Quirrell watches in disgust as the headmaster once again casually swipes his wand over his throne, gathering up all of the stray hairs, before vanishing them. Did he know of their plans already, and deliberately stymying them? They need that hair, as the headmaster is too powerful to risk the compulsion without it.
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Quirrell reaches up and takes his turban off, even while he looks resentfully out at the Forbidden Forest from his rooms. Reaching up to run his fingers through his hair, he curses as clumps of his hair come away with his fingers.
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Washing his hands, Quirrell looks out of the window at the Forest, maybe it would be worth chancing the forest god to try for a unicorn. Feeling a stubborn bit of dirt on one of his fingers, he rubs it a little harder, only to hear a plop as it dislodges into the water. Looking down he stifles a scream at the end of one of his fingers bobbing in the water. Once his heart has stopped racing, he tugs on his gloves and resolves to not take them off again.
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"Headmaster, come quick, there's a problem with one of the OWL students."
Quirrell heaves a sigh of relief as the headmaster stands up and hurries out of the hall one lunchtime, a flick of his wand has a silvery white strand of hair draped over his gloved hand.
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Morgana frowns as she looks at the note a brownie just delivered. Turning the baton around a couple of times, she eventually flips it over and finds the start of the ogham script. Cursing herself for not keeping practice with this script since they invented the printing press, she grabs a pencil and paper before carefully copying out each word. Once that is done, it takes a few minutes to translate them into their Romanised spellings and trivially read them.
Morrigan, still they resist, however I have judged this news important. They are expecting the drain on the prison to kill the occupant very soon, however they were forced to admit that the activation of the stone works both ways.
To use the stone, anoint it with your blood and pour water over it while drawing magic from it. This will produce the elixir of life. Pushing in magic will feed the 'demon' inside.
As an aside, we have discovered that mortal binding oaths can be popped with enough force, thank you for removing their ability to die.
Lathai
Frowning, she heads over to Harry's domain, where the stone is sitting in the brook. Picking it up, she examines it as carefully as she can, before slicing the tip of her little finger and smearing her blood over the top. Ever so carefully, she follows the instructions from the note and a minute amount of golden liquid drips down her hand to land in the brook. Even doing that much seems to be stressing the stone almost to breaking point.
Stopping to think for a moment, she smears a bit more blood on the stone and tries to push some of her magic into the stone to no avail. Then she tries pushing mist at it, with the same result. Finally, she takes a handful of water and trickles it over the stone while pushing with her magic. Somewhat alarmingly, the stone still tries to draw out magic from the inside as she does, but increasing the pressure of her own magic eventually causes the flow to reverse.
As it does, a convection type of effect seems to start up, where the golden liquid appears where the water hits the stone, and is then pushed into the stone as it spreads out taking a little more magic with it than was used to make the liquid in the first place. As the trickle of water from her hand runs out, so does the effect. With a nod to herself, she repeats the experiment, this time lowering her hand into the brook so that the water just about flows over her hand onto the stone. To her surprise, the increased flow of water seems to latch on to her magic and pulls it into stone faster and faster. After a minute, Morgana lifts her hand from the brook and the stone dries off.
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Inside a cramped prison, a near skeletal woman hangs onto the barest thread of life through sheer spite and hate. Suddenly her back arches and a scream is torn from her throat as her own magic is ripped from her body for barely a second. As it stops, she blinks as though she's going to cry, but she doesn't have the resources for that, 'Elaine, I'm sorry, I think this is it and I will never be able to avenge your death.'
Instead of the longer pull that she's expecting, the next pull starts of agonisingly slowly, and then slows down even further before it reverses. The feeling is just as painful as having it forcibly extracted, but the skin on her cheeks cracks as she smiles for the first time in centuries. When it stops, the cracks in her cheeks start to weep with the faintest trace of liquid.
Some time later, it happens again, and this time it lasts long enough that she's able think through the pain and start to pull the magic in faster. Maybe there is still hope, maybe the nameless is drowning at the moment.
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Albus shakes his head genially as he reads the urgent summons from Fudge. Honestly, he sometimes wonders how the man even functions sometimes. Hmm, it's 8am now, and the appointment is at 5, so if he leaves now he should have plenty of time to fly down there. With a smile he pulls his trusty Clean Sweep 5 out of his wardrobe and heads down to the main hall.
"Minerva, just the witch I was looking for. Our dear minister needs help, so I'm just going to fly down to see what he needs."
Minerva startles as she takes in the broom in one hand and the letter in the other, along with his tone of voice. Turning around, she hurries after him, "Albus, just what do you think you're doing?"
"It's a nice day out, and flying down just feels like the right thing to do."
"Are you out of your bloody mind, it's at least a 9 hour flight down to London. What about the school, and the you know what?"
Albus's eyes twinkle as he looks at Minerva, "Minerva, you have my complete trust. Now I really must be off if I am to be in time."
"But Albus, why not just take the Floo. You can have a fly around for a while and then deal with some of the paperwork that you've been neglecting."
"I'm afraid that my mind is made up. UP!" Albus looks down at his left hand and then at the broom hovering beside him, "Now this could be a little tricky."
As Albus soars, invisibly, into the sky, the letter flutters to the ground. Swearing vehemently under her breath, Minerva stoops down and picks up the letter. Pausing for a moment, she pinches the letter a couple of times, "Tacky, letters aren't supposed to be tacky."
Turning on her heel, she marches through the school to Severus' labs.
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Quirrell wheezes wetly as he collapses in front of the, now giant, mirror. All of the tests, except his own, had been significantly harder than they were when he helped set them up before Halloween. Coughing, he spits out a gob of blood and a tooth. Blinking rapidly, a bloody tear rolls down his cheek as he stares at the scene playing out in the mirror. He watches as his master takes the stone before using its powers to restore Quirrell's body. Pushing himself unsteadily to his feet, he starts to cast diagnostic spells at the mirror to determine where the stone is. As expected, he comes across Dumbledores work laying over the mirror like a gossamer veil. Underneath that is the faintest trace of the stone, as though it's hidden somewhere deep inside the mirror.
Over the next hour he casts spell after spell, seeking to first understand, and then undo the enchantment that the headmaster is using to hide the stone. All through the day and into the night, Quirrell works his magic, at the same time the magics of the mirror dig deeply into his mind, refining the image that it's showing him while making it harder and harder for him to leave.
Eventually, they hear the sound of people approaching, "Quirrell, you must leave. Use the portkey!"
"Not yet Master, I'm almost thereEEAAARRGGHH."
"That was not a request Quirrell."
"But Master, the stone, it's right there. I can almost touch it."
"The port key Quirrell!"
"Not without the stone."
"You leave me no choice." With that said, the back of Quirrell's head bulges out until it explodes and a dark wisp vanishes into the wall as the tiny door grows to normal proportions and Albus walks in, followed by Severus and Minerva.
Albus looks down at the figure lying in front of the mirror, "I fear that our would be thief has been revealed. If only he'd come to me before this happened, I could have helped him."
A swish of his wand sees both the mirror and the body covered in sheets.
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Daphne hesitates as she comes out of the library with a book in her bag. Off to the left she can here the other Hufflepuffs laughing and joking as they disappear around a corner, but to the right she caught a flash of green. Looking over, she can see the first year Slytherins gossiping and sniping at those of lower standing. Standing in the middle of them, is Millicent with a stoic expression on her face and white lines running along the back of her knuckles.
Daphne's about to turn and hurry after the rest of her dorm, when she hesitates. Friendship isn't just about safety in numbers, it's also knowing that when you're in trouble your friends will dive in beside you to pull you out. It's about protecting each other, and Millicent is her friend. Turning back to the group, her eyes light up and a broad smile crosses her face.
"Milli, how did your exams go?"
Millicent looks confused for a moment as Daphne walks towards the group of first years, before she can do or say anything, Draco steps forward.
"Greengrass, it's been a while."
Daphne stops and tilts her head to one side, "You know, I think you're right. However, as fun as it was last time, it is churlish of me to engage in a battle of wits with someone who is so obviously unarmed."
"Don't you think you're a trifle outnumbered to be throwing insults like that?"
Daphne smiles at him, "Oh, you've been receiving lessons. Well done, next year you may even be up to making a rebuttal. To answer your question, no I don't think I'm outnumbered. After all, I have a librarian on my side given the door to the library is open."
"Just wait until my father hears about this, threatening a Malfoy indeed."
"Oh Malfoy, so fragile if you thought that was a threat. It wasn't even a warning, it was merely a statement of fact. After all, everybody knows that using wands is forbidden in the corridors, because of that there's no way that you would ever consider casting spells in the corridor. Isn't that right Nott?"
Nott freezes where he's been trying to work his way behind Daphne, "Absolutely, there's no way we'd be caught casting spells in the corridor."
While the children are distracted, Daphne worms her way around Malfoy and slips her arm around Millicent's, "So, Milli, we're having a post exam celebration, would you care to join us?"
Millicent imperceptibly smiles, "I think I would. The conversation here was becoming stale."
A light application of glamour to make them both seem less interesting allows Daphne and Millicent to slip away while the others were bickering, "Nott, why didn't you grab her?"
"Me? What happened to you, oh great leader?..."
Once they round the corner, Millicent relaxes, "Thank you for the save there."
Daphne smiles genuinely, "Don't worry about it, that's what friends are for. Sorry it's taken me so long to realise that."
Millicent shakes her head, "You've got nothing to apologise for, if it wasn't for your advice, they'd have already chewed me up in debts."
Daphne nods, "It's strange, when I got on the train I thought I'd be honing my political skill to a razors edge. Instead I've found something else. I'm not sure what it is yet, but I know that I'm happier now than I was then."
"I've learnt some hard lessons too. I just wish they hadn't cost my father his job."
Daphne stops and looks at Millicent, "How did that happen?"
"Malfoy and his cronies, claimed that my father is a muggle sympathiser, and it's inappropriate for someone like that to be working in the department that deals with muggle artifacts."
"I'm so sorry to hear that, how's your family doing now?"
Millicent laughs, "My last letter says that he was able to buy a house in Birmingham for a pound as long as he was willing to bring it up to code, whatever that is. Once he'd done that, he promptly frequented all of the pubs that Malfoy's tenants go to and told them about it, as well as how to go about getting a mundane identity so that they could buy their own homes in the same place."
"How in Danu's name did he find out about that?"
"Would you believe, 10 pin bowling? Also, your father gave him a new job. He's currently looking for old industrial gas-powered walk-in freezers."
"What ever for? No, wait… We covered this in chemistry didn't we, it's easier to heat things up than it is to cool them down. That could be true for magical means too, and means… I don't know what it means."
"Maybe he has a new old plant to grow."
Daphne smiles again, "That could be it. Come on, let's get to the common room, as I wasn't kidding about the celebration."
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Once everyone has arrived, Harry levitates a case of Coke, and a case of Fanta out of his chest and places them in the middle of a table. Once they all have a can, he asks, "So, who here thought the exams were ridiculously easy, apart from History of Magic of course."
Everyone puts their hands up, even Kellah who says, "I heard Lavender and Parvati complaining about the charms exam, and needing to make a teapot dance across the table. I almost told them to watch beauty and the beast, but I don't think they'd have understood the reference."
Millicent nods, "You're lucky, if I'd have made any sort of reference to that, I'd have been hexed. However, the fact that Kellah found them easy, probably means it isn't our additional magic practice. Though I've heard a few of my house mates complaining about how exhausting the exams were."
Kellah nods, "They were, I have no idea how all of you walked out of them looking so relaxed after we had transfiguration straight after charms. Harry, how do you think you did with the Transfiguration exam?"
Harry grimaces, "I think I might have scraped an A because some of my transformations were lacking in detail. I'm hoping to make that up on the theory side."
Hermione nods vigorously, "I'm sure you will, I was worried I hadn't done enough preparation for the exams, but I knew everything."
Ernie laughs, "Of course you did, because the slave driver over there made sure we kept looking at how everything we were learning connected to what we'd learnt before." He waves over at Marianne, who is lying on the floor reading a comic, "And trouble over here kept challenging everyone to wand motion duels."
"OI! I'm not trouble, and it's not like I can use a wand, so I have to feel included somehow."