"Uh," Crabbe said. "Aren't you going to do this?" The big oaf looked to Malfoy helplessly.
"You think I'm going to muddle around with a simple flash-plate?" Draco asked. "Surely you're not so stupid as to be unable to handle that are you?" One of the two was about to answer, but Draco went on ahead of him. "Whatever. You two just get those flash-plates set, I'll handle the difficult part."
Malfoy smiled as he walked away to set up the complex part of the plank. Hecate and her mob were about to learn not to mess with him.
"Is this enough brimstone?" Goyle asked, holding out a large handful.
"Better make it more, just to be safe," Crabbe said after a long pause of what may have been thought.
****
Malfoy watched eagerly as Kodachi came down the stairs with her friends. He had originally planned on messing up her climb, somewhere near the bottom so that there'd be no serious problems if it got back to him, but then heard that she planned to be up earlier with her friends.
And so he watched from the side of the stairwell, the closest, best view possible, as they came down the stairs and started to cross the room. A whole pack of students, some younger, some older, were coming down with her.
~Good,~ Malfoy thought, smiling. ~They'll get to see her quiver then.~
He was just wondering why Crabbe and Goyle were so far across the room when someone reached the spell-trigger and a ball-fire erupted from overfull flash-plates as illusionary, green ghosts cackled madly.
Malfoy felt something push him aside as the blast erupted and he stared transfixed.
****
Snape was almost to the Slytherin house tower when the explosion came, followed shortly by screaming and crying children and some sort of mad cackling.
He rushed up to the picture and snapped off the password then slipping inside.
"What is going on in here?!" he demanded. He looked about the room, the cackling and screaming banshees were easily dispelled illusions, but the fires were real.
Vito and several upper years were fighting the fire as best they could with screaming boys and girls running everywhere and those illusions cackling away.
"Extinguish!" Snape declared loudly and instantly the fires were out.
He glared once at the annoying illusions and casually dispelled them. That left only a load of crying and sobbing younger children, most of whom were either badly burned or bruised.
"You!" he pointed to a fifth year coming down the stairs to see what was going on. He froze on being addressed by the head of his house. "Go to the hospital wing and bid Madame Pomfrey come here. NOW!" The boy went off running as if chased by hell-hounds.
"Kodachi?" a girl was saying some where behind him.
He turned about and was dismayed to see that Miss Hecate had been blown off her feet by the explosion and was lying there unconscious. He rushed to her side and virtually pushed the mousy girl out of the way as he checked upon her.
"She has a nasty knock about the head," Snape said relieved and now irritated. "And some bad burns, but she'll be fine by tomorrow. Miss Harrison, I'll beg you not to be so hysterical about such minor injuries again."
"Can't you two do anything right?!" one distinctive voice called out, and Snape whirled to see Malfoy addressing his cronies. "It's a flash-plate, not a bomb!!"
"Mr. Malfoy," Snape said in that quiet voice that signalled when he was truly enraged. Draco winced, apparently realizing for the first time that Snape was there. "Am I given to understand that this is your doing?"
"Uhh..." Draco said quietly, struck otherwise voiceless.
"Nevermind," Snape said slowly, he looked about and frowned. "How is it you are so near the center of this chaos and have received little more than a scrape?"
"Kodachi pushed him out of the way," Karen said then.
"I see," Snape said.
"Oh Gracious!" Madame Pomfrey's voice was clearly heard as she entered what seemed more like a battlefield than a house common room.
"I believe the most serious injury is over here, Madame Pomfrey," Snape said. "We are most fortunate that damage is mainly structural. Malfoy!"
"Yes?" Draco asked, terrified. "Professor...Snape?"
"Come. with. Me."
See other episodes by Thrythlind
(Posted Sat, 28 Dec 2002 23:43)
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