A/N: I've decided to stop listing the spells used at the end of each chapter because it sort of takes the fun away from the story, as well as the suspense.
Chapter 10
First Probe
Once Andranos left the Great Hall after the 'executions', there was a mad dash to get out of the room. With Harry grabbing her shoulders and Ron grabbing her legs, they slowly carried Hermione up numerous stairways and into the Gryffindor common room, not wanting to stick around for the disposal of the bodies. Just as they were setting her down on a sofa, she woke up. Nobody talked about what transpired for they were still getting over the shock of it, most preferring to do whatever homework they had in solitude and everyone going to bed surprisingly early.
The next morning, Harry, Hermione and Ron entered the great hall for breakfast to find everyone looking skyward, some of them holding forks full of eggs halfway to their mouths. Harry looked up tentatively to see the distant but obvious outline of half a dozen men standing on the roof, one particularly burly fellow holding a massive hammer. On closer examination, Harry could see a quite pronounced crack in the ceiling directly in front of the man with the hammer. It was swung against the stone of the ceiling with force enough to make it sound as if a thunderclap echoed throughout the Great Hall, the crack growing larger. The hammer was swung again and again, each time sending dust and bits of stone to fall down onto the Hufflepuff table, which was beneath it.
After what felt like hours of watching the hammer swung against the school, a large chunk of rock at least four feet across fell off to one side, mercifully hitting no one. The man with the hammer then walked to one side of the building and disappeared, presumably jumping off. Harry's theory was confirmed when a loud thud was heard on the ground of the same side.
Next, a much smaller man walked up to the hole whilst holding something between his hands. The object glowed briefly and was then dropped through the hole, followed immediately by the same man kneeling down and somehow sealing the rift before joining the rest of the men running for the side of the building and leaping off. The object, which clarified itself as a ball, fell into the Great Hall slowly at first but picked up speed. Harry's attention was drawn to Professor Snape as he jumped onto the staff table, leapt onto the Hufflepuff table, and run down to where the ball was going to hit. With only a few yards to go, he gracelessly flung his body at the ball with his arms outstretched, catching it in midair, and landed on the floor with a dull Thoomp.
Snape stood up and Harry noticed his eyes were open so far that they should have popped out of his skull and his skin was just a few shades darker than pure white. Slowly, the color returned to its normal state, as did his facial expressions. He looked around and locked eyes with Hermione, approaching her with shocking speed when he had done so. "Where is that blasted Andranos," he shot at her when he got to her. Harry was struck with a sudden impulse to reach out and touch Snape, to make sure this was really he and not someone doing a bad Snape impersonation. His better judgment kept him from doing so.
"Uh," she responded hesitantly, "try his lab?"
Snape strode past her out of the Great Hall, pausing only briefly to look back at the staff table and give Dumbledore a nod, resuming his flight afterwards.
"Well," now Dumbledore spoke, "you may all rest assured, whatever crisis we had, has now been abated, and I'm sure none of you want to have class on an empty stomach."
* * * * *
Ron and Hermione were already sitting in their seats for Potions when Harry arrived, Hermione glaring at him for arriving several minutes after the bell. Harry would have cringed at how many points Snape was going to take from Gryffindor for his tardiness, except for one minor thing: Snape wasn't in the room. After several minutes passed, the door to the Potions Master's office opened and Snape, accompanied by Andranos whom was holding the ball from the Great Hall, came out of it.
"We shall be making a small departure today from what we have been doing, so that we may examine this object," Snape remarked as he waved his hands at the ball in Andranos' hands, "or more accurately it's contents. Parchment! Quills!" Everyone immediately got out the appropriate tools and prepared to write. "Now examine it closely from where you are sitting and document what you see, Now!"
Harry looked at the ball and wrote what he saw: the ball appeared to be made of glass and inside was a translucent liquid that was a very pale yellow color and had a swirling deep red streak that always kept it's shape. Though he didn't write it down, he could have sworn he heard a faint squishing sound coming from it.
"Pay attention, and listen to Andranos."
"Thank you Professor," the sorcerer said with a completely calm voice. "Before I explain this, will you please get the encyclopedias?" Snape, after a momentary glare, ducked into his office and returned a few minutes later with a stack of rather thick books. He handed them out while mumbling to himself about losing control of his own class to a student. The books were in short supply and each had to be shared by three people. Luckily, Snape was too busy eyeing Andranos to break up the Harry-Hermione-Ron grouping. The books were plainly titled 'Encyclopedia Magica: Beasts' and looked to have seen many years of use.
"Alright," Andranos continued, "what's in this orb is where the science of making potions and the art of magic cross paths. In this orb is what you get when you mix one pint of human blood, three pints of ochre jelly, and one dram of acid from a black pudding…" This last comment was met by sporadic sniggers. Andranos glanced up at the ceiling and tapped his foot impatiently. "Now, if you're all finished? You take this concoction I listed and seal it in a glass orb one foot across, then you subject it to a discharge of lightning. The end result is this. Inside is probably the most dangerous creature most of you will ever see. Inside this innocuous looking ball is a creature known as an Amorphous Blob. A one celled amoeboid life form with no known limit to its size. It secretes a digestive acid that will eat through Anything, save glass and stone. And when I say anything, I mean Anything, wood, steel, people. It can squeeze through minute cracks and openings and it has no mind, therefore it cannot be controlled by any sort of charm such as your Imperious curse. It is extremely magic resistant, lightning makes it stronger, cold has no effect, Fire is the only way to hurt it, physical weapons of course will be digested as they strike it. It cannot be destroyed while it is in this orb, else I would chuck it into the fire straight away. To further complicate matters, if it is somehow cut in two, or three or more pieces, you now have to deal with multiple Blobs. It can scale walls with ease and slither across ceilings with no problem. As I said, it has no known limit to its size so it could very easily become as large as this entire castle if left unchecked."
Snape glanced around the room and gave Andranos a quick look before shouting, "Well, why aren't any of you writing this down?" Harry was too dumbfounded from the explanation to lift his quill, as was Ron, but Hermione immediately set to work at the task. Snape swooped over at his momentary pause and declared five points off of Gryffindor for not following instructions.
After a few more minutes of standing around, Andranos left the room, leaving the orb on Snape's desk. He paused only long enough to inform them that he would not be teaching his class that morning and they shouldn't bother even going to it. Once he had gone, Snape contorted his face and spit on the floor before resuming his normal teaching schedule.
