Angela Cross and the End All Spell

Angela Cross and the End-All Spell

--a Harry Potter Universe fanfiction--

Chapter Eleven

**Vas Flam**

Angela was pleased to see that Hagrid had fashioned an old tool-shed out back into a makeshift doghouse for Pepper, filled with straw and kept warm since it was adjacent to the hut. The girls had initially found Hagrid when he had taken her and Fang out for some exercise; he told them that he'd once tried to keep both dogs in his house, but the two played so wildly that he'd end up coming back to a disaster zone if he left them in the same place for too long (not to mention her constant barking at Fang kept him awake at night).

Over the next few weeks, Angela and Kathy would make a point to come visit Hagrid's hut and play with the little dog when they could make the time - it obviously wasn't much fun having to live in a shed alone all the time, and Hagrid couldn't leave her outside since it was so cold. Angela loved the little animal and wondered if she might be able to find some Gryffindor-colored dog collars for her, while Kathy obviously enjoyed the fact she got to come to Hagrid's place so often. Making friends with a three-headed puppy dog just added to the wonderment of Angela's experience at Hogwarts.

Thanksgiving was a minor disappointment, though not too much of one Angela was surprised to find. True, no one in England celebrated the holiday, but considering how much food there was regularly at the Great Hall dinner banquets it didn't feel like she was missing out on any of the good grub. On top of the birthday cards she'd received before, her mother and other family members had sent her Thanksgiving cards, which Angela happily placed on her dresser back in her room.

Angela wondered what her family thought about her going to Wizard school out in England, until she read in a letter from her mom that she'd told them Angela was just going to private school in Europe because of good grades; she'd tried to explain it was magic school at first but her Aunt Lana didn't believe her, so to keep them from thinking she was just crazy she made up a story closer to the truth. The young girl made a mental note to write something corroborating this the next time she wrote them and wondered just where she'd get stamps to make the letter look convincing.

With December's arrival snow seemed to come out of nowhere, leaving a foot-deep blanket of the white stuff outside and making the hallways of the school even chillier if possible. The fires in the common rooms and Great Hall were going at full power which kept some of the more frequented parts of the school toasty, but classes had no such luxury and students often arrived bundled up so that only their eyes were visible through their scarves, cloaks and hats. With all the magic the school had at its disposal, Angela found it a shame that no one had thought to conjure up some electric heaters or something. Thank goodness for Kathy, though, as she was from Kiev and most of her casual clothing was designed to fight back this sort of thing; students in the halls or classrooms would often look longingly at the mittens and extra-thick sweaters the girls sported and shared.

Many students complained about the cold in classes, especially in Potions which was located in its stony dungeon underground and even colder than the others they had to attend, but as the students used burners for all their experiments it wasn't anything too intolerable. Flying lessons were also downright freezing since they were all held outdoors, but the one benefit Angela saw to being unable to fly during Madam Hooch's lessons was that she wasn't being frozen with wind-chill up in the higher altitudes; it provided her little comfort though. Hooch was taking the beginner lessons up a notch, using the existing environmental conditions to help get the students used to riding brooms in all forms of weather, and with the snow flurries in one of the lessons Angela couldn't even see the students above her, feeling truly alone down on the ground, huddling within her cloak and staying put since she wasn't allowed to go anywhere warmer if she wanted to pass.

A couple of weeks before the end of the term, Professor McGonagall had traveled about the school with a scroll in hand, taking the names of students who were going to be staying over the upcoming Christmas holidays. Angela didn't add her name to the list, but she did wonder how she was going to get back to Oklahoma to be with her mother; she didn't want Sheri to be alone during Christmas and the New Year, and figured it would also be a good opportunity to see her current living conditions and perhaps help enforce her reasons for being at Hogwarts than back in the U.S. (not that she figured she actually needed anything to be reinforced in her mind). Writing Mr. Weasley for some advice on the matter would have probably been a good idea, though the outdoor conditions were positively awful for flying, many of the owls that had been coming and going with letters in this weather having to be nursed back to health by Hagrid due to the cold and wind. Angela decided to hold off until the sky cleared up a little before she'd send Percy off anywhere; there was still plenty of time before school ended, and if push came to shove she was sure she could ask one of the Weasley brothers to get a note to their dad somehow, maybe even hitch a ride with them if Mr. Weasley wanted to talk to her in person when they inevitably left for the holidays. She still had plenty of money from her stipend fund, perhaps she could even hire the wizarding equivalent of a taxi or something to take her back home if such a means of travel existed.

As the days continued on the school began to look more festive and the halls became more energized. Hagrid had brought in some of the most massive trees Angela had seen for the holidays, and Professor Flitwick was taking a light-hearted pleasure in decorating them; Angela wondered just how many times a man could say Wingardium Leviosa before he needed a break from levitating ornaments and ribbons carefully onto such huge trees. Meanwhile, students were so excited about going to see their families for the holidays and tell them all they'd learned (especially the Muggle-borns who knew their families had no idea what to expect) that there was a constant buzz of chit-chat in the hallways, the common rooms, even the classrooms. Professor Flitwick, being the most laid-back of the instructors, actually made conversation with his students about his own plans for the holidays (which seemed to involve him, a beach chair, swim trunks, sunglasses, and a place named Tiki-Tok Island). Unfortunately, he was the exception to the rule: the others enforced class discipline even more stringently than before, especially Professor McGonagall; Angela could only assume Professor Snape would be equally hardnosed, if not more so, in tomorrow's Double Potions period. There were final exams to think of, and they didn't need the students going on vacation early.

Still, the little Charms teacher's lightheartedness made that Thursday more pleasant and took away some of the dread from the anticipation of next week's finals. He assured everyone they were going to do marvelously and wished Hufflepuff and Gryffindor good luck on their studying as the two groups headed out to lunch. Angela noted that Jason seemed to apply this positive assessment to himself as well when he left the classroom, his face a confident smile when he headed off to meet James as he got out of his History class; she hoped he would do well, but with his total lack of focus she saw in almost every class they attended together she wondered truthfully just how badly he was going to bomb his tests. For someone from Hufflepuff, he seemed to have an appallingly bad work ethic.

But where the beginning of the day was a pleasant one, everything following lunch was nothing short of absolute disaster.

The snow fell hard and heavy that day outside on the Flying range. People like Ron Weasley, whose clothing was all hand-me-down and not in particularly great shape, were shivering and hopping about madly to stay warm. Others, like Draco Malfoy who apparently had the benefit of coming from a wealthy family, looked perfectly content in their leather gloves, earmuffs, and even aviator goggles; the blonde boy was more than happy to take the opportunity to sneer at anyone in Gryffindor that wasn't as well equipped as he was. His henchmen, Crabbe and Goyle, were trying to sneer at other students as well but as they weren't as warmly-insulated as Draco was their attempts to look imposing only ended up looking silly, their teeth chattering and their eyes crinkled up to keep the snow out of them.

James McGee was standing alongside his fellow Slytherin students, though to Angela's surprise he didn't look exceptionally cold; the young boy barely looked bundled up at all, his clothes looking more fashionable than shielding from the elements. In fact, the only part of his outfit that looked like it was placed to help fight the environment were his trademark black sunglasses, which he had placed all the way against his face this time, keeping any potential wind and snow from obstructing his vision.

And then there was Angela. Seeing as she was utterly useless in the class, she didn't bother to dress for broomstick riding and instead was packed as heavily with stuffing as she could fit under her cloak. She knew she'd be staying in place for the entire period and decided the wasn't going to become a human-popsicle just because she couldn't soar through the snow with the others.

"Alright everyone," shouted Madam Hooch, her own flight goggles on to keep her vision unobstructed, "this is the last week of practice runs, next week is your first flight test. I expect everyone to ace this or I'll make the next term's training so rough you'll think flying in this weather was paradise compared to it." She gave Neville a quick side-glance, as if to emphasize the point with him, before hopping onto her broom. She lightly kicked off the ground, floating into the air like a shot and looking at the students expectantly. "What are you waiting for? Up, all of you!" As she stayed hovering in the air, student after student went hurtling up into the sky, vanishing almost immediately into the fog and blizzard.

"You heard her, Cross," suddenly said Pansy Parkinson, quietly enough so the snowfall would drown her out from the teacher's ears. "Up you go - Oh! That's right, rocks can fly better than you, how could I forget?"

Angela just looked at the girl in surprise. What the heck brought that on?

"Now, now, Pansy. Leave her alone."

If being insulted out of the blue by another student came as a surprise, the fact that Draco Malfoy of all people had come to her rescue was even more shocking; the boy had walked up to Pansy and patted her on the shoulder. Angela looked at them both, not really sure what to say here. Even Parkinson looked at Draco as though he'd gone nuts.

The surprise didn't last long though. "I mean, even that fat oaf Longbottom can fly," he said with his usual contemptuous sneer. "I don't think there's anything we could ever come up with that could match that insult." The Slytherins in earshot all laughed at this and shot off into the sky before Angela could even muster a glare at them. It didn't help that Angela knew her fellow Gryffindors who were still on the ground had heard this and hadn't come to her defense. She knew they were all rather embarrassed that the only student in the entire school that couldn't fly was in their class, and were so ashamed for themselves that they didn't even bother putting up a fight for her sake. Before the rest of them had even finished heading into the sky the young girl had turned around and found someplace out of the way to sit the rest of the class out, resisting the urge to throw it all to the wind and go back to the common room inside.

Angela stood under a stone passage running through one of the parapets on the edge of the practice area, away from the falling snow. It wasn't as light in the passage which suited her just fine, though the gale that passed from one end to the other was bitterly cold. She couldn't wait for the holidays to come now and just sat miserably on the ground alone; she couldn't sit too long though as the stone floor of the passage began to freeze her behind, so now she was forced to stand up for the next hour. She considered studying for another class, or even pulling out her sketchbook and doodling, but she knew the wind would just blast everything made of paper every-which-way and make it an impossible task. It was a long hour, indeed.

"Hey."

Angela blinked for a second, wondering if it was indeed her someone was talking to, and looked to her right. James McGee was standing there, broom tucked under his arm, his hands in his pockets.

"Oh, hi," Angela said, a little surprised. Granted, this was probably the first time James had said word-one to her without Jason present, but despite this auspicious occasion the young girl wasn't really in the mood to talk to anyone.

"You alright?"

Angela shrugged in response. No, she was not alright: she was pissed off, she was cold, she was bored, she was frustrated, and she just wanted the class to end so she could go back to the Gryffindor common room and sit next to the fire and ignore her useless fellow students. But she wasn't going to say any of this to James since frankly it wasn't any of his business. The fact that he was one of the best fliers in the class didn't help the fact that she also felt a little resentful of him.

"You know what I do when I'm having a bad day?" he said. "I like to yank off my thumb." Angela looked at him cockeyed for a moment, wondering just what the heck he was talking about. James, meanwhile, placed his left hand flat in front of his chest and placed his right hand over it so that his first two fingers were covering his left thumb. He then slid his hand back and forth, his thumb sliding along with the hand motion. James made an absurd wincing expression as he 'removed' his thumb.

It was one of the oldest and dumbest illusions in the book, but it was so out-there that Angela couldn't help but be amused. Granted, she was still in a rather sour mood, but at least it was enough to lessen the sourness a good degree.

"Don't make me yank off any other fingers," he said, deftly 'placing' his thumb back on. "I need them for stuff."

"No, that's ok," said Angela. At least it helped distract her from the cold for a moment.

"Oh good," he responded in a faux-relieved sense. Despite James' usual coolness he presented in front of everyone else, she could see a little of why he and Jason got along so well. They were both pretty odd when you got right down to it.

"What are you doing back down here, anyway?" Angela asked, wondering if the lesson had been cut early for some reason; that would have suited her just fine.

"Wanted to see how you were doing," he said. "And I don't think the coach will notice I'm gone for a little while with all that snow blowing around. Half the class already ditched with that blonde kid and his friends anyway."

"Oh." There was an awkward pause for a moment; Angela found the fact that some of the students were skipping out on a class she would have happily yanked her own fingers off to actively participate in extremely annoying.

"By the way," James said, "you, uh, know you still have my backpack..."

Angela opened her eyes wide in surprise and slapped herself on the forehead. She had completely forgotten that after finally emptying the bag during the Halloween season she had put it under her bed and likewise put it completely out of her mind.

"Um, heheh," Angela laughed embarrassedly. "Sorry. I sort of forgot about that. Hope it hasn't caused you any problems."

"Well, having to carry all my supplies in the black potion-pot does feel kind of silly."

"Remind me to get it next time we're indoors and I'll get it for you. I'll forget again otherwise."

"You can't remember on your own?"

"Trust me, I'll just forget it. You'll need to remind me." It was true, she was bound to accidentally shove the backpack's existence out of her mind again as soon as she was back inside the warm building and out of flying class; she could imagine her mother telling her she should take some ginkgo biloba to help with her memory.

"Tch."

"I can't help it! I have a lousy short term memory." Angela shrugged but smiled amusedly at the situation. If her fellow Gryffindors had such a problem with a Hufflepuff coming into the common room by accident, she wondered how they'd react if they knew there was a Slytherin backpack under someone's bed in there.

"By the way," she continued, "it was nice of you to loan Jason your backpack so I could have all that candy for Halloween."

James laughed at this. "To be honest, I had no idea he was going to stuff it like that. He just asked if he could use it for the day; I thought it was just going to be for some extra books or something."

"How's he doing, anyway?" Angela asked.

"What do you mean?"

"Well, he's all smiles all the time when I see him in class or in the hall, but it doesn't look like his classmates talk to him much, I don't think he has a lot of friends. He seems to get a lot of flak for hanging out with you."

James sighed and nodded. "Wish there was something I could do about that. No one really likes my house except people in my house. It's all kinds of stupid."

"Your housemates give you the same cold shoulder?"

"They don't bother me about stuff like that. They tried to give me a hard time about it, once, but... well, they didn't try again afterwards." James grinned slightly; obviously there was some story behind that.

"Anyway," he said, taking off his sunglasses and wiping the melted snow off of them with his cardigan, "I've talked to him about that before. He brushes me off about it, so I don't push him on the subject too much. He's happy being my friend, which is pretty cool of him."

While he was in the process of cleaning them off, Angela wanted to ask him about the sunglasses and why he always wore them. She resisted the urge though, deciding it might seem like she was criticizing his apparel for some reason. Instead, she stole a quick look at his face since this was the first time she had seen it free of the long, round-edged lenses, curious to see if perhaps he wore them to hide something, but without them he appeared as normal as ever. The young Asian boy, once he was satisfied that they were completely free of water drops, returned the sunglasses to the bridge of his nose, his eyes completely covered once more.

"So," he said, putting his broom on his shoulders and resting his arms over it so that they hung limply next to his head, "You enjoying school so far?"

Angela nodded. Her initial impulse was to say no, as she wasn't enjoying her situation at the moment, but she knew that when class was over and she was back inside preparing for Double-Potions the next morning that she'd be feeling better and more at home. The assignment for the next day was to have a drought of pickled electrical eel essence prepared, or 'Lightning in a Bottle' as Professor Snape liked to call it - if crafted properly, it would cause her metal cauldron to glow white on the inside as though she had switched on a light bulb when poured into it.

"It's a lot of fun," she said, trying to recall her usual enthusiasm for Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry as she said it. "I'm learning all sorts of great stuff and like all my classes. Magic's great. How about you?"

James shrugged. "It's okay," he said neutrally. "Kind of hard in some parts, but Jason helps me out."

Angela was a little surprised by James' indifference to the school, especially at him saying it was hard - though she only shared Potions and Flying classes with him, James seemed to excel at both subjects as though he had been studying them his whole life; he was second in Snape's class only to Granger (and possibly to Malfoy, though the way Professor Snape coddled him all the time it was hard to see if Draco was actually doing well or just getting preferential treatment), and in Hooch's class he was practically in the same league as Harry Potter. Why he wasn't on the Slytherin Quidditch team she had no idea.

Angela wondered if perhaps his apathy was due to him coming from a family that already knew magic really well; maybe they held James to some ridiculously high standard so he had to work really hard and get all perfect grades or something. It would certainly explain where he learned how to use a broom so effectively. Before she could really give the matter more thought, though, she was interrupted by a sudden group of gasps behind her. Both she and James looked in the direction of the sound to see a gathering of Slytherin girls standing in the entrance to the pass under the tower, looking at the twosome with surprise and, disturbingly enough, ire. Snow fell heavily, slapping them in the face constantly, though Angela wondered if the slapped expressions they wore were due to something else.

The girls stepped into the pass; at least their bodies blocked some of the breeze, though Angela would rather have endured the cold winds than have this alternative present. She suddenly got the feeling that these newcomers were taking claim to the area and she wasn't welcome in their new domain. The entire group, over half-a-dozen girls of varying sizes and all sharing the same unpleasant demeanor at Angela's presence, walked down towards the pair.

James, funny enough, had a look of fatigued annoyance on his face and groaned slightly as they came.

Angela could feel herself tense up a little as the girls came down the short pass, and the glare she got from the whole group as they passed her didn't help any at that. Despite the strange change of emotion their faces suddenly conveyed, Angela wasn't entirely surprised when they stopped in front of James and their expressions softened, if only for a second.

"Is this... person bothering you?" asked one of the girls in the front of the group, sneering at Angela without looking directly at her. The girl, a short-haired, short-statured eleven-year-old with a rather pronounced nose and an almost holier-than-thou disposition, had a slightly red face as she spoke to James. She looked a little flustered, as did the others, at the fact that she was talking to McGee face to face.

"I'm talking to her," said James, his tone a weird mixture of trying to stand up for Angela and trying to be polite to members of the opposite sex at the same time. He ended up coming across as completely befuddled.

"Oh," said the Slytherin girl. The response sounded as cold as the weather. Angela could tell the majority of the coldness was directed at her person.

"You really did a great job on the broomstick today," said one of the other Slytherin girls, trying to pretend like Angela's presence didn't bother her in the slightest now that James had made it clear he didn't mind her being there. Her tone was obviously designed to flatter him.

"Um, thanks."

"Yeah, you and Draco could run rings around that Potter dork."

James just smiled awkwardly.

"You guys should be on the Quidditch team if he gets to be."

"That old crow McGonagall must've pulled some strings to get Dumbledore to let him on the team, that stinks." The girls' emphasis on 'crow' was obviously intended for Angela's ears.

All the girls continued to cluck on like a gaggle of chickens, praising James' flying abilities and occasionally his fashion sense while throwing in insults about the other houses, especially Gryffindor. As they tried to blatantly woo the young boy, they continued to clumsily maneuver themselves between Angela and him - she was without a doubt not welcome in their picture.

When the group had finally pushed their way between them completely and James' view had been obstructed enough to their satisfaction, they ceased trying to be subtle (as ineffective as their attempts had been) and proceeded to shove Angela away brusquely, a dirty expression on the faces of the girls in the back of the flock as Angela fought to keep her footing in the icy ground and was forced to brace herself on the stone wall.

That was enough. Class over or not, the young Gryffindor picked up her belongings and left: there was no point in her being there anymore, especially if Madam Hooch hadn't even noticed so many people cutting class. She didn't bother to look back as she left, certain she was not getting the friendliest of glances from the Slytherin girls as they saw her go. She didn't even care whether or not James had noticed she had left in the ruckus.

A soft glow caught her closed eye and woke her.

Yawning, Angela opened her green eyes slowly and quickly found herself smiling; it was so warm and comfortable in that large red chair, that roaring fire before her flickering an orange and yellow glow against her face in a pattern of dancing lights and shadows, and she momentarily considered curling up a little more in it and dozing back off.

Then it hit her: dozing back off?

Angela bolted up in the chair in a start and looked around. Her sudden movement startled a sixth-year Gryffindor girl who was sitting in the chair next to her reading a huge book titled Advanced Mathematical Principles in Magical Foundation Vol. II.

"Oop, sorry, did I wake ye up?" she asked in a very heavy Scottish accent.

"Um..." Angela tried to quickly get her mental bearings back. She looked around quickly to see the dorm was the same as when she had arrived there right after Flying class, mostly empty, but a quick glance out the window showed her it had become completely black outside. She rubbed her face quickly to try and get blood flowing properly to her brain again. "What time is it?"

"A lil' after eight p.m. Oh!" she added on with an embarrassed smile, "ye din' mean ta sleep so long, didje?"

Angela frowned and continued to rub her face. She was missing dinner.

"Ye'd better hurry if'n ye wan' ta git there before all th' grub's gone," she said, thumbing at the passage out of the common room.

Angela just nodded and got out of the chair. She had been looking forward to seeing Kathy and eating dinner, her favorite way of capping off a day, especially one as unproductive and annoying as the one she had just experienced. Missing either would have, to put it mildly, sucked.

Making sure she hadn't left anything strewn around on the floor, Angela hurried out of the room and down the empty halls. Traveling through the school now seemed almost instinctual, at least in the places she walked through regularly; she avoided taking unknown routes without other students around to avoid getting lost somewhere like in the storage tunnels again - last thing she wanted was to be chased around by rats again. True, it was still a little challenging going down the stairs as they liked to shift and sway and reorient themselves at seemingly random intervals, but as long as one kept her eyes open and paid attention, a person could get down to the bottom floor without the stairwell making life too difficult.

Angela had four more flights down to go when her stay at Hogwarts was changed forever.

"Well. Well. Well. What are the chances we just happened to bump into you of all people." The tone of the sentence, as well as the vicious giggles that followed it, immediately told Angela this was going to be trouble.

Six Slytherin girls, all of which Angela recognized from that same afternoon with James, leered up at her from the bottom of her current flight of stairs; their faces were hungry at the sight of her. Angela quickly considered immediately turning around and heading right back to the common room, dinner or not.

The gang of girls cut that decision short as they hurried up the stairs before she could even turn around fully, two of them positioning themselves between her and the path to escape. The ones lower down on the stairs just took their time walking up to her now.

"Just what do you think you're doing?" It was a girl with golden curly locks; she might have looked like Shirley Temple if she didn't have such an ugly expression on her face.

Angela didn't answer.

"You hear us, you little orange-haired prat?" This time it was a large, square-jawed girl who was disturbingly large and masculine for her age.

"What are you talking about?" Angela asked, " I just want to get some dinner."

"You know what we're talking about," the holier-than-thou girl from earlier that day said, her eyebrows scrunched together in a conscious attempt to make herself appear more foreboding. It would have actually looked quite comical if Angela wasn't worried about her own well-being at the moment. "It's bad enough that weirdo Hufflepuff kid harasses James all the time, but a floozy like you sure doesn't have any business talking to him."

"Floo- What? Look, I don't know what your problem is, we were just chatting."

"Please. You want to find someone to 'chat' to, find some Gryffindor loser. Like that Longbutt kid or something." The girls giggled in unison at the mangling of Neville's surname. "You stay away from James from now on, rat-face."

Rat-face?? Aside from the fact that the insult in itself was stupid - as the girl looked far more ratty than Angela ever could, especially with her forehead scrunched up like it was - the fact that they were upset at her because they thought Angela was trying to steal James away from them or something equally ridiculous really ticked her off.

"Look, if you want to make time with James or something you go right on ahead, I don't care. But I'll talk to whoever I want." It probably wasn't the smartest thing to say right at that moment, especially considering she was outnumbered by a group of jealous girls who thought she was trying to steal their man (which judging by James' expression from earlier that day he probably wasn't), and Angela realized this just after the words came out of her mouth.

Frowns burrowed into their faces at Angela's retort, the group of girls tightened their circle around her; Angela immediately felt the uncomfortable sensation of being cornered combined with her personal space thoroughly invaded. Right away she wished she was wearing her steel-toed boots from the trip on the Hogwarts Express instead of the school-regulated Mary-Jane's she had on as part of her uniform.

"Can't even get off the ground on a broom... I bet you're not even pure-blood, are you?"

"She's not even a half-breed, I'll bet. You're a mudblood, isn't that right, rat-face?"

"You're a stinking mudblood and you have the cheek to have a crush on someone in Slytherin? Go kiss something more your speed, like that big ugly troll Hagrid."

"Rat-face! Rat-face!"

And then the large, mannish girl shoved her on the shoulder.

Angela didn't need a lot to push her at the moment, but that certainly was more than enough; she liked to avoid confrontations as much as possible and would have been more than happy originally to just go her own way, but when certain lines were crossed Angela wasn't about to play the victim.

The big girl, who had been standing a couple of steps below her on the staircase, stumbled backwards when Angela pushed her back, hard. She waved her arms about clumsily, her balance totally thrown off as she tripped back on her own foot and took a tumble down the stairs, rolling almost like a cartoon character in a perfect spin down the flight of steps until she came to a complete stop hitting the wall beneath a painting of an old spinster in a rocking chair. The woman in the chair, who had been dozing comfortably in her pilgrim-like black and white dress and frock, see-sawing back and forth next to a warm hearth, woke up abruptly at the collision and looked down below her painting in confusion.

That was all the other girls in the group needed. They looked at Angela, then down the stairs at their friend, who was getting up and trying to figure out how to remove herself from the tangle of her robes which had knotted themselves over her head, and then back at Angela who had her fists out and a who's-next look on her face. Then they closed their circle completely and swarmed on her.

Now, these girls had apparently never really fought anyone before; in fact, if Angela had to guess, the only one that had ever thrown a real punch was the one still at the bottom of the stairs in a tangle. Still, being outnumbered five-to-one made the situation a bad one. Most of the girls were trying to slap Angela or hit her clumsily with the balls of their hands or their wrists, though one of them had grabbed her by the hair and another was trying to scratch her with her fingernails. Angela kicked ahead violently, hitting the scratching one hard in the shins and getting her to hop back with a yelp of pain. As quick as she could, Angela spun around and smacked the one pulling her hair with a backhand to the face, and the Shirley Temple girl let go with a pathetic squeal; though the connection probably stung quite a bit, odds are the girl was more concerned that her face might show the result of the impact later.

Unfortunately, those were probably the only licks Angela got in during the fight. Before she could turn back around, the square-jawed girl had successfully unraveled herself from her robes and bolted back up the stairs. Palms open and arms outstretched, she smacked Angela flat in the back and knocked her to her stomach onto the stairs; though she didn't fall far since the steps were angled upwards, the sharp corners of the white marble hurt a great deal when she was forced the brace her fall with her right arm. With her prone on the ground and the largest of their numbers back in their ranks, the Slytherin girls regained any confidence they may have lost at the effectiveness of Angela's self-defense and proceeded to lay into her.

A kick to the ribs, a stamp on her back, her hair being tugged on roughly, and all the while her ears being barraged with insults, threats, and laughter. Angela tried to get up but someone planted their foot firmly on the small of her back and pinned her down, pushing her deeper against the stairs. One of her arms was pinned beneath her, keeping her upper body from being pinched against the cold, hard marble, but the arm itself was beginning to feel numb from the pressure. Angela had to abandon her attempts to get up and use her one free arm to protect her head. The only thing she had to feel thankful for at this point was that none of them seemed level-headed enough to produce a wand and try magicking her with it or something; she found herself wondering how long it would be before they did.

"You hoodlums leave that girl alone, do you hear me?" It was an old voice and not particularly loud; Angela could barely make it out over the throbbing in her head and the constant blows she was enduring. The beating slowed, but didn't stop.

"Quiet you," Angela heard one of the girls say. "She asked for it."

The barrage promptly ended and Angela thought that perhaps whoever had spoken had gotten them to back off, when suddenly she felt herself grabbed by the arm and the back of her cloak and yanked off the ground harshly. Whoever had lifted her off the stairs spun her around so that she was now facing down the staircase. The other girls backed off promptly, and though she was somewhat woozy Angela was surprised to see that one of them actually looked at the others with worry; she was the exception to the rule, as the others were smiling ominously at her. They had something unpleasant planned.

"You rotten little scamps! Teacher! I need a teacher here!" Angela looked ahead of herself and could see the person who had protested the abuse she was receiving was in fact the old lady from the picture the large girl had landed under earlier. A little wobbly and on unsure legs, the spinster got up from her chair and grabbed a cane that had been hanging from the edge of the rocker, then hobbled off as fast as she could (which was not particularly swift at all) and disappeared off the edge of the canvas; Angela wondered if she was going to another painting somewhere in the school to find a member of the faculty, and then wondered if someone would find them before anything more had happened.

"Hey Millicent, are you, uh, sure this is a good idea?"

"Shut up, Penny. She did it to me first. Besides," she added, putting her head close enough so Angela could just barely see a satisfied grin, "people fall down these stairs all the time."

Angela desperately tried to wrench herself out of the lock the large girl had on her, not wanting to experience tumbling down the flight (or flights, depending on just how vicious these girls could be), and as she thrashed and turned violently she succeeded breaking the hold on a couple of occasions. The girl named Millicent kept grabbing at her, trying to get a decent grip on her in order to toss her down, and doing so more and more desperately as the seconds passed - the old lady in the painting may have already alerted someone to what was going on, a teacher or prefect or other witness could be on the way that very moment. With one heavy tug Angela finally yanked herself free of both hands, spinning around in the process and facing the lantern-jawed girl. But as she twisted the entire one-hundred-and-eighty degrees, stumbling a couple of steps down, the Slytherin girl decided she couldn't afford to try for a better grip again and threw her arms forward, determined to knock Angela backwards and down the stairs before she and her cohorts would run to escape being caught. Gasping in shock at what was coming, Angela suddenly imagined the sensation her head would feel if it hit one of the edges of the steps on the way down.

And then her vision went dark.

It wasn't a total blackout of her sight, she found herself noticing; it was more like just parts of her vision blackened. The blackness began to twist and move into patterns, artistic patterns at that, forming coils and vine-like arcs against her eyes. And although the darkness was quite thick, it didn't seem to obscure her vision. She didn't know how, but she could see through the black patterns, could see Millicent moving at her, her teeth bare, her eyes wide in what may have been panic or fear (at her own actions? At being caught? Something else? Angela couldn't tell), her hands out with the palms open, could see the girls around her becoming more desperate for this whole thing end before they got in trouble for it; it was all happening so slowly. Angela was only vaguely aware that she was raising her own hand reflexively at being charged.

The patterns, the twists and shapes and designs and all the little detailing within them that could now be seen coming into clear focus, everything began to scroll. It was like looking at a news ticker or something, the patterns moving across her field of vision slowly at first, more patterns scrolling from outside her field of vision and before her eyes. And then everything began to move faster and faster, until the motifs were positively speeding like raindrops past her eyes. Angela didn't know what any of them meant, she had no idea what was happening, was she hallucinating after being kicked and hit so much? All she could be sure of was a weird tingling sensation in her head, as though something in the back of her mind was scratching, trying to get out (or to get in? Or both?).

As soon as they started, the blur of symbols speeding past her eyes ended, scrolling off her eyes and leaving her seeing the world as she had before.

And the first words of a dark book ever uttered on this world were spoken.

"VAS FLAM."

Time began to flow bit by bit back to a normal pace, Millicent moving towards her faster and faster, Angela's hand still rising before herself reflexively, but now something was different. Angela could feel a building warmth in her palm and a flickering of orange and red and yellow reflected against the Slytherin girl's face. More than that, however, she could feel a surging of power rushing from her mind, through her being and towards her hand. She knew immediately that whatever was happening, if that surge should hit her palm while it was aimed at Millicent, the effects would be devastating; as much as she hated what she had just been put through, she knew whatever was surging towards her hand would be a far worse punishment than even she deserved.

Wincing, Angela raised her hand up past the large girl and let herself get pushed backward.

The blow to her back when she finally hit the stairs wasn't quite as bad as she had been expecting, perhaps because she found she had mentally prepared herself for the fall for such a relatively long time. It may have also been due to the surprise she, and everyone else present, experienced when the surge finally hit her hand - Angela was just beginning to fall backwards, Millicent's hands pushing against her body for moment before stopping herself to watch the Gryffindor student fall, when the temperature in the stairwell jumped fifty degrees instantly. Angela's hand was pointed straight up towards the top of the stair-tower when everything immediately around her palm and ten feet up went wavy and rippled, as though the air around those points became super-heated like a desert mirage. And then, in a flash of bright yellow, from the top of the ten-foot visual shimmering of her opened palm, came a roaring pillar of rushing fire.

It looked like the rocket end of a space shuttle launch, compressed into a column with a one-foot diameter and a height that went up and up, through the central opening between all the stairs in the stairwell, and didn't stop until it smashed into the ceiling at the very top of the tower. As she fell, Angela resisted the urge to twist and brace herself for the fall, instead concentrating on keeping her arm aimed towards the emptiness between the stairs (it was a good thing none of them were readjusting themselves to another position at the time). She shut her eyes as the fall neared completion, and Angela hoped she wouldn't be too injured at impact time.

Meanwhile, the roof of the tower completely exploded outward.

The blow, as mentioned, wasn't as bad as expected. True, it hurt quite a bit, but her cloak was bunched up enough around her shoulders to cushion her and prevent any bones from breaking. As soon as she hit the steps, the surge of power ended and the fire immediately vanished. The tower dropped down to normal temperature and then, Angela began to notice, it grew even colder. Angela opened her eyes slowly and looked straight up: where there had once been a dark, barely visible red-thatched ceiling in the tower up in the near-infinite distance, there was now a gigantic hole, its edges billowing smoke and orange flames. The center-oriented edges of all the stairs up the tower were blasted black. Tiny pieces of debris fluttered downward, though not as much as Angela would have initially expected; most of the ceiling would have undoubtedly been sent up and away from the blast point. A quick glance at her own hand where the pyre spilled from gave her a bit of a surprise as well: her sleeve all the way down to her shoulder was gone, completely incinerated away. Thankfully, her arm itself seemed perfectly fine.

After what seemed like a minute of getting her wits about her, Angela noticed that she was not alone: the Slytherin girls were still there. Their expressions had changed considerably, though. They were looking back and forth between the ceiling and Angela in abject shock and terror. She could see that the large Millicent-girl was there too, standing just where she had been when she first pushed Angela, except she didn't seem to be looking at anything in particular. She just gazed ahead of herself where the fire column had barely missed disintegrating her head.

Angela could see that Millicent's eyebrows and bangs were gone.

It was obvious that no one was going to help her up, so Angela, painfully, rotated around and clambered to her feet. Her body was beginning to ache terribly. As she fully righted herself, the world began to swim around her and she stumbled to gather her footing. She lurched towards the Slytherin girls, and their sudden movement was almost startling; they had been standing stationary in shock for so long that when they jumped away from Angela in dread she was a little taken by surprise, not by the fact they wouldn't help her but the fact that they could move at all. Luckily she managed to brace herself against a staircase banister without anyone's aid and held her head, trying to keep herself steady as funny sensations swam about in her brain.

An image flickered across her mind's eye, something with a tiny antique store and a tall man in black that reminded her of a spider and windows shattering and suits of armor flying to the rescue out of nowhere.

She couldn't dwell on the thought long, though, for she was interrupted by a series of awed gasps. Immediately Angela's head stopped swimming and the world around her was as solid and real as it had always been. Staring upward from a couple of flights down, eyes transfixed on the hole in the roof above, were Professor McGonagall and Mister Filch, as well as an older Hufflepuff student with a prefect's badge on his robes. Angela also quickly noticed that the old lady was back in her picture, also looking upward. For that matter, every painting in the stairwell that had a person in it was staring either upwards at the ceiling or at Angela herself.

A minute of silence hung about the stairs, until Filch finally spoke up, looking at Professor McGonagall as he did so.

"I hope you don't expect me to clean this up."