Chapter 3
"I got a feeling." she mumbled.
Kathryn's eyes widened slightly. "No way."
"What?" blinked Nathan feeling uneasy noticing that they were being watched.
Charlie was now starting to notice shadowy figures sneaking around the corners. "i think we should keep moving" she mumbled under her breath.
Nathan moved closer to them, "now please" he mumbled.
Charlie started off to lead them away, a few shadow figures stood in her away. But She had no trouble pushing past them to find their way out of knockturn alley. Kathryn gave them a slightly annoyed look as she pushed past too.
"Whoa there little darlings." Started one nasty fellow.
"Fuck off," Kathryn stated, giving him a bored look.
He reached out to Charlie who responded quickly grabbing him by the wrist and before he realized she turned and flipped him on his back to the ground. Another reached into his cloak pocket, no doubt reaching for his wand considering what world they were in.
Kathryn smirked. "Try it, and see what happens."
Charlie painful twisted the one man's wrist causing him to cry out, "Let 'em go!"
"You heard the man" said Nathan to those that had surrounded them. They slowly backed away clearing a path for them.
Charlie let go following up the team as they cleared out of knockturn alley straight a completely different brighter area that was diagon alley.
"Can someone please tell me what's going on?" asked Nathan.
"You haven't figured it out yet?" asked Charlie, "It's the wizarding world of Harry potter." she whispered to him.
He looked between the two of them in disbelief, "Dear lord, you've got to be kidding me"
"... Yes nathan, we're kidding, and those men wanted to give you pretzels and hugs," Kathryn muttered sarcastically.
"Well, they could've been part of the British mafia." he whined. Charlie looked around at the colorful shops but there was a lingering dread in the air.
"Right mafia." Kathryn shook her head. "Get your head together Nathan."
"Right, right, but I don't know if you two noticed..." he leaned, "We aren't really wizards. And we don't have any money that they'll take or, or a place to sleep." he continued.
Charlie looked at him, "That's the point of bringing these bags with us and the point of being what we are." she whispered back, "and we do use some magic, just not the same methods, so calm down and keep it together."
Nathan nodded, "sorry...i just never read the books."
Kathryn raised an eyebrow. "How did you not read them?"
"I wasn't interested... like you and star wars." he replied.
Kathryn sighed shaking her head.
"It's ok, Kathryn and I have more than enough knowledge about it." said Charlie.
"Okay then... where do we start?" asked Nathan.
Charlie looked at Kathryn, "The Leaky Cauldron?"
"Yes, I believe that would be the best place to start."
They continued down the alley way that seemed like a nice dream that went wrong. "Where is everyone?" asked Nathan.
They walked by a window plastered with wanted posters of death eaters that were on the lose, "I think i have an idea." mumbled Charlie pausing in the street to pick up a tossed gutter page of the Daily Prophet. She read quietly to herself and noticed the date.
"What's wrong?" asked Charlie's grim face.
Charlie handed the dirty page to Kathryn, "It would seem we are right after the events of the triwizard tortament."
Nathan glanced at the date, "1995?"
"Yes, and that means lots of idiotic moves made this year," Kathryn mumbled.
"Fudge is still in office." continued Charlie.
"And Molderwart is out and about." mumbled Kathryn.
"Who?" asked Nathan who was completely confused.
Charlie looked around, "We should head in doors. And let us hope those guys weren't apart of you know what." she added.
"Our luck, they probably are," muttered Kathryn, leading the way to the leaky cauldron.
"We do have terrible luck." Said Charlie as she started to pull off the boards to a closed off shop.
"What are you doing?" asked Nathan.
"We need a place to hide for the moment" she finally got the door free to open, "Right now we can't trust people and the Cauldron, they might give us away."
She peeked in side and they entered, "Kathryn move quickly and secure areas where someone could break in. I'll look around this shop for anything we can use."
"What about me?" asked nathan.
"you have the camping gear, set up a tent in one of the back rooms." said Charlie.
Kathryn gave a nod, seeming to disappear even as her after-shadow nodded, moving around the building to secure it. Charlie noticed some of the papers lying about, "Wiseacre's Wizarding Equipment... might be something useful." She came to a closet that caught her attention, when she tried to open the door, she found it was locked. Refusing to use her crystal she started looking around the counter for a key.
While not finding the key she did open the register and found strange coins inside that could only be gold Galleons and a fair amount of sickles and bronze knuts. She collected them in a pouch to be used if needed, then continued her search. Finally giving up on the key she tried to pick the lock with a piece of wire unaware that Kathryn was finished.
"If you like, I can open that." Stated Kathryn.
Charlie stopped and looked at her, "please."
Kathryn moved over and swiftly picked the lock on the counter, smirking as she opened for them easily. "There you go."
They opened the closet to find two dust covered booms, Charlie looked at Kathryn, "Maybe our luck isn't so bad."
"No, not at all." Smiled Kathryn.
Charlie turned slightly seeing what little sun light shining through the boarded window was fading. "Looks like we'll find out soon enough, its almost night fall."
…...
Tucked away in one of the back rooms the three sat unable to rest.
Nathan finally broke the still silence with a whisper, "So what do we do tomorrow?"
Charlie sighed, "I can think of one person who we can really trust and who would believe us... the problem is reaching him."
"Couldn't you use an owl?" asked Nathan.
kathryn and Charlie looked at him, "I thought you didn't read the books?"
"Please," he sighed, "I heard enough of it between the two of you to know something's of it."
"That might work... if we had an owl." Charlie finished rubbing her up arms with her hands feeling suddenly cold. Her eyes widen as she slowly peeked down the hallway to look at the window at the front of the shop, hoping she was wrong. But she gulped when frost quickly covered the glass. "Kathryn." she whispered.
Kathryn nodded. "I know," she murmured. "We can't get out now. We'll have to find an owl tomorrow, provided they don't come in here, we'll be fine."
Nathan looked between them, "What... what's wrong" he was almost too scared to ask.
Charlie held her finger up to her lips warning him. The room grew colder making Nathan carefully crawl up next to them. Soon it was over and the chill was gone, Charlie breathed a sigh of relief, "forgot about dementors."
Nathan looked between them and sighed walking away knowing they weren't going to explain. He curled up in his sleeping bag and turned away from them to try and sleep.
"No way to really figure out who sent them." mumbled Charlie.
"No, and it will be difficult to prove that they were sent after us or if they're just patrolling. We need wands." Kathryn added.
"i found some money, we could go to Olivanders in the morning... Will need a good cover story..." she thought, "I guess that we are visiting the area and we need new ones, that ours broke." she yawned.
Before Kathryn could voice her opinion that Charlie should sleep, Charlie unhealthy knocked out. Kathryn sighed and shook her head. It was going to be a long night.