Disclaimer, as per usual: Nothing you see here is mine.

Sorry if this chapter seems really disjointed and jumpy, but it's hard to link together characters who aren't even aware of each other.

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Chapter Fourteen: Ledge

The witch grasped her wand tightly, gazing out of the large window.

Happy thoughts... think happy thoughts.

'Expecto patronum!'

The silver sambar bounded through the open window and disappeared into the night.

-o-o-o-o-

Fang glanced around furtively. Once he was sure no one was looking, he landed, relatively out of sight. No one noticed, or if they did, didn't think much of it.

Lucky it's a new moon tonight, he thought. Not too much light around for people to see me.

Sure, there were streetlamps, but they couldn't illuminate every single inch of the place.

The gravel crunched beneath his feet as he made his way to the front door. He glanced over his shoulder quickly, a habit, just to make sure no one was following him. No one was there, so he knocked on the door, which was immediately opened, and he was whisked inside.

'Fang, it's great to see you again.' Brigid said, hugging him as she slammed the door shut with her foot.

'You too.' he replied and hugged her back. 'So what did you need?'

'Fang...' Brigid pulled away and locked gazes with him. 'You have to go.'

'What? I don't understand...'

'They're coming.' she whispered.

'Then why did you call me here?' Fang furrowed his brow. 'Was this a trap, Brigid?'

'No. They're not here for you. I need you to take a message. I need someone I can trust.'

He smiled slightly. 'I'm honoured.' he said. 'What's the message, and who to?'

Brigid pressed a folded piece of paper into his hand. In elegant script, it read William Mason. 'Promise me you won't read it.'

'I won't.' he said, frowning. 'Where will I find him?'

'You won't. There's a hotel not to far from here, the Hallowbrook Hotel.' Brigid told him. 'Daniella Chambers works there as a secretary. She'll be there on Friday night. Give it to her, she'll know what to do with it.'

'Okay.' Fang nodded.

'Do you have anywhere to stay?' she asked.

Fang considered the question. It took me two days to get here. I can't make it to Hogwarts and back before Friday. I guess I'm stuck.

'No,' he said. 'But I'm sure I can find somewhere.'

'It's okay. You can stay here. There's plenty of food in the kitchen, and there's a bedroom upstairs that you can use.'

He nodded.

'Thank you,' Brigid said, and hugged him again. 'I hope I'll see you again.'

Someone knocked on the door. Fang gazed questioningly at Brigid.

'You don't have to hide.' she said, throwing him a key. 'They don't care about you.'

He caught the key and ducked behind the wall anyway, peeking out to watch her answer the door.

'Dr. Dwyer.' the unseen man greeted.

'Hello.' Brigid replied, and stepped outside, shutting the door behind her.

She didn't come back.

-o-o-o-o-

'I don't get it,' Remus said, pacing back and forth in front of the fireplace. 'Where could they be?'

'I don't know!' James ran a hand through his hair, frustrated. 'They couldn't have gotten lost, Hogsmeade isn't that big!'

'What's going on?' Lily asked, yawning. 'Why are you still up? It's nearly three.'

Remus stopped pacing and turned to face her. 'Sirius, Peter and Max are missing.'

'What? What do you mean?' Lily's eyes widened. 'Are you sure?'

'Yeah, they didn't come back from Hogsmeade.' James confirmed.

'But... hasn't anyone noticed?' Lily wondered. 'We should tell McGonagall. Or Dumbledore.'

'They already know.' Remus told her. 'They've got people looking for them. Apparently three Slytherins disappeared as well.'

'Maybe they killed each other,' James laughed, trying to cover his worry with bad jokes. 'Maybe they got into a fight and now they're all dead.'

'That sounds like something Sirius would do.' Remus replied, taking a seat next to James.

Lily forced a smile. 'I'm sure they're fine. Relax.' She seemed to be trying to reassure herself as well as the two boys.

'I hope so.'

-o-o-o-o-

I was shoved roughly into an unfamiliar corridor. Chain link wire fences served as walls. The ceiling was too low for me to fly. I touched the metal, and wondered if I could break it.

'Try it.' Dr. O'Neill appeared to my right, safely on the other side of the fence.

'What do you want?' I growled, infuriated.

'What does it look like?' she gestured. 'This hallway is filled with various traps. I'd love to see how your hybrid brain manages them.'

No! my mind screamed. Not this again.

'Is this the best you could come up with?' I retorted.

'Is this the best you can do?' she shot my question straight back at me.

I started running. The hallway opened into a larger room, with large blades swooping across it. In the middle of the room was my wand.

There was really only one thing to do.

I leapt past the first blade and ducked as the second swung at me. I crawled forwards, then straightened up and jumped over a third blade. The fourth came too quickly for me to duck, so I dodged it awkwardly, not quite managing to pull away entirely. It nicked my arm, sending blood dribbling to the floor.

I dropped to the floor, crawling again, scrabbling desperately for my wand. It was the only hope I had.

My fingers hit wood, and I snagged it, drawing it towards me. Even though my magic was terrible at best, it was better than nothing at all.

'Reducto!' I screamed. It was the one of the three spells I was able to cast competently. My spell smashed through the blades as I cast it again and again until the room was empty. So much for her hallway full of traps. There was only one, and calling it a trap was like calling a piece of styrofoam a puppy.

I turned to see what Dr. O'Neill had to say about my undignified but ultimately successful acrobatics.

She wasn't there.

'Reducto!' I hurled the spell at the wire fencing partially in rage, and partially just to see if I could.

I could not. The spell disappeared right before hitting the fence.

'You can't break it. I reinforced it.' Dr. Vincent seemed to materialise out of the wall.

'How long have you been there?' I demanded. 'And what do you mean, "reinforced"?'

'Long enough.' he replied. 'And Dr. O'Neill had me put magical protections on the fence just to make sure no one could break out.'

'What's your deal?' I spat the question at him.

'Excuse me?' he raised an eyebrow.

'What are you doing here? What's your agenda?'

'Dr. O'Neill hired me to capture "magical beings". Once she heard that there was also a human-avian hybrid in the area, she decided to take you as well. '

'It was you who took us?'

'Yes. Originally, Dr. O'Neill sent her own agent to take you, but, as I had warned her, one muggle, even a protected one, couldn't hope to take six wizards. So I had to intervene to prevent the idiot from killing you all.'

'So, what?' I snarled defensively. 'You want me to thank you, or something?'

'I don't expect you to. I didn't exactly do you a favour, after all.' Dr. Vincent glanced away, looking almost sorrowful.

'Oh really?' I said sarcastically. 'I hadn't noticed.'

Dr. Vincent walked away without another word, so I stuck my tongue out at his retreating figure.

Yes, I know. I'm very mature.

'Now what?' I asked the empty space.

Unsurprisingly, it did not reply.

After waiting around for a minute or so to see if the floor would suddenly decide to stop supporting my weight and drop me, I decided that the room had nothing more to offer and headed back the way I came.

That was when the ceiling started to lower with an ominous creak.

'Oh, crap.' I said, and began to sprint.

I wasn't going to make it. It was fairly obvious, but since when has that ever stopped me? I kept running as the hallway got smaller and smaller, eventually forcing me to slither along the ground as fast as I could.

Naturally, that's when the floor decided to rescue me from a horrible death and collapse beneath me. I tumbled down, and I may, just may, have screamed.

My wings unfurled, hard, and it hurt. I vaguely recalled having a dream about this once, except instead of a crazy 'Doctor' and a hole in the floor, there was a cliff and Erasers.

I looked up to see if the hole in the floor was still there and if I could get back up.

It was gone, and I realised that it probably wasn't a hole at all, but rather, a trap door.

So I kept going downwards instead.

It must have been about ten minutes before I finally saw the end of this pit.

It took me another five to get there, but when I did land, I found myself in a long hallway almost identical to the one that had led me to the dining room, save for a crack in the wall. This place was crazy. It was probably made of completely identical rooms and corridors.

There was no way I could get back up, so I started walking, heading straight for the room at the end. I opened the door. There was nothing on the other side. It was just a wall.

'Why would anyone do that?' I muttered to myself.

Oh, right. Dr. O'Neill was a lunatic. She'd probably designed this place herself.

I sighed. It seemed my excursion had been a complete waste of time. Maybe I wasn't supposed to have fallen down the trap door.

Since I was here anyway, I figured I might as well do some exploring.

Well, I would have if there was anything to explore. Which there wasn't.

The lights flickered, then shut off.

'Great. Just... wonderful.' I seemed to be talking to myself a whole lot more since I'd arrived. Maybe craziness was contagious after all.

A thin sliver of light shone through the crack in the wall, and I noticed that the crack ran straight up and down, looking less like a crack and more like a hidden door.

Naturally, being me, I went to see if I was right. I touched the wall lightly, running my fingers across it to see if I could find the mechanism to open it.

Nothing.

I punched it in frustration, and it swung open.

'What, just push it? This place is ridiculous.' I growled to no one.

The light on the other side of the door was a torch, one of the medieval styled ones, with an actual flame. Torches lined the stone wall.

The passageway was large enough for me to fly through, so I did. I was determined to avoid falling through any more trap doors.

After about eight flaps of my wings, I found myself at the end of the little passage, and pushed the door open. These doors seemed to swing both ways.

The hallway was identical to the one on the other side of the passage. This place was insanely repetitive. I took a quick glance around, trying to spot any cameras and/or crazy doctors looking to dissect me.

Nothing. Well, that I could see, anyway.

I flew down the hall, and opened the door at the end, fully expecting to see a wall.

It was another corridor. Of course, it looked exactly the same as this one. I resisted the urge to scream and curse and punch the whole place into submission.

My wings flapped as I surveyed this new corridor from above. Nothing seemed out of the ordinary, so I opened the door at the end. If it was another identical corridor, I would...

Well, I didn't know what I would do, but it would be drastic.

Fortunately, it wasn't another stupid corridor. Unfortunately, it was a wall. Again.

I hated this place so much.