The Hogwarts Seige - June 30th, 1998



Exams were finished, results were out (At least for those not taking OWLs or NEWTs), and Gryffindor had won the house cup. It was as students finished packing after a hearty breakfast when the still calm of the morning was shattered.

Downstairs in the Entrance Hall, some students were just arriving with their carry-on luggage slung about their shoulders and arms (Their trunks remained in their dorms where the house elves would see them) to wait until the other, slower packing students appeared as well before as a whole they would set off towards the Hogwarts Express, which was waiting at the train station to take everyone home. The hall was still fairly empty, and as McGonagall frowned and checked her watch and Sprout bumbled off down into the Hufflepuff dorms to scold the students that were not yet ready, a sudden blast shook the very foundation of Hogwarts.

The school gave a mighty groan as the students shrieked and loud buzzing and rumbling filled the air.

Another great shake occurred, and outside, through the windows, the gardens were a mass of blazing orange lights filled with streaks of yellow and purple. Again, and again the school groaned and creaked, debris falling all around.

"Oh God!"

"What's Happening?!"

Students walking down the staircases to reach the Entrance Hall found themselves on shaky ground, the staircases no longer sturdy in weight. Some tossed side to side, sending their travellers tumbling to the bottoms, bruised after being hit between banister and banister.

Then, admidst the deep roaring, a sound that seemed as if Hogwarts itself was about to come down into nothing but rubble, Dumbledore's voice resounded.

"ALL STUDENTS PROCEED TO THE DUNGEONS. LEAVE EVERYTHING AND GO."

When Dumbledore panicked, it was definitely something bad.

As the professors shouted, "Quickly, Quickly!" The students streamed down into the bottom floors, some in the directions of the Hufflepuff dorms and the kitchens, others toward the Slytherin dorms and the dungeons. There was no time to think, whichever was closer, students went.

It was mass confusion, yet the students were eerily quiet, as if marching into war - the only noises the sniffling noises of fear from some of the younger students and girls.

As the majority of students got down into the bottom floors, a few on the upper floors had turned and when looking out of the windows, all they could see was bright green light, the sky darkened and tens upon tens of dark marks floating all around.

The professors were rushing around trying to collect all the students throughout the schools - the heads of houses shouting desperate roll calls downstairs in the very bowels of the schools - and all the while, Deatheaters, with Voldemort at the front, made a slow and assured march toward the school.

Just as Dumbledore had done his research on Voldemort's weak spot, Voldemort had done his own on the weak spots of the school.

They had passed by the outer wards protecting the school, they passed by the wards around the gardens, they passed by the wards protecting the doors of Hogwarts and then as they split up, some moving upwards, the others moving downwards ... the ones moving toward the dungeons, the bottom floors, where all the students were, ... were stopped.

Yes, they had done their research but what only the Headmaster knew was that the wards of the school, tightly linked to his own magic, worked in layers. Layer upon layer, and so although Voldemort was able to fight through the weaker, outer layers, the most inner layers remained. Impermeable.

And as Voldemort grew furious, and spell after spell was sent at the closed doors leading downstairs, nothing budged.

It wasn't all good news however. For inside the dungeons and bottom floors, double the amount of occupants that the dormitories were meant for were pushed into Slytherin house and Hufflepuff house.

With barely any clothes, aside from the carry-on luggage they had been carrying with them, the four houses were trapped in the deepest areas of Hogwarts.

Many order members and young helpers of the Order had also been at Hogwarts for meetings, were now also put out of commission by being trapped inside.

Even Dumbledore, speaking seriously to Harry, was visibly shaken.

Hogwarts was under attack.

Students had been killed, some had been lost in the recesses of Hogwarts when the attack had begun and would surely be killed by the Deatheaters, but no one yet knew who had been, and who survived. Students rushed to see if their friends had made it, but no one could be sure just yet.

Outside, after some were tortured by a furious Voldemort, the deatheaters settled down in camp. They weren't going anywhere. They came to see Hogwarts fall, and that they would. Even if it took some time.