THE SNEAKEASY
PART 11
That so called "inspirational talk" had been neither inspirational nor motivational.
But Remus made up his mind nevertheless. Since he didn't even know where the new entrance was, finding and reporting couldn't be considered treacherous, ok?
He knew that he had to stalk them.
Back in the dorm and liberated from the Papillon-costume, he asked himself but one question: how could he do that without being seen?
It was as if his thievish fairies had read his thoughts, because it was at that moment they dropped his Quiet Clogs on his head.
Of course! The Quiet Clogs were not only entirely silent, they also didn't show up on the map! He had crafted them in a less loyal moment and forgotten about them until now, when the need for them arised.
He slipped into them immediately and dashed out of the dorm, still forgetting to take the false ears off.
XXX
It was close to nine o'clock. James and Sirius had decided to meet up by the marble head of Lady Prunella Hortensia Dimanche, a notorious highway lady who invented the rune powered greenhouse. James arrived first by two seconds, fresh from Quidditch. Sirius arrived second, fresh from "French class."
"You still have your poodle ears on," James remarked.
Sirius yanked them off. "Better?"
"Anyway," James looked around the quiet hall. "Coast seems clear..."
"Yes, I, too, shall have a look around and make sure we're not being followed!"
James swept them in the cloak.
Remus watched it happen from behind the marble head of Lady Prunella Hortensia Dimanche and he could of course not see them now. But had he found another brilliant use for bubblegum or what?
Yes, he still had one last gumball. This was his crisis-gumball,which he kept in a glass container and carried with him everywhere, in case a sudden war would break out and cause a massive bubblegum shortage.
But instead of waiting for a war to happen, because surely he'd have his wand back then, he decided to use it here and now. He chewed it soft and flicked it at "nothing", hoping it would hit its target.
And when it did he did a little victory dance (the "needle and thread" that was currently trending in clubs everywhere, however he knew that) before quietly clogging after the hovering little chunk.
The gum led him down to the Chamber of Games, past the Duel Dungeons, the Walking Chess Arena, the Wall of Snakes and Ladders and Cluedo Rooms, stopping at the Scrabble Floor.
The floor consisted of a grid of green tiles, each of them a square meter, so shiny it mirrored the spinning spherical cage with the mirror racks above. Remus saw all this, looking through the window in the billiard room. He also saw James, Sirius and Cas as well at the Scrabble star in the middle, and if he opened said window he could hear them (but they, however, couldn't see him.)
Cas was a few tiles away from the star, walking towards it while spelling out her word using letters from her mirror rack. With each letter she announced, the tile she stood on flipped around and spelled it.
"H...I...N...N. Dolphinn, my favourite animal."
She removed one of her socks and pressed her bare foot against the center star before it flipped around to spell 'N'.
The entire room began to shake.
"Wrong spelling!" came the angered voice of the Scrabble ghost.
Every letter flipped back to its blank state.
"No!" Cas cried before she fell through the flap when the tile she was standing on reset itself.
Sirius tossed his rack aside. "Let's not actually play."
"But I have a really good word," said James.
Unlike Cas, they skipped the game and simply removed their socks and pressed their feet against the star, and their admission was a lot less dramatic. The star beamed them to the secret location.
Remus climbed through the window. So all he had to do was take his sock off and press his foot against the star. Well, that sounded easy enough.
"It's here somewhere!" echoed a voice. "It's where we saw him go! Isn't that right, Marceau?"
Well blasted, other prefects! He just didn't want to be seen here and be fussed at. Although he couldn't see the window through which he had crawled, he knew it was right behind him, and that it could be accessed through the old pipe in the shape of a cyclops. Three fingers up the nose, and he had three seconds to hop back inside the billiards room through a temporary opening in the wall.
He watched Toady and Marceau run into the Scrabble Floor on their short legs.
"The Scrabble Floor," said Toady, almost moved by the sheer scale of things. "It just sounds like a really good place for a secret entrance, doesn't it? And that two-faced weirdo Loopy ought to know, don't you think?!"
Oh dear, so full of rage was she, she needed to take a few deep breaths.
"Now think...Some kind of password... Scrabble...Letters...Must be some word, but what?"
Marceau tapped her on her back and mimed something. Toady nodded.
"You're quite right. Professor Sprout did tell us that they will be suspended, the people behind this. I mean, it's only fair! People have been getting away with too much for far too long! I will be really sad if I don't get to be the one to out the rascals who have been disrespecting the rules!"
Was she serious? Here Remus had come all this way to find the new secret entrance in order to stop the Sneakeasy, only to find out that doing so would get James and Sirius suspend. Well, it so happened he was still fairly sure he didn't actually want them to be suspended.
But he also didn't want Toady to get them suspended! Had history ever seen such a conflict?
While Remus ping-ponged between the various courses of action he could take, Toady was having a rant about Canada.
"If anybody is going to Moosehoof it's me! They will look at me with awe, because it was I who stopped the Sneakeasy, and prevented it from spreading to other schools!"
For being the antagonist part in all this, she was making a kind of vainglorious sense.
Talking endlessly, and facing away from the scrabble star, she did not see Mac being beamed up. But Mac saw her and Marceau, and tried to sneak out queitly.
But then Roy and Mona appeared right in her way.
"Hi Mac!" said Mona."
"Hi Mona," said Mac. "Roy."
Roy wasn't as friendly and he skipped the pleasentries.
"What are you doing here?"
"Just thought I saw someone heading this way. And you?"
"Hey!" said Toady, scurrying towards them. "She wasn't here two minutes ago!"
"I just got here," said Mac.
Although technically true, it was a lie. The others seemed to share an unspoken conviction that somewhere on the Scrabble Floor was the key to accessing the Sneakeasy's secret hideout.
Crool and Vicious arrived fashionably late. But they would not fool around playing Warlock Gnomes like the other prefects; they sent Mac running from the Scrabble Floor with either their lightest curses or worst hexes, forcing the others to choose between running after in a race to Ivy and Mangrove, or stay and find the way in, first.
They all chose the race.
There was a chandelier in the lounge that led to the Monopoly Room, and a lose brick in the jail that took Remus directly to the staff wing.
Not before long Mac came running, hardly out of breath, still with Vicious and Crool after her, both significantly more out of breath.
"Get her!" yelled Vicious.
Crool cast a spell that had Mac toppling over like a fir. Then she saw Remus.
"Get him!"
But it was they, who toppled over like firs the second time around. There was Mac, on her feet, very much not toppled like a fir. Meanwhile, the Mac lying on the floor began to fade.
"Hello," said Mac.
"But who is that?"
"It's my clone. I can clone myself."
"That's an amazing ability."
"I know. Being able to clone myself has served me well a number of times."
"Why did you ever decided you wanted to be able to do it?"
"Because..."
Here she had a private flashback, of her comorting a disconsolate Cas.
"He broke up with me!" Cas wailed.
"There, there," said Mac, while another Mac snuck out to her tuba lesson.
And that was the reason.
