Chapter 7 - Wards - part 1

Hogwarts Castle, Somewhere in the Scottish Highlands

November 22nd, 1992, 8 PM

It took some time, but the group that was in the infirmary finally came back with two new additions.

Entering the Great Hall the group come across a huffing Albus Dumbledore. Professor McGonagal and Madam Pomfrey were giving him a reproving look. Colin just looked back at Erik, waiting for him to say anything.

"Go ahead, Mr. Creevey, your housemates are waiting for you."

With Erik saying that, Colin nods at him, smiling, and runs to the Gryffindor house table and is received with ovations from his housemates. He soon was seated and serving some food on his plate.

The group then walks in the direction to the staff table, with Dumbledore after them. Erik and Leona stop by the head of the Ravenclaw table, where Selena and Joan were, and Erik gives each of the seated girls a kiss on the top of their heads. Madam Pomfrey and Mr. Filch goes back to the main table to eat something, while Professor McGonagall stops by Erik's side. Dumbledore goes after Madam Pomfrey and Mr. Filch, trying to get information from them, not successfully at all.

"Welcome back~"

Selena says to the duo. Leona lets go of Erik's arm, sits beside Joan and starts to eat some food on the table.

"We are back."

Erik answers Selena's welcome. Professor McGonagall uses the lul in the conversation to ask Erik about his next steps.

"Lord Ravenclaw, what will be your next move now that you know the identity of the attacker?"

"Well, I now know the 'What', and have some references for the 'Where', but I still lack the knowledge of 'Who'. The next logical step would be the reactivation of the castle's main wards. Doing this, we can stop holding the students here in the Great Hall and send them safely back to their dormitories."

Professor McGonagall nods at that, agreeing that their main worry right now is the students' safety.

"And with the students safely 'tucked', we will have more freedom to clean the castle, and probably have time to reactivate all of the castle's ward system. Tomorrow classes will probably have to be canceled."

Nodding, again, the Professor departs to the staff table intending to eat something. The night was full of surprises until now, and who knows what more are coming their way. Minerva would need the energy and strength for what is to come, even more if Albus continues to bother her wanting to know more.

"So, Joan, anything abnormal happened while we were away?"

Erik asks while picking some fries from Selena's plate.

Joan shakes her head and answers to him.

"Nothing abnormal, just the usual gossip between the students that was bound to happen with our arrival. But I have something to report when we have the time, nothing urgent at the moment."

"Good. Does any of my adorable wives wanna come with me to the ward's room?"

Erik acknowledges Joan's remark, and invites them to go with him to reactivate the castle's wards.

"Nope."

Says Leona, popping the 'p' in her short answer.

"Don't wanna too. I'm having too much fun here between talking with my sister and little Luna, hearing the blond ponce in the staff table doing his personification of Narcissus, and the 'old boy' failing to exit the Great Hall."

Erik chuckles at that, and looks at Joan, asking her in a haughty noble like tone.

"How about you, my knight?"

"It would be my honor to accompany you, my liege."

Joan answers Erik after a giggle, in a knight like bound tone. Cleaning her mouth in a napkin, she gets up and re-equip her armored gauntlets, taking position by Erik's side.

"Selena, dear, keep an eye on things, please. Joan, let's stop by the staff table first to see if some Masters want to go with us. And Helena…"

Erik says quickly looking at the staff table, and looking back at his ghostly sister-in-law, Helena, who was still savoring the ghostly grapes, he says with a smirk.

"... Don't eat too much, or you will get fat."

Helena freezes at that. Selena giggles at the joke. Recovering quickly from the freezed status, Helena looks at Erik with a glare. And what she sees is her brother-in-law smiling back at her.

With that, Erik and Joan go to the staff table.

"Good Evening, Ladies and Gentlemans, where are the castle's Masters for charms, runes and arithmancy, please?"

Erik greets the staff and asks them. With that, three people stand up after cleaning themselves with napkins.

"That would be us, Lord Ravenclaw. I'm Fillius Flitwick, Master of the castle for charms, and Head of Ravenclaw house."

Answer the diminutive charm's Master, introducing himself in the sequence with a small curtsey.

"I'm Septima Vector, Master of the castle for arithmancy."

Introduces the female Master in the sequence, giving Erik a short curtsy too.

"And I'm Batsheda Babbling, Master of the castle for Runes."

Self introduces the last Master, a woman too, giving Erik a small bow.

"It's good to meet you, Masters."

Erik answers them, having given each one a small bow in response to theirs to him. Erik continues talking.

"I'm on my way to reactivate the main wards of the castle, and would like to invite the three Masters to visit the Hogwarts' hearthstone room with Joan and me."

Erik invites the Master, indicating Joan with a hand when he says her name.

The three Masters immediately jump at the offer, accepting it. And they were euphoric at the opportunity. It's not often that they can visit the hearthstone of a building, and the fact that it is THE Hogwarts' hearthstone means that it is a golden opportunity that they can't let pass. Even more knowing that the castle's wards are known to be unbreachable.

"Let's go then."

Erik signals to the professors, who hurriedly get around the staff table to follow him. At this point, Dumbledore already gave up demanding anything, he will have to be content with the little information that he manages to get from the conversations. But a twinkle can be seen in his eye, as he slowly follows after the group.

Passing by the head of the Ravenclaw table, the group receives a 'Have a nice trip~' from Selena. Walking by the Great Hall, they exit it, passing through the barrier like it was not there, just to the group stop when they hear a 'thud' followed by an 'urgh'. They look back just to see Albus Dumbledore, again, on his butt on the Great Hall Floor.

Joan giggles at that, while Erik and the professors shake their heads in reproval for the old man's behavior.

Erik turns and continues to walk, leading the group down the Great Staircase. Walking for mostly one minute, Erik and the group stop in front of a huge portrait of a basket of an assortment of different fruits on top of a small round table. After tickling the pear in the basket, it let out a giggle and morphed to reveal a door knob that now was not a simple painting anymore. Grabbing the knob and twisting, he commented.

"Amazing piece of enchantment, isn't it? It was one of Rowena's after Helga commented that a lot of students were ignoring meal times and pilfering the kitchens directly."

The portrait opened to allow the group entrance to the castle's kitchens, where an army of house elves were busy working.

The group passed them and Erik identified Dimpy. Apparently, she was inspecting the other elves' work and giving pointers to a group of young ones. He stopped by her side to have a quick word.

"Hello Dimpy, could you please send a group of elves to clean and prepare the Great Lounge?"

"Dimpy will do, Sir. It's been long time since the last use, but elves keep it clean and repair it during time that castle has no students."

Answers the over enthusiastic old elf.

"Thank you Dimpy."

Erik thanks the house elf, giving her a pat in the head, letting her to get some jealous looks from the elves around, that soon redouble their efforts working. Erik and the group soon continue the walk through the kitchens, until they get to an inconspicuous door at the wall opposite of the entrance. The professor could have sworn that the door was not there moments before.

Erik opens the door and steps in the new room. With that, torches lit up in the walls, illuminating the room and the spiral staircase going down to the bowels of the castle.

"And down we go!"

He says as he starts walking down the stairs.

After a little walk that appeared to be the distance of two floors, the group arrives at a short corridor and Erik comments to the group.

"If you guys were not with me, the stairs would appear to be infinitely going down, letting you forever try to descend it… But you could still go back up. The same goes for this corridor."

Walking to the end of the corridor, they are in front of a big and heavy looking wooden door with metal bars across to reinforce it. The door has no handle, just a keyhole.

Without taking out a key, Erik just touches the big door, which after a series of sounds of 'clicks' and 'slides' opens to the inside of the room, allowing passage to the group.

Entering the room, Erik invites the group in, welcoming them as they enter it.

"Welcome to Hogwarts' hearthstone room!"

The professors are certainly awed by the vision that they have inside the room.

The room was not that big when compared to the Great Hall, but the arrangement of things inside it gave it another kind of grandeur. The entire room seemed to be carved out of a giant block of obsidian stone, giving the walls, ceiling and floor the look of a black mirror. It was a circular room, about 30 meters wide with walls that were 5 meter high, the same height that the ceiling started and seemed to get higher as they went to the center of the room, assuming a dome like shape of about 15 meter high in the center. A distinctive feature was that the ceiling and the walls seemed to be covered in thick circuit lines that, if looked closer, could be identified as thousands of runic symbols tightly grouped. The lines pulsed with a white light slowly, like the heartbeat of a sleeping giant, and were converging to the center of the dome like ceiling.

In the center of the room there was a 15 meters wide and half meter elevated platform made of a hard white marble. In the platform borders, in each cardinal and ordinal direction (N, S, E, W, NE, NW, SE, SW), there was a 1 x 1 x 5 meters tall gray stone with conical shape with thousands of runes covering it, and pulsing in sync with the lines at the ceiling. And from each of the eight stones, a thick line seemed to exit going to the middle of the platform, where the hearthstone could be seen. The hearthstone was a 3 meters high egg shaped gem like gray stone, that too was covered in slow pulsating red runes.

Yes, 'awed' would be little to describe what the three Masters were feeling right now. They seemed ready to explode in excitement. Professor Flitwick looked like he would start to bounce in the room at any moment. And what Erik said following didn't help either.

"Go ahead, you guys have 15 minutes to analyse the castle's wards. I disabled the defensive measures. You guys can touch, but can't change anything. I will hear your conclusions about them when time's up."

Erik says while checking his wrist watch. The three professors immediately start to go around, waving their wands and checking the runes around.

While the professors were going at it, Erik takes the time to hug Joan from behind, wrapping his arms around her armored waist and nesting his face in the nape of her neck. Joan just seemed to 'melt' at Erik's ministrations, closing her eyes to 'bask' in the feeling.

"So, you had something to report to me?"

Erik murmured behind Joan's ear, making the knight woman shudder.

"Hmm… In the Great Hall, there was… Hmmm… a student and a staff member with corrupted pieces of alien magic in them… Hmm don't stop… The one on the staff member was centered around his left arm, while the student's one was around his head… Yessss. Just like that..."

Erik was making it difficult for Joan to report, giving the woman light kisses around the base of her neck.

"Really? And was their own magic corrupted too?"

"The staf... Ahn~... Member's magic seemed to have been… Hmmm... But the corruption waned with time. It seemed just darker… Hmm… The student's magic was pure… Ahn~... The piece of corrupted magic seemed like it was trying to corrupt… Hmmm… The magic, but there's something keeping it at bay… Ahnm~"

Joan was breathing hard when she finished the report. She had to admit, Erik knew how to push all of her right buttons. After more than 500 years together, it was the expected result. And everyday she thanked The Lord that Lady Gabriel sent him to help her at her worst time.

-------------