QLFC: Season 11, Round 4

Team: Kenmare Kestrels

Position: Chaser 1, Captain

Prompt: St. Augustine Lighthouse, Florida: Write about someone struggling to guide or lead others.

Additional Prompts:

(au/occupation) thief

(emotion) suspicious

(setting) lighthouse

Word Count: 2024

Warnings: Swearing (1 f word, 1 s word)

Notes: Listen I have no clue what the logic of this AU is, but magic is real, wizards are real, but apparently Hogwarts isn't. Idk either.

"Alright," James Potter said, bending low over the floorplan of Howl's Lighthouse. "It looks like our only option is to take the stairs."

"Or just fly in the window."

Lily was inclined to go with Marlene's plan, and not just because Marlene was part of her band. "Marls is right; the door's likely to be protected by magic, and…"

"And the windows aren't?" Sirius Black said. He rolled his eyes and turned towards James. "Why the fuck are we letting them come along?"

"In case you've forgotten, Black," Lily said, hoping it wasn't obvious that she was trying to sound more confident than she was, "this is my operation."

The silence that followed her statement was deafening. Neither group had been particularly happy when James and Lily had announced that they'd be working together to steal the Heart of Fire. It was hard to trust anyone in their line of work—honestly, Lily didn't trust Potter or his Marauders, as they liked to call themselves—but it was better to have to split the profits than to have direct competition. Direct competition ratted you out, temporary alliances just screwed you over. Besides, Remus Lupin spoke Welsh; it would be nice not to have to cast a translation spell every time they came across a piece of Howl's writing.

"Right," James said, it sounded an awful lot like he was trying to break the tension. "She makes a good point; I hadn't considered the windows."

"And he doesn't even know my name," Marlene muttered. Lily sent her a warning glare.

"I just don't think that one of the greatest wizards in modern history would leave the windows to his top secret lighthouse with a powerful magical artefact inside unlocked."

"Well it's not like the door will be 'unlocked' either," Mary said, putting air quotes around the word unlocked. "And personally I'd rather not have to walk up the stairs of a 13 story building when I could just as easily fly."

"How about this," Lily said. "We divide and conquer. James, you take your group and go up the stairs; we'll fly up to the window and get in that way."

ooOoo

"Finally!" Lily said. She pushed open the window and crawled through. The inside of the lighthouse was cluttered; full of boxes and muggle technology.

"Alright!" Marlene said. "Let's get searching."

"We should wait for the…"

"Are you kidding, Lily?" Marlene cut her off. "What are they gonna do to help? We got in here by ourselves, we'll get out by ourselves, we should just cut them out of the deal."

A blast of cold swept through the room, and the window slammed shut.

"Shit," Lily said. She walked back to the window and tried to open it. It refused to budge an inch. "Mary, see if you can get this open, Marls…"

"I'll look for the heart."

Lily opened her mouth to protest, but a quick shake from Mary's head stopped her. "Okay, you look for the heart, I'll try the door, and Em, you try and find any papers or books that might tell us what this is."

"It's a security measure."

Lily jumped and spun towards the voice, her wand at the ready.

"Don't worry," a ghost floated out from behind a stack of boxes, "it's just me."

"And who are you?" Lily asked.

"I'm Michael. I'm Howl's assistant. Or I was, until he killed me, that is. I've been trapped here ever since."

Lily glanced at the others. "Any chance you know how this defence system works?"

"Of course," Michael said. "I created it." He began pacing the room. "It can only be deactivated from the stairwell. Unfortunately, you're all trapped up here, and as a ghost, I can't deactivate it."

Lily turned to Marlene with an I-told-you-so look. "Actually, we have some colleagues that should be coming up the stairs. If you tell them how to disable it, they can let us out."

Michael nodded. "I'm glad to help."

ooOoo

"There's no reason to believe they're locking us out," James said.

"They are."

James spun around, pulling his wand out of his pocket and pointed it at the ghost that suddenly appeared behind Sirius, Remus, and Peter. "Who are you?" He asked.

"My name's Michael. Lily asked me to deliver a message to you," Michael said. "She said she'll unlock the door, if you agree to change the deal. She wants it split seventy to thirty."

James narrowed his eyes at Michael. This didn't seem like something Lily would do. She had a code she worked by, that's why he was willing to agree to work with her.

"Of course she does," Sirius scoffed.

"Tell her we'll discuss it face to face after she's opened the door," James said.

Michael nodded. "I'll tell her."

ooOoo

"See this is what I'm talking about Lils!" Marlene shouted. Lily rubbed her temples in the hopes of staving off the headache that was threatening to form. "This is why we don't make alliances. The second they have leverage, they use it to screw us over!"

This wasn't supposed to happen. Lily took a deep breath, she had to keep her head on straight. If James wanted to change the deal to a seventy to thirty split, then he could take his delusions and leave. They'd find a way out of this. They had to.

"Tell James that the deal is fifty-fifty, or he and his friends can leave and we'll make our own way out," Lily said. "Marlene, keep looking."

ooOoo

"She said no deal unless you agree to the terms through me."

James ran his hand through his hair. This was crazy. Surely Lily wouldn't want to use a middleman.

"James, I think we should cut our losses and take the deal. We can argue it more later," Remus said.

"But it doesn't make sense." James turned towards the lower stairs just as Sirius came back into sight, gasping for breath.

"I swear, if you ever make me run up that many stairs again, I'm quitting," he said.

"So they locked the window too?" James ran his fingers through his hair again.

Sirius shook his head. "They locked the door."

That… made no sense. How would they lock the door? They could have flown down, locked it, and then flown back up, but surely they wouldn't risk being seen. He looked back up at Michael. Something wasn't right. Why were they acting so strangely?

"Tell Lily that I'm not going to change the contract through a middleman, and that's final."

ooOoo

"James said he's inspected the lock, and there is no way out of it. If you don't agree to the new terms, he'll come back when you're all dead."

What? James Potter, notorious for charging headfirst into trouble without a second thought, had inspected the locking mechanism? None of this made sense. Lily didn't know James well, but she did know he wasn't patient, and he wasn't a killer. But if he hadn't said that…

"Tell them we agree to the deal," Marlene said. Lily spun around to look at her. Marlene's face was full of deadly determination. "We'll have to fight our way out of this."

"No," Lily said. "No, we won't. We'll work it out."

"Lily I get that you have a crush on Potter," Lily tried to protest that, but Marlene didn't seem to care, "but we need to look out for ourselves first."

"Marlene, we're not going to back out of our agreement like that," Lily said. She just needed time to think. Something was going on here, she was sure of it.

"I'm with Marls on this one," Mary said. "If the Marauders are willing to kill us for a bigger cut, they've already broken the agreement."

Lily took a deep breath, trying to squish down her anger. She needed to keep a clear head. If anyone could have determined that from looking at the lock, it would have been Remus. But why wouldn't James have just said Remus had looked at the lock? Unless…

"Go tell them."

"No wait!" Lily said, cursing herself for letting the conversation slip past her. "We're going to try one more thing."

"Lily, I don't mean to test your authority, but…"

Lily turned towards Marlene. "Just one more thing," she said. She looked Marlene in the eyes, hoping she would get the hint and not mess up Lily's plan. "Trust me."

There was a long silence, but eventually, Marlene nodded.

Lily turned back towards Michael. "Tell them we'll accept the deal, as long as Alex gets the extra twenty percent."

Michael nodded and disappeared through the floor.

"Who's Alex?" Mary asked after a few seconds.

"No one. It's a test," Lily said. She turned towards the group. "If Michael's honestly delivering the messages, then he'll come back with that same question. If he's not…"

"Then he'll respond as if Alex is one of the Marauders," Marlene said. "So what do we do if he's lying?"

"And what do we do if he's innocent?" Emmiline asked.

"If he's innocent, then we go with Marls' plan. If he's lying, then he's probably lying about how the spell works too," Lily said.

Mary nodded. "I'll keep trying to figure it out then."

Waiting was the worst part. If Lily was right and Michael was tricking them, then who knows what he was saying to make them angry. They might not be killers, but even so the thought of them angry was not a comforting one. Lily had seen how they had reacted when Sev had threatened Remus.

"They said they'll divide the spoils how they wish. Alex will get an equal part of their share."

Lily looked at Marlene who nodded and resumed her search. Then she looked around the room, her eyes landing on the stairs that lead down to the door that blocked the light room from the rest of the lighthouse. "These stairs lead to the door, right?"

In an instant, Michael had flown in front of her. "You can't go down there, you'll trigger the defences worse."

"Right. I'm sure I will," she said. She walked right through him, shivering at the cold. Why she hadn't thought of this sooner, she didn't know. There was nothing Michael could really do, despite him trailing behind her begging her not to go down the stairs. When she came to the door, she lifted her hand and knocked loudly. "James?" she called through the door.

There was a moment of silence before a muffled reply came. "Lily, what's going on?"

"Michael's been playing us, unless the name Alex means anything to you?"

Another silence.

"Who's Alex?"

Lily sighed in relief, leaning her forehead against the door. "Listen, we're trapped. He could be lying, but Michael said the spell could be disabled from the stairwell."

The response came quicker this time. "I'll stick Remus on it."

With both Remus and Mary's efforts it only took five hours to break the spell. It turned out there were runes scratched into the walls, ceiling, and floor that kept the spell going. All they had to do was scratch away enough of them that the spell couldn't sustain itself.

"So what was the point of this?" James asked, looking between Lily and Michael.

"It's my job," Michael said. "Once the spell is triggered, it's my job to stall whoever's broken in until Howl can come and apprehend them. I failed."

Lily looked around at the others, most of whom were staring at Michael with the same confusion as she felt. "Howl's dead," she said. "Surely you know that?"

Michael's face flashed with determination. "It doesn't matter. He's dead, I'm dead, it's all the same I'll always serve him."

"Actually," Marlene said. She slowly turned around, an old, ornate box open in her hands. "I don't think he is." She set the box down and picked up a piece of paper from it. "This note is dated yesterday, and it has Howl's magical signature on it."

Lily looked at James in confusion. "What does it say?"

Marlene looked up at her, her eyes wide. "It just says 'Nice try.'"