Mass Collision

7. Evacuation

It was late at night, but there were still several people awake in the Slytherin common room. They had stacks of homework and the fifth and seventh years were still having to worry about their exams.

One of the fourth years walked into the common room through the entrance and looked startled, "something's going on upstairs. The Carrow twins are going insane about something."

Natalia sighed, "I'll go see what's going on, probably students out of bed, don't worry," she got up from the floor where she was sitting and grabbed her wand. She was still in her uniform except her robe, but she walked out anyway. She turned down the corridor and walked up the stairs with her hand moving along the wall, feeling the engravings of the stone. There were very few portraits that remained and the ones that did were only because they were convenient for staff.

She ascended a few floors before she found several professors in the hall, Professor McGonagall and Snape. She hid herself behind the wall and listened to their conversation. What happened with the Carrows?

"I wonder what could have brought you out of your bed at this hour?" Snape questioned the transfiguration teacher.

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

"Really? But all seems calm."Snape looked into her eyes. "Have you seen Harry Potter, Minerva? Because if you have, I must insist—"

Professor McGonagall moved faster than any student believed she could: Her wand slashed through the air and for a split second Natalia 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 torch on the wall and it flew out of its bracket. The flames became a ring of fire that filled the corridor and flew like a lasso at Snape—

Natalia gasped and her eyes widened. She knew that the professors were boiling over with anger, but she never thought that something like this was going to happen.

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 be forcing the suit of armor in front of him, and with echoing clang, the dagger sank, one after another, into the breast—

"Minerva!" said a squeaky voice, Professor Flitwick and Sprout sprinting up the corridor toward them in their nightclothes, with Natalia's head of house at the rear, panting.

"No!" squeaking Flitwick, raising his wand. "You'll do more murder at Hogwarts!"

Flitwick's spell hit the suit of armor behind which Snape had taken shelter: With a clatter it came to life. Snape struggled free of the crushing arms and sent it flying back toward his attackers. Seconds later and Snape was running for a classroom door, all the teachers passed Natalia and the empty hallway she was hiding in. She backed further away so they wouldn't notice her and McGonagall shouted, "Coward! COWARD!"

"What's happened, what's happened?" asked a voice, not coming from a person. There was no one else there, but Natalia could remember the voice, it was Luna.

She heard scurrying along the corridor, but saw no one. Natalia walked along the wall and stayed hidden as she walked outside the classroom they disappeared into.

There was a broken window that the four teachers were staring at, "He jumped," said Professor McGonagall as Harry and Luna ran into the room. Natalia almost gasped seeing them. They must've used his cloak.

"You mean he's dead ?" Harry sprinted to the window, ignoring Flitwick's and Sprout's yells of shock at his sudden appearance.

"No, he's not dead," said McGonagall bitterly. "Unlike Dumbledore, he was still carrying a wand . . . and he seems to have learned a few tricks from his master."