The Raven's Call

Two Hallows

The air was crisp, heavy with the scent of scorched stone and trampled grass. Asteria and I wandered side by side, our shoes crunching over stray rubble as we crossed the bridge. We'd decided to take one last look at the castle grounds before our final year at Hogwarts slipped away into memories. We weren't looking for trouble, and yet, trouble always seemed to find us. Just ahead, voices carried over the quiet. We ducked behind a collapsed archway, peering through a gap in the stone as Harry, Ron, and Hermione began their conversation.

"Why didn't it work for him? The Elder Wand?" Hermione's voice was tight with curiosity.

"It answered to somebody else," Harry said. "When he killed Snape, he thought the wand would become his. But the thing is... it never belonged to Snape. It was Draco who disarmed Dumbledore that night in the Astronomy Tower. From that moment on, the wand answered to him." That part, at least, was correct. "Until—" Harry continued, "the other night when I disarmed Draco. At Malfoy Manor." "So that means..." Ron began. "It's mine," Harry said.

Wrong. It was still Draco's. He'd never even held the Elder Wand — and the only way to claim it was to disarm it from its true owner's hand. Meaning it was still his. "What should we do with it?" Ron asked, shoving his hands in his pockets. "We?" Hermione's brow furrowed. "Just saying, that's the Elder Wand. The most powerful wand in the world. With that, he'd be invincible."

Harry looked down at the ancient length of wood. Then, with a sharp crack, he broke it in two and hurled the pieces into the gorge below. They spun end over end until the mist swallowed them. Without another word, the three turned away, leaving the fragments to vanish into the depths. Asteria's eyes darted to mine, gleaming with a spark that told me exactly what she was thinking. "We're doing it," she whispered. "We're doing it," I agreed.

One flick of the Time-Turner chain and the world blurred into liquid. The breath in my lungs caught as the spinning slowed, and the world snapped back into place. The bridge was empty, save for the wind pulling at our clothes. Down the valley, the sun was still lower in the sky — proof we had made it back in time.

"We've got just under an hour," I said, putting the time turner away. "Plenty of time to do this the smart way." Asteria's lips curved into that dangerous grin of hers. "Smart way meaning...?" I ask, raising a brow. "Meaning not dangling over a gorge like idiots." Asteria said with a grin as we left the bridge and descended the main stone staircase toward the boathouse.

At the docks, a handful of battered wooden boats bobbed gently in the water, their ropes creaking. We'd only just been here last night, yet it feels like a lifetime ago. I untied one of the boats, the Elder Wand's future still fixed in my mind like a beacon. "We'll row out under the bridge, wait until he drops it, and scoop it up before it even thinks about hitting the rocks."

Asteria gave a theatrical sigh but climbed in, sitting opposite me as I pushed us off from the dock. Mist rolled over the surface of the Black Lake, cool and damp against our skin, and the rhythmic pull of the oars filled the silence between us. We positioned ourselves between the stone supports, hidden from view.

The next forty minutes passed in that odd, stretched way time sometimes does, filled with the creak of the boat, the occasional drip of water from the beams above, and Asteria idly trailing her fingers in the lake. Then— "There." She sat forward, eyes locked on a faint glimmer far above. The broken halves of the Elder Wand spun lazily as they fell, catching stray streaks of sunlight.