It was not until late afternoon they were they had an opportunity to put the camera in the classroom in a sufficiently hidden place. They were fortunate for within three hours after they had placed it, Rosie felt him coming close to the room, and they activated the device.
They sat a bit apart with a screen each as he walked to the door and muttered some charms. River guessed Probably a magical lock charm and something to prevent sound from escaping. Luckily it did not interfere with their signal or steam of magic or whatever made it so that they had an image on the screens.
He then took out a pocket watch and pointed and, with careful pronunciation, said." We are the true Hogwarts. We will never surrender." Several silver orbs and one golden orb floated up from the watch. They started pulsing, and a voice that had voice filter said, "welcome Falcon. We were worried that you would not make it." "Sorry for being late Phoenix, I had to make sure that no one followed me. They suspect that it was most likely a Hufflepuff that poisoned the food as we have the easiest access to the kitchen." all pretense of calm left him. He showed real rage and fear and almost screamed "where is Dragon?, Was he supposed to use that kind of insane poison, there could have been mass death, you promised that no one would die" The other silver orbs muttered in agreement.
One voice standing out starting to say something but stopped several times, "I had a plan to ... I know my role, but I cannot do it with this. There is no way this story can..." they stopped. The Phoenix was silent for a second before speaking," "there were no fatalities as I predicted. I had everything under control. The newspaper is overdramatizing what happened to draw more sympathy for the snakes" Falcon bowed his head, sorry Phoenix. I am just a bit nervous, that is all." Phoenix answered with, "It is natural to doubt. If Harry Ron and Hermione had not doubted anything, they would never have killed Voldemort. But you need to practice controlling your emotions, or we might lose you" "so what is the next step Phoenix" another sliver orb said." It is simple now when the snakes are away. We go to ground as we prepare for phase three. I will send the next time and place to your devices, and we will meet in about three to four weeks. Until then, you all needed to be careful not to get caught." Falcon smiled "they will never catch us" The last line made River smile, and she thought how wrong he was.
Their first order of business was to back up the footage they had, and as it was copying the footage to another disk, they started to discuss what they had witnessed. "Well, it seemed to me that the leader was playing the rest for fools," Rosie said with her excitement being unfiltered and effecting River much. River retorted with, "or it could be that the leader only gave the instruction to poison the student and did not care what poison they used." They discussed it for a bit before they left. They took with them the camera and one of the screens.
They went in search of a teacher; it did not take them long to find one. The first one they found was Flitwick. He seemed to be heading to the teacher's lounge after a lesson. Perfect River thought. They ran to him.
She was about to smile, but remember the little girl she refrained and approached him with her best natural expression. Still, she was unable to remove the excitement of her voice as she asked for his time. Flitwick raised his eyebrows, noticing their excitement "in privet," she added. They walked to an empty classroom, and he turned to them, "so what do you want to show me" They explained how the play function worked, and she took some satisfaction with his shocked expression as he watched the video. His first question was, how did they record it? They explained how the device worked to the best of their ability. Her first attempt to clarify using a video camera as a base comparison resulted in a blank stare. She sighed inside and restarted her explanation.
After they had explained it so that he understood it, his next question was, did they get this device? When she answered where she had gotten it. he smiled," of course." He said with obvious affection in his voice. His next question was about how they had known where to film. River looked at Rosie that nodded, so she described how Rosie had felt his satisfaction at the scene he had made. Then how she had kept tabs on him and noticed him going to the classroom often. "I did not know you had such a range. "Flitwick said in an impressed tone. River looked at Rosie That gestured. "Strong emotion and pain are easier to pick up. Is an emotional person full of anger and hatred." To Flitwick, she said, "Strong emotion is easier to feel."
Well, I think you will have to say everting again because I feel the headmistress will want to hear it. "he told a bit helplessly.
They went to the headmistress office River had never been there, and neither had Rosie, and both were extremely nervous. Flitwick gave Rosie a reassuring smile as she could not contain it completely. They walked until they came to a gargoyle and stopped "wait here," Flitwick said with the tone of someone that just realized he did not have an appointment. He walked to the gargoyle and said something that must have been a password as it jumped aside, and a stairwell appeared. He then walked as briskly up as his size permitted. He was soon out of sight. They waited for around three minutes until he walked down a bit so that they could see him and waved them over. They went up the stairwell almost two steps at a time, leaving Flitwick behind.
They arrived in the headmistress office, and the first thing she noticed was the former headmasters looking on them with curious. Her eyes fell on Dumbledore, and her heart stung and memories, tried to dislodge itself from her mind. Then her eyes went to McGonagall, and she momentary froze. Her face was a mask impossible to read. Flitwick handed her the screen, and he went over to McGonagall and instructed in its use.
McGonagall looked at the entire video in questions then asked the same questions as Flitwick. To Rivers's delight, McGonagall seemed to know how a video camera worked, so the first question was easy to explain. When she answered were had gotten it from, she said, "of course only them could make something like this as a prank tool she shook her head. If we had this device a couple of years ago, a lot of trouble might have been avoidable." The next step how they knew or gest she nodded "then your power work simpler to how you can feel pain" this stunning both of them a bit McGonagall smiled and said "I did some research into alumasi a few years back to see if I could help another student with a problem he had. I am afraid I do not have a talent for it, and then things eat up my time, so I never had the time than actually learning it before it became a non-problem" They both nodded.
McGonagall looked at them sternly and said:" I first want to ask you about your conclusions on all of this." She looked at them in turn. River looked at Rosie and answered with, "well, I think the leader is either lying, and he wanted to take out Slytherin, or that Dragon went rouge. If someone Would make even the simplest of research into this poison that should realize that it is extremely hazardous and not something that is a harmless prank." McGonagall nodded the sighed. She turned to Rosie, which pointed at River and made the sign for ide. River continued, "or it might be that he just instructed the member to poison the students and did not care which poison they used" She looked at Rosie that gave her a thumbs up.
McGonagall was quiet for a second before saying, "Well, I first want to thank you for giving this to us and not trying to take matters into your own hands. I need some time to think over the best way to approach this. I do not think I need to say this but not a word to anyone of this." She stared at them both, and they nodded again. She sighed. I will not lie. This could be the break we have been waiting for, and it might be the key to take them all down. I will stress this does not do this sort of thing again. I will not punish you. I will probably reward you when this is over. Until then, I do not want any more investigation.
"They both nodded River knew that in a fight, she would be at a huge disadvantage as she had trouble with expelliarmus, and Rosie had a hard time casting spells as she was mute. She nodded. "One more thing, could I borrow the camera and could you tell me how to operate it." River nodded and began expanding how the device worked. After she explained where the camera was, McGonagall nodded. "I will get one of the house-elves to get it latter. Smart of you not to receive it yourself. Now I need to go back to work. Again, thank both of you and do nothing stupid. We will handle it from here" They both nodded for what felt like the tenth time and walked out of there.
She only then realized why she had two monitors. It was almost like Gorge had expected this. But that was probably giving him too much credit River thought. They now could tap into McGonagall recording if they wanted, or they could use a second one to spy on their own. The problem was that if they wanted to use their camera, they had to disconnect it from the first one. They had to choose between spying or being able to spy on their own. They decided to spy as they both recognized their inability to fight with magic. They decided to let the adults handle things from here and using the device to keep themselves informed.
What McGonagall would decide to do took three days of agonizing waiting. When several students, including Oscar, suddenly falling il with a highly contentious form of Severan fever and had to be insolated. This was brilliant as there were eyewitnesses that saw him collapse, and they made it look genuine with several other that River assumed was volunteers. The only reason River and Rosie knew it happened was that they noticed a new recording.
The record started with Oscar already drugged and in a hospital bed. In the room were professor Sprout, McGonagall Hermione granger, and a short man with dark heir River did assume someone from the ministry, by the way, he dressed. Under the who should not be named rain, a lot of the regulation had been completely removed. It had not been a priority for the new ministry to change. River did not think that they used even a fraction of what was still allowed. Still, she imaged that they wanted the wiggle room in case of an emergency. McGonagall, where the one leading the interrogation "are you a member of true Hogwarts?" Oscar answered monotony, "yes." There was some excitement River wondered how many of them had doubted her or even suspecting her of falsifying evidence. McGonagall continued, "What is true, Hogwarts?" "it is a movement to rid this school of the corruption that is Slytherin and anything that could harm its future." "How many members are there?" "There are nine members." "What is their name?" "Do not know we only use code names." "What are their code names?" "Sparrow, Spider Butterfly, Dog, Cat, Rat, Dragon, Falcon, and Phoenix." "Do you have any suspicion on who can be a member as well?" "No," McGonagall nodded, showing no emotion "what about the objects" "they are unique to each member. They can send and receive messages. They can have a conference call or individual calls with Phoenix," he uses that to give people individual missions" What where you mission hemione asked." My mission where to pant the message, then there was three separate mission to harass Slytherin. So what was the plan in it entirely hemione said: "make it so that there is a big gap in people that are sorted to Slytherin so that its corrupt culture disappear so it can be reborn.". They looked at the watch and decided to call it for the day.
They would continue the interrogation tomorrow. They turned off the recording and River, and Rosie missed their follow up discussion. They had their decision on what had happened, and both felt extremely uncomfortable about it. The plan itself River thought were stupid as how they would influence the rebuilding of Slytherin was still a mystery. Rosie pointed out that the people did not care about the reconstruction. They just wanted to punish them for what they and more impotently what their parents had done.
She had to agree Slytherin appeared to have a significant cultural problem. Not all Slytherin were death eaters but enough that they made up the majority of them. Rosie thought it might be possible to remove Salsar Slytherin's influence for a time, but as one of the founders of Hogwarts, he would always influence the school even if it diminished for a while.
She wondered how they were recruited if they did not even know the leader's name. The nature of the group meant that it would almost be impossible to get all of them without getting their leader. She considered it might be enough if they got Dragon. She was pretty sure that Phoenix was too smart not to do basic research on the poison he was using. It also seemed to be far to much work over the school year if the plan had been to kill them all.
They speculated on what questions they would ask him at the next integration. River thought that they would ask how he got recruited so that they would have a base to search for the others. Rosie thought that they first would focus on trying to get as much information on Phoenix as possible to try to identify the student and ending it all in one fell swoop.
They had this discussion in the open as no one else understood sign langue. Did make it so that they could be speaking Swedish for what the rest of the students knew about their conservation. Also, the sheer number of different aids and magic made it so that it was extremely rare for someone not to be able to use any of them. The day processes slowly. It was good that she was able to focus for today where cheering charms. Which was something she had wanted to do for a long time. She was able to do it on her first try, and she was able to control the charm's time and intensity. Flitwick looked extraordinarily pleased and said, "it is the first time in 15 years. I have seen one being able to perform that well on their first try. Ten points to Hufflepuff" River blushed and blurted out, "what about Hermione granger?" Flitwick looked thought full and said," OH, she missed that lesson. Still, I am not a hundred percent sure she would have managed what you just did. Take some pride in that" the rest of the day River glowed.
Rosie got similar praise at Potion. She was a natural and even if River was good at Potion, she thought it was her second-best subject. She was nowhere near Rosie. There where almost no lesson that she did not get praise. River worked hard in Potion as it was her small hope to get good enough to be able to make the wolfbane on her own. Even if it was a remote possibility that she ever would be good enough to be able to do that, several times, they caught Slughorn looking at them with a thoughtful expression. The day was no different, but it was replaced with wonderment as he looked at how Rosie's and Rivers Potion went.
" It was another thing that showed how bad a teacher Snape had been." She gestured to Rosie as they had a break between Potion and transfiguration. This was not something she felt like she could speak out aloud. It was not something nice to say about someone that was considered a hero. When Rosie nodded, she continued, "I mean, would you ever consider that you where this prodigy of Potion under Snape, Hey it was my worst subject after transfiguration but is now my second best. The greatest reason is he was not able to create a place where people could feel safe and focus. As that is one of the key elements of Potion." Rosie nodded again
They had run out of things to talk about and then waited in silence for the day to end. They returned to their place exited, and River felt it doubly as Rosie failed to contain her emotion. They saw that they had a new recording. They headed to Rosie's room. It was similar to River except for a poster of the muggle band Metallica as well as brand new manga.
They headed to her bed and sat down, and the blanket over them huddle together so both could see then River pressed play. They had forgotten to press record at the start of the interrogation, so they missed the beginning. River felt the ridiculous notion to lecture McGonagall about it. It seemed that they both had been wrong. The first thing they did was that they mapped out every meeting they had had. With a focus on who had not been able to attend the meeting at what times. Which River conceded made sense. If they knew exactly when the meeting took place, that could see what regular activities prevented people from attending. It probably was the best plan to rote out the remaining members. They also had him recount the very first meeting and, in particular, how the Phoenix spoke." River felt a bit disappointed with the second day as she felt that they had not learned very much, and it was only three to five days before people would suspect that something else was going on. They could she suspect say that his case of Severan fever had become more severe and move him to St mungo's. That would also raise suspicion the way they were doing it now would prevent them from suspecting that anything was going on. It was not her decision that she had to trust that the grown-up knew what they were doing. She did not feel that hatred towards Oscar; it was directed entirely to Dragon and Phoenix as either one or both had tried to kill her sister. She realized she did not care about what happened to the rest of them.