We decided that Eli could stay for one more night, but that he had to go in the morning. Lanie suggested he hide in the Room of Requirement to stay away from Damien's wrath, and everyone agreed that it was the best idea. So the next morning, after waking up to a newly clean carpet (some house-elf had probably cleaned up the plates in the night), Eli disguised himself as Polly one last time and we dropped him off in the Room of Requirement on our way to Charms.
Slowly but surely, the week passed by. The banner-making party was a success, with Peggy writing up nearly two scrolls of parchment with the interview she conducted, and Katy managing to hide the twenty-three banners we made in an abandoned classroom in the dungeons. Rare good news came in the form of miniature chocolate cakes that I was positive Bekka was making sure appeared right in front of my seat for dessert each night. By Merlin's beard, she was amazing. But the more common bad news trumped the cakes. I heard whispers of the disappearance of "Polly" and of the fit that Headmaster Damien threw when he heard about that. I was sure Have You Seen This Witch? posters would appear around school, letting any and all loyal to our strange commander know to keep watch for Polly Lider or Eli Lupin- but no. The walls of Hogwarts remained clear, and the bulletin boards, too.
Perhaps Damien just wants to keep the identity of his Metamorphmagus spy safe from everyone who doesn't worship him was my last thought Sunday night just before I fell asleep.
Lanie woke me up all too soon. I'd fallen asleep at nine o'clock, and when I glanced at the clock, it was only ten. Technically, I hadn't been supposed to fall asleep, so I was glad Lanie hadn't instead. Since I had fallen asleep fully dressed, it was easy to slip some shoes on, grab my cloak, and creep to the door.
Outside I found only Lanie. I cocked my head. "Er… Shawnee not coming?"
"She's sleeping like a rock," Lanie said with a quiet laugh. "I shook her multiple times and she didn't even stir. It's just like her, too."
"So it's just the two of us." I nodded and followed her down the stairs into the Ravenclaw common room, careful to stay in the shadows and keep my footsteps light.
"Indeed," agreed my friend, hopping over the stair that was known to squeak. I stumbled and was not so lucky, my foot landing squarely in the center. A long, drawn-out creeeeeeeeeeeeaaaaaaak sliced through the still air. The two of us froze, and I didn't even dare to breathe, but no one came.
As we slipped out of the commons and down the (thankfully stone) spiral staircase, Lanie turned to me with a curious light in her eyes. "I noticed you've been actually sleeping lately instead of having your nightmares! Honestly, I think we're all glad your sleeping patterns are back to normal, after you kicked Helen in the face that one time."
I winced at the memory of Christmas morning. "I didn't mean to do that."
"Oh, I know you didn't," she reassured me, scampering across the hall to a darker corner. "Still, it's no fun to wake up to your screaming in the middle of the night. I'm getting more normal hours of sleep too, now that we know we can't really find the counter-curse in books. Have your grades been going up too?"
I nodded, following her, and then realized she couldn't see me all that well so a nod may not have been the best reply. "Yes, they have. And I'm sure that chair in the commons is much more comfortable now that there aren't Restricted Section books hidden beneath its cushion," I joked.
She tried to hold back her laugh. "I'm sure some exhausted seventh-year is thanking me! Now shh- we don't want to alert anyone that we're out of bed."
Lanie, although short and lithe, would never have been the first person I would've picked to go out on a curfew-breaking late-night outing with; however, she slipped through the dark halls like she was a shadow herself. I, in comparison, was horribly clumsy (although I was generally awkward anyway)- bumping into walls, tripping over my own two feet, catching the toes of my boots on corridor corners. Honestly, I was surprised that I hadn't raised half the castle by the time we reached the doors. It was nearly impossible to exit Hogwarts in any way except going through these doors, so my friends and I had figured that it was a safe bet to assume that Damien would be exiting through them to get to the force field. All we had to do was wait.
The doors were locked, so we couldn't hide outside; instead, we concealed ourselves in the small niches along the walls that so conveniently hid us that I wondered if they'd been placed there solely for our benefit. After all, Hogwarts was always changing. Had it provided us with hiding places? Was even the castle on our side?
Pushing the thought from my mind- it wouldn't do to be distracted by complicated philosophical questions during such an important mission- I settled down in my alcove to wait.
About ten minutes after the many clocks throughout the castle tolled midnight, I was yawning when I heard Lanie hiss, "Aly- shhh! I hear footsteps!"
Sure enough, it was Headmaster Damien. In the darkness that my eyes had pretty well adjusted to, I watched his cloaked, broad-shouldered, messy-haired silhouette rush by my nook, unlock the doors, and slip through them.
We let the doors close behind him before we hurried from our spots. Lanie pushed at the handle of the door Damien had gone through, and it opened.
The cool night air was like a bucket of ice to the face, and a chill shuddered through my bones. I pulled my cloak, thin though it was, around my shoulders. "Maybe February was not the best time to figure this out?"
"Oh, sure," Lanie murmured sarcastically. "Let me just pull out my Time-Turner and go on back to September to warn you. Sure. I can totally do that."
"But you don't have a Time-Turner," I pointed out dumbly.
Lanie snorted. "Aly, you're so clueless."
It was then that I understood the sass from her previous remark, and instead of embarrassing myself further, I shut up.
The commander was a disappearing shadow in the night by then, hurrying along the path beneath us, so Lanie closed her mouth too and we followed silently. Down past the greenhouses, across the lawns that had grown so wild in the past months, and into the Forbidden Forest we scurried. After a while, I realized that I had stopped following the shadow and started following Lanie. I stopped short. "Where's Damien?"
Lanie squinted. "No idea. I have terrible vision. Oh- something just moved!" She pointed just ahead of us, to our one o'clock, and without knowing if we were chasing Damien or some frightening forest animal- who knew what lived in here?- we set off in that direction.
I was growing aware that we were approaching the border, and therefore needed to be more careful with where we stepped, when a low and gruff voice cut through the night.
"My suppliers are growing concerned, Damien," it said. "This needs to be ended. Soon."
"I can't end anything," Damien's voice responded.
"Can't or won't?"
"I'm a king, Julian! They all love me!"
"And what about the people you've killed? What's your death count now? Ten? Fifteen?"
"Eleven," Damien snapped. "If I wanted to end this, I could wipe everyone's memories and pretend some big accident happened. But I don't want to."
The other man- Julian- sighed. "Four months, mate. I can keep feeding your bedamned school until June. But then you have to find someone else to supply you. Doesn't help that you keep throwing feasts and celebrations, either."
Damien's voice grew dangerously sharp and low. "Need I remind you that you owe me your life?"
"Yeah, which'll end if the Ministry catches me," Julian said shortly. "I've already told you that they're working on a counter-curse after those parents started complaining and they came to investigate."
"It's not my fault that three of the Magical Law Enforcement Squad members are so incompetent that they can't recognize a proper border curse," Damien mumbled, so quiet I almost couldn't hear him.
"But it is your fault that they're dead."
Damien made a sound- did he just spit? "Hand over the food and get out, Julian." He sounded strained.
There was another noise- Damien murmuring something. This time it was too quiet to hear, but neither man spoke again.
Lanie and I peered out from behind the tree to vaguely see two men, dimly lit by a light that was bobbing away in the opposite direction. One man, with dark close-cropped hair and matching skin, was trudging away on the other side of the border, holding the torch that was the source of the light; the other was Damien, and he was heading toward us, levitating a bag in the air with his wand. Strangely enough, he didn't seem to need a light- could he see in the semi-darkness or did he just know this part of the forest well enough to navigate without help? I guessed the second as he hopped over logs and swerved around trees seemingly without a thought.
Lanie, beside me, moved to follow. And stepped on a twig.
The crack was ridiculously loud in the quiet woods. Damien, now just a silhouette in the dark, whirled around. "Who's there?" he demanded.
Lanie and I both froze still as statues. I didn't even dare to breathe.
The silhouette of Damien grew larger as he approached our hiding spot. "Show yourself," he ordered.
I caught Lanie's glinting eyes in the darkness and pressed a hand somewhat forcefully to her shoulder, hoping she would get my drift and stay down. Just as I shifted my weight to my heels in preparation to stand, with no idea what lie I would tell him, another crack sounded from behind Damien. The Headmaster whirled around. "I said, show yourself!"
He clomped off in the direction of the second crack.
Lanie and I breathed twin sighs of relief when he had vanished into the gloom. Then, without saying anything more, we stood in unison and ran for the castle.
Only once we had slipped through the doors did either of us speak. Lanie opened her mouth first. "I thought we were goners back there."
A wry chuckle escaped my lips, even though my heart was still pounding. You could either be scared to death of a near miss with death, or you could laugh at it. I chose the latter. "Me too. Thank god for whatever made that second crack."
"You're welcome," said a deep female voice from the shadows to my right.
I couldn't help it- I shrieked a little and jumped. Lanie just peered into the shadows, then laughed quietly. "Good ol' Shawnee! I should've known you were faking being asleep." She reached into the shadowy niche and pulled Shawnee out by the arm, enveloping her best friend in a grateful hug. "We owe you our lives."
"I know," Shawnee grumbled as she extracted herself from Lanie's thankful arms. "I figured Aly would be her clumsy self and make some sort of noise, then be unable to come up with a lie on the spot if you were caught. So when you woke me up, I followed you so you didn't have to get caught at all."
"Hey!" I protested, my heart still pattering in my chest from the combination of our near capture and Shawnee's jump-scare.
"Actually, I was the one to step on a twig," Lanie allowed graciously as we began to move back to Ravenclaw Tower.
Shawnee arched one thick eyebrow in the moonlight. Then she smirked. "Of course."
Despite the late hour, despite the danger we were still in, the three of us laughed all the way back to our dormitory.
Sorry I took so long to update, guys, I've been in Europe with no internet. My original plan for this story was to have it end up 22 chapters long, just like its predecessor, Fifth Year. However, I think it might end up 24 or 25 chapters long just because we haven't gotten to much action yet. Don't worry, I'm hurrying! I promise the next chapter will be more action-packed. And possibly sad. You know the drill- review, please?
~atrfla