A Young Wizard's Journey - Order of The Phoenix

Fire Versus Ice

The waves pounded the coast of the shingle beach she stood on. The aggression of the wind was intimidating, and her robes flew in all directions as her eyes combed the cliff face. But the weather was of no concern right now. Snow had vanished, and she needed to know why.

Maria lit her wand tip as subtly as she could and began following the cliff wall, letting her fingers trail lightly over the rough outcroppings and loose parts, feeling for anything that should be out of place.

Snow had seemed exceptionally happy over the last few days. As though he'd finally managed to pin something down, and now, he'd vanished.

He'd practically had to limp to get down to this section so he couldn't have gotten very far, but even still. She had no idea what he was searching for. And it had every potentiality to be very dangerous.

She tried her best to feel outwards, but nothing came of it. She'd never been able to sense things like he had. That had always been his gift. Her careful planning and movements and his ability to sense traps and tricks. It made them unstoppable. For a while...

D/N's face floated back into her memory. His smile, his tears, his joy when Y/N had been born.

She shook herself, she had to focus.

For almost twenty minutes she trailed this section of the cliff, feeling out every last inch that she could reach. Anything higher would be unreasonable, especially for Snow.

Just as she was wondering whether she'd missed something, her hand wrapped around a chunk of rock that seemed to give a little. She pulled lightly and heard as some form of mechanism inside whirred to life.

Next second, part of the cliff-face wall seemed to flicker before fading away, revealing an opening.

'You sly bastard,' she hissed. Peering in through the now semi-translucent wall, the path beyond seemed to lead deep into the cliff before twisting out of sight.

She traced her wand forward, sending forward that invisible line, but it didn't seem to run into anything. So, she glanced around the windswept beachfront one last time, before stepping through the wall.

All at once, the wind, sound, and frost of the outside vanished, leaving her in a silent state of light chill. It was disconcerting and immediately served to put her on edge.

She once more sent the line out ahead of her.

This was an ingenious spell designed by D/N himself. And he always said she was the brains...

It trailed off ahead of the caster, almost as though a second person was walking forward and if it happened to run into anything that might set off an alarm or trap, it would tell the caster.

It wasn't perfect. In fact, it had probably worked as many times as it hadn't. But the fact that it had worked sometimes was proof enough. And besides, it was from him. It felt like he was there with her.

Another shake. She was getting caught up in sentiment. Now wasn't the time. She needed to push on.

Her wand tip still lit and casting a glow so dim that she could still barely see the floor in front of her. She began her descent down this winding corridor.

()()()()()()

Ravenclaw proceeded to flatten Slytherin in their follow-up match by almost 300 points. The Slytherin team seemed to be flying particularly poorly, Malfoy, Crabbe, and Goyle especially. And so, the Ravenclaws had no difficulty in picking them apart and practically using them to pad their score and increase the lead they now held over Gryffindor.

Angelina began redoubling efforts with her team to ensure that they were ready for their final match of the season, even if it was still a while off. Gryffindor would need to win by over 200 points in order to overtake them and win the cup. This meant that the responsibility fell on the team as a whole.