CHAPTER 7 – LONDON-ST
PETERSBURG-LONDON
Sirius Apparated in a
public restroom inside West End station in London's subway. A guy in Muggle
clothes that vaguely resembled a wrinkled suit had his back turned at him and
was using an urinal. When Sirius arrived, he turned his face to him and said
"Hi". It was Remus Lupin. Sirius turned around, visibly embarrassed.
"Sorry, Moony. I guess
I've arrived at the wrong time."
"That's okay, it
happens," Lupin smirked as he concluded what he had to do and washed his hands,
"My werewolf scent tells me I'm in front of a very annoyed guy…"
"Some things happened
this weekend… I met Sheeba…"
"That's great, isn't
it? It was time for you to come to an understanding with her…"
"Yeah, but he argued
again…"
"Why?"
"Snape," Sirius growled.
"Oh, yes. She told me
about it once. They're friends with each other," Lupin turned inside out his
bag, looking for something, "Oh, I found it," he took out of his bag a large
pet collar.
"And you think it's
normal?"
"Listen, Sirius.
You're the most hard-headed person I've ever met. Sheeba loves you and you know
it. She waited for you for FOURTEEN years. Don't you think that if Snape had
the furthest chance with her she wouldn't have gotten sick of waiting? But if
you dump her…," he handed the collar at Sirius, "Can you put on this collar,
please?", he said, "Well, if you dump her, Snape will come to comfort her, full
of kindness… and then, one can't tell what'll happen…"
Sirius was struggling
to put on the collar and Lupin started helping him. At this very moment, a very
well-dressed Muggle entered the restroom and looked at them astonished. Lupin
grinned and said cheerfully, "Theatre! We're rehearsing for a performance!"
The Muggle seemed to
have given up whatever he came to that restroom to do and left the room
muttering, "Perverted gays!"
"What did he say?"
asked Sirius.
"Nothing… can you
transform now? It's a disguise, we've got to go to St. Petersburg 'cause I need
to buy a wolfsbane potion. I can't manage to do this junk properly, so I'd
better buy a prepared one."
Sirius turned into a
dog. Lupin put on a pair of sunglasses and conjured a walking-stick and then,
they left the restroom, Lupin pretending to be blind. They walked across the
platform until they suddenly turned on their heels in front of a wall and
crossed through it. It was a barrier. There was something that resembled an
upright escalator. There was also a sign in which there was the inscriptions: Down:
Shadow Cross Station. Up: Wizardry Shop. Lupin put away the stick and the
glasses (wizards were way much more liberal about allowing animals at the
subway) and said to the escalator, "Down!"
And the escalator
inclined downstairs, heading them to a huge round station, I which there was over twenty platforms and
subways to everywhere in the world.
One could read on a
sign "World-Wide Underground – Shadow Cross Station – London – UK".
In each platform,
there was a different subway, and it subway transported people to different
places in the world. In each platform, there was a flag from the country and
the terminal station's name. "Le Possion Noire – Paris
– France", "Liberty Owl – New York – USA", "Toca dos Sacis – Rio de Janeiro –
Brasil". There were platforms for
many countries, the farthest and the nearest. Lupin bought two tickets "London
– St. Petersburg- London" for him and for Sirius (wizards were liberal about
pets, but there was a price for it) and they embarked bounding for "Rhussian
Rhapysodia" station, whose platform was placed next to the platform that
bounded for Japan.
About half an hour
later, they arrived at the Russian station. Lupin said something in Russian to
the escalator, and it drove them upstairs. There were many shops full of
magical artifacts and they headed towards s Potion Shop.
At the counter, two
very warmly-dressed wizards, whose beards reached their waists, were waiting
for clients. The shortest was as tall as Professor Flitwick, and the tallest
was almost as tall as Hagrid.
The shortest saluted
Lupin cheerfully, "Lupin! Volfsbane Potion, right?"
"Hello, Nicolay! Good
morning, Djimitry."
"Humpf," said the
tallest wizard. Nicolay whispered to Lupin, "Djimitry is ill-humored today. He
lost money in a bet."
While the wizard was
putting Lupin's potion in a vial, he and Lupin started a conversation that was
making Sirius bored. He turned around and caught a glimpse of movement.
Suddenly, he smelled somebody and yelped at Lupin, who was currently waiting
for the change of the three galleons he gave for his potion. Lupin looked at
him blankly and Sirius darted, dragging downstairs his friend who was hanging
in the collar.
A calm but annoyed
Lupin said, "Whatever it is, Padfoot, you're going there later to get my
change."
Sirius dragged him again, following the track of a tall hooded wizard
who was wearing a fuzzy coat and entering the subway that headed to New York.
Before the subway went away, the wizard took off his hood and Lupin could see
what Sirius wanted to show him: seated on a chair inside that subway, there was
the renegade Death Eater, Igor Karkaroff, who was supposed to be hidden at
London's subway giving Wormtail support.
Lupin decided they had to go immediately to London, forgetting
completely about his change of money. Luckily, he would reach Dumbledore and
tell him that, if there was a Death Eater encountering Wormtail, it sure was
not Karkaroff. As they arrived at London, they quickly entered a restroom,
where an anxious Sirius Black turned quickly into his human form.
"If it isn't Karkaroff who's
meeting Wormtail, then there must be another Death Eater involved. Different
from all the others we know of. Probably a neophyte like that Quirrell-guy!"
"Sirius, I think it's better to leave you at the room in which I'm
living here at London, in a Muggle neighborhood, where you can remain
reasonably incognito. While you are there, I'll look for Dumbledore."
"He may be at the Ministry today. Sheeba forebode this yesterday."
"Great. He didn't say in our conference yesterday where would he go
today. Let's postpone the plan for today. I hope we discover who the hell is
this Death Eater until tomorrow's night… you know then I'll be useless. Full
moon."
They left the restroom, Sirius was already in his human form, and they
tried to be discreet as they cast a Memory Charm at a security guard from the
station, who could swear that that guy was blind and the other, the tallest
one, had come from nowhere.
They got into the normal subway heading to East End station, where they
got off and Lupin headed Sirius to the den where he had rented his room.
A fat Muggle, who was reading a newspaper, handed Lupin his key and
muttered as they turned around , "Gays!"
"What did you say?" Sirius turned around and growled, wearing his most
canine face, threatening.
"Nothing, I didn't say anything."
They went upstairs and entered a dirty and musty room in which there
were two beds.
"Great," exclaimed Sirius, falling heavily on one of the beds and
kicking his boots aside, "Back to the cave full of fleas!"
"What?"
"Nothing really important, Moony… but… what does 'gay' mean?"
"To the safety of that guy downstairs, I'd better not tell you…"
To be continued…