Shattered Momentum
The following week came with the quidditch tryouts, which found Cho and Arabella sitting in the stands, clad in quidditch uniform as they waited their turn, but with Arabella levitating Ekrizdis Journals in front of her as she copied its pages as fast as she could, as she had been doing all week. Cho, on the other hand, was fidgeting. Arabella knew she had been playing practice games against Cedric all week, as both wanted to enter their respective Houses teams. Based on what she had seen of those practices, Cedric had trounced Cho. He had a better broom, although Cho compensated by being lighter. But, ultimately, Cedric was simply the better flyer of the two. And that hasn't done anything good for Cho's self-confidence.
Cormac, to her left, ignored all this. He had gone to watch over the trials just for the sake of watching them and shook his head in disbelief "People are playing with a quaffle up there, Ara!" he said, as two trios of chaser candidates zoomed past each other in the air in what looked more quadpot than quidditch, but gave the Ravenclaw captain, Roger Davies, a better chance of judging the candidates than having all positions playing at once.
Arabella looked up with only mild interest. Of the past year's team, only Davies and Hawkthorne remained. Clearwater had decided to leave the team to focus on her NEWTs and everyone else had graduated, which meant they were short of everyone save for one chaser and one beater. And sadly, the chasers she's seen so far were everything but impressive. She shook her head "Not a good enough show, love. Besides, what if I need to return the book before I finish copying it?" she said.
She had been given Ekrizdis Journals for a week, but negotiated with Pince, the librarian, to keep it until someone else requested it. And since she didn't know if that would happen the day after her week was over or months later, she was doing her best to summarize it and copy it as fast as she could. Manually, because duplication charms weren't taught until the seventh year, and it would probably take her a longer time to learn it anyway than to copy everything by hand.
The book itself was dark, horrible and fascinating, she thought as she tuned out Cormac's disparaging, but sadly honest, comments on the prospective Ravenclaw chasers. If Grindelwald was evil because he thought it was necessary and Voldemort because he liked it, Ekrizdis was evil because he didn't care. Expelled from his village for his crimes, he set sail north and discovered the abandoned island of Azkaban and the dementors locked within. He unlocked them, only to nearly have to run for his life. Only his use of the Imperius curse on the dementors in the nick of time allowed him to lock them up again - Interestingly, Ekrizdis described the imperius as one of the 'two most-damnable curses' rather than one of the three unforgivables.
But rather than leaving the accursed place and leaving the dementors locked up for good, Ekrizdis made himself at home at Azkaban and started kidnapping sailors and people living on the nearby coasts to test dark magic, the powers of the dementors and, by using the dementors, the soul itself.
"Did you find anything about stopping a dementor from eating our souls?" asked her Cho as Davies stopped the practice and had other Ravenclaw students line up for chaser testing.
"Well, there is a way to keep the dementors from sucking your soul, but I don't think we should use it" teased Arabella
"How so?" asked Cormac, now interested.
Arabella pulled back a few pages "Here. Ekrizdis cursed one of his victims. He sewed up his mouth and nose and the dementor couldn't suck his soul. Of course, the then victim suffocated to death"
"Ughh" said Cho
"You've asked" she said "Anyway, for the next victim, he first performed a tracheotomy before erasing his mouth and nose. So the dementor went ahead and sucked his soul through the hole in the trachea"
"Fuck" exclaimed Cormac.
"No, I don't think the dementors can do that, Cormac" answered Arabella and all three couldn't help themselves from chuckling "I'll keep reading just in case" she joked.
The trials kept on and on, pushing the trial for beater and seeker into the night, which was great as far as Arabella was concerned: the snitch would be easier to spot, which would hopefully negate Cho's disadvantage in using a slower broom. As for beaters, it made it easier for them, which could also give Cho an edge if Davies paired her or Hawkthorn with Cho and they kept the competing seeker at bay.
Keeper trials came next and Cormac became insufferable, criticizing every single one of the candidates. Arabella asked him to light up his wand so she could continue to read her levitated book in the dark. He did but, sadly, he didn't shut up anyway.
"Anything interesting in there?" Asked Cho after a while, nervous as her trial was about to come up "That doesn't involve dark magic" she quickly added.
"Ekrizdis put boggarts and dementors to fight each other" answered Arabella absent-mindedly. That was the chapter she was reading about.
"Who won?" Asked Cormac, who was listening to her even if he pretended he only cared for the players above.
Arabella skipped a page "The dementors. The boggarts kept them at bay for a while transforming into 'a ghostly image of joy'. Weird. Anyway, the dementors couldn't suck their soul, either because boggarts don't have a soul or because they don't breathe, but eventually, they went through them and towards their human victims. Ugh, Cho wouldn't like what happened next" she said and Cho gave her a friendly punch in her shoulder.
"Hawthorne, Chang, Diggory, Corner, Boot, Morgan, you're up" commanded Davies from high up, enjoying his use of the sonorus charm. Swallowing hard, Cho stood up and went to the pitch. Arabella marked the next chapter in Ekrizdis Journals - something about a patronus, whatever that may be - and followed her. She may have not cared much about entering the titular team, but that didn't stop her from getting nervous as well.
She got her mind right into the game the moment a bludger came straight to her head from below. She twisted to her left, took a split second to locate Terry Boot flying below her and to her right and waited for the precise moment when the bludger would turn around and try to hit the back of her head. With a smile, she swirled at the last moment and batted the bludger away and right into Boot's path. It was on.
Boot dodged and Arabella turned to see how the rest of her team was fairing. She had been paired in a seeker's duel with beaters with Cho and Chloe Morgan, a girl in Luna's year, against Edmund Hawthorne, the one remaining beater from last year, and third years Terry Boot and Michael Corner. She hoped Corner was bad so they'd be evenly matched, as Chloe seemed more interested in unseating Edmund - and good luck with that! - than in protecting their seeker.
She got herself into a bit of a duel with Hawthorne after a few minutes which, surprisingly, he abandoned. Looking around, she quickly spotted the reason: Cho and Boot were racing shoulder to shoulder toward a golden spec, with Hawktorne diving on them.
She turned around in the look for bludgers, but none were around. "Cover me!" she shouted Chloe, wherever the younger girl may be as she dove after Hawkthorne. He flew a Cleansweep Seven to her Cleansweep Five and was heavier, so it was no surprise he was diving faster than her. Neither could crash into the seekers themselves or catch the snitch, but they could very well disrupt them. Hoping against hope to find a bludger at the last minute, Arabella pressed her dive, but it proved useless. Cho had to swerve to the side to avoid Hawkthrone and that gave Boot the split-second opportunity to grab the snitch.
Davies whistled with his fingers and all the power of his sonorus charm - he was enjoying it - "Well done! Once more!" he shouted.
Cho flew back to the centre of the pitch with hunched shoulders. Arabella, instead, flew up to where Chloe Morgan was "Where were you?" she asked the younger girl
"Trying to get at Corner!" she shouted "He was tossing the two bludgers at me while you were failing to outfly Hawkthorne below!"
"Our job isn't to outseat the other beaters Morgan! We're to escort the seekers so they catch the snitch and win!" she shouted back. Below, Davies had released the snitch again "They toss bludgers at you? Send them to me when I need them!" she screamed as she dove for one dark bludger below and quickly hit her towards Boot, only to be thwarted by Corner.
The second round was longer, harder and the sun had set by the time Boot, once again, caught the snitch despite Cho's best efforts. Cho, however, found herself with renewed determination by the third round and thanks to a good combo play by Arabella and Morgan - the younger girl was learning fast - who kept Boot busy, got the snitch in the third round.
Davies was delighted with the way the trial was going and reminded them the seekers were playing at three out of five wins. Should Boot catch the snitch in either of the next two rounds, He'd become the titular seeker. Cho, instead, would need to catch it twice to make it, as she was losing 1-2.
Hawkthorne kept Arabella busy all the fourth round while Morgan and Corner circled around the seekers. And no matter how much Arabella kept trying to avoid him, wherever she flew, she found Hawkthrone or a bludger coming at her. Bruised and covered in sweat, she spotted the snitch in one end of the pitch, far away from the seekers. Cho must have spotted it to and realizing she wasn't going to make it to it before Boot - he was simply much closer to it - feigned a dive in a completely different direction. Arabella was whacked by a bludger to the stomach as she distracted herself with the seeker drama. When she recovered she pumped a fist in celebration: Boot had fallen for it. Hawkthorne, however, had not and hit the same bludger back to Arabella. Taking on her own advice during the first round, Arabella diverted the bludger towards Chloe Morgan, turned around and flew away from Boot and everyone else towards the second bludger. She hit Corner straight in the head with it, leaving Morgan undisturbed to pester Boot with the remaining bludger, which she did with gusto.
Boot fell to the ground and now without an opposing seeker and having to deal with just one beater, Cho graciously flew towards the snitch, easily dodged Hawkthrone's bludger and secured the snitch to tie in with Boot 2-2.
There wasn't a fifth round. Boot was too exhausted, beaten and a bit dizzy after getting hit in the head and subsequently crashing into an empty stand and Davies swiftly proclaimed Cho as the winner. Seekers, after all, were supposed to suffer more during games and still be able to catch the snitch.
Still in the pitch, Davies transfigured some benches into tables and placed cornish pastry and haggis he had previously secured from the kitchens, as they were now well past dinner time. Cormac approached Arabella and began a long tirade of all the ways she could have done better.
"Not now Cormac. I'm exhausted" she said. 'And sweaty, and beaten, and hungry, and thirsty and in need of a hot shower' she also thought.
"But it's so you can become better!" complained Cormac. Arabella downed a glass of pumpkin juice as an answer.
Roger Davies, in the meantime, approached her from the other end "So, Diggory…" he started, saving her from her boyfriend.
"You'll need plenty of time to bring this team up to scratch" she interrupted him "You'll need training at least twice per week, but ideally thrice a week, in a variety of conditions…" she interrupted herself when she noticed the wide smile Davies was giving her as he nodded.
"Yes! Are you in?" he said and Arabella could feel Cormac and possibly Cho's eyes on her.
"No" she admitted and raised a hand to stop Roger's objections "I'm serious, Davies. And Cormac. And Cho. I'm doing three electives. I have the Charms Club. I even need an OWL in history and astronomy, which everyone else ignores, to get into Gringotts. I just don't have the time. And yes, I don't like flying in awful weather or before sunrise. Which matters because you'll have to train them in all weathers, Davies"
"You could have more time if you weren't such a bookworm" interjected Cormac
Arabella swallowed some pastry and huffed. The training had done a number on her and Cormac wasn't helping. "Me. Hot showers. Soon." she said "Alone!" she quickly added to stop everyone's mischievous looks.
"Alright, have it your way" admitted defeated Roger Davies "Morgan, you're on the team!" he announced and Arabella raised an eyebrow "She learns fast" he explained.
Cedric entered the Hufflepuff team the next evening. He was up against a petite girl in his year and a third year boy, but his trial's outcome was never in doubt. While the girl had an advantage in being lighter, Cedric was simply the better flier of the three. And unlike Cho, who had to contend with a basic broom, Cedric's Cleansweep Seven was in line with everyone else's. How he and Cho would deal with the Gryffindors and Slytherins Nimbus their respective seekers used, they'd see in due time.
On Friday, the fourth and fifth years insisted their professors allowed them an early Hogsmeade visit. The faculty didn't budge, unfortunately, but that didn't stop Sarah and the rest of her band from performing near the lake on Sunday morning. Eddie and Marcus were amused, as they realized the song "It Must Be Love" they were performing was from a muggle band called "Madness"
"You're wrong" said behind them the seventh-year prefect, Penelope Clearwater "It's by Labi Siffre. Rocket made a cover"
"Well, they are covering the cover" insisted Eddie.
"Hush" said Arabella, singing along with the rest, and not missing the irony of how many prejudiced students were singing and enjoying muggle music.
She followed Sarah when their impromptu show was over and saw her approach Cedric and his friend Al. Whatever they were talking about, she heard Al saying "Go Ced"
"What 's up?" Asked Arabella and she could swear Sarah had blushed.
"Since we can't go to Hogsmeade, I was asking your brother if he could show me to the kitchens and we grab some butterbeers to go spend the rest of the afternoon somewhere" Answered Sarah. She was definitely blushing.
"Go Ced" said Arabella, mimicking Al from before.
"It's… well, discovering the kitchens is supposed to be that thing we figure out on our own…" blabbered Cedric.
"Go!" she insisted.
"Ced" said with fake solemnity Al "I'll keep your Hufflepuff honour safe. Go"
At the dual insistence, Cedric and Sarah left for the castle. Once they were out of earshot Al sighed "At last" he said and Arabella giggled "You don't go to classes with those two. I do. It was about time"
September faded into October and none asked for Ekrizdis Journals, which Arabella eventually finished up copying. She kept the book for a few more weeks, passing it along to Cho and Marietta, who got used to reading it in the privacy of their room - people tend to look at them oddly when they've heard them discuss what relation might be between a dementor sucking someone's soul, Ekrizdis invention of the killing curse and passing into the afterlife. They also agreed it was the stuff to read if they wanted nightmares. Flitwick wasn't lying when he compared to hypothetical Grindelwald or Voldemort's journals. Fascinating? Yes. The stuff to read after a bad day? Absolutely not.
Arabella finally returned it a couple of weeks before Halloween. She had, in the meantime, made notes of lots of additional subjects and books based on the stuff she read in it. Fortunately, only a few of those things were in the restricted section: everything related to possession, which Ekrizdis also involved himself with, was. But a lot of tangential stuff like pacts and communal magic were a branch of soul magic that, while dangerous, wasn't dark and thus, were freely available. Stuff about other non-beings was sparse, but not restricted either. Ekrizidis' long catalogue of dark curses was hit or miss: the curses themselves were restricted, if at all in the library, but the countercurses weren't and since they were written in ancient futhark, they also provided for good runes practice.
In the meantime, she had a block with two things: the undetectable extension charm they were practising in the charms club and the one spell Ekrizdis had devised to keep dementors in check. The extension charm would allow her to expand her robe's inner pockets and carry her broom with her, if she managed to cast it, that is. The spell Ekrizids had devised was not, surprisingly, dark and was listed in the seventh-year Defense textbook.
It was called a "Patronus Charm" and was still in use centuries after its invention. It boiled down to using the same technique the boggarts used against dementors: pushing joy straight from one' soul into magic and letting the magic itself weave it into an animal form. The animalized form prevented the dementors from overpowering it, as they did to boggarts, while the joy-turned-into-magic repulsed them. But it was challenging - the textbook mentioned it was taught in Auror training and it wasn't required for a defence NEWT. On top, Arabella had never tried to wield magic in such a way. All she was accomplishing was pushing white smoke out of her wand. But it was either that or learning the imperius curse.
Eventually, the school dressed up for the Halloween Feast and it looked like they could finally have a feast without trolls or Slytherin monsters. They ate and celebrated and finally went to bed and the only fly in the ointment seemed to be that Cho was saddened when she saw Cedric and Sarah together. It looked to Arabella as if Cho fancied her brother, even though she denied it.
And it was with those simple thoughts she was getting to an early sleep when Penelope Clearwater broke into the bedroom. "Quickly! Get your wands and robes. We're evacuating to the Great Hall. Sirius Black broke into Hogwarts and is somewhere in the castle!"
She had barely managed to cover herself with a winter cloak before Clearwater insisted she hurry up. Arabella left, joining all the baffled Ravenclaws as they travelled downstairs. She felt inadequately dressed in just her nightgown beneath the heavy robe, but that was nothing to the idea that Sirius Black, of all people, could be lurking around the hallways. She did her best to mix along with everyone else. She had finally mastered the basic shield charm in defence and felt more or less confident in her disarming charm. But she still couldn't cast a stunner and typically got battered every time they duelled in Lupin's class. With a death eater on the loose, she suddenly wasn't feeling like the defiant girl who had stood up against a trio of centaurs armed with just bows. Even Mrs. Norris' meows gave her a fright on her way down.
To her shock, Dumbledore left them all gathered together in the Great Hall, which was openly accessible from plenty of hallways when they'd be perfectly safe in their Houses dorms, which had only one guarded entrance. Worse, he ordered the prefects to stand watch instead of calling the aurors.
After the professors left ('Yeah, why not let Flitwick at least to protect them' cursed Arabella), she sneaked past Percy Weasley and went to join Cedric, who was standing watch in a hallway behind the professors' tablet along with Clearwater and a seventh year Hufflepuff prefect she had only seen in passing. Either he'd send her back or she'd be allowed to stay and, well, she wasn't sure. Protect him? She wasn't really sure how.
She stood right behind Cedric and tapped him in the shoulder "What are you doing?" whispered Cedric, frightened.
"Scaring you, of course" she said and Cedric shook his head and chucked.
"And then what? Tell me, how is your stunner?" asked Cedric in a low voice. She had been complaining about it with him the past week, so he knew the answer. But he didn't tell her to go away.
"Not the time, Ced. And besides, what if it's a dementor that's coming?" she answered.
The other Hufflepuff whistled "She says the sweetest things. I'd say we wake up everyone and run" he said.
"Really, Reginald?" Clearwater said, her voice tinged with frustration "Are you letting a dementor feast on everyone behind us?"
"And what's the alternative?" complained Reginald "Also, why is that girl here?".
"We stop them" said Cedric, with a courage Arabella didn't know he had in him "And she's here because she wants to" he concluded.
Arabella nodded and, once again, tried to conjure joyful memories. Her getting her wand wouldn't do, Ollivander had ruined that moment. But just before entering the shop, as they were doing her first shopping trip for Hogwarts supplies, she thought that should do it. "Expecto Patronum" she recited, and only a puff of white smoke came out of her wand.
"What was that?" asked Cedric, puzzled.
Penelope Clearwater, however, smiled at her "Not a bad try for a fourth year" she said in a warm tone. She then took a deep breath and closed her eyes "Expecto Patronum" she whispered. The smoke coming out of the wand wanted to form something, but it dissipated "Dammit, I got it once. It's the spell to counter dementors. But it's just too advanced!"
Cedric stepped forward, pointing his wand to a nearby suit of armour "You all overcomplicate things. Dementors can't go through solid matter, and neither can fugitives, so… piertotum locomotor" he casted and the suit of armour came to life, standing between the four of them and the hallway beyond "I'll introduce you: he's Jack. He'll stop Black, the dementors and whatever comes our way. Jack, meet Reginald, Penelope and the younger one, Arabella" Cedric gave a twist of his wand and the suit of armour vowed to them.
Penelope laughed "Nice Diggory One. Now let me try again" She closed her eyes again, raised a hand as if to tell everyone not to be disturbed and with a smile on her face, she insisted "Expecto Patronum!" and this time the smoke coalesced into a small bird, bigger than a dove and smaller than a raven. Penelope pumped her fist in celebration. "It's complicated, Diggory Two. You kind of need to connect the magic in your soul directly to your wand, skipping mind and body. It's hard to explain. And this is the second time I manage anyway"
"Still, that's a nice one, Clearwater Only" admitted Cedric and pointed his wand at the suit of armour. A complex spell later, the armour was twirling on the floor and making so much noise that Reginald had to cast a silencing charm on it to stop it.
"What's that?" asked the older Hufflepuff as the suit of armour convulsed and seemed as if it was dancing on the floor
"Breakdance!" exclaimed Cedric "Have I mentioned Jack loves rap?"
Arabella laughed "Now you're showing off!"
"Of course I am" he laughed.
Fortunately, other than a few frights when ghosts broke into the corridor and the four of them thought something was coming, nothing ended up happening. No Black (What was he even doing at Hogwarts?) nor dementors breaking into the castle. And if McGonnagal found it odd that Arabella was there with the prefects, she said nothing before sending them to sleep.
She got trashed again during Lupin's defence practices, this time by Eddie. She was getting more and more frustrated by that. She had always been good at jinxing, and that was supposed to be her wand' strong suit. But as opponents defended, shielded and fought back, all her instincts played against her. Playing Quidditch since childhood taught her to think three-dimensionally when in action, but she wasn't flying. Playing as a beater had trained her reflexes, but she also got used to waiting for bludgers to use them - she had grown too reactive. Finally, her perfectionist angle had made her casting slow. The weak jinx or charm with a rushed incantation always beat the perfect jinx or charm she didn't finish casting because she was forced on the defensive.
"You just need your rival to not cast back at you" teased Eddie by the end of the class. Unlike her typical banter with Marcus and Eddie, that stung. But the lank muggle-born had a point: Had Black surprised her on Halloween night, her best bet would have been to have a Dancing Jack covering her back.
It was carrying those frustrations around that she went flying with Cormac by the end of the week, the day before the Quidditch Season officially started with the Gryffindor vs. Hufflepuff match.
By an unspoken agreement, Arabella and Cormac ended up flying into the edges of the Forbidden Forest, where they had once dug a hole into the abandoned tunnel to Hogsmeade. Cormac landed and Arabella followed, feeling how the joy of flying and letting go of her concerns abandoned her as she stepped back into the ground. It was the place where they had been confronted by the centaurs the past year. But they had beaten them once before and they wouldn't even be concerned with the two of them unless Cormac started wondering aloud about the location of the female centaurs' breasts again. In short, she supposed they'd be fine. Maybe.
"Nice play for a pic-nic" said Cormac in a tone that wanted to be nonchalant, but came out forced.
Arabella subtly kicked the hidden trap door - it seemed to be in order. "Anything wrong?" she asked.
Cormac fidgeted a bit and distracted himself by watching a large black dog which, in turn, observed them from behind a fallen trunk. He finally looked back at her "It's that you're always busy. It's the first time in the entire week we've had some time for ourselves"
"I'm doing three electives…".
Cormac interrupted her as he sat next to the dog "And the charms club and all that, I know. But you spend most of your free time buried in those journals of dark magic!" he complained and the dog fixed its eyes on her. Cormac went on to pat him around the neck.
"I've returned Ekrizdis Journals weeks ago! I've been reading about communal magic, which is not, at all, dark. Did you know the anti-apparition wards in the English channels are simply powered by the will of the magical community? Should Fudge desire to do so, he could unmake them with a twist of his wand, as the elected representative of the community!"
"Who cares?" asked Cormac and for a moment Arabella thought the dog was nodding "Besides, we know how this is going. I'm going to pester you to go to Hogsmeade, you're going to say you're too afraid of the dementors. Weren't you researching how to get past them, instead of that communal magic thing?"
"Oh, I know how to get past them" answered Arabella, no longer hiding her frustration "We just need a boggart or two. Do you have one in your pockets? Hell, maybe even a suit of armour!"
"There was a boggart in the Shrieking Shack" offered Cormac, who now had the dog's head resting on his lap. She could swear the dog's ears stood up at the mention of the shack.
Arabella sat right on top of the hidden trap door, deject "We've dealt with it last spring. Cormac, the magic to deal with dementors is too advanced. And I've never seen you trying to look for it or even try it"
"We can outfly them" insisted Cormac.
"I can. Can you?" retorted Arabella and the moment her words came out of her mouth she realized they hit him deep. He retorted to play with the dog, keeping whatever he wanted to say for himself. Not that she wasn't doing the same, still pissed as she was for not knowing what had he experienced that made the dementors affect him so much. Which, in turn, was made worse by the fact that Marietta did know. She wasn't going to ask her - it was Cormac' secret after all. But it made it worse anyway. Eventually, she reclined in the grass "You're so upset we don't spend time together and you're now playing with a stray dog"
Cormac hugged the dog "What do you think doggie, should I spend more time with her?" he said and the dog barked cheerfully "Should we go to Hogsmeade?" the dog continued to bark and wagged his tail "Do we risk dementors?" the dog whimpered "This dog is weird. Come on, there is another place we can go" said Cormac and, like a monkey, started climbing a nearby tree.
"What about bowtruckles?" shouted Arabella
"None on this tree!" shouted Cormac from above. She waited until he was high enough and then graciously flew to him in her broomstick. Near the top of the tree, just high enough so they could see beyond the treeline, Cormac had enlarged and knotted together a couple of branches, making enough room for both of them to sit and either make amends or pretend their argument hadn't happened.
They've spent a more comfortable afternoon up there, into a while after dusk, when the temperature began to drop rapidly.
"It's getting too cold" warned Cormac, briskly rubbing his arms to stave off the cold.
Arabella disregarded him, although she made a mental note to carry a jar so she could place fire in it when needed "It is autumn in Scotland, Cormac" she said, while thinking that the jar didn't need to be big, she could enlarge it at will when needed.
"No, this is not natural" He insisted "Let's go"
"Oh, come on" she complained as Cormac rose to his feet and, seeing him standing atop a tree, had a sudden flashback to Cormac falling from beneath the venomous tentacula in the room beneath the cerberus in their second year "LET'S GOOOO!" she shouted, her voice cutting through the now icy air. In a panic, they scrambled onto their brooms and launched themselves into the void, a pair of rogue Dementors in cold pursuit.
"Where are you going?" shouted Arabella as they cleared the forest and Cormac dove to fly flat against the ground.
"The front doors!" Shouted Cormac, already shaking. Behind them, the dementors were losing ground, but just barely, and Arabella saw several more silhouettes against the horizon around the Hogwarts boundaries.
"We can't lead them in there!"
"We need to get inside the castle!" Insisted Cormac.
"YES!" recognized Arabella and grabbed the tip of his broom "Into a professor's study!" she said, pointing a sweaty Cormac upwards. The halls were filled with students who wouldn't stand a chance against dementors. She hoped against hope the professors would.
They lost speed as they climbed. To their shock, the dementors didn't and were now starting to gain on them. "Mamai, mamai" started to mutter Cormac while Arabella was distracted looking up, for a muggle cropduster aircraft that she knew wasn't there.
The stars in the sky started to fade, and soon the lights in the castle would. She tried to focus on something happy and channel it from her soul, in whatever way that worked. Flying beneath a muggle aircraft spreading pesticide? She turned that incident into a memory of her flying into an adult's broom for the first time "EXPECTO PATRONUM!" she shouted and white gas came out of the wand. Undeterred, she tried to point it at the dementors behind them, but Cormac was nearly fainting so she dove to set him straight, the sparse magical gas dissipating as she did.
"Mamai, nai" lamented Cormac as he flew, his eyes closed against his broomstick.
"Mama isn't here, I am" said Arabella with a coarse voice as the castle drew near. Few lights were on, the walls were becoming fuzzy and she needed to nail someone's office - It wouldn't do to break into the hallways. She tried to focus on casting a patronus again but as she tried, Cormac fell off his broom.
Desperate, she twisted around to grab Cormac's floating broom with her left hand and dove after him into the icy cold atmosphere. She crashed into him to grab him and was now upside down, flying both brooms together and trying to hold onto both Cormac and the brooms with her legs "Grab on to me" she pleaded as she rose in the air again, flying on her back towards the castle.
But now the dementors, who didn't seem to care for the laws of physics as brooms mostly did, were onto them and Cormac's wails turned into Peruvian mandrakes breaking her eardrums a year and a half ago. "Expecto Patronum" she whispered once more but not even gas came out of her wand. She was helpless, in a run down hotel in Peru, bleeding from her ears and deaft "Resirarenox!" she screamed, firing Ekrizdis' mouth and nose eraser curse at the nearest dementor, which did nothing but anger it, as dementors didn't breathe in the first place.
She avoided crashing into castle walls she could barely see by now. Cormac's weight slowed her down, complicated her own panting and the position made it nearly impossible to watch her way. He was about to slip again and for a split second, Arabella considered letting him fall. "EXPECTO PATRONUM!" she tried again and as she failed she felt dementors were laughing at her in their twisted way. One of them grabbed her feet with cold hands and she reacted "IMPERIO!" she cursed it. 'Release me' 'Defend me' she thought, and the creature complied. She had, for a brief second, the feeling of sinews growing from her arm into her wand and saw the absurd view of one dementor fist-fighting the other in mid-air. Elated, she took to her surroundings: Dumbledore's office was in a protruding tower, right ahead of them.
With dementors on her heels, she didn't bother to slow down. Doing her best to keep the twin brooms level as Cormac shook, she transfigured the incoming window into chalk, felt herself losing control of the imperiused dementor and broke straight into Dumbledore's office at full speed, spreading chalk all around.
There was no time, momentum or power enough to brake before the opposing walls came into them. She pulled a 180-degree turn and screamed in pain as both her legs broke against the wall.
"What have you just done?" boomed Dumbledore, his voice echoing as a bird Patronus burst from the window, while the shattered office implements mended themselves, all with scarcely a flick of the Headmaster's wand.
"It was my turn to break my legs" she managed to groan, spatting chalk on the floor as Cormac regained his senses. He stood up and tried to raise her only to have her collapse as the weight of her body fell on her broken shinbones.