Tim raced down the old hallway, a briefcase clutched tightly in his hands. He had to get out of this old robotics factory, and quickly. The general look of the place reminded him of the times when he was just a twelve-year-old and played Bendy and The Ink Machine. He could see the exit, a light at the end of the tunnel. Excited, he sprinted faster. When he was about three feet away from the door, however, something clicked underneath him, and with a popping hiss, the door slammed shut. Tim cursed under his breath and heard the familiar metal clangs of doom— one of the factory robots that had gone wrong.
Tim whirled around and ran in the opposite direction as fast as he could, barely managing to dive into another room and shut the door when a huge square of metal stomped into view. Tim called them Chunks, they were essentially large squares of trash molded into a cube, and then someone had clumsily stuck legs made of tin on them. All of them had a flashlight strapped to their top right-hand side with masking tape. But the weirdest thing about them was that all of them had a huge yellow eye plastered onto their front. This was the result of magic on them, Tim knew. This particular one peered suspiciously at the door of the room Tim was in before moving on, continuing its never-ending march. The one advantage Tim had against them was that all of the Chunks were deaf and could only feel by their feet and eyes. The moment the Chunk was gone, Tim kicked the door open and ran in the direction the Chunk came from. He knew of a second exit there.
However, the moment he reached the railroad tracks, he immediately wished he hadn’t gone this way. What met him there was a Pincer: these robots were only half his size, but three times as deadly. The robots moved on wheels and had a square chest and another smaller square for a head. On the head were just two green dots, which acted as its eyes. It had what looked like a giant, metal crab claw on its left side, and on the other, a giant drill. However, being so ridiculously short, Tim leaped over him with one bound. He landed inside what looked like an empty tank shell, and the shell roared into life and sped off at top speed. Then a Chunk landed right in front of the shell and using its giant eye, seemed to stare right through Tim’s soul.
Xander woke up gasping and covered in sweat. What the…Where am…? Then the memories came flooding back. He was in Hogwarts, School of Witchcraft and Wizardry. And this…this had to be the hospital wing. Lots of other kids were in here as well, all in a similar condition to himself. He remembered being grabbed by a tentacle, then he blasted the tentacle with fire, and then what? He could tell from the windows that it was night. He looked to his bedside table. Oh, wow. It was laden with sweets and get-well cards. He spotted a chocolate frog, most likely his favorite food in all of the wizarding world. He grabbed it and tore it open. A frog made completely of dark chocolate leaped out of the case and made for an open window. He grabbed it by the leg, and, slamming it into the side of his bed, ripped off its head and stuffed it into his mouth. He looked at the bottom of the case, where there was always a famous witch or wizard displayed on a trading card. Oh! Mungo Bonham! I don’t think I have him yet… then he frowned. He thought of his dream. And, setting the card and case back on the table, started to polish off the chocolate frog and began to think.
When he woke up the following morning, his hands were still sticky with chocolate. He hastily wiped them on his pillow, then turned to see Madam Pomfrey, the matron of Hogwarts, fussing over some fourth-year who seemed to have clovers growing on his tongue. When she was done, she turned to him.
“As for you…”
He was in the hospital wing until lunchtime when Madam Pomfrey finally gave him the all-clear to leave. He met Clyde in the Great Hall. When Clyde finally glanced up from his sandwich, his eyes had widened to the size of his plate and he had motioned furiously for Xander to sit down across from him.
“Bro, you okay?”
Xander nodded furiously. Clyde poured him a goblet of pumpkin juice and slid it across the table to him.
“Dude, I was trying to get to you, but then the vine grabbed you and it all happened so quick-”
Xander simply nodded.
“It’s fine. Where’s Lucky?”
“Did I hear my name?”
Lucky slid in next to Clyde, her pet tarantula crawling onto her shoulder. She glanced from Clyde to Xander, then took a deep breath and blew an untidy bit of brown hair out of her face.
“The teachers burned all the flytraps to a crisp, by the way,” she said calmly. “As for the students who caused the whole situation, well, we won’t be seeing them anytime soon.”
Lucky flicked away another strand of hair. “There weren’t any fatal casualties. Does nothing exciting ever happen at this school?”
Lucky seemed to think only death was sufficient entertainment.
“Well, we can’t really do anything about it now can we?” Clyde leaned forward to drink from his goblet. “Now we just move on in life and—”
“AVADA KEDAVRA!”
A jet of speeding green light soared through the sky, aimed for Professor McGonagall. ZRRRRKKK. The spell slammed into her hat and burned a hole straight through it. All conversation in the Great Hall immediately ceased. All eyes were on a man with his wand pointed at the headmistress, standing between the Ravenclaw and Hufflepuff tables. Seemingly outraged at this failed assassination attempt, he brought his wand over his head and pointed it again at Professor McGonagall.
“AVADA—”
Xander was temporarily blinded by the jets of light and spells that flew from every direction possible, the man being the central target. When the spells stopped coming and everyone had regained their vision again, Xander spotted the man as he flew through the air and landed with a thump on the Hufflepuff table. The man had been horribly ravaged by the jinxes and hexes that had flown at him. There were several bad burns through his cloak, pink tentacles were sprouting out of his face, and even though he was unconscious, he seemed to be trying to barf out slugs. Xander surveyed the destruction around them. Most of the students had their wands out. The entire staff table had their wands pointed at him. Several students at the Ravenclaw and Slytherin tables were unfortunate victims of Stunning spells. Both Xander and Clyde’s goblets had been shattered, and pumpkin juice was dribbling down the side of their stood faces. A platter of sandwiches had been overturned. Professor McGonagall up immediately.
“Prefects, please lead all students back to your common rooms.”
The Gryffindor prefects, Noah Sidecurve and Allison Topper stood up and waved to the Gryffindors. They stood at the back of the group and herded them like sheep back to the Gryffindor Tower. But when they arrived back at the portrait of the Fat Lady, who was the guard for the Gryffindor common room, she was nowhere to be found. The portrait frame was empty and it hung wide open. Noah Sidecurve took two other sixth-year prefects to look for the Fat Lady while Allison Topper led the Gryffindors into the common room. It was a complete mess inside. Armchairs were pushed over onto their sides, scratch marks were well in abundance on the walls, and the carpet had been torn into pieces. Two more prefects went to fetch Noah and another went to report this to the headmaster, leaving Allison to watch the fourth-years and below. An hour later, all the houses except for Slytherin (which was the only house that hadn’t been ransacked) reported to the student’s lounge, which was built just last year for an occasion just like this. Made to accommodate all the houses, the common room was huge. And seeing as it was missing an entire house, there was plenty of room for students to split up in groups and talk privately. The rest of them tried to make use of their time, some stretching out to play a game of Gobstones while others tried to mow down the mountains of homework they had received. At 9 o’clock, when Xander was sure he was about to go insane from the sound of his own quill scratching on parchment, Professor Flitwick, the charms teacher, came in and told everyone to get to bed. The dorm was split between two Hufflepuffs (Ty Nightslash and Coko Baklock) and three Gryffindors (Xander himself, Hurst Anko, and Clyde). While the rest of his roommates tried to entertain themselves with a game of Wizard’s chess, Xander lay in his bed, wondering what the world could possibly throw at him next.
Tim whirled around and ran in the opposite direction as fast as he could, barely managing to dive into another room and shut the door when a huge square of metal stomped into view. Tim called them Chunks, they were essentially large squares of trash molded into a cube, and then someone had clumsily stuck legs made of tin on them. All of them had a flashlight strapped to their top right-hand side with masking tape. But the weirdest thing about them was that all of them had a huge yellow eye plastered onto their front. This was the result of magic on them, Tim knew. This particular one peered suspiciously at the door of the room Tim was in before moving on, continuing its never-ending march. The one advantage Tim had against them was that all of the Chunks were deaf and could only feel by their feet and eyes. The moment the Chunk was gone, Tim kicked the door open and ran in the direction the Chunk came from. He knew of a second exit there.
However, the moment he reached the railroad tracks, he immediately wished he hadn’t gone this way. What met him there was a Pincer: these robots were only half his size, but three times as deadly. The robots moved on wheels and had a square chest and another smaller square for a head. On the head were just two green dots, which acted as its eyes. It had what looked like a giant, metal crab claw on its left side, and on the other, a giant drill. However, being so ridiculously short, Tim leaped over him with one bound. He landed inside what looked like an empty tank shell, and the shell roared into life and sped off at top speed. Then a Chunk landed right in front of the shell and using its giant eye, seemed to stare right through Tim’s soul.
Xander woke up gasping and covered in sweat. What the…Where am…? Then the memories came flooding back. He was in Hogwarts, School of Witchcraft and Wizardry. And this…this had to be the hospital wing. Lots of other kids were in here as well, all in a similar condition to himself. He remembered being grabbed by a tentacle, then he blasted the tentacle with fire, and then what? He could tell from the windows that it was night. He looked to his bedside table. Oh, wow. It was laden with sweets and get-well cards. He spotted a chocolate frog, most likely his favorite food in all of the wizarding world. He grabbed it and tore it open. A frog made completely of dark chocolate leaped out of the case and made for an open window. He grabbed it by the leg, and, slamming it into the side of his bed, ripped off its head and stuffed it into his mouth. He looked at the bottom of the case, where there was always a famous witch or wizard displayed on a trading card. Oh! Mungo Bonham! I don’t think I have him yet… then he frowned. He thought of his dream. And, setting the card and case back on the table, started to polish off the chocolate frog and began to think.
When he woke up the following morning, his hands were still sticky with chocolate. He hastily wiped them on his pillow, then turned to see Madam Pomfrey, the matron of Hogwarts, fussing over some fourth-year who seemed to have clovers growing on his tongue. When she was done, she turned to him.
“As for you…”
He was in the hospital wing until lunchtime when Madam Pomfrey finally gave him the all-clear to leave. He met Clyde in the Great Hall. When Clyde finally glanced up from his sandwich, his eyes had widened to the size of his plate and he had motioned furiously for Xander to sit down across from him.
“Bro, you okay?”
Xander nodded furiously. Clyde poured him a goblet of pumpkin juice and slid it across the table to him.
“Dude, I was trying to get to you, but then the vine grabbed you and it all happened so quick-”
Xander simply nodded.
“It’s fine. Where’s Lucky?”
“Did I hear my name?”
Lucky slid in next to Clyde, her pet tarantula crawling onto her shoulder. She glanced from Clyde to Xander, then took a deep breath and blew an untidy bit of brown hair out of her face.
“The teachers burned all the flytraps to a crisp, by the way,” she said calmly. “As for the students who caused the whole situation, well, we won’t be seeing them anytime soon.”
Lucky flicked away another strand of hair. “There weren’t any fatal casualties. Does nothing exciting ever happen at this school?”
Lucky seemed to think only death was sufficient entertainment.
“Well, we can’t really do anything about it now can we?” Clyde leaned forward to drink from his goblet. “Now we just move on in life and—”
“AVADA KEDAVRA!”
A jet of speeding green light soared through the sky, aimed for Professor McGonagall. ZRRRRKKK. The spell slammed into her hat and burned a hole straight through it. All conversation in the Great Hall immediately ceased. All eyes were on a man with his wand pointed at the headmistress, standing between the Ravenclaw and Hufflepuff tables. Seemingly outraged at this failed assassination attempt, he brought his wand over his head and pointed it again at Professor McGonagall.
“AVADA—”
Xander was temporarily blinded by the jets of light and spells that flew from every direction possible, the man being the central target. When the spells stopped coming and everyone had regained their vision again, Xander spotted the man as he flew through the air and landed with a thump on the Hufflepuff table. The man had been horribly ravaged by the jinxes and hexes that had flown at him. There were several bad burns through his cloak, pink tentacles were sprouting out of his face, and even though he was unconscious, he seemed to be trying to barf out slugs. Xander surveyed the destruction around them. Most of the students had their wands out. The entire staff table had their wands pointed at him. Several students at the Ravenclaw and Slytherin tables were unfortunate victims of Stunning spells. Both Xander and Clyde’s goblets had been shattered, and pumpkin juice was dribbling down the side of their stood faces. A platter of sandwiches had been overturned. Professor McGonagall up immediately.
“Prefects, please lead all students back to your common rooms.”
The Gryffindor prefects, Noah Sidecurve and Allison Topper stood up and waved to the Gryffindors. They stood at the back of the group and herded them like sheep back to the Gryffindor Tower. But when they arrived back at the portrait of the Fat Lady, who was the guard for the Gryffindor common room, she was nowhere to be found. The portrait frame was empty and it hung wide open. Noah Sidecurve took two other sixth-year prefects to look for the Fat Lady while Allison Topper led the Gryffindors into the common room. It was a complete mess inside. Armchairs were pushed over onto their sides, scratch marks were well in abundance on the walls, and the carpet had been torn into pieces. Two more prefects went to fetch Noah and another went to report this to the headmaster, leaving Allison to watch the fourth-years and below. An hour later, all the houses except for Slytherin (which was the only house that hadn’t been ransacked) reported to the student’s lounge, which was built just last year for an occasion just like this. Made to accommodate all the houses, the common room was huge. And seeing as it was missing an entire house, there was plenty of room for students to split up in groups and talk privately. The rest of them tried to make use of their time, some stretching out to play a game of Gobstones while others tried to mow down the mountains of homework they had received. At 9 o’clock, when Xander was sure he was about to go insane from the sound of his own quill scratching on parchment, Professor Flitwick, the charms teacher, came in and told everyone to get to bed. The dorm was split between two Hufflepuffs (Ty Nightslash and Coko Baklock) and three Gryffindors (Xander himself, Hurst Anko, and Clyde). While the rest of his roommates tried to entertain themselves with a game of Wizard’s chess, Xander lay in his bed, wondering what the world could possibly throw at him next.
