Mere moments ago Ron heard the new Minister announce he would have sedition charges filed against him. The school was still objecting, some of the teachers with their wands out despite the shouting from the Aurors, but all he could hear clearly was Terry shouting for them to run. Hermione activated a fire ward she had set on the floor while no one was watching as a cover as Hannah missed with a stunner. Ron jumped from the officials' box, the striped awnings over the stands rushing up to meet him, the witch hitting shortly after. Good idea- wouldn't want to break through- Hermione grasped for her wand and regained it as he grabbed her arm to get her out of Terry's way. Out of the light of the box he could barely see, but his overworked mind managed to guess that the Ravenclaw wizard had thrown her out.
"Damn decent of you, Terry!" he shouted back as Hannah landed after him, getting up quickly, her wand still in hand. Students below them were shouting and calling out, but no curses were coming after them from that direction. Seeing that Aurors were pursuing them on broomsticks, he sprinted, forcing them to move around with a few spells that came to mind, but not even delaying them as they aimed stunners at their Hufflepuff as her shields were breaking. The Ravenclaws hit the ground with cushioning charms as he dragged Hannah over the edge, landing painfully, but ultimately unhurt.
"To the castle..." Terry managed, catching his breath as Ron fired off whatever he could manage. Hermione was putting a shield over Hannah's shield, seeing their pursuers were targeting her. If we argued about where to go, we'd be dead. The shields seemed to be working from what little he could observe as his vision constantly readjusted, but the Aurors had been more than sufficiently trained for such a scenario. The two that were still chasing them raised walls of earth in their path, dodging as their leader tried to produce a patronus, of all things.
It was the distraction Hannah needed to hit one of them with a body-bind around his shield before falling to the ground. Ron assumed the other two were dealing with the other Auror as he ran to her, his wards activating as he was hit with a stunner, which bounced off. Damn- prob'ly can't expect that to work too many times.
Her body was not entirely limp in his arms, which was a good sign. She was breathing and he realized he was saying something to her, though he knew not exactly what. Her hand rose suddenly and pointed directly up. Right- the other Aurors can't be far behind.
In the dark sky he saw no other pursuers, at least not for the moment, but that was the least of his worries.
The moon shone bright and full, its pale light coming from behind the castle in the distance.
"Damn it, no, not tonight, anything-" There was a reason she didn't want to come to the Task- she knew it would drag on into the night.
"Ron, leave her."
He whipped his head around, wand still in hand.
"We can't leave her!" he shouted back. "They'll arrest her like they were going to arrest all of us! That's if they don't kill her for being a werewolf-"
"She'll kill us. Ron, she'll kill us and you know we can't kill her." Terry explained firmly. Hermione was in tears.
"They can't put her in Azkaban... wherever she is, we can find her. If the Aurors find her-" She shrieked as she jumped out of the way of a stunner from the stands.
"Petrificus Totalus." he growled, turning and running toward the castle with the others. They won't attack her if she's been frozen- well, they might not, I don't really know. I can't say it's going to work if she transforms.
A dark mark appeared in the sky above the school, leading him to wonder if any Slytherins had stayed behind.
"What are we going to do?" he shouted as they ran. Castle should eliminate any advantage the Aurors have by being on brooms- they'll get their friends back up and it'll be four or five of them after us. We'll need to hide.
He wanted to hope they would investigate whoever had cast the mark, but he knew it would be all to easy to pin it on them, possibly the dementors as well. Terry's been practicing the Patronus. It'll be enough for the Prophet. It's already enough for Crouch.
"Where are we hiding? They can get in the Chamber." he asked. It seemed to take Terry a moment to process the question.
"Astronomy Tower. They'll think we're going as low as possible, but we'll be going up." The dark-haired wizard decided. "Grab some brooms- we need a last resort."
Ron obeyed, entertaining traitorous notions of using a broom to rescue Hannah, but it was doubtful she was even still frozen in place by the full-body-bind. If that were really an effective solution to turning into a monster, someone would have thought of it. There was no way he could transport a thrashing werewolf, even inside a charmed impossible space like they had used with the Slytherins. Catching her and putting her into it would be next to impossible, even without the Aurors on their arses, and there was a serious risk she would destroy the walls of the container from the inside. He could not quite explain the properties of an expanded space, nor was he entirely certain his current understanding of it was correct, but creating a hole larger than the exterior side seemed patently impossible, though from the inside it would be. If any hole were created, the contents could be shrunk to scale, sucked out through the hole, or the space outside the box would distort to match the magical distortion, or any other outcome likely to result in Hannah's demise.
His mind jumped to plans for the future as he climbed the stairs behind the other two, but nothing was working. It seemed obvious to come back disguised as someone else, like Ebony, and there was a chance that the teachers would pretend not to recognize him, but Snape was almost certainly getting removed and with him gone it would probably be impossible or nearly so to get anything past the new management. The old Potions master was famous for turning a blind eye to Slytherins and took points from Gryffindors whenever the opportunity presented itself, but really he could not have cared less about dueling in the corridors, even if he really had the authority. At times it seemed bizarre to Hermione or one of the other students like her who had been to other schools, that students would be fighting and injuring each other so frequently, but it was ultimately a question of respect and authority. It was almost anachronistic for her to refer to Snape as 'Professor', even during class, the other students flagrantly disrespected him, either out of the belief that he was an active Death Eater, or for not crushing the first group under his heel. The same people who lacked respect for Dumbledore saw his appointment as the last foolish decision of an old fool, though it made him wonder who exactly would have been better.
The three of them took refuge away from the windows that led to the top of the tower, unable to see out of them in the darkness and lacking a reason to make their position easier to discover or describe. Ron felt his legs cramping, but there was nothing for it. What are we going to do? Where do we go from here?
"What's going on out there?" Hermione asked, looking out the window in frustration. She gasped.
"What?" Terry asked, dragging her out of view.
"It's the conspirators. There have to be at least fifty of them- and they're all coming this way."
"Aurors're prob'ly trying to contain the crowd after the scene we made." He realized they might also be trying to contain Hannah. "They'll be up and flying again soon, but they'll be the least of our worries." the red-haired wizard muttered. "Three Hufflepuffs covering every exit; we'll never get out."
"The room- it's not far." The Ravenclaw wizard suggested. "It might even be safe from the dementors." I'd almost forgotten. I've had a bit to take my mind off it, 'course.
They checked every corner on their way there, but it seemed more disturbing that they saw no one. As they arrived Ron figured out the reason for his suspicions.
"Where's Mafalda?"
"She would have gone to the Task with everyone else..." Hermione started, not seeing her in her usual haunts.
"They're not after her." Terry interrupted. "They're after us. We need to prepare for what happens if they know we're in here."
Ron wished they had Hannah with them, even just for the mad ideas she usually provided. A mad idea seemed like what they needed.
"What if they didn't see us when they came in here?" he asked. "Chances are, it won't be an Auror."
"Well, no, there are about fifty of the students, so out of fifty four or five there are only- it doesn't matter, it's really negligible by comparison. Are you saying we need to hide?"
"We hide, then we use a false memory." Everyone looked at Hermione, who shook her head.
"I'm sorry; it's almost entirely a different spell." she explained. "I've been doing magical research..."
"No, it's fine, it's prob'ly ten times more than I've done in my life." What would Hannah suggest? "What if we made an impossible space?"
"There are ways of detecting if someone's in the room." Terry said at length. "It's like a human detection charm, and impossible spaces won't block it in any way. It's what Hit Wizards do when they're searching a room, I think. I've already eliminated invisibility potions."
"Can we levitate a container from the inside?" he asked, trying to think of what their favorite Hufflepuff would say.
"I don't believe so." Hermione answered. "I've been shrunk before and you don't seem to have the same, well, power as when you're at your normal size. The levitation charm has its limits just like a shield charm."
"I doubt any of us can learn how to create a portkey in the next few minutes, hours, what have you- depending on the time distortion." Terry started, leaning against the back of the couch and running a hand through his hair. "I really wish we could just think of some way out of this, but I don't believe there's any way for the three of us to escape fifty or so of them; it just doesn't work. If we think of something, chances are they've already thought of it."
Ron's hopes came crashing down on him as he sank into the chair opposite the couch, his head spinning as he had a bizarre memory of an earlier conversation- one where his and his friend's positions seemed to be reversed. I said that. I said that no matter how much thought we put into it, they'd have more to put in. The cogs stopper turning at last.
"I'll only be a moment." he muttered as he rose and went to the door, ignoring the objection from the others. As he opened it, he petrified a startled-looking Ernie Macmillan and Hermione levitated him into the room with mobilicorpus.
"They'll come looking for him!" she hissed. "They'll know where he went missing."
"I know; we don't have a lot of time. NICK!" he called out, ducking a silencer from behind.
"What the hell are you doing- the ghosts can't-" He closed his eyes.
Help is always at Hogwarts for those who ask. Help is always at Hogwarts for those who ask-
"Ron? What are you doing out of the room?"
It was Mafalda, along with Fred and George. Parvati was a few steps behind them, with Cho Chang.
"How did you-" the Ravenclaw wizard started, ushering everyone in.
"I had to trust your brothers." the Slytherin witch answered, looking at Ron. "I knew they'd be closing in on you, they probably still are- who is that?" she asked, pointing at Ernie.
"He's a bellend." Fred muttered.
"A right cheeky one at that." George complemented, stepping over the frozen Hufflepuff. "Your friend told us where you'd be. Somehow we picked up these two after that."
The spectral knight appeared before them.
"I say, it's been a fair length since I've seen you, Weasley. The dementors in the dungeons are frightening- to some, of course, but not to me."
We need to find Hannah.
"Please, Nick, if you see Hannah Abbott, you know her, she's from Hufflepuff- or well, if you see Dean-"
"Do you know any way out of here?" Terry asked, interrupting.
The ghost shook his head, a disturbing sight though it was.
"I am afraid the only way out I can imagine would involve advanced tunneling charms. I could promise to scout for you along with the other spirits of the castle, but before long we would be noticed. As a matter of interest, where are we? I daresay I have never seen this room before."
"We have a better way out." George started, handing him the experimental polyjuice gum they had first developed two years ago.
"That's the new and improved formula; it should last a fair bit longer." Fred added, looking around. "We haven't got near enough hairs for it, and you can't all just be this tosser-" He indicated Macmillan. "-so you're going to need to be us."
"We can't-" Hermione started to object.
"We're involved." Parvati argued. "You can't un-involve us. You three and Hannah are the only ones trying to fix things, not just make them worse for someone else. Everyone's too scared to take your side because they're convinced you can't win, but if you don't win then it doesn't matter who does." She sighed, looking around. "I've been talking a lot with some of the people in our year. I said I'd throw up red sparks when I needed them at my side, and Cho came. What's with the brooms?"
"We were planning a potential flight." Terry answered. "It would have been a bad idea even with invisibility potions, but it was looking like our only chance." It became clear that their spectral companion had already left them, perhaps to see about their friend.
"Where were you going to get them?" Cho asked. Prob'ly referring to the potions.
"Hannah said something about how this room can be whatever you need it to be." Ron explained. "If we get everyone out, we can go into a room full of potions."
"I'm not quite sure we can just create potions out of nothing." Hermione said. "Even potion ingredients would be a stretch of what should really be possible with Transfiguration. Based on what Hannah has said, and my own experiments, I've discovered that every time we access this room, we can find whatever we left in it, but only if we access it the same way every time. The reason the contents of the room seemed to fluctuate wasn't because the room was resetting itself, it depended on who opened the door and what he was thinking at the time."
"This is all very interesting-" Parvati started.
"What we need is a room where people have left potions." she continued. "Either that or a place to brew potions where resources have been left to accumulate for later use."
Though it was not clear exactly what the bushy-haired witch needed from a room filled with potions, they agreed to exit the room, bringing Ernie with them. Three students from his House had come to investigate his disappearance, but they were quickly outmatched. Must've been thinking we'd split up. They turned back toward the door, the twins watching either side.
"Take your time." Ron encouraged, if a bit dishonestly. Hermione closed her eyes and walked to where the door was meant to be, but it did not open. She tried again. "Try something else." She glared before walking toward the door again.
Three of them went into the room, leaving the Hufflepuffs outside with the others. It seemed Terry was talking with Cho, so Parvati followed them in. As they looked around the room filled with potion bottles, ingredients, books, and tools, it occurred to him to ask where Dean was, but it was almost always something important with him. He had asked Sir Nicholas to see about him, which he probably would if he failed to find Hannah, most likely if she were to be taken away from the castle.
"What is this place?" he asked, looking around for anything useful. He was glad he could levitate things without particularly focusing on the magic itself.
"Students used to get rid of their old potions things in here. I think they realized nothing degrades here, so anything they failed to use by the end of the term could be used again." Hermione answered, holding a dusty book. "I would think this book is the most recent, and it's from the thirties."
"We need to get move on, even in here." the Gryffindor decided, rummaging through a cask of potion bottles. They heard a banging sound outside, and out of the corner of his eye he saw the Ravenclaw running for the door and Parvati shoving a few stoppered flasks into her school bag. Even the glass vials were enchanted to resist impact, so she was probably not going to poison herself. Outside there were dementors in the hallway.
"Bollocks there are three of them-" he started as soon as he saw. The twins were barely delaying them with fire charms.
"We can count, you-"
"It's better to just get out of here." Fred argued, interrupting his twin. "The three of you need to disguise yourselves as these wankers." He said, indicating the Hufflepuffs on the floor as he tossed a polyjuice gum to Terry, who severed a lock of hair.
"More of them the other way!" Parvati shouted, shielding as she made illusions to draw fire. It appeared to be coming from a group of Hufflepuffs, an Auror along with them. Damn! I should've known they'd send a second search team when the first one went missing. The shields seemed to be holding, but he was hardly paying attention, casting a body-bind where the opportunity presented itself and hitting wands with knockback jinxes to reduce their accuracy. It was something he could do more quickly than cast curses into shields, but it seemed only marginally more effective. The one Auror was plenty skilled to shield the entire group of students who had taken his side, but it seemed he was doing something else with his wand. As one or two of them fell to a spirit thing Terry sent out, an older Hufflepuff panicked and hit the ceiling above them with an advanced explosive curse, causing the castle's wards to flicker. He persisted in the effort, forcing the Ravenclaw wizard to try to keep it held up with a shield. He saw Cho bend down for some reason in the middle of the fight, but Ron only managed to shout her name as he dodged a dangerous looking curse breaking through the failing shield.
His head whipped around as Hermione shrieked, the dementors being forced toward them by a patronus shaped like some kind of massive walking bird. We're being pushed into the shields- they'll suck out our souls... His thoughts grew less coherent as he forced himself to fight, as his brothers were hit by a stunner and a sleep hex of some description, as the Hufflepuff with a penchant for explosions kept trying to bring the ceiling down on them. He might have cast three or four curses before being brought down by a body-bind to the foot, from a student lying on the ground to get under his shield. Numbers win every time... we should have stayed inside the room. We could have moved the bodies somewhere... somewhere else.
He knew nothing that entered his mind at this point would change the fact that his decisions might have cost the lives of all of his friends, but learning from losses was a habit ingrained in him as far back as playing Percy in chess as a small child. A boot hit the back of his head.
