Malfoy and Longbottom reputation were literally inexistent by the end of the day. Between his accusations and his insults, Draco lost fifty House points again. The group of first-years Gryffindors had lost fifty too. Each participant save Alexandra in this little disaster had two weeks of detention. Slytherin and Gryffindor hourglasses in the entrance were now slightly ahead of zero. Barring divine intervention, Ravenclaw or Hufflepuff were about to win the House Cup this year. So why wasn't she able to shake off this bad feeling that something horrible was about to happen?
30 April 1992, Hogsmeade, Scotland
Summer had not yet arrived to this far-away part of Scotland, but on this warm day one could always believe the contrary. A few white cumuli were seen in the distance, but there was no sign of the grey and dark clouds of rain which had sent torrent of waters in March and early April on Scottish soil and made the levels of the Black Lake rose by several feet.
The fauna and flora had not been slow in adapting to these signs, and the hills around the wizarding town of Hogsmeade were bristling with the small noises of animals emerging from their slumbers and the choreography of thousands of flowers blooming at sunlight.
The two characters hidden under large and cumbersome robes did not give even a glance at this entertaining spectacle of renewal.
"The affair with the dragon could have gone better." Told in a conversational voice the figure dissimulated under black robes. The sentence had not the time to be finished, being quite rudely interrupted by the other figure present. "I was hoping-"
"It doesn't matter. The oaf told me what I needed to know."
Light red flashes coming from the violet robes punctuated the words where mercy and humour were totally absent. After a brief period of silence, a new affirmation came in an affirmation which tolerated no discussion.
"It's time we start our preparations for the Forbidden Corridor."
"I find your enthusiasm a bit too rapid for my taste." His interlocutor protested. "We have not a clue of what Dumbledore did to-"
The second interruption came, as dismissive and rude as the first.
"Do not question Lord Voldemort. Weakling." The tone of voice coming like a guttural rasp out of the violet robes was enough threatening to simulate a new Ice Age in the middle of the Sahara.
A twirl and the being hidden behind the violet robes disappeared magically from his position, leaving the other figure alone.
In the air, a laugh where little joy was present resonated in the spring sun.
"And I'm supposed trusting this thing to rob a Philosopher's Stone?"
After the dragon episode which was the subject of the conversations for the next week, the events accelerated themselves in the magical school. May was coming, and with it the exams of the end of the year.
The positive side of this period was that despite the huge mountain of homework they had to do, the Gryffindor and Slytherin leaders were oddly silent. Norbert the Norwegian Ridgeback wasn't the only reason for that of course, but it was welcome all the same. Indeed, May was traditionally the period where the Lions and the Snakes took the backseat and let the Ravenclaws and the Hufflepuffs compete for the best academic grades. Hermione was the only exception in Gryffindor, being in first place from nearly the beginning of the year and having never been dethroned by anyone. The rest of the Gryffindors and Slytherins were revising, Alexandra knew it by having seen Ron Weasley using the library to try to catch up his huge deficiencies in every class. But the boys and girls who had been the attention of the school the whole year by their pranks and various rule-breaking started to realise working one month of the school year wasn't enough to stay on top of the rankings. Even if a student had had previous tutoring like Neville Longbottom the Boy-Who-Lived. It did not stop Slytherin from inflicting a large defeat upon Hufflepuff on the Quidditch pitch 200 to 40, though.
In the mean time, in the Ravenclaw common room the masks of friendship were falling. Figuring at the top of the class was a moral imperative for any Ravenclaw, and it was a question of prestige for the fifth and seven years passing respectively their OWLS and NEWTS. Not that it was limited to the older students. Alexandra saw a second-year girl named Cho Chang throwing ink on the notes of her housemates, several sixth-years throwing compulsions charms in order for their challengers to forget to revise and seventh years enchanting parchments and others magical artefacts to erase any homework made by their rivals. Prefects and older students had not any spare time for the younger ones. Good will, cooperation and kindness were getting scarcer and scarcer. Even her year-mates were not spared. She had seen Stephen Cornfoot destroy several dozen Transfiguration notes belonging to Padma Patil, Antony Goldstein sabotaging several spells of Michael Corner by casting "Finite!" at the most inopportune times and Terry Boot cursing Morag MacDougal because the pure-blood girl had insisted she was going to finish below him in the final exam rankings. After the year she had just lived, Alexandra was not particularly proud to be a Ravenclaw. Where was the feeling of being part of a family that Professor McGonagall had loudly proclaimed before they were sorted in their Houses? Where were the friends and the unity she had read in her books of fantasy and science-fiction? House Ravenclaw, as far as she was aware, was no Fellowship of the Ring. The Ravens were more like a band of orks under Sauron, fighting each other as soon as there was no Dark Lord to put a little order in the formation. Not a funny comparison, but an accurate one in her opinion.
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