C O Potter
Year Four
Chapter 26
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Just before the girls and Ced boarded the train, Harry pulled them aside, "Sean McMillian contacted me this morning, he wants to know if you three would be interested in helping them with another 'project?'"
The three teens looked at each other, "Sure when?" asked Ced.
"It would be sometime during the school year. There could be some on again off again type of stuff involved. As you can expect, he hasn't given me too many details at this point."
The teens looked at each other again, "Okay, keep us informed and let us know when he wants to meet again." Vic answered for the group.
They exchanged hugs all around, and the girls kissed Hermione on the cheeks. She even blushed a little at the gesture.
They boarded the train and found the compartment with their other friends. Rose had enlarged the compartment to make room for everyone. After Ced and his wives arrived, Angel cast the privacy charms on it. Fred had taken one window seat with Julia leaning against him, George had the other window seat with Amber mimicking Julia.
"That girl needs to learn to get a life of her own!" Cici thought.
"If I had known that she was going to be this needy, I would have given her, her own personality!" Vic answered her.
After they had chatted for a while, and the compartment had grown quiet, Ced told them that he had a new game for them to play. It was based on a muggle sport known as skeet shooting.
"How do you play it?" asked Fred getting all interested in this new distraction.
"Yeah, what do we have to do?" George asked leaning forward.
"Well if I could get Rose and Angel to move over some. I'll enlarge the compartment some more, and we can use that corner as a backstop."
The two girls stood up and move to the window of the compartment. Ced enlarged the compartment, so there was a seat under the window. Then he put some charms on the walls and the windows of the compartment to absorb any missed shots. He explained to his friends that in muggle skeet shooting, they use clay targets, but what he was going to do was to make magical targets and that they would use a real low powered diffindo or reducto spell to shoot the targets. He conjured a small target, about the size of a knut coin. Then without missing a blink, Cici shot the target, and it popped.
"Hey!" Ced exclaimed at his wife, frowning.
She and Vic giggled at him.
"So, yeah, that's the idea," Ced told the group.
"I want to try!" squealed Rose.
"Me too!" squealed Angel.
So Ced conjured another target and had it just stand still. Rose took a shot at it and just missed. Angel took a shot and hit it dead centre.
"Good job!" encourage Ced.
"I wanna have a go!" said Fred.
"Okay," Ced told him as he conjured another target.
Fred took a shot, and he hit it easy enough. After everyone had a chance to shoot at a single target, Amber refused to participate, Ced stepped it up and made the target move across their practice spot in a straight line. They all found the moving target much more challenging and therefore, more fun. Once they were getting good at hitting the single target, Ced added a second target, and had them going in opposite directions, he had the targets cross over each other, even had them turn in the same direction, but at different radii.
It was such a great way to pass the time, that they were pulling into Hogsmeade station and they hadn't even put on their school robes yet. Ced let the others put their robes on and clear out of the compartment before he pulled his and his spouses' trunks out to get their robes. After they had purchased their robes, and after everyone had gone home that day, the three of them took the time to enchant their robes with shield spells. The last thing that any of them wanted was for someone to catch them unawares and land a lucky shot on them. With their robes on, Ced shrank the trunks and put them back into his pocket. They walked outside to catch one of the last carriages headed up to the castle. All three of them could see the Thestral that pulled their carriage. Their experiences over the summer had opened their eyes in that way.
"It's sad that we can see them now," Vic said all melancholy.
"Yeah, it is." Her wife agreed with her.
"Yup." Was all Ced said.
They were the last carriage that arrived at the castle grounds. They walked up the steps and entered the Great Hall just before the sorting started. Their friends had left 'their seats' open for them. Amber and George sat across from the three of them. Ced sat each of his wives, one on each side of him, as he sat down, they both gave him a kiss on the cheek. The sorting happened, dinner was eaten, the new potions professor was introduced, her name was Laura Lively, and all of the routine announcements were made. A typical start of a typical new school year.
Up inside the common room, Vic walked over to the gryphon, tapped it three times on the nose and said "Happy threesome," to set the new passphrase.
"I like it," said Ced.
"Me too." Cici agreed.
The gryphon slid to the side to allow entrance into their quarters.
"Why do they get special treatment?" groused Amber to Angel.
"Oh, they're doing a special research project for Professor McGonagall," Angel replied like it was the most natural thing in the world. Need to mention this to Cici she thought to herself.
"How do I become teacher's pet?" Amber thought out loud.
"Well, you could go ask her," Rose commented back to the question. "But the last girl that asked wound up crawling through the pipes looking for lost earrings, where they were found, and what kind of earring they were." She lied to the girl.
"Yuk!"
"That's kind of why nobody complains to the Headmistress."
"That's gross!"
"Well, that's your bed over there, mine's over here. See your trunk? Your trunk is next to the bed that you've been assigned." Angel told her.
The three girls started to unpack their trunks.
"Are you going running with us in the morning?" Angel asked her, as she unpacked her trunk.
"Sure? What time? About eight?"
"Eight! At eight o'clock, we'll be in classes! No, we wake up to go run, at five in the morning." Rose corrected the foreign witch.
"Five in the morning! But that's so early! Can't we do it at 7:30?" Amber whined.
"Tell you what, if you want to go run with us, be in the common room by 5:30. If you want to sleep in, stay in bed. We all go run, and thought that we would invite you along." Angel told her harshly.
In the married quarters, Vic had already unpacked all of their clothes, she stripped down to join her spouses for a long soak in the tub. There were two walk-in closets, a chest of drawers, two dressers, a regular closet for Ced, and the laundry hamper was in the restroom sitting in its usual spot. Her clothes flew into it as she walked naked to the tub. As she stepped down into the tub, she relished in the soothing bubbles that Cici had added, the lights went out as she stepped farther into the water, the stars and the moon providing the only view in the room.
"That was a fun game that you invented on the train ride, babe," Cici said.
"Yeah! It was a lot of fun!"
"Yeah, it seemed like everyone enjoyed it," Ced told them.
He pulled them in close, and squeeze them. They leaned up and kissed him on the jaw. He returned their kisses, letting his love and appreciation flow through their mental link.
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The next morning in the common room, their four friends waited for Ced and the girls to join them, just a moment later they exited from the gryphon, looked around and the group headed for the portrait hole. At the bottom of all of the stairs, Julia hooked up with Fred for their morning routine. She liked the new energy that she had, plus the occlumency was helping her concentration.
"What? No Amber?" Julia asked.
"Nope, guess she didn't want to join us," Angel answered coldly.
Their brisk walk to the edge of the lake helped to warm their muscles, at the edge they broke into a slow run that gradually increased the farther they got around the lake, for the last few hundred meters they went into a full sprint for the lone tree by the lake. They looked around to clear the area and portkeyed to the chambers.
"Professor Greengrass, Professor Longbottom!" the group almost shouted in excitement.
They exchanged pleasantries all around.
"I heard that you all had a little excitement in Diagon Alley," Neville told them.
They explained what had happened and how George had tried to defuse the situation but that the guy just wanted to keep escalating the situation. How Ced had to name drop to save them from being taken down to Auror Headquarters in the DMLE.
"So, are we going to keep working with hand to hand combat?" asked Professor Greengrass.
The teens looked around and agreed that that would be best, even Julia wanted to learn.
It was a tired group of teens that were ready to head up to their showers. Angel and Rose pulled Cici and Vic to the side.
"We want that potion you mentioned a while ago," Rose told them.
"How long does it take to start working?"
"For me, I felt the effects starting the next morning," Vic told their friends.
"Does it have any bad side effects?" asked Rose.
"Yes," Cici told them.
Rose and Angel's faces fell to the floor.
"What?" a dejected Angel asked.
"It will make you go out and buy new bras when you get tired of having to transfigure your old bras!" Vic told them.
"I can live with that!" Rose said.
"Me too! How long to do we have to take the potion for?"
"For you two, probably about six to nine months, twice a day. Before breakfast and before bed." Cici told them.
"Do you have any now?"
"I think so if I do, I'll bring it to you at breakfast, if not I can brew some tonight for you in the morning."
"Okay, but we don't want Julia to know, okay?" Rose told them.
"Sure, that's fine with us," Vic said.
Back in their quarters, Ced was already in the shower, the girls slipped in with him, and they each helped the others get washed up quickly.
Out of the shower, they dried off, Vic dried Cici's hair and had it braid in a four-strand braid. Cici had Vic's hair, do a simple three-strand braid but farther up her head, so it was perkier. The elves had laid their clothes out for them, and they grabbed their bookbags to head down to breakfast. A tired Amber met them at the bottom of the girl's stairs.
"Where did everybody go?" she yawned.
"Everybody's at breakfast, if you want to eat and not be late to class, you should hurry up," Cici told her.
"But nobody woke me up!" she whined.
"Sorry, but here; you have to wake yourself up," Vic told her. Godric I'm so tired of her whining!
"If we don't see you at breakfast, we'll see you in class!" Ced told her chipperly. He turned and guided the girls to the portrait hole.
Down at breakfast, they scanned the hall as they entered, with a girl on each of Cedric's arms, he headed over to join their group of friends, and they sat with their backs to the wall.
"Did Amber wake up?" Rose asked.
"Did you bring it?" whispered Angel to Cici.
"Yeah, she was still wearing her PJs when she caught us in the common room," Vic told her.
"Yes, I'll transfer it to your pocket in a moment," Cici told her.
"I'm so tired of her!" Angel grumbled.
"What's wrong with her? She's not that bad, she's just misunderstood." George defended his girlfriend.
Rose felt something appear in the pocket of her robe. She looked at Cici, and Cici just nodded to her. A smile started to grow on her face.
Julia looked at him, "Yeah she is." And went back to eating her breakfast.
"That new potions teacher is young!" Fred commented.
"Why do you say that? Do you like her?" Julia asked him. The accusation of jealousy was in her tone. "Do you think that she's prettier than me?"
"I'm just saying that she's young! And compared to our other professors, she is young." Fred defended himself.
As Julia and Fred were arguing, both Rose and Angel swallowed the potions quickly. When the vials were empty, they both banished the bottles.
As the group was heading out of the hall, Amber was rushing in without her bookbag.
She looked at the group of friends, "Why didn't anybody wake me up!" she whined.
"I'm not your alarm clock," Rose told her.
She looked at Angel.
"Me neither, you need to get up on your own. All of us get up on our own, and so should you." Angel told her.
"We'll see you in class! And don't forget your bookbag!" Cici told her as Amber entered the hall for some food before running back up all of those stairs.
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As they entered transfiguration, Professor Vector called Vic up to the front.
"Miss Potter! If I may have a word with you?" she said.
"Yes Professor."
Then in a much lower tone of voice, "You will be my assistant for the remainder of the school year. Is that okay with you?"
"I'm going to be your assistant?"
"Yes. Will that be okay with you?"
"Yes! I'd like that!"
"Good, during the lecture portion of the class, you will sit at the back of the room. Then during the practice portion of the class, you will go around and help the other students that are having troubles with the exercise."
"Okay, I can do that. That'll be fun! Thank you!"
The professor smiled at her in return.
About ten minutes after class had started a winded Amber rushed into the room.
"Miss Davis, late on the first day. Hum, 10 points from Gryffindor, find a seat and sit in it."
"But it's not my fault! Nobody woke me up!"
"It's not their responsibility to wake you up. It's your responsibility to get yourself up and ready for class."
"But that's not fair!"
"Life's not fair Miss Davis. If you persist in talking you will earn yourself detention, is that understood?"
"But that's not fair!"
"See Mr Filch after dinner for your detention tonight."
"That's not fair!"
"And tomorrow night also. Shall we keep going?"
She shut her mouth and turned an angry red.
Vic snickered from the back wall of the classroom.
After the lecture, Vic went around helping some of the students, the exercise was simple enough, transfigure a feather into a whole bird. Amber couldn't even get the feather to move.
Vic went over to her to help, but Amber chased her away. Vic made her way up to the head of the class and mentioned to Professor Vector that she didn't feel that Amber was even capable of levitating the feather, let alone transfiguring it.
Seeing the look that Professor Vector was giving her, Vic told her, "I asked her if she could levitate the feather and she got mad at me. But as I watched her, she couldn't even get the feather to move."
"We'll look into it."
"Thank you, Professor."
For all of their morning classes, one of the three of them was a teacher's assistant. Lunch was an enjoyable affair. No one came over and made comments, no one came over to harass them, lunch was a nice quiet meal. The group of friends headed off to their afternoon classes. After lunch; they had potions, and as usual, it was with the Slytherin's. This was good for Fred, because he got to have Julia as his partner, and Ced was the teacher's assistant for the class.
"Mr Potter, you're to be my assistant for this class." Professor Lively told him.
"Okay, Professor, where would you like me to sit?"
"Go ahead and take a seat right up here behind me. I'll have you help me demonstrate the potions that we'll be brewing this year."
Potions was an enjoyable class for the first time for most of the Gryffindors. The professor, was not the Head of Slytherin, so favouritism was a thing of the past. A tradition that Professor McGonagall was glad to bring to an end.
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After about two or three weeks, Ced, Cici, and Vic were talking to each other, when the subject came around to Amber as it always seemed to do lately.
"In the classes that George is with her, she seems to do okay."
"In the classes that she …."
"Has to do it on her own …"
"She has the most troubles."
"She got caught out of bed again last night."
"I heard that they gave her a week's detention this time."
"Do you think that George is carrying her in class?"
"I wonder what she's doing out after curfew?"
"I wouldn't be surprised."
"Do you think that he's doing her homework for her?"
"I wonder if she's meeting somebody?"
"If he's doing her homework for her, he's not helping her."
"I wonder what he's getting in return?"
"Do you think they're doing 'it'?"
"Doing 'it'? I hope not, for his sake!"
"You know she's not using the potion."
"Where would he get condoms?"
"Well, everyone still thinks that we're doing 'it.' They say that they can hear us through the walls!"
"Oh, My, Godric! Really? They can hear us through meter thick walls?"
"That's what I overheard."
"I wish that they could hear the professors, as well as they, hear us!"
"I heard that!"
The three of them burst out laughing at that remark. So many of the students didn't listen to the instructions that the professors would give them during class. It was amazing how many substandard transfigurations, charms, and potions the students would turn in.
"Really Professor? That potion gets a passing grade? It's brown, and it supposed to be orange!"
"In this case, 'brown is a shade of orange.'"
The girls mimicked their potions teacher.
"Well, at least you two weren't target practice for D.A.D.A.!"
"Tomorrow, I'm going to go ask Professor McGonagall if we can have three school dances, on Halloween, before we leave for the Christmas holidays and one before we have spring break. I'll organise them all if she needs me to!" Cici said.
"That'd be a lot of fun! We could do something other than study all the time!" Vic said, "I'll even help you plan it out!"
During their morning run, Cici started pitching the idea of having some school dances to the others.
"I like it!" Angel said.
"Me too!" Julia said.
They all discussed it as they ran around the lake. The discussion put all of them in a good mood, right up to the point that they saw Amber walking towards the school with someone else. They cast disillusionment charms on themselves and silenced their shoes so they could follow her without being detected as easily.
"This is a first! She's not still in bed sleeping!" hissed Rose.
The group spread out to encircle the two people.
"It's Finnigan!" Vic thought.
"What's she doing with Finnigan?" Ced thought.
"Well, there goes that little bit of trust we had in her." Cici thought.
"How's George doing? We need to keep an eye on him!"
"Yeah, if he doesn't keep it under control, he's going to blow it for the rest of us."
"Keep an eye on them. I'm going to see if I can figure out where they came from, and maybe what it was that they were doing out here." Ced thought to his wives.
Ced changed directions and move back towards the Forbidden Forest. He listened for the sounds of any others in the forest, he kept sniffing the air to see if he could pick up the smell of a fire or something like that. He scanned the area looking for broken branches or disturbed things, like rocks that had been bumped.
The group of friends followed Amber and Finnigan into the castle. They weren't holding hands, for what that was worth. They couldn't get close enough to overhear what they were saying in hushed tones. Thankfully there weren't any students up and moving at this early hour, so they didn't have to worry about someone bumping into them as the stalked their targets. Inside the castle, Finnigan turned to head down to the Slytherin common room, Amber followed him dutifully. Outside of the entrance to the Slytherin common room, they stopped.
Finnigan turned to face Amber, "You've gotten close, but you need to get closer to him. You need to get him to trust you more, I don't care what you have to do to get him to trust you, just make him do it."
As if she were hypnotised, she said, "Okay, I will do as you say." And just before she turned to leave.
"You had best not fail! The Master does not tolerate failure well." And he turned and entered the common room.
It looked like Amber was in a daze as she walked towards the Gryffindor common room.
"Finnigan's one of them!"
"They could try contacting you soon!" Ced thought to her.
"Do we still have the listening devices?"
"Yes, my dad didn't ask for them back."
"We need to let Neville and Draco know too."
"Are you going to be okay when they try contacting you Mon Amour?"
"I'm going to be better than okay. I'm going to take the fight to them!"
Ced continued to search the forest for clues as to what they had been doing out here. He finally found a patch of dirt that looked like it had been packed down by more than just two people. He looked around to see where the footprints led, but in one way or another, they all led back to the grass and the castle.
The group let Amber walk right through the centre of them, she didn't notice them in the slightest. George looked at her, and she seemed to have a vacant look on her face. The group moved to follow her, Julia pulled Fred aside and gave him a sweet kiss.
"I'm going to go get my shower now, I'll see you for breakfast."
They exchanged kisses again, Julia looked around, and Fred cancelled the spell. As Julia entered her common room, Fred hurried to catch up to his friends.
At the portrait hole, the group of friends let Amber enter first then, still disillusioned, they followed her in, at this point, the four girls followed her up the stairs to the fourth-year girl's dorm room. She went over to her bed, took off her school robes, and climbed into bed. She was asleep as soon as her head hit the pillow.
Back in the hall, the girls cancelled the spell, closed the door and went down to the common room.
"That was weird!" Angel said lowly.
The guys cancelled their spells too.
"Yeah it was!" said Rose.
"Do you think that we should try following her for a few nights? To see where she's going?" asked Vic.
Ced appeared next to Vic. Cici had told him that the coast was clear.
"All I found in the forest was an area that had been packed down by more than two people. All of the footprints led back to the castle." Ced informed the group.
"You should have seen the look on her face! It was blank like she was being mind controlled or something!" a disheartened George said.
"You heard what Finnigan said to her, she has to get closer to one of us guys," Fred said. "You're not having sex with her, are you?"
"NO! Geez, no!"
"Then that is how they're going to try and get you under their control." Said Vic.
"How do you know that?"
"Because, that's what they wanted me to do, to get Ced."
"Really? They wanted you to have sex with Ced so they could get control over Ced?" asked Rose.
"Yes, the birth control potion they gave me to take, had a second potion in it that would let me exercise mind control over Ced if we had sex."
"I think that we should follow Amber for the next couple of weeks. I'll tell Draco and Neville so they can inform the Aurors, and I'll tell Professor McGonagall what is happening, just in case we get caught." Ced told the group.
"We're going to go take our showers." Said Cici.
"Then we'll head down for an early breakfast." Added Vic.
The others agreed with getting an early breakfast.
"I'll go see if Neville and Draco are in the chambers," Ced told them. He portkeyed out of the common room.
The others headed to get their showers.
In the chambers, he found Neville and Draco duelling, and they weren't holding back either. After several minutes, Ced called out to them.
"Hey!" he yelled to get their attention.
They stopped to look at him. He walked up to his uncles.
"We just watched something interesting this morning after our morning run." He started telling them.
"What was that?" asked Neville.
"We saw Amber walking back to the castle with Finnigan."
"At what time was this?" asked Draco.
"About six o'clock, that's when we finish our run around the lake. We were at the lone tree by the lake, getting ready to portkey into here, when we saw them walking towards the castle. They weren't holding hands. We disillusioned ourselves, silenced our shoes, and the group followed them to the Slytherin common room entrance."
"Did you hear what they were talking about?" asked Draco.
"They caught the end of the conversation which was for her to get close to one of us guys, we assume that it's George this time and that if she doesn't, that the Master will be angry with her. I went to the forest to look for any evidence, and all I found was a spot that had the dirt packed down. I followed the footprints, but they all led back to the grass and the castle."
"Did you disturb anything? Kick anything? Touch anything?" asked Neville.
"No, I left it all alone and made my way back to the common room, where they followed Amber back to her bed."
"Okay, I'll contact the Aurors and have them send a forensics team to search the spot. Have you told Minerva yet?"
"No, I was going to do that later today. We want to follow her at night for the next couple of weeks to see where she's going."
"I agree with that, but I'll tell her that you're doing it because I've asked you." Said Draco.
"Thanks, I'm going to go get my shower and have an early breakfast. I'll see you both in class!"
The girls were just finishing their shower when Ced got back to the room. He caught them coming out of the restroom, and he saw their school uniforms lying on the bed for them. Vic had chosen to wear her hair in a loose ponytail, and Cici was just going to wear her hair loose and hanging around one side of her neck onto her chest. They both had decided to wear dangly earrings and black heels.
Ced showered quickly so he could walk to the Great Hall for breakfast with the group.
"She's sound asleep!" said an astonished Rose.
"I bet she was out all night. But doing what?" Vic said.
"I don't know, but let's discuss this over breakfast. At least there we can cast the privacy charms." Ced told them.
At breakfast, they discussed how they would keep track of Amber's movements. Ced saw that Finnigan was at breakfast, and he didn't even look tired. They had decided that Vic would go with Rose tonight, Ced would go with George, then Cici would go with Angel, Fred and Julia wanted to work together to help solve this mystery. As they left the hall, Ced looked up at Draco, and he nodded back to him. Ced just gave him a single nod of his head to acknowledge they had the Headmistress's consent.
On the way out of the doors, Amber came stumbling in looking for some breakfast. George turned around to help her.
"Why are you so tired?" he asked her.
"I don't know," she said groggily. "I haven't been sleeping well."
"Are you having bad dreams?"
"No, I don't think so. I have been having strange dreams though."
He helped her into a seat, she could barely stand. He started to load up a plate of food for her. He wished for a vial of Vitamix to give her after she had eaten something. That wasn't the best picker-upper to take on an empty stomach.
"What's happening in your dreams?" Maybe she could remember what was happening to her, he hoped.
"I don't know, they're just bizarre dreams. I've been having them ever since we took that trip to go shopping. You know, the one where that bully tried to beat you up."
"Ever since then? That was a long time ago."
"And now, here at this school, they've only gotten weirder. Like, I dream that I'm out walking in the woods, and there's someone that is trying to tell me something, but I can't really hear them?"
She finished eating her food, and they had just enough time to get to class, … if Amber hadn't left her bookbag in her room.
"I'll see you in class. It wouldn't do us any good for us both to be late to class. I'll tell Professor Vector that you forgot your bag in your room."
"She's still going to give me detention again. She doesn't like me."
"Just don't argue with her. She's not that bad."
"She's mean!"
.
George asked Cici if she had a Vitamix potion that he could give to Amber. Cici dug around in the pocket of her bookbag and gave him one.
"I need to brew some more Vitamix potion and some more potion for Rose and Angel." She thought to her mates.
"Please do! If you want to brew the potion for Rose and Angel, I'll brew the Vitamix potion."
"Sounds good to me. I'd appreciate the help."
"I can probably get the Vitamix done before I have to go with Rose to follow Amber. Let's see if she gets detention for being late to class again."
"Ah! Miss Davis, late, as usual, I see."
Amber took her seat, "I am sorry for being late, Professor."
"Now shut up! Don't say another word!" hissed George.
"That's good advice, Mr Weasley." Professor Vector said, with her back turned to the class.
The day's assignment was to transfigure a hedgehog into a teacup.
Amber's hedgehog took off running across the floor. Amber scampered after it, it was almost comical because she didn't want to hurt it, and she didn't want to get stuck by it, either. Finally, Vic just summoned the hedgehog to her and handed it back to Amber.
"Thank you, Vic.," She said humbly.
George didn't have any troubles completing the assignment. This was déjà vu for Professor Vector back to when Harry and Hermione were her star students, the students that hung around with them started to do excellent work also.
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That night, Amber was in her bed with the curtains drawn around the bed. Rose and Angel were talking softly about nothing in particular, and Vic was disillusioned, listening to her friends, watching for Amber to leave. As the hours slipped by, Angel went to sleep, and Rose disillusioned herself, and they waited. Sometime before midnight, they heard the curtains being slid open on Amber's bed. She was fully dressed, all the way down to her shoes. Vic moved around to be by the door, she wanted to get a look at Amber's face. It was just as blank as what George had described. The girls let Amber leave the room first so they could follow her. She worked her way down all of the stairs, and out the front doors of the castle that had been propped open, so the alarm had not been set. Vic and Rose saw maybe a dozen different girls all fourth-year and older walking out of the front doors of the castle. They waited to see if anyone was following them to make sure that they stayed in line. After a minute, they slipped out the doors to follow them. They moved off to the side, of the line of girls so they wouldn't be so easily seen. The column of girls headed to where Ced had told them he had found the packed dirt. Once there they formed a circle around a red-cloaked figure. The figure reached into its pocket and pulled out some vials of potions. It handed a potion to each girl and two to Amber. When the potions had been swallowed, each girl handed the empty vial back to the red-cloaked figure. So that's why there wasn't any evidence, the person in the red cloak collected the empty bottles! Then they watched as the figure in red went around to each of the girls and stared into their eyes, on some of them it would use its wand to cast a spell. Then off to their left, Vic saw some movement. Quietly she pushed Rose down onto one knee, as she watched the movement. It was Finnigan, walking a patrol path. Vic lifted Rose back to her feet and motioned that they needed to move back away from the group, she pointed to were Finnigan was walking, and Rose could see that they were in his path. With their silenced shoes, they quickly got out of the way of Finnigan. One by one, the red-cloaked figure released the girls to return to their beds. When it got to Amber, it was particularly rough with her, even where they were squatted, they could hear her whimper, as the cloaked figure used the wand on her, then he moved on to the next girl in line, but Amber just stood there. After all of the other girls had been sent back to the castle, the cloaked figure returned to Amber, then the cloaked figure made her remove all of her clothing, then get down on her knees, when the person opened its pants, that's when Vic and Rose knew that it was a guy. The urge to end this right here right now was almost overwhelming to Vic. Had they done this very same thing to her? The figure motioned for Finnigan to join him in this 'fun'. After Amber had been used in this way, she gathered up her clothes and headed to the castle naked. Vic motioned for Rose to follow her back into the castle, while she stayed and watched Finnigan and the cloaked figure. Human trafficking had made its way into Hogwarts.
Vic watched as Finnigan headed to the castle and the cloaked figure headed towards the Whomping Willow. As he got closer, the tree started trying to hit him violently, the cloaked figure summoned a long stick wordlessly and used the stick to press on a knot at the base of the tree. At that instant, the tree stood perfectly still until after the person had entered into a hollow at the base of the tree. Vic chose to stay behind because she didn't know where the hole in the tree led. This was the course of action that all of the espionage manuals had said to follow. Everything that they were doing was learned from just reading books! They had read a spy manual, then they would read a couple of spy novels, and then they would talk about how the story compared to the manual. They had done this for a whole year! But now, it was starting to pay off. They would ask Ced's dad about the tree, and they would talk to Neville and Draco about what they had seen. Vic turned around, and found the correct window in the side of the Gryffindor tower, she wanted the common room so she could make sure that Amber and Rose had gotten there safely. Using teleportus, she was standing next to the window in the common room just as a naked Amber came through the portrait hole. She still had the same blank look on her face, but now, her dirty face was stained with tear streaks. The two girls followed the one girl up the stairs and to her bed. Amber dropped her clothes on the floor next to her bed and crawled between the sheets. As soon as her eyes closed, she was asleep, unaware of what she had just done, or had been forced to do. But Vic knew that those horrible memories were in there, somewhere, and that they would manifest themselves as nightmares that the girl would be unable to wake up from. She may not like the girl, but that didn't mean that she had to like what the girl was going through.
"Are you going to be okay?" Vic asked Rose.
"Yeah, that's horrible what they're doing to her though. Singling out Amber."
"Yes, it is. But we need to keep an eye on the other girls too," she whispered.
"How long do you think this has been going on?"
"For me, since last year. Before that? I don't know. Let's get some sleep. Do you want a Dreamless Sleep draught? We can talk more about this in the morning."
"No, I want to wake up for our run. I'll just take a Vitamix or two tomorrow."
"Me too." Vic agreed with her. For Vic, she would at least have the comfort and mental support of her spouses. For Amber, she was going to need George more than she ever knew. How is it that George always seemed to wind up with the damaged girls?
Once Vic was in the hallway she just shifted to her spouses, she slipped out of her clothes and into bed, taking her spot, as her skin touched the skin of her mates they both let out soft moans of pleasure at having the missing part of them back in place. For her, she felt the pleasant tingling sensation that always accompanied their touch. She lay her head down on Ced's broad chest, her arm and leg touching Cici's, in his sleep he kissed her on top of her head, this simple action brought a smile to her lips, the steady beat of his loving heart lulled her to sleep faster than any potion could have.
In their sleep, the three of them analysed and reanalysed what Vic had seen that night, they all were appalled at what had happened to Amber, and they were surprised at the number of other girls in the school.
During their morning run, they discussed what had happened last night. They were most worried about what George's reaction would be. It was a good thing to be worried about too. George was all for going in and hexing Finnigan and all of the dark Slytherins. At the end of their run, they cleared the area quickly and portkeyed to the chambers. Neville and Draco were there waiting for them.
The two professors debriefed the two teens that had done the surveillance last night. When Vic told the part about the Whomping Willow, they said to her that it was smart of her not to have followed the cloaked guy. They explained that the underground path led to the Shrieking Shack in Hogsmeade, it would have been a natural place to ambush her, and that would have created more problems, instead of helping to solve the one big problem that they have now.
"Let's practice, and I'll tell the Headmistress at breakfast," Draco told the kids.
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"That potion gives you more energy!" Whispered Rose to Cici.
"And I feel that tingling sensation that you talked about," Angel whispered to Vic.
Vic and Cici shared a smile with them. Julia was sitting to close to have a good conversation about it. The group kept an eye on Finnigan, but he was just so plain ordinary acting! Amber came stumbling in earlier than usual, George jumped up to help her. He helped her into her seat and then helped her get some food. She looked terrible like she hadn't slept in weeks, which if you think about it, is about right. But when had the UAA gotten its claws into her?
"How are you doing this morning?" George asked her.
"Fine, I guess I slept better last night. I'm not as tired."
"That's good, did you have any bad dreams again?"
At this, Amber got all quiet and glared at George.
"I'm just asking because I care."
"Well, maybe you shouldn't care so much." The comment wanted to be an angry comment, but it came across more as a warning to those listening in from the sidelines.
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That night, Cici waited up in the fourth-year girl's dorm room. She was standing, disillusioned, between Rose and Angel, her shoes were silenced, and she made no noise. They waited until Amber had drawn her curtains before Angel disillusioned herself. Then, a little before midnight, Amber started moving around. Cici positioned herself at the door to the room to wait, she wanted to get a good look at Amber's face, to see if she really did have a blank look, or was she just faking it. The curtains around Amber's bed slid back, and an expressionless Amber started moving to the door of the room. Cici stepped aside, and then they followed her down to the forest. The twelve victims of the red-cloaked figure were all there. Just as Vic described, the red-cloaked figure gave all of them the potions, then he collected all of the vials, and Amber was given the second potion. Just as before, Amber removed all of her clothing and got on her knees. Cici could feel her anger rising inside of her, once the red-cloaked figure was done with her, he motioned for Finnigan to come and take his place. When Finnigan was finished with Amber, the red-cloaked figure knocked her to the ground and said something to her that Cici and Angel couldn't hear. Amber got up and put her clothes back on. Finnigan escorted her to the castle, while the red-cloaked figure walked to the Whomping Willow. Is this what they had done to her wife? Before Ced and Cici had taken her in? What was going on with the other girls? Who were the other girls? Right now, we have more questions than answers! The three of them could easily capture the red-cloaked figure. Did the UAA want them to catch the red-cloaked figure? What was Finnigan's part in all of this? She focused on the window of the common room, then she was in the common room. She watched as Amber came through the portrait hole followed by Angel. She followed them up the stairs and waited as Amber got in bed fully clothed, shoes and all. Angel cancelled the charm, said goodnight and went to her bed. Out in the hallway, she checked for prying eyes, then shifted to her spouses.
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The next morning after charms, "Vane!" the voice called to her softly.
"Honey, take my bookbag and wait over there for me," Vic told Ced super sweetly, pointing to a spot along the wall, wanting the cloaked figure to believe that she still had Ced under her control.
Cici just walked on by like she was finished with him.
"I see that you have made progress Miss Vane, or should I say, Miss Potter. The master is pleased that you have gotten yourself adopted into their family."
"What is it that you want." She could feel him trying to get inside of her mind. Well, two could play at this. She shot her hand out and grabbed the cloaked figure by the throat. She sank her long nails deep into his skin, blood was beginning to run down from where she had an excellent grip on this terrorist. She had put her mental walls up, to protect her bond-mates from this wanker, finding out that she was soul-bonded now, and many more times powerful than he would ever be. She could feel him wanting to start a spell.
"No no no, you don't really want to do that!" she whispered to him. She sank her nails in even farther, tightening her grip.
"Now, let's go someplace where you and I can have a talk." Then she teleportused to just outside the Room of Requirements. With her nails sunk into his throat, Vic walked the terrorist backwards into the room. Once inside the room, and the wall had reformed behind her, she tripped the terrorist so he would land on his back. She went down with him slamming his head into the hard stone floor.
"Now, let's talk. What's going on in that ugly little head of yours?" and she crushed his feeble attempt to keep her out of his head. What she found only made her even angrier, without her knowing it she had started closing her grip on his throat. She could hear him gurgling when Kitten showed up next to her.
"You don't want to do this sister," Kitten told her.
"Yes, I do."
"This isn't why I helped you."
Vic's head snapped around to look at her.
"It's not," Kitten told her softly. "Let me bring Tonks here to take care of this for you." She offered.
Vic, with the anger and hatred, that she felt for the person's life she literally held in her hand, nodded.
"Tonks," Kitten paused, "Come." And Tonks was standing there next to them both.
Tonks looked around trying to get her bearings on where she was and what was happening. She saw Kitten, and then she saw Vic with her fingers wrapped around some guys windpipe. The guy was gurgling.
"Wotcher Vic. You can let him go now." Tonks told her.
"No, I can't, as soon as I let him go, he's going to do something. He just hasn't made up his mind what though."
"What do you mean?"
"I have been performing legilimency on him, and he is the scum of the earth! I'm not letting go of him until he's in a protected cell where he can't get out."
"Well, you're going to have to let go of him for one of us to get him in there," Tonks told her.
"No, I'm not, Kitten take us to the cells in the Ministry."
"I'm sorry Vic, I'm not that strong." She told them.
Vic started to get up, and she was dragging her victim up with her. She wasn't letting go until he was in a magically protected cell. "Fine then, take my arm, Tonks."
Tonks did as she had told her. As soon as she felt Tonks tighten her grip, Vic teleportused to the front gates of the school. From there they walked to the apparition point. And from there Tonks apparated them to the Auror Headquarters, DMLE. But Vic still didn't let go of the guy's throat.
"I said in a cell. I'm not letting go until he's in a magically protected cell."
Dutifully Tonks led them to an elevator.
"You're leaving blood everywhere," Tonks told her.
"It's not mine." Was all that Vic said.
Suddenly, Vic slammed the perpetrator up against the back wall of the elevator car. Tonks turned, her wand in her hand, to see Vic snarling at the guy, her grip closing around his windpipe.
"What's wrong?" asked a concerned Tonks.
As the elevator car doors opened. "He wanted me to kill him here. I started to oblige him, and he decided he really wanted to live." By now, the blood had started to run down her hand past her wrist and was being absorbed by her school robes. "I guess he didn't want me to rip his windpipe out and show it to him."
Tonks led them down a gloomy hallway to the highest security cells the aurors had. Amelia had increased the security after Pettigrew had escaped from one of the cells. The guards jumped up when they saw Vic with her fingers wrapped around some guys throat. Tonks just waved them back down.
"Open this cell." She told the guard.
"On whose authority?" he asked her.
"Mine!" she raised her voice to him.
"Mam, I need the correct paperwork," he whined back to her.
The terrorist gurgled out a laugh.
"Well, tosser, you can either open that cell in the next ten seconds, or you can fill out all of the different forms for having a dead body laying across your desk. Your choice." Vic told the guard. She shook the perpetrator by the throat for emphasis.
The terrorist gurgled some more.
The guard started fishing for the correct magical key as quickly as he could. He didn't know who this little girl was, but he did know that he didn't want to make her mad at him. Plus filling out all of those forms in triplicate, that would suck! He got the cell open, and Vic walked the terrorist into the cell backwards, she tripped him again and slammed his head into the floor of the cell, his eyes rolled to the top of his head, but he was still breathing. That was more than she cared about. As soon as she left the cell, the magical door closed behind her, forming a complete magic proof box around the prisoner.
They started walking back to the elevators, when they were out of earshot of the guard, Vic began to talk to Tonks.
"Tonks, I'm sorry for behaving this way," Vic started.
"Well, I'm wondering just who this guy is exactly."
"This is the guy that was messing with my mind last year in school."
"Oh, so he's a terrorist! That makes it a lot easier to hold him and question him." Tonks was much happier now, her hair turned back to its usual bubble gum pink.
When they entered the elevator, there was another wizard in the lift with them, so they stopped talking. Once they got to Tonks' office, and she had reinforced the privacy charms, they started talking again.
"When I probed his mind, because he was trying to probe mine, there's so much evil stuff this guy has done. He's partly responsible for the twelve girls in Hogwarts right now."
"You have twelve girls in Hogwarts that's being controlled by terrorists?"
"Yes, they're all fourth-years and up this time."
"What's Minerva got to say about all of this?"
"Well, we've told Draco and Neville, and they said that they would keep her informed of what's going on."
"Okay, Neville has asked us to come check out a spot at Hogwarts, but our crime scene investigator is running behind at this time."
"You probably won't find much, there's this red-cloaked figure that gives all of the girls a potion, and he gives Amber a second potion, then he makes her do sexual stuff to him. I just almost hexed him the first time I watched. But the guy in the red cloak, he slips in and out by way of the shrieking shack and the Whomping Willow."
"What time is this guy doing this stuff?" Tonks asked curiously.
"Amber always leaves her bed just before midnight. The guy probes their minds and does something with his wand to some of the girls sometimes. Then he sexually abuses Amber, he calls Finnigan over to let him sexually abuse her, then he walks just as calmly as can be to the Whomping Willow and leaves. He's gone before Amber makes it back up to the dorm for the rest of the night."
"Will this happen again tonight?"
"If he follows his pattern that he has held the last two nights, yes."
"Okay, I can be in the shrieking shack around one in the morning."
"I can get Ced and Cici, all three of us can wear the body armour that Uncle Os, Remus, and Sirius, gave us last summer."
"They gave you body armour? What were you doing that you needed body armour?"
"That's something that I can't talk about. They made us sign a contract."
"Who made you sign a contract?"
"I can't say, it's those kinds of people. But let's just say that this is some really nice body armour. Really nice."
"While we're catching the guy in the cloak, somebody is going to have to take care of the girls, so they don't get hurt."
"I can get Rose, Angel, George, and Fred to help with that. We don't want George to see what these guys are doing to his girlfriend. She's going to need a lot of help after this, a lot of help. I was lucky, I had Kitten help me and then I had Luna help me."
"Luna's good! She's come in and helped some of our other abuse cases, and all of them really say that she's the best."
"Good, we'll wait until the girls are back in the castle to stun them. But how are we going to get them from the first floor to the Hospital Wing?"
"I'll ask Minerva to have a dozen house elves ready to apparate them to the hospital wing."
"We don't want a lot of people to know what's going on. That way there's less chance of someone telling the wrong person or the wrong person overhearing what is going to happen tonight."
"I'm familiar with operational security!" Tonks scolded her.
"I'm not saying that you aren't, but at Hogwarts, that place has ears everywhere! And lots of mouths that like to talk! Let me talk to our house elves, and have them ask for help from the elves that they trust in the school. Let's not tell anyone until this is all over."
"Okay, but Minerva is going to be mad for a few days!"
"All I'm saying is if the wrong person overhears her telling Madam Pomfrey or one of her assistants, and that person tells someone else that they trust, but …"
"Whoever you needed body armour for over the summer, had really good op-sec! I'll see you tonight after it's all over. You can use the apparition point, I'm pretty sure that you can apparate already, right?"
"Yes, but don't tell anyone please, we're not supposed to be able to do it yet."
"Your secret's safe with me!"
Tonks watched her leave, Vic waved bye, and silently she apparated away. She's better than me! Tonks thought to herself.
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A/N:
Revised 02.18.2018
And again 01.03.2019