Chapter 38
The first snow of winter fell outside the castle.
There had been no incidents since September. The teachers were no longer on edge- assuming the threat had disappeared. The students spoke of finding Umbridge's tortured body in hushed tones that belied the fear, anxiety, and, dare I say it, anticipation residing within each and every one of them.
A secret terror lurked within the castle, not unlike the Basilisk of five years prior.
But the Basilisk's terror had never escalated to such brutality. This particular terror had brutally murdered the Headmistress... on its first kill. It had not revealed a name. It had not revealed an agenda.
It had simply killed.
Alecto Carrow was on her way from breakfast to her first class when she heard a strange sound coming from down an ill-used hallway. Naturally curious and hoping to find some students to hurt, she ignored her waiting class and ventured down the hall.
It never crossed her mind that this would be the worst decision of her life.
A faint thumping beat came from behind a locked door, behind which Alecto thought was an old classroom. The beat was harsh, slow, heavily distorted.
"Alohomora!"
The door clicked open. Alecto stepped inside and was immediately enveloped in darkness and the harsh music.
The door swung shut behind her and a heavy thud indicated that it was locked by moor than gears and tumblers.
"Lumos!" she hissed, a slight edge of panic entering her voice.
A wizard-made magical record player sat on a table in the center of the room, spinning a record.
Behind the record was a stack of large metal barrels up to the ceiling, all lying on their sides, with their tops facing the door and Alecto.
The record reached its end, the music stopped, and the needle rose.
The record spun to a stop.
Alecto saw the name of the record.
"SEE YOU IN HELL"
Parvati felt the school shudder slightly under her feet. Dust fell from the ceiling. The other students in her Transfiguration class whispered curiously to each other.
Professor McGonagall stopped teaching and cocked her head to the side before wordlessly leaving the room.
Parvati smiled.
Two days earlier...
"What are you dragging those barrels through here for?" asked Aberforth as Parvati lugged another huge 55-gallon steel drum through the bar.
Parvati leaned the heavy barrel against the wall to catch her breath.
"Ever heard of a fougasse?" she asked.
"No..."
"It's an improvised anti-tank weapon perfected by the British in the Second World War. Basically, it's a big ol' barrel of petrol," she slapped the barrel, "with a small explosive charge at the bottom that, when it goes bang, flings the burning petrol over the target."
Aberforth was still somewhat confused, as he didn't know what "anti-tank" or a couple of those other muggle-sounding words meant, be he nodded anyway.
"And to make it juicier," continued Parvati, "You throw in scrap metal- nails, bolts, ball-bearings, that sort of stuff- into the petrol so that it's also a giant shotgun. A giant, flaming shotgun."
Parvati began dragging the barrel across the floor yet again, leaving a large swathe of actual cleanliness on the filthy wooden planks.
"And, if you know what you're doing," she grunted, "which I do- you can hook it up so that it goes off when it stops receiving a signal. Say, from a sound-producing device."
Parvati disappeared down the picture-tunnel.
Aberforth nodded.
"Uh huh..."
Present Day...
Amycus Carrow stared at the destruction in front of him.
It had taken the better part of twelve hours to contain and eliminate the raging flames that had billowed into the hallway. A huge amount of stone had been melted into a crackling and pitted glass-like substance. The explosion had obliterated the entire classroom and broken a hole through the floor and ceiling, so that the classrooms above sagged down and the classroom below had been flooded with a river of flame that killed a dozen Slytherin third-years and sent the rest of the class along with Professor Vector to St. Mungo's with severe burns.
Alecto Carrow had disappeared without a trace. Not one scrap of flesh had been spared from being disintegrated as nearly six-hundred gallons of gasoline had given her a nice hot shower.
Worse still was the message that had been scorched into the wall opposite the classroom. Nobody was sure how, but words had been melted into the wall with some kind of chemical flame.
The words were as follows:
The divine charioteer Krishna once said to prince Arjuna, "I am all-powerful Time which destroys all things, and I have come here to slay these men.
An American once put it more simply.
"Now I am become death; destroyer of worlds."
Author's Note:
With my schedule the way it is, I think Parvati's chapters will all be short bits like this. At least for the next few weeks, most likely.
Anyway, here's Parvati escalating the situation. I'm diggin' it, I don't know about you guys.
And if you're interested, the record that Alecto so unfortunately discovers is "See You in Hell" by Suicide Commando, if you didn't get that already.