Chapter Two
Escape
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Crabbe and Goyle walked slowly down the hall. They exchanged slightly panicked looks as they neared the royal balcony and the two guards standing at the doors, looking bored. The two armor clad women perked up slightly when the saw the two coming toward them.
"Halt!" order the taller of the two guards, her hand resting threateningly on the hilt of her sword. They stopped as the guard stepped forward. "State your business."
"We need to speak to the king. It is an emergency," Goyle answered slowly. The guard scowled, but stepped aside and pulled the door behind her open.
"Give me a moment," she said sternly as she disappeared onto the balcony, the heavy door closing behind her. The shorter guard gazed at them, her hand resting on the hilt of her own sword. It was as if she was hoping they would try to force their way onto the royal balcony.
The taller guard returned, looking grim.
"He will see you, but make it quick. The king does no appreciate that you are interrupting the play, even if it is nearly over," she said, pulling the door open again and gesturing them through.
"What is it?" King Cornelius snapped as they approached the throne.
"Prince Remus has disappeared," Goyle answered.
"What?" the king stood up. "General Granger! Captain Weasley!"
Hermione snapped to attention, her hand still resting on her sword hilt. She smirked when she saw Weasley jump to attention, his armor creating a loud clamor as he straightened up, stepping toward the throne and saluting. She always thought he wore far too much armor.
"Yes, Your Majesty?" she asked smoothly, her brown eyes crinkled with laughter as Weasley glared at her from across the balcony, his helmet leaving only the upper part of his face visible.
"Yes, Your Majesty?" Ron asked. Cornelius waved both of them off as he paced behind his throne.
"Find my son immediately," the two knights gazed curiously at each other. King Cornelius looked furiously at them. "I do not have all night, move!"
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Severus cursed under his breath as he snuck onto the theatre ship. The two thieves had managed to disappear rather quickly. Like rats, the damn theatre brats were just common thieves. Resourceful ones though if he could navigate the maze-like layout of Gryffindor castle so easily, especially with the prince in tow. Severus moved carefully toward the door closest to him and pressed his ear to it, listening. He heard voices, muffled heavily through the oak door. He could hear a woman and a man speaking, but it was nearly impossible to disconcert what they were saying.
"Fuck!" the man was shouting obscenities and something slammed.
Severus just barely managed to make it out of the way as the door slammed open and the man that had taken Prince Remus strode angrily into the room. The pink haired thief followed him, her violet colored hair gathered into a complex bun at the base of her neck. She was wearing a dark red dress.
"Calm down, it's not like he could have gotten very far on the ship," the woman was saying as she followed him across the galley to the other door. Severus remained behind the door, listening.
"Dora, if he's seen by someone it's going to ruin everything! That little brat! This is why I hate jobs dealing with actual people!" the man yelled and he made a wild gesture as he pulled open the opposite door and stalked through it, the woman at his heels trying to placate him.
Severus followed quietly behind.
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Ron Weasley, captain of the Knights of Gryffindor and loyal protector of Prince Remus, moved carefully down the hall, his armor creaking and clanking enough to warn even the deafest of individuals. Hermione had gone the other way to check the city. She had of course taken the time to order Ron to look through the crowd.
He stepped out into the crowd. People pressed in around him from all angles as they hurried to leave the courtyard, laughing and speaking with great enthusiasm about the performance. Ron gazed over them, glad for his six foot six frame, as he surveyed faces for one he recognized.
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Remus stepped lightly out onto the backstage of the airships prow, glad for the chance to examine the stage where the performance had taken place. His blue eyes alight with interest as he examined a large pile of props; he was surprised to find that many of the weapons were real.
There was a particularly loud surge of conversation from beyond the curtain. Remus looked up from his examination. He stood slowly and moved toward the curtain. Just as he had pulled it back and gazed out onto the stage, a loud, rough voice spoke, "I would suggest Your Highness that you stepped back, unless you want me to knock you out," the prince turned to find his kidnapper standing next to him, a grave look upon his face.
"It would do you well not to speak to the heir of Gryffindor in such tones," Remus spat back, drawing his hand from the curtain and allowing it to fall back into place, plunging them into darkness.
"I'll speak to you how I wanna speak to you," Sirius almost grinned at the fire that flashed in the prince's eyes he turned to him.
"Y-you," Remus stammered for perhaps the first time in his life.
"So I can shut you up, good," Sirius said, examining his right hand in the dim light.
"You pretentious, low class mutt," Remus hissed. "I did not ask to be brought here. You are lucky I haven't called the palace guard to hang you."
Sirius's gray eyes flared angrily and before he could stop himself, there was a loud crack and the prince was thrown to the floor. Both men froze, Sirius staring at the prince in shock while Remus held his hand over his reddened cheek, head bowed so that the long brown strands hung into his eyes.
"Oh shit, oh shit, oh shit," Sirius repeated as he knelt down beside Remus.
"My apologies," the dark haired man blinked as the prince spoke.
"What?"
Remus cleared his throat and looked up, blue eyes brimming with tears as a nasty bruise began to shade the left side of his face.
"I apologize, I should not have said such a thing," for the briefest of moments, Sirius felt an overwhelming surge of affection toward the prince, but it was quickly ruined by a voice behind them. "I do not intend to turn you into the guards. I want to be kidnapped."
Sirius frowned.
"You want…" he decided not to push any more buttons for the moment. "Never mind. You want to be kidnapped. I'll do my best."
"I'm afraid that I'm that one that will kidnapping the prince," the two men looked up to find the black mage standing nearby gazing amusedly at them and holding a ball of softly glowing blue magic in his hands.
Before Sirius could stand, Severus threw the magic at him, striking him in the chest and knocking him backwards and into Remus' lap. The prince gazed uncertainly at him, eye wide with shock.
"What did you do to him?" he asked, pulling his legs out from under the thief and standing.
"Just a simple sleep spell, nothing permanent," Severus answered. "It rather simple, even a white mage like you could learn it."
Remus had just enough time to run as the black mage called up another wave of magic and sent it blasting toward him. He ducked out from behind the curtains and onto the stage just as the spell hit, sending him crashing to the stage.
Severus followed.
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Ron looked up at the stage just only to watch Prince Remus fall onto the stage, blue magic skating across his skin for a moment before dispersing. He could hear people in the crowd whispering about what had happened. Pushing his way through the crowd, he watched as a black-cloaked figure stalk through the curtains toward the unconscious prince. The knight gave a cry of alarm and shoved past an elderly couple watching the stage, wondering aloud if it was part of the performance. Behind him and high above in the balcony above, he could hear King Cornelius giving orders to nearby soldiers.
The mage smirked, "Do you really think you can stop me, Sir Knight," black eyes fell upon him as he climbed up the ramp and onto the airships stage.
Ron stepped forward, drawing his sword and holding it steadily before him as he stepped between the mage and the prince lying at the mage's feet.
"I will not allow you, or anyone else for that matter, harm the prince!" he yelled.
The mage's smirk deepened.
"You have no hope in stopping me," the temperature of the night air had been a nice seventy-five for most of night. Now it had dropped to nearly freezing as the mage lifted his hands into the air and made a quick motion. Ron looked down at his hands, covered by heavy steel gloves, as gazed in horror as a thin sheen of ice crept up his fingers.
With a cry, he flung his sword to the deck and struggled to remove the frozen items before it could spread further up his arms. Within the span of several minutes, he had managed to remove his gloves, armlets, chest plate, and helmet and stood panting in his undershirt and pants, short red hair clinging to the sides of his narrow face.
"Y-you will not take him," he managed, picking up his sword once more and advancing on the black mage.
"Weasley!" Prince Remus cried out in alarm as he woke up just as Ron swung his sword toward the mage.
Stepping easily out of the way, Severus watched in amusement as the knight missed and stumbled. The jolt woke up the thief lying behind the curtains and he appeared, daggers in both of his hands. One disadvantage to the sleep spell, there weren't any after effects.
"I shall cut you both down!" Ron yelled, turning on the thief as well.
"Not today," Sirius said, leaping gracefully out of the way of the blade. "It's two against one now," Sirius growled, brandishing his daggers threateningly.
"I will not give up!" Weasley struck out at the thief, this time catching him and leaving a deep slash across his upper arm.
Sirius hissed in pain, his hand going immediately to the wound.
Remus stood and joined the battle simply by lifting his arms and casting another spell. White lights wrapped around Sirius's arm, flushing through the wound and healing the flesh. The dark haired man looked down at his arm in surprise and than over at the prince.
"Wha-?"
"I am a white mage," the prince explained simply as he cast another spell upon the black mage, healing a nasty looking cut on his hand.
"Nice," Sirius said cheerfully and he rushed toward the knight, intent upon bringing him down.
Before he could strike, the airships engine roared to life and the gigantic contraption shuddered, throwing him to his knees. Dora must have gotten to Aberforth and told him what was going on. Clearly they were going to leave now. He heard screams from the people in the crowd that had lingered too long and were littered with falling brick as the anchors were ripped harshly from the stone courtyard and then the terrific mind shattering sound of a cannon firing.
Looking up in alarm, Sirus saw the terrific ball of flames coming directly toward them. Without thinking, he grabbed the prince's arm, slamming him down onto the deck and covered his body with his own just as the magical weapon hit the ship and exploded.
Debris fell upon the four in a rain of heated ash and wood, covering them, as the airship took off, very nearly crashing into a nearby building. With a stuttering delay, the airship finally managed to fly away from the castle. Remus struggled out from beneath Sirius and stood, gazing back at the balcony where his father stood, looking furious. He sighed and sat down on the deck again.
"We're going to crash," Severus said simply as he sat up and pressed a palm to a heavily bleeding head wound.
"I noticed," Sirius grumbled, getting to his feet.
The airship lurched again and he fell back onto his knees as the airship tilted and began to descend rapidly into the dark trees at the bottom of the cliff beyond the western walls of the royal city. The airship plunged into the trees of the Forbidden Forest with a loud crash, fires ignited in the engines catching the nearby trees. The four on the back of the ship were thrown off as it came to a crash in a clearing of its own making.
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Next Chapter: The Forbidden Forest leaves at least one of the group changed...
