Chapter 36 - Flames

The next day, Ginny awoke to find Hermione still slumbering rather fitfully. She left her friend to rest, and departed to breakfast.

Hermione was absent throughout breakfast, and at the start of Charms. Just as Ginny was contemplating going back to Gryffindor Tower to wake her up, she arrived, looking a bit worse for wear. Her hair was tousled, her eyes were slightly puffy, and she still had a few crumbs around her mouth where she had hurriedly attempted to catch up on breakfast with a piece of slightly-burnt toast.

"I am so sorry, Professor," she said, as she slid down into her seat next to Ginny, looking absolutely mortified. Professor Flitwick, on the other hand, merely shrugged and squeaked something inaudible, then returned to teaching his class.

As soon as Flitwick's back was turned, Hermione slapped Ginny on the arm, going red with embarrassment and frustration.

"OW! What was that for?" Ginny muttered.

"Why didn't you wake me up?" Hermione hissed in reply.

"I don't know... you looked like you needed some rest," Ginny shrugged.

"You sound like Ron..." Hermione murmured.

Both girls sulked slightly at this exchange, then set their attention back to the lesson. Hermione's mood got worse as the lesson went on, as Flitwick spent most of the hour lecturing them on Memory Charms. Ginny felt rather sorry for Hermione, as the last half an hour consisted of Flitwick reciting all the different ways the charm could go wrong, most of which involved the subject's brains being well and truly scrambled. Hermione's face was rather ashen by the end, as the inevitable thoughts of her parents resurfaced.

As they left Flitwick's classroom, Ginny's heart urged her to stay with Hermione and comfort her, but Hermione was heading off to Arithmancy, while Ginny was traipsing out into the grounds for double Care of Magical Creatures.

Pallid clouds were beginning to roll across the sky as the seventh years assembled once more on the grassy patch behind Hagrid's hut. The huge tank from the last lesson had been replaced by a dozen smaller tanks, each containing a smaller version of that fire. Hagrid was stood in the middle of all of them, with the tanks in a ring around him, smiling with anticipation.

"Mornin' all," he called jovially, as they approached. "Gather roun', two to a tank."

Ginny caught Luna's eye, and they shuffled over to the tank in front of Hagrid, standing beside it. Seamus and Dean took the tank to their right, while two Hufflepuffs in Ginny's year who she had never spoken to took the tank to their left.

"Everybody got a tank?" Hagrid shouted, and they all nodded assent. "Righ' then. We're gonna be studying Ashwinders again t'day, only this time, we'll be collectin' their eggs. Can anyone tell me why?"

Everyone looked around in confusion, as if Hagrid of all people should know why – he was the one telling them to do it. Luna's hand, however, had shot up, and Hagrid nodded to her.

"Ashwinder eggs can be eaten whole as a cure for ague, what the Muggles call malaria, or used in... err... Love Potions," Luna trailed off slightly, as if embarrassed at knowing the latter fact. Then, as a distraction, she added, "They're dangerous, too, if they aren't removed."

"Righ'," Hagrid muttered, gruffly. "Usin' them for medicine's all well and good, but yer firs' concern's gettin' them out of yer house before they burn it down. What's the problem here, though?"

Again, Luna's hand rose skyward. After scanning around and finding no other hands raised, Hagrid nodded to her again.

"Ashwinders only lay eggs in the shade, like inside a building. They won't just lay them in the tanks."

"Good girl. I don't really want ter let 'em lay eggs in my hut, so we'll throw a blanket over the tanks. That should be enough shade for 'em. Everybody grab a pair of gloves, an' a blanket between each pair."

Ginny paced over to the pile of equipment by the wall of Hagrid's hut. A stack of blankets was neatly folded, and she took one, before pulling on a pair of dragon skin gloves, and throwing another to Luna, who began to pull them on as Ginny returned.

One by one, Hagrid visited each tank and tapped it, just as he had done last lesson, burning the fire out and causing dust-grey serpents to emerge, sliding through the gathering ash. After watching a single, solitary Ashwinder appear in their tank, Ginny and Luna threw the blanket over it, covering it entirely, and sat down in the grass, watching as Hagrid circled the rest of the tanks, producing no less than three serpents in Seamus and Dean's.

Finally, with all of the tanks filled with Ashwinders and covered with blankets, Hagrid returned to the centre, and began to speak again.

"Now, the trouble with Ashwinders eggs is that they'll catch fire before too long. Keep checkin' yer tanks, and once you see eggs in there, open it up righ' away. Ye need to stun the snake, then just freeze the eggs and put 'em in these jars."

Hagrid waved to the tanks, and for the first time Ginny noticed a small glass jar by the side of their tank. Quietly, the seventh years all set to work, taking it in turns to pull back the blankets, checking for the eggs, which, according to their textbook, were a deep crimson in colour.

Half an hour later, no-one had found anything. Seeing as the Ashwinders only lived for an hour, Ginny was slightly worried, and she wasn't the only one. The next time the students checked, however, both Luna and Dean started with surprise, and beckoned for their partners to join them. Ginny and Seamus sprang up, and padded over to the tanks. As Luna held the corner of the blanket up, Ginny saw half a dozen crimson orbs, glowing lazily inside the tank.

"You stun the snake," Luna murmured, taking hold of the blanket with both hands and pulling it off. The Ashwinder hissed, more out of boredom than anger, as Ginny nodded back to her, and Luna grabbed the handle on the top of the tank. In a quick flourish, she whipped the lid off the top of the tank, and Ginny stepped forward, jabbing her wand into the tank.

"Immobolus!" she cried, and the snake stopped, freezing rigidly to the stop. Several of the other seventh years were watching on with interest, as Luna laid the lid down in the grass, and the girls hastily began to pluck the eggs out of the tank. They were hot to the touch, even through the dragon skin gloves, as they took them one at a time, laying them on the plastic lid to avoid setting fire to the grass.

"Alright then," Luna murmured, drawing her own wand. "Ready? Glacius!"

A jet of ice cold air erupted from Luna's wand, and tiny droplets of water vapour froze in the air, falling as shimmering slivers of ice. The eggs themselves were bathed in the freezing wind, and seemed to go a pale orange colour as they froze. Two of the eggs were still glowing crimson, so Ginny gave her own mutter of "Glacius," finishing them off.

Luna deftly scooped the six eggs up and dropped them into their jar, before screwing the metal lid on tightly. Ginny replaced the tank's lid, and revived the Ashwinder with a swish of her wand – it stared balefully back at her, and already seemed to be spitting embers as, eggs laid, it neared death. Ginny's stare was only drawn from her own snake by the sound of yelling to her right.

Looking around, she saw Dean diving into the grass, as Seamus blasting the ground with a poorly-aimed charm. It quickly became obvious what had happened – as they opened the lid, Seamus had managed to freeze one of the serpents, but there were three in the tank, and the other two had taken their chance to spring out into the open air with surprising vigour. Dean had managed a rather impressive catch, grabbing one of the Ashwinders as it tried to slither away, and Luna ran off towards Hagrid's hut, following the third snake before neatly hitting it with a charm of her own.

As Luna returned, holding the frozen snake by the tail and looking rather triumphant, Ginny attempted to hit the snake Dean was holding with a Freezing Charm. Before she got a chance, however, the snake appeared to give up on life, deciding to spite its captor on the way out. It exploded in a flurry of ash and embers, and Dean stifled a yell as several glowing sparks stung his forearm. With rivulets of ash still trickling from his fingers, Dean straightened up, brushed himself off, and turned back to the tank.

Luna threw her snake back into the plastic container, still frozen, as she and Ginny helped the two boys shovel the eggs out. With three snakes, they had far more eggs than Ginny and Luna, almost thirty, all in all. The four of them spent the rest of the two-hour lesson freezing eggs and piling them into jam jars (the two boys had so many eggs to store, in fact, that Hagrid had to fetch extra jars). Two by two, the other pairs around the room began to find eggs in their tanks, and set about the same task.

Half an hour before the end of the lesson, everyone had finished. With the clouds getting steadily darker and thicker, Hagrid had conjured a large fire to keep everyone warm as they huddled around it, and a fledgling salamander was pacing around within the flames, having been released by Hagrid for some amusement. Finally, though, the grey clouds burst into rain, and the Hogwarts grounds were quickly blanketed by the deluge.

"Go on, get inside," Hagrid called, and the seventh years didn't need telling twice, as they scattered and headed for the safety of the castle.

Elsewhere, the rain was the least of Ron's worries. Trails of rainwater were flowing down his arms and back, partly deflected by his dragon skin jacket. His hands, however, were exposed, and shook slightly in the cold. He barely suppressed a shiver, and looked across at Proudfoot, amazed at the other Auror's composure – despite being frozen to the bone by the wind and soaked to the skin by rain, he looked as calm and collected as ever.

"Ready?" Proudfoot muttered, pulling his wand from his belt.

"Ready," Ron replied, keen to get the job over with.

"Okay. Remember, we go in, flush them out, and take them alive if possible."

Ron nodded, pulled his own wand out, and straightened up, as Proudfoot got to his feet next to him. Unlike the Muggle home the Aurors had attacked two days before, today's target looked distinctly wizard-built. Firstly, it was the only house for miles around. Secondly, it was leaning. The wooden shack had been built on the side of a windswept hill in the Yorkshire Dales, and had it not been held up by magic, Ron was sure it would have tumbled down the hillside years ago.

The occupants, the Aurors knew, were Snatchers, a gang of five led by a man named Belgrave. Given that they were only Snatchers, not Death Eaters, just two Aurors had been sent to deal with them.

"On three," Proudfoot muttered, crouching low as he and Ron scrambled up the loose scree of the hillside. "One... two... three."

"Confringo!" Ron roared, and he heard Proudfoot yell in unison at his side. Two furiously burning curses erupted from their wands, and whistled through the rain-beaten air, striking the side of the shack. Both Aurors hurled themselves to the ground as the explosions rang out – Ron's curse in particular had been far more violent than he intended, and as he looked up, he saw the very foundations of the house shake precariously.

"Head down!" Proudfoot yelled, pulling Ron down roughly as he attempted to stand up. Before Ron could protest, several stunners had shot out of the house's windows, smashing into the loose scree around them. Proudfoot sent another Blasting Curse at the house, and the near wall exploded with a cataclysmic bang. As shards of timber filled the air, Ron raised his arm.

"Protego!" he cried, and an ethereal shield burst into the air over the two Aurors. Several stunners and a splintered chunk of wood bounced away, as the building shook once more, and Ron slipped slightly on the rain-soaked scree.

Then, quite suddenly, the earth seemed to give way. With an almighty groan, and the sound of snapping wood, whatever incantations had been holding the shack up were overpowered. There were screams from the inside of the building, and through the rain, Ron vaguely saw a figure jumping through the ruined near wall to escape, as the walls crumpled, the roof fell in on itself, and the whole building shifted several metres to the side.

The broken timbers were still burning from the Aurors' curses as they slipped away down the hillside, carrying furniture, stones and Snatchers alike.

It was almost a minute before the rumbling stopped. Looking down, Ron saw steam and dust rising from the rubble. Looking up, he saw a dazed Snatcher stumbling towards him, raising his wand. Ron made a panicked attempt to strike with his own wand, but before either of them could cast a spell, Proudfoot had settled the matter for them, hitting the Snatcher squarely in the temple with a Stunning Spell. He toppled unconsciously to the ground, as Ron shot Proudfoot a grateful smile.

With the hillside finally still once more, the two Aurors got to their feet. Proudfoot quickly conjured ropes around the stunned Snatcher's wrists and ankles, before the two set off down the hill, treading carefully on the loose stones as they approached the battered remnants of the house. A few battered figures lay within, and one was staggering out of the wreckage, clutching what appeared to be a broken arm. Quickly and efficiently, the two Aurors picked them off with Stunning Spells, one by one, as the feeble remains of the flames continued to fight defiantly against the driving rain.

Less than an hour later, in the Auror Headquarters, Harry was to be found in his office, staring out of the large window behind his desk. With an almost inaudible flutter, a paper aeroplane, pale-violet in colour, swooped into the room, and fell open on his desk. Harry picked it up, face still set in a tense expression as he read for news of Ron's mission. Sure enough, the note was written in his best friend's messy scrawl:

Harry,

Found Belgrave's Snatchers. The house sort of... blew up. Not our fault, honest. All of the Snatchers are in custody, a few broken bones, but nothing fatal. Department of Law Enforcement's taken them in for trial and questioning. We'll be back in the office this evening, got to go and speak to Magical Accidents & Catastrophes about clearing up the wreckage.

Ron

Harry gave a little sigh of relief. Ron and Proudfoot, it seemed, were both all right, and the mission had gone well. He didn't want to know what had happened to the house, though...

He cast a quick glance back at the simulated weather outside, and sighed at Magical Maintenance's latest attempt to barter for a pay rise. As he sat down at his desk to write a note to Kingsley, Harry tried his best to ignore the hurricane beating on his window.