 Mischievous Niffler
Alice had been in the Ravenclaw tower reading a book on how to improve your magical skill (most of the advice seemed useless) when she heard the announcement. Hurrying to place the book back on the shelf where she had taken it from, the professor had hurried out of the library and made her way to the dueling arena. She joined a stream of people entering and waiting patiently until there was enough room to enter.
She listened with increasing horror (though not surprise, not at this point) as Malachi described their predicament. The arrival of the house elves made her curl her lips in disgust, though she tried her best to contain her displeasure. Not that anyone would notice in this panic. Ridiculous as it was, she wanted to blame the house elves for the fog. Obviously it made no sense, but she was still mad over their rude refusal to help her monitor the castle for future dangers. Now they were all dealing with a terrible danger (in which students may have died) and again, they had had no preparation at all. If only someone had listened to her before all this, then maybe they could have caught this. Perhaps they could have investigated further on why so many creatures were leaving the forest. Perhaps they could have called in the ministry of magic and subdued the fog before it ever set foot in school grounds. But she, Alice O'Hara, had been insulted and reminded of her past as a Julian minion when she had brought up the idea. Now they were reaping the consequences of her colleagues pathetic lack of foresight.
Growing increasingly annoyed, Alice finally spoke up - not caring who she was interrupting in the process. "Why don't we just evacuate the school through your Floo network, Headmaster?" She spoke loud enough for everyone to hear, though she tried to keep all anger out of her voice. "I do not see one good reason why we should continue to risk the student's lives when we hardly can even begin to fathom what we are dealing with. Does anyone truly believe the fog will stop where it's at? If even one person in this room believes this, please raise your hand! Anyone? Show us your hand!" She looked around to see which poor fools raised their hands. "If anyone raised their hands, then please, PLEASE explain to me why you think the fog will stop where it's at, when all year it has been slowly expanding from the forest to the grounds and now into the castle. Headmaster, sir, I mean no disrespect, but can you honestly tell me that you are willing to risk further harm to our students on the assumption that we'll figure out how to deal with this fog before it envelops the castle? Please tell me, sir, if you know something about this fog that we do not? Is there a weakness? Why are we not evacuating?"
She was sure he was going to sternly rebuke her. No doubt he would accuse her of fearmongering - as if taking common sense precautions was fearmongering! This was the same person who came to her office to threaten her job for being below average in her magical talent. At the time, she had admitted that he had a point - someone on staff should not be below average when it comes to magic - not when the students counted on them for protection. Yet if he was going to keep the students in the castle with the fog, then he had better have a plan that wasn't just waiting for the Ministry.
Last edited by Goblinfrog; 07-05-2019 at 11:17 PM.
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