Smoke

Smoke XI

For several long seconds, John Russell stared at the Dark Mark floating above the Astronomy Tower. Then he moved into action.

The first thing he did was disillusion himself and start moving back to the castle. There were several entrances which only current staff members could use, and he made his way to the closest.

He did not rush in, but took the time to search for ambushes both before and after he opened the portal. He did not suspect any of the staff to be in open collusion with Voldemort, but there were a few he worried might be susceptible to the Imperius, and of course Snape might be forced to cover himself by sacrificing others.

Once inside, Russell was uncertain where to head next. He decided that to make for the common corridors linking the Room of Requirement and the Astronomy tower would be his best bet. First, however, he approached a portrait, and gave it a password and a command.

"That was not necessary," the young girl in the painting replied. "Professor McGonagall already issued the alarms for the library as well as for the common rooms."

"Thank you," Russell answered. That meant that none could move out of the common rooms, and any students in the library had been advised to stay put unless a staff member told them to move. Madam Pince should be locking down the library and moving any students back into the deep stacks and sending them off to their common rooms under the supervision of upper-year students if she deemed it safe. No one could enter a common room, even with the password, unless the guardians recognized the student and were certain there were no unauthorized people or students trying to enter. It was far from an ideal system, but hopefully it would be good enough.

"There seems to be a young person in very unbecoming black robes three cross-corridors and to your left," the girl added.

Which was the very route Russell would need to take. "Thank you again," Russell said. He moved very quietly down the corridor and took the third left. Sure enough, a man in full Death Eater garb stood guard about fifteen feet further down the corridor, trying ineffectively to hide behind a suit of armor. 'Thank goodness most wizards aren't strong enough to cast a spell while disillusioned,' Russell thought.

He moved past the guard and searched the next two cross-corridors, but saw nothing. He detected no one else in the corridor. He was sure he could detect anyone disillusioned or even under an invisibility cloak, but anyone under a runic invisibility shield would be undetectable without his casting reveal spells. He decided he could not leave an active Death Eater behind him.

Coming back to the Death Eater, Russell took a closer look and realized that he knew the man. Jason Talbot was a werewolf, bitten the summer after he had taken his O.W.L.s, after which he had dropped out of Hogwarts and then from wizarding society. Russell wished he had brought one of his pistols, especially the one that had a silencer.

While all spells worked on werewolves, most disabling and knock-out spells did not work for long on them. Russell felt he had little choice. He raised his wand above his head, pointing it downwards and silently made the incantation for a slicing hex as he circled his wand.

Talbot's head fell to the ground, and Russell gave the body a slight pull so that it didn't crash into the armor, and which also propelled him out of the way should any hexes be directed towards their location.

None did. Except for some slight noises coming from the bleeding body, there was silence.

Russell moved off.

Three corridors down, Russell came across a group of six Death Eaters, playing games with three young students, third year Hufflepuffs he did not recognize. Five of them were pushing the three students around with various minor hexes, playing keep-away from the sixth Death Eater, whom Russell realized was another werewolf.

Russell carefully and quietly pulled on a glove made of an metal alloy mesh -- nickel, silver, and platinum, with silver studs on the knuckles. The nickel gave it strength, the small amount of platinum made it slightly impervious to magic, and the silver was of course poisonous to werewolves. Russell concentrated all his power, and shouted, "Expelliarmus!" All six wands flew his way. "Run, children!" he shouted as he started to move, still disillusioned.

It took Russell over three minutes to disable the six Death Eaters, but all of the six were finally lying on the ground, moaning in pain and unable to move. The students had run as they had been told to do. Russell's disillusionment was gone, and he had far too much blood on him to reestablish it. He didn't have time to kill or do a good job on the six, so he petrified them and moved on, breathing hard from the exertion of the firefight.

He knew, however, there was a fight ahead of him. He could hear it further up the corridor. He forced himself into one of the large stairwells.

There, he found Professors Sprout, Vector, and Sinistra and Madam Hooch trading hexes with seven Death Eaters, who were being urged on by two werewolves without wands and in plain dress. The four staff members were keeping the force from making their way towards the Gryffindor and Ravenclaw Towers and the entrance of Hufflepuff. Russell threw himself into their right flank.

Faced with superior force, if lesser numbers, on two sides, the nine attackers broke off after a few minutes, all injured except for one of the werewolves, who was killed when he was hit by hexes thrown by both Russell and Hooch. Russell was not happy to see the three of the attackers had fled back the way he had come. Those six he had petrified would be freed, although at least he had destroyed their wands.

"What do we do now?" Vector said.

"You seem to be in command to some degree, John," Sprout said.

"Or you are if most of that blood is someone else's," Hooch put in.

"I'm fine, other than being a bit winded," Russell said. He looked at Sinistra. "Do you think you could get to Slytherin from here safely? The students have to be a major concern."

"I can get there," Sinistra assured the group.

"Then I'm back to Hufflepuff," Sprout said.

"Ravenclaw," Vector agreed.

"All the way up to Gryffindor," Hooch said with a huff. "I should have brought my broom."

"And I'm off to find the main body of these bastards," Russell stated.

"Be careful," Vector said.

Russell shook his head. "It's too late for that. I just need to take out a lot more of them. Let's go." Russell was past running now. If he ran, he would be too winded to fight. Still, he did not walk slowly. Once he was near the base of the Astronomy Tower, Russell again heard the sound of a major fight. He hurried to the fight.

Russell got there and saw there was a mixture of staff, Order members, and students fighting a slightly larger group of Death Eaters. These seemed to be more skilled than the others he had run into so far. Russell drove a huge blond wizard away from the prone Neville Longbottom, and defended his ground. "Longbottom!" he called between his castings, "are there more up the Tower?"

"Yes, sir," Neville said a bit distractedly. The teen had obviously been well-hexed. "The entrance is hexed, sir. Only Death Eaters and Professor Snape have made it up the Tower."

At that moment, Russell was knocked aside as about five people stormed out of the Tower and into the battle. Russell threw another cutting hex at the last of the five, which caught the wizard right on the jugular. He was down and bleeding to death in seconds. No one stopped to help.

Suddenly, over the sounds of the fight, Russell heard Snape shout, "It's over, time to go!" and he saw Snape was then running after Draco Malfoy.

Russell could not give chase. Greyback was leaping towards Potter, and a second werewolf was following his leader. Potter took down Greyback for a second and Russell, his cutting hex powered by his now raging anger, sliced the second werewolf in half.

That shocked Russell for a split second. In that time, Greyback was back on his feet and coming close. "Pay back time, old man!" Greyback roared, trying to claw Russell.

Russell ducked the swing, and he managed to rake Greyback's shoulder with the sharp studs on his silver glove. Greyback howled, and took off on a run. The other Death Eaters were trying to disengage, and Russell and the others managed to stun three more before they took off.

"John. . . ." McGonagall started.

"No time," Russell said. "Lupin, Potter took off after Malfoy, and this bunch left after him. I can't catch up to help. Maybe you can."

"Right," Remus said, taking off on a run.

"Tonks!" Russell called out, "we need to secure these people!" He turned to McGonagall. "If Potter is back, where's the Headmaster?"

"I don't know," she acknowledged. "You and Tonks get things taken care of here. I don't know where the other staff members are."

"Sprout, Hooch, Vector, and Sinistra were holding a group off from the central staircase. After we drove them off, they each went towards one of the Houses."

"Right. Miss Weasley, Mister Longbottom. . . . Mister Longbottom, have you recovered enough to fight if necessary?"

"Yes, Professor," Neville said.

"Then you two go off to Professor Snape's office and see what happened to Professor Flitwick. Send anyone not involved in the fighting back to their House. Send or bring anyone else to the Infirmary. John, when you two have everyone secured, take any of our injured you find to the Infirmary."

"Right," Russell acknowledged.

"Bill. . . ." Ginny started. She took a hard, dry swallow and said, "That's Bill over there, bleeding."

"I'll see to him, Miss Weasley. I promise."

"Thank you, sir."

"And I'll track down Slughorn, and get him to contact his friends in the Ministry," McGonagall said. "I'll also get as many Order members here as I can to help out."

"How is he?" Tonks asked nearly ten minutes later.

"I don't know," Russell said. "These look like human bites. . . ."

"That extensive?"

"Exactly. I suspect it was Greyback. He had a run in with a team of mine last autumn, and Bill out-dueled him easily. I suspect Greyback savaged him deliberately for revenge."

"I never heard that the bite of a werewolf was dangerous, other than when he was transformed," Tonks said, horrified.

"I hadn't either," Russell admitted, "but I can't heal these. I wouldn't put it past him to have bitten his cheek first, to mix his blood with the saliva."

"What do we do with their wounded?" Tonks asked.

"Keep 'em knocked out," Russell said with a shrug. "If you try to help any one of them, another might get the drop on you. I can't stay and help you."

"Right," Tonks said. "I'll be up in the Infirmary as soon as I'm relieved.

After leaving Bill Weasley in the Infirmary, Russell moved off to secure the castle as best he could. He would be up all night, but as more Order people and aurors showed up, the task would be made easier.

Saturday, June 14, 1997 4:27 a.m.

"John?"

Russell looked up and nodded, "Alastor. Is it true?"

There was no need to ask for the question to be clarified. "It is. Potter saw Snape kill Albus."

"I never would have thought it possible," Russell admitted. "So what happens now?"

"The rest of the school year is over. Any student whose parents want to can pick them up any time after Ten this morning. Albus' funeral was going to be Tuesday, but the Ministry is putting it off until Thursday, so they can put on a better show, the. . . ."

"Bastards!" Russell and Moody said together.

"Anyway, you may consider yourself relieved," Moody said. "Get some sleep."

"I am exhausted, but I don't think I'll sleep well at all," Russell admitted.

"How many did you kill?" Moody asked.

"I know I killed three, two directly and one I left injured died as well. I also think one that Hooch and I double-hexed died, too."

"I wish they felt half the regret we do when we kill," Moody growled.

"If they did, they wouldn't be following that lunatic."

"Good point," Moody agreed. "I'll have copies of all the reports on your desk as they are finished."

"Thank you, Alastor," Russell said, and he made his way to his rooms for a long shower and some sleep.

"Come in!" Russell called that evening right before dinner. He was not surprised to see Hermione Granger come in.

"Are you terribly busy, sir?" she asked.

"Busy, but not terribly busy," Russell told her.

"It's time I told you everything I know," she said.

"And I imagine I'll be speaking with your friend after the funeral," Russell said to her in return.

Wednesday, June 18, 1997

The Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry is a very large place. There are towers and turrets, corridors and secret passageways. There are rooms which are hidden, and rooms which have just plain been forgotten, some in obvious places and some off corridors which are so far off the beaten path that they have barely been set foot in since a group calling themselves the Marauders had mapped most of the castle in the 1970s.

This was one such room, mid-way up what most students now called the 'divination tower,' unoccupied except by paintings and one fairly eccentric divination teacher. This room had a lovely view out of two windows looking towards the northwest, overlooking the Forbidden Forest. There were two stuffed chairs (one a rocker) and a small set of shelves. Every evening at 8:00, one staff member climbed the stairs to indulge in his two vices.

Never again would the Headmaster join him. Never again would the last year's Defense professor, once the Potions professor, join him. John Russell, the Runes professor, looking at least five years older than he had the previous June, sat and smoked his favorite pipe.

Tomorrow would be a difficult day, and a difficult war lay ahead.

Part II, Year 7, is the Schnoogle story The Companions of the White Wizard.