Disclaimer:
Harry Potter and all of its characters belong to J.K. Rowling.
I own nothing but the original characters I make.
"Dialogue"
'Thoughts'
-Author notes-
Chapter 75: A Broken Place
It was early in the morning. James and his friends were on their way to class on the fifth floor of the castle, and Sirius was complaining as usual.
"Why do we need to listen to that ghost first thing in the morning? That's just torture," Sirius groaned.
"I don't like History of Magic either, but…what can we do?" Peter said.
"Why are the two of you whining? You're always falling asleep during class," Remus huffed. He was annoyed because those two never paid attention in class, and in the end, it was up to him to help them when they had homework or there was a test coming up.
Remus was about to request for James to knock some sense into them when he realized that his friend wasn't paying attention to their conversation at all. "James…what are…what is going on?"
"Whoa, where is everyone going?" Sirius asked.
The reason for James not paying attention to them was because he noticed some commotion on the upper floor.
Students from all houses seemed to be passing by their side before rushing up the stairs.
"Where are they going? There are no classes on the sixth floor," Peter pointed out.
The astronomy classes were on the seventh floor but always took place in the late afternoon, so there was no reason for so many students to be going up there now. Not to mention, they were moving to quickly to be going to class.
"Let's go take a look, something has definitely happened up there." James said as he moved toward the stairs at a brisk pace. Something told him that he had to hurry.
Sirius, Remus, and Peter followed right behind him as James did the same and moved after the group of students ahead of him.
He heard everyone murmuring, but no one seemed to know exactly what was going on. James could only pick up something about students making a mess on the sixth floor.
He saw the crowd passing by the familiar lounge room and venturing further into the corridor to the left.
James then knew for sure that his initial bad feeling had become true, since there was nothing in that corridor except for two abandoned classrooms and…his laboratory.
"James! Isn't that…?" Sirius had a concerned expression.
None of his friends had entered his laboratory, but they knew more or less where it was.
"This is bad, isn't it?" Peter asked.
"What do we do?" Remus asked as they moved through the increasing crowd.
"I need to get there before something terrible happens," James said, pushing a few students out of his way to pass.
He could hear the noises of things breaking and people yelling.
When he got to the front, he only needed a second to know it was too late to save anything in there. The secret entrance had been opened by some type of demolition spell that broke the wall. The pieces of broken glass and destroyed materials had even reached the hallway right outside the lab.
"Bloody hell!" Peter shouted.
"Who did this?!" Sirius was ready to rush in there and start beating people but was quickly stopped by James.
"All of you, stay here. I don't want anyone entering that room. There are volatile materials in there," James warned them.
"Then what are y—"
Before Remus could finish, there was a sudden loud noise coming from inside the lab, and yellow smoke started to burst out of the broken entrance, beginning to fill the hallway.
"Tsk...too late," James muttered under his breath.
"Fire!"
"There's fire!"
"Run!"
There was no visible fire, only smoke. But this was more than enough to make the students panic and scatter away.
James saw three individuals with Slytherin robes rushing out of the lab as fast as they could while covering their mouths to protect themselves from the toxic fumes.
He first moved to intercept the three vandals when, all of a sudden, he heard the desperate cry of a familiar voice.
"Let me go!"
"Bella, stop! Come back here!"
James was just able to catch a passing glimpse of Bella as she broke away from her older sister, who was trying to prevent her from running directly toward the smoking room.
"What is that foolish girl doing?" James knew better than anyone else what these fumes were and what was about to happen next.
'Not going to make it in time.' He had to admit that she could run very fast for someone wearing a long robe.
She was less than thirty feet away from him and about to cross the broken entrance to venture inside the smoking lab. If she did that, she was as good as dead.
Normal spells were not going to cut it this time. He needed something that could bypass Hogwart's protections...something older.
"𐎦𐎨𐎵𐎤 𐎬𐎤 𐎯𐎮𐎼𐎤𐎱" Strange guttural noises came out of James's mouth. His body seemed to glow for an instant before he disappeared from the spot.
Only to reappear right next to Bella.
James wrapped his left arm around her waist and pulled her back, placing her behind him.
"Let me g—...James?" She stopped struggling from his grasp when she realized who it was. "You have to le—"
"What the hell were you thinking?!" James shouted at her with fury.
Bella's body froze. She had never seen him this angry before.
The amount of yellow smoke was increasing, and it now reached their waists. Then…they both caught a quick glimpse of the golden cauldron where James had been brewing the Felix Felicis potion, just before it exploded violently.
The yellow smoke coming from its lid mixed with the green flame that had been burning beneath it. The resulting fire had turned to a vibrant light-green color. It was as beautiful as it was deadly.
Bella panicked. The fiery explosion expanded in a fraction of a second and was already in front of them, ready to swallow them whole. There was no time to run away.
But before it could do that, the green, deadly flames were stopped by a blinding white light.
What most of the witnesses weren't able to perceive, due to its brightness, was that this light was also a flame, a pure white flame that James had summoned to stop the other one from advancing.
"Cover your eyes," James said. "And don't move from where you stand."
Bella didn't need to be told twice.
The white flame began to expand.
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