Chapter Four: Out of the Prefects' Bath, Into the Fire

Before going down to breakfast, Aidon Haynes decided to indulge in the perks of being a Prefect of Hogwarts.
Namely, the Prefect Baths.
With this delightful notion in mind, the brunette trotted dutifully off to clean himself, his clothes for the Hogsmeade celebration in his arms. Much to his surprise, there was humming emerging from the Baths as he entered.
"Hello…?" he asked cautiously, stepping through the thick mist spilling over the marble steps and approaching the sacred pools of aromatic sanitation.
"Hanes!" smirked Lylia from where she was sitting quite contentedly in a bubble bath. "Sorry, is this where you sell your esteemed undergarments? I can see the targeting of an audience being put to use!"
Aidon had a heart palpitation. "Letum! Get out of the-"
"Can't do that, dear Skipper," the blonde's answer lilted through the echoes of the tall chamber. "You see, I'm already in the bath. You're between me and my towels, as a matter of fact."
"That's irrelevant! Get out!"
Lylia just smirked all the more, her arms folding under all the bubbles that concealed her from the neck down. "Think, Gilligan. Think. You don't want me to get out right now."
The Prefect simply refused to catch on. "Get out right now, or I'll- I'll summon Professor Flitwick!"
"As concerned as I think he'd be about how lacking this bathroom is in pomegranate body wash, I don't think you should be summoning him."
"And why is that?" Aidon was by now completely flustered.
"I'm a female, my dear Aidonfish."
"I'm sorry? What about it?"
"You're a male. In my presence. In this situation."
To this Aidon paled. "… Oh."
"There you go, Starfish!"
The Prefect left quickly.

Lylia reported to breakfast that morning smelling exceptionally of bamboo and cherry blossoms. Aidon sat by himself this time.
"Lyl?" Kayla perceptively asked as she plopped down next to the Ravenclaw with Draco. "Have you been sleeping well?"
"More or less," the accused answered evasively, unwittingly shifting the leather tome under her arm that had been so occupying her nocturnal hours. In retrospection, anyone would agree that it was better than encouraging her noctevagrant tendencies of past adolescent years.
"What's this?" Draco slipped it out from her hold and opened it.
"Mine!" the Ravenclaw made a dive.
"Yeah, but where'd you get it?" Kayla caught the book as Draco tossed it to her.
"I found it on the floor! No. It was a gift!" Lylia did a double-take. "No. It was in the Library. Yes... Maybe."
The other two paused, watching her.
"It was a gift, from the floor, in the Library." Kayla raised her eyebrows.
"Correct." Lylia put on her most credible expression of confidence.
"I'll… give you some time to get your story straight," the Slytherin girl returned her book to her, patted her head with much ruth, and stood simultaneously with the male Slytherin. "Draco and I are heading off for Hogsmeade after we get changed. See you there, alright?"
"Right!" the yellow-haired one saluted. "If you see Talem, let him know I haven't bailed out on him!"
"Because that's likely," Draco commented sarcastically and led his date away.

"Letum," Aidon announced as he approached the Ravenclaw finishing her meal of muffins galore. "They're almost done sending out the trains. We should be going… if you'd like."
Still biting halfway into a supreme, banana bread grain product, the blonde just nodded in consent, her blue-topaz eyes marking her surprise at such civility from her superior.
The pair later emerged from a train at Hogsmeade, Aidon in a frightfully tacky, sky-blue suit and Lylia in a floor-length dress coloured as the flower known as baby's breath. While Aidon's suit blessedly was bereft of white frill and lace, Lylia's dress carried both quite naturally in its layered skirt and feminine bodice.
Talem awaited the pair with Draco and Kayla at his side. The two males tried their utmost best to not giggle like small children upon seeing Aidon's gender-confusing three-piece. Their own suits were simple, neutral colours with a tie to match their house: Draco's was green; Talem's, blue. As for Kayla, she wore a knee-length green and brown dress that flitted about her legs so fluidly when she moved to hug Lylia that it seemed a woven fragment of nature itself.
"Sorry that I kept you waiting," Lylia said at Kayla as she drew out of the hug, examining her best friend's dress. "Wow… Those colours suit you so well!"
"Well, I could say the same about yours!" laughed the dark-haired girl while she blushed and began off down the path. The rest of the group followed, save for Aidon, who slinked away for an innocent drink or five at the Hog's Head. "Where are we going first?"
"I vote Honeyduke's!" blurted Lylia as she pointed at the sweets shop not far down the road. Talem gave the same chuckle as always, holding onto her arm to keep the blonde from darting ahead of the gang.
"Sounds good," agreed Draco. With Kayla's consent as well, the four traveled down to the sweet tooth's veritable paradise. Not long after, they departed the building, each with a confectionary conception of heaven: Talem carried a Chocolate Frog; Lylia munched on a strawberry lollipop; Draco stored away a chunk of peanut butter fudge; and Kayla finished off a small but scrumptious slice of pure white chocolate. While the other three eliminated their snacks and disposed of their trash near the Shrieking Shack, Talem just clasped the Chocolate Frog, still in its case, and observed the eerie silence of the abandoned abode.
"Hey…" smiled Lylia reassuringly by his side. "Are you okay?"
"I-I apologize," Talem started, but he afterwards returned the smile. "I just get frightened easily… My flaw, you could say. Cowardice."
"You've never been cowardly around us!" Kayla eavesdropped and came to the support of her newest friend. "In fact, Draco probably thought you were a mute before you and Lylia got close!"
"That's an unfair assumption…" muttered Draco as he wiped his mouth of any remaining fudge morsels, his face a bright pink.
"Let's get to that party," Talem responded and began shifting his frail frame's steps in the direction of the Three Broomsticks. "Lylia, do you have a pocket where you could put this?"
"Hm? Oh, yeah," the blonde first-year accepted the Chocolate Frog and tucked it into one of the many skirt layers. "I'll keep it right by my wand's pocket."
His smile reflected in his soft eyes, Talem guided the troupe to the fiesta.

Inside the Three Broomsticks, tables and chairs had been pulled close to the walls, leaving plenty of room in the center of the swept floor for dancing. Multicoloured streamers hung from the ceiling and lights, and merry music wafted down from somewhere around the rafters. While Draco and Kayla enjoyed dance after dance, Talem seemed peculiarly taken to standing aside, near a table. Lylia was just fine with this; she had never really danced before anyway.
McGonagall sat beside Snape at a table close to the door, her interest piqued in the black-clothed man's attendance. "Severus, I was quite surprised to see you show up today. You've never accepted my invitations to come to this unofficial get-together before…"
"I needed to get out of the castle for a while," the Potions Master improvised a fast lie.
"You should really go dance," Talem looked sideways at his companion. "I'm sure someone would dance with you."
"Why not you, Talem?" Lylia retorted with a friendly smile.
"I'm not… feeling so well," the diminutive boy pseudo-casually tossed his bangs out of his face. Such a statement was not a complete lie: he was indeed very uneasy. The cause for his disconcertment stood just a small distance down the wall parallel to them, his amethyst-tinged indigo eyes blazing unsparingly at Talem.
The poor boy's resolve snapped within a few unbearable minutes, his clammy hand reaching to take Lylia's wrist and lead her out of the cheerful room, and out of the Three Broomsticks, via an old back door. "I need a bit of air…"
"Alright, Talem, we can go as long as you'll be okay…"

Elden Lesperance straightened off of the wall and followed the pair at a distance, his hand already going for his wand. Thankfully, Kayla caught sight of the beautiful man and stopped her dancing.
"Something's not right, Dra… C'mon."
Elden took an idle note of his own followers, closing the back door behind him and locking it with a small flick of his wand. Lylia looked over Talem's shoulder where they stood together in the back alley, her pulse skipping about at seeing the intimidating prodigy.
"Talem, it's…!"
"I was going to just wait and speak to you privately," Elden addressed Talem with a malicious glint in his violet eyes, raising an ebony wand. "But since I have two annoyances in one place, why not get rid of them both?"
"Y-you're… the three-year champion of the Dueling Tournament here," the victimized Talem offered, shakily raising his own wand. "That means you must understand honour… If I agree to duel you, right here and now… Will you promise to leave Lylia and me alone, if I win?"
The shallow smile that crossed the fourth-year bully's lips sent an unholy shudder down Lylia's spine.

Kayla gave a worried huff as the door refused to open. "I'm certain they went this way, Draco!"
"From what you showed at your entrance exams, you're brilliant at Charms," Draco inserted with a serious but calm demeanor. "Try using Alohomora on the door while I go around the building, in case that doesn't work." He gave her hand a squeeze before running off through the crowd of people busy in their festivities.
Focusing all her sincere need to aid her oldest friend and newest comrade, Kayla pictured their faces before clearing her head to concentrate on the spell. Flicking her wand in accordance to how she always remembered it being shown, she whispered the word. "Alohomora."
At the same second as the door's lock magically unlatched and Kayla turned the knob, Talem Kyker was sent crashing through the solid wood and into the girl who had put forth her all to aid him.
Ignoring the breath that refused to fill her winded lungs, Kayla rose to crouch over Talem's curled-up form. "Talem! Talem!"
"I-it hurts…" the Ravenclaw managed to utter before he coughed blood into his hands.
"Where?"
"… I-inside… But please… Please, help Lylia…! Go!" The wounded boy's last word was a deflated howl of supplication. Kayla ran as fast as she possibly could out the door.

Lylia stared in complete horror after Talem had been hurled through yards of air and a solid slab of wood with a mere flick of Elden's wand, her feet daring a step forward. Elden's eyes glinted dangerously as he turned his black weapon now to her, not allowing a single foot closer to him or the former door that was behind him. Her fear and anxiousness melted into a white-hot fury as Lylia drew her own wand.

Kayla raised her wand preparedly and made her way out to both the pale light and the awaiting duo of dichotomous opposites in personality. Elden jerked his head at hearing her footsteps on the stones. As his armed hand pointed at the newest arrival, Lylia aimed her wand threateningly at him.
"Don't you DARE-" she began.
"As if YOU could STOP me!" barked the infuriated attacker, his sculpted features all sharp and promising pain while his attention again turned to the fractious blonde.
An oppressive, choking silence descended on the three; it held them each together in solitude and separate in their emotions save for one: utter loathing.
In that dear, precarious moment, the Three Broomsticks swallowed the three's tension along with all the surrounding air and released it in a ground-rocking explosion of the building's roof.
The three outside took a collective step back from the building in pure, unadulterated shock, all of their eyes glued on the deadly blossom of smoke and flame that was currently issuing from the now-wailing establishment. Its front doors burst open in a flurry of frantic escape, releasing the dozens of coughing inhabitants that sought the clean air for their starving chests. Professor McGonagall pushed students here and there out of the pub, yelling at Prefects to direct them off to a safe distance.
As the chaos erupted all around, passerby screamed out and dove for cover, shielding their heads and necks as if to blot out the travesty before them. Kayla darted toward the building, Talem's name on her lips, but a rough hand snatched her by the shoulder and swung her into Draco's tight, protective hold.
"NO!" he shouted above the tumult and the inferno. "I'm not about to LOSE you! Someone tried to grab me in there before this happened; I'm not gonna let you go into God-knows-what NOW!" He kept his hold on her hand, running off with her to the cluster of displaced and disoriented people forming a ways off from the maelstrom of danger previously known as the Three Broomsticks.
Kayla went without feeling her feet moving, her hazel eyes going to see Lylia behind them. "Lylia! Come on!"
Lylia observed the pair silently, now completely alone in her mind; she looked at Elden's departing form as well, and then she simply took a deep breath and charged into the burning building. "TALEM!" was her forward cry.

By then it was too late: McGonagall had raised her wand, conjuring a breath of the wind itself to lift around each student and teacher outside and Apparate them all inside the Great Hall. Kayla's scream of protest was drowned helplessly in that momentary roar of the air, her soul held only at bay in her Headmistress's magic by the hand on her shoulder gripping her tighter than humanity's cling to life itself.
The Prefects all stepped forward to the Staff Table with McGonagall, receiving her orders:
"Take emergency roll of every student in your House. Immediately. Report to me the very second you are done, and don't you forget what could be at stake."
Other teachers had by now entered, their hurried steps adding to the Hall's thunderous sound of every heart's desperate pulse. Kayla was drawn to her House's table by Draco despite all her struggles to get to the one teacher who might be able to help her, McGonagall.
Then one of the teachers spoke up above the noise as they ran into the Great Hall:
"The Three Broomsticks has completely collapsed!"
Her attempts at connection all collapsed as well, leaving Kayla an empty husk that gave a broken sob as she fell against Draco.

Lylia continued her urgent call as she traversed flame and shadow, the destructive agents singeing her dress mercilessly in a vain attempt to stop the determined teen.
"TALEM!" she tried her best to amplify her voice above the hiss of the wood around her terribly perishing in the attack. A black shadow followed the unwary girl, its speed challenging the death that tried to overtake her. Her blurred vision failed to verify her location, but she believed herself to now be back in the main area of the building. Out in the open of the fire, she choked from an inhale of ill-intentioned fumes and stooped herself low to try avoiding it, dropping onto her hands and knees to crawl forward. So too crawled away the grains of sand keeping her from suffocating and immolating herself in her hourglass of fading life.
It was then that the shadows took on their own forms: several black-cloaked forms stepped out of the fiery swirl that had caused the building to start creaking in admonishment. Lylia knew not if they were truly men or if they were demons of Hell's pits sent up to this place of such similar surroundings, but Lylia was certain of one chilling fact: they were real.
Her mind wiped itself clean of all plan and reason, drawing a new demand that filled every pore of her overheated body: survive. The blonde forced herself to stand again, now running through the lethal swarm of ending dark and nefarious light to try finding an exit, a way out, or a haven. A beam crashed down next to her, showering her in sparks and terror. Her ankle caught on it as she sprinted past, knocking her to the ash-blanketed floor with a shred of fabric and a scrape of skin. Her dimming eyes made out the fastest shadow drifting closer… closer… and over her it swept.
The man who reached her first bent down to collect the comatose girl in his arms, shifting her onto his shoulder and drawing his wand as the other black forms began to close in. The smoke swam in and concealed the pair at the Broomsticks' center, cloaking them for a few precious moments as the ceiling split one last time and gave them a way out before the entire building collapsed in on itself with an exhale that threatened to extinguish life's fragile candlelight.

Draco kept his ears open after he gave McGonagall his report of all the Slytherins being present. His full attention was not needed, however, because the news soon spread quickly in hushed whispers across the student body: Talem Kyker and Lylia Letum were the only missing students.
The same teacher who reported the news of the Three Broomsticks had been posted at the most well-informed moving portraits for any more notices on the situation. He drew the pale Headmistress to the side, whispering to her in an undertone. She just nodded weakly in understanding, bidding him off to his post once more.
"Professor McGonagall," Draco asked her after he drew himself away from the destroyed Kayla who had hidden her face against the cool wood of the Slytherin table. "Where is Professor Snape? I didn't see him arrive-"
"I need you to just assure Miss Hartland that things will be alright, Mister Malfoy," was her curt reply, her eyes set on the distraught brunette. "And in related news to your question… I just received word that Miss Letum is safe."

Lylia woke up from a haze of pain that blotted out any chance of dreaming, sitting up fearfully as she found herself lying atop a black bed in a dimly-lit room. Bookcases filled with dusty volumes crowded the cramped bedroom, but a bowl of soup sat untouched on the nightstand beside her.
"You'll be fine," Snape said quietly from the doorway, his attention focused on a random bookshelf rather than the disheveled girl. "But you're hurt."
"W-what…?" Her ringing ears barely let through the sound of the teacher's voice, let alone his actual words.
He didn't answer verbally, instead sitting at the foot of her bed and drawing up her torn, bloodied dress hem to expose her cut ankle. Though she flinched at his first contact with her skin, she made no motion to stop him as he began to bandage it.
Her eyes saw one scene but registered another: it was Talem wrapping cloth around her hand, his soft hair falling far enough in front of his face to tickle her sensitive wrist. It was Talem helping a girl he didn't know, for a reason neither of them could name.
Lylia watched Snape stand and step away from her, listening dumbly as he turned to leave the room.
"They'll be wanting you back at the school now-"
Snape stopped in his tracks as Lylia hugged him from behind, her face buried in his back and the single revelation of Talem's absence bringing her to muffled weeping.
"Please… Please, don't go…"
The Slytherin Head remained still before he turned and drew her taciturnly into a comforting, cold hold, his silence explaining fully how he completely understood: it wasn't him she saw.

Less than an hour later, the doors to the Great Hall opened one last time, letting in a single student. A deafening hush fell on the room as Lylia walked up the hallowed aisle, her steps themselves stopping as she looked around at all the empty, amazed faces of strangers.
But then, a movement happened. Kayla stood from her misery and her tears, drawing Lylia's eyes to her. The pair remained focused on each other for countless, timeless moments, then became completely oblivious to the groups of students watching them as Kayla ran to embrace Lylia tightly.
Unnoticed by all others in the congregation, Snape made his way to the Staff Table, Aidon sank in relief onto a bench, and Elden hurried from the Great Hall.

That night, Lylia sat sleeplessly in her dormitory bed, staring out of one of the tall windows flanking it.
"Grey Lady…" she said hoarsely. "What is your name…?"
"Helena."
"… Helena…?"
"Yes, Lylia?"
"Do you know what it feels like to be dead inside…?"
"We ghosts chose to exist in an afterlife of emotionless being," the spirit answered softly. "We know not pain, nor life, nor death."
"Nor pleasure?"
"Nor pleasure," Helena confirmed.
"… Then you know what it feels like…"