Callidora ☆ Fred Weasley

[chapter 197]

March eighth began ordinarily enough.

Dinner had reached that comfortable stage where the Great Hall was more noise than conversation. Hundreds of voices overlapped beneath the enchanted ceiling, cutlery scraped against plates, and Lucy was halfway through complaining about an essay while Stella calmly informed her that complaining about it was taking longer than actually writing it.

Calli was eating roast potatoes and only half listening.

Then a woman screamed.

Calli was on her feet before she had consciously registered moving.

Her wand was already in her hand.

The scream had not sounded startled.

It had sounded agonised.

For one horrible instant, Calli's mind supplied every possibility it had been trained to expect.

An attack.

Someone being tortured inside Hogwarts.

Around her, students were jumping to their feet. Heads whipped towards the doors. Professors at the staff table rose.

Another commotion sounded from the Entrance Hall.

Calli's gaze shot instinctively across the room.

Fred was standing at the Gryffindor table.

Their eyes met.

His wand was out too.

That was enough.

Calli moved.

"Calli!"

Stella and Lucy hurried after her as she joined the stream of students rushing from the Great Hall.

Those nearest the doors had already spilled into the Entrance Hall, gathering around the foot of the marble staircase.

Calli pushed through behind them, wand raised.

Whatever she had expected, it wasn't this.

She stopped.

Professor Trelawney stood in the middle of the Entrance Hall.

Calli stared.

Trelawney had always looked as though she'd dressed by walking through a curtain shop and keeping whatever attached itself to her.

Tonight was worse.

Her hair stuck out wildly around her head. Her enormous glasses sat crooked across her face. There seemed to be twice the usual number of scarves and shawls hanging from her narrow shoulders, making her look rather like an overstuffed rag doll coming apart at the seams.

One hand clutched her wand.

The other clutched a bottle of sherry.

Beside her sat two enormous trunks.

They had landed at crooked angles, one partially overturned, looking less as though someone had carried them downstairs and more as though they'd been thrown after her.

Calli slowly lowered her wand.

"What the hell?" Lucy whispered.

Then Trelawney screamed again.

"No!"

The crowd expanded by the second.

Students poured from the Great Hall behind Calli. Others appeared along the staircase and corridors above, leaning over bannisters to see what was happening.