So, I'll be going to Houston this week and I probably won't be back for a while. I'm still not done with my hours for Driving and my great-granddad is dying. I'll get this done for ya'll to read and then it'll be asta la vista, at least for a little while.
And I probably shouldn't read Oh My Goddess before I write a story, eh? XD
Chapter Six
The sun was going down and people were heading home for the night. Two figures were waiting in a hidden broom closet while morgue workers and various other people milled about, some getting ready to go home to their families. The two figures huddled close to each other, trying to keep from being seen if someone opened the door.
"Ow! That's my foot, Harry!" hissed Astra. She rubbed a boot clad foot painfully.
Harry didn't see her glaring at him. In fact, he could only see what was showing through the crack in the door, which was pretty much people walking around. "Sorry. I can't see where anything is."
He shifted and felt around for how covered he was, when his hand landed on something very soft and squishy…
After the bright lights flashing off in his head began to subside, Harry leaned as far away from Astra as possible. "Sorry! Sorry!" he mumbled as softly as he could as he rubbed his bruised jaw.
"Watch it next time, or it'll be worse for ya," she grumbled as she, too, shifted as far away from Harry as possible. She rubbed her breast with a wince. "You could've been a bit nicer to my poor babies than that, you know."
Harry sputtered, feeling his face heat up considerably. "I didn't MEAN to touch you THERE!" he gasped.
Once again, Harry saw lights flashing in his head, though the pain came from the top of his head. "Shut up!" Astra hissed, holding onto a dustpan, "Do you WANT to get caught?"
Harry grumbled and hugged himself, glaring at the crack in the door. Harry remembered Astra and he had been fairly good friends, but, he supposed, being in such a small area, and cramped as they were, was shortening both their tempers.
The people outside the door were lessening. Astra hit a button on her watch and a whitish glow came from the face of it. Harry blinked at it, thinking it was magic until he remembered that such watches existed in the muggle world. Then, he remembered all those watches were green lighted so they didn't hurt your eyes. "What is that?" he whispered.
"A watch, dummy. Draco gave it to me," she said as the glow went away, "It's one minute until five."
"All right," said Harry, finding this promising. He shifted his weight so that he was ready to spring out of the closet. Astra pulled his sleeve until he was almost on top of her. "Ah?"
"You have on the special robes, right? Face scarf and gloves as well?"
"Yeah? Except the mask and gloves," Harry said as he tried to peer into her darkened face. She nodded and let him go. He wrapped the face scarf around his face, hiding his nose and mouth from being seen and put his gloves into his robe pockets.
Just then, someone came walking past the door. Someone in the same morgue robes as Harry and Astra were wearing came over to the man that had appeared. "Yes?"
"Personal note from upstairs, sir."
There was the sound of crinkling paper and then the morgue doctor spoke. "All right. Take me with you." Then, he walked off past the door.
Astra opened the door carefully and peered out before motioning to Harry to come along. They crept out carefully, closing the door behind them as quietly as possible before walking to a large metal door that looked like it could keep anything out. Harry grunted as he stared at it. He reached forward and tapped it, immediately jumping back as it zapped his hand. "Argh!"
"Damn it, I knew it was too easy," grumbled Astra.
"Too easy, says you. You're not the one that has a burnt hand," growled Harry.
"What sort of spells would be on this freakin' door, anyway? It can't be THAT secret a place, can it?" Astra looked to Harry, already knowing the answer. Both of them knew that, yes, it could be that secret a place. The look on Harry's face proved that point.
She sighed and rubbed her forehead with a gloved hand. Then, she looked over at Harry and then to his unclad hand. She thought for a moment and then Harry looked to his hands as well. "Are you thinking what I'm thinking?" she asked.
He nodded and put on the gloves. Then, he reached for the door. There wasn't even a flash of light. The door just opened when he opened it. She grinned at him. "So, it looks like these gloves are magically enhanced things, eh?"
He smirked slightly before walking through the door, Astra right behind him. They found themselves in a large room with cold white walls surrounding them. There were silver plaques everywhere on what looked to be drawers. The entire room was cold, making Harry shiver.
"This is it?" he said softly, his breath showing as a wisp of smoke coming through his face scarf.
Astra nodded. "Apparently, these scarves are used to keep your head from losing too much heat…as well as protect your face from chemicals or whatever." She looked around, her blue-gray eyes peering at him over the white scarf. In fact, Harry noticed now that the uniform was all white. Even the gloves. "Which name is it, Harry?"
Harry looked around. "I don't know where it is. It's Sylvia Tempest."
"We had better hurry," she said shortly before walking at a fast a pace down the center of the room.
"Astra! You can't be serious! You can't read that fast!" Harry said as he walked at a slower pace to see the nameplates.
"Not normally, no, but I can recognize a name when I know how it's supposed to be spelled rather easily and quickly." She walked down to the end of the room and grinned behind her mask. "And good thing, too. She's up there, Harry."
Harry turned in time to see her pointing up at a drawer a few feet above her own height. Harry walked over and looked up at the drawer. He nodded and lifted his wand, pointing it at the drawer. "Accio Sylvia Tempest drawer."
The drawer opened and pulled all the way out, drifting down to their level and hovered oddly. Astra raised her eyebrows at Harry and he shrugged. She pulled back the sheet from Sylvia's face and both pulled back, hands over their mouths in disgust.
There wasn't much left past her nose, her rotting upper jaw showing white teeth still imbedded. Her eyes were closed, thankfully, and the damage went on under the sheet. Torn flesh and blood was all Harry could recognize. He saw bone showing in her spine and torn muscle tissue around it.
He composed himself and looked to the forehead. It was cleaned of blood and easier to read. However, he didn't want to think of what the word meant. The idea was too frightening to think of.
"Hogwarts. You don't think whoever did this to her is going there—" Astra didn't need to finish her sentence. She saw the look on Harry's face and both went even paler.
She pulled the sheet back over the mess and then sent the drawer back up to the place it came from with her wand. "Without Dumbledore there, it would be easier to attack someone," she said softly. That only brought up a too real memory for the both of them.
Dumbledore was dead, by Voldemort's hand. The new headmistress of Hogwarts was Professor McGonagall and she could only do so much. She was a powerful witch, but she really could only do so well against just one person entering Hogwarts and killing someone.
Astra stiffened. "We need to get out of here. Is there a back way out of here?"
"I don't know. Why?" asked Harry looking to her.
"Someone's coming back." She grabbed him and wrapped the scarf around his entire head. She heard the footsteps outside the door getting closer. She wrapped her own scarf around her head, trying to hide her ears and her hair as well as she could. They were both easily identifiable if someone saw them walking out without their heads covered.
She tugged Harry to the door and it opened on them. She pulled Harry back in time to avoid getting hit with the door. The tall, blonde man with his own white scarf pulled around his face looked at them in surprise. "Oh—sorry. I didn't know someone was in here working."
When Astra spoke, her voice was higher than normal; however, that was nerves rather than clever planning. "Oh—don't worry about us! We just finished our work."
The blonde man blinked at them and she pulled Harry out into the hallway. "We really must be going. Sorry to have surprised you." Then, she walked down the hallway at a slow, leisurely pace.
Harry looked to Astra, narrowing her eyes at her. She shook her head. "He'll know something is up if we run," she hissed.
"What were you two working on? I don't remember anything being brought in before." The blonde man was coming up behind them. Astra stiffened and grimaced. Harry sighed.
"Sylvia Tempest. We were doing a recheck over her—well—what's left of her—body," said Harry as calmly as possible.
The blonde man nodded. "Yes, that body was a bit of a mess. Even more so when it first arrived. It took an entire day just to get the smell of blood off of me. I found it curious that Mr. Weasley asked for the ward door to have anti-theft spells on it. Made it really difficult to work around until we made the gloves able to go through it."
Harry nodded and looked to Astra. "Who asked you to recheck the body?" asked the blonde man.
"Mr. Weasley," said Astra in the higher than usual voice.
"Ah yes… odd. He summoned me all the way upstairs and then said he hadn't even done such a thing. He gets odder day by day, that one. I used to think he was too young for the job. Maybe it's beginning to make him crack," the blonde man said idly.
Harry looked to Astra again and then she looked to her watch, pulling back a glove slightly. The blonde man blinked at her. "You're awfully pale. Maybe you should have a lie down. This job does get stressful."
She went white as a sheet and looked to Harry quickly. "We need to go," she said in a harsh tone.
Harry nodded in agreement. "Excuse us. We have to report our findings." Then, he grabbed a hold of Astra's arm and tugged her down the hallway and around the corner.
Astra could still hear the blonde man as they walked away, but it became increasingly difficult as they walked away. "Odd pair. I don't recognize them. Must be new to the job." Then, it was hard to hear what he was saying because he was too far away and there were new sounds in the area, echoing off the walls.
"So that guy personally dealt with the body. Percy told him to lock up the ward and Percy's little ruse let us get into the ward. Something is definitely wrong," said Astra as she pulled the scarf off her head and then her gloves, then she pulled off her robes and tossed them into a trashbin.
Harry pulled off his robes and tossed them into the trashbin as well, their normal robe and cloak on under the white uniform. They walked to the end of the corridor and into the lift. "Hogwarts…he's going to Hogwarts," said Harry.
"He?"
Harry nodded. "That wizard you fought off of Sylvia and me was the one that killed her, I just know it."
"He was strong…and super fast. I've never seen anything like him. Not even the deatheaters were that good," said Astra as she leaned against the back wall. "There's something different about him, whoever he is."
"Did you ever get to see his face?"
"No."
Harry sighed as the lift doors opened and they walked out. Now came the task of figuring out how to get to Hogwarts without raising suspicion.