To Catch a Mistake PV Ana Beckett Finished

First-day back at Hogwarts had gone surprisingly well so far. Seeing as Ana only had one more class that day, her favorite, Charms, she honestly didn't see how anything could make this day anything less than great. Sure, there'd been some weirdness settling in and she had also run into a girl who was identical to her, which was honestly rather irritating and she wondered what she was supposed to in that situation. Was she supposed to be besties with this person or duel them for dominance? 

She shook her head at herself. It was not the time to be planning duels. She was barely back at school and was going to consider attempting to avoid the drama that had been so definitive of her career at Hogwarts thus far. No drama, no prefect responsibilities, no going out of her way to get involved in trouble, just settling back in after being gone for nearly a year.

Of course, right as she had that thought, she saw something deeply disturbing running down the hall. It was half cookie jar, half some kind of animal, possibly a bird. Her ideas for limiting drama flew out the window when she saw it scampering. Students parted like the Red Sea with a few overdramatic ones screaming. Ana sprinted after it in a very unladylike fashion. For such a small, awkward little thing, it was surprisingly fast. As she chased it, she realized it was in fact not quite a bird like she'd thought, rather a miniature griffin. The front half of one anyway. It was snapping and clawing at everyone and everything in its path as it attempted some rather disturbing attempts at flight. That certainly explained the screams, although Ana still thought those students were over dramatic.

Squinting as she ran, she could make out the name "Donald" on the jar, as well as the Hufflepuff colors. Certain nobody could be foolish enough to leave their name on something like this and let it run loose through the school, she assumed that was the creature's name. "Donald?" she called, hoping to coax the thing into slowing since she was starting to get tired from her mad dash. "Donnie!"

She heard another student shouting behind her and assumed that it was likely the owner of this creature. If she wasn't so out of breath from running, she would have been laughing so hard she couldn't breathe. This was one of the times she was so glad to go to Hogwarts. Sure, Beauxbatons where her mother had wanted to send her, had a far lower student death and disappearance rate, but this was great. It never would have happened at any of her parents' boring parties or really, it never would have happened anywhere but Hogwarts.

As she ran, she pulled out her wand. She wouldn't be able to untransfigure it right now since she was running, she wouldn't be able to cast the spell, but surely, they would corner it or it would run out of energy. In any event, having her wand out would be helpful. The boy was trying to catch up, and she heard him shout that someone had enchanted his cookie jar. That didn't make any sense at all, but she didn't question it at the moment. She knew that if he was chasing it, he was likely the person who had enchanted it. She was just chasing it because it seemed like a fun thing to do. If he was chasing it and trying to make excuses, then he had probably caused this by miscasting a spell. She still couldn't see the boy, but she could tell by his voice that he was probably a first or second year. Figures - nobody older than her would be stupid enough to try to transfigure a cookie jar into a griffin.

It wasn't slowing down, which was a problem, so Anastasia had to do something. Racking her brain, she knew that she would have to have a better shot at it to get it untransfigured. If she knew a spell that would make a box or something, that would be perfect. The problem was she didn't think there was such a spell, and if there was, she didn't know it. She would have to improvise. So, that meant using the only spell that she could think of. 

"Incendio!" she shouted, flicking her wand in the pattern for the fire making spell. As the flames shot from her wand, it occurred to her that this was an absolutely horrible idea. To make matters worse, the flame hit a suit of armor, knocking it into Ana's path. Fortunately, the armor did not catch on fire, but it was now in her way. She wondered if she could clear the armor, with a jump. Given how close she was to it, it was her only option. She jumped as high as she could, barely not hitting the huge shiny suit. 

As she ran though, she felt her bookbag snag on the armor, and without a second thought, she released the bag and continued sprinting. Still not close enough to get a good shot at untransfiguring it and still unable to think of a spell that was not Incendio. Well, if at first you don't succeed...

"Incendio!" she said again, hoping that her aim would be better this time. 

She heard clattering behind her and wanted to smack the boy. This was probably his fault and now he wasn't even helping. He had the one job, just the - 

OH SHIT, HE WAS ON FIRE

Anastasia was going to kill him. Possibly by accident, but if he survived the fire, she was going to strangle him. She was going to learn the killing curse, and cast it on this moron. She didn't care if it got her sent to Azkaban. She was going to murder this idiot. "First of all, fire always helps, second, I wasn't trying to burn it, stupid," she snapped nearly tripping over him as he rolled all over the floor like a wet dog. Fortunately, her tutor had drilled her on the extinguishing charm while the woman had discovered Ana's abnormal love for fire. "Third, what good would tackling it do? And fourth, Extinguo!"

Since she had stopped to extinguish the flaming Hufflepuff, she had taken her attention away from the Griffin and it was about to turn a corner. She had one more shoot at caging it off. Third time's the charm, right? "Incendio!" she shouted again. 

Well, the good news was the thing had stopped. The bad news was it was now on fire. That was suboptimal. Annnnd now it was running at her. That was really less than ideal. This was a terrible way to die. Once she died from this, she was going to attempt to drill some other spells so that if this happened again, she would be able to do something other than burning down the school.

The stupid Hufflepuff was no longer on fire, but they had other problems now. The flaming cookie jar thing was running at them. Anastasia tried to think of something. Trapping it sounded like a good idea, and had been her intention this whole time. Suddenly, she had an absolutely brilliant idea. If she could levitate it, then it wouldn't be able to chase them and it would just float around harmlessly for him to catch and her to untransfigure. "Sounds good! That's what I was trying to do," she snapped, irritated at the younger boy. 

"Wingardium Leviosa!" she cast, flicking her wrist. Unlike her other spell, this hit the creature on the first try and for a moment she was exceedingly proud. This had actually worked. 

Except, the creature wasn't just harmlessly floating around. It was flying now and attempting to dive bomb Ana. She barely got out of the way to avoid the thing and it turned and was after her again. She really wished she knew Protego right about now. Sure, she'd read about it, but she'd never actually been taught it, and couldn't think of the wand movements off the top of her head. Racking her brain, she thought of a spell that could possibly help as the creature flew at her. "Pluvia Velo!" she shouted, pointing her wand at the angry little thing. This wasn't exactly what the Umbrella spell was meant for, but she doubted it could hurt at this point. Clutching it with both hands, she waited to see if her genius plan worked.

It did. Kind of. While the creature was unable to break through her invisible umbrella, Ana was knocked backward and to the ground from the force of impact. Her elbow throbbed painfully.