For QLFC S6R7

Prompt: Use the film Charlie's Angels: Full Throttle (2003) as inspiration for your story.

Optional prompts: (location) Knockturn Alley, (word) watch, (dialogue) "Well, that did not go according to plan."

Ron watched as shadows flickered in the window of the dimly lit house. Laughter drifted languidly out in the breeze as the two figures in the window began to dance. He sorely wished he could be inside instead of hunched over in the bushes off to the side of the house, but here he was, keeping watch.

There was a static buzz from his waist belt. "How are things looking?" came Hermione's tinny voice. Ron groped for the walkie talkie and pressed the button on the side.

"Things are calm here," he said, eyes fixed firmly on the window still.

"Alright, good. Keep a lookout for anything unusual."

"Roger," he muttered, before closing the communication channel.

Ron set the walkie talkie aside and sighed, propping his head up on his knees. How did he end up here again?

...

One week prior

The speakerphone crackled and Ron looked up sharply from where he was playing mobile games on the couch. Harry and Hermione paused from whatever they were doing to listen in as well.

The voice came, as it usually did, with little preamble. "Hello Angels," it said.

"I still hate that name," Ron muttered under his breath.

Hermione shot him a dirty look and mimed zipping her lips shut. Ron rolled his eyes at her. It was a stupid name and they needed to know that. He was doing the world a favour.

"What is it Dumbledore?" Harry asked wearily, stepping in between the two of them before they could began squabbling again. It was the name of their boss, a supposed millionaire. They had never actually seen him in all their years working as private investigators under him. Ron thought it was all rather shady.

"I need you to mobilize right away. An important ring has been stolen, containing information on the whereabouts of all the protected witnesses in England."

"And they put it on a ring?" Ron said dubiously. "Seems unsafe, but okay."

Hermione kicked his shin and Ron clutched it, eyes watering in pain.

"Retrieve the ring, using whatever means necessary," Dumbledore continued after the short interruption. "There's already been a victim."

This was Hermione's realm of expertise. "Who was the victim?" she asked.

"I believe you know him," Dumbledore said. "His name is Neville Longbottom."

...

The three of them stared down at Neville's body in dismay.

"Oh, Neville," Hermione sighed.

"Poor guy," Ron said, wincing as he took in the injuries sustained on his body. It looked like he had taken his own life.

Harry knelt down and gently closed Neville's eyelids.

The four of them had been classmates at the boarding school they had attended. After graduation, the three of them had entered the police academy together, while Neville had gone on to become a florist. They hadn't seen him in ages.

But here he was now. Murdered in his own house.

Hermione snapped on her latex gloves and started running her hands over the body. "Nothing," she sighed. "No physical evidence at least. It looks like a suicide, but there's an injection here on his neck that says otherwise. I suspect he was poisoned or drugged, but we'll have to wait until the forensics get here to analyze the contents of his blood."

"So we're at a dead end," Harry sighed. "Okay. Let's disperse for now. Hermione, send the body to forensics and have them take a look. Ron, I want you to go to Knockturn Alley and see what kind of drugs and poisons are on the market and who bought them. I'll go talk to Dumbledore and see what else I can find out about Neville and the other victims."

"Got it!" Ron and Hermione chorused.

Ron fingered his keys and headed straight for his motorcycle. He hopped on, shouting a goodbye over his shoulder as he revved the engine and shot straight down the street, cutting smoothly ahead of a slower car. From there, it was a mere ten minutes to the highway, where he sped up and headed straight for London.

In London, he passed by Diagon Alley first, a fairly nice and reputable shopping area with lots of shoppers and families out and about. He wasn't interested in Diagon Alley though.

Ron kept going. When the crowd started thinning and the people on the streets started looking rather shifty, he knew he was in the right place. Ron took a sharp left into a dead-end alleyway and shut off the engine. He gestured for a grubby looking kid to come over and deposited a hundred pounds in his hands.

"That's half of it," Ron said. "If my bike's still here when I come back, I'll double it."

The kid, wide-eyed, nodded in understanding. Ron hopped off his bike and stared at the exit to the alleyway consideringly. His red hair and tall stature didn't exactly make him the best at reconnaissance, but he'd have to make do. He quickly exchanged his leather jacket for a big, bulky looking winter jacket and shoved a toque onto his head to try and disguise his hair as best he could. Then, he slouched over and slunk onto the streets.

The smell was what hit him first. Knockturn Alley had always stunk to high heaven, but all it's regular customers had long since gotten used to the stench. Dirty sewer water mixed with cigarette smoke made for a nasty combination. It definitely wasn't a place for good citizens to be hanging about.

He was here on a mission though.

The phone in his pocket vibrated suddenly. Ron thumbed through the text he had just received from Hermione.

Results are in. It's a new drug on the market.

There was another buzz. Causes severe hallucinations and suicidal actions. It's probably some sort of amphetamine. Extremely potent, even in small doses. It's been nicknamed the Deathly Hallows.

Thanks, he texted back. Slipping the phone back into his pocket, he pushed open a non-descript looking apothecary store. On the surface, the place sold herbal products and natural medicines, but it was the illegal backdoor business where they really made their money. The old man manning the counter took one look at him and squinted suspiciously.

"What do you want?" he snapped.

"A buddy of mine came in here the other day," Ron began, a friendly looking smile settling over his face. "He bought something… potent. It's called the Deathly Hallows."

The man didn't react. He was frozen, following Ron's actions with his eyes only.

"Who bought the drug?" Ron demanded.

The old man moved then, so quickly Ron barely moved in time. He lunged at Ron with a knife in his hands. But he wasn't interested in fighting. He raced to the front door and booked it out of the room.

Ron's smile faltered and fell. "Well, that did not go accordingly to plan."

He was just beginning to wonder if it was worth going after him or if it'd be more worthwhile to search the place when there came a shattering noise from behind the counter. Ron's brow furrowed and he peered over the tabletop. A mousey looking man shrieked when he saw him looking directly at him and scrambled backwards in the mess of vials that had fallen to the ground.

"I-It was Amycus Carrow," he stammered. "He b-bought those ingredients."

Well. That was easy. "Brilliant!" Ron said.

Amycus Carrow, he texted Harry. A few minutes later, he received an address.

Success.

Ron strode out of the store and back to where his motorcycle was waiting for him still. Nodding his thanks to the boy who had looked after his bike, he hopped on and raced off to join the rest of his teammates.

…

Amycus Carrow was dead.

Harry crouched down to take in the injuries better, although there was really no need. The large blood stain on his chest was obvious to even a passing observers.

"His heart is missing," he said. The implication was clear in his voice. There was only one person who would do something like that.

"Tom Riddle," Ron said, wincing. "Ugh."

"You can say that again," Hermione muttered in disgust.

Tom Riddle had shot into notoriety when a string of grotesque murders had come to light. Babies were being murdered and their bodies discarded all over London. He had apparently been eating baby hearts out of some bizarre belief that it would grant him immortality.

The public named him Voldemort. Flight of death. And that name had become so entrenched in fear that they stopped referring to him by the nickname as well, choosing You-Know-Who as a better alternative.

Voldemort had been finally been taken into custody when Lily and James Potter, two new parents, had volunteered to aid the police with a decoy ploy. It had worked—Voldemort had fallen for it and broken into their house. The police hadn't arrived in time to save them, but they had managed to save the baby in time.

Voldemort was arrested and supposedly locked away in a high surveillance prison. His followers, who had been assisting him in his baby-killing spree, had been tracked down and locked away as well. But apparently they had escaped, if this was any indication.

"But why would he kill one of his cronies?" Ron asked out loud, chewing thoughtfully on his bottom lip. "It just doesn't make sense."

Harry sighed. "I don't know. Maybe he made a mistake. He probably let something slip to the wrong person and got killed for it."

Hermione shook her head and snapped on a fresh pair of gloves and started running her hands over his body and clothing, looking for anything to indict Tom Riddle on. There was nothing, of course. Tom was far too meticulous for that. But—

"Hey," Hermione said, surprise evident in her voice. "There's something here."

She took out a couple sheets of paper from Amycus' pocket. Ron and Harry hovered over her shoulder as she skimmed through it quickly.

"Andromeda… Neville… these are all the protected witnesses that were murdered," she said, before her finger stilled on the paper. "And Harry Potter is next. It's the only name that hasn't been crossed out."

"Oh dear," Harry said.

"That's the kid of the parents who were murdered right?" Ron said thoughtfully. "We have to find him."

"Um," Harry said. "Wait—"

"He'd be around our age, right?" Hermione asked. She stood up, tucking the slip of paper into her pocket. "If only we had that ring! We'd be able to look up his whereabouts right away."

"Guys," Harry said. "You don't have to look for him. I'm right here."

Ron and Hermione turned to look at him.

"Don't be silly," Hermione said. "Your name is Harry Williams, not Harry Potter. You were born in Northumberland."

"Yes, because I'm a protected witness," Harry explained. "They gave me and Sirius new identities and we moved away from London."

Hermione's jaw moved silently as she processed the information. Ron had trouble wrapping his head around the fact that his best friend wasn't even remotely who he thought he was.

"So your dad isn't actually your dad," Ron confirmed.

"Yeah, Sirius isn't my biological dad," Harry said.

Hermione groaned and rubbed her face with her hands. "You need to tell us these things beforehand!"

Harry shrugged and peered at them apologetically. "I wish I could've. I don't think I'm allowed to though."

While Hermione grilled Harry for details, Ron blinked. An idea had just occurred to him.

"If you're on the list, then doesn't that mean he'll target you next?" Ron asked. "He has the ring now. He knows where you live, but he probably doesn't know what it is you actually do. We could create a trap."

Hermione paused and the three of them looked at each other consideringly.

"Okay," Harry finally said, "Here's the plan."

…

And that was how Ron found himself in his current predicament.

A car braked harshly nearby. Ron tensed and immediately snapped back to attention. Through the leaves, he could see the dim headlights of a car pulling into the driveway.

Ron pulled the walkie talkie close. "Target just pulled into the driveway," he said.

"Roger," Hermione replied shortly.

The car doors opened and slammed shut, and the fact that they weren't even trying to be stealthy made Ron nervous. What did they have? What were they hiding?

Tom approached the front door and tried the front door. It was locked, of course. He tilted his head at it before casually pulling out a gun and shooting the doorknob off. The figures in the window stopped moving.

Ron rose to a crouch, intent on following him. He would circle in from behind Voldemort while Hermione was waiting from upstairs. Harry was in the living room. They'd surround him and capture him then.

Cold metal pressed against his head. "Don't move," a low voice hissed.

Ron froze.

His shoulders pulled back as his wrist were bound together with a piece of rope. He craned his head back to see who his captor was and his eyes narrowed.

"Alecto," he said, his wrists twisting against the rope.

She smiled at him, but her eyes red with grief. "Don't think I don't what you did to my baby brother. I'll make sure you pay for every minute that he suffered!"

"That wasn't us," Ron said as she shoved him out of the bushes and forced him through the front door of the house.

"Enough!" she snarled. "I don't need to hear your lies."

Ron stumbled into the living room and made eye contact with Harry. Tom Riddle had him in a headlock, with a small gun cocked right at his forehead. On the other side of the room was Hermione, who was being contained by Bellatrix.

"This was everyone we found around the perimeter," Alecto reported.

"Well, well, well," Tom said. "Police protection, Harry? Just like old times. It was right in this house too where I killed your parents, did you know?"

Ron stared at him fully, trying not to gag at the sight of him. The last he'd seen of him had been in the newspapers. Back then, he had been fairly handsome, with curly brown hair, high aristocratic cheekbones, and a charming smile. It was what got him a following in the first place, along with his crazy ideas. Now though, his hair had all fallen out and his skin had a greyish-blue pallor. His eyes had sunken in and his cheeks were hollow.

He looked like death itself. Ron supposed a diet of internal organs wasn't cutting it for him.

Tom's gaze turned back to Harry, dismissing Ron and Hermione altogether. "Back then, your parents prevented me from achieving immortality. They must've known… they must've known something I didn't."

He tightened his grip on Harry, his eyes far away, manic and feverish. "It was you all along. That's why I had never been able to become immortal. You're the key to immortality."

"He's gone completely bonkers," Hermione whispered to Ron, horrified. "He's somehow become convinced that the one baby he couldn't kill was the key to immortality."

"We have to stop him," Ron whispered back. He kicked back and struck at Alecto's knees, hearing her kneecaps break with a loud snap. At the same time, the ropes binding his wrist fell away. He had slowly been sawing through with a small knife up his sleeve.

Ron swivelled and shot Alecto in the thighs so she wouldn't be able to get up, and then kicked her weapon away from her. She shrieked in pain, but Ron was unable to muster any sympathy for her.

From his peripheral vision he saw Hermione break free from her captor as well and disarm her. Bellatrix snarled and reached for Hermione, her fingers clawed and angry, but Hermione was too quick for her. She elbowed her in the ribs and shot her legs as well.

Tom hadn't moved an inch in the entire debacle. In fact, he didn't seem to be aware of it at all. His finger twitched on the trigger. Ron's heart stopped in his chest.

"Duck!" a voice screamed. Ron's head snapped to the armchair, where Ginny had been hiding up until now. She smashed a book aaginst Tom's face and his head snapped to the side.

Tom crumpled where he was standing and the gun clattered to the floor. Ginny stood in the middle of the living room, panting from the adrenaline.

Two seconds later, the police burst into the room. "Police!" they yelled. "Put your hands up! We have a warrant!"

Ron rolled his eyes. As always, the police were two steps behind them.

They stepped back and allowed the police officers to arrest and contain all the perpetrators. Alecto, Bellatrix, and Tom were strapped to a gurney and carted out of the room. Ginny had rushed over to Harry's side to check for any injuries.

Ron and Hermione stood together on the far side of the room, watching over everything.

"Well, I'm glad that's over with," Hermione sighed. She waved off a nervous paramedic, who had been approaching them with medical gear.

"No, it's not over," Ron said, grimacing. He met eyes with Ginny over the top of Harry's head as she smiled at him smugly. "I am never living this down."