Chapter 2

In the Headmistress' Office

The door on top of the spiralling staircase was unlocked. The Headmistress must be depending entirely on the password-demanding stone gargoyle to guard her office. James, Mathilda, and Callie slipped in without trouble, and once they stood on the hardboard floor, were very, very still.

All around them, in gilded and intricately carved frames, slumbered every witch or wizard that had ever rightly been able to call him- or herself Headmaster of Hogwarts. The office was neat and clean, it's furniture dark and brazen, but beautifully handcrafted. Several shelves lined with strange potions hung on the wall above a hearth, in which some remains of firewood still smouldered.

Mathilda shot an appraising glance at the portraits on the wall. "Reckon they'll tell on us if they find out we're here?"

"Definitely," James whispered back.

"So they shouldn't find out," Mathilda concluded.

"Let's just get the hat and get out of here," Callie breathed.

She stepped over to a large wardrobe and opened it as quietly as possibly, hearing the soft scuffling noises of her friends looking for the hat elsewhere in the office behind her back. Unfortunately for Callie, though there were several hats on display on a shelf inside the wardrobe, none of them were as moth-eaten or tattered as she remembered the Sorting Hat to be.

"Callie," she heard Mathilda whisper somewhere to her left, "you know we can't bring the Hat with us, right?"

"What do you mean?" Callie tiptoed to check the back of the wardrobe, pondering whether or not to risk using lumos to get a better view of the insides. The only light came from the brilliant, full moon outside the window, and its silvery glow was of very limited help to Callie.

"We can't leave with the hat," Mathilda explained, busy looking through the shelves. "If we steal it, they'll know we've been here, and they'll definitely find us. So you gotta do whatever you gotta do here – that way, no one will ever suspect a thing!"

"Mathilda, are you feeling well? You're making sense for a change," James chuckled from behind the Headmistress' desk.

"Well, I have more at stake than the rest of you nitwits. If I get kicked out, I go back to living in Muggleville, you know."

"Don't be stupid, you'd come and live with my family. Lily would topple over from exaltation. Hey, here it is!"

In his fisted hand, the sad shape of the Sorting Hat was hanging limply, looking for all intent and purpose like a creature – or in this case, thing – who had given up all will to live. Of course, every student at Hogwarts knew better. The artificial mind of Godric Gryffindor's old hat was as sharp today as it had been centuries ago when it was made. The three delinquents in the Headmistress's office gathered around the desk and watched the item with awe.

"Alright," James said, holding it towards Callie. "Do your thing."

Callie gulped. Mathilda and James were looking at her expectantly, but she had no idea what to say or do. Her thing? What thing? The "wake-in-the-middle-of-the-night-with-a-brilliant-and-illegal-idea-drag-your-friends-into-it-and-then-forget-why" thing? Oh sweet Merlin, they were all doomed.

Throat as parched as a desert, the only thing Callie could come up with was accepting the rag from James and pressing it firmly down on top of her platinum hair.

A scant few seconds passed before the consciousness of the Hat made itself known.

"Ahh," a small voice sighed inside Callie's head. "Good evening, my dear. It has been a long time, hasn't it? Perhaps you have come to let me know you have changed your mind?"

I'm sorry, Callie thought timidly, I haven't.

"Hmm, no, I see as much. Oh." A short pause followed. "Child, you don't even know why you are here?"

I – I did. Callie was embarrassed to stutter even in her thoughts. Now I… I can't remember.

"I understand. Your gift is a complicated one."

Callie sighed mentally. You have no idea.

Meanwhile, as almost a minute had passed without any explosions, near-expulsions or life-changing revelations, Mathilda's patience had run thin. Huffing, she turned from Callie to James. "Come on, let's look around. I'll bet you a galleon this is the first and last time we'll ever be in the Headmistress's office unsupervised!"

"One?I'll bet you ten!" James grinned mischievously. "And another five if you find the alleged stash of phoenix feathers!"

"I'm not interested in robbing your family, Potter. What I want to know is what potions a Headmistress of Hogwarts keeps in handy!"

With that, they scuffled in each their direction, James searching the walls for hidden drawers and doorknobs, while Mathilda stood on her toes to read the inscriptions on the potions lining the shelf above the hearth, leaving Callie to her silent – and as of yet still unfruitful – conversation with the rag resting on top of her head.

All but five seconds passed like this.

Then the door swung wide open, and somebody called out, "Compello corpus!"

Instantly, all three trespassers felt a sharp tug in their midsections, and a forceful power pulled them all to the centre of the room, knocking them off of their feet as they went.

James recovered first and was up in a second, his mind racing to come up with a way out of this mess. But facing him with her wand raised was a livid Professor Tameri, and the only sentence James' befuddled mind could conjure up, was "Oh, bloody hell."

"I admit," Tameri began in a deadly voice, "my first priority was to be rid of Lesskettle. It took me fairly long to remember that if somebody had been hiding in the vicinity while Lesskettle blabbered, the Headmistress' office would be entirely exposed to them. I backtracked immediately, of course. And look what I found."

Her honey-coloured eyes swept over the three of them as they stood trembling on the middle of the floor.

"The will be severe consequences, of course," the professor said matter-of-factly. "I suspect expulsion is the most reasonable –"

"Professor!" Callie exclaimed, stepping forward, "It was all my fault – I wanted to go here, the others had nothing to do with it –"

"Oh, shut your trap," Mathilda said gently, pulling Callie back by her wrist. "We're in this as much as you!"

Tameri looked entirely unimpressed by this display of loyalty. "That you are, regardless of whose foolish idea it was. Though I must admit, Ms. Vablatsky, your involvement in this surprises me. I have been under the impression you were the tag-along in this little group."

Callie looked at her shoes at the same time as James stepped forward. "Hey, you can't –"

"Careful, Mr. Potter –"

"I'VE GOT THEM! I'VE GOT THEM!"

Absolutely everybody was stunned to silence when the office door sprung open once again, and two students stumbled through, followed by a triumphant, slightly winded Lesskettle. He beamed as soon as he came in clear view of Tameri. "Professor! 'Ere's the wrongdoers! Found 'em two corridors past! Tried ter talk their way out, they did, yapping on about forgetting the time, but it takes more smarts than what you can spit at to fool me!"

And he made an impressing gesture with his arm, as to indicate his own grandeur, and in the process, scoped a bottle down from a shelf so that it shattered on a floor, spreading its content of white sand all over the place.

An uneasy feeling suddenly crept up Callie's spine.

Lesskettle, oblivious, only now seemed to notice his accident. "Oops! I shall have to clean that up, shouldn't be a problem, should it? At least I found the culprits…"

The poor man paused, having suddenly noticed that three culprits were already present. Perhaps he also realised that Professor Tameri was giving him her most deadly look, which was just short of a full-fledged Basilisk glare. At least, he looked appropriately stunned.

"You –"

It was clear to all that the foreign Professor Tameri was losing her temper. Callie was certain she heard the air crack around the professor when she turned on Lesskettle and took a step forwards. The other rule breakers, a girl and a boy – both of which Callie recognised as sixth year Slytherins, to her intense discomfort – chose to step aside and thus leave nothing between the angry Professor and her target, the trembling janitor, who made the wrong move and backed himself up against the shelf he had just cleared.

"Now, Professor – no need to be hasty – I can scope that sand up real quick – I was of some use, at least –"

He indicated wildly towards the Slytherins, but Tameri didn't move her eyes from him.

"You fool – you incompetent –"

"W-what!" yelled Lesskettle out loud in an obviously desperate move, looking at the watch on his wrist only after his exclamation. "Is this really the time? I must be going!"

And he turned and bolted out the door.

Behind Professor Tameri's back, the five students were suddenly closer than they had initially noticed. It they were also just now recognising just who they where in the company of.

"Pyrrus," hissed James with obvious distaste.

The sentiment was returned in full by the male Slytherin, a tall, broad-shouldered boy with dark eyes and short-cropped hair the colour of dark copper. "If it isn't the Potter boy," he sneered. "And the groupies, of course."

He swept a look over Mathilda and Callie while his female counterpart snickered.

"Oh, like you're doing any better?" challenged Mathilda with a nod in the girl's direction, effectively cutting off her amusement.

Callie pulled at step back, uncomfortable in the tense atmosphere. She looked to the floor and noticed that the white sand spilled by Lesskettle had moved by its own accord, and was now covering the floor where they stood.

"Settle down," Tameri called sharply. "I am summoning the Headmistress right this instant, and rest assured you can look forward to losing fifty points each, as bare minimum –"

But Callie barely heard a word she was saying. Something seemed off – a hum in the air, as though a sound you can't be sure is real –

"– and I strongly advice you keep your mouth shut from here on in and don't give cause for any other –"

"Professor!" Callie finally called out in alarm, realising something was wrong, realising it was already too late –

Beneath their feet, the white sand flashed a blue colour.

Callie felt a harsh tug behind her belly, and her feet were ripped off the ground. Spinning and twisting, she was nauseated, blind, unable to breathe – the world was ripping itself apart around her, surely – such conditions were not meant to be endured by any human –

Then something indefinably sharp, like a flash of electricity, shot through Callie's entire body, and she landed flat on her face on the ground.

A/N: Coming up: ninjas! Whoo-hoo!

Oh right, and by the way, I'm doing my best to keep the characters speaking British, but I'm much better at American, which I think shines through. So please, if anything comes off overly American, tell me about it so I can fix it, puhleese! :-)

Next chapter: Roads of Destiny