Adam:
As the five of us entered the Great Hall for breakfast, over a week later, we could tell immediately from the expressions on our Professors’ faces that something bad had happened. They were all wearing identical masks of grimness, and were attempting to be normal. I saw McGonagall smash a butter dish by accident. With a quick “Reparo!”, she kept muttering to the other staff members, who seemed to be arguing amongst themselves.
“What’s going on, do you think?” Albus asked me.
“Dunno. Maybe Voldemort has a son?”
“Haha, very funny,” he replied sarcastically.
It didn’t take us long to find out what had happened. Victoire Weasley gasped when she read the Daily Prophet headline, and she wasn’t the only one. Rose snatched the article from her cousin after she’d finished reading it.
Rose gave a startled cry when she saw it too, and her eyes got bigger and bigger as she read the page. Wordlessly, she handed the paper over to the four of us so we could read it, too.
ILLUMINATI TERRORISES HOGSMEADE
April 10, 2018
The wizarding community has received another terror threat at the hands of the Illuminati, when last night, twenty confirmed followers held the village of Hogsmeade under siege.
At approximately eight o’clock pm, the Illuminati Apparated, directed by leader Bellatrix Lestrange, into the busy town centre during Thursday night shopping. Wizards and witches ran for their lives, but only a lucky few were able to escape. All exits were blocked, and an anti-Apparation charm was placed under the entire village.
Miraculously, no-one was killed. However, several people were placed under the Cruciatus Curse and many more were threatened with the Killing Curse. After an hour, the Illuminati left, leaving shaken shoppers and residents to alert the authorities. They did not Disapparate, instead leaving on foot. It is unsure as to which direction they went.
They escaped with many hundreds of Galleons in money, as well as several other objects from shopkeepers or civilians.
“It was simply terrifying,” said Honeydukes shopowner Ambrosius Flume. “We all did what we were told to, otherwise we would have all been killed.”
“I was in the town centre, waiting for my husband,” Polly Blume told reporters last night. “They Apparated right in front of me. I was told to get down on the ground. I did that, and then they bound me up. I watched as someone was tortured under my own eyes.”
It is unknown what the Illuminati’s intention was. Many say it was to “give the wizarding world another scare”, while others say they were bored. However, there is one unconfirmed theory surrounding the attack “ that Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry could have been the objective.
By the time I had finished this article, my eyes were every bit as wide as Rose’s. I waited for the other three to catch up, and watched as their expressions turned from grim to worse.
“Holy mother of “” shouted Scorpius, gaining the attention from everyone around him. I glanced at my friends, and we gave each other identical, horrified looks.
“Hogwarts?” Claudia asked in a small voice. “Do you really think they were trying to reach the castle?”
“Who knows?” sighed Al. “They might have, they might not.”
Suddenly, Professor McGonagall stood up, trying to get everyone’s attention. This was unusual “ she never made announcements at breakfast, unless something very wrong had gone on. The Great Hall silenced itself immediately, feeling the tension in the air.
“Students, I must address a serious issue at hand,” she said solemnly. “As you are probably are all aware by now, the terror group ‘Illuminati’ have attacked Hogsmeade.”
This was news to only a small handful of people, and their gasps of horror were shushed quickly by their friends.
“As you might have read, there is some speculation as to whether Hogwarts was in danger or not. We are not sure about this yet,” she had to quieten down the Hall, as the noise had broken out into nervous whispers, “but we have decided to set up some precautions to ensure each and every one of you safety at all times.”
“All future Hogsmeade trips will be cancelled until further notice.” This received quite a lot of angry outburst from students. She ploughed on. “Quidditch will not be cancelled, but all training sessions must be patrolled by a staff member. Any students moving from class-to-class outside the Hogwarts grounds must be escorted by a teacher.” None of the staff were too pleased about this arrangement.
“Security will be watertight. As of this afternoon, a team of Aurors will be stationed around the castle to ensure no Illuminati members can infiltrate Hogwarts.” She took a deep breath. “That is all. Thank you for your co-operation in this matter. Enjoy your day.”
How could we bloody well enjoy our day now? I thought. “This is scary,” I admitted.
“I know,” replied Scorpius, looking shaken.
The bell rang, and we all gathered up our stuff in silence. For once, the Great Hall was relatively quiet. Everyone seemed to have been silenced by this terrible news. The five of us went to our first class of the day (Defence), where Professor Patil mused on the quietness of her pupils today.
The end of the day couldn’t come quicker enough.
Albus:
I didn’t like it when Victoire was in a bad mood.
“JAMES SIRIUS POTTER!” she yelled, storming into the Common Room, stomping her feet and fuming. It was about eight o’clock at night, a few days after the latest Illuminati attack. The tower was alive and busy. She glared around at all the Gryffindor students, who were now staring at her in silence, and she screamed in frustration when she realised that the boy in question wasn’t there. Noticing that his brother, however, was present, she sat down in an armchair opposite me, where I sat trying to complete my Herbology homework. Now that she was up close, I could tell that she absolutely stunk.
“Hey Victoire,” I greeted. “What do you know about Devil’s Sn-”
“Get. Your. Brother. Down. Here. Now.” She stressed each word individually.
I was startled by her fierce expression. “What’s he done now?” I sighed.
“Nothing at all… except for the fact that he DUNGBOMBED THE LIBRARY!” she growled.
“How do you know it was him?” Claudia piped up.
“I saw him running away when I was patrolling the library. He sprints off in this direction, and BAM! I smell like a skunk!” Her eyes narrowed in anger.
“Alright, alright, I’ll go see if he’s upstairs,” I sighed, and threw down my parchment and ink on the table beside me.
“James?” I called, entering the second year Boys’ dormitory. “Victoire’s absolutely furious at you. You better get down there now.”
I checked around the room, but he wasn’t there. He wasn’t hiding anywhere, either. Where had he gone? I was just about to leave when something moving on James’ bed caught my eye.
I shouldn’t pry in James’ stuff, I thought to myself. But curiosity got the better of me “ one little peek couldn’t hurt?
Upon a closer look, I realised it was an old scrap of parchment. It was frayed, musty and slightly torn in places. However, it was what was on the parchment that caught my eye.
It was a smattering of inked lines, sprawling in every direction. Words were shown everywhere, and tiny little footprints were running across it slowly. At first, none of it made sense… and then I realised what it was.
“It’s a map!” I said incredulously.
“Guys! Guys! You have to take a look at this!” I whispered excitedly a few minutes later, having bounded down the spiral staircase and given Victoire a quick “Not there.” She stormed off angrily, most likely thinking of ways to kill her cousin.
“Yeah, what?” Claudia asked, looking at my empty hands. I plonked down in front of my friends, who were all in various stages of their Herbology essays as well. Predictably, Rose had almost finished while Adam hadn’t even finished the first sentence.
“I’m not going to show you here. I’m fairly sure I’ll get in trouble. Let’s go somewhere else.”
We exited the Common Room into the dark, torch-lit corridor. Everyone crowded around me. “So what is it, Al? What’s this mysterious thing you’ve got?” Scorpius asked.
“Yeah, it better be important. Rose was helping me with my essay!” This came from Claudia.
“Trust me,” I replied. “You’re going to want to see this.”
I showed them the map. At first, it didn’t get the reaction that I’d quite wanted. However, after a while, my friends started to see what I was seeing.
“Merlin, Al. Where did you get this from?” Scorpius wondered in awe.
“Nicked it from James’ room.”
“And where did he get it?”
“No clue.”
“Look, there’s us!” Claudia cried. She was right; at our exact position, there were five names - Albus Potter, Claudia Kelaney, Adam Finnigan, Rose Weasley, Scorpius Malfoy.
“This is so bloody brilliant,” sighed Adam. “No wonder your brother’s so good at not getting caught.”
We simply stared at the map for ages. I could see McGonagall sitting at her desk. Behind us
Rose frowned. “I don’t think you should be keeping this, Al.”
“Why the bloody hell not?”
“Because it’s against the school rules!”
“Rose,” sighed Adam. “I don’t think the Hogwarts rulebook has anything about magical maps being banned.”
“It’s the principle of the thing!” she shot back.
“Well, I don’t care what you think,” I said. “I’m going to have a little fun with this. Anyone want to take a walk with me?”
Claudia, Adam and Scorpius accepted eagerly, but Rose looked very apprehensive. Not wanting to be left behind, she gave it.
“I suppose someone’s got to be there to stop you lot breaking more rules,” she grumbled.
“Lighten up, Rose,” Claudia smiled. “We’ve trekked through the Forbidden Forest “ it’s not like we’re new to rulebreaking.”
Claudia:
We crept along the passageways of Hogwarts, following Al, who had the map held out in front of him. Occasionally, we’d crowd around it, noticing someone on the map that we knew, realising that somebody was nearby or just simply musing at its awesomeness. We were on the fifth floor corridor.
“Take a look at this,” Al said quietly. He pointed his finger to one point on the map, somewhere near where we were standing. There was a word “ Dissendium - which is what Al was pointing to.
“What do you think that does?” I asked him.
“Only one way to find out,” Rose said, whipping out her wand. “Dissendium,” she said, pointing in the direction that the map instructed.
Suddenly, I heard the sound of moving stone. A statue, to the left of Adam, was now shifting. It was quite an ugly thing “ under it read a plaque entitled Gunhilda of Goosemoor. It was made out of stone, and featured a one-eyed hump witch. Peering closely, Rose let out gasp of surprise.
“Guys… it’s a passageway.”
We clambered around her for a better look. Sure enough, there was a gap behind the statue large enough to squeeze through. Beyond it, I could see a strange light infiltrating the tunnel.
“So, who’s going first?” Scorpius asked.
Before anyone could comment, Adam shushed us. He was staring at the map.
“Head Boy and Girl, twelve o’clock!” he hissed, and, sure enough, two dots labelled Victoire Weasley and Mason Wood were heading in our direction, and were about to round the corner to find us!
“Everyone, get in here!” whispered Al, and, quite reluctantly, we all squeezed through the gap one at a time. Miraculously, Rose, being the last to get in, was hidden just as we heard footsteps coming closer, and slowly fading away.
“Merlin, that was close,” I sighed after I was totally sure that they had gone. “I thought that we were goners for sure.”
“Yeah,” replied Al distractedly. He was examining the passageway. You could just tell he was itching to go down it…
“No,” replied Rose firmly.
“Aww, come on, Rosie! Please!” he begged.
This time, though, I put my foot down as well. “Al, we’re all tired. It’s almost ten o’clock. Who knows what time we’ll get back?”
Thankfully, Adam and Scorpius nodded in agreement. “Maybe another time,” Scorpius suggested.
Al sighed, but reluctantly agreed to leave. Checking that the coast was clear, the five of us exited the secret passageway and made our way back to Gryffindor Tower. Apart from Peeves lurking around, we had no trouble at all.
“G’night,” Rose and I said to the boys, who trudged up to their own dormitory.
“I know you guys think that I was being a chicken,” Rose said to me as we climbed the spiral staircase. “But I had a really bad feeling about that secret passageway.”
Upon entering ours, we realised the other girls were all asleep. We quickly changed into our pyjamas, brushed our teeth and hopped into bed. I fell asleep almost instantly, and fell into a dreamless slumber.
It could have been hours or minutes later, but I was awoken by a strange occurrence in the dormitory. I sat up in bed when I heard a rustling noise, and the sound of floorboards creaking. It seemed just like those creepy Muggle horror movies.
You’re being stupid, Claudia, I thought to myself. Hogwarts is an old place. Things creak all the time.
I rested my head back down on the pillow. I almost fell back asleep again, when I heard someone mutter an incantation.
“Muffliato,” the person whispered, their voice strangely familiar. I couldn’t quite place a name to it, but it was feminine.
I bolted up in bed.
“What the hell?” I said, but no sound came out of my mouth. I had been silenced. Suddenly, another spell was sent directly at my eyes, causing me blindness. A pair of hands roughly pulled me out of bed, leaving behind the comfort of my four-poster. They dragged me out of the dormitory, making sure that nobody could hear us. I could hear Rose’s snoring in the bed next to mine, and realised that none of the other girls knew what was happening.
Nobody heard my silent shriek of terror.
Rose:
The sun was shining into the dormitory. The birds were chirping happily. It was warm for a change; it seemed that the winter weather was finally leaving. I woke up feeling happy, refreshed and ready to learn.
“Morning, Claudia,” I greeted happily, turning to the bed next to me. However, I found that it was empty. The bedclothes were thrown back messily. Bloody hell, I thought as I fixed her bed up as well as my own. That girl is a grub!
After I’d gotten dressed and gathered my books up for the day, I went downstairs into the Common Room. It was mostly empty except for a few lazy students waiting for their friends. I saw Scorpius resting on one of the armchairs, hastily scribbling something down for Professor Zabini.
“Hey,” I said, giving him a quick little wave.
“Morning, Rose.” He smiled quickly before going back to his essay.
“Seen Claudia yet?” I asked him. “She’s not in our dormitory.”
“Nope, we’re the only ones up,” he replied.
“Hmm… maybe she’s already at breakfast.”
“Yeah…” he said, trailing off. His mind was obviously still on the assignment. He looked up from his quill and parchment. “That’s strange “ you normally have to wake her up at the last minute.”
“Hmm… not like Claudia at all. Stranger things have happened, though.”
“Sure have,” I answered, sinking into the chair next to Scorpius to wait for Adam and Al. Somehow, I couldn’t shake that foreboding feeling. It was exactly like the feeling that I got last night in the secret passageway. I worry far too much.
When they finally came downstairs, having obviously overslept, we all went down to breakfast. Upon entering the Great Hall, I scanned the Gryffindor table for Claudia. She wasn’t there. However, it was pretty late by now. If she had come down to breakfast so early, she would have already been finished by now. I sat down with the boys, helping myself to some toast. However, I was still a little worried.
“What do we have first, Rosie?” Adam asked me.
“We have Charms, as you should already know,” I scolded. “The bell’s about to ring. Have you guys stuffed your faces enough yet?”
A collective ‘yes’ came from the three boys, and we left the Great Hall together. We were only a corridor away from class when we ran straight into a very familiar face.
“Dad!” Al shouted, smiling from ear to ear as Harry Potter, my uncle, strolled into sight. He was wearing his official Auror robes and had a reminiscing gleam in his eyes. He grinned as he saw his youngest son run over to him and hugged him tightly.
“Albus!” he said. Students that were passing by were staring at the pair. This happened wherever Harry went anywhere “ it came with having the title as The Boy Who Lived and saving the wizarding world. People were muttering and pointing, and as usual, the words ‘Potter’, ‘Voldemort’ and ‘scar’ were tossed around a bit.
“Rosie,” he said as he broke away from Al, noticing me. “How’s it going?”
“Pretty good, Uncle Harry,” I said, hugging him as well.
“You remember Scorpius and Adam?” Al said, gesturing to our friends, who seemed to stand there a bit awkwardly.
“Of course I do,” he replied. “How are you boys?”
They told him that they were fine.
“Hey, where’s that other girl. Claudia, I think her name is?” Harry asked.
“Dunno,” I replied truthfully.
“How’s Mum?” Al asked. That’s right “ Auntie Ginny was having a baby! It had completely slipped my mind.
“Craving food and always very hormonal,” Harry said, laughing. “I have to pick up some more ice-cream after work.”
We spent the next five minutes chatting to him until the bell rang. Harry told us that he had to go, and we made our goodbyes to each other.
“Hang on a second, Dad,” Al said, just as we were about to walk away. “How come you’re here anyway?”
Harry’s face fell slightly. “For the protection of Hogwarts against the Illuminati. I’m in charge of the Aurors here.” His reminiscing expression came back on his face. “Just like my third year…” He wandered away.
“Bye, Uncle Harry!” I called, and we all hurried to Charms where we were now most certainly late.
“Finnigan. Malfoy. Potter. Weasley. Class started three minutes ago,” Professor Morgan scolded.
“Sorry,” Adam said as we sat down at our desks. “We were talking to Al’s dad and lost track of the time.”
“Don’t let it happen again,” Morgan replied, remembering who exactly “Al’s dad” was, and went on with the lesson. I turned to my desk, expecting to see Claudia sitting there. However, with a pang in my stomach, I realised she wasn’t. Adam, Al and Scorpius seemed to notice this as well. We gave each other puzzled expressions.
Where could she be? I wondered.
At break time, after Claudia hadn’t shown up for History of Magic either, we made a mutual decision to start searching for her. First place was the Hospital Wing. However, that was empty, except for a third year that had obviously been in a Potions accident, because his face now sported boils the size of my fist. Madam Pomfrey came over and confirmed that Claudia wasn’t here, and, indeed, hadn’t been there all morning.
“Thanks for your help,” I said, and we all went back outside, much more anxious than we were before.
“Where else could she be?” Scorpius asked as we started wandering around the castle.
“The library?” I suggested half-heartedly. To ease our nerves, we checked there, but she wasn’t there either.
“What do we do now?” Al said, his face paling.
“We tell a teacher,” was Adam’s short reply.
As we headed towards the staff room, we saw Neville rounding a corner. I pointed him out to the others, and we all raced over to our favourite teacher.
“Hey, kids,” he said, greeting us warmly. “What can I do for you?”
“Neville! Claudia’s missing!” I exclaimed.
The four of us poured out the story of what had gone on all morning. After we done, Neville gave us a worried expression.
“Come on,” he said, walking away. We followed him. “We’re going to tell Professor McGonagall about this.”
“What do you think’s happened?” Adam said nervously.
“It could be nothing. Maybe she just tripped over and can’t walk. Maybe she fell asleep somewhere.” And then his expression darkened. “Or the Illuminati could be involved.”
The Gryffindor Gang by U-No-Poo
Chapter Notes: Promising chapter title? I think so.
As usual, thanks to Sarah for beta'ing!
Chapter Endnotes: Oh, yes I did just make Claudia get abducted... again.
Think you like this chapter, and want to tell me? Review, please!
We've got three more chapters left, plus an epilogue. Updates might not come that frequently, but I hope for this story to be wrapped up by the end of September. Hmm... I remember when I said that I'd like the first part in the trilogy to be done by June... guess I have to eat my words now!