The Dark Gryffindor

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Chapter Forty-six: A Fight in the Great Hall


Trouble was brewing not just outside Hogwarts but within it’s walls too. Although Voldemort was lurking around, he was only planning to pounce on the Chosen One thought Snape and that was nothing new. Lord Voldemort posed no threat to the students. And nobody but the headmaster knew of the Dark Lord’s presence thus far…

Inside the castle Snape could hear the distant sound of raucous screams, rude catcalls and other disturbances. His eyes narrowed, wondering what the cause was and why the young brats had to be so petulant and implacable with the rules. The Headmaster quickened his pace, passing several Snatchers just outside the teacher’s entrance to the Great Hall, their snake emblems gleaming in the torchlight. Immediately they straightened at the presence of the high-ranking Death Eater.

“At ease,” Snape unctuously said.

They relaxed their postures somewhat, but looked at Snape expectantly for instructions. Snape gave none whatsoever. Instead the headmaster boldly swung open the doors to the sideways teachers’ entrance and walked across the staff platform. Despite the dramatic, vacuous entrance, nobody noticed him. The school was intent upon watching the loud argument currently taking place. The crowd was just like a pack of dogs, so caught in a squabble that they were oblivious to all else around them.

“I heard it on Potterwatch!” snarled a boy named Terry Boot.

“Who cares what you heard on Potterwatch!” a Slytherin retorted back in a snarl of equal proportion. “Harry Potter is most likely dead by now anyway!”

Most of the school booed at this and proclaimed their hopes that Harry Potter was still alive.

“No he isn’t dead!” boomed the Ravenclaw, continuing his bold proclamation. “Harry escaped on a dragon after breaking into Gringotts! I heard the truth, it’s true I tell you!”

Even though it was dinner, nearly all the students in the school weren’t eating, but listening intently to the debate. They froze with food poised before the destination of their mouths, watching transfixed; mouths opened wide, their hundreds of eyes on the lone Ravenclaw and on the Slytherins. Snape hesitated to intervene.

But in a split second like when a thunderbolt cracks he knew he should have stopped this when he could of. The Carrows came barreling towards Terry. Alecto grabbed a fistful of Terry’s hair and spun him around to face her and all the school. Next her brother pushed and kicked Terry to the front platform, until he was lying right at Snape’s feet. Snape felt forced to agree and he smiled down at Terry, who glared right back up at him with defiance. Snape couldn’t bear to look behind himself but he could feel the eyes of his fellow teachers’ on him. Mcgonagall was fit to bursting with her now apple-red cheeks, and she felt her own incandescent rage because the Headmaster wasn’t doing his job to stop it, and she knew she had no authority in the matter.

All in these short seconds the Slytherins began to cheer wildly and the Gryffindors screamed their disapproval. The Hufflepuffs were more passive yet they looked like they were disturbed by the Carrows’ reaction as well, and the Ravenclaws spoke amongst themselves, reasoning why this was happening, and whether or not Terry’s story held veracity.

Filch ran forward, cracking his whip against the stone floor, eyes alight with sadistic malice, and jowls aquiver. The Caretaker was more than ready to administer a public whipping. Even under the new regime he was rarely given the chance to punish outside the dungeons.

“Stay out of this Filch! He is mine!” screeched Alecto as she rounded on the poor boy now huddling on the ground, instinctively cradling his head for the beating to come.

The Carrows did their best to jab their meanest punches, kicks, bites, and bruising they could do. Soon Terry Boot was a pulp on the ground, badly hurt that it was nearly fatal. Most of the Slytherins were laughing by the time the Carrows finally left him alone. The Snatchers remained on the sidelines silently watching the scene, and in doing so, enforcing it’s occurrence.

Terry was so badly hurt he had not the strength to walk at the moment.

Draco was at the height of being unkind. With his sense of entitlement from being both very wealthy and now the Head Boy to boot, he yelled, “Throw him out! I say let’s get rid of him!”

Snape watched as a band of Slytherins obeyed the Head Boy’s wishes and picked Terry Boot bodily up and literally threw him into the empty entrance hall. This at least did not do further injury, as Terry already had several broken bones from the Carrows severe pounding.

Snatchers regrouped around the inert frame of the boy, barring him entrance back in. Snape had no choice but to permit this boy to be ostracized. Things were getting much too precarious tonight, and he worried that the slightest aberration of his usual actions as headmaster could somehow expose his true loyalties. He could not take that risk for one student, whilst hundreds and hundreds needed his protection, and Lord Voldemort’s good graces, especially upon this very evening.

So Snape fled the scene thinking things could not be in a worse state on the day Voldemort was here. He had to execute the orders his Master gave him before it was too late….The Headmaster stormed out of the Great Hall. Just as nobody cared for his coming nobody registered his leave.


NOTE: Please, please review? Valerie will be in the next few updates and she plays a very interesting even heroic part in the battle to come!