Coup de Foudre [Fred Weasley] [7]

⚡️ Chapter 35 ⚡️

Professor McGonagall marched toward the door, and as she did so she raised her wand. From the tip burst three silver cats with spectacle markings around their eyes. The Patronuses ran sleekly ahead, filling the spiral staircase with silvery light, as Professor McGonagall, Vega, Harry, and Luna hurried back down. Along the corridors they raced, and one by one the Patronuses left them. Professor McGonagall's tartan dressing gown rustled over the floor, and Vega, Harry and Luna jogged behind her under the Cloak. They had descended two more floors when another set of quiet joined theirs.

Vega, whose scar was still hurting, heard them first. She felt in her pockets for the Marauder's Map, but before she could take it out to have a look, Professor McGonagall too seemed to become aware of their company. She halted, raised her wand ready to duel, and said, "Who's there?"

"It is I," said a low voice.

From behind a suit of armour stepped Severus Snape. Hatred boiled up in Vega and Harry at the sight of him. Vega had forgotten the details of Snape's appearance in the magnitude of his crimes, forgotten how his greasy black hair hung in curtains around his thin face, how his black eyes had a dead, cold look. He was not wearing nightclothes, but was dressed in his usual black cloak, and he too was holding his wand ready for a fight.

"Where are the Carrows?" Snape asked quietly.

"Wherever you told them to be, I expect, Severus," Professor McGonagall said.

Snape stepped nearer, and his eyes flitted over Professor McGonagall into the air around her, as if he knew that Vega and Harry were there. Both Vega and Harry held their wands up too, ready to attack if Snape decided to duel with McGonagall.

"I was under the impression," Snape said. "That Alecto had apprehended an intruder,"

"Really?" Professor McGonagall said. "And what gave you that impression?" Snape made a slight flexing movement of his left arm, where the Dark Mark was branded into his skin. "Oh, but naturally. You Death Eaters have your own private means of communication, I forgot,"

However, Snape pretended not to have heard her. His eyes were still probing the air all about her, and he was moving gradually closer, with an air of hardly noticing what he was doing, "I did not know that it was your night to patrol the corridors Minerva,"

"You have some objection?" Professor McGonagall asked.

"I wonder what could have brought you out of your bed at this late hour?" Snape said.

"I thought I heard a disturbance," Professor McGonagall replied.

"Really?" Snape asked. "But all seems calm," He looked into her eyes. "Have you seen Harry Potter and Vega-Nova Lestrange, Minerva? Because if you have. I must insist –"

Professor McGonagall moved faster than Vega or Harry could have believed. Her wand slashed through the air and for a split second, Vega thought that Snape must crumple, unconscious, but the swiftness of his Shield Charm was such that McGonagall was thrown off balance. She brandished her wand at a touch on the wall and it flew out of its bracket.

Vega, about to curse Snape, was forced to pull Harry and Luna out of the way of the descending flames, which became a ring of fire that filled the corridor and flew like a lasso at Snape – then it was no longer fire, but a great black serpent that McGonagall blasted to smoke, which re-formed and solidified in seconds to become a swarm of pursuing daggers.

Snape avoided them only by forcing the suit of armour in front of him, and with echoing clangs the daggers sank, one after another, into its breast –

"Minerva!" said a squeaky voice, and looking behind herself, still shielding Harry and Luna from flying spells, Vega saw Professors Flitwick and Sprout sprinting up the corridor toward them in their nightclothes, with the enormous Professor Slughorn panting along at the rear.