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"How? How can there be such a difference between them and the Lions?" Demanded Nigel, not breaking eye contact as one Hufflepuff Beater missed throwing off his broom one of his own team's Chaser.
"Better tactics, more training, I guess. More talent too." The green-eyed witch winced as one of the Weasley Twins expedited a Bludger right in the leg of the Chaser named Herbert.
"But they have not better brooms." The protestation of her Gryffindor friend lacked a bit of conviction.
"You forget that Slytherin only had a chance because of these rogue Bludgers, and they had Nimbus 2001s." The Potter Heiress commented as Katie Bell expedited the Quaffle between the raised hands of the Hufflepuff Keeper. "And as for the brooms, the only player who really needs a world-class one is Longbottom. Now-"
A bright blue flash illuminated the battlefield, loud alert something magical had just interrupted the game. Alexandra was not looking directly at it when it happened, but was partially blinded all the same. Judging by the cry of surprise next to her, Nigel had suffered more or less the same thing.
Magical explosion, was the first thought coming in Alexandra's head. The second was, better buy some magical-protected goggles for the next time it happens. With the long experience of someone having already faced lethal threats, the black-haired witch rapidly searched in the crowd who had been guilty of that nasty and not-funny-at-all surprise.
But in the chaos, there was really no clues allowing her green eyes to pierce the huge confusion developing. Most of the Quidditch pitch was covered in a night-coloured smoke. The portion of the Ravenclaw stands had received their own attention, being partially covered in blue-grey clouds. From Alexandra's position at the top of the tribunes, the twelve-year old witch could see the entire stadium had been targeted. Red fireworks spread among the places where the Gryffindor sat. There were some sorts of flashes in the crowd of Slytherin. And the Hufflepuffs saw mini-lightning thrown at them. It was all that could be seen with all this smoke. Well the smoke and the precipitation her fellow Ravenclaws descended the stands.
Alexandra had seen in the now destroyed fortress of Brise-Roc how a goblin army rose to challenge a monster they couldn't possibly beat or even hurt. Discipline, blood thirst and a total disregard for their own deaths had been the main strengths of the warrior race. The Hogwarts students' reaction was totally at the other extreme of the goblins defiance. Stunned by the smoke, the lights and the noise made by the attacks, the young and old teenagers panicked and fled like a group of disheartened sheep. Here and there, one student stood his ground, but these were lone bastion of strength in a sea of cowardice. Everyone rushed to descend the stairs, generating more confusion and damage, with the weakest students being quasi-trampled by the torrent of fleeing wizards and witches. In ten seconds, Nigel and Alexandra herself were the only students who had kept their calm and stood where they watched the cacophony engulfing the stairs and every part of the pitch.
And then the magical assault brutally stopped, disappearing as quickly and unpredictably as it had started.
One by one the students paused and stopped their race in the wooden enchanted stairs.
There were many girls and boys bleeding, thanks to the force their own housemates had used to push them out of their way.
A look at the pitch hinted they were perhaps the lucky ones. The Quidditch teams had been as surprised as the spectators, but the latter had had their backsides solidly supported by the stands. The former had been on brooms flying at impressive speeds, and taking a sort of magical firework when your eyes were occupied by one of the four official balls could lead to grave issues.
Issues which had indeed happened.
On the grass, the immobile forms of one Gryffindor and two Hufflepuffs were encircled by the rest of their teammates. If Alexandra was watching correctly the truth, Spinnet, McManus and Fleet had been somehow stricken and had fallen off their brooms. Fortunately, their postures and the Professors running towards them made clear a few spells had managed to slow down what would have been otherwise a fatal fall. Three brooms broken in various parts and spread out on the pitch revealed their efforts had not been perfect; no doubt the Badgers and the Lioness were going to book a lengthy stay in the infirmary.
Now alone with Nigel in their portion of the stands, Alexandra contemplated thoughtfully the debacle.
"If they find the person who did this..." Started Nigel.
"Given the Professors skills in investigation this last year...and the year before for that matter...I don't think they will catch the guilty parties."
It was perhaps pessimistic, and Alexandra wished she was lying, but the entire attack had been well organised and executed. The Heads of Houses had normally difficulties to catch and prove the Weasley Twins were responsible of their own pranks, and this incident was quite a notch above them.
"But what was the point?" Demanded rhetorically the Gryffindor wizard.
The person or persons who had engineered the interruption of the Quidditch match had apparently thought someone was going to ask this very question. At forty feet of altitude, gigantic green flames coming from nowhere wrote a sinister message.
TREMBLE
BEFORE THE MIGHT
OF SLYTHERIN'S HEIR
"Oh, shit." Screamed a fifth-year Ravenclaw in the stairs. "It's the Heir! He's going to petrify us all! Run!"
The Prefect next to him, who should have been able to calm the alarmist boy and stopped him from spreading panic, chose to rush downstairs on the Hogwarts grounds.
"Should not we run, Alex?" The voice of the Lion was trembling, and Professor McGonagall on the pitch blasting away the ugly message with a twirl of her wand had not managed to make spirits recover.
"The Heir is long gone.""
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