The Invader
It was snowing heavily here, and blowing a gale. Ginny had to steady herself using Sandrin’s arm. She let go in embarrassment. They were on sand - a beach - with driving wind all around them, but instead of waves beating against the shore, there was only jumbled ice. In front of them was a small group, still dressed for the concert, and the arm of one of them was raised, and he was shouting a spell.
Without warning there were cables rising into the air on either side of her. The cables were thicker than her, and were rimed with ice. The seaward ends of the cables were rising abruptly, because they were connected to a tower that was looming upwards, accompanied by splintering crashes, as it broke through the frozen sea. Now a pathway, a road, was emerging between the cables, the sound of cracking ice in their ears.
There was a rumble behind Ginny, and she flinched and turned. A strange long cart was there, with a hooped cover. There was no animal at the front of the cart, but it was moving towards them. The group in front of her were hurrying out of the way, then climbing steps at each end of the cart.
Sandrin was shouting in her ear. “This is not your fight!” he was saying. “Go back!” She shook her head, and clambered into the cart. Sandrin followed her, and the cart was moving, the rumbling wheels loud even against the thrum of the gale. The hooped top of the cart was canvas, and that was flapping loudly now.
Through the heads in front of her Ginny could see that the road was a bridge, that they were high above the frozen sea.
“Where are we?” she said in Sandrin’s ear. The cart was throwing everyone about, and it would have been easier to sit, but everyone else was intent on looking out, and she didn’t fancy being at everyone’s knee height.
Sandrin didn’t reply at first, but then he breathed out noisily. “This is the Baltic,” he said quietly in her ear. It was hard to hear him. “Durmstrang is on an island in the Baltic.”
An island! She remembered back to the Triwizard tournament, and the Durmstrang contingent arriving on a sailing ship. She’d never thought it through. She’d always had a vague image of Durmstrang as being in mountains, like Hogwarts and Beauxbatons.
“How far?” she asked.
“Not long,” he said.
The cart was moving very rapidly now. The ride was steadier, surprisingly. All she could see through the heads at the front of the cart was driving snow.
What am I doing here?
She was thrown forwards: The cart was slowing now, and tilting downwards. They must be nearing the end of the bridge.
The cart jolted to a stop, and Ginny found herself surging forwards, and had to use her hands against the backs of the people in front to stop herself falling. “Sorry!” she shouted, in French and English. They ignored her, and were hurrying out of the front of the cart. The figures in front of her were jumping, and she could see now. The ground was a long way down, but she jumped, slipped and fell, painfully, and she could feel her palms burning where the icy ground had abraded them. She got to her feet.
Ginny had no idea whether Durmstrang had been more like Beauxbatons or Hogwarts, but it certainly didn’t resemble either now. It was no longer snowing here. In the distance, she could see black shadowed hills on the skyline. They were on a hillside, and there were fires around them, some large and static, some small and moving.
As her eyes adjusted, she realised that the smaller, mobile fires were burning trees in the hands of Giants. It was hard to count the Giants, but there were a dozen at least. She could see now that some of the static fires were buildings. As she watched, a Giant smashed a burning tree into a rectangular shadow that was another building. In no time at all the building was blazing too.
The noise was incredible. As well as the roaring of the fires, the Giants were bellowing, and there were screams and yells from human throats all around.
She could see better now. Durmstrang was a fortress, a jumble of buildings surrounded by a huge curtain wall. The curtain wall was breached in several places, and there were fires climbing from the wall and the buildings within. There were windows along the curtain wall, mostly dark but some framing orange flames.
Sandrin was yelling in her ear. “I don’t understand! How did Giants get here?”
Ginny shrugged, but someone else must have heard him. “The ice!” a woman was shouting. “It must be thick enough to bear their weight!”
“In December?” shouted someone else. “Impossible!”
“Are the kids OK?” shouted Ginny.
“The what?”
“The… the children! The pupils!”
“I don’t know! I don’t know!” cried the woman.
The man grabbed her arm and pointed. Through a gap in the fortress wall, she could see a line of wizards and witches, wands drawn. Behind and above them was a strange greyness in the air.
Sandrin was shouting.
“What?” Ginny shouted back.
“They have hidden the House of Assembly!” yelled Sandrin. “The pupils must be inside!”
“That won’t stop a Giant, will it?” asked Ginny.
A Giant was worryingly close to them now, wielding a huge burning tree. He was pounding along the outside of the curtain wall, and they watched him smash the tree against the wall, shattering windows, and then again, further along, and then once more.
The woman shouted something in a foreign language.
The curtain wall was burning at several points now. The Giant roared once more and lifted the tree above his head, and brought it down, smashing the roof. He abandoned his weapon, and ran towards them, and they scattered.
She couldn’t see Sandrin any more as she ran. She headed in the direction of castle, climbed through a gap in the curtain wall, and now she could see the greyness that shielded the hidden building. There were two figures running across her path. One, a tall woman, was in front, her upraised wand in her hand, and she was shouting, and the other, a bulky, bearded man, was yelling at her, while struggling to keep up. They were heading towards another elegant stone building, so far untouched, but she could see another Giant on the far side of the building, lumbering towards it. He had something in one hand, something huge.
The woman was screaming, and running even faster. She brought up her wand and launched a spell which hit the Giant in the face.
The Giant screamed. He brought his arms up, and Ginny flinched. He was wielding something long and square-sectioned – a roof beam, perhaps? – and he brought it down angrily, smashing the roof of the building in front of him, and again. The tall woman yelled with rage and brought up her wand once more. Two more spells, and the Giant was dropping his weapon, and he was falling to his knees, and then he keeled over, across the wreckage of the building. The woman was still running towards him as the Giant’s body smashed the building into fragments, and the woman disappeared beneath.
“Ermel!” screamed the bearded man. He came to a halt, and Ginny could see his look of horror and anguish. “Ermel!”
The Giant wasn’t dead, though. He was pushing himself onto his knees, and with angry roars he used his fists to smash the rest of the building. Huge pieces of stone were ricocheting across the ground, and Ginny realised she had to escape before one of the tumbling blocks hit her. Strangely there was a blizzard of paper blowing around her, endless pages carried by the wind. She turned and ran. “Get out of here!” she yelled at the bearded man. Did he understand her? He could only look at her in bewilderment.
Ginny was running back towards the grey shield – but she realised to her horror that the shield had gone, that the building – it was tall and circular, with huge statues built into the walls - was entirely visible.
Others were realising, too. She could see figures running towards the building – and one of them was a Giant, armed with yet another burning tree.
Ginny reacted instinctively. She brought up her wand, and launched a Stunning spell at the Giant. And then another.
“No!” shouted someone behind her.
The Giant’s step halted, and he was swaying. She tried another Stunning spell, hitting him in the face. He roared, brought up his burning tree, and then he was staggering, falling to his knees and dropping the tree. But he was still moving, slowly, bringing his huge arms up to smash the building.
There were screams all around her. Ginny launched one more desperate spell. The Giant crashed to the ground, and was still.
Ginny stepped forward, fearfully. The Giant was lying amongst a heap of chalky, dust-covered masonry.
Someone was grabbing her arm, swinging her around, screaming at her. It was a man, tall, thin, white-haired yet intense. He was furious, beside himself with emotion. Then more figures were by her side, and they were staring at where the Giant had fallen. They were crying and shouting. Someone – another man - had her other arm now, and was screaming at her too. Then a woman was in front of her, yelling at her.
“I don’t understand!” Ginny tried shouting. “I’m English! Let go!” Ginny yelled at the men holding her arms. She couldn’t turn, pinioned as she was, but she twisted to look around her. There was no avenging Giant bearing down on them, to her relief. In the distance, she could see two Giants smashing an unharmed section of the outer wall. As she watched, one barged the other out of the way as he used his fists to smash the ruins further.
“You killed them!” someone was screaming at her, in English, now. “All of them!” A thin, blonde woman, her face screwed up in distress.
“No!” Ginny shouted back. “I need to go!”
She could see Sandrin Krum approaching now, looking as bewildered as the others.
“Our children!” screamed the woman. “All of them!”
“Let me go!” shouted Ginny, desperately. “Sandrin! I need your help!”
The two Giants were fighting each other now. She could see no other Giants, apart from the unconscious one. Where had they gone?
“Murderer!” screamed the blonde.
“Sandrin!” shouted Ginny.
One of her captors was dragging roughly at her arm. “Look!” he shouted in her ear, pointing to the fallen Giant amidst the rubble. “Dead! Every one of them!”
In desperation, Ginny twisted her wand around and Bat Bogeyed him. He yelled in annoyance, and let go, and she wriggled free of the other hand on her. She lurched forward, grabbed Sandrin’s hand and Twisted.
It was warmer here, and the wind less intense. Sandrin Krum gave a shout of surprise. “Where are we?” he yelled.
“Beauxbatons,” she said. “At the main gate. We’ve got to hurry!” She ran towards the school, hoping he’d follow. All was quiet. Were they too late? She fumbled for her Time Shifter, but she’d left it behind, and there was no time to fetch it now. She was sprinting over the small bridge that spanned the waterfall at the end of the lake. She could hear the sound of Sandrin’s running footsteps behind her change as they pounded across the bridge. It was warmer here, almost too warm now.
She was alongside the new classroom block, but she still couldn’t see…
She burst onto the lawn in front of the Dining Chamber. There was a small group of figures there, standing, sitting, lying on the grass in the moonlight. Older year students, from the size of them.
“Run!” she screamed at them. “Run!” Someone was turning to look in her direction, in puzzlement. But they weren’t moving. “Get off there! Off the lawn!”
Her legs were softening underneath her, and her lungs were agony. She ran towards them, no breath now to shout. As she reached the little group, she reached out and grabbed the arm of one standing figure, and then another, and she was pulling them. “Come on!” she managed to say, hoarsely, hurrying them towards the arch into the Quadrangle. She looked over her shoulder, and to her relief the others were getting up, following them, but still puzzled. “Run!” she panted. But they barely ambled, unconscious of the danger. Sandrin was next to her now, his breath heaving unevenly.
“Wait,” called a girl. “I’ve dropped my wand!” She turned back towards the lawn, and Ginny had to let go of the two arms she was gripping, and turn towards her. “No!” she screamed.
As she did so, she could hear a strange noise, an almost musical descending chordal sound, and the dark sky was abruptly darker still. There was an eddying breeze all around her, becoming a gale, and the girl in front of her was flying towards her.
Something extremely large hammered onto the lawn, and Ginny was tumbling, and hitting the ground, and she couldn’t breathe.
Then silence. She pushed herself up on her arms, fighting her paralysed lungs. To her huge relief, the girl was getting up – Ginny had time to recognise her now: Eloise, the artist, in her final-year now - and looking over her shoulder in shock. Sandrin was on the ground too, looking around, his eyes wide.
“What?” said Eloise. “What…?”
“What happened?” asked a male voice behind her. Then there was a babble of voices around her.
Ginny could suddenly breathe, and as she panted, someone was tugging at her arm, pulling her to her feet.
“It’s a building!” said another girl, in a shocked voice. Halette, one of the newly-appointed monitors. Ginny had taught her music, as well as history. “How did it…?”
A piece of stone the size of a hand thumped to the ground only feet away from them. Ginny dragged out her wand and yelled “Lumos!”
The House of Assembly had made it here, intact. Almost. Looking up, Ginny she see a wide crack zigzagging down the wall. The building was sitting up higher than it had at Durmstrang. She must have grabbed some of the foundations as well. There was rough, undressed stone all along the bottom of the wall.
One of the huge statues that guarded the building seemed to be wobbling. Ginny hoped that was an illusion, but she wasn’t sure. “Keep away!” she shouted over her shoulder. “Keep back!”
She pulled herself free of the helping hand. She turned to Sandrin, who was on his feet by now. “Where’s the door?” she yelled. He stared at her blankly. “The door!” she screamed. He shook his head in bemusement, but then he was gesturing, and running around the side of the building. She followed. Others were following them now.
Yes! Here was a huge door. It was open, and figures were emerging, looking around them in bemusement. The door looked strange, jacked up above the level of the lawn. “Tell them to run!” she yelled at Sandrin. “Get them away from the building! Run!”
Sandrin turned to look at her. “Why?” he asked.
“Before it collapses!” she yelled. “Before it falls!”
He widened his eyes and nodded in comprehension, and he was yelling, gesturing. Others were shouting back, one was running back through the doorway.
Another stone – bigger, larger than her head – skittered down the wall of the building and smashed onto the grass.
To her relief, the figures around her were running, scattering away from the crumbling building. And then other figures – a few at first, then increasing numbers – were appearing, jumping from the doorway, running from the building. She waved her arms and yelled nonsense to urge them to follow the others.
More figures. Dozens of them. Hundreds… How many were there? A couple of taller figures were stationed at the doors, urging the others to hurry. Over her shoulder, she could already see crowds of them sheltering under the Dining Chamber portico, amidst the pillars, staring at the circular building. Were they far enough away?
There seemed to be an endless stream of figures pouring from the doorway. There was a shout, from down the side of the building, and she ran to look. There were a handful of Beauxbatons pupils there, pointing upwards, but then they were running.
One of the huge statues – ten times her height, perhaps – was leaning, and Ginny was running too. As she snatched looks over her shoulder, she could see the statue falling tiredly forwards. Then it became a zigzag of stones, and it was smashing into the grass.
She was back at the doorway now, and only individual figures were emerging from the building and hurrying to join the others. She pelted after them. One – a girl - had a scroll in her hand. She was shouting, and the noise from the enormous crowd suddenly ceased, so there was silence apart from loud remarks from the Beauxbatons behind her. Ginny turned and glared and waved at them, and then there was silence.
The girl with the scroll was calling out, and single-word responses – the same single word from different voices - were coming back. Ginny realised they were calling the roll…
She gulped. There was no easy way of calling a roll of the Beauxbatons, when they were all in their family houses. She trotted over to the cluster of Beauxbatons, and put Halette in charge of organising every Beauxbatons to return to their family house, and get every house to check who was there.
She realised with horror that she’d left everyone at Durmstrang in ignorance… She ran as quickly as she could back to the assembled Durmstrang pupils and tried to find Sandrin, but she couldn’t see him in the crowd. She had to put her hand on the arm of the girl calling the roll, who turned and looked at her in puzzlement. Then she could call Sandrin’s name, and he was emerging from the crowd.
“What?” he called, his face concerned. “What’s wrong?”
“We have to tell them,” she called back. “At Durmstrang. They don’t know…”
He nodded then, and he was crossing to her. She took his arm, hurried over to the main gate with him and twisted back to the wrecked school.
The Giants had gone, it seemed, but there were figures with lit wands everywhere, clambering where the Giant had fallen on the circular building.
“You need to tell them,” Ginny said urgently to Sandrin.
He made her flinch by yelling at the top of his voice, and beckoning to the figures combing where the building had been. Several of them came running, and Sandrin was shouting. Explaining, Ginny hoped. Sandrin reached out and took Ginny’s arm, and gestured to her. There was a conversation going on now. What were they saying? There was lots of yelling and gesturing.
Sandrin stopped yelling and turned to her. “Who did this?” he asked in English.
“Who sent the Giants?” asked Ginny in bemusement. "I don't know..."
“No! Who moved the building?”
“I did,” admitted Ginny.
“How? How did you do it?”
“I… I Banished it. I Banished the building,” Ginny managed to say.
Sandrin gaped at her, but turned to the others and translated. There were looks of shock, of anger, and disbelief.
“Beauxbatons,” she heard Sandrin say.
“Beauxbatons?” asked the man in amazement. Then something else.
“Why there?” Sandrin asked her.
“It was the first place I thought of,” confessed Ginny. “Sorry. And tell them the building is a bit broken.”
The conversation became a hubbub, and Ginny was feeling tired now, and she was shivering. Sandrin was saying something to her. “What?” she asked.
“How did we…” - He gestured a spinning finger – “…Twist over the sea?” he asked her. “It is not possible! We must use the bridge!”
She looked at him in bemusement. “I don’t know,” she confessed. “I just Twisted, and it worked.” He turned away and was talking to someone else then. After more discussion, he turned back to her. “They say, because of the ice, perhaps. But they don’t know. It means Durmstrang is in danger. Although it is too late for that, I think.”
A woman was talking urgently to Sandrin. He was nodding his head, and translating for Ginny. “Everyone wants to see the children,” he said. “We must go back now.”
In addition to all the adults who had been on the island, there were more and more Durmstrang parents arriving at Beauxbatons main gate. Ginny had to find a pair of monitors to hurry over there and direct the new arrivals to the Dining Chamber lawn. There was a busy crowd of parents and children unnervingly close to the crumbling House of Assembly, and Ginny repeatedly urged them to stay away.
The Durmstrang building looked strangely incongruous, sitting blockily amidst the dainty glass buildings of Beauxbatons. Her blood ran cold when she realised how tight a fit the building was in its new location. She used Lumos to examine the outside of the building. Only one statue had fallen, but she could see worrying cracks in various places. She had to yell repeatedly at Beauxbatons who were straying towards the building, their eyes wide in amazement.
The Durmstrang girl who had taken the roll approached Ginny. She was tall and dark-haired, and was wearing an impressive frown. “I am Chloe,” she said. “I am Durmstrang prefect. Who are you, please? We did not hear your name.”
“Ginny,” said Ginny. “Ginny Weasley.”
The girl’s eyes widened in amazement. “Veasley?” she demanded. “Headmistress Veasley?”
“Er, yes.”
“But you are a child… Excuse me, that is very rude. How do you do…”
“Hi,” said Ginny, weakly.
“You can help us, I hope,” said Chloe. “Our students are tired, and need rest. Is there somewhere?”
Ginny had to shake her head to clear it. “Yes, of course. Um. The Dining Chamber is best, I suppose. It’s just there. Do you need food?”
Chloe shook her head. “We do not wish to presume,” she said, stiffly.
“You’re not,” said Ginny. Chloe seemed nearly as tall as Harry, and was somehow intimidating. “I’ll go and talk to Cliny. She’s our head house-elf…”
Cliny seemed entirely unworried that her staff were expected to cater for an additional school full of pupils, plus a dozen or more Durmstrang teachers and an increasingly large number of parents. Ginny had never seen the Dining Chamber so full. Chloe was still looming over her shoulder. “So how many pupils are there?” Ginny asked her, worriedly.
“Three hundred and sixty-two,” said Chloe, confidently.
Ginny didn’t want to ask the next question. “How many did you lose?” she asked.
“Lose? Dead, you mean? None,” said Chloe. “We moved the entire school into the House of Assembly as soon as the Giants were spotted, and then Professor Fischer placed a charm on the whole building. We must thank her.”
“And no-one was hurt travelling here?” Ginny asked fearfully.
Chloe shook her head. “No,” she said. “They were shaken, of course. It is not every day that the House of Assembly flies to a new country. And the landing was hard. But we told everyone to lie down and shield their heads, and they were OK. Except for the Jotun, of course.”
“Jotun?”
“The statue who fell,” said Chloe.
“Oh,” said Ginny. “Yes, sorry about that.”
Chloe looked puzzled, and gestured uncertainly at the crowd of people in the Chamber. “We were about to be crushed by a Giant,” she said, frowning. “Jotuns included. Now, we must stop the eating, so everyone can sleep. Can we remove the tables?”
It would have been much harder without the steely calm of the Durmstrang prefects. The Beauxbatons seemed to be treating the entire event as a spectacle. They kept appearing, wide-eyed and amazed, and had to be kept away from the House of Assembly. Ginny had to cudgel her brain for a spell to put a protective shield around the damaged building, and then prevailed on her monitors to drive everyone back to their houses. It was past midnight now, but most of the school was still wide awake.
And the Durmstrang adults – parents and teachers, she assumed – were the worst of all, either loudly ecstatic that they and their children had escaped with their lives, or already belligerent that Ginny had risked the lives of every Durmstrang pupil, and had wrecked their House of Assembly into the bargain.
Some were weeping at the losses. For although the pupils had all survived, some of the staff who had defended the school had not.
Few of the adults spoke English or French – or could remember any under the stresses of the night – but Chloe stayed with Ginny while she tried to talk to them. The parents slowly left, trailing over to the school entrance to spin home, but the remaining teachers seemed to have nowhere to go, and were too upset, it seemed, to sleep.
“It seems Headmistress Fischer is dead,” said Chloe, dolefully, after listening intently to some of the staff talking. One woman Ginny could see was openly weeping, comforted by another. “She who saved us all,” said Chloe. “She was the one who cloaked the House of Assembly, but when she tried to save the library, she was crushed, and the spell died with her.”
Ginny remembered the tall woman, running towards the Giant. “I was there, I think,” she said. “I’m so sorry.”
“And we know that Professor Opitz is also dead,” Chloe said heavily. “He was crushed by a Giant. He was our Transfiguration teacher. And no-one knows where Professor Rahmer or Mister Ziemann are. We hope they are alive.”
“I haven’t seen Professor Sendulla,” Ginny said. “I met him last year.” Would it be tactless to say he’d applied for a job here?
“Ach,” said Chloe. “He is here somewhere. Come!” She gestured to Ginny, who meekly followed the tall prefect as she strode across the lawn and back into the Dining Chamber.
The Dining Chamber looked very different now. Most of the tables had gone, and there were orange sleeping bags covering the floor, most of them occupied. But few were asleep. Ginny had meant to produce dark blue sleeping bags; The orange was due to her tiredness, she knew.
Sendulla was sitting at one of the remaining tables, surrounded by other adults, talking quietly. He was supporting himself on his arms, looking tired and worn, no longer the bright-eyed focus of energy from the Beauxbatons Head interviews. But he made himself stand.
“Good day, Madame Weasley,” he said, and bowed his head to her formally.
“Hello Henri,” said Ginny, unsure of herself now. “I’m sorry about your Headmistress. And the others.”
Another brief nod of the head. “It was a disaster,” he said. “But it could have been a worse one. We have you to thank, I understand.”
“I’m not sure everyone wants to thank me,” Ginny said. “Putting your pupils in danger.”
He frowned and shrugged. So you agree with them, she told him silently. “You tried to save lives,” he said, diplomatically. “And you succeeded.”
“Do you need beds for your staff?” she asked then, slightly nettled.
He shook his head, looking around at the others, who were still talking in small groups. “We will stay with the pupils. Those of us who can sleep will do so. But soon we must decide on the next steps. We must keep Durmstrang alive.”