Angela Cross and the End All Spell

Angela Cross and the End-All Spell

--a Harry Potter Universe fanfiction--

Chapter Fourteen

**Lesson Number One**

It was not long before Hagrid had the dubious pleasure of finding out just what he had truly volunteered for.

Still accompanied by the fall of snow the school year started once more, the myriad of students returning from their respective holidays and coming back to the familiar routine of classes from before. Angela returned to spending her full time in Gryffindor house, thankful that Sheri would not be able to move in with her; in fact, the day after her fateful arrival, Hagrid had somehow arranged for the camper to be pulled from school property and down the ways to the neighboring village of Hogsmeade, which was far enough away from the school that it would work properly again. Sheri was expectedly annoyed that she didn't get a tour of the school property before she was moved down the hill, but Angela had been able to maneuver her way out of showing her mom around the grounds: it was already stressful enough for her just having her mother so close, but the thought of having to introduce her to everyone they passed and show her every nook and cranny of the castle, that was just too much too fast (visions of Sheri going on endlessly about her booth to Professor Dumbledore plagued her thoughts); maybe another day, like in the summer or something when no one was there.

Still, her relocation hadn't stopped Sheri for utilizing Hagrid for every heavy lifting task she could find. She was in fact so busy setting up shop in Hogsmeade that all the communication she did with Angela was via Percy: Sheri had found a nice thrift shop in town that she could sell antiques from and had right away begun moving goods into it.

Or rather had Hagrid move goods into it.

The first week of second term had gone fairly well. Angela was more than ready to get back to learning magic, and despite her being a little anti-social Angela felt comforted to see so many other students around who were enthused like she was. The part of the week she had most been looking forward to - Flying class - was well worth the wait, as she finally got to compare herself one-on-one with the other students present, as well as get more of an opportunity to see just what her strengths and weaknesses on the broom were. While she was now probably the fastest person in the class on a broomstick, it turned out she still needed some practice to get real control over her the broom; the star pupils from the previous term still had her outclassed on cornering and overall aerial agility, but Madam Hooch assured her this would be something they could work on during the term. The instructor was obviously quite pleased to count Angela amongst her active students now, even if some of the Slytherins weren't; Angela wondered if perhaps one of the girls had hexed her earlier in the year to prevent her from being able to use a broom in the first place.

It was during lunch of the final day of the week that Hagrid lumbered into the Great Hall, somewhat exhausted. Angela caught a glimpse of him as he walked in, a little bleary eyed. It was an easy sight for most to miss as the returning students looked just as out of it, their instructors giving them extra assignments as the week moved ahead to make up for the few weeks they had gone without lessons. As such, Hagrid actually blended more into the crowd, or as much as a man his size could. Having seen him most of the Christmas holidays, though, and from her own personal experience with Sheri Cross, Angela knew better.

"Hi, Mister Hagrid!" Angela called to the as the large man walked by. He was a little distracted, but still managed to become aware of the fact he was being addressed, noticing the young Gryffindor with a start.

"Hmm? Oh! Good afternoon to ya, Angela. Ready to get back into th' swing o' things, are ya?"

"Yep. How about you, how are you doing with Mom?" A little forward, but when it came to her mother subtlety was not something warranted.

Hagrid looked a little embarrassed. "Oh, er, fine, just doing a few odds jobs fer her here and there's all."

For such a large, rough-looking man, Hagrid was one of the most polite and kind-hearted people the young girl had known: Angela wasn't about to believe that her mother was going to let the opportunity to use someone of his physical prowess just slip by, which meant that Hagrid was politely trying to avoid telling the Gryffindor girl her mother was working him like a mule.

"Just a few odd jobs?" she asked disbelievingly.

"Oh, you know. Lift a couple of things fer her new shop, do a little booth construction... Build one or two thing's fer her..."

Angela scrunched her eyebrows. "Build what, exactly?"

His shoulders sagging just a little and a sigh escaping his lips, Hagrid took a seat next to the girl on the bench; the wood creaked in protest as his massive frame settled comfortably next to her, but it was strong and well-constructed and didn't break. After a pause, he finally told her.

Angela coughed loudly. "A storage building?? She made you build a building for her??"

"It's not a big one," he responded, waving his hands slightly so as to keep her from thinking he was speaking ill of her mother. "Just a... couple of stories, behind Scrivenshaft's is all."

"You built my mother a two-story building down in Hogsmeade."

"Wellll... Yer mum wanted to bring all her things from Okee-Home-a since she was movin' out 'ere, and she needed somewheres t' put 'em all - an' there was quite a few things fer her t' bring out, mind you - an' she bein' yer mum an' all I din't want t' be impolite, she sounded like she really needed the help..."

"Uh huh... Just what did she tell you she needed help with?"

"Oh, th' poor dear," Hagrid said, looking sympathetically in the direction of Hogsmeade and shaking his head. "Tol' me all 'bout the hardships she had t' endure out there; movin' out 'ere's probably the best thing fer her, you know," he added, nodding. Angela just looked at him, visualizing a fish (a particularly big fish) on a hook. Hagrid continued on. "'Bout all them fellers what treated her bad an' din't help 'er out with 'er work, all them lousy bouts 'a luck with her money an' business prospects an' what have you. Not t' be rude," he added on, lowering his voice, "but yer mum must have th' worst bleedin' luck in the world."

"Mm-hmm, that's what she says," Angela muttered, wondering when her mother would be around next so she could strangle her; her mother liked to dramatize her life to look the victim, when in truth the person most responsible for Sheri's situation was Sheri: she'd drive men away by badgering them endlessly or making them work constantly on her projects, she'd invest her money poorly or lose it in get-rich-quick schemes, or otherwise just not think things through when doing some task and end up digging herself into a nasty hole. Angela hoped Hagrid wasn't headed for the same path so many others had followed blindly before him.

"So we took the floo over t' one o' 'er old booths and brought all them antiques an' 'primitives' back 'ere. It was all goin' well enough... 'till yer mum tried t' use the floo when I was pickin' up some metal stove fer her..."

Angela groaned.

"Mind you," he said, looking equally exasperated at the obvious disaster he was about to convey, "even if Muggles could use floo powder, yer 'sposed t' put the powder in before you start throwin' things into the fire-" Hagrid suddenly stopped himself in mid-sentence and looked positively mortified. "I shouldn't 'ave told you that..."

There was a pause as Angela imagined half an antique store going up in flames; Sheri was apparently so embarrassed about the situation she had sworn Hagrid to secrecy. "Just what did she burn up?" she asked, wanting to hear just what kind of damage was done.

"Oh, don' you worry, it was nothin' big, mind you," he said, trying to alleviate her fears that massive destruction had resulted that day, "just some box filled with toy horses an' some funny pink castle. But still-"

Angela actually flinched and missed any follow-up Hagrid had made to the sentence. She really hoped she had heard wrong, but it was hard to miss as many details as that.

"... A box with little ponies in it?" she asked, dreading the answer and feeling her stomach clench up painfully in a tight knot.

"Right. Oh, like the ones you got fer yer birt'day couple months back. With the little pictures on their rumps, them's the ones!" There was a pause by Hagrid, then followed by realization. "... Oh..."

Her mother had thrown her My Little Pony collection into a fire. All it took was someone to stop supervising her for one second, and she threw an entire box of ponies her daughter had been collecting for years, plus the pony castle they all lived in, into a lit fireplace. She had been there for around a week, and she had already succeeded in destroying one of Angela's most prized possessions. Plus she had told Hagrid to lie to her about it just so that she wouldn't find out.

If the large man looked absolutely mortified before, the look on his face now could only be described as humiliation kicked up to the nth-degree. Angela didn't spend a lot of time thinking about this, however, for she was too busy getting up, collecting her things, and promptly making her way out of the Great Hall. Hagrid called out some kind of apology as she left, but she didn't pay attention, she just made a beeline straight to the Gryffindor common room, trying to hold off crying her eyes out long enough to make it to her room and out of sight.

"Miss Cross?"

Angela kept going strong. She didn't want to acknowledge whoever had called her.

"Miss Cross, we need to talk, please."

It was Professor McGonagall; she had intercepted Angela before she could make it to the stairs. There would be no way she could evade the head of her own house, so Angela sucked up her misery about the ponies as best she could and turned to get this business with McGonagall over with; it was not an easy task in any sense of the word.

"Yes, Professor?" Angela asked, trying to remain as collected as possible.

If the instructor could tell her student was upset, she showed no indication of it, walking right up to her, her thick emerald robes flowing elegantly behind her, and going straight to business. "Now that the school-year has once again started, Miss Cross, it is time you and I got started on doing the work Professor Quirrell was not able to perform with you. I believe that as you are free for the rest of the day we should devote Friday afternoons to this task. Unless you have some prior engagement?"

Under normal circumstances Angela had nothing more specific planned than hanging out with Kathy and doing her homework assignments; she may have been more miserable than she had been in a long time, but as this was too important to turn down there was little she could say other than, "... No. I'm free."

"Excellent. Shall we get started right away then?" McGonagall instructed Angela to meet her in her Transfiguration classroom in an hour and then continued on down the hall while Angela returned to Gryffindor tower, where in the privacy of her bedroom she mourned her lost ponies for the next half-hour and wondered just what she had done to deserve a mother as thoughtless as that and be terrified about whether or not she herself would be just as insane in her own later years.

The door clicked and locked itself shut, giving the instructor and Angela privacy while they prepared to work on the task at hand: searching the depths of Angela's mind for the true potential the Book of Black possessed.

The young girl sniffled a little to clear her nose and wiped her eyes once more to make sure they were clear; they were undoubtedly red, but there was nothing she could really do to hide that so she had to just hope the teacher wouldn't bring it up.

"Miss Cross, is everything alright?" McGonagall asked, eyeing the young girl carefully.

"Yes," Angela said, hoping to just move beyond the lunchtime-unhappiness and focus on something else. "It's nothing."

"Are you sure?"

"I'm sure. Let's get started, please." It may have come across as curt, but Angela wasn't in the mood to talk about it with anyone right now, not even Professor McGonagall.

The professor eyed her student once again, but as Angela wasn't volunteering the information she decided to leave the topic alone for the moment. "Very well," she said, "then let us begin." Her face once again took on the air Angela was quite familiar with, that of the no-nonsense instructor she had studied under since she first set foot in the school; Angela was told to take a seat while her teacher took her usual place at the front of the room, standing before the blackboard as though a regular lesson was about to begin.

"First and foremost, we must understand the history of the Book of Black. How much about it have you learned to date?"

Angela shared what both Mr. Weasley and The Gray Lady had conveyed to her previously, and McGonagall nodded as the details were covered one-by-one.

"You seem to have quite a bit of the more pertinent information regarding the book's history learned, very good indeed. Now, what do you know of the spells themselves?"

A shake of the head indicated Angela knew very little about what the Book of Black specifically contained. "It was full of dark magic, really dark magic, I'd guess. Every spell in it was totally dangerous or destructive since Delgado already knew all the basics in magic and didn't need anything else, I suppose. And, um, one of the spells is a fireball."

The instructor's fingers were templed as she responded. "Mm. Unfortunately, Miss Cross, you are probably as well-informed about the specifics of the book's contents as anyone else, save perhaps Delgado himself. Now, that fire spell is the first real demonstration of what that book's spells can do, so let's focus on it: describe what happened when you cast it."

"Well... I was being attacked by those girls... and then that big one pushed me back, and I fell down the stairs and -"

"Ah. No, no, Miss Cross," McGonagall interrupted politely, "You have already described the actual situation on a few accounts. Tell me what was going through your mind, what sensations you may have experienced... How did the spell channel itself through you?"

"Oh. Um... I don't know. I mean, I was falling, and I was a little scared of hitting the stairs with my head..." Angela had to think carefully, as the details were a little fuzzy. She remembered everything that transpired, but wanted to make sure she got every little bit of it she could remember so they'd get as much covered as possible in this first sitting. "Let's see... Everything started slowing down. It was like I could still think at normal speed, even if everything around me was barely moving. And a bunch of squiggly symbols appeared in front of my eyes, and started moving across them. A lot of symbols..." She thought for a moment, trying to remember the details within the symbols, but couldn't really see anything more than random black squigglies in her mind's eye, then continued. "And then the spell came into my head - the fire one - and I aimed it at the Slytherin girl."

"Why did you cast the spell?" McGonagall asked.

"Huh?"

"When you aimed at Millicent and began to cast the spell, why did you do so? Why specifically did you cast a spell that tried to incinerate her?"

"I didn't try to incinerate her," Angela said annoyedly. Did McGonagall think she would intentionally attempt to kill someone?

"Miss Cross," the teacher responded in a placating manner, "I am not accusing you of wanting to harm someone. My concern here is that a spell of great destruction was unleashed from you at someone else. My concern is that if the spell controlled you or compelled you to attack against your will, it could very well happen again if the right circumstances took place. Do you feel this was the case at the time?"

Angela frowned in thought. She knew that she had actually wanted to hurt Millicent at the time, but not really in any capacity beyond knocking her around a bit: turning her into a smoldering pile of ashes was far from her intent. She ran through her head trying to make sure all her intentions were her own - did anything take her over or make her want to kill the Slytherin girl? When she was certain this wasn't the case, she looked at Professor McGonagall.

"I don't think it was like that," Angela said, "I was trying to defend myself when the book's spells just popped into my head. Some spell came to me that I knew would make her stop trying to fight me, so I just cast it. Like a reflex I guess. I wasn't thinking of it as a spell or anything, it just felt like I was trying to swat her away. I had no idea it was that powerful, really."

"Ah." McGonagall nodded, though she still looked rather dubious at the explanation: whether it was worry that Angela could blow up part of the school just to "swat someone away" or if she simply didn't completely believe the explanation, what could Angela do? It was the truth.

"And the spell itself," the woman said, "how did it manifest?"

"I held my hand out. Like this," Angela said, holding her palm out, though away from the teacher and towards the outward-facing wall just to make sure she didn't kill anyone on accident; she rolled her shirtsleeve up as she did so, just in case. "And then the words just came to me and I cast it."

McGonagall pursed her lips and spoke aloud, though mostly to herself. "No use of a wand, that is rather discomforting."

"Why?"

"Take away a wizard or witch's wand and no matter how powerful they might be, you have seriously crippled their ability to control magic; every non-Muggle has the capacity to use spells without a wand or some sort of focus, but good luck doing anything other than casting cantrips or causing utterly random chaos. But to do what you did, with no wand... There are very few mortal beings that have that gift."

"So why's that so discomforting?" Angela asked.

"Oh, it's not you, my dear," she responded. "I can only imagine what would have happened had Delgado opened that book before you had is all. We are lucky you were where you were at that time." She gave Angela a small, reassuring smile at that: Angela supposed it was a lesser of two evils scenario, an immensely-powerful evil megalomaniacal wizard or a little Muggle girl. She was personally happy it was the latter herself, as it at least got her out of Oklahoma and into a new potential career field.

"Hey," Angela said, realizing something important with a start, "just what happened to Delgado after he was caught? No one ever told me that part." The last thing she wanted was this guy coming after her for revenge or something equally crazy.

"He is currently being held in Azkaban Prison," McGonagall said matter-of-factly. "He has been there for the last six years, actually, awaiting sentencing." The woman frowned at the mention of the prison.

The fact he was still alive was far from a comforting thought for the young girl, nor was the fact that apparently his fate was still up in the air. "They're not going to release him, are they?" she asked.

"No, certainly not," McGonagall replied, "but there are elements in the government that are debating whether they should leave him in there to rot or if they should sentence him to death. No one has ever escaped from Azkaban, though," the teacher added on at the sight of Angela's rather uncomfortable expression, "so you can rest easy knowing he won't be bothering you again."

Angela certainly hoped not.

"Speaking of wands, Miss Cross, I am slightly curious: you cast that spell without using one. It just... projected itself from your palm? Perhaps we should see if there is more to that than just being able to sprout flame." The instructor opened a drawer in her large wooden desk and produced a matchstick, placing it on the desk Angela sat at. "You remember this assignment, I trust?"

It had been one of the first Transfiguration tasks the first-years had been given by Professor McGonagall: turn a matchstick into a needle.

"You want me to change it without using a wand?" Angela asked for clarification.

"See if you can. We have no idea just what the limits of your abilities are at the moment, so we may as well test the hypothesis that if you can cast one spell without your wand, you may be able to cast others." She then motioned for Angela to begin.

The spell originally called for an incantation accompanied by a precisely timed stab of the wand at the object to be changed, but since no wand was to be used the young girl just held her hand as though she were. "Metamorfare needle!" she called as she jabbed her imaginary wand at the matchstick.

Nothing happened. Angela looked at Professor McGonagall, who instructed her to try again.

Angela did just that, trying to change it repeatedly while holding her hand in a different position. She held her invisible wand at different angles, she tried pointing her finger at it like a pistol or straight ahead, she even tried it while holding her palm out open like when she cast the Vas Flam spell, but nothing happened. After a number of failed attempts, Angela pulled out her wand and cast the spell once as she had in class, just to make sure she at least had the idea right - though she was sure McGonagall would have pointed out any aesthetic mistakes had she been making them - and as expected the matchstick went from rectangular and woody to pointy and silver. It seemed that Angela couldn't cast regular spells without the wand after all.

The instructor wrote some notes down on a scroll by her side, then looked at her student. "Hmm. We'll attempt that again in the future, perhaps after we've had some more experience with your situation. For all we know, the circumstances may indeed be the opposite, and the fire spell itself may have just been a fluke due to the emotional stress you were under." Angela was hoping they'd be able to test that theory sometime soon, as being able to cast spells without a wand had a certain appeal to it; perhaps practice would make perfect as time moved on.

"So, back to the lesson." The instructor produced a parchment and quill and presented it to Angela. "Since we cannot yet risk you casting the spell in question, I want you to just write down the words you spoke as you cast the fire spell."

Taking the parchment, Angela wrote down the words Vas Flam in black ink and handed the yellowish paper back to the teacher; it felt a little strange, seeing the words actually scrawled down in real-life. McGonagall looked over the incantation for a moment, probably trying to recognize the words as she scrunched her forehead up in thought.

"It looks vaguely familiar," she said in an unsure tone. "A little bit like Latin. But I'll need to do some research on the matter, I'm afraid." After reading the incantation a few more times she looked back at Angela. "Did any other words come to mind during your experience? Can you recall any other incantations or phrases?" The young girl just shook her head back at the instructor in a 'no' manner. "Hm. And if I gave you another piece of parchment, do you think you might be able to draw some of the patterns you said passed before your eyes when the spell first came to you?"

"I'll try." Angela took a sheet of paper and did her best to duplicate what she had seen, but after a few moments she was beginning to see her work was far from being anything more than some confusing and most-likely inaccurate squiggles. She wasn't even sure if she was drawing what she had seen or just something that looked vaguely similar to the patterns, so after trying a little while she just handed her work in progress to Professor McGonagall and shrugged.

"This is the closest I can come up with, sorry."

The teacher simply nodded and put the scrawling away in her desk for future study; Angela was curious what discoveries she would make looking at those notes for the next lesson. McGonagall then proceeded to take out her own wand and instructed Angela to come up and stand in front of her.

"Are you familiar with the art of Legilimency, Miss Cross?" Angela shook her head in response. "Legilimency," the teacher said, "is the ability to read the minds of others, to find emotion and memory hidden within; the practice of blocking this is called Occlumency, but we shall not be requiring this at the moment of course. A few instructors at Hogwarts are skilled in it, such as Professor Snape and, of course, Professor Dumbledore, as am I. Now, what I am going to do is use Legilimency to try and see into your mind and determine just how the Book of Black's contents are embedded within. Do you understand so far?"

"Yes," Angela said, a little wary of anyone looking into her head.

"Do not worry, Miss Cross" McGonagall continued, trying to be reassuring, "this will be a simple surface scan, just to get a feel of the shape of your mind and how everything is laid out. I won't pry anywhere you don't want me to."

It annoyed Angela that the instructor had actually decided they were going to do this without even asking her if a surface scan of her mind was allowed in the first place. True, Angela would probably have given McGonagall permission had she just asked, as this was obviously a necessity to learn about the spells, but it would have been nice to check with her in advance. That annoyance was compounded with embarrassment when Angela considered that if McGonagall was going to read her mind she would probably see how the young girl felt about it, as well.

"Are you ready?" McGonagall asked. Angela just nodded; what else could she do now? Tell her no?

"Stay still then. This is an entirely painless procedure, you won't even be able to tell I'm doing it." Ah, another thing to annoy Angela: apparently people could read her mind without her knowing it; she quickly suppressed that thought though to prevent her teacher from picking up any more unpleasant mullings on the matter.

"Legilimens!" Upon speaking the spell, McGonagall held her wand before herself and placed it against Angela's temple gently, then looked at the point of contact intently, apparently beginning her delving into the girl's mind. As McGonagall worked, Angela wondered if perhaps they'd be teaching Legilimency and Occlumency to upperclassmen at Hogwarts some time; she could read other peoples' minds to see if they'd been reading hers.

It was a bit of a perplexing situation, as Angela stood there with McGonagall keeping her gaze transfixed on her forehead, her wand glowing slightly with silvery wisps fluttering up and down the length of the wand, back and forth between her head and the teacher. She had expected McGonagall to keep her appraised of what she was specifically doing as she went along, if anything to keep Angela in the know and to help her get used to the whole scenario. However, McGonagall just remained in place, unmoving, staring at her head. Meanwhile, the silvery wisps stopped shuffling back and forth and were now going in a one-way direction from the wand into Angela's head, and-

Trevor Rasputin was coming at her with all his might, the Quaffle tucked tightly under his arms as he charged the goal. Minerva tensed up: the Ravenclaw student was a good combination of brains and brawn, and unlike the usual assortment of brainiac players he liked to go toe-to-toe with his opponents rather than try and shoot the ball in from a distance or use complex strategy. Besides the intimidation of his physique and intellect was the fact that outside of the field he was quite the charmer too: she found herself wishing he was sporting red and gold instead of blue and bronze. Still, she had a job to do and wasn't about to let some kind of raven-haired Adonis score any more that day; Ravenclaw was already up 140 points, and she had spotted Twitch chasing the Snitch just moments before. Last thing she needed was Rasputin to make a goal and stick them with a tie.

All around her, Gryffindors were shouting their teammate on: "Snatch the Snitch, Twitch! Snatch the Snitch, Twitch!" And almost upon her was Trevor, his face nothing but business that moment; she wondered if he'd hold it against her later if she blocked him and Gryffindor won the Quidditch Cup that year.

And then she noticed something. She wasn't sure what it was at first, like something just itching the back of her mind, a minor distraction... But the itch grew and grew steadily. Minerva resisted scratching the back of her head, as she had to keep her mind on Rasputin, who was dodging a unified Bludger-strike by Moore and Winston. The itch just grew and grew...

WHAT ARE YOU DOING HERE??

The voice was thunderous and overwhelming, and as each syllable came the itch transformed into a clawing sensation grazing against her mind. The Quidditch game was gone at that point in an instant, all she could tell was that she was in intense pain as someone or something screamed at her. Tears streamed from her eyes as she grabbed her head and the world began to spin. A pile of sand sped towards her, a broomstick toppled clumsily in midair alongside her, and all the while she wondered what was happening to her thoughts. And then, in her mind's eye, she saw something as she fell, some image that came just seconds before everything went completely black around her:

She saw herself, as an old woman, staring back at her, a look of as much shock on her face as Minerva felt at that moment. And all around her older self was slowly pulsing in and out of reality a chaotic landscape that had no ground, just small floating pieces of land over what just gradated into impenetrable darkness below, and what appeared to be bacteria the size of continents swimming about through the clouds of the endless aqua-colored sky beyond. And the voices were still shouting at her from all around, clawing at her mind.

WHAT ARE YOU DOING HERE?? YOU ARE NOT SHE WHO WE SEEK!! LEAVE THIS PLACE NOW!!!

And then blackness.

Angela's eyes blinked rapidly and with a terrifying start she found herself seeing the world through her own eyes again. Professor McGonagall was still standing before her, as she was in the vision except once again in her own classroom, her eyes still transfixed but now there was a terrified expression on her face, and all the while the silver wisps continued to flow inward from her wand towards Angela's temple. The professor was pulsing in and out of visibility.

Something was dreadfully wrong. Without waiting another second, Angela swung her arm in front of herself and deflected her teacher's wand away from her head; the wisps immediately ceased and with a deep, overly-long gasp Professor McGonagall stumbled backwards, now fully returned to reality and the only thing keeping her from falling over completely being her desk as she tripped against it, bracing herself with her arms as she hit the old, heavy wood. Meanwhile the wand fell to the floor with a rickety clatter and spun to a stop at the corner of the wall, still glowing for just a second before returning to its normal state.

For a few moments the room was completely quiet save Professor McGonagall's loud gasping. She looked around, not entirely sure where she was, while Angela tried to figure out if she should see how she was or go straight to get Madam Pomfrey for medical attention. She decided on the former first and ran up to the teacher to make sure she was all there.

"Professor?" she asked, trying to help steady McGonagall who was slowly beginning to look a little more lucid. "Professor, are you okay?"

The instructor looked with a start and noticed the young girl standing next to her. Her face was completely pale and sweat was rolling down her face, her body was trembling slightly at the experience. "So... so that was what happened that day," she said in a voice so quiet Angela wasn't sure if she had heard her right. The teacher put her hand to her own head and in the process accidentally knocked off her emerald witch's hat. Angela bent down and picked it up for her as McGonagall closed her eyes and took in some more deep breaths, her body steadying and her wits about her once again.

Again, Angela just stayed quiet, holding the large hat in her hands as she waited for the teacher to gather herself up. McGonagall took in one last, deep breath and opened her eyes, looking at Angela intensely. She opened her mouth, as though she were about to speak, when an event even more disturbing suddenly took place.

Flashes of black light filled the room, just one at first, but then more and more and suddenly it was as if the Transfiguration classroom was awash with photo-negatives of lightning bolts. The flashes were all coming one spot, at the very front-end of the room, in the space between the teacher's desk and the blackboard. Amidst the lightning flashes was positively one of the most unsettling things Angela would ever see.

She was looking at herself. Two herselves, as a matter of fact.

One of herselves was just as she was now, a young girl in a Gryffindor uniform, but she was on the ground, tears streaming down her face which was contorted into an expression of utter anguish. Her teeth were clenched tightly and her hands were clasped around her head in a vice-grip, as if she were trying to keep it from exploding. This other-self unclenched her eyes for a moment and looked up from her fetal position on the floor, black lightning streaming out of her and blasting small pockmarks in the walls with each strike. The other-self noticed Angela and her instructor, who looked back at her in utter disbelief. She looked at them with a longing fear in her eyes, as though she wanted them to help her.

"Please, make it stop!" the other-Angela squeaked out in pain. "I can't take it anymore!"

The other one, the third Angela that had appeared along with the first, looked at Angela and McGonagall, though she didn't give them more than a passing glance. This version was also in a Hogwarts uniform, but she was older, taller, maybe in her late teens. She was transparent and colorless, like a ghost, and looked as though she were being blown apart by some impossibly strong wind, wisps of her body fluttering off and reforming unendingly, though she didn't look like it bothered her. She was instead completely focused on the second Angela, the one with the black lightning discharging across her skin; while she was looking at the second Angela intently, she looked neither panicked nor afraid, and instead put a transparent hand on the young girl's shoulder comfortingly.

"It's going to be okay, everything's going to be just fine," she said in a voice that reverbed as she spoke, as though it were coming through a synthesizer. "They almost have what they want, but you don't want them to take it from you. You need to give it to them, freely. Stop fighting and give in."

"I don't understand!" shouted the second Angela, once again looking at the original Angela who was still stunned into complete silence. "How can I give it to them?? I don't know how! I don't know the words!"

The ghostly Angela then gave a surprisingly smug look of satisfaction on her face, crouched over her prone self and whispered something in her ear. Eyes full of tears and in intense pain, the second Angela looked at the third for a moment, her expression unreadable through the torrent of energy that was blasting out of her (or perhaps into her?), and then both looked at the original, whose heart skipped a beat at the sight.

And then another flash of black lightning. And like that they were gone.

Angela and Professor McGonagall just looked at the blackened spot on the classroom floor without moving or saying a thing for a full five minutes. Angela was in total astonishment and had no idea what to make of what just happened. Whatever it was, the black marks and chipped pieces of wall were all the proof she needed that it actually transpired, and slowly she turned to Professor McGonagall, who was already looking at her, in just as much distress as she was.

"We must see Professor Dumbledore, immediately."

Had it been under other circumstances, going to the headmaster's office would have been quite an amazing experience: Dumbledore's office was grandiose and full of so many paintings and trinkets that she would have adored looking them over one by one, or perhaps perusing through one of the many, many books on magic he had lining his shelves. There was even a large, beautifully plumed red bird the likes of which she had never seen sitting upon a perch near the headmaster's desk; its body was gave off a comfortable warmth, especially considering how cold it was outside, even from where Angela had been sitting, and the young girl would have very much liked to have given it a closer look were time permitting.

But this was neither the time for sightseeing or bird-watching: she and Professor McGonagall had sped past the gargoyle statues that guarded where the secret entrance to his office was, a quick and inaudible password uttered by the instructor to make it move, and climbed the spiral escalator-like stairwell as fast as they could, desperate to convey the findings of their first day to Dumbledore and get his input on what had transpired.

McGonagall was thorough in her descriptions, not jumping ahead to the more tumultuous part but rather going in exact order, from beginning to end. It was when she got to the Legilimency part that she become more frazzled as she spoke.

The headmaster, who sat behind his desk and did nothing save listen and nod intently as she spoke, made a noise of understanding when she completed her description of the mind-reading part. "So that is what happened that day," he said.

"What day?" Angela asked, wanting to understand just as much as these two apparently did.

"You might be interested to know that when she was a seventh year student here at Hogwarts," the kind old man said in his raspy voice, looking at Angela, "Professor McGonagall was a member of the Gryffindor Quidditch team. A keeper, to be precise, and a rather good one at that," he added with a smile at McGonagall. "During the year-end title match with Ravenclaw, she suddenly blacked out and fell off her broom, only being saved mere moments from hitting the ground by her very opponent."

"Poor Trevor," McGonagall said, embarrassedly. "He never did live down the fact that he gave up a free goal - and thusly the Cup - to save a Gryffindor keeper from falling." She blushed a little as she said it, though her face still had the air of businesslike determination due to the matter that remained at hand. She then looked to Angela. "When I came to I had no memory of what had happened, nor was the school nurse at the time able to discover either, but as I never suffered another episode it was set aside as merely an unimportant mystery. Apparently, it seems we just found out what truly was the cause."

"So I saw your memories," Angela said. "I thought you were trying to read my mind though."

"I did," McGonagall said, frowning with an air of disturbance, "but I only barely touched the surface when something happened. Some force out there, whatever force I believe gave you your magical powers, saw me poking around. And it didn't like it. Not one bit."

Angela didn't like the sound of this at all. "Wait," she said in a panic, "are you saying there's something still in my head?"

"Please remain calm, Miss Cross," Professor Dumbledore said plainly and without excitement. "Do not be alarmed unless it is necessary." Despite the fact that Angela apparently had a difference in opinion from the headmaster as to what constituted 'necessary', he took in a breath, thinking for a moment, and then continued on. "Please Professor, continue with your recounting of the rest of the lesson."

The discussion continued, and this time McGonagall described the incident with the other two Angelas. The headmaster frowned, a rare and almost scary sight on him Angela found, and nodded as though he had come to some unknown conclusion from this.

"What?" asked Angela.

At first Dumbledore said nothing, still thinking for a moment, and then he looked at Angela. "Although further investigation may be warranted, I am not yet convinced anything is currently residing with your mind save those spells."

"How can you be sure?" Angela asked, worried. In the process of thinking about it, the chest-burster scene from Alien came to mind, and visions of her other-self holding her head together flashed before her eyes.

"The voices said they were seeking you, did they not? Why look for you if they were already within you, then? Also," he added on, "you must remember that you acquired the spells from the Book of Black the same exact way Price Delgado would have, meaning you should receive all the aspects, good and bad, he would have received from it. It is doubtful Delgado would have ever had the book made with even the chance of a possession from his masters in mind." Another pause, as he thought once again. "I do not think you have been possessed, Angela, but rather the spells you are beginning to unlock have given you a link to those forces that created them. When Professor McGonagall touched that link, those forces became aware of a presence in their world and read her mind, thinking that it was possibly you who had made the connection."

"Which most-likely explains why they were so displeased to find out it wasn't you, I'd wager," tacked on McGonagall sourly. "But Professor," she added, "when they read my mind... Why did it affect me at a time when I was still a student here? That was decades ago, I knew nothing of Legilimency at the time."

"Of that situation I am not as certain. We shall see what we find on the matter as time progresses. So to speak."

Angela, however, wasn't as convinced by Dumbledore's logic: it seemed more like rhetoric than actual proof, and she didn't feel this was something that should just be hanging in the air at the moment.

Apparently he could see her doubt, for Dumbledore raised his finger and placed it upon Angela's forehead. "There is always one way to be completely certain," he said with a smile. The old man then closed his eyes, frowned a little, and began to concentrate. Angela didn't move, not sure just what the headmaster was doing, while McGonagall watched on, a sense of awe on her face; what the Professor had said before about the power of those who didn't require a wand to do some spells came to the young girl's mind as Dumbledore probed her thoughts.

The process lasted a few minutes, neither spell words nor visual effect taking place as the man concentrated, and for a moment Angela wondered just what he was actually doing, when-

"What is it, Albus? Do you sense something?"

The boy looked at his father, confused for a moment, feeling an itching in his mind. It had begun abruptly, and Albus wondered if perhaps it was a side-effect of the Legilimens spell. His father, patience and wisdom clear in the very crinkles along his eyes, put his arm on his son's shoulder and looked at him intently. Albus said nothing, instead trying to focus on what he was feeling.

The hut was cold and damp from the March rain, a thin mist filling in through the cracks in the wooden door. A brass lamp creaked side-to-side, casting strange shadows as its light struck the furniture, a disturbing sight considering their prey thrived in the shadows, but as his father was not worried then neither would young Albus Dumbledore be. And it would be hours before the vampires were expected to make their presence known in this little village so far from home, so his father decided to spend the spare time, as always, educating his son in the ways of magic: one day he would attend Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry, but as a professional Auror his father always believed in being prepared and educated, and so the boy had been learning real magic since the day he could first hold a wand. These last few weeks he had been instructing his son in the arts of the mind, and they had just been practicing the Legilimens spell on one-another, when...

"Something is in here with me, father," the young boy said, trying to take that growing itching in his mind and grab a hold of it, take control of it. His father eyed the room and the curtained window carefully, then looked back at his son and pulled his old wand from his crimson robes.

"One moment, son, I shall have a look at this as well..."

"No!" said Albus quickly, putting his hand up while keeping his eyes closed. "It's okay, let me just study this a moment longer. I think I have it." He hated lying to his father, but with the vampires and werewolves in a pact and danger undoubtedly approaching this evening, he couldn't risk anything affecting the man; there was something that was neither vampire nor werewolf in his mind, and he was determined to find what it was without his father coming to his rescue.

As he held his eyes shut, he began to see something forming out of the darkness, what looked like an endless aqua sky, like a while after a sunset when there was nothing but residual light left in the atmosphere. Strange amorphous creatures larger than any mountain range he had ever seen floated through the clouds, ignoring him as they swam slowly and endlessly; they reminded him of massive cattle for some reason.

Albus knew he was still with his father, could still feel the wooden chair beneath him and hear the creaking of the lamp beside him, but he felt as though he were really there, in this strange and alien land at the same time. And as he surveyed this world, he began to feel something else reaching out to him... Whatever it was he could not see, but something felt him there and he could feel in his heart it wanted to take him, exam him, learn who he was. A name blipped across his mind, like the blink of an eye: Angela Cross.

It was scary, what was happening. The forces out there knew someone was out there, but didn't know who yet, didn't know his exact location. If they did, he knew they would yank him right out of his world and into theirs, and no one would find him again. But as the fear in him began to grow, something appeared before him, someone appeared right before his very eyes.

His finger resting gently on his head, Albus Dumbledore looked into the eyes of a man that looked very much like his father. This man looked older, much older, wore purple robes instead of red, and apparently had more hair on his head than Rigelius Dumbledore had ever been blessed with. This man, who Albus immediately felt some sort of kinship with, smiled a funny, crooked smile, and a twinkle appeared in his eye as he spoke. No words came from his mouth that he could hear, but Albus sensed he was telling him to open his eyes, to leave this place, and to tell his father something important, something that was a matter of life and death.

And so, nodding his understanding and feeling the forces of this world suddenly homing in on him, speeding at him as fast as light could jump from the sun to the earth, fury and hunger written along the invisible tendrils they strode, the boy opened his eyes-

Professor Dumbledore casually removed his finger from Angela's head. The young girl blinked and was amazed the whole jarring sensation of seeing the contents of someone else's mind wasn't making her nauseous.

"What was that, the past again?" Angela asked him. The Professor just nodded, though he rubbed his temples with his fingers now, as though the whole process was making him quite tired.

"Alas, it appears my speculation may be spot on, after all," he said, though there was unmistakable sorrow in his voice this time; the following look of pity he gave the young girl caught her completely off guard.

"What?" Angela asked, upset that yet another thing had apparently happened to make this day an awful one.

"We can safely say there is nothing residing within your head, Miss Cross," he responded, taking his seat behind his desk and looking rather tired. "Not in any sense that should worry you."

"Oookay," Angela said, not sure what that last part meant.

"All nether-realms touch our minds in one way or another," he clarified, "but this dark dimension is not a place you need worry will burst from your skull or anything of the sort. As I guessed, the only link you have to whatever forces are out there are the spells from the Book of Black. You are in no danger of possession."

Angela felt slightly more comforted by this, though judging from his look she could see there was definitely some bad news to come.

"What else did you learn?" she asked him, wanting to get the revelation over with as quickly as possible.

"The future, Miss Cross," he said. "You were witness to what will be."

Angela returned to her dorm a couple of hours later, still feeling nervous and sick from what the Professor had told her. She had wandered the halls of the school, though she avoided places she might bump into Kathy or Jason or James, not really wanting to talk to anyone else at that moment, but nowhere she went gave her respite from the worries she was experiencing.

That girl that appeared, black lightning jumping across her... That would be her, sometime in the near future.

At some point she would be thrown back into the past, appear in front of herself and Professor McGonagall in anguish, and then vanish. She had no idea what the older, ghostly version of herself meant, and that made her even more nervous: was she going to die and be stuck as a ghost in the school?

Stop fighting and give in... That was what the ghostly-Angela said to her. Angela was never one to give in to anything, so for something that apparently looked like her to tell her to do so... Angela wondered if that was even her, or just something that looked like her. Was it what was causing all this in the first place? Ugh, too much to think about, it was giving her a headache...

Angela wasn't really scared of the situation at hand (though she wasn't exactly looking forward to it, either): what bothered her was the inevitability of it, the anticipation of something bad going to happen and there she was, powerless to stop it. Sort of like the knowledge that one day, she would have to take her mother on a tour of the school; she'd already had nightmares of Sheri blathering endlessly to Professor Snape about the antique business and Snape deducting hundreds of points from Gryffindor and Angela for forcing him to endure it.

The headmaster had explained that the realm these beings that shared Angela's link to the Book of Black resided in was one he was unfamiliar with, but it was so foreign, so absolutely and completely outside the norm from what he had learned of and researched in the past, that they most-likely existed in a realm where time had little or no meaning, or was at the very least something they probably moved about or perceived differently than the regular world did. This was where her time-traveling was bound to stem from, and explained why when both he and McGonagall had tried to read her mind they were affected in the past as well instead of the present.

After telling Angela that she would some day, somehow be sucked through time and tortured, he reiterated the fact that she was to not leave the school grounds under any circumstances, as while in Hogwarts she was, hopefully, safe from abduction (which of course meant that at some point in the near future she would find her way off campus anyway). Also, Professor McGonagall's lessons would no longer comprise of mental scans since it was too dangerous for all parties involved - Dumbledore himself would be unable to do much more for her in the future as well, as he was involved in some dangerous business regarding other students and other issues of state and couldn't risk being put out of commission, even for a day (Angela was glad she trusted him enough to know he wasn't just making excuses to get out of helping her).

All in all, it was a lousy Friday and a lousy way to end the first week of the new term indeed, and while she had the weekend to look forward to, Angela wasn't so sure the future was something she wanted to deal with right now.