Chapter 17: The Plan
"Lupin, move over. You're squishing my right arm," complained James.
Remus sighed and attempted to shift over, but the table in the small, empty classroom was too small for him to do much without pushing Sirius off his seat.
"It's cramped, James, handle it," said Sirius in his bored voice.
"This is my Snitch-catching arm," James half-complained, half-bragged, attempting to pull out the arm and flex it (which was impossible due to the limited space.) "Gonna need it in top condition for the match Saturday."
"If not to catch the Snitch, then to hold the Firewhiskey that will drown your disappointment at losing against Grindylow-face Bolger," goaded Sirius.
"Bolger won't know what hit him when we're through with him," retorted James. "Well, he will know about the Bludgers from my Spinski maneuver. But figuratively speaking."
"Your grasp of metaphor grows stronger every day," said Sirius wryly.
"Six years of magical education at work, my friend," replied James, grinning.
Lupin cleared his throat to get them back on topic. Ariadne was a bit more direct. "If you two are finished flirting with each other…"
Sirius' smirk disappeared and he put on an appearance of seriousness.
"Right. We are gathered here on this lovely Thursday evening" (cold rain was lashing the single small, circular window in the tiny room) "to go over the details of our plan to put an end to Yaxley's Society for Junior Death Eaters."
"Is that its new official name?" sniggered James.
Sirius chose to ignore this. "We're trying to accomplish a number of things here. One, to gather intel on the size, extent, and abilities of Yaxley's…organization, and the identities of all its members. Two, to plant false information about a location and time at which they could potentially 'get at' Muggle-borns and their allies, and to tempt them to take the bait. And three, after luring them into this trap, to put an end to their disgusting activities and burgeoning Death Eater careers, once and for all."
"In order to do this, our plan will have multiple steps. We'll need to infiltrate one of these meetings, gather the information we need, potentially infiltrate a second meeting in order to plant the false information, then set the trap, and spring it." He paused. "Any questions so far?"
"I hope you have more details to give us than that," said Ariadne.
Sirius narrowed his eyes in annoyance. "We're getting there, Morrigan. Patience, love."
"Not your love."
Sirius ignored that remark as well. "James, Remus and Peter, you're in charge of getting samples from our two targets—" he gave them a significant look "—you know who they are. And work out a way to incapacitate target one during the meeting. Pay attention to the details. Learn his schedule and find out where he'll be just prior to the meeting. This isn't some prank we'll get detention for, we need this to be watertight."
He turned to Ariadne. "And that leaves the Polyjuice Potion to you and me, love."
Ariadne was thrilled.
A/N: I know I've been super bad and skipped updating a few days last week Please accept this admittedly inadequate peace offering until I'm able to finish the next chapter and actually make it good. Love you all! -A