Chapter 132: August 25, 1994: Fury of Noir (1/2)
If you want to read ahead, you can check out my Patreón @
[ ]
The link is also in the synopsis.
.
[The chapter is edited by my Editor: Alan_Loo/AlanL]
.
-*-*-*-*-*-
.
”Uncle, I'm going to London,” said Quinn as he peeked inside Elliot Dalton's study inside the West Manor. The older man was focused on his work.
Elliot looked up from the documents on his desk. Quinn was dressed in his non-magical-styled clothes, which he wore most of the time, except when he needed to wear clothing prevalent in the magical world for appropriate occasions.
”London? May I ask why you want to go there?”
Quinn raised his hand. He had a ticket stub in his hand. ”I'm heading to the cinema. I might return late, so please don't wait for me at supper. I will eat dinner at home, though. So please ask Polly to set up something for me.”
”I see, be careful with the time, then, and try not to stay out too late,” nodded Elliot. ”Return home before your grandfather goes to sleep.”
”Understood,” said Quinn.
As Quinn left, Elliot's eyes caught a glimpse of something white around Quinn's neck. Nonetheless, the door closed before he could get a clear look. He shook his head and assumed that it would be some sort of non-magical style clothing. He forgot about the matter and returned to his work.
Outside Elliot's office, Quinn started walking towards the manor's door. He looked at the ticket stub in his hand that showed today's date. August 25, 1994. A week before he had to leave for Hogwarts. Today, however, the day itself was of great importance.
'Sorry for lying, but I had to do it,' thought Quinn as he pocketed the ticket stub that was going to go unused.
Determination flashed through Quinn's eyes as he thought of what he was about to do and the possible repercussions that his actions might cause. Among such thoughts, Quinn wished that today went without a hitch, that nobody would know what he was about to do. Everybody would be better if that was the case.
.
- (Scene Break) -
.
*Pop*
With a popping noise as if it was a plastic bag popping, Quinn's feet touched misty moor. He had apparated in a familiar place. His eyes immediately looked around to check for any living and observing presence; after carefully observing his surroundings along with the Human-presence-revealing spell (Homenum Revelio), Quinn concluded that he was alone in the deserted stretch.
He looked at a line of wooden posts that were placed consecutively creating a line. Between the consecutive posts there were broken barbed wires. When they had been intact they had formed a fence.
Quinn blinked and casted the Point-Me Charm In front of him, an arrow appeared pointing north. Then he set off across the deserted moor. He was unable to make out much through the mist, so he simply relied on the north-facing arrow to guide him. After about ten minutes, a small stone cottage next to a gate swam into focus. Beyond it, Quinn could make out the ghostly shapes of hundreds and hundreds of tents. They rose up to a slightly sloping large field. On the horizon, a dark forest could be seen.
He dispelled the Point-Me Charm, and stopped before he was too near to a stone cottage. The custom-made disillusionment charm he had made from his knowledge of sensory illusion magic covered his body and made him invisible to all five senses. After making sure that he was invisible, Quinn resumed walking and passed by the stone cottage, ignoring the muggle who lived inside and the ministry employee who hid in the cabin in case he asked too many questions and needed to obliviate him.
Quinn entered the gate of the campsite. He trudged up the misty field in the middle of long rows of tents. Most looked almost ordinary; their owners had clearly tried to make them as non-magical as possible. Some, though, slipped up by adding chimneys, bellpulls, or weather vanes. On a side note, there were tents so obviously magical that Quinn wondered if its owners were even trying to hide that they were magicals. Halfway up the field stood an extravagant silk like miniature palace, with several live peacocks tethered at the entrance. A little farther on, he passed a tent that had three floors and several turrets, and a short way beyond, there was a tent that had a front garden with a birdbath, sundial, and fountain.
'Showoffs,' thought Quinn. The blatant disregard of the Statute of Secrecy in this place made Quinn realise once again the huge disconnection there was between the magical and non-magical society. The law to separate the two communities had isolated the magical society so much that they didn't even know what was considered non-magical. An apparent fault from the education system failing to educate their students about the one thing they are supposed to hide from.
He reached the very edge of the wood at the top of the field and stared at the litter of magical tents blocking his vision of the horizon. Every four years, only one event would cause this many magicals to gather in one place, and that event was today. On August 18, 1994, magicals from the six continents gathered at Dartmoor, England, to attend the Quidditch World Cup, and today was the finals between Ireland and Bulgaria.
The man in the stone cabin that Quinn passed by, Mr. Roberts, owned and operated many campsites in the area, and one of those campsites had been booked by the British Ministry of Magic for the Quidditch World Cup. Quinn had come here because today was the day the Death Eaters would ravage the campsites and prey upon muggle-borns for sport.
Quinn looked up and wondered whether the Dark Mark would make an appearance. Barty Crouch Junior had been the one who had launched the Dark Mark to the sky over the campground in the original books.
Quinn knew Junior's backstory, and if the current events followed the original path, then he would be here at the finals, beneath an invisibility cloak under the Imperius Charm. Junior would regain control here and come upon the scene of Death Eaters destroying everything in their way. In response, he would get angry and cast the Dark Mark. His anger would stem from their lack of initiative in finding their master, which he yearned to do and yet was unable.
'An emotional, yet stupid decision. Bringing him here is foolish,' thought Quinn. Time made people slack, and it was the case in this situation.
He didn't blame Senior that much, though. It had been over a decade since he had kept his son holed up in the house. And only because of the continuous insistence of their house-elf, Winky, and his son's love for Quidditch, did Senior allow Junior to come to the finals.
Quinn didn't know if the events of the original books would occur today. He knew that Barty Junior was out of Azkaban because both Mrs. Crouch and Barty Junior were legally dead, which meant that the events of the original books were followed to some extent. However, he didn't know whether the Death Eaters would attack or if Barty Junior would be able to regain control of his body. There was a chance that things might go south, though. Because of that, Quinn was there.
'Let's see how many I can take down today,' thought Quinn. He sat down near one of the trees, still invisible, waiting for the Death Eaters to arrive.
.
- (Scene Break) -
.
The game was over, and people started to return to campsites from the stadium that had been set up by the Ministry. Raucous singing could be heard on the night air as he stepped back a bit into the woods, where the leprechauns' lantern's light couldn't reach as they kept shooting over his head, cackling and waving their lanterns.
'It's time,' thought Quinn, he turned himself visible again and started to remove his clothes. He removed all of his non-magical styled garments. Under them was stark white spandex that stuck close to Quinn's body. The spandex had white patches stuck all over: two on the chest (one on each pec), two on the abdomen, two on each arm (one above and below the elbow each), one on each of the back of his palms, four on each legs, one on each feet and, finally, three patches that covered his back.
Luckily, no one was there to see him, or Quinn would've died of sheer embarrassment. Fortunately, Quinn wouldn't be wearing only white spandex. He tapped his chest, and blue waves of energy traveled throughout the white fabric. After the wave traversed the entire material, the fabric changed.
The white transformed into multiple colors; green-brown, olive drab, dark chestnut, and fern green covered Quinn's body. The spandex that had been stuck to Quinn's body expanded and turned into cargo trousers and a hooded military-style jacket. All of this was over a black skin-tight full-sleeved shirt that covered his head, hiding all of his hair, and on the bottom below the cargo pants were black compression pants.
Quinn raised his hands and saw them covered in tactical gloves. If you looked down at his feet he had tactical boots, both in dark green camo that suited the night and the forest. Every inch of his body except his face's front was covered. And even his face was hidden beneath the shadow of the hood.
「Project Noir」
A project Quinn had launched in his second year, just a few days before Quinn had ventured into the Sin vault. The project had been put on hold by sin-Quinn, who didn't like the prospect of hiding himself. However, regular Quinn wanted his identity hidden whenever he desired, so he reinitiated the project. Furthermore, he had started researching and developing a rotation between his projects after the day he encountered in Hogsmeade the Novellus Accionites trying to kill first-gen magicals.
He had been lucky that day as no one identified him or shot a Revelio charm his way to disable his invisibility. But Quinn knew that luck was fickle. As such, he prepared a transformative set of tactile attire which Quinn would design to change according to his needs. The spandex and patches over the spandex held enough clothing to transform into practically anything Quinn wanted to wear: if Quinn wanted swimming trunks, the material would retract until he was wearing just trunks, or if he wished to don layers of winter clothing, the extra material inside the magically expanded patches would release the required material.
The version Quinn was wearing only held non-magical fabrics and didn't contain magic-resistant leathers because Quinn couldn't fit those materials into the designs. Those materials didn't interact with Quinn's magic and would malfunction. Sometimes, the fabric would eject out randomly. Quinn, personally, didn't like transformative clothing like that because they were unstable, and an ample enough magical interference would cause them to break down. Nonetheless, Quinn had managed to accomplish just enough resistance with charms so that this setup wouldn't malfunction.
However, for now, if for some reason Quinn's disillusionment was turned off, then his identity wouldn't be instantly revealed.