Of Coins and Crosses Book 1

When Molly stepped out of the fire, she expected the office to be just as empty as when they had departed it nearly two weeks earlier. She was first once more, so she was the one who was greeted by a smiling Dumbledore, who stepped forward and smiled down at her, face kind and grandfatherly. “Ah, young Molly. It is very nice to see you making a return to these halls once more.” Molly gave a brief smile and finished lugging the trunk out of the way just in time, because one of the twins showed up next, popping out of the flames and grinning.

“Ah, Headmaster. So nice to be in your offices in these present circumstances, unlike our normal ones.” The twin winked at him as he pulled the trunk out of the fire, and Molly got the intuition it was Fred. George was next, and then Ron. As usual, Harry took up the rear of the group, as Dumbledore stood there leaning against his desk, in idle discussion with Fred and George about what their ‘normal circumstances’ were. But once Harry had arrived through the fire, Dumbledore quickly broke off the conversation. 

“Boys, would you be so kind as to take your brother to the common rooms? I give you permission to go without escorts for this one occasion.” He looked over his half-moon glasses at them with a twinkle in his eye. “Not that my permission is needed for you to skirt the rules, of course.”

“Now you're getting it, Headmaster!” the twin who was definitely Fred crowed. George would never have spoken so brazenly, preferring to follow his more outgoing brother’s example. Molly felt proud of herself for being able to tell them apart now, just by their attitudes, after spending two weeks stuck in the same household as them. They pushed and badgered Ron, who clearly didn't want to leave, away and out the doors. 

Dumbledore looked pointedly at her, and she stared pointedly back, pretending to be completely unaware of the hint he was clearly giving her. She did not like the idea of leaving Harry all alone with this clearly manipulative old man, she was a Slytherin she could tell these things, who was clearly trying to isolate him. After a few seconds of staring at each other, and her brother as usual completely unaware of the subtext, Dumbledore cleared his throat politely. “Miss Carpenter, would you be so kind as to step into the waiting area outside the door for me? I believe you will find the cushioned bench there much more suited to your comfort than standing here.”

She pressed her lips together to suppress the grin that was threatening to appear across her face, proud that she had forced this irritating man to tip his hand first. Sure enough, Harry picked up on it, finally, and looked between her and Dumbledore, eyes blinking behind his glasses in vague comprehension. He gave a small gesture of his hand from where Dumbledore could not see it, and she sighed to herself, her suppressed grin truly suppressed now. 

She grumbled to herself as she picked up the trunk and dragged it to the doorway, intentionally scraping it across the floor as much as she could. Petty, sure. But still damned satisfying. She sat down on the cushioned bench, comfortable as promised, and did her best to listen through the thick stone walls. But predictably, she could not hear anything through the walls or even the heavy wooden door when she ventured so far to press her ear to it. 

She was sitting there waiting for about ten minutes before the door opened and Harry came out, a shocked expression on his face. She hurriedly went over to him and grabbed his shoulder. “What happened? What did he want with you, all alone?”

Through incomplete and still overwhelmed sentences, Harry explained that he had wanted to give him a Christmas present and sent Molly out because he didn't want her to feel left out, a stupid excuse at best and an outright lie at worst, was her private opinion but she let him speak anyway. He had been expecting a little parcel, but it turned out that it had been the property of his father that they wanted Harry to have when he was old enough to be trusted with it.

“Well, spit it out! What was it?” Molly asked impatiently as she saw a little black bag in his hands. Well, she thought it was a bag till he lifted it and it unfurled to hit the ground. She let out a sharp laugh. “What the hell is that? Cosplay to be a Ringwraith from Lord of the Rings?”

Harry gave her a look and then shook his head. “No, apparently it’s a rare artifact they had in their possession. It- well perhaps it is better if I just show you.” He grabbed the cloak and pulled it over his head, the thin black fabric turning shimmery before he just… vanished.

“Oh hell no.” She said, her eyes quickly growing wide with excitement. She reached out and managed to come in contact with him. “It turns you invisible?!” was the first thought out of her mouth, quickly followed by the second. “You better not let Fred and George get their hands on this.

* * *

Molly sighed and dropped her trunk in front of the bed with a loud thud, rubbing at her lower back. As much as she loved her family, and she had been glad to be home, she also missed having a single moment of peace and quiet. Complete peace and quiet, the kind only provided by quieting spells where she could sit and think and relax. So instead of unloading and getting ready for the Returning Feast (seriously, did they take every opportunity they could to make a feast?) she lay on her bed and closed the curtains around her, tying the sash so all the sounds immediately disappeared into a low background white noise. She pulled out her wands from her robe, the one thing she had taken out of her trunk and slipped into, and twirled them in her hands. She had missed the feeling of the smooth wood in her hands, already worn enough for very faint indentations in the wood, where her fingers settled into comfortably. The deep blackness of one wand seemed to match how she felt, and she smiled slightly at the thought. Stop being so melodramatic, Molly, she thought to herself as she sat up and, pointing her two wands at the pillow her head had been resting on, she said, “Wingardium Leviosa!”

The pillow moved a little bit, floating an inch off the bed, and with her second wand, she guided it where she wanted it to go. It faltered, like a baby bird that had not quite gotten the skill of flying yet, at sometimes two or three inches off the bed, at other times sagging so it was almost touching the bed, never being consistent. The whole time, she had to constantly pour magic through her wands, one locked on the pillow while the other was guiding it. After about ten minutes, she lowered her wands, and the pillow dropped back onto the bed with a plop. She sighed and wiped sweat from her forehead. Why was the magic so hard for her, when it had come so easily that night when she managed to hurl an armchair at the beast? Not for the first time, she privately wondered to herself if perhaps her brother had, in fact, been right. Could Jesus really have been helping her through it, guiding her along the path to save herself and fellow classmates?

No, surely not. She shook her head once more, dismissing the notion, though she knew it would crop back up once again, as it always did.  Why did they have to be so arrogant about it though? It wasn’t that she disagreed with the existence of God, not completely at least. She growled softly to herself as she thought about it more and more. It was just the fact that they did it like that. Like all you needed to do was say “God,” and everything was all right, all the problems were solved. Taking all of her hard work and tough decisions she had to make in the moment and boiling it down to the word God was the most demeaning of insults.

She forced herself to get out of bed and untie the sash, running a hand through her hair to straighten it out, and slid her wands into her pocket. She was reluctant to let it out of her hands, holding onto the feeling of protection they offered. She had felt so defenseless at home, with no way to protect herself, that now that she had those tools back, she was reluctant to relinquish them. But she knew that if she sat there stewing forever, she would just work herself into a temper and then a panic attack most likely. She could already feel the tightness in her chest when she let go of the wands and wanted to get moving before she let it overtake her.

So she shook her head firmly to dispel the cloud that was settling over it and walked down the stairs of the empty girl dormitory to where everyone was hanging out in the common room. The first person to greet her was Grey, who immediately looked up and smiled at her, from where he had been showing people his arm could lift an entire person in the air. But when he saw her, he gently put down one of the Slytherin older classmates she had never bothered to learn the name of, and came over to her, wrapping her in a big hug. She hugged him back fiercely, and after a moment he stepped back, smiling as he raised an eyebrow. She desperately hoped that the burning in her cheeks wasn't as obvious to him as it felt to her.

“Hey, you've grown so big since I've last seen you,” Grey said. He reached out and pinched her cheeks.

“Hey!” she laughed, swatting away his hands. “What the heck are you doing, weirdo?” She appraised him as well. His robes were slightly disheveled as always, and his hair had grown slightly longer in the two-week absence, still swept down and neatly combed, in contrast to his robes, ending in a slight curl below his shoulder blades, instead of on top of his shoulders where it usually sat.

“Oh me?” he asked, raising an eyebrow in mock innocence. “I'm just doing an impression of what every sodding relative did to me over the break, that’s all.” He rolled his eyes exaggeratedly. “Seriously, every single one of them would come up to me and pinch my cheeks, and ask how my first term at Hogwarts had been. Then they would all flinch away when they learned that I was a Slytherin.” His voice took on a note of disgust with that last word, instead of the good-natured exasperation that had been there before. “They would tell me about how most of You-Know-Who’s followers were Slytherin as if that means I have to go evil like plenty of them didn't come from Ravenclaw or Hufflepuff or even Gryffindor. So most of my Christmas break consisted of me trying to be the most obedient boy I could be, to prove I wouldn't go murder-happy in a minute.” He finished his tirade in a growl.

“Really? They didn't even react to your metal arm, just the fact that you were a Slytherin?” Molly asked incredulously. Grey’s arm was now waving wildly about in annoyed hand motions repeatedly caught in the firelight and created a glint.

“Oh no. Apparently, when that happened, Mom and Dad sent out a letter to everyone in the family informing them of my injury and my new arm. Said they didn't want people constantly bringing it up, as it might trigger me or something,” Grey said. At this point, they were both sitting on two of the chairs at their favorite table, and he was twirling a piece of his hair around his finger, something that he usually did when he was worked up over stress or annoyance. She also noticed how his jaw muscle would twitch as he talked, and his eyes would sparkle with their anger, growing lighter as if light was emanating from them, rather than reflecting from them.

“But not that you were a Slytherin,” Molly said dryly, rolling her own eyes. Glad to know her family wasn't the only obsessive ones. Her family didn't have decades of prejudice to sour them to her house, at least. Just annoying about their religion.

“Nope. So instead of telling them about the fight and how I got this cool new arm, I got to spend my time telling everyone how I wasn't evil.”

“Sounds like lots of fun.”

“Yup,” Grey said once more, the grin slipping back into place. He looked up and scanned the room idly. “Now where under the great blue sky are Penelope and Daphne?”

“Right here!” said Penelope brightly as she emerged from the stairway to the girl's dormitories, plopping down in the chair across from them. “I tried to speak to you in the dorm, but you just walked by. Did you hear me?”

Molly flushed and looked down. “Sorry about that. I didn’t really hear or notice anything till I got down these stairs.”

“Don’t worry, it's fine! I zone out often as well,” she said with a laugh and a shake of her head.

“You seem in a much better mood than when you left,” Grey remarked casually as she smiled once more, beaming.

“Well, why wouldn’t I be? Had a great time with my family and everything!” Penelope said, looking slightly confused.

“Well…” Grey began, looking at Molly for help. She just shrugged, just as confused. “It’s just that before you left, you still hadn't seemed yourself, ever since Halloween. But just two weeks away from Hogwarts and you seem like your old self!” He hurriedly added on, “Not that that’s a bad thing, of course, I’m just curious about it.”

The moment he said the word Halloween, Molly noticed a strange change come over Penelope’s face. Her face became tight and pained, and Molly immediately realized what she was seeing. A slipping of the mask, the same mask that she wore every day on her own face, the mask that she used to hide her rage and her pain.

“I really don't wish to talk about it, Grey,” Penelope exhaled sharply, turning her head away from them, staring at the fire. She leaned her head on the palm of her hand, and Molly saw her subtly wipe away a tear.

Grey was about to open his mouth and say something else, but Molly put a hand on his arm and shook her head. He got the message and quickly closed his mouth once more. Molly nodded and then, wondering how she was going to salvage the conversation from here, Daphne came in and saved her that trouble.

“Oh, Daphne!” Penelope said, bouncing up out of her chair, her somberness gone as quickly as it came. She rushed over to give her a hug, or at least she attempted to. She got within one inch of Daphne before she slid out of the way, taking a step back and glaring at Penelope. “Try and hug me again, and I will leave you hanging upside down all night. Got it?” She said, her voice completely calm, eyes glaciers that stared at Penelope steadily.

Penelope grimaced and stepped back. “You’ll give in one of these days, I know it.” She said as she sat back down in the chair, Daphne taking the seat beside her. Molly felt a smile twitch at her lips despite her best efforts. She knew Penelope had made it her own little pet project to thaw out Daphne’s cold exterior, convinced there was a nice soft girl underneath it. She didn't seem to be making any progress, however, as evidenced by how Daphne superstitiously scooted her chair an inch away from Penelope's.

“If that helps you sleep at night.” That was the only reply Daphne offered, her voice still flat.

“So, Daphne. How was your Christmas Break?” asked Grey, cutting in smoothly to belay the tension that was building. “We covered my terrible one, and Penelope evidently had a great one, but what about you? Actually,” He shot a hard glance at Molly. “We didn't cover yours either, Molls.”

“It was fine. Father even sent a card congratulating me on getting into Slytherin,” said Daphne. “Wouldn't let me visit the Greengrass mansion for Christmas Eve of course, but a card is still more than I expected.”

“So where did you spend the holidays?” asked Molly, feigning interest to once again try and delay talking about her own break.

“The same place I spend every Christmas and the last eleven years of my life,” said Daphne, looking at her and raising an eyebrow, as if daring her to ask her next question. 

Molly knew she shouldn’t take the bait, knew that it quite obviously was bait, but she couldn’t resist doing so. “Oh! And where would that be?” she asked, raising her own eyebrow back in challenge.

“Wouldn't you like to know,” she replied flippantly, a small smile playing across her lips as she leaned forward on her elbows, looking intently at Molly. “So, tell us about your break, Molly. I'm sure it was eventful, spending two weeks in the same house as the Boy-Who-Lived.” Her eyes communicated to Molly that she knew exactly what game she was playing, and that she could play along as well, deflecting back to her.

By the time it was time to go down to dinner, Grey and Penelope were utterly confused, with their heads spinning, as they watched Molly and Daphne go back and forth, both of them not fully answering the question, instead shooting it back to the other. Molly was feeling much better, however. She had missed someone she could actually argue with, someone she could vent out her frustrations against, knowing she wouldn't actually hurt or offend anyone, that it was all in good fun.

The rest of dinner, Molly felt that she could finally relax, put aside some of the tension she had been feeling inside herself, and talk and joke with her friends. She loved her family but God was she glad to be out of that household once more, and in Hogwarts where she didn't have to have theology shoved down her throat at all moments of the day. She went to bed falling into a much deeper sleep than she had for a long time that night, though she did have to clutch her wands in her hand to do so.

The next day she walked into the Defense Against the Dark Arts classroom and swore quietly under her breath. In the front of the room, positioned in the middle, sat the battered old cabinet. All the desks had been pushed away so that they made a semi-circle with a good bit of room away from the cabinet, and on the board, written in big scrawling letters was print that said, Pop Quiz! and then the letters shifted to Unit 3- Insectoids. She plopped her school supplies on her desk angrily, and shook her head, trying to review quickly what they had covered. She knew there were pixies and doxies, and she knew Psychophagic Mites were another one of them, but honestly, she wasn't sure if she was forgetting anything else in her jetlag.

Similar groans were echoing from other classmates as they came in and saw the writing on the board as well. Hurriedly they began flipping through their textbooks, trying to cram in last-minute studying of Unit Three. Once everyone was in the classroom and sitting at their desks, Professor DuPont came down the stairs from the back room where her private office and bedroom were and stood in front of her desk.

“Hello class. It is quite nice to see everyone gathered here after our two-week break, and in quite good time as well!” she said with a smile as she looked at the worried students. Her gaze then sharpened on the raised hand of Seamus. “Yes, Mr. Finnegan?”

“Why do we have to be doin’ a test today? We just got back from holidays, fer Merlin’s sake!” he said, his complaining tone making his brogue thicker than usual.

Professor DuPont turned sharply, and Seamus cringed in his seat as that gaze fell upon him. “Do you think that if you find yourself in a dangerous situation, Mr. Finnegan, they would care if you were or had been on break? No, they would not! That is the point of this class, to make yourself prepared for danger at any and all times, do you understand?” When Seamus nodded hastily in his chair, completely subdued, she turned away from them, robes swishing on the floor. “Five points from Gryffindor for whining and unseemly conduct.” She turned her head over her shoulder as her eyes blazed. “Does anyone else have any complaints they would like to voice right now?”

When no one answered, she gave a small, pleased smile and turned back to focus on unlocking the cabinet. Eventually, she did, and the small cloud drifted out. As usual, whenever it was in front of Professor DuPont, it took the form of a dusty and grimy gravestone overgrown with weeds sitting in the middle of nowhere. Molly often wondered what it meant, and why it would be her greatest fear, but clearly, it didn’t affect the Professor that much because without barely looking at it, she swished her wand and muttered an incantation. With a groan, the boggart began to shift shape, and with a sudden split, it became a swarm of blue Cornish Pixies, hovering there in midair, a dozen or so strong.

“Alright class,” said DuPont, still holding her wand up so the pixies were stuck in place, “I shall give you five seconds to prepare yourselves. Five, four, thr…”

Molly stopped listening as she and the rest of the class moved into a defensive position in the center of the room as several of the other students scattered around the classroom to grab various silver and iron objects from where they lay. Evidently, the time ran out, because with shrill, whooping shrieks, the Pixies were scattering, leaving mayhem and chaos in their wake. They grabbed poor Neville by the ears, one of the people who had been too slow to get back into defensive formation, and hauled him off of his feet, and he kicked wildly as he was raised further and further up.

“Pertificus Totalus!” shouted her brother’s friend, the annoying Know-It-All Hermione, of course using this moment to show off her above-average aptitude at magic.

It worked, and the Cornish pixies were blasted back into the air, tumbling over and over until they slammed into the wall, sliding down like giant bugs. Unfortunately, she didn't think about the fact that Neville would now not be held up by the two pixies, and he hit the ground with a loud thud.

Molly was scanning the skies, waiting for the next dive-bombing pixie. Sure enough, the next one came for her, and she dodged to the left so it zipped right past her, when it came back for round two, she pointed her two wands at it and half-shouted, half-croaked (stupid voice cracks) out the word “Immobulus!”

It froze in midair and began to fall, dropping like a stone. But two inches before hitting the floor, it shook itself violently and began to fly away, zipping in the air up and away.

“Five seconds,” she muttered to herself. “It lasted five seconds this time, that’s a new record.” She had to interrupt her session of self-congratulating herself because the pixie she had annoyed was now coming back with friends. She raised her wand once more, the defensive circle long since split, her standing alone as about five pixies swept at her. She bit the inside of her lip, hoping against hope that the new spell she had discovered would work since it was her first time attempting it in an actual combat situation. She waited… waited… there! They were within range now, less than a foot away, and chittering angrily when she raised both wands.

“Fumos!” From the end of her left wand, fog flowed out of it, a thick fog that quickly made objects harder and harder to see, covering them in a layer of obscurity. After about five seconds, the fog stopped coming out of the left wand, but by that time she could barely see the hand in front of her face. She couldn't see the pixies that were coming at her anymore, but she could hear them banging into objects and uttering confused little shrieks. 

With her right wand, she brought it right to the center of the small bubble of fog around her and shouted. “Lumos!” Light shot out of the end of her wand, and was amplified and played out against the fog like ripples on a lake. The fog twisted the basic light into something like the glare of the sun, twisted and impossible to look at directly. Once the light hit the fog, the shrieks and bumping that she heard reached a crescendo and then… stopped. Just stopped. After waiting a few seconds to see if there were any other noises, she released a heavy gasp and dropped both of her wands, distinguishing the light with a simple “Nox.” The light flickered out, along with the fog dispersing from the bubble it had formed around her, and she smiled as she felt waves of fatigue washing over her.

“Well, I have never seen that particular defense against Cornish Pixies, but I must say it was quite effective,” Professor DuPont said as she strode forward, hands clasped behind her back and carefully stepping over the bodies of the pixies. “Miss Carpenter, you get a Distinction in effectiveness and creativity as well.” She turned her gaze to Neville, who was rubbing his back. “I am quite dissatisfied with how quickly you panicked and broke ranks.” She shook her head. “You should never raise your wand directly into the air when fighting the pixies, for it leaves them ample opportunity to snatch it, as demonstrated. That was a Dreadful, Mr. Longbottom. Now the rest of you, I shall give you a minute to recoup and get some water if you wish to, and then round two shall start.” She flicked her wand at the pile of pixies on the ground, and they resolved into mist once more, coalescing in front of the cabinet.

Molly went over to the water fountain and got her own drink of water, splashing some over her face to refresh her. She pretended not to notice the envious looks and some impressed ones she was getting as she did so, though she could feel the eyes on her.

Once she was done washing her face, she got back into the center of the room, eyes still avoiding everyone, she watched as Professor DuPont eyed everyone. That was why she was the first one to notice when, without any announcement or warning, she flicked her wand, mouth moving, and the boggart cloud formed into two separate entities. On the left were half a dozen doxies, creatures that looked similar to the pixies they had just faced, but with huge ears, black hair covering them, and an extra pair of legs and arms. They all looked exactly similar to each other, except for the sixth and final one. The sixth one was larger by twice the size of its compatriots, with a long nasty tail that looked like a stingray’s. Molly knew her as the queen, far more powerful and resistant to magic than the males of the species.

But that was only one-half of the cloud. The cloud on the right split into ten creatures of its own, a little bigger than the size of a quarter that, if you looked directly at them, seemed to almost disappear, leaving just a shimmer in the air. They scuttled off across the floor in various different directions, vanishing into the shadows as quickly as they had been formed. She discarded the silver from her pocket and began to back up slowly. By this time, everyone had noticed the doxies, though she wasn't sure how many people if any people, had noticed the mites.

She kept backing up until she found herself bumping into someone. She turned her head to see her back-to-back with her brother. She relaxed slightly, finding herself in a new and yet completely comfortable feeling situation.

“Good move with the fog,” said Harry, a hint of a smile in his voice.

“Thanks. No clue what you were doing, though I assume it was a good job as well,” Molly replied out of the corner of her mouth as they turned together in a slow circle.

“You see the doxies?” Harry replied.

“Yup. Did you see the mites?”

“God in Heaven, no. How many of them?”

“About ten or so.”

“Well, great. You were always more sensitive to them, tell me when they are near?”

“If I can.”

“Great. I’ll focus on the doxies. Knowing our luck, the queen is probably going to make a beeline right for us. You handle the mites, I’ll handle the queen, and we both manage to pass this class.”

“Sounds good,” replied Molly, and then they both stopped talking, eyes focused on the grounds and the skies respectively.

Harry saw the doxies first, his prediction becoming right. They shrieked and dived at them, wings whirling like helicopters as they propelled themselves forward. Harry ducked as one took a swipe for his head, pulling Molly down with him. No playful dropping people for these beasts, oh no. When they went at you, they meant to hurt you and they usually succeeded. Their claws, while not long, could cut you viciously, and their teeth contained poison that would normally kill you. Thankfully the Boggart Doxies would only knock you out but it was still an unpleasant feeling and would earn you an immediate Dreadful from Professor DuPont. She felt it go whipping by her, and she silently thanked Harry for making sure she didn’t get cut. They took days to heal and you were not allowed to go to the Infirmary unless the cuts were infected, because as Professor DuPont said, “If you were out in the wilderness and attacked by any of these creatures you would not have immediate access to an Infirmary. Therefore Madam Pompfrey has been informed that she shall not heal you.”

But even if she was grateful to her brother, she wasn’t going to mention it to him out loud or thank him. She didn’t need him to take this as a new chance to yammer on about God, or whatever nonsense sympathies he could. So she just straightened up as it went by, and then watched as it began to turn. It came closer, little bug eyes staring at her, needle-sharp teeth bared into a feral snarl as it shot right toward her face. And… now! She dropped low to the ground as her brother, who she had seen pick a book up out of the corner of her eye, swung it hard downwards, smashing the doxie onto the ground with a wet thump.

“One down,” she muttered as she pulled herself off the ground. She saw Grey and Hermione take down another one out of the corner of her eye, along with some of her other classmates bringing them down with a chorus of the freezing charm. She raised her wands to try and do something, but she found it hard to lift her arms at all like there were cotton balls muffling her brain and she couldn't think properly. Why was she so tired all of a sudden…

Her eyes snapped open and she scanned the ground hurriedly. There, in the shadows of the desk, she saw it. “Harry! Mite, 3 o’clock!”

Harry swung around and blasted the ground with a petrifying spell. The mite tried to scuttle away, but Harry blasted again in rapid succession, and it froze in place, toppling to its side slowly. Molly let out a sigh of relief as she felt the pressure in her head fade away. How could she have been so stupid not to notice it? It was so obvious in retrospect, once the droning noise faded, and yet she hadn't even registered it.

Thankfully, when the Queen did inevitably come at them, Malfoy got in the way. That, in and of itself, was no great help. But the fact that he was in the way of the Queen, with talons and tail extended to ram fully into him, caused Crabbe and Goyle to step in the way, one of them pushing Malfoy back. In unison, without even looking at each other, they raised their wands. “Incendio!”

From both of their wands, fire shot out. About an inch thick gout of flame shot out of both their wands, and met the doxie Queen in midair. And just like that, she was gone. Erased completely like she was never even there. The only sign of her was half of a charred wing, that drifted unceremoniously to the ground, where it lay there, rocking slightly back and forth.

Molly felt her breath leave her body in a startled huff, and beside her, she could feel her brother tense up. “Whoa” was all she could think of to say, as her brain spun in circles to try and catch up to what she had just witnessed. In the space of a second, less time than it would have taken her to draw her wand, let alone use it, they had pushed Malfoy backward, gotten in the way, and used one of the strongest fire spells she had ever seen to completely incinerate the creature. And they had done it all in unison, to top it all off.

Malfoy, the jerk, was smirking. She could just hear his stupid voice, later tonight, crowning about how good his thugs were, how he and Father trained them so well. Beside her, she could feel Harry stiffen, and with a quick glance out of the corner of her eye, she could see him clutching his crucifix in surprise.

On the ground, the wing slowly faded to dust, and so did the doxies that she and Harry had downed, along with the little mite. At the front of the room, she heard DuPont’s voice ring out, and then the slamming of a door. Then, she heard… clapping? She looked up, confused and slightly startled. Professor DuPont was clapping, at the head of the room, with a small smile playing across her lips. “Very good job, Misters Crabbe and Goyle. That is very impressive magic, for first-years. Ten points to Slytherin, for going above and beyond.”

Crabbe and Goyle nodded stiffly, and if anything Malfoy’s grin got even bigger and more vicious. Molly sighed and shook her head. But she wasn’t too mad, mostly she was just happy with herself that she hadn’t frozen or gone into another panic attack. She had been using the techniques Professor Sprout had taught all Winter Break to stave them off because she did not want to explain that to her parents, and now she had also successfully used them to get through an Active pop quiz, the first one she had been allowed to participate in since Halloween.

* * *

Harry was flying high on the broom, bracing himself as the wind whipped through his hair. His eyes through his goggles tracked the sky methodically, searching for the small flash of light, or the light whispering of wings to tell him where the Snitch lay. He saw the other members of his team performing their own separate duties, but he ignored them, pushing them from his mind. He could feel the sun awash on his body, and in the distance, the great expanse of Hogwarts lake lay, with the multiple tiny islands that dotted across it. Occasionally there were ripples in the water of huge beasts moving beneath it, beasts that Harry had no desire to ever meet. All in all, it was a perfect day to be flying. So of course, it had to be interrupted.

“Harry! Harry, can you hear me?” A booming voice came from down below, and Harry looked down to see Madam Hooch yelling up at him, her wand pressed to her neck. “If you can hear me, get down here at once, Mr. Potter!”

Harry sighed and began to angle his broom downwards, guiding it to a gentle stop near the racks and dismounting it. He felt a pang of sadness, like he did every time, with his feet back on the solid Earth, and he looked up longingly at the sky before putting his broom away and walking over to an irate-looking Madam Hooch. “Yes, Madam Hooch?” He asked as he took off his goggles and unfolded his glasses to place them on his nose. He had taken to using his glasses once more, as his supply of contact lenses was rapidly dwindling.

“Mr. Potter,” said a male voice, and as Harry put his glasses back on his nose properly, a man standing next to Madam Hooch suddenly came into focus. He was the Discipline Overseer, Argus Filch. Harry realized suddenly that he had never actually seen the man up close, only from far away. Harry took a second to take in the details. He was a man of average height, around five and a half feet tall. His cheekbones were sunken in and due to that, it made his eyes look more bulbous than they might have with a full and round face. His skin was very wrinkled and calloused, evidence of long years spent in the sun. He seemed to be in his sixties, though Harry was not the best judge of those types of things. His nose also seemed big in contrast to his sunken features, and his lips were twisted into a perpetual scowl. In stark contradiction to his rather haphazard and beaten-down facial features, his hair and clothes were a different matter altogether. His heavily graying hair, while looking lanky and greasy, was pulled back into a tight ponytail, held together by a leather strap of some sort. His brown overcoat was neatly ironed and laid perfectly flat and stiff on his body, cuffs crisp and ironed as well, folded in exact increments. Each individual button was polished and gleaming, so polished in fact, that if Harry wanted to he could check out his reflection. His shoes were black work shoes that also gleamed and sparkled in the dying sunlight, with shoelaces tied into identical bows. The pants were the same as the coat, ironed neatly, with cuffs also folded back precisely. Underneath the coat was a crisp white workman's shirt, and finally to complete the attire, a black belt with a huge silver belt buckle was fastened to his waist, looking custom-made for the frankly gaunt man.

Sitting at his feet, looking up at Harry with far too intelligent yellow eyes, was Mr. Filch’s perpetual companion, Ms. Norris. She was groomed as neatly as the Overseer was, tabby colored coat all smooth and tail swishing back and forth slowly. Now that he was face to face with her, he did not sense that malice that everyone else attributed to the cat. The way they spoke of her, he had assumed she was the Devil itself, stalking the halls and taking perverse pleasure in running back to its master to report on misdeeds. 

For that matter, when he looked at Filch, he didn't seem to be what the stories of him made him out to be either. The stories always talked about this cruel man, who had a half-grin on his face when he took students to his dungeon office and tortured them. A near sadistic man who would push the rules of Hogwarts, making them have the worst punishments imaginable for the most minor of infractions. Harry supposed that he could always be hiding it very well, but when he looked at the man’s eyes and face, he didn't sense that he was looking into the eyes of a sadistic torturer. That look in the man’s eyes, he recognized it, however. It was the eyes of a hardened man, the eyes of a man who had seen things in his lifetime, things that had scarred him deeply, and kept pushing on. He recognized them because… they were his Dad’s eyes.

“Uh… yes, Mr. Filch, sir?” he asked after a few seconds, realizing he had been keeping the man waiting on a response. 

“I don’t suppose you remember, but Professor Snape informs me that right before you were to leave for Christmas break, he caught you sneaking in the third-floor corridor, which was expressly forbidden by Headmaster Dumbledore. You were assigned a week of detention, to start the Monday that you return to school.” Mr. Filch raised an eyebrow. “Must I continue, Mr. Potter?”

Harry felt himself turn red, from embarrassment just as much as the cold, “No, sorry sir. I had completely forgotten about that.”

“Been quite a long time since I heard someone call you sir, Argus,” Madam Hooch said, looking at Mr. Filch and raising an eyebrow. The only answer she got in return was a grunt, and she rolled her eyes. “Well, if you're taking Harry with you, no reason for me to have to stay out in the cold much longer. I don't need to supervise the grown boys, I'm sure they can handle themselves,” Madam Hooch said. She gave brief announcements via her wand to her neck once more to the rest of the team and then cast a wave of her hand over her shoulder as she brusquely disappeared through the archways. 

Mr. FIlch refocused his attention on Harry with those hard eyes. “Now as Discipline Overseer, I will be overseeing and making sure that your detentions are carried out in full, and assigning tasks.” With that, Mr. FIlch, with his cat trailing beside him, began making their way inside. Harry hurried to catch up with their quick pace.

“For the record, sir, it wasn't my fau-” Harry began. He was cut off before he could finish his sentence, however, with a raised hand from Filch.

“Boy, if I had a Sickle for every time I heard someone insist the punishment wasn't their fault and this is completely unfair, I wouldn't be working at Hogwarts still, I assure you. Or working at all, even.”

Harry wisely decided to not say anything else and walked silently behind the older man. From the corner of his eye, he saw Professor Quirrell look at him casually before looking back down at the papers he was grading. He had taken to grading his papers outside during Quidditch practice and games, and Harry flashed him a quick smile but he was already focused on grading, quill back in hand. Once they got inside the warmth of the castle, they began making their way down the long corridors. Harry noticed that Mr. Filch walked with a limp on his right leg and a pretty severe one at that. He also hunched forward slightly, which Harry guessed was to compensate for the imbalance that the limping provided him. But even with the limp, he still walked quickly and Harry had to walk quicker than normal to make sure he wouldn't lose sight of the man.

Eventually, they made their way down the stairway to the dungeons and began walking down the gas-lit corridors. As they did, Harry looked around and saw black marks on the ground, and furrows in the stone. “Is that…” Harry said in a quiet voice as they went farther down the hallways, opposite of the way he would go to get to Potions class.

Mr. Filch looked at him and followed his gaze to the marks on the wall. His mouth tightened more. “Aye, boy. It is. Scrubbed and polished for days and couldn't get those damned marks out. Engraved in, they are. Whatever was wrong with that beast, it scarred the very castle of Hogwarts itself.” Harry was quiet as he looked at the scratch marks. He had seen the scars on Molly of course, had seen the horror inflicted upon his poor sister. But, as bad as the thought was, that had been just flesh wounds. She was just flesh and blood and bone. This… this was a magically reinforced construct itself, a half made of the Nevernever. And the creature had scarred it, had scarred the spirit world construct along with the physical. That was a far more horrifying thought than any scar or imagery could ever have provoked in him.

Harry was so busy staring at the furrows in the stone, and clutching his crucifix, that he hadn't noticed that Mr. Filch had stopped and opened a door set into a wall, a large oval one that had a small window in the center. He was looking impatiently at him, and the cat, Ms. Norris, rammed against his legs in a very unfriendly gesture. He dropped his hand quickly and followed Mr. Filch through the open doorway.

“This here is my office, lad.” Mr. Filch growled as he swept his hand around the room. “I don't use it much, truth be told. I just confiscate things that little students like you shouldn’t be having,” Filch glared at Harry, and Harry suddenly got the irrational fear that somehow, someway, he knew about the Cloak. “So as a result, it’s gotten quite cluttered. I want you to clean and organize it.” He pointed at a side table to the left of the door, where a duster and spray bottle, along with a rag, sat there. “Oh, and absolutely no magic to clean.”

Harry sighed and looked around the office. It wasn't a small office, but it wasn't that large either. It had a desk tucked into the far back corner, a sparse wooden one with very little clutter on it. Harry felt his mouth drop open when he realized that there was no ink cup or quill on the table. Instead, there was a small pen lying there, next to a ream of paper. There were two picture frames sitting there, though he couldn't see what they contained, and various other knick knacks that older people seemed to invariably collect over the years. The chair was an old worn one, with a cushion that had faded from whatever vibrant color it had once been to a pale gray. In the left back corner were two steps that led up to a door cut into the wall, the door slightly ajar. There was also a kitty litter box he could see from the crack of said doorway. And lining the areas of the wall that were not taken up with desks or doors or even a large crest of the Hogwarts House with the motto underneath it, were cabinets and boxes filled to the brim with various items.

His assessment of the room done, he slowly picked up the rag in one hand, gripped the spray bottle around the neck with the other, and began to methodically make his way throughout the room. He started with the door frames first, spraying the rag with cleaner and wiping the tops of them and then the sides. He then repeated the process on the door on the back wall. After that he began to clean the baseboards that lay along the bottom of the wall, spraying and wiping, spraying and wiping. After about twenty minutes of this monotonous cleaning, he really began to wish he had some music to play, preferably hymns but at this point, he would even have taken the god-awful rock and roll music that Molly loved to listen to. God preserve him, he would have listened to Guns n' Roses if it meant he wasn't just cleaning in awkward silence while Mr. Filch read a book at his desk.

Suddenly, from by Mr. Filch’s desk, came a sudden voice. Harry looked up, startled, to see that there was a bracelet on Mr. Filch's right wrist that he had previously missed. It now pulsed with light as the tones of Professor Sprout emanated from it. “Argus, Argus are you there?”

Mr. Filch pulled up his sleeve slightly and turned the bracelet halfway, and the voice abruptly cut off. “Yes, yes, Pomona I’m here. What do you need?” He growled into the bracelet and turned it back to where it originally was, muttering to himself. “Confound it woman, can’t you wait one second for me to answer?”

Professor Sprout's voice squawked out of the bracelet once more. “We need you down in the greenhouse, please. There seems to be three boys who are messing around in my personal stores in the Greenhouse. May you come down here and help me deal with them?”

Mr. Filch sighed and laid down his book, standing up with a groan that Harry couldn’t tell came from him or the ancient chair. He made his way to the doorway, Ms. Norris rising to follow him out of the room. Right before he left, he cast a look over his shoulder. “Don’t think this means you can slack off, lad. I expect to find progress when I return, you hear me?”

Harry nodded as the door slammed behind the man, and he kept cleaning. He cast a look or two at the phonograph that sat in the corner, a huge affair with a gold trumpet on top, but decided it would be much smarter not to mess with his things. So he cleaned. He opened up drawers and straightened the objects inside them, making neat little piles and dusting them off. 

After about another half hour of this, he finished up these cabinets and looked around, not sure what to do. Every surface of the walls and door frame was clean, and the boxes had been stacked neatly and organized by size. Every surface was clean except one. He looked at the desk, then looked at the doorway where Mr. Filch had yet to return. So he took up his rag in one hand once more and made his way over to the desk. He started by lifting each individual item off the desk, starting with the two picture frames. The first one seemed to be of a kid holding a cat, surrounded by smiling and waving parents as the picture moved into an infinite loop. The next was a framed newspaper clipping announcing the end of World War Two, and under it a picture of a uniformed man standing straight and smiling tiredly into the camera, surrounded by other people in identical uniforms, It was old enough that the edges of the picture had curled slightly, even in the frame as it was, and were yellowed at the tips. Harry idly wondered if he had a brother in the military as he put the picture frames back gently in the exact places they had been resting. He then lifted the pen and sheets of paper, wiping under those as well. All in all, the whole thing took about a minute to wipe down the entire surface of the desk. So Harry went around to the sides of the desk and wiped those down too. Then he wiped down the underside of the desk and the chair. Finally, he began to open the drawers that were in various states of clutter.

The first drawer he opened, the top drawer on the left, had the standard things that you might find on any desk. It had a pair of scissors, various other pens and rubber bands, and even a stapler sitting in it. Harry felt more surprised to see the relatively Muggle objects sitting at a wizard's desk, but he shrugged and kept cleaning.

The first drawer on the right was much of the same. The second pair of drawers contained objects much like the boxes on the walls had, but these had an aura of something unsettling around them, something slightly more dangerous seeming about them. So instead of wiping them down, he just closed the drawers gently and moved on to the fourth row. He found a pile of papers in there and reached his arm in, grabbing the stack and lifting them out.

“Goshdarnnit!” he swore as, due to the rag in his hand, he dropped the papers all over the ground. He put the rag and the spray bottle on the counter, and then hunched over the papers, leaning forward to gather them all in a neat pile once more. Once all of the pieces were gathered, he tried to put them in the order that they had been in, though what exactly that order was, Harry had no clue. As he was shuffling the papers about…

Honorable discharge

The words caught his eyes, jumping out from the myriad of pages he was shuffling through and causing him to stop and look again. He quickly shuffled back through the papers, trying to find out where he had seen it. Three papers from the bottom, he found it. As his eyes scanned the document, his jaw sagged lower and lower.

“Lad, what the hell do you think you're doing, going through my papers like that?” A voice demanded as a force grasped the hair on the back of his head and drew him roughly to his feet, so quickly he got scrapes from the stone floor on his legs. He found himself looking rather awkwardly at the enraged face of Discipline Overseer Argus Filch. His eyes bore into him like drills, and Harry suddenly found that he couldn't meet the heat of them, looking quickly down to the ground, where the papers had been violently rescattered.

“Sir, I cleaned all the stuff in your office and you weren't back yet so I thought that I-” Harry tried to keep the fear from his voice, the fear that came from looking into those blazing pinpricks as they burned through him, the hardened and beaten down face scarred, the lines on his face looking even deeper as the clenched jaw enhanced them.

“You thought that what? That since I wasn't in the room you could poke around my private desk, looking at things that aren't yours? Hiding behind it as well, so I wouldn't see you?” Mr. Filch demanded as he gestured to the papers and the place Harry had been crouched to gather them up, which, he belatedly realized, did look like he had been hiding.

“No.” Harry began, but even to his own ears, he didn't sound convincing. So he took a deep breath and tried again “No! Sir, I was trying to help by cleaning out your desk for you is all. ‘Do not contend with a man for no reason, when he has done you no harm.’”

Mr. Filch’s face grimaced before he released his painfully tight grip on Harry’s hair. He didn't release Harry, but he didn't grip quite as tightly either. “See you know your Scripture, boy. Not surprised by that really, seeing your little display at the beginning of the year, but still.” He pursed his lips, studying him for long moments, and then released Harry entirely. “Fine, You’re not lying, at least about your intentions. It’s been an hour now, so your time’s up anyway. Clean it up and I’ll escort you to your dorms.”

Harry leaned down, rubbing the back of his head, and began to clean the papers up, putting them back in the drawer and closing it. He then put the rag and spray bottle on the little side table he had originally found it on, and met Mr. Filch at the door, where he slammed it heavily and began limping down the hallway back from where he had come. Harry hurried to catch up with him, as their footsteps echoed through the cold stone halls. 

As they walked, Harry tried to get the courage to reopen his mouth to ask the questions that were desperately pressing against them. Harry saw something out of the corner of his eye, so he turned his head. Behind him, in one of the side corridors that branched off at numerous points, he heard a swish of robes. His head snapped around and he saw a flash of pale white skin, black eyes, and black hair as Professor Snape disappeared down the hall and into the darkness. Why is he always looking so suspicious? Harry mentally sighed as he filed the tidbit away into his rapidly expanding mental folder on Professor Snape.

“Mr. Filch, sir,” Harry opened his mouth before realizing he wasn't sure how exactly to ask the question. “Those papers…”

Harry could hear the scowl in his voice. “The ones that you weren't supposed to be looking at, you mean? What about them, lad?”

“Were those… yours?” Harry asked, feeling the shock when he read those words come flooding back to him.

“Aye, they're mine. Got my name on them, don't they?” he said, keeping his answers as short and gruff as possible, or that's what it felt like to Harry.

“Yes, I saw that. I was just surprised because, well, I didn't know anyone from Hogwarts served in the army. Were there a lot of wizards who did?”

Mr. Filch gave a very undignified snort. “Wizards fighting in a Muggle war? Don’t make me laugh.”

“Then… why did you fight?” Harry asked, growing more, not less confused second by second.

Mr. Filch, far more agile than his limping leg would suggest, spun to face Harry, his ponytail flipping around with the speed of the turn. “Lad, what exactly makes you think that I'm a wizard? Have you seen a wand? Have you seen me do anything slightly adjacent to magic?”

“But you work at Hogwarts, sir. I thought you had to be a wizard to work here.”

Mr. Filch shook his head. “I have a very small smattering of magic, it’s true. But to call me a wizard is like calling someone with a BB gun a sniper. It’s an over-exaggeration at the least.” Mr. Filch shook his head and began marching up the stairs. He looked down at Ms. Norris, and something seemed to pass between them. “No, I don't know why I'm explaining it to him either.” He refocused on Harry. “If you must know, I am what’s referred to as a Squib by the greater Magical world.”

“What’s a Squib?”

Mr. Filch scowled again. “You just have loads of questions, don't you.” He rubbed a tired hand over his face as they walked up the Great Stairs. “A Squib is a non-magical child born to magical parentage on both sides.” He said it so stiffly, with the cadence of someone reading a definition out of a dictionary, that Harry got the impression that he had said it many a time.

“So you’re parents were both magical?”

“Ahh. I see why you’re the Chosen one, with such powerful proclivity in perception,” Mr. Filch said with scorn as he pushed the tapestry aside and let it hit Harry in the face. Harry sneezed as some of the tassels tickled his nose and he pushed it aside for himself, scowling at Mr. Filch’s back. 

Be kind. Remember Jesus’s Golden Rule. “You’re a Squib, and you enlisted in the war?”

“Aye. Served in the British Army for three years.” As he spoke, he leaned down and rubbed his right leg, seemingly without realizing what he was doing. “Any more infernal questions to satisfy your nosiness?”

So many. Harry thought to himself but he sensed that Mr. Filch was rapidly reaching the end of what little patience he had. “Just so I understand sir. You’re a Squib who served in the Great War for three years, and then you somehow came to work at a school that teaches magic when you yourself can’t do it?”

“And we’re here!” Mr. Filch said with a finality, as they stopped in front of the portrait of the Fat Lady. He leaned forward and muttered the password to her, and with a large yawn, she slowly opened the door. “I’ll be seeing you tomorrow for your next detention. Got it, lad?” Without even waiting for an answer, he stepped back and slammed the portrait in Harry’s face.

* * *

Harry sat down at a round table in the farthest corner of the library from the entrance. He didn’t want to be yelled at by Madam Pince once everyone got there. 

After sitting for what felt like hours but was probably only a minute or two, the people he had invited started arriving. Hermione was first, seemingly having a sixth sense for being able to get to the library. Ron was trailing right behind her, holding Scrabbers in both hands and muttering something about how he had tried to run away again. They sat down with him, Hermione taking the chair on his left and Ron the one on his right.

“Bloody hell, where  are they?” Ron asked out of the corner of his mouth as he shoved Scabbers into his robe pocket and pulled the string most of the way closed.

Harry shot him a look, considering whether it was worth it to give Ron a reminder that he shouldn’t use the word “Hell” in that way. He was saved from most likely wasting his breath when Grey Mandla walked out from behind the row of bookshelves as dramatically as possible. “Don’t you know we Slytherins have to be fashionably late to everything? Making everyone wait quite fits with the whole evil motif.” He flashed a wide grin as he sat down at the table in front of them, his blue-green eyes twinkling.

Harry’s lips twisted into a smile at their own accord, and even Ron lost his battle against his scowl as he grinned back, though he quickly tried to hide it. “So, why did you gather us all here?” Grey asked as he lounged back in his seat, folding his arms behind his head and raising an eyebrow at them.

“I really do not want to explain it to each one of you a dozen times, so let’s wait until everyone gets here. Hopefully in a timely manner, God willing,” Harry replied, and Grey just nodded once and closed his eyes, keeping himself in the very casual sitting position as he rested.

“Do you have all the notes?” Harry leaned over and asked Hermione, who gave him a scathing look and then reached into her robe pocket, where she pulled out a small pouch and opened it. She reached in and pulled out the entire stack of parchment that they had been using for the last week to jot down their notes and sketches, along with two books. Harry wasn’t sure how she’d fit them all in the pouch. She plopped them down loudly on the table, startling Grey to sit bolt upright, looking around wildly. When he saw the stack of papers on the table, he gave them a withering glare before closing his eyes once more.

The next person to arrive was Daphne Greengrass. Her green eyes rested on him coldly, before shifting to Ron and Hermione in turn as she took a seat across the table next to Grey. Her red hair shimmered in the sunlight, and she had it braided down her neck and thrown over one shoulder. The next to arrive was Penelope Fawley, who practically flounced in happily as she slid into a seat close next to Daphne. Her demeanor was so unlike her fellow Slytherins the contrast itself was almost funny. No cold aloofness radiated from her like it did from Daphne, and no easy cloak of arrogance and charm draped over her like the one Grey seemed to wear so well. “Hey guys! How’s everyone doing today?” Harry was the only one who answered her politely, everyone else giving her withering glares, except for Hermione who was reading a book, and Grey, who still had his eyes closed and might have been asleep.

Finally, after what actually felt like forever, where everyone sat in mostly awkward silence, except for Grey, who seemed impervious to the awkwardness, Molly arrived. She appeared from behind the bookshelves and plopped herself on a chair directly across from Harry. “Well, your secret little club is all gathered now, brother. What oh-so-pressing need did you want to gather us for?” She said with a slight grin, the corner of her mouth twitching up.

Harry smiled back briefly, but he had more pressing matters on his mind at the moment to consider. “Thank you, Molly. Now that we are all here,” He looked to his right and gestured with one hand to the pile. “Hermione, should I explain it or do you want to?” Harry rubbed the back of his neck a bit ruefully. “You're usually a bit better at these kinds of things than I am.”

Hermione put her book that she was reading down on the ground beside her, and brought the other stack of books and assorted parchment closer to her. “No no, I’ll do it, Harry.” She pulled the first paper off the stack and laid it down in front of everyone. “These,” She said, pointing to each individual rune as she spoke, “are binding runes. According to Harry and Ron, I wasn't there so I did not see it myself, these runes were on a small container that they saw Professor Snape carrying around with him.” The longer she spoke, the more her voice took on the inherent lecturing qualities Harry had come to know so well from his multiple classes with her. It was a voice that demanded attention, demanded that you sat up and look at what she was saying. It evidently worked on Grey, because he pulled his feet off from the table and sat up, looking at the paper she was pointing at. Patiently and one by one, she went through each rune and explained exactly what they did and what they meant in conjunction with each other.

“Listen, this is all very impressive research on your part, I will admit Hermione,” Molly said, leaning forward to place her elbows on the table and study the runes better. “But why is this enough to call all of us here? Just to show that Professor Snape was carrying a weird canister?”

As she continued speaking, her voice was getting steadily louder, more forceful as her focus grew on the symbols and less on her surroundings. Hermione desperately waved her hand. “Shh! Keep your voice down, or Madam Pince will come and kick us all out of here!”

Molly pressed her lips together but made an effort to lower her tone as she spoke. “Why don't you just cast the Quietus charm so we can speak as loudly as we want?”

Hermione was already shaking her head before Molly had even finished speaking. “No, no that won’t work. I will admit I am slightly above average with magic, but that is still way too above my level.”

Grey also leaned forward and cut his own way into the conversation. “While Molly could have said it a little quieter,” these words were accompanied by a quick glance at her, raising an inquisitive eyebrow. When she just rolled her eyes slightly and shrugged, he continued on as if nothing had happened. “Her point is ultimately correct. This is all very fascinating, but why are you calling us here to show it to us?”

“Because we think that,” Harry began before hesitating and looking at Ron, who gave him an encouraging nod. “We think that Professor Snape was the one who let loose the Ogre that attacked you in the dungeons Halloween night.”

Silence hung in the air after those words. Silence that seemed to just hover, as everyone and everything went completely still. It was one of those moments where, even as Harry sat among it, while it played out right in front of him, that Harry knew it was a pivotal silence. That the responses to those words could change everything and everyone.

Molly was the first one to break the silence. A low, disbelieving laugh echoed through the still air. Harry looked at his sister, watching as her previous good humor evaporated into nothing. “Seriously? Professor Snape was the one who caused the attack?” She shook her head. “He was the first one to come help us, brother. I saw him run down the hall and take on the beast single-handedly before Dumbledore and the others arrived to help him. I…” For the first time in the entire conversation, her calm and unaffected demeanor talking about the attack broke and her voice faltered before continuing. Harry didn't fail to notice that she had both hands gripping the armrests so hard they were turning white. “I saw him as he picked me up from where I lay on the ground and ran me to the infirmary, pushing everyone out of the way to make sure I got the help he needed.”

Daphne interjected, her voice quiet and hard. “And I saw as he came back again and again, to make sure everyone was safe and cared for by Madam Pompfrey. Molly may have been too out of it, but I saw the pain and anguish on his face as he did so. So be very careful who you go around accusing, and especially of what you are accusing them of. Boy-Who-Lived or not.”

“Listen, I'm not trying to accuse the Professor out of nowhere for no reason at all,” Harry said, leaning forward and spreading out the pages. “But can you at least hear me out?” Molly scowled and began to open her mouth to say something and Harry held up a hand and said in a controlled tone. “God in Heaven, Molly! Can you please just hear me out before you go attacking me? I get he is your Head of House and he helped save your life, and I’m not suggesting otherwise.”

Molly glared at him and sat up in her seat. “No, you are just suggesting that for some unknown reason, he decided to let a monster loose and wreak havoc in his own dungeons!” She took a deep breath and steadied herself, smoothing her face over into a neutral expression. “But fine, brother. Please, tell us your reasoning.” She kept her tone perfectly flat as she spoke, icy cold. He could practically feel the frost dripping from it as she continued to speak. Penelope was looking nervously between the two of them, biting her lip.

He understood because he too felt a little afraid hearing that cold voice, it was so much scarier than when she had been practically yelling a second ago, but he pushed it down and focused on the problem at hand. If he could lay it all down correctly, she would have to see the truth of his statements and agree with him. She could be stubborn while angry, but she was never an idiot. “Well, the first thing to note is, you weren't supposed to be there when the attack happened, correct?” Once he got a round of nods, he continued. “So what we were thinking is that he never meant to hurt any students. He released the Ogre in the castle and you guys accidentally got in its warpath.”

“Oh, it wasn't an Ogre!” Penelope said with a rueful shake of her head as if she hadn't just shaken the entire foundation of what the three of them thought they knew. She sat forward, pointing at a particular symbol drawn on the paper and matched up with a description alone. “When I saw this symbol, I thought you guys had figured it out.”

Hermione took the blow the hardest. All of her research she had been doing involved looking at ancient accounts of Ogres and how various wizards and witches had dealt with them in the past. “What do you mean, it wasn't an Ogre?!”

Penelope opened her mouth again, but Daphne clamped a wrist on Penelope's pointing hand and jerked it back. “What do you think you're doing?” she hissed, but loud enough that Harry could still hear her. She dragged Penelope out of her chair and motioned the rest to follow her as the four of them retreated a few steps back and away from earshot.

Harry exchanged a look with a confused Ron, as Hermione began muttering to herself and stuffing her parchment paper with notes about trolls back into her bag and getting out fresh parchment paper and a quill. Harry caught a few choice phrases he wasn't going to repeat about the duplicity of Slytherin and how nobody could just be honest anymore, wasting her time on a stupid wild goose chase.

After a few minutes of him just staring at the whispering green robes and tapping his fingers on the table rhythmically, they finally broke and went back to their respective seats. Molly still had the cold look of anger on her face, but Grey had that sardonic smile back in place. He lounged once more and gestured to either side of him. “After careful deliberation with my colleagues here, we have decided to let you in on our little secret. The beast that attacked us, that made me lose my arm,” he twitched the sleeve so glinting metal nearly blinded him, “was called a Rawhead.”

“What’s a Rawhead?” asked Ron, and Harry was inclined to agree with him.

“An ancient creature,” Grey answered, no longer smiling. “A beast made of bone and life force, nigh on invulnerable to magic.”

Hermione widened her eyes slightly upon hearing this. “I heard they were all extinct a long time ago, and any that remained were too small to be any real threat.”

“This thing was massive, nearly 3.7 meters tall,” said Grey, shaking his head. “Clearly the research and assessment of them was wrong.”

“Why didn’t you tell me this before I spent all this time researching the completely wrong creature?” Hermione complained once again, aghast.

“I’m sorry for unintentionally wasting your time, Hermione,” Grey said with effortless charm and Hermione blushed a little bit. “The good Headmaster forbade us from speaking of it to anyone, to better find out who the culprit might be by accidental slip of the tongue.”

“Oh well, I’m sure that’s quite alright,” Hermione said, still with a faint tinge to her cheeks and she shuffled her papers. “If the Headmaster gave you a direct order then it had to be followed, quite obviously.”

“Well this changes a lot, but not the general details I was going to lay out for you.” Said Harry as he once again resumed the conversation. “As we established, you weren’t supposed to be there and if you had been at dinner when you were supposed to, you would never have gotten hurt.” He held up a hand to forestall Molly’s angry retort. “Don’t be ridiculous, Molly, of course, I’m not trying to assign blame upon you. I’m simply stating a fact.”

“But what possible reason would he have for all of this?” Daphne said, her face still set in stone, looking nearly as angry as Molly did.

“I’m getting to that, Daphne.” Harry was getting tired of being interrupted and it was beginning to show. “I think it was a ploy to finally get the position of Defense Against the Dark Arts.”

“What?!” Molly and Daphne said in unison as Grey raised an eyebrow lazily.

“Everyone knows the gi-“ a kick from Hermione, “-the guy wants it!” Ron spoke for the first time to actually contribute to the conversation. “The rumor is that every year he asks the Headmaster for the position and each year the Headmaster denies him because there are not many Potion Masters from England anymore!”

“So what, he just released a potentially dangerous beast onto school grounds just so he could get the job he always wanted?” Molly asked.

“Precisely! What better way to prove you deserve to teach Defense Against the Dark Arts than rushing down to the dungeons and defeating a very dangerous creature that could hurt people?” Ron spread out his hands in front of him, excitement making his voice grow louder. “And then once everyone saw the great Professor Snape defeat the creature, surely they would let him be the newest teacher!”

As Ron spoke, Harry could see the indignant rage on Daphne’s face fade to skeptical indignant rage. It was not much of a change, to be sure, but it was enough to give him some hope. Grey still sat with his arms crossed and looking quite bored, that half-smile still touching his lips like he found the whole conversation great fun. And Penelope's eyes were slowly growing wider, and she at least seemed to believe their explanation. But she stayed silent, seemingly chagrin from the yelling she had just received. Molly, however… he looked upon his sister’s face and saw only coldness there, cold and hard as stone. No, there seemed to be no acquiescence there at all.

Once Ron finished his explanation, Daphne shook her head and held up two fingers. “One, if he knew the monster was about to attack, why wouldn't he go stop it when he realized Slytherins were still in the dungeon? Two, it is improbable to me that he would have attacked the school itself just to secure himself a position as a teacher.”

Grey cut in, raising his own finger. “And three, how have you not noticed how sketchy Professor Quirrell has been acting? Lurking around always spying on you Harry,” he cast a quick look at Molly before continuing, “and when he called your sister after class to talk to her alone, she immediately got a massive headache. I didn't put it together then, but the one time she was alone one-on-one with him, she got a huge migraine, like the one she mentioned when she had the Sorting Hat on my head.”

Molly looked angry, staring accusingly at Grey. “It wasn't like that at all! Professor Quirrell had nothing to do with my headache, Grey!”

“When I had lunch with Hagrid, the very first time that is, he mentioned something about an Operation Flamel,” Harry said. “I didn't know what that was exactly-”

“But he asked me and I knew I had heard the name before, and when I was doing some light reading,” here, Hermione plopped a book that rivaled the size of some television sets Harry had seen, on the table and flipped it open. “I came across the name!” She shook her head. “I couldn't believe it had taken me so long, but Nicolas Flamel is a personal friend of the Headmasters and was most famous for-”

“Creating the Philosophers Stone!” Penelope said excitedly, speaking for the first time since her reprimand. She spun the book slightly and pointed at the moving portrait of the smiling older man. “Daddy has met him a few times, and I even saw him from afar once, though of course, I didn't get to speak with him. He was surrounded by way too many important people.”

Hermione looked a little annoyed that someone had interrupted her big moment of explaining her discovery to everyone, but it quickly morphed into excitement as she leaned forward. “You really saw Nicolas Flamel? And your father shook his hand? He is like, a thousand years old!”

“Older than that,” Penelope said with a grin. “And yes I did! It was at the Order of Merlin yearly dinner, where the politicians can kiss the arses of the press and the people who have won the Order. Or at least, that’s how Daddy puts it,” Penelope said, pointing at a picture on the page of Nicolas Flamel smiling and shaking the hand of some important-looking man in a robe as he was handed the Order of Merlin, a large medal that was hung around his neck with reverence. “I don't understand what an Operation Flamel would mean though. How would that cause Professor Snape, or whoever it was, to attack the school?”

They all sat in silence for a minute. Harry had thought long and hard what the name could mean but had come up with nothing concrete that seemed to make sense.

“Are you guys serious?” Harry looked up to his sister rolling her eyes. “You can’t figure out what it would mean? It is super obvious.” She then lifted a hand as she began to count off points. “One, Voldemort-” there were gasps from around the table and she waved them away like they were annoying flies. “Don't be such babies, it’s just a name. One, Voldemort died or was seriously injured when he attacked your home and tried to kill you, right, brother?” Harry nodded hesitantly and she plowed on, raising another finger. “Two, Nicolas Flamel reportedly made an elixir of life that gives immortality to any who wield the stone.” Another finger went up. “Three, Voldemort was famous for making tattoo spells on his followers so that if he touched the Dark Mark with his magic all would be summoned to him via the tattoos. And four,” she said triumphantly, her clear pride at laying out her theory having thawed the anger completely from her voice, “everyone knows that Voldemort was obsessed with being immortal along with the most powerful wizard to ever live.” Once again there was a round of winces at the use of the name, except from him, Hermione, and his sister.

“Now that last point is purely speculation, we have no confirmation whether You-Know-Who truly wished to make himself immortal or not.” Hermione was shaking her head. “It has been rumored of course, but not truly confirmed one way or another.”

“They're pretty consistent to be just a false rumor,” Molly said before continuing, now holding up her entire hand. “So if we put all these facts together, what do we get?” She didn't even wait for anyone to even answer, just plowed right on. “We have an insane wizard who is obsessed with becoming immortal who died or severely injured himself while attacking my brother here. We have someone who made a stone that can give eternal life and Hagrid accidentally mentioning something called Operation Flamel-”

Grey cut in once more, to bring up the same point. “We have a professor here who when Molly spoke to her gave me a psychic headache, or at least I think it was that, and Voldemort was known for having powerful psychic tattoos. Also who has been acting strangely-”

“Okay, that’s the third time you've mentioned that without expanding upon it.” Harry cut in. “Do not judge by appearances, but judge with right judgment. Have you any real proof?”

“Okay, how have you not noticed? When we’re in class, he is always showing you more attention than the rest of us.” Ron, surprisingly, was the one who answered the question. “It's quite obvious he has an interest in you, mate.”

“And the fact that he is always outside when you're doing Quidditch practice, grading papers. Or so he claims anyway.” Daphne added, her arms still folded.

“He does that for all the Quidditch teams! He says he likes to look up and see the brooms flying. It helps him stave off the boredom of grading,” He was shot many confused looks from around the table and he gestured vaguely. “I went up and asked about it after the first week. I was curious.”

“No… he doesn't, Harry,” Grey said slowly. “One of my friends is a third-year and a Beater on the Slytherin team. Professor Quirrell is only outside during Gryffindor practices.”

Harry sat back, rocked by this information. Professor Quirrell had directly told him that he did this all the time, with any team’s practice. To find out he had been lied to… well, it was disconcerting to say the least. But they weren't done. 

Grey turned to Molly, who was still looking daggers at Grey for insinuating Professor Quirrell could be anything but untoward, and stared at his sister hard. “Molly, I know you don't believe me but humour me for a second. What, exactly did he ask you about?”

Molly compressed her lips, and for a second Harry thought she wasn't going to answer out of pure stubbornness. But after a second she relaxed and opened her mouth. “When I spoke to him, he was asking me after class about the Rawhead and he had a rather weird slip-up with the word foul. I’m not exactly sure what he was trying to say, but it was most definitely not the word foul. Now with this new information though, maybe he accidentally almost said Flamel?” Molly said reluctantly as she twirled a piece of her hair around her finger, seemingly unwilling to say more.

Grey resumed his earlier thought as if she had never been interrupted. “So it stands to reason that Professor Quirrell is secretly a Death-Eater who was sent to retrieve the Philosopher's Stone to either bring his master back to life or more likely, to restore him to his full life and strength.”

Molly took back up the story thread, not looking quite as offended at Grey. “Why is the stone of life sitting here, o’ wise and most beautiful Molly?” She grinned and nodded to the imaginary question. “Thank you so much for asking. It's a trap. The Boy-Who-Lived, the only one to have defeated him, and the stone to give him eternal life all sitting right at the same place? It’s simply too good of a chance for Voldemort to pass up.” She clapped her hands and leaned forward onto her forearms. “And that’s that. Quite obvious if you think about it.”

“Bloody hell, Harry! You didn’t tell me your sister was a genius!” Ron exclaimed, then addressed Molly. “Completely mental, that was! Never would have put it together myself, of course, but the way you laid it out quite made sense.”

Molly grinned in triumph. Harry still felt compelled to bring up his past point, however. “I shall admit it makes sense, Molly. But then what explanation do you have for Professor Snape with this canister? And also yesterday night I was serving detention with Mr. Filch and I saw him acting quite suspicious in the dungeon corridors.”

“Maybe he asked the Headmaster for permission to harvest the materials of the creature for potential potions. If it is a Rawhead like they said, it is far more rare than Ogre’s. So, therefore, the ingredients would be far more valuable.” Hermione said matter of factly.

After that, the conversation petered away, and people slowly began to drift off. Soon it was just Harry and Hermione sitting there at the table. 

He found himself idly flipping through the pages of the book speaking about Nicholas Flamel, as he brooded to himself. He was the one to invite his sister to the meeting, to share his secrets with her. But she had strode right in and dominated the entire conversation, whether it was through her angry tones or passionate excitement. He flipped the page again, a little more angry this time. There were not many details about his earlier parts of his life, but there were plenty of pictures, so he studied them over, hoping to take the edge off of his anger. But the thoughts still rose up, unbidden.

She had always done this, for as long as he could remember, coming in and quickly overtaking everyone and everything, becoming the center of attention. No, no, focus on the page, he thought sternly. 

There was a picture of Nicolas Flamel sitting in a chair with a distinguished-looking woman with straw blond hair perched on one of his knees. They were both grinning widely at the camera and as he watched he saw Flamel pull at his wife’s hair, who shrieked and swatted at his hand, both laughing. The caption underneath identified her as Penelope Flamel.

But it really wasn't fair, the thought sneaking back in despite his trying to shun them. He had compiled the evidence and spent many long hours staring up at the ceiling of his bed canopy, trying to fit the thoughts all together. But his sister just came right in and laid out the facts in her own view and everyone had immediately just pivoted her way. He shook his head, frustration still growing. Now everyone was convinced that Professor Quirrell was the one who had let the monster in for whatever mysterious purposes he had in mind and why? Because his sister had a headache? A small, rational part of his brain noted that he was so convinced that Professor Snape was the one who had done it in the beginning just because he had had a gut feeling, and was that really very different? He ignored that stupidly rational part that was getting in the way of his anger and continued to brood as he flipped another page angrily.

Now he was back to the page they had started on, with the pictures he had already seen, the serious portrait of the man in formal dress robes, and the picture of him accepting an award from the Minister of Magic. Now he could notice the woman standing behind him was his wife, however. The last picture on the page was of Nicholas Flamel standing amidst a small crowd of young people, putting his arms around the shoulders of the two closest to him and eyes twinkling with good humor. Curiosity got in the way of his anger, and Harry read the caption underneath, wanting to know who these people were. The caption didn’t name names, but it did tell him that they were all apprentices or former apprentices Nicholas Flamel had taken on at one time or another. He seemed to have made an effort to make his group as diverse as possible, with French, German, and British apprentices to be sure, but also Indian, Chinese, and Australian ones as well. Though, and he understood it was unreasonably harsh of him, but he was feeling in a rather harsh mood, it seemed that the two people who were closest to him were the ones from his own continent, the French and German features hard to mistake on their faces.

Once more he turned the page, but his thoughts of Molly made him turn the page so harshly that he ripped a small corner off with his excessive use of force. Finally, this made him stop cold and stare at what he had done, the ancient scrap of paper rubbing between his two fingernails. He took a deep breath and clutched at his necklace, hoping for the security only Jesus could provide him. It wasn't fair to rage at his sister for her actions. She couldn't help it, it was just the way God made her, to be the center of attention, a domineering voice and presence. That didn't mean he had to like it though, but… the cold metal of the crucifix chilled his hand and he sighed. He should really try to be more understanding.

Harry closed the book, slipping the small scrap inside and hoping no one would open it for a while. Not very catholic, true, but the last thing he wanted to do was get a lecture from Madam Pince. So he got up to leave, going to Madam Pince and asking for a teacher to come guide him back to his dorm room in time for dinner. She grudgingly accepted and sent out a message to Professor McGonagall who came at once and also made Hermione close up and go with them, insisting in her stern and brooking no argument tone that she would not be making this trip for a third time to come get her.

* * *

It was a few days after the meeting in the library, and Harry had become even more determined than before to find evidence against Professor Snape. Once he had found out about what the invisibility cloak could do, he had started brainstorming ways he could use this special skill to his advantage. But more importantly, once he found out how absurdly small it could be folded, a fact he could only attribute to some strange magical aspect of it, he found he could slip it into his pocket and it stayed there nice and unobtrusive under his robe.

“Thank you Mr. Filch,” Harry said as they neared the top of the Great Stairs. “I can walk back from here, I know your leg has been hurting you with the colder weather. I do not wish to trouble you any further than I already have,” Harry said, the extremely cold day the newest excuse in his growing list of them he had been using for the past week to make sure he was not walked all the way up to the dormitory by the Discipline Overseer. It worked, and after a few brief moments of hesitation, Mr. Filch’s limp had been quite severe today, that much was very true, he nodded reluctantly.

“You managed to do it yesterday and the day before, so I suppose you can handle it today as well,” Mr. Filch growled out in his rough voice. He pulled his neatly pressed coat a little tighter around himself and glowered down at Harry, pointing one gnarled finger at him. “But if I find you have been sneaking out and about when you're out of my sight, I will tan your hide so badly there would be stories whispered about these halls for centuries to come, do you understand me?”

When Harry gave a hesitant nod, God in Heaven did the man know how to deliver a threat, Mr. Filch nodded satisfied, and turned on his heel, beginning to walk back down the stairs. Ms. Norris rubbed against his leg once with a small meow and then tromped down the stairs after her master. Watching him go down the stairs, Harry felt a small pang of guilt flash through him. He had waited till they were all the way up the Great Stairs on purpose so he would be more amenable to the suggestion of not doing another three flights because his leg would be hurting more. Watching him clutch his thigh as he walked back down though, muttering to himself with each step, it was hard to avoid looking at what his scheming and manipulation had done. I’m doing it for the greater good though. A little discomfort would surely be forgiven if I could prove who set the monster loose and make sure it didn't happen again. He thought to himself as he turned and made his way up and around the corner, ducking into a small alcove. He waited there, trying to convince himself of his own thoughts, hoping it would push away the guilt eventually, for five minutes. After he no longer heard anyone, he reached into his school robes and pulled out the small folded square. Casting around once last furtive glance, he slipped off his shoes, tying them around his neck, and then pulled the robe over himself.

With the shoes off, he made virtually no sound as he walked himself carefully down the stairs, and with the cloak, he was, of course, invisible to everyone. Thus protected from normal senses, he walked down into the dungeons he had just come out of. He immediately went to the huge, horrible scratches that bore themselves into the walls, as he had done the last two nights hence. He looked around under the cloak, making sure no one was there. It was sometimes so easy to forget he was wearing the thing, except for the feeling of the fabric sitting upon him. It looked just like his normal sight to him, just as invisible to himself while he was wearing it as it was to everyone else. Once he was satisfied no one was in his immediate vicinity, he cautiously stuck a hand out from under the robe and felt the wall, where the scratches were. This time, trying something new, he poured a little bit of his magic into his touch. There was a sudden feeling of horrible coldness as if he had stuck his hand into liquid nitrogen itself. It froze the bones of his hand himself. He searched out with his senses desperately but there was nothing else, though he thought the bone-chilling cold was horrifying in and of itself, it wasn't new. He had felt it both other times. He sighed and stuck his hand back under the safety of the robe. Once again, he started tracing the deep black scratch marks back twisting hallways, the flickering lights of the braziers lining the hallways allowing him enough illumination to complete this task, yet never touching the scratches themselves, leaving them in utter blackness as if there had been no light in the hallway, or maybe that no light could even touch the blackness.

And once again, he found himself stopped at the same stretch of wall at the back of the dead-end hallway as before. The scratches abruptly stopped here, the easily led path disappearing.

He pulled out a little notebook, something from home so it was true paper and pencil, and stared down at it. Yesterday night he had gotten the bright idea to bring it along with him and sketched out the wall. It wasn't any truly spectacular artwork, it was just a large rectangle with the exact amount of bricks on this wall drawn inside it. He was using it to keep track of the different patterns he tried pushing the bricks, and in what order. So far, he had had no success. But this was only his third attempt. He shivered slightly as a cold breeze went through the hallway, caused from where he did not know. He thought he heard a sudden sound behind him, but when he looked, there was nothing. He scratched at the back of his neck idly, weighing the risks of taking out his wand. He looked at his watch briefly and saw it was nine-thirty. He didn't see anyone, but he couldn't shake the unsettling feeling of a gaze, whether it came from human eyes or not, pressing against his backside. He looked around once more, but once again didn't see anyone illuminated in the torchlight. So he pulled out his wand and got to work.

He gave himself till midnight before the vibrating on his watch indicated his timer was up. He sighed in defeat and slipped his wand, notebook, and pencil away in his pockets. He was sweating from standing for nearly ninety minutes in two robes with no real air conditioner and two torches beating down directly upon him, and he was quite ready to get back to bed and lay there above the blankets till he fell asleep. He had made dozens of attempts, but he could still not discern the secrets the wall possessed if it even possessed any at all. Harry felt quite sure it did, but after a third fruitless night in a row, he was beginning to wonder if his gut instinct was wrong. As Harry walked away from the infuriating wall, he told himself he would give himself four more days. It took the Israelites seven days to bring down the Wall of Jericho, and if he could not bring down one significantly smaller wall in that time, then he would declare the effort fruitless and give up. Granted, he didn't have the Ark of Covenant, but he did have a Knight of the Cross as his Dad. So he figured those pretty much evened themselves out.

Once again, Harry felt a gaze following him when he left the dead-end hallway and began walking down one of the larger and main ones. Probably just tired, he thought to himself, shaking his head wearily. As he turned the corner, however, he suddenly tripped on the hem of his robe that had bunched itself up and fell hard to the ground. Thankfully his glasses didn't break, instead, it simply flew away. He was grateful for that because he really did not want pieces of it to fly into his eyeballs. But he did smash his nose to the ground rather badly. Groaning, he rolled over, the cloak riding up around his legs and the top shifting off so his legs and top of his head were exposed. He sat up, letting the cloak fall off him even more, and reached for his glasses. He felt around, feeling rather stupid as he did so. Normally his eyesight wasn't this bad, but using only torchlight to see for nearly two hours made the adjustment to the darkness that much more severe. And there seemed to be a shadow blocking out the closest flame as well.

Wait, where the heck had a shadow come from? It was probably a blur in his vision, he thought to himself as he found his glasses and slipped them onto his nose. The last thing he saw was the end of a wand pointing right at the end of his nose, extended from a pale white hand protruding from the folds of a dark robe. Strangely, he knew he should be worried about the fact there was a wand pointing right at him, all he could notice were the fingernails. They were so dirty, black, grimy, and utterly disgusting.

How disgusting. They really need to wash their hands better. He thought idly to himself as his brain narrowed in on those disgusting nails, and then there was a muttered word, a flash of bright yellow light, and everything went very, very dark.