"It's time."
Alex startled. Shit. I hate when he does that, she thought, turning around in her chair. The potions lab had been silent save for the clicking of the keyboard under her fingers; Thursday evening detention had ended an hour ago. Severus stood behind her, for once not smirking at having been able to sneak up on her. "So soon ?" she asked. "Damn, I thought it'd take longer."
The potions master shrugged. "Vagrants aren't exactly rare. Do you have your trunk ?"
"No, it's still in my room." He tapped his foot impatiently. "Um, I'll just go get it and meet you in the main hall ?"
"Very well."
Alex hurried up the stairs to her own quarters. Her eyes swept over the bedroom, looking for the miniature steamer trunk. Oh, okay, here it is. "Engorgio." Once the trunk was enlarged, she hastily pulled the shelves, drawers, and clothes bar out of it, leaving them strewn across the floor. Shrinking the trunk again, Alex shrugged into a cloak and headed for the main hall. Snape was pacing, waiting for her. Without a word, he led her out of the castle and across the windswept grounds.
Once outside the gates, he selected a rock from the side of the road and tapped it with his wand. "Portus." The rock glowed blue for a moment, bright in the darkness of the lane, then faded. The two mages placed their hands on it immediately and disappeared. They reappeared a moment later in the crowded basement headquarters of the Metropolitan Police/Auror liaison office. Severus cursed quietly; he'd landed hard against a metal filing cabinet. Alex steadied herself and looked around. The Muggle detective David Beckworth was there along with Tonks.
"Wotcher, Alex," she said cheerfully. "Oh, hullo, Snape. Do something about those robes, would you ? Bit too conspicuous, if you know what I mean."
Severus opened his mouth, obviously intending to make a comment about Tonks' hair, but closed it as the metamorphmagus screwed up her face in concentration. Within seconds she'd transformed into a stodgy man with bifocals and a paunch. "That's fantastic, Tonks," David Beckworth enthused, "you look just like Williams."
"Been practicing," Tonks said breezily. The contrast of her youthful, female voice emerging from the male, middle-aged body made Alex giggle involuntarily. "Well, Snape ?" Severus sighed theatrically and banished his cloak. With a few words and a wave of his wand, he conjured Muggle clothing. Alex banished her own cloak and black work robe. Underneath the American wore slacks and a blouse. The three disguised mages and the Muggle policeman left the office and made their way down dingy corridors, eventually passing through heavy metal doors into a morgue.
An attendant in a white lab coat looked up from a desk as they entered. Beckworth greeted him smoothly while Tonks, disguised as Williams, presented a sheaf of paperwork. Just stay calm, Alex reminded herself. She was acutely aware of everything that could go wrong. What if the attendant asks Tonks a question ? What if he gets suspicious ? Severus and I don't exactly look like cops. To her surprise, she found herself climbing into a police van which Beckworth drove away without incident. Perched on a bench in the back of the van next to Snape, Tonks resumed her normal appearance.
Beckworth drove them to a deserted lot behind a warehouse. Alex took out her trunk and enlarged it. She and Tonks watched as the two men wrestled the unidentified vagrant's body into the trunk and closed it. Alex tapped the trunk with her wand and murmured "Diminuendo." It immediately shrank. Suppressing a shudder at the thought of its contents, she placed the miniature trunk in her pocket. Moments later, she and Severus apparated back to the gates of Hogwarts. In their absence, it had begun to rain. Alex glanced at the clock tower; the whole escapade had taken less than an hour.
"Time to commit murder," Snape said, his eyes gleaming.
Again, thought Alex bitterly.
Severus caught the sneer that crossed her face and immediately his own features hardened. "I can take it from here, if you haven't the stomach for it, Miss Rose," he said coldly.
"I want to say goodbye to Minerva," she retorted. They returned to the dungeon, entering Snape's private quarters through the secret passage behind the supply closet. The potions master picked up the container of floo powder on the hearth and held it out to her with a mocking bow. Bastard, she thought automatically, grabbing a handful of the powder and preceding him through the floo network to McGonagall's quarters.
-----
Minerva McGonagall was sitting in front of the fire, sipping a cup of tea. She was dressed in a long flannel nightgown and tartan robe, appropriate considering the late hour. The murder victim wasn't surprised to see them emerge from her sitting room hearth. "I am prepared to die, Severus," she greeted him dryly. Alex couldn't help but smile.
There was a puff of displaced air as Alex enlarged the trunk once again. Snape unzipped the body bag inside and levitated the corpse, looking inquiringly at McGonagall. She indicated an open door leading further into the apartment. Directing the body with his wand, Snape floated it into the bedroom and deposited it on the floor next to McGonagall's bed. Alex forced herself to look. It was an elderly man with lank grey hair and a haze of white stubble on his sunken cheeks and chin. Poor bastard, thought Alex. Ugh. I'm gonna need to scourgify that trunk, or at least air it out. The corpse smelled strongly of stale alcohol, and worse.
McGonagall stepped forward matter-of-factly. "Scourgify." The odor dissipated. With precise movements of her wand, she conjured garments, exact duplicates of the ones she was wearing, then transfigured the male vagrant into her identical twin.
Wow, thought Alex.
"Impressive," breathed Snape.
Minerva McGonagall gave a satisfied nod, looking down at her dead body lying as though it had fallen out of bed. "That ought to do it." She turned to Snape briskly and shook his hand. "Best of luck to you, Severus. Take care."
When it was Alex's turn to say goodbye, she hugged the older woman fiercely, feeling tears well up in her eyes. "Goodbye, Minerva. I hope we'll see one another again soon, under better circumstances," she said.
McGonagall patted her back awkwardly. "There, there, Miss Rose. It's not as though I'm really dead," she said brusquely. Alex smiled up at her, resolutely blinking away the offending tears. For a brief moment, Minerva smiled back, then abruptly crumpled, sprouting fur, tabby markings, and a tail as she shrank. The cat meowed and ran lightly out of the room.
-----
Severus waited until the front door closed softly. "Any chance you'd tell me what's been wrong with you for the past three days ?" he asked waspishly, looming over her, "Or am I expected to be a Seer now in addition to my other duties ?"
Alex glared up at him. "Accio newspaper." A copy of Tuesday's Daily Prophet sailed into the room moments later. She waved the banner headline in his face. "Antonin Dolohov was found dead. You helped kill him. Hell, for all I know, you're the one who finished him off."
"The fact that a Dark wizard met a violent end comes as a shock to you ? I'm sorry your delicate sensibilities are offended," Snape said sarcastically, "but I'm afraid I must inform you that this is the real world, not some schoolgirl fantasy land."
"You could have told me he'd been murdered. You had ample opportunity. Or is this another little detail you thought I wouldn't notice, like when you obliviated me ?"
"Oh, please." Severus rolled his eyes. "Anyway, it was Lucius Malfoy who killed Dolohov, not me."
"That makes it all right, then. You're innocent as a first-year Hufflepuff." Her sarcasm matched his own. Alex stepped into the fireplace with a final glare at Severus. "My apartment," she instructed the floo network. She crossed the hearth into her own darkened bedroom, half expecting him to follow her, to continue the argument. He didn't. Fine, then. Bastard. She tripped over the drawers she'd left scattered on the floor. "Ow ! Dammit !" And to top it all off, she thought furiously, now I've got to spend the weekend attending a funeral.