The letter from the Wizarding Examinations Authority arrived on a quiet Tuesday morning. Ariana opened it with a calm, detached curiosity. The results were, as she had anticipated, flawless. Twelve O.W.L.s, all with the highest possible grade of 'Outstanding'. The accompanying note from the head of the WEA was a fawning, effusive piece of correspondence, hailing her as the most gifted student in a century. Also attached was her N.E.W.T examination hall ticket for that matter. She filed the results away with her other research notes. They were a necessary credential, nothing more.
Her primary focus remained on her projects. The spaceship blueprints were becoming more refined, the power core theory solidifying. Her analysis of the contained Horcruxes was yielding incredible data on the nature of soul-magic. It was a summer of intense, satisfying, intellectual work.
This peace was shattered one rainy evening in late August.
She was in her study, comparing the magical resonance of the cleansed locket to the contained soul-fragment, when a sharp, insistent, and powerful magical pulse emanated from the Auror badge she kept in a shielded box on her desk.
It was not the simple ping of a distress signal. It was a raw, desperate scream of magical energy, the signature of a high-level emergency protocol being activated. Amelia Bones was in mortal danger.
Ariana didn't hesitate. Her mind, in an instant, shifted from scholar to soldier. She slammed her research notes into a magically locked drawer, strapped her wand holster to her forearm, and grabbed the badge.
"Location," she commanded, her voice sharp.
The badge grew warm, and a shimmering, holographic map appeared in the air above it, a single, pulsating red dot indicating a large manor in the English countryside. Bones Manor.
She didn't waste time with the Floo. She focused on the location in her mind, on the desperate pulse of Amelia's magic, and with the full force of her will, she Apparated.
The sound of her arrival was masked by the roar of spell-fire. She appeared at the edge of a manicured lawn, now scorched and cratered. The elegant Bones Manor was under full assault. The ancient wards around the house were flickering and groaning, great cracks appearing in their shimmering, protective dome. At least a dozen Death Eaters, including the hulking form of Fenrir Greyback, were hammering at the shields with a relentless barrage of dark curses.
And in the center of it all, a tall, skeletal figure in black robes was directing the assault, his bony Wand a conduit of pure, destructive power. Voldemort himself was leading the attack.
Ariana's mind processed the tactical situation in a nanosecond. The wards were about to fail. A direct confrontation was suicidal. The objective was not victory. It was extraction.
She saw them. Amelia Bones was near a side entrance, her face grim, fighting back-to-back with her niece, Susan, a terrified but determined-looking Hufflepuff. They were being overwhelmed.
Ariana acted.
With a silent, complex series of spells, she transfigured the wet soil of the garden. Great, thick tendrils of earth and roots erupted from the ground, coiling around the legs of the Death Eaters closest to the house, pulling them down. Simultaneously, she cast a powerful, wide-arc atmospheric charm, creating a sudden, blindingly dense fog that enveloped the entire manor, sowing chaos and confusion among the attackers.
"Director Bones!" Ariana's voice cut through the fog, magically amplified. "To me! Southwest corner!"
Through the swirling mist, she saw Amelia and Susan begin to run towards her. But Voldemort, his red eyes glowing with fury at this unexpected intervention, turned his attention to them. He raised his wand.
Ariana knew she couldn't block a direct curse from him, not while preparing a complex Apparition.
So she didn't try. She pointed her own wand at the ground in front of Amelia and Susan. "Eruptio!"
A solid wall of stone erupted from the lawn, ten feet high, intercepting the jet of green light that would have ended their lives. The Killing Curse slammed into the stone, shattering it into a million pieces, but it had bought them the second they needed.
Ariana grabbed Amelia's arm just as Susan reached them. "Hold on!" she commanded.
With a supreme act of will, she focused on the destination—the shielded interior of her London flat—and Apparated all three of them at once. The sensation was like being squeezed through a keyhole, a violent, disorienting wrench that was the price of a side-along Apparition through active wards.
They landed in a heap on the floor of her study, the sounds of battle replaced by the quiet hum of London traffic.
Amelia Bones, the formidable Head of the DMLE, was pale and shaking, leaning against her niece for support. Susan was crying with a mixture of terror and relief.
"They were waiting for us," Amelia gasped, her voice ragged. "Someone at the Ministry leaked my travel plans. It was an ambush."
Ariana simply nodded, already handing Amelia a Calming Draught from her personal stores. "The probability of a mole was high. Your survival was the primary objective. We have achieved it."
Later, after Susan had been settled with a cup of tea and wrapped in a warm blanket, Amelia Bones sat in an armchair, staring at the young woman who had just saved her life. The full reality of the situation was sinking in.
She looked at the Auror badge still clutched in her own hand. "I gave you this badge for your protection," she said, her voice full of a weary, dawning wonder. "I thought that if you were ever in trouble, you could call us. I, the Head of the Department of Magical Law Enforcement, would come and save the gifted schoolgirl."
A dry, humorless laugh escaped her lips. She shook her head slowly, looking at Ariana with a new, profound, and deeply humbled respect.
"I never imagined," she said, her voice barely a whisper, "that the first time it was used, it would be for me to call you. I never imagined that the schoolgirl would be the one to save me."
Ariana simply met her gaze, her expression calm. The roles of adult and child, of protector and protected, had just been irrevocably reversed. In the quiet of her London flat, surrounded by the blueprints of impossible dreams, it was clear that the most powerful weapon the wizarding world had in its arsenal was not a Ministry department or a secret society, but the brilliant, logical, and terrifyingly competent mind of the girl who had just declared war against the Dark Lord.