Disclaimer: I own nothing; it all belongs to J.K.Rowling. I'm just borrowing the characters to play with for a while. This is for pleasure only, no profit is being made, and no copyright infringement is intended.
Author's Note: This chapter got bloated quick. I don't expect future chapters to be this long (I like 5000 words best, but this one's tipping the scales at over 9100.) Reviews make me very happy.
CHAPTER SEVEN
"Master?"
Harry slowly opened his eyes trying to remember everything that happened last night. He felt Kreacher gently nudging him. "Bluh?"
"Master, the halfbreed is at the back door and he brought his mudblood with him."
Harry sensed the naked woman lying next to him stiffen in fear. He placed a calming hand on her hip and rubbed gently trying to assure her.
"Let them in," Harry instructed the elf. "They are always welcome here, even when we're out."
Kreacher was still confused but nodded in agreement. "Would you like some breakfast, Master?"
"That sounds wonderful Kreacher," Harry said. "Check with our guests, but I believe there should be six of us eating."
Kreacher popped away to do as ordered. He still hadn't figured out what to make of his new Masters.
"Good morning, Katie."
Katie Bell looked up at the Lord Black uncomfortably. Last night had been wonderful and she never even considered the idea that he might be a Death Eater or blood purist. "Good morning?"
Harry rolled over to face her and smiled crookedly. "Don't mind our peculiar elf's cute little nicknames. He was simply raised that way."
Katie relaxed momentarily only to be startled by the magnified voice of a werewolf.
"WHAT THE HELL WERE YOU GUYS THINKING?"
Harry quickly cast a Sonorus charm around his throat and replied. "We have guests, Remus. A little decorum would be welcome, if you please."
A slightly quieter muffled voice called back. "Sorry."
Harry smiled at Katie warmly. "I suppose we should-"
A muffled crash interrupted him quickly followed by the voice of an auror. "Dammit!"
Harry snickered. "That would be Auror Tonks tripping over the umbrella stand. You can stay for breakfast, can't you?"
"Crap!" Katie blurted out sitting up quickly. "My sister's going to be worried sick. I told her I would floo her if I was staying out overnight."
Harry winced. "We haven't gotten ourselves hooked up to the floo yet. But if you want to borrow my owl, you're welcome to."
Katie leaned forward to snag a passionate morning kiss, curious how Harry's morning breath would taste. She found it to be surprisingly pleasant. "That'd be great."
The door to Harry's bedroom swung open and Kid Killer McGee flew right in to perch on the headboard.
"You're a pretty smart one, aren't you?" Harry said looking at his owl.
The owl just gave Harry a condescending look and stuck out his leg towards the nude young woman.
Katie was pleased to see a common muggle pen and some paper nearby and quickly scribbled a note assuring her sister that she was fine. She handed it to the owl that flew out the bedroom door and down the hallway.
"We're still here," Tonks' voice carried up towards the bedroom in a particularly unsubtle reminder.
Harry chuckled at Tonks' impatience as both he and Katie got dressed.
There was a persistent tapping while they put their scourgified clothes back on that caused Harry to notice his owl was just sitting on Sirius' doorknob, pecking the door every few seconds.
"Kid Killer?"
The owl turned towards Harry and then back at the door, banging its beak on the wooden door.
"Is something wrong with Sirius?"
The owl just pecked on the door again. As Harry approached it flew up and landed on his shoulder. Harry waved Katie back, drew his wand, and slowly stuck his head into the other Master bedroom of Grimmauld Place.
The owl was just about launch into the room when Harry pulled right back and slammed the door closed.
Harry tried to calm the agitated owl on his shoulder. He turned back to the bewildered young Bell woman and smiled. "Found your sister." Harry grabbed the letter from Kid Killer McGee and handed it back to Katie. "No need to mail her. How about that breakfast?"
"Oh," Katie said softly in confusion. She repeated louder in realization, "Oh. Are they…?"
"Yup."
"Right now?"
"Yup."
"Okay," Katie said turning to go down the stairs. "I don't think I want eggs anymore."
"Fair enough," Harry said knowing not to judge. "I'm guessing they just recast a silencing charm and never heard our earlier discussion with Remus and-"
"Still here," Tonks yelled loudly from downstairs again.
"Tonks," Harry finished unnecessarily.
"She sounds cheery," Katie added, walking with Harry down the stairs.
"Tonks, Remus," Harry greeted. "I'd like you to meet Katie Bell. We'll give the other two a little more time before sending Kreacher in after Sirius and…" Harry peeked at the note still in Katie's hand.
"Melody," Katie supplied before Harry could.
"Melody," Harry agreed. "That's a pretty name."
"You don't have to hit on everything," Tonks grumbled.
Harry grinned and added, "It's not nearly as pretty as your name, Nymphadora." Harry frowned in surprise when she failed to throw a hissy-fit.
Tonks smirked. "You really want to start the name game, little boy…who…something?"
"Hmm," Harry commented realizing Tonks hadn't even done any pig snouts or other goofy metamorph transformations aside from flirting. It appeared growing up with Remus taught her how to take a joke better. And more than likely how to get revenge better. "No, I think I'll pass on that game. Thank you though."
With only a pop, the dining table filled with breakfast foods.
"Kreacher," Harry called out waiting for the house elf to appear.
"Is everything alright, Master?"
Harry turned to the oddly well behaved elf. "This all looks great," Harry leaned down to talk quieter. "I just wanted to make sure none of this is the poisoned food."
Kreacher felt hope for the future blossom in his cold black heart. "Not this time, Master. But I can poison some desserts if you like."
"I'll keep that in mind, but not today."
Kreacher nodded with a smile and popped away.
"Eat up," Harry announced passing the eggs away from Katie.
"We're not going to wait for the others?" Remus asked.
Harry looked at Katie shrewdly. "That's a good question. How long do you think we should wait before sending Kreacher in after them?"
"I say send him now," Katie said with a shrug.
"Does Sirius or Melody need to sleep in?" Remus wondered.
"They're not sleeping now," Harry said with an indicative shake of his head.
Remus nodded in understanding. Tonks answered, "Yeah, I think now sounds good."
"Kreacher," Harry called out once more beckoning the elf. Harry turned towards the others, "How should we do this?"
Katie looked confused while Remus suggested, "Ice water?"
"Bullhorn?" Tonks offered.
Katie saw the others turn to her and shrugged, "Quietly and calmly?"
Harry shook his head in amazement at the sheer audacity of Katie's suggestion. He turned to the elf, "Tell Sirius and Melody we're having breakfast. If you have to slap Sirius with a fish a few times to get his attention, then please feel free. But no messing with Melody."
"Certainly, Master," Kreacher popped away.
"Slap him with a fish?" Tonks asked with a grin.
Harry shrugged. "Ice water and bullhorn felt a bit… uninspired."
With a pop a shirtless Sirius apparated right next to Harry. "What the hell?"
"Good morning, Lord Black," Harry greeted.
Sirius' anger disappeared automatically every time Harry addressed him with the honorific. "Dammit." Sirius couldn't help but grin. "Morning, Katie, Tonks, Remus. Did you tell that demented elf to do that?"
Harry shrugged. "I might have offered a suggestion on one way to grab your attention."
"Stab me in the ass with a swordfish?"
Harry looked at others and frowned. "Hmm. We may need to be exceedingly precise in our instructions to Kreacher."
"Yeah, I wouldn't trust him not to poison the food," Sirius agreed just before apparating back to his bedroom.
Sirius got dressed and came down to breakfast with Melody a notable ten minutes later. They ate a pleasant meal before the two Lord Blacks walked the Bell sisters out back where they could apparate out safely. Melody put forth an effort to kiss Sirius goodbye and leave him with a lasting memory. Katie took that as a challenge and decided to kiss Harry goodbye even harder with her legs wrapped around his waist.
As soon as the two women apparated away, Tonks and Remus were on the dimension travelers like hawks. "What the hell were you doing in the Potters' safe?"
"Aww crap," Sirius grumbled. "They know."
"Nice work on remembering to act innocent, Sirius," Harry muttered back at him.
"Mr. Stick-up-the-arse noticed?"
"He fell into his open safe," Tonks chuckled. "That's one of the poorest examples of covering your tracks I've ever heard of."
Remus was looking at them suspiciously. "What were you doing in there? Why break in?"
Sirius pulled out his old wand and wiggled it between his fingers. "Wanted to get this."
"You could've just asked him," Remus pointed out with a frown.
"Well that wouldn't have been any fun," Sirius retorted. "He doesn't suspect us, does he?"
Remus shook his head. "I don't know how you guys got in without triggering their wards, but he felt two instances of outbound floo. We went to inspect and found nothing. A few hours later he walks into his study…"
Tonks was chuckling to herself. "It was the funniest bunch of conclusions those Potters kept drawing. Because an old family blood warded safe is practically impenetrable, James knew only Potter blood and a willing Potter could've opened it. Lily didn't know how they could have gotten past the wards, because even the Potters register when they cross them. And they're certain no one was home when they left. Something James Jr. said led Lily to believe he had been playing with a time turner—or time somehow—in his room when they got home. James grounded him for illegally going back in time in his room because according to James that's the only way someone could have gotten through their wards without triggering them."
"James Jr. protested his innocence," Remus explained. "Claimed he didn't do anything like that. Then Lily went off on the theories of Odenberg. All about how when people go back in time and cause catastrophic problems that would destroy the natural timeline, then magic fixes the problem and erases the memory of the culprit."
"So James then is still grounding James Jr. for the rest of summer," Tonks continued. "And James Jr. basically admits that that all must be true, but since he has no memory of it and they can't prove he did it then he shouldn't be punished for something that without knowledge or memory of has any affect on his character. He argued it's the same as punishing him for contemplating a course of action, not taking one."
Remus rolled his eyes. "With the mystery solved and James Jr. guilty but obliviated by magic, I think it's safe to say that no, they do not suspect you guys."
Tonks snickered. "But they're going to check the next few days' worth of wizarding and muggle news to make sure James Jr. didn't do anything else untoward while he was at the Order meeting."
Harry and Sirius had just been giving each other goofy smiles throughout the two Lupins' explanations. Sirius snickered. "Merlin, wizards will believe anything."
"Yeah," Harry agreed nudging his godfather on the arm. "I even knew a couple best friends who'd both believed that the other was a Death Eater in the face of absolutely no evidence indicating so."
Sirius glanced at Remus and shrugged. "In fairness, he is a werewolf. Conventional wisdom says I'm allowed a little leeway."
Remus saw Harry and Sirius look at him and shook his head. "Oh hell no. I'm not taking any blame for the things that pedophile did. I'm the good Remus. I never wrongly assumed any of my best friends were traitors."
Sirius smirked at Tonks. "And do you know what else the so-called good Remus never did?"
Tonks and Remus both groaned while Sirius slapped the back of his neck. "Dammit Harry, stop pinching me. I didn't even say it."
A couple of days later Sirius and Harry began the real groundwork on their new jobs. They didn't have the money for an invisibility cloak nor any of the illegal ward breaking toys Harry wanted.
Sirius made first contact with an old friend based out of an ungoverned chain of tropical islands. He figured if Felix was willing to harbor him as a fugitive in his original dimension, then he'd be willing to not demand answers in this one. Felix just smiled, never even questioning the fact that Sirius Black had died twenty-five years ago and now was looking to fence a lot of stuff quietly.
Doing a little reconnaissance was the next order of business, as neither Harry nor Sirius knew where the Parkinsons lived, what their schedules were like, or what sort of underwear they each favored. The Lord Blacks knew they'd have to split up. Since Harry was going to confirm that at least one was a Death Eater, and apparently he had already ensnared Melinda Parkinson with his boyish charm, his target was Baron Stephen Parkinson.
Sirius on the other hand was charged with trailing and identifying the habits of Melinda Parkinson. If that meant Sirius had to spend all the remaining galleons he had taken from Gringotts on a jinxed pair of Omnioculars that could see through walls, and purely coincidentally clothes too, then so be it.
They'd agreed to cast new glamour charms over their faces and clothes every hour in order to not arouse suspicion in either Parkinson.
Harry had trailed Stephen Parkinson to a hidden wizarding Alley in Manchester. He knew the permanently frowning stern man was going to exit the building he'd just entered. Harry simply had to wait for him to leave and he'd be waiting close enough to get confirmation.
There had always been an easy way to identify whether a person carried the Dark Mark of Lord Voldemort or not. There just weren't very many people who could take advantage of this particular method.
Harry discovered it many years ago. The trio had been out following leads on the horcruxes and studying in their free time. Hermione wanted to unravel the magic of the Dark Mark. Her research and Harry's input led them to determine the spell that Voldemort designed to mark his followers was a modified bastardization of a serpent tattooing spell.
One of the major weaknesses of the spell was that the Dark Lord was unable to cast it on himself. That was why he needed someone carrying the mark in order to connect to other marked followers, or to issue a summons to all of the Marks.
Hermione was unable to discover a way to magically sense the Dark Mark and no oculamagi spells could definitively identify it. But the particulars of the original tattoo spell meant that serpents would recognize it immediately. So if there happened to be a parselmouth around, they need only ask a snake if someone carried the Mark.
The first thing Harry did after spotting Baron Parkinson this morning was to quietly cast Serpentsortia and whisper instructions to the tiny conjured snake. It settled peacefully into Harry's pocket and was content to rest there.
Harry quietly hissed to the snake to let him know if any of the men walking past carried the Dark Mark.
The next two men to exit the building paid no attention to the middle-aged man unobtrusively leaning against the wall. The snake informed Harry they were not marked but that they smelt of snadgies and wasted youth. It was another five minutes before Baron Parkinson left the building. The moment he neared the snake in Harry's pocket had perked right up and was sticking his little head out.
"Oh yes," the snaked hissed lingering on the S. "This one's got it. And he smells like ointment and jealousy."
Harry felt the mirror in his other pocket heat up and did his best not to react to the snake's excessive commentary.
"He frowns too much."
Harry quietly tried to shush the creature.
"But if he needs an ointment he may have a very good reason to frown."
As soon as Baron Parkinson apparated away Harry let out the breath he'd been holding in and vanished the loquacious conjured snake. He walked around a corner, making sure no one was watching him and activated the two-way mirror.
Harry blinked as he realized he didn't recognize the face on the other side. But then remembering the glamours he'd gone through he doubted he was recognizable either.
"Who the hell are you?" the old man in the mirror asked suspiciously.
Harry sighed. "We're supposed to be under glamours, remember?"
"Yeah, but still. How do I know you really are… who… you… don't look anything like?"
Harry made sure no one was looking and tried, "How about this? The fact that I'm carrying a damn mirror around makes me feel like a bloody Malfoy. And now that I've said it out loud, and can no longer pretend to ignore that fact, I think I'll be getting a rash."
The old man chuckled. "Okay I guess you are you."
"Actually," Harry said narrowing his eyes. "Verifying my identity is a pretty smart idea and completely out of character for you."
"Oi!"
"So how do I know you are… who you… want me to think… you are?"
"Okay, now you just sound silly," Sirius retorted with a familiar grin answering any questions about his identity. "Target two, the MILF, is in remarkably good shape. She purchased some new dress robes for a dinner party next Saturday."
"Dinner party?"
Sirius nodded. "The Baron and Baroness will both be in attendance and out of the house. Got any good news?"
Harry nodded. "Target one, not-the-MILF, has been confirmed as viable. So far he's not even noticed any of the tracers."
"Yes well, not-the-MILF is a confirmed tool as well."
Harry wasn't going to disagree with that description. "If you think the MILF won't notice, cover her with a tracer or two. We'll try and hone in on the signals tonight and assess the location."
"'Case the joint,' Harry, just say 'case the joint.'"
"Oi, what happened to no names?"
"Oops?"
"Tracers, then? Can you at least remember that much?"
Sirius let out a tired sigh. "Since I have to, I guess I'll accidentally bump into the MILF when she's bending over."
"You poor suffering soul," Harry grumbled about to close off the two-way mirror connection when an important thought occurred to him. "You saved some recordings with your Omnioculars, right?"
"I think that's the place," Harry said softly.
Sirius whistled at the sight of it. "That's one big ass manor."
Harry was glancing at their surroundings. "Sensors only go about halfway up that hill. Follow me." With a soft pop Harry disappeared and reappeared just below the ridgeline of a small wooded area behind the impressive Parkinson home. Sirius apparated right next to him.
Harry reached into his bag and floated out four anchor stones. "Normally I can do this under fifteen seconds, but if I flub it, they'd notice the magical discharge. So," Harry explained as he continued to carve rudimentary symbols onto the stones. "I'm taking my time and doing it right."
The four stones zipped away from their bodies, held in place by invisible magical arms. Harry was mumbling under his breath and sounded slightly like an old man wheezing before swirling his arm in a large circle and pointing his wand straight into the ground.
"Fidelio!" Harry cast in a firm confident voice. Magic flowed from his wand into the ground and seeped outwards until it hit the four stones arranged in a square around them. As soon as the magic reached the stones it began to flow perpendicular to the ground towards the sky. Harry snapped his wrist and twisted his wand to point straight up sending more magic flowing upward. It flattened against an invisible ceiling and began to spread outwards, meeting the magic flowing from the stones at sharp crisp corners.
The roughly 3 meter by 3 meter cube flashed once in a white light and was done.
Sirius looked around and saw nothing seemed to have changed or happened. "That's it?"
Harry double-checked no one had noticed the magic and quickly shoved Sirius outside of the invisible cube walls.
"Whoa," Sirius yelped and quickly spun around. "Harry!" he whispered angrily. "I get it. It worked. Let me in."
Sirius kept turning his head trying to remember where Harry had cast the spell. He thought it was on this hill, but he wasn't even sure of that anymore.
Harry snuck up behind Sirius and wrapped a hand over his mouth before he could yelp. He modified his voice and snarled, "I'm going to kill you, blood traitor."
"You know you still smell like Harry so it's not all that frightening," Sirius idly commented.
"Well how bout this then," Harry said with his voice back to normal. He turned Sirius to face the right direction and whispered, "The secret square is on the hill."
And just like that out of nowhere, Sirius saw two plush recliners miraculously appear before his eyes. "Nice. You can cast the charm, be the secret keeper, and stay here?"
"It'll last long enough for this," Harry explained as he plopped into one of the conjured chairs while Sirius settled into the other. "But if we wanted it to be permanent then you're often better off with some distance between the secret keeper and the secret."
"But I thought Albus-"
"Don't think too hard on it," Harry interrupted. "It's a picky fickle charm that can vary depending on a multitude of factors, even the caster. But as long as I don't stray too far from here, I can keep it up no worries. And as long as you don't scream loudly, we can talk without whispering. The sound won't escape the charm," Harry said as he pulled on the handle of his chair and reclined back. He let out a small sound of contentment.
"Ahh," Sirius agreed as his chair extended and he joined Harry in a relaxed reclining position.
Harry resisted the temptation to dig out a notebook. "Normally, I'd be writing this down."
"Really?"
Harry nodded. "It's one of the uglier habits I've picked up. But I don't think we need to carry around physical evidence of crimes we've yet to commit."
"And it gives you an excuse to be lazy."
"That too," Harry said. "So what we know is that they're going to be out at a dinner party Saturday evening. That gives us four days to idiot-proof this plan. Let's start with the wards we can identify from here."
They broke down the details that they could on the wards. Harry wasn't sure, but thought that all of the wards had been taken down and put back up when they were last cast, as they blurred together into one giant set. Once they'd gotten as far as they could without crossing or manipulating the wards, Sirius stood up to stretch his legs.
"Well I guess that's it," Sirius said with a grin.
"That ain't it."
"It's not?"
"Get comfy, Padfoot," Harry chided. "We're going to be here for a little while."
Sirius sighed. "But I'm hungry. And don't give me any crap about dog biscuits."
"We need to know more before just showing up Saturday night."
"Need is such a strong word."
"You know we could easily get around this by just grabbing Parkinson, feeding him veritaserum, and obliviating him."
"No!" Sirius snapped.
"Shh," Harry shushed as several birds nearby flew away.
"No," Sirius repeated in a quieter voice. "What you're talking about is typical Death Eater thuggery. I don't want to be that guy. We're above those sorts of tactics. We're thieves not trolls with wands. Hell if we were just going to cheat our way to a score, we could just blast the place to kingdom come, wards and all. Toss up our own quick apparition and portkey wards and scavenge through the wreckage. No, forget that. I want to be proud of the work we do. It should have elegance and artistry to it."
Harry sat back at Sirius' intensity and his example scenario. "Blast and scavenge, huh. Thought about it much?"
"Twelve years in prison," Sirius shrugged looking back towards the Parkinson manor. "The mind wanders."
Harry snickered. "I agree on distancing ourselves and avoiding their tactics. But if we're going do this right, then we gotta do the homework. So it's either now or later. And later adds another trip here, and I'll need to cast another Fidelius. And we'll have to wait then too."
"No, let's do this now," Sirius agreed, twisting a knob on his Omnioculars, and looking towards the home. "Heat signatures show the two Parkinsons and I believe one house elf."
"We'll probably have to stun and obliviate the elf. I hope that's not too thuggish for you?"
Sirius handed the Omnioculars to Harry. "Not at all. Because Death Eaters would never suspect that we'd go to that much trouble over an elf."
"No one else lives at home, right?" Harry asked looking at the heat signatures.
Sirius shook his head. "Pansy lives with Draco and she's an only child. Well, there are rumors there was a squib son that they banished to some other country, but those are just rumors. And even if they were true, I doubt the kid they never wanted is going to choose Saturday night to drop on by the old homestead."
"Does Pansy ever drop by?"
Sirius grabbed the Omnioculars from Harry and answered. "Doubtful. But we wouldn't have to worry anyways since she and Draco are attending the same party." Sirius was fiddling with a couple dials on the Omnioculars and smiled dangerously. "It comes out in a conversation that I happened to record. Take a look."
Harry accepted the Omnioculars and watched the prerecorded conversation. There were three women around a table under a gazebo. It wasn't even noon yet and they were halfway through a pitcher of sangria.
Harry blinked as the image suddenly shifted and the ladies' robes visibly faded until they were completely translucent. He leaned back and saw Sirius smiling at him.
"Turn it up so I can hear," Sirius pleaded.
"These things get audio?"
Sirius nodded wondering how else Harry was going to listen to the conversation. "It's the orange dial."
Harry twisted the dial on the volume so that they both could hear the recorded conversation. Harry stuck his eyes back on the Omnioculars and saw the three women appeared completely nude, alternately leaning forward to share gossip with the others. "Are they going to be naked the rest of the way?"
"Yeah, pretty much."
"Good work, Sirius."
"Shh," Sirius scolded. "Here's the important stuff."
"Melinda darling," one of the women explained. "I hate to be bearer of bad news, but I thought you should know there's a vicious rumor going around that Draco walked in on Pansy while she was with that Goyle boy."
"Rumor," Melinda Parkinson scoffed. "It doesn't matter even if it is true. Not since Pansy walked in on Draco with the Crabbe boy."
The three gossips shared a giggle that didn't help at all with the taste of bile in the back of Harry's throat.
"Lucius' disappointment in having a poofter for a son is completely hypocritical," Melinda Parkinson continued. "Narcissa told me it was a miracle of magic that he managed to touch her long enough to make Draco."
One of the other women snidely added. "I heard she's on her fourth wand now."
They all seemed to giggle again and refill their glasses.
Harry continued to watch, entranced by nakedness of the female form.
"You're all coming Saturday, right?" The first woman insisted. "Aunt Edna's donated some very fine wines to celebrate her grandson."
The women all nodded.
"I may have to drag Alexander, but we'll be there."
"Pansy's coming isn't she?" Melinda clarified.
The woman nodded. "You know how the Malfoys must be. They send a house elf to RSVP every time."
Harry leaned back, having seen enough when Sirius pointed at him.
"Keep watching, there's more."
Harry felt something was fundamentally wrong with himself when he hesitated to look at naked women. He saw one of the ladies lean forward and grin. "Have you seen the two new Lord Blacks?"
Harry couldn't help but grin when all three women leaned back and proceeded to fan their faces and whistle in appreciation.
"You remember that man I couldn't keep my eyes off of at dinner?"
The ladies had remembered that tale given the way they gasped and giggled. "Which one was he?"
Melinda smirked. "The shorter one with the scar."
"Oh that scarred one reminds me of a teddy bear. I swear I just want to hug and mother that man so much," one of the women said with a small bark at the end.
"He is definitely cuddlier than the other."
"That scarred one's hair is a mess. But the tall one, now he is dishy."
The recording ended there and Harry handed the Omnioculars back to Sirius. "How do they know so much about us?"
"I am the dishy one, aren't I?" Sirius agreed.
Harry frowned. "Were pictures taken of us when we went shopping?"
Sirius nodded. "Probably. And from what I could tell, it's seems there's some sort of newsletter."
"A newsletter? Death Eater trophy wife quarterly?"
Sirius shrugged. "It sounded like a neighborhood association, but without the actual neighborhood and more muggle-hating."
"Whoa," Harry said standing up quickly. "I think Parkinson just left, or at least a tracer on him did."
Sirius twisted the knob back to heat signatures and looked in the home. "I only see one human sized heat signature. I think you're right. He's gone."
"We may be able to get out of here, earlier than I thought," Harry explained as he began to transfigure a dry rotted log.
"What are you doing?"
"Making a garden gnome," Harry said as he was reshaping the log to resemble the small pest of a creature.
"Why?"
Harry looked over at Sirius. "Because my gnome is going to set off the wards and we're going to watch and see what happens."
"Would gnomes trigger those wards?"
Harry shrugged. "I don't see any sign of gnomes around here, so I'm guessing something in that muddled mess will go off."
Sirius nodded quietly and was using the Omnioculars to watch the house.
Harry's transfigured gnome was tossed across the boundary and the entire wards flickered for a moment.
Harry waited, counting the seconds in his head. "It's been over a minute."
"No movement inside," Sirius stated when suddenly there was a pop just a dozen feet to their right.
Stephen Parkinson had apparated right near where the two of them were sitting in a pair of conjured recliners. Only the magic of the Fidelius charm left them completely invisible to all of the Baron's senses.
They watched him stroll down towards the wards where he spotted the twitching garden gnome. He grabbed the creature by its ankle and threw it high up into the air well beyond the end of the manor's wards. He rested his wand over his forearm and was following the gnome's descent with one eye closed. Satisfied with his aim, he let fly a vicious blasting curse and the transfigured log exploded in a gory shower of gnome bits.
Parkinson didn't even go inside or check the wards before apparating away.
"That was close," Sirius exhaled finally.
"Not really," Harry argued. "But I think I got enough. You?"
Sirius had had enough over an hour ago but asked in confusion, "What'd that tell you?"
Harry smirked. "That told me he trusts his wards. That told me they're not tied into the house elf. That told me they're not tied into his wife. That told that he likes to apparate in from a bit of a distance rather than right next to the disturbance, and even then, it took him a moment to locate where it had happened. And mainly that told me that we can do this."
Sirius grinned happily before pleading, "Food now?"
Harry grimaced at the reminder of the annoyances he associated with a long day spent horcrux hunting. "Yes, food." Harry vanished the chair he had been seated in while Sirius vanished the other. They removed every trace of their presence and Harry tore down his Fidelius charm. With a soft pop they apparated away with a solid plan to return in four days.
At the Langella family manor in southern Scotland, the Parkinsons were arriving fashionably late. On this Saturday evening, it was the place to be for everyone who's anyone in the close knit world of elitist pureblood society.
But at the Parkinson family manor in northern Wales, two ancient and noble Lords were still struggling with adrenaline issues.
"Come on Padfoot, settle down."
"This never happens to me."
"Lots of people get performance anxiety. It's nothing to be ashamed of."
Sirius frowned. "Have you ever?"
Harry snorted. "Not bloody likely."
"Bugger off."
"Just settle down and quit putting so much effort into the spell," Harry calmly instructed from the other side of the ward.
Sirius took a deep breath and dropped a reflection net over the sensors.
The ward in between them disappeared without a sound. Harry walked across and slapped his godfather on the shoulder. "Nice work. See? It's easy."
"Come on," Sirius urged. "Let's see what you can make of that ward knot."
They'd been able to plan for the first three distinct wards, but the next wards had been too integrated to identify in their preliminary work.
Harry's eyes went crossed looking at the thick ward knot. "Let's just give it a little more juice…" he said as he began to feed a small amount of magic into it. Without any visible changes, Harry tried to increase the amount of magic he was feeding into it and was a touch overzealous.
"Back, back, get back!" Harry ordered while grabbing a hold of Sirius with magical arms and dragging him backwards nearly into the ward behind them.
Sirius saw the wards quickly grow and fill the space they had been standing in moments ago. "Never happens to you, huh?"
"Moving on," Harry deflected. "What do you see here?"
"No goblin wards," Sirius said looking at suddenly clearer magic. "We were wrong about that. This first ward… it doesn't look right. The color's off."
"Good eye," Harry agreed. "And it's because you're seeing two wards that are extremely close together."
Sirius leaned forward and noticed there were two definitive levels of clarity, one about an inch and a half behind the other. "So we gotta figure out a way that gets by both?"
Harry shook his head. "The darker one inside is probably the only one Parkinson's paying any attention to. It's an area ward that is cast and bound inside the other ward. Kind of like blowing up a balloon that thing is filling most of the space inside. We're not even going to touch that one."
Sirius tried to focus through the wards and look further. "It looks pretty solid to me. Unless we're going to apparate past wherever it ends?"
"Nope," Harry said looking closely at the gap between the wards. He got down on the ground and was staring deep into the wards with one eye squeezed shut. "I'd bet anything the ward doesn't extend inside the house, but still. Apparition and portkey are based on blood. Those wards are undoubtedly a lot older and harder to break."
"There's less than two inches between the wards and I can't see a gap at the ceiling."
Harry lifted himself up and dusted himself off. "It's hard to see but there is a gap up there. My flood bump contracted the area ward just slightly and expanded the barrier ward a touch. But we're not going over the area ward. We're going under it."
Sirius leaned back. "We gotta dig?"
"Nope," Harry said with a grin. "You got the potions belt I gave you, right?"
Sirius nodded.
"Shrinking potion. Just go a drop at a time, because I'm not sure how much the Norton's Brew will boost the effect."
Sirius took the first vial and grabbed onto his bag, hoping the preparations they'd done were going to extend to this effect. He dripped a little of the potion onto his tongue and swallowed. He breathed out a sigh of relief to discover the preparations held and his clothes, wands, and bag all shrunk respectively with his body. He just kept shrinking and shrinking until he was less than an inch tall.
Harry leaned down at the little Sirius and snickered. "That size looks perfect. How many drops was that?"
A squeaky little voice shouted at Harry, "Three, I think. Merlin, this is undignified."
Harry copied Sirius' dosage and put three drops of the potion onto his tongue. He also shrunk down along with all of his belongings until he was just about Sirius' size.
"You're taller than me!" Sirius pouted.
"I'm like a foot taller than you, midget."
"More like a millimeter."
"Which at the moment is about a foot respectively."
"Why though?"
Harry shrugged. "Different sized drops I guess. Anyways, now you need to figure out a way to get us past the first ward and we can probably make it to the house through the gap left in it's contracted state."
"Are you kidding?" Sirius complained. "At this size, the house is like ten kilometers away."
"Well if you'd remembered what I said, you should have your broom shrunken in that bag. Won't take more than a few minutes flying at top speed."
Sirius looked away, scratching his head. "You said a lot of things and yeah, about that broom…"
"Fine," Harry said. "We can both fit on my broom. But we still need past this ward. Any ideas?"
Sirius frowned looking closer now that he could see it separate from the area ward inside. "Looks like it picks up on any magic crossing it, any person crossing it, and is that animagus detection?"
"Yup," Harry said. "Which is sometimes a good thing, but not too helpful right now. Inanimate transfigurations and no magic should work. But that means no summoning." Harry was mumbling to himself trying to think of a quick way around this one. "You know how to reverse transfigurations on yourself, right?"
"I've always had to turn into Padfoot first before back to normal, but yeah."
"Good, because I can't," Harry explained. "And you need to wait until I'm across as well before transforming, okay?"
Sirius nodded and readily accepted the transfiguration Harry was performing. Where once had been the elder Lord Black now was a magnet half as big as Sirius had been.
"You're going to need to just send a strong finishing spell at me. Don't worry about overpowering it. It's sort of a medical spell I'm doing, so you won't hurt me. And since we used the potion and not a spell to shrink, then I won't grow suddenly either," Harry explained knowing the Norton's Brew meant Sirius could hear him. He picked up the heavy magnet and tossed it just on the other side of the thin line ward.
He then recalled the seemingly useless spell he'd accidentally stumbled upon while studying healing magic. Not quite his finest hour, Harry had one day decided to combat boredom by celebrating each new spell he learned with a shot of firewhiskey. It made learning a ninth new spell that day harder than it needed to be. Oddly enough the wand motion diagrams still worked even though he had been unaware the book was upside down. What right side up had been a painless clotting charm managed to be a curious piece of self-transfiguration when performed inverted. He also remembered the half a day he spent stuck that way too.
It was with the sound of a muffled gunshot that Harry turned himself, clothes, and satchel into a small bullet. His wand clattered to the ground while the bullet was quickly drawn in by the strong magnetic pull. It slid across the wards undetected and smacked into the magnet with a clack.
A soft pop and the magnet was replaced by a black dog that was just over a quarter of inch tall. The quick shift had the effect of launching the bullet into the air and towards the ward it had just passed.
Sirius didn't have time to transform as the projectile arced through the air. The dog lunged forward and caught the bullet in its mouth, just barely staying on the proper side of the magical sensor.
The dog trotted away from the wards and dropped the bullet onto the ground. It rolled to a stop by his foot. The bullet was covered in dog slobber and it showed. Another pop and Sirius Black was standing there, wand in hand. "Finite!"
The bullet let out a puff of smoke that smelled like gunpowder, and Harry was left there covered in dog slobber. He made a pained face and cleaned his robes of the mucus and mouth juice Padfoot had left all over him. "That... was nasty."
"Could've been worse," Sirius shrugged. He saw Harry looked towards him and added, "I almost swallowed you."
Harry quickly banished that thought from his mind and looked over at his new ash wand on the other side. "I forgot that the wand falls to the ground when I do that spell. We'll just pick it up when we come back this way. I've got my old wand still."
Harry reached into his satchel and pulled out his broom. He removed the shrinking charm and the broom grew to its normal size, relative to the bonded shrinking potion. Realizing Sirius was going to have to ride with him, he shifted his satchel from off his back hip to hanging over his belly and in his lap. "You're in back."
Sirius shifted his bottomless bag that he felt was a terribly improper receptacle for plunder and booty. He swung his leg over the bristles and slipped in behind Harry. He scooted forward and wrapped his arms around Harry's abdomen.
Harry felt as awkward as Sirius, judging from the squirming and frequent shifting they were both doing. Harry took off through the small gap between the thick area ward and the ground. He was flying low, swerving around obstacles in their path, ignoring the fidgeting of the man with his arms around him.
"Don't you think maybe I should do some of the driving?" Sirius shouted to the side of Harry's ear. "Or all of it?"
"No."
"Are you sure? Maybe we should try me up front."
"There are two ways to fly here, Padfoot," Harry explained. "This is one of them."
"How about we try the other way?"
Harry thought Sirius would have known better than to suggest that, but called up a couple magical arms. They quickly lifted Sirius off the broom and inverted him, leaving him hanging in the air by his ankles as Harry continued pushing the broom at near top speed.
"Point taken," Sirius yelled out, tucking his hands under his arms so they wouldn't drag below.
Harry set Sirius back onto the broom behind him and felt his godfather scoot closer. The sweat on their bodies made a distasteful smacking sound when Sirius nudged forward one last time.
Sirius made a mental note to never forget his broom again.
Harry made a mental note to always pack two brooms.
Finally they arrived at the end of the large full ward hanging over their heads and were presented with a watery red ward on the front door. Just as Harry had expected, the area ward didn't spread inside the house, which meant once they were inside, they'd be home free.
"I don't think I've ever seen one like this," Sirius commented.
"Me neither."
"Is that bad?"
"Nope. Because I think I know what it is. And I think we may just want to trip it."
Sirius merely looked at Harry rather than voice the obvious question.
"Follow the trail of magic and check the heat signature," Harry said. "I think this might be a house elf ward. And that it may not be tied to anything that the Parkinson's would know about."
Sirius agreed with Harry's assessment but had to add, "You're such a nerd."
"Let's trip it, cancel our shrinking charms, and I'll get the elf from behind." Harry explained. He raised a hand to halt Sirius' snickers. "And yes I realize what I just said."
"How about this: I'll transform just as we get across and you toss the antidote to the shrinking potion in my mouth. Dogs and their dirt are practically mortal enemies of some house elves. I'll lead it away and then right back to you, where you're ready to, you know, get it from behind."
Harry agreed and quickly flew them across the shimmering red ward in a gap near the doorjamb. With a quick pop a house elf appeared looking around in confusion. Before it could look down and see them, the rapidly expanding form of Padfoot was grinning stupidly at the elf. The dog was more than twice the size of the elf and barked loudly. Sirius took off out of the foyer towards the sitting room on the right.
The house elf made a sound not unlike a squee and sprinted after the wayward dog. "No doggie, that's a bad doggie!"
Harry packed his broom away and drank his own dose of counter to the shrinking potion.
"Slow down doggie!" the elf was shrieking from the other room in between the sounds of crashes and barks.
Harry positioned himself by the doorway as he heard Sirius coming back this way. The mutt came barreling into the foyer with the elf scrambling to keep up. Harry stunned the elf from behind before it had even turned around or noticed his presence in the room.
Sirius popped back into place feeling sufficiently pleased that he got to run around and break stuff that wasn't his. He had his bottomless bag ready. "Shall we?"
"Split up and take anything that catches your eye," Harry said. "Meet back here in ten to fifteen minutes."
The two just smiled at each other, standing there calmly. Then without a word, they both sprinted off in opposite directions to see just how bottomless their bags really were.
Harry grabbed just about anything that wasn't nailed down. All portraits they found they magically locked to their frames and took with them, whether there was anyone in the picture or not. Silverware, vases, magical items, the few bookshelves that passed for a library, anything worthwhile was grabbed by an invisible magical arm and stored down into his satchel.
Sets of furniture were shrunken, just about anything on display, was claimed. Harry was clearing out the Baroness's closet—making sure to leave the skimpy negligee behind—when he heard Sirius' loud voice echoing from a Sonorus charm.
"You might want to check this out."
Harry finished grabbing everything around him and hurried towards his godfather's voice.
"What do you got?" Harry said as he saw Sirius was stopped in front of a blank section of wall.
"There's a room here loaded with wards," Sirius explained, turning towards Harry. "You think we got time to get in there?"
Harry switched to a different magical sight spell and rocked back at the sheer volume of wards. "There's something in there that's completely isolated from all the magic out here. Those wards aren't letting anything ambient out." Harry glanced closer towards the anchor point. "Excellent! There's an animagus ward over the whole bunch."
"Why's that excellent?"
"Because an animagus ward is a degrading ward. It weakens all the others in a set, and that's why it's usually only added on when animagi can easily bypass the others. So a lot of times, we can just flood that one, get you on the inside, and you can put up a deflection net."
"Oh," Sirius said realizing that made a lot of sense and remarkably he had followed all of Harry's explanation.
"We had Professor McGonagall help us out a couple times when we knew it'd be easy for an animagus to get through a ward set."
"Why didn't any of you just become animagi?"
Harry sighed. "I've tried. I still try on occasion but I've struggled. Hermione said she was going to wait until she was done having children. She claimed it wasn't worth the risk. Whatever."
Harry saw where the animagus ward linked and he began to flood the ward with power. He poured more and more magic into it, and the wall flickered a large white rectangle.
Sirius transformed into his dog form and walked straight through the wall in a manner not dissimilar from the way wizards reach platform nine and three-quarters. Once he was through, Harry heard Sirius' voice clearly and stopped the flood of magic into the animagus ward.
"Sweet Merlin! You're never gonna believe this."
Harry pouted. "Deflection net, please?"
"Of all the things I thought I might see tonight."
Harry watched the magic flicker before suddenly he could see the soft gray glow of his godfather and the wards were bound in a bright yellow deflection net. Harry walked right through the illusionary doorway and saw Sirius just staring at the far wall in shock and awe.
Harry turned his head to see and gasped in surprise. "Oh my god."
"You think Voldemort knows?" Sirius asked Harry curiously.
"I'm kinda doubting it," Harry said looking around the hidden room, cataloging everything they had to make sure to take with them. "Sirius, do you even know what this is?"
Sirius jaw was still hanging open as he nodded. "It's a bloody huge muggle home entertainment center."
"No Sirius," Harry corrected with a ecstatic smile. "This is OUR bloody huge muggle home entertainment center."
Sirius felt all warm inside just hearing those words.
"We're going to have to shrink it, but let's try not to do any extraneous magic we don't have to on this stuff. You start working on the speakers over there. I'll work on the TV."
"That's a TV?" Sirius shrieked loudly.
Harry nodded.
Sirius stopped and calmed. "I had no idea they grew that big."
The electronics, the titles of music and movies, and even the shelves they rested on were all getting packed and stuffed into the bottomless bags.
Sirius was unplugging all the cables that were easily removed and gently shrunk down the massive speakers lining the room. "You know, I'm not really sure what all this is," Sirius paused and thought about his words carefully. "But it's big and I want it."
Harry chuckled. "It sounds like you know enough. Now come on. Let's finish all this up and get out of here. We've still got to go back through all the wards, including shrinking and flying again."
"I grabbed a bunch of brooms," Sirius announced showing off the one he'd stashed shrunken in his pocket.
They finished packing up everything, and upon exiting the room realized the solid warding job was to keep the magic out of this room, not to keep magic in the room from being detected.
Harry obliviated the house elf, despite the fact that it only had seen Sirius' animagus form. He placed the elf under a healthy sleeping spell and stuffed it into the closet by the front door. Sirius rubbed a salve into the restored broom. He pointed out he could rub quicker when he didn't hear Harry complaining that Sirius should've done this to his own broom and saved them both some time.
Just as they were about to leave, Sirius spoke up with one last request.
"I've figured out our calling card."
"Our what?"
"Our calling card. Something to mark this as the work of…" Sirius paused and added with a flourish, "the Death Eater Bandits."
"The what whats? Are you kidding me?"
"Okay we both know the pattern in robberies is going to be exceedingly obvious, so I figure let's give them a little something to think about when they're begging their Master for mercy, right? And stop looking at me like that. I know you've been thinking about it too."
Harry bit his tongue and decided now wasn't the ideal time to suggest Padamus Da Grim and the Sundance Kid. "We need to get going. If you want to leave a calling card, it's fine by me. Just hurry."
Sirius lifted a hand up and began to work on a complex illusion he'd be working on. With a final snap the illusion was locked and set into place.
"You're a sick man, Padfoot."
Sirius snickered. "Try and dispel it."
Harry walked around the three dimensional bright green glowing illusion. At first glance it was the Dark Mark with a green serpent flowing through a skull. Harry was quite familiar with the Mark and spotted the difference right away. It was not the head of a snake topping the end of serpent in the skull's mouth but a thick, green, veiny dildo.
Harry reluctantly sent a standard finishing spell at the illusion. It didn't dispel the magic as intended, but rather the illusionary dildo began to vibrate and a humming sound filled the entryway.
Sirius was tittering happily. "It'll do that every time."
"This?" Harry questioned trying to keep the amusement off his face. "This is why you were too lazy to prepare your broom or read that book on wards I gave you?"
"Well worth the investment of my time," Sirius grinned. "We're leaving this thing at every house we hit."
"Let's get out of here before you start making fart jokes," Harry said pouring three drops of shrinking potion onto his tongue.
Sirius made sure the illusion was satisfactory and took three drops of his shrinking potion. He reached into his pocket and pulled out the shrunken freshly appropriated and salve-covered broom. Before heading into the wards, he crossed his fingers and un-shrunk the broom. Sirius breathed a sigh of relief when it expanded to be normal-sized relative to Sirius and he quickly mounted the broom. Harry led Sirius back across the ward that would be ignored by the sleeping elf and speeding towards their exit.
They doubled there way back through all the wards again. Harry picked up the ash wand he'd been forced to temporarily leave behind and the pair took another antidote to their shrinking potions. Once they were safely at the crest of the hill in back of the manor, they apparated away.
It was another two hours before the Parkinsons arrived home and discovered the state of their manor. Baron Stephen Parkinson's fierce anger over the situation was only rivaled by his confusion. The Mark still floating in their entryway was perplexing enough. But he simply couldn't understand why someone would steal all of their toiletries, even his wife's, but leave behind his completely jinx-free toothbrush.