The Past and Present Collide

Mandy ran down the steps and raced through the halls, desperate to reach the Common Room in time. If whatever had destroyed those classrooms was still lurking somewhere in the castle, she didn't want to be alone a second longer than she had to be. She reached the Common Room at 9:12 and gasped the password to the painting in the portrait hole. As it swung aside, she walked in and collapsed, panting, into the nearest armchair.

As her heart stopped pounding and her breath became normal, she noticed the odd silence of the room. The wind still howled and shrieked outside, rain still beat down like footsteps on the roof, and the fire still roared and crackled, but the room was strangely devoid of any other sound.

She stood up, now beginning to shake, and walked up the stairs. Her heart was pounding again as she pushed open the door of her dormitory. It was empty. She moved on to the next one, and it was empty as well. All of them were. She didn't go to the boy's dorms, because something in her knew that they were empty, too.

Her mouth dry, she turned and ran back down, forcing herself to think, Get to the Great Hall. They're in the Great Hall. Something happened, and they had to go down so the whole school could be together. Don't look left, don't look right, and don't look back. Just run.

And she did. She ran out of the portrait hole, and then something strange occurred to her. Why hadn't Professor Aldwin, the man in the painting, told her that the Common Rooms had been emptied? She was tempted to turn around and ask him what had happened, but she couldn't bring herself to do so. I'll find out soon enough, she promised herself, and then began to run again.

As she ran, she noticed that the torches lining the hallway threw her shadow across the walls and contorted it into strange, twisted shapes. The suits of armor seemed to have eyes that Mandy could feel burning into her back, and a wordless whisper seemed to come from the paintings. The frequent lightning that slashed the rain-soaked sky and the occasional thunder that shook the ground didn't help Mandy's mounting paranoia, either.

She cursed herself for visiting Patrick, and cursed herself again for staying even a moment too long. If anything, she should have left early to make sure she arrived at the Common Room by nine. But no, she had been so caught up in their conversation that she had been late, and even those five minutes could change everything.

When she finally arrived at the Great Hall, she was too exhausted to sigh in relief. The students and some teachers were sitting at the tables or on the floor, listening attentively to Professor Dumbledore, who stood at the Head Table, giving a speech. Mandy leaned against the wall, trying to catch her breath and find Terry, Padma, or Adrian in the crowd. Over her shallow, uneven breathing and the buzzing in her ears, she didn't catch a single word Dumbledore said. She only noticed when he had finished speaking and conjured hundreds of squashy purple sleeping bags.

This is just like third year, when Black was loose in the castle. Maybe he's loose again? Maybe he and his group of Death Eaters destroyed the classrooms, she thought, feeling a fresh wave of terror sweep over her. Then she noticed that Terry was running toward her.

"Mandy! Mandy! I wanted to look for you, but they wouldn't let me leave. No one's allowed to leave the Great Hall, 'cept Dumbledore, Snape, and McGonagall. Are you all right? How did you know to come here?" He asked breathlessly, taking her hand and leading her over to the Ravenclaw table.

"I'm all right...what happened? Is Sirius Black loose again? What's going on?"

Terry shook his head. "If they know, they're not telling us. They just said that there's been another attack, and they want us all here so the teachers can watch us. Padma went to talk with one of the prefects about it. Sit down, you look awful."

Mandy obeyed, and sat down shakily on a bench. Jugs of iced pumpkin juice and goblets sat on the table, so she poured herself a glass and downed it in one gulp. It gaze her brainfreeze, but she didn't care. Terry watched her, worry etched all over his face, and waited for her to tell him about what she'd just been through, but she didn't say anything. A few seconds later, Padma came running over, looking almost as flushed and breathless as Mandy.

"Lisa said that the Slytherin Common Room was attacked!" She gasped, her voice unusually high and shrill. Mandy instinctively glanced at the Slytherin table. Half of the seats were empty. "A lot of students got hurt, but none of them know what happened. Snape is wa--"

Mandy cut her off. She reached up and grabbed Padma's arm, digging her nails into her friend's flesh.

"Where's Adrian? Is he all right?" she asked, dreading the answer.

Padma shook her head slowly. Mandy dropped her hand and put her head on her knees. When Padma spoke again, her voice sounded strange and distant.

"He's hurt, Mandy. He's in the hospital wing. I'm so sorry."

Horrible images of Adrian's body, broken and mutilated, floated through Mandy's mind. She took a deep, shuddering breath, trying to steady herself, but when she exhaled, tears came with it. She cried like that for a minute, with her face on her knees, her hair hanging down, and her arms wrapped around her legs, until Padma sat down, pulled her up, and hugged her. She sobbed into Padma's shoulder, holding her friend as tightly as she could, as though Padma was an anchor against reality.

Terry watched them, feeling helpless. He didn't like Adrian, that was for sure, and he had never believed in God, despite Mandy's mum's insistence that there was one, but he put his head in his hands and muttered a string of words that he hoped would pass for a prayer. Then he heard McGonagall's voice cutting through the chaos like fire through ice.

"No one is to leave this room under any circumstances. If you have a problem, please speak to the prefects or our Head Boy and Head Girl. They will assist you in any way that they can. Please, if you are sitting at one of the tables, stand up and move out of the way."

Once everyone had gotten up and was standing against the walls, the tables slid across the floor and made a neat stack by the far wall. Terry cast a glance at his friends, and saw that Mandy had stopped crying but was still clinging to Padma. Professor McGonagall continued her speech.

"I want you all to try and get some rest now. Please use the sleeping bags provided. You will most likely be able to return to your common rooms in the morning. Goodnight."

Mandy and Padma had already grabbed sleeping bags and were dragging them to a nearby corner. Terry scrambled to grab his own and followed them. Once they were all settled and staring up at the ceiling, which was so covered in clouds that not a single star was visible, Terry finally spoke to Mandy.

"Hey Mandy?" He whispered.

"Yeah?" She croaked.

"How did your meeting with Patrick go?" It was best to keep her mind off Adrian, he figured.

"It was all right. He's a great guy. Did you know that ghosts can pass through things at will, and hold on to them if they want to?" Her voice sounded strained, like she was trying her best to keep her mind off Adrian, too. "He showed me. He put his palm against mine, and then passed his hand through it. It was strange, but nice."

"Hm," Terry said. "That's interesting."

"Yeah," she murmured. Terry turned to look at her. She had fallen asleep ---- mid-word, it seemed. Her face was still streaked with tears, and her nose was red, but her expression was blank. He didn't like it, but it was better than the scary desperation and fear in her eyes before. He sat up a little bit to look over Mandy at Padma, and saw that she was asleep, too. So he settled back down and decided to take a chance.

He leaned over, careful not to breathe too loudly, and kissed Mandy softly on the forehead.

"I'm sorry," he muttered to her sleeping form. "I hope Adrian's fine." Then he laid his head back on the ground and fell asleep.

* * *

When Mandy woke up, her neck was so stiff she couldn't move her head. And her legs were sweaty but her nose was freezing. She twisted around and saw Terry asleep beside her, and for a moment was completely at a loss. Where was she?

Then it all came back to her, like a cold slap to the face. Her meeting with Patrick. The empty Common Room. Running through the halls. The attack on the Slytherin Common Room. Still, everything had a dreamlike quality to it, as though she had lived through it a long, long time ago. Probably because it had all happened so quickly, and her brain hadn't had time to take it all in, but nevertheless, it was unnerving. None of it seemed real. If she hadn't been lying in a purple sleeping bag on the floor of the Great Hall, she wouldn't have believed it.

A Gryffindor prefect passed, and Mandy called out softly to him.

"Excuse me, what time is it?" She asked, blinking the grey light of early morning out of her eyes.

The prefect turned around and glanced at his wristwatch. "Seven thirty," he said solemnly. "Breakfast isn't going to be served until eight, so you'd best try to get some more sleep."

Mandy nodded and ran a hand through her tangled hair. "Thank you." But right now, she didn't need sleep. Matters of the bladder pressed. "Wait. I need to use the bathroom. Can I go?"

The prefect looked slightly embarrassed. "I'll get Lisa. She'll take you." He hurried off.

A minute or two later, Lisa Turpin, a blonde Ravenclaw in Mandy's year, came over. "You need to use the bathroom?" When Mandy nodded, she helped her up, signaled something to Professor McGonagall across the room, and led Mandy out of the hall.

They walked in silence for a moment, except for the occasional yawn, until Mandy decided to test her luck and ask about Adrian.

"Do you..." Her voice failed. She tried again. "Do you know what happened to Adrian Pucey?"

Lisa frowned for a moment, thinking. "Adrian Pucey...tall, black-haired Slytherin seventh year, right? He broke two ribs and got some nasty scratches, but he's doing well. I went down to the hospital wing an hour ago, and he was awake. Scared out of his mind, I think, but otherwise doing fine. No one's hurt too badly, actually."

Mandy exhaled slowly. "Good," she managed to say.

Then they reached the bathroom and Mandy did what she needed to do, taking a moment to splash her face with cold water and try to smooth her hair down. She looked like she'd been electrocuted. Her teeth felt grimy, and she desperately wished for a toothbrush, but with any luck she'd be back in the Common Room in an hour or two.

She and Lisa tiptoed back into the Common Room and Mandy crawled back into her sleeping bag. She couldn't sleep, so she watched the dust dance in the shafts of light that streamed down from the windows. Every once in a while, a soft breeze would come from somewhere and twirl the dancing dust in slow spirals. It was relaxing to watch, but just as she began to nod off, McGonagall's wake up call echoed through the room, shaking more dust off the rafters.

"Get up. Breakfast will be served in ten minutes. Stand against the walls so the tables can be laid out again."

Terry stood up almost immediately, muttering in what didn't sound like English, but Padma stayed in her sleeping bag, pulling it up over her head and groaning. Then all the sleeping bags disappeared at once, and Padma found herself shivering on the cold floor. Mandy laughed at this and Padma glared as she hoisted herself tenderly to her feet.

"My neck hurts," she whimpered.

"Join the club," Terry muttered, as he stumbled sleepily to the wall. Mandy smiled at them both before yawning and sitting down with her back against the wall.

The tables slid back into their places, and almost instantly, the students dragged themselves over to the benches and sat down. Jugs of orange juice, plates, goblets, and silverware appeared almost instantly, followed by huge platters of food. Mandy helped herself to a mammoth stack of toast and jam, some potatoes, and a huge bowl of steaming porridge.

"I talked to Lisa Turpin earlier, while you two were still asleep," Mandy said thickly, through a mouthful of porridge. "She said Adrian broke two ribs and got some bad scratches, but he's doing well." She took a swig of orange juice and smiled hopefully at her friends.

"That's good," Terry said, hoping to sound indifferent. If he acted happy, Mandy would be suspicious, but if he acted disappointed, Mandy would be mad.

Padma grinned. "That's wonderful! What else did she say?"

"She said no one was hurt badly, but everyone's pretty spooked. I am, too. I wish I knew what was behind this, or at least if the teachers know. At first I thought it might be Sirius Black, like I told you, Terry, but now it can't be. He wouldn't have hurt a whole group of students, and if he had, one of them would have seen him. So that rules him out. Now we only have one million other possibilities." She laughed like this was the funniest thing in the world. "Only one million."

Terry smiled faintly, and Padma just looked concerned. Mandy stopped laughing.

"I wonder..." she whispered.

"You wonder what?" Padma asked.

"If Patrick knows anything about this," she said. "I'm supposed to meet him tomorrow night, at seven again. I'll ask him."

"I don't think you should go," warned Padma, and her voice sounded high and shrill again. "After what happened last night..." Then she frowned. "But then again, it seems like you're safe from everything when you're with him." She gave Mandy a suspicious glance, and Mandy just shrugged and finished her juice.