Chapter Eleven:
Peppering Hope

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As soon as Eternity had vanished, shrill laughter rang from the gates of Hogwarts. Students exchanged weary looks, tired of always being targeted. Some even looked to the Unspeakable for direction, but hopelessness was already gripping at her insides. Fear of her pals falling to defeat overwhelmed her and she could not think straight.

"Oh no, I think we are under attack!" A Hufflepuff girl exclaimed, worried. It was the pure fear in her face, as well as the rest of the students' faces, that reminded Crystal that there was something worth fighting for, a duty to keep up, a responsibility to protect.

"Don't worry. I'll take care of that. I want you all to focus on removing these runes as soon as possible, okay?" Crystal said, standing up and withdrawing her wand from the back of her robes. All the students either responded with a nod or an exclamation of 'yes!'. Checking the DA coin to see if Raven had sent any other message, she sprinted towards the source of the sound. Unfortunately, the boy had not left any message.

Anxious about his safety, she did not see a stray branch lying on the ground, leading her to trip and fall. Her knees felt hopeless when she heard another voice, one she was accustomed to. "STOP!"

Struggling hard, she managed to make it to the entrance grounds where the sight she would have never wished to see was enveloping. A raven was being beaten down by an eagle, a bald eagle at that.

Two hooded figures were lying on the earth, their bodies strangled and mixed with vines. Several other students were still on the ground as well, making Crystal fear for their lives. A moment of silliness passed her mind when she tried to get to her knees in vain. Why on earth was Raven fighting an eagle at a time like this?

She received her answer when the eagle transformed into a figure with a red hood on, having finally thrown the poor bird down to the crater of the earth it had formed by its fall.

Crystal could not bare to see Raven being tortured like that. It was her Raven, but she could not even move for the life of her! People had told her that she was the bravest girl in her family, more so than her mother, to have endured the torture of a place Hogwarts had become two years ago, but it was all a bitter thought. She could not even get up to her feet when her friends were being tortured.

The unbearable moment passed, like every moment had to, and with it took the red-hooded figure towards the next frontier – students removing runes. With him finally gone, Crystal ran to help her friends.

"Oh, oh." Raven was injured badly. One of his wings was clipped, the other had a gash running up to its beak. "Transform back. Transform back, Raven," she pleaded, but the bird remained unresponsive.

"C-Cry-stal?" The voice was weak and muffled but Crystal would know it anywhere. She left the bruised bird there and ran to a pile of vines. Courage seemed to hold her hand when she cast the cutting curse, slashing away the growth over her friend.

"Aura, no! Where's Swift?" Crystal asked, helping the girl to lean against a mould made out of cut creepers. The Unspeakable weakly pointed her finger at another pile of vines. A dark spot could be made out.

Crystal left Aura's side to obliterate those crazy vines which revealed an unconscious Swift. "P-pepp-er-" Aura stuttered. Crystal caught on and swished her wand, nonverbally casting a summoning charm to bring Pepper-Up Potions.

It worked and both the Unspeakables were soon refreshed by the potion. They were in the state to sit up without a backrest, but what worried her the most was that Raven was unresponsive. It was a hard task to feed the potion into the bruised beak of a bird-man.

"Raven, please, transform back. Please. For me, please." Almost involuntarily, he transformed back, lying on his stomach at her knees. With the renewed energy, Swift managed to help her pour some of the potion into Raven's mouth.

"It was nasty. That girl has all of our powers," Swift noted, standing up to help the students.

"We lost ourselves in our powers," Aura admitted, for the first time her voice showing an edge of shame. "We were burnt out after using it for a long while. What's surprising is that, despite having our powers, she never seemed to get exhausted."

Raven's green eyes slowly opened, barely visible through the hood. "Hogwarts?" he asked weakly, wincing at his own voice. It seemed to have cost him a lot to get a simple word out of his throat. Sure, the aerial fight was one thing, but Pepper-Up down your throat was the culprit.

"We have to protect it but you must all recover. The first line of defense failed," Crystal admitted.

"Yeah, and we must use our powers wisely," Swift added, coming to a stop in front of them. "We must fight with magic more than our powers. That will probably drain less of our energy." He shuffled through his robes, trying to find his wand. To his, as well as Aura's horror, both of their wands were not on them.

Crystal even groped around Raven, but even his was missing. His wand going missing seemed to fuel him more than Pepper-Up that he sat up straight.

"Oh, no no no! This can't be!" he blurted out in disbelief.

"I don't think we can do it," Swift replied, heartbroken as he fell to his knees. "Dumbledore would have been so ashamed of us. . ."

Dumbledore. The name turned something on in her mind and she quickly cast a privacy charm around herself and Raven. "Raven, you are the Master of Death, right?" she urged. Raven looked confused, nevertheless, nodded. "Then there's still hope!"

What do you think is Crystal's idea? Let me know in the comments! ;)

Thank you for reading!

Miyoko x