For now, it was a Saturday afternoon, and as she had finished her homework in the morning, Alexandra had gone exploring the castle. It had been a month Alexandra had entered Hogwarts, and she was confident she hadn't seen half of the rooms, to say nothing of the secrets the old castle was guarding. Marching through an abandoned corridor, she noticed all the rooms in that wing seemed to be abandoned.
Letting her curiosity take the best part of her, the Potter Heiress opened the last door before the stairs. By the atrocious noise the door made when she opened it, she concluded it hadn't been used in at least a decade. Judging by the maps, the old wizard photos and the dusty decorations, the piece had at one point or another in Hogwarts history been used as the base or headquarters for some kind of club. A long time ago obviously, because the vast amount of dust, the blocked windows, the ruined colours of a Slytherin banner made painfully clear Alexandra was the first visitor this room had for a very long time.
After a search of several minutes, she found a photo still in good condition compared to the ruined others on the walls. On it, about sixty or seventy students were smiling under a large banner proclaiming them as "The Hogwarts Adventurers club of 1970". It was interesting to note Hufflepuffs, Ravenclaws, Slytherins and Gryffindors were present on the picture, proving that the divisions of today between the Houses had not been that bad when the photo was taken. Today Slytherin and Gryffindor posing for a photograph was simply unthinkable. They were also all concentrated on the same year of school, if the heights and the size of the students were any indication. That was a sobering fact for Alexandra. She had never heard of the Adventurer's Club, so she supposed it had been disbanded, but her own promotion at the Hogwarts Sorting Feast had welcomed only forty-five students. She counted the numbers of persons figuring on the photo taken in 1970 and arrived to the number of 58 students. It was not very likely wizards and witches had at one moment or another been all participating in the same club, so this promotion was in all probability even bigger.
Leaving the room and closing the door behind her in a loud rumbling, she watched the corridor with a new look now. Initially, she had believed the castle had had empty wings because it was the way the Headmaster and his staff wanted it: as a result if a new teacher was hired, the new professor could take an entire wing for himself, his classroom and his office. The photo was delivering things in a more sinister view: Hogwarts was looking emptier because it had less students, and so less need for professors and adults to teach them. The only question was where all these students had gone.
Even with her limited knowledge of Wizarding History, Alexandra felt she knew already the answer. War. The only event of note which could explain between 1970 and 1991 the disappearance of more than a quarter of the children enrolling at the best magical school of the British Isles was the magical civil war which had been fought between 1977 and 1981. Still, she hadn't realised the war had been so bad. All the History books in the library were so busy trumpeting the exploit of Neville Longbottom and singing the praises of Albus Dumbledore and the Ministry that there was no real account of the dead and the casualties list. Not at Hogwarts anyway. But if half of the magical student population had really left Britain in one fashion or another... that wasn't good. That wasn't good at all.
"Potter!"
Her thoughts brutally interrupted, Alexandra turned and grimaced. Alex Sykes and two fourth-years Ravenclaws were behind her in the corridor. They had all drawn their wands. Damn.
"Remember me, Potter?" Snarled Sykes.
His tone convinced Alexandra there was no point in trying to appease the older Ravenclaw: his face was a picture of hate. She noticed several scars on him that had not been there previously; as Madam Pomfrey was quite efficient in healing these sort of injuries, either he had left before the nurse could heal him or she had not wanted to leave without a reminder of the Sorting evening's battle.
"How could I forget the courageous and noble Alex Sykes," answered Alexandra in her best sarcastic tone, taking the opportunity to draw her wand from her holster and take a battle stance."The man who believes fighting a first-year on twenty-to-one odds is fair game?"
Sykes's face grew red at her insinuation he was unable to win unless the odds were overwhelmingly in his favour. His two followers behind him grew uneasy, the reminder of this particular night not a pleasant memory for them.
"I am going to kill you Potter," Sykes shouted in a crazy voice."Because of you I will never be prefect and I lost all chances to get a good job when I leave Hogwarts! This is your fault! BOMBARDA MAXIMA!"
Alexandra ran to the stairs nearby just in time, as an enormous explosion rocked the door and the wall where she had been one moment ago. When the smoke cleared, there was a huge hole where the door had been.
She felt sick at this moment. Sykes had truly wanted to murder her. Then the training Professor Flitwick had taught her asserted itself. She shouted back a "FUMOS!" to disappear in the smoke, then began to rush up the stairs on another floor, leaving half a dozen of the basic Trap Jinx at the bottom of the stairs.
Alexandra heard a "AFTER HER!" from an enraged Sykes and she smiled. An angered enemy didn't think well, a fact she had learnt well with Dudley and his band of brutes pursuing through Little Whinging.
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