A/N: I am so incredibly sorry for the delay on the chapter and the review replies... I am under a gigantic amount of pressure these days with a million group assignments, tests, work, family and, well, real life in general. I wish i could just turn on the pause button. Finally I managed to finish the chapter but it didn't quite turn out the way I wanted it to... *sigh* I suppose we can't always be happy and I hope you appreciate this one anyway... Happy valentine's day, BTW.
Note: This chapter includes a couple of sentences borrowed from "The tales of beedle the bard"
London, 31 October 1997
As he read the third story in a row, Sirius groaned, finding himself looking into persistently open, yet sleepy grey eyes upon glancing over the book.
Merlin's pants, couldn't the kid throw him a bone?
One would think that, after two months watching the kids on his own, he'd have already tackled the whole nap-time debacle with his son: Alex had apparently gotten it into his head that he was far too big a boy to have to waste his precious time napping instead of wreaking some havoc. Sure, more often than not his son's body would betray his mind on that matter, leading him to eventually fall into a deep stupor… but, of course, said betrayal would take hours to come sometimes.
He sighed as he kept on reading, flipping the page carefully so he wouldn't disturb Mary, who lay very much asleep cuddled on his lap – that one, surprisingly, didn't lift much of a problem around nap-time. Her specialty was nights, of course, because his kids simply couldn't agree on when it was best to drive Daddy mad…
It was about ten minutes later, as he read in a tone that was so deadpan he was actually close to falling asleep on his own, that he found himself just about to face victory in the form of drooping eyes on his son's face. See? You can't beat Sirius Black, you little bas… er, you little basket of joy, he thought just as he adjusted Mary in his arms, getting ready to read the last sentence, close the book and go put his daughter in her cot. Fate, however, seemed to have other plans.
"Ah, finally I run into someone in this house! I was starting to think the place was deserted," he suddenly heard a voice saying behind him before turning around and seeing Tonks standing at the doorway.
He took a breath, then another, slowly narrowing his eyes at her.
"Daddy, I want the stowy," Alex complained from the bed, having slipped out of the drowsy state he'd been on just seconds earlier.
Sirius grunted, shooting his cousin a look that could kill, to which she responded with a pair of raised eyebrows, that day matching her hair in its usual bubble-gum pink hue. He'd been so close. "Just a minute, mate. Daddy needs to go say 'hi' to Auntie Tonks," he told his son, who complained some more before quickly trading the groaning for giggling as Tonks started making faces at him from the doorway.
As the little boy relished on his amusement, Sirius got up, Mary whimpering a little but not quite waking up as he shifted her on his arms. "You know, if you weren't pregnant, married to my best mate and one of the very few members of the Black Family tree that I don't hate, I might just curse you where you stood."
"Merlin, aren't you in a brilliant mood today?" she replied sarcastically, crossing her arms over her largely expanded belly, now barely disguised by the loose clothes she wore.
"Do you have any idea how close I was to getting that little rug-rat to sleep when you showed up? And, trust me, that's not an easy thing to achieve around nap-time."
"Well, I guess that's going to be my problem now since you're needed elsewhere, making me the one who'll be putting the rug-rat in question to sleep," she pointed out, tipping her head to the left so she could make yet another face at Alex, who giggled some more.
"Elsewhere?" he asked, raising an eyebrow as Mary drooled all over his shirt.
She nodded. "Yep. Your presence is requested at the joke shop. Remus and the twins need you to drop by to discuss a little project of theirs and to help them out with things that are apparently 'far too stressful for a woman in my condition to be handling'. But that's fine," she added, making herself smile in a slightly wicked manner. "That's fine because those idiots will come crawling back when they realize I'm the only one who actually knows how to put all that wireless crap together." All thanks to Mad Eye, the old paranoid bastard, who'd thought she needed to know how to set up and operate every means of communication known to man… "Joke's on them."
"Wait, back up a little… wireless crap? What are on abo…?"
"I guess you'll just have to see for yourself when you join the big guys club meeting," she replied dryly. "Just go put your daughter down and change that shirt, will you? You're covered in drool," she told him, making a face.
"Well, why would that be?" he asked, pretending to be thinking hard. "Oh, yes, it's because I had an infant sleeping on me for almost an hour while I tried to put her brother to sleep just to have my efforts crushed by someone barging in just as I was this close to succeeding," he said, holding his thumb and index finger as close as they could possibly be without touching.
She rolled her eyes before snatching the storybook he didn't realize he was still holding from his hands and giving him a daring look. "Bet I'll wear him out in less than fifteen minutes."
He snorted. "Oh… the innocence. I'm going to have so much fun watching you crack once that kid of yours is born."
"Fifteen minutes," she promised before turning on her heel, headed into the room.
"Oh, and by the way," he added, really wanting to piss her off since she'd basically ruled almost an hour of effort useless. "You're huge," he told her even though she wasn't that big yet.
He half-expected that the only thing keeping her from cursing him or maybe performing some sort of tackling move on him in a rage was the fact that he was currently holding her only godchild. Boy, he was wrong. And not in the way he'd expect… because, instead of showing any sign of anger, she actually grinned before rubbing her baby bump. "I know. I can't fit my own clothes anymore. Isn't it great?" And, with that, she walked into Alex's room. "Alright, big guy, brace yourself because auntie Tonks is knocking you out."
He groaned. Damn her, he thought as he walked away, his ten-month-old daughter's breath tickling his neck. Just when a bloke wanted to piss off a pregnant woman – probably one of the easiest things to achieve in the world – she had to go and act all cheerful about her size… Not natural. It was simply not natural…
He put Mary down inside her cot without much of a fuss from the little girl before making his way into his room to change. When he caught a glimpse of himself on the full-sized mirror by the wardrobe, he groaned.
Daddy Sirius looked pretty pitiful these days, he thought. His hair was too long, he desperately needed to shave and his shirt… well, his shirt not only was covered in drool, as Tonks had indicated, but also somehow presented a food stain with the shape of a small hand on the back of it.
He sighed. He adored his kids… he really did. But he couldn't help growing a little frustrated with the way things were going for him. Back when Voldemort and his pals had taken over, he'd pictured himself in weekly battles wiping the floor with some Death Eater arse, not deep into daddy-duty, changing diapers, giving bottles and reading bedtime stories eighteen out of twenty-four hours a day…
As much as he knew he was doing the right thing, as much as being busy with the little ones was the only thing ironically keeping him sane while knowing Izzy and Mia were miles away practically cohabitating with some of the nastiest Death Eaters he'd ever heard of, part of him couldn't help growing frustrated that he was over there babysitting while Death Eaters were ruling the bloody country with just a trio of teenagers actually trying to do anything about it… He was Sirius bloody Black – he was supposed to be doing something about it. He wanted to be doing something about it. Merlin, he'd give a small fortune to get rid of the kids for a while and just go out to kick some ar…
He paused, frowning at his reflection on the mirror. What on Earth was he thinking?
Yes, he might feel the need to be doing something. He might believe he'd lose it if he didn't. But he needed to be smart about it. And he most certainly needed to remember his primary job at the moment, which was keeping the little ones safe while Mia did the same with Izzy at Hogwarts. Going out and just 'kicking some arse' with no planning whatsoever certainly didn't sound the smartest way to juggle his job with his needs… He needed to stop thinking like a bloody teenager, Sirius thought as he walked over to the bathroom and turned on the water for a quick shower.
When he exited his room, showered, dressed and shaven, guilt over his earlier thoughts led him to check on Mary again, only to see she was still quite peacefully asleep in her cot. Alex's room followed and, even before he stepped him, he could hear his cousin still reading out loud. He couldn't help grinning a little at that – so, Tonksy thought she could just get a toddler to sleep so eas…
Damn her, he thought again all of a sudden as he peaked into the room and found the little boy very much asleep on his bed as the Metamorphagus still read out loud. How the hell had she done it so bloody quickly? Little traitor, he thought, eyeing his son. The kid just had to fall asleep when he wanted him to stay awake and stay awake when he wanted him to sleep. Was that opposite day? Because it felt like opposite day.
"… most dreadful sight awaited them there," Tonks read, raising an eyebrow at the book she was reading from – not the one he'd handed to her but another from a pile she'd apparently stocked by the side of his son's bed – without noticing him at the door. "The maiden lay dead on the floor, her breas… Merlin's pants, what the hell kind of storybook is this one?" she said, flipping the pages flipping the pages further. "…slit the oldest brother's throat…?… driven mad with hopeless longing, killed himself…? Bloody hell. I don't know about you, little Lupin, but this kind of gory thing disguised as a kid's book isn't coming anywhere near your ears after today. I don't want your first word to be death or anything – things are depressing enough as it is. Maybe I should just stick with Muggle tales like Mum and Dad did…" she declared, addressing her unborn child as she closed the book, put it down and reached to tuck the covers tighter around her husband's godson. Tonks looked so much at ease he couldn't help himself from at least partially forgiving her earlier gaffe of interrupting his efforts to put Alex to sleep.
She would, Sirius thought before clearing his throat to get her attention, be a good mum.
"Ah, there you are," she whispered as she turned around with a victorious grin. "I think I had something to tell you… what was it, really…? Ah, I remember now. Eat that up," she said, pointing at the sleeping child as she sat back down on the rocking chair by the bed. "Twelve minutes and forty-eight seconds. I timed it."
"Don't look so smug. He was already half asleep when you stepped in. Thanks to me, by the way," he said in an awkwardly low frustrated tone.
"Yeah, yeah, your son's asleep and I was the one here when it happened. That's the point. Now get lost – I'm too busy picking bedtime stories for mine to put up with you further," she said in a careless manner, rolling her eyes at him as she picked up another book from the pile.
Sirius raised an eyebrow at her words. "Wait a minute – picking bedtime stories for 'yours'? As in your son? Does that mean it's a b…?"
She gave him a look that said it all. "Not a word, Sirius. Remus wants to be surprised," she informed him, her lips curling slightly as she said it before looking back down at the book. "Now shoo – I'm having a moment with my kid here."
"Hey, this is my house!" he complained, still keeping his tone low. "And, for the record, you'd better be planning to sneak the name 'Sirius' somewhere into that baby's birth certificate or else I'm never speaking to you again," he let her know.
"Well, it was nice meeting you, then," she replied, not looking up at him.
"Very funny, Nymphadora," he said dryly.
That one seemed to do the trick. She looked up at him with wild, murderous eyes, making him grin in return before she even uttered the words. "Don't call me…" she started saying loudly before Alex shifted on the bed, making her suddenly pause and lower her voice. "Don't call me by that name," she whispered furiously.
He chuckled for a moment before heading out the door and down the stairs. There was a dreadful day waiting outside when he stepped out of the house but he just witnessed it for a moment before apparating into Diagon Alley, right in front of the shop. That sight, he thought, was worse than the day's weather.
If it was possible for a place to hit rock-bottom, he imagined that would be the sight of it. It looked like where happiness came to die – and he didn't use that expression lightly. In fact, he'd only applied it to Azkaban in the past. Never before in his life had he counted so little people in Diagon Alley. Five, as far as he could see, to be specific, three of which he identified as Snatchers. And, as for shops, well, from the look of it he could safely say he was about to walk into the only one that was open in a fifty yard radius.
The light and colour of the shop contrasting with the severe environment outside were a sight for sore eyes, still they didn't seem to be able to attract more than half a dozen lonely costumers that day.
"Is it me or it keeps getting more and more depressing out there?" he asked the half of the Weasley-twin team standing at the counter, apparently entertaining himself by doing the always-hilarious crosswords on The Quibbler.
Fred – George, maybe – looked up at him, not very surprised to see him, and frowned. "What? That? Depressing? Phew… You're imagining it. Couldn't ask for a livelier place. Oh, and when the Dementors join in at night… bloody party until dawn. That's what it is."
"Oh, well, now that you put it that way, it sounds like a blast. I'm afraid I'll have to turn down an invitation, though. You see, there's quite a bit of bad blood between me and your… fellow party-goers."
"Your loss. They're nice blokes, really. Incredibly misunderstood – judging them for feeding on people's souls is awfully harsh," he mumbled as scratched his head with a quill while looking at the crosswords. "Any idea what a five-letter word for the 'sourest-tasting piece of sweet in the Ministry of Magic' might be?"
Sirius raised an eyebrow. "Try Fudge."
"Fudge…" he mumbled, writing it down. "Well, look at that. It fits! Bloke's never going to live his screw-ups down."
"No one who sends a bitch like Umbridge into Hogwarts deserves to," Sirius replied dryly.
"Oh, you don't need to tell that to me twice," the boy agreed as he closed the magazine. "Oh, well, this doesn't seem to be helping passing the time, anyway."
"That boring?"
"Terribly. All the snatchers out there are bad for business. Barely anyone comes to Diagon Alley these days – bloody creeps. If there weren't so many owl orders, Fred and I'd be bankrupt by now," the redhead said with a sigh, casually giving away his identity.
"Consider yourself in better luck than Olivander and the other ones who got their places trashed," Sirius pointed out. "Izzy actually asked about you the other day…"
George stopped breathing for a moment. "She did?" he asked in a freakishly high pitched tone. It was the surprise – nothing more than the surprise. He had a right to be surprised when a conversation just jumped from shop matters to Izzy Black asking about him. Especially when said conversation was shared with her Dad, he told himself. It certainly couldn't have anythingto do with any feelings he seemed to be harbouring for the girl in question. Because it couldn't, for whatever reason. In fact, just thinking about those feelings in front of Sirius made him fear his thoughts might somehow be overheard by him. And that would be bad… really, really bad.
"Sure," Sirius replied, apparently not noticing the way he was acting at all as he busied himself contemplating a box of fainting fancies for some reason. "She wanted to know how the shop was doing."
"Oh, the shop," he mumbled in, partially relieved she'd been referring to the shop and not specifically to him. "We're fine. The shop's doing fine, physical costumers aside."
"That's what I told her. She told me to say 'hi' to you and Fred. She's looking forward to come home for Christmas, I guess."
"Think she'll want to stay, afterwards?" George found himself asking – wishing – for whatever reason he refused to acknowledge.
Sirius sighed. "I wouldn't and I've come to realize she's far too much like me in this kind of thing," he said. "Oh, but if it gets really bad in the meanwhile…"
George nodded before he had a chance to finish. Big, fat hypocrite. He knew well enough he wouldn't leave the bloody school until his very life depended on it…
"Anyway, I came here thinking I was supposed to meet you, Fred and Moony," Sirius pointed out.
"Well, today's actually just Fred and Moony… oh, and Lee too. Lee Jordan. Fred and I are taking turns at watching the shop while the other's busy with our…" he lowered his tone, "little project now that Verity's decided to go underground. Anyway, I assume Tonks has already brought you up to date."
"More like showed up at my place, woke up my kid, told me I was needed elsewhere and mocked me some more. Oh, and when I tried to annoy her, she didn't even have the decency to look bothered in the slightest. She smiled!" he told the younger boy. "Can you believe it?"
"Yeah, she's been weird that way lately. All… agreeable," George mumbled. "The other day, Lee made an unfortunate comment about the amount of food she ate and she just laughed it off like it was nothing. It was kind of disturbing – I thought pregnant women were supposed to try to kill you for stuff like that."
"Normal ones, yeah," Sirius agreed.
"The only things that set her off these days are Moony overreacting about her stressing or straining herself and…"
"…calling her by her actual name," Sirius finished for him. "Yeah. I noticed. Women… Trust me when I tell you that as much as you think you know about them, sooner or later they'll blindside you. Mark my words, George, because they will."
George nodded slightly awkwardly. There was something inherently odd about Sirius Black giving him advice on women, even if it was the mildest possible kind. And, once again, no, he told himself – it had nothing to do with him… fancying Izzy.
"Anyway, Tonks didn't tell me much," Sirius continued. "She did mention the wireless, though… Didn't really get that one, to be honest."
"Oh, you will when you see it. They're setting everything up in the lower storeroom," George informed him, pointing at the doorway behind him. "You take this door, than the one on the left and then you'll find a stairway at the bottom of the room, behind all the boxes. Take it and you'll find them down there."
"Should I be scared of what I might find out down there?"
George raised an eyebrow. Funny that Izzy had asked a very similar question during their chat at the train station, months before. "Well, knowing you have little problem with breaking the law, I'd go for 'no'. Now, if you'll excuse, I'm going to actually try and sell something today. It's a sad Halloween when the only sales you make are owl-ordered."
Halloween? he thought in surprise, noticing for the first time there was a smiling jack-o'-lantern on the counter. Was it still Halloween? He had to say he'd more or less lost track of time ever since Mia and Izzy had left to Hogwarts but, Merlin, if asked he'd swear they were already nearing the end of November… It sure had felt that long in his mind.
He groaned, not only annoyed at how slowly time was passing but also at the fact that he'd remembered Halloween at all. Once upon a time, he's actually adored that day – all the pranks and the feast at Hogwarts… of course, that was before his best friends had been murdered and he'd been arrested on Halloween. That had basically ruined the day for him, making it so much easier to swallow when he didn't recall it at all. How long had it been, really? He asked himself as he followed George's instructions into the lower storeroom. Fifteen? Sixteen years?
"I told you it cannot go there! If it went there, it would fit there!" a voice remarkably similar to George's was saying when he started descending the stairs.
"Then where does it go?"
"I dunno. Definitely not there!"
"Didn't this come with instructions?" a third voice, Moony's, inquired.
"Instructions? From the looks of it, this thing's older than my great-aunt Muriel. And that's saying a lot, trust me," the first voice – no doubt Fred's – said.
"Hey! This is prime-quality material. My uncle says they used it in WWN for more than fifty years!" Lee Jordan was telling his redheaded friend just as Sirius stepped into the messy lower storeroom, quickly spotting Remus standing behind a pile of what seemed to be old sound-related devices, using his wand to as a light source as he observed it closer, while Fred and Lee stood by, covered in dust and looking slightly annoyed.
"Ah, Sirius," Remus said when he spotted him. "We've been expecting you."
"Why do I feel like I've just walked in something very ilegal?" he asked as he eyed the expressions on three fellow's faces.
"Because you just have," Fred cheerfully said. "Welcome to what's sure to be the best damn pirate wireless station there ever was."
Sirius looked at him, then at Remus and Lee in disbelief. "Are you serious? You're planning to set up an underground wireless station?"
"Not planning – doing it," Lee announced.
"What on earth for?" he asked. Somehow, starting a wireless station out of the blue simply seemed like quite a pointless thing to do with a bloody war going on.
Fred snorted. "What do you think? I'll give you clue: it's not to offer people Celestina Warbeck songs all day long."
"Well, obviously there won't be any music or anything," Remus explained. "It's mostly… let's call it a mean of spreading the truth. I don't think I have to tell you about the amount of lies the Daily Prophet and the public wireless stations have been spreading lately. Basically, just the Quibbler is publishing the truth these days."
"And, let's be honest, it's only a matter of time before they find a way to stop Xeno from printing it," Fred logically pointed out. "So, we figured it was only fair we did our own part on keeping the truth circulating out there and when Lee here had the idea of coming up with our own pirate wireless station, we knew it was meant to be."
"It's much harder to stop the news from spreading when they're going straight into people's homes," Lee explained.
"So I suppose you should consider this your formal invitation to join our little mission," Fred stated. "It'd be a crime to leave any Marauder out of this."
Sirius gave the younger boy a look of surprise before turning to look at his best friend. "You want me to host an underground wireless station?"
"Well, not host, really," Fred said. "Lee here's the one with the knack for public-speaking, so most of the job falls on him. George and I will be taking turns as co-hosts too if he needs to - We're trying to pass as a single bloke – a set of twins with a problem with authority would scream our names far too loudly for our identities to remain secret… or so Lee here says. As for you, well, you're supposed to pop in every once in a while and… I dunno, share with people the stuff you know about defending themselves, make them see just how stupid that blood-purity crap is… tell them actual news about Hogwarts since you have Mia as a source inside. You won't even have to speak if you don't want to. Just help us out – if this thing is going to work, we need to give advice from people who actually know what they're doing and, well, this is sort of our first war, so…" He stopped talking, considering the point made. "We figured you of all people would want to help."
He did, Sirius thought, as he turned to Remus. He really, really did. "You're in on this too, Moony?"
He nodded. "Of course. And so is Dora. And Kingsley. People need to know what's actually happening in the world – it's time we did something about that. Of course, it's a big decision. We understand if you need ti…"
"I'm in," he declared.
"You're in?" Remus asked, surprised at how easily he'd agreed to it. "Just like that? No questions?"
Sirius nodded. "Let me put this simple for you, Moony: I've got to do something about this war, either it is fighting a battle or just keeping people's minds out of the illusions their side tries to paint. I just need to do something or else I'm pretty sure I'll head down the 'stupid' path, which I can't really afford because I've got kids at home who need me in a non-stupid capacity. This," he said, pointing at the wireless-broadcasting material, "is something. And not a stupid something."
"Bloody right it isn't," Fred mumbled.
"So, what can I do for now?" Sirius asked, quite eager to start.
"Well, take your pick," Lee said. "We need a name, we need nicknames because we sure as hell won't be using ours just to get our arses on a wanted poster…"
"We need security measures," Remus added. "Kingsley's already thinking of that, by the way, but I suppose that's one of those areas where we can never have too much."
"And, more importantly," Fred said, eying the all the instruments piled up nearby. "We need to figure out how the hell that stuff is supposed to work."
"Well," Sirius mumbled, grinning eagerly. "Looks like we've got ourselves quite the plan to make."
Sirius Black was back.
Hogwarts, later that evening
"He's leaving the office!" Izzy announced out loud, prompting Ginny, Neville and Luna to join her as she observed the Marauder's map in the Room of Requirement. "See? There," she said, pointing Snape's dot on the map. "He's headed to the feast."
"That's it," Ginny said. "This is our cue. We need to get in there now."
Even before they knew what exactly Snape was so badly hiding from Harry in his office, they'd planned the theft for weeks in the utmost secrecy. It wasn't that they didn't trust the rest of the DA to help out, Izzy constantly told herself, but that matter was simply too sensitive to be shared with twenty-odd people they had just gathered after a year of disbandment. Only herself, Ginny, Neville and later Luna had been in on the plan – having had each other's backs on at least a couple of different battles, none of them had any shadow of a doubt they could trust the rest.
So, it had begun. Weeks of discussion and split shifts of surveillance ranging from actually staking out Snape's office several times a day to following his and the Carrows' dots on the Marauders' map for hours at a time. It was morose work but it needed to be done if they wanted to find a pattern, a routine, a weakness… anything they could grab and use against them. Anything that could make it easier for them to get to Snape's office and steal whatever he was hiding in there.
By mid-October, they knew Amycus and Alecto spent a very unhealthy amount of time together in each other's quarters, they knew they never took breakfast before ten in the morning and never retired to their quarters before two or three in the morning after bullying a bunch of poor house-elves in the school kitchens – that was, when they weren't using students for such purposes during their nasty detention sessions. As for Snape, they knew he barely left his quarters for anything other than meals those days, which gave them a big problem in what came to slipping in and out of it unnoticed…
But as much as they knew about their opponents' routines by then, they still had no idea what exactly they were trying to steal. Neville had been sure it was some sort of weapon; Izzy and Ginny had hoped it might be a Horcrux (although they never shared that with their friends) so they could destroy it for Harry even though they had no clue of how to achieve such a thing; Luna, on the other hand, had believed it was an infinity of things, each somehow more bizarre than the other – and, although they immediately discarded her suggestions in their minds, they always nodded and said 'it might be', mostly for the sake of not hurting her.
In the end, Neville had been the right one of the four of them. It was, according to what their house's faithful ghost had shared with them only five days before Halloween – having been spying on the Carrows for them –, a weapon: Gryffindor's sword. The sword Harry had used to kill the basilisk and save Ginny's life in his second year… the sword that was rightfully his according to Dumbledore's will. And, although none of them would question the fact that by being a founder's weapon the sword was warranted a certain… specialty, they couldn't help but wonder what sort of quality in it caused that object in particular to become such a threat in Harry's hands… There were a hundred swords all over the castle's hallways being held by suits of armour. There were a thousand swords in the country as well. Not to mention that a wan could cause far more danger on its own than a boatload of swords. So, what sort of special power made that one in specific so important?
Ultimately, those were just questions that didn't really matter. They were taking it, anyway – after all, if Voldemort wanted to keep the sword from Harry so badly, it had undoubtedly to be useful to him. How they'd get it to him, though, was a whole other matter. A matter for later because, with just five days in advance, they came to realize Halloween was going to present their best chance to get in and out of Snape's office unnoticed, since the feast was bound to keep the headmaster out of it for at least a good couple of hours.
"A… are you sure that map is accurate?" Neville asked as he stood by Izzy's side. It wasn't that he didn't trust Izzy and Ginny, but having just been introduced to that particular tool a few weeks before, he couldn't help but finding it far too conveniently powerful to be true. Even for wizard-standards. "Because if it isn't, we might just be walking straight into the Snape…"
"The map never lies, Neville," Izzy assured him. "It never did to me or to Harry or to my dad, who was the first to use it. No reason why it'd start doing it now."
"It is a wonderful device," Luna said in a dreamy tone. "I thought the only one to exist was the one the ministry keeps locked in the Department of Mysteries to spy on everyone…"
Ginny, Izzy and Neville glanced at each other with looks of uncertainty on their faces. They might be ninety-nine-per-cent sure that that was just another one of the Lovegoods' trademark odd theories but just the thought of anything watching over them like pieces on a chessboard was unsettling enough…
"Well, we should get going. We're wasting time here," Ginny decided. "The longer we delay this, the longer we have to stay away from the feast and the more chance people may notice our absence."
"Wait, what about the Carrows?" Neville asked.
"On their way to the Great Hall," Izzy said, tracing their dots with her hands. "There. Always attached at the hip. You'd think they were conjoint twins or something…"
Luna giggled in her usual calm manner. "That's silly. They'd have to be identical twins for that…"
"Well, whatever kind of twins they are or aren't, as long as they stay away from us, I'm fine with it," Ginny mumbled. "Alright, everyone ready? If you want to change your minds, now it's the time. No one will blame anyone here."
"I think we're already past that, Ginny," Neville said. "But does anyone have any Felix Felicis spare?"
Izzy sighed as she eyed her mum's dot on the map… yep, her mother was going to kill her if she got wind of what they were doing without telling her. Then again, if she told her mother, Izzy had no doubt they'd be stopped by her and that was something she simply refused to let happen. She could only hope her mother wouldn't hear of it until they'd already succeeded at getting their hands on the sword… and, yep, a vial of Felix sure wouldn't hurt to achieve that. "I wish. Slughorn didn't brew it this year. I don't think he wanted it to fall into the wrong hands… But, Merlin, it'd be a huge help."
"It'd also be a huge risk," Ginny pointed out.
Luna nodded and, that time, when she spoke they had no doubt of the truthfulness of her words. "Felix Felicis has caused more despair than luck along the centuries. Too much of a good thing can be worse than just a little of a bad one."
Neville couldn't help nodding. "Yeah, well, if we get caught…"
"We won't," Ginny said.
"… I'm glad we're at least trying," he finished. "Because it's time we do something other than sitting at class hearing the barbarities those people are trying to teach us. I don't want to be the guy who sits down while everything happens around him."
"That makes two of us," Izzy mumbled.
"Three of us," Ginny added.
"Four," Luna finished.
"So, I guess this is it," he mumbled. "We leave it up to luck."
Ginny shook her head. "Not luck. We leave it up to ourselves. We do our best and if that's not enough… well, then it was never meant to be, I guess."
It'd better be… meant to be, that was, Izzy thought on their way down to the headmaster's office. Because if it wasn't… She shook her head. It wasn't the time to think of the worst. Not then, not there.
They found the corridor leading to the headmaster's office completely empty – these days, people actually avoided it, as well as the corridors leading to the Carrows' quarters… any chance of meeting any of them was to be avoided, most people believed.
"Looks like the coast is clear," Ginny whispered as they took slow steps towards the statue guarding the stairway that led to the headmaster's office. "We need the password," she said, looking back. "Luna?"
The blonde girl smiled, apparently glad to be useful. "I have it," she stated, taking a step further, closer to the statue. "Emerald Green," she whispered, causing the statue to suddenly shake and start making way to the stairs.
"Emerald Green?" Ginny asked in distaste. She could only imagine what Snape thought whenever he said it: a bull's eyes on each of Harry's eyes or maybe something Slytherin-related. Somehow, she felt like it was related to Harry…
"He's a creepy bloke," Izzy mumbled as they started climbing up the spiral staircase after Ginny. "Obviously he was going to pick a creepy password."
"I cringe to think of what we might find upstairs," Neville mumbled behind her.
"That's the least you should cringe about," Ginny mumbled as she reached the hall on top of the stairs. "We ought to worry about other things like what's going to happen to us once we touch that doorknob …" she stated, pointing at a door opposite them on the hall. "Snape seems like the sort of bloke who'd leave little traps around to keep invaders out."
"Oh, I know a spell for that," Luna announced, taking a step closer to it at the same time she reached for her wand. "Vomica Revelium," she said, flickering the wand with a quick move. A wave of clear vapour came from the doorknob, causing her to smile. "There doesn't seem to be anything here that would harm us. There'd be black smoke of there was."
"Great. Now what's left to know is if it will open at all," Izzy mumbled.
"Well, only one way to find out," Luna said with a smile, resting her hand on the doorknob and turning it without hesitation.
"No, Luna, don't just…"
The lock clicked and they crumbled in relief. Luna was fine. The door was open… It was going to happen. It was actually going to happen. They were getting in and they were taking the sword. That easily… And, as much as Izzy's gut told her it was too easy, she didn't listen. They were so close…
With a soft push, the door opened to reveal an office quite different from what they all remembered. The layout of it was rather similar but the instruments that were its main trait back when Dumbledore was in charge seemed to be gone. Izzy supposed they should be thankful for the change as that left much less places to search.
"What do you think you are doing?" An angry voice shouted from inside the office, making them all cringe.
"Children, you don't want to do this. Leave now before…" another faceless voice said.
"Who's this?" Neville said, stepping in ahead of Luna and the others.
"Well, who do you think it is?" the first voice asked sternly.
Izzy, Ginny and Luna stepped in after the boy, looking around to try and find the source of the voice. Unnoticed to them, the door slowly closed behind their backs.
"You have made a terrible mistake. A terrible mistake," the second voice told them sadly.
"What mistake?" Ginny asked, turning around and looking for someone hidden. "Who are you?"
"Oh, for Merlin's sake! Back here! Behind the desk!" the stern voice said, making them all turn to face the portraits of the late headmasters, only three of which seemed to be occupied at the moment: the one with Dumbledore, who looked asleep and nowhere close to waking up, and two others, one quite severe-looking and heavy on silver and green tones, the other portraying a warm-looking man who eyed them rather sadly. "Ah! Surprised? Didn't think there'd be anyone in here? Of course you wouldn't. No one ever thinks of us portraits," the severe one said.
He was, Izzy noted, right. And, she supposed, they were basically doomed thanks to that. Why hadn't they thought of the stupid portraits? "Who exactly are you?" she asked it, annoyed.
"Who am I? Who am I?" he replied angrily. "Youth," he said in disgust. "The more years pass, the more disrespectful they get. You should be ashamed, girl. You really should. I, at least, have the decency of recognizing my own kin."
"Your own what?" Ginny asked as her friend simply stared at the mad portrait.
"Kin!" he shouted at the redhead before looking back at Ginny. "A Black, aren't you, girly? Of course you are. You have the Black-family eyes. And, of course, your father's absolute lack of respect for family and for order. Had I known this would be what our family would fall into… Had I known…!"
Izzy stared at him some more. "Oh, Merlin, it's you, isn't it? Dad told me about you. You're Phinley or Phoney…"
"Phineas!" he shouted. "Professor Phineas Nigellus Black."
"He's related to you?" Neville asked Izzy in a whisper.
"Unfortunately…" she mumbled in return. "We had a portrait of you back home when we moved in, hadn't we?"
"Well, of course you had! Until you had that wretched creature you call a house-elf moving it to the attic! The disrespect! The nerve!"
"Don't speak like that about Kreacher!" Izzy replied angrily. "And we moved you to the attic because, if I recall it well, you insulted Mum. You called her a… a…"
"A Scarlet Woman," he repeated. "Why, that was quite accurate, wasn't it? With a bastard child by that good-for-nothing great-great-great-grandson of mine!"
"Hey!" she said in disbelief. She supposed in a way him calling her a bastard was indden accurate, giving her having been born long before her parent's marriage but that still wasn't something she liked to be called. Of course, she'd much rather be known as a bastard than as the 'worst headmaster Hogwarts had ever had' like certain portraits in the room.
"Phineas!" the other portrait said in a disapproving tone. "You shouldn't treat family that way! I was under the impression Blacks valued their family, even if in rather… blood-supremacist ways."
"Mind your own business, Scamander," Phineas replied in an arrogant tone.
"Scamander?" Luna asked, her face lighting like the sunrise. "Professor Newt Scamander?"
"That would be me," the portrait confirmed with a sigh.
"Oh, I love your work! Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them is my favourite book in the world. I take it everywhere – even when Daddy and I took the Summer to go looking for Crumple-Horned Snorkacks. It's a pity you didn't have a chance to write about them in your book…"
"Oh, lovely," Phineas spat dryly.
Scamander, however, although he seemed quite taken aback by the girl's words, mostly the part about the Snorkacks, offered her a small smile. "You're very kind, dear girl. But I'm afraid today you've made a terrible, terrible mistake by coming here. But it's too late now… whatever you're looking for wasn't worth it. It simply wasn't worth it."
"But we need it," Ginny said. "It… it's not Snape's . It's not his to keep."
"I'm afraid it's inevitable he does now, girl," Scamander said. "But what is it?"
"Oh, you know what it is, Scamander," Phineas Black said. "What would a group of Gryffindors be looking for?"
"I'm actually a Ravenclaw," Luna softly pointed out.
Phineas made a mocking sound. "Of course… A herd of Gryffindors and an hairheaded Ravenclaw, then. What would they be looking for other than the sword of Gryffindor? That is school property, girlie," he told Ginny. "If Professor Snape wants to keep it, he's entitled to as the Headmaster."
"Snape's no headmaster. He killed his way into that spot!" Neville said, pointing at Dumbledore's portrait.
"Rumours. For all I know, Potter did it. Such a disturbed mind…" Black mumbled.
"You have the disturbed mind," Ginny replied angrily. "And we're wasting too much time. Izzy, Neville, the three of us ought to search different spots. Luna… Izzy, give her the map. She can serve as a lookout."
Izzy nodded, removing the map from her pocket and using her wand to activate it before handing it to the blonde girl.
"Professor Snape will hear about this," Phineas promised as Ginny and Neville started to look for hidden compartments under tables and tapestries. "I assure you I will narrate every second of your…"
"No, you won't," Izzy told him.
"How will you make sure of that, girlie? By burning my portrait? Because I can just travel to another…"
"No," Izzy said, her mind racing for a solution. "I… I…" She paused and took a breath. "If you don't tell Snape, I will personally make sure your attic portrait back home gets mailed to the Malfoys."
"What?" Ginny asked, stopping her search.
"I will," Izzy assured them before looking straight at her ancestor's portrait. "You'd want that, wouldn't you? To be with a branch of the family that actually respects your ideals. I'm sure Narcissa would welcome you with open arms. If you keep quiet, I'll make sure your portrait leaves the attic and reaches her."
"How can I be sure you're telling the truth?"
"Because the cards are on your side of the table. Besides, what else would I do with your damn portrait?" she pointed out. "Both sides would profit from this deal, trust me. What would you say?"
The portrait shrugged. "It won't matter anyway," he mumbled.
Izzy smiled, taking that as a 'yes'. Triumphant, she turned to Newt Scamander afterwards. "Can we count on your silence too, Professor?"
"I have no sympathy to usurpers of what should be a sacred position in this school, Miss Black," Scamander assured her. "That said, the only reason why I didn't follow my predecessors when they decided not to remain in their portraits providing counsel to the current headmaster is the fact that I believe it is still my job to keep my students out of trouble. I will keep doing it until Professor Snape banishes me out of here. However, Miss Black, even though you can count on my silence, I'm afraid Phineas is right when he says it won't matter."
"What do you mean?" Neville asked.
"He's coming back," Luna said suddenly, her tone for that first time taking a frightened edge.
"What?" Izzy asked loudly as Ginny rushed to their blonde friend's side in order to look at the map herself.
"Snape's on his way here and the Carrows are following him," the redhead confirmed in alarm. "We need to get out! Fast! He's close. Mischief managed," she said, pointing her wand at the map and snatching it into her robes.
"But the sword…" Neville said.
"Forget the sword! Just putting everything back the way it was," Izzy told him, heading to the door. "Maybe we can still leave without him…" She paused when, upon trying to open the door back up, she found herself unable to. "Oh, no."
"What is it?" Luna asked.
"It won't open!" Izzy said in alarm, trying to force the door open.
"It has to open!" Ginny yelled, reaching for her wand and pointing it at the lock. "Alohamora." When nothing happened, she kicked it. "Come on, you stupid door! Open!"
"Maybe the lock is broken," Neville told her as he approached it. "Let me try repairing it."
He did and so did Izzy and Ginny and Luna as well. Nothing worked. They were locked in.
"Okay. We'll blast it off," Izzy decided. "The four of us at the same time should be able…"
"It won't work, Miss Black," Scamander said behind them, making them all turn back to him.
"Why not?" Ginny asked in despair. "We need to get out of here!"
"I understand but I'm afraid you can't. That's what I've been trying to tell you, dear girl. The problem with this office's wards is not coming in but instead getting out," Professor Scamander told her, his face covered with a genuine look of sadness. "I tried to stop you but…"
"You ought to have listened while you could," Phineas told them. "But you didn't, of course. Students and their smart little minds never do. Professor Snape has known there were intruders in his office from the moment you stepped foot in here. So you see, girl," he added, looking straight at Izzy, "what I meant when I said your promises wouldn't matter. Odds are you won't get out of here in a good enough state to keep them…"
Desperate, Izzy looked at Ginny, Neville and Luna. "So, we're pretty dead, aren't we?" she asked, receiving only nervous gulps and dead silence in return.
And, as she heard the door behind her clicking, she wondered if Phineas Black would be the only one getting a promise broken by her that day.
A/N: Someone's in trouble... I hope you didn't find this chapter very bad. As I said, it didn't come out the way I wanted it to... Feedback is welcome, as always! Review!