Minho sat down carefully giving no movement that could be interpreted as a threat. After settling himself and waiting for Professor McGonagall to do the same he waited for the other man to speak. 

“I am here to deliver an ultimatum. Stop hunting The King Of Sphinxes, and he will, in turn, leave you alone. The Sphinx King admires both your skill and fearlessness, and respects you as a worthy opponent, However, if you attempt to find him again he will, and I quote “Kill him, his four friends, and the family pediatrician for good measure” That is my ultimatum, heed the warning or do not. The choice is yours.”

The man stood and stepped to the door opening it and closing it behind him in one fluid movement. With a curse, Minho dived for his wand and waved it sending a wordless spell to open it. Yelling out another curse many times, the magically reinforced door ignored his command. He grasped the handle and stepped out onto the landing, wand held in front of him like a jousting lance. Realizing he was alone he hurried down the stairs and once again found himself alone except for Peeves who was yelling at him. Pointing his wand at the ghost Minho blasted it back twenty feet into the railway of one of the many Hogwarts staircases and set off towards the main entrance robes billowing behind him.

Reaching the main gates he sprinted across the lawns after the tall thin figure disappearing towards the boundaries of Hogwarts and the limit of the Anti-Apparation wards around the school. Sending a random spell into the sky in rage Minho watched as the figure twisted on his heel and disappeared from sight. Turning around, he sheathed his wand at his belt and stalked towards the main entrance retracing the steps he had taken in the opposite direction, this time in reverse. Ignoring the baffled students staring at him he walked into the main hallway silently glad none of his band mates were nearby. 

Walking through the halls many thoughts assailed his mind one more prominent than all the others. Muttering to himself he glanced out a window and stopped for a moment, Jonghyun, Taemin, Onew, and Key were all gathered around the glittering spec of marble standing out among the blue lake and rich green grass of the Hogwarts grounds. Sighing he turned away his feet carrying him almost unwillingly around the castle. Even as a student he had spent much of his free time wandering the halls pondering what he had learned and thinking of ways to mutate, change, and augment it into something more powerful. 

Stopping, finally he let the everything in his mind out, loose to ponder. I just wish I knew some way to get into his mind for just a few minutes, to know what he’s thinking. To understand what makes him tick! Frustrated he turned and stopped, his mouth falling open in surprise, unwillingly his feet had carried him to a part of the castle he was all to familiar with. Seventh floor, portraits on either side of the normally broad and empty expanse of stone. But as Minho had become familiar with a door now stood in the once empty space. Unwittingly his random wanderings had carried him to The Room Of Requirement. Stepping up to the door he drew his wand and pushed it inward. Stepping inside he closed the door behind him.

The room was about the size of a broom cupboard, lit only by a soft blue light emanating from a stone basin, wait, the ghost of a stone basin more like, it lacked real substance. Stepping closer he shivered as he felt the magic of the room crawl across his skin as he approached the odd object. As he got closer he gasped recognizing the carvings carved into the image before him. The ghostly projection was that of a pensive. A rare and often sought after magical device. Only two were confirmed to exist. One was owned by Harry Potter and the other by an Israeli wizarding prince.

And now he realized a third, and if his instincts served him right, the third and final one resided with Taren Omathan. Barely containing his excitement, he hoped the apparition would work as the real one did. Prodding the sluggish semi-opaque surface with his wand his heart leapt as the cloudy substance swirled faster resolving into an image. However it turned out to be nothing much, just a broad expanse of lawn with no one in sight. Crossing mental fingers for luck he pushed his hand into the basin and felt himself falling. Suddenly his feet hit solid earth and he was. he was inside of Omathan’s mind! A laugh tore from him as he waited. 

As it was Omathan’s memory he couldn’t be far away. Rewarded only moments later Minho didn’t, for a moment, recognize it as Omathan. Looking to be about twenty he appeared from the trees and stalked into the clearing heading for an ominous opening in the side of a small hill Minho had only just noticed. Following, Minho couldn’t help but admire, grudgingly, the sense of poise Omathan had, even at his young age. Stepping up to the opening Taren stepped through and into the cave drawing his wand and muttering a quick “Lumos” as he stepped further into it. Minho followed with growing interest until Omathan came to a branch in the tunnel. Three pathways led off of the one they had been following since they entered the cave. 

Omathan lifted his wand and pointed it straight into the air; a red light exploded outward rippling away, moments later the red returned from one of the tunnels while the other two remained dark and quiet. “Incendere Finesere” Muttered Omathan, causing his wand tip to light with a glowing ember, with the dim but newfound light, Minho repeated an observation he had made about the wand when he was ten years old. It was very long, almost sixteen inches by his guess and maybe a bit more. Dark wood polished by many uses had given it a personality.

Waving his wand in a few intricate gestures leaving symbols behind he then passed his wand back and forth three times before ing it forward. Briefly, a light flared up outlining a barrier to both the exit and both other tunnels leading away from the one he was apparently going to take. With a look of grim determination on his face, he stepped into the tunnel. Omathan’s memory self then apparently heard something for he stopped and turned back the way he had come. Listening briefly he nodded to himself then continued his walk into the tunnel. 

After maybe two hundred paces they reached a small archway, in an alcove that went through and through the peak of the arch was a life sized statue of a Jaguar. Walking calmly past it Omathan continued wand held at the ready. Continuing past the statue as well. Minho followed now more curious than anything. Had Minho been the one to hear the sound he had no doubt he wouldn’t have reacted in time. Had Omathan not been ready for something Minho had no idea of at that moment he might not have been fast enough either. As it was he still was only fast enough to save his own life.

The sound of an angry jungle cat intruded upon the silence like a shadow. Twisting, Omathan took the now animate and very angry cat on his side as opposed to his back, which would have been an almost immediate game ender. Omathan’s wand flew from his hand the tip still ignited. Bare knuckles and human strength battling against an animal with instincts geared towards one thing, Killing. A scream barely recognizable as human echoed through the tunnels after having torn itself from Omathan’s mouth. In horror, Minho saw that the cat had latched onto Omathan’s right leg it fangs burying themselves into his skin. Blindly he reached for something at the back of his belt. 

Silver glinted in the dark of the tunnel and a gnarled fist slammed the blade of the six-inch knife into the cat’s side. Another strangled cry, this one from the animal and it collapsed onto Omathan before dissolving into a purple mist, drifting up the mist, it reasserted itself into its nook at the peak of the archway. Taren Omathan lay on the floor, his back arching as he yelled curse after curse into the air, some as inane as , and son of a . Others, such as the unforgivable curses and a few even Minho didn’t recognize.

And then it stopped as suddenly Omathan in a supreme display of complete and total animalistic instinct and panic was scrambling for his wand. Standing a few yards down the tunnel he had been walking down was a short fat man with a dark blue cloak donned over green and silver robes. A silent hex sent Omathan’s wand spinning out of reach. 

Stepping forward the man walked until he was a few paces away. Pointing his wand down at Omathan he started to deliberately pronounce each syllable “A, va, da, Ke, dav” 

“INFERNA CORPA!” A streak of bright orange flame, twined into a tight spiral hit the fat man in his chest. Seeming to worm it’s way into his body he gave a small gasp of surprise before slumping against a wall and finally to a final resting place on the floor. 

Stepping forward the figure of Omathan’s rescuer matched that of her voice, it’s tantalizing feminine shape becoming clearer. Kneeling down next to Omathan her face still obscured she muttered a few blood staunching charms before saying softly “Tare?” 

A chuckle was her answer, weak as it was, the responding words as feeble as the attempt to laugh had been “I *cough* taught you tha…tha *cough* that one” Another chuckle this time a healthy one from the witches mouth. 

“Never though I’d use it, so crude especially from someone like you, “Fire corpse” Really? I thought you abhorred Latin?” Leaning down, she scooped the much larger man into her arms and turned. Readying to carry him back out of the tunnel where she could, or so logic said, apparate them to a healer. 

Shock went through Minho as her face came into view, “NO!” Stumbling backwards he hit a wall then crouched and jumped sending himself back into the conscious world. Exploding out of the Pensive his vision swam as tears flooded it. “NO, NO, NO, NO” The words trailed off as his mind tried to grasp what he had just seen. 

The face, the woman who rescued Omathan, had been a younger but unmistakable vision of his mother. His mother, saving the life of the man who had murdered her…

EDITED :D