Felix run to the Headmistress office, ignoring a fifth-year couple by a corridor snogging in the dark and the caretaker in a different corridor yelling at him not to run in the corridors.
Almost skidding past the gargoyle, he pressed the black pass against the stone gargoyle, but it didn't open.
"Ugh! Come on you stone statue! Pixie poop! Fairy dust! Lemon drop! Centaur weed!" Felix tried every password he could think the Headmistress' daughter might have like when she was alive, but none worked.
Just as he was ready to bang on the gargoyle it started to swing open and from the spiral staircase Hogwarts' Professors came out one by one. Professor Jordan came out last giving him a look to get in before the gargoyle closed.
Most Professors appeared to be worried sick, angry, sad, stressed, in despair, but not Professor Morgana Marvey she looked positively happy and even winked at him as he went passed her to enter the spiral staircase.
The office was dark, illuminated only by the full moon outside. Professor Horsewood sat behind her desk, head in hands and a glass filled to the brim with a golden-yellow liquid next to her right hand.
"Felix, I suspect you are here for the same reason the Professors were", she said in a pained voice without raising her head.
"If Azrail attacked Nate's family…he's not even within the "core" of my friends, if he is attacked, everyone is up for attack…" he wanted to cry, to lash out, to beg for what was coming to change course.
"Indeed…take a seat, I'll be with you shortly", Felix sat in one of the armchairs as she downed the golden-yellow liquid in one swift motion of her hand. "This is the difficult part of the war that's been raging for six years now. The casualties and the uncertainty. The people we care about and the inability to protect them against the onslaught… We cannot protect everyone we are only but a school…" Professor Horsewood seemed on the verge of tears.
"Surely my friends' families…" Felix started saying but the Headmistress shook her head.
"We are a school; I do not have the resources to protect everyone's families, best I can do is, if their families agree, to have your core friends and the Blake brothers spend Christmas in Hogwarts rather than go back, at least if their families are attacked they won't be there, not much of a consolation but I have no way of protecting people outside of Hogwarts…the Ministry will do some things but we both know they will not be nearly adequately enough.
This war started with the bloodshed of those unknown to you, then you experienced loss and it became personal. Since then you and Azrail have behaved like two medieval generals on a battlefield, exchanging skirmishes and sacrificing pawns to taunt and provoke each other into making a mistake. If you two were commanding armies you'd be sending light infantry or mounted archers to harass each other's lines, provoke an erroneous reaction which would open lines, break formations so you could send in the cavalry flanked by heavy infantry under the barrage of arrows and siege weapons to rout the enemy and slaughter as many soldiers as you can, saw confusion and despair in the enemy's soldiers and take the day.
"But the terms of this war are vastly different, Azrail is out there unchecked and free to attack anyone he so desires at will while you are in here unable to do much of anything. So, this is going to be the most difficult part for you to handle, for everyone to handle. Until you are ready to step out of Hogwarts' safety and face him come what may you will have to weather the long night. The daily uncertainty of waking up and going to sleep, of spending the day not knowing where the shoe will drop next and who and when will be attacked next", she said sitting next to him.
"In other words the anticipation will kill me and there's nothing I can do to stop Azrail from hurting more people I care about."
"There is one thing you can do about it…are you ready for it?"
"I'm not sure…how will I know?"
"An urge, it'll be an unconquerable urge much like back during the end of your fourth year in Achronia's cave, perhaps with less rage and more tactic."
Felix wanted to scream at her, to yell, to tear the world asunder than to have one more person he cared about get hurt because of Azrail. But ready to get out of his cave he was not, so instead he sighed. "I guess…thank you ma'am. Can't we protect…"
She shook her head heavily. "This is the long night, Felix. Dawn will come, it is inevitable, there is always light after dark. Metaphorically and literally, but there is a long night ahead of you…us and you need to find the strength and fortitude to weather this, because it will get worse before it gets any better, as cliché as that phrase might be", he would never truly comprehend just how this cost her, not be able to protect her students no matter how much she may have desired to.
Felix stood up and left. Just outside the Headmistress' office gargoyle-guarded entrance he doubled over emptying his stomach's contents, the realization of what lay ahead hitting him hard for the first time as the thoughts circling his mind threatening to overwhelm him.
"Scourgify", he cleaned up the floor and run back to the Hufflepuff common room. Ethel was talking with Nate who still looked pale, the fireplace burned steady providing the room with some light.
"Good, you are here", he told them. "I have an idea and I need you two to spread the word around."
"What's up, boss?" Nate stood up, he wanted to do something, anything that'd get his mind out of the earlier events.
"We have been training, but in absence of need for dealing with Professor Hudson we haven't really been doing enough. This changes, there's a storm coming our way, and we need to prepare people as best we can. So, spread the word far and wide, I don't care if you are year one or year seven, if you want to train and willing learn to defend yourself, the Students of Hogwarts are going to be there, starting right after Christmas break."
"That's a lot of people, it is bound to "leak"", Ethel commented.
"Training will focus on fighting Azrail and his insane army of thugs. I don't care if Professors find out."
"Okay, we'll tell the other Hufflepuffs", Nate nodded.
"No, you misunderstood me. Anyone who wants regardless of their year and House. All Houses are invited."
Ethel gave a low whistle. "Well okay then, we'll spread the word around."
Nate departed for his dorm, feeling his eyes close and his legs drag across the floor, but Ethel remained behind.
"Are you still determined to go to the Governors' Ball?" She asked him in a whisper, stepping closer. She hoped and wanted him to say no.
"Yes, and I know who to take with me as my plus one…if she'll agree to it."
"And if it's a trap? Can you at least tell the Headmistress?"
"If she doesn't already know from Professor Jordan, I will. I'm daring not stupid", Felix tried to smile reassuringly, but no smile would materialize. "I doubt it'll be a trap, but if it is…the long night ahead will become a wee short one. I'm off to sleep, I just want to thank you for being my friend and…I'm preemptively sorry if my half-brother causes you sorrow and loss…" Ethel hugged him impulsively.
"I am proud to be your friend, and whatever Azrail may do I won't blame you nor do I require you to apologize for him but…thanks."
Claudia was eating breakfast in the Gryffindor table in the Great Hall when Felix found her, taking a seat next to her. "Hello, do you have a minute?" He asked her, afraid of her being still angry at him. His stomach a bundle of nerves.
"Hey yeah sure, what's up?" She asked him startled, setting down her fork.
"Have something I wanted to ask you….it's really like a hundred things but I'll stick with the one urgent one…" he started when she interrupted him.
"We are friends still, if that's the question, I'm not even mad at you anymore, it's just…I'm…I think I am in….in…nevermind, what did you want to ask me?" She appeared to be distressed by whatever was in her mind, confusing her.
"This just generates more questions…but in any case. I wanted to ask you if you'd be my plus one for the Governors' Ball. I can't think of anyone else I trust more to have with me in the Hyenas' den", the thoughts in his mind were also confusing him increasingly where Claudia was involved.
"Yes", she nodded, not exactly smiling, not exactly not.
"Okay, that's great. I can assume you have a dress for the occasion?"
"Is the sky blue?" She cracked a smile.
"And the grass has always been green."
"When is it?"
"A day after school closes for Christmas break."
"Mum is gonna love this…but on the other hand she did tell me she's raised an independent woman and I should go after what I want and need. So, you know, she doesn't like me not going home for Christmas this year, that's something she has to deal with."
"You'll remain in Hogwarts?" Felix asked surprised. He quickly suppressed a grin creeping up on his lips.
"Yeah."
"Good, nice. Well I need to get going, see you later. Oh, and…I …would you like to….it's nice we're talking again, really nice", he put up a hesitant smile.
Claudia nodded with a smile of her own.
"Good luck with your Quidditch game tomorrow versus Ravenclaw."
"Thanks! Oh, and if your captain doesn't already know this, Lisa really, honestly and absolutely hates having to order her team to protect her seeker or fly low, flying low close to the ground seems to be beneath her for some reason. She only does so when it is far too late."
"But if she does so too late then doesn't she leave her keeper and chasers unprotected?" Claudia wondered aloud.
"Really? I don't know, your words not mine", Felix winked at her.
"Why do you care if Gryffindor wins against Slytherin? It can't be just to see Lisa lose."
"Never underestimate my desire to humiliate Slytherin…Hufflepuff's going to win the Quidditch cup if I have anything to say about it, but we have as much chance of winning the House cup, even with the Quidditch cup's House points, as Azrail feeling remorse for his crimes and locking himself up in Azkaban. Gryffindor and Slytherin are tied in first place and I would rather see Gryffindor win than Slytherin. And I've got many, many other reasons as well."
Uriel entered the Great Hall, sitting next to them.
"I forgot about that mind of yours…" Claudia remarked, Felix chuckled on his way out of the Great Hall.
"His mind…you have no idea…" Uriel stated under his breath, serving himself breakfast.
"Huh?"
"Remember when I used Polyjuice to change into Felix, so he could go search in the Manor?"
"Yeah?"
"I spent a day and a night with him so that I could impersonate him accurately without anyone realizing what was what…I spend a lot of time with him explaining his strategy to me for the game…you have no idea the amount of information and concurrent calculations that go on inside that mind of his. There is no House that can defeat Hufflepuff with him as a captain playing in the game, yet he allows his team to lose some games so that it doesn't go into their heads and they turn complacent, so that Lisa feels secure and doesn't see the monumentally crushing defeat that's coming her way next year and god knows why else. His mind awes me beyond words."
"Evil creates its own nemesis, its own destruction…" Claudia mumbled under her breath thinking of something else.
"Hmm?"
"Three years back during Charles' wake, Professor Jordan chatted me up, asked me what I saw when I looked at Felix. Sorrow, grief, fear and depression, that was my answer. "Sorrow and grief are normal under the circumstances, but I see no depression. What do you think he fears?" He had replied with me replying with a question, "Azrail and Ernaline?". After a brief pause, he told me, "when I first saw him, nigh four years ago he was, indeed, afraid of his siblings and father. Now, I will have to disagree with you. He does not know it yet, does not realize it or will not admit it to himself, but he fears Azrail and Ernaline no more", so I asked him what or who is he afraid of."
"Now, I am interested, what did Professor Jordan reply?" Socrates asked sitting next to her, where Felix sat before.
"Who he fears? Himself of course, what he might be capable of in his fury and rage. Everything that happens from now on, everything, hinges on one thing and one thing alone. Felix coming to terms with himself, his family's past and his sorrow not just for his cousin but for the years he cannot remember."
"Sorrow? How did we go from fear to sorrow?" Uriel scratched his head feeling lost.
"I asked him that, "fear covers anger, hatred and loathing, and they blanket deep-seated sorrow", so I asked him next how we his friends could aid him along, and he told me that we could do nothing, that come fall Felix would ask him to train him in dueling and he'd take it from there. Took a year more but I guess it did happen. Felix did ask him to help train him and to teach him how to kill Azrail. Professor Jordan had left telling me that tidbit about evil creating its own destruction."
"It would seem the fates do not easily take no for answer", Socrates commented.
"The more one tries to avoid one's destiny, the more one brings it to bear", Emerick stated with Azrail in mind.
"So, perhaps not trying to avoid it and not trying to have it happen is the solution?" Uriel wondered aloud.
"Oh, I wonder though", Socrates started saying and everyone groaned laughing, "how does one know one is either avoiding or trying to make happen one's destiny? Perhaps if one is attempting the former one is succeeding in the later and vice versa?"
They continued to converse the subject well into the day between classes and during lunch. Each time just as they thought they had gained one up on Socrates and his line of thinking, Socrates would go on proving them how wrong they were.