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Disclaimer: I don't own ANY of the characters below.
Chapter Four: The credit card
"Oh, Hello." Harry politely said, "Sorry for the fright." Angeline was clutching her chest.
"Yes well, Good morning Howard Potter wasn't it?" Said Artemis senior, but didn't give Harry a chance to correct him. "Where's Arty? Shouldn't he be with you?"
"Erm...yes. But he's...uh...busy right now." Harry leaned against a door trying to hide the broom from view. The Fowls both looked at the door and nodded.
"Oh, I see. Well tell him not to take to long in there, and have fun." Then they walked on. Harry sighed and glanced at the door.
Men's Bathroom. "Well that worked out nicely." Harry said to himself.
As soon as Artemis's parents were out of sight Harry got on to his broom. "No sense in letting all of this space go to waste," He said, trying to justify his want to terrorize the mansion, "I am, after all, in need of practice." Harry's favorite sport in the whole world was quidditch, a game in the wizarding world which you played on broomsticks. Harry's broomstick was his pride and joy, a Firebolt! The same kind of broom used by the pro's! He kicked off of the floor and whooshed away down the hall (the opposite direction of his host's parents) and down to the pool where he could practice the sloth grip with no worries.
"So," Holly looked skeptically at Artemis, "Have you found out any more about Potter or have you two been playing video games all morning?"
"That joke was in poor taste," Artemis remarked, "As it is Potter arrived one hour late for breakfast while he zoomed down my hallways on his floating cleaning utensil, we barely had time to feed his chicken." Artemis chuckled, he had made a joke!
Holly raised an eyebrow, aware that she shouldn't have been lectured on jokes of bad taste. "So you've just been feeding birds all this time?"
"No!" Artemis said defensively, "We ate toast, and...Potter had Jam on his so that took extra time-don't look at me like that! We've got a whole day ahead of us, with more wizards on the way to interrogate!"
"Artemis, tell me something, will you? When did you go from child prodigy, highest IQ , evil mastermind thingy, to overly defensive, whiny brat who complains endlessly about bird droppings on a stupid suit?!?"
Artemis was about to defend himself, but realized that would only give Holly another reason to call him...what was it? Oh yes, a whiny brat.
"Very well Holly, what has Foaly unearthed?" Asked Artemis "Since you are so eager to prove your efficiency with gathering information."
"er...Foaly and I...well..." Artemis raised an eyebrow. She straightened herself up. "We discovered lots of things having to do with the war." This was followed by a silence.
"And what might that be captain Short?" Artemis finally said.
"Er...well...we went back to celebrate and had a few drinks, and I woke up a few hours later in a trash pile outside of the bar. Well, neither of us really remember what we found out..."
"Had a few drinks? This is important Holly, surely you wrote the information down."
"I did!" Said Holly "at least...erm...I think I did...I don't remember where though."
Artemis glanced at his watch. "Holly, I really should get going now. I'll be back by six."
"Where are you going?"
"I want to have a word with Foaly."
"Oh no you don't!" Holly said commandingly, "If you leave I'll be the only one here to make sure the Wizard children don't get caught by your parents!"
"I fail to see how that concerns me," Artemis said.
Holly tapped her foot impatiently, "Highest IQ, eh?"
Artemis paused to think about what Holly was getting at and than it clicked, "Oh," He nodded, "If you promise to see the children safely to their rooms I'll see it that 5 of the fairy gold is returned to you."
Holly thought about demanding more but knew that, for Artemis Fowl, this was a good offer, "Very well," She grumbled.
"Oh," Artemis said as he opened the door, "and if you fail I shall see to it that your LEP badge is terminated."
Holly gaped as Artemis left the room, that was way below the belt! How was she expected to help it if one of the wizards shot an illegal curse at her? She didn't doubt that any of this was out of Artemis's power, well, If it was her job that was on the line, she would have to play this honestly.
"Weeeee! Hahahaha!" Harry squealed as his hands slipped on the sloth grip for the seventh time and he went plunging into the pool below. His clothes were soaked and the rest of that room was flooded with puddles. "Accio Firebolt!" He exclaimed, his broom came zooming down half an inch above the water and he got on again. He sped his broom up near the ceiling, rolled over into a sloth like position and let his fingers unclench and his knees let go. "Weeee- Ahh!" He found that as soon as he had let go a force had apparently over taken his body to hold him upright. "What the-"
"Having fun, Potter?"
He recognized the voice of Holly Short but didn't see her.
"Where are you?" He asked.
"Here, with you, what, do you think you're just levitating by a wisp of cloud?"
"But you're , like, half my size!"
There was a shimmering in the air and Holly appeared a little above Harry, he was attached to her belt.
"Let me go!" He shot a nasty glare at her. She stuck out her tongue.
"Alright Mud boy, have it your way."
Holly let him fall from her belt and into the pool below.
He came up coughing, as he got out of the pool he muttered in a distressed tone. "Water up my nose, water up my nose!"
Holly landed next to him and handed him a towel. "Ok Mud boy, tell me, what are your friends like?"
"What? What do you care?" Harry asked, taken aback by this request. "What do you mean, 'what are they like'?"
"I mean, do they have hobbies, favorite foods, games they like to play?"
Harry scratched his head, of course he knew what his friends liked, it was this some what intimidating LEPrecon fairy thing that was confusing him, "You want to know what they like? Why?"
"Ok listen!" Holly hissed, grabbing Harry's towel and dragging him so that they were face to face, "My job is on the line, if I'm not as curteous and kind as a maid my badge could be taken away!"
"Oh..." Harry said, "Well, alright then. You'll have no trouble with Hermione, she's into saving short, underpaid, dirty elves, so you'll have no trouble there." Holly's fist clenched but she tried her best to calm down by thinking steadily to herself 'for your job, for your job, for your job....'
"And," Harry continued, "Ron really likes Hermione so...oh wait, nothing you can do about that one, erm , He enjoys wizarding chess, he's pretty good, I've got a set, you can learn to play. He also enjoys food, lots and lots of it, and he's always eager to get into a fight, yup, hey, when I say that out loud he sounds like a jerk, haha!"
Holly had taken out a pad of paper and a pen, a little low tech, but she didn't care. "Alright, anything else?"
"Erm..no, unless you include that calling anyone a mud blood is a serious offense,"
"For the last time potter, its mud BOY not Mud Blood!"
"Huh," Harry shrugged indifferently, "Same difference. Well, I suppose I can use this to my advantage, can't I?"
"What?" Holly snapped.
"All that I'm saying is that Ron REALLY wants a Firebolt, Like this-" He pointed at his broom, "All he's got is a lousy Cleansweep, it would make him happy."
"What? I don't have that kind of money!" Holly objected.
"Well who said it had to be your money?" Harry winked, "The way I see it, we're sitting on a gold mine."
"You mean that I ought to steal from Fowl?"
"Hey! He's the one that got extra security on his account and then forgot his credit card by the pool," Harry held up a credit card that he had dug out of his sopping robes, sure enough the Fowl child prodigy had just lost his edge.
"Oh my!" Holly said, "Excuse me, may I just have that credit card please?"
He handed it over and Holly took a close look at it. "Hang on!" She said, "This isn't Fowls! It says on the back that it belongs to some Tom Marvolo Riddle! That's not a rich name at all!" Harry watched as Holly took it to a trash can and then remembered something, "Wait!" He said, "Tom Riddle...that's....VOLDEMORT! But what's he doing here?"
Holly shrugged, the name Voldemort didn't have any affect on her.
"Well, does this Tom...er...Voldymort, have any money?"
"Doubtfully, I mean he doesn't really need money...but then again he's got a lot of supporters out there. I mean he's pretty famous-"
"Famous? Well he's got to have money then. Come on, lets go."
"Where?"
"The bank of course!" Holly said, grabbing Harry's hand and pulling him to the door. Harry froze.
"Holly! I can't do this- you can't do this. Are you mad!?!" He yanked his arm free and grabbed his wand from his pocket. Holly glared.
"Mud boy! You wanted this firebolt thing, now LETS GO!"
Harry sat down and motioned for Holly to sit also.
"Voldemort is the darkest wizard that the world has ever known! He killed my parents, he tried to kill me! He HAS killed hundreds of strong wizards. And YOU want to steal money from him!?! Don't you see? My history with him is bad enough, why make it worse?"
"Relax Potter. If you don't want it, then I won't do it. Just thought you'd like a little revenge. I mean if Voldy-guy wanted to hurt you I could put him under the mesmer and break his neck."
Harry thought for a moment about everything voldemort had done, and the prophecy. If he was really supposed to kill voldemort, then this would be the perfect chance.
"Ok..." he said cautiously. "But are you sure that the mesmer would work, I-"
"Harry! Oh Harry, we've been looking everywhere for you!" Harry suddenly found himself face to face with Hermione Granger.
(Hey! Hope that you enjoyed this chapter. I guess nothing much really happened but there's more to come.)