Life and Times
Rating: R
Ship: HHr (main emphasis)
The (unlovely) procedure: all rights go to JKR for previous plot and characters, Scholastic, Warner, and whoever else has their hands in HP.
Then shalt thou walk in thy way safely, and thy foot shall not stumble. When thou liest down, thou shalt not be afraid: yea, thou shalt lie down, and thy sleep shall be sweet.
***
Chapter Fifty - Sentinel
***
The Quibbler
ADMINISTRATION FOILS SINISTER PLAN IN RUSSIA
Minister Kingsley Shacklebolt gave a little assistance to our comrades in Russia. Defense Secretary Eaton has called this a, "Certifiable right jab in the face of evil". According to him at a private meeting at the Ministry held late last night, several key Russians, the President himself as well as the Russian commerce sector were all under scrutiny of attack from followers of Voldemort. Minister Shacklebolt gave the green light to a section of highly-trained Aurors to eradicate the blight perversion inside Moscow. Timothy Toulsen earlier today in an open conference to the press stated that, "Three dozen or more radicals were apprehended and taken into Russian and Britain Ministry custody. Protective measures have been established by our Aurors with the Russian government to prevent another uprising. Now their citizens, Muggle and magical alike, can sleep soundly knowing that these extremists are off their streets."
When asked if why the Ministry was so heavily involved in Russia's affairs, Mister Toulsen said, "I cannot comment on specifics, but special means were used to take some into custody. Those means came from us."
When asked why British Ministry would take any into their own hands, Toulsen stated, "Key members from these radicals were extracted for an investigative process."
When asked if these "extracted key members" would be held in Britain, Mister Toulsen asked, "Next question?"
The buzz around town is Minister Kingsley has roped himself a few Undesirables, and therefore Toulsen's transition away from specifics proves this. Of course, the Ministry cannot tell our enemy our secrets. We're still very much in-conflict with what is left of Voldemort's brainwashed lackeys.
We congratulate the Minister and his administration if this is in fact true.
Meygan Brookes
Writer
P.1
***
Halloween.
Snow fell outside, the white flakes descending from grey overcast. Bitter cold, inside warmth was definitely felt. Morning, I sat beside Harry in the kitchen. Both over a bowl of oatmeal, mine with cinnamon, his with sugar. Our chairs together, the seat resembled one bench set for two. Our legs touched, our eyes over pieces of The Quibbler. I held the Arts and Leisure section. Harry had the Sports with the Business section taken out and put aside to read later. On its front, the multi-coloured print swirling and twirling looked cheerful, but further, the swirls came from changing stock numbers, the twirls were of various arrows pointed down.
The headline of the Business section read:
ECONOMISTS FORECAST STORMY FUTURE AMIDST ROCKY POST-WAR OUTLOOK
Even though the perils stared from stale pages, I couldn't live with them. I only want to live in the now…
I gazed with a smirk from my portion of Quibbler, the top curving down with gravity. I took up my cup of coffee by peripheral, seeing Harry in his dark-framed glasses, looking charismatic with a mulberry collared shirt behind a black tie. He kept his eyes on the newspaper, his profile at me, a beautiful silhouette in the mix of natural light.
I leaned into him as I set the cup down thinking he'd look back at me. He blinked, but stayed course, his sight following the scripted lines of some pre-game Quidditch match hysteria. I gave him an eye roll, being obvious, taking a finger and running it over his earlobe. He smiled in his profile, tilting into my touch, but took attention to his own hot coffee instead.
I huffed, my chest heaving, my mind reeling in the notion that he did all this on purpose. I sighed, slid my black legging-covered calf over his black trouser leg and watched him become aware. His eyebrows rose and he laughed, glancing from his left at the smirk I carried, my leg diving between his two. I brought my other leg up, crisscrossing and seeing, and then feeling Harry catch them as he held my thighs upon his lap.
He set his cup down, moved his left hand up the back of my neck, between the collar of the emerald velvet military coat I wore, and brought me to him carefully. I insisted, taking initiative to happily go to his waiting lips where I kissed him, my hands, and fingers upon his cheek. We smiled in caress, our noses pressed together, snickering at the tickling sensation-more his fingers dancing under the table on my thigh.
When fully content by our answer to the equation, we released, my head dropping to his shoulder.
"You look absolutely gorgeous," he said, wrapping an arm about me.
I tapped the tip of his nose with a finger, "And, you're very handsome."
"What a duo we make."
I took my arms and slipped them around him, squeezing him in embrace, my forehead still on his shoulder.
"At the shop, we only need to buy a new mask, right? After I accidentally dropped the other?"
"Some sewing thread for your cape, too. That little bit of thread unraveling back there, remember?"
"Ah, yes," Harry spoke with the coffee cup to his lips, among taking another spoonful of oatmeal. "You know, it's always nice when one of your lessons is canceled. I get to see more of you."
He leaned in and kissed the top of my head.
"I can't wait to see the decorations tonight in the Great Hall. I'm sure Flitwick will try and liven things up after all the-"
"Are you sure you still want to chaperone the event with me tonight?" He looked at me from the newspaper, placing it on the table to take back up his cup. He set it down after, empty. "Just because I have to go-"
"You asked me-Flitwick gave the go-why wouldn't I? Seeing the castle will like having a reunion. I'm sure Hagrid will be pleased to see us two, together."
"Well, for starters…," He locked onto my gaze above his glasses, and I could read plainly without words.
"If I go about hiding, how am I going to live my life?" I asked this almost sarcastically, following it by statements he'd said before: "Isn't that something you've told me? Don't I sound just like you when you asked that same question?"
"Okay…," He said, surrendering to the rebuttal. It was his words after all. He slipped from me, easing my legs from his lap and took up his bowl and cup. "We better go before the crowds come. You know how I-"
"I'm not some delicate flower," I chided him, having stepped to the sink to put my bowl with his. He'd already rinsed what he used, taking mine.
"Hm…"
"Don't you `hm…' me!" I nudged him with my hip.
"HM…!"
I smacked his shoulder.
He poked my stomach.
In reflex, I jumped back.
In that signature smirk, I watched him through slits.
"You are," he began, flipping the faucet off and flicking excess water from his hands before drying them off. He looked at me. "You are my delicate flower."
"I'm older than you!"
"What has that got to do with anything? But yes, you have aged. I concur."
I gasped. "Must I get rough with you after your…your deeply slanderous remarks, being birthed one year before you?"
"Rough?" Somehow I knew that would be the only word he chose from context. I knew that the millisecond after absorbing what I confessed. He thought a moment, in character. He put his hand to his chin, his focus at the ceiling.
I rolled my eyes at his horrible acting.
"Oh… I'd actually like that…," his eyes grew wide, and that grin…
I shrieked when I saw him dart after me.
Fleeing, I made my way around the wall to the corridor leading outside. I heard his feet behind me in pursuit. At arm's length I saw him, looking back as I caught my black newsboy cap from a hook near the door. A twist of the knob, and I was thrust into a frozen London day…my Love bounding at an alarmingly monstrous rate. I saw some people walking along the pathway beyond the iron fence and hoped they hadn't seen us come from thin air, but hadn't enough time to recognize anything but Harry's few swipes at me
With an idea, I scooped up some snow along the way.
I reached back and threw it at Harry mid-step.
His trench coat went from black to white, and I went into a giggle-fit.
"Oh! You…"
He'd caught me, picking me straight from the ground and pirouetted, the world rotating, my long mahogany curls beneath the cap floating aimlessly in the wind we created.
We kissed whilst Harry carried me through the gateway to his parked chrome BMW, its hood, top, and tail with heaps of snow. He opened the passenger-side door and let me down, my boots hitting the cement.
He patted my bum, shuffling before I could get him back.
I leapt and swatted at him. He escaped both of my mitten-clad swipes, running around the side of the car to get to the driver's side, his hands relieving the hood from the snow along the way. "Hurry and get in the car," he laughed.
"You `hurry and get in the car'!" I stuck my tongue out at him, the audience of an older couple watching us. Door ajar, I sat down, watching Harry move in and shut his as well. I pushed on him as I took control of the seatbelt, securing it while keeping Harry at bay. He'd gone into tickling-mode, a level I struggled with.
His BMW roared to life.
"Ready?" He questioned, knowing quite well he'd get only giggles in return.
His fingers deep into my side, all I could do was laugh.
I grabbed his tie and pulled him to me, kissing him when I could.
He spun the tires, causing quite the scene for our morning onlookers, and sped off down the street.
***
Standing in front of the vanity's mirror in our master bedroom, I watched as my hands went about teasing by brush and iron the curls cascading down. They needed to be extra-twined, extra-bouncy to coordinate, darkly brown, shiny, and exceptional to the white corset gown I wore beneath. Porcelain skin, black mascara, the gown growing in ruffle at me feet… Everything was marvelous. I smiled, giving myself a pat on the back, becoming Christine for the night.
From the corner of the room, our persona's spoke in song, my mouth whispering the lyrics:
"In sleep he sang to me… In dream he came," Leaning towards the mirror, I applied the reddest of the red pigment to my lips. "And do I dream again? For now I find…"
Harry came from the lavatory, handsome in his cape and tail, a crimson-coloured shirt and vest. A white fluffy, pristine bonnet poured from his chest. An ebony shell, his mask hid that part of him, the scar and black mark of his face. His hair slicked back with mousse, dashing with an incredible smile when he saw me swiftly turn to his entrance and grin.
"…The Phantom of the Opera is there. Inside my mind!" I smirked.
He slipped to me, putting a hand on my lithe figure, thin waist and hip pulled together by matching bodice. He looked into my eyes, the low light making the eye, the partially hidden and revealed darker with that glinting light, "Sing once again with me our strange duet… My power over you grows stronger yet!"
"And though you turn from me to glance to behind…," My face shifted downward, to be propped and leveled, his hand at my chin to see me again, "The Phantom of the Opera is there inside your mind!"
Reaching up, the pads of my fingers softly slid down his mask to the exposed skin, his cheek, his chin, my eyes wandering to those which I touched to be locked back to him, "Those who have seen your face draw back in fear… I am the mask you wear…"
"…It's me they hear," He took my waist, my hips with his strength.
Together, focused on one another:
"Your spirit and my voice in one combined-the Phantom of the Opera is there-"
"Inside-"
"My-"
"Your mind!"
Silence filled the room, our vision but of its mate's until…
…We started snickering.
"Your chariot awaits, milady," Harry lowered to plant a kiss on my hand. He glanced up at me to say, "If you're so ready to venture forth into this beastly night."
"Willst thou defend me, o' protectorate?"
"Never doubt this hand," He kissed my hand again, his hand with mine. "The hand of your esteemed protector. I will do anything for thee till my dying breath, by sentence and oath to my name, beloved mademoiselle."
I became more than giddy, doing a little skip.
"Let us go!"
"Lead the way," He motioned with a sweep of his hand the door. "My most cherished affection."
As I led him from the bedroom, I stopped, suddenly to Harry, and kissed him without limit, carefully, and tenderly.
***
In Studio with Kelly Morgan, Wizarding News Network
"Hello," says a lively Kelly Morgan behind her desk in front of a tinted windowed view outside of Violet Hill's main street. "And welcome back to In Studio with your host, Kelly Morgan. To today's fiery campaign headlines!"
A picture of a smiling Quincy Nolpho in profile waving to an audience of thousands is shown beside Kelly.
"As we all know by now, Senior Ministry Officer and member of the Wizengamot, Quincy Nolpho, has been catapulting himself amongst the people with a chance to win what has been touted as the `most momentous re-election in the history of the Ministry'. The doldrums of a post-War epidemic, a diving stock market and flat-lining base, coupled with real threats from rogue Death Eaters has made Minister Shacklebolt a mere punching bag for those who want in. Several others, Samuel Voss, another Senior Ministry member and Law advocate for the Liberty Rights group as well as Charity Ashewater, a People's advocate who has underlined the inability and passiveness of Minister Kingsley's administration have also thrown their hats into the ring."
A moving picture of Quincy Nolpho shaking hands with Rita Skeeter, and then Szrixx Steelknuckles replaces the still-shot profile photograph from before.
"Though these others have not been singled out by the Daily Prophet's Chief Executive, Rita Skeeter, and Grand Overseer of Gringotts, Szrixx Steelknuckles, on their campaign for Minister of Magic. Quincy Nolpho has been featured several times now, given a great deal of advertising in the internationally-acclaimed newspaper. Full colour pages have been dedicated to him, transcribing his `Deal to Britain'. `With his leadership,' he announces. `Will bring upon a greater light and substance unforeseen by the British people in more than a decade.'"
Another shot of Quincy Nolpho moving in-and-out of groups, shaking hands with people, writing autographs, taking pictures with those with cameras, mobiles is shown aside Kelly delivering.
"When asked by one of our reporters on scene at a campaign rally in London what he thinks of the poll where Harry Potter overtakes him by double digits, Mister Nolpho found it highly amusing, stating, `True leadership comes from those who have served the people and have had true life wisdom. I wouldn't put in an eight year old to do a man's job.' Fighting words to those who wish Mister Potter would elect to throw his hat into the ring as well. As of yet, we haven't heard Harry Potter or associates surrounding him if he will even consider a run for office. Anonymous sources have pointed `yes,' fueling more fire over at Camp Potter."
"Last night at a rally held in Dublin, Nolpho said this:"
The screen is filled with Nolpho, behind a podium, Union Jack in all its glory flowing in the wind behind him. Microphones are stationed, cluttered, on his desk. He points off into the camera, flashes dazzling from the sheer array of spectators.
"We can do this! We will do this! This is our chance! This is our time! This is our country!"
The audience is in tumultuous cheers.
"Minister Kingsley-leave your throne now!"
An uproar is heard, and then the television screen is back with Kelly.
"Advisors close to the Nolpho campaign have created their first, of many I'm sure, television ads. Britain's first look, here, only on WNN."
Various snapshots of Minister Kingsley apologizing after a death here, another death, another citizen's death, more sorry's and more apologies since he was sworn in as Minister after the War. Statements are put up on screen, statements taken from the Post varying of more apologetic dialogue to other nations for their threats, and subsequent deaths. A noise behind the ad at first: a heartbeat. More quick shots showing shocked faces looking up at a falling stock market, a man's hand is over his mouth as he watches a stock tumble.
All the while, a voiceover, the apology Minister Kingsley offered after Minerva's death.
The word "REGRET" is displayed.
Images of Death Eaters swarm the screen, blood-curdling screams, hastened shots of Prophet Headlines streaming the failures of Kingsley, the people around him, his administration, Harry Potter…
The heart's beat stopped…
And then a light: Quincy Nolpho walking down an aisle of happy faces, exuberant crowds with signs supporting Quincy Nolpho for Minister of Magic.
The Ministry's Court anthem plays.
Text is written:
For a better future, Quincy Nolpho.
Paid for by We Want Change, Inc.
Kelly comes on screen again.
"Wow, that was…," She sighs and shakes her head. "Well, we report and you decide. What do you think of the advertisement? Feel free to write us at…"
***
Starting with the door of the Great Hall, one would know the next few steps would take them into a whole different realm. The doors, which were non-decorative, normal hard oak, were now made to look decrepit and worn from weather, creaky and gnarled. The sort of door you'd see on an old, unkempt mansion. Fog dispersed out into the corridors, the ghosts of Hogwarts rampant, the Friar and kin scaring the young ones in shrill screams. You could hear the echoes of the ghost's laughs after they'd get someone.
Walking in, one would feel the crunch of grass, an in-door graveyard with gravestones littered where once stood seats and tables. The fog grew thicker the further you went, waist-high, with a thunder and lightning-filled smear of churning clouds overhead. The refreshments sat on coffin-like structures, skeletons and zombies watching over the food and drink-the faculty dressed for the occasion-competing with the students for best dressed. Only the Hogwarts's faculty would try and outdo their students in costume.
Live bats flew above, charmed to not bother a soul but produce the ambient feel alongside crooked trees and their twisted branches reaching towards the centre of the Hall. I met costumes ranging from Muggle-variety to Wizarding-kid, everything from superman and Madonna, to Viktor Krum and even a ferociously scary little blonde girl dressed as Rita Skeeter. I did laugh at another little girl bounding around her clique as Luna. Of course, a few of the boys, young and old, sported their best Harry look-a-like. I saw Madam Hooch, dressed as a hawk, a colourful plumage hanging from her arms, wings, her nose a beak. She escorted an older male student out of the Hall after trying to come in as Voldemort.
What child wouldn't try to push that boundary?
From afar, I saw five points leave Slytherin's hourglass on stage behind a band that played the atmosphere's music, a haunting melody, all five of the band members made from the living dead.
Harry was beside me for most of the night. He'd have to go, leave me to attend a conflict in the crowd. A fight broke out in the middle of the dance floor. As I looked on with Professor Binns, who I had been talking to about Oxford, saw Harry run to stop a mummy and Frankenstein from fighting over a princess. I returned to Professor Binns, an amusing picture of a ghost-Dracula, after seeing Harry return after tossing out the boys with Madam Hooch, the princess at their heels in defense for one or both.
Hagrid dressed as the Hunchback of Notre Dame, a clever costume I added in conversation. Harry, with his arm around me, listened on with pumpkin juice. Hagrid, not having seen me since my leave, asked question upon question about everything and anything. His history with the Muggle-world had been…limited…what with being part-giant. He was most interested in the Muggle professors, asking if there was a class identical to his.
I gave him a no, shaking my head.
To his reply, "Nothing could replace me!"
Harry and I laughed, with Harry saying, "Nothing can replace you, Hagrid."
"Very true," I ended.
Madam Hooch, who stood out as main faculty-chaperone, treaded the graveyard, maneuvering around the stones to get to Harry and me after wagging a finger at another group for trying to instigate conflict. She gave me a hug, for Madam Hooch felt more like family after Harry set to take her place in a year or two, their lives integrated and mine by proxy with all the stories he'd share when he got home. Stories about how he'd feel free on his broom. She complimented our couple's attire. She had to flee soon, however, flying to another potential problem near the punch bowl.
"I'm sorry," he said to me after looking away. An objectionable situation had to be dealt with…a couple displaying a bit too much public display of affection.
"That's all right," I nodded, his hands leaving me. "Go take of what needs to be taken care of. I'm fine."
"Really?" he asked, this being repeated throughout the night when he'd have to perform his duties. I was, more or less, under his watchful eye.
"Go!" I laughed.
I had his hand at the end, our fingers slipping away.
"I love you," he said, becoming one with the fog, the graveyard.
"I love you!" I saw him disappear, knowing he'd come back to me.
With a pumpkin pasty in hand, I wandered out of the Hall for some fresh air. I wouldn't be long at all. With all the bodies, the music… The faculty had put an enchantment for the evening so we wouldn't all catch a cold, so when I stepped out towards the Memorial Gardens I didn't freeze. Ornate railing beneath a tri-cornered roof, I stood looking off over the fields of flowers, the pebble stone pathways. I felt a breeze, it feeling like any ordinary breeze you'd feel on a summer's day… The enchantment put a halt to the snow, but I watched the ice crystals fall carelessly from a pitch-dark, clear sky. The moon, full, kept its watchful eye, the bluish-white tint shielding my pale skin and white gown.
People, students, went about behind me in patches, small groups. Couples went about in their gaiety within what was considered by many as the safest place in the country. The youthful spirits couldn't imagine what I saw now, compared to then, as corpses of enormous spiders, giants, human, friend… Now everything was bright and growing, rebuilt and put together.
A brand new era.
Wrapped in my own world, I instantly was startled. I'd heard a rough voice next to me. I swore it was Hagrid at my left, but when I swiftly flicked my head in that direction saw a muscular male, tall in height, wearing the costume of Batman. I could only see his bluest of vividly blue eyes. The hue bordered on the unreal. The black and grey, the cape, the mask hid him from his nostrils upward. I could see his mouth, a smile, a look of surprise when I jumped.
"Sorry `bout that," he chuckled warmly. "Didn't mean to scare you. That was the last thing I'd want to do."
I had my hand on my chest where it lay after I jumped. "It's okay," the words fumbled as I tried to recollect. I questioned, "I thought I heard something. Did you say something?"
"I asked how you thought of this weather," his hands carefully held a cup of pumpkin juice in front of him, held over the railing mimicking my stance. His eyes even roamed the distance similarly, gazing up towards the sky, and then across the fields of flowers and the moonlit-tinged alabaster statue of Dumbledore with his outreached hand towards the Heavens.
My eyes lingered on him.
I swore I…
He looked at me, and my head immediately left his focus.
I swallowed, my mind racing…
…Something so…familiar…his smile?
"Did I say something wrong?" I could hear the bewilderment in his tone, the smile faltering. "If I did…"
My mind wandered haphazardly into a helter-skelter mash of thought.
…Could they have…truly…?
Death Eaters?!...
…Harry's office…
…Harry!
My mind, a card-catalog, rifled until it chose one person in particular I stood vigilant to watch out for:
Xavier!
"I've got to go." I said this quick, pivoting right around and left the caped crusader by his lonesome.
I nearly ran, my pace fast, my feet nearly stumbling over themselves.
I didn't want to cause a scene, and I didn't want to trip over myself, my gown now a hazard to my health. All I wanted to do was get to Harry… I shouldn't have left in that bit of time, even for the few minutes I did. Christ! Think next time, Hermione! I should have stayed in Harry's sight, around the vision of Madam Hooch and Hagrid, Headmaster Flitwick, even Professor Trelawney. The music swelled as I closed in, the doors of the Hall open.
"Have you seen Harry?" I asked of Nearly Headless Nick when he zoomed on by.
"Harry? My dear girl, no! I have not! Should I have?"
The room became a dizzying bellow of noise.
I felt something squeeze inside my chest.
Should I have stayed home?
No…
"Harry!" I screamed out. I could just feel those…eyes…on me.
Xavier, somewhere around the corner, Death Eaters…that night…his laughter…the swarm…swarm…death…
An image of a snarling Voldemort standing over Harry's dead body, his blood spilling like a ready fountain.
I held my head, the room spinning.
"Harry?" I felt someone touch me, grab onto me, hold me.
Their touch wasn't…
My vision blurred.
My head tinged in washes of white-hot flashes.
"Yeah," His voice… Not his voice… It wasn't his voice! "I'm getting you out of here. It's… It's not safe here anymore, Hermione…"
I tried to push, fell backwards and stumbled drunkenly into a dancing pair.
The same hands went to take me again, their icy claws grasping anywhere they could, leading me out of the Hall as the Hall enveloped in fog and darkness. The world seemed to cave in on itself. I couldn't see a bastion of light, not a speck, not a glimmer of…
"Get off her!"
My vision returned, and in that moment, felt the warm aura, the smell of pumpkin. Harry, and beyond him, us, a rotting, bludgeoned lich. A sneer, and a laugh, the very walls echoed the sinister thrill in his voice over the confounded musical thrall.
"What are you going to do?!" He laughed again, the lich basking in his self-proclaimed righteousness, throwing his arms in the air. "You look to kill! Are you going to hit me, Potter?"
He laughed, people turning from all the commotion. "Is our Savior, our God, Potter going to hit poor, innocent ol' me? I'm sure the papers would like a photograph of a nice shiner brought upon by `Briton's finest', eh?"
"What is the meaning of this, Hart?!" Madam Hooch had swooped in behind us.
"Come on, Potter!" Xavier howled, pounding his chest. "Hit me! HIT ME!"
Harry balled his fist up, his arm around me snug.
I could feel him tighten, his feet firmly planted.
"I want to see your fucking arse in Azkaban, filthy Muggle-lover!"
"Month's detention and fifty points from Slytherin!"
"Oh sod off you stupid Muggle-loving whore," Xavier, eyes rolling, seemed agitated that someone had stepped on the stage he set.
"YOU'VE JUST SEALED YOURSELF IN DETENTION UNTIL THE DAY YOU GRADUATE, BOY! ONE HUNDRED POINTS FROM SLYTHERIN!"
Some in the crowd surrounding us cheered.
I couldn't make out whom or for what, the cheering for the deductions of their fellow Slytherin for standing up to a teacher, everyone's face hidden in costume and masks.
"ALL RIGHT! ALL RIGHT!" Hagrid's monstrous boom began to shake up the onlookers. "YOU LOT-EVERYONE-MOVE OUT! GET TO BED!"
The crowd began to chant: "FIGHT! FIGHT! FIGHT! FIGHT!"
"Come on you worthless half-breed!" Xavier smirked. "You've wanted to hit me! I know you've craved a moment to hit me! You dream of it!
"Well…," Xavier taunted with a finger. "HERE I AM!"
"Harry…," I began pulling him back, away, but he remained catatonic. His eyes bore holes into Xavier's wriggling body.
Xavier reached up, imitating a fist and punched himself in his left eye.
He mouthed, "POW!"
He smiled afterwards.
"YOU'RE EXPELLED, HART!!" declared Madam Hooch, pointing a finger at him, and then at the opened doors.
"Tell me, Potter," Xavier breathed in with ease, smugness, and smirked. "Do Mudblood's like to lie on their back or do they prefer to…take it from behind?"
"Harry!" He bolted towards Xavier, leaving me behind. I went to grab him, but he left the grasp as if he'd changed from solid to liquid. Madam Hooch screeched, the crowd egging them on, bloodthirsty witnesses for Harry. His fist high, he coordinated his aim, drawing closer in distance.
Xavier stood waiting, never ceasing his smile…
…Xavier shut his eyes, portrayed further a toothy grin.
From neither side, nowhere, from anywhere, appeared Batman from the students. In a flash, his step was here to there, a whitish smoke-like trail his wake. He caught Harry's fist inches from Xavier's face, putting his other arm on Harry like a safety belt.
Xavier opened his eyes when he hadn't felt anything. Caught unawares, the slow motion of time as everything happened in seconds, Xavier's focus went from Harry-who went from completely set to completely dumbfounded-to the comic book hero.
"Allow me," was all he said, ending Harry's speed and precision abruptly and Harry tripping into the staunchly-fibred costume.
Harry bounced back after slamming into the unaffected hero.
"…What?" I heard Harry say, my hands over my mouth, utterly mystified, struck dumb like my fiance-the man having saved Harry from the bait Xavier made no attempt to cover up.
A black hand rose, Batman's glove colliding with Xavier's chin.
The crowd drew their breaths, the actions happening in a minuscule timeframe.
Up rose Xavier, the sheer strength and whipping force having his feet leave the ground as he fell flat on his back. His makeup offset, the cloak twisted up about his neck where he toppled. I gasped, looking at Harry, the downed Xavier, gone, knocked out on the faux-earthen grounds of the Hall, and then to the hooded figure.
He turned to the stricken Harry, to the rattled form of me…
…He pulled from the mask's bottom edge, removing the fibrous black…
…To reveal a shiny-faced, ginger-haired long-lost stranger…
…resemblances like nothing from before…
…at first, he wasn't real…
…changed…
…his hair eclipsed his eyes until he swept the fringe back, stalwart, a fearless look in him, dexterous…
…he made one of those familiar awkward smiles at me, and then to Harry's perplexed reflection.
Ronald.
***
THE EVENING PROPHET
MINISTER AND HIS THUGS
I don't care who it is: Minister Shacklebolt, his admin, Aurors to hide their willingness to cause thuggery-a country should not stick their nose in another country's business! Highlights by a newspaper in Russia have statements from within their government that, in fact, our Ministry elbowed to get to the so-called, "enemy". As much as we all know some of these people are misinformed, we should also point out that these are physiologically disturbed individuals that need counseling. Oppositely, the misinformed will not get one bit of counseling if our current Ministry has anything to do with it. These folks will ultimately be strung up by their feet, cut, beaten and bruised, have their heads submerged in water, and when things fail the usage of veritaserum-against Shacklebolt's own Law-in an attempt to get information. Dear followers of the Prophet, this is what we call: torture.
I want every Prophet reader, young and old, to go get a dictionary right now and read aloud the definition of TORTURE!
Torture isn't civilized. We have animals loose in our Ministry!
Remember to join the Prophet, as well as all of Britain, as we March on Ministry until they hear our voices!
No one should be subjected to this brutish, venomous treatment to our fellow man!
Angelica Teivel
Writer
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