May the Power Protect …the Quaffle?
Disclaimer: I wish I owned them but I don't; I'm just borrowing them for the duration of the story.
Chapter Two: the Meeting of the Teams
Charlie Weasley took a deep cleansing breath. "Aaaah. Nothing like the refreshing smell of a town that's not afraid of magic." The others just cast him sidelong glances and chuckled. Taking the rest of their vacation time here in Briarwood, where magic was known to the populace, was sounding better and better to the young Brits, who were frankly tired of attempting to pass for Muggles.
"You just need to get out of Romania more, Charlie," Ginny teased. "Spending too much time in a country that still has witch-burning on the books has got to be bad for you."
"Oy, everybody," George waved an arm till all the Hogwarts alumni were looking his way. "Eats!" he announced, pointing to a patio café surrounded by an antiqued bronze railing. As if on cue, Ron's stomach grumbled, to everyone's amusement. So off the Heroes of Hogwarts ambled, to Kleo's Kafe. Hermione wasn't the only one who noticed the unusual cat painted on the sign swinging over the entrance in the fencing. They were greeted by a young blonde-haired woman with a tag that proclaimed her name was Leelee. Without a blink, she ushered their large group across the patio to a row of small rectangular tables that the four Weasley brothers immediately started pushing together until there was adequate seating for all eleven of them. 'Adequate' at that point included four tables meant for six people each normally, as the whole of their party strung itself along one side just as if they were sitting down to lunch back in the Great Hall, everybody good-naturedly leaving the extra space between Ron and George so the two would have extra fork-waving room amongst them.
After a leisurely lunch of what Luna later called delightful local fair, the young wizards and witches were just getting into the usual 'friendly discussion' over settling the bill, when Hermione's ginger cat Crookshanks made his presence known with a plaintive meow as he hopped up into her lap. "There you are, you fuzzy fellow," Hermione crooned as she ran one hand down the length of his back all the way to his bottle-brush tail-tip. He purred imperiously as if her ministrations were no more than his due, and even deigned to accept a sliver of corned-beef that had somehow escaped from Ron's Reuben sandwich from his Witch's boyfriend's hand. Even as Ginny was giggling over his imperious act, his thunder was stolen from under him; literally.
With a loud yowl of greeting, another bundle of fur introduced itself to the hem of Hermione's robes, tweaking just enough length from under Crookshanks that he flattened out, driving his nails painfully through her clothes and into her leg. Witch and familiar's hiss were eerie counterpoint.
"Now, really, Kleo," Leelee admonished as she appeared at the end of their tables. "That's no way to treat paying customers … " Her voice trailed of as she caught sight of the offended tom in Hermione's grip. "Ah, I should have known there was someone over here attracting her attention. Always chasing after the boys, aren't you, sweetie?"
"You mean there's another of those monsters in the world?" Ron gulped. He wasn't the only one to notice the similarities between the two felines, from the flattened face to the bottle-brush tuft at the end of their tails, the cats could have been twins, except for their colors. Where Crookshanks was as orange as any Weasley's hair, Kleo was a charcoal grey from nose to toes, with the characteristic Kneazle tiger-stripes running down her back.
The dusky short-haired cat slinked around to George's legs, her triumphant purr a loud rumble in the café's quiet corner. Crookshanks gave a short-tempered 'mrow' in response from the sanctuary of Hermione's lap. "Well, now we know who Kleo is," George stated, leaning a little to his right to present his hand for inspection to the curious cat. With barely a cursory sniff, Kleo ran her length along his outstretched fingers, even winding her tufted tail around his wrist as she turned to pass back the other way. "Right friendly little puss, aren't you?"
"As friendly as the people you'll likely meet in Briarwood. Let me guess," Leelee continued, while stacking up some of the dishes at that end of the tables. "English tourists, on vacation for the summer, and curious about all the rumors about 'Power Rangers' and 'Magic' in the news about here, righ …?" Her voice trailed off as she got around to where Harry and Ginny were sitting, hands intertwined between them. Harry looked around to find out what had stolen her attention, only to have Ginny's elbow bring his eyes back to the young blonde woman, who was frozen in shock with one plate dangling in her hand, staring intently at his forehead. He hurriedly mussed his hair so it covered his scar again, but the damage was done. "You … you're Harry Potter, aren't you?" At his reluctant nod and sheepish grin, Leelee whirled around, eyeing the others more closely. "Th … that means, the rest of you are, … are …"
"Blimey, Harry," George started, his smile threatening to split his face in half. "We can't take you anywhere, can we, mate?"
Leelee's shift ended a half-hour later, and she met the Heroes of Hogwarts at the entrance to the Rockporium, as she'd promised. "I know I said I wouldn't blab about you all being who you are to every Tim, Doug, and Sally, but there're some people here who've just GOT to know the truth," Leelee was saying as she led the group into the music store.
Across the Rockporium, Vida was jammin' away, her arms waving back and forth in an intricate dance of her own devising. Her sister Maddie was sitting in her customary stool, across the board in front of the stage, vidcam in hand and one foot tapping in time with Vida's newest remix. When her sister stopped weaving to the beat all of a sudden, an incredulous look on her face, Maddie paused the tape and wheeled around on her stool to see what was shocking enough to make Vida pause mid-track. A dozen people were filing into the store behind Leelee, their faces showing an even mix of bemused and apprehensive expressions. Four of the men had hair so red it had to be real, and their features were enough alike they were probably related to boot. A young woman at the back of the group had flaming orange hair that matched the four men, and her arm was locked so tightly with the bespectacled, raven-haired boy next to her Maddie wondered if he was still getting circulation in that limb. Watching the group spread out from the foyer, other couples became obvious; The oldest redheaded man, his face covered with faded scars, was solicitously handling a bewitching young woman with hair so white it seemed to glow under the new track lighting Toby had just installed in the store. A bushy-haired brunette woman was tugging on the sleeve of the tallest redhead, pointing out a solitary CD in the imports rack and laughing with him. Maddie's organized brain took a second to remember the name of the lone album in that bin, and for the life of her couldn't figure out why it should amuse these two so much, until their accents registered, and she remembered that the Weird Sisters, an all-male rock group with a VERY eclectic following, were from the British Isles, as were these newest patrons of the Rockporium. Grinning ruefully at her inadvertent use of her newly-heightened sense of hearing, she stepped off her stool and strode forward to see if she could help Leelee with this sudden British Invasion.
On sighting of the Rocca sisters, Leelee immediately swung into 'Hostess Mode', as the others had dubbed her customer service attitude lately. Swirling to a stop in front of the group even as Maddie walked over, she immediately started introducing the introverted young Water Ranger to the line of young men and women. "Madison! I'm glad you're here! You too, Vida! I want you two to meet some new friends of mine, straight from England!" She went on to introduce, by name, each of the Hogwarts alumni (she'd been rehearsing their names in a particular order in her head for most of the end of her shift,) starting with Angelina, then on though Bill and Fleur, Charlie, George, Ginny, Ron, (she'd figured on getting through the Weasleys all in one breath, and she even made it,) Hermione, Katie, Luna, and ending with Harry purposefully as she concluded, "Harry Potter, the Boy who Lived, now the Boy who Triumphed, I'd like to introduce two of my very first friends in Briarwood, Vida & Maddie Rocca, The Pink and Blue Mystic Power Rangers!"
Pandemonium ensued.
Author's Note: Sorry about the wait, folks, hopefully the next installment won't take nearly as long. Read and review, please.