Author's Note: Thank you so much, livvylane, for reviewing! It's really good to know that there's someone out there, who reads my stories and likes them!
Welcome, everyone, to Chapter six! As you have probably noticed, the cover of this book is boring and not exactly creative. Maybe there is someone, who likes my story and is artistically more gifted than I am, interested in creating a beautiful cover. I would be very grateful.
Christmas was coming. Although Albus enjoyed his time at Hogwarts, he was looking forward to seeing his parents and his younger sister, Lily, again. It wasn't as if he would see only his closest family, though; it had become a tradition for all Weasleys to meet at the Burrow for a huge Christmas feast. Still, there were two more weeks at Hogwarts, before the holiday started.
Of course, he had been in the library for hours, searching for ghoul species that liked to disguise as bushes. Admittedly, he hadn't found anything, and finally he had to draw the conclusion, that Neville hadn't told the truth about the bush with the yellow eyes. In the next Herbology lesson, Albus looked out for the bush again. However, it wasn't there anymore. Where the bush had been a week ago, now was just nothing but bare earth. Neither Quentin, nor Scorpius had a logical explanation for this circumstance, so Albus intended to ask his father about it in the holidays.
In Defence Against the Dark Arts, Professor Smethwyck gruffly announced that they were starting to practise how to duel. It wasn't like Albus had expected it to be, though. Two students had to stand opposite with a distance of a few meters between them. In the middle between them a puck was placed, which had to be pushed magically towards the opponent. According to Professor Smethwyck, this exercise improved the "magical power".
"You will learn to make your spells as powerful as they can be, and that's all that counts in a duel in the end," he said.
Albus was slightly surprised at this, because it didn't have much in common with the duels his father had told him about. Still, it was quite fun to push the puck towards the opponent, and Albus practically always won his "duels". His only challenge were Rose, Strelka and Quentin, whose power wasn't as explosive as Albus', Rose' or Strelkas, but it was compensated by his deep concentration. Scorpius, on the other hand, soon lost interest in this "stupid game" and started to change the rules, for example by levitating the puck. Professor Smethwyck wasn't amused at this and deducted ten points from Ravenclaw because of Scorpius' "shirking".
The Transfiguration lessons Albus found not as exciting as in the beginning anymore; Professor Arrington proceeded in a much slower pace than Albus with his own practising. Hence, he was mostly quite bored during the lessons, because he already knew everything Professor Arrington was telling them and could easily perform every transformation they had to do.
After a particularly dull period, Professor Arrington asked Albus to stay behind for minute. Albus was worried; had he done anything wrong? Maybe he had paraded his superiority a bit too much?
Without a long preamble, Professor Arrington said, "Mr Potter, you already know everything I cover in my lesson and more. I increasingly get the impression that you actually learn nothing in my class."
"Well, I - I'm practising a lot alone, Professor," Albus answered. "Besides, all the transformations we do in class are so easy."
"No, they aren't. At least not for all the other students, as I'm sure you have noticed," said Professor Arrington. "I am aware, however, that you are highly unchallenged. In fact, you are a prodigy in Transfiguration like I have never seen it before. Thus, I have asked Professor McGonagall for the permission to tutor you personally, in order to unfold your whole potential."
"Tutor me - personally?" Albus echoed, surprised.
"Yes," said Professor Arrington. "Only if you want to, of course. I would teach you much more advanced Transfiguration than I can in my regular lessons. Obviously, this is entirely on a voluntary basis and you can end it any time. By the same token, if I feel that you fall short of my expectations, or that you are neglecting other subjects, I would stop the tutoring immediately. In any case, you would of course still be attending to the regular class, even if I may give you special assignments. What do you think?"
"I would love that!" said Albus eagerly. "Can you also teach me Defence Against the Dark Arts, Professor?" he added.
Professor Arrington raised an eyebrow. "So you're bored there too? I get it. But unfortunately, Professor Smethwyck is our DADA expert. Besides, it would be highly unfair for the other students if I treated you differently."
"But, Sir… I already practised 'Petrificus Totalus' and 'Locomotor Mortis' for myself, and I'm working on 'Protego'… But Professor Smethwyck would only let us fight doxies or push pucks around," Albus complained.
Professor Arrington snorted, amused. "You're working on 'Protego'? Well, before you hurt yourself by practising dangerous spells without guidance, I suppose I could help you with duelling as well… But please don't tell everybody, or I'll be accused to be unfair."
"Yes, Sir," said Albus, beaming.
"And remember, Mr Potter, if your performance in the other subjects drops significantly because you only concentrate on Transfiguration and DADA, I will stop this at once," said Professor Arrington sharply. "This is only a bonus, because I have never understood why only the weaker students should get special assistance. We will start after the Christmas holiday."
O
Harry was tensed. He had just filled Ernie, Ron and Hermione in on the potential goblin problem at Hogwarts. Right now, there was a short silence. Then, Ernie groaned.
"Harry, I'm sure you realise that something has to be done about this? The status right now is absolutely inacceptable," he said pompously.
Harry sighed. "Two of my children are at Hogwarts, Ernie, believe me, I'd like to flood the school grounds with Aurors and get rid of the goblins. Unfortunately, Arrington is right. If we openly confront them, the situation could become most precarious."
"But Harry, have you thought of their intentions?" asked Ron. "Maybe they even want to take our children as hostages."
"I know," said Harry. "But if they are hiding in the Forbidden Forest, I don't know how we're even supposed to find them."
"We could place some Aurors inside the school, for the students' safety," suggested Ernie.
Hermione snorted derisively. "And what exactly are they supposed to do, inside the castle? They would be as blind as bats. Besides, the goblins would recognize them and just act even more carefully."
Harry nodded. "Arrington suggested to send a spy on our own…"
Hermione looked doubtfully. "They will be prepared for something like that… It's very risky…"
"Well, we don't even know for sure if there are actually goblins, do we?" said Ernie. "Maybe Neville was wrong about the bush, and it was just a wild animal. Next week starts the Christmas holiday anyway; maybe the coming and going of the students is a chance to keep our eyes open unobtrusively."
"I trust Neville's judgement," said Harry. He took a deep breath. "But alright. I will talk to Professor McGonagall about this. But if we won't be able to find out what the goblins are up to, we will have no other choice but addressing them openly. The safety of the students has to stand above everything else."
O
The teacher stood at the tracks of the Hogwarts Express. According to the teacher's calculation, the train had to arrive here in about five minutes. The time had come to perform the teacher's favourite spell.
"Ignis daemonis!"
The bewitched flames were flowing out of the teacher's wand, mutating into fiery beasts. The teacher just loved Fiendfyre. It would be a nasty surprise for the train… At Hogwarts, it was much too risky to try this curse. But here, outside, there was no danger for the teacher to get caught.
Of course, the teacher didn't intend to kill all the students. Here, the teacher could control the Fiendfyre as he wished, he would call it back in time. Some nice deaths of students, caused by a clearly non-goblin, unknown force, would raise complete chaos, which was just what the teacher wished. Of course, the goblins didn't know about this; probably they wouldn't agree to kill children for no concrete reason. The teacher didn't care about the goblins. They were nothing but a tool for the teacher, to cause chaos in the wizarding world, to provoke a detergent war.
From far, the train could already be heard. The teacher smiled inwardly and formed the Fiendfyre into the ideal shape, huge wall. The teacher had of course taken care of the brakes of the train; they wouldn't have a chance. This was going to be really fun.
O
When Albus Severus Potter boarded the Hogwarts Express for the second time in his life, he felt very happy. Hogwarts had been nice so far, Professor Arrington would give him extra tutoring for Transfiguration and Duelling and now he had two weeks of holiday and would see his whole family. His world was perfect.
Scorpius was extremely impatient to see his parents again; he had already been a bit homesick in the last few weeks. Quentin, on the other hand, wasn't too enthusiastic about the Christmas break; at least, his father conducted an election campaign in France, as he wanted to become the "President Magique", the French equivalent of the Minister of Magic. He was actually quite relieved about this, because he always felt only intimidated by his strict father. In fact, he would have rather stayed at Hogwarts during Christmas, but his mother insisted he had to return home.
Sitting in a compartment with Rose and Phobos, they had quite a pleasant train ride, until the compartment door opened and Leon Strelka stepped inside, accompanied by Zacharias Myers, who, however, hardly showed up behind Strelka's bulky body.
"Get off!" snarled Albus, drawing his wand. "You are clearly outnumbered. Don't try anything."
"Now, now, the pure-blood princes, so impolite," said Strelka mockingly. "I wasn't coming for you anyway, Potter, but for Weasley and Nott. They are Slytherins; I just wanted to invite them to sit with their housemates. That is only appropriate."
"Thanks for the offer, Leon, but I think I'll be sitting with my cousin," hissed Rose.
Strelka raised an eyebrow.
"Well, I - I'll stay with Rose, I guess," said Phobos. Strelka theatrically raised his second eyebrow.
"And now get out of here!" shouted Albus.
"Don't you dare talk to us in this way, Potter," shouted Myers.
"Is there a problem?" said a calm voice behind him. Strelka and Myers whirled around. Professor Arrington was standing in front of them.
"No, Sir. Zacharias and I were just visiting our housemates," said Strelka and hurried away, with Myers close on his heels.
Professor Arrington had just turned around to leave as well, when suddenly a corpulent, uniformed man with a very red face, running with sweat, stormed in, who had to belong to the train staff.
"Sir! Our sensors suddenly detected some extremely dangerous Dark Magic ahead! Incredibly dangerous, in fact! We don't know exactly what it is, though. However, we have hardly two minutes until we reach it! The brakes aren't working for some reason! We are slowing the train down manually, but we won't be able to stop it in time!" he shouted.
"WHAT?" yelped Professor Arrington. "Back off, everyone, I have to get on top of the train to find out what it is."
Albus and the others quickly ran out of the compartment.
"Confringo!" shouted Professor Arrington, blasting a hole in the ceiling of the train.
"Salialto!" he added, pointing his wand at himself. Suddenly, he shot upwards through the hole and landed on top of the train.
About ten seconds later, he jumped back into the compartment.
"I can't believe it!" he cried. "Someone out there has conjured a wall of Fiendfyre! I have never seen anything like this! It's a disaster! Everyone has to jump out of the train immediately, or it will kill us all!"
"Jump out of the train?" the uniformed man asked disbelievingly. "At this speed? Not all of the students will be able to cast a cushioning charm!"
"Be quiet, you idiot! We've only got a minute or so! Sonorus maxima," Professor Arrington roared, directing his wand at his throat.
"LISTEN, EVERYONE! THIS IS PROFESSOR ARRINGTON! WE ARE GOING TO COLLIDE WITH FIENDFYRE IN LESS THAN A MINUTE! I WILL NOW SHATTER ALL THE WINDOWS! YOU HAVE TO JUMP OUT OF THE TRAIN AT ONCE! CAST A CUSHIONING CHARM FOR YOU AND YOUR SCHOOLMATES IF YOU CAN, FOR THE REST I WILL TRY TO CONJURE HUGE SOFT FLOOR MATS. IF YOU DON'T JUMP IMMEDIATELY, YOU WILL DIE!"
"Quietus," murmured Professor Arrington in order to make his voice normal again and then shouted "Canetis resonatus!" An extremely high-pitched, inhuman noise filled the air. Albus squinted his eyes in pain; when he opened them again, the windows had indeed been shattered.
Before he could do anything, he was hurled outside by an invisible force. He landed gently on a gigantic soft floor mat. Quentin, Scorpius, Rose and Phobos followed; Professor Arrington was magically pushing them all outside. From inside the train, he conjured huge soft floor mats everywhere students were jumping out of the windows. Then he vanished out of Albus' sight, presumably attending to the other side of the tracks.
The train had slowed down considerably, but it was still moving. It slowly drove past them, towards a big fire wall, which was towering a few hundred meters away. Still, new soft floor mats were appearing everywhere, and still dozens of students were jumping out of the train. When it was only about a hundred meters from the Fiendfyre, Professor Arrington himself jumped outside and immediately fired spells towards a hooded shape, who seemed to control the Fiendfyre.
The hooded person appeared surprised at this. The flames vanished, and the shape quickly disapparated, before Professor Arrington could reach it. The train remained unscathed and finally came to a stand, just at the place where the Fiendfyre wall had been before.
Professor Arrington raised his wand, and a Patronus in the form of an American eagle erupted from it and quickly sailed away. Then he turned towards the students, who were lying dispersed on the field the train had been driving through.
Albus looked around. It was a shocking view. Many students had landed on the soft floor mats and appeared to be fairly okay. But especially on the other side of the tracks, where Professor Arrington hadn't managed to conjure as many mats, many students seemed to be injured, judging by the screams of agony.
Some students were hurrying out of the now standing train; obviously, not everybody had managed or dared to jump out in time.
Suddenly, people appeared all over field; Albus recognized his father and his uncle, Ron Weasley. Professor Arrington hurried towards them and said something; Albus' father nodded, and his voice boomed, magically increased:
"Our healers will now attend to those of you who have badly injured themselves. Please send red sparks in the air, if you are in strong pain or are if you are especially worried about anyone close to you. If someone isn't reacting or moving, you have to call at once. If you are unscathed, please join us, so we can register your name."
The healers were already hurrying around, helping the students. Albus ran towards his father; James was already there.
"Dad!" he cried.
"Albus!" said his father and hugged him tightly. "I'm so glad you're okay… Please wait here, your mother will arrive at any moment and take you home." With this, he turned towards Professor Arrington.
"What the hell happened?" Harry asked him.
"Fiendfyre," growled Professor Arrington. "There was a single person controlling a wall of Fiendfyre as if it was nothing. The instruments in the train detected it only two minutes before we reached it. The brakes weren't working; someone must have corrupted them. The train staff tried to stop it manually, but they only managed to slow us down. I shattered the windows and ordered the students to jump outside; I had no choice. The Fiendfyre would have killed us all. There is no known way to fight it. With cushioning charms and those mats I tried to prevent the worst, and the train had slowed down considerably. I feared that not everyone would make it out of the train in time, so I attacked the person controlling the Fiendfyre. It was impossible to see his or her face, it was masked. When I started casting some spells, this madman thankfully just extinguished the fire and disapparated."
"He extinguished it? Just like that? But why?" asked Harry, bewildered.
Arrington rolled his eyes. "You don't know how Fiendfyre works, do you, Mr Potter? It's a continuous stream out of your wand. You can only extinguish it by absorbing it again, also with your own wand, as I really shouldn't have to tell you, Head Auror. You cannot just set anything on fire and then vanish. It will just continue streaming out of your wand. The only way to stop it, is to draw it back completely. This is not at all easy, obviously, because Fiendfyre is extremely difficult to command or control, let alone to call it back. That is also why it is so seldom used. It would be deadly to apparate with Fiendfyre flowing out of your wand, so the perpetrator had to extinguish it in order to not risk getting caught. He wouldn't have had a chance to defend himself in a duel, having to look after the Fiendfyre. Apparently, killing us all wasn't worth this risk."
"How are the students?" inquired Harry from a healer, who was just hurrying past them.
"A girl and a boy are dead," the healer said sadly. "A second year girl… She didn't jump far enough and hit her head on the tracks. The boy was a third-year; he apparently couldn't cast a cushioning charm and missed the mats. The crash on the ground broke his neck. Still, it's almost a miracle, but as it seems, everyone else will live," she added. "We've got many broken bones, several concussions and myriads of abrasions, of course, but no one else seems to be in mortal danger."
"Two students are dead," murmured Professor Arrington sadly. "And it falls into my responsibility."
"Don't be ridiculous, mate," said Ron. "If you hadn't reacted quickly, there would have been many more dead students. In fact, you are a hero."
"James! Albus!" shouted a female voice behind them. Their mother had arrived. "Mom!" cried Albus and threw himself into her arms.
"Oh, my boys… I'm so relieved that you are well… "
More parents were appearing at the field; Albus saw Scorpius dashing to his parents, who had both come to fetch him.
"Take my hands now," said Ginny. "You too, Rose, I will take you home as well. Harry and Ron will have to work, I'm afraid."
Albus, James and Rose took Ginny's hands, and together, they disapparated.
O
The Ministry was under pressure. A wall of Fiendfyre, conjured by a single man, students jumping out of the Hogwarts Express, two fatalities - this was the biggest crisis since the Second Wizarding War. The mysterious Fiendfyre-caster caused a flurry of speculation - there was even talk about Voldemort's rebirth.
Harry was worried. Not because of Voldemort, of course, he had always known that it was only a matter of time until a new evil arose. What bothered him much more, was the fact that there had been so many mysterious happenings in such a short space of time. First the (presumably) goblin-murderers, then Firenze's death through a Killing Curse, cast by Professor Botwright's wand, and now this incredible assault on the Hogwarts Express.
Harry was absolutely sure there was a correlation between those catastrophes. But neither he, nor Ernie, Hermione, Ron or anyone else had any idea what could connect all the deaths. Relatives of Ministry employees, a centaur, Hogwarts students - it was very difficult to see a pattern.
He yawned. Sleep had been rare the last days, even on Christmas he hadn't been able to be with his family for more than one day. At least, Albus and James were alright. Harry would love to head home at once and spend time with them, but unfortunately, now was a meeting with Ernie, who was Minister of Magic, Ron, Hermione, who was Head of the Department of Magical Law Enforcement, Professor McGonagall, Professor Arrington and Donald Cresswell from the goblin-liaison office. Of course he had to be present at such an exalted conference.
"Welcome everyone, thank you for coming," said Ernie jovially. "We are here to consult about the recent events. Harry, please begin. What is the current status of your investigations?"
"The brakes of the Hogwarts Express have been corrupted before the train started. If it was the same person, who conjured the Fiendfyre, or an accomplice, is unclear. The brakes were of course tested before the departure from Hogwarts, but no defect was found. That means that either the manipulator found a way to destroy the breaks so the damage couldn't be found, or he did it in the very short period between test and departure. How he could have done this without getting noticed is a mystery, though, as there are spells in place that alert us if anyone approaches the train."
"This is most unsettling," said Ernie. "Do you have any new insights about that Fiendfyre caster?"
"Not really," sighed Harry. "Dark magic of this calibre usually has quite a strong scent, which makes it easier to find the caster. Unfortunately, in this case we haven't had any luck. The identity and the whereabouts of this person are completely unknown to us."
"Mr Cresswell, you are in regular dialogue with the goblins. Can you tell us, how they stand to these happenings?" asked Ernie.
"Sure," said Donald Cresswell, the son of Dirk Cresswell, who had died in the Second Wizarding War. "The goblins condemn the assault utterly and speak from an 'outrageous deed, which has to be solved as quickly as possible'."
"We smuggled a few polyjuiced Aurors among the students, before the departure of the Hogwarts Express. They searched the school grounds a bit and cast a few goblin-detecting spells. However, there were no indices at all for the presence of goblins. Either they hide extremely well, maybe with the help of wizards, or they just aren't there, at least not anymore," said Ron.
"In any case, the Fiendfyre seems to be the bigger problem at the moment," said Professor Arrington. "I have never seen anything like this; this guy seems to be a Fiendfyre-Whisperer, if you ask me."
"Come off it," said Professor McGonagall disdainfully. "The stories of Fiendfyre-Whisperers are rubbish. Of course, there have been wizards and witches in the past who have been able to control this curse better than others, but that's no reason to suddenly believe in such a preposterous legend."
"Sorry," said Ernie. "Could you please fill me in what legend you are talking about?"
"According to the legend, there existed people in the past, who could literally talk to Fiendfyre and command its fiery beasts directly, through a special language. It is supposed to be an extremely rare ability, even rarer than Parseltongues. Of course, there is no evidence at all that such wizards or witches ever existed."
Harry shook his head. "The Chamber of Secret was also supposed to be a legend. The Deathly Hallows were supposed to be a legend. We shouldn't be too quick with our judgement there."
"Legend or not, this person seems to be incredibly skilled with Fiendfyre, which is very dangerous for us," said Professor Arrington. "We have to do something about this. I'll do some research on counter-curses against Fiendfyre. Maybe I can invent a few spells. I'm not too optimistic about it, though; as far as I know, all former tries to find something effective against Fiendfyre have failed completely. Oh, and maybe you should assign your Department of Mysteries this task. That would be their unique chance to do something useful."
"There's some truth in this," said Ron. "However, I'm afraid that Fiendfyre will be way too ordinary for the Department of Mysteries. We don't have any influence on them, anyway."
"There is still the problem, how to bring the students back to school," said Professor McGonagall. "Can we risk using the train again, with its obvious safety problems?"
"Difficult to say," said Professor Arrington. "Firstly, the sensors has to be improved massively, especially their range. Some automatic defensive systems would also be nice, even if Fiendfyre-immunity will hardly be possible. Secondly, there has to be installed an emergency braking, that has to be checked immediately before the departure. Thirdly, there have to be much more teachers on the train! Maybe even Aurors. Yes, Mr Potter, Aurors! This should at least be a task they are up to. Fourthly, the route has to be monitored all the time. If all this is guaranteed, then the Hogwarts Express should be safe enough."
"I agree," said Harry. "I will arrange everything. If there are any problems, we will resort to portkeys. And now, if you don't mind, I'll leave. My children are home for the holiday, and I'm hardly seeing them. Have a nice day," he added and left the Ministry.