An American at Hogwarts

Chapter Forty-Eight

At first glance, the video told me absolutely nothing. It started with the suit rising into the air, it got a little bit of the storm, then it shot back to Earth as soon as I got suplexed by a bunch of wind. Fortunately for me, Ana and the armor did a lot more than just record a normal video.

Magic interfered a little bit with the readings we could get on the suit, especially from a distance, but I still managed to get some information. From what I could tell, the person at the center of the storm should by all reason be dead.

For just the few minutes we got readings, all the person's vital signs were going haywire. Even accounting for the massive amount of error that magic has proven to cause on electronic systems, the person at the center of that storm should be decomposing in the grass by now.

I couldn't image that the wizards were so blind that they completely missed a corpse just off the Quidditch pitch, but then again they were insanely blind sometimes. Fred and George hadn't said anything, and I knew nothing that big would be a secret, so I decided to hike down to the Quidditch pitch to see if I could find the body.

It was a grim mission, and one I wasn't looking forward to. I was also still bruised as hell, and it was getting dark by the time I actually managed to make it to the pitch.

"Okay Ana, where about should our mystery wizard be?" I asked.

"Hmm... I don't see anything that would indicate a body, dead or otherwise, but the last known position of the person in the storm was 200 meters straight ahead."

"Great. Thanks Ana." I thought it was odd that she wasn't seeing any signs of a body, but I assumed that was due to some magical thing too. When I got to the spot she indicated, however, I found absolutely nothing. "Are you sure it was here Ana?"

"Yes. Even with the magical interference, I can say with 100% certainty that the person in the storm was at this spot."

"Alright, well take the suit and do some laps, I guess. Let's see if we can find anything."

Ana and I circled for over an hour and didn't find anything. Since it was now dark, I decided it would be safe enough to just fly the armor straight back into the castle through the window of my dorm room. If someone saw me, chances are they'd chalk it up to a hallucination or a Dementor or some weird magical cause like that. I was too tired to walk all the way back to my dorm, and I had too much work to do to waste that kind of time.

I had no idea how anyone could survive the kind of readings that Ana and I got, but since we found no trace of the person they must've managed it somehow. Magic could do some crazy things, and I guess insane survivability was one of them.

I wanted answers now more than ever, and I decided a knowledgeable wizard would be a good place to start. Percy was the most book smart person I'd ever met, so I decided to start with him. Fortunately, dinner time was just finishing up when I got back to the castle, and I managed to catch him coming out of the Great Hall with Penelope. As soon as he caught sight of me he rushed over, looking incredibly worried.

"Alexa! Are you alright? What are you doing out of the hospital wing, Madam Pomfrey said it was likely you wouldn't be healed for a few more days!" he exclaimed.

"Well hello to you too," I said, cracking a smile. Percy gave me a look that told me he didn't think I was funny, so I quickly moved along. "Thanks for worrying Perce, but I'm totally okay. Madam Pomfrey checked me out and gave me the greenlight. I'm good to go."

Percy sighed in relief. "Thank goodness. Still, you should be resting. Get some food and then get to bed."

I wanted to reply with a nice sarcastic "Okay mom", but I still needed information from Percy so I didn't. Instead, I said, "Don't worry Perce, I will. Just one quick question though. Have you ever heard of a wizard being able to create storms? Like, massive wind and torrential rain type storms?"