Author's note: This was originally going to be just one chapter, but then it started expanding, so I cut it into two parts to get the update out faster. Sorry the updates are taking so long. School is beating me over the head with a shovel and stealing all my free time. I'm trying to track all the characters and keep things chronological, so there is going to be a bit of back and forth in the next few parts. Anyway here's the chapter, tell me what you think!
Crumpets Aren't My Style
By Marz
Surrey Interlude: Part I
Daniel raised his cup of coffee toward his ear, but Sam's sudden polite cough brought the little mix up to his attention before anything truly terrible happened. He sighed and raised his other hand, which contained the phone. He'd spent most of Sunday night reviewing English and Celtic mythology and historical documents, trying to find some correlation between the legends of witches and wizards and the group that had some how integrated itself into so many levels of British society. Records of witch burnings were plentiful, as were accounts of trials and confessions, but none of that was the slightest bit helpful, as there was no indication that the people executed had any supper natural ability.
As he punched in the carpel tunnel inducing phone number, necessary to reach the base in Colorado, his mind wandered back to the planet where Teal'c had been accused of witchcraft. The natives had burned the Jaffa with a red hot poker and then chained him to a rock and threw him in a lake. He was tentatively found innocent when he drowned, but was found guilty later when his symbiote revived him. Daniel sighed again. The only records he could find seemed to prove that witches were nothing more then the product of hysterical imaginations, and possibly hallucinogenic chemicals produced by crop fungus.
Sam was busy typing away at her laptop computer, mulling over hundreds of police reports and newspaper articles in which the stories just didn't add up. She'd started making graphs and had somehow produced an equation out of whatever it was she found. He was tempted to ask her about her findings, but he was pretty sure he wouldn't understand the answer if he did. She saw him watching and sent a questioning look.
"I'm on hold. Something's up."
She nodded. "I've just checked the U.S. Forestry Service web site. There're several massive forest fires going in Colorado right now. The General's probably got his hands full."
"Do you think it has anything to do with the…you know?" Daniel asked, pressing "3" to indicate he had a security code that authorized him to speak to base personnel.
"At the risk of sounding paranoid I think just about everything has something to do with the kid and that cult. You wouldn't believe how many inconclusive autopsies they've had in the past two years; six deaths in Little Hangleton with no apparent cause, fifty seven in London, two or three in each of the major cities. The health agencies should be all over this but no one seems to be even slightly interested!" Sam ran her hand through her hair distractedly. "It's like everyone in this entire country is half asleep."
"Maybe they're under a spell," Daniel suggested.
Sam snorted. "More likely they're under a bribe."
They're conversation was cut short as Daniel finally got through to Sgt. Walter. General O'Neill was occupied with several different pressing issues and didn't have time to speak with them. Since Daniel couldn't confirm that the phone line was absolutely secure he could only give the vaguest outlines of how the mission was proceeding. Daniel thought this was rather fortunate, since it allowed him to make "absolutely no progress" sound very mysterious and important. He handed off the phone to Sam, and checked his watch. They'd arranged to take an embassy car to Surrey that morning, but it was looking more and more like they wouldn't make it there until well into the afternoon.
"This doesn't look promising," Daniel said as he climbed out of the car.
It had been two weeks since his phone call to the Dursley residence. Fourteen newspapers lay unopened on the porch. The lawn was yellowing and curtains were drawn closed. Agent Farthing had insisted that the Dursleys were being closely monitored, but it seemed the monitors had taken a ridiculously long coffee break and missed something very important.
Sam got out of the driver's seat and slammed the door. She'd decided to forgo her Air Force uniform and wore a professional looking pantsuit with a jacket loose enough to conceal a zat. She was confident she and Daniel wouldn't draw any unusual attention if they were both dressed as civilians, but realized immediately that she was wrong. She searched the street. A woman down the block quickly closed her drapes, but Sam didn't think she was anything other then nosey. Still, she felt as if she was being watched and traded a glance with Daniel over the roof of the embassy car. She could tell he felt it too, but he shrugged.
"We might as well have a look around," she said.
No one answered when Daniel rang the bell. Just to make sure, he knocked as well, but had no more success. He tried the knob. The door swung open on well oiled hinges.
"Mr. Dursley? Hello?" he called.
There was no answer.
They circled the outside of the house once, to make certain they weren't walking into some sort of ambush. As they stepped across the threshold into the silent house, the feeling of being watched intensified. They looked over the expensive and uncomfortable furniture, but found nothing blatantly unusual. The lower floor of the house was fairly neat, but a few knickknacks were overturned and there were several dark squares on the walls where pictures used to hang. The only thing slightly suspicious on the first floor was the closet under the staircase. The small triangular door was sealed with two latches and a dead bolt. It was locked from the outside, so they decided to inspect it later.
The steps creaked on the way up. The second floor contained three bedrooms, a bathroom, a hall closet, and a door with seven different external locks. The bedrooms all showed signs of hasty packing, and the medicine cabinet in the bathroom was emptied. Sam pulled a set of lock picks from her coat pocket and went to work on the sealed door. There wasn't much inside; a cot with a thin blanket, a worn desk and chair with a wobbly leg. An old wardrobe and an even older trunk with the initials H.P. etched into the worn brass catch plate.
"Do you think that kid really lived here?" Sam asked, picking the lock on the trunk.
"I hope not," Daniel answered, looking through the wardrobe. It seemed to contain nothing more than a few oversized t-shirts and socks. Daniel held his breath to listen. The only things he could hear were the tiny clicks and scratches as Sam worked the lock, and his not so quiet heart.
"There!" said Sam.
The latch gave way. Before she could put her hands on it, the lid burst open of its own accord. Something passed through the room. Daniel was tempted to call it a breeze, but it wasn't the air that moved. They looked down into the trunk, but it was empty.
"I think we should go," said Daniel.
Sam nodded silently and they both walked quickly to the door, glancing back at the empty trunk every few steps. Daniel and Sam knew they were very steady people. You didn't survive hundreds of firefights on alien worlds if you were skittish, but whatever chain reaction opening the trunk had started, they knew they wanted to be out of its way. They sped up as they got into the hall and as they reached the stairs they were running. The pounding of their feet on the creaking wood was almost loud enough to drown out the popping sounds coming from the front yard. Sam skidded to a stop before the front door. She looked out through the peep hole and saw nothing, despite the clank of heavy boots on the porch. She waved Daniel towards the back of the house, but he shook his head. There was a bang and a thump as the kitchen door was kicked open.
They scrambled through the living room, scattering end-tables and ceramic figures as they went, sprinting down another hall which dead ended in a small bathroom. Daniel closed the door behind them. Sam was already balanced on top of the toilet tank, trying to pry open the narrow window. The latch came loose easy enough but the window wouldn't budge. There were foot steps in the hall. She pulled off her jacket and wrapped it around her arm. The fogged glass shattered easily enough. She pulled herself up and out, tumbling onto the lawn on the east side of the house. Daniel's head and shoulders popped through the opening a second later, but he was very obviously stuck. Sam jumped up and grabbed his arm. She heard the bathroom door splinter apart and pulled. Daniel came loose with a hiss of pain, and blood blossomed across the front of his white shirt as they landed in a jumble on the lawn. He pulled a not so tiny bit of glass from the wound as they sprinted around the house.
"Stupefy!" someone in the front yard shouted.
A bright red light blazed across their path and others followed it, cutting them off from the embassy car. Sam sent a few shots from her zat blazing back, but her invisible assailants were apparently not in her line of fire. They retreated back around the side of the house. A high, ivy covered fence separated the Dursley's from their neighbors, and the younger half of SG1 had no trouble climbing it, or the next, or the next. They'd crossed sixteen backyards, two alleys, and a street before pausing assess their situation and breathe. They hunkered down on behind a low picket fence between two large terracotta gnomes. Sam pulled out her cell phone.
"Damn it!" she said, slapping it closed and returning it to her pocket.
"No signal?" guessed Daniel.
She nodded.
"Think they're still following us?" he asked.
She stood up part way and peered into the street. It looked empty.
"I don't think so, but we can't risk going back for the car," she said as she sat back down.
She checked her phone again.
"Maybe somebody will let us call from their house," suggested Daniel.
An hour and a half later, Daniel was starting to equate his dislike of the residence of Little Whining with his dislike of the Go'auld. Not only had he been completely unable to convince anyone to let him use their phone, he'd been told that "his sort" weren't welcome in their neighborhood. He supposed his blood stained shirt and grass stained pants weren't putting him in anyone's good books, but he usually had a talent for appealing to a person's sense of decency. He supposed he couldn't appeal to something that wasn't there.
He looked across the street and saw Sam waving from the front porch of a rather rundown house, triumph clear on her face. An elderly woman in a house coat and carpet slippers stood next to her, and cats ran in and out the open doorway. Daniel hurried over.
"Thank you so much," Sam was saying. "It will be a collect call." She paused and nodded towards him. "This is my friend Daniel. Daniel, this is Mrs. Figg."
The old woman nodded. She looked a bit suspicious as she caught sight of Daniel's shirt, but he held out his hand and gave her his most non-threatening smile.
"It's an honor to meet the only Good Samaritan in Surrey," he said.
She shook it and a little bit of color came into her cheeks.
"Wouldn't call myself a Samaritan or anything of that sort. Mr. Tibbles! Off that table! I was just raised better then most." She led them through a house cluttered with old newspapers and boxes of kitty litter, to a phone in the hall. "In my day we didn't turn people out on account of their clothes and accents." She handed the phone to Sam who began to dial. "You all look as if you could use a spot of tea," she concluded and wandered off to start the kettle.
Daniel followed her and helped set up the tea service. He tried without success to start a conversation concerning the relevance of tea ceremonies and their parallels in Japanese and English culture, but Mrs. Figg just gave him a blank look.
"How'd you come to be stranded here?" Mrs. Figg asked, as she shoed cats from one end of the counter to the other.
"We were trying to find Vernon and Petunia Dursley. Do you know them?" Daniel asked.
Mrs. Figg frowned. "I know them, and I don't see why anyone else would want to. What'd they do?"
"I don't know if they've done anything," Daniel said, "But a minor in their care ended up in the custody of the United States Air Force. The boy, Harry Potter, told us where to find them, but they apparently skipped town after we initially contacted them. They're behavior does seem a bit suspicious."
Mrs. Figg had nearly dropped her tea pot when Daniel dropped the name Harry, and now she was glaring at him suspiciously. "I used to baby-sit Harry when the Dursleys went on holiday. Is he alright?"
"Not really. He has some sort of medical condition that we can't make heads or tails of. We thought maybe the Dursleys would be able to help. You don't happen to know if he has any preexisting illness?"
The old woman turned to one of the cats on the counter. "Go find Moody," she ordered, and the cat darted away up the stairs.
She turned back to Daniel. "There was never much wrong with him that a few square meals wouldn't fix. He and his relatives had a bit of a falling out last summer, I don't know what about really. They've been telling everyone who'll stand still long enough that he ran away in London."
"They never filled a police report?"
Mrs. Figg snorted. "As far as I know they never bothered to file adoption papers for him either. He's a good boy, but they've never wanted anything to do with him."
They stood in a rather sad silence for several minutes, waiting for the kettle to boil. Daniel supposed that explained why the kid didn't seem to be in any hurry to get out of military custody. Figuring he should fish for more information he spoke again.
"Are you the one who gave Harry his cat?"
"His cat?" Mrs. Figg asked.
"He has a tabby cat with strange markings around the eyes. I thought maybe he got it from you."
Mrs. Figg smirked very faintly. "No, that cat found him on her own."
The tea was poured and set to seep. Daniel stuck his head into the hall.
"On hold," Sam said.
Daniel nodded. He returned to the kitchen where Mrs. Figg had set out a dozen assorted jars.
"If Harry's not going to be back for a while I need someone to open these for me," she said, and put a jar of pickles in Daniel's hand.
He opened three jars of pickles, two of tomato sauce, and one of coleslaw. He'd just put his hand on the lid of a strawberry jam when he heard a "pop" clearly out of time with his activities.
"Don't make too much of a mess," Mrs. Figg ordered.
"I'm not!" Daniel protested.
He turned, and realized she wasn't talking to him.
Glass shattered in the other room and Sam drew her zat. She set the phone down on the carpet and edged toward the kitchen. She was about to peer around the door frame when there was a loud pop behind her. She whirled. Red light flared up and she could see nothing else. Something slammed into the center of her chest and her head hit the wall. For a moment, everything went black.
She opened her eyes again and saw the edge of a cloak disappear through the doorway. Her zat was gone. As quietly as she could she got up on her hands and knees. The world went dark around the edges and spun. She squeezed her eyes shut. Whatever kind of stun weapon it was that hit her, it had some nasty side effects. There was more breaking glass in the kitchen and a yelp of surprised pain. She grabbed the doorframe and hauled herself upright. She leaned around the edge and looked into the room, taking it all in, in less than a second.
Daniel had a tall man with a red ponytail in a choke hold, with a large piece of broken glass pressed to his neck. Mrs. Figg stood in the corner by the door with one of her cats in her arms and a swarm of them around her feet. A man stood in front of Sam, with his back to her. He had a stick weapon aimed at Daniel. Despite the protests from her still spinning head she crept forward.
Daniel did his best not to draw attention to her, but the red haired man yelped a warning and the armed man turned. Sam dove and knocked the stick weapon from his hand. She couldn't get her balance and started to fall. She grabbed the front of the man's cloak and they both landed on the ground. Her head hit the tiles and she nearly blacked out again, but hung on, grabbing for his wrists. They rolled through pickle brine and Sam's legs hit the edge of a table.
Her attacker's cloak came off and she could see his ruined face and glowing artificial eye. She risked a glance a Daniel. The red haired man had gotten loose, and leapt towards a stick weapon that lay on the floor. Daniel grabbed up a jar and threw it, knocking the stick farther away and splattering the man in tomato sauce. Her attacker pulled her hair and her attention was drawn back to the fight.
They rolled across the floor again and Sam felt more pickle brine soak through the back of her shirt. She drove her knee hard into the man's midsection and knocked something off his belt. It clattered across the room and she realized it was her zat. She pushed the man away and scrambled towards it. Her hand closed over the grip. She whirled.
The man had taken a glass vile in his hand, and the world slowed down as they brought their weapons to bear. Sam's arms felt like lead as she pushed herself around with one and raised the zat with the other. The man had pushed the top off the vile and she saw the contents splashing over the rim, smoking droplets hitting the floor. There was the high chiming sound as the Zat charged up for a blast. The liquid hit her forehead and cheek.
She screamed. Her hand convulsively squeezed the trigger and an indigo light flashed before her eyes.
Get it off! Get it off! Get it off! She could think of nothing else. The zat fell from her hands as she clawed at her face. Daniel was screaming her name, and the red light came again.
He opened his eyes in a dimly lit kitchen. The air smelled faintly of wood smoke and strongly of burned hair. Daniel tried not to gag. He tried to stand and found his wrists, ankles, and waist were bound to a chair. Something touched his shoulder and he gasped.
"Daniel?" asked a slurring voice.
"Sam? Are you alright?"
In the old woman's house he'd seen her screaming and clawing at her face. When he tried to get to her he'd been hit with a stun weapon. Now he was almost afraid to look. He twisted his neck and saw her slumped forward against similar bonds, in a chair that was back to back with his.
"…hurts, but I'll live."
She turned and he saw her in profile. The eyes were the only thing he recognized. Her skin was some combination of melted wax and raw hamburger. Most of her hair had burned away.
"Is it…that bad?" she asked.
He tried to make himself look reassuring. "We'll find a way to fix it."
There was a creak on the far side of the kitchen and a rectangle of light appeared. At first he thought it was a dog, but it straightened up slightly as it stepped across the threshold and he saw it was bipedal. It made a low croaking vocalization, and despite his years of training in linguistics, he almost didn't realize the creature was speaking English.
"What is this in my mistress' house?" it asked, shuffling closer.
As Daniel's eyes adjusted to the new light source he could make out its features more clearly. It had something akin to a human face but the proportions were all wrong. Its ears stood out like sails. The eyes were huge, but clouded with cataracts and surrounded in a gummy substance that caused the lids to stick for a moment as it blinked. The nose was long and pointed, and the mouth was so small it was nearly indiscernible from the other deep lines in the creature's face. It was naked except for a dirty towel wrapped around its boney hips.
"Hello?" said Daniel, trying to sound friendly.
"It talks to Kreacher. As if Kreacher cares! All the filth they bring into my mistress' home. All the traitors and the mud bloods and the half bloods and werewolves. Kreacher would cut off his own head to avoid it. He would gouge his eyes out to not see it, but his mistress needs him."
"How…thoughtful of you. Could you get your mistress please? I think there's been some kind of misunderstanding and we'd really appreciate a chance to speak with her about it."
"It thinks the mistress would help it!" the creature sniggered to itself. "She would burn the filthy muggle on first sight. She would burn it screaming. She would cleanse the world of filth. Kreacher only stays to finish her work!"
"Leave them alone Kreacher," called a new voice from the doorway.
As the stranger entered, he waved his hand and all around the room lamps came to life in sudden bursts of blue flame. The new man was dressed in robes, similar to the ones their attackers wore, but his clothes were patched and worn. His face and hands were thin and pale. He did not seem very old, but his light brown hair was shot through with gray. The creature stood up straighter and glared at the man with seething hatred.
"The werewolf thinks it can order Kreacher about, thinks it can walk with impunity in my mistress' house."
The creature spit at the man's feet. The man's face went blank and when he spoke his voice was strangely flat.
"The werewolf can order you about, because this is his house now. Perhaps you should have considered what would become of it and you before you helped murder its previous owner."
"Kreacher does not…Kreacher will not…"
"Go dust the parlor please, then clean up two guest rooms on the second floor. Also we're expecting a crowd at dinner, so clear out the chimney as well."
The creature looked as if it wanted to argue, but shuffled to the door anyway. For a moment Daniel considered asking it to stay, as he'd never seen that species before, but as Kreacher shot him a final loathing glance, he decided against it. When it was in the hallway the man waved his hand and the door shut itself. He walked to a row of cabinets along the wall, and began to riffle through them. He opened several jars and sniffed the contents, before settling on an old earthenware one, covered in dust. He walked around to Sam.
"If you'll tilt your chin up Miss?" the man said in slightly sad voice. "This will take care of the worst of that."
Daniel twisted around in his chair and saw the man slathering a thick orange paste all over Sam's disfigured face.
"Tell me if it starts to sting, some people are allergic to it," he continued.
"Feels cool," Sam muttered.
When Sam's face was covered entirely in the bright orange goop, the man went to the sink and washed his hands.
"Any other injuries?" he asked as he dried his hands on a dish towel.
"Nothing serious," Daniel answered. "But we'd appreciate being untied."
"I have no problem with that, if you promise you'll not try and run off. You wouldn't make it much past the parlor anyway."
"I think we can behave ourselves for an hour or two at least," said Daniel.
He looked at Sam for confirmation and she nodded weakly. The man took a stick weapon from his sleeve and waved it at them, muttering something under his breath. The ropes that bound them melted into smoke. Daniel stood up and nearly fell over, discovering that his legs were asleep. Sam caught his elbow. They both looked toward the kitchen door, fifteen feet away.
"Would either of you care for tea?" the man asked, interrupting fantasies of escape.
"Yeah, sure," said Daniel. He and Sam seated themselves at the long wooden table in the center of the room. The man went to the cabinets and returned a moment later with a large tea set, and a plate of cookies. He tapped the teapot with the stick weapon and it gushed steam and whistled. He poured them each a cup, but as Sam tried to drink from hers she let out a surprised grumble.
"What's wrong?" Daniel asked.
" kann oove I outh!" she said.
Her hand went to the orange paste on her face which had hardened into thick immobile crust.
"I'm sorry about that," said their host. "I'd forgotten about the interactions of the mandrake and the willow…never mind."
He picked up his tea spoon and tapped it with the stick weapon. The spoon shimmered for a moment before settling into the shape of a chop stick. The man frowned and tapped it again. The chop stick glowed and then turned into a straw. He placed it in Sam's tea.
"I'm afraid that will have to do until the paste has done its job. It shouldn't be more than an hour."
Sam nodded. For a few moments they all sipped their tea in silence, until Daniel broke it.
"Who are you, by the way?"
The man set down his cup and held out his hand. "Remus Lupin," he answered. "I'd say 'well met', but these are hardly the best circumstances for introductions."
The archaeologist nodded in agreement. "I'm Daniel. This is Sam."
There were more hand shakes and nods.
"In reference to my first question," Daniel said. "Who are you?"
"Aside from my name there isn't much I can say that would mean anything to you."
"But you work for the same organization that kidnapped us from Little Whining?"
Lupin nodded. "We hadn't meant to approach things so…indiscreetly, but you walked right into a Ministry trap, and we couldn't leave you out there for them to find. I think you already know you're in the middle of something very unusual. Right now you're in the custody of the most scrupulous aspect of that something."
Daniel raised an eyebrow and looked toward Sam, who seemed to be dozing beneath the orange mask.
Lupin sighed. "I suppose that gives you some idea of how bad the rest of it is then? And it's gotten so much worse in the last few days. We barely know which way is up any longer."
"Some kind of civil war?" Daniel ventured.
Lupin shrugged. "It not quite as well defined as that, but it is quite a mess."
"And whenever someone outside your group steps in it they disappear? Or worse?" Daniel pressed.
"No," Lupin said defensively. "They're memories are erased, and they're put back the way they were before they stumbled across us."
" en air er all a odies uming urm?" Sam asked pointedly.
"Then where are all the bodies coming from?" translated Daniel.
Lupin poured himself more tea. "You were in one of those large cars fleeing Little Hangleton two weeks ago? I believe I saw you when I flew over."
Daniel nodded. He was almost desperate to ask about the flying on broom sticks aspect of their society, but Lupin didn't give him a chance to voice his question.
"The group you were fleeing from is the group that is killing muggles left and right. They are rather bent on genocide and are becoming harder and harder to control. Only two things kept their leader, Voldemort, from taking more drastic action and now neither of those things is available to us."
"And those two things were?" prompted Daniel.
"Voldemort's old school teacher and a Prophesy made by a fraudulent psychic. He's lost his fear of his teacher and the subject of the Prophesy is lost to us."
"What does this have to do with us?" asked Daniel.
Lupin looked him in the eyes suddenly. "This morning the Ministry, our government, announced that Harry Potter was murdered, somewhere in the United States. Every source at our disposal confirms that horrible news is true, but I can't make my self believe it. I think you know what happened to him."
"I can't tell you anything that would help you, in that regard." Daniel said.
"What can you tell me then?"
"Nothing beyond vague speculation, without the permission of my government."
"Alright, what vague speculation can I have?" Lupin asked.
"Hypothetically, isn't it better for everyone to think Harry Potter is dead? In my experience people rarely try to murder someone who's already passed on."
Lupin stared at him, and Daniel looked back, trying to keep eye contact. He was fairly certain he saw Lupin's nostrils flare several times, as if he was sniffing the air.
"But, Hypothetically, Harry would be safe and out of harms way?" Lupin said.
Daniel took another sip from his tea cup. "Hypothetically, yes."
"And how would we go about bringing him home?"
"In theory, you'd have to prove you weren't a threat to him or anyone else on this planet. It wouldn't be very difficult to work out a treaty with the U.N., with a nondisclosure clause of course. They'd likely even help you deal with your current political unrest if you were willing to reveal something useful to them."
"Useful things like-"
The door burst open and in stomped the man with the glowing artificial eye. Sam tensed but there wasn't anything even remotely weapon like within reach. Not that she looked ready for another round with him.
"Lupin! What the hell are you doing?" He roared at the top of his lungs. "You're supposed to be guarding them not serving them biscuits!"
"Hello Alastor," Lupin replied calmly. "I need a word with you in private, if you have a moment."
Lupin stood up, nodded to them, politely, and then walked with the man named Alastor into the hall, shutting the door behind them.
He sealed the door and sound proofed it.
"You threw Thoth's elixir in that muggle woman's face Alastor," said Lupin, not trying to hide his reproach.
"What's your point Lupin? There was a fight. She's not dead and you've just used several dozen galleons worth of restorative salve on her. What can you have to complain about?"
"I am complaining about you methods. We're better then that Alastor. That's the whole point of the Order. We're better then that."
"We don't have time for this moral-high-ground garbage. The Order is flying apart, six ways till Sunday. We can't take chances with what we've got left."
"If we're going about acting like Death Eaters then we don't have anything left!"
Moody shook his head. "You were always too soft for this sort of thing, Lupin, that's why you never made it as an Auror."
"Really? I thought it had more to do with my monthly affliction and the Ministries zero tolerance policies."
"Damn it Lupin, not everything revolves around you being a werewolf!"
"And not everything revolves around you being a retired Auror. Those people know something, and despite the substantial amount of truth serum I've slipped into their tea, they have yet to divulge it. They've escaped Voldemort and the Ministry both, and the only reason you caught them is because they had the bad judgment to trust Mrs. Figg. They know where Harry was taken, and they don't think he's dead. I don't either."
"You're deluding yourself, Remus," he said a bit more gently. "The boy died."
"Then where is the body Alastor? We've tried to use locator spells, but they can't find a trace of him. He's not anywhere we can find him. They know something. They are not normal muggles. If they can hide him from Voldemort and Dumbledore, they could be able to help us."
"We don't need help from Muggles!"
"We need help from anyone who'll give it. The Ministry is falling apart. The Order is too small to deal with this, the international magical community has left us hanging, and whether you'll admit it or not, Dumbledore is losing it. They can help and they've already offered to."
"We're getting Snape back, we're obliviating the muggles, and we're not going to waste anymore time on this!"
"This is a mistake Alastor. We don't know enough yet. With a little more time-"
"Time's up, Lupin."