Lights, Camera…

Chapter 10

Raven sat out the remainder of the night cross-legged on the bed. It was strange that back at Titan Tower the shadows of her room comforted her, but here, the darkness was threatening, scary, strange, and cruel. The night, even thought it was half finished by the time Raven was back in her room, crept by unnaturally slow.

The dark girl attempted to mediate, but her mind was full of too many things to even try to clear it. So many things had happened in the past few days that her whole mind was packed with mixed memories, confusing secrets, tangled clues, bizarre theories, and harsh realities. Admittingly, when the snake-faced man had told her about his magic, she did not truly believe him, but tonight, when there had been so much of it, Raven knew it was real, she had felt it. Curse her senses, she wish she was stuck in naivety because sometimes the truth is too harsh, too cruel, too malicious. The other Titans had no clue what they were up against…

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Cyborg's awakening had been quit a shock to Starfire and Beast Boy. It was a surprise to Cyborg also, because he had no clue in the world, in the universe, where he was. Beast Boy quickly summarized the events of the last few days again and then Cyborg recounted his record of events at the attack which was similar, if not the same, as Star's. Then, as a rule, Cyborg began attempt to awaken Robin. Starfire waited with troubled and impatient anxiousness and Beast Boy watched from a distant, ready to stop Cyborg if he decided to shout like Starfire had. He did not.

Cyborg ran an analysis on Robin with his scanners to see if it could detect anything wrong with him. The half-robot found nothing different about their leader except that his heart and breathing rate was lower than normal, which is understandable because of the long time Robin had been unconscious.

"Then what could it be?" asked the red-headed beauty in a vexed tone.

"Honestly, Star, I don't know. It could be almost anything, but nothin' was picked up by my scanners," answered Cyborg in a somber voice, "But...," he continued reluctantly, "My scanners have been wrong before."

"I think the real question is," said Beast Boy, for the first time coming to the conversation, "Is why you two could wake up and he," he nodded his head toward Robin, "can't." Cyborg regarded Beast Boy strangely because the green titan stood their soberly, arms crossed, with not hint of a laugh, a joke, or even panic on his face. The changeling cut into Cyborg's thoughts with another comment. "And even more important is what made you guys unconscious in the first place."

There was a chilling silence throughout the room. The reason? Well, no one can be sure of what it truly was. Some say it is because the other two were stunned by Beast Boy's sudden maturity, others say it was they were all pondering the question or that they were out of things to say, still others believe it was because they heard someone nearby and stayed silent as not to be heard. Though there is no proof of any of these theories are right, they were all conceivable.

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Voldemort as thrilled by the night's success. First, his theory was proven true; Raven's shadow powers counteracted the magic of his people, all the wizards and witches. Of course Raven did not know this, it was crucial to his plot that she did not know; otherwise she might get smart and try to escape with her friends. It had been Voldemort's plan all along to reveal enough to keep Raven worried and subdued with out revealing enough to make her discover their weaknesses.

He glowed at the cleverness of it all; of course you do not even know the good part yet. He Dark Lord had deliberately had one of the Death Eaters shot a harmless spell at Raven during the attack to see if she could block it and it of course looked like an accident. Oh yes he was a genius, it was a bitter blow to his ego that he had not outsmarted Albus Dumbledore yet, the fool. Just the thought of that benevolent old man made the serpentine lord fume with fury. The wise Headmaster of Hogwarts was right on top of Lord Voldemort's hit list along with Harry Potter, as well as the mudbloods, muggles, and all the members of the Order of the Phoenix, as soon as he learned who they all were.

That leads us to the second accomplishment of the night; the only thing that reassured Voldemort's murderous hate would soon be fulfilled. This attack had not just been a random genocide of good. It was strategic in a many of ways. Let me break it down for you. The Dark Lord planned to attack Hogwarts tomorrow night, just after sunset. The timing was essential because no one, and I repeat, no one, would expect such a large scale attack sat this time especially the night after another had just happened. Secondly, no one would notice what was missing from the office before tomorrow night. That brings us to the juicy part; the meat of the story per say, the building the Death Eaters had attacked that night was am undercover (to muggles) government archives outpost. It held all the documents and blue-prints to the British wizarding world. Voldemort's Death Eaters had stolen the one of the two official Hogwarts complete blue-prints (the other was kept in the school itself).

These said blue-prints contained more than just the architectural aspects of the school, which were self-correcting when anything changed, but also a layout of the magical defenses surrounding the school, say like were the apperation barrier is. Do you catch the drift? Naturally the barrier has no such effect on Raven's magic, particularly her teleporting ability.

If the snake lord had been one to laugh evilly or steeple his fingers he would have done so at this moment as he looked at the blue-prints laid out before him on an antique wooden table. Tomorrow night, mused the Dark Lord as the sun began to rise over the horizon. Its beams gazed through one of the windows. No, correction, today.

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The sun began to light up Ravens room. It was comforting for some unknown reason. It was probably because all the bad things that happened in the last several days had happened at night. The kidnapping of the titans, the meetings at Arrow's Point, and the attack at the building. Day had seemed like a release, a safety of some sort.

Oh, but why does it have to be magic, thought Raven disheartened. Technology, aliens, robots, natural forces, bombs, hypnosis, time and mind control, man-made viruses, anything but magic. The goth girl knew that the Teen Titians could beat those things because they have before. The Titans only involvement with close to real magic was a fiasco. They only got out of the magic hat because of Raven's quick thinking in a dire situation. This was a dire situation too, but Raven could do nothing but sit and wait.

She had no clue what was going to happen next and she hated it being like that. She wanted nothing more than to morph her friends and herself out of this mess, but that was harder said than done. First their was guard standing outside her door and her checked to she if she was still in the room what seemed like every five minutes.

Second, what if one of the Death Eaters found her sneaking around they had powerful magic, they would be able to stop her and mostly likely hurt her or, more importantly, any or all of her friends. Plus if her friends were still here, they might find Beast Boy. Raven shivered at the thought of another one of friends in the ruthless clutches of the enemy.

Third, this house, excuse me, I mean mansion, was humungous and had, Raven estimated for a minute in her head, a million different halls and passageways. Raven could not recall how to get to the room were her friends were being held captive as she was rushed through them previously. And if she did find the room, what if they were already gone by the time she got their. Come on they were probably already gone right now.

I am very happy to report that Raven's last thought was half way accurate for Beast Boy, Starfire, Cyborg (It was a bit of a squeeze), and a still unconscious Robin were existing threw the only window in their captive room as Raven thought this. The reason behind this success was a critical mistake of Voldemort's. See, taking so many precautions to make sure Raven did not escape he had a slip of mind about his other captives. They had not been checked on for many hours now. But of course they did not need to be checked on, they were unconscious…right?

That was what he thought…