Mather's Treaty

Severus Snape too had insisted on leaving the castle, despite Dumbledore's entreaties to keep studying the Malleus Maleficarum. "I need a break from that book," he'd spat and Dumbledore thought for a moment he saw a familiar haunting pain flicker in the pools of black that were Snape's eyes. It was fleeting and Dumbledore wasn't sure he'd really seen it. He had relented however, when Snape too remained stubborn.

Hogsmeade was as protected as the townspeople and the school's teachers could make it. From the physical to the intangible, spells and charms surrounded the town's borders. A charmed and hexed wall of thick vines with reinforced hexed brick as a core blocked the town from the forest's view. How much protection this would be against something as intangible as a spirit like Rufus Mather's, no one knew but everyone agreed every little bit would hopefully help.

The only professor missing from the group was Minerva McGonagall, who fifteen minutes earlier, had shifted into her tabby cat form and slunk off into the shadowy depths of the forest. Her task was as dangerous as the others, more so because she was on her own: she was to find the grave of Rufus Mather.

The grave had been unmarked and, according to legend, not given consecration. No priest was allowed near it at the time and no one had been able to find it since. The ghosts of Hogwarts had suggested that it be found and perhaps given holy rights to ease the tormented soul. McGonagall's task of following the spook's course had been changed to locating its final resting place.

She had been less than thrilled, but she had squared her shoulders, shifted and disappeared to do her part.

"Are you sure this is going to work, Headmaster?" rasped Snape, his eyes darting about the small group, alert and wary.

"No," said Dumbledore honestly, "but if we can find a way to stop it through our meagre effort I will not quibble." Snape merely grunted in reply, his hand grasping his wand tightly.

"Headmaster," a soft voice drifted from behind the two men and they whirled to face Remus Lupin. The werewolf's face was tense and his eyes were narrowed. His nostrils were flaring. "I can smell him."

Dumbledore was as startled as the rest of the group. "Smell him?" he asked calmly.

Remus nodded his head, a lock of brown hair flopping over an eye. He brushed it back impatiently. "I don't know why. I mean, I know I have extra keen senses because of…well, but I've never smelled something like this before," he finished.

"Where is it coming from?" asked Dumbledore cautiously, gripping his wand tightly.

Remus paused a moment and sniffed again. He frowned and turned in a circle sniffing periodically as he did so. "I think," he said slowly, stopping and facing in the opposite direction, "it's coming from behind us."

Snape and Dumbledore looked at each other in horror. "To the other side of town!" the headmaster bellowed and the teachers spun on their heels to head for the other end of the small village. As they did so, however, the wind began to blow fiercely and a smell so rotten assaulted them that they began to gag even as they ran.

"Gah!" gasped Snape and he pointed his wand at his head. "Ebullio!" A bubble encircled his head and he straightened up, his air magically cleansed as he breathed in. The air was a thick haze with the stench and the other teachers were performing similar spells. A small boy ran from one of the houses on the main street, gagging and Snape caught him up.

"Ebullio!" he said and his wand, pointed at the child, created a bubble around the boy's small head. Round-eyed, the boy tugged on Snape's hand, pointing to his house.

"My mum and dad!" the boy panted and Snape followed him, breaking off from the group. He saw Lupin running into a house across the street. No doubt his keen hearing had heard someone else choking on the noxious smell.

The boy took Snape upstairs and into a large bedroom. The room was in disarray, as if they had been floundering around for air, knocking things off the bedside tables and dressers. Snape performed the Air Bubble spell and after a few moments the parents of the terrified boy were picking themselves off the floor and holding their son tightly.

"Thank you," said the father and Snape nodded, whirling around and clambering back down the stairs. He exited in time to see Lupin come tearing out of the house at a dead run. "There's something wrong," Lupin panted at the potions master, his voice distorted by the internal air-cleansing spell he had used.

"What?" snapped Snape.

Lupin shook his head. "I'm not sure, but I can hear voices on the wind. More than one. It's like," he hesitated as they walked briskly to where the other teachers were gathered at the end of the road, "it's like a chorus of spirits screaming."

A shiver skittered down Snape's spine and, as the two of them joined their peers in the group, Snape chanced a look behind him.

The vine wall was bulging.

McGonagall the cat slunk from tree to tree, her small paws delicately moving her small grey and black body over the dead leaves and bark that littered the forest floor. Her animal senses had gone haywire the moment she had set foot in the forest and her unease grew with every step she took. Things were beyond 'not right'; it was terrifyingly disturbing. If she had been a real cat, she would have left a long time ago.

The part that unnerved her most was that she had encountered no other creatures; not a bird, a spider, a beetle, a frog. Nothing. It was as if the forest had been cleared of all animal life. She was the only one foolish enough to enter, let alone stay.

The wind had picked up sometime ago and the upper branches of the high trees swayed as the wind moaned through them. Even as low to the ground as she was, Minerva knew she should have been feeling the wind's strength, but not a hair ruffled on her body and not a dead leaf stirred. This only increased her anxiety.

WITCH!

She froze. A voice cold as the north wind had spoken in her mind.

DEMONESS! it cried at her and her tail bushed in an instinctive reaction. She could feel her hackles rising and her claws extending into the moist ground below her paws.

YOU SHALL SUFFER FOR YOUR HERESY!

Without warning the wind blew dirt, dead leaves and debris at her. As the wind reached her, it picked her up as if she rode a tornado, twirling her around. Her cat mouth issued out screams of panic and fear as the world spun crazily. Her concentration in maintaining her feline form lapsed and she shifted back into her human self.

The wind died down for a moment and she hit the ground hard on her side. Picking herself up, Minerva ran, paying no heed to the direction she was going. The trees got thicker and harder to get through so she shifted back into her tabby cat shape, winding through the obstacles in her path.

The wind picked up again, literally plucking her from the bramble refuge she had found, the thorns tearing at her fur and skin as it jerked her upward back into the upper canopy of the forest. Her yowl of terror burst over the howl of the wind and the psionic laughter of her tormenter echoed in her mind.

Her body was flung by trees so quickly they blurred and when she inevitably crashed into one, she reached out with her claws and sunk them as deeply as she could into the bark. By some force she knew not, she clung to that tree for dear life, defying the being that sought to dislodge her as it threw debris from the forest floor up at her.

After what seemed like an eternity, the wind ebbed and finally just died away, leaving the forest eerily quiet and still. Hesitantly, Minerva began to manoeuvre back down to the bottom of the tree. There, at the base, she found a hole in the tree trunk and crammed herself inside. The purring rumble in her chest comforted her into an exhausted sleep.

Dumbledore felt a tug on his robes. "Headmaster, we can't do this much longer," panted his charms professor. Filias Flitwick looked as if he'd been put through a whirlwind. His hair stuck up in all direction and objects that Dumbledore didn't want to contemplate smeared his robes and exposed skin.

"I know, Filias," the headmaster replied, pursing his lips. "It will be dawn in a couple of hours. We have to hold on a bit longer." Flitwick nodded wearily and turned to blast some gruesome apparition that swooped down upon him, spitting fire.

The small village of Hogsmeade had been through what amounted to a small tornado. If it had looked ramshackle from the previous evening's attack, it looked downtrodden now. With only a couple hours left til daylight cracked through the darkness, everyone could only wait for whatever was coming next.

A frog croaked nearby, chorused by several more, the leftover by-product of a flood of frogs that had swarmed them a few hours previous. When Professor Sinistra walked back, absently scratching her back in a vigorous manner, Dumbledore began to harbour grave suspicions.

"Cassandra," he said, halting her progress toward Professor Vector, "come here." The bewildered professor did as she was bid and Dumbledore jerked down the collar of her robes to reveal a bluish-tinged rash on the back of her neck. Further examination, and itching by the other teachers, confirmed Dumbledore's suspicion.

"Lice."

There was a groan, but from who Dumbledore could not discern.

"He's bringing down the plagues upon us?" asked an incredulous Trelawney, scratching her head nervously.

"It would seem so." Dumbledore itched his head as well.

Snape seemed resigned as he muttered, "Wonderful. What's next? Flies? Locusts? The lake turns to blood?"

"Don't give the lunatic any ideas," grumbled Professor Sprout, scratching under her robes.

Lice seemed to be the last thing the inhabitants of Hogsmeade were to be subjected. Dawn broke over the horizon and the town of Hogsmeade breathed a collective sigh of relief. The teachers assured themselves that the villagers were unharmed and could clean up any lingering effects themselves, before trudging back up to the castle.

The old stone fortress looked unharmed and Peeves the Poltergeist, snapping a smart salute to them as they entered the main foyer, informed them that the evening had been a quiet one. One by one, the professors cleaned themselves of lingering lice and went to bed, falling into an exhausted sleep.