The Mischief Managers

Chapter 9: The French Mafia

It took over ten days but the Immunity Potion worked, it was finished and it worked! Such a potion would make the news had it not needed to be kept in secrecy like so many other ingenious creations that only the boys knew of. From then on they spent most of their free time in the dummy room, hauling high level fire magic at each other without scorching a hair by day, and fighting criminals by night.

Now they were proper superheroes again in a world that so cried for justice everyday. Everyday the news spoke of their great deeds, speculated about their identities and asked when and where they'd be sighted next.

The boys were in the dummy room again. It was some time after lunch and they had some twenty minutes to spare. It was more important than ever to stay in magical offence form, in spite of their immunity potion and gadgets.

"Remember that article from this morning" said James and scorched through a row of dummies so they reeked from their holes. "'Several muggles cooked to death in giant ratatouille. Aurors suspect cannibalistic chefs.'"

"There is no meat in ratatouille" said Sirius, determined to set an even longer trail of dummies ablaze with a string of White Dwarfs just to show off. James scorched yet another row in half.. Wendigos and Death Eaters were never so many, still and standing in neat lines like this, that was the only problem.

"They left a message signed by the French Mafia, Tojours Fromage. The aurors think they might be able to verify that it was a ratatouille, so I guess we'll see"

All the dummies had been scorched to ashes now. The boys watched them rise from their ashy remains like phoenixes.

"That's very reminiscent of that article from the other day" said Remus. "'Several muggles drowned in brie mass. Aurors suspect cannibalistic cheesemakers.'"

His eyes were in white and blue flames like a fancy dessert. Following being tied up in the druid kitchen weeks ago he had decided to prepare himself for the possibility of that happening again, even though the chances were miniscule. A bit extremely paranoid, sure, as well as advanced and therefore also very exhausting and requiring several long pauses, like all magic did in the beginning. But it looked cool, even when only little veil like flames would manifest.

"Cannibals are pretty disturbing" said James and gave Sirius a good scorching, which left him temporarily blinded because he hadn't looked away quickly enough but he was otherwise unharmed.

"They cook their victims" said Remus.

"I know. I wonder if all cannibals do, or if it's a French thing"
"I just think it's a funny coincidence since our theme is food"

"Or, is it irony?" Sirius asked.

"I'm pretty sure it's just coincidence"
"I'm pretty sure you're just refusing to use the word 'irony' because you're afraid of using it wrong"

Instead of dignifying that with an answer, Remus blinked away the flames and sat down to recharge.

"If our theme is food and they cook food" said James. "That means we just might have our very first arch-nemesissys! But just what do we do with this information?"
Although they had so longed for their true hero's first nemesis, it was probably most likely a coincidence. But what a wonderfully romantic coincidence at that, 'though.

The boys fought amongst eachother for another twenty minutes until James's sleeve caught on fire. He slapped it out and decided it was time for a refill, and Sirius thought it couldn't hurt.

"Don't drink too much and too often, 'though" said Remus.

"We're not" said James, chugging away.

"It's important to refill before the immunity is gone" Sirius pointed out. "Ok that should give me another three hours"

And then they began to duel was a known fact that immunity potions could cause all sorts of problems, and who knew what sort of sideffect an improvised potion could have? But among the known and common side effects was, aside from weakened magic, an immunity to the potion itself.

Most potions didn't taste very good so it wasn't very hard to not drink more than the required minimum, but that helmet had really done something with those flavours.

Diced onion sizzled in a pan in the posh little bakery in Little Paris, Hogsmead, not to be confused with Little France, Diagon Alley. The wicked French sorcier nobility, they had truly been taking over unnoticably and were influencing all fields of society with their wicked ways while the common ignorant man just blamed the Romanians. Rod was pleased. Pleased with the scapegoats and the sizzling onions and especially with being a wicked Frenchman. Never was he going to change his name for 'integration purposes' like the Grand Sorcier!

"The Mischief Managers, pleh!" Rab spat, uncorking a Riesling. "They think they can insult the Dark Lord and get away with it! You mess with the Death Eaters you mess with Tojours Fromage as well!"

"I wouldn't worry about them" said Rod. "By the sound of it, they're just children. Possibly orphans snooping for the aurors but underage nonetheless, and no match for experienced Dark Wizards in any dark struggle. Now let's just get on with our work. I have tickets to Jesus Christ Superstar"

Tonight's victim sat tied to a chair, terror in his eyes for beside him was a vibrating meat grinder. The timer rang and Rab took out the prebaked pie shells. Rod took the onions from the hot stove, sipped on his Chardonnay and went to the victim with a meat knife.

Without further stalling or snide exposition to give snooping orphans time to intervene, he cut the man's arm off and let the grinder eat it up. The man cried from utter despair and pain but Rod was unmoved and kept cutting off parts and sticking them in the grinder. After many minutes of heavy bleeding the shrieks subsided as the man died from exsanguination.

"Disgusting" said Rod about the blood stains on his apron and removed it. "Is the stew done?"

"Almost" Rab replied and added the Riesling to the onions and cream, stirred for a few seconds and grabbed a chunk of meat from the grinder to add to the stew. The entire mixture went in the pie shells and the pies were covered with grated cheese before going in the oven.

"The homeless are in for a treat at the soup kitchen tomorrow" said Rod and refilled his Chardonnay, really looking forward to see Jesus Christ Superstar tonight.

"Except for the vegetarians" said Rab.

"That's where you're wrong for we will say it is soy"
Both laughed at their wicked scheme to trick vegetarians into eating meat and refilled their wine for a toast.