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Chapter 7 -The Rescue Mission
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Sirius grinned broadly as Harry and Ron struggled his way to him, with a grin that was quite a match with his godson's. He was quite conscious that many people were pointing at him and cracking their necks to get a better look of him, but he couldn't care less, he was used to mass attention, with the only difference being the attention used to come from female mostly, instead of both sex.

"Hi, Harry," beamed Tonks as Harry approached. Harry nodded with a smile. "Hi."

"All right?" Sirius asked tranquilly, he had his arms crossed in front of his chest and was leaning on the wall charismatically.

"Quite fine," Harry said, grinning still more widely

Sirius pulled him into a one-arm hug. The last time Sirius hugged him had been in front of the Grimmauld Place when Harry was leaving for Hogwarts after the Christmas, and they were both worried and troubled then. Sirius couldn't exactly say they were void of worries this time, given Voldemort's coming back to power and such, but the fact that Harry needed not return to the Dursleys again had put him in an irresistible light-hearted mode.

"How's O.W.L.s, Harry?" asked Remus behind Sirius, giving Harry a typical Professor look before he smiled warmly.

"Err…" Harry's face darkened and exchanged a difficult look with Ron who then walked over to Bill, he had almost forgotten about the exams and when his mind shifted to the Potions exams, he shrugged doubtfully. "I don't know, but I think I did the Defense Against the Dark Arts okay."

Remus raised his brows mildly. "But I wouldn't be surprised if you get an 'O'."

"Remus, don't be such a killjoy. Spare him with the O.W.L.s before the report comes," said Sirius, also smiling, putting his hand on Harry's shoulder as if on his defense. He glanced over at Moody, whose magical eye was sweeping around the entire Station, Tonks and Bill. They were still waiting for Ginny to approach.

"Sirius, are we going to the new house right now?" asked Harry, following Sirius' glance. It was difficult not to note the agitation in Harry's voice.

"No." Harry's smile faltered. "We have to go back to Grimmauld Place before we go to the new house," said Sirius a bit regretfully. He wanted nothing more than to show Harry the home he had promised him in the Shrieking Shack, but an afternoon in his parents' house was nothing when compared to the previous year he had to stay inside. "But I can assure you, it wouldn't take long. Just some minor business to be finished."

Harry frowned. "You know what?" he said thoughtfully. "I still can't believe you've persuaded Aunt Petunia and Uncle Vernon to move into that house next to yours."

"As a matter of fact, Vernon Dursley still doesn't know what kind of people is living in the house next to the one Sirius 'rents' to them," Remus chimed in.

"He doesn't?" Harry repeated incredulously.

"No, only your aunt does," said Sirius, "To Vernon Dursley, the house is an ideal Muggle house. Large and tidy and ordinary in appearance. The only odd thing about it is that the old lady who owns the house is too senile to calculate, so she offers the house for 10 pounds a month when they're negotiating for a rental fee."

"What?"

Tonks joined in their conversation. "I am that senile lady," she said proudly, crinkling her face and screwing up her nose in imitation of an elderly. "No, Mr. and Mrs. Dursley," she said in a tired voice, "I insist on taking 10 pounds. You're injuring my pride to give me less than that amount!" Tonks grinned when she finished.

"She almost thwarted the deal when Vernon Dursley asked for a electronic calculator and she asked him back what the hell a calculator is," said Remus, smirking. "It was really a close call."

Harry laughed, he could just imagine how green Uncle Vernon must have looked when he heard that question.

"Listen, Harry." Harry looked up at Sirius. "It's Dumbledore's wish that you pay your Aunt and Uncle a courteous visit tonight."

Harry scowled, "They wouldn't miss me."

"But that – is Dumbledore's wish."

"Okay," said Harry, dreading over a prolonged meeting with Aunt Petunia and Uncle Vernon.

Sirius was talking to Remus when his eyes made contact with that of a blonde woman's cold ones – the all-too-familiar golden eyes of Narcissa Malfoy's. all at once, he stopped talking and glared at her, who glared back. He felt a whoosh of satisfaction as he remembered her husband and brother-in-law were still locked in Azkaban and that Death Eater sister of hers had fallen through the veil in the death room. Despite himself, he sneered slightly at her, watching as she struggled to keep her temper in check and quickly led her son, Draco, out of the station.

"It's time we start going back," Moody said in his hoarse voice, his magical eye swiveling in its socket.

Sirius nodded. They progressed towards the barrier in the Platform 9¾. One by one they headed towards the barrier, but instead of colliding with solid wall, they soon found themselves standing in between the Muggle platforms 9 and 10.

"Where's Mum and Dad, Bill?" Ginny interrupted abruptly.

"Waiting for us at Grimmauld Place," Bill answered, reaching for Ginny's trunk.

"Grimmauld Place?" Ron repeated to himself. "What about Fred and George?"

Harry looked at Bill for an answer; he could vaguely remember Ron telling him Fred and George had promised to show up at the station to give them the first-hand information of the happenings after their departure. But Bill didn't answer right away and out of the corners of his eyes, Harry could see Sirius exchanged a glance with Remus, all softness had vanished at once from his face; an almost hard expression came into it.

Harry looked at Ron and Ginny, they were equally puzzled. He peeked at Sirius again, but Sirius' expression betrayed nothing more than the unspoken fact that he was slightly irritated. Harry glanced around at the others, none of them was ready to confess. The adults had spared them with something important, he finally concluded.

"Alohomora!" Rainzzi muttered with frustration for the second time, pointing her wand at the Muggle door which didn't open ajar on its accord as it should have.

She glanced around at Kingsley, who was looking thoughtful.

"Give me a hairpin," he said after a moment, as though he had found a solution. Rainzzi looked at him, puzzled, but she pulled a hairpin from her head all the same. Having worked with Kingsley for quite some years, she knew he wasn't one who did things without reasons, especially during missions.

Kingsley took the hairpin, then held his wand in the mouth and inserted the hairpin into the hole of the doorknob, twisting it fervently.

With a transparent snap from the doorknob, the door was unlocked from its frame. Rainzzi looked at the door disbelievingly.

"A little trick I learnt from the Weasley twins," Kingsley smirked as he saw her look. He took the lead to enter the apartment and closed the door carefully after Rainzzi had also entered.

They glanced around the apartment. It presented a formidable landscape: it was a mess that every sane person would stay out of. There were very few furniture; merely the basic ones but things were thrown here and there, turning the floor into a relief map one had to step cautiously across. And at the other side of the living room was a French door. Rainzzi walked over to it and peered outside, the view from the window was magnificent.

"We should search the rooms," said Kingsley.

They parted towards different directions. Kinglsey opened the door on the farer side and searched inside while Rainzzi did the same to the nearest one. But it was suspiciously locked. She pulled the wand out, "Alohomora!" she uttered the charm for the third time on that day, and liked the two previous attempts, the charm didn't function.

"Better use the old method," Kingsley said. Rainzzi nodded, picking up the hairpin he had abandoned on the table and tried on the doorknob again. It didn't take her long to unlock the door.

Kingsley opened the door eagerly and peered inside, "He's here! Percy's here."

Rainzzi rushed inside after him. Forced in a far corner of the inventory room in a sitting position was Percy Weasley, who was obviously unconscious. Chunks of his red hair were missing from the top of his head.

"Percy?" Kingsley grabbed his collar and shook him fiercely from side to side, but Rainzzi gently ushered him aside and moved closer to Percy.

She took a small glass bottle of completely clear liquid from her pocket, "Veritaserum, got it from Snape." She forced Percy's mouth open and poured 3 drops in it. Percy Weasley opened his eyes. His face was slack, his gaze unfocused. Rainzzi knelt before him, so that their faces were level.

"Can you hear me?" Rainzzi asked tentatively.

"Yes," came the monotonous voice of Percy.

"Can you tell me your name?"

"Percy Ignatius Weasley."

Rainzzi looked at the Kingsley inquiringly, who nodded. "Take him back to Grimmauld Place now," said Kingsley, "I'll stay behind for a bit investigation."

"But Kingsley," Rainzzi began prudently and furrowed for a second as if trying to find the right words. "Don't you think it's a bit too easy? I mean we retrieve him too smoothly. Unguarded flat. No nasty dark magic preventing intrusion. It's unlike the way Death Eaters work."

"Have you been expecting a fight or something?" Kingsley asked, slightly amused.

"Some struggle," Rainzzi admitted, "That's why I volunteered to come."

Kingsley smirked, but then he frowned seriously when he reconsidered Rainzzi's caution. "I see your point. But as long as the Veritaserum isn't a fake one, this should be the real Percy Weasley, and that's what mattered," he said thoughtfully, "And I guess we don't have any reason to disregard Snape's reliability." Rainzzi looked at him doubtfully. "Anyway, we'll just have to take him back," he continued.

Rainzzi proceeded to help Percy up, but supporting the fully-grown unconscious form proved to be difficult when she tried to stand up. "He's too heavy."

Kingsley caught Percy under the arm just in time as he wavered sideward and nearly fell onto the floor again. "We'll swap the job. I and Percy DisApparate back to Grimmauld Place, you stay behind."

Rainzzi nodded, eyeing the flat suspiciously. "I suppose the investigation won't take me long."

"So, as usual, be careful," Kingsley said casually and in a blink of the eyes he was gone with Weasley.

Rainzzi stepped over the mess on the floor to the cupboard on the other side of the room. There arranged in the cabinet coherently was a large collection of brownish Potion, which, by sniffing Rainzzi could confirm as the Polyjuice Potion, and stuffed in the drawers below were the ingredients needed for brewing the potion. Pocketing a flask of the potion, she walked out of the room and advanced into the next one.

While the room where Rainzzi and Kingsley had discovered Percy Weasley was unsuspicious looking, this one was really peculiar. Though the room was a windowless one, the interior was filled with frosty breeze. And in place of what a bedroom normally housed, there was just an empty portrait hung on the wall which was painted black. The room was so dark that, in spite of the time in the morning, one could not even see clearly if not for the light coming from the opened doorway.

It took her a few moments to discover something was lying right in the middle of the room on the floor. A white mask.

Rainzzi had barely touched the mask when the sound of the door being opened reached her ear. A look at the shadow cast over her on the floor had indicated the arrival of another person. The owner of the shadow stood still, perhaps waiting for her to turn to him eventually. When that didn't happen, he cleared his throat loudly.

Rainzzi turned to meet her guest, a complacent grin creeping into her face. And she soon met the cold silver eyes of the one man she had always dreamt of encountering.

Both wands out, pointing directly at the heart of the other, they glared at each other.

"Where's Weasley?" he asked unnecessarily, but on his hollowed face, there was no trace of indignation.

"Rescued, of course." His expression was still as blank as a sheet. "And nice to meet you, Rabastan Lestrange," Rainzzi said cheerfully, in fact, she sounded so amicable that one would expect her to hold out her hand for him to shake. However, in the unconstrained frankness of her manners there was perceptible a slight shade of contempt.

Lestrange leaned on the doorframe and stared at her chillily. "You should say 'Long time no see', Rainzzi Delanuit. We've met before, if you can't remember, on the night when your memory was modified," he said.

"Whatever," Rainzzi shrugged indifferently, her sick feeling perfectly uncovered. As a supplementary action to show that she was not at all offended, she grinned at him.

Seeing the enemy wasn't irritated, he tried again, "Tell me, how it feels to have 15 years of memory lost? I'm not trying to offend you or something, I'm just curious. You know, I'm the one who hexed you."

"I feel surprising fine," Rainzzi replied. "And perhaps it's now your turn to tell, how you felt when your brother was recaptured and Bellatrix died falling through the veil?" she asked provocatively while doing the same.

"Contrary to what you might have expected, I feel like thanking Sirius Black for defeating Bellatrix. My Lord now needs replacement of his right-hand servant. And as for Rodolphus, I feel nothing. No harm done! 'cause we're going to meet again real soon," Lestrange said plainly.

"That's true, you'll meet him again 'real soon'," Rainzzi laughed sardonically, a mad glint of aggression evident in her face. "I can guarantee you a family reunion, because I'm going to catch you single-handed and put you into Azkaban again right now."

"Thank God. Does the Ministry still rely on Azkaban?" Lestrange laughed along with her ironically, "Say you really succeed in catching me, I would be really disappointed if I was sentenced to imprisonment in Azkaban again. It's an overestimation to call that place a prison. It's like a park, it's so fragile, not to mention the Dementors have always been on our side. Haven't you ever wondered why the whole lot of us is still sane after the 14 years imprisonment? It's because the Dementors are being lenient with the Death Eaters. They avoided approaching us."

"Arresting you gives me enough satisfaction. I don't care what happens after that," Rainzzi said belligerently. "Expelliarmus," she shouted, directing her wand at Lestrange. Lestrange reacted so fast that she barely had time to duck.

"Protego," Lestrange deflected the curse softly with a swift flick of his own wand. The jet of red light of her own Stunning Spell bounced back at her as she bended down to duck it. The spell hit the glass orb behind instead; it broke into a million pieces.

"Stupefy," Rainzzi yelled as she sent another curse towards Lestrange, she ran out of the room as he shifted leftwards to dodge the curse, allowing the passage of the doorway. Ten years experience as Auror had told her a dark room which had only one way out was always the worst of a battlefield. She ran into the living room and hid behind the large cupboard just when Lestrange appeared from the bedroom.

Rainzzi didn't peek from where she was, but judging from the sound of his fading footsteps, he was heading the wrong way.

"Hey, Delanuit, I thought you said you were here to avenge your memory loss. What're you doing now? I'm right here!" Lestrange shouted, glancing around the room for signs of the Auror, to no one in particular.

Rainzzi knocked slowly on the back of the cupboard, making a sound throughout the room, Lestrange sprung around, but he still didn't have a clear idea of her whereabouts. "Catch me if you can!" Lestrange shouted to no one again.

Rainzzi kicked the cupboard malignantly this time, creating a thunder sound much louder than the last knock, and kept straightening and curving her middle finger which she had revealed from behind the cupboard viciously. Lestrange was again quick to respond; he jumped over the sofa and proceeded to the cupboard while Rainzzi sprinted up the short corridor to the open-kitchen.

She aimed a curse over her shoulder but missed. Lestrange jogged up to the kitchen, Rainzzi stuck out her leg and successfully tripped him over, and he hit the ground face down and groaned in pain. She let out a mad laugh of triumph and raised her wand, another jet of red light streaked at Lestrange.

Lestrange rolled over on the floor and the red light hit the ground, emitting a spark of red light much resembled a small-scaled firework. He covered his eyes from the blinding ray. "Stupefy," she bellowed, standing over him, it again missed its target.

Lestrange was already on his feet anew, his heart pounding fervently as he looked over at her. "Expelliarmus."

Rainzzi dodged under the table while crying, "Wingardium Leviosa." The glasses rose in mid-air and fell over the top of Lestrange's head. Before the glasses cracked with him, he slowed down the speeding glasses by shouting, "Impedimenta!"

"Don't you think it's a bit childish to play game like this?" Lestrange said loudly, lowering his wand and searching for her. "We are not in kindergarten anymore," he added in a mocking voice with a little laugh, knowing that it would incense her. And it indeed achieved its aim.

Rainzzi sneaked out from under the dinning table and straightened up. Facing him directly, both of them had their wands lowered, but she clasped on it tightly.

"I'll offer you a deal, co-operate with my Dark Lord and I shall spare your filthy life," Lestrange said.

"Why thanks. But I temporarily rather enjoy being an Auror. You know why?" Rainzzi said, with fake civility. "It's because I have the secret desire to eliminate your kind and what's more? Being an Auror doesn't have to pay for any death."

"So I see there's no room for any compromise," Lestrange uttered tenderly, then instantaneously shouted, "Imperio!"

The jet of yellow light hit Rainzzi squarely in the face and she was then greeted by the most wonderful feeling. She felt a floating sensation as every thought and worry in her head was wiped away gently, leaving nothing but a vague, untraceable happiness. And then she heard Lestrange's voice, echoing in some distant chamber of her empty brain: Split the wand and throw it out of the window … Split the wand and throw it out of the window…

Rainzzi didn't even rock a bit, she closed her eyes and the next thing she knew was tolerable pain which didn't last long. "You need improvement on that one, Lestrange," she said shrilly and she advanced on him. "Crucio." She concentrated hard on her hatred of him, thinking of nothing but the first few years of helplessness she had experienced after the memory-modification.

Lestrange screamed in pain while Rainzzi still glared at him with concentration. He lay on the floor, sweating and twitching horribly. She towered over him, watching cruelly. He raised his wand but she didn't flinch, he was too weak to make any serious harm.

"Expelliarmus"

Rainzzi sprung out of the way just in time and looked over her shoulder at the direction which the spell had been shot from, and saw the silhouette of a wizard who had just materialised in thin air.

Rainzzi sighed breathlessly; Lestrange must have pressed the Dark Mark on his arm without her noticing as he twisted on the floor and thus summoned the other Death Eaters there.

For a fleeting moment she thought of conjuring a Patronus to contact the other Order members, but Death Eaters were already Apparating, it'd be dangerous for them to discover the means of communication between the Order members.

There were a total of five Death Eaters in the room, Lestrange and four other masked ones. They outnumbered her and the outcome of the fight was already announced wordlessly upon their Apparation. Rainzzi glanced at the cool eyes staring back through the slits of the hoods with insuppressible terror. It wasn't the time to act heroine, she comprehended. She tried to Disapparate but found instantly that the Death Eaters had already performed the anti-Disapparating charm.

Lestrange was back on his feet, no longer laughing, when the Death Eaters enclosed around her, blocking her way left and right. Five lit wand tips were pointing directly at her heart.

"Stupefy," Rainzzi pointed her wand at one of them, then quickly turned to another and yelled the spell again. The bald Death Eater ducked it and the others didn't even strive to retaliate, they were just looking down at Rainzzi with sarcastic sympathy.

"Is that what you're good at, Lestrange? Defeat the others by outnumbering them?" Rainzzi cried as she deflected an Imperius Curse and it bounced back to the imposer, but the Cruciatus Curse that Lestrange issued hit her solidly in the heart.

Rainzzi was thrown off her feet, she lay face down on the floor, shivering as though the ground was made of ice. She rocked from side to side as she was engulfed in pain beyond anything she could remember; her very bones were on fire, shuddering and jerking more violently.

Just as she thought she was going to die of the pain past endurance, it's gone. She could hear the raucous scream of laughters from the surrounding Death Eaters. She wouldn't let them have her, Rainzzi slowly rose from the floor, with her wand still tightly clasped in her hand, but Lestrange had again got the better of her.

He bodily pinned her to the floor; pressing her down with one of his arms and clutching her wand hand firmly with the other. His gaunt and skull-like face was just inches from hers. Her struggles were simply useless, provided that Lestrange was still much stronger than she was despite his imprisonment in Azkaban. She glanced around hopelessly and was met with nothing but the shadows of the Death Eaters.

"Do you want to experience it again? Having your memory wiped?" Lestrange breathed onto Rainzzi's fearful face with a feverish, fanatical glow. She tried to disApparate again, although knowing perfectly that it was useless, she remained under Lestrange's grip.

She was conscious that there were some space between the bold Death Eater and the long-haired one who she could recognize as Narcissa Malfoy, but even if she succeeded in sneaking out of the tight circle, she would still have a very narrow chance to get out of the apartment; she was being encircled in a far corner some long distance from the door.

Lestrange waved his wand dramatically in front of Rainzzi. "Just the memory charm will do, but if you want a more exciting effect, I'd add the Cruciatus Curse to it. It will turn you into another Longbottom," he threatened, his eyes crackling with aggressiveness beyond reason.

A/N: Please review