Ambush

Madam Pomfrey took one look at Anna, and said, "Oh you poor dear, I'll get you fixed up in a jiffy." She pulled out her wand, a murmured a spell and tapped Anna on the head with the tip of her wand.

Immediately, Anna skin returned to a normal color, and the word faded from her forehead. Madam Pomfrey looked her up and down and said, "There we are, right as rain. I don't suppose you would like to tell me who did this to you."

A stubborn look appeared on Anna's face, and she muttered, "It was just a spell gone out of control."

Madam Pomfrey sighed like she had heard that excuse a million times. Hogwarts was sort of like a prison, no one rats on each other if someone hexes you, you either take it, or you can dish it back out. Those who go crying to teachers are scorned by the entire school body, it's sort of like admitting you aren't good enough with magic to get revenge.

After we left, I told Anna, "Let's find Cedric and Alicia, I need to show you guys something." After we hunted down Cedric and Alicia, they followed me to the 7th floor.

As I stopped in front of the Room of Requirement, pacing back and forth, Anna questioned, "What exactly are we doing up here?" Her voice trailed off when she saw a door appear in the corridor.

Opening the door with a flourish, I said, "This is the room of requirement, it's probably one of the best-kept secrets at Hogwarts. All you have to do is need something, and if it can be obtained in the castle, the room will provide it."

We came into a wide-open room with a round table with four chairs surrounding it. As we all sat down, I continued, "One of my favorite things about the room, is how it provides books that I require, rather than hunt the information down in the library, I just come here and think about what topic I need information on and it appears."

As soon as I finished, a stack of books appeared next to me on the table. Cedric raised his eyebrow and asked, "Alright Alex, you dragged us to this secret room, enough with the theatrics, whats going on?"

"You remember the idiot from the other day, the one who was bugging Anna and Alicia?" I said.

Cedric nodded, taking a deep breath and shooting a glance towards Anna for permission, she nodded and I said, "Earlier today, He and his friends took a shot at Anna, They hexed her green, and wrote the words squib spawn on her forehead. Not long after, he tried to jump me but Athena scared him off."

As I trailed off, Cedric and Alicia sat back in stunned silence. After a moment, Alicia began muttering in Arabic about all sorts of nasty things she was going to do to Michael. With a concerned look on his face, Cedric looked at Anna and asked, "Are you ok?"

She nodded, and quickly replied, "Madam Pomfrey was able to get rid of it quickly enough."

Wanting to inform them of my thoughts on the matter I said, "It is because I don't think that this activity will cease, that I gathered everyone here for a war council." Alicia eyes lit up and eagerly asked, "Oh, are we going to war."

Nodding I replied, "I think it's safe to assume that we will all be targets, so rule number one, travel in pairs if you're not with anyone from your house. Alicia, you may be the easiest to target because you're in the same house as Micheal. Next, we retaliate, if we hunker down and do nothing it will only get worse. However, before this goes any further, it's only fair guys know that there is some history between my family and the Whithorns, getting caught up in this could have far more consequences than just a petty feud at Hogwarts."

After I told them about the details, about how Delvin Whithorn had somehow screwed my grandfather over. Even going into some detail about the little known shadowy organization that Declan Whithorn ran throughout the world.

Out of all of my friends, Cedric was the most disturbed by everything I told him. After all, his father worked in the Ministry and he had always placed great faith in the system to work correctly.

Anna inquired, "What is the name of the organization."

Shaking my head, I responded, "I asked my uncle the same thing, according to him, they don't have a name for it. He believes that Declan thinks that theatrical things like secret names or tattoos that could be used to identify someone are idiotic. The most he could tell me was there was a council of seven that is in charge of everything, with Declan at the head of it."

Everyone fell quiet at the idea of antagonized the grandson of a powerful wizard, who had no scruples. Cedric sighed and said, "No one wants to say it, but I have to put it out there anyways. Is this a fight we should be seeking, I imagine, if we huddled up and let Michael and his friends hex us a few time, eventually they would get bored."

Alicia scoffed and said, "Where is your sense of pride."

I interrupted I shook my head and said, "No, Cedric actually makes a good, point, Honesty, the smart move would be to do as he said, and not make waves. But, I have a feeling Michael would enjoy it too much to stop, He won't stop with a few hexes, people like him want to dominate others."

Wanting to reassure everyone I continue, "Besides I doubt Michael gets his father or grandfather involved a small Hogwarts grudge, I bet Michael doesn't even tell them. I only mentioned it, so everyone knows what kind of family he is from. Now that everyone is caught up to speed, what does everyone want to do if you want to back out I understand, it's the smart move"

After a moment of silence, Cedric scoffed and said, "Of course we're in, who do you take us fo? So what do we do?"

Seeing the agreement in everyone's faces, I grinned and said, "So, they have the advantage, not only are they third years, but they also have a much better grasp of the castles' layout. Now, I doubt they are expecting us to go on that attack, but the main idea is to force them to realize that consistently bothering us isn't worth their effort."

Sliding the books that appeared on the table to the center I continued, "I propose we brush up on some nasty hexes, and get them before they get us."

Everyone grabbed a different book while looking through my book, I found a few particular nasty hexes in an old book on nasty spells. Hopefully, because the book is so old, the spells aren't commonly used, so they won't be able to get rid of them easily. However, I did recognize some of them from the books, so who knows.

The following weeks were spent practicing hexes and jinxes in our spare time, in between classes, we made sure to blend with the crowd so Michael and his friends couldn't get a shot at us.

Looking back, I can pinpoint the true start of our conflict, it started on a normal Friday, that was the day Michael knew he had found an opponent he couldn't bully into submission. That day, I saw one of Michael, chatting with his friends in the hallway. On the other end of the hallway was Professor Snape headed our way.

It was like the universe set up a perfect way to begin the war. I pulled out my wand and tucked it discreetly into my sleeves. Professor Snape neared and as I passed by Michael, I muttered softly, "Lingua Volucri." Stepping back into the crowd I stuck around to enjoy the show.

As soon as Professor Snape passed by Micheal, who was speaking with his friends, he suddenly blurted out "WHORE."

Snorting into my hand, I watched Professor Snape pause, as if he couldn't believe what just happened. His dark eyes gleamed dangerously, and he snapped, "What did you just say, Mr. Whithorn"

With a panicked look on his face, Micheal stuttered, "Nothing Professor ARSEHOLE." As soon as the final word slipped out, Micheal's eyes widened as if he couldn't believe he just said that.

Professor Snape's eyes bulged out and he roared, "How dare you! 50 points from Gryffindor!"

Trying to keep the smirk off my face, I can't believe how diabolical the potty mouth jinx is. It takes random words you say and replaces them with curse words. Somehow, it picks the perfect words to swap with for maximum effect.

Micheal begged, "You don't understand BITCH, It's not my fault, you have to know that I would never FUCKING say anything like that to you CUNT." At this point, the whole hallway was completely silent, shocked beyond words.

Honestly, I was kinda worried Professor Snape was going to have a heart attack. Finally, he roared, "DETENTION FOR A MONTH MR. Whithorn! Come with me."

As Professor Snape dragged Micheal away. His eyes met mine, and he knew from my wicked grin that I was responsible for his predicament. That marked the beginning of our conflict, the following weeks, we were in a secret battle with Michael and his friends. Sometimes, we ambushed them and sometimes they ambushed us. All of us had been hit at least once with hexes and jinxes of all types, some rather basic and other fiendishly devious.

A small part of me assumed, that a bully like Micheall would back down after being hit a few times, but he actually seemed to thrive on the conflict between us. The on October 31 our little fight escalated.

I broke the rules, and found myself all alone of the fourth floor, when I heard Michael shout, "Petrificus Totalus." Immediately, my limbs locked up and I found myself unable to move, so I crashed to the floor.

Micheal flipped me over and I glared daggers of death at him. He sneered down at me, raised hit the foot and snarled, "Who is the shoe now," and he smashed his foot on my face and breaking my nose.

Snarling at me, Micheal hissed, "I bet you thought you were real clever getting me into a months worth of detention, I think you are in need of a object lesson."

Micheal looked me over and his face lit up when he saw my tower control ring. After prying my ring off my frozen finger, he held it up to the light and whistled. "This ring looks nice and old. Family heirloom?"

Michael shot a cruel grin at Ray and said, open the window I have a good idea. As Ray opened the window, Micheal set my ring on the window seal, and pointed his wand at my ring and shouted, "Alarte Ascendare." My ring shot into the sky, like a bullet fired from a gun, in the direction of the Forbidden Forest.

As I laid there helplessly unable to move, white-hot rage burned through me, along with a sense of shame. Never before had I felt such hatred. I swore to myself, that I would never be caught so unprepared again in my life and that I would get revenge.

Micheal motioned for Ray to grab one foot and they both dragged me into a small closet. Just before he closed the door, Michael sneered at me and said, "There is only an hour before everyone has to be in their dorms, and I bet you are gonna be stuck like that for 3 or 4 hours. Sure hope you don't get caught out of bounds."

Around midnight just when I began to get some feeling back into my hand, I heard footsteps approach from outside. The handle creaked as the door swung open to reveal two grinning redheads one of whom was holding an old map.

Fred said, "What happened to you, mate"

Still unable to move I glared helplessly at them, Moving me into a better position, George pulled out his wand and muttered the counter curse to the full body bind curse. Finally able to move and speak, I quietly muttered, "Thanks."

Fred whispered, "No problems mate, George and I were wondering what you were doing it the closet all these hours."

While I guessed that the map in Fred's hands was the marauder map, so I said, "How did you even know I was down here?"

George grinned and excitedly said, we nicked this map from Filch's office, it's bloody useful, it shows where everyone is on the Hogwarts ground, that's how we knew you were in here. After seeing you remain frozen on the map for a while, we decided to come and check it out."

After telling them a quick condensed version Fred snarled and offered, "Want us to slip some bulbadox powder into their pajamas?"

Laughing at his expression, I replied, "Sure if you want, but I plan on getting my own brand of vengeance as well."

They used the map, to get me back to the Ravenclaw common room without being detected. As I laid in bed, two things remained on my mind, revenge and getting my ring back from the forbidden forest, who knows how deep in the ring went in, it could be anywhere.