The screams of the crowd gave Harry only a few seconds' warning of the approaching murder. It was just long enough for him to turn his head and see the dozens of fast-moving shapes as they began to dive towards the pitch. As they neared, he could feel the presence of the Gore Crows. An aura comprised of the admixture of Death and the ozone ooze of Dark Magic that was animating their rotten, skeletal forms.

Harry couldn't help but feel a wave of helplessness wash over him as he realized that the angle of the Gore Crows' dive meant that he was directly in their oncoming path. Furthermore, dangling as he was from his Scarlet Falcon, there was no way he could dodge them. And so, all he could do was to brace himself for impact and hope he could survive the incoming wave of carrion birds.

The only thing that gave him a bit of hope was that these members of the Lesser Dead weren't brute force killers like the Draugr from Hallowe'en. Instead, Gore Crows preferred to chip away at their prey with a slow death of a thousand cuts as they overwhelmed their victims through sheer force of numbers. These birds, according to The Book of the Dead, were born from the ritual killing of ordinary crows by a necromancer, who then infused their bodies with the broken, fragmented spirit of a single Dead spirit.

And so, with his fingers locked about the handle of his broom in a knuckle popping grip, Harry watched as the Gore Crows drew ever closer. The lead bird was now near enough that Harry could see the glowing red embers of its eyes in their empty sockets as a hiss emerged from its beak; a noise that called more to mind an adder before it struck than anything a living bird might produce.

As the murder moved to engulf Harry – talons outstretched – the only thing that saved him from a bloody death was a well swung club and the timely arrival of George Weasley. The spirit fragment abandoning its ensorcelled form as the lead Gore Crow's body exploded in a shower of black feathers and globlets of rotting flesh.

The Weasley twins had ignored Madam Hooch's orders to land and get to safety when the Gore Crows had appeared. Instead the two of them had come to Harry's rescue. Each of them a whirlwind of bat and broomtail as they beat the carrion birds away in the weirdest game of Swivenhodge ever played.

Meanwhile, down below Hermione was a witch on a mission. Swinging pointy elbows left and right as she forced her way through the panicking crowd as she beat a path towards the staircase that lead up to the top of the Staff Tower. Once there the first year Gryffindor thundered her way up to the Staff Box and towards Snape.

All of the professors were standing with their wands drawn when Hermione arrived. A few were producing anxious sparks from their tips as their wielders gazed upwards to where the Gore Crows were circling the three students who were still airborne. None of them daring to cast any sort of destructive magic up at the fray for fear of hitting one of them.

Hermione, however, only had eyes for the Potions Master as she shoved her way through the crowd of grown witches and wizards in her rush to reach him. She didn't even pause to apologize as she bowled into Professor Quirrell, who she didn't quite succeed in knocking off of his feet. Thought, she did manage to knock the Defense Against the Dark Arts teacher's turban clean off the top of his head. Exposing the papery pale skin of his hairless scalp as well as the tracery of blue veins that covered it as she went darting past.

Hermione paused in her headlong rush across the stand towards Snape only long enough to draw her vine-wood wand from her robe pocket. Her blood pounding in her ears as she looked at the man who was still muttering nonstop under his breath as he continued jinxed Harry's broom so that he would be easy prey for the Dead horrors circling overhead.

It was only as she opened her own mouth to cast the first spell that sprung to mind, however, that she finally heard what Snape was actually saying: "Finite Incantatem Maxima, Finite Incantatem, Finite Incantatem Maxima!"

Again and again he incanted a counter-spell – a powerful one at that. It was then that she realized that he had been trying to save Harry this entire time.

"Finite Incantatem Maxima," she intoned, instead of the incantation for the fire-spell she'd been planning to use. Lending her own power to the professor's spell as she cast her gaze skyward once again. Immediately it's apparent that something has changed. Harry's broomstick is back under his control.

Across the way, in the Gryffindor Stands, Luna Lovegood's face splits into a ferociously joyful grin. "Good work, Hermione," she crows.

Up above Harry finished clambering back onto his broomstick as the twins continued to circle him protectively. Overhead the Gore Crows were regrouping. Their numbers thinned but only slightly by the Beaters' clubs.

Harry felt a surge of irritation as he stared up at them. This was the second time he'd encountered malicious Dead without his tools since he'd come to Hogwarts. No more, he vowed, now seeing why his grandad kept his bandoleer on his person at all times. It wasn't paranoia if there really were monsters out there waiting to eat your face off.

"Fred – George, on my signal make a break for the ground," Harry barked in a tone that booked no argument; then, before the twins could protest, he brought his hands together in a palm stinging clap.

As the crack of flesh against flesh hung in the air Harry wet his lips and whistled. Frustration and fear fueling his spell in equal measures as he invoked the commanding voice of Saraneth the Binder and all around them the Gore Crows froze in midair.

As they streaked towards the ground Harry could feel the sprits animating the Gore Crows as they fought to lose themselves from his control. Pitching their Will against his own.

I need a way to banish them, he thought. His mind running through all the wards and banes he knew.

All the while his irritation as his lack of proper equipment gnawed at him. Without his wand he couldn't summon flames like he had to defeat the Draugr. Nor could he encourage the blanket of clouds above them to produce rain; a Living water as sure as lake or river.

Casting a look over his shoulder as he dove, Harry can see the Gore Crows that have managed to free themselves from his control coming for them. The lot of them looking quite ragged indeed as they do. None of the Dead could last very long under the sun and when exposed to the wind. But these Gore Crows had been fresh when they appeared, which led Harry to believe that the necromancer who had summoned them had emptied a nearby rookery quite recently.

The Gore Crows that were now streaking after them were beginning to look quite bare as the wind from their dive stripped them of their feathers and ripped the putrid flesh from their spell-inscribed bones. Leaving the white of their skeletons to shine wetly in the cloud shrouded sunlight. In fact, the only part of the birds that was still a glossy black at all were the stiletto like points of their beaks.

Above the undulating murder Harry could make out the sun, but just barely, as it reflected like a pale disk through the heavy blanket of clouds. Glancing away, he put on another burst of speed as he raced towards the green of the pitch. The wind tugging at his robes as he went and it was then that Harry was struck by a sudden and reckless idea.

He had no alder whistle, but he knew the notes to summon up a gale nevertheless. And so, as his feet hit the ground with a bone jarring thud, Harry wet his lips once again. The twins touching down on either side of him as the first whistled notes for an updraft began to fill the air.

Harry's magic coating his throat and lips to ensure that the sound was clear and true as the air around the Gryffindors began to move; the spell growing stronger and stronger as he exhaled.

Unlike his summoning in the shop on Horizont Alley, this wind comes not in the form of a gently swirling dervish, but as something wild and ferocious as it fights Harry's control every step of the way. As the air compresses around them, both Harry and the twins are forced to their knees, then when he can rein in the gale no longer Harry releases it and the effect of his summoned storm is immediate as is the Deads' reaction.

The fragmented spirits shed their rotting flesh and flee for the deep shadows of the nearby Forbidden Forest. Their spirit flesh compressed to the point to where they appear as little more than amorphous blobs as they skitter across the grounds to find hidey holes along the underside of rocks and the gaps between tree roots. Meanwhile, the Living are left blinking in the full and glaring light of the sun as they take in the sight of the stadium towers with their ripped banners and exposed scaffolding.

The aftermath of the attack is nothing short of barely controlled chaos with the dozen professors who had attended the game now responsible for corralling the nearly three hundred students that were churning about anxiously in the stadium. Needless to say, even with the Gore Crows gone, the match would not be resuming. Though to be honest everyone (save the two captains of the Quidditch teams) seemed more than happy enough to join the mass of students that were being herded back up to the castle. As they were all eager to put the thick stonewalls between themselves and any Dead spirits that might still be lingering in the Forbidden Forest.

Once back in the castle the majority of the student body was allowed to go about business as usual as long as they stayed indoors. This was not the case for the fourteen Quidditch players, as well as Madam Hooch, who'd been on the pitch when the Gore Crows arrived. They were all bustled up to the Hospital Wing as soon as possible so that they could be given a onceover by Madam Pomfrey, who was in a right state when they arrived.

"As if Quidditch isn't dangerous enough! Now we've got the Dead attacking students," she blustered, before ordering the Gryffindor Chasers to join Madam Hooch behind a set of privacy screens before directing the rest of the players behind another. Once there the lot of them were ordered to strip down to their underwear.

The Quidditch pads seemed to have taken the brunt of the damage the Gore Crows had attempted to inflict. The leather pocket and scared from beak and claw, but Harry's skin was relatively unscathed.

As he sat on one of the nearby hospital beds, Harry could hear the nurse dismiss the Gryffindor Chasers and Madam Hooch. The entire Slytherin team, plus Oliver Wood, was similarly dismissed a short while later. Harry and the Weasley twins were less lucky. Scored and scratched from being in the heart of the murder of Gore Crows, they had to stay.

"Is this really necessary – I mean it's only a few scratches, right," Fred Weasley squawked as the nurse began to scrutinize a series of said scratches that were bleeding sluggishly on the red-haired boy's shoulder.

"Injuries created by the Dead have a nasty habit of putrefying if left untreated," Madam Pomfrey informed him gravely. "So, unless you'd like that arm to fall off let me work."

She flushed their wounds with Unicorn Water, which would purify any infection carried by the carrion birds' talons, then daubed them with a purple potion that frothed and steamed on contact. Both were concoctions Harry recognized from his grandad's kit.

Madam Pomfrey then prodded the deepest of their cuts and scratches with the tip of her wand. Healing them instantly.

"That's you two done," she informed the twins, allowing all three of them to get redressed. "Remember, you are to come back immediately if either of you begins to feel unwell in anyway."

She then released them into the waiting arms of their older brother. Percy Weasley didn't look as though he knew whether to be furious with the twins for putting themselves in danger or proud of them for protecting a younger student.

"Now, Mr. Potter, you'd best let me have a look at that throat of yours," said the nurse, directing Harry to open his mouth so that she could shine a witch-light down it. Whatever she saw had her tutting disapprovingly. "Summoning a wind like that without a focus – you're lucky you didn't burn out the meridians in your throat."

Harry could only smile sheepishly as Madam Pomfrey puttered around mixing up a tea of slippery elm bark and marshmallow root.

"Drink this," she ordered, then bustled over to the door to let Luna, Hermione and Hagrid into the long hall of the infirmary. "You three can keep him company while I Floo Professor McGonagall with an update."

The girls rushed forward to plant themselves on either side of Harry on the hospital bed. Hagrid followed at a more sedated pace. The large man looking quite out of place in the sterile environment of the Hospital Wing.

"Oh, Harry, we were so worried," cried Hermione, looking more than ready to fling her arms around him, but to avoid spilling the steaming cup of tea in his grasp she refrained.

"How are you," Luna asked, eyeing the freshly healed scratches that were peeking out from under the collar of his Quidditch robes.

"Well enough," he croaked, his throat feeling more than a little inflamed. With a grimace he took a sip from his cup. It wasn't too bad. Possessing a naturally sweet flavor. Not to mention how it coated his through wonderfully.

"We saw Professor McGonagall collect your broom from the pitch," Hermione informed him. "She said something about her and Professor Flitwick looking it over to check for any other tampering."

"So, someone was jinxing it then?" Harry managed, his voice a bit stronger.

Luna and Hermione exchanged a significant look, but it was Hermione who spoke.

"I thought it was Professor Snape," she confessed. "I've read all about jinxes, you see – and when I saw him staring at you and muttering across the way… Well, I was sure that he was the one messing with your broom…."

"What?" asked Hagrid, who hadn't heard a word of what had gone on next to him in the stands. "Snape'd never do a thing like that."

Hermione nodded quickly and said, "I agree with you Hagrid. As soon as I got close enough to him, I realized that he was incanting a counter-spell."

"Never mind tha'," said Hagrid, waving her off. "What make's yeh think someone was tryin' ter mess with Harry in particular?"

Harry, Luna and Hermione shared a look, wondering what to tell him. Harry decided on the truth.

"It may have been the same person who let the draugr in on Hallowe'en. They may have wanted payback for me destroying it," said Harry. "Or maybe this was just another distraction."

"Distraction," questioned Hagrid.

"You know, so they could try and steel whatever that three-headed dog is guarding," Harry explained.

Hagrid looked positively gobsmacked.

"How do you know about Fluffy?" he demanded.

It was the trio's turn to be gobsmacked.

"That thing has a name," said Hermione.

"O'course he does, he's mine," Hagrid informed them. "Bought him off a Greek chappie I met down in the pub las' year. Dumbledore asked if he could borrow him to help guard the –"

"The?" the first-years asked in stereo.

"Now, don't ask me anymore," said Hagrid gruffly. "That's top secret, that is."

"But some one's trying to steal it," Harry remined him.

"O'course someone's tryin' ter steal it – that's why it was moved here from Gringotts in the firs' place," said Hagrid sternly, looking each of the three first-years in the eye in turn before going on. "The three of yeh need ter stay out of this," he warned. "It's dangerous. You forget that god, an' you forget what it's guarding – that's between Professor Dumbledore an' Nicolas Flamel, yeh hear?"

The trio exchanged another look. So, there was some called Nicolas Flamel involved, was there? Well that was something they hadn't known before.

Hagrid seemed to have realized that he'd said too much because he clapped an enormous hand to his forehead with enough force to topple a carthorse. All the while muttering to himself, "I should not have said that…I should not have said that…."