Chapter Three
Infiltration of the Lab
Later that night in the lab...
"Ok! Here goes...."
PHZZZZZ! Crackle.
"Nope, then let's increase the frequency of that knob...whatever it does, um."
"This one? It accelerates the chemical-reaction time of the laser-oil!"
"Sure, give it a couple clicks."
"Turns."
"Whatever, two clicks to the left."
Matt hesitantly turned the knob sideways and the humming noise grew twice in volume, which wasn't too loud. The clock read ten-thirty on the wall, Matt and Patrick were attempting to conduct an experiment. Pat was huddled over a long, glass tube with a piece of wood inside with many wires attached to it. He pushed a button, and a very faint green gas filled the chamber with a quick PSSST! The humming grew louder. Then he pulled some goggles over his eyes, motioning for Matt to do the same. When that was finished, he grabbed a small wired control-box and backed away.
"All right Matt! Release the charged electrons!" roared Patrick over the hum of all the machines.
Matt reached over and turned another knob, a stolen Van De Graf Generator belt started to spin along its tracks, into the glass tube and back out again. Little sparks flecked the inside as the electromagnetic machine fed it more power.
"Ok I'm going to activate the fake human neuron transmitters!" Patrick grinned as he punched a few buttons on the control-box in his hand. A manic glint was in his eye, this is MAGIC!
A computer console blinked in alarm, PROXIMIDY ALERT: MASSIVE MAGIC SOURCE HAS BREACHED OUTER PERIMITER! ALERT WILL SHUT DOWN IN THIRTY SECONDS! A loud beep noise sounded from the computer but no one heard it over the loud machines that Pat and Matt were working on.
"Come on! Another forty seconds!" Patrick gritted his teeth as he leaned over the glass tube. "This is gonna work, TONIGHT!!!!!"
Suddenly, with a loud hissing noise and a gross burning smell, a wire inside the tube glowed red and half blew up, filling the tube with smoke. Pat threw off his goggles in horror and jabbed the ABORT button.
"NOOOO! NO! NO! NOOO!!!"
Matt took off his goggles and stood up. "Patrick, it's late, look at the clock, its quarter after eleven. I'm gonna go 'cuz I need my rest for work tomorrow. We can try making the Wand again tomorrow night."
Pat was pretending to sob all over the smoke-filled-glass-tunnel, the unused static electricity in the machine made his hair stand up. Matt yawned.
"Or maybe ill just sleep on your couch upstairs. I don't even think I have the energy to drive home." He rubbed his eyes. "You don't mind do you?"
"SURE, FINE, GOAHEAD!!!!!!"
Matt rolled his eyes and climbed up the stairs.
...
A long, black car with the headlights turned off pulled up to a driveway past a mailbox of a crow with a sign on it saying "Rotten Rawten Residence-feed mail to crow". The car stopped as a dark purple cloak slid around the corner unnoticed and a tall man with a black, disgusting-looking tuxedo got out. He leaned down to speak to the driver as he straightened his tie.
"If they get me, then you know what to do. I'll try to steal, something."
"Kay Boss."
The car backed out, turned and drove away, the headlights flickering on as it rounded a corner. An arm with a hook on it instead of a hand waved back.
Count Olaf grinned in a way that would have made The Queen pee her pants. He wheeled around to face the building. All the lights were off, and no sound was to be heard from inside. He walked up to a window, pushed it open, and slipped inside over the windowsill, no locks? Wow this was too easy. He didn't notice a dark shadow in the bushes shift sideways into the cover of the trees.
Inside he stopped and crouched; there was steady quiet breathing coming from the other end of the room. Heart pounding, he waited ten minutes, finally convinced that whoever that someone was, was asleep on the couch. Olaf tip-toed to the far away hall door into the cellar, he didn't even see the front door open and close silently behind him.
On the other side of the door he closed and locked it, now it was safe to turn on the lights. He flicked the switch and an amazing sight that would have made most famous scientists babble in confusion, surprise, and ecstasy met his eyes.
He grinned evilly as he stepped slowly down the stairs madly grasping his hands in delight. Harry Potter posters on the walls, little action figures of Harry, Ron and Hermione littered the floor. Empty bags of Bertie Bott's Every Flavor Beans lay in the trash. Various other novelties littered the place, but that's not what made Count Olaf cackle in pleasure. He was looking at all the computer screens and machines whirring, spinning and moving. The maps on the walls with the moving dots on them, the tube of glass had been emptied of all smoke and gas inside. But he glided away from that to the table with all the artifacts on display.
"Well, well, well." He whispered. "What do we have here?"
Then all of a sudden he spun around at the sound of the hallway door handle rattling. His eyes narrowed as his pupils dilated in fear, it was a good thing he had locked the door, but now he had no way out. Unless...
He left the table and crept up the stairs on all fours, listening, and ready to either pounce or jump away, he slipped a pistol out of his inside-chest pocket.
"Alohomora!"
NO! It was them! He darted down the stairs as the door burst open and a wizard in a black cat suit leapt in after him, want raised and ready.
"STUPEFY!"
A red beam blasted down and missed Olaf's hair by mere millimeters singeing it as the spell zipped down and ricocheted off the walls finally burning out in midair. He hid behind a table of spinning miniature radar dishes.
"No you idiot! We can't wake the muggles!" came another voice from down the hall. "Stun him! STUN HIM!!"
The man jumped and landed like a cat on the floor, searching the room for Olaf. There was movement by the glass tube—
"STUPEFY!!"
But Olaf was ready; he jumped up with a silver mirror in his hands, deflecting the spell back at the Wizard, exploding on his head. He flew back and hit the wall with a grunt and slid to the ground.
"HAH!" Olaf shouted.
"ACCIO MIRROR!"
The mirror flew out of Olaf's clutches and was caught by a Witch in another black suit. Harry Potter dropped a silvery cloak to the ground as he and three other Wizards pointed their wands at the Count's head, chest, and arms; as if to blow any of these off if he dared try anything.
"Don't you dare try anything, Count Olaf," Harry said. "Or we may just have to blow one of your limbs off."
Olaf raised his hands above his head, grinning. He still had the gun in his hand, and the wizards didn't know what it was. Even Harry must have forgotten what a gun looked like after all those years.
"Tonks, help Mr. Longbottom up, (Ennervate!) and Olaf, you're coming with us, this time to Azkaban."
"What!?" Count Olaf didn't move, grinning, "Is that all?"
Harry hesitated "What do you mean? 'Is that all'?"
"I can't come quietly, it's not in. I need to go off with a BANG!" and with that he fired the gun into the ceiling, dust falling like a snowstorm. In the confusion he dived sideways behind some consoles.
Upstairs, Matt woke up with a start; he had been dreaming pleasantly about flying his broomstick to mars when he woke to loud noises. He blinked in the darkness, gunshots came to mind. Then he heard muffled shouting and explosions going on downstairs.
"Oh it's just Patrick again—"
Then he heard more than one voice, and none of them were Patrick's.
"HE'S GOT A GUN!! STOP HIDING YOU NASTY BUGGER!!"
"GET BACK HERE!! STUPEFY! (BOOM!) STUPEFY! (BOOM!) STUPEFY!!" (BOOM!)
"NEVER!!" BLAM!! BLAM!! BLAM!!
A bullet shot through Matt's pillow where his head had been resting a few moments before, letting a small yellow beam of light spread out from the lab below. He jumped out, "PATRICK!! OLAF IS DOWNSTAIRS!!!!!!" he ran into Pat's bedroom and pulled the pillow off his face. "Olaf and some Wizards are fighting downstairs!"
"What!?" Pat blinked stupidly. "But I haven't finished my Salmon Tart yet!"
"Wake up stupid! This is real!" he flicked on the lights as more gunshots rang downstairs. "There's a war going on in the lab!"
"What!?" Patrick said again as Matt ran off. "In the lab?" he got out of his sheets, still in his nightgown he threw on a robe and followed Matt down the hall who was opening the door, a long sliver of light spread down the hall to Patrick's face, temporarily blinding him.
"GET BACK HERE!" ("NO!" BLAM!!) "RICTUSEMPRA!!"
The sliver of yellow light went red as another explosion sounded down below.
"GOT HIM!!"
"FINALLY!!"
"YEAH!!"
"SHUT UP SHUT UP!!! We'll wake the muggles!"
"Oh right..."
Matt poked an eye through the door crack; three wizards in black were standing around an oddly familiar third in a purple cloak who had round glasses and black untidy crazed hair--.
Matt gasped. "Harry Potter!?!?" Oops went his brain as they all turned towards him with faces white as snow. He immediately knew this was a mistake.
"They're awake and here!! GET THEM!!" shouted Harry pointing his wand. The three wizards jumped up the stairs to get to Matt, who closed the door behind his back. Thud—thud—thud! They all hit the door. But Matt held it shut. Patrick just stood there, frozen and staring, either not awake, or very afraid.
"Did you say Harry Potter!?!?"
"Eccsplofracta!"
Suddenly the door blew up into a million pieces, splinters, and dust. Matt fell backwards into one of the wizard's arms who held him there firmly. "Yes I did!! He's in there!!"
"Stupid muggle! Now the ministry will be here! Time for a memory charm!" the guy holding him there raised his wand. "Obblivi—"
"No!"
"Stop squirming! It'll be over in a heartbeat! Obli--!"
"NO!!!" Matt jumped up and burst through the man's grip. He ran down the hall pushing Patrick ahead of him (hey!), the last thing wanted was to forget all about the magic world. He dashed to the front door and pulled it open to meet a blast of icy-cold air that froze his insides all the way to his soul, and the scene that met his eyes was almost just as bad.
Three long black cars had pulled up to the curb. Getting out of each of them were at least a dozen witches and wizards. They advanced slowly to the house. The moon came out of the clouds and lit up the uncut grass, casting eerie moving shadows all over the place. He didn't hear the movement inside the house behind him. Even the shadows were moving towards him, the feelings of warmth and happiness drained from his body.
"Oh crap, they even brought Dementors!" whispered a panicked voice behind him, one of the wizards'.
"I—I don't see them!"
"Of course you can't! You're a Muggle!—idiot!" he added.
Matt gave a strangled little gag as the bodiless shadows came closer. One black splotch came off the grass up to the front steps, the wizard behind him stepped back. Then came the sucking rattling noise. Gosh, he thought, this was much worse than he had imagined it, and then Matt fainted and twitched on the ground.
"Get those monsters out of here!" yelled Harry to one of the officials coming. He was shouting out the window. Patrick shivered as he wondered when the neighbors would wake up. "We got Olaf unconscious in the cellar! So we're fine!"
The Wizard who had been pursuing Matt grabbed his lifeless form around the waist and dragged him to the couch that was still covered in feathers from the shot pillow. One of the Ministry of Magic officials walked in as Patrick went to the couch to check on Matt.
Harry was furious.
"What are you still doing here?" He waved his smoking wand in the Wizards face. "We've caught the Count, and we're fine! It's all taken care of!"
Matt woke up just in time to see Patrick stand up and hear the Wizard say to Harry: "I'm not here for Olaf, I'm here for these two muggles!!" he pointed at Patrick and Matt, who fainted again.
Down in the cellar, Olaf regained his consciousness, and looked up at the black—masked, and distracted Wizard standing above him who was listening to the muffled argument above. He silently reached over and picked up a CD marked—TOP SECRET: ALL INFO ON MAGIC BACKUP DISC, and slid it into his coat pocket. He tried to crawl away, but the wizard saw him move.
"Nice try Olaf! STUPEFY!! (Thump!) You're not gettin away on my shift!"