Who: Pete & Travis When: the wee hours of Saturday Where: Various locations; a scenic tour of the grounds, really What: a brief stroll, an even briefer adoption of some delightful children, and a rather unpleasant discovery
The first trip to Gryffindor from his last period class had been almost completely uneventful. The trip back down had been a bit less so, the trip to Ravenclaw downright tense; an unexpected trip up to the owlery had been harrowing, and the trip back down from there had given Pete a certain blood-splattered glow. He was pretty sure there were a few gummy chunks of brains in his hair. He could be more pleased about that, probably.
He could be more pleased about a lot of things, if he was being honest; it really sucked to have to kill the house elves. And he was still refusing to kill the ones he knew by name. Those he left petrified and bound for good measure. Someone else would come along and do the necessary finalities. It just didn't have to be him.
If he had a broom, he thought, this would be even easier. He could just fly along by the ceiling and swoop down for mass beheadings as the opportunities presented themselves. He didn't have a broom, though. Not a decent one, anyway, and he wasn't sure he wanted to accio one, just in case throngs of house elves followed its entrance and swarmed him before he could mount and evade.
Instead, he had his wand poised to stun and a sword he'd swiped from one of the suits of armor and sharpened until it passed through leathery skin and narrow spinal columns without a problem. He'd been doing it from behind whenever possible - a turn of phrase he would giggle about under other circumstances - which wasn't much, but it was probably going to help him sleep sometime in the next few months.
If they survived this, they were going to need a shit load of therapy.
There were a handful of house elves loitering loosely just above the steps down to the entrance hall; they were staring at each other, communicating their longing for flesh in some weird grunty staring language. He managed to stun four of them from around the corner, and petrify the other two once they'd stepped around their still companions, a good ten or so feet before they could get their creepy little paws on him. He swung his sword five times (one of them was named Kipki; he'd always liked that the little wrap she wore was fuchsia) and held his arm out to the side, shaking long drips of blood off his blade and onto the floor. He cast fast, careful glances both directions down the hall and bound Kipki tightly in magical rope before trotting down the stairs, wand raised and sword at the ready.