Chapter 37
No one is safe
7 March 1993, Hogwarts, Scotland
"Fulgur Magna! Fulgur Magna! Fulgur Magna!"
The repetition of incantation of the Lightning-based spell should have at least produced a few sparks but no magic graced its presence after the end of this loud repetition.
"I am doing something wrong, no?" Asked Nigel unnecessarily, frowning heavily and passing a head in his auburn hairs. The Gryffindor second-year had a clearly discouraged expression on his face.
"I don't know..." Replied Alexandra. "Fulgur Magna!"
A small blue lightning bolt emerged from her wand after one very long twirl and went to strike the target, a huge mannequin the group had found in an abandoned classroom.
"Hermione?"
"You and Nigel did the exact same wand moves prescribed in the book." Commented the Gryffindor bushy-haired witch, a book open on her knees. "No reason why it shouldn't have worked."
"Weird. This is the, what? Twentieth time it has happened since we began?"
This was a rough guess but Hermione was infallible as long as information collect was at stake.
"Twenty-fifth for Nigel. Thirteen times for Morag. Five for me. None for you."
"Like I said, weird." Of course magic was by its very nature strange...but even by these standards this period of training was providing more questions than answers.
"It's the spells which are weird." Affirmed vehemently Nigel. "Who found this book on Lightning-based spells anyway?"
"Me." Grimaced the MacDougal Heiress. "I asked my parents for ideas about non-conventional spells, and they told me this book was worth it."
"Are there any potential reasons listed for these spells to be...off?"
"Well, I suppose the wards of Hogwarts could counteract whatever effect these incantations have..."
Alexandra was not satisfied, though. The wards of this mysterious castle were not to be blamed at the fist occasion.
"No. If these spells were worthy of alerting the wards, we would busy explaining our sessions to the Professors because of the number of alerts. No, it's something else."
"Could it be in the intricacy and the magical characterisation of the incantation? I have heard something about the Arithmantic factor of exponential Merlinic degradation somewhere..."
Two pair of Ravenclaw eyes and one pair of Gryffindor interrupted momentarily their reflexions to fix Hermione Granger.
"What?"
"The combination and general application of Arithmancy to general hexes and jinxes is to the program of fifth-year, Hermione. Where by Merlin pants have you read that sort of thing?"
Hermione instantly harboured the guilty expression of someone having been caught in the process of committing a felony.
"Oh, never mind." Sighed Morag. "But please warn our Head of House when you will have finished reading the entire library..."
Nigel was doing his best not to laugh at Hermione's not-so-virtuous face.
"But back to the subject. It could be simpler. There are elemental affinities, these spells could resonate with them."
"Elemental affinities?" Nigel frowned in confusion. "I thought having an Elemental talent was extremely rare?"
"Oh, it is." Confirmed the red-haired Ravenclaw. "One chance in a hundred thousand approximately that a witch or wizard is an Elemental. Maybe less. Unless I misremembered something, there were no Elementals in the British Isles since the last century. There are two or three worldwide."
"I'm sorry but what is exactly an Elemental?" Asked testily the Gryffindor girl of their group, closing forcefully her book.
"A witch or a wizard able to manipulate, create, master and control one of the five elements wandlessly." Alexandra slowly explained. "Fire, wind, water, earth and lightning are the possible elements. Due to the large danger the Elementals represent for themselves, those nearby and in general for the Statute of Secrecy, their potential appearance is extremely scrutinised by all the existing Ministries of Magic."
"That's precise." Noted Nigel.
"From my researches on my family, one of my ancestors was an Elemental." Said in a light tone the green-eyed Ravenclaw.
"Never heard of him." Frowned Morag.
"I agree. Professor Binns never talked about this."
"Professor Binns is a horrifyingly boring old ghost who only cares about Goblin Rebellions." Alexandra laughed before letting her smile disappear. "But in this case, it's perfectly justified. From what I read, Elemental lives never seem to be happy ones. Lawrence Potter lost control of his fire powers in the middle of a village in the 1600s. There were close to one hundred deaths in this incident."
"Ouch. That's...not good. What happened to him after?"
"What do you think?" Alexandra told in a fatalist tone. "Executed by the Wizengamot. Too dangerous to be authorised to live."
She didn't add that according to the outdated work it had been Lawrence Potter's own family who had betrayed him. It may have been four hundred years ago, but House Potter had clearly accumulated a few skeletons in their closets in their supposed pristine history.
"This is why we're speaking about affinities." Intervened Morag, evidently wishing to come back to a less damaging topic. "Contrary to elemental powers, every wizard or witch has one. It has been proven."
Alexandra chose to not to disagree with this affirmation...the proof Magical Britain sometimes accepted for their theories had not many scientific or really sound foundations.
"If we go this reasoning, I have a Lightning affinity...and the rest of you haven't."
"Yeah."
"Is there a means to validate this assumption?"
"There are instruments, yes. But a lot of them are Ministry-owned. House MacDougal hasn't one."
"Too bad." Alexandra rolled her shoulders. Then she looked at her wand. "Unless...Morag, can magical creatures have an elemental affinity?"
"Sure." Her fellow Ravenclaw answered. "Unlike humans, every member of the same species has the same affinity..." Blue piercing eyes met flashing green ones. "Why?"
"Do you know what the core of my wand is?" The red-haired witch made a negative sign. "It's hydra heartstring."
"Wow." Nigel exhaled.
"Seriously?"
Alexandra nodded.
"That would explain a few things."
"How so?"
"Hydras are one of the rarest magical beasts and they are classed as XXXXXX-class creatures. They are virtually immortal, impossible to kill and all of that. The hydras are renowned to breathe flames or blasts of lightning, their fangs are covered in a multitude of poisons that have few antidotes, and they re-grow twice the heads that have been destroyed."
The long explanation from Morag made both Nigel and Hermione shiver considerably. Rapidly they found other objects of interests to fix their attention upon.
"Charming."
"They're the apex predators in Greece." Shrugged the Heiress of House MacDougal. "And for a good reason."
Silence fell in the improvised training room. Finally it was Nigel who rattled his throat and started anew the conversation.
"Hydra or no Hydra, this room is not exactly the best to train powerful spells. Are you sure there aren't better options?"
"The Duelling Room is closed until the end of times." Reminded Alexandra, classing the list of parchments and books just searched with a quick spell. "By the order of the highest authority, Headmaster Albus Dumbledore himself."
"Bugger." Grumbled Nigel.
"Language!""
"I don't want to admit it, but it's probably a wise decision in this case."
Flitwick had been very tight-lipped about the incident which had led to the end of the Duelling club but there were always rumours in the Common Rooms. Names like Bellatrix Lestrange, the Marauders and many wizards and witches who had died in the previous war.
"Yeah, it would be too bad for the Slytherins and the Gryffindors to leave torrents of blood in a single room."
Surely if the two feuding Houses realised the true cost of a war, they would be a bit less eager to participate in one, no?
"Have we the time to try a few other offensive spells, Nigel?" Demanded Morag.
"No. The match is going to begin in fifteen minutes." Answered the auburn-haired Gryffindor.
"Alexandra? Don't use the most powerful of these spells like the Fulmen Imperator unless it's a life-or-death choice. These Lightning attacks can kill someone if you're not careful."
Alexandra pouted at Morag's warning, murmured a very audible "no fun", and stood from the chair where she had momentarily taken a break. "In that case we should better go, shouldn't we?"
Marching to the door and opening it in one move, Alexandra turned to see only Nigel had followed her. Hermione and Morag were discussing something over a few parchments, in a low voice which screamed 'conspiracy' more than everything.
"You're not coming to see the match?"
The red-haired Ravenclaw and brown-haired Gryffindor raised their head at the same time with what looked like 'caught in the act' faces.
"Uh, oh no, we have something to..."
"We need to look at something in the library." Morag interrupted the beginning of the sentence. "Don't worry, Alex, we will go to the pitch as soon as we have finished."
Alexandra narrowed her eyes. Something here was sounding 'trouble' in capital letters. That Hermione Granger, first and single official founder of the 'I hate Quidditch committee' refused to go see her House playing, fine. Stranger things had happened. But Morag MacDougal, a Ravenclaw having parents involved in Quidditch business and having participated in the trials, wanted to deliberately miss a Quidditch match? Something was definitely wrong.
Alexandra opened her mouth to ask her friends what they were playing at, before ultimately renouncing. The two girls had a right to keep some secrets, and pestering them until they ceded could wait until later after lunch. Or dinner, if the match lasted longer.
Making a mock gesture with her mouth, the green-eyed Ravenclaw left the room with Nigel on her heels, joining the crowd of students descending the stairs.
"Do you know what they were talking about?" Demanded Nigel, avoiding by pure luck being trampled by three massive sixth-year Gryffindors who didn't care about who they entered in collision with.
"Girl stuff probably." Alexandra wasn't sure either what the two members of their little group wanted. "Or maybe Morag wanted to convince Hermione to change her mind when it came to the new classes of third-year, you know..."
Nigel look could only be described as doubtful, before he tripped on a sort of purple gum which had not been there when the Potter Heiress had turned her head the last time.
"I GOT YOU WOLPY!" Screamed Peeves, poltergeist dedicated to chaos and panic. "FLEE! FLEE BEFORE PEEVES!" And the trickster spirit proceeded to water a large band of Hufflepuff downstairs with what looked like a pair of enchanted Muggle water pistols.
"A normal day at Hogwarts." Remarked sarcastically Alexandra as the Badgers dispersed in a total panic. "Nothing new under the sun."
"Err, Alex..."
The twelve-year old witch looked upwards, assisting in slow motion at the efforts of Peeves to make a powerful water bomb with a balloon.
"Glacius."
The ray of ice thrown by Alexandra's wand turned the water and the balloon to ice.
"Wingardium Leviosa." The ice structure was projected against the ceiling, breaking in a little rain of ice, far away from any students.
"Not funny, Potty!" Whined Peeves. But seeing the raven-haired Ravenclaw pointing her wand directly at him and making small sparks, the poltergeist decided discretion was the better part of valour...and raced into the opposite direction, his metaphorical tail between his legs.
"Good job, Alex."
"We can't let this poltergeist continue this reign of terror, no? After all if this continues, the Lions and the Badgers will be more afraid of Peeves, than me, their Dark Lady."
"Merlin forbids this abominable possibility!"
"Exactly."
Although the non-magical-raised Ravenclaw wasn't sure why the wizards swore so much by Merlin and Morgana. The few tales and writings about these legendary wizards were as legendary and mythical in the Wizarding World as they were in the non-magical one. Gandalf and Sauron had a far more reliable story to believe in.
"The nargles approve of this, you know."
Alexandra turned her head to see the students who had intervened in her private conversation with Nigel. To her surprise, it was a first-year girl with pale, dirty blonde hair, grey-silver eyes, faint eyebrows and a set of clothes which could be described as ...weird, even by the standards of the Wizarding World. The Ravenclaw green-eyed witch tried to remind the name of the girl. By the set of arms on her robe, this one was one of her fellow Ravenclaw...the name clicked in her head.
"You're Luna Lovegood." The blonde witch gave her a dreamy smile of agreement, the kind you give someone when you have consumed too much alcohol or drugs. But even Vernon or Marge had never displayed this kind of dreamy faces after emptying a bottle of wine by themselves.
"Excuse me but what is a nargle?" Nigel voice was curious, and Alexandra had to admit she was interested too.
"Your head is full of wrackspurts, Alexandra Potter. Beware, Sword of Emerald. There is a storm of Heliopaths coming."
"Err...sure. You're coming with us seeing Quidditch Luna?"
After all when the situation is not making any sense...
"No, I don't think so. Catching moon frogs is more interesting." And on this, the Lovegood girl marched away and disappeared in the distance.
"That was a weird conversation." And that was really saying something, when your Potions Senior Professor was imitating the frightening appearance of fictional vampires, your Transfiguration Professor transformed into a cat and your Headmaster was either a genius or completely insane. Or both.
"Yeah." There had been several strange things happening at Hogwarts since their Sorting in first-year and Headmaster Dumbledore often said speeches no one could make head or tails, but the conversation which had just last seconds largely beat them without trying. Had this speech come from the Weasley Twins or any group of pranksters, Alexandra would have treated it like a joke. But Luna Lovegood had not behaved like someone who wanted to have a good laugh. Weird. What were a heliopath, nargles and moon frogs by the way?
"I find myself every day questioning the sanity of my fellow Ravenclaws." The Potter Heiress sent a last glance towards where Luna had left, before marching in the direction of the entrance. "You have an explanation for this behaviour, Nigel?"
"The Lovegood family has always a reputation of...eccentricity, shall we say?" Said the Gryffindor with a grimace.
"You know them?" Asked the twelve-year old witch as they arrived in the great marble stairs and were about to pass near the Great Hall.
"Not really, no." Admitted Nigel. "But the Lovegood family own a newspaper, the Quibbler, and I searched for journalist opportunities..."
"Ah. What did you learn?"
"The Lovegoods are a very ancient, but also very poor pure-blood family. They were in the Wizengamot in the 1800s, but lost their seat after their Heir tried to demonstrate his ability to tame a dragon in the middle of Hogsmeade."
Alexandra could not help but pale at this information.
"A fully-grown dragon?"
"Yes, an Hebridean Black. It went awry. A major disaster."
"No kidding." Alexandra had met a baby dragon last year and the little beast had been tough to beat for its size. A fully-grown one...there were less painful ways to die. Classed as XXXXX creatures, known wizard-killers, dragons were less dangerous than Summons, but that was like saying cholera was better than plague, a very meagre consolation. Marching in the grass, the Ravenclaw witch really hoped all a sudden that Luna Lovegood did not intend to walk in her ancestor's steps. Hogwarts was already too much 'interesting' on an average day.
"They have a modest house at Saint Ottery Catchpole if I remember correctly; it's a fairly nice village with several other wizarding families."
"It's the home town of the Weasleys, no? I remember the third member of our inestimable Golden Trio saying he lived there in a Defence class."
The noise and the chaos generated by the different crowd of supporters rushing to the stadium after that put a temporarily end to the conversation. A massive column of red, with an opposite yellow, was in formation. Logical, when you knew the name of the confrontation.
Today was Gryffindor versus Hufflepuff, third Quidditch match of the season.
After their unexpected victory against the Nimbus 2001's boosted Slytherin players, every bookmaker's apprentice at Hogwarts, led of course by the infamous Twin Terrors - also known as the Weasley Twins - was now guaranteeing a Gryffindor victory in the Cup. And it went without saying a particularly humiliating defeat to Hufflepuff for the week-end.
The Slytherin Chasers having been unable to pulverise the team spirit of the Lions Chasers, so no one really believed in the chances of Helga's House. As unfair as it was, it was the painful truth. Hufflepuff had only one good player in its roster: Cedric Diggory, the Seeker. Unfortunately, the rather good-looking boy had a challenging counterpart with Neville Longbottom...and his Comet 260 was utterly outclassed in a straight-up race against the Nimbus 2000 of the Boy-Who-Lived. In difficult weather conditions, maybe Diggory would be able to offset these drawbacks. But today there was a beautiful sun, a clear sky and the wind was low. Every factor favoured the Gryffindor Seeker.
The others six yellow-robed players in the current roster were described as...very average. The Hufflepuff team had not a high level of coordination or skill. The match against Ravenclaw had seen a high proportion of missed passes and Bludgers sent everywhere but the opponent. Everyone in the school agreed Hufflepuff had probably the best team spirit of the four Houses, and the students from first-year to seventh were two hundred percent behind them. Too bad it was all they had. Well, the sympathy of most of the public too. Ravenclaw House saw nothing wrong cheering their friendly rivals, and for the Snakes, everyone was better than Gryffindor.
Otherwise, the atmosphere was rather festive. There had been no petrifaction attacks of any sort in the last month, and while messages in bright or livid green colours continued to be painted in abandoned corridors glorifying the Heir of Slytherin, the tensions between the Houses were at a normal level – the feud between Gryffindor and Slytherin continued but they left the two other Houses out of it.
Large banners of Lions and Badgers floated largely in the stands under the light wind. The Gryffindors stands were a sea of gold and red; the Hufflepuff crowd was a bright yellow. A murmur of excitation permeated the stands, devolving in a burst of applauds when fourteen students in Quidditch gear left the lockers to set foot on the well-maintained grass.
"Here comes the team of Gryffindor!" Exclaimed the habitual commentator Lee Jordan, the black-skinned Gryffindor still in charge of the score and the animation despite oratory performances which could not be described as anything but biased.
"Captain Wood, Johnson, Bell, Spinnet, Weasley and Weasley and...Longbottom!"
The last name was pronounced with the dramatic effect it deserved, and the Lions screamed their joy to the heavens. A thunder of applauds sounded, small red fireworks were fired up, lions mascots made their appearance...the hooligans of many football teams would have recognised the Gryffindor as worthy of their friendship, had they been aware of their existence.
"And of course their opponents, Hufflepuff! Captain Diggory, Preece, Macavoy and Herbert as Chasers, McManus and Rickett as Beaters, with Fleet guarding the goals."
"Hufflepuff, do your stuff!" Chanted the crowd in yellow, raising a huge banner where several badgers were represented slaying lions and diverse felines.
Acclamations came from everywhere on the pitch, save a majority of Slytherin, that obviously weren't going to cheer for anything as vulgar and common as Quidditch when none of the two teams playing belonged to the Snake's Den.
All the boys and girl on the pitch rapidly formed two neat lines under the watchful eye of the referee Professor Hooch. A thrill of Professor Hooch and fifteen brooms soared in the air, with the Quaffle, the Bludgers and the Golden Snitch being released under a golden sun and a blue sky.
"And the third match of the season has begun! Hufflepuff has grabbed the Quaffle with Preece, but it doesn't last, interception by the lovely Chaser Angelina Johnson! Why this girl doesn't want to date me, I will never understand..."
"JORDAN!"
"Perhaps, Lee shouldn't try to propose Angelina every time there is a Quidditch match." Advised Nigel, on Alexandra's left.
"Perhaps." Acknowledged the Ravenclaw witch. She had no experience in that sort of things, but screaming you wanted to date a girl with the next best thing to a magical megaphone in front of all the teachers and the students...they were not a lot of methods more likely to fail. It was also not very flattering, a lot of Ravenclaw girls - and Alexandra included herself in this number - found that Lee was talking about dates and invitations for Hogsmeade with girls like one bargain for a piece of meat at the butcher.
"But I think Angelina has her eye on one of the Weasley Twins. That's the rumour anyway."
"GOAL! GOAL of Katie Bell for Gryffindor! Gryffindor leads by 10-0!"
The two friends redirected their attention to the match. The youngest chaser of the Lions had indeed opened the score, evading the vigilance of Keeper Fleet. It was not an extraordinary shoot, but the Hufflepuff had been unable to see through the series of feints, no matter how evident they were.
This augured badly for the Hufflepuff Quidditch team. What followed didn't reassure their supporters. With a supernatural rapidity betraying a long practise and long hours spent flying in all weather conditions, the Gryffindor Quidditch team regrouped and on the signal of its captain, the fanatic known by most of the school as Oliver Wood, the Lions formed a new attack pattern before rushing to the offensive again.
The passes were realised with fluidity and precision. The Bludgers were hurled by the Weasley Twins with improbable angles, disrupting entirely the strategy of the yellow players. It showed on the score. Contrary to Slytherin, the Badgers did little to no fault and the game was continuous without any opportunities to catch up or retake breath.
Katie Bell marked another goal. Then Angelina Johnson. One minute later, Alicia Spinnet opened her personal goal count.
40-0 for Gryffindor. And the match had not reached the ten minutes mark.
"This is not a match. It's a beating." Remarked sadly Alexandra. Despite the annoying pack-mentality of the Hufflepuff, the twelve-year old witch had found the qualities valued by Helga's House were worthy of recognition. She did not want to see a humiliation against the Boy-Who-Lived and his team.
"How? How can there be such a difference between them and the Lions?" Demanded Nigel, not breaking eye contact as one Hufflepuff Beater missed throwing off his broom one of his own team's Chaser.
"Better tactics, more training, I guess. More talent too." The green-eyed witch winced as one of the Weasley Twins expedited a Bludger right in the leg of the Chaser named Herbert.
"But they have not better brooms." The protestation of her Gryffindor friend lacked a bit of conviction.
"You forget that Slytherin only had a chance because of these rogue Bludgers, and they had Nimbus 2001s." The Potter Heiress commented as Katie Bell expedited the Quaffle between the raised hands of the Hufflepuff Keeper. "And as for the brooms, the only player who really needs a world-class one is Longbottom. Now-"
A bright blue flash illuminated the battlefield, loud alert something magical had just interrupted the game. Alexandra was not looking directly at it when it happened, but was partially blinded all the same. Judging by the cry of surprise next to her, Nigel had suffered more or less the same thing.
Magical explosion, was the first thought coming in Alexandra's head. The second was, better buy some magical-protected goggles for the next time it happens. With the long experience of someone having already faced lethal threats, the black-haired witch rapidly searched in the crowd who had been guilty of that nasty and not-funny-at-all surprise.
But in the chaos, there was really no clues allowing her green eyes to pierce the huge confusion developing. Most of the Quidditch pitch was covered in a night-coloured smoke. The portion of the Ravenclaw stands had received their own attention, being partially covered in blue-grey clouds. From Alexandra's position at the top of the tribunes, the twelve-year old witch could see the entire stadium had been targeted. Red fireworks spread among the places where the Gryffindor sat. There were some sorts of flashes in the crowd of Slytherin. And the Hufflepuffs saw mini-lightning thrown at them. It was all that could be seen with all this smoke. Well the smoke and the precipitation her fellow Ravenclaws descended the stands.
Alexandra had seen in the now destroyed fortress of Brise-Roc how a goblin army rose to challenge a monster they couldn't possibly beat or even hurt. Discipline, blood thirst and a total disregard for their own deaths had been the main strengths of the warrior race. The Hogwarts students' reaction was totally at the other extreme of the goblins defiance. Stunned by the smoke, the lights and the noise made by the attacks, the young and old teenagers panicked and fled like a group of disheartened sheep. Here and there, one student stood his ground, but these were lone bastion of strength in a sea of cowardice. Everyone rushed to descend the stairs, generating more confusion and damage, with the weakest students being quasi-trampled by the torrent of fleeing wizards and witches. In ten seconds, Nigel and Alexandra herself were the only students who had kept their calm and stood where they watched the cacophony engulfing the stairs and every part of the pitch.
And then the magical assault brutally stopped, disappearing as quickly and unpredictably as it had started.
One by one the students paused and stopped their race in the wooden enchanted stairs.
There were many girls and boys bleeding, thanks to the force their own housemates had used to push them out of their way.
A look at the pitch hinted they were perhaps the lucky ones. The Quidditch teams had been as surprised as the spectators, but the latter had had their backsides solidly supported by the stands. The former had been on brooms flying at impressive speeds, and taking a sort of magical firework when your eyes were occupied by one of the four official balls could lead to grave issues.
Issues which had indeed happened.
On the grass, the immobile forms of one Gryffindor and two Hufflepuffs were encircled by the rest of their teammates. If Alexandra was watching correctly the truth, Spinnet, McManus and Fleet had been somehow stricken and had fallen off their brooms. Fortunately, their postures and the Professors running towards them made clear a few spells had managed to slow down what would have been otherwise a fatal fall. Three brooms broken in various parts and spread out on the pitch revealed their efforts had not been perfect; no doubt the Badgers and the Lioness were going to book a lengthy stay in the infirmary.
Now alone with Nigel in their portion of the stands, Alexandra contemplated thoughtfully the debacle.
"If they find the person who did this..." Started Nigel.
"Given the Professors skills in investigation this last year...and the year before for that matter...I don't think they will catch the guilty parties."
It was perhaps pessimistic, and Alexandra wished she was lying, but the entire attack had been well organised and executed. The Heads of Houses had normally difficulties to catch and prove the Weasley Twins were responsible of their own pranks, and this incident was quite a notch above them.
"But what was the point?" Demanded rhetorically the Gryffindor wizard.
The person or persons who had engineered the interruption of the Quidditch match had apparently thought someone was going to ask this very question. At forty feet of altitude, gigantic green flames coming from nowhere wrote a sinister message.
TREMBLE
BEFORE THE MIGHT
OF SLYTHERIN'S HEIR
"Oh, shit." Screamed a fifth-year Ravenclaw in the stairs. "It's the Heir! He's going to petrify us all! Run!"
The Prefect next to him, who should have been able to calm the alarmist boy and stopped him from spreading panic, chose to rush downstairs on the Hogwarts grounds.
"Should not we run, Alex?" The voice of the Lion was trembling, and Professor McGonagall on the pitch blasting away the ugly message with a twirl of her wand had not managed to make spirits recover.
"The Heir is long gone.""
Alexandra could not say what had led her to this conclusion. Intuition? Studies of the Heir's past attacks? Slytherins always liked to attack in the shadows and where they weren't expected. True Slytherins of course. Crabbe, Goyle and Draco Malfoy didn't count.
"Assuming you're right...do you think there have been other attacks in the castle? I mean if everything was time-delayed to go off during the match, the Heir could-"
"-attack with his Monster while everyone was busy shouting for Gryffindor and Hufflepuff? Yes."
Alexandra closed her eyes and tried to ignore the awful sensation spreading in her stomach and the rest of her veins. Hermione and Morag were in the castle. Hermione would quite a prime target due to her simple existence and the fact their Gryffindor friend ridiculed every claim of pure-blood supremacy every time she opened her mouth.
"Should we not run?"
Alexandra made a negative nod.
"If we had the power to bypass the Hogwarts wards and teleport myself directly to our study room or the library, we may arrive in time. But with this crowd?"
On the pitch and the grounds between the stadium and Hogwarts, hundreds of students formed a dense, panicked mass that went in every direction without any discernable purposes. There was no Nimbus or a flying broom quickly reachable to avoid this tumult.
"I thought-" Nigel found difficulties to find his words. "They are our friends-"
"Yes. And Nigel what do you think is going to happen if we rush head first in danger?"
"Bad things?"
This was a generous understatement. Death was not in general a good thing...and neither was petrifaction.
"At best, we arrive too late. At worse...we will be petrified. Or missing. Or dead."
"I see." The voice of the Gryffindor translated clearly the contrary.
"Don't mistake me." Alexandra closed temporarily her yes before reopening them and pinching her nose in angst. "No matter who was attacked, the Heir and those who help him have proven they are too dangerous to be left on their own devices."
"It's time to act?"
"Yes. Yes, I think it's time. Now let's find a way to see how bad things are in the castle."
A few minutes later and a couple dozen of judicious applications of the Levitation Charm, the two members of the Exiled had the first inklings of the answer. It was bad. On the stairs leading to the second floor, three Gryffindors first-years laid petrified.
"Jade, Abigail and Rosalyn..." Said in a shocked and dramatic voice a Gryffindor Prefect. The sixth-year girl looked ready to burst into tears. "I thought they had wanted to stay in the Common Room..."
Bypassing the crowd encircling the victims of the Heir, Alexandra and about twenty Ravenclaws went up, searching for any clues of more attacks. Hogwarts was plunged into an unreal silence. The animations of the armours had stopped. The figures of the portraits were not talking anymore. Only the footsteps of the living resonated in the corridors, quasi-running in the corridors in fear and angst. After ten minutes, alerted by the cries of alarms of a group of Hufflepuff, they found them on the fourth floor.
First to come into view was a older girl with long blonde hair. Alexandra knew her. Penelope Clearwater, Prefect and sixth-year Ravenclaw. One of the kindest authority figures among the Raven's tower. She was also a Muggle-born.
Close to her was the peculiar girl who had just talked to them before they went to Quidditch. Luna Lovegood. The serene face of the first-year witched was tranquil, contrasting greatly to the face of horror showed by the Prefect. There was a Hufflepuff boy too. Alexandra couldn't put a name, but his height and the general common robes on a week-end tended to make him a first-year coming from a non-magical background.
And six feet behind them...
Hermione had still a surprised expression on her face when she had been petrified. Her hair seem a bit dishevelled from the moment Alexandra had seen her half an hour ago. Her Gryffindor friend was holding a small mirror in her right hand, one the raven-haired witch had seen Morag use during the week-ends or after their duels sometimes to keep an 'acceptable' appearance.
Morag harboured a more resolute and firm expression, like she had been preparing to fight her opponent. The wand of the red-haired witch was in her hand anyway. Not that it seemed to have mattered. The MacDougal Heiress was petrified. One glance around revealed no trace of spell fire in the corridor. Bad. The enemy had managed to defeat them before a single spell was on their lips.
A song came to the mind of the Potter Heiress. One she had hoped there would never be any occasion to sing.
Cold be hand and heart and bone,
and cold be sleep under stone:
never more to wake on stony bed,
never, till the Sun fails and the Moon is dead.
In the black wind the stars shall die,
and still on gold here let them lie,
till the dark lord lifts his hand
over dead sea and withered land.
"The Lord of the Rings again?" The visage of Nigel was gloomy, even at the light of the torches lightening the dark corridor. There was no windows, no portraits in this section of the castle.
"It's appropriate, no?" Alexandra bent over Hermione petrified body and tried to see if her friend had left something, anything that could give them a clue. It did not take long to find it. The piece of paper had been caught between the petrified fingers...it took a lot of creativity to release it without causing harm to Hermione's skin.
The message was in Hermione's writing and had been clearly written in a hurry. The parchment was torn, the ink had dropped several times on the text and the corners. A far cry from the perfect essays the second-year best student redacted every week. But even with a couple of unintelligible letters, Alexandra had no difficulty deciphering it, Nigel casting a quick Lumos to read it by her side.
THE KING OF SNAKES
"What does it mean, Alex?"
"Basilisk..."
