The Hollingberry-Seele Incident [Solo, Flashback]

Anyone with any sense had already gone to bed as the clocks all over Hogwarts counted out three muted chimes, 3 am. Nearly every single hallway, common room, and classroom remained shrouded in an inky darkness save for one in particular. Past the great hall, up the mercurial staircase, and behind a heavy wooden door on the sixth floor sat Andrei Kessler bathed in the warm flickering light of a few sagging candles.

Long shadows danced about the classroom partially obscuring a scene that would have confused any self-respecting historian. Instead of the normally uniform cultural representation presented by his classroom artifacts they now seemed to be somewhere in between the disparate cultures of Scandinavia and Egypt. Danish armor lay next to an open sarcophagus, a picture of an obelisk hung next to one of the Jelling stones, and a papyrus manuscript lay open over a stylized map of northern Europe. Interior decorating had never been Andrei’s strong suit and in planning for the coming school he found himself struck by a rare moment of indecision, how could he choose between either culture?

Unable to make a snap decision one way or the other, the runes professor busied himself with grading finals. Thus far, he’d only had to fail two students. The first had not shown up for the test and the second had clearly not studied in the slightest. All in all, he felt pretty good about it considering it had been his first-year teaching at Hogwarts. Sure, he would have loved to pass each and every one of his students, but sadly some just made it so difficult on him.

Oh well, next year.

Flipping through the last, and exceptionally well written final, the insomniac professor nearly jumped out of his skin at the sound of three sharp knocks on his classroom door.  Then, before he could respond, the large figure of the groundskeeper burst into the room out of breath.

“Professor Kessler,” he wheezed, clearly winded. “You need to come with me, there’s been an accident.”

Furrowing his brow ever so slightly, Andrei slipped on his glasses to get a better look at the man. Was this one of the school ghosts playing an end of year prank on him? As of late, a certain poltergeist had made it his routine to test the limits of the professor’s patience and he wouldn’t have put impersonating a staff member past said ghoul.

“What are you talking about?” Andrei squinted at the man confirming that it was indeed the groundskeeper in the flesh. “It’s three in the morning, what could possibly be so urgent?”

“There’s no time professor, follow me and bring your wand.”

Sighing, the older man abandoned his last final for a later time, threw his cloak over his shoulders, and followed the groundskeeper down the staircase and out of the castle. A low-lying fog clung to the ground and swirled about the two men’s feet as they made their way down to where care for magical creatures was held. For bordering on the cusp of summer the early morning felt more like late fall rather than late spring.

“The centaurs found them,” the groundskeeper continued as he approached a barn-like structure. “Brought them here and left, those damn half-men.”

“I’m sorry, I don’t follow—”

“Lumos, it’s the two we’ve been looking for…” the groundskeeper paused here clearly struggling to recall the right names by the light of his wand. “The Hollingberry kid and his girlfriend.”

“Max and Primrose?” Andrei asked helpfully. “They’ve been found? Well, that’s great news.”

“With all due respect Mr.Kessler, it’s far from great.”

The large man pulled back a black tarp to reveal two pods of what appeared to be silk. However, as Andrei stooped down to get a better look at them it became clear that it was not silk, but webbing. Spider webbing to be exact, and protruding from one of the pods, as if reaching for a savior that would never come, was a small shriveled hand, Primrose Seele’s hand.

------A Few Sleepless Hours Later------

“Make sure these go directly to the Headmistress,” Andrei instructed a large gray owl before allowing it to fly off into an even grayer sky. With large swooping wings the bird wove its way to the intended receipt without fail. It carried the condolence letters to both the Seele and Hollingberry families, both of which needed to be checked by the school legal team and the Headmistress herself. The school seemed to be leery of liability, which the runes professor could understand though he found the whole situation none the less perverse. There was something about fretting over legal matters in face of the two untimely deaths that unsettled him and chilled him to the bone.

Two students dead and at Hogwarts no less, it wouldn’t be the first time—the school would undoubtedly continue as strong as ever. However, it was the first time Andrei found himself dealing with such a situation, for along with his recent promotion to Deputy Headmaster came the role of spokesman for the school itself. Thus, the endless torrent of media that would undoubtedly direct itself at Hogwarts in the coming weeks would be directly centered on him. He foresaw pointed questions and uncomfortable inquires at the best and outright accusations at the worst.

Truthfully? The whole thing amounted to one huge headache, but he had a job to do.

Or at least he would have a job to do when the news broke. In the meantime, he intended to finish the task he had started the night before and once more reprise his role as professor, not Deputy Headmaster. So, he sat down to finish grading his last final of the school year.

The final, as it turned out, surpassed all expectations. Sure, there were a few oddly shaped runes here and there and one or two trivially mistranslated sentences as well. However, by and large, the exam was well written and deserving of one of the top spots in this particular round of testing. Curious as to the identity of the test taker—and because he never looked at the name on a test before grading it for fear of an unconscious bias—he flipped the test back to the front page and the name he found nearly brought a tear to the normally stoic man’s eye.

Name: Primrose Seele