The Unknown of the Order (Harry Potter: Hogwarts Mystery

The Fall

Sarah vanished the next instant. Barnaby just managed to remember Elena this time, grabbing her hand before disapparating. As he spun on the spot, he heard Talbott yelling for them to wait. Barnaby ignored him. 

They landed just outside the gate that separated the Hogwarts grounds from the village of Hogsmeade. It was as close to the castle as they could possibly get through apparition. Barnaby dropped Elena's hand and sprinted up the hill after Sarah, who had already ran several meters ahead. 

It was near pitch dark now, and before the castle loomed into view, Barnaby saw it--an eerie, green glow suspended high in the air. It was the mark, the mark on Merula's and his parents' arms, the mark Death Eaters placed above a location where they had just murdered. The Dark Mark. The skeletal eyes glowered down at him, and the serpent wound its way through the stars, hissing at him. "Go away," it seemed to whisper. "You'll find only death here."

But Barnaby just ran harder. He could see the castle now. Lights were blazing to life in the windows across the castle as people inside were woken up by the commotion. As he drew closer, Barnaby could hear the sounds of shouting and loud bangs. Every now and then, a jet of light would shoot across a window. 

Sarah blasted the castle doors open with a spell and charged through. Barnaby and Elena slipped through before they swung shut again. Barnaby's chest felt like it was being squeezed by an icy hand, but he ran up the grand marble staircase, toward the astronomy tower. 

"They've blocked it! Reducto! Reducto!" shouted a man, as they arrived near the doorway that led to the astronomy tower. The door had been blocked by tons of ice and stone. Two adults, Barnaby assumed they were Order members, were chipping away at it with blasting curses, while a battle raged around them. 

"Duck!" Barnaby dove forward and tackled Sarah to the ground. They landed hard on the marble steps, but the jet of red light that had been aimed at Sarah's chest missed the top of her head by inches. 

They jumped to their feet and held out their wands, trying to work out who was friend and who was foe. Barnaby spotted Professor McGonagall; her hat missing and her normally tight hair bun unraveled as she dueled with a figure in dark robes. 

"Impedimenta!" he shouted, and the figure slowed, his wand moving through the air like a sloth moving along a vine. 

McGonagall was able to blast him backward. He hit the railing over the staircase so hard that he flipped over it backwards and landed on the floor below.

Barnaby continued to fire spell after spell at the Death Eaters. He barely noticed when he, Elena, and Sarah were joined by the others. 

"Watch out!" he heard Penny shriek. 

One of the Death Eaters was being particularly destructive, using his wand to separate the lower staircases and fling the giant hunks of marble at them. 

"Arressto Momentum!" Sarah shouted, and the giant chunk of marble slowed on its journey to crush them. 

Talbott transfigured the hunk of stone into a flurry of snow and it cascaded down upon the fighters as they battled furiously on. 

Barnaby glanced back at the bit of staircase that had been removed. He saw a group of students in their pajamas beneath it, staring up at them with pale, horrorstruck faces. 

"Go back!" he shouted at them. "Get out of here!"

He just managed to place a shield charm in front of kids as the same Death Eater blasted another chunk of castle wall at them. The stone rebounded from the charm and fell toward the floor, hundreds of feet below. The students, many of them first years by the looks of them, screamed and ran back down the corridor.