A month past and spring's warm breeze was removing the last of winter's vestiges from the landscape around Hogwarts, long gone was the snow and bone-chilling cold.
It had been a month of routine for Felix and his friends and he was most grateful for it, between classes, Students of Hogwarts and Quidditch training sessions and his private tutoring with Professor Jordan and studying in the library he had no time to think on the ensuing attacks outside Hogwarts' walls.
Emerick's parents had been attacked, thankfully without serious injuries, Claudia's parents had left the country and were hiding somewhere in Italy until the summer when they'd have to go and pick her up from King's cross station and there was an attack almost every day.
It was almost nine in the evening and Felix and Professor Jordan had been dueling relentlessly for more than two hours straight without a break, panting and sweating. Groups of students watched them from a safe distance.
Professor Jordan threw a fireball at him. Felix made a trigonal shape with his wand before touching the incoming fireball with his wand's tip. "Lumos illumiia!" The fireball exploded in a plentiful of ultra-bright flashes temporarily blinding his adversary and Professor.
Professor Jordan cast Nox Ultima to see the snow leopard charging at him, fangs and claws bared. "DEPULSO!" He threw it back before casting Diffindo at its forelegs only to see it vanish in ash and smoke.
He felt the touch of a wand behind him on the nape of his neck. "Incarserus maxima! Expulso!" Professor Jordan found himself bound to the ground and as he tried to escape he felt his will to fight draining rapidly. He wanted to sleep, feeling as tired as he never had before.
"Legilimensed without even understanding I've been invaded? My defenses broken without my knowledge?" He dropped his wand kneeling before Felix hair sticking to his sweaty forehead.
"You could have defeated me weeks ago, you let me believe otherwise, drew me in, in a self-assumed feeling of superiority….I stand defeated", Professor Jordan bowed his head, emotionally charged.
"I feared if I did defeat you you'd stop tutoring me, sir…" Felix replied panting and sweating.
"I am rendered undone and void of knowledge to give. You are ready if you but believe it. Our tutoring has come to its inevitable end. You have surpassed me", Professor said in a bittersweet tone standing up.
"How can I be ready, feel ready, know I am ready and yet have this internal voice at the back of my mind yelling at me not to take that step? To want this time of my life of being in Hogwarts having friends and despite Anneke, the Governors and Azrail feeling and being safe in here. I don't want this to end, am I a bad person for not wanting it to? Not wanting to die?"
"No, only another teenager at the cusp of adulthood. But there comes a time where move on you must. As sweet as childhood is, its end is inevitable. Where one thing ends another begins."
"Cute pep talk, but you know of what I speak of. What awaits after if I do kill Azrail."
"Cryptic-find-the-solution-on-your-own seems to not be working. So, what was it Achronia told you? "Prophesies are a prism of Perception." All Human perception is flawed", how can you with all your enhanced understanding and amazing brilliance not realise how her Prophesy is a two in one?" Professor Jordan started limping away.
"Two in one? Useful as always…not", Felix mumbled under his breath walking slowly back to the castle. "Perhaps giving battle to -my- evil is not a bad idea if I am to die afterwards. I don't want to use Avada, the cost is too high…but what choice is there? Azrail in prison will keep coming for us, there is no prison that can hold him for long. I just don't know what to do…"
He found Claudia walking with Socrates and Ethel near the drawbridge.
"…they still don't know what caused that massive explosion in the south of Switzerland", Claudia was saying.
"Yeah, but we do, that Orb in the Vault", Ethel said in a low voice.
"Fires that burned hot enough they melted metal and marble alike", Socrates replied in awe.
"Hey guys, Whatcha doing?" Felix asked them coming up to Claudia's left between her and Socrates.
"OH, h-hey, going to eat, wanna go down with us?" Claudia replied and ignored Ethel chocking on her own saliva.
"Yeah, sure. Dueling Professor Jordan for two hours has me ravished."
"Still losing on purpose?" Socrates asked him.
"I defeated him, our private tutoring is at an end and he thinks I'm ready", Felix replied hunching his shoulders.
"He does? You did? Now, what?" Ethel barraged him with questions but all three of them looked astounded.
"Now we enjoy the rest of the year in Hogwarts and some point after I graduate next year I'll have to fight and kill Azrail, simple", Felix sighed.
"I wonder…."
"Just once, please, let it be. Let me have this one year. I will face Azrail, but I need a year, just one."
"One? Why not many?" Socrates insisted.
"I must be off, Quidditch practice", Felix said but headed away towards the Grand Staircase instead of back outside to the Quidditch Pitch.
"He's…more cryptic than usual", Ethel noted.
"He suffers under the burden of self-appointed duty so much he fails to see the truth staring him in the face", Socrates stuffed his hands in his pockets looking at his departing friend's figure.
"Why not tell him, then?"
"Some truths must be discovered, not shared."
"And you find this vagueness appealing?" Ethel teased Claudia.
"I…I find his mind enthralling, his…gifts enticing, enraging, fun and sexy…" Claudia shrugged lacking passion in her voice.
"Oh, you fa…" Socrates did not allow Ethel to finish her sentence.
"To be talked to in the third person's always fun, a ghost in my own dialogue", Socrates seemed sad if not annoyed.
"Oh, shush. You love the attention", Claudia tried to sound teasing, yet she too was irked.
Socrates leaned in. "I love you, your attention, not "the" attention. But reciprocated it is not entirely, is it?" he whispered in her ear catching her off guard.
"I…what? Yes, no…I.." Socrates was already walking away, hands in his pockets. "Yeah, I thought so. It's okay."
"What just happened?" Ethel was snapping her head back and forth between them.
"What was inevitable", Claudia sighed leaving as well at the opposite direction with teary eyes.
"Oh grand, just grand. Now Claudia's as cryptic as Socrates and Felix!" Ethel went into the Great Hall for lunch.
The morning after Felix entered the Divination and Astronomy classroom early. Outside the spring sun was still having a bout with winter's clouds.
He found Professor Ixion gazing intensely at the half moon high atop the morning sky. Her tail flicking nonchalantly.
"Years of nothingness, unnatural for the bodies celestial to remain quiet for so long. She is correct, salvation or doom", she gazed into his eyes. "Yes, Mr. Burton?"
"She?"
"Not the question you had in mind. Ask that one, time's not your ally."
"Time's not been my life-long ally."
She turned to face him. "Be thankful she's not your enemy. Your question?"
"Do centaurs gleam the everywhen through the celestial bodies?"
"That isn't your question, ask it. Lesson is about to start."
"When you are ready to meet as equals and lay down your burden will the seed find soil and water and take root", he paused for a moment concentrating his thoughts. "To the Old Gods eternity meant not everlasting life, did it? The only thing eternal is Death. I have known for a while now, what my brother's deepest desire is, why he can't seem to find it in himself to kill me and keeps taunting me, going after my family and friends…what I don't understand is how this changes anything, what choice is there from him when I possess both the knowledge and the power to kill him? And yet the Prophesy of mine doesn't end there, does it? Lay down my burden…I must die for this Prophesy to be fulfilled, mustn't I?"
"Yes, but you fail one word in your Prophesy. When."
"What choice is there?"
"As much as you allow for", Professor Ixion turned again her eyes and attention to the morning sky and half-moon at the top next to the sun.
Felix took his seat and waited silently until class started. And he remained largely silent during that day's classes.
When the classes for the day had finished the school proceeded to the Quidditch Pitch and the game between Hufflepuff and Ravenclaw.
Felix looked at his teammates' eyes, just before they lift-off in the pitch's center. "Boys and girls. Ladies and Gentlemen", he started his pre-game speech explaining the team the strategy they'd follow. If the team had been loyal and cohesive before Azrail had begun his attacks in earnest, now they had come together in one fist, one thought and as determined as no team had ever been before to win the Quidditch Cup. They'd prove to the world and to Azrail that no matter the attacks, the threats, pain and death, they would stand with their Captain, they would play for him and win for him.
The game started and Ravenclaw were caught off guard at just how brutally efficient the Hufflepuff chasers had become at passing and reclaiming the ball and scoring. How ruthlessly efficient the Beaters removed any bludger threats to their team while creating problems for the Ravenclaw team.
For every goal the Ravenclaw team managed to score, the Hufflepuff team would score three and for every inch of pitch they'd claim they'd lose ten. The Hufflepuff students in the stands created a feverish atmosphere letting nothing drop, they'd boo the Ravenclaws every time they'd come in possession of the Quaffle and cheer their team for reclaiming it or score in such intensity Claudia had to place a silencing charm around her ears, as did others including some Professors.
Just when the Ravenclaw captain thought he had decrypted Felix's strategy, Felix would turn everything on their head and leave him guessing as to what would come next and how he should react.
Two hours later Katya put the Ravenclaws out of their misery catching the Gold Snitch and the stands erupted in cheers of such fierceness that Uriel could feel the bass against his chest.
Every game the team won was celebrated vividly after during dinner and in the Hufflepuff common room.
The Hufflepuff table was therefore in full celebratory raucous during dinner but the festive mood was extinguished when two Black Ravens brought two students each a Howler, a Ravenclaw fifth year girl and a Slytherin sixth year boy.
With a booming sound the howlers tore themselves open,
A parent a day until Felix is surrendered unto me. A parent a day until either every child in Hogwarts is an orphan or I have Felix.
Everyone in the Great Hall heard Azrail's voice making Felix's heart sink and all thoughts of the victory against Ravenclaw vanish as if the game had never happened as the two howlers delivered their message in stereo and then shredded into tiny pieces.
Timidly some few students from the other three tables made to stand but were faced by everyone in the Hufflepuff table not only standing as one but placing themselves around Felix with their wands drawn at the ready.
Felix was standing up to tell his fellow Hufflepuffs to stand down, that he preferred to surrender himself to Azrail rather than see students exchange blows for him when they heard the Headmistress' voice magically enhanced a hundred times louder than the howlers' echo across the Great Hall and much of the corridor outside.
"ORDER! Anyone who takes it upon themselves to carry out Azrail's wish will find themselves expelled so fast their great grandkids will be born with whiplash and I don't begin to care who your parents are or if I will be fired thereafter. Return to your dinner and then return to your common rooms as befitting students of this school of witchcraft and wizardry. Or face my swift wrath."
"Grand….just fucking grand…" Felix sat back down with no appetite for food anymore.
"Things are about to become even more interesting for you if that owl is from the witch I think it is", Ethel told him sitting next to him as Irina's owl landed on the table in front of him.
Felix retrieved the folded parchment from the owl's talon and opened it reading it silently. "No, not interesting. I'm in deep, deep trouble…" He said aloud and standing up he rushed to the Professors' table. Ethel who had read the letter over his shoulder run after him, while trying to grab the others' attention with her hands.
Professor Horsewood saw him and standing up she came to the front of the Professors' table along with Professor Jordan and his friends.
Felix showed them Irina's letter. He had this feeling of increasing intensity that a heavy boulder was dragging him to the bottom of a bottomless abyss, and he could not escape no matter how much he tried.
Professor Horsewood read the letter giving it to Professor Jordan and leaving instantly for her office.
"What's it say?" Claudia asked worried.
"That I am f…udged beyond all measure…" Felix whispered.
Mr. Burton,
The article is coming out tomorrow morning, and the Ministry will start their investigation and arrests by noon the day after. Despite all of my refusal, wishes and threats and for reasons I cannot understand and am guessing have to do with who is owning and pulling the strings of the Daily Prophet, my editor is going to publish your name as my source and not keep it a secret and safe. As I consider it a gross breach of journalistic ethos I have resigned my post in the newspaper. You may want to avail yourself of some protection and tell your Headmistress.
Chapter 23: Scandal's Shadow
Three weeks later there were daily reports and articles on the "Biggest corruption scandal to rock the Wizarding world in the twentieth second century". The Ministries' Aurors had not stopped making arrests a single day across the Globe since Irina's article had broken out.
Hogwarts was abuzz as new students would wake up every day with a parent arrested or brought in for interrogation and questioning. The gossiping machine seemed to be on overdrive, ceaselessly recounting every single detail, guessing who would be arrested next, why and when, what the students knew or thought they knew of their parents' deeds. And the rumour mill spun day and night on every conceivable detail imaginable.
There wasn't a student in Hogwarts who wasn't in some way discussing the scandal and it's ramifications at some point every day since the article's release. With his name blown as the whistleblower behind the article Felix was again receiving stares and whispers as he walked down the corridor, but he was oblivious to them.
Ethel, Claudia and the others waited outside the Headmistress' office patiently for Felix to exit it.
"What is this? Sixth or seventh time they've interrogated you?" Uriel shook his head in disbelief when ten minutes later Felix came out of the spiral staircase behind the gargoyle.
"I wasn't interrogated this time, Asmund asked to see me after I got a letter from Joymother and Nott telling me I'm a dead man. Ha! Get in line! They're on the run, their entire fortune, every asset is either confiscated or frozen, how do they suppose they enact their threat?" Felix laughed. Ever since the scandal had broken out Lisa and Anneke had gone deathly silent avoiding him and his friends whenever possible.
"Death threats are soooo twenty first century….besides do they really believe you'll fright with a death threat when you have the family you have?" Uriel didn't know if he should be concerned or just roll on the floor laughing.
"Right? Oh, but you guys should have been in there", Felix smacked his hands together clearly and overly brimming with excitement.
"I wonder, does it have something to do with Professor Hudson exiting the office looking like Christmas had come twice in the year at the same day with his birthday? I did not think it possible for anyone to look so positively besides themselves with joy", Socrates said aloud joining the conversation.
"Oh man yeah, and you guys should see this for yourselves, it was just glorious", Felix beamed.
"How?" Emerick raised an eyebrow.
"Yeah, how? The Headmistress is the only one with a Pensieve in this school and those memory orbs take forever to create, don't they?" Ethel asked.
"Oh, ye have a lil' faith. I found something whilst doing transfiguration and Defense Against the Dark Arts research study in the restricted section. Been spending time there this year."
"You mean this year you're doing it legally with a permission slip from a Professor rather than sneaking in afterhours", Ethel teased him.
"Yeah that, come", Felix motioned them to follow him.
"Do you guys ever get the feeling we serve at his pleasure?" Claudia joked descending the stairs in the Grand Staircase alight by the midday spring sun.
"It is quite the adventure, though. More than anything I could have ever imagined", Uriel remarked somewhere between joking and serious.
"A force of nature he is, that is for sure", Socrates added in his usual voice where one could not be certain if he was joking or being serious.
"Well, it's fun serving at his pleasure, wicked as it is…hey!" Emerick started saying yelling when Felix playfully punched his shoulder.
"It is right wicked thank you very much!" Felix laughed poking his tongue out at Emerick like a five-year-old.
"Dork!" Emerick tried to reciprocate Felix's punch but somewhere between Quidditch training and Professor Jordan's private tutoring Felix's reflexes had been honed to lightning speed and he avoided it with ease.
"Second floor? Where are we going?" Claudia asked, seeing Felix turn and enter the second-floor corridor.
"The abandoned rest room."
Upon entering the abandoned rest room in the second-floor corridor Felix filled one of the sinks at the center of the room with water and emptied a silvery viscous liquid inside it from a vial in his backpack stirring it with his wand while casting nonverbal spells and charms at it until the water had become clear silver in colour and less runny.
When the liquid in the sink was ready, Felix pressed his wand's tip on his right temple pulling out a memory and placed it in the silvery liquid in the sink where Arithmancy runes bubbled up to the surface.
"I didn't know you studied Arithmancy! You're not taking the class…" Claudia exclaimed in awe and shock.
"Oh, I'm not. I just read every book about it in the library. Fascinating subject, if not a tad convoluted."
"A TAD!?" Emerick and Claudia yelled at the same time, their eyes bulging out.
"Memory's not going to last forever, you know", Felix stuffed his head in the sink.
They followed his example finding themselves in his memory of earlier inside the Headmistress' office just as Asmund left it and Professors Hudson and Marvey entered it. The Headmistress sat behind her desk with a sardonic, sly smile.
"Ah, Headmistress, can I be of some service? Is Mr. Burton, somehow again, in trouble?" Morgana appeared to think she was there to view Felix be punished for something. Little did she know.
"Oh no, Morgana. You are. You and your friends cost me my crup and half a life in humiliation, regrets and guilt. And now you thought to enact another act against me and create problems for Hogwarts and Mr. Burton. Your benefactors are presently either running for their lives or rotting in prison and you, my dear, you are fired effective immediately", Professor Hudson told her in a victorious voice with glee brimming off the edges of his existence.
"You-you can't fire me! Under what cause?" Morgana was taken aback, her usual arrogant smug smirk vanished.
"I'm sorry Professor, I had to tell them how for three years now you've been helping us subvert Professor Hudson's authority and plan and execute pranks against him. I didn't want to! I was forced to! They made me!" Felix cried performing his best to mockingly snivel and whimper.
"You little bastard!" Morgana yelled in rage retrieving her wand, but Professor Horsewood was faster blasting her up against a wall and before she could recover Professor Hudson weaved his wand in the air and she vanished with a pop.
"Where…?" Felix looked at Professor Hudson.
"In a sewage processing plant near Leeds, in one of the sludge containers…one of the full ones. That. Felt. Damn. Good!" He exclaimed before clearing his throat.
"We'll be needing a new Potions Master, I suppose", Professor Horsewood said calmly. "An able one."
"Headmistress, Felix", Professor Hudson gave them a nod and left the office with a million-Galleons-grin spread from ear to ear and the memory ended.
"Damn, I knew Professor Horsewood was amazing, but now I like Professor Hudson, see what you've done!" Claudia poked her tongue at Felix mocking anger.
They were exiting the rest room to get to their next classroom when they heard "Diffindo!" Behind them. Before anyone could react Felix was screaming on the floor, blood hemorrhaging out of both his legs.
Claudia stunned the assailant boy with a severe look on her face that made others passing by fear for their lives as Uriel kneeled down trying to heal Felix, his legs torn almost off their ankle joints.
Felix cried in pain as Uriel and Emerick tried to lift him off the ground from under his armpits to carry him to the Hospital Wing. "I'll go get a Professor", Socrates run off.
"He is one of the Slytherin team Chasers", Claudia stated in disgust, still wand in hand aimed at him.
"And his father was a Governor", Uriel told her helping Emerick carry Felix away.
"Anger is a horrible advisor", Felix managed to stutter out as Uriel cast one more Episkey at his legs.
"There, that should stop the bleeding, now to get you to the Hospital Wing", Uriel said as he and Emerick walked as fast as they could.
"Fuck the bleeding! The game against Slytherin is tomorrow! Final game of the season! No way am I missing it!" Felix would have walked to the Quidditch Pitch right now if he could.
Ten minutes later they arrived in the Hospital Wing with the Nurse rushing to aid them. "Mr. Fatherspoon, Mr. Stalwart, someone explain to me what happened to Mr. Burton!" She ordered them getting him to lie on one of the free beds.
"I was given birth, really", Felix replied dryly.
"Very droll, Mr. Burton, but unless you have a precious desire to levitate yourself to the toilet for the rest of your life, I suggest one of you tell me what happened to your legs", she looked less than amused at his attempt at humour.
"A disgruntled Governor's son decided to play scissors with them", Emerick replied.
"Diffindo? Easy to heal and just as easily he could have severed them clean off. Drink this!" Nurse Filterwolf shoved a vial's rim into Felix's lips. Felix swallowed its acid-bitter contents.
"How's Mr. Burton?" Professor Horsewood's voice came from the Hospital Wing's door, coming their way with a quick stride.
"He'll live and he'll be intact, he'll have some scars though", The Nurse replied moving her wand around Felix's ankles casting healing spells.
"Yay, more to the collection. When can I leave, ma'am?"
"Later today, but you'll be in crutches for two days."
"Can they be any two days? Because I have this rather important final game of the season tomorrow", he batted his eyelashes at her.
Nurse and Headmistress facepalmed alike as Emerick's eyes rolled almost to the back of his head, Uriel rubbed the ridges of his nose and Ethel patted his shoulders.
"You can watch it from the stands", Nurse Filterwolf told him dryly and left with a nod to the Headmistress. Socrates stood silent next to Claudia and Professor Horsewood.
"Mr. Grieves has been expelled, his wand broken and he's in the international schools of witchcraft and wizardry blacklist. I shall tell your Housemates you'll be alright, feel better, Felix" Professor Horsewood left them.
"I need to talk to Natalie and Nate, now", Felix told his friends.
"I'll go get th…" Emerick started saying when both of them came running in the Hospital Wing. "Nevermind…"
"Boss, you okay?" Nate asked panting.
"Yeah, just peachy…I'm going to miss the game tomorrow. Natalie you are captain for it, Nate you are vice-captain. You two, I want you to train the team on Strategy two today. I'll be in the stands tomorrow."
"You got it boss, what's done to the fuckwad who did this to you?" Natalie asked looking murderous.
"Expelled", Felix replied trying to lift himself a bit higher on the bed as his legs begun to itch with stabbing needles pain spreading all over them, healing.
"Good", Nate nodded.
"This scandal isn't going to go away anytime soon, nor are its repercussions…there's investigations and trials in over fifty countries", Emerick stated.
"Irina certainly made an impact. Nott and Joymother are on the run, their assets frozen or seized. There's arrests on a daily basis, even my father was questioned because he happened to know someone who knew someone who may have cooperated with Nott…" Claudia added.
"Natalie, talk to the others in our House. I want the team guarded when they're not in the common room. I'm not going to let us lose the game and the cup because of this bullshit, yeah?" Felix told his captain.
"Done", Natalie replied decisively. "And we're not going to lose", Natalie nodded in agreement, fists clenched.
Ariana walked in the Hospital Wing. "Hey, you ok…oh my days what did Cuthbert do to you! That idiot…to be expelled because of some misplaced loyalty to a criminal father…I'm sorry…"
"I'll live, how are you? We've not talked since this scandal broke out", Felix gave the others a nod to give them some privacy.
"Happy, despite the upset caused by the article and the subsequent investigation. Dad's on the run, mum's arrested, assets frozen and I've never before felt so…free in my life", Ariana replied looking the part.
"Where will you stay when you're not in Hogwarts?"
"Cousins, you know the girl from Ravenclaw. I like them and they're honest enough. When we graduate I think I'll find a small flat of my own in London somewhere, get lost in the big city no one amongst strangers, with the boy I love", she smiled, blushing.
"Sounds like a plan, and I'm sorry for…"
"No, don't be, honestly. This article is the best thing that has ever happened to me. I'm now free to pursue and discover life how I want it, no family chains, no "duty" holding me back."
"To lives of freedom, then. And if you ever find yourself in need of help, call me. I'll come knocking and kicking."
"Likewise, Felix Burton, likewise. Keep your chin up", she said and left.
The others stayed until Nurse Filterwolf released him just before dinner and he walked to the Great Hall in crutches. Alfred and William sat next to him as did all his friends, eating, chatting and laughing.
I am truly sorry.
Irina