Agents of Discord

by KittyrinnAiko

Chapter 67: Race to the bottom

“Ah… Aurora?” Idda wasn’t entirely sure she’d ever heard Aurora swear.

“I’m accessing the wards. Tom Riddle has made his move, he’s gone down the well that branched from the third-floor corridor, and the idiot trio have gone after them.”

“What?!” Idda exclaimed and Moonie vanished.

“Damn it, we need to tell Professor McGonagall. Maybe they can be stopped before they get themselves killed?”

“And we were so close to getting the house cup! Are you seriously accessing the wards?”

“Professor McGonagall knows about it. It’s related to my ability to transform into a pony. Don’t tell anyone, we don’t want the Weasley twins to find out.”

“You heard her girls,” Aerie stated hardly a moment after her Moonie had informed them of what was happening below them. “Plan B is now in effect. We need to get down there.”

“You intend to go down there?” asked a second Moonie. She’d appeared as Aerie was starting to wind herself up.

“Sorry Love, but that was part of plan B after all,” Kitsu offered. “Our foxfire seems to be the only thing that thing is weak to. Can you relay the message to Mom? Just encase? And then hurry back with your counterpart.”

“Give me time to get there. If you get too far down my projection will be cut off.”

“We can’t delay. We need to get down there and stop those three. Just go. Speed like light,” Aerie replied. Kitsu‘s Moonie looked at her, turned, and vanished.

“Do you have a quick way in?” Hoshiko asked.

“There is, but you’ll need to transform into your fox form to get into the window. Think you can manage it?”

“Might take a bit, but at this altitude, should be fine.”

“Transform, and if you can’t do it, I’ll catch you,” Kitsu suggested.

Hoshiko folded up her wings and pitched back. A moment later she was falling with her back to the ground. Light enveloped her followed by her pony form changing to her human form. Aerie and Kitsumi were hot on her to catch her. Light enveloped Hoshiko once more and this time she transformed into a little white fox with feathered wings. She let herself pitch over until she was in a dive and began opening her wings. Just enough to slow the dive. Aerie and Kitsu went zipping past the two doing the same maneuver. Once all three had their flight under control Aerie and Kitsu transformed into their fox forms as well.

Down the three dived zipping along, leveling off as Aerie took them to the window she’d used to gain access before. Each took human form once more and made their way to the door that exited into the third-floor corridor.

Aerie looked at the other two and asked, “Fernando?”

“Sure, why not?” Hoshiko replied.

“Let’s do it,” Kitsu agreed. Aerie began with a soft whistle, the others joining in.

“Can you hear the drums, Fernando?” They sang as they opened the door and stepped out into the corridor. “I remember long ago another starry night like this…”

Fluffy looked up at them as they approached, each head picking a girl, each girl going up to the dog, and taking each head in their hands to caress it ever so gently. Fluffy's eyelids closed, his head slowly dropped, and the girls headed for the hatch, all while still singing. The hatch was opened, undoubtedly left that way by the last group to pass that way. Aerie transformed into a pony while the others still sang, and in this way, each took their turn transforming while the others sang. Next, they made a cloud platform over the open hatch, stepped onto it, and willed it to drop.

The song ended when they were about halfway down, its spell having done its work.

They stopped the cloud right above the tangled tendrils of the Devil’s Snare bush that had been placed there by the Herbology teacher, and they could see the scorch marks left by those who’d come before. They looked at the narrow gap that would allow them to pass, transformed back into foxes, and glided on through to the corridor beyond. The passage, now solid stone carved into the rock that Hogwarts stood on, slowly snaked downwards, the three foxes gliding down it. The only sound was the gentle drip of water.

From somewhere up ahead they could hear a soft rustling and clinking of keys.

“What’s that sound?” Hoshiko whispered.

“Winged keys,” Aerie offered as they approached a dimly lit opening into a large chamber. The three stopped and landed. Within could be seen hundreds upon hundreds of keys with wings flying about in the vast chamber.

“So what now?” Kitsumi asked.

“Catch the key that opens it,” Aerie informed her as she pointed at some school brooms near a door. The three walked into the room. “Pretty sure Wood is going to want to recruit the person who caught it.”

“We don’t have time for this,” Hoshiko bemoaned. That and the thousands of tiny divots in the door were making her nervous.

“We don’t need time,” Aerie offered and then transformed back into human form. “We have fox magic. Just get ready to dash when I open that door.”

“Wouldn't Dumbledore have made sure that at least this door couldn't be opened with magic?” Kitsumi asked.

“Right off hand I’d say this is Madam Hooch’s work,” Aerie offered. And nothing is stopping me from making another key.” As she approached the door she conjured up a ball of foxfire in her right hand and then shoved it into the keyhole. A moment later a key had formed. She turned it, the lock unlocked, and the door opened followed by the keys in the room grouping into a swarm.

“Shit!” Kitsu exclaimed and dashed in followed by Hoshiko and Aerie who slammed the door shut, the sound of keys hitting the door in answer to her actions. A horrendous stench filled their nostrils. The room itself was lit by a couple of torches. What they saw were piles scattered about the room, some quite large, the smell evidence of what they were. In the center of the room lay the body of a large mountain troll.

“Scourgify! Scourgify! Scourgify!” Aerie shouted as she zapped one pile after another out of existence. Nor did it take long for Hoshiko and Kitsumi to return to human form and start doing the same.

Cleaning the place up hadn’t done much for the smell, but at least it’d be easier to make their way around the troll.

“He looks emaciated,” Hoshiko said as they went around the body. “Like no one even bothered to feed it.”

“Why didn’t they stop here though?” Kitsumi asked. “I don’t get it. Surely they must have realized they were no match for the being that did this?”

“It’s called pigheaded stubbornness,” Aerie replied as they made their way to another door. They opened the door and went through a short passage that opened up into a huge chamber with a life-sized stone chessboard with animated stone chessmen.

“You have to play the game if you want to get past,” Ron offered. He was sitting on the floor with his back against the wall, one arm lying limp.

“Ron, what made the three of you think you’d hold your own against something that could do that!” Aerie pointed back in the direction they’d come. “Do that to a Mountain Troll!”

Ron said nothing. He hung his head down as though the weight of the realization made his head too heavy to lift it. He raised his eyes as soft moonlight filled the room. His eyes widened on discovering that the light was coming from Aerie. Aerie turned to him, walked over, took up his arm, gave it a painful pull, and snapped the broken bone back in place.

The pain had been so great he’d been unable to cry out. And then just as suddenly the pain was gone as a strange warmth filled his arm and then migrated to his body.

“Who are you?” Ron whispered.

“I am the light before the opening of the day. I am the song that inspires. I am change. I am hope. I am the promise of a new day, and I am the Herald of the Dawn.”

“You’re what?”

“Ladies…” Aerie prompted as she turned away from Ron and transformed back into a pony. “If we are to stop Hermione and Neville, we don’t have time to play games.”

“What are you?” Ron asked in astonishment as the other two transformed into ponies. And if his eyes weren’t as wide as they could go seeing the pegasi reach up to their forehead and reveal horns was nearly more than his mind could take.

“Sleep, and remember not,” Moonie whispered into Ron’s ear.

The chessmen sensing a brute force attack repositioned their ranks, black pawns, white pawns, knights, bishops, castles, queens, and kings all blocking the door. When Aerie stepped forward the pawns formed a shield wall of white interspaced with black, while the other ranks guarded the door.

“Oh what I wouldn't give for a good hammer right now,” She growled as she pawed at the earth with one hoof.

“Don’t cross the streams,” Hoshiko joked. She secretly wished they could have just flown over but that possibility seems to have been thought of. They’d have to defeat that army if they were to get to that door.

“Na, let’s cross 'em,” Kitsumi countered as she took up the beat Aerie was tapping out.

“Center mass,” Aerie shouted as her horn began to glow.

“In the name of the moon,” Hoshiko said as she started tapping a hoof in time to Aerie. A moment later all three had built up a grand charge on their horns.

All three: “We will punish you!”

“On three, one two three!”

Three powerful beams of magic combined into a colorful multi-hued stream of light.

The fillies lay their ears back at the sound of the explosion they’d created, the ranks of pawns no match for the raw power of three junior alicorns. Indeed, combined they were more than a match for the arts of a single wizard as the rainbow laser of doom ripped through the ranks sending shattered stone exploding outwards causing even more destruction.

Few were left standing, those that were capable took to one knee and bowed their heads as the fillies passed. When they came to the smoldering door the fillies shifted back into human form. Aerie reached out and gave the door a push.

Down went the door with a mighty crash lock and hinges having given out. Within a small room with a table on which was an assortment of bottles, Hermione stood near the table looking back at them. Purple flames feebly sprang up around the threesome as they entered the doorway. The door that led to the next chamber was blocked by black flame.

“What in the world? What was that!” Hermione managed to choke out. “You’re standing in the fire!”

“What? Oh, this?” Hoshiko asked. “It’s just an illusion.” She’d looked down at it and figured it out immediately. So had the others.

“Where’s Neville?” Aerie asked coldly as she stepped into the room. Hoshiko and Kitsumi enter behind her.

“We had to stop Snape from stealing the Sorcerer’s Stone,” Hermione protested.

“You? Did you see that troll back there? And it’s not Snape. It’s Quirrell. He was possessed by the thing that Tom Riddle has turned himself into.”

“No, that can’t be right, it’s Snape, it has to be.”

“Hermione, think about how easy it was to get down here,” Kitsumi offered.

“Easy?”

“Hermione, we are first years.”

“I know I am, but I’m not so sure about you. Not anymore.”

“These tests were set up to be an annoyance. You read the books, but you do not understand. Any competent wizard could have gotten down here.” Aerie was starting to sound like an adult lecturing a petulant child. “Surely only a fool would place something of such great value in a location so easily accessed?”

OK, so Dumbledore was a fool, but by pointing it out Aerie hoped to get Hermione to see it in a different light. She hoped that Hermione would conclude that Dumbledore had never placed the stone there in the first place. Which in a sense was true. The stone simply wasn’t there.

Aerie didn’t wait for an answer. She stepped out, walked across the room, and through the black fire.

“How did she do that?” Hermione asked in shock and disbelief.

“Like I said, it’s an illusion,” Hoshiko stated as Kitsumi followed Aerie. “Professor Snape is more than a potions master. He is a master of the mind. Of reading others’ thoughts, blocking anyone attempting to do the same to him, and making people see what he wants them to see. If they truly wanted to stop anyone from getting any further why provide a solution at all? Perhaps it was because he needed to distract the target long enough for the illusion to take hold. To be believed unconditionally. Of course, they’d solve the riddle.” Hoshiko walked over to the table and picked up a random bottle. “And whichever bottle they chose would be the correct bottle because they’d be sure of their intellect. I’ve seen stuff like this before.”

Hoshiko upended the bottle.

Nothing came out.

“Now…” she set the bottle back down. “I’d better catch up, they might need me.”

Hoshiko walked through the fire into a short corridor. Beyond the corridor opened up into a large empty chamber with a large mirror in the center. Professor Quirrell stood nearby, he had Neville nearby tied up in cord, and Aerie and Kitsu had also managed to get themselves tied up.

Hoshiko saw the spell coming at her, but she’d already had her fan at the ready and deftly returned the serve. “Furansu Ekusarumatiō, Windflower Disarmament™!!”

A moment later Quirrell had been stripped of all but the rope he'd cast out that now bound him and his shorts. For a brief moment, he stood there stunned, and then he slowly turned to reveal a grotesque face protruding from the back of his head.

“Kill her!” the grotesque shouted as Quirrell toppled over, the face on the back of his head hitting flat on the stone floor.

“What are you two doing?” Hoshiko called Aerie and Kitsumi. “Quit screwing around.”

“He was using Neville as a shield,” Aerie protested. “I hesitated. I couldn't help it.”

“Master? Master?!” Quirrell called as he frantically squirmed to be free of his spell. He was met with angry muffled crushed face noises.

Aerie quickly summoned up her foxfire to burn away the rope binding her and then used her telekinesis to retrieve her wand which had been on the floor some distance away. Quirrell had also managed to free himself and had quickly grabbed Neville who’d been trying to inchworm away. Everyone froze as Quirrel’s wand jabbed into Neville’s butt cheek.

“Tell me how to retrieve the stone or he gets his head obliterated.”

“Ahh, that’s not my head,” Neville said sounding rather annoyed. In his haste, Quirrell had been unaware of where he'd jammed his wand.

“What? Well then, I’ll just have to blow up your ass!”

Author's Note:

“What? Well then, I’ll just have to blow up your ass!”

If that's not an anime-inspired cliffhanger I don't know what is. LOL

Oh, and the title is a bad pun. LOL

Comments

[Da Fennec]

OK well that's a twist though how did he graduate if he doesn't know the human body well enough to tell the difference between those locations

[Theresa hall]

Personally I hope this time Hermione gets in some trouble and told that she shouldn't butt in on adult matters from now on. The fact was if Snape hadn't been so unfriendly especially towards anyone not in his house nobody would have suspected him of being the guilty party and the fact that was Harry was endangered because he trusted his friends in their judgment even though they knew they didn't know enough to handle a full grown wizard who has graduated school. Sure Dumbledore hoped that Harry would end up finding the guy and beating him but Harry was a child put into a situation where adults would be challenged. The girl thinks because she knows tons of facts that she knows everything about everything but she doesn't and doesn't have the emotional maturity to realize that before she does something that she isn't prepared for.

[harts fire]

Well then, I’ll just have to blow up your ass!”

well ok then.

i love it a amazing chapter.

[KittyrinnAiko]

11734043
Grabs Niville's shirt/ropes tying Neville up and doesn't look at which end he's got.