Disclaimer: Check first chapter for full disclaimer and other warnings.
Chapter 24 – Fifth Column
Tamara O'Malley was standing, annoyed, in Gabriel's rooms. Her memories were unclear on how she had arrived there, but she had recognised them quite quickly. That is, after the person she had been kicking at had disappeared. It was Gabriel's hideaway, so it must have been Gabriel. He looked strange, though, with his golden hair and green eyes... and he had a pair of wings, too!
She definitely had to ask him a few questions, but he had left for an unknown location, letting her rot in there. She wasn't exactly stranded, as she had her own means of moving around, but she didn't want to be asked too uncomfortable questions after he'd come back with her absent from there. She had had time to explore the rooms, trying to entertain herself by reading the indecipherable books, unsuccessfully trying to lift the metal bar, and eating a few snacks from the plate.
She also had time to ponder about why they had appeared here in the first time, and shuddered, as she remembered the scuffle on the school roof, and the feeling of falling. Gabriel had saved her, then? But he left her here... when she had attacked him. She sat on the chair, taking her head in her hands, and sighed.
It was in her lost state that she heard the bed creaking suddenly. Jumping at the sound, she found herself frozen at the sight. An enormous lion had appeared on the bed. The animal was on its side, facing her, and looked like it had been badly beaten, as it was bleeding profusely on the white linens. She was surprised, then, to see the bed react to the injured animal, and tend its wounds with as much care as a professional medic.
She was still staring at the animal when the bed finished its treatment, the wounds closed and healing. The lion then sighed and turned in its sleep.
That's when the girl got one of the biggest shocks of her life.
The animal had wings. The lion had wings! Exactly like Gabriel's drawings!
She reflected that she didn't have anywhere to hide from the beast, should it be a ferocious one. After all, it still had blood on its maw and paws, and it hadn't been healed by the bed so it must have been from some other animal. Or was it a human?
Unsure about all this, she decided to hide in the curtain-separated bathroom. But, as she didn't want to be forgotten should Gabriel come, she awkwardly wrote a note with the inked feather she had found in the drawer, the note saying where to find her.
When she finished writing, she turned towards the beast a last time, and saw that it was soundly asleep, recovering from its wounds. She took a few cushions from the sports room, and went into the bathroom. Her watch showed that it was past dinnertime, so she decided to take a little nap.
She slept uncomfortably, but couldn't very well push the lion away from the bed, could she?
After a few hours, she woke up, alerted by a sound. With the closed curtain, she could only hear the sounds from the other room. The lion was trashing in the bed, growling menacingly. She retreated in the shower stall, trying to hide herself a bit more, but the beast's breathing became regular again, and she went back to the cushions and her uncomfortable sleep.
A few hours afterwards, she heard another strange sound, and woke up completely, quickly alert. At first, it was a deep rasping sound, which slowly evolved into human-produced sobs. Unable to stand it, she went silently to the room, and saw Gabriel, sitting on the edge of the bed, crying in his crossed arms. She went to him, and patted his back gently. When he raised his head, she saw the sorrow in his eye, and hugged him. After five minutes, during which the sobs changed into sighs, they separated. They softly spoke, at the same time.
"I'm sorry."
"I'm sorry."
Looking at each other, they smiled slightly. He spoke first.
"I'm certainly a wizard."
"You are?"
"If you hadn't noticed, I can change my appearance."
"I noticed. So the winged lion..."
"...yep, that's me. Sorry to have frightened you. I didn't know it before, though. You wanted to sleep?"
"It's okay; I took a quick nap on some cushions. I couldn't very well push you, and I didn't see myself in bed with a big burly lion."
"You took a nap? How much time..." he suddenly looked panicked. "What time is it? When did I arrive?"
She looked at her watch and answered. "You slept for a good six hours."
He closed his eyes, muttering something and wiggling his fingers. Uneasy about that, thinking that the wizard in front of her was casting a spell, she asked warily. "What are you doing?"
He opened his eye and looked at her, before understanding the question. "Calculating the time outside. I have to go back."
"Oh. Go back? Why would you want to go back to some place where you got injured?"
"She's dead, I saw her fall, there!" at that, he began to cry again, and he continued, haltingly "I have... to find... her body."
She nodded, not wanting to force more sobs by asking who was dead, and took a decision. "I'm coming with you."
"What? No way! From what I saw, it was a full-scale battle, you can't come."
"A battle? Where?"
"I don't know! But you are not coming!"
"I can hold my own in a battle! If I can use some fire, I mean..."
He reflected for a while, understanding her dilemma, before agreeing, albeit reluctantly. After all, in the fight he had been into, spells had flown in the air, so, more or less fire...
He wanted to transform as soon as they arrive, though, and warned her about that. She touched the ring, and he spoke the activation word again.
"Hogliewarts."
In a dark cottage...
"Crucio! Crucio! Crucio!"
The spirit-man was furious. There had been times when he had been angry, but now, he was seething. Each and every one of his followers got an idea of his real proficiency in casting the Cruciatus curse.
"How could such a simple plan fail? You had two hundred Dementors to your side and you lost to mere students?"
"My Lord..."
"Silence! Crucio!"
The unfortunate follower spent longer in the throes of the pain curse than the others, and when Voldemort stopped, he fell into unconsciousness, some blood coming from his bitten tongue. The dark lord looked at him in disgust, before addressing the others. At least, he seemed calmer now.
"We are going to regroup. No one leaves this house before I tell you so. Jugson!"
"Yes, my Lord?" the sleep-deprived man had already spent his entire week browsing through old books and napping in the cottage's library.
"If you don't have news about the spell, I'm going to-"
"You are not."
The androgyne that Voldemort already knew as Thirteen had just appeared near the throne. Before Voldemort could react one way or another, said androgyne gave him a scroll of parchment.
"Is this of any interest for you?" he muttered so low that only Voldemort heard him, before disappearing.
The currently self-appointed Dark Lord grabbed the scroll and began to read. When he was halfway, he was smiling, and when he finished, he looked happier than ever. He held the scroll to his most faithful servant.
"Jugson, here is the spell. Prepare it, quickly. We will use this one's blood." He finished his sentence by pushing with his foot the dead body of Bill Weasley.
When everyone was ready to leave, a deep voice came from behind Voldemort's diminished ranks of followers.
"You will need me for that spell."
A man had just appeared in the room. He was undoubtedly old, although closely shaved and well-dressed in a black and silver robe. A silver staff helped him to walk towards the Dark Lord.
"You are Voldemort?" he asked, looking him up and down.
"I'm the Dark Lord Voldemort, and show respect if you don't want to die!"
The other man chuckled, before mumbling something unrecognisable. If Voldemort had been a tad closer, he could have heard "youngsters." He straightened, and spoke again. "I'm the only one able to cast this spell, as the power level required is too high for any of your followers." he said with contempt in his voice.
Voldemort sneered. "What about me?"
"You?" The old man's sneer, polished by experience, was as impressing as his, if not more. "You are the spell target! You can't do both."
Voldemort thought about it. On the one hand, he could now have his own body to get rid of his current stinking flesh. On the other hand, he was putting himself under the man's influence. Strangely, when he reflected about it, it didn't disturb him anymore than that. Thinking about the failed attack again, he remembered the strange sensation of being watched from the castle, as if... as if it recognized him. Shrugging the feeling aside, he smiled. The sight of his broken body smiling in a broken way wasn't pleasant, but he didn't care. In a short time, he will be whole again!
Earlier, in the Great Hall...
As soon as Dumbledore left with all the volunteers, all the doors of the Great Hall sealed themselves shut. The students began worrying about their fate, but some of them were hard-headed enough to recognise their situation. As they hadn't wanted to fight, they were going to be protected by the others. They calmed the other and mostly younger students, and the students organized themselves quite rapidly.
The elves summoned privacy walls and couches, so some of the students slept a bit. Some of them, who had had their school bags with them in the room, shared their books to provide some entertainment. Some older students told the frightened first years stories about the school and Dumbledore.
They were under siege, but were trying to stay calm.
In the peaceful atmosphere, though, a few people were restless.
Most of the volunteers had been from Gryffindor, sending fifty out of seventy students in the battle. They were followed in numbers by Hufflepuff, then by Ravenclaw, and Slytherin had barely produced half a dozen fighters, and fourteen spies. That meant that the numbers in the Great Hall were reversed, and in favour of the Slytherins. The fact that two adults were there wasn't changing anything, as the elderly man who had joined them was sleeping already, and professor Sinistra didn't have enough charisma to direct the students into anything.
Pansy Parkinson wanted to use this opportunity to wreak havoc on the feeble students. That way, she would certainly rise in power in the ranks of the future ruler of the world.
"Vince! Greg!" she called from inside one of the temporary bedrooms.
"Mmhpfmm mrhmm!" answered Vincent Crabbe, who had always been the most eloquent of the pair. During the intellectual moments where they had to open their mouths, it was generally Crabbe who answered, and the other one nodded stupidly. Still, now that snacks had appeared on the tables, both Pansy's sidekicks had lunged on them and were now sporting a full mouth and food-laden arms. Not quite useful to hold a proper conversation.
Pansy rolled her eyes. That wasn't going to be easy. Anyway, they didn't have to say anything right now, so she spoke again.
"Remember what we discussed a week ago?" Noticing their vacant eyes, she sighed, and continued for herself. "Naturally... who would have thought otherwise?"
Goyle showed a spark of genius by speaking before his peer, but the spark was drowned in an ocean immediately. "I don't know... who?"
Pansy sighed again. Twice. "Listen, you two. Starting now, you do exactly as I say. You don't speak without my clearance. You don't eat until I say so. And you don't move if I don't tell you to. Understood?"
They looked at each other, before turning their head toward her with a lost expression. She sighed, again. "Riiiight. You may speak now."
"Understood, Pansy!"
"Good boys." She adopted a calculating look and spoke slowly. "You are going to sit with me here. I am going to say several things. Whatever I say, if I finish a sentence with a question to you, you answer it."
"Errr... Pansy? How d'we answer it? We don't have the answer..."
Pansy considered there and then buying herself a wig to replace the hair he will soon tear off herself in frustration. How could those two have even entered Hogwarts, it was a mystery to her. Still, they had their advantages...
Shaking herself, she answered Crabbe. "Simple. When I end a sentence by 'isn't it?' or 'doesn't it?' you answer 'Yeah', loudly but without shouting. If I end one with 'is it?' or 'does it?' you will answer 'Nah.' Let's try it... The weather is beautiful, isn't it?"
"But Pansy, we don't see outside from here, I don't know about the weather!" whined Goyle.
She sighed exasperatedly before retorting. "I don't care if you see the weather or not! Just do as I said. The weather is beautiful, isn't it? You answer 'Yeah'."
"Ah. Err... Yeah?" The profound intelligence of the reply unnerved Pansy greatly, but at last, they should work around her plan, now.
"Go fetch Marcus, now."
Marcus Flint was captaining the Slytherin Quidditch team. The boy was older than the regular seventh years because he had been allowed to pass his NEWT exams again, after failing them. His parents had used the excuse that last year's events had distressed the young man enough to disturb his exams. The student wasn't recruited as a junior Death Eater yet, but Pansy knew that he was sympathizing with them.
When Marcus came in the privacy stall, he looked uneasily at the trio. Everybody in Slytherin knew that these three students were in league with the Death Eaters. They just didn't know to which extent.
"Hi Marcus, how are you doing today?" asked Pansy. She could be very charming when the need arose.
"Err... good?" The young man didn't know what she had in mind.
"Don't you think that we are too many students in the school?"
"Err... perhaps?"
"We could be more aptly taught if we were fewer in class," Pansy then looked at Goyle intently, "don't you think?"
The boy understood it was his cue, and answered "Yeah!"
Startled at the interruption, Marcus looked at him, before turning toward the girl again. "Well... yes, I gather."
"If certain students weren't there at all, if they were prevented from accessing the school, we would be better. Isn't it?"
Taken by the play, Crabbe and Goyle answered at the same time. "Yeah!"
Marcus wasn't so obtuse, though, and he slowly understood where the discussion was leading. Pansy's next sentence confirmed that.
"More than a third of the students here are mud... muggleborn, Marcus. Another third are... come from mixed parentage. We would be better without them, right, Marcus? What do you think about that?"
Marcus shifted uneasily on his seat. That was a question he had already thought about, and he agreed with the principle. He had never voiced his opinion before, however, and was suspecting that Pansy had an ulterior motive to this discussion. He couldn't place it, though, and answered truthfully.
"Well... yes, I suspect that the professors would have more time for each of us. We could learn more things instead of starting with the basics in the first year."
Pansy smiled internally. She had known about Marcus' tendencies for a long time, and it pleased her that he voiced them at last. He hadn't even need peer pressure or intimidation to agree with them.
"Well, Marcus, we want everybody to know that there will be some changes soon. I know that the attack will succeed. Mere students, especially Gryffindorks," she smirked, and the three boys' smiles reflected hers, "don't stand a chance against hundreds of Dementors." She ignored Marcus' gasp and continued. "When the Dark Lord will take over the school, mudbloods will see their right to learn revoked. We don't need them, and we don't want them." After a second, she added "do we?"
On cue, the three boys answered "No!"
"Good. I want to wreak havoc in this Hall. Once we have enough people agreeing with us, there will be nobody able to stop us. Those two spies will be our first targets, as well as the crumbling old man and the fraud. Then we will treat the mudbloods, half-bloods, and the other muggle-lovers."
Marcus had a last ray of coherent thought. "What do you want to do with them, exactly?"
She smiled evilly. "You'll see, Marcus. You'll see. I guarantee that you will find the experience most enjoyable. Are you with me?"
"Yes, of course."
"Good. We need more people agreeing with us, however." She turned toward her sidekicks again. "Go fetch Montague and Bole."
The process of convincing the Slytherins continued, and soon, Millicent Bulstrode, Theodore Nott, and Adrian Pucey joined the small group. Adrian was a little harder to convince, but the bulging muscles of the Slytherin resident bodyguards, as well as the hard looks of the others, made him agree with the views, and Pansy finished him with a complicated theory where fewer students would be better for the school economics. Nobody was in the right state of mind to contradict her at that point.
After gathering her mini-club of half a dozen followers, the junior dark witch proceeded to the next part of her plan. She told them that all the other Houses were full of those stinking muggle-lovers and that they all deserved to be casualties of the outside attack. Dumbledore and several teachers didn't find grace in their eyes. Her audience nodded along, and occasionally cheered to her ranting. Pansy directed the meeting aptly, and, in a true secret society meeting, she provided them with knives to seal their secrecy in blood. While they sliced each other's forearm with the weapons, she surreptitiously cast a cheering charm to push their mood a little further.
When Terence Higgs, seventh-year Slytherin Prefect, came around the privacy wall to ask for some calm, the overwrought students saw in him the epitome of their ill-advertised enemy, and lunged savagely to him. The poor prefect could only stare in awe at the four hilts protruding from his chest.
Pansy knew that 'her' students had to stay keyed-up for her project, and she galvanized her troops, repeating the false information she had fed them with. She then pushed them in the Hall while pretending to follow. She didn't have time to prevent her sidekicks to follow the group, though, as the two of them had been raptly drinking her words like the others. She sighed at their stupidity and went back in another privacy stall, laid on a bed, and pretended to sleep, oblivious to the sound of carnage in the Hall proper. Whatever the result of the operation, she wasn't traceable, and would escape unscathed.
In the hall, pandemonium erupted. The eight armed teenagers lunged on the unsuspecting population like the plague, plunging blades to get targets nearby, and casting the most aggressive spell they knew for those remote targets. As the most proficient in fighting had left, the remaining students took a deadly long time to respond to the threat. It wasn't before six students had fallen, along whose the two spies for Dumbledore, that some curses could be seen flying towards the mad students.
The people in the Hall quickly saw that mild curses wouldn't be enough to get the eight Slytherin down, so a volley of miscellaneous object soon flew through the hall towards the attackers. Crabbe got tangled in bed linens, and the other students could approach him to bodily knock him out with improved clubs or furniture.
Four of the would-be dark wizards got hit by curses, the ineffectiveness of these being compensated by their number. Millicent Bulstrode was leg-locked, before being knocked out also. Pucey was subjected to the Petrificus Totalus spell. Montague got hit by an Expelliarmus expertly thrown by an older Hufflepuff student, thus disarming him before he was knocked out by the mob as well. And Goyle was hit by several different curses at the same time, some of which being Transfiguration incantation, and found himself transformed into a strange animal, half-donkey and half-monkey, with the global size of a cat, and a polka dotted fur.
Bole got isolated into a circle of angry young wizards armed with wands and improvised weapons, and found himself beaten to an inch of his life.
From the last two students, Flint stared at the approaching mob in defiance, cursing them verbally before impaling himself on his knife. Nott, the last one, seeing all that mess, his mind screaming at him to wake up, decided to surrender and threw his wand and knife on the ground. That didn't prevent him from being knocked out as well, though.
In the shocked silence that ensued, everyone went to the fallen, victims of the eight supposedly mad students. Many tears were released upon the nine deceased, and heartening yells upon the wounded. Deciding to show up at that point, but not fool enough to appear unscathed, Pansy first torn her clothing and cut herself on the cheek, before exiting the privacy stall. She then acted like everybody about the general situation. Even if her housemates knew that she was generally untrustworthy, she was so good an actress that everybody thought of her as another victim of the deadly madness.
They had to do something about the wounded, though, but the doors were sealed. Pansy had also counted on the attack to be either swift or long, not repelled. That's why the proud smile she showed when the doors started to open transformed into a disbelieving expression when they saw McGonagall appear on the threshold, smiling.
However, the Headmistress' smile evaporated immediately when she took notice of the state of the Great Hall. Everybody started to speak at the same time, some students wanting to bring the injured to the Hospital wing, and others wanting to relate their own version of the events.
Casting a quick Sonorus on herself, the wizened woman asked for the silence, and got it. In the stillness that followed, she looked around, and noticed that some students had been stabbed and that others were on the floor with knives beside them. Her nostrils flared in anger, but she had to take action immediately.
She pointed to Seamus Finnigan, a trustworthy and athletic third-year Gryffindor. "Go fetch Madam Pomfrey and as many helpers as possible from the infirmary, and ask her to bring lots of her anti-bleeding tape! After this, fetch Professor Dumbledore from my office."
Afterwards, she conjured stretchers for the wounded and, clearing a large space in the middle of the Hall, asked the students to put them there. That took some time, and Madam Pomfrey and Arabella Figg arrived in the room while they were doing so. They gasped, and went from student to student, Madam Pomfrey uttering a few spells, and Arabella making a large use of the magical tape. Noticing Hannah Abbot hovering around, trying to help, she sent her to the infirmary to fetch some potions and more tape.
During this, the Headmistress decided to take a first year from each house to tell her what had happened. Albus Dumbledore arrived at that moment, accompanied by Alastor Moody, who had been surprisingly quick with his wooden leg. The old Professor's normally calm stance immediately became angry. Here had been the weakest children, and the darkness had dared striking in their midst! He glanced sadly at the linen-covered bodies surrounded by weeping students, and vowed to himself to do his best about the perpetrators.
He discreetly asked Moody to check that nobody left the Hall, and went to McGonagall who was trying to discern what had happened through the young students' recollection of it. Their speech was confusing, though. They had all heard shouts coming from a privacy stall in the Slytherin area, before a few students erupted from it, armed with knives and wands, and they had attacked everybody. They easily showed to the old pair which students had attacked. The professors tied them with magical ropes and lined them on the dais where was the staff table. Looking at them, they confirmed that they all were Slytherins, but a detail got their attention some more.
Crabbe and Goyle.
Everybody knew about the infamous trio that terrorized the younger students in the corridors. Albus had let them continue, wanting to give them a chance to see the error in their way. He had justified his lack of action to the Headmistress with the additional reason that it did put the other students in contact with difficult situation which would no doubt arise in the real world. She had been reluctant but had accepted to let them free. Seeing the two young gorillas lying there, they felt that someone was missing. Someone who had been all smiles to everyone, but on who the darkest suspicions had been laid. Leading the two brutes. Tampering with Remus' potion. Daughter of Death Eaters, and Death Eater herself.
Pansy Parkinson.
They twirled around, intending to search the girl, when a commotion caught their attention at the doors. They didn't have to search for her, as she was there, kicking like an injured cat at the magical cage she was into. His wand raised, Moody appeared in the doorway, and directed the flying prison towards the two professors.
"I knew someone would try to flee."
"Thank you Alastor." said Dumbledore.
"My pleasure."
At that, Moody released the spell, and the prison evaporated. The girl hit the floor on her behind with a thump, and began to wail immediately, at the same time trying to smear the blood from her light cut to appear more like a victim. The two professors looked at each other for a brief moment, and nodded, before turning back towards her, wands raised. The next second, she was unconscious and tied like the other ones.
Dumbledore turned towards McGonagall. "We will need Veritaserum."
"Albus... the Ministry?"
"Even if Fudge was in place, I'd still say it's my school. Now that it's Arthur, it will be easier even."
She smiled. "Your school?"
He looked at her sheepishly. "Sorry. The force of habit, you know."
"I know, I know. Go, now, and fetch Severus."
Albus Dumbledore left the room, and left his smile there too. He didn't really need the Veritaserum to imagine what had taken place there, but his strong sense of 'what was right and what wasn't' pushed him to ask confirmation. He didn't need Snape, though, as he always had a vial of the truth serum at his disposal. Sure, he was going to wake the man anyway, if only to share the good news about the Dementors. But he was fed up of giving people second chances, especially when it did cost many young and innocent lives.
May Merlin protect the guilty, now, because he sure wouldn't.
To be continued in next chapter: Honours...
Okay now, please bear with me.
You will soon the ending see
From the reviews I gather
That I should go on hither.