"Well, I just sent word to Dumbledore. We'll just need to sit tight until he gets my message." I tried to smile encouragingly to Max, but I didn't really believe myself. Certainly, we needed to sit tight until Dumbledore could either come in person or send a group to move us into safety, but the very idea that our survival was that simple at this point was a bit laughable. I had moved us from rat infested motel to rat infested motel all over New York over the past week, trying desperately to lose anyone who was following us. I figured that the three Death Eaters we'd seen back in Manhattan would probably be it for the time being, but it doesn't kill to be cautious.
Still, the constant moving must've been hard on Max. No real time to grieve. No real time to do anything but follow me quietly. I sat on the bed next to him and threw my arm around him. "Don't you worry. Dumbledore'll have word back to us in no time. Do you know who what is? Dumbledore?" Max shook his head and didn't say a word, but he looked up at me expectantly. Fine. He wasn't ready to talk yet. At least he was recognizing the world around him.
"Well, you see, several years ago, there was a really bad, Dark wizard. His name, well, nobody every really says his name. Anyway, You-Know-Who was very powerful, but also very evil. He believed that he could create a better world by enslaving all the Muggles and killing off wizards with Muggle blood in them. There was sort of a war going on. Mostly, the war was over in Britain. You-Know-Who tried to recruit a lot of American wizards to help him, but your dad put a right stop to that. He was a pretty influential man, not to mention a helluva wizard." Max listened intently as if I was telling a bedtime story. And it was. It happened to be a glossed over, terribly morbid and obscene story, but it was a story.
"Well, Dumbledore was a very old and very powerful wizard too. He was the only wizard You-Know-Who was ever scared of, and when Dumbledore was around, You-Know-Who didn't dare try challenge him directly. Dumbledore and You-Know-Who fought this war without either of them ever being able to truly gain the upper hand. Then, one awful and awesome night fourteen years ago, You-Know-Who was defeated by a one year old child. Nobody knows how it happened, but when he went to kill one year old Harry Potter, You-Know-Who was stripped of all his powers."
I yawned, got up, and walked around the room. It was a small room with a bathroom and two beds in the middle of the dank, dark little hole. I chose to stay in wretches like this because it attracted less attention when I charmed the motel owner to give me a reasonable rate. Besides, nobody here was going to raise too many eyebrows if I disappeared in the middle of the night.
I walked over towards the door and checked to see if my charms were still in place, which they were. I hadn't done anything fancy, mostly because I didn't have time. But if anyone tried to come in here, I'd know about it, no matter where I was. I walked back towards my bed and laid down.
"I suppose it's bedtime."
Max looked at me for a moment and then said "It's still light out though." I could have cried but chose to just smile instead.
"How about this then. I'm dead tired so I'm going to sleep. You need anything, you wake me. Got it?"
He nodded then held up a TV remote, asking an unvoiced question. "Just keep it down," I warned and with that tried to catch up on my desperately missed sleep.
Motel Room – Hours later
Seconds after Max had called my name out and shook me, I was out of bed, wand out and ready to curse, jinx, or hex whatever had just entered the room. Okay, so, I had actually rolled over too quickly, fell out of bed, banging my head on the floor in the process, and bruised my elbow by drawing my wand too suddenly, but the point was I was ready for action. After scanning the room and realizing that I hadn't been killed a hundred times over in my comically failed springing into action, I gathered that nothing was wrong.
"Dude, what's wrong?" I was trying to be nice, but my head was pounding.
"I'm hungry. Can we go get something to eat?" I wasn't the worst babysitter/guardian ever, but I had forgotten that kids like to eat regular meals. Or at least one a day.
"It's like midnight. Nothing's going to be open unless you just want McDonalds or something." I hate fastfood as a general rule. I hate going into fastfood places even more though.
"Cool with me. Besides, it's only 8:30"
About 20 minutes later, we were sitting inside a diner. It was one of those all day breakfast places. Like a Denny's, only for people who were just getting off the interstate, but with a "We're just a mom-and-pop place" feel to it. So basically over-priced, mediocre food in a moderately cleaned establishment. I was just banking on large portions.
Max ended up ordering the largest meal they had, and I just got pancakes and coffee. Much as I'd prefer just going to sleep when we got back, since we were out, I needed to be alert. Just in case. While we were waiting for our food, Max was busy cutting into the plastic table with his butter knife – or trying to, rather. Then, the door opened up and in walked the weirdest looking group ever.
There were four of them in all. The first was a tall, well built, dark skinned man in a black trench coat. He was followed by a young girl in ripped jeans and a tight printing fitted tee with pink hair who was loudly popping bubble gum. The two of them sat up at two of the several stools that lined a bar-like area at the front. The next two, who pointedly didn't look at the first two, slid into a booth across from us. One was a tall, lanky figure with long, red hair tied back into a pony tail. The other was an older looking man in a shabby, patched brown leather coat with graying hair. Both groups were talking about seemingly uninteresting topics. Two things caught my eye, or ear as it were.
The first was that, though they had all walked in together, they had quickly separated without so much as looking at each other or us. The other was that they were all English. Shit. I couldn't suspect that every Englishmen I met was an assassin waiting to jump me, but I could guess that four Englishmen finding their way into an all night diner that we just happened to be in were definitely not whatever it is they were pretending to be. Which meant either a huge coincidence or trouble.
I didn't really believe in the former and hated the latter. Our food came, and Max began wolfing down his food while draining his Coke within seconds of the waitress refilling it, much to her amusement. She finally just brought out a pitcher to save time. I hardly touched my food and pretended to watch Max while trying to keep an eye on the other four.
There was a loud crash from the bar as the pink-haired girl accidentally knocked over not just her own but also her partner's plates to the ground. Instinctively, my hand went for my pocketed
wand. I also noticed that the other two quickly looked over then looked away, confirming that they were trying their best to not look like they were watching them. Hoping that I was just reading too much into things, I looked back to notice Max was done with his food and had finished mine as well.
"I'm going to the bathroom." He announced and started to get up. Four heads twitched.
"Can't you hold it till we get back?" All conversations quieted.
"No, I need to go now." Okay, he had drunk a lot.
"Fine," I sighed and got up.
"I can go by myself." And with that he walked back towards the bathroom. He was definitely getting back to his normal self quickly.
The waitress smiled and brought me the check. "He your oldest?" What the hell? I wasn't even eight years older than him. Did I really look that old? I guess all kids look and sound about the same age until they hit fifteen or so, but still.
"No, he's not mine." I took the check and avoided adding more. I didn't want a conversation, but I also didn't want to give one-word answers that'd make me memorable. She walked off. After a quick head count, I noticed that there were only three of the four Brits still seated. The girl had left. Man, I'm bad at this.
I hopped off and walked back towards the bathroom, hand in my pocket. I opened the door and noticed that he was just washing his hands. "I'll be out in a second, geeze." Without drying them, he walked out and pushed his way past me. "You know, I can do some stuff on my own." The girl came out of the ladies room without saying a word.
After making a mental note to end this little pre-teen "I need my own space" thing that he was falling back into when we got back to the motel, I dropped what was left of my cash on the table and walked out of the diner. We hadn't even turned off the street when four figures left the diner behind us.