Harry Potter: Hogwarts Mystery Year 6

Chapter 18

CONTENT/TRIGGER WARNING: THIS CHAPTER CONTAINS STRONG LANGUAGE, VIOLENCE, TORTURE AND DEATH.
"FLIPENDO MAXIMA!"

As the sun set over the Scottish Highlands (AgAiN), Ben knocked over yet another training dummy.

"Pretty sick, right? Badeea invented it."

"I'll stick with depulso," said Dani.

Ben walked towards the girls. "Can't you just stop thinking that it's a trap? Alex could've just left it there. We could head to the Forest Grove, knock out a couple of dementors, and just... See if Alex or R left anything."

"This all feels oddly convenient to me," said Merula. "Although, Jackson, do you think your brother could actually be working for R?"

"Not after Duncan."

"Amazing, one less thing to worry about. Copper, about dementors... I can cast a patronus, but-"

"I can too," said Ben.

"Great, that just leaves me," said Dani.

"We still have-"

"Merula, I'm at my wit's end. This year has been anything but 'happy' so far."

Ben stared up at the sinking sun. "If there's anything we desperately and truly need at this point, it's answers. And that's exactly what R will offer us."
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Being careful not to trip over her own feet this time around, especially since she was sharing the cloak with Ben, Merula tiptoed across the forest grove, following Dani's animagus form. "Remember, dementors can see through our disguises."

"Let's move quickly then," said Ben.

Dani had stopped and was sniffing a bush. Ben and Merula made their way over.

A silver necklace was under the bush. "This used to be in Rakepick's classroom!" exclaimed Merula.

"I told you guys. Shall we just take this to Dumbledore?" asked Ben.

"Is it safe to pick up with bare hands, or should we-"

Dani started barking loudly, causing her classmates to notice the dementor behind them.

"EXPECTO PATRONUM!"

Ben and Merula pulled off the cloak at the same time, and a tiger and an anaconda sent the dementor tumbling back through the trees.

"Awesome, so can we get back to-"

Merula's train of thought was interrupted by Ben yelling, "F*CK, NOW THEY KNOW WHERE WE ARE!"

He was right. In the moments Merula was trying to direct the conversation back to Rakepick's necklace, the trio had been surrounded by dementors on all sides. The tiger and anaconda began bowling over dementors, even in twos or threes, but it clearly wasn't enough-either they'd get straight back up, or another would come to take their place.

"Do they REALLY need THIS many dementors?! This isn't You-Know-Who!" Ben's teeth were already chattering as he directed the tiger at a dementor, which knocked over another in its path.

"Give us a hand, Jackson?"

Dani transformed back and pulled out her wand.

Perhaps it was desperation, but as Dani pointed her wand at the nearest dementor and yelled the incantation, frantically searching her for a happy memory-ANY happy memory-she settled on flashes of her childhood, when she and Alex would pretend to duel with liquorice wands and steal coins from their parents.

A majestic stallion came out of the tip of her wand, ramming the dementor. Dani had it change direction and knock out a couple more.

But it was still too late.

Three large animals running around was no match for the horde of dementors closing in on the students. Merula groaned as she tried to figure out the optimal position for her anaconda to strike (there weren't many). "If only Dum-"

There was a loud roar, like one of a wild animal, and a blue force field swept across the grove. The anaconda  tiger and stallion were disintegrated, but all the dementors were thrown back so far they could no longer in sight.

"Who was that?"

"Could it have been Dumble-"

A patronus of a beautiful lioness stepped out from behind a wall of trees. She cocked her head and flicked her tail before transforming into none other than Patricia Rakepick.

"NOT YOU AGAIN!"

"CRUCIO!"

Just like in the last vault, Merula crumpled to the ground, screaming in agony. "You're in such a hurry to die, Miss Snyde, but the truth is," cackled her former professor and mentor, "you aren't even worth killing."

"DEPULSO!"

As Rakepick deflects the spell with a flick of her wand, Dani asks, "If you want me dead, why bother with the-"

"Because I want the pleasure of killing you MYSELF. AV-"

"FLIPENDO MAXIMA!"

The newly invented was negated just as easily. "Mr. Copper, you'll have to do better t-"

"STUPEFY!"

Rakepick deflects that as well. "CRUCIO!"

"PROTEGO!"

"FLIPENDO MAXIMA!"

"This is taking forever. EXPELLIARMUS!"

As Ben scrambled to pick up his wand, Dani made use of the opening. "STUPEFY!"

Rakepick deflects the spell.

"Oh COME ON! DEPULSO!"

"INCENDIO!"

"AGUAMENTI!"

Having to deflect Dani's hex, Rakepick's spell came only a beat too late. Fueled by his friend's piercing screeches behind him, Ben's powerful spell lit Rakepick up like a witch being burned at the stake (which she deserves) for just a moment before it subsided. Rakepick's robes were charred and parts of her face were covered in soot.

That powerful blow was the final straw.

"AVADA KEDAVRA!"

They say that time slows down. That your life flashes before your eyes.

But it didn't.

Dani barely had time to register even who the flash of green light from Rakepick's wand was aimed at before she saw, out of her peripheral vision, a dark figure dart out from behind a tree, someone knocked her over, and she crashed to the ground in a heap.

Dani could still hear the screams in the background. Rakepick laughed maniacally, hurt but satisfied. "Look who struck gold, Miss Jackson. Not only did you get away with your pretty little face, but R has told you time and time again that you owed us a friend's life. Consider the debt collected. Now, I believe we are off school grounds..." And she disapparated with a pop.

The screaming died down. The first voice Dani heard was Ben's. "Wha-what happened? Is everyone-"

All three knew the answer. They all heard the two dreaded words. They all saw the deadly green beam. And if it had hit a tree, 1. that would be too good to be true and 2. there would've been a loud crash behind them.

Dani pulled herself up from under Ben and looked over at where the beam was supposed to hit, knowing that it hit SOMEONE, someone who didn't scream or speak after the killing curse was fired, someone who, by elimination, wasn't SUPPOSED to be in the forest with them.

Dani was right. A fourth figure lay on the ground, still as her petrified classmates in the hospital wing, dead as dead could be. She'd been hit by the killing curse, the most horrible of them all-there was no going back.

"Who-"

"NO."

It was Rowan.

They came seeking answers, and instead received fear, agony, death, heartbreak... And even more questions.