"Malfoy, you bastard!"
Harry and Ron had no idea what had just happened, and they hadn't noticed anything wrong with that package either. When they saw Hermione almost get shoved over, they went straight over, ready to teach Malfoy a lesson.
Malfoy's two big gorilla sidekicks weren't with him now; two against one, their odds looked pretty good.
But before they'd even taken two steps, a huge force shoved them back.
"Stay right there, don't move!" Tonks shouted from not far away, still holding the Wand she hadn't had time to put away.
Harry quickly understood why she'd done it.
Soaked through by the rain, the brown paper package split open the moment it hit the ground, and what was inside happened to fall right onto Katie's shoe.
In an instant, Katie was lifted uncontrollably into the air, her posture looking extremely strange… Her arms were stretched out to the sides, her hair whipped wildly around her by a fierce gale, but her eyes were tightly shut and her face completely expressionless.
Soon her eyes flew open, as if she were enduring some immense pain, and she began to scream, a blood‑curdling, soul‑ripping scream.
"I'll go get a professor!" Hermione immediately started to run back toward the school.
But just then…
"Finite Incantatem!"
At the shout, Harry turned his head on reflex and saw an orange glow flare suddenly around Kael's Wand, and then Kael drove it hard into the rocky path.
The hard stones, under that Wand glowing with orange light, were as fragile as freshly fried crisps, and were pierced through with ease.
Vaguely, it seemed as though a layer of golden flame began to spread outward. When it reached Katie hanging in midair, a layer of black smoke suddenly appeared over her body, then was quickly burned away by the golden flames.
The screaming stopped dead.
Unconscious, Katie plunged from the air and was caught by Tonks.
By now a small crowd had already run over at the noise. They gathered around, staring curiously and pointing at the unconscious Katie, chattering among themselves.
"What on earth happened here!" Tonks demanded sharply, especially at the girl who'd been with Katie.
Because she had seen very clearly that it had all started with that package, and if that rude little brat hadn't jumped out just now, the one lying on the ground might very well have been Kael.
"I… I don't know." The girl who'd come with Katie still hadn't recovered from the fright; she sniffled as she spoke.
She pointed at the torn brown paper package on the ground. "We were going to Madam Puddifoot Tea House, but she somehow picked up this package from who‑knows‑where and said it was for Kael, that she was supposed to pass it on to him…"
"Oh, right, and when she said it, her expression was really weird, just like how Professor Snape described people under Imperio… Oh, damn, how did I not realize it at the time!"
The girl smacked herself on the head in frustration and started crying again, this time from guilt.
If she'd spotted that something was wrong with her friend earlier, maybe Katie wouldn't be suffering now.
Conna walked over and gently patted her shoulder.
"It's not your fault… I remember you're Lini from seventh year, right."
The girl nodded.
"So do you know who gave her the package?"
"No." Lini said through sobs. "I left something behind at Honeydukes, so we were apart for a while. When I came back, the thing was just there."
"I see." Conna glanced back at Kael.
"It's fine." Kael stared at the Opal Necklace on the ground and said softly, "Let's deal with what's in front of us first."
"You're right, we need to get back to the school quickly." Seeing more and more people gathering around, Tonks immediately ran toward the castle with the unconscious Katie in her arms.
She didn't forget to call back, either: "Fred, George, do me a favor and pack that thing up on the ground, and make sure no one else touches it."
"Leave it to us." Fred said. With a practiced flick of his Wand, the stones on the ground turned into a box that wrapped itself around the Opal Necklace again, and then he used his Wand to guide the box floating ahead.
Throughout the whole process, the box stayed well away from everyone.
Harry and the others exchanged a look, then hurried after them.
"By the way, what spell did Kael just use?" Ron asked curiously. "He actually solved the problem in one go."
"Finite Incantatem," Hermione said. "It's an Advanced Magic Spell. You can think of it as a boosted version of Finite Incantatem; its function is to wipe out all traces of Magic within a certain range."
"It can even cancel out the effects of Dark Arts Items?" Harry asked.
"Of course it can." Hermione said, a little impatiently. "If you'd been paying attention in Professor Snape's class, you'd know so‑called Dark Arts Items are basically just things carrying curses.
"And a curse is also a kind of Magic."
"Pay attention in Snape's class?" Harry's mouth twitched. That was a bit much to ask of him.
It wasn't that he didn't want to; it was that Snape always had a way of making his blood boil within ten minutes. Even if he wanted to listen, he couldn't.
They walked across the school grounds.
Ron looked at Kael beside him and seemed to think of something.
"Do you think that counts as Malfoy having saved Kael's life?"
"Huh?" Harry froze for a second, then suddenly realized, "Yeah, if Malfoy hadn't shoved Hermione and knocked over that brown paper package, Kael might've been the one to touch that thing."