A/N: No Scabior in this chapter but soon I promise - and thank you all for the lovely reviews!
Even Alice was lost for words. Her mouth opened and closed repeatedly, like she was talking but had been put on mute.
"Brilliant, huh?" Mia grinned, amazed at her own superior intellect.
Alice found her voice, "Right...so...you want to trick him into taking back the wrong wand? The plastic one?"
"Yeah!"
"The one you bought at the studio tours?
"Yeah." Mia said with less conviction.
"The one with the serial number down the side?"
"Erm, well...yeah." She replied flatly.
Alice chewed the inside of her mouth in thought.
"And you thought that he wouldn't know the difference?"
"Look, the actors would know the difference, because they've been to all the studios and touched all the props. But Scabior, a real wizard, you think he's been to see the studios and merchandise? Course he hasn't! We'll just trick him into taking the wrong one and then hide this one. Or break it. I'm not sure yet."
"Don't you think he'll wanna come back to get his real one...when he's realised the one he took doesn't work...because it's a piece of plastic? He'll be angry as fuck."
"Well do you want to give him his real one back? He'll kill us"
"Or we could kill him?"
"Alice!" Mia exclaimed.
"What?" Alice leaned forward, "They'd kill us!"
Mia buried her face in her hands, "I can't believe this is happening."
Alice hummed in agreement.
They were in Mia's room, sitting either end of her wide windowsill. They were now both clean and dressed and made up. It was as if nothing had ever happened, apart from their minor wounds and major situation. Mia held Scabior's wand and Alice had the replica. She scrutinised the stick and found another fault.
"Alice, it'll be fine. He tried to use a twig to torture me." Mia said, inspecting the real wand, the bottom half wrapped in kitchen towel, as if that would stop her accidently setting something on fire.
"Yeah, I suppose he's not the brightest guy ever."
"You're telling me."
They both giggled.
/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\
"Are you ready?" Alice asked, tying her hair back and then letting it fall down again when she saw her neck. Her wounds were inconsistent with the story she gave, and although the police had passed it off as two girls who had gotten into trouble and blamed it on a mugging, their parents were another story. Makeup wouldn't hide those black bruises.
"Yeah, I guess." Mia said, taking another look through her pockets. She'd got a pen knife, a fully charged back up phone, the fake wand and two razor blades, one in her back pocket of her jeans and one in the front. "But how are we gonna find him? I mean we have no way of getting to the wizarding world."
"What about the toilets? You know, you stand in the bowl and flush-"
"Those lead straight to the Ministry."
"Hogwarts?"
"It's in Scotland."
"Yeah but we could get the train-"
Mia repressed a comparison of Alice to Hermione, looking at the facts but overseeing common sense, "It's the middle of a half term. The train won't be back until the Christmas holidays. Granted, it's only one week away, but still...how would we get through to the platform? You've seen the headlines? The ones where drunk students have dived head first into the wall and got concussions?"
"Yeah, but they were muggles." Alice raised her eyebrows suggestively.
Mia gave an unsure look, "...we're muggles though. Don't think this piece of wood is gonna make a difference."
"Then how're we going to find Scabior?"
"Let him find us."
/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\
"Shouldn't we have done this earlier...you know, when there was actually some fucking light left?" Mia hissed, straining to see through the dense shadows.
"It would have looked suspicious, us leaving to 'go on a walk'." Alice hissed back, grinding her teeth together in anticipation.
"It's nearly twelve and I'm freezin' my fucking nuts off."
"You've got four layers on. Including an air force bomber jacket."
"Well, it was only three quid."
"Cause you got it out the back of the van."
"Shutup." Mia mumbled, peering over the top of a steep ridge, nudging her with a shoulder. They were lying on their stomachs on the top of a 3 metre tall hill, a ten minute walk from Mia's house. But more like a grassy hump. It was just flat enough for them to lie against, looking out into the mossy darkness.
"What are you waiting for?" Alice asked, tearing a leaf apart in her shaking hands.
"Christ, I'm so fucking scared. I know this is the lesser of two evils but shit, it's still such a bad idea."
Alice turned Mia's face towards hers, "It's a simple plan. We can do this."
"Okay," Mia took in a deep breath, "Scabior!"
Nothing happened.
Mia burst out into nervous laughter, "Wait, wrong one. Okay..." She took another deep breath, "Voldemort!"
There were a series of sharp cracks, like a wet towel against a wall. A group of men appeared below them and they instinctively shrunk down behind the dying grass and dead leaves. Mia and Alice peered over the top and watched them look for the guilty culprits.
"Shit. That's not Scabior!" Mia exclaimed, and they turned to look at her. A group of men she'd never seen before. All with wands.
Scrambling down the hill, Mia and Alice used the most of the moonlight available to find their way back through the forest and away from the strangers.
"What the fuck happened?" Alice gasped, dodging over fallen branches.
"I dunno! Must be their jurisdiction, like the closest ones in the area or something."
The conversation ended there when they ran straight into what felt like two trees. But were actually two men. The blow was so sudden that the girls went flying over the top of the snatchers and landed with two thuds. All four took a while to get to their feet but Alice and Mia were soon clutched to their chests. Mia took in her surroundings, helped by the light from the snatchers' wands. More had closed in, a total of five. They seemed awfully young. And inexperienced.
A short, stocky blonde came forward and looked at them both with a disapproving glare.
"What are nice young witches like yourselves doing out at night, yelling the Dark Lord's name?" He spoke with a rough edge to his voice.
"We're not witches!" Alice blurted out, and Mia's eyes shot over in her direction.
He stepped over to her and Alice internally thanked the lord that he was nowhere near the height of Greyback, "If you're not a witch, then 'ow do you know that you're not a witch?"
The lower half of Alice's face shone with a sickly green sheen from his wand. She raised Scabior's slightly and Mia quickly intervened.
"Take us to Scabior." She caught his eyes and held his gaze, holding the fake wand as tight as she could in her hand.
There was a pause before he asked, "Who the fuck is Scabior?"
Mia tried to imagine how this particular snatcher hadn't heard of Scabior. But then he probably wouldn't know every leader in the country. But he would have heard of Voldemort's right hand werewolf.
"He's in Greyback's group." She said, watching as he visibly recoiled.
"Why should I take you two?"
Alice piped up in her best sarcastic tone, "We have his wand. He must have left it when he came round for my birthday party."
"Oh, don't you worry your pretty little 'eads about that, I'll take the wand in. I suspect in the region of currency, he'll he very grateful."
Both girls breathed a collective sigh of relief.
"Fine, you go on and do that." Alice said, but before she could pass him the wand, the snatcher holding Mia came up with a brilliant idea.
"They're muggles an' they know about Greyback? I reckon the Ministry would love to know 'ow they got hold of a snatcher's wand."
"At least a couple Galleon's worth of info, that is." Another one commented.
"Lovely."
A/N: Hope you enjoyed! Hand tight for the next one.