The Hogwarts Murders – Vol. 5
The sky was going purple when it struck Sybill Trelawny - the awful premonition that would mean the ultimate end to Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry! It had taken her aback, stricken her at the least expected time - yet there was no denying that it had been awaited for many, many years to date. Oh, yes... the end had been drawing nearer for a long time now, and she had been impatiently waiting for destiny to strike. Oh, how dreadful - how very unfortunate! She had to inform the other teachers right away; something had to be done about the children, the poor, poor children that would be so brutally caught between justice and divine torment! They would have to send them home, every last one of them, yes every last one...
For they were all in grave danger.
"Did you get that from Fred and George?" Hermione asked, staring at the colourful sweets with obvious dislike.
"Yes, if you have to know, I did," Ron informed her mischievously. "It's in case I get bored with the lessons..."
She crossed her arms in front of her chest, looking very important. "Have you ever thought that those lessons might be intended to prepare you for your future as a successful wizard?" she demanded.
Ron stuck out his tongue at her. "No!"
"Then maybe you should consider it now."
"But I don't want to be a successful wizard in the future! I wanna play professional Quidditch!"
"Then maybe you should start trying to save some goals before the Slytherins come up with more creative songs to cheer you up," she snapped acidicly.
Ron shot up from his chair. "You take that back!"
"No!"
"Would you two please keep the racket down? Some of us are trying to study..."
They both stopped dead and stared at Harry as if he was going mad.
Harry just sighed and shook his head with resignation. There just was no stopping those two once they had started.
Breaking free of her short spell of indecision, Hermione gathered her books and put them back in her bag. "I'm going back to the common room to resume my studies there," she informed them ceremoniously and left without another word.
Ron shrugged as if he had to prove something to Harry, but Harry paid no attention at all to his best friend at the moment.
It was getting nearer - the end! She could feel it in her bones. They were reverberating with ominous anticipation - and there was nothing that anyone could do to stop it all from happening. It was predestined. Inevitable.
Yet there was one person that Sybill had to speak with before leaving the school for ever: Minerva McGonagall. Since the headmaster had fled the scene of his unbelievable crime - hexing members of the Minstry and the Minister for Magic himself, what an outrage! - and that Umbridge woman was not to trust she had only one candidate on her list of possible disciples. Snape was out of the question; he had never understood the fine art of divination or any suchlike ability, he had simply mocked and bullied her for having the Eye. He just could not understand, could not understand... And all the other teachers were practically dumb as dimwits. There just was no trusting them. No, Minerva it had to be!
She was in her office, thank Lord!
"Minerva, I need to have a word with you," she said, squinting through her thick glasses to see the elder lady's face.
McGonagall did not seem all too pleased about this, but nevertheless put down her parchment and quill and straightened her spectacles. "What can be so urgent that it can't wait just a few minutes, Sibyll?" she queried with an underlying tone of dislike in her voice that completely went past Trelawny.
"Well, I'd rather not discuss it here, Minerva, this office is..." She did not quite know how to put it into words. "...unspiritual."
McGonagall raised an eyebrow in bafflement. "Well then, where do you suggest that we have this chat?"
Sybill only had to think for a second. "The Great Hall. Full of spiritual forces in there, much easier for me to tune in on the other realms there, yes yes indeed..."
Minerva was seemingly very reluctant to accompany the former Divination teacher to the Great Hall at this hour of day, but since there seemed to be no choice for her she came along without objections. When they were standing just below the teachers' long table she started to shift her feet impatiently. "Okay, Sybill, you've got my attention. What was it that you wanted to discuss with me?"
"Oh, Minerva, I have had the most teeeerrible vision - you cannot even begin to imagine or even try to fathom the horror that I went through thanks to the Eye!" Sybill said theatrically, gesturing wildly with her satin-clad arms. "I was sitting up in my tower, reading the tea leaves, when I was struck by a premonition so strong that it knocked me out of my chair and almost made me fall into the fire, but fortunately I managed to steer just clear of it."
"What a pity..."
"Pardon?"
"Oh, nothing, Sybill," McGonagall sighed, "please do go on."
Trelawny nodded. "It is time, Minerva. This is the year that the glorious era of Hogwarts is coming to an end starting with a murder that is supposedly going to be commited within the next week. This murder will set off a chain-reaction of unexpected and shocking murders that will go on and on and on until the school finally has to close down. Minerva, we have to do something about this - we cannot let this happen. We need to send the children home, for they are in danger-"
Before she could even finish her sentence, McGonagall had uttered a long moan of irritation and taken out her wand. "Sybill, I am tired of all your imagined premonitions and your constant non-stopping blabber about death and destruction and the end of life as we know it. It has to come to an end, don't you understand?"
Trelawny did not know what to say. "Bu-but, Minerva... the children... I distinctly saw a lot of children die in my premonition, you have to-"
"Was it Potter again, Sybill?"
"Potter? No, actually he-"
"Oh, spare me the crap! I am fed up with your neurotic daydreaming - get a life, will you!"
The green light was the last thing that Sybill Trelawny ever saw.
"Minerva, what on Earth are you doing?"
McGonagall jerked and swirled around to find Snape just inside the big doors. There was not much to say in her defense when the smoggy green light was still hanging in the air and Professor Trelawny's body was lying right next to her, so she used the one piece of information that she knew might save her. "Severus, if you keep quiet about this little incident I will think twice about telling Professor Dumbledore about your reconvening with He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named."
Snape twitched. He had not expected that.
"So, do we have an agreement?"
He nodded and opened his mouth to reply but was cut off by a shrill cry that pierced the night like a katana. Both turned to the door in time to see Hermione Granger run off towards the staircases, driven away by fear at what she had witnessed. A sting of guilt and worry shot through McGonagall.
"The girl," Snape said, "we have to stop her."
McGonagall knew that he was right, so both of them ran after her, hoping to get hold of her before she had time to tell any of her fellow students about the murder that had been committed only a minute ago. Driven by panic and cold concern for the girl's well-being, McGonagall ran much faster than her old legs would have liked, but when they rounded the corner on the fourth floor she found that she would not have had to run at all. Hermione was dead.
Snape stopped dead in his tracks at the sight that met them in the corridor. Because it was an odd sight, indeed. There were not one Hermione Granger, but two. McGonagall instantly knew what must have happened. The girl never returned the Time Turner after dropping those extra classes she had taken in her third year, and since McGonagall had given it to her illegally there had been no way for her to demand it back without raising suspicion towards herself. She must have used it to go back in time for some reason and accidentally come across herself while sneaking around looking for her answers. But what...?
They might never learn the truth about the motives behind Hermione's time travelling that night, but McGonagall had a feeling that it had something to do with the recent event. Therefore she never uttered any of her theories to anyone, not even Dumbledore - though he was sure to know it anyway.
The least she could do to make her wrong right was to give Hermione a decent funeral and memorial service, and that she did. It was heartbreaking to see all her friends cry at the loss of her, but McGonagall was reassured in the knowledge that it was for the greater good. The students needed her now that things at the school were deteriorating at such a dazzling rate - they needed her guidance.
This had merely been a sacrifice for the greater good of the remaining student body. One life for a few hundred.
And it had been worth it.