Locked in a room with her? Your options are gonna be kind of limited!"
"Are we really not gonna talk about last night?" he said deciding to just go for it.
She was momentarily stunned and couldn't respond. Once again, he'd caught her off guard and seeing the look in her eyes, he knew some part of her had been hoping to avoid this conversation.
"Are we just going to blame it on the whiskey?" he asked.
"No," she said after a moments pause, "we'll blame it on my poor judgement."
"I'm not exactly blameless," he reminded.
"You're a student, I'm a teacher…that cannot happen between us." She made it sound like an official statement from the ministry but he could hear her voice shaking slightly.
"Once we're out, I'm never coming back to this school," he said. "I don't think you are either."
"That's not the point! This…this is…wrong!"
"Feels pretty right to me," he whispered.
He saw her tense up at those words. She pressed her lips together and blinked quickly, trying to supress tears.
This was it.
She was the moment Nemesis had warned him about. The moment he confessed and moment she would break his heart.
"You know how I feel about you and I know you feel something for me," he said bracing himself. "But, it's your decision. So, tell me, right now…yes or no."
Silence fell for a second and the she blinked and looked away.
"No."
It was strange. He didn't feel a sudden sense of falling or a sensation like being punched in the guts. He was expecting pain of some kind but it didn't come. Instead his mind shot back to the day the sorting hat had been placed on his head and yelled 'Slytherin'. It was that cold, lonely walk from the front of the great hall over to the house table with all eyes on him that had been the hardest part. By then the fear had faded and the shock had set in, numbing his whole body.
He was pretty sure that he was just as pale white as that day. The pain he'd been expected would hit later.
"I'm sorry," she breathed, unable to look him in the eye.
He barely heard her. He was pushing it all down. Locking this moment away in a dark corner of his vault, making it as difficult to access as possible. It was only a temporary measure and he knew he would have to face it properly at some point, but, at that moment, he had to focus on Nemesis.
"Look after the others. We won't get another chance at this," he said before walking away.
"Albus!" she cried. The tears were escaping her eyes and she couldn't hide the sadness in her voice.
She wasn't a cruel person, she didn't want to hurt him and maybe if circumstances were different, her answer would have been different, but, she had made her decision and he would respect it.
"She's going to kill you!"
"No, she won't."
"How do you know?"
"Because, I'm the only friend she's got," he said and walked away.
Some people believed that happy endings appeared in stories so often because they appeared so rarely in the real world. Some times things worked out and sometimes they didn't. The best one could hope for was to set enough things in motion to increase the odds of a favourable outcome, but, even then, chance and random occurrence can still completely destroy even the best laid plans.
He had come up with a plan for Nemesis but not for Alex. In some strange way, he was glad he still had her. Whether he wanted to admit it or not, Nemesis had given him a sense of purpose.
It didn't take long for him to reach the empty stretch of corridor that was home to the room of requirement, provided that she hadn't some how moved it. He stood directly in front of the wall, not even trying to think of what shape the room might have taken.
"I want my iPod back!" he yelled. "And…we need to talk…you were right."
The sound of scrapping gravel echoed through the corridor and pair of huge wooden double doors seemed to melt their way right through the stone. After a second or two, they were fully formed and standing there like they had always been part of the castle.
The doors began to crack open and an immense, pure white light filled the corridor. It was like looking at the sun except it wasn't burning his eyes.
The light enveloped him and he stepped forward into the room of requirement.
He was in a blank room, so spotless and white, he couldn't actually see walls or surfaces anywhere. Looking down, he wasn't even casting a shadow on the floor as the light seemed to be coming from every possible direction.
He looked around and suddenly, where there had been nothing a second ago, now sat an armchair. It was one of Slughorn's armchairs from his office. Then there was a second, both moth eaten and old but looked very comfortable. The two chairs were directly opposite each other.
He slowly sat down in the nearest one. Then there was a small wooden stool. It was nothing special except for the fact that his iPod was sitting on it.
He wanted to reach out and take it right then and there but paused. It could be a trick.
He waited but nothing happened. No illusions appeared or voices from the walls until a small black spot arrived on the floor. It grew wider and rippled slightly, as if were made of oil or tar. From the black puddle, a head slowly emerged, followed by a neck, then shoulders and arms until the oil had formed a woman. Her black skin rippled and flowed but kept the human features exactly in place.
This was the same body he'd seen in the steam and curtains. And of course, she was naked.
"Interesting look," Albus commented.
"This room can do a lot of things but give me flesh and blood isn't one of them," Nemesis said, walking over and taking the second seat. Her feet didn't leave prints on the floor and her oil-like skin didn't stain the chair when she sat down.
It was a close to her original form as she could get and once again it was perfect. Too perfect. Inhumanly beautiful, the way people imagined gods or angels to look.
"So," she said crossing her legs in a very business-like way. "You found me."
"You weren't that hard to find," he said, looking into the dark orbs that made up her eyes. Her long-waist length hair swells and curled like a black tide.
"She hurt you, didn't she?"
"You gonna say 'I told you so'?"
"Don't think I need to," Nemesis said. "I've become quite the expert on what fear does to people."
"She's afraid of what people will think of her," Albus admitted.
"And she's afraid of you," she nodded. "Your mind is more powerful than her magic. It's intimidating. I can't wait to see how Hermione reacts when she realizes that you're smarter than her."
"Hermione has years of experience that I don't."
"True, but you have something that she doesn't. You're different."
"That's a very broad term."
"Hermione sees the world as text. She reads through it, line by line, paragraph by paragraph until she finds a solution to whatever problem she's facing. You already know the solution and yet, the problem still fascinates you. Even after you've solved it, you still want to study it because then, maybe you'll understand why they happen in the first place," she said.
"Are we talking about problems or people?"
"Aren't they one in the same?"
"More often than not," he was forced to agree.
"This school is proof of that," she said looking around the white room. "When a new student arrives here, what's the first thing that happens?"
"They're sorted."
"They're segregated. Shoved off into their own little ward. Told that they are different from the other people here. Ravenclaws are smart, Gryffindors are brave, Hufflepuffs are loyal and the Slytherins are oh so wicked. Do you think it's right to tell an eleven-year-old child where they belong just by placing a magical hat on their heads? And to think that they can't change? That a brave Gryffindor can't suffer a trauma that makes them afraid of their own shadow? That a loyal Hufflepuff can be betrayed and forever more have trust issues?"
"I think they should be allowed to decide for themselves."
"I would agree. But, instead, they stick that thing on their heads," she pointed to where the sorting hat was now hovering in mid-air. It had been missing from the headmaster's office since Nemesis had taken control and now he knew where it was being kept. "That thing that was made over a thousand years ago when everyone still thought that the sun went around the earth and yet it is in charge of an enormous part of a child's life."
"The sorting hat takes a person's choice into account," Albus reminded.
"And how many eleven-year-olds know exactly where they want to spend the next six years of their lives? How many of them can be expected to make an unpressured decision when they are sitting in front of the entire student body?"
"When they can't, the hat chooses for them. And choice is based on what it views inside the child's mind."
"And what was going through your father's mind when he was sorted? Was he begging to be sorted into Gryffindor, or was he begging not to be sorted into Slytherin?"
Albus looked away. He couldn't argue with her point. His father had been willing the hat not to place him in Slytherin simply because of the bad things he'd heard about the house and his experience on the train with Draco Malfoy.
"His choice was effected by reputation and the opinions of others. Why were you sorted into Slytherin, Albus? What effected your choice?" she asked.
"The alphabet," he said.
She cocked her head, waiting for an explanation.
"M comes before P."
"On the train, you met Scorpius. The only person who knew exactly how it felt to be born with a legacy they never wanted and when he went into Slytherin, you followed. You've been an outcast ever since…and yet, to do that…so see him for the person he really was, instead of the person the wizarding world said he was…well, that took the intelligence of a Ravenclaw. To follow him in took the loyalty of a Hufflepuff and to do it all knowing that you'd never be accepted took the courage of a Gryffindor. You don't fit into one single house, Albus, you match all of them and that's why you don't belong in any of them."
He had never thought of it like that. But then he tried to avoid thinking about his sorting whenever possible.
"You think it's weak to try and belong?"
"I think it's stupid to try and belong to the wizarding world. A world that has become so toxic with prejudice and intolerance that even when something threatens its entirety, it still can't put aside it's petty differences."
"People are trying to change that," he said.
"The wizarding world won't change. It's had plenty of opportunities. That which cannot change, cannot stay," she said simply.
"You mean the pureblood lines?"
"I mean in terms of nature. When something can't evolve, it goes extinct."
"The world – "
"Belongs to the muggles."
"If you expose the wizarding world – "
"I said I would do that eventually, first, I'll bring it down a notch."
"A notch?"
"All notches."
Horror dawned over Albus's face. "They'll be a war!"
"Wars require two sides. I said I'd expose the wizarding world, I didn't say there would be any wizards left to fight."
"You're not going to stop with this school, you're not going to stop with this country! You don't want to rule the wizarding world, you want to end it!"
"It had its chance."
"You're talking about genocide!"
"A necessary evil. Don't worry, the wizarding world, like a phoenix, will rise from the ashes, but first…it has to burn!"
It was worse than he thought. She had been completely consumed by her need for vengeance. And worse, she now believed that wiping out the wizarding world was the right thing to do. "You can't do this!"
"Don't defend them, Albus. You hate this world and it hates you because it can't see you for what you are. You don't belong in the wizarding world…because you're more than the wizarding world."
"I'm not more than anything or anyone."
"No, of course not, you're just a man with unparalleled control over his own mind and whose survived in a culture that despises him despite having almost no magical abilities," she snorted sarcastically.
"My dad wasn't a match for Voldemort but he still beat him."
"He had a lot of help and besides, Voldemort was a moron," she brushed off.
"Unlike you?" he said it before he could stop himself.
"What did I say about comparing me to him?!" she hissed. "You think I'm like him?! A power-hungry coward that couldn't face mortality! You think I'd need a Basilisk to do my bidding?!" a dark green orb of liquid formed above her hand and suddenly shot towards Albus, striking his skin and melting beneath it. He felt it take hold immediately.
She had just injected him with Basilisk venom! He could feel it, burning inside his veins.
"You think I'd be undone by a phoenix?!"
A second orb appeared in her palm but this one was full of clear liquid, like sea water. It surged forward, hitting him in the same spot as the venom and sinking into his skin.
Phoenix tears! He was cured.
"You think I need Horcruxes or Deathly Hallows?!" she roared as a small black stone appeared in her oily palm. The resurrection stone?! She had found it in the forest. And with one deft move, she crushed it into dust with her hand.
"You think a ridiculous hat decides my future?!" the sorting hat disintegrated right in front of him leave nothing but a pile of ash. "You think a goblin forged sword could harm me?!"
The sword of Gryffindor appeared, floating exactly where the hat had been only seconds before. The ruby incrusted blade was only there for a moment though because she reached out a touched it with her finger. The blade melted, turning into molten metal that fell in a puddle on the ground. Even the gems cracked and turned into nothing but red dust.
In just a few minutes, she had destroyed everything that had been so vital to his father's struggle. He could only assume that the reason she didn't have the Elder Wand was because Dumbledore's tomb was further way from the school than the resurrection stone had been otherwise it would probably be lying in splinters by now.
"I am nothing like him!"
The room shuddered with her anger.
"Well, you have one thing in common," Albus said, preparing himself. "This school is where you lose."
She jumped up from her chair, her oily form pulsating with rage. The white surroundings vanished and the walls became transparent. Outside the room, Scorpius, Rose, Aiden, Anya, Dom and Melissa were chanting spells with their wands pointed at them. They couldn't see inside, but where working furiously while Alex paced beside them, ready for the inevitable attack.
"Clever boy," she growled.
"My birthday was yesterday. I'm a man now."
"A dead man!" she surged forward, clamping her hand around his neck and hoisting him up. She slammed him against the wall and thundering bangs echoed around the castle. Except they weren't explosions. They were footsteps.
The statues were coming.
They were breaking away from they foundations and marching, like a regiment towards the group on the outside of the doors. The clanging of armour followed and soon and entire army of stone and metal soldiers were surrounding the room of requirement.
Spell fire erupted around the corridor as Alex send curses flying towards them. She blasted them to dust with Reducto curses but they just kept coming. They swung at her with axes and swords but she was way too fast for their heavy lumbering moves. She dodged their strikes and continued to fire.
The statues were approaching from the other end of the corridor as well. They were trying to get close enough to the others working the enchantments to kill them before they could destabilize the room.
Anya screamed as an axe strike barely missed her head. She ducked and crawled away as Alex suddenly bolted past her. Alex jumped through the air looking like she was trying to kick the statue in the chest but inside used it as a platform. She backflipped straight off it and fired off another curse while upside down in mid-air that hit the statue behind her, reducing it to dust.
She was everywhere, taking on ever statue and suit of armour in Hogwarts at the same time. Her speed and cat-like acrobatics made her impossible to hit but the army of statues seemed endless. The corridor was filling up with broken stone and smashed metal but the oncoming attacks just marched straight past it.
A fast rumbling shook the corridor as the gargoyles that guarded the staffroom came charging down the hall. Not hesitating for a second, Alex ran at them, skidding along the floor as one leapt for her. Light shot from the end of her wand like a golden lasso and wrapped itself around one of the gargoyles. With a great heave, she sent it flying straight into the oncoming statues on the other side of the room of requirement, smashing them to pieces.
Albus watched though the walls of the room and couldn't help be awed by her skill. She really was the best in the world.
"Call them off!" Nemesis demanded.
"You tipped your hand when you showed us the illusions. They know they can't trust anything that comes out of this room!"
A blue surge of energy shot through the room like lightning. It was working! Elemental conflict was occurring. Small parts of the walls and ceiling seemed to be burning away, as if they were being scorched from within.
"I'm not the one that's about to die, Albus!" she growled.
"I knew I wasn't getting out of this room!" he croaked back, her hand still around his throat. "I've always known!"
More lightning shot through the room and scorching continued to spread.
"It was never going to be an accident or age or illness. I always knew, someday, magic would kill me!"
The lightning surges spread to the outside of the room, striking the corridor walls and destroying several of the attacking statues. The others rushed to get clear.
The room of requirement was imploding.
Nemesis looked around the room. She could see the damage spreading and consuming all of it like a virus. She turned and looked Albus in the eye.
"Until that day!"
She flung Albus with such force that he flew the entire length of the room and slammed straight through the doors, colliding with the corridor outside. The doors slammed shut right in front of him as the room started being crushed and compacted. Lightning shot out all over the place as the brick and wood were pulled into some kind of vortex at the centre. It all disappeared inside a pin-prick of light that vanished with one last burst of sparks.
Where the room once lived, now there was just a gaping hole in the walls. The floor below was exposed and dust was falling into it from the severed stonework. All around them, the statues froze or fell, completely lifeless. The corridor went silent for a second before a low hum echoed across the castle grounds.
The shield was disappearing.
Scorpius picked himself up from the rubble and looked around with the other shaken captives doing the same behind him. He spotted Albus's crumpled body across from the hole.
"Albus!" he yelled.
Alex gasped in horror as she saw him. "Albus! Albus, are you alright?!"
Then with one small movement of his arm, he held up his hand. It was holding his iPod.
"Got it…" he groaned.