Draco Malfoy was in hell. Far from his long-cherished revenge against the Hufflepuff beaters and their Slytherin traitor for his Quidditch humiliation, he was suffering the ultimate indignity. He was suffering a Potions detention...with Griffindors.
Harry and Neville were being interrogated by Professor Snape under Professor Sinestra's watchful eye as the two required Professor Snape's sign off on their Animagus Insight potion before she would allow her beloved tower to be put at risk of a Longbottomian cauldron calamity. Normally they would have hated being interrogated by Snape in the dungeons outside of class, but Fred, George, and Draco were busy serving detention cleaning cauldrons, also under Snape's watchful eye, and more importantly, ear.
Tears streamed down Malfoy's face, his soft hands chaffed red and bloody from the scrubbing his soft hands had never known, but his throat, his traitorous throat sang loud and proud though his soul writhed in agony under the magical compulsion of the Weasleys.
"In Days of yore,
From Britain's shore
Godric the dauntless hero came
And planted firm the founder's flag
On Hogwart's fair domain.
Here may it wave,
Our boast, our pride
And joined in love together,
The serpent, eagle, and badger entwined,
And Griffindor forever!"
Fred and George scrubbed cauldrons with every evidence of transcendent joy as they belted out the chorus of Griffindor forever, and Malfoy, his Slytherin soul aflame, was forced to follow along.
Hermione and Milicent were theoretically paying close attention to the Animagus Insight potion discussion for their own post Yule attempts at the same brew, but Noodle was cheerfully curled up on Snape's desk, swaying his long neck as if conducting the concert.
Malfoy was finally able to muster enough will to break the weak Griffindor compulsion and stop singing, only to see Professor Snape flash out his wand and land a stinging hex on his pure blooded godson's over pampered posterior.
"Scrub, Mr Malfoy, and sing." Snape hissed.
"That is oppression. I am being oppressed!" Cried Draco Malfoy, son of Lucius Malfoy and the House Malfoy, or "bad faith" in the mother tongue, was not one that usually experienced oppression, consequence, or justice.
Professor Sinestra, her onyx skin shining in the light looked upon the blond noble scion and smiled cruelly. "You will find song is often the only solace or escape for the oppressed. You will cover that in your Muggle Studies OWL year, if you chose that elective." The former Slytherin Professor smiled, less than fond memories of being in House Slytherin when Lucius Malfoy was Prefect.
Harry and Neville had to admit, that Snape was indeed being extremely hard on them, but considering his lengthily explanations about the physical and magical consequences that came from the dozens of possible errors in this particularly dangerous potion, it was hard to see Snape's actions as being anything but professional, even though he clearly loathed having to permit the risk at all.
Worse, he never used the close proximity to attempt any Legilimancy to probe Harry's thoughts, nor to implant suggestions about the Third Floor. Snape's actions failed to settle the question of whether the former Death Eater was Voldemort's current agent in any positive way.
"$ Death Eating Crow hates every student. He only hates Yellow Haired Prey and Water Witch slightly less. Yellow Haired Prey because he feels he's some sort of nest mate and Water Witch because she is gifted with potions.$" Noodle hissed, dancing to the tune of suffering Slytherins and singing Griffindors.
"$ Root Singer is good at potions too!$" Piously defended Milicent, noting Neville had become almost as good a potioner as her once he mastered his own Jera rune linked gifts.
Noodle laughs, pressing into her hands for more petting.
"$ Death Eating Crow treats his cauldrons like a brood mother treats her eggs. Root Singer and Speaker are egg breakers. He would forgive them killing Yellow Haired Prey before he would forgive a cauldron breaker. $" Noodle laughed in Parsletongue, making Draco shiver as he sang.
The day before Yule Scotland decided that it being Yule mattered more than being solidly in the ocean biome and decided that snow not sleet was the order of the day, and given that most of the student's and staff had gone home for the holidays, those children that remained determined that snoball fights and irresponsible use of magic were indeed the order of the day.
One could not blame the Weasley twins, for the actual war began when Adrian Pucey caught fellow Prefect Perfect Percy Weasley crossing the main courtyard, and animated the rather improbably boobed snow-witch he had been making, pinning the screaming Percy between the huge snow cones of the animated snow golem in a sprightly dance about the main courtyard.
Penelope Clearwater (Ravenclaw Prefect), who for the record was not Percy's girlfriend, whatever anyone who has seen them sneaking out of various broom cupboards on the fourth floor may have whispered, responded by animating several eagles out of snow who flew after and attacked the Slytherin Prefect.
Seeing Griffindor and Ravenclaw arrayed against Slytherin, Harry's Hufflepuff soul cried out to even the match, and if one Hufflepuff first year was not the equal of dueling fifth year Prefects, then he could drag is Slytherin cohort in to even the odds.
"To arms Bulstrode, Slytherin is assailed!" Harry cheered happily, grabbing Milicent and dragging her out the door and into the fray.
"'Don't start what you can't finish'. It is literally engraved on the Slytherin common room wall, right beside 'Open battle is the sign of failed strategy' Milicent said, her beater instincts to get stuck in warring with her Slytherin nature that looked on frontal assaults and meeting engagements the same way they looked at luxury taxes and baggage inspections."
Percy Weasley settled the issue by raising his wand and screaming "Reducto!" and blasting the sloping roof, freeing several hundred pounds of snow and ice to attempt to bury her and Harry.
A panicked and reflexive use of her ice magic to transform the dangerous incoming load into a dome of ice covering Harry and Milicent.
Harry looked at Milicent, wand and eyebrow raised. Milicent tied back her hair and rolled up her sleeves. "Oh it is bloody on now!" She insisted, waving her wand and muttering as the ice dome became an ice castle complete with battlements and arrow slits to sight through and target enemy prefects.
Milicent would form the snowballs and hoist them into mid air, she used her ice magic to hold them together as Harry maintained a cyclone overhead that both defended them against diving snow eagles and accelerated the formed snowballs rather like the ball thrower in a batting cage. The resultant snowballs were doing better than ninety kilometers and hour when they screamed downrange.
Penelope shrieked as her shield only stopped the first dozen, as Harry used a little wind magic to begin throwing curve balls that went over and around her shield to pelt her repeatedly.
Percy swiftly built his own castle of snow, and began making snow lions to charge the ramparts of the Slytherin castle, while Penelope began chanting and scribing runes in the walls of the castle, soon ballistae of ice were shooting back snowballs hard enough to blast chunks out of the Slytherin ramparts.
Fred and George chose to wade in on their brother's side, as Pucey, Bulstrode, and Potter were all valid Quidditch rivals, while Percy was Percy and thus eligible to be left to swing, he was defending his lady fair, who was both not Percy and not a Quidditch rival and thus rated a twin defense.
They began to animate snow bludger and snitches to send howling at the enemy ramparts, also sometimes Percy, which they would later claim was utterly accidental, but mostly at the enemy.
Adrian Pucey who had crawled into Fort Noodle, as the proud snake on the outer ramparts proclaimed, was more the worse for wear after being mauled by two of the snow lions as he made the last dash for safety.
"Vengeance is a dish best served cold." Pucey quoted, spending a few minutes making what looked like a perfectly ordinary snowball.
"That is also on the Slytherin wall, along with 'Guilt is assigned by the one who got caught the least, to the one who understood the least'. " Milicent cheered happily, raising an animated snow fist holding an ice beater bat to swat a charging snow lion into the path of a diving ice eagle.
"Give us a hand Potter. This one has to reach Percy." Adrian Pucey said, after carving several interesting runes into the snowball, then covering them with a layer of fresh powder.
Rubbing the back of his head where either Fred or George had caught him with a real snowball hidden inside the illusion of a slightly larger snowball he had spotted, then ignored, Harry complied happily.
The rather large snowball shot like a cannon behind four normal snowballs which Percy blasted with casual wand flicks.
Adrian Pucey got up, pointed his wand at the last snowball and shouted "Hentai Animus!"
Percy screamed in horror as the final snowball transformed into a snow octopus, dodged around Percy's counterspell, and engulfed the surprised Prefect Percy with animated tentacles that found their way under the Prefects clothes, apparently everywhere to judge by his screams.
An irritated Professor Quirrell stalked through the courtyard, lashing his wand out right and left silently, blasting all fortifications and constructs from existence. The wind stilled, the snow settled, and a blast of fear silenced the laughing teens.
For a second, perhaps two, no one dared move. Of course, fear and good sense are two things that do not know the password to the Griffindor tower, so before Professor Quirrell had made it to the door at the opposite side of the courtyard, Fred and George had reformed and reanimated a dozen snowballs that tracked directly into the back of Professor Quirrell's purple turban.
The impacts drove an odd cry of "MASTER!" from Quirrell, but after the last snowball hit the back of the turban the burst of laughter from the teens stopped in mute horror.
Fred and George were gripped by invisible hands around the neck and hurled against the far wall as their limbs spread outward and began to pull, as if about to rip right out of the Griffindor teens sockets.
"Professor!" Shouted Harry in protest, raising his own wand against Professor Quirrell.
Although Quirrell stood with his back to them, his hands clutching his head, and wand pointed the wrong way, Harry felt a powerful lance of Legimancy pierce his outer defenses like a goblin battleaxe through a wizard's shield.
For a second, Harry had a flash of red hair, green eyes, and a smiling beautiful face, then a long black whiplike body, surmounted by eyes so black they drank the night and white fangs that promised the end of all things flashed, and whatever had driven into Harry's mind screamed in agony.
Seconds later, a scream that sounded far deeper than Quirrell's sounded, and Fred and George fell from the wall, neither dead nor dismembered.
Quirrell scuttled through the door and was gone before anyone could really react. Harry heard the hissing of Noodle in his mind, not in his ears, and his head ached like he had just taken a bludger to the forehead. What the heck was that about?
Percy and Penelope were helping Fred and George up, checking them for serious injuries.
"Seems to really like bondage our Quirrell," Offered Fred
"Cries out Master when spanked." Noted George
"Think he likes movies about gladiators?" Asked Fred
"Knows more about wand care than is strictly speaking required for self-care?" Mused George
"Rides more broom than the average Quidditch player." Agreed Fred
Percy was fuming. "Enough with the wand jokes. You could have been seriously hurt. I am going to report this to McGonagall or the Headmaster!" He said, voice shaking as he looked at the marks showing how close his twin brothers had come to serious harm.
"You can't report to McGonagall." Penelope said softly. "She, Professor Flitwick and Professor Babbidge are down in the second dungeon level doing the annual ward renewal. It happens every Yule and takes the whole night."
Pucey looked concerned, still watching the door Professor Quirrell had just gone through.
"Can't report to Dumbledor until later either. He got some urgent letter from the Ministry and had to go to London by broom rather than floo or apparation for some bloody reason for secrecy. Professor Snape was more than a bit upset to be left as the on call Professor for the next few days." Pucey said softly.
He turned to his fellow prefects and said softly.
"Anyone notice the silent casting, the wandless magic, and Merlin's own power that poor stuttering Quirrell just pulled off." Adrian Pucey asked soflty.
Penelope Clearwater, a Ravenclaw to the core had spotted the second anomaly.
"He wasn't facing us. No eye contact. Without a wand, you need to shape and guide your intent visually. He had the back of his turban facing us. Unless he has eyes in the back of his head that is just not possible!" Penelope argued.
Adrien nodded. "Yeah, well, a few impossible there all together. I know we have the whole duty to report thing, but how about this once we be just a little Slytherin about it and wait until the fellow who beat Grindewald, the retired undefeated European Dueling champion, and the greatest mistress of Transfiguration since the Headmaster aren't all out of range at the same time."
You could see Percy realizing that he might not be safe if even if he reported to another teacher hit Percy like a ton of bricks, not snow. His faith in authority failed in the face of the growing strangulation marks on his brother's necks. He nodded silently, agreeing to wait until Dumbledore, McGonagall and Flitwick were available, before attempting to get Quirrell in trouble.
Milicent and Harry didn't talk until they tracked down Hermine, Noodle and Neville in the Greenhouse with Professor Sprout harvesting seed pods.
"We found Voldemort. It's Quirrell." Said Harry simply.
Hermione smiled and said "We can go tell,"
That is as far as she got before Harry cut in "Dumbledore, Flitwick, McGonagall and every professor who can threaten a Pixie is conveniently out of contact except the known Death Eater Snape."
"Oh. Bugger." Hermione said, visibly deflating.
"What are we going to do now?" Harry said, the urge to fight rising in his goblin soul, but every voice of reason argues that it would only get them killed.
"Yule." Said Neville.
"What?" Said Harry, surprised at the non-sequitur.
"Look, I know I am the only pureblood raised pureblood in the group. I know that we aren't supposed to really do this kind of magic anymore, but the whole point of Yule is kind of necromancy. You stand in the heart of the dark, in the longest night of the year, you gather the people you care about, and you make merry in the middle of night when death is closest, calling your dead to join with you, and find away to make it through until brighter days." Neville said.
"I hardly think throwing a party in the middle of the woods and doing dark magic is going to help us deal with the fact that Voldemort's bloody agent, is in the castle, already working through the defenses that keep the Philosopher Stone away from resurrecting Voldemort right in the middle of the castle." Harry raged, his anger and fear making him lash out.
Milicent Bulstrode grabbed his arm. Although half-blood, she had been raised by pureblood mother and inducted into the mysteries as a child. She knew what Neville was suggesting.
"No Harry. Neville is suggesting we go to Yule to ask the person who killed Voldemort the first time. This is Yule. We wassail hard in the heart of the dark, we invite those who have gone before to join us in the night farthest from the light, and closest to the grave." Milicent said softly.
"Mum." Harry whispered.