A Well in the DeadLand
By Marz
Chapter 11
Double the Trouble and Raise the Stakes
"He doesn't look well," said a young male voice.
"Not well at all," said a voice exactly like it.
"Looks like we owe Hermione ten galleons,"
"You're the one who made the bet,"
"You're the one who failed to stop me,"
Fred and George Weasley stood on either side of the hospital bed, looking at the prone and puffy form of the man who was previously their potions professor. They weren't supposed to be there of course, but breaking rules was what the twins did.
Albus Dumbledore, the Headmaster of their former school, and the leader of the Order of the Phoenix, had forbidden the twins to leave England. Though they respected the man greatly the twins felt no obligation to obey. After all Dumbledore had yet to swear them into the Order, something to do with their inability to follow instruction.
It really was a shame, in their opinion, because they would have made great spies. They had managed to listen in on conversations between numerous members of the Order, and even gotten their hands on a few written reports. They had good reasons of course. Harry Potter had gone missing and no one would tell them anything about it.
"How are we going to get him out of here?"
"I suppose we'll have to take all these wires and tubes out before we use the portkey."
"I don't know if that's a good idea. We should get one of the muggle healers to do it."
"Really George, how would we get them to do that?"
"Our dazzling charm?"
"We'll have to do it ourselves."
They had managed to piece together that Harry was under the influence of some evil entity, and that he was trying to do something with the Arch from the Department of Mysteries. Most of the Order had been called up to search for him. Their mother had been dispatched to Kenya of all places. Unfortunately the twins could dig up no more then that. But then they consulted Hermione Granger.
She'd used that muggle computer machine to look up news from around the world. It took her several days, but the first clue had dropped into her lap early that morning. A news site in New York had mentioned a mysterious man found in the airport. The man had been beaten within an inch of his life and little beyond that, which was not all that unusual for New York, but the fact that the man was wearing a "dress" and appeared to be the member of some "neo-pagan cult" had inspired some bored journalist to write a few paragraphs about him.
Fred and George had taken the international Floo to check the story out. Their younger brother Ron had insisted he was coming too, but as usual they left him behind. Harry was his best mate, but Ron was not gifted when it came to sneaking around unnoticed. They'd left him in charge of their joke shop to make him feel a little better. Of course now they were starting to wish they'd brought him along.
"Fine, but you're removing the catheter."
"What's a catheter?"
One Weasley twin whispered something to the other, who groaned in disgust.
"You're making that up."
"I'm not. Check under his sheets if you don't believe me."
"I'll give that a miss, thanks. You're right though, we need a muggle healer."
They had borrowed one of the Order's emergency Portkeys to St. Mungo's Hospital for Magical Maladies, incase it was Harry they found. Though they were not at all fond of Professor Snape, it was pretty obvious they'd have to use the Portkey on him. Untangling him from all the muggle healing devices was becoming more challenging then they thought possible. Fortunately they were saved from trying to remove the catheter by the arrival of two Death Eaters.
Fred barely managed to duck in time and a blazing red light seared a bit of hair off the side of his head. George fired a hex at the Death Eater nearer to the door. The man dropped his wand and yelped in horror as hundreds of centipedes erupted out of under his mask. The second Death Eater blocked George's next hex and sent a glaring green light back at him. Fred threw the visitor's chair into the path of the curse, giving his brother a chance to roll out of the way.
"STUPEFY!" George bellowed as he slammed to a stop against the side of Snape's bed.
The Death Eater toppled in a wash of red light.
"STUPEFY!" Fred said in the next instant, finishing off the man who was still writhing under a mass of centipedes.
The twins looked towards the door as they heard footsteps rushing up the hall. Fred snatched up the visitor's chair again and stuffed it under the handle. A second later someone pounded on the thin wood and demanded entrance.
"This isn't going so well," said Fred.
"No it is not," his twin confirmed.
There was a muffled groan from the bed. One of Snape's eyes had peeled its scabbed self open, and now peered at them with the utmost loathing. The twins moved to either side of the bed, and Fred took the Portkey out. He placed it in Snape's right, slightly less bandaged hand. His purplish fingers clenched around it.
"You'll be in St. Mungo's in a few seconds," said Fred.
Snape grumbled something that probably wasn't a thank you, but didn't sound like an objection either. George leaned over and tapped the key with his wand. Snape vanished. Fred was momentarily tempted to check under the rumpled sheets to see if the catheter had gone with him, but pushed that idea out of his head. There were some things you were just better off not knowing. There was a great thump against the door, as if the muggle healers had decided to break it down.
"What should we do about them?" George asked, looking at the stunned Death Eaters lying on the floor.
Fred shrugged. "I don't have any truth serum and we'd have a terrible time of trying to question them with out it. Not to mention the huge chance that they'll escape, or lead others to us."
George nodded thoughtfully. There was another thump against the door. Both twins jumped as the sound at the door was immediately followed by a thump against the window. They whirled and saw, and as was not uncommon, they were both struck with the same idea.
The twins had waited on the roof across the street from the hospital, gazing down at the room formerly occupied by Severus Snape. On the window ledge, two black pigeons with unusually white faces crouched, as if afraid to fly away, even as the room behind them whirled with activity. At first they were only waiting to see the transfigured Death Eaters jump off the edge, but as the muggle police arrived, an instinct told them it might be useful to stay and observe their activities as well. That instinct eventually led them to an apartment on New York's lower west side.
An older gentleman with glasses and hair starting to gray at the temples had gone into the hospital room as soon as the police left. Fred and George each took out a pair of improved Omnioculars, which let them see through the wall as well as the window. The man locked the door, after a brief glance into the hallway. Apparently thinking himself free of observation, he took several bags from the pockets of his tweed jacket. The magic that followed was something the twins had never seen before.
Instead of using a wand, the man lit a candle and used it to burn small pinches of herbs from the bags. He was chanting something, but they couldn't hear the words. At first they thought it was some kind of useless muggle mysticism, but then the man threw a handful of red powder into the air, and the room was enveloped in golden light. When the light faded the man was standing by the window. The twins ducked down a little more incase he decided to look up. The man's arm snaked out the window and caught one of the Death Eater Pigeons. The other pigeon decided to take its chances trying to fly, and leapt from the sill. The man didn't seem overly concerned. He stuffed the pigeon into the pocket of his coat and, after collecting the bags he'd used earlier, he walked out. They followed him to his apartment.
The small room they looked down into, through the one way transparency charm they'd placed on the roof, made the Burrow look like a palace. The floor was covered in stacks of books and papers. Diagrams of the Arch were pined to the walls and scrolls depicting ancient runes covered the coffee table and kitchen counter. The man with the glasses was greeted by a petite young woman with artificially red hair. Right away the twins put extendable ears down the ventilation shaft.
"…evidence of a battle of mages. I am rather surprised no one was killed," the man was saying.
He presented the woman with the Death Eater pigeon. The woman inspected the pigeon for a moment before up ending a waste basket and trapping the bird beneath it.
"I'll restore him as soon as Xander gets back with the professor. Faith called in, Giles. She, Ruby and Chelsea caught up with the boy and Dawn in Indiana early this morning. The battle didn't go in their favor, but they weren't seriously hurt. The boy conjured up an army of giant snakes and felt up Ruby and then apologized and stole Faith's car. Whatever the First is doing to that kid, I don't think he's gone entirely over the edge yet."
"What do you mean?"
"Caleb, the other avatar of the First, was all about the evilness and the end of the world you know? But from what Faith said, and from what I managed to get from that creepy guy from the airport, I don't think the kid is beyond our help. We've definitely got to stop him but maybe…he's like I was, with the revenge and the evil and going all dark side and everything."
"Have you told Buffy this?"
"I tried, but she seemed to be stuck in 'he hurt Dawn, I smash face' mode. It would make life a whole lot easier if we could talk him down, but whenever I call her about it she just gets all bossy and asks how I'm doing with the spell and the evil gateway thingy. I'm starting to wish we'd sent Xander with her."
"You have to trust her instincts, Willow. She is the Slayer and she won't take a human life unless it's absolutely necessary."
The man removed his glasses and cleaned them on the edge of his shirt. "Any luck with the locator spell?" he asked after a moment.
"No the First is still obstructing my spells. They must have tampered with the GPS marker in the car as well because I can't find that either. I've sent slayers to all the 'thin spots' I could find in that creepy guy's head. That should give us at least some warning if he tries to take Dawn to one of them. Buffy and Carmen are trying to follow the route the kid took. I think he's headed for Sunnydale."
"That would not surprise me in the least," the man said.
He looked ready to say something else, but they were interrupted by the door opening. A man with messy black hair and an eye patch walked in, followed closely by Professor Lupin. The twins exchanged baffled glances before returning their attention to the room below.
"The potion's working Will!" the dark haired man exclaimed. He turned to Lupin. "Tell her what you told me," he said gently.
"I…I have to be somewhere…I have to go. I can't fail again…" Lupin put his hand to his head and blinked in confusion.
"Here, sit down," the dark haired man said.
He took Lupin's elbow and led him to the couch. After sweeping a mountain of papers onto the floor he waved for the former professor to sit down. Lupin obeyed, looking around the room blankly.
"Can we give him more potion yet?" the dark haired man asked.
"Not for another three hours at least, Xander. We have to remove the memory spell a little bit at a time or it could cause brain damage. I'm not even sure how it was cast in the first place, since I can't find the source of the occluding energy or the focus point…"
"Ok, ok. Any word on Dawn…"
Xander trailed off. The woman's hair was beginning to move as if the room was filled with a sudden breeze, but none of the loose papers were disturbed. Her hair seemed to be changing color as well, the red fading to black. She began to turn in a circle and they realized that her feet were no longer touching the floor.
"Will, what is it?" Xander asked.
The woman looked up then. Not just up at the ceiling, but up through it. Purple veins stood out of her skin. Fred looked down into her obsidian eyes and could not move, even as George pulled desperately on his arm.
"We have uninvited guests," she said.
She snapped her fingers, and instantly the twins found themselves inside the cluttered apartment, chained at the woman's feet.
"This isn't going so well," said George.
"Not well at all," Fred confirmed.