Chapter Eleven

Authors note: Thank you to everyone who has read or reviewed my work, It really means a lot to me. However I am no longer able to post a new chapter everyday. I will try to post one every Friday and a few extra ones when I can. Sorry to break my chain of 'different day different chapter', but its just a lot to do when I have to write and edit something halfway decent each day and balance school work too. Sorry again but on with the story...

This piece of wisdom Ava then clung on to for the next few days, it helped to keep her going.

However hopeful Ava was, that hope was never capable of hiding her frustration and anger at the dead ends she constantly seemed to find herself at. Her anger was starting to affect the others; she was becoming short tempered with her friends. They all thought themselves lucky James' parents had given the teenagers some distance over their say. Ava was going no where with all the bits of scrap newspaper articles and useless conversation they and listened in on. Thankfully her mood was lifted, when James and Sirius had came home on her third night at the Potters house.

The two boys spent the entire day investigating leads up in The Hogs Head Inn at Hogsmeade. The bar at the Hog's Head is one small, very dirty, and dingy room that has bay windows that are so encrusted with filth that you can barely see through them. The stone floor of the place is so dirty that it looks as though there is not a floor at all, but instead that the building is simply built on open ground. The pub was run by an old man with bright blue eyes. The boys spent hours in there in various disguises and under the Invisibility cloak listening to the few strange customers the pub had. Lucky enough they were able to over hear a conversation worth all their troubles between two men late one evening.

Other than the disguised James in the opposite corner these two men were the only visible others in the pub. They sat huddled together and spoke in whispers. The men were quite the opposites of each other. One man was small, bold and ugly. The other was very tall and seemed to have more than enough hair that the small bold man could use some to make a wig and fake beard and the tall man would still have a full head of hair. Sirius was stood beside them under the Invisibility cloak barely breathing in fear of what they might do if they were to find him. Their conversation went as the following:
"They're getting too bold. The ministry gon 'ave to do something about them if they keep going like this." The bold man said in hushed tones, waving his hands around and then spat on the floor.
"That's what the want aint it?. To be talked 'bout, feared. That and power." Replied the tall man whom had an extremely deep voice.
"I know that stupid! But they're snatchin' up muggles now. I know where they're hiding them too! S'not all that 'ard to find them either. I could turn 'em in an be a hero." The small bald man said proudly and smugly.
"You aint the only one either. I know too. I got's the mark too. He tells me just the same as you. You'd be dead before you even tried!" The large hairy argued back.
"They wouldn't be able to. Where they to then dung head?" The short man spoke with a look of superiority. That was wiped quickly off by his companions reply.
"South of the Moors. In a little cottage. All on its own. No one 'round for miles. I aint so stupid to try to rat on them, they got people ever where" The hairy man fired back and looked at James accusingly as if he were one of these 'people', neither realising what information that was just given away. The bold man then glared at him and went back to drinking his fire whiskey.

Sirius took this as his clue to leave. He walked toward James knocked his knee- which was their signal if they had to tell one another something- and quickly left the bar. Outside the bar Sirius filled James in all he found out. They both knew that they didn't have all the pieces to their puzzle. They hadn't understood all that was shared and that Ava's family might not be there. But this was more information then they had at the beginning of their man hunt. So they both agreed that the girls needed to know this. They rushed back to the house to fill in the two Gryffindor girls all they had learnt.