Thursday, July 27, 2017

What You Missed: The Event Which Must Not Be Named IV

by Ed "Tuilli" Drummond


A wet and bloodstained parchment is found on a riverbed, parts of a raven found nearby, mangled by some large raptor. There are parts of the message that have been rendered unreadable.

To: ⧪⧪⧪⧪⧪⧪⧪⧪⧪
Hogwarts. Another year. Looks like it may be my last.
⧪⧪⧪⧪⧪⧪⧪⧪⧪ ⧪⧪⧪⧪⧪⧪⧪⧪⧪
We arrived to class tardy (fashionably of course), but Dumbledore sent us students on yet another dangerous quest.  I really question that ⧪⧪⧪⧪⧪⧪ guy’s credentials….  
He told us we needed to gather some items to pose a defense against ol’ no-nose himself, Voldemort.  A hippogryph feather, a purple chizpurfle egg, a special flower, the cloak of a Dementor and a rune.

We set off to herbology class first, gathering flowers from the constantly annoying Inferi  with flower puzzles to help free the hippogryph.  Once that was free, we had the flower we needed. To move onto our next class: Runes.

When we got there, we had to blindly scribe a rune, all the while being interrupted by more Inferi (⧪⧪⧪⧪⧪⧪⧪⧪⧪ Really?  Is security at Hogwarts that terrible?).  I had another issue with  ⧪⧪⧪⧪⧪⧪⧪⧪, leaving me even more empowered than before, much to my chagrin. From there we moved onto what I can only imagine was an open study hall for transfiguration and care of magical creatures.  These liberal arts classes are getting a little extreme at this point.  A few classmates including Lily, Vesper, Kyara and Aveline were transfigured into crab-like creatures, collecting eggs while we help fight off the the loud fwoopers who were protecting a nest.  This also resulted in Grebinar botching the incantation and wand movements, turning him into some fwooper/chizpurfle hybrid.  It was awful. All throughout these classes we were interrupted by a few death eaters who were trying to push us back.  That didn't go well for them.  We fought off yet more Inferi, death eaters and some creatures whose power we had to carefully gather, bucket by bucket.  
⧪⧪⧪⧪⧪⧪⧪⧪⧪ ⧪⧪⧪⧪⧪⧪⧪⧪⧪
Finally during the break we were able to whisk off to Borgin and Burkes for some “refreshments”.  I have discovered I quite enjoy mermaid spine.  Good stuff.

Soon after, we were fighting off devil's snare while others solved a puzzle that allowed us access to one of our items on the ol’ Hogwart’s shopping list.  I heard that Spider got a hold of yet another unicorn for lunch.  I wasn’t even helping this time, so McGonagall can’t give me  ⧪⧪⧪⧪ this time at least.  I heard Bright made the mistake of getting between Spider and a meal.  I was surprised to see Bright intact later on, thats for sure.

Thanks to my (and a few other’s) more advanced study in Patronus casting, we were able to quickly dispatch a Dementor, giving us our final item to ward and hopefully destroy Voldemort (the man who tragically lost his nose when he ran at the wrong wall in King’s Cross station).

Lavender Brown rallied the troops at night, wandering in the woods on our house paths to the ⧪⧪⧪⧪⧪ tower where Voldemort and his minions were making a last stand.  Slytherin was through first, regaling the spirit of Salazar himself with tales of cunning and ambition.  The other houses very slowly filtered through to join us.  Seems the other three houses had a harder time figuring out what made them who they were… We fought wave after wave of ⧪⧪⧪⧪⧪⧪ riddles, death eaters, werewolves and boulder-throwing inferi. From time to time, even our own allies turned against us. Through the puzzles and assistance from our house founders, we gained some extra abilities which helped us take down the nigh-unending swarms, throwing boulders, fireballs and lightning bolts back at the foes. Finally, we were able to weaken the ⧪⧪⧪⧪⧪⧪⧪ barrier enough to break through.  

We summoned and confronted Tom Riddle, (the man whose parent’s took the “I got your nose” game WAY too far) .  Sadly, Lavender Brown, who had brought us together ran in like a damned fool heroically and died a true Gryffindor.  We beat him back, completed the ritual, beat him down and killed him.  

The next morning, the few of us that remained gathered around while Dumbledore gave a speech about Lavender’s bravery,  ⧪⧪⧪⧪⧪⧪⧪⧪⧪ and sacrifice.  Grebinar was awarded the  ⧪⧪⧪⧪⧪⧪⧪ Stone for showing up (Hogwarts has participation awards) and I left Hogwarts a Prefect of Slytherin thanks to the sacrifice of the reformed former death eater Sarix Nosetti.  Dumbledore announced a memorial/shrine to Lavender would be created at Hogwarts, I hope it isn’t like the others that he keeps in the closet of  ⧪⧪⧪⧪⧪⧪ with all the the 4”x6” photos he has of McGonagall and ⧪⧪⧪⧪⧪⧪ …  

To summarize, not much found of informational value.  We may want to keep an eye on ⧪⧪⧪⧪⧪⧪⧪⧪⧪ some interesting effects, both in short and long term.  
I'm on my way back to ⧪⧪⧪⧪⧪⧪⧪⧪⧪,  meet you there.

Tuilli MacAengus