Author's Note: I'm back - finally! This update took me much longer than I wanted. The good news is: Here is Chapter 15! I hope you haven't forgotten everything that happened until now, otherwise you'll simply have to reread the last chapters! Please review!

"Harry," began Proudfoot, looking slightly exasperated. "I have told you, Harry, we did find the traces of the Fiendfyre near the Hogwarts Express and we tried every Tracking Spell we could possibly think of, but somehow, every trace is lost into nowhere."

"Sounds like magic," said Ron, chuckling.

Harry threw him an annoyed look. "This is not funny, Ron," he groaned. "It's clear that this guy must be hiding at a place with incredibly strong magical protection. But that this hideout resists the concentrated methods of the Ministry, that is really disturbing. I don't know how a single person could possibly pull off such a feat. There must be more behind it. I still think that there must be a connection to all those goblin murders, the happenings at Hogwarts and Francois Simiol. Everything is somehow linked, I'm sure of it."

Proudfoot just wanted to answer, when everyone was distracted by a huge, silver American eagle flying into the Auror office. With Professor Arrington's voice, it began to speak.

"Mr Potter, come to Hogwarts as fast as you can. Bring one or two Aurors you can completely trust. My office. The floo password is 'Magnetism'."

With this, the silver eagle vanished into thin air.

Harry, Ron and Proudfoot looked at each other. "Something has happened," said Harry. "Ron, the two of us floo to Arrington. Peter, you're in charge here. There might be more trouble coming, a problem comes never alone."

Proudfoot nodded, and Harry and Ron stepped into the fireplace and spoke the password to Professor Arrington's office.

They had just barely arrived there, when a voice shouted "Impedimenta!" Ron was immediately immobilised, whereas Harry was looking straight into the tip of Professor Arrington's wand.

"Draw your wand, Mr Potter, slowly, and cast your Patronus for verification of your identity. Only your Patronus. I warn you - don't try anything."

Harry slowly took his wand, clearly said "Expecto Patronum!" and the silver stag erupted from its tip. Arrington nodded, satisfied, and subjected Ron to the same procedure.

"Heaven, Arrington," panted Ron, when his Jack-Russell-Terrier had vanished. "Aren't you overdoing it a bit? Is this war, or what?"

"You can't be careful enough," said the Transfiguration Master calmly. "Not after tonight's happenings."

Without further ado, Professor Arrington told Harry and Ron everything about Albus' trip into the Forbidden Forest and his own duel against Pyrites.

"I have to see my son," said Harry at once, when Arrington had finished.

"Your son is sleeping right now. He is quite well, and there is nothing to see," snapped Professor Arrington. "Don't you think that the safety of the castle is more pressing?"

Harry already wanted to protest, changed his opinion and murmured, "But what am I supposed to do about it? I have no idea how he could have apparated out of the grounds just like that. Or could he have sabotaged any of the wards?"

"I don't think so," said Professor Arrington. "Minerva is administrator of all the wards. Only she could lift them. In my opinion, Pyrites didn't apparate. He must have done something different. Anyway, Tyron is setting up some extra security right now. Still, it would be nice to have a couple of Aurors in the castle. Besides, it's still possible that Pyrites had support from inside Hogwarts. You may want to investigate that."

"Sure," said Harry. "I will return to the Ministry and bring some support. I also have to alert Proudfoot - now that everything indicates that Pyrites is also the wizard who attacked the Hogwarts Express and killed Firenze, we might be able to track him down. At least he has left the magical protection around Hogwarts - I think that has prevented us to catch him earlier."

"Be sure that you send an entire army after him, then," responded Arrington. "He is more powerful as a duelist than any other wizard I have ever seen, except maybe Tyron. I could barely hold my own against him, and, in all modesty, I don't think that many of your Aurors would even have a chance against me."

"Plus, how are we supposed to catch him, if he is able to vanish into thin air?" asked Ron. "Our usual anti-apparition enchantments won't be of much use then."

"Yeah… Damn, that's all a huge disaster! And what about those goblins in the forest? We have to get rid of them, at once! I will have to send a battalion Aurors there, no matter how they might react, they attacked my son! And this Pyrites is a real problem as well - how can a single person cause so much trouble?" burst out Harry.

"Voldemort was a single person," said Arrington quietly. "And according to all we know, Pyrites is at least as mad as him, and even more powerful than Voldemort used to be."

"But he doesn't have any followers - has he?" said Ron anxiously. "Surely he can cause a lot of trouble - but he cannot cause a war alone, can he?"

"It makes no sense to worry about that now," said Harry, pulling himself together. "In due time, we will talk about everything at length in the Ministry. For now, we have to deal with Hogwarts security. Professor Arrington, we will return as soon as possible. Thank you for informing us. And - thank you for saving my son."

Arrington only nodded, and Harry and Ron stepped into the fireplace and vanished.

O

When Albus awoke, the hospital wing was full of people. Next to his bed sat Quentin, Scorpius, his father, his mother, his brother and Uncle Neville. Surprised, he pulled the blanket closer to his chin.

"How are you feeling, Albus?" asked Scorpius anxiously. "Madam Pomfrey told us you would wake up soon, and we all wanted to be there," he explained.

"F-fine… Dad! The Resurrection Stone - the goblins - Pyrites - I'm so sorry -"

"Calm down, son, everything has been taken care of," said Harry soothingly. "The goblins have left the forest and are far away now, and as you probably remember, Professor Smethwyck and Professor Arrington chased Pyrites away. You are absolutely safe now, and there is no reason for you to worry about anything now."

"But - Professor Flitwick…"

Harry hesitated. "Professor Flitwick is right now at St Mungo's," he said carefully. "The healers there haven't quite yet figured out, which kind of spell hit him, but I'm sure, that he will completely recover."

James threw Harry a suspicious look, but Albus didn't notice the uncertainty in his father's voice.

"Until Professor Flitwick is back, Professor Arrington will be the Ravenclaw Head of House," added Uncle Neville.

Albus nodded and turned towards Quentin.

"Quentin - you were right. About everything. I'm so sorry that you were caught - and I jinxed you…"

"It's alright, Albus," said Quentin quietly. "I would rather have been wrong… But you're going to be fine, and that's all that matters now. I'm sorry that I wanted to betray you."

"No, Quentin," said Ginny gently. "You were really a faithful friend - I'm very proud that Albus has such great friends, by the way. It was very brave of you to stand up against your own friends."

"… TO HIM AT ONCE!" shrieked a loud, female voice suddenly from outside the hospital wing. Everyone whirled around.

"What…" started Neville, but the answer came soon enough. The door to the hospital wing flew open, and a short, plump woman with greasy, blond hair stormed inside. Albus recognized her - she was Quentin's mother. On her heels were Professor Arrington and Headmistress McGonagall personally. Quentin flinched and instinctively ducked.

"Headmistress!" said Madam Pomfrey with an outraged voice. "What is -"

But her voice was drowned by the screech of Quentin's mother. "QUENTIN!" she screamed, as if her son was deaf. "Come with me, at once! We are going home! This school is not appropriate for you at all! MOVE, we haven't got all day!"

"Mrs Simiol!" said Professor McGonagall, looking gracefully down at the much shorter woman. "Calm down! You have of course every right to take your son home, but I assure you, the castle is an absolutely safe place for him! There is no reason at all for hysteria!"

"SAFE PLACE? As long as it isn't attacked by goblins or madmen or Fiendfyre, you mean? As long as no one throws himself from the towers? As long as no one has to jump out of a train? My son will go to Beauxbatons, where he belongs. Now COME, boy!" screamed Mrs Simiol.

Quentin looked helplessly from Albus to Scorpius and hastily back to his mother. "Maybe young Mr Simiol would like a moment to say goodbye to his friends?" suggested Professor Arrington, looking slightly derisively down at Mrs Simiol, who, judging by the red colour of her face, didn't seem to like this proposal at all, but Professor McGonagall nodded vigorously.

"That's a good idea," she said in a firm voice, allowing no protest. "Follow me to my office, if you please, Mrs Simiol, there are a few formalities to be clarified. You can fetch your son after that."

Quentin threw Professor Arrington a grateful look, who gravely nodded and left the hospital wing after Professor McGonagall and Mrs Simiol. Neville, Harry, Ginny and James followed his example.

"Quentin - is there anything we can do -" began Albus, but Scorpius cut him off.

"Listen, Quentin, we haven't got all day," he nagged in a very good imitation of Mrs Simiol. He quickly became serious again and handed Quentin a golden snitch.

"This snitch contains a special floo powder," explained Scorpius. "You only have to unscrew it, throw the powder into a fireplace like usual floo powder and say 'Malfoy Manor' - and it will bring you directly to my home from any place in Britain. So you can visit me anytime, even if you have problems at home - with your parents. Just be sure that no one knows of it!"

"I will - thank you!" stammered Quentin.

"Bye, Quentin. Please come back," said Albus.

"We'll miss you," added Scorpius.

Quentin nodded sadly. "I will miss you too," he said.

The door to the hospital wing opened, and Professor Arrington came in. "It's time, Mr Simiol," he said. "Your mother is already boiling. I wish you all the best on your further way. It was a pleasure to teach you. Please remember - you will always be welcome at Hogwarts."

Quentin only managed to nod, waved one last time at Albus and Scorpius, and followed Professor Arrington out of the hospital wing.

O

"Great, Ragnuk," said Urguk. "Really great. Your fantastic plan has failed. Everything was fruitless. And we had no chance against the Aurors. What are we going to do now?"

"At least we managed to flee, before they could capture us," grunted Golod. "Plus, we recovered the Resurrection Stone. We should pool our strengths now and openly attack the wand-carriers."

"I agree," said Ragnuk. "A group of radical Squibs has joined the AWA; next, we will try to get the giants, werewolves and vampires on our side. Maybe even a few house-elves. The wand-carriers are weak right now; they have to deal with Pyrites and Simiol. We will start with Gringotts. Its protection is quite weak, since the wizards took over there; we should be able to overrun it effortlessly. When we control their gold, we practically control their complete economy. Are the accoutrements ready, Golod?"

"Yes," answered Golod, the chief smith. "We have hundreds of magic-resistant armors, thousands of daggers, which are impervious to every kind of defensive enchantment. With the help of the Squibs, we have copied this muggle concept, grenades, as they call it, and added a few nice features. Plus, we developed a giant bomb, also together with the Squibs. They really know a lot about war techniques, I must say. In theory, we should be able to destroy a huge building like even Gringotts or the Ministry. We should only use this as a last resort, though. But to take Gringotts should be no problem. We are ready for a war with the wizards, but are they ready for a war with us? I don't think so."

"We have practically every goblin in whole Britain on our side," added Urguk. "We know Gringotts better than every wizard, and we can establish powerful barriers that can hardly be broken by the wand-carriers' kind of magic. It will be an easy task to conquer and defend Gringotts."

O

Philandros Pyrites was born on the 24th of December 1978 as son of Jason and Medea Pyrites. His father, Jason, was a death eater who was killed by Aurors when Philandros was five years old. His mother, Medea, invented spells to change the own body. She also experimented with this dangerous kind of spells on little Philandros, before he was eleven years old. Some of those worked and made Philandros' mind and body work faster. Others backfired and resulted in mysterious illnesses or rashes. All of them were incredibly painful for young Philandros, but Medea accepted this as a necessary sacrifice, to make her son the most powerful wizard on earth. When Philandros was five years old, he got a wand and was trained in magic by Medea.

At Hogwarts, Philandros was quite unchallenged, as his mother had already taught him almost everything the teachers told him there. Philandros was sorted into Slytherin and went through his school career completely alone. He had no friends and didn't want any. During his lessons and exams, he tried to be as unobtrusive as possible, because his mother had inculcated him with the maxim not to attract any attention.

Philandros greatest interest was the invention of new dark arts. When he was fourteen, he could effortlessly cast the Unforgivable Curses. His favourite spell, though, was the Fiendfyre. When Medea had showed him how to perform this curse, he had been mesmerized by the fiery demons and beasts. Philandros could command and control them as he wished. He was able to speak their language, a language no other human could speak or understand.

When Philandros was fifteen, Medea died from the consequences of a spell that should have turned her body into the state as it used to be when she was 20. Philandros didn't care about this; he felt no love for the woman who had caused him so much pain, and he was independent of her long since. After his seventh school year, he went into the wilderness and continued his research on dark magic. He cast many spells on himself; he was much more skilled in this kind of magic than Medea had ever been.

When he was happy with his body and his skills were honed to complete perfection, he decided that he needed an ideology to get the opportunity to make use of his magic in the real world. It wasn't difficult at all to decide on such an ideology; he remembered his father's and mother's speeces about the purity of blood, and he watched the magic Voldemort and his followers executed in order to achieve their aims. Obviously, the purity of blood was the ideal ideology to live out dark magic. Thus, Philandros read dozens of anti-muggle pamphlets and cast a few spells on his own mind to fix his new worldview firmly in his head.

To cause the obviously necessary, cleaning chaos, he had to somehow break the will of the Potter-Weasley-clan. Philandros wasn't in a hurry; when he heard, that Albus Potter, Rose Weasley and Alice Longbottom came to Hogwarts this year, he applied for the job of Potions Professor at Hogwarts. His skills as potioneer were excellent, as he often had brewed highly complex draughts in order to change his appearance or mind state. He easily got the job and began to teach students, enjoying the act he had to put up.

Life at Hogwarts was incredibly fun; Philandros got to know the goblins, who hid in the Forbidden Forest, as their leader, Ragnuk, had been his ally for quite some time. Of course, Philandros thought that the goblins were dirty, churlish beings, but he enjoyed their plan to capture Albus Severus Potter. Pyrites even supported them with this, casting an Imperius Curse on the chronically weak Molly Weasley girl. How fitting! A tragic suicide, a psychologically labile girl jumping from a tower; it was just delicious.

Just for fun, he stole a colleague's wand to kill the centaur Firenze, who didn't want to join the goblins' new formed alliance. As a nice side effect, this gained him the complete trust of the goblins. Even more enjoyable was the Fiendfyre assault on the Hogwarts Express; unfortunately, the stupid, eagle-transforming Arrington had been on the train and prevented the worst, but still two students died and the wizarding world was certainly shocked. And shock was good, because shock was the precursor to chaos.

The next chance to cause confusion were the new British-French tensions. A war between those two countries would be just what Philandros needed. The goblins agreed and came up with the plot to lay a murder at Francois Simiol's door; Philandros gladly helped them by changing a goblin's mind accordingly. He had perfected the altering of memories long ago, to an extent that no one at the Ministry would recognize it.

Unfortunately, Philandros failed in killing Albus Severus Potter, but it didn't really matter. He had done more than enough to cause the Ministry lots of headaches by severely injuring Filius Flitwick in a completely unknown way and mysteriously vanishing from the Hogwarts grounds. For a short moment, he had been tempted to debug the limits of his skills by duelling Tyron Smethwyck and Aaron Arrington, but in the end it seemed a bit risky. He wasn't quite able to defeat those two simultaneously - not yet. But Philandros wasn't going to hide. The Ministry would better wrap themselves up warmly.

O

"What do you mean, you have no idea what to do?" asked a furious Professor McGonagall. "Aren't you supposed to be a highly skilled healer? Filius is only unconscious! Surely, you must know by now where the problem lies!"

"I'm sorry, Ma'am," said Augustus Pye, the healer-in-charge, calmly. "We have tried absolutely everything we could possibly think of, but to no avail. It's a complete mystery what exactly has hit Professor Flitwick, he just wouldn't awake. Physically, he should be fine, as far as we can see; there were no major injuries, and we healed a few scratches quite easily. He is breathing, his heart is beating, all the somatic functions are working, although his body is very weak, which is quite strange, as he is now unconscious for only two days. But it's as if his mind is completely paralysed, he just won't react to any kind of stimuli."

Professor McGonagall took a deep breath and sighed. "I see. I understand you are doing your best, Healer Pye. How are you intending to proceed further?" she asked in a more conciliatory voice.

"Currently, we are completely in the dark," said Healer Pye. "It would be very useful to find out what kind of curse has struck Professor Flitwick. Probably it won't be possible to ask the person who cast the spell, obviously, but you said Professor Arrington and Albus Potter were at least there? Maybe they could describe the spell after all. We would then consult the Department of Mysteries in the Ministry and see if we can find out something useful. If not, then we'll of course still be trying to think of anything, but it will be a matter of pure luck if we are successful or not."

"Very well. I will speak to Aaron and Albus and send them over. I'll better be going now; surely you have a lot of work waiting. And of course we need a new Charms and a Potions teacher for the rest of the term… Good day, Healer Pye."

"Good day to you, too, Professor McGonagall."

O

Albus' life at Hogwarts slowly returned to something that could be called relative normality. He had had a long conversation with his father, who had been considerably more upset than Albus would have thought and sharply admonished him not to risk his life anymore.

Of course, he missed Quentin and was worried that he would never see his friend again, but apart from this, the daily routine at school was quite enjoyable; even more so, as the Potions and Charms lessons were for the time being cancelled.

At the third day after his trip into the Forbidden Forest, he had Transfiguration as last lesson of the day. Albus worked on his own again, not paying attention to Professor Arrington's regular class, which Albus had covered already weeks ago. When the lecture was over, Professor Arrington told Albus to stay behind.

"I just got a message that the Headmistress wants to see us, Albus," he said calmly.

"Us?" asked Albus, surprised. He was slightly uncomfortable; only yesterday, Professor McGonagall had severely reprimanded him for his actions and punished him with a month grounding.

"Yes," said Professor Arrington. "I don't know what it's about, either. Nothing to worry about, I'm sure."

While they were walking to the Headmistress' office, Albus asked Professor Arrington, if they could continue their special lessons.

Professor Arrington took his time, before he answered. "I don't see a reason why not," he answered eventually. "On the contrary; now that it's clear you're being targeted, you should certainly be able to defend yourself. Although I of course trust that you will act more responsibly from now on," he added.

"Of course," said Albus relieved.

"Filius," said Professor Arrington to the gargoyle in front of the Headmistress' office, which immediately jumped aside.

"Ah, Professor Arrington, Mr Potter, thank you for coming," said Professor McGonagall formally, when they entered the office. "I just visited Professor Flitwick; he is unfortunately still unconscious. Healer Pye wants to see you two, though; he hopes that you can give him valuable hints about the curse that was fired at Filius."

"Okay," said Professor Arrington. "We are going to floo immediately to St Mungo's then, I take it?"

"Yes," answered the Headmistress. "You can use my fireplace. Mr Potter, you go first."

Albus stepped forward, took a handful of floo powder, clearly said "St Mungo's" and arrived at the hospital seconds later. Professor Arrington joined him shortly after.

Augustus Pye, the Healer who was responsible for Professor Flitwick, already waited for them and took them to a small room.

"Please sit down. Young Mr Potter, why don't you try one of our healthy-breath-bonbons? Make yourself comfortable. That's it. Now, as Professor McGonagall has probably told you, I wanted to ask you about this mysterious spell that struck our venerable Charms master. Maybe you could see a jet of light, or hear the incantation?"

Professor Arrington waved to Albus to answer first.

"Well, there was a jet of light, a purple one," said Albus nervously, having some difficulty to speak because of the sharp bonbon. "I couldn't hear an incantation, though… When the jet of light struck Professor Flitwick, he immediately collapsed."

"That's practically as much as I know," said Professor Arrington. "It was certainly no registered or in any way well-known curse, otherwise I would have recognized it. I was kind of busy at that time, but if I'm not completely mistaken, Pyrites didn't speak the incantation loudly. The wand movement was quite unusual, I believe… But to make more precise statements regarding this, I would have to use a Denkarium."

"I see," said Healer Pye. "Thank you for the information you gave us. Please visit the Department of Mysteries and copy down your memory for the Denkarium. Hopefully, we can find the essence of this particular spell and use this knowledge to heal Professor Flitwick."

"Very well," answered Professor Arrington. "Come, Albus, I better take you back to Hogwarts before I enter this dark venue. Goodbye, Healer Pye."

"Bye," said Albus hastily and followed Professor Arrington out of the room. A few minutes later, he was back at the Ravenclaw common room and told Scorpius everything.