The Fortress of Shadows 2
Chapter Two: The Plot Unravels
It took them some time to reach the Room of Requirement, but only because they had to revive Harry from the dead faint he had fallen into. After walking past three times and concentrating hard on what they really, really wanted, the door appeared and they went in.
“I didn’t order bondage gear,” said James after a moment. “I’m not in the mood today.”
“My bad,” said Sirius cheerfully, giving Hermione a look. “Mind was on other things.”
“Let’s try again,” insisted Harry. “Now, everyone concentrate. We need something to help us find Voldemort’s Horcruxes!”
“The only thing that’s saving you all from eternal damnation is my pure mind,” beamed Hermione, superiorly, as they prepared to focus and concentrate once more. This was greeted by many snorts as they all held hands and closed their eyes. Within seconds, there was a popping noise and the sound of a wooden door creaking open.
Being nefariously curious, both Harry and James snuck a look into the room, wands drawn, just in case.
“Oh, it’s you,” Harry sighed with a sense of relief as he clapped eyes on Ginny, Luna and Neville, all of whom looked somewhat bewildered, as if they’d appeared out of thin air.
Ron and Hermione barged into the room, closely followed by Lupin and Sirius, eager to see what was going on.
“Do you have a Horcrux?” Hermione enquired, a little half-heartedly.
Neville dug his hand into his pocket, a sheepish grin on his face, as he displayed a golden cup in his chubby palm.
“Oh, that’s wonderful!” gasped Harry rushing towards Neville and hugging him. “A Horcrux!” He kissed his surprised friend on both cheeks.
Hermione raised an eyebrow. “No,” she said dryly, “you’re not gay…”
“I’m NOT!” yelled Harry, leaping back.
“What’d you kiss my arse cheeks for then?” asked Neville.
“Um…” Harry looked at the floor. “Gee, is that the time?”
“I never said I didn’t like it,” said Neville quietly.
“Nothing’s changed at Hogwarts then,” said Sirius cheerfully. “Still as gay as any public school.”
“Pubic school?” asked Remus vaguely.
“You and your one-track mind,” said Sirius fondly, patting him on the head.
“So,” said James quickly, “plot development. What’re we going to do next?”
“Find more Horcruxes?” suggested Ron, who hadn’t said anything for a while.
“Destroy the one we’ve got here?” said Harry.
“Find young Voldemort now and kill him?” said Ginny.
“Can you imagine the time paradoxes that would come out of that?” snapped Hermione. “Haven’t you ever watched Back to the Future?”
“So, we have four choices,” said James in an organised (bossy, Harry thought) fashion. “One, we find more Horcrotches. Two, we destroy this one. Three, we kill this Voldemort fellow.”
“And four?” asked Hermione.
“We stay in here,” said Sirius with a lascivious grin, “and shag like bunnies.”
“Or,” contributed Ron, a sly look on his face. “We could put this cup to good use. Say, down the Hog’s Head?”
“Now that’s what I’m talking about!” declared Sirius, clapping Ron on the back, earning him a somewhat jealous glare from Lupin. “You’re all far too uptight. Especially you, Miss I-wouldn’tknow-beauty-products-if-they-bit-me-in-the-arse.” he indicated, pointing at Hermione, with one arm around Ron’s shoulders. “You never know, if you chill a little, you may even end up having some fun. This could be your lucky night.”
“Hmph,” sniffed Hermione, “we’ll see about that.” In her pocket, where no one could see, she fingered her vial of Felix Felicis. “Maybe I will…” she muttered.
“To the Hog’s Head it is!” James declared with a rakish grin. Ron and Sirius gave a cheer in response; Remus attempted to look vaguely responsible, but it didn’t last very long.
“We can’t go drinking!” Hermione protested; Sirius’ arm was still wrapped around her shoulders. Harry nudged her in the side. “Perhaps if we get them a little drunk then they won’t remember that we’ve been here.”
“As long as no one tries to get me drunk and then sleeps with me,” declared Hermione.
Harry raised an eyebrow. “You know, you’re going on about this an awful lot,” he said. “Obsessing much?”
“No!” said Hermione, a little too quickly.
Just then a lovely redhead walked past. Both Harry’s and James’s eyes bugged out and their hearts did a tango.
“Harry,” whispered Hermione urgently, “don’t do that.”
“Why not?” asked Harry, watching the redhead go by with more than a little interest. “D’you think if I asked her out…?”
“Harry,” said Hermione, “that’s your mother.”
“Who cares?” He waved a hand. “That’s it, baby, if you’ve got it, flaunt it, flaunt it!”
“Harry,” Hermione begged, brown eyes pleading with him. “Please don’t do this. Look what you’re doing to Ron!” She pointed and Harry followed her direction.
Ron had sunk to the floor, knees pulled up to his chest. He rocked back and forth as he covered his ears and murmured, “Make it stop. Please, make it stop. Oh, the images!”
“I’ve seen this before,” said Remus quietly. “It’s like his eyes have been turned into a cinema screen. It’s called the kinetographa curse.”
“Oh, help me!” cried Ron. “All I can see is Gone With the Wind. Giant Clark Gable is before my eyes … oh, Scarlett O’Hara’s breasts … agh, Clark Gable again…!”
“That’s pretty powerful Dark magic,” said James, “which means only one thing.”
“Voldemort?” asked Harry tentatively.
“No,” said Sirius, his eyes narrowing. “Snivellus.”
“Snape?! Where?!” declared Harry, whipping his wand out at double speed, bouncing on the spot like an eager beaver, his face all screwed up in what was supposed to be a cross between anger and intimidation. “I’ll have that no good, low life, murdering son of a…”
Seemingly from out of nowhere, Hermione set on Harry with a taser and watched pleased as he fell to the ground in a crumpled heap, twitching periodically.
“His doctors say it doesn’t do him any good, getting over-excited like that.” Looking up, as if to explain better, she added, “He’s got this whole hero complex thing. It gets annoying after a while.”
Remus and Sirius looked at James who held up his hands in innocent. “What? He doesn’t get it from me! I don’t have a hero complex – I was scared of the dark until I was twelve.” Sirius coughed.
“Okay, fifteen,” James corrected.
This time, Remus gave a polite cough. James scowled. “Fine. I’m still scared of the dark.”
“You know, you can get some great glow-in-the-dark…” started Ron, before Hermione shot him a glare that clearly told him to shut up.
“Anyway, one of you lot carry Harry. We’ve got work to do.” Sirius pouted, but Hermione remained firm, “And, no, we do not have time for a drink beforehand.”
“Wait, where are we going again?” asked Neville, who was feeling left out.
“The Hog’s Head,” said Sirius, grinning.
“Do we really need to?” asked Remus tentatively. “I have feeling we’re only heading there because you want a drink.”
“Are you trying to tell us what to do, Moony?” asked James. “Going to pull out your Prefect’s badge on us?”
“Watch it, Prongs,” warned Sirius. “Remus is my bitch, remember. I tell him what we’re going to be doing.”
Hermione reflected on how lucky they were that Harry was unconscious at that moment. She didn’t want to have to explain it all to him. Again. He really was slow on the uptake sometimes. Even the
time she had explained it with diagrams hadn’t gone in. One of these days she was going to set Fred and George on him and they could…
“Hermione?” said Ron. “You’re drooling.”
“What?” She wiped hurriedly at her chin with her sleeve. “Sorry.”
In a hurry to finally get somewhere in this meandering plot they all leapt through a plothole and landed just outside the Hog’s Head. The pub looked as dingy as it was (would be?) back in the future. Trying to look older than they were they all went in, sitting as inconspicuously as possible in a corner.
Harry had woken up by this point – though he was still a little groggy – and was gazing round the pub in a mildly unfocused manner.
“Hey, look over there,” he whispered, gesturing towards another corner. “S’Malfoy.”
“Draco?” asked Ginny. “But I left him in the Quidditch sheds … back in the future, I mean.” She flushed rather red.
“Who’s Draco?” asked James. “That’s Lucius Malfoy. He left Hogwarts a couple of years ago.”
“What’s he doing here?” asked Hermione.
“Maybe he’s waiting for someone,” said Sirius. He was eyeing Malfoy in a funny way: his tongue hanging out and eyes not blinking.
Sirius’s prediction turned out to be correct. Lucius turned as someone walked in the door.
It was a man in a long dark cloak, a hat pulled down over his eyes, a green lizard in his arms. He stroked its emerald scales delicately, rhythmically as he approached the group, his breathing heavy and ragged.
“I am sorry, am I interrupting something?”
“Interrupting something?” Sirius was using his best ‘I-am-of-age-really’ voice. “Of course not, we’re just here for a quiet drink. Why? Dja wana make something of it? Do ya? Do ya?” Under the table
he fingered his wand.
“Make something of it?” The voice was high and cold. Harry wondered if it was because of the lizard, something to do with the cold blood. “I doubt very much whether you would be any match for me dear boy.”
“Excuse me, but would you mind leaving us alone, we’re having a very important meeting here.” Hermione did her Hermione-bit.
“A very important meeting? What about? Who’s been muggered the most, or the best, you filthy mudblood?”
“Don’t you dare call her that!” Harry, James and Ron yelled in unison, all jumping to defend her honour (what a wasted effort, that went several books back). Harry twirled his wand a la Lockhart and aimed it at the intruder’s face.
“DENARIZARIUM!”
The wizard dropped his lizard, crying out in surprise as his nose began to grow at an obscene rate; he tried to cover it, yet it was already knocking against the table before it stopped growing. A few of
the pub’s patrons looked over in mild interest, but turned back to their pints as Hermione cast a Stunning Charm.
As he dropped to the floor, they all peered at the intruder, then looked at Lucius. “He’s not with me,” Lucius lied badly.
“Hmm. Let’s see who he is, shall we?” Hermione didn’t believe him for a second, getting up from her seat and tugging off the stranger’s hat.
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