Book 4: Astoria Greengrass and the Curse of Quennell Park
Song rec: "Trains" by Porcupine Tree

Astoria crouched behind an old, weed-covered fence whilst Nott sat her grandfather's nice clothes right in the mud, terrified. An automobile had raced past them on the country road, and Nott hadn't taken it well. As they sat out the nerves, she told him to conjure water for them to drink. They were drinking out of poorly-conjured goblets at the edge of somebody's field, which might be considered trespassing. Astoria kept watching the house for any people who might be watching her. The noise and wind of the passing automobile had not been a pleasant experience for her, either, nor was the look the driver had given her. She tried to think of automobiles as large, noisy brooms. There would be more of them as the morning drew on and as they travelled in more populated areas. They would have to get over it really soon.

"Mr Nott, people drive autos. We'll see a lot of them."

Nott was snotty and red-eyed.

"My family's never driven one of those cursed things. No one in my family. Never."

"Listen, Mr Nott, I know it's difficult to deal with this awful memory. It's a crime what happened to your wife. Right now, though, we need to get to your son as quickly as we can. Do try to look at it another way. If we drove automobiles, we wouldn't be walking."

"No, you're wrong! If I remembered how to fly, we wouldn't be walking!"

"You can't fly without a broom regardless. We need to go. Here," she said, helping him off the ground. "Are you sure you don't recall the Knight Bus?"

"Wait!" Mr Nott exclaimed, nearly leaping into horse manure. "I do remember something about the Knight Bus!"

"You do? That's excellent!" she gasped.

"I remember the bus driver was arrested for being a Death Eater! And do you know what else I remember?"

"Er… what?"

"That he wasn't one at all! There is a whole unit of Death Eaters on a, erm, a 'transportation operative!' And they put some sort of spell on the bus driver, and… and… and they're monitoring broom traffic and Portables and the Floos! I remember!"

"Portables… Portkeys? Well, that means they're all over the Department of Magical Transportation! Last I saw, they were still in the broom closet. I reported this myself, and the Aurors did nothing… I can't believe this!"

Astoria was mainly talking to herself, but Nott listened closely, trying to make sense of his fragmented memories. There was no point in sulking over the Knight Bus anymore if it only led to more Death Eaters. She had such a long way to travel on foot that it was incredible how her parents had ever got into the habit of saying they lived near Battle. Walking off to the side of the road was dirty and uneven, but there was no telling when the next automobile would zip by. At last, they reached an intersection. The road in front of them was larger and had painted white lines in a uniform pattern.

"Does this road go to Falmouth?"

"Er, yeah," she lied. "Please give me the directions again."

Nott set his wand in the grass, saying "Point me," and gestured behind him. That meant they would have to make a left.

"Please don't walk so close to the road, Grace."

Says the man who let Gracie get murdered and tried to kill me this morning.

"Now, I told you that some time ago," she nagged.

Astoria entertained a fantasy of him getting his memories back so she could really tell him what she thought — no, show him. However, the longer she fantasised revenge, the more afraid she became that his memories really would come back. It had been a slap in the face to see her brilliant father struggle against this stupid old warlock. Some warlock he was now.

No matter how many second looks she took at the buildings they walked past, there wasn't a single Wizarding residence or business to be found. Muggle places were very flat and rectangular, like shoeboxes with windows. They kept nice gardens, but Astoria could feel in her bones how much damage the very road she walked on had caused to the land. Cars were zooming past them every five minutes.

Where do you have to go that's so damn important? she scowled at a particular blue automobile that roared with arrogant speed.

"Point me," said Nott without having to be told, and they changed roads again.

This road made Nott especially distressed, since a neat row of hedges prevented them from walking in the grass, and the traffic only picked up. Astoria and he started walking at the edge of Muggle properties at that point, since it wasn't like an Intruder Charm was going to set off.

"Are we in Falmouth?"

"Nott, please try to put two and two together. We have just arrived in Battle. Do you even remember Falmouth, or are you merely spitting that word out?"

Nott was ashamed and did not answer. Astoria encountered many numbered signs she did not understand. When she saw a conveniently-placed bench, her feet decided it was time for a break. With the suitcase on her lap, she snacked on granola and oranges, sharing food with Nott without comment. She was very hungry, but in sitting and resting on the roadside chair, she kept thinking of her sister's severed arm lying in the grass with Quennell about. She packed up her food and watched the Muggles drive by. All of Astoria's wars were irrelevant to them in hedge-lined suburbia.

"Grace, say, is that the Knight Bus?"

It wasn't the Knight Bus. It was blue and white and smelt like chemicals, and it was slowing down right in front of their seats. A Muggle bus could work well for them, because the driver would certainly give good directions. The door to the coach slid open with a squeak. Astoria walked up to it to speak with the driver. His breath evoked coffee.

"Can you take us to the nearest train station?"

"Ah, you going to a, er, festival somewhere?" the driver asked, keeping a special glance on Nott.

"Yes, actually," Astoria agreed with a planned smile, because whatever explanation the driver came up with was what he was most comfortable with.

"Let's see… that'll be two-ten each."

Two-ten? Two-ten… Two sickles could be two Muggle pounds, right?

Wrong. Very, very wrong.

"Listen, Miss. I've seen people try to put just about everything in that slot over the years. If you've got some place to go, don't fling that play money at me. I'm tired, all right, but I ain't stupid."

"This is real silver, though. I'm sure it can be exchanged," Astoria argued.

"Psssh," said the driver crossly, trying to start a conversation with Nott. "Sir. Sir, is she with you? Is this your granddaughter? Ah, forget it!"

Astoria was forcibly ushered off the smelly bus, and the door squeaked shut behind her. That really did it.

"Nott, stop that bus!"

"Er, er…" he fumbled with his wand.

"Say Immobulus!"

It worked. The bus driver had not seen precisely what happened, but he certainly wasn't opening the door for her now.

"Alohomora," Astoria hinted to Nott, wishing that she was at least seventeen years of age. To her ire, Nott's Unlocking Charm failed on the automated door.

"Oho, I remember this one much better, Grace. Open Sesame!" cried Nott, and the bus door busted off and flew into a tree.

"How did you remember that spell?" she yelped, storming the bus.

"It was always my favourite," Nott said simply.

The coffee-scented bus driver looked at them with his mouth open and his hands over his head. Muggles weren't allowed to see magic. Good thing he had just started his route and there weren't any passengers.

"Say Imperio and let's get this over with," Astoria instructed.

The bus driver became much more pleasant about taking them to the train station after that, although there was a close call with another automobile when Nott's spell went too deep.

"You have to give his mind some leeway, Nott! It's not like you know how to drive this thing!" Astoria said urgently. "You don't even know where we're going!"

"Sorry, sorry, sorry."

Astoria was certain the journey would have taken them half the time if the bus driver had simply accepted the sickles. When they reached the station, she had to think fast with an increasingly sleepy brain. The bus driver had seen them tear the door off, so she had to do something about that. The train was bound to only accept Muggle money too, so she needed enough to cover the fare. Because of the Statute of Secrecy, she couldn't formally exchange her cash without going to Diagon Alley. She would have to steal. With careful instruction, she had Nott relieve the Muggle of the Imperius Curse and put him into a light snooze. She grabbed all of the papery Muggle money out of his wallet and had Nott duplicate it with countless Doubling Charms. She didn't trust Nott's hand to Obliviate the bus driver, so maybe he would just think that he had hallucinated the whole thing from lack of sleep. Besides, if the Ministry was still doing what it was supposed to, she would have been in Azkaban by now.

Battle Station was humming with summer tourists, all ready to try to figure out where King Harold had lost his eye and, more importantly, where to get the best fish and beer. Nott watched them placidly, unable to detect their vices. Prior to this morning, Astoria had only encountered one Muggle since learning Legilimency. It was Gracie, of course, and although her silliness had been hard to follow, she was not morally bankrupt like the people spilling round Astoria were. It hurt to know that whilst one man had spent his savings travelling here to visit a sick friend, another was going to use the hotel telephone to call his secret mistress. It hurt to know that everyone always had an excuse for themselves, yet they would blame another person for the same action. With so many Muggles around, this had all come to Astoria in the same breath. The swell of the general public.

At the ticket station, Astoria discovered that to get to Falmouth, it would take four transfers. The worker was helpful, but the wealth of information he gave Astoria about the routes overwhelmed her. How were they supposed to change trains for a six minute ride in the heart of London? Every time they did, they'd have to use more duplicated money, stand in more ticket queues, and be near more, more, and more people. Astoria thanked the worker, but she did not buy the tickets she needed. She pulled Nott aside by the washrooms as he protested fervently.

"Would you let me speak‽" she shouted, catching the attention of several who did not think a girl her age should ever speak to an elder that way. "Nott, if we get on that train, we won't be in Falmouth for eight hours, providing we don't get lost. We have to get to your son before the You-Know-Whos do."

"Very well," he grumbled. "Tell me what to do."

Somewhere in this awful crowd there had to be a wizard. The tricky part was standing in a strategic spot. Ultimately, Astoria decided to stay near the toilets' entrance. She brought Nott down to her level and whispered directly to him. They weren't going to hurt anybody, she announced first, but they weren't going to be nice, either.

"We're looking for an adult witch or wizard so we can Apparate."

"How do you know if there is another wizard here?" Nott asked.

"I don't. The odds are less than one in ten people. But we have a crowd, so…"

Her eyes caught a popular walkway on the platform, and she got an idea.

"Nott, you have to point your wand there and say Repello Muggletum."

"Th-The whole area?"

"Yes, just sweep the whole area!" Astoria said urgently.

Hiding his wand in his sleeve and sweeping it across the walkway, Nott said, "Repello Muggletum," and suddenly an entire horde of people started turning away from the spot, thinking they had somewhere better to be or something they had forgotten. All except one: a wizard in a business suit with too wide a necktie and thinning brown hair. Astoria and Nott ran up to him.

"Now, what is the meaning of this‽" the wizard snapped.

His name was Dillon Washbourne. He was thirty-one years old, and his Occlumency was Muggle-esque. He was visiting the Wizarding community in Battle to trick the elderly into buying "Death Eater insurance." Astoria did not like him. She used the soft, high voice she used on teachers who weren't Professor Sinistra.

"Please, sir, we're in a crisis. My grandfather has been hit with a Memory Charm, and I'm too young to Apparate. I need to take him home. Can you please Apparate us to Falmouth, Cornwall?"

Nott didn't need to make his case for being Obliviated; his gaze had been off for hours and he held his wand like a quill whenever he wasn't told otherwise. Yet Washbourne refused to help.

"No, I'm here for work. Good luck to you," Washbourne said as though she had begged him for money.

"Sir, please!" Astoria tried again. "It will only take two minutes. Please! We're at least seven hours away, and I've never used Muggle trains before. I really do need your help!"

"Look, I said no, all right! I'm busy. Call on the Ministry or something!"

"The Ministry has been compromised," Astoria said desperately.

The only thing that comment did was give Washbourne more ideas for sales pitches in his cruel scam. Even though the Muggles were bypassing where they stood, many could still see them argue. She had seconds before her confrontation with this wizard would have genuine witnesses. She had to change tactics immediately.

"Ugh! Fine, you asked for this, you filthy half-blood," she pantomimed. She turned to Nott, saying, "Lift your sleeve and show Washbourne here who you are."

Nott was stunned at her abrupt change. He put his wand in his mouth like a dog bone and drew up the sleeve of his cloak to reveal the Dark Mark, still black and pulsing with Voldemort's calls. Washbourne didn't even think to draw his wand. His whole body tensed. They escorted him outside the station, behind the autos.

"How's your Death Eater insurance working now, hm? Hope you have some to your own name," Astoria taunted, finding humour in a thirty-one-year-old being too scared to think of ways to escape a minor and an elderly man. "Can you take us to Falmouth or not?"

"I – I've never been there. Please. I've certainly never Apparated there, I…" Washbourne stammered. "You can use Legilimency, right? You know I am telling the truth! Please!"

"Where is the closest you can safely get us?"

"To- to Truro," he answered. "I've worked there before. Please don't hurt me. I'll take you both there, I will."

"I know you will," Astoria pressed, trying to eradicate the escape plans from Washbourne's head. "Because if you are lying to me, I will know. And if you think about shaking us off on the way there, I will know beforehand, and I will Splinch your head off."

That really did the trick! Astoria gave Nott Sr a crash course in Side-Along Apparition (which basically boiled down to "do not let go for any reason") and they were off. Never a good experience, the speed and pressure of the Apparition was that much worse on her without sleep. They landed on the pavement outside of a Wizarding residence, the clearest place Washbourne had remembered. Having fulfilled his promise to take them there, Washbourne now only thought of ways to contact the authorities. He even considered the Muggle police.

"Get ready," Astoria said to Nott, and the warlock had his wand ready. "Swish to the right and say Confundus."

"NO! NO!" Washbourne yelped, but the spell hit him squarely, and he climbed into a rubbish bin by the kerb.

He would probably be fine. A real Death Eater would have killed him. Astoria and Nott treaded carefully up to the Wizarding residence, and she hoped that she wouldn't need to use the same plan of action on the resident of the house at which they stood.

An elderly wizard answered the door after three minutes of their waiting. He happened to be losing one-hundred Galleons a month to Washbourne. He used a walker, so Astoria wasn't going to ask him to Apparate. She was not sure how long Voldemort took to cattle-brand wayward Death Eaters' sons, but she felt like she had already saved some time in the quest to get to Theodore.

"Good morning, sir. My grandfather and I need to get to Falmouth, and we don't have any way of getting there. Can you please tell us where the nearest Muggle station is?"

"You mean you've got no broom?" the wizard said.

"No, sir. We're in a bit of a crisis."

"You need Floo powder? I bought ten bags before Diagon Alley started getting… you know…" he offered.

"No, sir. You-Know-Who's people are already monitoring the Floo Network, and we'd rather not have them see us. I'm a Squib, and he's been hit with a Memory Charm and can't recall how to Apparate."

"Oh, I see… that is quite a crisis. Let's see if I can remember… Well, do you see that road there? That's a wee alley. If you cut through this neighbourhood, you'll find River Street. Erm… hum. Stay on that road and follow the pavement till you reach Ferris Town. Once you're there, you'll be looking for a road called Richmond. That will take you to the station. Mind the automobiles especially there! They're bloody everywhere, and—"

"Sir, excuse me, but if I get lost, which is the best direction to follow?" Astoria asked.

"Er, that would be west," said the wizard. "I'm certain you'll find the tracks."

"Thank you very much, sir. Oh, I wanted to tell you… Did you happen to purchase Death Eater insurance? My grandfather did, and the salesman attacked him with the Memory Charm. He's been paying double what he signed up for each month. I've just been warning people of the scam. It's all fake."

"Oh my…" said the wizard.

It wasn't a very sturdy lie, but it was the best she could do without alarming the old fellow. Whatever he did with his knowledge of the scam, she wouldn't know. Astoria named the streets in her head over and over. Aloud, she calmed Nott down about the heavy traffic. Traversing a small amount of city was much harder than their long countryside walk to Battle. The twenty-five minutes it took for them to find the train station felt like hours of stress, and when Astoria walked in, it was another whirlpool of raw Muggle thought. The worker at this station, at least, did not look at her like she was wrong to try to catch a train to Falmouth from here. The fare was reasonably priced, a concern Astoria had never had before being stranded with foreign, counterfeit money. She studied the numbers on the Muggle notes carefully before handing the worker the correct amount. In turn, she received coins with the Queen's face on it. Her train would arrive in seventeen minutes.

"Trains for Falmouth leave from that platform," the worker said.

There were several other people on the platform. With most of his worries now subsiding, Nott started chattering about his son, one of the few recollections his Memory Charm couldn't damage. Everything was fine until he said, "I think he was eighteen months when he started using magic. I remember that! He Levitated his toys down the hall." Naturally, a comment like that made a couple of Muggles peer over at him, and he stared right back. Astoria had to give them the "he's unwell" look to get their eyes off of them. When the train arrived, everyone from the platform kept their distance from her and Nott. It was like they thought his oddness was going to harm them.

The train was louder and shakier than the Hogwarts Express, but Astoria was impressed with its travel time, which was only about twenty minutes. They alighted at Falmouth Town, which was merely a platform with signs that meant nothing to Nott, who still could not remember his address. They looked at the map displayed behind cracked and yellowed plastic.

"Do you remember if you lived closer to the shore?"

"Erm..."

"Or round one of these schools? Any landmark at all. Docks, restaurants, parks…?"

"I remember… we had a patch of sedums in the front garden one year."

Astoria sat down on the platform and made Nott conjure her some water. She was absolutely fed-up, and she left him to study the map by himself. If he could remember just one landmark, they would have a small lead.

"I remember a castle. Isn't that funny?" he said, looking not at the map but off toward the light grey sky.

"Wait, a castle?"

"Yes. A castle, right on the coast. Theodore loved it so much."

Astoria jumped up to the map to see if he was remembering a landmark nearby and not something he had seen on a family holiday. There really was a castle nearby, Pendennis Castle! She was fortunate that he had remembered something so conspicuous, not more of what flowers were planted outside his house fifteen years ago. Astoria memorised the names of roads she might or might not be able to use. She saw that they could have got off the train at the Falmouth Docks stop, but they were still only two miles away from the castle, and complaining was unproductive. Being so close, she had to start thinking of how she was going to explain everything to Theodore and convince him to let her sleep on his couch.