Hello! Welcome back for another chapter, things are starting to pick up! Thank you for the reviews and the continuous readers! It means a lot that people enjoy my writing! It'll only get better as I've never written anything before!
To the story!
AN: Rewrote some stuff involving plot holes and such.
Chapter 6 : A chance encounter
"Epidemic?!"
"What's the difference between a pandemic and epidemic?"
"Oh god, I need to get to Alexis-"
"Bout' time I found my baby brother. President seems to be shittin' bricks."
The last comment came from the veteran, who was now getting up and preparing to leave.
"Nice meetin' ya, but I got some business to take care of." He said to Harry as he walked by him, clapping his shoulder for a moment, then leaving through the doors as a few followed him out.
"Well, I guess we got some news on what's going on after all, hey boys?" Seamus couldn't help but say after his group didn't say anything for a few seconds.
"I guess we did." Harry replied, a little deadpan. He continued,
"Kreacher?" He whispered.
He waited for a moment, hoping he would pop in, invisible. It was a long shot, as he knew anything but Portkey, or a pre-established Floo system was able to make it past the diluted magical air at long distances. But, with house-elf magic, you never knew.
There were some complicated branches of magic that he knew could transport them, but he just didn't have the expertise, knowledge or materials available to do so.
"What about a Patronus?" Seamus inquired.
"Much too far. Prongs would be downright confused at the distance required." Harry answered.
While he knew how to use a Patronus to communicate, it ran into the same problem as before. That was a branch of magic that the Department of Mysteries was researching before he left. He wondered if they made any breakthroughs? Dumbledore was in a league of his own when it came to understanding magic, and he was the only reason that the 'DM' was looking into Patronus' uses in the first place.
"Seamus, where's the local, uh, 'Community'?" Ron asked.
"It's downtown, but if I had to haphazard a guess, it's locked down too."
"Can you be so sure?" Harry said.
The lights in the lobby suddenly turned off, followed by a few screams, before flashing back on after a few seconds.
Harry had his wand out, a second away from casting a lumos, before he flicked his wand back into his invisible wrist-holster.
Ron saw this, and wondered if he was actually going to cast a spell. Surely it couldn't be much worse than muggles seeing a walking corpse? I guess they didn't know that yet, but there's probably so many muggles seeing magic for the first time! Must be a shock, to see something you can't explain, then having a squad of obli-
'…'
"Harry! I got an idea!"
Harry, lost in thoughts, snapped to Ron, wanting to hear the plan. Ron got close to Seamus and Harry, before whispering,
"Obliviators!" Ron said, like this would make sense to them.
"Obliviators?" Seamus replied.
"Obliviators! Good idea." Harry exclaimed, picking up on what Ron was implying.
"Explain mate, I don't have the 'Insync-ness' you two have." Seamus pointed out, a little annoyed he couldn't understand what was implied.
"We cast a spell in front of muggles, and a squad of obliviators come to do their work! We just point out we're locked out of our hotel, and they apparate us to the local ministry!" Ron explained in a hushed whisper.
Ron broke off from them, explaining to let him handle this before walking up to the now-dazed clerk. The clerk noticed Ron walking up and looked at him about to say something before Ron whipped out his wand and cast a lumos, the tip of his wand lit up, while he had a proud look on his face.
The clerk took a step back in confusion.
Ron, noticing it wasn't getting the desired reaction, cast Nox, then cast a spell that puffed out a small flame at the end of his wand much like a muggle lighter. He didn't want to scare the life out of him, did he?
The clerks expression changed from confusion to annoyance before saying,
"Now's not the time to be castin' magic tricks, boy. Tell me what you want, because I'm about to head out."
Ron, without saying a word, extinguished the flame before walking back over to Harry and Seamus.
"Any second now…" Ron said, excited to finally head home.
Harry already came to the conclusion that they were probably occupied dealing with the fallout of the inferi.
A few minutes later of just standing and waiting, watching the clerk leave through an 'Employee's Only' door, and the last of the muggles leave the building, Seamus finally broke the silence.
"I don't think they're coming, mate."
"You know, in hindsight, I probably should have realized that…" Ron said dejectedly.
"It was a good idea mate, really." Harry encouraged, before dialing in on what to do next.
"Okay, I think we should not waste any time trying to find out if the wizarding district is open here, and I just make a rudimentary Portkey to Atlanta, and head to the ministry there."
"Ah, makes sense. They'd have an international Floo system there, it was hard enough finding a hotel here that actually had a Floo system. Let alone it being international." Seamus pointed out.
He picked the hotel specifically for the Floo system that they had set up. Finding a Floo system in America was few and far between, as American wizards saw it as a very rudimentary form of travel, along with it being extremely disorienting at times. He didn't blame them, Magical Britain was very far behind in terms of advancements.
"I just need a picture of somewhere in Atlanta. Let's go find a flyer, or a magazine regarding Atlanta." He all but ordered Ron and Seamus.
They split up, looking around the lobby for anything pertaining to Atlanta. After a few minutes of them rummaging around, Harry was currently looking behind the main desk before Ron called out that he found something. Harry and Seamus made their way over to him.
"Look, 'Housing Market in Atlanta'. This is usable I think." Ron said, while handing over the magazine to Harry.
"You actually know how to make a Portkey, Harry?" Seamus inquired, he knew it was illegal and restricted because it was dangerous to get wrong, and fatal at worst case scenario. He remembered the incident of Susan splinching off her leg, but from what he heard of fatal accidents from a bad Portkey, a lost leg was nothing.
"Ah, yeah. We were taught to make emergency Portkeys during my training. Otherwise we had them made from our own Portkey Department for missions. You know, because it's dangerous when it's not made by a professional." Harry replied while sitting down on one of the comfy chairs in the lobby, he wandlessly summoned a pillow from one of the sofas. Not caring about the repercussions of someone seeing them at the moment. Bigger fish to fry.
Ron and Seamus followed him, and watched as Harry flipped open the magazine to the first few pages, before settling on a picture of a nice modern looking home. It had a nice view of the surrounding area, and it looked like a suburb of some sort. It was in Atlanta, so it was good enough for him.
Harry started studying the details of the house, the yard and the surrounding area for a few minutes, as Ron and Seamus watched in silent and mild fascination. Harry finally grabbed the square pillow, before hovering his wand over it.
He closed his eyes in concentration, peeking to look at the magazine every few seconds, before finally after around 30 seconds, he carefully intoned,
"Portus."
The pillow glowed a bright blue, before losing its glow gradually.
"Wasn't that a wee bit dramatic, no?" Ron said nervously. He was going to die in a horrible Portkey accident, wasn't he?
"Alright, we have 30 seconds, grab on and pray to Merlin."
Ron, Harry and Seamus grabbed separate parts of the pillow, before waiting nervously. Seconds later Harry counted them down the last few seconds.
"Twenty Seven."
"Twenty Eight."
"Twenty ni-"
Fwoop!
If anybody was watching, it would have looked like the pillow had swallowed three grown men, before the pillow itself would disappear in a flash of blue.
Atlanta, Suburbs outside the city
"What should we do now?" Clementine said with a small waver to her voice. Avoiding looking at her former babysitter lying on the ground.
Finally a moment of respite, now with a little girl, Lee looked at his bloody clothes, to the dead woman behind him on the ground with her face caved in, then to his fucked up leg. Next thing to do?
"We need to find help before it gets dark." Lee replied. They won't last a day out here by themselves, not while he had a lame leg.
Clementine, whether or not she was afraid of the dark, replied how it's a good idea because it's not safe at night. She was probably right about that. Didn't want to be snuck up on with those 'things' walking around.
Standing up, he grabbed Clementine's hand, before asking her to stay close. They walked out the back door before she let go of his hand and bolted off the porch into the backyard.
'Children…' Lee chuckled internally.
He followed her off the porch taking in his surroundings once more. The treehouse she was staying in would have been a good place to stay if they waited until night. He walked up to it, and put some of his weight on the makeshift ladder, seeing if it would have held him, and it seemed like it would. Her father made this as sturdy as he could it seems. He's probably been up there before.
Clementine walked up to him, and asked what he was doing.
"I was just checking if it could hold my weight. If we can't find help, your treehouse could be a good place to stay for the night."
"My dad made it with m-" She stuttered, a little wide eyed, "With his tools! Expensive tools!"
She finished, with a beaming smile. Lee raised an eyebrow at her with a small smile.
"He seems to have done a good job. It can hold my weight, if we can't find help, we'll come back here for the night, okay?"
"Okay!" Clementine beamed.
After what she saw back in the house, he was surprised she was as happy as she seemed. Must be child innocence. He could use some of that right now.
His thoughts were cut short when he heard what sounded like a giant water balloon popping in the street, then a loud pained scream.
Both confused and a little scared, they made their way to the side of the house where the gate was, and looked towards the street while hiding.
It was three men, two were currently tending to one on the ground. He listened to what they were saying.
"I bloody knew that was going to happen!" The one with red hair called out worried.
"Merli- Ah!" The man on the ground cried out, Lee squinted and saw that his leg was missing a chunk out of his thigh! How could that have happened? And what was the water balloon popping noise?
"Harry, a bunch of inferi are coming!" The red haired man called out.
"Protect us, I need to repair his leg before it's too late!" Harry, he assumed, was the one that just replied.
'Repair his leg? Just what was going on? Gonna take surgery to fix a wound like that.' Lee thought.
"'Inferi'... Lee! They're ma-" Clementine was cut short from Lee putting a hand over her mouth, they were about to be surrounded by those monsters, and they didn't need the attention.
Harry popped his head up at that, and Lee grabbed Clementine and stuck his back to the wall out of sight. 'There's no way he could have heard that? She was as quiet as a mouse!'
Lee started seeing flashes of light illuminating around the corner, and heard fleshy cracks and hits multiple times.
"We gotta get him out of the street! Ron, open that gate and clear the backyard!"
Hearing this, Lee picked up Clementine and headed towards the treehouse, whispering for her to climb it and to not come down or peek at any point. She climbed up the ladder faster than light and hid behind the small door of the treehouse.
Lee ran away from the treehouse and hid behind the back of the porch just in time before he was seen. His leg was now throbbing in pain, and he had to cover his mouth lest he give away his position.
'Well, this is bad.' Lee thought.
