Feast of Fire [Clarence]

[blaise leo zabini]

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With the Entrance Hall behind him and the unknown situation within the Great Hall now before him, Blaise scanned the room. There were bodies everywhere, though a lack of fire. Considering it was fiendfyre he had been battling prior to his duel with Asher Burke, if that had ripped through here during dinner, there wouldn’t be a shred of human remains left. He had no idea what had happened here, but there were a few individuals moving around quickly, seemingly trying to get things under control. The Ministry had arrived on the school grounds now and Burke was taken care of for the time being, though that still left any number of unknowns. Students were laying deathly still all across the Great Hall and a raging storm of fiendfyre was still above them. The damage he had done to the Entrance Hall was only the start of what the castle was currently going through, and there were flames he had utilized in his duel that had a source he had yet to see. His initial thoughts were that they came from Burke, but anything was possible tonight.

The first person his eyes fell on upon entering the Great Hall was Clarence Corntassel. That was more than ideal. The other professor had a presence about him that Blaise had trusted from the very start, and having a calm and collected individual like Clarence inside the castle still would only benefit the students that were still alive. Blaise had to recompose himself as that thought came to light. He hadn’t seen anyone dead so far, though it wasn’t a far reaching possibility if anyone got caught in the fiendfyre he had been battling. Whatever had happened down here though seemed like it was going on long before he had sent his patronus down.

“Clarence!” Blaise’s voice boomed through the Great Hall. A few heads from conscience students raised at the sound. He made his way over to the other professor, trying to look at the students still sitting up or on the floor as he went. The ones still at the tables were eerily still, almost frozen-like. That was curious. “I don’t think I need to tell you that we need to get them out of here, but we need to move. Now. I’ve taken care of the individual out in the Entrance Hall, and the Ministry is on the grounds.” He took a moment to breathe and look around the hall once again. There were so many students left. They couldn’t just leave bodies either, because the fiendfyre would eradicate them if it made it down this far. He’d never be able to face parents if that happened. “How fast do you think we can move all of them?”

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[clarence james corntassel]

May 15, 2026

Clarence hadn't spent as much time at Hogwarts as many of his colleagues had, but the devastation that had occurred to the castle was surreal to him, too. His main concern was in making sure that as many students as possible were out of harm's way, though the scene in the Great Hall was a daunting one. Somehow, many of those dining in the Great Hall had ended up paralyzed, and it would only be a matter of time before the Fiendfyre would reach that portion of the school.

Hearing a voice address him as he surveyed the damage, Clarence looked and saw that it was Blaise Zabini. He looked to be taken aback by what he was seeing—and understandably so. "I don't think I need to tell you that we need to get them out of here, but we need to move. Now. I've taken care of the individual out in the Entrance Hall, and the Ministry is on the grounds."

Looking at Blaise, Clarence nodded his head affirmatively. They needed to mobilize as many people as they could, but even that would be a challenge amidst the panic. Under normal circumstances, it wouldn't be as challenging, but they didn't have time to recruit other people or to check how many of the students who weren't paralyzed were still capable of moving at the speed necessary to be putting their peers' lives in their hands, literally.

"How fast do you think we can move all of them?"

"I don't know," he admitted to Blaise, keeping his voice even. It was difficult to get an accurate count, though it looked like some students were doing what they could. How much time did they have before the Great Hall itself would be turned to ash? The second the green flames were visible, it would be too late already, and the structural integrity of the castle was already in question. Even transporting the paralyzed students out of the Great Hall would be a long process. Getting them out of the castle would be even harder. There was no easy way to do what they needed to do, and it was obviously intentional. There would be people in that room who would have to be left behind.

blaise leo zabini

[blaise leo zabini]

▲

That wasn’t the response he wanted to hear from this colleague but it unfortunately made sense at the same time. Neither of them had any idea on how many students were currently incapacitated (and he chose to call it that in his head because he didn’t believe anyone in the Great Hall was deceased), or how long it would be before the fiendfyre rained down on them. There was also the structural integrity of the castle to take into account, and from the rumblings he had felt throughout his duel with Burke, there were definitely parts that had been consumed by the fire and starting to fall apart. On the flipside, the Ministry was arriving sooner than he had anticipated, and their mobilization and assistance could expedite the evacuation that still needed to happen. As far as he was aware, anyone trapped between the second and fourth floors was a lost cause at this point. There was no way that anyone would be able to get past the wall of fire there, and he wouldn’t want anyone to try either. That was surely a death sentence for no good reason.

So that brought everything back to those still remaining in the Great Hall. There were students starting to levitate their frozen classmates out into the Entrance Hall now that Blaise had cleared the trash from it and made it safe again, but that was going to take too long to get every single person out of here. Could they load them onto the house tables and float that out? That was surely better than individually doing each student one-by-one. “Let’s clear that wall over there,” Blaise said suddenly, pointing at the one that was exterior facing. Last he had checked, that basically opened up right out next to the front part of the entranceway, under the Astronomy Tower, and then ran adjacent to the entrance courtyard. It would essentially be an uninhibited exit if the wall simply wasn’t there.

“I want to blow a hole in the wall,” he finished his explanation, moving towards the wall, waving his wand to move benches and plates that had been tipped over from dinner. The students in that area, at least those that could move still, seemed to understand what he wanted to were starting to get those their classmates prepared for whatever happened next. “I’m going to hit it with the strongest exploding spell I know,” Blaise said, turning back to face Clarence. “Block any debris I create.” Stepping back, Blaise put himself in a balanced position in anticipation of the shockwave he was about to make. He had no idea if the walls of Hogwarts were destructible like this, but remembered the amount of rubble that had happened during the war thirty years ago. He was stronger than any of those Death Eaters had ever been, and they’d caused plenty of damage. If this didn’t work, some of these students were as good as dead. “Ready!” he screamed behind him before whipping his wand forward as hard as he could, the feeling of a forceful blast firing out of it. The damage on the wall was unclear as he was sent flying backwards from the reverberations firing through his wand, a cloud of dust exploding from where the spell hit.

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[clarence james corntassel]

May 15, 2026

There was no easy way to get everyone out of the Great Hall, and it was obvious that both he and Blaise understood the gravity of what they were undertaking. Clarence didn't mind that Blaise was taking charge of the situation. Someone had to, and he listened as Blaise mentioned that they needed to clear one of the walls. "I want to blow a hole in the wall," he clarified, beginning the process of moving everything out of the way.

The students who could wasted no time in scurrying out of Blaise's way, too. "I'm going to hit it with the strongest exploding spell I know," he continued. "Block any debris I create."

Clarence readied himself to do as Blaise instructed him. "I will," he replied firmly, making sure that Blaise knew that he had heard him.

"Ready!"

All set to block debris, as he had been told to do, Clarence was surprised to see Blaise flying backwards. Simultaneously checking to make sure that there was no debris hurtling towards anyone, least of all himself with what he was preparing to do, Clarence held out his wand in Blaise's direction instead. "Arresto Momentum!" Clarence's voice boomed almost as loudly as the blast Blaise had created. He had to do what he could to keep his colleague from serious injury.

blaise leo zabini

[blaise leo zabini]

▲

The momentary loss of spacial awareness as he felt himself hurled by the magical pulse of his spell was unlike anything he'd every experienced. He was tired in that moment, an unknown amount of time had passed tonight, his third battle of the evening finally against the school itself. Blaise had thought himself well-versed on the protections and charms that surrounded Hogwarts, though the raging fiendfyre around them had probably already done away with the majority of those. His plan to puncture a sizable hole in the wall of the Great Hall seemed smart in that regard. Telling if he was successful as he flew backwards through the hall from his own spell's rebound was impossible. The sudden force of an invisible wall catching at his back, slowing his flight path down immediately, did make it clear that Clarence quite literally had him.

Slowed down, Blaise managed to get his feet underneath him again and felt them touch the ground again, his legs uneasy at first. The shockwave of his explosion had done a lot more than just blast him backwards, it seemed. "Thank you," he coughed through the cloud of dust that had been kicked up. A slow wave of his wand above his head gathered up the fine particles that now polluted the air of the Great Hall. It was too bad that this wasn't even close to the worst of what he had been forced to inhale today. The residual cursed smoke of the fiendfyre couldn't be good for the lungs longterm. His charm siphoned the residue and contained it as if it was one, solid mass, before shooting it out into the night of the Hogwarts grounds.

Blaise hadn't even realized at first that this meant his spell had been successful. A crack now existed in the wall, not big enough for him, but definitely for smaller students. Which was fine, except for the fact that he needed this thing to be a inordinately large if a search and rescue was going to be conducted through it. He didn't trust the Entrance Hall to hold up forever. "One more time Clarence!" he yelled again despite being the only voice still speaking in the Great Hall. All eyes had shifted onto him as the impossible was seemingly possible now. Exhausted but knowing he needed to keep it going, Blaise stepped to a safer distance and fired the same exact spell again, this time bracing himself for the inevitable.

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[clarence james corntassel]

May 15, 2026

Blaise coughed on the dust that resulted from the blast and thanked him. For what had just happened, he could have been far worse off, and Clarence cleared his throat a bit, too. What Blaise had needed from him had gone according to plan, though they had no time to delay. They were both fortunate to be standing and capable of doing anything to assist in getting the students and staff out of the castle.

Instructing him to repeat what he had just done, Clarence nodded. "Understood." His and Blaise's voices both carried without the need for amplification, and Clarence waited for Blaise to fire off his second blast.

Clarence focused as best he could, repeating the same incantation over again. "ARRESTO MOMENTUM!"

blaise leo zabini