Chapter 295 - 295
Night at Hogwarts is, for the most part, a quiet and peaceful place. The occasional appearance of Aurors patrolling the castle for general safety makes it all the calmer. But not always.
Sometimes you might come across sly conspirators, brainless thrill-seekers, tardy couples in love, hungry youngsters hurrying to the kitchens. But now and then you might also spot wizards, young or otherwise, plainly busy, hurrying about business known only to themselves.
And sometimes, several such cases collide in a corridor all at once.
"I'm certain," Nott was saying, haughtily but quietly, strolling down the corridors alongside his Housemate — a seventh year — "that this filthy Mudblood has never even heard of such a noble, truly pure-blooded pursuit as sword duelling."
The castle's corridors were dark, but starlight and moonlight filtered in through the gallery's tall windows, lending an air of mystery while still providing enough light to see by.
"I rather think," Nott's companion said thoughtfully, "that we oughtn't stir up trouble. You know we were given a firm request to keep our heads down and stay quiet as mice."
"A request? You mean an outright order."
"Perhaps so…"
Suddenly the lads spotted Granger hurrying along. His black robes billowed after the fashion of Snape's, his face looked lost in thought, and his gaze took in nothing around him, or at least didn't consider anything worth noting.
"Excellent," Nott muttered, with some difficulty suppressing an odd shiver and a flicker of what was, for now, only mild fear. "Granger! I challenge you to a noble sword duel!"
Granger, though, was walking towards them very quickly, without even looking at them. Being ignored like that infuriated Nott — how dare a Mudblood behave like that?!
"Oi, Granger!" Nott, along with his companion, moved to block the path of the Hufflepuff Prefect—
"Oi, you there!!!" came a low, loud man's voice from behind the lads.
At the same moment, Granger drew level with the lads blocking his way, glanced at them, then at the Auror rapidly closing in with wand drawn, gave an irritated hiss, and simply waved them off, flicking his hand to the side.
"Out of my way, idiots…"
His flick of the hand produced a startling effect, one few would have expected. The lads were quite literally flung into the wall, a dull thud rang out, and they slid down to the floor. The Auror, however, showed considerable presence of mind, tucked into a roll, hit the wall feet-first and seemed to slide straight back down off it onto the floor, wand raised — only to find, to his own astonishment, the Hufflepuff Prefect already standing right in front of him, one finger of his outstretched hand touching the Auror's chest.
Reflex demanded he move and cast, but to his even greater confusion, the Auror discovered he was already under something like a Petrificus, only stronger — which meant he'd need a wandless, wordless Finite. The necessary thought-intent was already forming in the Auror's mind, when his hearing caught a quiet murmur:
"Obliviate. You were attacked by two Slytherin students during your night patrol, but you fended them off neatly with a Stupefy — it wasn't difficult."
Granger took the wand from the Auror's hands, turned towards the two unconscious lads, cast two weak Stupefy charms on them, and returned the wand to the Auror; with his own wand, he cast two simple Obliviates on the lads, erasing the fact of their encounter with him, and vanished at once into black smoke and shadow.
. . . . .
I'd let myself relax, let myself get carried away.
Having spent a couple of hours studying some key aspects of wand-making, and precisely what purpose each stage of core treatment served, I was buoyed up with ideas for experiments and new possibilities. So buoyed up, in fact, that already past curfew, with the start of the night hours, I was practically flying through the corridors of Hogwarts, carried along by prospects and upcoming experiments, with only the smallest matter left to sort out — procuring a couple of ingredients.
And so, of course, could I possibly avoid running into two idiots, and an Auror on top of it?
But I really had no desire to bother with any of them — answering Nott, getting drawn into some back-and-forth, and then having to explain to the Auror as well what exactly I was doing out there… I might be a Prefect, but the little spiders had given me quite enough information to understand that Aurors are notoriously nit-picky gits, who'll wear you down with questions, suspicion, and a flat refusal to consider you might actually be innocent.
So I did something rather less than well thought-out. Yes, yes, I could have handled it far more elegantly, more cleanly, leaving not the slightest thread to pull at, but that wasn't really my goal here. I'd already dropped the idea of properly framing Nott in front of the Auror somewhere partway through neutralising the man — it was pointless, unreliable, and rather harsh besides, since attacking an Auror on duty is a fairly serious offence, and neither Snape, nor Nott Senior, nor their master would ever allow such a ridiculous charge to stick. So, as things stood — the memories weren't precise, no one else had any, and the lads' wands most likely showed no trace of attacking magic — if they did, more fool them — so in the end everyone would growl at each other for a day or two, and go their separate ways.
Matter settled, and having vanished into the shadows, meanwhile fixing the oversight of having gone about with no concealment on me whatsoever, I set off on my way. I needed a few fairly mundane things, though getting hold of them isn't especially straightforward, barring the rather obvious option of a raid on the Forbidden Forest. And I could always do a little stocktake of Slughorn's ingredients cupboard, too.
A sensible wizard would point out that all of it could simply be bought at a shop, and that would be the correct solution. But it was night out, the shops were shut, and some of them were shut entirely on principle these days, on account of assorted Dark Lords.
"But it's not night on the whole planet, surely," I muttered quietly to myself, stopping dead at the thought, right in the middle of the entrance hall, dimly lit by only a couple of flames burning in bowls set atop the columns.
That thought was genuinely striking in its simplicity. What would it cost my phoenix-self to fly over and carry me at least… Ah, no — I only know the magical quarters in Europe, and there it'd either be the same time, or night would already have fallen earlier still.
But thinking about it properly — I am a wizard, aren't I? It's all very well, of course, that I can simply go and buy nearly anything I need, but that idea rather dampens my enthusiasm, whereas the notion of getting hold of everything specifically as a wizard, through magic, through spellcraft, does quite the opposite — it kindles it. It's harder than just handing over a fistful of Galleons, more interesting, and what's more, I don't even know yet exactly how I'm going to go about it, which means I've got, if not a difficult, then at least a genuine test of my skills as a mage ahead of me.
Smiling, I headed for the castle's exit, only to run into yet another obstacle in the form of a locked gate.
"Seriously?" I sighed.
Since when does the entrance get locked with no clear threat to the castle or any other obvious reason?
Turning sharply on the spot, my robes flaring out with the movement, I headed for the nearest corridor running through one of the towers, one with windows that opened, though transfiguring one would've worked just as well.
Reaching the first window I came across, I threw it open and climbed out, finding myself hanging over the ground, just past the castle grounds proper. Another point in favour of the theory that the castle wasn't built with fortification and defence in mind, though there are plenty of clumsy hints to the contrary.
Looking out into the night, where only the moon and stars lit the way and the ground below, turning every colour into a single shade of blue, I pushed off with my feet from the windowsill and simply dropped.
The height was modest enough that I could easily have not bothered slowing my fall with magic at all — even someone with a bit of training could have jumped it without trouble. I landed, and set off at a brisk pace, holding myself back from breaking into a run, towards the slope down, fairly steep. And there, past the descent, the paths and groves before the Forbidden Forest began. I only needed a handful of ingredients from there. A couple of herbs, none too hard to find — I'd even seen some already — and two ingredients of animal origin. The first wasn't a problem: unicorn hair.
There are a few herds of them in the Forbidden Forest, forever wandering about here and there, leaving small tufts of their hair, their mane, caught on shrub branches, sometimes even fairly substantial ones. The second ingredient: Acromantula venom. It can serve as an excellent magical organic acid, fairly mild, and with the right treatment would let me etch out of other ingredients whatever I don't need in them, from the physical component right through to the magical one.
There might be some genuine trouble with a couple of the little flowers — I only realised that just now — but I'll sort it out. Now then, onward!
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