The random craziness file

by Darklooshkin

Here's where I put all the great ideas I get. I hope you like them. Monologuing is such a cool thing to do sometimes.

37. The prefects: Incident Reports

Prefects' incident reports

Turns out that there was a very good reason for Dumbledore ultimately choosing Ron as a prefect rather than, say, Harry.

---

Harry looked down at the shiny badge in his hands with something akin to puzzlement. He knew what it was, he knew what it meant, so he couldn't rightly claim to be puzzled. A bit baffled, maybe. Frazzled, even. It was a lot to take in. But not puzzled.

Wait, yes, confused. He was confused.

Was this some perverse way of saying 'sorry for cutting off all avenues of communication to your friends (again) and for coming back only to find out your reputation was in ruins (again)'? Or was it simply because they hadn't found anyone better? Harry was hard pressed to figure out just why he and Hermione were to become prefects. To his knowledge, even Voldemort had committed less criminal felonies in his time at Hogwarts than he'd managed to in his first four years. Committing murder in your first year of formal magical schooling was probably some kind of record.

For Hogwarts, at least. Durmstrang probably had that as a final exam in first year or something.

All told, the choice baffled him. Oh, he'd wanted it, sure. Had even believed that he would be chosen for it too, given his status and all that.

But now that he had it, what should he do with it? Wanting to be a prefect was entirely different to actually being one, after all. He recalled Hermione's earlier glee-induced euphoric ranting.

It's a great honour, you know! This means that we're trusted to keep the peace and enforce the rules enough that we are given the authority to do so! Don't you see Harry? This… this is the chance to prove that you are more than just the boy-who-lived.

Keep the peace and enforce the rules huh? Isn't that what Aurors did? Isn't that something he wanted to become-a law enforcer and peacekeeper first, hero second?

So this could be considered training to become an auror, right? It was practically a requirement to be able to demonstrate that you could be trusted to enforce the law anyway, right?

And then Harry had a truly evil smile decide to stop and rest on his face for a breather or two.

Grimmauld place had at least two Aurors in it at any given point in time. Tonks, Moody, Shacklebolt and a few others came and went at the whims of fate it seemed. They also tended to get very very bored when not being called up to do something nebulous or sit in on Order briefings.

To Harry, this was an opportunity to cull two birds with one stone. Since prefecting and Auror work were practically the same anyway, why not go and ask for a few pointers here and there? How to track people, what spells worked best, that kind of thing. He even had the perfect excuse handy too-he was going to be roaming Hogwarts after dark for the rest of his time at school. Him and roaming through corridors in the dead of night never resulted in anything good-or painless, for that matter. He doubted that would change just because he became a prefect.

And just to make sure he asked the right questions, he would drag Hermione along too. She was bored out of her skull since finishing her summer homework after all. And Harry couldn't have that. Hermione was rarely bored, but when she did end up bored you soon found out why that was a thing best avoided.

And if he just happened to get some revenge on some of those that had never given him as much as the time of day for years due to uncontrollable events, well that was just too bad for them then, wasn't it?

With that in mind, Harry went in search for a bored Auror. He had some preparations to make.

---

"Okay, so welcome to the first monthly prefect meeting people. For all those in years six and seven, well done on keeping your position in the face of whatever misdeeds you have committed last year. And a hearty hello to all our new recruits from year five. My name is Roger Davies and I will be your head boy this year." The Ravenclaw boy stated, nodding at the various hellos he received before holding up his hand, silencing the brewing conversation before it could get started.

"Now, to business-as prefects, it is our job to keep the peace, as it were. During daylight hours, as a prefect, it is your job to ride herd on your classmates and make sure that any fighting is curtailed before it can get out of hand. At night, you will be asked to patrol in shifts. Said shifts will be passed onto you alongside your timetable when we get to Hogwarts. Now I cannot state this often enough-your first duty is to familiarise yourself with when your patrol hours come up. Your second one is to memorise it. Stamp it into your head until it sticks! Tardiness or absenteeism is inexcusable and will lead to disciplinary action if you fail to turn up for patrol on time. Is that clear?"

"Yessir." The various groups segregated by red, green, blue and yellow colours responded hastily as they saw the no-nonsense face & heard the no-nonsense tone come their way.

Roger sighed. "Good. Now then, the other jobs are fairly straightforward-lead the firsties around for the first few weeks by request, escort wounded students to the infirmary and so on. Those only really need to be brought to the attention of the professors if and when something requiring their attention happens." He said carefully. "Things such as disciplinary infractions, fights, insults, rude behaviour, loitering in the corridors or broom cupboards outside of curfew, the works. If a student is behaving badly, it is your responsibility to report it to the professors. Who you choose to report their infractions to is up to you, though Snape has been known to reward prefects for reporting any student's infractions to him first-and no, I am not telling you what the reward is. It varies according to who has warranted the Head of Slytherin's attention and who hasn't yet."

And then he gave them a bitter smile. "As for the other notable events, well you know some of them. If you find someone on school grounds that is not supposed to be there, you report it as quickly as possible. Do not attempt to engage said person, do not draw attention to yourself, do not try to fight them! Find the nearest professor or, if you're lucky, the headmaster, and get them to deal with it." He said with a pointed look towards the Gryffindor contingent. "If you have any suspicions about something illegal occurring on school grounds, if you come across Dark Magic, Monsters or general evildoers, go and find the nearest professor instead of haring off into battle please."

A slightly muffled snort came from the back of the carriage.

The Head Boy smiled at them all. "Alright, so those are the basics. The rest will be covered in more depth tomorrow evening. For now, let's introduce our brand new prefects- first but not least, let's hear it for Hannah Abbot and Zacharias Smith from Hufflepuff!"

The pair stood up and bowed awkwardly at the muted applause from the rest of the room. "We'll do our best." Smith said with a nod before sitting down.

"I wouldn't expect anything less from a Hufflepuff." Roger said glibliy. "Next up, from Slytherin, we have Draco Malfoy and Pansy Parkinson. Welcome to the club."

Draco and Pansy stood up and bowed to the rest of the room, practically preening at the attention directed their way. And if the applause was rather subdued when compared to their Hufflepuff peers' presentation, they didn't comment on it.

"We will put all those rascally layabouts in their place." Draco said with a wicked smile while pansy cooed whilst caressing his arm.

Roger chuckled. "Good to hear some enthusiasm from the Slytherin side for once. And without further ado, Padma Patil and Anthony Goldstein from Ravenclaw! Stand and take a bow, you've earned it." He intoned with more enthusiasm than he'd shown for the rest of the meeting.

Padma and Anthony stood up and bowed. "We'll do our house proud." They both said in eerie synchronicity before sitting down.

"Well that didn't sound rehearsed at all." Roger said dryly, smirking at the smiles the two directed towards him. "And now, the pair we've all been waiting for who have some mighty big shoes to fill-Harry Potter and Hermione Granger! Stand up please."

Nobody did.

"Harry Potter and Hermione Granger." Roger repeated with an irritated huff. Every year, it was guaranteed to be the Gryffindors. "Anybody seen them?" He asked the other prefects. "Malloy? Raisin? Nobody know where they are?"

"Here." A voice said from directly behind him.

"Gah!" He shouted, spinning around to face-nothing. "What?"

"Sorry for the deceit. Had to arrive here incognito." A female voice apologised with the tone of someone commenting on a weather forecast. There was a rustle and the two newest Gryffindor prefects suddenly appeared at the back of the compartment. "We had issues on the way."

Roger drew himself up. "Well I'll say. Well then, welcome to the team you two. Take a bow."

Nodding to the Head Boy, Harry and Hermione bowed to the rather silent room, their eyes focused on their occupants the entire time. "Pleased to meet you all. I hope we can work together."

"Right then." Roger said, sitting back down into his own seat. "Now since we've covered general duties and obligations, we'll spend another five minutes mingling and getting to know one another before going on our first patrol together. I'll take the lead, you follow in groups of four. The rest of you, keep mingling for now. You have a long three years ahead of you, so getting to know your fellow prefects now will definitely come in handy later. Hop to it!"

And so the prefects mingled, still unaware of just how badly McGonnagall had screwed up with her newest appointments.

---

Incident #1- lovers and love taps- September 5th

Travis Boyle was a rather simple wizard, in a way. Study hard, work hard, play hard. His first week in seventh year had been plenty stressful, what with the sheer amount of work the professors seemed hell-bent on dumping on him and his friends, the ever-pervasive dread of the upcoming NEWTS starting to spread to his year-mates in an upward spiral of panic and the complete lack of anything even remotely resembling support coming from Sprout for once. Add practice for the Quidditch try-outs coming up in a month's time into the mix and he found himself thoroughly peaked come Friday night. Too tired to study, too high-strung to sleep, too stressed to play the normal sort of non-boring wizard games lest they give him a heart attack.

Fortunately, Amanita Lugg had the exact same problem. They'd started talking in fifth year and hit it off quite rapidly. Oh, there was no love shared there or any of that romantic drama crap his less enlightened peers seemed to fond of. He and Amanita just wanted some no-strings-attached fun is all. And, well, it'd been months since he'd last seen her. She was his favourite amongst the Hogwarts friends-with-benefits crowd.

So during the past week in anticipation of them ending a two-month happiness hiatus, he'd picked out an abandoned classroom well off into one of the Castle's abandoned areas and started casting.

Monday it had been a dreary-looking study room last frequented sometime in the early 1700s. When he finished on thursday night, it was his private little getaway-large queen-sized bed, a cosy fireplace, Wardrobes full of clothes and toys, Drawers filled with the paraphernalia girls of the fun kind seemed to consider a necessity in the bedroom, the works.

He'd offered to rent it out to his dorm-mates for a pretty penny whenever they needed a getaway where their girlfriends or their girlfriends' girlfriends could show just how much comfort helped when experimenting. It was booked solid until the Christmas holidays already and demand did not show any sign of slowing down.

But he got first go at it. And boy, was the money changing hands going to be worthwhile for his mates.

Amanita, when given a comfortable room and a large enough bed, was a demon in the sack and knew how to show her appreciation for the boy that went the extra mile. Currently, what had a year ago been the climax of a stress reduction session was now merely a warm-up towards the main event. They'd been at it for an hour already and the bonnie lass showed no signs of slowing down.

"Mmmm, Travis darling, you are a genius." She purred, nibbling his ear as she once again contorted herself into a ludicrous position that somehow both was and wasn't on top of him. "My, just wait until your other girls hear about this place. You'll be the most relaxed NEWTS student… ever." She whispered to him in an undertone that hinted at her not being adverse to joining one or more of the other girls to work off some stress in the future. She had teased him about this mercilessly, but it seemed that all it took was a boudoir of debauchery for tease to turn into truth.

"Oh yeah." He muttered, getting a firm grip of something slippery and grinning at what was going to come next. "Just wait until you see the next one, my dear."

"Oh darling!" She exclaimed, though that was only peripherally due to surprise at his words rather than delight in the actions he took whilst speaking. "I can hardly wait!"

"Neither can I, my dear." He said, making odd twisting motions with that doohickey as he worked his magic. "Neither can I."

"Oh Travis! TRAVIS-ooooh that hit the spot love." She said, stretching out with a lazy grin as she took his form in. "Mmmmhmmm, ready for round two tiger?" She asked with a grin.

"Always." He said, preparing himself for another half-hour of pure bliss, shivering in anticipation of what dear Miss Lugg had in store for him next.

He dearly hoped ropes were involved. Amanita was a deft hand with those.

"Come 'ere, lass." He said with a fake Scottish accent.

She laughed as she made to jump on top of him.

Which is when the fireplace-and the wall it was a part of-exploded.

---

"Hear that Harry?" Hermione asked with a start.

In the corner near the entranceway of a disused level, Harry simply grunted as he finished casting a broad revelio down the corridor. "Yeah, sounded like a scream. Wait a mo." He stated, fishing out the Marauders' Map and checking for any people other than them in the area. "Here we go. Amanita Lugg and Travis Boyle, both seventh years if I remember. Currently in a room together, looks like… Hermione, I think they're fighting." He said seriously.

His fellow prefect nodded, her demeanour turning into one that he remembered well from his trip through time in third year. "Right then. Moody Blitz or Shacklebolt Special?"

"One of Tonks's, actually." Harry said with an evil grin. He didn't like boys fighting with girls. Reminded him of some of Dudley's more unsavoury little tricks to draw him out on Harry Hunting sessions. "The Kool Aid Muggle, to be precise."

Hermione scoffed. "Brilliant. Takedown and property damage all rolled into one." she teased.

"You know me Hermione." He replied as he started to walk forward, stashing his cloak and map back into his bookbag whilst holding his wand out to the side. "Overkill is, I've come to realise, a lot of fun."

"You hang out with Gawain too much." She retorted, shaking her head as they turned the corner.

"Through there." Harry said with deadly calm.

"Right." Hermione acknowledged, kicking over a desk to use as cover as she entered. "On three?" She asked.

Harry nodded, kicking over another desk to use as cover. "One, two, three-confringo!"

Both spells impacted at the same time, turning a wall that had stood for a thousand years into rubble. Hermione rushed forth as soon as the twin screams registered, shouting 'accio wands' before the dust could settle.

Harry dashed through the gap as two wands barely avoided impaling him in the throat, his own wand blazing as his black-clad figure finally emerged into what looked like a bedroom, bellowing "Prefects! Down on the ground, now!"

Naked and bound in rope had, a scant few minutes ago, been something to look forward to. Now, to Travis's terrified mind, he realised that he'd had that particular bit of fun spoiled until he found himself a decent obliviator.

Amanita had made the mistake of jumping and screaming when the figure clad in midnight blue & black mugglewear came charging through the new hole in the wall of his hole-in-the-wall.

She'd been stupefied, bound and silenced before Travis had time to blink away the shock. Now she lay still on the bed, her naked rope-bound frame covered by the sheets they'd frolicked in before all… this… happened.

The indignity of it all. He hadn't even managed to catch a glimpse of her curvy form before the second black & blue-clad figure covered her up.

And now one of them stood guard while the other went to fetch a professor. He couldn't tell them apart, really. At least, not from the angles available when one lay bound on the ground and unable to move lest one get hexed for one's trouble.

The figure wore black boots, extremely dark blue pants, dark blue shirt covered by a black jacket and what looked like a black sock someone had cut holes into to keep eyes & mouth visible on their head.

In short, the figure was terrifying despite being rather short for a Ministry hitwizard.

Though the terror factor may have been just a slight bit upped by the glowing wand pointed in the general direction of his testicles.

Suddenly, the other figure entered his field of vision. "They're on their way." The male figure said.

"Good." The other figure said as she turned towards the male. "Find anything interesting?"

"Some torture devices, I think."

"Really?" She said in an excited tone of voice. "So could he be an agent planted here by You-Know-Who, abducting, drugging and torturing people for information before healing them and obliviating them to remove the memories of what happened?"

"No, not really. Travis here is a muggleborn. Most of the toys come from the muggle side of things."

"Can I see some? Mommy and Daddy taught me about them when I was doing a paper on the Inquisition."

And that wasn't terrifying at all. Travis didn't start eyeing the wand as it moved in a mesmerising pattern just above his groin area. He was too busy praying to Merlin for that.

"Sure, here." The male stated, pulling out something from one of his special drawers. "See? Ridged billy club. Remember Moody's lesson? Well seems like this thing has it in spades. Hard enough to hit someone knowing that it'll hurt, flexible enough that it won't damage anything internal without a lot of effort."

"… Harry, that's not a torture device. Nor is it a billy club."

"It isn't?"

"No. For one thing, the handle's pointing the wrong way."

"So it's a bident then?"

"No Harry, it's a-forget it, I'll explain later."

"Okay." The male said, looking at a piece of parchment in his gloved hands. "They're almost here."

"Good. Let me handle the report Harry."

"Why?"

"Because you still believe he's a torturer, don't you?" The female asked in a challenging voice.

"...Maybe." The male admitted, casting a brief glance Travis's way.

"I'll explain later Harry. Just let me take the lead on this one."

"You got it Hermione." The male said before scurrying out of Travis's sight.

"And what did you two find-merciful Merlin!" A squeaky voice exclaimed.

Filius Flitwick. Oh dear God.

"And Miss Amanita! Who would have dared do that to you?" Flitwick's voice asked angrily.

"Sorry professor." The female said sheepishly. "She reacted badly to our entrance and we had to subdue her before it became an issue sir."

"None of that now." Flitwick's voice growled. "Where is the miscreant who would dare touch one of my students? And after curfew, no less?"

Uh oh.

"He's over there sir. Silenced, bound but still conscious." The female said quickly.

"Right then." Flitwick's voice said as his footsteps. "Ah, Mister Boyle! I thought it would be you. Care to enlighten me as to why, exactly, you thought it would be a good idea to accost one of my students in such a manner? Lewd acts after curfew, misappropriation of Hogwarts property for nefarious purposes, probably even misuse of mind magics if you are far, far stupider than I think you are. You are in a lot of trouble young man."

Travis finally looked up into the face of the normally genteel and helpful professor and saw a very, very pissed off man with razor sharp teeth scowling down at him. The rather quaint-looking nightie didn't do anything to lower the intimidation factor.

"Professor." The male voice called out. "The Headmaster is on the way."

Travis whimpered. Really, at least this day couldn't go any more wrong now, could it?

A fwoosh announced the arrival of someone through a nearby floo. "Alright you lot." A man shouted. "Where is that dunderhead that is responsible for Dumbledore waking me up at one in the fucking morning?"

Severus Snape was here. An angry Severus Snape was here. And he was angry at him.

At that point, Travis gave up. He curled into a ball and cried.

Or at least, he tried to curl. Unfortunately the ropes were bound too tightly.

---

Incident #2- Midnight Opera -September 8th

The hallway was dark, as usual. Goldstein and Patil were sleeping off last night's patrol. The 6th year prefects were busy 'patrolling' their potions, a lab they thought was a secret known only to them. Flitwick was fast asleep if you went by the snores emanating from the Head of House's room.

In short, nobody was there. The coast would be clear for the next half hour or so.

"Okay." Marcus Belby said with a nervous chuckle. "Now or never people."

Edgecombe gave a nod before silently gliding down the hallway while Su Li and Lovegood dashed for the stairs at the other end of the corridor.

Eddie Carmichael made to dash after them only for Marcus to hold his hand out. "Remember, distract the patrolling prefects & Filch only. Nothing fancy, just get their attention until we hit the secret passageway. We deliver the goods we find there to the Weasleys, collect two bottles of Firewhiskey and a pack of cigarettes each and go back to sleep. In and out, nothing fancy, got it?"

Eddie simply hissed in annoyance. "I was listening the first time, you prick. Between the chink ninja and the future crazy cat lady of the century, we'll get you your… distraction."

Eddie Carmichael, ladies and gentlemen. Didn't give a damn about blood purity, but made up for this unseemly display of common sense in other ways.

Belby nodded. "If you get caught, you're on your own. Now go."

Carmichael sprinted after the two oddball 'claws he was supposed to keep an eye on, pausing just long enough to give Marcus the finger before disappearing out of sight.

"You coming, Marcus?" A voice whispered nearby. Ducking into the alcove the voice came from, he looked down and spotted a mop of color-charmed hair peaking out from behind a rather decently enchanted cloak.

Lisa Turpin looked up and gave him a vulpine grin. "We are go?"

Marcus nodded, the familiar grip of excitement making breathing a chore. He had missed the weekly escapades over the summer hols, dodging professors, prefects, students and cranky caretakers alike to fulfil a role a Castle the size of Hogwarts badly needed; that of a courier.

If you had a package you wanted to get into the castle, Marcus Belby and Eddie Carmichael had it covered. As long as it wasn't something blatantly Dark or dangerous, they could get it into Hogwarts for you, no trouble. All you had to do was pay the fee, the more difficult the heftier.

And the twins sure had some difficult jobs lined up for them. Marcus wouldn't have it any other way. Indeed, George and Fred kept things so interesting for him that sometimes he would secretly admit to himself that he'd work for them practically for free if they needed it badly enough.

Having free access to some of their goods for a month or so could easily see Marcus net a small fortune in contraband, especially since the twins had started their whole little business off by making cheap knockoffs off Zonko's products that worked a helluva lot better than the actual store-bought merchandise. So much so that the twins didn't sell any of their stock, fearful of just how Zonko's lawyers would react to them 'improving' the product. Funny thing about lawyers-the more humorous the organisation, the less humorous its legal department tended to be. With Zonko's being the House of Fun, that had some pretty scary implications. But for Marcus? Getting his hands on that alone would make him the richest student in Hogwarts.

And tonight, the twins had sprung a doozy. They had successfully smuggled in a huge quantity of alcohol and various other party goods thanks to their brother Ron, but their mother had neglected to tell them about all the ingredients and products she'd covertly cleaned out of their trunks before they'd left. Turns out though that, since they'd come into some cash recently, procuring the goods was not much of a problem. Getting them into Hogwarts when all the professors were watching them for their traditional start-of-year prank? That was proving to be a headache.

Enter Marcus Belby, night-time transportation expert.

The plan was simple-have two teams pull a distraction on opposite sides of the castle. One went loud and messy, the other went sneaky. Make the professors think that whoever was responsible had had one team distract while another stealthed through to the kitchens or something. Team One would lead the prefects on a merry chase on the second floor while team three played hide-and-seek with Filch and whoever else the man could conjure up. Easy, simple, done dozens of times before over the years.

So while they did that, him and Lisa disguised themselves and donned cloaking amulets. With those on, the wards would register them as non-entities, which would prevent anything bar spellcasting from setting off any alarms the more savvy professors tended to leave on the known secret entrances. Combine that with disguises & magic-light camouflage and you had yourself the perfect stealth set-up for circumnavigating Hogwarts mostly undetected.

Which was just how Marcus liked it.

"Ready?" He asked Lisa.

"Ready." She responded before moving towards an empty room down the corridor.

The room itself was bare-two desks, four stools and a hovering blackboard accounted for all the furniture in the room. A wax tablet and a stylus lay on one of the desks, looking for all the world like it hadn't been used since the day Hogwarts was founded.

As it turned out, nothing could be further from the truth. Lisa picked up the tablet and tapped her wand against its upper corner. Marcus drew his wand out and cast lumos just as the trap door underneath the hovering blackboard opened, revealing a set of stairs that seemed to lead deep into an unknowable abyss.

Marcus took point with Lisa tapping on the tablet and rushing in after him before the trap door could fully close. Ancient stone and dense cobwebs littering the ceiling greeted their sight. Ancient suits of armour, their usual metallic sheen stolen from years of neglect and disuse, stood vigil in recesses lining the small passage, each and every one clutching a sword and kite shield in a guard pose with the emblem of a snake still clearly visible on both.

Lisa shuddered as she spied a particularly battered-looking ensemble covered in dark brown splotches that looked like dried blood. The rivulets of brown running down to the floor did little to distract from the image.

If it was an image. The Slytherin family wasn't exactly known for having been a coven of pacifists.

Marcus simply marched on, his excitement growing with every step. With this one job, he was set for the year. No more would he have to go without his favorite muggle comic books until the break. No more would he want for money when taking a date to Hogsmeade. This single job would give him an early in with all the hottest products about to hit Hogwarts and could potentially make him a very rich boy indeed. As long as Lisa's little trinkets did their job, they could be back in their beds within the hour and tomorrow would bring a whole new slew of opportunities for him and those that he'd come to consider his crew.

But enough of that. He still had to do the job first. Easy as it was, there were a lot of things that could go wrong.

"Wait." Lisa whispered to him. "Did you hear that?" She asked in a nervous tone.

Marcus hadn't, but six years' worth of scurrying around in dark corners of what he'd privately come to believe was the most dangerous school in the world had taught him a few things. And just because your instincts and gut feelings didn't pick up something going wrong didn't mean that the other guy's little nonsensical warnings weren't full of shit. "Right." He said quickly. "Exit stage left then." Saying that, he pulled on a fossilised torch hanging close by, opening another passageway they could use. "This will take us to the third floor. Stick to me and we'll be at our destination in about ten minutes."

"Right behind you." Lisa whispered, nodding at him.

"Just make sure you stay there." He muttered, thinking about that time Eddie had decided to be smart and try & navigate the passageways without him. He turned up in the Black Lake two days later.

Yeah, Eddie was an idiot. Marcus's best friend too, but still an idiot.

This new passageway looked significantly less gloomy. For all that, though, it was also amongst the better known secret passages in the castle. The narrow stairwell was generally so crammed come Saturday night that it felt more like Diagon Alley than a walled-off walkway stretched between several floors in a stone castle.

The bricks chittered at him as he walked past. He paid them no mind. This passage had a reputation for the downright weird happening to it. If you were lucky, you got chittering bricks. If you were unlucky, you ended up spending hours walking up a Moebius strip. Marcus was one of the few that could read the signs that warned when such a thing was imminent, having had it happen to him more than a few times over the years. "Merlin, I will never get used to this place." Lisa muttered behind him.

Privately, he didn't agree. There were weirder and far more dangerous passageways you could take. Some of them were rumoured to lead to a thirteenth floor, which purportedly held the offices of the Founders themselves. Marcus thought it was bullshit. That didn't stop him from taking money from those who wanted a guided tour of the secret passages he knew of in the hopes of perhaps finding that mythical stairwell said to be covered in gold.

Gold-covered stairwells were all well and good in his opinion. As long as they didn't interfere with his business. Suddenly coming to a stop, he pushed on a nondescript brick.

The brick receded into the wall and triggered a doorway opening around it.

"Wow." Lisa said. "Every time I back you up, I learn something new." She stated. "And that was brilliant."

"Brilliant enough to cover your expenses for the day Miss Turpin?" He whispered in amusement.

"Not on your life, you criminal." Lisa retorted quietly with her own smile.

Marcus looked at her in mock offence. "I will have you know, Miss, that I am not a criminal. I am but a humble enabler who happens to dabble in bringing in items other students had trouble packing into their trunks is all. Scout's honour."

"What's a scout?" Lisa asked in puzzlement. "Some thing to do with reconnaissance?"

Marcus rolled his eyes. "It's a muggle thing."

"Oh, okay." Lisa said, shrugging. Muggle things generally weren't her forte, which was pretty ironic in its own right in Marcus's opinion.

"Now come on, the most exciting part of the evening is ahead of us."

They continued down the corridor, carefully avoiding areas they knew contained bathrooms or broom closets. Marcus was always careful on runs like these and one thing he'd learned early on was that all the distraction in the world meant bupkiss if a teacher on patrol duty happened to stop to answer an extended call of nature at the wrong time. As for broom closets, they were to prefects what catnip was to cats.

Amateurs.

Practically nobody but the insanely desperate and/or stupid used a broom closet for anything other than storing brooms nowadays. Instead, there was a nascent hotel market springing up-in no small thanks to Marcus himself, no less- that allowed students to camp out in one of the abandoned sectors of the castle in complete comfort and privacy-for a modest (or not-so-modest at all) fee of course.

Though with Travis Boyle running afoul of two Heads of House and the Headmaster himself not three days ago, netting him and his squeeze a month of Filch each, well that trend was currently in question for the time being. Poor Lugg. That howler she'd gotten had been a bloody legendary one.

Not that he cared. He used his own enchanted rooms for storage and security, not for bloody snogging. How pedestrian could you get when there were far better places to lay up with the missus in Hogsmeade? Madam Puddifoot's never advertised having a pay-by-the-hour hotel in the first floor, but the option for the older students was there…

Not his problem nor his business. He had money to make and adventures to be had. All this wool-gathering was side-tracking him.

There, a set of large double doors came into view. It was near the edge of the occupied section of the Castle, but far enough away that it wouldn't be on anyone's standard patrol route. Marcus tapped the lock with his wand, causing the massive doors to slide open without so much as a click. Red velvet carpets and mahogany inlays highlighted by ambient light that came from everywhere and nowhere greeted his eyes.

The Hogwarts Opera House.

This was a largely forgotten piece of Hogwarts history right here. This was the installation that cemented Phineas Black's title as the Mad Headmaster once and for all-though it also stood as the sole reason for why the muggleborn students hadn't united and murdered him in the Great Hall too. Not that it mattered, since the madman ended up being killed by his own Defence Against the Dark Arts professor after they challenged each other in a duel.

This was another one-of-a-kind piece of art. Modelled after the Vienna State Opera house, it was a miracle of magical engineering that they'd even managed to fit it in on only two floors rather than the five the architect had initially projected would be needed. See, despite being a consummate advocate for pureblood supremacy, Phineas Nigellus Black was a consummate fan of muggle entertainment. Art, music, theatre, dance, opera, the man was relentlessly voracious in his acquisition and consumption of such muggle things. He was also a fan of Austrian architecture and this structure that took up four classrooms across two levels embodied almost everything about the Headmaster. The muggle-style environment was highlighted with messages boldly proclaiming the superiority of the house of Black over the lesser beings such as half-bloods, muggleborn, squibs, muggles and magical creatures whilst being blatantly located in the middle of a knock-off of a muggle structure.

The most notable boast of his was actually engraved on the arch behind the ticket booth-'muggles may have done it first, but we will always do it better!'

Marcus still couldn't tell if that was a boast or an admission of defeat. Brooms may have been around for centuries after all, but muggles managed to make a dozen tons of metal break through the sound barrier every day. That still had a lot of magical scholars ripping what little hair they had left out of their heads in frustration.

As he and Lisa once again walked through the structure taking in the sheer gravitas of the décor around them, they made sure to keep an eye out for any trouble. And though the wood-panelled walls and thick carpet underfoot did a lot to muffle their movements, they nevertheless made the effort not to be completely stupid and kept an ear to the ground.

Lisa stopped him with a hand on his shoulder. He veered around to look at her, freezing when he saw her finger covering her lips.

Quiet, trouble nearby.

Marcus nodded before indicating another set of doors. Lisa frowned, looked back at him and then, seemingly reluctantly, nodded. Now was not the time for a fight over what direction to take anyway, though he knew that tomorrow would see her calmly and quietly explain to him just why doing things like, oh, going to the balcony section of the main hall in order to see where the trouble is rather than legging it down a side passage whilst disillusioned and silenced was a bad idea.

He would deserve it too.

But right now, his gut told him she was right and, if it were any other job, they'd just call it a day and come back the next night. This job, however, was time sensitive. He needed to deliver tonight as promised because, easy-going as the twins were, they didn't appreciate waiting on a service at all. Some people got mad, that was part of the job. The twins got prank-mad, which wasn't worth any kind of money at all.

Which meant he needed a better picture of what was going on to formulate a plan of action.

They ducked into the quiet and tastefully decorated hallway, working their way to the Headmaster's Booth. As befitted the sense of self-importance that plagued Phineas Black in his later years, his booth was often proclaimed to be fit for an Emperor as no mere king could withstand the sheer megalomania that went into its construction.

The seats for VIPs were golden thrones inlaid with precious jewels. The servants' seats at the back were armchairs decked out in albino dragonhide leather. The walls were decked out in platinum as Headmaster Black had found gold nice to sit on but gaudy to look at. The wine sitting in its stasis chamber was bottled in an amphora. It had a date stencilled on it that marked it as having been made in the Roman Empire's heyday. The goblets surrounding it were cut from a single massive diamond made by Nicholas Flamel himself. There were two pulpits sitting on either side of the booth that the Headmaster and Guest of Honour could use to heckle any lacklustre performers claiming the stage. As for the booth itself, if the platinum, diamonds, rubies and tapestries dating back to the Egyptian Pharaohs adorning it didn't do the job of impressing you, the sheer size of the damn thing did. It was, all told, a hilariously expensive balcony the size of a classroom.

It was painful to look at and sat right at the top of the booths, which was exactly what Marcus was counting on. Nobody could look down into it and nobody wanted to look up at it as the eyes would tear up at the sheer stupidity of dropping something like that into a Viennese Opera-style 'ostentatiousness always tastefully understated' Hall.

As the two entered the booth, Marcus looked over the edge of the balcony and had to fight very very hard not to swear out loud.

There were well over a dozen Slytherins down there. First through to third year, led by none other than Lucian Bole and Flora Carrow.

The snakes. Why was it always the snakes?

What were they doing? It looked like-oh Merlin's shit-addled scrotum.

He and Lisa had stumbled on the Snakes' little Dark Magic club. Hadn't that been shut down in March of 1991? He vaguely remembered the stink that little club had raised back when he'd been a firstie, so how come they were back in business again? In fact, wasn't Bole put on probation by the DMLE for participating in the first place? Had it expired already? They were right, time really did fly when the Universe was intent on bending you over and making you squeal.

Well shit.

Marcus slumped down behind the balcony, motioning Lisa to do the same. After shimmying over, Turpin asked a rather obvious question.

"How bad is it Mark?"

Marcus Belby, proud businessman, jack-of-all-trades, consistent A-list student and all around swell guy, looked at her with a grim smile on his face. "We're screwed kid."

That about said it all really.

---

"Nargles took my shoes."

Hermione blinked as the girl said yet another nonsensical thing. "And can you give me a description of these Nargles Miss Lovegood?" Hermione said with a bored lilt to her tone as the dicta-quill kept recording the young Ravenclaw's declaration.

She was running out of parchment for the ruddy thing already.

"Wait, can't you see them? They're practically swarming all over your hair." She said in what sounded like astonishment. Then again, the girl looked like someone who was surprised by the taste of water every time she drank it. Merlin, had she ever made the right choice to go to Gryffindor instead.

...Wait, had Lovegood just insulted her hair? Or was that a compliment. Gah, she couldn't tell anymore!

The girl frowned at her. "Look I am sorry if I am boring you officer, but my shoes have been stolen by nargles. I need help finding them as nargles tend to be very good at hiding things."

Hermione rolled her eyes. "First off I am a prefect, not an officer. Second, maybe we can start by you showing me where the last place you saw your shoes was before anything else?"

"Why of course!" Luna exclaimed. "They did say you were a smart one. Here you go! Will that be enough officer?" Luna said, pointing a rather dainty-looking foot at Hermione whilst balancing on the other.

She twiddled her toes around for good measure. The rainbow-coloured nail polish was, Hermione had to admit, a nice touch.

Hermione facepalmed. "Look, I want to help but I can't do anything if you don't help me out. Otherwise, all I can do is write a report to your Head of House explaining that your shoes went missing and that you blame it on invisible creatures that apparently live in my hair. And for the last time, I am a prefect, not a bloody officer."

Luna blinked. "Oh, sorry about that. It's just that the last prefect was more fond of playing mind games with me than actually helping."

And there's the indignant rage on behalf of the unfortunate. Was this girl playing her or was this just normal for a Lovegood? Ginny had said something about them being a little odd. Ginny, who lived in a house that would make MC Escher puke his brains out and had a ghoul trapped in the attic that would bang on the water pipes and howl at the sun. The Weasleys used the screams of pain the ghoul emitted as it was exposed to sunlight as an ersatz alarm clock. Ginny, who had somehow remained serenely feminine in the face of seven brothers, an easy-going father and a mother who was so overbearing Hermione believed she was secretly the reincarnation of Otto Von Bismarck. Ginny, who'd managed to recover from being possessed by a bloody diary of all things in less than a week because 'hey, it wasn't all that bad! Now I have all this cool knowledge about Dark Magic stuck in my head and I didn't need to sacrifice any virgins for it!'.

Ginny considered the Lovegoods odd.

But that was no reason to bully a girl. She should know.

"I am being serious, you know." Hermione sighed before taking two books out of her bag and transfiguring them into moccasins. "I want those back tomorrow, okay? Then we can go and visit your head of house together."

Luna just sat there with a stunned look. "You… you would do that for me? B-but-"

"Yes. Yes I am going to do that Luna. And then we can get your shoes sorted while Professor Flitwick has a word with that prefect teasing you okay?" Hermione answered gently.

The little blonde girl stared at her in disbelief. "You mean that. You actually mean that."

"I do."

Luna hugged Hermione, eliciting a yelp of surprise from the older girl. Then the little Ravenclaw started sobbing in her chest. "Thank you!"

"Fair warning, if you follow me home I can and will convince my parents to adopt you." Hermione stated in a deadpan tone, wondering how exactly she was supposed to react under these circumstances. None of the Aurors had bothered educating either her or Harry on these points.

But the shaky laugh was enough to tell her she hadn't screwed up too badly. "I'll keep that in mind officer. Can… can I go now? I feel sleepy." She said.

"Sure." Hermione stated. "I'd offer to help you get back to your dorm, but Harry should be finished with Su Li soon and we have a patrol to finish." She shrugged. "Is that okay?"

"Oh, don't worry." Luna stated. "We can get back to our dorms without a problem.

"Good. Alright, I am off to check on Harry then. You can either wait or go, it's up to you."

"Thank you Hermione." Luna said with a smile. "It feels nice to have a friend."

Hermione raised an eyebrow. "Indeed it does. See you tomorrow Miss Lovegood."

"You too Officer Granger." Luna answered as Hermione rounded the corner.

Hermione stiffened, muttered 'that's 'prefect' damnit. Why doesn't she get it right?' before going to check on Harry.

Su Li left quickly after spotting her, which felt kind of odd, but the stares she'd gotten over the past two days had scrambled her definition of 'odd behaviour' somewhat (it certainly helped explain a few of Harry's more irritating personality traits at least), so she simply dismissed the issue as she approached her fellow Gryffindor prefect. "What's up?" She asked, noticing how intently he was watching the Map in front of him.

"Something fishy." Harry muttered. "I am starting to think accepting that patrol swap with Stimpson was a bad idea."

"How so?" Hermione asked.

In response, Harry laid the Map flat on the floor and started poking at it. Suddenly, the parchment split into four separate sections, highlighting four different groups.

"Check this out. About half an hour ago, a bunch of Ravenclaws left their dorm. Luna Lovegood and Su Li got chased out and had their shoes stolen-my money's on Eddie Carmichael, by the way, the guy chased them for a good five minutes before catching up to them." Hermione nodded at Harry's guess, thinking that it explained quite a bit.

"Marietta Edgecombe, for some reason, dashes out and challenges the Slytherin and Hufflepuff prefects patrolling the Castle to a running duel. They've been going at it for fifteen minutes straight so far, though I venture that Marietta will pitch the battle before hitting the main stairwell so they can catch a breather. So far though, she's winning against four prefects. That's… something, I guess." He said with a puzzled look. "I always thought she was kind of shit at duelling and defence. At least, that's what the scuttlebutt was when it came to her."

Hermione shook her head. "No matter. Keep going."

"And the last two that left at roughly the same time were Marcus Belby and Lisa Turpin. The two of them vanish in an old classroom and reappear on the third floor before disappearing and reappearing near the abandoned corridor, not too far from where we went looking for the Stone in first year." He stated with a fondly reminiscing smile. "Anyway, they once again disappear and reappear inside that massive Opera Hall where they disappeared again. Anyway, I noticed they hadn't moved much since, always disappearing and reappearing in the same area. That's probably because they're sneaking a peek on group four. Here." He stated, tapping at the fourth tile filled with dots marking where the students were. "I count around thirty people from Slytherin in that group, standing in neat little lines on the main stage. They stand in front of each other and then start dancing around-oh, there they go again- like this." He said with a wry smile. "remind you of anything?" He asked, tapping the area where one A. Burrows faced off against P. Burke. After a second, the two sets of footprints started moving around in a mad little dance before, half a minute later, Burke was stationary while Burrows walked off.

"Duelling class." Hermione stated with certainty.

"Exactly." Harry said. "And given that there is no professor in sight, that means?"

"Unsupervised duelling class." Hermione amended with a dawning look of glee. "Thirty kids fighting each other in mock duels. Someone's bound to get hurt. And without someone to check their behaviour nearby, what then?"

Harry broke into a grin. "Better yet, Draco's the Slytherin prefect tonight and he's very purposefully not patrolling that area despite it being marked on his schedule, clear as day."

"So he knows they are doing something, but has elected not to intervene." Hermione finished with a grin of her own. "We do this right, we land half of Slytherin in detention, make them lose enough points they'll feel it from here 'til Doomsday and get the professors to look at the Slytherin prefects' standards more closely too."

"Exactly." Harry stated with a flourish. "Bonus if we go to Snape first. That way, the entire house gets busted over this without us ending up any farther in his bad graces than before. No way the whole house hasn't cottoned onto the fact that close to half its numbers went fucking missing on a weeknight."

Hermione silently contemplated the issue. "Screw it. We have to do this. We'll need backup though, so shouldn't we organise that first?"

"Well, I was going to let the explosions speak for themselves..." Harry stated, trailing off with a smirk sent Hermione's way.

"No, you bloody pyro." Hermione retorted quickly. "We need actual backup if you don't want to end up being dogpiled by baby Slytherins Harry."

Harry sighed. "Snape?"

Hermione nodded. "Snape. And you call him."

Harry's grin slipped a bit. "Me again? Why me?"

Hermione folded her arms in front of her. "Because I asked nicely."

Harry raised an eyebrow. "And if I don't do it?"

Hermione shrugged, her smirk growing a touch more evil as a result. "I ask again, but in a not-so-nice manner." She whispered to him.

Harry winced. "Right, fine. While I do that, prep the gasmasks. The twins gave me something new to play with and I want to see if it works."

Hermione nodded. "Alright!"

She took a small pouch out of her bookbag and started laying its contents out on the floor. Remus had somehow managed to locate two gas masks of the appropriate size for her & Harry to wear in extreme circumstances. The filters had been charmed to never fail and filter out some of the nastier potions fumes and airborne diseases commonly used in magical warfare. She'd read up on some of them out of curiosity and almost vomited her guts out in the Library. To think that not only had the wizarding world possessed and arguably perfected chemical and biological warfare centuries ago, they had perfected the mixtures to the point where a firsty with basic materials was capable of manufacturing them.

It was sobering to think that someone who was a mere eleven years old actually did have the capability of wiping out the UK with a careless swipe of a glass container.

After that, she'd put her foot down. Harry and Ron were instructed to learn the bubblehead charm as soon as possible (they'd just managed to cast a half-hearted one yesterday) and Hermione had made the enchanted gasmasks part of their standard patrol kits. It was steadily growing and she had little doubt that the kits would probably require backpacks of their own in the near future, but the bag had already paid dividends today.

Hell, Moody had promised to get them both standard Auror field kits for Christmas if they demonstrated to him that A) they needed them and B) would learn how to use them by January 15th. Considering that each field kit carried a shop's worth of knick-knacks and doodads that would keep an Auror cut off from the magical world going for months on end, that was quite a tall order.

So she'd cheated and started getting her, Harry and Ron to read the standard Auror field guide Shack had conveniently misplaced days before they were due to board the train.

It was the size of a wallet, bound in alchemically reinforced Iron and a thousand-plus pages long. Apparently, Auror hopefuls had a month to memorise it.

She didn't envy them the task, bookworm with eidetic memory or not.

She quickly assembled the various parts of the mask before slipping on a hair net. While she knew she would pay for it come shower time, she also didn't want her hair snagged in the rubber lining any more than necessary. Once was enough, thank you. Once it was in place, she slipped the mask on before slipping on the cowled knee-length leather coat Tonks had gifted her, Harry and Ron on Harry's birthday with firm instructions to her and Ron not to make a liar out of her by dying before their birthday.

She had to wonder about Tonks's sense of humour sometimes, she really did.

She laid out the rest of Harry's considerable gear, closed the book bag, slipped it under the coat and closed that up too just in time for Harry to come out of the room wearing a thunderous expression.

"What happened?" Hermione asked.

"Well apparently Professor Bitchy really doesn't like it when people interrupt his beauty sleep." Harry muttered before shaking his head. "So I called Professor McGonnagall only to find out that she'd disconnected her floo for the night. Professors Flitwick and Sprout were busy, but assured me they'd call back in about an hour or so if it's really urgent."

Hermione nodded, having expected something like this on some level. "And Dumbledore?"She asked.

Harry scowled. "The floo connected alright, but the Headmaster didn't answer at all. His house elf said he was busy and to please call the heads of house instead." He said morosely before starting to put his gear together without a word.

"So we're alone in this." Hermione surmised.

Harry grunted as he finished putting on his own hairnet.

"Did you try contacting Ron?" Hermione asked hopefully.

"It's midnight Hermione. Ron went to bed hours ago." Harry answered.

"He would help if he knew." She pointed out.

"Yeah, he would. But the bloke's still catching up on all that homework he forgot to do. Better let him focus on that until October 15th."

Hermione cursed Ron's habits. They got in the way at the worst possible times sometimes. For all that, though, he was still Harry's best friend and came a close second in Hermione's book, so the thought went away as fast as it came. It's not like any of them had room to talk when it came to bad habits.

Or committing crimes in the name of adventure, for that matter. Amazing what a lecture conducted by three separate Aurors about breaking the law in the name of expediency could do to your confidence in your actions.

That doesn't mean she wouldn't resort to it if necessary, but next time she wouldn't use it as the first rather than the last option.

Thank Merlin the Order's Unspeakables, if there were any, hadn't decided to lecture her on the dangers of improper usage of a time turner. The chewing out her Head of House gave her had been more than enough on that front.

"Okay Harry, but we take this easy alright? Not like last Friday. We knock first, politely request them to go back to their dorms, report them to Professor Snape in the morning and let him deal with it, alright? Remember what McGonnagall said?"

She could feel Harry rolling his eyes behind the mask. "No yelling 'Prefects! Wands on the ground now!' at the top of our lungs. Be polite, be good and don't shoot first. Yeah, I remember."

"Then let's do this." Hermione stated.

"Yeah, let's go."

---

Peregrine Derrick was bored.

He knew that Lucian listening to that bleeding-heart twit Carrow was a bad idea from the get-go, but nooooo. She had the right idea, Bole said. She was definitely going to make it worth their while, Bole said. So while his good friend Lucy was off chatting up a Carrow of all people, he was left in the main entrance hall to stand guard alongside Montague.

Of all the Slytherins on hand, they stuck him with the most useless, empty-headed clotheshorse they could find. Of course they did. That you could tell that while Montague was a chaser, skirts definitely didn't feature on his personal list of things to chase down didn't help either. He'd pranced around last year with a boyfriend from Beauxbatons, for Merlin's sake! The tearful departure at the end of the year almost made him wish he had an obliviator that owed him favours on call.

Still, a job was a job and a friend was a friend. And if Lucian didn't show proper appreciation for having his best mate stare at the eyewatering entranceway for hours on end whilst waiting for a non-existent threat to pop up, well then someone was due a good little hex or two in the near future.

Tit for tat, after all. If he had his eyes seared by overexposure to chintzy fake-muggle bullshit for hours on end, then he either got fair recompense for it or whoever inflicted this upon him got to go snowblind for a few hours too.

Hence why he was hiding his eyes for a few seconds before the ostentatious mahogany desk of the main ticket booth once again swam into view-alongside the faaaabulously dressed Montague prancing around the room and having the gall to call it 'standing guard'.

"And a one-two-three-four, one-two-three-four, one-two-three-f..." Montague muttered as he paced the room, looking like he was questioning the existence of life, the universe and everything rather than going up and down an empty room. Seriously, why did they stick him with the cheerful Slytherin again?

Perry simply muttered some rather insulting terms in Montague's general direction before going back to his book. By Merlin, it was boring here. He really wished someone would come along to keep him company, preferrably somebody that had more social graces than mister 'I lost my virginity to a frenchman' over there.

Which is when someone knocked on the door. Perry promptly put away his book and drew his wand while Montague just stared at the door as if it was going to come off its hinges and attack him.

Merlin, stop the wishful thinking Perry. You have a job to do-if only because Montague's as useless as he is the second coming of Lockhart.

"Who's there?" He challenged loudly.

"Prefects. Open up." A rather muffled voice responded.

"Right, sure mate." Perry answered with evident skepticism. Hey, proper sarcasm was hard when there was a door inbetween you and your sarcasm target. "Name and House gents, then we open up."

There was a beat of silence before a male voice Perry knew pretty well filtered through the door.

"Harry Potter and Hermione Granger, Gryffindor Prefects, Fifth Year." The new voice said. "We've got reason to believe that two people came in here recently and would like to talk to them."

Peregrine Derrick groaned. "And who would these people be then?"

"Ravenclaws." Harry supplied.

"Ah, that's okay then!" Montague answered cheerfully. "There's only Slytherins in here ladies!"

And suddenly, Perry had a feeling he knew he wouldn't enjoy the next few minutes if he didn't do something now. "Okay look gents, we're having a private seminar in here alright? Just to help the young'uns, no harm done eh? So why not come back in, say, fifteen minutes and we can get it all sorted out then alright?"

"No." Potter's voice answered. "Those two are wanted for questioning regarding just why they saw fit to abscond from their dorms at eleven at night. Furthermore, the Professors brief us in case any classes happen to be held at night, provide us with locations and a list of names in case we come across them. Professor Snape only has a few remedial classes & detentions he runs at night and all of them end around nine. Him not telling us means that he officially doesn't know about it and would probably like to keep it that way. So this is how it's going to go; open this door now or I get McGonnagall or Dumbledore to open it for us. Is that clear Montague? What about you Derrick? Do I need to elaborate or are you going to be a good boy and open. This. Door."

Well. Well. They knew who he was. They knew who Montague was. He'd just told them there was an unknown class being run in here. He was boned. They were boned. Perry sighed and made a decision.

Face the music before Professor Snape gets woken up again. Apparently, he made Boyle live up to his name last week. Pomphrey was still put out with him.

But Gryffindors! Why was it always the Gryffindors?

Shit.

He unlatched the doors and took a step back. The enormous gilt-enamelled doors opened at ponderous speeds, the lights barely penetrating the deep and heavy darkness of the corridor outside.

No sign of Potter or Granger. Just shadows and more shadows.

Until two of those shadows stepped forward as one.

Black and dark blue met his eye. Both wore long coats with bulging pouches, buttoned up from neck to knees. Wands were held loosely in gloved hands. The boots were scuffed, the polish worn off through what looked like heavy use. There was not an inch of skin anywhere to be seen.

And they both wore masks. Masks that, were extremely familiar-looking. Making mechanical rasping noises that had plagued the sleep of many a Blood War veteran on either side.

Death Eaters. Black-masked Death Eaters.

Voldemort's personal executioner was the only one allowed to wear one of those.

But there was only ever supposed to be one executioner, wasn't there?

That didn't matter now.

He was dead.

Montague was dead.

It was very possible that every single person in Hogwarts would be dead before sunrise.

But that didn't mean he wouldn't go down with a whimper. A Derrick always went out with a bang.

Brandishing his wand, a catalogue of spells he could use coming to the fore, he uttered what he really, really hoped weren't his last words on this plane of existence.

"Montague! Run, you poofter!" He said before sending a silent reducto at his assassins.

The two dodged with speed he'd only ever seen on the duelling circuit his dad took him to during the summer holidays.

Diving behind a potted plant just before the return volley turned the ticket booth (and his book, may it rest in peace) into a scorching cloud of ash, he realised that he was fucked.

He looked over at Montague, who was running for the doors to the Main Hall faster than Perry'd ever seen him run-only to get nailed by a banisher that lifted him up and sent him crashing through the doors. He heard vague screams coming from the Baby snakes as a canister emitting green smoke was banished into the Hall as a follow-through.

Then, there was the sound of panic as green smoke wafted into the entrance hall.

Shit. What did he do? Where did they go? Did they portkey away? Were they going to enter through the upper level? It was a minute's sprint up a nearby passageway after all, they could probably do it in a matter of seconds…

Shit. He had to protect the others. His pride as a Slytherin commanded nothing less.

He got up and started skirting towards the stairway up to the balcony levels, breathing hard as he looked for even the slightest deviation in the area. He was about to reach the stairs proper when the unthinkable happened. The world shook around him in a roar as the wall he was leaning against gained an extra entranceway less than a metre behind his back. He didn't have any time to process anything. He was sent tumbling through the air by the explosion, the forces behind it proving too much for his mind to handle. He was already unconscious when he hit the ground.

---

"Well, we tried!" Harry said cheerfully as he stepped through the hole he'd made in an effort to surprise the ambusher. "Prefects! Lower your wands n-oh. Bugger." His ambusher was lying on the ground several metres away. Still alive, thankfully.

Still, better safe than sorry. Harry raised his wand and muttered stupefy, incarcerous and silencio in quick succession.

Two down, 28 more to go.

---

All his plans were down the fucking drain. The Slytherins were sitting on top of the make-or-break job of his Hogwarts career and didn't look like they were going anywhere anytime soon. There were guards posted in the lower entrance hall now, which probably meant there were others loitering around unseen. In short, he was adrift in a sea of snakes and had no way of grabbing a paddle without being bitten.

The twins would not be pleased.

Lisa was simply taking in the sights as they waited out the class, hoping against hope that those buggers would get moving some time before daybreak. Knowing the Slytherins, though, the teachers probably planned to get the kiddies to sleep here and then sneak into the breakfast throng looking fresh as daisies, nice and easy.

It didn't help his mood that neither him nor Lisa were going to be able to speak for the foreseeable future. As bad as things were now, being used as a practice dummy by half of the House of Snakes was worse. As in, way worse.

First job of the year and everything was fucked already. Easy his ass.

Oh yeah, this year was going to be great alright. He'll end up as popular as Lovegood by the end of it if things kept going like this.

Sighing, he looked out over the Hall.

Just in time for an unconscious Montague to come flying through the entrance doors.

It was a thing of beauty. The boy flew over the front row seats, tumbling through space as he went, cleared the second and hit the third row stomach first, vomiting all over the fourth row before being scooped up and dropped into a chair by the Hall's magic.

Everything went dead silent for a second before someone started to scream 'He's dead!', which set off the rest.

And then the smoke bomb came through and hit the edge of the stage before tumbling into the front seats with a whoomph, covering the forward section in greenish smoke.

Soon, all the Baby snakes were screaming in panic.

Of course, seconds later a black-clad figure emerged from the entrance hall, yelling 'PREFECTS! DROP YOUR WANDS NOW!' using an enhanced sonorus. Which was promptly answered by spellfire from the Conductor's pit.

And that's the exact moment all hell broke loose.

Lisa was looking on with awe, fear and ecstatic realisation. "Are you thinking what I'm thinking?" She asked.

"Yes!" Marcus Belby laughed. "We can salvage this now! I have a plan, a great plan too!"

Lisa's excited grin fell off her face with a nigh-audible crash. "No Marcus, that is not what I was thinking."

Belby shrugged. "Oh well, too bad, we're doing it anyway. Come on!"

Lisa sighed in defeat. Really, she should have known to ask for more. Belby jobs only ever looked simple and boring on paper.

And right now? Simple and boring had started to sound pretty damn attractive.

---

Flora Carrow looked over her charges for the night.

"Okay, that's enough for the time being!" Lucian Bole intoned as he ferried the firsties off to the side a bit more. "Not bad for a first try at casting a wingardium leviosa kids. We'll be going back to our dorms as soon as Flora's done with her crowd and next week we will meet here again."

A small girl with overly large pigtails raised a hand.

"Yes Abigail?" Lucian asked.

"What will we be learning next week?" She questioned in a timid voice, hopping from foot to foot in an awkward little dance.

"Oh, just a few simple jinxes, maybe even a hex if you can manage it!" Bole declared with a winning smile. "How do you like that then?"

His little speech had the desired effect in exciting the crowd of new arrivals. Flora looked on fondly, remembering standing where they were a mere six years ago.

And then had come the summer between her first and second year. The cold, damp feel of Dark Magic rushing through her veins. Gunmetal grey spells and blood offered as like for like sacrifice. The ruthless and judgemental sneer on her instructor's face. The sad look on Grandad's face when he informed her that no, she couldn't quit. Her mother's will forced their hand.

There were days where she wondered what her mother had been like at her age. They were vastly outnumbered by the days where she wished that her mother was actually dead rather than spending the rest of her life behind bars. No, there was no love lost in that mother/daughter relationship. None at all.

So the instructions continued even while these small classes allowed her to forget, for a while, the terrible price she was paying for being a witch in a pureblood household.

Her grandfather had raised her and thus she had her grandfather's values-she didn't believe in pureblood superiority. She didn't think that a caste-based system like the one her country was based on was a good idea. The discrimination between the groups was more than enough proof of that.

And the less said about how the rest of her world saw her, the better. 'Breeding stock' was not a position she'd ever aspire to-and that happened to be one of the better options waiting for her after school if she didn't get away quickly enough.

What she did believe, though, was that magic was life. Pure, light, beautiful and lethal all put together. It wasn't meant to be twisted and corrupted by rage, hatred or pain. It simply was. The fact that her and her fellow students could manipulate it was a great and terrible gift.

By comparison her mother's appointed tutors were all about the angry side of magic. Magic is might. Magic is all. Magic was a birthright. To not possess magic is to be a slave to those who did.

It was wrong. So very, very wrong.

But she had to do it, lest she be stripped of her name and magic completely.

So she endured until she was seventeen, a mere year away from being free of the inky pain Dark Magic wrought upon her. Until then, she plunged herself into her appointed role of magical tutor with gusto.

And she loved every second of it. The kids were fun, intelligent and engaging in a way few of her peers could claim to be.

That they happened to be so bloody cute was a mere bonus to her. She looked down into the conductor's pit and motioned for the current crop of second and third years practising their duelling skills to come up. Alex Scroater saw the motion and nodded before starting to bellow like a drill sergeant at the others. He obviously billed himself as the leading boy of his year and, unlike others, made an effort to live up to the title. Perfect grades, perfect behaviour, perfect attendance. His complete and utter disinterest in quidditch did him no favours, but he made up for it by being a wellspring of information on some of the more interesting sports available both on and off a broom.

Paying thirty galleons to watch a five minute match had definitely soured the boy to the game.

Still, the others allowed it for now. Doubtlessly that would change when puberty kicked in, though the way Puberta was sneaking glances at Alex probably meant that with some covert intervention, Scroater may very well no longer care about being top dog either way. Puberta was, probably because of her name, a rather headstrong and feisty girl with a fascinatingly enthusiastic approach to violence. She would either cement Alex's position as leader of their year or end it. Either way, intervening looked like it could be a lot of fun…

Moral qualms and values dissonance aside, she was a Slytherin. It was hard for her not to see the entertainment value in proxy politicking when you were in a prime position to poke someone else's status quo with a stick and watch the resulting fireworks

And if she was right about those two, the fireworks may very well be quite the sight.

"Alright, gather around boys and girls!" She said with a cheerful smile. "Over the next week, me or Lucian will be visiting you for one-on-one feedback sessions okay? You've done well coming off the summer holidays, but we'll probably still need an extra two sessions before your skills can be brought properly up-to-date again. In the meantime, practice! Contrary to popular belief, it doesn't make perfect, but at least it makes you better." She stated. "Now, go mingle with the firsties. They've done well today, but some extra guidance will go a long way towards making them-and, by association, you-look good! Now go!"

The kids scurried off to meet the firsties while she and Bole watched from the sidelines of the enormous stage. "Is it just me or do they get cuter every year?" She asked rhetorically.

Lucian snorted. "You're such a Hufflepuff Carrow." He muttered.

Oh. Oh no he didn't!

"Yeah, well YOU are-"

BANG!

"What was that?" She asked, hearing a muffled shout come from the entrance. What were Derrick and Montague up to now? She thought in irritation. Those two never did get along, which was a pity. Montague was such a sweet boy. Excellent taste in clothes too.

Just as she thought that, the doors to the Hall (heavy doors coated in both alchemical steel and thick gilding) were ripped off their upper hinges by an airborne Montague. The boy's body vaulted over the first two rows before impacting the third and letting loose a torrent of… something… that covered the fourth.

Puberta screamed. "HE'S DEAD!" She shouted, causing the other children to squeal in horror.

Flora stared at the boy in the seat, too shocked by what had just happened to react to her charges panicking. What did Derrick do to the boy? She asked herself in faint horror. Was she going to be held responsible for this mess? What had happened out there?

Just then, a canister leaking green smoke flew through the air towards the stage. With barely a conscious thought, Flora had brandished her wand and yanked downwards with a muttered Impetus. A strong gust of wind caught the canister and yanked it downwards, causing it to collide with the edge of the stage rather than with her & her charges.

The canister bounced off, tumbled in the air and lodged itself in the gap between the front row seats and the row behind it. A hissPOP followed and the rest of the Hall was quickly cut off from her view.

The horrified (and at times delighted, as not everyone liked how Montague carried on when he got carried away) squeals quickly turned to screams of fright as the children realised that no, this probably wasn't part of the evening's entertainment.

"Lucian!" Flora shouted to get his attention. The thoroughly frazzled teen turned her way, a look of shock of his own on his face. "Get the children out of here! NOW!"

Bole flinched at her tone before quickly herding the children together and using his magic to gently shove them toward the back of the stage. He turned to look at her questioningly.

"I'll cover you." She stated, wand coming up to point towards the backstage. "Go. Now. Get Snape here as quickly as you can!"

"PREFECTS! WANDS ON THE GROUND, NOW!"

Prefects? That's Centaur shit.

Flora sprinted towards the edge of the stage and dove down into the conductor's pit. While the stage itself was open and completely devoid of any cover whatsoever, the wall separating the musicians and the students had been rendered extra thick in order to stop the little rascals from using prank hexes on them during a performance.

At least, that was the intent. The construction crew somehow believed that keeping the wall at waist height was a smashing idea, so the whole thing still had to be augmented by protective enchantments to compensate for the complete lack of protection.

And while the enchantments had faded away sometime around the Grindelwald Era, the wall itself was still sturdy and serviceable enough to protect someone capable of crouching down behind it.

As a bonus, the wall's top was a flat surface, perfect for making a precision cast or two.

Standing up, Flora swung her wand above her head before bringing it down with a whip-crack motion.

"VENTUS!"

The smoke was blown down towards the entrance, allowing her to see through what looked like dense green fog. A muffled coughing told her that Montague was still alive, though probably concussed and with a broken rib or something.

Quidditch players were tough bastards.

Seeing the battered entrance, she pointed her wand at the back row adjacent to it and let off her second spell of the fight.

"Confringo!"

---

Just as Harry predicted when the green mist was pushed their way, someone out there didn't seem to be in a mood to talk.

Having that confirmed when three seats in the back row turned into vaporised splinters was nice, but a tad extreme for a Hogwarts student.

Her gasmask was making noises that were now audible to her, a hiss-rasp that tickled something at the back of her memory. She took advantage of the explosion to toss some dust powder Ron and the twins had been working on into the battered and pockmarked entranceway. A wall of glittering brown dust covered it now, allowing her to look over at Harry.

"They're running." He said. "Lucian Bole and the kids are trying to make it through to the back exit. There's only Flora Carrow in there." He stated, rolling up the parchment-and tossing it at her along with another package. "Go stop them Hermione. I'll deal with this."

Hermione took a moment to think before nodding at him, "Okay." She stated, more than slightly unhappy at leaving her partner to deal with this alone. "Stay safe alright?"

Harry nodded. "I'll be fine, you'll see."

"Make sure I do." She muttered, running towards a door concealed behind the stairway.

"Right." She heard him mutter. "Time to get to work."

---

Harry waited for another spell to hit near the entrance before making his move. A fairly high-powered reducto if the way the wall bulged outwards before resettling like it was made of rubber was anything to go by.

Once the echoing BANG subsided, he walked through the entranceway obscured by a cloud of dust and turned left, casting a muttered ventus with a subdued wand motion making it look like the cloud was dissipating by itself, leaving him standing roughly where the reducto spell had impacted.

And just like that, the dust parted, revealing a black-clad, black-masked, heavily breathing fellow standing in the middle of a man-sized crater.

His 'teachers' taught good lessons, especially when you spike their tea with enough firewhiskey to kill a bull Nundu.

The look of utter terror on the Carrow girl's face was a bit strange though. He'd been going for fear, after all, not for outright 'oh shit it's Voldemort' levels of despairing panic.

Maybe he shouldn't take Moody's advice quite as much next time. The man was brilliant and a pretty deft hand by psychological warfare, but it was hard to get someone to not cast spells at you when you're dressed like this.

"I will ask you again. Lay down your wand and you will not be harmed."

---

Oh Merlin.

Voldemort's executioner was here.

The mechanical rasping, the clothing, the stance, that mask.

She was dead. DeaddeaddeaddeaddeadDEAD.

Stop Flora. Focus.

What was that thing doing here?

Surrender? Why would he ask her to surrender? Was she the target? Her grandfather?

The children? They were her charges for the night, after all.

If he held her hostage, what would happen afterwards?

'You know the answer to that.' A nasty little voice said from the depths of the self that had been tainted by the Dark. 'Living things seek above all to discharge their strength. Life itself is will to power, nothing else matters. And what is the best way for something like that to discharge its strength on someone like you my dear?' It finished snidely.

She shuddered as the images and her grandfather's stories about the Great War and its offspring came to the fore. She steeled herself for what was to come.

"No." She said in a voice that was far calmer than she was feeling at the moment, reaching out for that icy void of occlumency where her thoughts and emotions were cut off from the outside world.

Rasp-hiss. Rasp-hiss.

"So be it. Depulso!"

A wave of magic tore through the hall, taking everything it could and attempting to fling it forward. The seats buckled under the stress with those in the back row sent sailing towards the stage. Dust, debris and shrapnel tore through the air at incredible speeds, impacting the stage area as a whole with audible thunks. Flora was sent flying, caught off guard by the sheer power that went into that spell. She came to a stop when her shoulder hit a discarded table, causing a jolt of pain to run through her body. She looked up, shot up as quickly as she could, grunted in agony and immediately started sprinting to the right hand side of the pit.

Far above, the massive chandelier had been caught by the depulso too. The craftsmen had attached the chandelier to its bracket using heavily enchanted, potions treated rope and had given the headmaster and caretaker team of the time strict instructions to replace the rope with a similar one every fifty years if they wanted to be sure nothing untoward happened.

That was 150 years ago. Of course nobody replaced the rope. At first it was expensive, now it was simply because no performances had been held in there since the days of Amando Dippett's tenure.

As a result, the rope that heroically held one and a half tons of crystal and delicately woven metals about thirty metres above the ground gave a groan as the spell hit it. As the wave receded, the chandelier swung back to its normal position, which snapped the rope in half.

The crowning glory of some long-forgotten magical artisan hit the seats with the impact of a large bomb.

Flora dived as she saw the gleam of polished crystal hit her upper peripheral vision. There was a ginormous CRASH, closely followed by a rain of crystal shards hitting the floor and seats. Flora got to her feet and jabbed her wand at her assailant. "telum glacis!" She shouted, watching as a footlong spike of ice rocketed downrange only to go spinning off into a wall.

The figure snarled "Incendios Grata!", sending a jet of fire her way that would have done the Horntail from last year proud.

Time to go on the offensive. She lifted her wand and shouted "Pluvia Gravis!" before spinning out of the way of a half-dozen spells he'd tossed off at her in the time she took -stupefies, jinxes, hexes and the odd lick of something invisible dogged her steps as she sprinted for the center aisle at a fair clip.

Spell chains. That bugger could cast spell chains in a fight! That stuff was normally for amateurs, a move of desperation at best because of the often crazy effects such spells could have when cast on the hoof and this thing was tossing spells off at her like it was going out of style.

Whilst running parralel to her. This… this was skill, pure and simple.

Her grandfather and his muggle-raised friends were right-Death Eaters really were bullshit in a straight fight.

Above, clouds came into existence and quickly turned into an inky black. Sparks of electricity leapt off them and grounded themselves in the gilded framework surrounding the balcony booths with a crackle and spit.

On the ground, the black figure dove for cover after casting an odd-looking ball of silvery light. Flora took that as her cue to turtle behind an ornate and rather sturdy-looking serving table and casting the strongest protego bubble she could muster.

When in doubt, don't get caught by the crazy-looking ball of magic unshielded and in the open. You never knew what that silvery ball contained and finding out the hard way was often also the last thing you ever found out.

She waited two heartbeats, watching the light pulse brighter and brighter before burst and-forming into a stag?

A patronus. She was fighting something made out to be Dark and twisted beyond redemption and it was powerful enough to cast a Patronus despite that?

Merlin she was fucked if she didn't get-

There was no noise as the table she'd taken cover behind vaporised. That was probably because her ears were bleeding. For a perfect moment, she was airborne. The cratered remains of the Opera Hall were thrown into sharp relief as she ascended in what felt like slow motion. The spin imparted by the explosion shifted her view towards the now dark ceiling, the first droplets of rain meeting her face as she flew.

The only weight she felt was the solid tug of imparted momentum driving her backward. Otherwise, she was weightless for the first time in her life.

Montague was sloped in the middle of an aisle, still unconscious, but now bound and soaked in a glistening potion of some kind. A girl with rainbow hair stared at her from a hole in the balcony floor, eyes wide in awe and fear as she watched Flora tumble towards-

-The Wall.

Her world dissolved in a spike of sharp, piercing pain, the moment shattered by the reality of what she'd collided against. She felt her vision return just in time for the carpet to rush towards her.

She scrunched her eyes shut, trying to feel for any damage. The protego had taken the brunt of kinetic energy for her, but the impact of having a siege engine spell slamming into her cover and disintegrating it without slowing said spell down? That hadn't helped at all.

Her left arm. It burned. Like spikes had been driven into it and subsequently set on fire. Broken arm, multiple fractures likely, none of them clean. Otherwise she was going to have bruises tomorrow.

But she wasn't dead yet.

She still had her wand clutched in her right hand.

And it was raining. She loved the rain.

"Petrificus-ugh" she grunted, biting down to stop the scream of pain from affecting her. She stood up, careful to keep the armchair that had come crashing down from somewhere between her and the rest of the Hall until she got her bearings.

A rumble and a crack sounded above, heralding the slight drizzle turning into a proper British rainstorm. Visibility was becoming an issue and the fires didn't go out as much as throw up steam, but she didn't give a shit.

It was refreshing and exactly what she needed after close to a minute and a half of fighting. Her vision clearing, she took a glance around the room.

It was nowhere to be seen. She looked left. Nothing. She looked right. Nothing. She looked up. Nothing.

The steam rapidly turning into a foggy mist obscuring the ground. Even in the middle of the rain, she could feel herself starting to sweat, her broken arm occasionally protesting the weather by twinging whenever a big enough drop of water landed on it.

But she had no time for that. Her occlumency was starting to get strained by the emotions she was shunting aside. She couldn't see it, but it most probably could see her.

"Sudatorium" a voice said to her left, near the destroyed chandelier. She dodged by reflex on hearing the spell, expecting whatever it was to impact her and cause more pain. Instead, the rain transformed into steam mid-air, the clouds above started discharching curtains of the stuff rather than droplets of rain as they were supposed to and the temperature started rocketing up while visibility dropped to zero.

On the plus side, if she couldn't see it, it couldn't see her in this. Even a revealo would get lost in this murk.

"ventus." She said, directing it towards where she remembered the stage was. The veil parted briefly and she almost jumped in relief at once again seeing the conductor's pit a bare twenty metres away. Duck into that and locate the service door and she was home free.

She made her way across the ground carefully, the ventus spell maintained at low intensity so that she could see any obstacles coming from a metre or more away. She navigated her way past a chair that proudly proclaimed itself to be from the back row, careful to check for any exposed metal in her path. Finally, she made it past that and could almost see the dim outline of the wall in front of-

Crunch.

She rolled to the side just before a rainbow barrage of different spells rushed where she'd been previously. What was worse, they seemed to track her as she frantically dodged the deluge. After about ten seconds, she finally spotted the general area where the spells were coming from.

"Confringo!"

She could see the blast even through the veil as the spell impacted with something that disagreed with it, detonating in a black and orange fireball. The steam was pushed away from the blast, allowing her to see the devastated Hall in all its glory once more.

The black-clad thing was still there, sending another hail of hexes and jinxes at her.

She wasn't just going to dodge this time though.

She decided that, since it was chaining spells and she couldn't, she would just rapid-cast something that would make it start dodging as well.

That something was the reducto.

A bright blue bolt of light missed the thing as it side-stepped the spell, barely interrupting its chain. Tellingly, though, it started moving away from the spell and towards the centre of the room, clearly aware that even a small blast from a reducto could still badly hurt anyone nearby.

The next one landed in front of him, throwing him to the ground as it did so.

Flora quickly turned and vaulted over the wall again, crouching down to get out of sight before it regained its wits.

It didn't help.

A nearby section of wall collapsed as the thing's spellchain impacted it, including a spell that seemed to have molten the stone beneath the cover of decorative tiles.

No. No way was she sticking around any longer.

A retaliatory string of reductos forced it to start dodging wildly too as the few seats still in place and in one piece were battered by yet more shrapnel and bits of their brethren she'd targeted.

Then came the counter-attack.

"Confringo" the thing yelled, flinging an evil-looking pulse of light her way. That was not what a standard confringo was supposed to look like.

She barely had time to cover herself in a protego totalus before the thing impacted the side of the stage.

BOOM!

Once again, she was at ground zero of a massive magical discharge. This time, though, the desperate need to protect herself had supercharged the shield, keeping her from going flying or once again experiencing the nasty feedback kinetic impacts normally imparted on standard protegos. Instead, she got to learn what it looked like when a bomb went off right next to you. The fireball washed over her, followed by the shockwave at the epicentre of the blast going past, carrying the debris of what had once been a helluva grandiose stage past.

Unfortunately, the shield spell gave out when the first wave of debris hit.

She screamed as she felt a chip of stone bury itself in her leg. She fell to the ground, in agony for the second time in as many minutes.

No more time. She had to get out of there now. She looked over at what was left of the stage and smiled.

The Service corridor had been blasted open. She had one chance to get this right.

She needed an idea of what she could do though. This thing wasn't above meeting spell for spell, after all, so she needed something that could distract it long enough for her to make it into the corridor…

Say, that was an awful lot of water.

It was everywhere. The Pit was full of it. The Hall was full of it. Merlin, she would bet the balconies were soaked through as well.

Which should be enough for her to do this.

"Fulix!" She hissed out.

Instantly, all the water rushed into the middle of the Hall, coalescing into the shape of a giant ostrich that honked loudly.

The thing took a moment to gawk at the spell.

She pointed her wand in its direction. "OPPUGNO!" She bellowed before frantically starting to crawl for the entrance. She made it just as she heard her aquatic creation issue a blood-curdling screech as a tongue of ignis draconem swept across the room, setting whatever could still burn alight.

She crawled for the intersection with haste, her panting and panicking sounding extremely loud after finally making it into a dark corridor and turning left. All she wanted to do was find a floo and get to Pomphrey as soon as possible.

The corridor shook as another explosion went off. It sounded like her creation was still in the fight.

All of a sudden, a pair of people laden down with bags jogged past, looking like the hounds of hell were after them. "Come on, we've got to get out of here!" A boyish voice said, panting as he kept going. "Well you're the one who thought ghosting through a warzone whilst disillusioned was a great idea asshole!" A girlish one shouted back before coming to a dead stop on seeing her.

It was rainbow hair. "Oh dear Merlin! You actually escaped?" She asked incredulously.

The boy stopped and turn around. "Come on, we've got to get out of here!" He urged frantically before freezing upon seeing her.

"Help." She croaked pitifully, causing rainbow hair to look back at the boy.

"I won't leave her here Marcus. I can't." The girl said resolutely.

The boy smiled wryly. "Never expected you to be bleeding heart material Turpin." He sighed. "Alright. Give me the bags, I'll go get us some help. You and you, there's an infirmary down the end of that corridor to the right. It's a bit old, but most of the important stuff is kept in stasis anyway, so there shouldn't be an issue. Stay where you are until either me or Poppy knocks on the door. Got that?"

"Yep!" Lisa chirped, handing the bags over. "Now go be a hero."

"I'm not the one sticking around here to help Lisa. That's you." Marcus pointed out.

Lisa blushed. "Get out of here you crook!"

Marcus chuckled, hefting the bags over his shoulder and dashed down the corridor, singing something about puppy love as he went. "Asshole." Lisa whispered with a smile before turning towards her. "Well let's get you sorted then." She said confidently. "Can't be any harder than running around with those bags weighing me down. Can you stand up?" She asked.

"Y-yes. One of my legs is wounded though, so I can't walk very fast."

"That's okay, we'll get it fixed in no time." Lisa responded, lifting her up and helping her along. "What other injuries do you have?" She asked to cover up the noise of fighting still clearly audible.

"Broken arm and it would be easier to list the parts of my body that aren't likely to be bruised." Flora answered.

"Wow. Lisa Turpin, by the way. Pleased to meet you."

"Flora Carrow. Likewise. And thank you." Flora answered as they crossed into the corridor.

"Ah! There's the sign. Not too far now, right?" Lisa half-asked.

"Yeah." Flora agreed, looking forward to relief from the pain.

The infirmary was completely and utterly dark when they entered. "I reckon there must be a light switch somewhere." The girl grumbled as she let her lumos illuminate a small area. "Let's get you seated first, eh?"

Flora nodded, feeling the pain steadily become more intense as the adrenaline receded.

"Okay, let's see-there! Bed 13's available." Lisa said, indicating a bed near the centre of the room. The others had the curtains drawn in front of them. "I'll just put you down then quickly go switch on the lights before we can start mending those boo-boos." Lisa stated, gently lowering her onto the bed.

It was unexpectedly comfortable. Flora relaxed, letting the past ten minutes settle into her mind.

That had been terrifying. All that instruction had done a lot to keep her going, but a few more minutes and that would have been that. Even now she couldn't rid herself of the feeling that the respite was only temporary, that the thing that had brought her to her knees was going to start hunting her real soon.

She dearly hoped the professors would manage to get here before that thing did.

She wasn't counting on it though.

She slowly let go of her occlumency. Breathe in, breathe out. In, out. In, out. Let your mind come forth.

Oddly enough, she felt her body relax a tad.

For now, she was safe. Battered and bloody, but safe.

She could rest.

Finally the lights came back on, followed very quickly by a now blonde-haired Lisa striding into view with a grin. "Ha! Lisa Turpin, magical engineer extraordinaire, strikes again! And how are we feeling?"

Flora managed a weak grin. "Better now, thanks."

"Good! That's good! Now we're just going to take a look at those wounds okay? I promise it won't h-"

"Stupefy."

A red bolt of light hit Lisa in the back, sending her tumbling forward onto the bed. Flora jumped, overbalanced and went tumbling to the ground, coming to a stop next to the other bed.

She's pretty sure she heard something crack in her arm again.

That rasp-hiss was a lot clearer this close to the source.

Her wand. Where was her wand? She couldn't find it.

Panicking now, Flora quickly crawled as quickly as she could across the tiled floor, desperate to find something, anything she could use to her advantage. Her injuries were screaming at her, blanking out her mind as she blindly moved away from that damned noise.

Finally, she came to the end of the line of beds and leaned against the wall, listening for any sign of that thing's presence.

"Petrificus totalus"

And suddenly she couldn't move anymore. She was panicking, but couldn't take anything more than shallow breaths. The pain had eased off, but the trade-off was too hard to bear.

She couldn't think.

She couldn't move.

She couldn't think.

She couldn't move.

She couldn't-

"Stupefy."

And

Now

She

Was

Tumbling

Into

The

Hungry

Darkness.

---

Several Hours Later

"-And that's when we reported to you madam." Harry said from his bed in the infirmary.

Professor Sprout simply blinked. "So you go off to break up a group that was gathered after curfew. You talk your way into the hall only for Peregrine Derrick the door to start slinging spells your way the moment he lays eyes on you. As a result, you hit a fleeing Montague with a banisher strong enough to unhinge the door he hits and propel him into the Main Hall of the Opera, blow a hole in the wall in order to surprise Derrick and end up knocking him out through the force of the blast. In the meantime, you banished a canister of obscurus gas into the hall, causing mass panic amongst the gathered students and then decide to tell them to lay down their wands by yelling at them with a sonorus. Am I getting this right Mister Potter, Miss Granger?"

Both simply nod.

"Then you split up, with Miss Granger going for the service corridors and you charging straight through into the Main Hall which was, by the way, already under fire by Flora Carrow, who stated that she was trying to cover the students' retreat because she believed they were under attack, offering her one last chance to surrender, a version of events corroborated by Miss Turpin. While this is happening, Mister Bole leads the young charges through the service corridors in the hope of getting them back to their common room only for the corridor they're in to be flooded with Somnus gas courtesy of Miss Granger. As she is dealing with that, you, Mister Potter, engage Miss Carrow in a duel that trashes the Opera Hall, which will require dozens of hours of specialised casting to repair, finally causing her to flee when her wounds are too pronounced to continue fighting. Her last spell, however, significantly delays you, meaning that by the time you find her, Miss Carrow has been found by Miss Turpin and the two were in the infirmary where, coincidentally, Miss Granger is currently casting incarcerous and stupefy spells on close to 30 students. She stuns Miss Turpin on reflex and then petrifies Miss Carrow, who was in such a panic at being hunted by Mister Potter she pretty much ignored her wounds and the loss of her wand in an attempt to crawl to safety only for Mister Potter to arrive and stun her on reflex too." Professor Sprout enunciates in quiet disbelief before breathing in. "Does that about cover it, Prefects Potter and Granger?"

"Yes Professor Sprout." The two confirm.

The Head of House Hufflepuff sighed. "I need a pain-relieving potion after this… So you followed the procedure drummed into you by Professors McGonnagall, Flitwick and Snape to the letter. You were polite, didn't engage until provoked and offered them the opportunity to surrender at least three times. "

Then her gaze shifted into a scowl. "That said, your actions still ended up traumatising thirty students as well as poor Miss Pomphrey, who had to take a lie down after seeing the state you and Miss Carrow were in upon arrival. I do believe the words 'beat each other half to death' were uttered several times. Professor McGonnagall and Professor Snape both declined to deal with this, both somehow agreeing that you, Miss Carrow, Mister Bole and associates were the densest dunderheads this side of Neptune. The Headmaster as well decided not to get involved and Professor Flitwick is otherwise engaged in lecturing Miss Carrow about the importance of declaring when and where extracurricular activities are being held to the appropriate authorities. Which leaves me."

She looked at the two prefects that were rapidly becoming both the number one reason for students obeying curfew and the number one most favourite people to the castle's house elves. Apparently, not since Harry's father had there been someone who left this much of a mess behind for the elves to fix. She was pretty sure the Head Elves had a collective orgasm when Sprout relayed the news to them.

They were exactly who the staff had been looking for-earnest, professional prefects that took their job seriously and didn't half-ass nightly patrols or walk off in the middle of one to go play exploding snap or find-the-G-spot with their patrol partner(s). The departure of Percy Weasley was greatly mourned by the Heads of House, since the boy had actually taken the job seriously, one of the first since Lupin to actually be good at it too.

On the other hand, the reason these two were so good at it was because they had spent a month of extremely intense training at the hands of Shacklebolt, Tonks, Robards and Moody. Combine that with their unfortunate history at the school and the little darlings were well on their way to becoming premier paranoid sociopath material, treating every patrol in the same manner the grizzled veterans of the blood wars that made up three fourths of their mentoring team tended to treat combat patrols in hostile territory.

And, well, dressing like Auror Special Tasks Force agents did not help. It was really easy to see just why Peregrine Derrick had panicked on coming face to face with a uniform that was once advertised as 'the final solution to any of your law enforcement problems!'.

Until 1949, that is. Muggleborns tended to run away screaming from Aurors until after they changed it for some reason.

So, what to do? They followed protocol and, while excessive, this outcome was expected to happen eventually.

They needed someone to supervise them, teach them moderation, keep them from demolishing the school every time someone decided that they'd prefer not to be caught-or that they were under attack by Death Eater boogiemen.

But who knew enough about how Aurors behaved to translate it into LEO-speak?

Oh.

Oh wait.

Oh yes.

Plus, it wasn't like her aunt hadn't bitched at Sprout for not making the girl prefect, after all.

This, this was perfect.

Amelia wanted her little girl to get some experience patrolling the school and keeping the peace? Well, let it never be said that Sprout didn't oblige when she could.

Or thought it was funny.

She looked at the two with a wide smile. "Now then prefects, it seems we need to do something about this. Because of this, I have decided that, rather than punish you, I will have someone there to help you out and ensure that situations like these never happen again. From now on, you will be taking Susan Bones with you on patrol every time you go out. Pick her up after dinner and deliver her back to her common room when the patrol is finished, alright?"

Harry and Hermione looked at each other before shrugging. They had honestly expected a worse punishment than this. After all, three people on patrol was better than two, right?

Right?