Disclaimer:

All characters in the story are the property of J. K. Rowling and Bloomsbury Books, with the exception of Eleanora Sterling and a few supporting characters, who are my own creations. This story is created purely for the entertainment of myself and other like-minded readers and no copyright infringement is intended.

By mentioning J.K. Rowling in this story I do not intend to present her as a fictional character or to imply that the Harry Potter books are not her own 100% original works.

Any opinions, political or otherwise, on world events, personages or governments expressed in these pages, are the opinions of the characters speaking them and not necessarily those of the author.

Chapter 13: Up To Something

Snape bit the bullet and called Lupin the following afternoon. Nora had jotted down the number at some point, and he found it in a small pile of papers on her computer desk. Having thought about how to broach the subject for the past several hours, he decided the best tack was a direct approach. No whining, no hedging, just state his requirements and let Lupin make a suggestion.

Remus was in, but allowing for the time difference, it was early evening in London and as he was preparing to visit Vera, he was not in the mood to chat.

"I have to go out soon, Snape. Can we make this quick, or do it another time?" 

Not to be so easily deterred, Snape ploughed on. "The conversation we had yesterday…" he began. "Have you had an opportunity to think about it?"

"I must admit the idea of bringing Voldemort through to this dimension in order to neutralize him seems intriguing, but I'm still not sure what the actual result would be. Besides, how are you planning to entice him to come over?"

"What I need is something impressive enough to fool Voldemort into thinking there was some sort of weapon or powerful magic he could use on Muggles if he were to come here. I may require some help from some of your contacts, perhaps the fellows who built the tracking device for the magical tags. Do you think they might be able to come up with some sort of technological trick that would appear to be a weapon, without actually being destructive?"

"Hmmm. That's certainly something worth exploring. I can ask around, discretely, and I'll let you know if I hear about anything likely," Lupin replied. No harm in doing a bit of research to see if this half baked plot were even feasible, he thought.

"Good, good. There's another thing, too, as I'm sort of stuck here for the time being, I'm wondering if you might be able to get in touch with some other wizards who might be able to help me carry this out."

"Whom did you have in mind?"

"Some fellows who are not exactly on Dumbledore's A-list, but I'll vouch that they can be trusted. I'm thinking of Rakesh Devani and Vladimir Plotkin."

Remus was taken aback at this suggestion. He had heard of those two, but Plotkin had dropped out of sight several years ago and might not even be still living. Rumour also had it that Devani was a dabbler in the Dark Arts. "I haven't seen either of those fellows for some time. It might be difficult tracking them down. But I'm going to have to give this some further thought before I agree to help you find them. Even if I did know them well enough to trust them, which I don't, I'm not so sure we want to bring too many other wizards up to speed on the existence of the Mundane dimension just now. I think we might be better off sticking to some people we know."

"Who, for example?"

"Sirius Black, for one. I know he can't operate too freely in the Magical dimension but he could certainly go without being detected on the Mundane side."

"Can't use him." Snape dismissed his old enemy out of hand. "I need operatives on the magical side, and at the moment. I need someone who can convince Voldemort to come through. It either has to be someone on our side who can convince Voldemort he can be trusted, or someone on his side we can dupe into carrying a message. Devani is an unknown quantity as far as Voldemort is concerned, but with his background I think he would make a convincing Death Eater."

"And just how recently were you in touch with either of them?"

"I ran into Plotkin on my travels this past year. He's been in hiding in Armenia. As for Devani, he's right under your nose… almost. He's been living in a suburb of London for the past two years, Magical dimension, that is. I have an address. You could owl him."

"Well, even if I could easily contact Devani, how likely is he to agree to help?"

"If you told him what it was about, and that I had asked for him, he'd do it. Let's just say he owes me a favour," Snape added mysteriously.

"Still, I think we'd be far better off creating a mole from someone already in the Death Eaters, someone we know Voldemort trusts. Let me give it a bit of thought, and I'll get back to you." 

Snape grimaced as he realised that he was getting more help from Lupin than he had bargained for… or even wanted. Still, he couldn't discount the other man's input if he needed his help, and he definitely did need help with this and was now finding himself in the uncomfortable position of being at Lupin's mercy, stuck on the other side of the pond as he was.

"All right," Snape added, "just as long as we don't use Potter and his little pals."

"Some of Potter's 'little pals' might in fact be excellent choices for this mission," Lupin retorted.

Yes, indeed... there just might be some Weasleys who could be blackmailed into helping out with this, Snape mused.

"At any rate, Snape, as I said, I have an appointment, so I must cut this short. I'll e-mail you if I think of anyone. As to the other matter, I may be able to start my inquiries this very evening."

* * *

"Was it good for you, Wolf-Man?" Vera asked teasingly as they both basked in Vera's bed in the afterglow of a particularly vigorous "workout".

Remus, a.k.a. "Remmy Wolfe" growled deep in his chest in reply as his partner toyed with his facial hair.

"I must say that stylist I sent you to did a nice job on your beard," she remarked. "I thought you were pretty hot with that slightly uncared-for look, but you did clean up nicely," she chuckled.

"Why, thank you, ma'am." Remus drawled, drawing himself up into a half sitting position. Taking one of her braids between thumb and forefinger, he said "I always wanted to ask, how long does it take to do your hair every morning?"

"What, the dreads? Hours and hours, honey, but I certainly don't do them every morning. I go to my hairdresser about every three months and have them re-done, but one of these days I might just show up with the whole thing buzzed off. Eventually they just get too bad to undo."

"Hmm. I like your hair the way it is, but you might look good with a close crop," he remarked.

"Well, it's not exactly like I'll be asking for your permission to do it," she said testily. "My hair's my own business."

"Like my hair's not your business?" Remus laughed, recalling her insistence that he get a makeover from her friend Brenda.

"That's different. You're a man. I own you. You don't own me."

"Oh, I see," he chuckled. "Like having a cat as a pet, then, is it? They own you, you don't own them?"

"So you're comparing me to a cat… It's not really like that, I suppose," Vera sighed. "I don't even know your real name," she added, pouting slightly.

"I thought you knew well enough not ask."

"I'm not asking, but that doesn't mean I don't wonder what you and your buddies are all about."

"You know I can't tell you, but if it eases your mind any, in the great struggle between good and evil, we are definitely on the side of good."

"G versus E, eh?" she said lightly. "In which struggle… organized crime? Terrorism? Alien invasion? Industrial espionage? "

"Nothing like that. Even if I could tell you, you wouldn't believe me. Let's just say we are trying to prevent a very evil man from getting the upper hand."

"Must be alien invasion, then," she replied dryly. "Well, I'm all for stopping the 'Big Bad', whoever or whatever he might be, but in my experience, everybody thinks they're on the side of Good… especially terrorists!"

"We're not terrorists, but potentially our enemy is. We are trying to find a way to neutralise him before he does something really terrible."

"Is that why your buddy wants to come back to the U.K. so badly? The one I'm making the passport for, who you just safely sent off to Canada?"

"Yes, that's part of it, but frankly I don't think it's such a good idea for him to return here. I'm trying to discourage him."

"The Big Bad's after him particularly, is he? What'd he do, run over his dog? Sleep with his wife?"

"I can't get into it…"

"At least he picked a better name this time. Whatever possessed him to use the name of a character from a children's book?"

"Um, well…"

"And speaking of stylists, your friend 'Snape' is in definite need of one. If I ever meet him, I'll definitely recommend Brenda to him!"

"Yes, I'm sure he'd appreciate that," Remus said dubiously. "But while we're on the topic of stopping the 'Big Bad', I actually do think I could use your associates' help, if it's possible to make some inquiries without getting too specific about why."

"Of course, our technicians are always discrete. What do you need?"

"I'm not sure exactly. I think what we're trying to do is convince 'Big Bad' that someone has developed a very compact yet powerful weapon that they're trying to offer to him. Something capable of devastating a wide area."

"Certainly there're enough weapons like that in existence already. He's heard of nuclear weapons, of course?" she asked incredulously.

"Naturally, but we'd like to convince him we have something entirely new, more powerful. In fact, I would venture that his knowledge of current weaponry is not, erm, up-to-date. Not that we actually need such a thing made, of course. It's more that we're trying to bait a trap so that we can… well, draw him out and capture him. He's been very elusive. It has to be something that will appeal to his lust for power. It might even be well to suggest there's something magical or supernatural about it."

Vera was becoming very confused by this. This bad guy didn't know much about weapons of mass destruction, but apparently believed in magic. How much of a threat could such a wingnut be?

"This fellow's crazy, right?"

"As a snake. But he's very devious, and not incautious. He will have to be convinced to enter our ambush by someone he trusts. He also has to be convinced to come in person, and alone, and not to just send one of his henchmen. We could, of course, just do the demonstration for one of his people and let the word get back to him. The actual bait could be the promised delivery of the weapon."

"So in order to bait the trap you need to promise him something so great that will appeal to his greed and overcome his natural caution. Sort of a sting operation."

"Whatever that is. But yes, you have the gist of it."

She was thoughtful for a moment. "OK, what if were could rig up a demonstration for him of something that could, say, black out a few city blocks? Stop clocks, kill car engines, that sort of thing? You might even be able to convince him that it killed every living thing within a certain radius without destroying any property."

"But would it actually kill anyone?" Remus asked, alarmed.

"No, of course not, but depending on how elaborate the set-up is, we might be able to make it look as though it has. The device might actually ruin some electrical equipment, but most of the effects are only temporary. Here, let me show you something."

Vera rose from the bed and crossed the room to the entertainment unit as Remus appreciatively surveyed her ample yet perfectly proportioned chocolate-brown posterior. She rummaged through a shelf holding several DVD's, selected a disk and put it in the player. It was a movie called "Ocean's Eleven".

She returned to the bed with the remote and snuggled in next to him. "Now in this film", she said, flipping through the menu to find the scene breakdown, "these fellows want to rob a gambling casino – actually three of them – and in order to pull it off they need all the power to go out for a certain period of time. So they steal this bomb. It's called an Electro Magnetic Pulse bomb: EMP for short. Supposedly it simulates the EMP effect of a nuclear explosion without the massive devastation… but the pulse, you see, knocks out the power grid for the entire city. For about 30 seconds, in this case." She ran the scene.

"But this is just a movie… does such a device exist? And I must say, that thing is fairly large! Can your technicians actually make something like this? Can they make a smaller one?"

"Theoretically, they can make one that would fit in a briefcase. All it takes is cold hard cash. Rather a lot of it, I should think."

"Well, we have the cash. It sounds like it might work, if we can concoct a scenario to go with it. I think we might need a few more special effects to make it truly convincing. There will be an actual explosion, of course?"

"Just a small one, I think. You'd probably want to be in an open area and have folks well away from the detonation. Mind you I'm not really an expert on this, but I have heard the boys discussing the specs for it, especially after this film came out. They figured all the bank robbers would want one!" she laughed.   

"Let's set up a meeting with your boys. I want to find out more about this before I run it by my associates."

"I'll talk to them tomorrow. Oh, they'll be so excited, " she gushed. "They live for this kind of stuff!"

NEXT: Strange Alliances

A/N

I hope everyone had a wonderful holiday. And I hope I find some time to write, soon.. before I run out of stockpiled chapters! Eeek!!

-Grey Lady