AN: apparently some people were confused by Draco's ploy –he was very pleased to hear that– and as such here's a little explanation: Draco, who's not that monumentally stupid, used Ron to drug Chandra and Liliana with a sleeping draught, but the redhead got Hermione instead of the necromancer. The blonde convinced the redhead by saying they'd use love potion to have their wicked ways with the two, but that was never the plan. In reality, the little Slytherin used the vanishing cabinet to call reinforcements that hadn't still not gotten there when someone knocked on the door. How did Ron actually drug the girls? Potioned pastries, presented as a "please forgive me" gift. Chandra might be streetwise, but she can still be that naïve once in a blue moon.
So, hoping that I cleared all your doubts, onwards with the chapter! Of which I still own no rights whatsoever by the way.
CHAPTER 19 - Dark salvation
"Heeey theeereee," called Liliana in a sickeningly sweet tone "A little birdie told me that there is a party here!"
It was needless of course, but one should never renounce a stylish entrance in Liliana's view. Appearances were a weapon by themselves after all, let the sheep scare themselves over nothing.
"Is that Vess?" she heard the muffled question from beyond the door, but couldn't quite place who it actually was the speaker.
"Shut up Weasley!" hissed someone else, and she sighed.
So it was just a pair of worms, she had thought it would be someone actually worth her attention.
"Oh well," she sighed while stepping aside before adding in a more normal tone "It's all yours."
The last line had been directed at the skeletal abomination standing nearby. It was vaguely humanoid, in the sense that it had four limbs and was bipedal, but the arms were visibly mismatched being made from randomly sized bones -like the rest of the creature- that she had scavenged from the kitchen.
The beast turned its head -the actual head of a roasted piglet, the only part with more than scraps of meat still attached to the bones- towards the closed door then exploded into motion, slamming into it with its deceptively thin body. The wood creaked and splintered under the unnatural resilience of Liliana's servant, holding mere moments before collapsing inward.
"Stupefy! Slug eater!" cried the two inside, but the undead monster proved resistant to such attacks.
"Tsk. What a pair of useless worms," dispassionately commented Liliana stepping into the room "Break their arms and legs, don't kill them."
"Bombarda!"
Two more spells impacted the creature, this time hacking off pieces from it, but the necromancer merely fed more mana into it, letting the monster regenerate. All the while, it hadn't stopped moving despite having lost an arm and violently slammed the other on the blonde's right one, breaking it badly.
"Avada Kedavra!" thundered an adult male's voice from deeper in the room, and a green light slammed into her servant's head, making it explode.
It did nothing to stop the creature, of course, so it proceeded to break the redhead's right arm.
Liliana turned to see a cowled individual with a bone white mask, two similarly garbed others behind him.
"I hate interlopers," she stated flatly throwing up one arm in their general direction, a purplish-black wave following the trajectory "Almost as much as I hate angels."
The first individual died under her spell, transitioning almost instantly from living human to little more than a skeleton. The other two showed good reflexes in jumping to the side. They showed though poor judgement in trying to cast again, albeit this time at Liliana. She merely flicked her wrists and one of the two –a woman judging by the screams– died as a spear of darkness impaled her while the last one got attacked and murdered by their companion's corpse.
The whole debacle had lasted less than two minutes, but by the end of it she was the only one still alive and standing. She briefly glanced at the three dead wizards before turning to the two crying worms that were struggling to drag their useless carcasses away.
"Pathetic," muttered the necromancer before walking over where Chandra was still lying unconscious and kicking her in the ribs "Wake up Brat, you can sleep once you're dead."
"Let me get this straight," said Chandra massaging her brow and wishing for a calming draught "Those two knuckleheads drugged and kidnapped two people, one of whom is your student too, they admitted to planning to either rape or kill the kidnapped, and they're walking away with a slap on the wrist?"
"A metaphorical one of course, since we had to debone their arms and legs to heal them," confirmed the eidolon of good mood that was Dumbledore sitting behind his desk "I'm certain the scare Miss Vess gave them will be enough."
"What of the fact that they let three terrorists known for being merciless into the school?" she tried again, knowing full well that it was a fruitless attempt.
"Would you rather the authorities be informed of the actual cause of their death and of what Miss Vess actually can do?" he asked back, still pleasantly smiling.
"Yeah, let's avoid any more meaningless deaths, on that I agree with you."
She didn't know if it was typical of the headmaster, but somehow he had swept the whole incident under the rug unless one of the involved went and spoke with either the press or the lawmages. Weasley's mother had been fine with it, professor Malfoy had agreed only because it was obvious that the scandal would have broken her family, and Liliana hadn't cared one way or another. The three dead hadn't been able to voice any complaints, of course. As the pyromancer and Hermione had been unconscious, it had been argued that everything they could tell was hearsay and wouldn't stick in court, so they hadn't protested either. In a matter of hours after such agreement was reached, everything was as if nothing had ever happened except for the two boys arms and legs, and nothing could be traced back to the jolly old man in front of her. Especially the suddenly-dead-in-their-homes purebloods that most certainly hadn't been Death Eaters attacking his school.
Not for the first time, Chandra wondered just how much power Dumbledore actually wielded. She had met a wide variety of scoundrels and politicians in her life, but neither had been quite that good. Even Jace wasn't, and the guy could take blackmail material right out of people's heads!
"I'm happy to see you find no solace in what happened," he said before his countenance turned marginally more serious "Let's turn now to a darker matter though: ill fated it may have been, but young Draco's attempt was obviously well planned, much better than anything he had ever done."
"Yeah, he acts as his father's hand to do this dark lord's bidding," said Chandra remembering what Pansy had told Liliana "I guess it's one more of that Voldemort guy's names, right?"
"His servants and those wishing to stay in his good graces called him that, so it's more than likely him," replied the elderly headmaster focusing his gaze on Chandra, something hard creeping in his eyes "If I know Tom at all, he won't be deterred by a single failure. He'll try again sooner or later. You have to be careful Miss Nalaar, it is of capital importance that whatever Tom is planning doesn't come to fruition."
"You know something," was the pyromancer's reply after having studied him for a moment.
She was no Jace, but she was a mean cards player and could read people reasonably well.
"Oh I can say I know a great many things, but on the subject of Tom's machinations I'm sadly unprepared. What is certain though, is that it wasn't merely an attempt at your life: he wants you alive for some reason, and whatever it is, it most certainly is in Wizarding Britain's interest he doesn't get it."
"I'll be careful," she promised while attempting to get in contact with her telepath friend.
It was time to put their heads together and come up with a counterattack plan. She couldn't always count on Liliana's help to save her hide. Or on the necromancer's goodwill either.
Weeks came and went with the only outward signs of hostility on Voldemort's part being the dark glares the history professor kept throwing at Liliana. The woman might have agreed to the headmaster's little scheme, but she still felt entitled to some harmless animosity. The necromancer ignored her entirely.
Weasley had all but disappeared from the public scene and Malfoy kept well out of the planeswalkers' way, meaning that both did their level best at fleeing on sight.
Hermione had dived into her quest for self-betterment with all her might, even if she had moved away from dark magic due to having found the aftereffects of Liliana's magic more than a bit revolting. The necromancer was hardly concerned, since the bushy haired girl was still on the right track to be the untamable force she should have rightly been.
Pansy, having helped in saving Chandra and Hermione with her espionage, gained Liliana's trust and was thus promised a better eye to replace the dead-looking one she still sported.
Ajani took the kidnapping and subsequent events in stride: it was easy to forget it, but Naya's leonid were barely civilized and as such he found no qualms with the necromancer's methods apart from the general repulsiveness of death magic. In his own words, punishment was better delivered with claws.
In the end life resumed its normal course –for how normal it can be in a school of magic hosting a small army of teenage wizards, an international event and three planeswalkers– and the third task of the Tournament arrived.
A week prior to the actual date, Bagman took the four champions to the Quiddich pitch to give them the ropes of the last task: a race in a labyrinth filled to the brim with deadly creatures, beguiling magic and, of course, the other champions.
The maze itself had been grown by Hagrid and professor Sprout from some undefined kind of hedge, most assuredly magical and fireproof. She was still going to try, but she wouldn't delude herself thinking that things would be that easy.
Fleur and Chandra had, once again, proposed to cooperate and the two male champions had readily accepted even if no innocent bystander was in peril: there was safety in numbers after all.