Ch. 18 — Interventions
The crew finally started filling the store with things.
The Weasley twins set up a, frankly, flamboyant section full of joke candies and toys. The space-themed candies were limited to the Weightless Wedges, Gravity Grapes, and Spacewalk Suckers. The rest were more of what she would expect in a wizarding joke shop, but far more outlandish. There were Canary Creams that turned you into a bird, Extendable Ears to let you listen-in on things you shouldn't, Headless Hats that made the wearer's head — and hat — disappear, Electric Shock Shakes, a Reusable Hangman, fake wands, and a score of other items. The two had apparently been very busy this summer.
Josephine grimaced. Many young shoppers would stop by that section before summer hols ended, she knew.
The twins also brought in several boxes of shirts and robes made of the same fabric as her work uniform. The shirts had space-themed images — Jupiter, Uranus, Saturn, one even seemed to be an opening into space itself, the image was so realistic.
The two quickly set up a rack for the shirts and a taller one for the robes.
"They're actually protective," Fred explained, "like your uniform." He rubbed a sample of the material between his fingers.
"It's woven with small amounts of gold and silver, so they're rather spell resistant," said George.
Sweet Merlin, they even lined their clothes with gold!
"They can take an average cutting curse rather well."
"You have to go with something stronger before anything gets through."
Josephine stared at the robes. They were . . . gaudy, in a weirdly artistic way. An image of a purple and red galaxy was plastered all over the robes. They were . . . well, very tacky looking.
She could easily see the Headmaster wearing one of them.
They were heavy though, heavier than most robes. Not as heavy as a winter set, however.
"If you want, you can wear one of these instead of the uniform we first gave you," Fred said cajolingly.
"It would help advertise them, you know," George added.
"Plus, they would give you a bit more protection."
"We'd like that, so please?"
She looked at the robes and sighed. They were rather smartly styled.
"Could I get one with just the Milkyway as seen from Earth?" she asked hopefully and Fred grinned widely.
She got her new robes the next day —the Milkyway started from the hem in the back, ran around to the front at an angle, and ended just at the shoulder. It was still tacky. But it wasn't as bad as the full galaxy one. And, she had to admit, it did satisfy that little bit of a geek she used to be. Her name was still embroidered in the front, and the store logo was on the opposite shoulder.
"You don't wear robes like these," Josephine noted to Lee Jordan, later, who had brought in some space-themed items — extremely accurate models of the planets, solar-system models, all mechanical and inside glass spheres.
"We wear armour," he said. "And our robes are similar — just bit more high-tech."
"High-tech?" Josephine repeated, confused.
Jordan shrugged. "They need an actual power source. Can't exactly sell those here."
And so, the shop slowly filled up. Someone brought in selection of moving pictures and posters — one was the picture Granger had shown Josephine of Jupiter's Great Red Spot. They joined Lieutenant Lovegood's painting on the wall, and they worked fairly well together. A box of shrunken spares went behind the counter.
Soon, the shop looked like an actual shop. There was a wide variety of priced products on display. The store still wasn't open though — there was, however, an "OPENING SOON!" sign diagonally splashed across the front window. The door still sported a smaller sign that said, "HELP WANTED."
The front door was usually left wide open to invite the curious inside.
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People were beginning to come in throughout the day, now. Many were repeat customers, checking for new items. There had even been a few sales, which Josephine told them she would do as a favour because they weren't officially open, yet.
Josephine had decided she would do the pricing herself, for the most part. She was probably under-pricing things terribly, but at least her prices were more realistic than what the kids usually proposed. She could easily believe they didn't understand sales. Their oft-repeated mutterings of money being a nuisance seemed to be the truth for them — they mainly wanted to know that people liked what they were selling enough actually to pay something for it. Like most teenagers, they only had a hazy idea of what things were worth, anyway, and their apparent great wealth just made that haze even worse.
The twins had wanted to sell their gold-woven robes for sickles.
"Do you know how easy it is for us to make these things?" George had asked.
"It takes literally a push of a button," Fred had said.
"I can imagine," she had said, not really believing him, but being half-afraid he was telling the truth, "but if we sell our products for basically nothing, people will be suspicious and never buy anything. You get what you pay for, remember? If people think you sell junk, they'll stop coming in, even if it's not true," she had said. "After all, this isn't really a shop at all, is it?" Josephine had asked pointedly. "You want people coming in, the actual sales aren't that important, are they?"
"Yeah, but still . . .," Fred had muttered, and folded his arms.
"We're making these things so people will be safe," George had explained.
"Whether they know it or not."
"That doesn't really work if no one buys them," George had concluded, and pouted slightly.
Josephine had given them a look and then looked at the robes. "This is a novelty shop," she had said. "We sell novelty things. What people buy here, they're probably not going to wear day-to-day. Especially not since we're plastering stars and planets all them. Besides . . . they're all cut like Hogwarts robes and that's not the pinnacle of fashion in anyone's book."
Their shoulders had slumped. "Padma is a bit of a fashionista," Fred had ventured thoughtfully.
"Her sister's no slouch, either," George had said, and his expression had brightened.
Josephine had shaken her head and said, wryly, "Or, you could just make traveling cloaks. Those are easy. They pretty much all look the same, and most everyone wears them." She had paused, then added. "And don't put the galaxy on them. I know it's pretty, but no one is going to wear that every day."
They brought in a new rack the next day. With signs that said any size was available for the asking, at no extra price.
The more merchandise the store accumulated, the more it prompted curious wizards and witches to come into the store after looking in through the front window. That, and their friends, who had already looked around inside, had spread the word of the unusual shop.
The muggle-borns were the easiest to recognise — primarily because they recognized the sign. It was almost always the first thing they commented on when they came in.
"I didn't think any wizards even knew what Star Trek was," a young witch said with a grin.
"Most don't," Josephine answered with her own grin — though she really wasn't so sure. All the Ministry numbers and statistics said that muggle-borns were a very small minority in the magical world. But Josephine was starting to think the Ministry only counted the muggle-borns who remained entirely in the wizarding world. They ignored, apparently, those who left after graduating from Hogwarts and not being able to find a decent job. Of the dozen or so muggle-borns in her graduating class, she was only aware of two or three who were still here — who were married to half-bloods. The rest, she assumed, had disappeared into the muggle world.
The only statistic everyone agreed upon was that half-bloods made up the bulk of the wizarding population. They certainly made up the bulk of Enterprise's prospective customers, she knew! Enterprise's sign beckoned them to the door and Josephine welcomed them in. Then she chatted with them about muggle science-fiction, space, and occasionally Star Trek, though she could remember very little off it, now.
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Now that Harry was at his godfather's house, Harry could see his friends. Unfortunately, though, his extra-curricular activities were still quite curtailed. While he no longer had hidden minders outside the house monitoring his every movement, his godfather and the werewolf were keeping a close eye on him. Having someone awake at all hours and wandering around the house as "security" meant that him escaping to the Requirement for a restful night's sleep was simply impossible.
The twins' "decoy sleepers" were good, but they wouldn't hold up to close scrutiny.
Fortunately, the comm-link and the tricorder changed what would have been an extremely frustratingly situation into merely annoying. He could talk with any of the crew about anything, and his book-tablet gave him the ship's resources at the tap of a finger.
The crews' efforts at intercepting Death Eater attacks bore fruit the day after they started handing out the pocket-watch alarms.
A muggle-born's house was attacked. The muggle-born, a recent graduate, had one of the panic-button watches and managed to set it off. Harry was able to listen in, and monitor what was happening through the comm-links.
The Death Eaters were just warming up with a crucio or two when the twins, Lee, Alicia, and Angelina arrived. Being tech-invisible, and with the view transmitted by the panic-button, they were able to knock out the Death Eaters almost before the Death Eaters realized someone had apparated in.
Unfortunately, all the Death Eaters were low-level folk.
They still ended up in the brig on the D.S.F.S. Requirement.
The number of mysterious disappearances and 'accidents' among the muggle-born quickly began to drop. On the other hand, disappearances among the pure-bloods and their close friends rose, to the consternation of a majority of the wizarding world.
Until Susan convinced her Aunt that the 'panic' pocket watches were indeed the real thing, the crew managed to interrupt a few more Death Eater attacks. Then the aurors started arriving only minutes after the Death Eaters themselves had arrived.
The Defense Team almost took out the aurors by accident when they arrived the first time — they thought the new arrivals were Death Eater reinforcements.
The first few times, the culprits arrested by the aurors claimed it was all a mistake, that they had been planning merely to prank the family or individual that they had accosted. The Ministry released them later the same day or the next —Minister Fudge was always a bit richer than before.
Then families started reporting that their sons or daughters, who had been so wrongfully arrested by the aurors, were mysteriously disappearing. Always when the "falsely" accused went out for an appointment, date, or just with friends. It was quite a conundrum: those who were "wrongfully" arrested had simply disappeared. Their only common point, to the public, was that they had been arrested at a crime scene wearing Death Eater robes and masks.
Gringotts continued to send out Change of Head of Family letters.
No one knew what to think.
The attacks on muggle-borns began to taper off to almost nothing.
Unfortunately, Harry's headaches did not taper off. If anything, they grew worse. Voldemort did not take kindly to having his plans thwarted, it seemed.
Apparently, he practiced the time-honored tradition of "blaming the messenger." As well as anyone else who might be nearby.
Naturally, such actions led to the further decline of morale and difficulties in recruiting, Harry was happy to hear.
It gave Harry a grim satisfaction that he wasn't the only one dealing with anger issues at being prevented from doing what he wanted.
Tom changed the direction of his efforts, and a series of mass attacks on strictly muggle villages began. Regrettably, there was nothing the crew could do about that without ignoring the Statue of Secrecy. However, one time they attacked a village with a hidden muggle-born. That day, the crew managed to capture the entire attacking Death Eater crew of ten by first putting up their own anti-portkey and anti-apparition fields over the Death Eaters' versions. Sadly, there were still a few muggles who died.
On the plus side, Susan Bones told him, "My aunt has managed to set up rapid response teams, and assigned them to the Department of Magical Catastrophes." Harry could hear her glee in her voice, "Aurors should begin arriving at the scene of an attack moments after the first dark spells are detected." She laughed. "That ought to severely limit the time the Death Eaters have free rein."
Which further frustrated Voldemort.
Which was a two-edged sword for Harry. There was gratifying progress in protecting the innocent by decreasing attacks, while generating more headaches and pain for him. He was taking a headache potion almost every night.
On the other hand, Sirius had converted part of the basement kitchen into a quite good dueling room, so Harry was able to get into the habit of daily, intensive dueling. Unfortunately, he couldn't practice with his hoverboard as Sirius wasn't part of the crew. Nor could he show off his armour or cloaking abilities.
A little superglue and a leather wrist strap had made summoning his wand impossible, however, so there was that.
Sirius, following his lead, had forced him to expand his spell repertoire rather rapidly. He still threw in an occasional expelliarmus to throw off Sirius' or Remus' aim, but concentrated more on disabling his opponents' ability to fight.
When not assisting crew members to the Room of Requirement, or other destinations, Dobby and Winky had concentrated most of their efforts to Number Twelve Grimmauld Place — and it showed. The grimy carpets were gone, and the bare wood floors fairly gleamed under the polishing the two had given them. The walls had likewise been cleaned, buffed, and painted in bright colours. The drapes that had kept the rooms in a permanent state of gloomy darkness were gone, replaced with light and airy curtains that allowed light in without detracting from each rooms' décor. The various paintings and portraits had also been cleaned. The house now looked like a well-tended domicile instead of a run-down, decrepit, abandoned property.
They hadn't stopped there, either. The outside had been given as thorough a cleaning as the inside. Instead of appearing on the verge of being condemned, it was the cleanest and brightest on the block. Not that the non-wizards could see that. To them, Number Twelve was as mysteriously missing as it had always been.
The Black's House's new cheerful appearance was a mood booster for those that could see it as they arrived. It certainly helped improve his godfather's mood to remove such a depressing atmosphere. That and taunting his mother's portrait. Of course, being able to leave whenever he felt like it didn't hurt, either.
"I tell you, Harry," Sirius said sincerely at the breakfast table, "Those two elves have done more cleaning in a month than that useless rubbish Kreacher managed in fourteen years." He shook his head. "I'm so glad you let them work for me."
Harry grinned. "I didn't, they volunteered when they heard I'd be staying here."
Sirius stared at him. "You didn't?"
"Nope, they simply told me that dog-wizard's house wasn't good enough for me and that they would fix that."
"And when I asked them to do something, they just did it?" he asked incredulously.
Harry nodded, "Because they wanted to do it. You're family."
The older wizard shook his head, obviously thinking of his adversarial relationship with Kreacher. "Amazing." He stood, "Well, unfortunately, I have a Wizengamot meeting to attend." He sighed, "It's a hard slog against Lucy, though. With all the turmoil at the Ministry, we've managed to stop, or at least, slow down, his agenda." Sirius grinned, and added, "And having some of his supporters in the Wizengamot go missing hasn't helped him," as he headed for the hall stairs.
Harry heard him call from the hall, "Hey, Moony, I'm off to wizenhell." Then Harry heard footsteps down the hall stairs, and a moment later Remus wandered in and started making himself a sandwich.
That never failed to annoy Winky, who popped in and immediately started scolding him, "That bes Winky's job! You sit down, and let Winky do her job." She pointed at a chair at the table. Shaking his head, he meekly backed from the counter and sat down.
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Surprisingly — or maybe not, when Josephine thought about it — the muggle-borns and half-bloods who peeked into the shop were of all ages, not just Hogwarts' students or recent graduates.
It took a few experiments for her to get the knack of asking about their employment status without being too obvious.
"I'm kind of between jobs," one answered with a shrug.
"I do a little of this and a little of that, whenever I can," said another.
"I'm thinking about looking into some simple jobs in the muggle world," said a third.
It was pretty much the same story with all of them. Some of them were bitter, most of them were resigned — none of them were blind to the reasons. Almost all had had jobs in the wizarding world, then they'd been recently let off and replaced by a pure-blood. Or a half-blood with a pure-blood patron.
For the muggle-born and half-bloods, there was no such thing as job security. And the only thing "seniority" meant was that someone's senior wanted their son, or daughter, in your job.
The Ministry's new, more "traditional" stance towards employment was slowly and insidiously spreading through the whole magical world. Skill at a job was quickly being replaced by who you knew, or the provenance of your last name. It was carried further on the wings of the Daily Prophet, which was, in Granger's words, nothing more than the propaganda machine for the Ministry. The newspaper headquarters was almost completely filled with pure-bloods or half-bloods with all the right connections. The number of spelling and grammatical errors in every issue was steadily climbing.
"I mean, I do understand where Fudge is coming from," Granger said. "He's an idiot, but he became the Minister of Magic for a reason. It's a shaky position, now — too many scandals. So, he's doing what he thinks he has to, to keep his position. Right now, the safest bet he has . . . is with the people with money."
That meant the pure-bloods, who pushed for the traditional values agenda. So, Fudge was quietly clearing the Ministry of those who didn't fit his sponsors agenda. Unfortunately, the agenda was spreading as others saw what the Ministry was doing, and decided the safest course for them was to do the same.
Josephine saw the results on the face of almost every lone customer who walked in. The older the customer, the clearer that understanding became.
It was like going back in time, except back then she'd been lucky enough still to be in Hogwarts when the pure-bloods had made their move. Still close enough to her parents to stay with them for several years, hidden, when the war got hot. Now, though . . . things were different now.
To her dismay, she'd believed their lies when they'd said Harry Potter and Albus Dumbledore were lying about the Dark Lord returning.
With her eyes opened to that, now, they opened to other things too — things she'd been wilfully blind to, unfortunately. There were lot of things she'd gotten terribly wrong about magic and the mundane — and she thought, grimly, that perhaps she'd been meant to.
"I mean, I thought I couldn't get a telly or anything, magic would just make them blow up," one half-blood explained with a shrug. "It was just something I got at my dad's place — watching the telly and all. He's a muggle, he has all the muggle things. But then I met this crazy wizard squatting at a muggle's place. He said everything worked just fine as long as he didn't shoot magic directly at the stuff while it was on. So, I thought, why not try it? So, I did. I've got the full monty, now, I even set up a home movie-theatre with a wide-screen telly and popcorn machine. It all works fine."
"It does?" Josephine asked, astonished.
"Yeah, I haven't had any trouble," the wizard said and grinned. "I even have a game-system. I can even fix them with a reparo and everything, and it's good as new. Better even. I just have to remember to unplug it from the wall or make sure the batteries are out, first."
It was probably because everyone at Hogwarts said that magic and electronics didn't mix, Josephine realised later. Many had tried. Even something as simple as a muggle radio or record player would start smoking and then explode into flames after only a few minutes. So, the students learned that muggle technology and magic just did not mix at Hogwarts. And they assumed that was true, everywhere! Adding credence were the stories all parents had of their children causing lights to flicker, fuses to go, or ruined electronics when their children first experienced accidental magic. It all made sense.
Plus, the rule that if you were still a student at Hogwarts, or under seventeen, you couldn't cast magic at home seemed reasonable. Not only did you not want to get accidentally caught by muggles casting magic, you didn't want to ruin your parents' things!
She made sure to get the contact information for that wizard.
Later, while shopping for a new telly in the muggle world, Josephine wondered if it was a coincidental side effect of the magic spells protecting Hogwarts — or if it was an intentional addition to them. If the spells they had purchased for their home didn't cause a problem with her new purchase, she would know which of the two it was.
Right now, she wasn't sure which was worse.
On the other hand, she had to smirk, if it worked, she would have Hermione interview the wizard and hire him. He'd help her put together a handout for customers, and then install the customer's purchases. Wouldn't that be a real thorn in the side of the pure-bloods? The soap-operas would get the stay-at-home half-blood wives and mothers quickly addicted. An easy way to sneak modernity into the pure-bloods' lives that way.
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Harry had to admit that his birthday this year, without reservation, was one of the best he had ever had. The entire Weasley family arrived, including Charlie and Bill, Only Percy didn't show.
Percy still hadn't come to terms with the revelations that kept rocking the Ministry.
"The sudden spat of Wizengamot members being no-shows, or their families receiving Change of Head of Family letters, has left everyone puzzled," Sirius said. "No one knows why, either, not even their families." He paused a moment. "Or if the families do know, they're keeping quiet about it." He shook his head, grinning. "Everyone was quick to blame discontented elements in society — muggle-borns, primarily — at first," he continued, "But while almost all of the ones who have disappeared are known as supporters of pure-blood politics, that doesn't explain how they were enticed into traps or killed — the reports all say they were meeting friends or colleagues when they disappeared. It's all so baffling."
"Plus, many of the new, young, Family Heads," Sirius added, "require regents." He grinned. "That's been a severe blow to the pure-blood faction's efforts," he said, self-satisfied. "The regents do not want to rock the boat, and then legally suffer at the hands of their charges when the heirs took over and start to question their expenditures. Not to mention, for some, they never agreed with the Head of Family's choice in supporting old Voldie."
Unsaid was that Riddle couldn't exert too much pressure on the regent, or potentially lose the family as a sponsor when the heir reached majority and retaliated for his regent being harassed. Or, worse, if he tried to threaten them, have them decide "the enemy of my enemy is my friend," and join forces with Dumbledore. If he couldn't entice them to support him, being neutral was much preferred to the alternative — active hostility.
Hermione, Neville, and the Quidditch team made an appearance, and several other of the crew-members joined the party as well.
Mrs. Weasley's cake was well up to her wonderful standard, but she was quiet and reserved, unlike her usual bustling self. That she wasn't outright weeping was a small improvement.
A very satisfying day, all-around, even if he did have a headache for most of it.
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The real rush, if you could call it that, of curious wizards and witches coming into the Enterprise store would start when the book lists for Hogwarts came out on Thursday, August first. Fortunately, the twins decided that they should both be there to help her handle the expected crowds.
While Friday saw some interest in the store, the muggle-born and muggle-raised half-blood students flooded into the store as soon as they saw the sign, on Saturday. Surprisingly, their parents immediately started making purchases of more than just the trinkets for the kids.
They had quickly come up with a sales-pitch for the cloaks — the twins were quite insistent that they wanted people to buy them and be protected. "And these cloaks are spell-resistant," they said when anyone began to browse them. Then they demonstrated by casting a colour-change spell at the garment. The spot where their spell hit sparkled prettily, but nothing else happened. "Anything that hits the cloak simply disperses," they explained. "There is a limit, however, strong cutting curses and the like will cause damage, but most anything cast by a student under the O.W.L.-level won't do much of anything." Then they gave out a sample piece from the stack the twins had created overnight. "Try it with this." When the customers saw how hard they had to cast to get even a small cut on the sample, the adults invariably bought a cloak for themselves.
The twins had to replenish the cloak rack almost a dozen times through the day!
And the next question from the customer was always, "Do you have these as Hogwarts robes?"
"We don't have a seamstress on hand," they replied, "But if you can leave me one of your Hogwarts' robes, that fits properly, we can have three made for you and ready for pickup at five o-clock the day after tomorrow. The robe does have to be in very good condition, though. New or near-new is best." The twins had wanted to deliver the robes the next day, but Josephine had been able to convince them that no one would believe a custom-fitted robe could be prepared over-night.
Plus, they didn't want to drive out of business any of the other wizarding businesses.
They had collected a hundred robes by close of business that first Saturday — and not all of them were Hogwarts robes. When the customer came to pick them up, she would offer to purchase their old robes, if the customer didn't want them anymore. It would soften the blow to their finances for buying six instead of three robes for school.
And if the customer were muggle-borns, they quietly bought the "old" robes at the full-retail price. With the admonishment that they were doing that customer a special favour, and not to spread the news. It was only fair, after all. Some stores did jack up their prices if the customer wasn't a pure- or the "right" half-blood. Turnabout was certainly fair-play, in her book.
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That Saturday, August third, Lupin and Tonks escorted Harry to Diagon Alley for his new term needs. The Alley was as crowded as it usually was the weekend after the booklists arrived. However, with glamours on, the three were unrecognizable. Harry saw most of the crew wandering around in batches, but he was careful not to draw his minders' attention to them. Or the crew's attention to himself.
He did ask Tonks to "bump" into Ron, Ginny, Luna, and Hermione, and pass on that he didn't want to draw attention to them by joining them for the day. It might paint too big a target on them.
The crew had actually planned all this out the night before, but if he didn't provide an excuse, his minders would question why he didn't join his friends. As if the Death Eaters couldn't figure out who that strange-kid was that Harry's friends were suddenly so friendly to — as if they had known each other for years. While most wizards wouldn't make the connection, Harry knew Tom would the instant he heard the news.
It was rather boring with just the three of them. On the other hand, there were none of the stares and hostile looks he was used to getting. Which was . . . liberating. He wasn't under constant critical scrutiny. Except for the minor headache, it was almost like being on the ship, only with everyone instead of just the crew. It was . . . different — but a good different.
And Enterprise was doing a great business, when he briefly looked in the front window past the display.
He declined visiting the shop again, as he didn't want to draw attention to it.
Seeing Malfoy sneak off from his mother had Harry itching to follow the little weasel, but he knew he wouldn't be able to shake his minders. He could only scowl darkly as the boy snuck into Knockturn Alley — no doubt headed for Borgin and Burkes for some nefarious item.
Once they arrived back at Grimmauld Place, Hermione and the Weasleys made a dinner appearance, as usual. That had been an established habit for the Weasley family. Harry thought they were desperate to avoid their home and the memories it inevitably brought about.
They spent the rest of the evening in the duelling room, playing chess, studying runes, and looking over their books for the new school year.
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Just as they were deciding to head for bed, Harry's comm vibrated.
"We've got fifteen prisoners in the brig, now, Captain," Lee said, over the link.
"Fifteen?" Harry looked over at the twins in the upstairs hall with him. They looked as not-guilty as anyone who was guilty but trying to pretend otherwise. "I thought we had close to forty." The twins were both assiduously not looking him in the eyes.
"Well, after we lost the first batch, we started making them change into dungarees. . .," started Forge.
"They didn't like the dungarees, for some reason," interrupted Gred.
"Do you think it was the colours?" asked Forge.
"Couldn't be, they were Gryffindor colours, after all," put in Gred, with a grin.
Harry rolled his eyes, and pointed into his room. It would be better for this discussion not to be public.
"So, we knew they couldn't use any wands or portkeys hidden in their clothes that might have had anti-summoning charms on them," continued Forge.
"And we confiscated any jewellery — we put those in a box in the Forbidden Forest."
"If any were portkeys, they'd disappear back to where they belonged without giving away anything important if someone back-tracked them."
"We put the boxes in the Acromantula colony."
"We didn't want anyone to accidentally find them and steal them before they activated."
"Or steal the jewellery if they were harmless."
"We figured the spiders would prevent any interest in that."
"And if they had locator beacons in them?" Harry asked dryly.
The twins shrugged. "If they were fast, they'd be able to escape."
Harry sighed. But if the boxes holding the jewellery were stuck on the edge of a web, between several webs, or even had part of a web draped artistically over them? No one was bloody likely to escape that!
Harry found it difficult to feel sorry for the prisoners or their friends. He had read the accounts in the history books and, more recently, the Daily Prophet, of what the Death Eaters did to their victims before killing them.
If the Acromantulas managed an extra meal or two, he wouldn't lose any sleep over that fact — just so long as he didn't have to watch or knew who it was.
"Anyway," Lee continued, "When I reviewed the ship's recordings of the prisoners, I discovered that the ones who escaped were all wearing their portkeys under a disillusionment or notice-me-not charm with anti-summoning charms on top of those."
"Why do we even have any prisoners?" Harry asked. "They could have shared portkeys and all escaped."
"I asked. First, the ones that stayed believed the warnings on the walls. Second, they were eating better here than they were at home."
"I blame the beef wellington dinners with the pints of fire-whiskey, myself," said Forge, interrupting.
Harry snorted. He didn't doubt that many wizards and witches, such as Mundungus Fletcher, would stay pissed twenty-four hours a day, if they could. On the ship, they could.
"The steak and kidney pie with cider is nothing to sneeze at, either," put in Gred.
"Third," Lee continued, ignoring the twins through long practice, "they didn't wish to be 'punished' for failing in their mission."
"Smart Death Eaters?" said Forge.
"Who woulda thunk it?" said Gred. They exchanged wondering looks at each other as they shrugged in tandem.
"Maybe we're doing away with the dumb ones?"
"Weeding the witless?"
"Eliminating the empty-headed?"
"Liquidating the lack-witted?"
"Banishing the brainless?"
"A combination, actually," Lee interrupted. "About half are just common criminals, out for what they can steal. The others? Rookwood, he was one of the Azkaban escapees, explained that prior to his own capture, two of his friends, Dolohov and Travers, disappeared while on a raid the week before. They each had one of those notice-me-not portkeys, and would have used them to escape. He said that he hadn't seen or heard from them since, which seemed to him to mean the warnings on the walls are accurate. So, he wasn't about to take a chance that the warnings weren't real. I asked for the names of any others he knew who had disappeared, and was able to confirm we had picked them up. They had been in one of the first groups to escape that way. I'm sure he has one of the portkeys — he said he doesn't. I think he does, but isn't about to use it. And searching him would probably be futile, he probably hid it somewhere in the brig, so I didn't bother. I think my obvious disinterest in searching for it has him worried."
Harry sat quietly, and mulled over the information. "Should we put up anti-portkey and anti-disapparition spells, just to keep them from trying to escape?"
Lee sighed. "Yeah, I think so. We'll have to put a façade over the current walls so the spells will stick. I'll get started on that the next time the Replicator finishes its cooling cycle."
"Good. Anything else?"
Lee laughed. "Yeah. It's funny how what we thought was a problem became an advantage. Planting tiny tracker stones on all the arrested Death Eaters who were released was really brill!"
"Thank you," said Hermione, sitting beside him.
"It's also nice to know that the Ministry spells can't detect the tech-cloaks," Gred put in.
"At least in the atrium, that is," cautioned Forge.
"We lost about half the trackers for various reasons," Lee said.
"Brushed off, not securely attached, removed during cleaning by a house-elf," explained Hermione.
"But the ship has put together a map of their movements for the rest, or before they lost the target." Lee continued. "There are several places that aren't public places or their homes where they tend to meet up." Harry could hear the glee in his voice. "Based on the conversations we heard and saw, I think we know their headquarters! Lucius Malfoy's place!" Then he gave a disappointed sigh and his shoulders slumped. "Unfortunately, it seems to be unplottable. Every time I try to get a map, the location of the trackers flicker all over the place. I can't narrow it down to anything smaller than half a county wide."
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