The Prime Princess

In blinking lights of the Ancient Mothership interior stood Blaise, Draco and Hermione backs together and stared at the race of energy vampires. The getting in part was still a mystery to Hermione because it all had happened so fast. Dodging from incoming blasts and torpedoes, they had somehow sneaked onboard of a Mothership and hoped to take it down.

“Nice,” murmured Blaise and already felt his life sucked out slowly.

“They once were great wizards, you know,” said Hermione, “They forged The Rings of Power to gain long life, great power and knowledge.”

“Aa,” made Draco staring at creatures lurking closer. Their faces were bare skulls with dark mist swirling over the polished bone like second skin. Inside the empty eye sockets burned bright green lights giving them ghostly features. Ancients’ presence cut them off from feeling everything around, pushing it all away to carve a way into their souls.

“But the Rings are too powerful to control. Each time it takes a huge amount of life energy from the Ring Bearer. Ancients are victims of power.”

“To keep it up, they suck everyone else dry?” asked Blaise and didn’t need to see Hermione nod.

“Addicts!” hissed Draco.

“And you know this cuz?”

“Did a research with Professor Snape but mostly Morrigan,” told Hermione. They had run out of ammo and no gun seemed to kill an Ancient.

They were outnumbered and cornered in.

“So, Draco, do you have a plan?” mocked Blaise over his shoulder.

“Guess we’ll go over to old-fashioned Avada,” said Draco and pulled out his wand, feeling the magic flow right through him, boiling, looking for a way out. Blaise shrugged his shoulders and drew out his wand getting the feel of high levels of raw magic.

“Wow,” said Blaise and Draco in unison. Hermione let her mind drift for a second to find her wands through the link and a moment later her wands curled from around her wrists into her palms. She felt the vibes coming from everywhere; the magic was gathering around them like a tidal wave. The Mark in her palm glowed brightly as the spell was forming on her lips.

“AVADA KEDAVRA!!!” shouted the three in different directions. The effect was outstanding. Hundreds fell, dusted into shadows.

Getting the hang of it, the Dark Trio started slaughtering everything that came in their direction. Ancients weren’t immune to magic and the Marks seemed to draw in more power for the curses than usually needed. And the power didn’t come form within but from outside, from someone else. Hermione noticed it, as she got ready for next spell that Ancients’ started to fell before the real hit. The forming Killing Curse took the power from the victims and not from the killer. This usually never happened but the burning Mark in her palm said otherwise.

In the middle of the fight she sensed the other two. The Trinity symbols glowing brightly, showing her the way in dimmed halls.

Maybe it was fifteen minutes later or had a whole hour past, she didn’t know. The adrenalin rush had screwed up the sense of time but it really didn’t matter. When the end came, she was one of the last three standing.

But it wasn’t the end.

Outside, there were lots of smaller ships darting around, still attacking the fleeing Hive.

Draco turned to Blaise and Hermione. His Mark shined on his cheek and made his silvery eyes sparkle.

“Now,” he said groggily, “We’ll make the end come.”

A blue sphere exploded over the space and took everything along with it.

***
Morning of November 1st. The sun shined over the graveyard and tickled Blaise’s eyelids. Opening his blue eyes, he saw a bush of cherry-black hair draped over him. Another set of blond hair caught his attention as Blaise rolled over and looked over the scenery of tombstones.

“And we are Apparting,” grumbled Professor Snape from somewhere near.

“Wha…”

“Lets move!”

The others woke up on that and stared around. The exact place they had a month ago departed to a parallel reality. Then it hit. They were back home. And so was Potion Master who was already irritated by their sluggishness.

Hermione staggered to her feet and pulled Draco up. The Mark on his cheek had faded to almost unnoticeable thin lines of three rings entwined together.

“I want food,” growled Draco.

“You just might miss the breakfast in Great Hall,” hissed Professor.

“Great Hall,” sighed Hermione just realizing how much she had missed the old castle.

“Breakfast!” cried Blaise.