By: Benjamin He

The red jet slammed into Xander, sending him crashing into a wall. He could hear the distinctive yells of the other Gryffindors as spells ripped through the air.

Xander let out a low moan. That hurt. A lot.

He heaved himself out, crashing into the floor. Using his hands and knees, he crawled around looking for his wand. He saw a flash of red light, and someone crumpled to the floor beside him.

Nope Nope Nope Nope Nope Nope Nope.

Xander scrambled away just as another jet of light hit the spot where he was just at. He looked up to see another hooded figure standing over him, his wand pointed, already muttering an incantation. Xander’s hand closed around something small and wooden…

“Expelliarmus!”

“Expelliarmus!”

Two jets of red light shot out of their wands. Xander dove behind an armchair.

CRACK!

The spells rebounded, red light slamming into the armchair Xander was behind. When he peered around the armchair again, the hooded figure was nowhere to be seen. Xander peered around the common room again.

A seventh-year was turning a Death Eater into some kind of sea urchin, while the other was already unconscious. He spotted one of them hopping on a broom and riding out a window, and two more trying to squeeze out of the door. There was a flash of red light, and the Death Eaters at the doorway fell away like puppets.

Professor McGonagall, along with the rest of the teachers, strode straight into the room, wand raised. McGonagall took one look at the sea urchin on the ground, conjured up a glass tank, and promptly magicked it inside. A piece of paper appeared on it: “ROOKWOOD THE DEATH EATER.”

Professor Flitwick and Longbottom immediately rushed around, waving their wands, trying to detect a sign of how the Death Eaters could’ve gotten in.

******************************************************************

About an hour later, Professor Flitwick cried out.

“There’s a vanishing cabinet in here!”

Xander was trying to pull out a bit of burned carpet from under the table when Flitwick cried out and let out a good-hearted “OW!” as he hit his head on the wooden desk.

But he crawled out nonetheless, joining a crowd of students that were all peering excitedly at an old closet. Professor Flitwick had somehow managed to open the locked door at the end of the hallway. The door had just been there when it was built, a large, medieval-styled one bound in chains and secured with a huge, iron padlock.

Since the door had been flung open, everyone could see from the inside. The door had a very simple mechanism on the inside, a knob, and a keyhole. Inside the keyhole was a tiny, golden key. Nearly impossible to open from the outside, but easily unlockable from the inside.

Inside the room was a small wooden stool, a large, dark cabinet, and, on the ceiling, one tiny lightbulb with a chain next to it, and four keys with wings attached to their backs, soaring about the room. Professor Warty, the potions master, stepped into the room and pulled open the cabinet. The moment he did, a sinister laugh echoed about the hallway, and when it stopped, there was a green apple sitting in the cabinet that looked as if it had a bite taken out of it.

Professor Coincracker (Defense Against the Dark Arts) threw up his hands and immediately set them back on his cane because he was wobbling a wee bit too much.

“That’s it!” he said, shaking his head. “First the flytraps, now this! I don’t want no more o’ this supernatural nonsense poppin’ up in my life every few years. The day the Dark Lord rose was on my wedding day! Enough is enough!”

And with that, the old, hunched-backed professor marched all the way onto the Hogwarts school grounds before apparating with a loud crack!

McGonagall let out a long sigh. Then she pointed at the vanishing cabinet.

“Professors Longbottom and…and…will someone get Mr. Filch?” she said. “Find a price for that somewhere. It shouldn’t be in Hogwarts at all, and it’ll cover the paycheck for the new Defense Against the Dark Arts teacher.”

Things went by really fast after that. Everyone had headed back to their normal dormitories and had taken the usual course of classes, except for Defense Against the Dark Arts. Suits of armor in the hallways had been bewitched to stop trouble if they saw it, and some were patrolling the hallways. The paintings throughout the castle were watching the students, and some had even taken to questioning the students regularly.

“How the heck should I know?” Xander had shouted at a monk in a painting as he asked him what number he was thinking of between 1 and 462. He hurried off to Charms Class after that.

“Ah, hello class!” squealed Professor Flitwick once everyone settled down. “We shall be continuing yesterday’s revision of the levitation charm today. Now don’t forget the swish and flick, or to mess up the s with the—”

Xander wasn’t listening anymore. He was staring out the window, where he thought he saw a green dot off in the distance… But it wasn’t a green dot anymore. Instead, it was a huge venus flytrap, teeth bared. Three death eaters were sitting on its back, and two more were on brooms next to them. They were all laughing maniacally as they shot jets of light and the venus flytrap smashed an entire window down with a tentacle swipe…

“Mr. Tockerkey? Are you fit to join us?”

Xander blinked, and the flytrap was gone. Instead, most of the class was gathered around Professor Flitwick, parchment and quill in hand, who was writing something on the blackboard.

“Uhhh yeah, all right then.”

He grabbed his things (nearly smashing an entire ink bottle) and hurried forward.

When it was lunch, and Xander was having an idle conversation about Quidditch with Hurst, something suddenly dawned on him. Christmas wasn’t that far away yet, and after that came the Hogwarts exams.

“—really quite unfortunate that the Appleby Arrows had to stop letting their fans shoot arrows after Potts got speared, y’know. Would’ve loved seeing support for my favorite team.” Hurst’s voice brought Xander back. “Say, you wanna come with my family this summer to see the Quidditch World Cup? Finals are happening!”

“Yeah sure,” said Xander, not really listening. “Do you know what date exams take place?”

“Usually in the first week of June.”

Xander gulped. There were only 3 and a half weeks until Christmas break…