The walk from the Library to the Defense Against the Dark Arts office felt like a choreographed dance where everyone knew the steps but no one wanted to admit they had the music playing in their heads.
With the Marauder's Map acting as a GPS for his paranoia, Albert had easily tracked Isabelle to her usual corner of the Library. She was buried under a fortress of books, her quill moving with a frantic energy that screamed "Easter holiday deadline."
Albert didn't make a scene. He simply walked over, his face maintaining that glazed, "Imperio-chic" look, and tapped the table twice. He slid the envelope Professor Smith had given him across the mahogany surface.
"Message from Professor Smith," he whispered, his voice intentionally flat. "Stay sharp. Don't let the ink dry."
He didn't wait for a response. He turned and walked away, feeling the weight of the Luck in his veins telling him to keep moving. Behind him, he could hear the hushed giggles of Isabelle's Ravenclaw friends.
"Is that a confession?" one whispered loudly. "I heard Anderson only gives out hints and high grades, not letters."
"If you don't want him, Isabelle, I'm right here," another joked.
Isabelle didn't play along. She tore the envelope open, her eyes darting across the lines with the speed of a seeker. A second later, she was packing her bag with a grim efficiency that should have tipped off anyone with a brain. She left her friends mid-sentence, heading straight for the Ravenclaw tower.
Albert, meanwhile, was already back at the D.A.D.A. office, standing like a statue. A few minutes later, Isabelle arrived. The scene that followed was a carbon copy of Albert's own "recruitment." She walked in, Smith whispered the Unforgivable, and Isabelle—the brilliant, magically sensitive Isabelle—seemed to fold like a house of cards. She handed over her wand without a fight.
Albert felt a pang of genuine disappointment. Is that it? he thought, his mental barriers buzzing. I told her to be alert, and she just walked into the buzzsaw?
Smith was practically glowing with a self-satisfied warmth. She looked at the two of them—the two brightest stars of their generation—standing there like empty vessels. It was a look that made Albert's skin crawl. It wasn't just the look of a villain; it was the look of a collector who had just secured two rare specimens.
"Excellent," Smith purred, her voice oily. "Now, we have a little field trip to attend. We're going to find the Gryffindor hoard. You two will lead the way to the Forbidden Forest. Avoid Hagrid. If he sees you, he'll try to be 'helpful,' and we can't have any interruptions."
The walk to the forest was silent. Albert kept his head down, playing the role of the mindless thrall to perfection. He was fairly certain Smith was trailing them under a Disillusionment Charm, probably enjoying the sight of her "proteges" marching toward their own potential demise.
As they reached the dark, tangled edge of the treeline, Albert's eyes met Isabelle's. For a fraction of a second, the vacant look in her eyes vanished, replaced by a crystalline clarity that shouted one thing: I'm in control.
Albert blinked. Then he almost laughed. Of course. She wasn't just a Ravenclaw; she was a natural Legilimens. To try and hold her mind with a standard Imperio was like trying to catch a ghost with a butterfly net. She had been acting the entire time, just like him. They were two world-class liars leading a predator into a trap.
They pushed deeper into the woods, the light of the castle fading behind the thick canopy of ancient oaks and pines. The air grew damp and heavy with the scent of mulch and things that preferred the dark.
Finally, the shimmering air behind them rippled, and Professor Smith stepped out of the shadows, her wand held casually but firmly. She looked at the map in her hand, then at them.
Isabelle was the first to "break." Her body swayed, her breath hitching as she pretended to snap out of the trance. She turned on Smith, her face pale but her eyes blazing with a cold, calculated fury. "What is this? Why are we out here?"
Smith didn't look surprised. In fact, she looked amused. She shifted her gaze to Albert. "And you, Mr. Anderson? Are you going to keep pretending, or can we have a civilized conversation before the end?"
Albert let the mask drop. He stood up straight, his shoulders relaxing. "I was just curious how far you'd go, Professor. It's a long walk for a treasure that might not even exist."
"Oh, it exists," Smith said, her voice turning sharp. "But it isn't just about the gold. It's about the legacy. It's about why I was cast aside."
"Cast aside by Wildsmith?" Albert asked.
Smith's expression twisted into something truly ugly. The mask of the "kind professor" was gone, replaced by the raw, jagged edges of a lifelong obsession. "I spent my life chasing their secrets. I gave them everything! And yet, they chose to ignore me. They chose you, a child who hasn't even mastered his first year of life outside these walls."
"You're insane," Isabelle spat, her voice trembling—not with fear, but with a hatred so deep it seemed to chill the air around them. "You killed my father for this, didn't you? You didn't just 'witness' an accident. You were the accident."
Smith laughed, a dry, rattling sound. "Briar was a fool. He was my best friend, yes, but he was weak. He held the key and refused to turn it. I used Legilimency to take what I needed, but the human mind is a fragile thing. A few erased memories, a few misplaced charms... his mind simply unraveled during his next experiment. It wasn't murder; it was a consequence of his own hesitation."
"You used a Memory Charm so powerful it broke his magical core," Isabelle countered, her hand slipping into the folds of her robe. "I saw the traces. I spent years digging through his old notes, comparing the magical residue. I knew it was you the moment you arrived at Hogwarts. I just needed you to admit it."
"And now that I have?" Smith smiled, raising her wand toward Isabelle's chest. "What does a wandless schoolgirl intend to do about it? You're both brilliant, truly, but you're still just children in a very big, very dangerous forest."
"I think you've made a few bad assumptions, Rowena," Albert said, his voice dropping into a dangerous register. "Assumption one: that we need our wands to fight you."
"Assumption two," Isabelle added, her eyes glowing with an inner light. "That we brought you out here to find treasure."
In one fluid motion, Isabelle pulled a hidden wand from her sleeve—a backup she had apparently stashed in her dormitory before the meeting. A jet of red light erupted from the tip, aimed straight for Smith's throat.
Smith deflected it with a casual flick, but her eyes widened in genuine shock. She hadn't expected a second wand.
But she definitely hadn't expected Albert.
While Smith was focused on Isabelle's opening volley, Albert reached into his pocket and crushed the "Banshee's Wail." He didn't need a wand for this.
The device didn't make a sound—at least, not one the human ear could register. Instead, it released a high-frequency magical pulse that shattered the concentration of anyone within the radius.
Smith gasped, her wand arm dropping as her head suddenly felt like it was being compressed by a giant vise. Her Occlumency shields, usually iron-clad, buckled under the mechanical pressure of the device.
"Now!" Albert shouted.
He didn't use a spell. He used his Liquid Luck. He lunged forward, not toward Smith, but toward a specific patch of ground he had noticed earlier—a patch that sat right above a massive, dormant root of a Whomping Willow sapling.
As he landed, the Luck guided his heel to strike the exact nerve center of the plant.
The ground erupted.
Massive, wooden tendrils lashed out from the earth, sensing the sudden vibration and the chaotic magic in the air. Smith, still reeling from the sonic pulse, was caught completely off guard. A thick, bark-covered branch slammed into her side, sending her flying backward into a thicket of stinging nettles.
"You... you little monsters!" Smith screamed, her voice cracking as she scrambled to her feet, her robes torn and her face bleeding.
Isabelle didn't give her a chance to breathe. She was a flurry of motion, casting hex after hex with a speed that rivaled a professional duelist. She wasn't trying to win; she was trying to hurt. Every spell was fueled by years of grief and the cold realization that her father's killer was standing right in front of her.