[START]
Picaro Redux
Chapter 3:
Purple robes with a smattering of white stars, a matching hat, pointed black shoes and a pair of tasteful lime green and lilac striped socks. Even if his choice of attire didn't draw eyes to him, the man towering above nearly all he ever met meant Albus Dumbledore cut a figure that was impossible to ignore.
In his somewhat low seat, that the man refused to transfigure into a more comfortable sitting space, he was subject to many a veiled, sideways glance from a room of awe filled and intimidated law enforcers. Sat straight backed on the side lines of the busy Auror office, reading a small memo in his lap as red robed wizards and witches bustled and strode between the maze of desks and booths before him.
It was an amusing (yet heart-warming) delight for Albus to sit regally in a chair off to the side, quietly observing a slew of his former students. His attention drawn to one of his younger graduates as she drew an equal air of irritation and fondness from her surrounding colleagues,
"I don't usually go for girls, but DAMN." Nymphadora Tonks, gesticulating wildly with her hands as she beamed, an equally young-looking man (whom Dumbledore, regrettably, did not recognise), working his way through a bowl of nuts as he amusedly followed along with her, "Can you believe she's single?!"
"Did you notice her skin though, really pale." The man drawled, soft brown eyes narrowing a smidge as he hummed out, "Maybe she's a vampire and just doesn't date meals?"
Tonks guffawed at her smirking colleague, causing a few sharp head turns before she was ignored again,
"Looking like that? I don't even care." She snickered before she stiffened, her hair turned a mousy brown and visibly wilted, "You don't think I came on too strong, right?"
Dumbledore chuckled to himself, not the only one in the office bemused at the suddenly panicked look on the young Auror's face. The drama of young love something Albus adored being a spectator to, the awkward steps and missteps of the duo stumbling around their feelings something forever heat-warming and amusing.
But he wasn't here to watch that, he was here for Alastor Moody, a scarred and disfigured Auror who hobbled his way to him with the aid of a large, gnarled staff,
"Albus." The gruff greeting met with a smile, scars and wrinkles stretching and pulling at the remaining unblemished skin of the man's face. The sight an unfortunate one.
But Albus only absently noticed that, only seeing the face of his good friend,
"It is good to see you, Alastor. I believe this focus on mentoring has done you good." Dumbledore grinned whilst his listener scoffed, smile turning to a friendly scowl, "Hogwarts would greatly benefit from a man of your experience."
The surprisingly rueful grin on the older man's face was met with a somewhat amused glower,
"Whilst that bloody jinx is in place? Not a chance." Answering the unasked question, met with a soft sigh of disappointment,
"Oh Alastor, you should never listen to those urban rumours. They exist to breed paranoia."
"This ain't paranoia, Albus. It's CONSTANT VIGILANCE."
Though the sudden change in volume that accompanied his bark of a reply made many a nearby Auror jump, Dumbledore just nodded sagely,
"Very well, Alastor."
"I assume you had something else to talk about. Had to cancel everything once that bird of yours showed up to speak." Moody's gnarled fingers drummed a quiet drumbeat into his staff, both of his eyes (even the false one that had spun about quickly since he'd entered the room) found themselves locked on Dumbledore's.
Blinking in surprise at seeing the elder man almost age a decade before his eyes. Those twinkling blues steely and cold,
"Yes… I'm afraid this is a conversation that could do without the audience."
"Why would you meet me here, then?" A quirked brow was met with a subtly amused smile,
"I'm afraid that the portraits of Hogwarts are known to gossip, the esteemed headmasters of my office are unfortunately no exemption from this stereotype."
A nod and jerk of the head pointed the two men to an unused office, the two languidly crossing the bustling space in silence. Tonks's groan was the last thing Albus heard before he directed his attention to the man hobbling towards him (absently amused and relieved that Miss Tonks seemed to have settled well into the Auror Department).
Seemingly following Dumbledore's string of attention, Moody sighed good-naturedly,
"Bloody pain, she is." A twisted, massacre of a smile on the Auror legends face, "All but bullied everyone into accepting her once she got out of basic."
A chuckle rippled out of Albus,
"Oh the liveliness of youth." Soft and quietly amused,
"She's one of my best too." A pained sigh, "Spit it out, Dumbledore. What's going on."
"I fear the Dark Lord Voldemort has returned."
Blunt, a severe expression on his face as the colour drained from his listeners, a slew of back-and-forth questions leading to an abridged explanation from Albus Dumbledore of the situation as he knew it.
"Well… the old guard'll need to be called." There wasn't any inflection to the voice that could possibly have suggested fear or apprehension. Moody's electric-blue eye flicking out towards the office as he straightened his back,
"I will make them aware as I go, but I am following a trail as it stands." Dumbledore nodded sagely, an even graver expression on his face as his frown deepened,
"A trail?"
"The resurrection ritual that Voldemort utilised has a faint link to him. I am many steps behind, but he is within my sights."
"Then we could-"
"All I require of you is to be prepared in Diagon Alley should the confrontation… not conclude as I hope it will…" The headmaster declaring with a fire in his voice, "He is currently sequestered in Gringotts. If I don't move now, I doubt I will catch him again."
Argument came, hissed and exasperated, washing against the steady calm of Dumbledore like waves to a cliff face. Moody left to through his hands up to the air and near bellow,
"What would you have me do, Albus?" Nostrils flared and his good eye wide, "Go to Bones's office and tell her that-"
"Tell her nothing." Lightning quick was his interruption, a quirked brow met the closest anyone had heard Dumbledore to panic, "If we time this correctly, we will only have to explain ourselves once we have him in custody."
Alastor Moody was utterly bewildered, such a desperate stance so far removed from the man he knew Dumbledore to be.
"Are you really trying to keep Voldemort's return under wraps?!"
"As far as we are aware, his followers don't even know he is back. We can capture him without them being any the wiser."
Silence.
Quickly broken by Dumbledore once more,
"Whatever needs to be done; strangle the flow of customers to Gringotts and make sure there are Aurors nearby. Keep that lobby as clear of civilians as humanly possible, Alastor."
"You want me to actually stop people from entering the bank? You've lost it now, Dumbledore. The goblins won't stand it!" Moody all but shouted, a subtle flick of the wand from the headmaster (mid-sentence) ensured no one outside of the room heard it, "It'll be seen as a declaration of war!"
"It WILL be war if we don't." A higher octave reached as Dumbledore raised his voice for the first time. Drawing up to his full height as a mighty, yet imploring, mask settled on is wizened features, "We must choose between the risk of conflict and the certainty of another massacre. At this moment, Voldemort is as weak as he will ever be, it is our responsibility that he does not attain anything more than the nothing he has."
Moody's lips thinned as his knuckles turned white as he harshly gripped his staff. Otherwise impassive, almost defiant, as he stared down the one-man Voldemort feared.
Of course, he caved.
"I need time." A shaky reply, met with a headshake and soft frown,
"I'm afraid there isn't any." Grave but firm, "Voldemort is attempting to access his family vaults, no doubt to gain the capital he needs to go into hiding. We need to act now."
The unspoken,
'Or we'll lose him.' Hung in the air between the old, war-beaten men. Moody wearing the scars of his fight against the dark across his battered body. Dumbledore's only visible in the dark look he levelled in that moment.
Both grimly aware worse would come if they failed…
The redheaded spawn of the Dark Lord, his enemy and his latest victim stood second in line to a teller in Gringotts Bank. Shoes shuffling against the dark marble floor as she fidgeted in place, fiddling with her new clothes (a pale blue blouse and black jeans) and appreciating her splendorous surroundings as she came to terms with the fact that each Galleon was worth five pounds sterling…
'Ouch.' Tulip winced as she took in the multitude of sour faced goblins and their ever-dwindling customer base. Though she eventually shrugged it off, 'Seeing as their coins are apparently two grams of pure gold, and these goblins are selling them for a fiver?! I guess it's a bargain…'
Yeah, it meant the five grand she'd accumulated wouldn't be worth as much when she converted it over. But it was still a sizeable amount to start off with, more than enough for her needs as she waited for her ACTUAL money maker to bear fruit.
Oh, how did a little waif of a girl (who didn't exist seventy-two hours ago) make five grand in a day?
Let's just say race results and games of chance are so much easier to bet on with Divination. And when you can be hitting a new bookie in a new city seconds after the previous one (bless Tom Riddle for figuring out how to Apparate three years before he legally could), conning the system and fleecing out shops was the next best thing to child's play.
'A darling yet glaring loophole in the Ministry's tax laws, really.' As what self-respecting witch would decide to make her fortune in the muggle world (where they had a distinct advantage over their non-magical counterparts) instead of working hard to attain riches in the magical one?
Apparently, not many. Or, not enough for the Ministry to realise it was a viable exploit.
That fact confirmed when Tulip punched 62442 into an innocuous looking payphone, clutched her pretty visitors pass to her chest and found herself directed to the public records of the Department of Magical Law Enforcement, by a bright-eyed rookie Auror with a hot-pink mohawk.
The woman was helpful, even when Tulip bluntly told her she was trying not to commit tax fraud. The clumsy Auror, having tripped and stumbled her way through the entire Auror office as they went, stunningly quick in picking out all the sentences Tulip needed. Seeming just as baffled as Tulip in discovering the Ministry did not condone the use of Divination on games of chance in the Muggle world.
In hindsight (when remembering how quickly she tore through those papers for her) Tulip wondered if she was showing off, especially with how she blushed and grinned in victory when Tulip admitted how impressed she was.
She told her to owl, as Tulip was leaving.
She was considering it.
"Next!" A sharp sound, wiping away the image of defined biceps accentuated by a tight, red uniform. Tulip shuffling forward both grateful and irritated at the goblin for the distraction, "Name?"
"Tulip."
"Surname?"
She sighed,
"…that's part of the reason why I'm here." The goblin quirked a brow as he levelled a withering look at her, "I'm looking to see if I can do a family blood test. Then open an account."
Derision. Tulip held firm under the eyeroll and scowl of the goblin on the other side of the desk, doubtlessly used to the request. It was a similar reaction that Tom Riddle received when he demanded one himself, though his wasn't a case of,
'Am I actually a member of the family I think I am?'
And more,
'I MUST be related to someone special!'
"Hmph, any family in particular?"
"The Gaunt's." Not a beat missed,
That seemed to give him pause, thin brows rising on his pale forehead as beady eyes widened somewhat. Tulip surmising that it was because the Gaunt's were a household with no material wealth, despite its links to Slytherin. One where, currently, no one would really be trying to scam a relation to,
"Please hold." A sharp order prior to the goblin slipping from his chair and through a door located behind the string of teller's desks.
In retrospect, it should have been predictable that the goblin would return with a snake…
She didn't know the breed (though the small greenish serpent could have been an adder); its eyes seemed unfocused and pained and Tulip could hear some expletive laden grumbling as it observed its surroundings.
The goblin shook the cage and it turn to snap at him,
"Look over here, pleassse." Tulip offered gently, the irate snake glared at her,
"Where am I?" The voice was decidedly feminine. A low, sibilant sentence laced with fear and loathing,
"The lobby of Gringottsss bank."
"That meansss nothing to me, human." It reared up as much as it could in its confined space, seemingly trying to be imperious with its aloof tone and change of position,
"Thatsss not my problem." Tulip shrugged as she spoke, her eyes moving beyond the serpent to the bemused goblin holding its cage,
"We will have the testing room ready shortly, please move to the waiting room." The goblins dark eyes were wide but intrigued, a stubby finger pointing off to the left. Following his direction, Tulip was lead across the lobby and through an oak side door into a small room with squat, leather seating pressed up against the wall.
When she got herself comfortable, her new purse shrugged from its place on her shoulder and placed in the space next to her, Tulip first thought it was a bit off that no one else was in here with her.
As she took some comfort in gently rolling the yew wand up and down her lap, the door creaked open. Instinctively the girl looked up, her blood turning to ice in her veins as her heart leapt into her throat.
All but a silhouette in the light of the lobby (a place where she could hear the word, "EVACUATION!" over and over) was the one man she did NOT want to see. Eyes finding hers so quickly it couldn't be argued that he wasn't looking for her.
Albus Dumbledore stood thunderous in the doorway, no grandfatherly twinkle in his eyes.
Only cold fury.
[TO BE CONTINUED]
Thanks for the feedback thus far, I am discontinuing Halfblood Princess as I have a different story I want to tell. So I'll be working on that as well as this one instead.
I hope you enjoyed this chapter.