It was a long and hard match, against an extremely good lineup from the Manhattan Bandits, and I was KNACKERED. It was supposed to have been a charity match, not the All-American Cup. I staggered wearily through my front door, looking forward to a cold beer and the Firefly rerun on the Sci-Fi Channel.
"Hi, Luna!" I called cheerfully. "God, what a day! Martin completely cocked up a Wronski Feint; you're supposed to pull up before you hit the ground and make the OTHER Seeker crash. Stretcher case, it was. I mean, honestly!" Silence. "Luna?" I glanced at my watch. 6:30; surely even Luna would be back from the office by now.
I shook my head. Luna had complained that she didn't see enough of me with all my broom-customising activity in the garage every weekend, and yet she spent virtually every waking hour at the Quibbler trying to beat her own deadlines. But it was Tuesday, and the next issue wasn't due out until Saturday. Had somebody set fire to the printing press again? Maybe Rita had made some snide remark and started another row with Luna's mum; if she didn't double the circulation with her unbelievably bitchy column she'd have been fired years ago...
There was a heavy thump upstairs. I pulled my Beater's bat out of my gym bag and advanced up the staircase. I froze on the landing, listening.
"Listen, lady, you aren't prolonging your life expectancy like this!" a voice growled. "Where is he?"
"I don't know. He's probably still at the Quidditch game. I don't know when he's going to get back, OK?"
"Alright," a different voice said quietly, "we'll wait. Do we kill her now, or wait for him to arrive?"
"We'll wait. I'm going to make him watch," the first voice replied. "His lot hammered the Falcons last week!" I very quietly reached up to the top shelf of the airing cupboard, and took hold of my pistol. It was a .357 Desert Eagle semiautomatic, a huge great thing which could punch a fist-sized hole in a car door.
I booted the bedroom door down, gun in hand. Luna was tied to a chair that had been dragged from somewhere. Two men were standing over her, wands levelled, but Luna looked more annoyed than scared.
"Holy-!" BLAM! The one on the left was hurled across the room with a hollowpoint round in the face. The other raised his wand, but BLAM! He slowly toppled to the floor with most of his chest missing.
"Some people take their Quidditch far, far too seriously." I untied Luna. "You okay?"
"Fine. They just caught me by surprise. I wonder what they wanted?"
"Well, they're either both fans of teams who've lost to the Mustangs recently, or Death Eaters in plain clothes."
"Or both, I suppose."
"Yeah." I laughed. That's Luna for you. Always the one who'd amble dreamily along with the rest of us, and then suddenly make some comment twice as perceptive as anything that the supposed brains of the group - Hermione, Draco, and for some bizarre reason me- ever came up with. "An undiscovered gem," her father used to say of her. I'll second that any day of the week!
I grabbed the bedside phone, and called the Ministry. "Major Black's office, please."
"One moment, sir." There was a series of clicks, a bleep, and then:
"Major Black."
"Sirius, it's Rick. A couple of men broke into my house, and they were threatening Luna. I shot them both, and we need a cleanup team here FAST. The London Met are going to be well pissed if they see the mess in here."
"Same goes for your cleaner, I suppose." Sirius laughed shortly. "I'll send a team down ASAP. Between that bomb at King's Cross and all these other attacks we've hardly got a spare pair of hands, but we'll manage something."
"I'll bet. How's it going? Any leads?"
"Some lunatic calling himself the Heir of Voldemort claimed responsibility. Could just be a weirdo, or it might be something significant."
"Guess so. I'm going to call Harry and the others. The same thing might have happened to them."
I rang off, and tried Harry's number.
There was nothing but a number-unavailable message. This boded decidedly ill, at least to my mind. Maybe it was nothing, but I had a VERY bad feeling about it. I recharged the Desert Eagle's clip, and pocketed a couple more. In wordless agreement with me, Luna fetched her own pistol.
"Ready? Apparo!" There was the usual rather uncomfortable sensation of dismantled atom by atom and hurled several miles, and we arrived outside Harry's house.
Or what was left of it.
Now, this sounds pretty dramatic. The clouds of smoke, the fire engines and so on. However, the ominous effect was spoiled by Harry standing before all this swearing into his mobile phone, apparently at the man who had 'repaired' the boiler.
"TRANSCO approved? Hah! Not for long, sunshine!" he growled. I heaved a sigh of relief, and surreptitiously put the safety catch back on my pistol. It wasn't quite as bad as I'd first thought.
Harry presented quite a different sight these days. No scar, a noticeable East Midlands accent, and contact lenses instead of the glasses which Dudley frequently broke. Messing about with the course of history had done him good.
"Never hire a boiler repairman who offers discounts for cash," Cho remarked, putting down the bundle of salvaged clothing. "What a mess! Direct Line are going to just love us. Our premium's going to be higher than Eval Kineval's when they hear about this."
"Well, if he had a TRANSCO sticker he's supposed to be competent," I replied. "If TRANSCO deny all knowledge of him -and I bet they will- you can probably sue for damages."
"Were you in the house when the fire broke out?" Luna asked.
"Yes. Scariest experience since..." We looked at each other, and snorted with laughter.
~~~FLASHBACK~~~
It was the day before the Yule Ball, and Cho was heading for one of the less frequently used toilets, namely the abode of Moaning Myrtle. It was her desire for a good theraputic bout of hysterics which had prompted this decision; of all people, Myrtle ought to be fairly sympathetic.
She passed a furious Francis Malone, Ginny Weasley and Luna Lovegood, who were keen to establish the identity of the humourist who had transfigured Luna's favourite t-shirt into a straitjacket and written 'dyke' all over Fran's textbooks. Ginny had her Beater's bat, and Fran had her brother's, and students of all years were sanding well back as they passed. Even Mrs Norris attempted the record for the 100-metre Nonchalant Walk as the trio crossed her path.
Cho half-smiled. She felt a bit sorry for Luna sometimes. Having backup from an enraged lesbian wouldn't hurt at all.
Cho shut the door behind her, and opened the nearest cubicle, planning to sit on the seat and have a good cry. However, her jaw dropped as she saw Myrtle apparently locked in a passionate embrace with another semitransparent form.
"What the HELL-?" she gasped. Myrtle whirled around, and screamed slightly. She fell off the lap of her companion, who hadn't fully grasped the situation until now. He and Cho stared at each other.
"Um," said Cedric.
Cho's prolonged and spinechilling high-pitched scream brought Fran and Luna running, to be joined shortly afterward by Harry, who had been nearby helping Hagrid move some furniture.
"What happened? I heard..." He stopped, lowering his wand. "Oh. Erm..."
"Hi," said Cedric awkwardly, thankful that ghosts can't blush.
"You PERVERT!" Fran exploded. "She's what, thirteen?"
"Well, I was when I died," Myrtle admitted, "but chronologically I'm ten years older than his mum."
"Hmm, I suppose you might be right there." Fran withdrew from the conversation to consider the implications of this. Harry tried very hard not to laugh, fearing that Cho would either burst into tears, kick him in the bollocks or both.
"You know, if I'd caught you snogging somebody else BEFORE you got killed," Cho said thoughtfully, "I'd be a lot better adjusted, you know?"
"Oh," said Luna. "I should have told you I saw him kissing that Veela from Beaubuxtons, then."
"WHAT?"
"Well done, Luna," Ginny said quietly. "Just when we were getting towards defusing the situation."
"You wentr behind my back with that French tart?" Cho screamed at Cedric. "You little...!" Screaming words that would have made Malcolm Reynolds blush, she chased Cedric down the corridor, throwing hexes after him. She returned shortly afterward, gasping for breath but looking more cheerful than any of them could remember.
"That's that sorted out," she said brightly, and grabbed Harry and kissed him full on the mouth. With tongues and everything.
"See, Luna? Sometimes you have to be DIRECT." Ginny giggled as her friend went a deep shade of scarlet. "Try it sometime, huh?"
"On who?" Fran asked. Luna exchanged looks with Ginny. //Don't say it. Please don't...//
"Your brother!" Ginny replied. //...Oh, shit. Thanks a bundle, Gin.//
But she did the next day. And it worked.
~~~END OF FLASHBACK~~~
I would have given anything to be there when that happened, but I'd been in class and only heard what happened a few days later.
Harry pocketed his phone and wandered over. "Hi Rick, hi Luna. What's up?" I was about to explain, but a car roared past, a machine gun firing out of one window. I threw myself into Luna and knocked her out of the line of fire, rolled gracefully -I'm a professional Beater so I know how to take a fall- and came up with my gun in my hands. I fired a couple of quick shots but hit nothing.
"Bugger. It looks like somebody wants some payback for nailing Voldemort," I said, shoving the gun back into my pocket. "A couple of Death Eaters in plain clothes broke into our house and tied Luna up while I was out. I sorted them out easily enough, but this probably happened to the others as well. We'd better speak to Arthur about this like NOW."
"Hi, Luna!" I called cheerfully. "God, what a day! Martin completely cocked up a Wronski Feint; you're supposed to pull up before you hit the ground and make the OTHER Seeker crash. Stretcher case, it was. I mean, honestly!" Silence. "Luna?" I glanced at my watch. 6:30; surely even Luna would be back from the office by now.
I shook my head. Luna had complained that she didn't see enough of me with all my broom-customising activity in the garage every weekend, and yet she spent virtually every waking hour at the Quibbler trying to beat her own deadlines. But it was Tuesday, and the next issue wasn't due out until Saturday. Had somebody set fire to the printing press again? Maybe Rita had made some snide remark and started another row with Luna's mum; if she didn't double the circulation with her unbelievably bitchy column she'd have been fired years ago...
There was a heavy thump upstairs. I pulled my Beater's bat out of my gym bag and advanced up the staircase. I froze on the landing, listening.
"Listen, lady, you aren't prolonging your life expectancy like this!" a voice growled. "Where is he?"
"I don't know. He's probably still at the Quidditch game. I don't know when he's going to get back, OK?"
"Alright," a different voice said quietly, "we'll wait. Do we kill her now, or wait for him to arrive?"
"We'll wait. I'm going to make him watch," the first voice replied. "His lot hammered the Falcons last week!" I very quietly reached up to the top shelf of the airing cupboard, and took hold of my pistol. It was a .357 Desert Eagle semiautomatic, a huge great thing which could punch a fist-sized hole in a car door.
I booted the bedroom door down, gun in hand. Luna was tied to a chair that had been dragged from somewhere. Two men were standing over her, wands levelled, but Luna looked more annoyed than scared.
"Holy-!" BLAM! The one on the left was hurled across the room with a hollowpoint round in the face. The other raised his wand, but BLAM! He slowly toppled to the floor with most of his chest missing.
"Some people take their Quidditch far, far too seriously." I untied Luna. "You okay?"
"Fine. They just caught me by surprise. I wonder what they wanted?"
"Well, they're either both fans of teams who've lost to the Mustangs recently, or Death Eaters in plain clothes."
"Or both, I suppose."
"Yeah." I laughed. That's Luna for you. Always the one who'd amble dreamily along with the rest of us, and then suddenly make some comment twice as perceptive as anything that the supposed brains of the group - Hermione, Draco, and for some bizarre reason me- ever came up with. "An undiscovered gem," her father used to say of her. I'll second that any day of the week!
I grabbed the bedside phone, and called the Ministry. "Major Black's office, please."
"One moment, sir." There was a series of clicks, a bleep, and then:
"Major Black."
"Sirius, it's Rick. A couple of men broke into my house, and they were threatening Luna. I shot them both, and we need a cleanup team here FAST. The London Met are going to be well pissed if they see the mess in here."
"Same goes for your cleaner, I suppose." Sirius laughed shortly. "I'll send a team down ASAP. Between that bomb at King's Cross and all these other attacks we've hardly got a spare pair of hands, but we'll manage something."
"I'll bet. How's it going? Any leads?"
"Some lunatic calling himself the Heir of Voldemort claimed responsibility. Could just be a weirdo, or it might be something significant."
"Guess so. I'm going to call Harry and the others. The same thing might have happened to them."
I rang off, and tried Harry's number.
There was nothing but a number-unavailable message. This boded decidedly ill, at least to my mind. Maybe it was nothing, but I had a VERY bad feeling about it. I recharged the Desert Eagle's clip, and pocketed a couple more. In wordless agreement with me, Luna fetched her own pistol.
"Ready? Apparo!" There was the usual rather uncomfortable sensation of dismantled atom by atom and hurled several miles, and we arrived outside Harry's house.
Or what was left of it.
Now, this sounds pretty dramatic. The clouds of smoke, the fire engines and so on. However, the ominous effect was spoiled by Harry standing before all this swearing into his mobile phone, apparently at the man who had 'repaired' the boiler.
"TRANSCO approved? Hah! Not for long, sunshine!" he growled. I heaved a sigh of relief, and surreptitiously put the safety catch back on my pistol. It wasn't quite as bad as I'd first thought.
Harry presented quite a different sight these days. No scar, a noticeable East Midlands accent, and contact lenses instead of the glasses which Dudley frequently broke. Messing about with the course of history had done him good.
"Never hire a boiler repairman who offers discounts for cash," Cho remarked, putting down the bundle of salvaged clothing. "What a mess! Direct Line are going to just love us. Our premium's going to be higher than Eval Kineval's when they hear about this."
"Well, if he had a TRANSCO sticker he's supposed to be competent," I replied. "If TRANSCO deny all knowledge of him -and I bet they will- you can probably sue for damages."
"Were you in the house when the fire broke out?" Luna asked.
"Yes. Scariest experience since..." We looked at each other, and snorted with laughter.
~~~FLASHBACK~~~
It was the day before the Yule Ball, and Cho was heading for one of the less frequently used toilets, namely the abode of Moaning Myrtle. It was her desire for a good theraputic bout of hysterics which had prompted this decision; of all people, Myrtle ought to be fairly sympathetic.
She passed a furious Francis Malone, Ginny Weasley and Luna Lovegood, who were keen to establish the identity of the humourist who had transfigured Luna's favourite t-shirt into a straitjacket and written 'dyke' all over Fran's textbooks. Ginny had her Beater's bat, and Fran had her brother's, and students of all years were sanding well back as they passed. Even Mrs Norris attempted the record for the 100-metre Nonchalant Walk as the trio crossed her path.
Cho half-smiled. She felt a bit sorry for Luna sometimes. Having backup from an enraged lesbian wouldn't hurt at all.
Cho shut the door behind her, and opened the nearest cubicle, planning to sit on the seat and have a good cry. However, her jaw dropped as she saw Myrtle apparently locked in a passionate embrace with another semitransparent form.
"What the HELL-?" she gasped. Myrtle whirled around, and screamed slightly. She fell off the lap of her companion, who hadn't fully grasped the situation until now. He and Cho stared at each other.
"Um," said Cedric.
Cho's prolonged and spinechilling high-pitched scream brought Fran and Luna running, to be joined shortly afterward by Harry, who had been nearby helping Hagrid move some furniture.
"What happened? I heard..." He stopped, lowering his wand. "Oh. Erm..."
"Hi," said Cedric awkwardly, thankful that ghosts can't blush.
"You PERVERT!" Fran exploded. "She's what, thirteen?"
"Well, I was when I died," Myrtle admitted, "but chronologically I'm ten years older than his mum."
"Hmm, I suppose you might be right there." Fran withdrew from the conversation to consider the implications of this. Harry tried very hard not to laugh, fearing that Cho would either burst into tears, kick him in the bollocks or both.
"You know, if I'd caught you snogging somebody else BEFORE you got killed," Cho said thoughtfully, "I'd be a lot better adjusted, you know?"
"Oh," said Luna. "I should have told you I saw him kissing that Veela from Beaubuxtons, then."
"WHAT?"
"Well done, Luna," Ginny said quietly. "Just when we were getting towards defusing the situation."
"You wentr behind my back with that French tart?" Cho screamed at Cedric. "You little...!" Screaming words that would have made Malcolm Reynolds blush, she chased Cedric down the corridor, throwing hexes after him. She returned shortly afterward, gasping for breath but looking more cheerful than any of them could remember.
"That's that sorted out," she said brightly, and grabbed Harry and kissed him full on the mouth. With tongues and everything.
"See, Luna? Sometimes you have to be DIRECT." Ginny giggled as her friend went a deep shade of scarlet. "Try it sometime, huh?"
"On who?" Fran asked. Luna exchanged looks with Ginny. //Don't say it. Please don't...//
"Your brother!" Ginny replied. //...Oh, shit. Thanks a bundle, Gin.//
But she did the next day. And it worked.
~~~END OF FLASHBACK~~~
I would have given anything to be there when that happened, but I'd been in class and only heard what happened a few days later.
Harry pocketed his phone and wandered over. "Hi Rick, hi Luna. What's up?" I was about to explain, but a car roared past, a machine gun firing out of one window. I threw myself into Luna and knocked her out of the line of fire, rolled gracefully -I'm a professional Beater so I know how to take a fall- and came up with my gun in my hands. I fired a couple of quick shots but hit nothing.
"Bugger. It looks like somebody wants some payback for nailing Voldemort," I said, shoving the gun back into my pocket. "A couple of Death Eaters in plain clothes broke into our house and tied Luna up while I was out. I sorted them out easily enough, but this probably happened to the others as well. We'd better speak to Arthur about this like NOW."