Chapter 12

The man from the ministry introduced himself as Herr Sternschüppe and explained that those who would be in age by the end of the year who wished to learn Apparation should report to him in the great hall; and that he would too be running examinations for those too young to take the apparating licence the year before.

Nefrita Von Strang had no licence to apparate so Jade signed up for the exam. She had no desire to go through the tedium of lessons for something so elementary; even though her own group had been taught by Percy Weasley as an accredited apparating teacher who had made life a little more interesting by instructing his students to apparate on and off sheets of newspaper rather than in and out of hoops, using headlines as focus points. Many of his class had been quite competent in Jade's year in any case, since he had the Prowling Marauders; and Erwin and Jem had both picked up enough theory that they found it easy enough too. Jade had had her licence since the day after her seventeenth birthday.

She covered the exercises set with ease and was congratulated by Herr Sternschüppe; and being nosy, hung about to watch what sort of a mess the lower sixth made of their lessons; and whether German efficiency stretched to apportation training.

Each student was issued with printed instructions:

be aware of your own body and its extent.

be aware of your surroundings and how your body fits in it.

consider with care where you wish to go.

imagine your body in the place where you wish to go.

Concentrate on moving your body directly to the place where you wish to go.

check your body on arrival to make sure you have imagined all of it in the right place.

Jade was moderately impressed; it WAS more efficient that being told to remember the three C's which she could not remember as they seemed pretty fatuous to her and as apportation was so easy anyway; and that if it did NOT come easily, remembering this clear check list seemed more sensible than concentrating, consolidating and whatever the other one was.

The Bosnian girl Velma Zukic, that Jade had not had much to do with, seemed to be managing well enough, and got herself out of her hoop on only the second attempt; and Jaromir Frolik, the brother of one of Nachtigall's satellites did well enough too. Pompilia Constantinescu managed to leave her fingernails behind. That was not unusual; Jade had seen no end of foolish mistakes in apparating and had disrupted the proceedings in the past at Hogwarts to pay back the bullying of older siblings of a friend of hers; and she grinned as she recalled messing with the heads of the Goodchild twins so they lost concentration and became involved intimately with the school floor harp. It had been a mildly dangerous prank and she half disapproved of herself for laughing still; but she knew she could easily have sorted them out if the faculty had been unable to do so.

It was Claudette Reynault who managed the mistake of the day. Herr Sternschüppe came over to try to encourage her fruitless attempts and Claudette scowled at him, concentrated; and put in power.

Some of the examiner reappeared in her hoop while the greater part of him fell to the ground screaming.

Jade apparated smoothly over to where Claudette was squealing in shock with one of his hands wriggling feebly out of her own shoulder, cast healing spells and reapparated his hand off the Belgian girl's shoulder onto its own wrist and the arm back onto his body and the foot back onto his leg, searched absently for his ear and returned that to his head too.

Jade's smoothness was such that the examiner was whole in less time than it takes to tell; and then she apparated him to the potions dungeon without pause and called,

"Professor Rebet, this poor man needs a blood replenishing potion!"

"Most people go to the hospital wing" said Professor Rebet, leaving his second years to fetch a potion.

"Yes, but the nurse is a bit wet and might goggle at me like an imbecile trying to aspire to idiocy" said Jade.

"I am going to pretend I did not hear you say that in front of a class of younglings" said Rebet severely.

"You didn't hear what I said, you brats" said Jade "And I apologise for being rude about a staff member in front of small and loathsome creatures."

"My dear Fraulein!" gasped Herr Sternschüppe after swallowing the potion "A remarkable piece of work! Fast and accurate; have you considered going for a career as a de-splincher with the ministry?"

"Oh I'm a potioneer by trade" said Jade "It wasn't exactly a difficult thing to do; the trick was doing it fast enough so you didn't lose too much blood. Feeling better? Good, good; will you go to the staff room for a quick schnapps or do you want to finish the lesson?"

"Oh I think I'd better finish the lesson" said Herr Sternschüppe "And er, thank you again!"

Heinrich Nactigall had not forgiven Nefrita; and laid his plans accordingly. He wrote certain letters; and gave such details as he knew of her habits. Though Nachtigall was too idle to get up himself to try to spy on the early morning runs of the ECHC he sent Vladimir Chernykrov to do so. Vladimir was quickly caught by Jade and sent about his business; but he was able to report that the mad English female took her disciples running in the countryside when the weather permitted.

Thus, one fine morning, the ECHC was confronted by a group of some half a dozen ruffians with goblin-made muskets. Two of them were in fact villainous looking goblins.

"If you kids just hand over one called Nefrita Von Strang we'll not hurt the rest" said the scarred human heading the group.

"You could only hurt six at most even if you hit" said Bertel coldly.

"True" said Jade "But I am Nefrita Von Strang; I would wish to know what quarrel you may have with me; I know of no quarrel that I have with you for I recognise none of you" she added, absently apparating mud into the barrels of the guns, for the snow had blown away in the winds overnight.

"Oh nothing personal Fraulein; but you've pissed someone off" said one of the goblins

"Yeah; and we gotta see you punished; and there's a troll waiting for his nookie; but if yer just comes quiet and don't make a fuss, chances are you might survive it." Said the leading human.

"GET them!" shouted Leva "How DARE they!"

The first years dived towards the ruffians. Jade absently apparated guns from the hands of the assailants but failed to stop one fast goblin pulling the trigger; and the resultant back blast blew his hand quite off, and Sofie, who was biting his knees cried out as the explosion sounded in her ear.

"Blümchen!" Jade was at her side checking "Ah, no damage….. Leva, my Kätzchen, you are precitate and hasty and brave beyond measure but with no discipline at all. Now, I have had to act hastily and Sofie might have been hurt; as might all of you had I not removed their weapons in a hurry for they would all have exploded thus."

"How?" asked Leva. The ruffians were all being sat on.

"Because I apparated mud into the barrels that blocks the passage of the expanding gasses and sends them backwards to explode the cartridge" said Jade calmly, absently casting healing spells on the goblin. "Throw those guns into the lake; use wingardium Leviosa to take them right out; it will be good practise for you. And then, gentlemen, we shall discuss the location of your hidden rebel base…. I mean we shall discuss who has hired you to get me raped by a troll."

"It weren't our idea" said one of the humans, seeing several determined wands now levelled "We just had instructions about what to set up; and if you ain't taken to that troll, he's likely to come looking."

"Well, it's not as though a troll is any challenge to discourage" said Jade. "You had to pick one that understands rudimentary language; so he'll understand when I threaten him. If he doesn't, the carrion of the forest will have a better feast for it. You are going to talk; and we can do this the easy way or we can do it the way you enjoy much less. Kjell, tie them up."

"Oh please Fraulein Von Strang, you aren't going to use the cruciatus curse on them are you?" said Kjell.

"I wasn't planning to; I have more efficient means at my disposal than the crudities of torture" said Jade "And I am also disposed to listen to their excuses as to why they would lend themselves to something as despicable as having a young girl raped by a troll. There, fellow; you will have the use of two of your fingers which is better than it might have been" she added to the wounded goblin.

"Er….thank you noble witch" said the goblin "We gotta do it, see? We work for the big man and when he give orders, we gotta do them. He'd kill us else, see? We ain't paid to fink about what we do, just do it."

"I see; you mean, poor and ill educated, each of you was happy to receive work as enforcers because that made you feel one up on those who you were paid to put one down; and then you got more complex jobs – kidnap such and such girl to put in a coop for a client... kidnap this man and torture him close to death as a demonstration….. take that man and cut off his wand hand….. see this man hanged in a prominent place so as to warn off others….. take this man's wife or children to force him to comply – those sorts of things?"

"Cor, Fraulein, howdyer know that?"

"I am au fait with how this wicked world wags, laddie" said Jade. "And once you are in, even if you don't like all you do, you have no choice?"

"'S about the size of it" said the wounded goblin "And fer what its worth I meant to fire over their heads to scare 'em."

Jade looked into his eyes.

"I actually believe you" she said "HE on the other hand" looking at the human leader "enjoys what he does; and relished watching my terror over being raped by a troll, that he might have gloated on it as you took me to the said troll. Therefore" she said, regarding the leading human with disfavour "I don't see why the poor innocent troll should be disappointed" and she smiled, brightly.

The human screamed in terror as he felt the transfiguration take his body; and shortly he was a rather buxom woman.

"Trolls like their women more shapely than I am" said Jade. The other five gazed in horror on him. He screamed and wept and begged. Jade ignored his entreaties.

"You" said Jade to the wounded goblin "And….you" she pointed to one of the other humans, a youth scarcely older than she was "Will come with me. The rest of you will take your fellow to the troll; if you do not, it's you the troll will recognise the scent of and pursue. Then" she held the eyes of each "You will forget everything about this job and you will go directly to the Vehmgericht in Berlin and tell them about your activities and about the big man. Here me; obey ME" she added in Parseltongue to tie the compulsion in more securely. They were callous enough those three, the two humans and the other goblin; they would have a fair enough trial and a term of imprisonment and the big man would hopefully be caught too. Why should she do other people's jobs for them after all?

"What will you do with us, lady?" asked the youth, all but wetting himself in terror.

"You two have distaste for what you do; so I shall find employment for you away from this big man; so long as you tell me all you know about him and how to find out who caused this plot to be hatched."

"It's simple enough" said the goblin "People who want a job done write to an address in Frankfurt. Nobody lives there but we get summoned there and one of the big man's men tells us what to do. I guess he probably keeps all the information somewhere; though I don't think it's LEFT there. He talks like a toff, like you; I heard him once because I was waiting for the others and he spoke on a communications globe to the one who briefed us, see? And it was dark but I heard his voice passing the instructions. People don't realise what sharp hearing goblins have, lady."

"What is your name?"

"Hunnic, lady" said the goblin.

"Walther" said the youth as Jade looked at him.

"Good; I will take you somewhere safe well out of the reach of the big man" said Jade.

"NOwhere is out of the reach of the big man" said Hunnic.

"He has a longer arm than the ODESSA ? I find that hard to believe" said Jade.

Hunnic looked interested.

"The only place the ODESSA can't reach is out of the Germanic countries" he said.

"Quite" said Jade "And certain strongholds within. Come; I will take you now" and she took them by the arm and apparated directly to her father's office.

"Hello my dear" said Severus, unperturbed. Jade had pulsed him warning. "Are you going to introduce me?"

"Hunnic and Walther" said Jade "They've been used by organised crime of the kidnap and punish sort in Germany; they need jobs and a bit of education. Also decent clothing and a bath" she added. "This is Professor Snape; he's harder than God."

"Yeah; the big man turned down a contract on the perfesser" said Hunnic "His top men were talking about it; and they was right glad he didn't take it because the ODESSA are scared shitless of him."

"Why thank you for such a nice piece of information, good Hunnic" said Severus. "You get about your business, my dear; I'll sort out the comfort of our new trainee security guards."

Jade apparated back.

"Jade, we were much scared by that" said Cacilia.

"No we weren't, Fraulein; there wasn't TIME to be scared" said Leva.

"Ah, Kätzchen, if you were in Hogwarts school you would be in Gryffindor house I think" laughed Jade "Where they breed the heroes like Harry Potter. I will teach you however, that heroes sometimes get dead friends for being heroic without thinking; as Harry had to learn. Even as he had to learn that sometimes it is braver for a hero to do nothing and let others act – until the right time. For what it's worth, at your age I'd have launched low to bite kneecaps too" she added as Leva looked crestfallen "And you kids are damned brave brats and I am moved at your support. And inclined to believe that you CAN handle the truth about me; and then we'll start you learning occlumensy" she added.

"Out here?" said Cacilia

"And unless someone has the same fey advantages I have, I'd say the safest place" said Jade; and quickly filled in the younger ones on her true identity.

They were less shocked than their elders; she was their hero and had protected each one of them, and for those who supported Cacilia, if Cacilia thought it all right, so too did they. And Gisela Schutzmann, assured that Anett Breuer knew all about it was satisfied too.

"Can we have your autograph?" asked Xanthe.

Jade laughed.

"Oh not a problem – after the end of the year" she said. "I AM rather incognito here; if you show it next year, either I will be teaching here as me, or you might have run into me in the holidays if I am still Nefrita. As you will all continue to think of me and call me."

There was a chorus of assent.

Really, Jade thought, they were a most excellent set of kids and maybe even worth while blooding some of them in. There was no hurry on that though. Nothing significant was likely to happen until after Yule.

There were some sounds up on the hillside and Jade threw a muffliatus spell in the general direction.

There was no need, after all, for the kids to be disturbed by the screams of the horrid creature she had condemned to the fate he had enjoyed contemplating for her.

Jade took a short cut to find out who had arranged for her to be kidnapped. The chances were it would be one of the enemies she had made here; Nachtigall or Claudette Reynault, who had been reminded of her presence by being embarrassed over splinching the apparation teacher.

Jade had her own suspicions and proceeded to legilimens the school owls one by one to see which had approached the house in Frankfurt recently.

There was no guarantee other pupils had not used this expedient of dealing with enemies in the past so she was looking for memories of the last few weeks.

The memories of magical owls were retentive; and Jade soon found what she was looking for, and was able to follow the memory back to the letter given by Heinrich Nachtigall and his nasty cohort Klaas de Witt.

She heaved a sigh; and went to consult Madam Bacsó, telling her all that had occurred and what she had found.

"Which is not admissible" said Jade "I suppose one might accio the precise note and confront them; or go to Frankfurt with a sample of writing and fold it into a seeking bird to find its fellow. I'm at a bit of a loss what to do, to be honest with you Agata; they are only schoolchildren after all and I hesitate to take a permanent personal revenge; though they ARE dangerous and nasty. I need your advice."

"Yes; I see the dilemma" said Madam Bacsó "Also if the Vehmgericht take this er, big man, they may find the letter and such could bring disrepute on the whole school. It were better to find it if we could; and deal with him in school."

"Then I shall go to Frankfurt; and try accio first and if that doesn't get it…oh I am a fool!" said Jade "Even if it's locked up, I can use the engulfing apparation enchantment….. forgive me, Agata, I'm a bit more shaken up by the concept than I care to admit; I could escape easily from such a trap, I was planning on sending the other kids back and leaving the troll empty handed with some baffled kidnappers that he'd be blaming; but the sick thought of it happening to girls who don't have my powers, abilities and calmness in a crisis is sort of rather overwhelming."

"My poor child!" said Agata "You think too much about the feelings of others; there is nothing you can do about what has happened in the past and you have taken more than adequate steps to stop it ever happening again."

"Product of my upbringing I suppose" shrugged Jade "Over developed sense of responsibility for others. Trained to protect. Right; I'll chant the damn thing up right now if I may."

"Do; I haven't the faintest idea what enchantment you're talking about and I'd like to see it in action" said Agata.

"It works like the engulfing charm on the bank vault doors in Gringott's bank; I don't know if other banks have the same safeguards but if anyone tries to open them who has the wrong finger prints, the door engulfs them and slings them into the locked vault. If they're lucky, someone investigates the accompanying alarm before they die of suffocation or thirst" explained Jade "It's been a NEWT level Arithmancy equation to explain it. Some of us reverse engineered it to use as appropriate."

She wrote the equation out in chalk on the floor and pictured the note firmly in her mind's eye from the memory of the owl that had carried it. Had she not had that memory she doubted she would be so successful. It had also got sweat on it from the fingers of Nachtigall; De Witt had handled it too. Jade fished out samples of dandruff from De Witt and hair from Nachtigall that she kept in vials in her pocket as insurance; ritual components were always handy to have.

And then she chanted.

And soon from nowhere appeared a paper and fluttered to the floor. Jade pulled on kid gloves and flattened it on the table. The letter was quite specific; stating that the boy had got this address from his father and that he wanted Nefrita Von Strang kidnapped, humiliated and raped by a troll.

"I bet that was De Witt's cunning idea" said Jade. "What do you want to do?"

"I plan to expel them both" said Agata.

"Will that not cause trouble if you do not make public the reason why?" asked Jade.

"I will write to their fathers and explain why" said Agata "Though I suspect that Nachtigall senior is well aware what his son is doing. I imagine that he told him how to set about this. It was probably how he arranged to have his brother bitten by a werewolf."

Jade smote her forehead.

"Of COURSE!" she said. "Agata, I have a better idea; that will mean they will not be able to gain positions of trust, especially De Witt; expel them for theft. Let them think you do that out of a desire to keep your school unsullied by their greater iniquities; neither is clever enough to recognise the implications until it is too late. Especially if you say in your records that it was theft of non valuable items of clothing, the underwear of little girls. That'll stitch them up and good."

Agata nodded.

"Quite as ruthless as ever my dear; I'm glad you're on form after so nasty a shock" she said. "Yes; you are right. And I have no compunction about doing it either."

"And I am afraid I AM going to have my last revenge on them" said Jade "And I'm about to go and lay bets with Lazlo over how long it takes for them to get a curse breaker able to take off what I'm going to drop on them."

"Send them to me first" said Agata "I want to have them undistracted while I chew them out."

Jade grinned, curtseyed, and ran off. It always pleased Agata immensely that Jade STILL curtseyed when they were alone together.

Jade walked into Nachtigall's study without knocking.

"Madam Bacsó would like to see Herr Quabbelig and De Wittless – that's a joke in English – about an intercepted letter and a sexually frustrated troll" she said.

Nachtigall went green.

"I – whatever are you talking about, Von Strang?" he said .

Jade looked him in the eyes.

"About your raging that you could not think of a way to hurt me; about how you wrote to your father and asked advice; about how he sent back the address of a man in Frankfurt who arranges matters; such matters as having people bitten by werewolves; about how De Witt came up with the idea of a troll, that he'd think of right away since it's what his mother must have used for his conception; and how you duly wrote. I hope you haven't already paid; the fees are extortionate" said Jade, absently dropping saponification charms and the full body bind on De Witt as he went for her. "Do run along boys; the head hates to be kept waiting. And just because she's inclined to be relatively merciful for the good of the school, don't think I shan't be waiting after you've seen her because I shall."

She released De Witt and left him to make a rather soapy way to the head's office, both of them prepared to expect relative mercy and so to perceive the expulsion for theft in that light.

She dropped an alerting charm on the door of the head's office to know when they left; and waited.

Jade apprised her own older friends of what was going on; and as she felt Nachtigall leave she started to chant.

"Michnai, gignai, Stingel, yah, yah, yah

Ein Zwei Drei, Mutter, Yah, yah, yah

She sit upon der steeple

And frighten all the people

Singing michnai, gignai stingel, yah, yah."

"That's absolute rubbish in English or German" said Cacilia.

"Yes; but it's also poetry by Kipling who was certainly a Parselmouth and probably at least a sensitive" said Jade "His poetry has latent power. We can go down and listen to Herr Quabbelig in a minute. Now De Witt."

She recited,

"Troll sat alone on his seat of stone

and munched and mumbled on a bare old bone;

for many a year he had gnawed it near

for meat was hard to come by

Done by! Gum by!

In a cave by the hills he dwelt alone,

And meat was hard to come by!"

She added,

"And that's Tolkein and I know it particularly well for being set twenty reps of it when I was about fourteen for insulting trolls by comparing a certain sixth former to one in hearing of a prefect. They had to uphold the dignity of the sixth you understand; but there are ways and ways of doing it. And Albert Jackman would rather have given trolls a bad name."

When the eight got downstairs it was to something of a commotion. A troll with the unmistakeable features of Klaas de Witt was howling in outrage, which protest was drowned out by the shrieking whistle, hiss of steam and shunting noises from Heinrich Nachtigall.

Various juniors howled with laughter – from a safe distance from the troll.

Jade showed herself; and the troll hurled himself at her, De Witt at least clever enough to realise that his troll's hide had some protection against spells.

It had no protection against tripping over the summoned tripwire; and De Witt measured his rather increased length; though he was rather short for a troll. If not, as Jade murmured inconsequentially and – to her fellows – incomprehensibly – too short for a stormtrooper.

Agata had summoned the entire faculty and was engaged in trying to get the noisy pair bundled into the red carriage to have them sent home.

"Did you HAVE to be so noisy about it?" she shrieked in a whisper at Jade.

"Yes; I don't want them to hush their shame up" said Jade. "De Witt is so much prettier, isn't he, and Nachtigall's voice sweeter and more like his name than before!"

"You are a bad girl" said Agata dropping a silence spell on the whole area.

The language De Witt was grunting through his ill fitting lips was NOT suitable for tender young ears.

It did NOT help that Ihor Rebet was singing quite openly a song that Agata's Ukrainian was just about sufficient to realise was one of celebration over the departure of troubles.

Jade was singing something in English equally incomprehensible to Agata, that went,

"Two world wars and one world cup

doodah, doodah

two world wars and one world cup

oh doodah day!"

And then went on to whistle a tune familiar to Agata as one that had taunted Hedda Schrempf. Schrempf was furious.

"You – English – what is that tune?" she demanded

"It is a traditional English song to taunt Germans with" said Jade "Or rather such Germans as we think unbearably above themselves. Ah yes; you have heard it before with appropriately adapted words at the Triwizard. WE rather like it; I don't suppose you do. But YOU don't have to; and you will apologise to me for addressing me so rudely."

Hedda went pale.

"I – I apologise" she said.

"You apologise WHAT?" demanded Jade, flinty cold.

"I apologise mistress" said Hedda.

"Better" said Jade "I shall not have to punish you then. Go away; you bore me."

Hedda Schrempf fled; Jade's cold eyes boring into her terrified her.

They were supposed to.

It was not to be supposed that the parents of the expelled boys would be happy about either their expulsion or the iniquities practised upon their persons. Agata saw both fathers.

"If they have so irritated their fellows as to be cursed on leaving, I would suggest that they have probably brought it upon themselves" she said coldly "So take them to a competent curse breaker; it is none of my business. I had already expelled them and broken their wands before the incident occurred; they were no longer my pupils. I should have said that very few people will notice much difference anyway. De Witt is better looking now I suppose; and as for Nachtigall, he should be glad that he is only making noises like a steam train and not howling at the moon once a month. Yes, Herr Nachtigall; I know all about that. And all about the big man who arranges such things. If I were you I would be very, very careful. Leaving us so soon? So glad I could clarify these little points. You might explain to Herr De Witt that his own son's imagination probably got him the form he now holds; and he too is lucky not to be in such a form and female with the troll that's wandering about the forest right now looking for a mate that is HIS responsibility….. excellent, nice to have met you both!" as Nachtigall dragged an outraged De Witt out of the study.

A little genteel blackmail would have to do as the way to handle parents until she had more temporal power.

And would not come amiss even when she had.