Thanks Kokotheevilone for favoriting!
By the way, for any of you who actually pay attention to the chapter titles...I'm sorry! I was thinking about what I should name it, and that song immediately came to my head, so I simply replaced "Bodies" with "Wizards."
Disclaimer: I don't own what J.K. owns.
Ginny and Annabelle made their way down to the Great Hall on the crisp, cold morning of December 7th. Sitting down at the long table, they, once again, noticed Colin's absence. Things were a lot quieter without Colin, but everyone was really beginning to miss him. He'd been in the infirmary for almost a month now, and the culprit had not been caught.
Ginny was getting more and more uptight about the whole situation. It was rare for Ginny to go to bed before any of the other girls, but she often locked herself in their rooms, not talking to anyone for hours. It was beginning to worry Annabelle, but she hadn't said anything about it yet. She wanted to wait until after the holidays.
Minerva was making her way down Gryffindor table, taking names of students who were staying over the break. She finally reached them and looked between them, smiling tensely. "Miss Weasley, your brothers already informed me that you'll be staying. I'm going to guess you will be too, Miss Wyte?"
Annabelle shrugged her shoulders and shook her head. "No, ma'am. My parents wrote me. They want me to come home." Annabelle attempted a smile, but it was even more forced than Minerva's. She was terrified to go home.
Minerva raised an eyebrow for a moment before regaining control of her facial expression. "Alright. Do they know to pick you up at King's Cross on the 21st?"
"Yes, ma'am. I informed them after I got their letter. They also know that the Hogwarts Express will bring me back on the 3rd."
Minerva forced herself to continue walking down the table, ignoring the wrenching feeling in her gut that told her to keep the girl from going home. It wasn't her place to stop her though.
Annabelle and Ginny were preparing to head downstairs to go to the Dueling Club that Lockhart was putting on. Neither girl expected much good to come from it, but they also both wanted to learn to duel. Upon arrival, they sniggered at Lockhart's gaudy appearance and made jokes about him making Snape his assistant.
Soon though, Lockhart was moving toward them to pair people up. He spotted the pair of them standing side by side and gave them an inquisitive look. "Miss Weasley, Miss Wyte, you two can be a pair if you'll concentrate."
The pair nodded and turned to face one another, wands raised. They waited for the countdown to finish before swinging their wands above their head and simultaneously crying, "Expelliarmus!"
The spells connected in midair and they fought for control for a minute before both spells just backfired and hit the caster. Both girls flew backwards and landed hard with an "oomph." They stood again prepared to cast when Lockhart was heard above the crowd.
"I think I'd better teach you how to block unfriendly spells. Let's have a volunteer pair – Longbottom and Finch-Fletchey, how about you –"
Snape interrupted him, claiming that Neville would cause devastation with the simplest of spells. Poor Neville turned red at this and stepped back into the throng of students, fading into the crowd. "How about Malfoy and Potter?" Snape looked too pleased for his own good.
"Excellent idea!" said Lockhart as he gestured for Malfoy and Harry to move into the middle of the hall. Lockhart then showed Harry a fancy wand movement which ended in him simply dropping his wand.
Snape, on the other hand, was whispering in Malfoy's ear, and Malfoy was still smirking when Snape walked away and the countdown began.
Annabelle watched in awe as a snake spouted from the end of Malfoy's wand, but that awe turned to horror as the snake slithered over to Justin Finch-Fletchey. However, Harry Potter jumped forward and starts hissing at the snake! It immediately began to shrink back and Professor Snape made it disappear, but everyone was frightened.
Everyone began to disband and Ginny and Annabelle sprinted for the common room. They didn't want to be caught in the rush, so they were trying to beat it.
When they got back to the common room, everything was in the beginnings of chaos. Students were preparing to go home for the holidays and were frantically buzzing about the common room. Some kids were playing games, such as Wizarding Chess or Exploding Snap. Others were doing homework in corners, attempting to get all of their homework done before last day of term.
Annabelle and Ginny raced upstairs and collected their Transfigurations and Charms books. Annabelle wanted to revise both essays and Ginny was halfway done with both. The red-head had a bad habit of starting an assignment, but not finishing it unless Annabelle reminded her.
They made their way back downstairs and settled in close to the fire. Annabelle ended up completely rewriting her Transfiguration essay twice before deciding that it was suitable to be turned in. By the time she finished, Ginny had already moved on to play a game of chess with Bethany and was beating the poor brunette into the ground. Annabelle supposed Ginny was just good at chess and other tactic-based games because she has six older brothers to deal with. She has to be logical to get anything past them.
Eventually, Annabelle told Ginny that she was going to bed because they had Charms the next morning, even if the second years didn't have Herbology.
Annabelle trudged up the stairs and pulled on a pair of warm pajamas and curled up in bed, with her wand safely under her pillow. Ginny roamed into the room minutes later, yawning as she changed into her bed clothes. Both girls quickly fell asleep.
The next morning, both girls sat in Charms, working on their latest spells. Annabelle had slowly gotten ahead in the past few weeks and was now attempting to make the tip of her wand glow like a flashlight. After a few failed attempts, Annabelle shook her wand venomously. She gave her wand a hearty swish and firmly spoke, "Lumos!" Finally, the tip of her wand erupted in a pale blue light and Annabelle grinned as she held it up a little higher.
Professor Flitwick made his way over to Annabelle and nodded his approval. "Very good, Miss Wyte. Now perform the counter-spell."He showed her the wand movement and carefully pronounced, "Nox."
Again, it took Annabelle a few tries, but eventually she performed the spell correctly. She repeated both spells a few more times before the end of class when they were dismissed. Ginny and Annabelle began to make their way up to Transfiguration when Astoria Greengrass ran up to them.
"Justin Finch-Fletchey and Nearly Headless Nick were just Petrified. Daphne just came down and told me! Apparently, it was Potter again!" Astoria was excited to share the news her sister had told, even if she seemed slightly downhearted, but she didn't catch Ginny's look of utter horror.
Annabelle noticed though, and pulled Ginny to the side at the first given opportunity. "We'll meet you in class, Astoria." She pulled Ginny into an empty classroom and gave her a searching look. "You know something, don't you?"
Ginny went still, as if she'd been Petrified, for a moment before shaking her head vigorously. "I'm just scared. You're a muggle-born. Hermione's a muggle-born. We're friends with other muggle-borns too. That's all."
Annabelle nodded, accepting her answer, even if she didn't completely believe it. Then, it hit her. She was a muggle-born witch. She was a target. Annabelle visibly paled and her whole body began to shake. Why did she have to be a stupid witch?
Ginny enveloped her distressed friend in a hug, whispering, "I won't let it get you. It won't get you." After a few moments of standing like that, they realized they were supposed to be going up to Transfiguration and so they sprinted in that direction. They barely made it in time and were immediately thankful that Astoria had saved them seats in the front of the room, much to the disapproval of most the other Slytherins.
Minerva came into class a few minutes later and collected their essays. Their lesson was extremely tense as Minerva appeared to be stressed and bothered by the morning's events. Eventually, Minerva just sat down at her desk and let them practice their spells until the end of class without her input. She was busy marking papers, including their own, but often found her gaze drifting to a blonde in the front row. This was the second student to be attacked, but this also brought the tally up to four beings. It was the first double attack and Minerva couldn't help but fear what was to come.
Both she and Albus feared that if these attacks weren't stopped soon, then history would repeat itself. Another child would be murdered. Minerva couldn't help but fear who it might end up being. Her eyes scanned over the class again, catching sight of each muggle-born witch or wizard. There were only three others in this class, and none of them tugged at her heart as much as the blonde witch in the front row.
Minerva wanted to steal her away and place her at McGonagall Manor until all of this stopped, but she knew that was an impossible feat as the girl would be leaving this coming Monday. Minerva's only consolation was that the girl would be far away from Hogwarts for the duration of the holidays, and that kept her safer. At least, that's what Minerva kept telling herself. Soon enough, the class period ended and the rest of the day went without any further conflict.
The weekend passed by without incident and Minerva found herself preparing to walk students down to Hogsmeade station to go home for the holidays. With the attacks, only a handful of students were staying home, so all teachers were required to escort the students down.
Minerva tearfully watched as Annabelle and Ginny said their goodbyes, as if it would be the last time they ever saw each other. Minerva couldn't help but be afraid that it might be. It wouldn't surprise her if there were muggle-borns whose parents wouldn't let them come back after the break. It wasn't safe at Hogwarts any longer.