Chapter 112: Infiltration, Kidnapping, Shrieking Shack (2/2)
He had been hearing the name too much. Even Oliver, who had been strict with his praises, had sung some after scouting a single Ravenclaw practice in secret.
Fred and George got dressed quickly and left the locker room with their stuff.
”Harry, we'll be waiting-” ”- outside, so hurry up-” ”-and come out.”
Harry turned and said, ”I'll wait for Oliver. You guys go and see if the girls are ready.”
”Alright-” ”-we will see-” ”-see you-” ”-two outside.”
Harry heard the door close and started packing his thing into his bag.
Then he heard the door open up.
”Oliver, hurry up,” said Harry thinking that Oliver had come back. ”The rest are waiting outside.”
He turned back to see two people dressed in Gryffindor robes standing at the door, and then his world went black.
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- (Scene Break) -
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”It has been a while since we have done this, hasn't it?” said James Potter looking at the decrypted walls of the two-store building.
”It's been a while. We haven't done this since the wolfsbane potion was discovered,” answered Sirius Black as he whipped out his wand to clean the room they were standing in.
”You both didn't have to do this. With me on the potion, I usually just sleep after I transform,” spoke Remus Lupin, looking at his two friends who were here to keep him company.
The three Marauders stood in a room, a very disordered, dusty room. Wallpaper was peeling from the walls. There were stains all over the floor. Every piece of furniture was broken as if somebody had smashed it. And the windows were all boarded up.
”To be honest, we aren't doing this for you,” grinned Sirius as he took two bottles out from his coat. ”We just wanted an excuse to get together so we can get plastered.”
Sirius and James were quite busy with their jobs as Senior Aurors, and the load had been recently heavier, with them interrogating and preparing for trials of the people arrested from the raids.
Plus, both of them were also occupied with their seats in Wizengamot. James had been involved with politics since a long time ago. But Sirius was new to the scene and had only been handed the position after his grandfather, Arcturus Black III, had died. In his will he had reinstated Sirius into the family before his death.
Remus, too, had a busy schedule as a professor at Hogwarts. A professor at Hogwarts needed to handle seven years' worth of students and thus it was quite a hectic job.
With three friends busy with their lives, they decided to use Remus' Werewolf transformation as a short time to catch up with each other. It was also a nostalgic thing for them as they did it during their school life.
James squatted in front of a broken chair and pointed it as he looked at Remus. ”Hey, do you remember this chair? I remember lifting it up with my antlers and throwing it at you.”
”I don't think that it's that chair. I'm not even sure it was this room,” remarked Remus. ”Though I might be wrong. I don't remember much of those days. I didn't have the potion back then. All of it was kind of a blur.”
Sirius lifted and shook the two booze bottles with a rascal-like grin. ”That is what we are trying to do. Make things blurry, but you know, more fun.”
”Are you sure you can drink?” asked James as he got up from the floor and turned to Remus. ”Will the effects change when you transform? The last thing we need to look out for is a drunk Werewolf.”
Remus chuckled and shook his head. ”No, as long as I take the potion without any addition to it when I drink it. I'll be fine. As for any changes? I will just be more sleepy, more silent, and probably go to sleep more easily.”
”Aww~, I wanted to wrestle like the old days,” mock-whined Sirius, who had now sat down on a conjured sheet on the old floor with the booze bottles and glasses in front of him.
He smacked the floor and called out. ”Come on, now. Let's hurry. I want to get that buzz going.”
James and Remus chuckled before sitting down on the sheet as Sirius poured them drinks.
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- (Scene Break) -
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”What should we do with his stuff?” asked one of the Accionite grunt, holding up Harry's Quidditch.
Rivers, who was making sure that Harry Potter was tightly bound and secured, looked at the grunt.
”Drop it in here,” replied Rivers.
They had slowly and stealthily made their way back into the Shrieking Shack-Whooping Willow secret tunnel. It had taken a while because Rivers wanted to make sure that they weren't seen.
The task to smuggle the unconscious Harry Potter to this point had been difficult because they had to travel outdoors with nothing to hide them. Rivers had to purposely make the entire group move slower so as to not distort the effects of the Disillusionment charm a lot.
The grunt dropped the kit on the floor and asked, ”Why did you make me take this?”
”If someone saw that the Potter brat was missing, but his things were still there, it would create some suspicion. But if his things aren't in view, they would think that he left on his own. And it would take time for them to figure out that he is missing,” explained Rivers as he sat down on the ground of the rough tunnel.
Unlike the grunts he had brought along, Rivers had thought about things and took steps that were beneficial to him and the success of this mission.
”Why have you sat down,” asked another grunt.
Rivers glanced at him and pointed at himself. ”We're still under the effect of the potions. We can't go out like this. This isn't over; we still have work to do.” Internally he was sighing at the idiocy of everyone around him.
”What do we have to do more?”
”We are going to kill the Boy-Who-Lived and make him a showpiece in the middle of the Hogsmeade. I want the world to know that their savior is dead. That will start the revolution,” said Rivers, but he didn't have a smile on his face as things were going in his mind. ”But we have to do it, and we have to do it quickly.”
”... Why?”
”Someone will know that the Boy-Who-Lived is missing and when they do, the entire Auror's office will move to find him out. The general public, too, will start looking for him. The entire community will be looking for him. And I mean everyone, even Death Eaters,” he stared at the three grunts and said very severely. ”And finally, Albus Dumbledore will look for him, and that is the worst threat. If Dumbledore starts looking, he'll find the boy quickly. That man is dangerous.”
Unlike almost everyone who looked at Dumbledore as he was the greatest thing under the sun, Rivers knew how much power Dumbledore held. He knew that Dumbledore had both political and magical power, and he had both of them in excess.
To Rivers, Dumbledore was a person who was capable of controlling everything. He even thought that he was probably doing it already.
”We need to complete this quickly and then separate from this boy. The longer we stay with him, the greater the chance of us getting caught. As I said, people will be looking for him, and when they do find him, we will be there.”
He stared at them and ordered.
”We will move as soon as possible.”
And when they nodded, Rivers thought,
'Though you guys won't be coming out of it alive.'
They had seen his face, and that connected him to Novellus Accionites.
He couldn't have that, so they needed to die.
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- (Scene Break) -
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”Yeah, this is about it, I guess,” smiled Quinn as he sat in front of Gary while approving some designs.
”Good, you will get them by next week,” nodded Gary and collected all the design papers.
Quinn had arrived at Hogsmeade quite early and had been inside the Scrivenshaft's, deciding upon the designs on the new A.I.D. cards and ordering more copies of his notes.
He had arrived quite early, but Gary had showed him some new stuff, and that got Quinn interested, and he ended up going into research mode.
And because Gary was free, Gary and Quinn bounce ideas off each other. Then came lunch, tea, and what was planned to be a single-hour ordeal turned into a multiple-hour affair.
”I'm getting late. I need to get back to the castle,” said Quinn as he looked at his pocket watch. He looked up and smiled. ”Today was fun, Gary. Let's do it again sometime.”
After saying goodbye to Gary, Quinn looked in different directions and wondered.
”Which passage should I take?”
Seven passages connected Hogsmeade and Hogwarts, and Quinn liked to not repeat the passages.
”Let's go through Shrieking Shack today,” decided Quinn and started to walk towards the so-called haunted building. Without looking at all at the rising full moon that shone in the evening sky.
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Quinn West - MC - That wasn't enough screen-time.
Rivers Lock - Leader - Can't let his identity get out.
James Potter - Senior Auror - Reminiscing about things he broke.
Sirius Black - Senior Auror - Let's get shit-faced~!
Remus Lupin - Werewolf - Ugh, Wolfsbane tastes nasty.
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