Ok mainly explaining dialogue in this chapter but hopefully it should be getting intresting.
Disclaimer: I had a dream once that I owned Harry Potter but I don't think that counts. I don't own Harry Potter in reality.
Sage landed hard on a grassy hill over looking a town. He had no idea where he was, only that he had missed his target by, well, a long way. He wasn't actually legally allowed to apparate, having not passed his test and wasn't exactly brilliant at it, he was relieved to be in one piece. That was another law broken.
It didn't matter now though. He'd escaped the Auror and for the time being was safe.
The squib girl was sat, curled in a ball on the grass still shaking, although now quite violently and was beginning to let out short quiet sobs.
Realising he was also still shaking and a cold sweat had set over him; he sat down next to her and put his arm around her. She didn't seem to notice, staring blankly at the lights of the nearby town. It wasn't cold despite it being early morning and them being sat upon a hill. It was a particularly warm August.
The two of them sat there for a while, not speaking and as if they knew each other well before finally the girl spoke.
"You're not a Death Eater" she whispered to him as if she didn't want to be overheard.
"Really", he whispered back "how do you know?"
She turned to look at him, a silent tear rolled down her cheek; he didn't think less of her for crying, he'd done his fair share in the previous few days.
"Death Eaters disapparate of to some far of country to meet with You Know Who, they don't break into muggle's houses in south London for food, they don't throw water and disarming spells at Aurors instead of killing curses, they don't stop useless squibs from being arrested, you're what… sixteen, seventeen and you're as scared as I am. Oh and Death Eaters don't put their arms around people to comfort them."
Sage took his arm from her shoulder
"Oh sorry and …uh…thank you" he replied fully aware that only a little while ago they were both prepared to hurt the other.
"So what exactly has been happening?" she replied still whispering.
"Well, I was just enjoying the holidays, when suddenly an owl flew into my bedroom and dropped a letter telling me to stay where I was and await arrest for being a suspected Death Eater, next thing I knew there were five bloody Aurors bashing down the front door so I grabbed the nearest clothes" he indicated his school shirt and jeans "and a few Galleons and disapparated"
"You ran away!" she exclaimed
"Yeah but even if there aren't any dementors there any more I'm not going to Azkaban" Sage replied defensively.
"But didn't you're parents…" she started
"Parents?" Sage interrupted "oh I'm an orphan and the orphanage always thought I was weird they never understood the idea of magic"
"Ok, but then what happened, after you left the orphanage that is?"
"I had to lay low for a few days but I couldn't go anywhere where my galleons were an actual currency, that's why I broke into your house…sorry about that anyway."
"So you didn't break into my house because you knew who I was?" the girl asked, she had stopped crying and shaking now but he could still see the tear stains on her cheeks illuminated by the moon. Sage realised that he didn't know who she was at all. He didn't even know her name.
"Uh…who are you?" he asked in reply
"Oh my name is Katie; call me Kate" she said, "my mother works at the ministry, in the Department of Mysteries"
"Oh I see my names Sage"
"Isn't that a girl's name!" Katie replied.
Sage groaned wondering how many times had he heard that before. Back at Hogwarts his name had something of an ongoing joke, especially in Herbology lessons. Students could be so immature! Just think about Hogwarts brought a sudden tear to Sage's eye. No don't think about that, not now, you can't go falling apart now, come on! Anyway he thought looking up it seemed to have brought a slight smile to Katie's face. There was another long silence. They both sat staring at the town and it's matrix of lights.
"So what are we going to do now?" Katie asked.
"We?" said Sage looking up at her.
"Yes we, the Auror thought I was an accomplice didn't he and you pulled me out of his way because of it, right" she said rather bossily "so we've got to clear you're name, besides two heads are better than one right even if I am just a squib."
Sage thought he heard a note of self pity in that last remark but didn't mention it.
"Uh...yeah, I suppose the first thing we should do is wait for a daily prophet, there's bound to be something about me somewhere in there, it might give us a lead" Sage said
"Might be something in it, Sage you've been on the cover for three days running!" Katie exclaimed
"What!?" replied Sage open mouthed. How did he attract so much attention?
"You didn't know? Sage, you're supposed to have murdered three ministry workers!"
"You have got be joking" he replied horrified
How did that happen? He looked at Katie dumbly hoping that she would start laughing but she didn't. No wonder he had Aurors after him.
"I've been set up" he said almost choking on the words.
"But who would do that and why?" Katie asked staring at him.
"I… I…I don't know" he stammered.
Indeed who would set up an insignificant Gryffindor student and what reason could they possible have for doing so. He was silent for a long while, the fear flooded his mind and he could think of nothing else but questioning who, why and how.
"So we wait 'till morning and find a Daily Prophet then?" Katie asked after ten minutes, breaking the silence.
Sage looked up at her again and instantly the fear dissolved, he had a friend and they were going to get to the bottom of this. That was enough for now.
"Yeah I suppose" He said and then with a tone more cheery than he felt added" Good ol' Harry will be writing in to complain that he isn't on the front page"
"You know Harry Potter?!" Katie breathed in the star struck fashion females did when they heard his name
"Yeah we share a common room, he's a friend" Sage replied awaiting the inevitable onslaught of questions
"What's he like?" she asked eagerly
"Well…" Sage began.
Sage only had to look at the first paragraph of the Prophet to find his lead the next day. Getting a copy had been surprisingly easy, he had simply apparated near to Hogsmeade (after several attempts) and had used a summoning charm on one of the carrier owl's papers (the owl had not liked being pulled along with it however and Sage now had several beak wounds on his arm) and then apparated back out again.
He and Katie were now in the middle of another town having landed in the centre of a housing estate. The front page of the paper was, as Katie had said it would be, covered with their faces with the headline in bold "MINISTRY WORKER'S DAUGHTER HELPS STUDENT DEATH EATER". They both reserved their emotions and read the article as if it were a set of clues. It read,
Last night there was another incident involving the Ex-Hogwarts-Student-turned-Death-Eater Sage Valentine, in which, shockingly, a currently unnamed Auror detected a use of magic by the boy and upon following up the lead found Ministry worker's daughter and Squib Katie Hill in meeting with the known murderer. The two then fled the scene together before the Auror was able to detain them.
Mr Valentine, Hogwarts student and unnervingly close friend to The Boy Who Lived, was seen last Wednesday by several eyewitnesses on Grimsfield road in central London indiscriminately using the killing curse on three individual Ministry workers who remain unnamed…
The Article continued to give a brief, vague outline of the nights events and then profiles and then there was a comment by the Minister of Magic himself and then the Head Auror and finally it discussed possible reasons for the two teenagers "turning bad".
"Well" said Sage "There's our lead, this Grimsfield road"
"What" Katie replied doubtfully" the scene of the crime, the place will be crawling with Aurors"
"I doubt it" Sage replied "why would they be there, it's a muggle street and besides we have no other leads. They would never have thought we'd be stupid enough to go to the scene of the crime!" He had a slight grin as he said the remark.
"I don't know Sage it…" Katie began
"Come on are you with me or not?" Sage said holding out his hand, the boyish grin still on his face. Katie hesitated for a moment before grinning in reply and taking his hand.
Thanks for reading. Reviews would be much appreciated.
Next Chapter- Sage and Katie visit Grimsfield to find some intresting leads and the odd bit of danger!