~The Big Five at Hogwarts~

Chapter 9

Jack

       The five of us hurry over to Professor Flitwick, who is waving his arms at the other professors and yelling,

            “Someone do something! We must contact the Minister! It is an emergency!”

Practically everyone there starts to panic while Professor Longbottom and Professor Cronglle follow Flitwick back to the castle so that he can show them what happened. I am curious to see where McGonagall disappeared. I signal to Merida, Hiccup, Elsa, and Rapunzel to follow me, but before we can, Longbottom stops me in my tracks.

            “You kids stay here,” he tells us, “until we figure this out. And we will talk about the dragon.” As the three teachers leave, Merida shouts after them,

            “Do you think that the dragon was our fault? If anything, we should be thanked for how we probably just saved the school!” She keeps complaining  at them, but they have already moved on.

            “Something tells me that everyone has more important things to do than give us recognition,” Elsa snaps, “did you not hear? Professor McGonagall is gone! And don’t forget about the mess we made in the process of saving the school.”  As I scan the field I realize that she’s right. The first few rows of seats in the stands are charred to a crisp, a section of the grass is reduced to ashes, and one of the goalposts looks like it might fall over. Not on us, I hope. Luckily, one of the teachers realizes this and uses the oculus reparo charm to fix it. I almost miss Merida’s reply to Elsa’s retort.

            “I’m sure that McGonagall just popped out for a break. Everyone’s making such a big deal out of it.”

“Headmistresses don’t just pop out for a break unannounced,” Elsa says, “now why don’t we help out by cleaning this mess up?” She starts to pull out her wand, but stops when Merida opens up her mouth again.

“Well if you hadn’t interfered, then maybe most of this mess wouldn’t be here,” she mutters. At this, Elsa turns around and leans in so that her face is inches from Merida’s.

“I’m sorry; I didn’t know that I was interfering when I saved your life!”

Merida comes back with, “well, I had it perfectly under control until you came along.” I know that someone has to stop this before it goes too far, and sure enough Rapunzel splits them up before Elsa can talk back.

“You guys,” she begins, “I think that we are all tired and angry from fighting off the Horntail. Maybe it’s best if we all focus on the real problem.” Merida and Elsa back way from each other, although they don’t stop giving each other looks.

Eventually, Longbottom and Cronglle can be seen coming back to the growing crowd of people on the field. All of the noise must have woken the students, because a lot of them are trying to see what is going on. The professors are trying to keep the pajama clad pupils out of the way, but they are not entirely succeeding.

“Everyone, calm down,” Longbottom tells everyone, “there is nothing to worry about. Headmistress McGonagall is perfectly fine, though she won’t be back for a while. I want everyone to go back to bed. Things might be slightly different tomorrow, but I want everyone to know that it is all taken care of.” The students seem dissatisfied with this explanation,--as was I—but the teachers nonetheless lead them back to the school. However, I need to know what is going on, so when the teacher leading the long line of students isn’t looking, I slink back to where Longbottom, Cronglle, and Flitwick are speaking to one another.

“Wait for me,” Merida whisper-calls, creeping after me, followed reluctantly by Rapunzel, Hiccup, and Astrid. Elsa tries to beckon us back in line, but when we won’t listen, she sighs and pursues.

“Go back to the hut, bud,” Hiccup tells Toothless. When the dragon resists, Astrid offers to take him back herself before doing so quickly and quietly. Pretty soon Hiccup is joining us behind the burnt seats. We listen to Flitwick as he murmurs to the other two teachers.

“What’s going on?” he sounds confused, “I couldn’t find the Headmistress anywhere and she had never said anything about leaving. Did you message the Minister?”

“We did, in fact,” Longbottom answers, “and he sent an owl saying that McGonagall would be relieved from her duties a few days early. He’s going to see if Cribrune can do any better.”

“Oh, right, Cribrune,” Flitwick sighs. “But I thought that McGonagall was convincing the Minister otherwise?”

“Well, apparently she did not succeed,” Cronglle says anxiously. And with that the three of them follow the students into the school.

“What in Thor’s name is that supposed to mean?” Hiccup finally breaks the silence. We all answer it with utter silence, but we are probably thinking the exact same thing: no idea.