Granger, we need to talk

Chapter 44

Perhaps we have a problem

Standard disclaimer.

It all belongs to J.K. Rowling, who gave us

seven books, and still allows most of us to play

in her created sandbox.

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A bit less than 4,300 words.

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"Possibly," Harry answered with a tired shrug. "Don't know where he is, except it's not here."

Everyone stared at everyone else.

Finally, Ginny spoke. "You don't suppose all this was just The Bad Bloke's version of a Wronski Feint, do you? 'Cause if he's not here . . . we just got plowed."

"Oh, bollocks," said a soft, disappointed voice from where Luna was sprawled.

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The six sprawled bodies in the deckhouse started sitting up. Their tired bodies once more being asked to pay attention.

"Alright," said Harry. "If he's not here, where is he?"

"Could he be trying to direct the pirates whilst holed up somewhere because he's too injured to be able to fight?" queried Neville.

"Or," followed Daphne, "he might have passed the hijacking job off to someone else? I mean we don't know if he's been hired to do this or is freelancing."

They all looked at each other.

Harry scrubbed his face with his hands before stating what was lurking in everyone's mind. "Or, he's back at the castle waiting."

"What? How could he get in? Thought the new wards would keep him out?" echoed three different voices.

"What? To ambush us? Then why tip us off by attacking us at the harvest site?" returned Daphne.

Luna was quick to respond. "Since the crew was outnumbered at least two to one, he probably figured the Lady A was easy pickings. I bet he never found out we were aboard. The invisibility cloak must have worked as planned."

At that point, a lot of thoughts went back to the bloody windrow in the lee scuppers. They had created it, and were now going to live with the memories.

There was an actual ripple through the group as they visibly shook off those memories that were to be theirs now.

Harry made a point of looking at everybody before he spoke. "As I see it we have two choices. We sit here and believe that Kingswood and Shacklebolt have done what they were supposed to do. Or, we can hop on our brooms and fly back to the castle, and hopefully feel a bit foolish when it turns out everything is alright."

Harry would not have taken the bet that it would be Hermione who would be the most against the second choice.

"Harry, aren't we a long way from the harbour? Over water there are no landmarks to steer by. We could get lost."

They all knew Hermione's dislike of flying and could hear it in the tremor of her voice

"I'll check with the Captain," replied Harry. "But I think from looking at his charts earlier, we are only about twenty-five miles from Groghabste. We could almost see the castle from a ways up in the air."

"If we decide to go, you'll ride with me, Ginny can take Neville, and Daphne will ride with Luna on her broom together." He paused before continuing. "If we are going, it should be quickly. I would not be surprised that some of the thugs apparated away from that burning boat. And they should know where to find their Boss."

"Guess we should have kept one or two of our prisoners awake for questioning," said Daphne.

"Yeah, well amateurs forget stuff like that," stated Neville. "If anyone here becomes an Auror, then we'll have a professional to remember that stuff."

A short trip to gather their stuff, a short talk with Captain Sulstrude, and the six mounted their re-enlarged brooms and eased off into the early morning sky.

The three flyers could not push their brooms up to high speed as the freezing temperatures would frostbite their extremities in short order, so they flew at a pace that kept the Warming Charms working.

With Harry in the lead using the small compass Sulstrude given him, they saw land in front of them only fifteen minutes into the journey. Landing in a section of barren rock, everyone renewed their warming charms and Harry laid out the final part of the flight.

"The Captain said to fly to the coast and turn right. We should be about five miles from the castle. What I think we should do is Disillusion and Silence ourselves. Then fly until we see the castle, then swing around and fly in from the land side with the sun at our backs. Hopefully, if the Chief Assassin and some cronies are there, they'll be looking out to sea, and anyone looking east will get the sun in their eyes."

"Actually, I don't expect there to be any trouble at the castle. I had a talk with Director Kingswood before we left and he assured me the Aurors would pay "special" attention to any calls for assistance that come from Castle Beag Targe this weekend."

Harry's visage darkened, "And I asked a favor of Shacklebolt to keep an eye on Kingswood. If that man will not take action to defend all the subjects of Britannia, then we will have proof I can take before the Wizengamot to have him removed for dereliction of duty."

"If we end up having a problem at the castle," he continued, "we'll just have to improvise. Any questions or better ideas?"

The six looked at each other and metaphorically shrugged their shoulders.

Hermione decided that this was an opportunity, and grabbed Harry by the neck and attacked his mouth with a harsh, grinding kiss. She blindly reached off to her side, snagging Daphne, and as soon as she released Harry, she shoved Daphne in his face.

The tall blonde proceeded to kiss Harry deeply, pushing all her feelings she had developed for her messy haired husband-to-be into the kiss.

When both his girls were done with him, he stood there in a daze, his brain shorted out by the depth of feeling they both had just shown to him.

His eyes wandered over to Neville only to see the same dazed look on his face as his two fiancées still both clutched him close.

Harry had an errant thought that if he could brew and market this feeling as a potion, he would make more money than Grandfather Fleamont Potter had when he created SleekEazy for hair.

Of course, having to live through a terrifying spell fight might make it a hard sell to the common wizard or witch.

With final looks, the six mounted their brooms and kicked aloft after casting a strong Notice-Me-Not Charm on themselves. Staying low to keep some hills between them and the castle they cruised along at a moderate speed for about fifteen minutes before sighting the castle's keep standing above the bay.

Slinking between the hills and finally coming to a hover with the sun at their backs they examined the castle from afar.

And they saw nothing except one person standing look-out atop the keep's tower overlooking the bay. No one moved in the streets. No one was on the piers. No one was working on any of the fishing boats tied up to the docks.

As they watched, the lack of people moving around became more and more ominous. The only movement came from the tower lookout who would shift around by a few paces at random moments.

"Looks quiet," said a soft voice Ginny.

"Yeah, too quiet," softly snarled back a suspicious-sounding Daphne.

Harry sighed. "Luna, you and Daphne please go and, very quietly, stun our new information sources?"

Two wavering shapes drifted to the top of the tower and as soon as they were below the battlements, a silvery spell immediately followed by a streak of red had the lookout silently collapsing in a heap on the wooden decking of the tower.

Everyone was startled when a man shape suddenly leaped up from where he had been concealed by the near battlement wall from the remaining four broom riders.

The two young women had caught the movement and noise the second lookout had made as he jumped up and raised his wand. They bailed off the broom in different directions but their hasty movements had destroyed their Disillusionment.

The standing pirate was tracking Luna and started vocalizing a spell when a silent, colorless Expellerimus from Neville ripped his wand from his hand. He barely had time to start to spin around when the red jet of a Stupify from Luna's wand collapsed him like a sack of dropped potatoes.

Harry and the group flew over the battlement as quickly as their Disillusionment Spell would allow. After all their work to sneak up on the lookouts, being seen now would be disastrous.

"Neville," said Harry. "Grab that bloke's cloak and hat, then stand up against the wall where anyone looking up here can see you. We don't want anyone wondering where he has disappeared to."

Neville started to grab the unconscious man's cloak when he suddenly stopped.

"Pheww, Harry, this arse's clothes smell worse than they look. And they look like shitte!"

"Language, Nev," said Hermione and Daphne together.

"Ginny," continued Hermione, "I assume your mother taught you some spells for this sort of thing?"

"Oh, yeah," the redhead replied. "I've got some spells that can pull a clean Abraxan from a dirty ferret's arse."

Ignoring the shocked looks from everyone except Luna, Ginny muttered a string of spells that levitated the thug and stripped him of his hat and cloak. Another muttered string and Neville was pulling on the almost clean cloak and mercifully clean conical cloth hat with a furry brim. Casually strolling up to the battlement wall he leaned on it for a few minutes, clearly visible if anyone was looking.

While Ginny performed her same magic on their first prisoners' clothing Harry had a short quiet conversation with Hermione and Daphne. On his way to joining Neville at the wall to be highly visible if anyone looked, he walked over by the stairway coming up to the roof and placed a low-power alert ward.

"We going to let the girls interrogate those two?" asked Neville quietly.

"Yep."

"Um, . . Harry, we need answers out those guys. Quickly. Do you really think . . ."

Harry turned and stared straight at his Battle-Brother. "From their looks, they are from somewhere in central or eastern Asia. They hardly know what happened to them. And in about two minutes they are going to come to the realization that they've been given over to their enemies' women as playthings."

"Everyone of us has very sharp, pointy knives on our persons. I understand Ginny and Daphne carry at least two, if not more. I'll bet they start talking before the girls need to make their blood flow."

The two stared at each other for a few more moments, then turned and peered out over the harbour. It had been a few minutes when suddenly Hermione hit Harry with a very light attention Knock spell. He managed to keep his look over to her controlled and slow so as not to look startled.

At Hermione's come here gesture, Harry started walking towards the female interrogation group.

He met Hermione at the mid-point of the tower and actually stutter-stepped at her appearance as she made exaggerated obeisance to him.

Harry caught on that the role-playing was for their captive's benefit.

Her teeth were all sharp and pointed, with elongated canines. Her eyes were sunken, black-encircled, and glowing red. The hair around her face was moving like snakes. She looked like a glowing-eyed inferi. In fact, she looked as though she had come from Hell.

"Merlin, Hermione. What are you women doing?"

"Just a bit of intimidation. Like the Daughters from Hell look? Anyway, time is short. We have a problem. Neither of them appears to speak English."

"However, this spiffy ring, "she raised her left hand, "you gifted me with seems to be working hard as a translator, but it's only catching about every third word or so."

She glared at him. "We WILL find out the history of this ring after we get back to the school."

She glared at him as though it was his fault. "For right now, just stroll over there like you were Lucius Malfoy and this is your castle. Maybe kick 'em in the leg or something, Then I suggest you briefly discuss their shortcomings in parseltongue."

Her grin was pure evil. "Then when they are completely creeped out, give us the short thumb across the throat signal. Then we will see if Plan A works."

As instructed, Harry strode arrogantly across the tower deck to the pair of sitting, partially stripped, Incarcerouse'd men who were starting to shiver in the cold of the winter morning. As he made the last step, he saw Ginny mime what was an obvious pulling gesture near the left side man's crotch. She followed with a slicing movement from the glittering dagger in her other hand, followed by tinkling evil laughter from all the females.

The captured raiders looked terrified, their bulging eyes never leaving the dagger.

Harry decided to improvise some theatrics. He crouched down in front of them and made a big show of examining them carefully, including looking them straight in their eyes. He then turned and made several long comments in parseltongue to the girls.

Harry finished by standing and moderately kicking the right-side captive on the outside of his knee. He knew from experience the pain was worse than the blow's strength. As he regained his height, he hissed a short burst of parseltongue, and jerked his thumb across his throat before turning and striding back towards Neville.

"Nev, my friend," he said clapping his Battle-Brother on the shoulder, "if we are ever, ever in a fight where losing means being given to the women afterward, we will run away like we are being chased by hellhounds."

Neville stared at Harry in confusion.

"And if you truly love your women? Squash your curiosity and do not go look at them right now. There are reasons why those two sorry sods will have nightmares for the rest of their lives. Whether they talk or not."

Neville stared a Harry for a few moments and then turned to look out over the bay and village again.

"Daphne was right, wasn't she?" he muttered. "It's too quiet. We've trouble and our back-ups seem to have misplaced themselves."

"Yep," Harry popped the "P". "We need a plan. Got anything, brother?"

Neville again looked at Harry in confusion.

"Hey, I've been told you're the one who made the plans for food and medical supply forays last year. And you planned the snatching from the Carrow's those that were about to be taken for execution or to the Re-education Camps."

"Me? I spent my year running and hiding. Even the couple of times we meticulously planned a raid, it blew up in our faces, leaving us to run away, run away." Harry's grin was sardonic and lopsided. "I think your plans might work better than mine."

The next several minutes were spent gazing out to sea while Neville bounced several plans off Harry.

Another mild Knock spell had Harry turning to see what he was wanted for. To his surprise, the four women were seated a few feet away in comfortable-looking conjured chairs that were low enough that their heads were below the battlement. Startled, he looked past them to the two unmoving captives who were lying like trussed lamb roasts over where they had been questioned.

At Harry's questioning look, Hermione started. "As best as we can tell, these two are common hired muscle. They have no idea of any background, or what is planned to happen."

She continued, "They think the leader was hired by the Mongolian Warlords, but that's sitting around the campfire conjecture. Right now, they are waiting for the other group to sail into the harbour with whatever the loot there is and then they can kill everyone, and leave."

At Harry and Neville's startled looks of disbelief, she explained. "A Confundus Charm, along with a glamour change into four beautiful angels after they'd been killed by the Demonesses from Hell, can get a lot of talk."

At Harry's gape of disbelief, Hermione continued. "Yeah, we changed our looks again." She shrugged. "It worked."

"Of course, lots of this is speculation. The language they speak is close to some language this ring knows. But close means we only understood part of the story."

"Anyway, we think there are another eight or nine assorted wizards somewhere in the castle. They have about twenty people as prisoners in the large parlour under maybe-e-e four? guards plus our old friend. The other four are roaming the castle looking for plunder."

"Sorry, Harry. It's the best we got. Their language . . ."

Harry made a short bow in her direction. "Love, getting that much information out of someone with a different language than English is remarkable. All of you did great."

After looking at everyone for a moment he said, "Nev has a plan. So, while he tells us about it, let's strip down to fighting clothes, somehow animate two scarecrows to replace us at the wall here, and let's be off to rescue our friends."

Less than five minutes later, six young people who really should not have been there doing what they were about to do, were walking towards the stairway.

Neville, Ginny, and Luna descended first. Harry had agreed with Neville that the three of them were just a touch faster and better versed in the practice of tight quarters combat in a castles' hallways and rooms.

When the group reached the bottom of the steps, they once again Disillusioned themselves and Silenced their feet. Stepping past a black iron grill that could close off the stairwell, there were two choices of directions to go. A hallway immediately went to the left and another hallway went straight ahead.

Neville was about to turn left when they all heard noise coming up that same corridor. With a hasty whisper, everyone ducked back around the corner, although Neville stumbled over Ginny, but did not fall.

"Nev, standard ambush. You three are the casters," Harry said quietly. "We'll support you if we have to."

The standard ambush was something they had worked on in the Room of Requirement passageway. Two Silencio's, two Stupify's from Ginny and Luna with Neville as the spare caster if things did not quite go as planned.

The talking came nearer and suddenly two wizards dressed just like the pair lying fifteen feet above them. Smell included.

They had barely started to react to the Silencio when a pair of red streaks dropped them like silent sacks of potatoes at the bottom of the steps. Neville was heard muttering that "damn girls are so good they take all my fun away."

After the two had all wands, three extra, and any portkeys, none, and all their money, very little, removed, they were floated up the stairs and left trussed with their compatriots under Notice-Me-Not Charms.

"Yes Harry, we applied a Warming Charm on them. They won't freeze to death. For at least two hours. If we don't get back up here by then . . . Meh."

They all found themselves again at the bottom of the stairway. This time Neville elected to go straight. A short distance found them entering the living quarters' area of the castle.

No one was there.

They found a curving stairway that they took down to the next floor.

A careful reconnaissance of that floor produced nothing again.

A hasty strategy session was called by Harry in someone's abandoned suite of rooms.

After a minute of frustration venting, Hermione brought up that her memories of the castle tour had the Lord's suite on the floor above, yet they have seen no doors. If the looters want real plunder, they should be in that suite.

No one had a better plan and they could feel the pressure as time was running short. Only twenty more paces and another curving set of stairs led them up again.

A sharp hiss brought everyone to a standstill.

"Listen."

Talking, breaking objects and spells could be heard. A soft "Let's go," had them carefully walking towards the sound.

Peering around the edge of a large opened door, they saw a hoped-for sight. Two grungy wizards were tearing apart the furnishings of a large suite using noisy spells and breaking furnishings. Apparently, they believed Lords kept jewels in hollow chair legs or secret table compartments. (1)

Two Stupify's, the usual dis-arming Accio's, and they were left behind the bed under one of Hermione's powerful Notice-Me-Not Charms.

"Four down, four or five more to go. I'm happy that none of the six we've met will be able to sneak up on us from the back," mused Harry.

"I know where we are now and how to get to the Main Hall," said Hermione. "The problem is I only know how to get to the main entrance. I'd feel better if we could sneak attack through the kitchen or serving doors."

"Nope," answered Neville. "That would probably put the prisoners between them and us. A lot of people would get hurt that way."

"What do you figure, Nev? Frontal assault? That could get ugly very quickly," said Harry quietly.

"Nope again, Harry," returned Neville. "I figure on sending a scout ahead underneath that nifty cloak you have."

Everyone else in the group either actually or virtually facepalmed. A big advantage and they had forgotten about it.

A quick explanation from Hermione where they were going and soon the group was easing along, carefully and quietly heading for their target.

Stopping before the last corner, Harry silenced his boots, did a scent removal charm, and pulled the cloak's hood up, and disappeared from sight.

The plan was simple. Cloaked Harry would ghost down and enter the castles dining hall, observe the layout, then return so they could plan the rescue. Meanwhile, Luna and Hermione would oh-so-carefully Disillusion themselves, ease into the corridor, and cover the guard standing off to their side of the Hall doorway.

Inside Harry found the main table had been rearranged into a short armed "T" shape, with the bottom facing the doorway. He immediately recognized the leader who was seated at the top of the crossbar with a lackey a chair away on either side. The last two guards were standing halfway between the wall and the table, facing the backs of the captives with drawn wands.

There were twenty-two people, eleven on each side, down the length of the stem. What shocked Harry enough to almost make him stumble was the two people in red auror robes sitting across from each other partway down the table.

"How in Merlin's Nine Hell's had that happened," thought a truly disgruntled Harry.

In less than a minute, Harry had a plan and turned to exit the room. Sliding by the wand holding thug who might be able to see the corridor guard, Harry was careful not to look at him and maybe get his 'I'm-prey-and-something-is-looking-at-me' instincts aroused.

Harry cleanly exited the doorway, and silently went down the corridor and around the corner before removing the cloak's hood so his companions could see him again.

After two minutes of planning, Harry disappeared again. Approaching the guard, he stood off to the side and let Hermione make a sound that was not recognizable. The guard turned and took a couple of steps towards the corner.

Harry stepped behind him and letting his arm show, he cast a low-level Sonumbulus Charm that left no colour flash. Hermione silently cast Accio on the slumping body, with Luna Silencing the body before it hit the floor in front of Hermione.

The sleeping wizard was tucked around the corner, Incarceroused, Stupified, and left under a Notice-Me-Not Charm just like his brethren.

Harry ghosted back into the Hall and took position behind the chief thugs' chair, wand hidden, but ready to cast. Since he was concentrating hard, he could occasionally pick out the slight shimmer of someone under a Disillusionment Spell, but the slight wavering's in the air were faint.

Harry was to open the attack by taking out the Leader. Hopefully, the other five were standing where they would immediately ambush the other thugs. If everyone was in place, there should be no danger of hitting each other or the prisoners.

The plan was on track and Harry was counting down from five when his magical sense picked up the blooming of anti-apparition and anti-portkey jinxes over the castle.

The greatest threat in the room jumped up and shouted something Harry could not make out.

"Ah, Merlin damn it . . ." he thought as he let fly a curse to the man's back.

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A/N: Sorry this is a couple of weeks late, but reading the screen with my one eye and/or now fuzzy glasses prescription gives me headaches. New glasses in two weeks. Will be traveling north in three weeks, and if I do not finish the next chapter by the 25th of April, it will not get published until about May 10th or so.

Chapter fought me all the way. Not happy with it. Reads more like a movie set description and shooting script than a story.

One: Idea of the scene stolen from The Deed of Paksenarrion by Elizabeth Moon. (An assemblage of the original trilogy.) I think it's from the second book, Oath of Gold.

The trilogy is probably the best fantasy story I ever read. Sorry, JK.