Chapter 4 aka chapter 78

"Sirius Black, you're under arrest!" Bones shouted over the noise of the celebration, her wand aimed steadily at Sirius.

Squeak Mordy responded, casting Grease via his magic necklace.

Bones' suddenly frictionless wand fell to the ground, as Milo said "I don't think I'm going to let you arrest him until you at least hear us out."

"Speak your pitch then." Bones ground out angrily.

Milo retrieved 2 vials from his Belt of Hidden Pouches. One was empty and one was full of Veritaserum.

Holding them up for Bones to see, he said "This is Veritaserum" and transferred a few drops to the empty vial, putting the full one away.

"I'm going to ask my friend Sirius Black to voluntarily take some and answer a few questions, proving his innocence. You can take the rest of the vial and test it to make sure it really is Veritaserum."

He was interrupted by a gasp from Tonks as a bloody Fiona came around the corner.

She had fallen and hit her head when Carrow had enspelled her, and the wound bled freely.

"That's Fiona," Sirius hastened to volunteer.

"She's a squib." he added, knowing how much she hated getting her memory erased.

Fiona didn't know what a "squib" was, but she knew she could trust Sirius, so she held her tongue.

She hobbled in silence over to Sirius's side.

Milo made it to Sirius about the same time and offered the Veritaserum.

Sirius took a dose and volunteered. "I am Sirius Black. I was wrongly imprisoned in Azkaban for crimes I did not commit. I have since then been blamed for other crimes I did not commit. What more did you want to hear from me?"

Bones, thinking to cut through any possible obfuscation, asked "Have you committed any crimes? And, if so, what?"

Sirius grinned, "Escaping from prison and avoiding recapture are the whole list, and you could argue that they don't count because I never should have been in prison in the first place."

"So you didn't kill Peter Pettigrew?"

"No I didn't, but I have fond thoughts about the idea. Peter is a rat animagus and is alive and well, currently masquerading as the pet rat of Ron Weasley. If he hadn't hidden himself like that, I wouldn't have gone to prison. I'd like him arrested, please."

"Well," Bones said, "This makes a big difference...Assuming this stuff really is Veritaserum."

"Thanks pretty lady." Sirius responded.

Bones wasn't sure how to respond to that, so she ignored it.

Milo hurried over to Bones with the vial.

Before handing it to her, he also took a dose and volunteered "I've been blamed for the basilisk incident at Hogwarts last year, but my only involvement there was to try to find out what was happening and to oppose it. Although technically part of me - my body - was a bit more involved, since Voldemort took it over and controlled it occasionally without my knowledge. He bragged about that later just before he killed me."

"He killed you?" Bones smiled.

"I got better." Milo responded.

Bones snorted "Clearly, whatever that is, it isn't Veritaserum. I'll prove it." She took the vial and gave herself a dose. "My name is... Amelia Bones. Huh, I can't say the silly name I intended to say. I guess it IS really Veritaserum. That means I have a lot of clean up to do."

She turned to Sirius "I'd appreciate it if you'd come give a full testimony and written statement, but I can't arrest you and make you do it."

"I'd like to get to know you better too," Sirius grinned. But first I need to drop off Fiona at the hospital. Want to come with?"

Bones nodded.

But then Aurors started popping in to take care of the crime scene.

They all had questions for Bones.

"I'll join you at Saint Mungoes in 2 minutes" she promised Sirius.

He nodded, and Apparated out with Fiona.

At the Saint Mungoes reception desk, Sirius said "I'm under Veritaserum which I took to testify to Amelia Bones. You can ask her about that in 2 minutes when she arrives. I told her Fiona here is a squib. Fiona needs treatment."

He turned to Fiona "I know you're not familiar with the procedures here at Saint Mungoes, but just cooperate with them and the helpful people here will work on getting you healed. Trust me to handle anything beyond that."

"Ok, but check in with me soon. I have a bunch of questions for you." she responded, as an orderly led her away.

Hospital staff kept him busy with questions while they waited for Amelia Bones to come and confirm what he'd said. They knew he was a wanted man, and while they didn't come out and say he wasn't free to leave, that was clear anyway.

True to her word, Bones popped in after about 2 minutes.

They wasted no time in asking "Is what this man says true?"

"Yes, everything he's just told you is true. He is under Veritaserum which I watched him take and then personally verified."

-0-0-0-

It was late as Milo and Hannah flew back to Hogwarts.

It had taken forever for the Aurors to ask all their questions, sort out the crime scene, and let them go.

During that time he had conversed with Remus and Tonks, and been surprised to discover that Remus was out of work and had no place to stay.

Since he was Sirius' best friend and expressed disappointment at missing a chance to converse with him, Milo had offered to let him stay in Bolt Hole #3, where Sirius had been staying.

Milo still had no idea where Tonks' house was, since Remus had accepted and Apparated them all away.

That worked well, since flying home from Bolt Hole #3 was almost certainly faster than flying home from wherever Tonks' house was.

It was too late at night for them to stop by the Forbidden Forest and hunt Acromantulas. That disappointed Milo, but not too much, since he was low on spells, and that fight at Tonks' house had given him a ton of XP.

He decided that he could be satisfied with that, for today.

So he clung a little more tightly to Hannah and enjoyed the ride home.

-0-0-0-

First thing in the morning, Milo sent an owl off to Cog, his Dedicated Wright. It carried Cog's next project to him and would carry Cog's recently completed project back.

Milo looked forward to receiving that.

Milo was enjoying a delicious breakfast of waffles smothered in syrup when Draco's cold angry voice behind him announced

"Speak and you're dead. Turn around slowly so I can see your face as I make you beg for mercy."

Squeak

Draco's wand, covered in the Grease Mordy had summoned, hit the floor.

Milo turned just enough to cast

Baleful Polymorph

then went back to eating his breakfast, while completely ignoring the snail Draco had become.

Soon, the Draco snail had a nice maze to deal with, as Fred and George amused themselves by pouring lines of salt in a complicated and growing pattern.

Milo was halfway to his first class when the school's post owl returned with Cog's finished project.

It was Milo's light crossbow, now enhanced with 3 spells: Guided Shot, True Strike, and Ghostly Reload, all set up with a lovely little rules exploit Milo had found.

"Use Activated" magic items turned on their own magic without taking any of their user's time to do so. The classic example is a flaming sword - it lights up when you pick it up. If it stayed flaming all the time, you couldn't sheathe it without burning the sheath and yourself.

So the crossbow was now a Use Activated magic item.

When you picked it up, that activated the Ghostly Reload, so it would load itself and not need Milo to spend a Move Action to do so.

And when you pulled the trigger, it would cast both True Strike and Guided Shot, guaranteeing you'd hit 95% of the time even if your target was in cover.

Spells were great for taking down enemies. But there were times they wouldn't work. For those times, you needed something like this - a nice normal crossbow... aided by magic of course.

It was also good to have something to fall back on if you ran out of spells - something that was less likely, but still possible, with the Reserve Feat Milo had taken.

Attached to the crossbow was a note from the Weasleys, in whose yard Cog had been staying.

It said, "Please move the mountain of cuckoo clocks your golem has been making. The pile is so big it's in the way."

Milo had an, "oh yah, I forgot about that," moment of embarrassment.

Cog had been working for most of a year on the last things he'd been assigned to make.

He'd have made 30 Amulets of Protection from Evil, and then stopped, since Milo had only pre-paid the xp costs for 30 before he'd been killed in the Chamber of Secrets.

But Cog only spent 8 hours a day making magic items, and 16 hours per day making masterwork non-magical items. Non-magic items did not take xp to make, and Milo had had a standing order in place with a local supplier for materials.

So Cog had had no reason to stop making non-magic items.

Hannah had wanted a cuckoo clock, and had shown Milo a page from a catalog showing the clock she wanted, among other things.

They'd found diagrams for the workings of such a clock, and left those and the catalog page with Cog, instructing him to "make this".

And apparently he'd made a huge pile of clocks.

Milo thought for a second, then sent off a note to Remus Lupin, via the owl, asking if he wanted a job selling clocks.

He didn't know if it would work out, but it was worth a try.

Shortly thereafter, Milo settled down in his first class and took out some books. They didn't have anything to do with the class. They were just random books from the school's library. But three or more books from a magical library counted for doing spell research. He need not consult them - just think about the spell he was 'researching' while 'in a magical library'. That way the time he spent in class counted as time researching his next spell.

It wasn't like he needed to pay much attention in class anyway, since the local spells were not usable by him whether he got the wand movements and words right or not.

It was Monday and his classes were over by early afternoon. He happily spent all of them in 'spell research'.

Then he and Mordenkainen 'geared up' for battle, and went for a walk.

He could have summoned a Phantom Steed and ridden instead of walking, but he wanted all his spells available in the event of a fight.

And he wanted his Teleport spell available in the event the fight went badly and he had to disengage.

He'd resolved to take the fight to the enemy, rather that let them continue to operate against him while he's distracted by other things.

And it was clear that the plot had set up the Death Eaters, headed by Lucius Malfoy and now Bellatrix LeStrange as well, as the main opponents. With Voldemort as the big bad end guy.

Milo knew exactly one place where he could find them - Malfoy Manor, the site of two previous fights with them.

So he was headed there.

He realized they would not likely all be congregated there again whenever he happened to show up.

But that would be fine.

He would take on whomever did happen to be there, and thus chip away at their strength.

He mused that it would probably be Bellatrix, since she was wanted by law enforcement and thus had to hide out. The others presumably had places to be and things to do during the day.

That was why Milo was going in the middle of the day - Bellatrix was the biggest threat, and as such, best assaulted when others were least likely to be there to support her.

As he walked, he had his and Mordy's Unseen Servants carrying his 'magical library', and he thought about Ray Deflection, so it counted as spell research time.

But after passing the village of Hogsmeade and just before Malfoy Manor came into view, it was time to get serious.

He had the Unseen Servants put away the books.

Then he cast Invisibility on himself and started running. He ran the last little way so that he would have as much of Invisibility's duration left as possible once he got there.

He ran right up to the front door and tried the knob.

Sure enough, it was as he'd supposed for people with powerful magic at their disposal, plus killer minions, bribed government officials and protective wards. Those people tended not to bother with locking their doors. They trusted in those other things instead.

Malfoy probably thought nobody dared burgle someone as powerful as Lucius was. And even if they were so inclined, the protective wards would keep them out.

That was part of why Milo had walked - these people Apparated, or flew on broomsticks, or used the Floo network, or used Port Keys to get around. They didn't even consider walking.

That was a blindspot to them, and so less likely to be warded.

But that was just in case.

Milo had also noticed that, just as the local magic didn't work for him, the local wards didn't always work on him. They apparently were looking for targets such as he was not - probably the presence of the local magic, he supposed.

In any case, he was able to simply turn the knob and walk right in.

It was a large manor, and he explored very cautiously, since it would be a big advantage to surprise Bellatrix, if he could.

He knew his way around, to some degree, from his previous visits here, which helped speed the search.

He was looking for Bellatrix, not loot, so he ignored all the valuables, for now.

When they neared the dining room - the same large room he'd entered when he'd first been brought to this universe - Mordy stopped him.

"Boss, Bellatrix is in that room. I can smell her," the rat whispered in Milo's ear.

Milo retreated down the hall. He quietly closed himself in a small bedroom, then packed bedding around the door to muffle any sound.

He took several weapons out of his Belt of Hidden Pouches, then cast several spells as quietly as he could.

His Invisibility spell wore off while he was casting other spells.

When ready, he hurried back down the hall and kicked in the dining room door.

Or rather, the Dire Ape he'd summoned kicked in the door for him.

After it, hurried a Skeletal Troll, and a Celestial Bison, with a Rat Swarm just behind them.

Bellatrix, canny old warrior that she was, reacted instantly.

In Milo's terminology, she won initiative.

With amazing rapidity, 2 killing curses and a Reducto took down the Dire Ape, Celestial Bison and Skeletal Troll respectively.

Then, by the time Milo could respond, he too was hit by a killing curse, along with three of the five duplicates provided by Mirror Image, and the 2 scarecrows dressed like him and standing in the doorway with him.

Or, Milo would have been hit if Greater Blink hadn't saved him.

As soon as he could act, Milo and Mordy phased in and launched every attack they could as fast as they could.

They knew Bellatrix had experience, from when she was in their universe, with fighting against their style of magic. She'd never lost because she could act faster, and 'out of turn', and knew and took advantage of that fact.

So Milo had prepared to 'swamp her defenses'. She could take on a few targets in rapid succession, so Milo provided many targets - each enough of a threat to demand to be dealt with.

He hadn't expected the Dire Ape, Celestial Bison etc to get through. But if they had, they were very capable of dishing out significant damage to Bellatrix.

So it was with the other threats, all of which came as simultaneously as Milo could manage.

Knives flew at Bellatrix from the clouds around Milo and Mordy.

They got blasted out of the air by Reducto spells.

Both scarecrows took out swords and advanced on Bellatrix.

They met the same response, Bellatrix having observed that killing curses didn't stop them.

They could not have actually attacked - the Unseen Servants were just 'carrying this to that person, point first'. But Bellatrix could not know that.

A five foot diameter sphere of flame rolled toward Bellatrix and touched her.

But she had first cast Freezing Flame.

The swarm of rats surged forward and occupied Bellatrix's space.

But she'd had time to summon a flying broom and mount it.

She hovered above the floor, out of reach of the seething mass of rats.

Mordy launched an explosive knut at her.

She detonated it prematurely, harmlessly wasting it's explosion in flight midway between both sides.

Telekinesis!

There were 10 long swords which the Skeletal Troll had dropped at the door as the assault began.

Milo telekinetically lifted them, and flung them hard at Bellatrix.

She managed to shoot almost half of them down.

But that wasn't enough.

She fell dead, impaled by half a dozen long swords.

Milo let out an explosive sigh of relief.

Then for the next 30 seconds he sent one Storm Bolt after another into her corpse, accompanied by daggers from the clouds of knives, just to be sure.

There was no way he was going to fall for the classic 'play dead' trick.

No wounded person was going to stab *him* after tricking him into dropping his guard.

No way.

Big boss bad guys always had tricks like that.

He fired off another couple Storm Bolts.

After all those Storm Bolts, the corpse was basically a cinder.

Milo prodded it with his quarterstaff until it broke it into a powder.

"Ok," he sighed, "Now I believe she's really dead. So. It's time to collect the loot. And she sure looks like she has a lot."

Normal, non-magical clothes had been destroyed by all the miniature lightning bolts.

But a surprising amount of material had not.

Most noticeable was the belt Bellatrix had been wearing.

It was huge, ornate, covered in gems, gold, and other precious metals.

It was a Belt of Magnificence - a major magic item from Milo's own universe.

Milo knew she had been accumulating Philosopher's Stones there as part of the efforts of Voldemort's followers to bring him back.

Apparently that was not all she had collected.

Two documents lay on the table where Bellatrix had been sitting, next to a sack that Milo now recognized as a Bag of Holding.

That magical bag was open, and the vast amount of material it held was apparently in the act of being sorted into one of two piles on the table.

Milo picked up the first document. It contained descriptions of various magic items from Milo's world. It was apparently written for Bellatrix by a minion, since among the summaries of uses, capabilities, and drawbacks, there was quite a lot of wording that Milo would describe as "boot-licking".

The second document was a simple list.

Bellatrix had been going down the list and noting, next to each item, one of two things: "this works" or "this is junk."

It was a long list and she hadn't yet tested most of the things on it.

"This works" was noted next to the magic items he found she had actually been wearing: the Belt of Magnificence +6, Robe of Eyes, Robe of Scintillating Colors, which she'd worn as a cloak, and a Ring of Regeneration.

In Milo's universe, magic items were always masterwork, and made of the finest materials.

But that didn't mean the styles matched.

For instance, the Robe of Scintillating Colors looked like it belonged to a carnival barker - as 'loud' as it could be with bold and dramatic colors on every inch of it.

But the Robe of Eyes had gone for a dignified look - simple black silk highlighted tastefully with silver and pearls.

And they both clashed with the "over the top" dedication to "bling" that was the Belt of Magnificence. It looked like a very rich king with no taste whatsoever had been trying to prove how wealthy he was, by wearing as much of it as he could.

And so on.

It could have been worse. In the bag were several items Bellatrix had not yet tested, but would have probably been wearing if she had, and which found new ways to clash.

For instance, there was a Helm of Brilliance - an over the top silvered crown with 100 spikes each topped with a gem and all of it magically lit up.

And there was a Staff of Power made in an Aztec style - it looked like one large snake with other snakes coiling around it, all of which had multicolored feathered wings. The whole of it was then decorated with sprays of extra feathers. It was all done in bright colors with plenty of rubies and emeralds as decorations.

Next to that was a pair of Anklets of Translocation, which seemed to have been made for a young girl. They were made all of rare furs, and were sickeningly cute, with multiple types of fur used to make patterns showing small furry animals frolicking.

Then there was a Strand of Prayer Beads, apparently made by the worshippers of a deity of death or destruction. The beads were miniature skulls carved from green and white jade, and in the eye sockets were little magical green fires.

Milo was completely unconscious of clashing styles. He saw only the bonuses the items gave, and those were significant.

He started donning the goodies, beginning with the Belt of Magnificence, and snorted as he saw what was in the "junk" pile.

It contained a fortune of excellent magic items, varying from just very valuable to absurdly valuable, which would not have worked for Bellatrix given her different style of magic.

There were Rings of Wizardry, Spellbooks, a full set of every kind of Pearl of Power from level one through nine, a full set of Metamagic Rods, a Staff of Life, and much more.

Milo could have spent hours going through the loot, but he was rudely interrupted by an attack.

With no warning, four killing curses hit the scarecrow Milo had by the east doorway.

When he'd seen that there was loot, he'd realized he would be distracted. So he had sent one Unseen Servant, each with a fresh scarecrow from his Belt of Hidden Pouches, to each doorway and told them to shuffle around like a bored guard.

He didn't want to leave himself open to surprises.

He was too experienced an adventurer for that.

He was glad he'd been careful. His Mirror Images and Greater Blink had long since run out their durations.

He could have been killed by just one hit.

The scarecrow had not been killed as his opponents probably expected, so it was no surprise when they tried other spells. The scarecrow was quickly torn apart.

Milo picked up a Metamagic Rod of Chain Spell from the pile of loot, then murmered,

Invisibility.

He'd cast enough spells already that he had to use a Pearl of Power to cast Invisibility. But he had one so why not? Heck, now he had several.

In any case, the bad guys could not target what they could not see, so it was worth doing.

The Unseen Servants had time to carry the remaining scarecrow to a better position, and to pick up a sword and carry it point first towards the door the Death Eaters would come in.

The Death Eaters's secret to success was sudden overwhelming firepower. They typically attacked in numbers and did not hesitate to use maximum violence.

True to form, all four rushed in together blasting every possible threat as they went.

Milo and Mordy were invisible, and not near any likely target. So they were spared.

But the scarecrow and the sword that appeared to be animated and heading towards the bad guys both got thoroughly blasted.

Milo was glad he hadn't gone with the idea of trying a Translocation Trick with just the right timing.

While his four opponents were still together, Milo acted.

Figuring that they could not likely locate him just from sound, he indulged a whim and shouted "Eat hot flaming Death!", before casting

Chain Kelgore's Fire Bolt

Chain Spell made copies of a single-target spell. Up to one copy per level. Each hit a different target. So all the Death Eaters were hit.

But only three of them burned to death.

The fourth had had the presence of mind to think about what was being said, and quickly apply the fire-immunity charm to himself.

He turned and saw the now-visible Milo and quickly raised his wand to kill him.

Squeak!

Mordenkainen the rat had seen the danger and readied an action to Grease the Death Eater's wand. It fell out of the bad-guy's hand, and the bad guy scrambled to pick it up.

But it remained Greased and frictionless for 6 seconds, which was long enough for Milo to act again.

Storm Bolt

The electrified bad guy fell over dead, and Milo breathed a sigh of relief.

While having the Unseen Servants put all the loot he wasn't already wearing back into the Bag of Holding, Milo said, "Thanks Mordy. If you hadn't disarmed him, I could be dead right now - just because I couldn't resist the opportunity to taunt them. Not that taunting them gives me any bonuses or anything. It was stupid. All it did was give them some warning they shouldn't have had."

"Hey boss, don't worry - we're a team. I've got your back."

"True, but still - thanks." Milo responded.

"In my defense, I've been wanting to do that particular taunt ever since I learned that these idiots call themselves 'Death Eaters'. I can't count how often I've heard someone yell something like 'eat this' as they delivered a powerful attack of some type. I mean, do they just not have that phrase in this universe, or did they actually mean to call themselves 'targets'?"

He snorted "So unless we run across a powerful secret terrorist death cult that calls themselves 'dirt nappers' or 'corpse candidates' or 'pop-up targets' or 'disposable mooks;, I think I will be able to resist that particular mistake again."

The Unseen Servants had been going through the pockets of the fallen enemies, gathering loot while Milo talked.

But at the sound of multiple not-quite-stealthy footfalls in the hallway, Milo had them return, grabbing Bellatrix's bones on the way.

Then he Teleported home.

He'd used up many of his spells, and all of his defensive spells. So any new fight carried unnecessary risk.

Furthermore, he'd reached 11th level, and needed some time to make the choices that went with that.

The 6th level of Rainbow Servant was a nice one. It gave him an extra point in each of the 3 types of saves, as well as an extra point of attack bonus, though no special abilities or feats.

He also gained the ability to cast 6th level spells.

This was a big deal. There were some powerful spells at that level, making it difficult to choose just two.

If there were a list of 6th level spells that nobody in their right mind would be without, it would contain at least ten entries.

But that was both good and bad.

Bad, because he could only choose two.

Good, because the spellbooks among the loot from Bellatrix almost certainly contained most or all of the list.

It wasn't easy to prepare a spell from a spellbook that was not yours.

But he'd done it often enough with Thamior's spellbook that it was second nature now.

So before choosing, Milo needed to check over the new spellbooks.

He spread the books out on the table of the unused room at Hogwarts he was currently using as a bedroom, and looked them over.

A few minutes' examination showed that, apart from other books like magical research texts, he had five new spellbooks.

One came from a school of magic and contained every low-level spell he'd ever heard of, and several he hadn't.

One came from a library, and had all the commonly known spells at every level.

And the last three had apparently been commissioned by Bellatrix, one each from 3 different wizards, to fill in any gaps the first two had.

Those 5 books by themselves were enough treasure to make him giddy.

They also made it easy to choose his two new spells - since all the important ones were there, he chose spells he expected to cast often. That would save a little on spell preparation time.

So for his two new spells, he chose Freezing Glance and Prismatic Eye. Each were in the category of "cast it once, use it all battle" like Cloud of Knives. And each effectively gave him another action each turn, as their respective gaze attacks were Free Actions, meaning you could do them for free.

Milo was just settling down to some serious reading when an owl arrived with a message.

It said,

Milo - great idea. Thanks. I accept. Let's meet in Hogsmeade this afternoon to discuss it. Send the bird back with a reply. I will come get you if agreeable.

Remus Lupin.

P.S. Sirius wants in too