The Adventures of the Junior Phoenixes, Part 1: The Pendant of Life

Prologue: The Battle of Hogwarts

Prologue

     “You have one hour”
     The voice boomed throughout the halls of the school. There were girls crying as it spoke. Many of the First Years around me were frozen in place, not sure of what had happened or what to do next. The voice came from all places and spoke loudly. It seemed like it spoke directly into my mind. I could tell that it had the same effect on everyone around me.
     It was His voice; it was Him that had spoken. He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named, they called Him. I have to admit, I knew little about the one we all called You-Know-You or the Dark Lord. I was raised in the foster system and some of my foster parents were Squibs, even a few Muggles. But the magic parents I had said even less; they would only say that the Dark Lord was as evil as they come. They would say that it was He who was behind so many of the dark things that were happening. Then they would cower and hide and avoid any further talk on the subject.
     I remember that day, that very historic day. It was like any other day in the beginning. I had Charms, Transfiguration, and Potions (though I skipped Dark Arts that day on account that I was the last remaining Gryffindor student in class because Professor Carrow seemed to dislike Gryffindors very much and kept torturing us), and I played chess with Everett Hornby and Colin Creevey in the Great Hall. Colin was an older student and he was a great photographer. He took pictures for the school newsletter. He was one of our prefects. He wasn’t a prefect originally but he took up one of the open slots since the prefects from last year went missing. It was Colin that woke us up that fateful night.
     Not that Everett and I were sleeping, though. We were a bit excited and neither one of us got any sleep. There was a rumor that had been going around that The Chosen One, the Boy Who Lived, had freed a dragon and broken into Gringotts and was leading a horde of dragons against the Dark Lord! Someone said that giants were coming to Hogwarts and all sorts of weird things were supposed to happen soon! It was an exciting day, to be sure. But most days had been like that ever since that kid Longbottom and the other kids in Dumbledore’s Army went missing. More students kept disappearing while the Carrows and the Slytherin Prefects were treating us Lions as jousting posts in classes.  Every time a student stood up to defy them they just pressed harder and even chased them down. Longbottom finally went missing after he defied the Carrows beyond their limit. But the rumors kept flying nonetheless, and there was an excitement among the other students that made us all start believing in the rumors. That really made the Carrows angry.
     That night Colin came rushing into our dormitories and roused us all up.  “Get up, Shade! Oy, don’t go back to sleep! Everyone down to the Great Hall! Put on your robes if you can! Hurry!”
     Everett threw a pillow at me. He jumped up and laughed. “What do you think ‘as happened?”
     “Not a clue,” I replied, my heart racing. Could this be it? I pondered. Could this be the day that some of the kids kept whispering about? Was the Dark Lord coming here? That Longbottom kid kept saying that Professor Snape was a Death Eater and it was only a matter of time before the Dark Lord would arrive. I mean, all the other students in Gryffindor (and several in Slytherin boastingly) said that it was Professor Snape that killed Professor Dumbledore last year. I didn’t want to believe it, mostly because I was real good at Defense Against the Dark Arts last year. Professor Snape took a liking to me, or at least I thought he did. He even talked to me a few times after class, mostly about my foster parents and about wanting to help me find out about my real family. I had never really known anything about where I came from or who my birth parents were, but he promised one day to help me find them. But then the Ministry made him Headmaster, and he was barely around to talk to this year because he became terribly busy as Headmaster. I did have tea with him once this year. He had invited me personally. I didn’t want to think that he had killed Professor Dumbledore because he didn’t seem evil to me. He was cold and harsh sometimes, maybe a little grumbly, but I never thought he was evil. But all the other kids, especially the Gryffs, kept saying it was true.
     One of the other kids in our room shouted, “I bet they’re going to have another public beating again, those bloddy Carrows! Bugger ‘em!”
     “They wouldn’t do a beating in the middle of the night,” I told him, “Besides, we’d be the ones they’d beat up.  I haven’t seen them curse or hex any Puffs or Claws lately, just the Gryffs.”  It was true, they seemed to have a strong hatred for us Lions. Colin said it was because they were Death Eaters and Professor Dumbledore had been a Gryffindor. So was The Chosen One.
     Colin poked his head in again.  “Oy! Hurry up! We need to get down there now! Don’t dawdle, you slugs! Get on it! Step to!”
     I jumped up and threw on my pants and robes hastily. Everett did the same, while some of the others had on just their sleeping robes. We filed out of the room. It looked like the whole of Gryffindor tower had been roused up, girls and all. Then when we walked into the tower chambers we saw all of Ravenclaw being hustled downstairs, too.  Some kids were still in their sleeping robes as well, which meant they were woke just like we were.
     I saw Gretchen Grayson with her hair all strewn about. She was always fussing about her hair so it seemed strange to see her hair so flustered. She was a friend to Everett and I; we were all in the same year and had a lot of the same courses. We filed into the larger halls, and I could see the Slytherins being marched from the dungeons and the Hufflepuffs next. The whole school was being taken to the Great Hall.
     “Merlin’s Beard! Everyone is going to the Great Hall!” Everett said. “Something’s going on, mate! Something big’s gonna ‘appen, I’m tellin’ you!”
     “A bunch of wrinkled mandrakes, these lot!” Gretchen said when she got to Everett and I. “Sod on them! They could’ve given us a little more time to get fresh? My hair is a bloody nightmare! I look absolutely ghastly!”
     “Oh, don’t get your wand in a knot, Gretch,” I told her, “It’s probably nothing more than another troll come down out of the mountains.”
     I was wrong. I was very wrong.
     When we got to the Great Hall Professor McGonagall spoke first. She said something about Professor Snape that I couldn’t hear that well because Everett kept on talking in my ear. “Good Godric, he’s flown the coop! What about the Carrows? I hope they’re gone too! What’s gonna ‘appen to us? What if the Dark Lord comes down now that ‘is pet bird’s flown the coop? I don’t wanna die!”
     “Pipe down, mate,” I whispered to him.
     I heard them say the name. It rumbled through the crowd like an infectious yawn that hit everyone at once. “Harry Potter.”
     Then from out of the crowd, there he was. The one the papers kept calling “Undesirable Number One”, where previously they had called him “The Chosen One”. He was there as if he had just appeared out of nowhere. The Boy Who Lived, the one who had survived the Dark Lord’s Killing Curse as a child. Twice survived the Dark Lord’s attempts on his life, as that kid Longbottom had told us. He was there, with everyone looking on, people greeting him and wanting to see him (except for the Slytherins, who were grumbling). And there were others who had arrived; people from Dumbledore’s Army that had been missing for months. There were even more people, some I didn’t recognize; former students and adults. It was madness.
     Then the voice spoke.
     It was the Dark Lord’s voice.
     He warned the professors about defending Harry Potter. He talked to us all about bringing Harry to him or we would all die. And then he warned us again.
     “You have one hour.”
     There was a moment of silence, and we all stared at one another. I looked to Colin, and he looked down to me. I did not quite comprehend at that moment what to do. That moment of pause lasted forever; no one knew what to do next.
     Then some Slytherin girl (I think her name was Parkinson) shouted something. “Get him!” was the only thing I heard her say. Almost immediately Colin turned to face her, his wand drawn and pointed at her. Every single Gryffindor student did likewise. I did the same. I drew out my wand: English oak and phoenix feather, 12 and ½ inches. “Surprisingly swishy”, as that nice man Mr. Ollivander had put it. I didn’t know what was going on fully, but I knew that if that Slytherin girl was going to do something to Mr. Potter then she will have to go through the whole of Gryffindor house.
     Then something amazing happened. Ravenclaw house and Hufflepuff house both turned to face the Slytherin girl. They drew out their wands and pointed them at her.
     “Thank you, Ms. Parkinson. You may follow the other students out to safety,” Professor McGonagall told her, and shouted to the house prefects and to the professors to get the younger students out and to safety.
     “Good lord, I don’t want to die today!” Everett kept repeating. Colin moved us to the front of the Great Hall, behind Professor Binns’ ghostly being and Professor Sprout leading the Puffs out. They were taking us to a strange room, one I had never seen before. We were being herded down a dark corridor into a door that I swear was not there before. I saw how crowded it was already; people were going in it and people were coming out of it. Because I am always way too curious about things, I ducked out and slipped away. I wanted to see the battle I knew was about to happen. I wanted to see the Death Eaters. I wanted to see Harry Potter take them out. I saw Everett enter the door in the wall and I could still hear him muttering about how he didn’t want to die. I never saw him again after that.
     I ran out, ducking the eyes of the others. In the panic all around I can tell no one noticed me. Then I saw someone that made me freeze in my place: Colin Creevey. I thought for sure that Colin was going to squeal on me and alert McGonagall. But instead of turning me in and sending me back with the crowd, he smiled at me.
     “I always figured you were the type to cause trouble,” Colin said. “I just had a hunch.”
     I hesitated for a second. “I… I didn’t mean to make trouble. I was thinking that there’s going to be a fight and people might get hurt but what about the school? Who’s going to defend it, if not us? We can’t let them hurt the school or anybody! Harry Potter wouldn’t let it happen and neither should we!”
     Colin grinned, and looked at me. “Well, since we’re both underage and we both can get into a lot of trouble, might as well stick together, right?”
     I smiled, and drew my wand out. “I know a few defensive spells. Professor Snape taught me a few spells last year for offensive stuff.”
     “Let’s not talk about Snape, Shade,” Colin said. We ran down the corridors, headed towards the back terrace, near the greenhouses where some members of the Order of the Phoenix were gathering, and we ducked out.  I swore I heard Professor McGonagall yell Colin’s name but we ran for the terrace. When we reached the outer corridors and looked out the windows the sight we saw was something to behold.
     The teachers and several of the Order members were casting spells, making a huge shield dome over the school. There were other spells hitting it from the outside, bursting like fireworks in the sky. Each firework burst was bigger than the last, and they got louder. The shield was weakening. Colin and I stared into the sky; the world shrunk as we stood there. From the fringes of the Forest and the edge of the school grounds hundreds of figures stood, pointing wands and casting curses at the shield. At the same time huge knobby figures kept swinging massive clubs at the shield. I saw Colin gasp, his jaw drop for a second.
     I paused. I was frozen in place and I could not recall in my mind how to move. I was snapped out of my trance by a horrifying scream as the shield finally failed. The flurry of curses and spells went flying at us as the barrier that restrained them was no longer a problem. The jinxes and curses went flying everywhere, stinging stone, wood, glass, flesh, and anything else they managed to hit.
     A group of shadowy figures approached us. Colin raised his wand and attacked them with some charms that I had never seen before. He kept them away with his skills. Where did he learn those spells? I wondered to myself. I had only seen the Carrows but these were real Death Eaters. The Death Eaters that attacked us were nothing like the Carrows; they were wicked and vile. They had no remorse about what they were going to do to us. They were intent on killing us. We threw some spells at the Death Eaters and took off again. We ran around the corridors and got ourselves to a place away from the battle, or so we thought. We ducked behind a small wall along the castle wall overlooking the front courtyard.
     It was a sight to behold. Giants were swinging at the people on the ground. Black figures were flying to and fro: Dementors were above. Everywhere you looked explosions and flashes of light burst in the air and along the castle walls. Stone knights were hacking at the Death Eaters. A scary mass of spidery things came out of the Dark Forest and attacked anything they came into contact with. We clambered towards one of the towers and got to a lower level. There were flashes of green jetting past us. Colin grabbed me and kept me low. We ran for it. I was scared but I tried to keep my cool like Colin. He was brave, braver than anyone I had ever known.
     I lifted my wand to cast a Protego charm around us but I was hit in the face by a stray curse. My left cheek began to sear in pain, and I could feel warm blood run down my chin, the whole left side of my face in pain. My hands went to my face. I felt a gash from my lower cheek to my forehead; it was sticky and red. I bent over, the pain intense and searing.
     Colin cast a shield charm over us both, and looked at me concerned. “Shade? Oh Godric, it’s all my fault! I’m sorry, Shade! I should never have brought you with me!”
     “I’ve had worse,” I managed to say, still holding my face, hands sticky with blood, face in pain. I looked at Colin’s scared eyes through my fingers.
     “Really?” Colin asked, bent over, looking at the gash on my face.
     “No, not really,” I replied, trying to keep it light and not faint at the sight of all the blood. “But it’s funny to say that at least.”
     Colin smiled at me.
     Then a flash of green burst in front of me. Colin moved in the ticks of a second and he caught the green flash in the heart. Colin fell to the ground and never moved again, his face forever frozen in a half smile.
     I froze in place again. I looked down at my friend and savior; no tears formed in my eyes. I was too numb to think, too shocked to react.  There were shouts and curses flying all about me as the whole world seemed to descend into madness and yet I could not move. I stood there, looking at the still body of my friend and classmate, fallen and frail.
     A strong hand grabbed at my arm out of nowhere and I was pulled away. I didn’t notice until the battle seemed to fade away. The world swirled around me. I was lost and confused. I could not tell who was dragging me away but I knew it was a man. The man, dressed in all black, his disheveled hair in his face, his pale skin glowing in the night amidst the battle, dragged me away from the battle, away from the din, away from Colin and who knew how many others who had died that day.
     “Of all the dumb things a Gryffindor can do!” he grunted at me. “Do you all have to be insufferably dimwitted to think that being brave means being completely brainless? You are not even supposed to be here, you foolish child!”
     I was still in shock. I felt the man tugging at me, dragging me back towards the back of the castle grounds. All around there were fallen bodies, broken bits of gargoyles and stone soldiers, shards of glass and dead spiders everywhere.  But the man kept holding onto me. We scrambled out towards the quieter parts of the school grounds, away from the heat of the battle raging in the courtyard and along the front halls and towers. He led me towards the Black Lake; it was a while before I had noticed where we were.
     “Snap out of it, Shade!” the man said harshly. He smacked my face to bring me back to reality.
     “Professor Snape?” I asked when I finally got my bearings. I was confused; where had he come from? Where was he going? Why were we heading towards the Black Lake and the boat house?
     “Take this,” he said. He shoved a gold coin into my hand. I recognized it as a Muggle One Pound Sterling coin, but it looked to be brand new despite a date upon it saying it was minted in Eighteen Twenty-Six. “Hold on to it and don’t lose it, Shade! Do you understand? Do as I say and you might actually live to tell about it!” He spoke sternly to me. He then turned to walk towards the boat house near the edge of the water.
     “Where are you going, Professor?” I asked. The battle was far above and beyond yet the din was still loud in my ears.
     “Just do as I say, Shade! Take the coin and go!” He shouted at me. I could see he had fear in his eyes.
     I turned and walked away, but then he shouted back at me. “Shade, someday you will understand everything. When you do, find me.”
     I stood and wondered what he meant by that. I turned to ask him what he meant when the coin turned blue and I found myself falling and swirling, being pulled through space and time. I lost all balance briefly then landed, hard, in the village of Hogsmeade, on the cold damp ground. 
     Hogsmeade was nearly as busy as Hogwarts was. There were many people taking up wands and several were battling Death Eaters there. I ran for cover with a family that beckoned me into the Three Broomsticks. Inside, Madam Rosmerta, the matron of the Three Broomsticks, and several others had taken shelter from the battle. The din of the battle was loud even there, almost a mile away. I slumped down and hid with the family and Madam Rosmerta. The gash on my face stung. While a strange woman tended to my wound I gazed at the coin. It was a Portkey. I had read about them but I had never seen one. Then I realized what Professor Snape had done: He had saved my life. He sent me away from the battle. Colin had died saving my life, yet who knew how many more people died that night.
     I was hurried to another Portkey set up outside the village once the woman was done tending to my wound. The other Portkey was where others were travelling back and forth, some arriving to join the battle, others leaving to escape it. I ended up in a town outside of Devonshire. From there a nice person I never knew Apparated me to my foster parents’ home. They were not so relieved to see my face, scarred and bloody. They told me then and there that I was not going to return to Hogwarts, swearing up and down about how the Dark Lord was going to reduce it to ashes and that Hogwarts was going to be destroyed that night. They told me that I was to finish school in America, at the Salem Academy of Magic. They said there was no hope left for anyone.
     I will never forget that night. Everything changed that night. Yet I sometimes pull that coin out and spin it in my hands. I look closely at it. A charm was placed on it to keep damage or wear from accumulating on it. I ponder sometimes how long Professor Snape had kept it.
     I kept it always with me. It is a constant reminder of what happened that night and what I learned that shaped the life I was meant to eke out. It is my solemn, silent, daily reminder to always find a way to shine light into the darkest of places and never to lose hope.
     Never.