Chapter 14: Plan 291: Locked-Up

As you might have guessed by now, the Death Eater's are particularly useless. Sure, there's a bad rep about them in the Daily Prophet. But the truth is that most Death Eaters are in this for the "glory" and will boast about their kills or captures, when in reality they've been spending most of their days at a tavern pickling themselves and then dragging their sorry behinds back to headquarters. Really, the stories circulated about us are very misconstrued, for the most part (I can't speak for the days of the Wizarding War I, I wasn't around yet.)

So when Voldemort started cackling and raving about the capture of one of the members of the Order of the Phoenix, I was completely shocked. (Not about the ranting and cackling, those are the norm and are irritating.) Of course, in celebration, Voldemort decided we should have a masquerade party with masks of the Order (I seriously have no idea why he'd want to impersonate the enemy, but there you go.) And I decided I needed to meet this captive. After all, it's not every day you get to meet a member of the enemy team!

Wait…

While everyone was getting together their costumes and party gear, I stole down to the basement/dungeon. Yes, we have a dungeon…wouldn't be an evil lair without one, would it? Nothing fancy, a couple jail cells, a few chains attached to the ceiling, and a baby gate across the top of the stairs.

Which I tripped over. Son of a-!

Landing face first with a loud crash and thud (thank God for the party upstairs, muffling my klutzy-ass antics) I heard a voice coming from the cell directly in front of my lovely face indentation.

"Hello there!" a female voice said cheerfully. I looked up. In the cell there was a girl, roughly around my age, with very pale eyes. She had dirty blond hair and had a surprised air about her.

"Um…hi?" I stood up. So this was our captive…a barefooted teenage girl, holding some interesting looking flowers. I later learned that Voldemort captured her while she was out looking for certain plants for her father, something about a magazine article. I call this a cheap shot on Voldy's part. What an ass.

"It may be strange to ask this, but why are you down here?" the girl asked,

"Um…" Ah crap, what would be my alibi if caught? "I'm…uh…writing down your information! For our records!" Well, I probably would have to do that anyway. Might as well make it an excuse.

"I see. Well, I'm Luna Lovegood." Ah, that explained the air of strangeness surrounding her. The Lovegood's were notorious for their eccentricities.

"I'm Staci, I work here," I shrugged, "I kind of just wanted to meet you." She just stared at me.

And here was where the moral dilemma set in. See, I knew that her treatment in this place would be horrible. It is Voldemort; stupid as he is most of the time, he can be vicious, especially when it comes to either Muggles or the Order. Going against Voldemort would be suicide…

But I couldn't just leave her to rot down here either…

Goddamn it, conscious leave me alone!

"…just a second" I turned and ran up the stairs (and into the baby gate again, Goddamn it…) to first send an owl to the right people, and then to check on the party. It was in full swing, with music, dancing, and just some milling around. And everyone had their Order masks on. On the left, there was Lucius Malfoy wearing a mask of Sirius Black (uh…what?), on the right, there was Bellatrix with a mask of Mad-Eye Moody (disturbing…). And in the middle of it all was Voldemort, wearing…a mask of Harry Potter (and my brain just put up an iron shield as to never see this again).

Everyone looked stupid. And the theme of this party was even stupider. But this was going to work in my favor, as I tried to get Luna out of the house. I donned a mask (McGonagall, if you must know) and ran back downstairs. Luna looked up at me, bemused.

"What is this all about?" She asked, "Is it a mask day? Will I need a mask too?"

"Nope, you're just great the way you are" I grinned, though she probably couldn't see it behind the stupid mask, and started working at the lock on the cell.

For being in the headquarters of one of the most evil and diabolical wizards of all time, the locks on his dungeon keeps are surprisingly weak, and after a few minutes of poking and prodding at the lock, it fell to the floor.

"Come on, we gotta get you out of here" I grabbed Luna's hand and dragged her into the mass of masqueraders. I dropped her hand, searching for the easiest and most inconspicuous exit out of the room. After locating the exit on the far side of the room, I turned around to point it out to her; but she had vanished.

"Son of a biscuit," I muttered, searching frantically. You'd think someone who had just been captured by the Dark Lord would have more of a sense of self-preservation in a room full of Death Eaters, but apparently not. I finally spotted her. And of course, out of all the people in the room, she decided she needed to talk with Voldemort. I pushed my way towards them, praying that he didn't figure out who she was.

"So who are you supposed to be?" I heard him grumble. The party must not have been sitting well with him, for he looked pretty grumpy. Well, grumpier than he normally is, anyway.

"I'm Luna," she smiled serenely, "And until earlier this afternoon, I was searching for the Snorkacks."

"…The what?" Voldemort now just looked confused. I didn't blame him; I had no idea what the hell she was talking about either.

"The Crumple-Horned Snorkacks! Surely you have heard of them!" She exclaimed

"…no. No such thing exists" He was starting to get moody again. Oh dear God…

"We believe plenty of things exist that we cannot see. Just because you're too narrow-minded to think outside of what can be normally seen…"

"Uh, Luna, time to go…" I said, reaching her in a bit of a panic, and dragging her away. I could see old Moldy's face, beet-red with fury at being chided, but also completely confused.

We had made it out of the room and out into the street in front of the headquarters. From there it's pretty self explanatory. The right people were Harry, Ron, and Hermione. They took Luna away to safety. The Death Eaters continued their party until passing out. And Voldemort was furious when he found out that the captive was missing (Or maybe because he was hungover and still had no idea what a Snorkack was...anyway...) and kept our asses in a meeting for 10 hours, lecturing to us about staying loyal to him, and yada yada.

I suppose it was worth it. After all, who wants to be captive to an evil Dark Lord, who really is just a complete idiot who happens to have a horrible reputation and magical skill? Besides his Death Eaters, who must have a masochistic side in staying loyal to this guy.

…

Yep, definitely working for the wrong side. God, I'm such an idiot.