Ch. 7: Nightlife
'You shouldn't glare at students like that, Raven,' Break said in a light tone when the footsteps of Harry "The Boy Who Lived" Potter faded down the other end of the corridor. How in the world would that damned, blind man know whether or not he was glaring?
'I am not glaring,' Gilbert replied, stopping as he reached his partner. 'Just making sure that we have been seen in the castle before we leave,' he added.
Ever since the beginning of the school year, Break and Gilbert took to sleeping during the day and working during the night. For one, all the attacks they suspected to be committed with the help of Chains have occurred at night. If they hoped to catch the Illegal Contractors red-handed, they would have to also move at night. If they hoped to catch the Chains, full stop, they needed to be there when the Chains were out.
Secondly, the teachers were patrolling the corridors at night, occasionally meeting with strangers from something called the Order of the Phoenix, chatting between themselves. Hiding in the shadows, unnoticed by the wizards, Break and Gilbert could hear plenty of information that would otherwise be inaccessible: the happenings in the Ministry, the details about the Order and the attacks that were not made public knowledge and, finally, the teachers' suspicions and thoughts on the guests from the Dukedoms.
Thirdly, the corridors were abandoned, with the exception of teacher patrols, which were easy enough to avoid, giving them freedom to move about the castle undetected, as well as leave and arrive unnoticed. The wizards believed that nobody would sneak in or out of the castle, thus, if they did it unseen, nobody would suspect them of being in London, for example, when somebody would get shot dead or sliced in half. Not to mention that they didn't let anybody see neither Gilbert's gun nor Break's sword.
To further strengthen their alibi, and prevent people from thinking that they were weirdly absent as bodyguards, they took care to show up at random times during the day. Mostly in the morning and in the evening when they were back or haven't yet left, a couple of times waking up in the middle of the day to be seen around lunch time.
'Are we ready to go?' Gilbert asked, double-checking that his gun was loaded and the spare bullets were secured in his pocket.
'I've set up some sort of alarm spell that will call us back immediately, should something bad happen here,' Break answered as his hand rested on his faithful sword. They have spent loads of time, in the beginning, reading through the books that Reim checked out of the library for "his own study of the fascinating magic". Or, Reim and Gilbert were reading, while Break only annoyed them and demanded to be told the important bits.
'If you're sure that you did it properly,' Gilbert muttered, clearly pleased by annoying Break, reminding him that for once he wasn't the most competent in the group. He supposed it was a childish come-back for their relations when he was younger.
'Don't you have anything useful to say?' the white-haired man asked with an irritated tone and Gilbert knew that he struck a chord, since the man would otherwise pretend to be unperturbed. Or he would be unperturbed. For all that Gilbert knew there was not much that disturbed the Hatter.
'Let's get out of the wards before I call Raven,' Gilbert replied, getting back to business. 'I'm not sure if the wards would sense anything, but there's no point in risking it,' he added. Previously, they only went to the close-by wizarding villages, so they could walk, but tonight their destination was London. The Chains have killed one person too many and Owl came with the message from Pandora that this had to stop.
'The wards should sense any offensive use of magic and transportation is not such,' Break argued as they made their way down the abandoned corridor.
'The wards are supposed to make Apparition impossible,' Gilbert countered. 'And I think that using Raven to get to London is close enough to Apparating,' he added. Without further comments, they made their way out of the castle and across the grounds, towards the Forbidden Forest, where they knew the border of the warded land was.
The wards tickled Gilbert's skin as he walked through them, Break following a minute later, to not trigger the thing. An image of Raven stretching its wings crossed his mind and he wondered if his Chain didn't like the wards. He wouldn't blame it, because the wards made his skin crawl sometimes. He wondered if Leo felt the same.
'Are you waiting for an invitation?' Break asked with some annoyance. With a glare at the white-haired man, Gilbert called Raven and the forest disappeared from their view, hidden by a black whirlwind. When the whirlwind cleared, they were in London. Or so Gilbert assumed, since he had asked Raven to take them to London.
They were in an abandoned alley that lacked light in comparison with the bigger street they could see a couple of meters in front. As far as Gilbert could see, there was nobody in sight and nobody witnessed their appearance. Without a word, they left the alley.
'I wish we had better information about the area where the Chains are active,' Break muttered as they joined the crowds on the street. 'Sounds like a busy place, we don't want to engage in a fight here.'
'Raven thinks there are Chains in proximity to here, so we might have to,' Gilbert replied, scanning the surroundings carefully, cursing as he saw a familiar face. Knowing that Break could not see the man, he explained that there was one of those who patrolled the corridors of the castle.
'A member of the Order of the Phoenix, eh?' Break muttered. 'We should be in the right place then, if it really is so that the Deatheaters are the contractors,' he added. They both cast a dissimulation spells at the same moment and Gilbert winced at the thought that they were thinking the same.
'Let's follow that man for the moment,' he suggested, knowing fully well that Break got the same idea. Profiting from the fact that the man was standing next to a coffee shop, he semi-led Break to stand almost next to him, ordering two coffees to take away.
'I don't like that we're in a middle of a Muggle street, Remus,' said a companion of the man they were going to tail. 'I almost hope that Kingsley was wrong and the Deatheaters will not show up to kill the Murreys,' she added. Gilbert risked a glance at her, wondering if the bright pink hair was a part of disguise.
'It will be alright, Tonks,' the man assured her. 'In an hour most of those Muggles will be gone anyway,' he added. Gilbert glanced at the coffee shop window, noticing that it was closing already. He went back to Break, who was standing nearby, pretending to read the newspaper from the stand.
'Are you going to buy it or not?' a rude voice asked just as Gilbert reached Break and handed him the coffee. The white-haired man grinned and said that he didn't see anything of interest, so he was not going to spend his precious money.
'Our excuse to wait with those two might not be good enough,' Gilbert muttered, careful to face away from "Remus" and "Tonks", just in case they would feel like reading lips. 'According to the man this street should become pretty much deserted, so we will stand out and the coffee shop is closing.'
'Isn't there a restaurant just next to it?' Break asked carelessly. 'Let's have a dinner outside and enjoy the spectacle,' he added. Gilbert eyed the restaurant doubtfully. There were a couple of empty tables in the part that was semi open to the street and most of the people sitting there seemed to be decent.
'It will not hurt to have a dinner,' he muttered. 'But it's a Chinese restaurant, so don't complain afterwards that there are no worthwhile desserts,' he warned, knowing full well that Break mostly cared about the sweets.
The waitress sat them next to a couple and left them with the menus, promising to be back in a moment to take their order. Break didn't even pretend to read the menu and Gilbert only bothered to tell him what the desserts were. When the waitress was back, he ordered the first dish on the menu, while Break requested three portions of brownies and two pieces of cheesecake.
'You could be at least a bit discreet,' Gilbert hissed, noticing a dark-clad man glaring at them from the table behind Break. He ignored Break's reply and whispered that there was a guy who wouldn't stop glaring.
'Does he look like the person we're waiting for?' Break asked, hand reaching for the sword. No sooner than he spoke those words, the man rose from his chair and made their way towards them, not quite inconspicuously. Break stiffened.
'I recognise a crappy disillusionment charm when I see one,' the man rasped in a low tone. 'Are you kids with the Order maybe?'
'Whatever it is that you are digging into my ribs is really unnecessary,' Break replied calmly, even as Gilbert's hand moved to grab his gun. 'We are just here to have a dinner and we much more prefer chaos to order,' he added.
'I'm not in mood for jokes,' the man hissed, leaning closer to Break, whose red eye widened momentarily.
'He stinks of Chains,' the Hatter said tonelessly and the man behind him recoiled. At least they got what they came for, Gilbert mused, quickly glancing around the restaurant. There was no way he could blow the man's head away here and not create a great commotion.
'That is a nice coincidence,' he said, making a move to get up. Break hissed, probably as the wand was further pressed against his back.
'Don't move or I'll hex your partner into next week,' the man threatened, hardly seeming to care that they were starting to attract attention of the other customers in the restaurant.
'Partner?' Break asked mockingly, however, before he managed to say anything more, the man called Remus arrived with the woman called Tonks right behind him.
'Is that man bothering you, sirs?' Remus asked with fake politeness. The man cursed and flung his arm into Remus' face, before darting out of the restaurant, tripping tables behind him.
Cursing, Gilbert and Break ran after him, jumping over the tables. Gilbert could hear Remus yell behind them, but he couldn't care less. They were definitely not going to let that contractor escape.
The contractor ran into a smaller alley, looking behind and shooting light out of his wand. Gilbert dodged, not bothering to see what damage the light did behind him, even when somebody shouted out in pain. When he turned into the alley he was met by an unwelcomed but not surprising sight: a Chain.
'You know, playing with toys like that is dangerous,' said Break, who arrived in the alley right after Gilbert and must have sensed the Chain out. 'How is the seal on your chest, hm?'
'I don't know what you're talking about,' the man yelled while the Chain behind him wailed angrily. 'Whoever you are, you're as stupid as you are dead. You should have run when that idiot saved your asses.'
'How many contractors are there here?' Break demanded instead of acknowledging the threat. Gilbert aimed the gun at the beast and shot. The beast wailed, recoiling as it was hit, while the man staggered back. He felt the pain of his Chain, so there was not much time left for him anyway. Did he know that?
'Ah, I see that the needle has almost completed its turn,' Break commented and Gilbert could hear the smile in his voice. Panting, the man looked up at the two of them, murderous intent glinting in his eyes.
'Stand back,' yelled the man called Remus somewhere behind Gilbert. They ignored him for the moment.
'There are enough of us to wipe clean the Order of the Phoenix and assure the Dark Lord's victory this time,' the contractor promised. Hardly helpful, Gilbert thought and, as Break ran towards the guy, he aimed at the Chain's head. Just as Break decapitated the man, Gilbert shot the Chain.
'What the hell did you do?' Remus yelled again as Break ran away from the Chain and contractor who were melting into the asphalt, accompanied by purple light. Putting away his gun, hoping that the dissimulation charm was still in place, Gilbert turned to the man who was looking at him and Break with wide eyes and a wand pointed at his chest. The woman behind him had her wand pointed at Break's chest.
'Helped you clean up,' Break replied smoothly. 'Let's get out of here,' he added and Gilbert called Raven to take them to another place where they might find a Chain. They were hardly done and the night was young. If they could get rid of all the Chains fast they would maybe not have to stay in Scotland for the whole year.
'Stop this, we need to talk,' Remus yelled as black whirlwind emerged from the asphalt around Gilbert and Break. 'We have the same enemy, we can unite.'
'Keep away from those things if you know what's best for you,' Gilbert replied coldly before the black whirlwind engulfed him and Break completely.