Snakes and Ladders (Fem!HPxLM) (DISCONTINUED)

Latibule

With a great display of strength, Dumbledore flipped his desk, the papers and trinkets, glass and quills falling to the floor with clatters and the shattering of glass jars and ink bottles. Fawkes cawed in surprise, swooping from his perch where it stood at the end of the now overturned desk, up onto the top of the tallest of the headmaster's bookshelves and out of the path of its owner's fury. 

Fawkes watched Dumbledore's rage from his high perch with a distant and unfeeling gaze. This man Fawkes held no affection for. Fawkes despised him with his whole, ever eternal life. This man had stolen him from his true familiar mate, the only person Fawkes had ever bonded to, so no. Fawkes held no love in his heart for the monster who occupied the headmaster's quarters of Hogwarts. If Fawkes had been gifted hands, he would've strangled the self-proclaimed leader of the light long ago.

The reason behind the headmaster's outburst had been a rather tense encounter with Professor McGonagall. The curt, stern-faced woman had arrived at his office uninvited, tired of the headmaster avoiding her questions at mealtimes and demanding to know what he was doing to find Hazel Potter.

"I don't know what rock you have been living under, Albus, but the whole school population is scared about You-Know-Who's return; one of their classmates is believed to be dead, and you're doing nothing about any of it", the woman had proclaimed, Scottish dialect heavy and much more pronounced with the stress of trying to do Dumbledore's job for him.

"Minerva, please, I am not doing nothing. I assure you I am doing everything in my power to find Ms Potter, so if you could lea-"

Minerva McGonagall cut him off with a tightly clenched fist that slammed down hard on the desk, the rage in her eyes evident to everyone up to the portraits on the wall whose hushed gasps punctured the silence.

"It sure doesn't seem like it. Sort it, Albus, before I do things my way. And I can assure you, you won't like things my way," Came the harsh, whispered threat of the no-nonsense teacher before him. 

Her lips pursed as if she had been sucking on a particularly sour lemon drop before she turned heel and promptly left the office to pen a carefully worded letter to one person.

And that had led them to where they were now; Dumbledore stood in the centre of his office, desk upturned and glass splayed around the room, tiny, crystalline splinters posing a threat to bare feet and hands.

With a sigh and a wave of his wand, the desk righted itself, and the trinkets reverted to their original state as the older man slumped in his chair. Fawkes watched on with thinly veiled amusement at his keeper's distress.

At the manor, Hyacinth was awoken by Bellatrix swooping into her room, a flurry of wild hair and long sweeping flutters of black lace.

Hyacinth groaned as the woman opened every curtain at once with the swish of a wand Lucius had obtained from a less-than-legal wand dealer in Knockturn Alley. 

Bellatrix tutted and began to pull back the covers that Hyacinth had buried herself under.

"Come on", she declared, "Up. It's nearly noon, and we haven't seen neither hide nor hair of you all day. It's time you ate something", she lectured.

Narcissa sighed, gaining the attention of her sister.

"Give her time, Bells. Last night's ritual has left her magic levels rather low. The poor girl's exhausted," she explained gently, voice filled with sympathy, watching the realisation flash across her sister's face.

"Oh. Oh, of course. Ignore me, dear. I'm just pleased that your father's home. I got overly excited. I'll let the others know that you'll be resting, and I'll send an elf with something light for you to eat later," she said, brushing Hyacinth's hair back from her face with a loving hand as the girl drifted back to sleep.

Bellatrix noticed with some worry that Hyacinth seemed to be running a slight fever. She decided it would be something she would keep her eye on, and she drew the curtains closed once more with another wave of her wand, shutting out the winter sun and dimming the room.

Before leaving, Bellatrix pulled the blankets up Hyacinth's chin and kissed her warm forehead.