Hide and Seek
Hide and Seek
I awoke groggy, sometime in the early afternoon. After only a few hours sleep, I was ready to bury my head under the pillow and stay there until the obnoxiously cheerful sunlight went away. But the sound of a quill scratching against parchment was inescapable. I reluctantly sat up and found the source of the incessant noise.
Barnaby was sitting on the bed, his legs stretched out in front of him and crossed lazily. He was about halfway down a two foot roll of parchment.
I rolled over for a cuddle and to take a peek at what he was writing. Barnaby it appeared, had taken it upon himself to fabricate the WCU report from our "interview" with Lupin. I could not have been more grateful, and I told him so. "You're an absolute godsend Barnaby Abernathy Lee."
He smiled at me and kissed the top of my head. "I don't mind doing it, it's actually been kind of fun, almost like a creative writing assignment." Barnaby had always enjoyed making up stories about every new type of magical creature we'd encountered at Hogwarts. He'd been quite shy about showing them to me at first, but with some encouragement from myself and Rowan, he'd ended up sharing them with many of our friends and eventually some teachers as well.
He finished writing and proudly handed the parchment over to me so I could read it.
Interview subject: Remus J Lupin
Reason for interview: Suspected Werewolf
Testimony: Lupin attests he was in Dorset the night of the full moon, Wednesday July 26th 1991. He arrived in the early evening, shortly before the moonrise (of approximately 18:24). He claims to have stayed for dinner and several games of exploding snap with his hosts before departing around 21:30 by means of Apparition. He then returned to his home in Yorkshire at the same time mentioned previously, with no admitted stops along the way.
As further proof of his innocence, Lupin offered information of a meeting with his neighbour. One Andrew Fligmont (Muggle) which had taken place under the light of the full moon that night.
Verification of alibi: Confirmed.
Witnesses: Andrew Fligmont, Edward Tonks, Andromeda Tonks, Nymphadora Tonks.
Conclusion: Remus J Lupin has been cleared of all suspicions.
I couldn't help but be amazed. It wasn't just brilliant, it was also extremely thorough. Barnaby had given Lupin an iron clad alibi, protecting his secret and firmly dispelling any rumours about him in one go. "I guess when you went to fill Tonks in last night you came up with this, and her parents went along with it?" I asked curiously.
"Yep, Mr and Mrs Tonks are good people. They were happy to help clear Lupin once I told them who we thought might be the real person of interest. They know who Greyback is."
A shiver of fear rocketed down my spine at the mention of Greyback's name. Borrowing Barnaby's quill, I scrawled a note at the bottom of the report naming Fenrir Greyback as a new lead in the investigation. I didn't name a source, in case the report was made public. Only writing that it had been mentioned by a resident of Hogsmeade Village. I cast Geminio on the scroll to duplicate it as I rolled it up. One for the WCU and one for Lupin, so he'd know what we'd said about him and that he was cleared as well as protected.
Barnaby and I went downstairs to send Nightspur off and she obligingly took both scrolls, but I mentioned we might want to think about getting a second owl at some point to ease her workload.
Alexi was awake when we checked on him, but he was still in a frighteningly weak state. The wound on his back had apparently reopened at some point while he slept. He indicated to a large bloodstain on our cream coloured sofa, which he apologised weakly for. He told us Merula had done her best to patch him up again as I worriedly checked him over. Merula had actually done a good job, for not being very experienced with healing spells.
"Speaking of Merula, where is she?" I asked Alexi as I helped him stick his arms through the sleeves of a fresh button down shirt and lazily waved my wand at the blood stained cushions with a quick Scourgify. "Downstairs I think. She didn't say what she was doing though." Alexi replied to me. Right. It seemed no one had told him we were holding Ben prisoner in our basement. I thought about correcting that, but Alexi looked so pale and so weak, I was afraid the news might push him over the edge.
I glanced at Barnaby who was staring at Alexi with uncertainty, he got up wordlessly and followed me down the stairs. I hadn't even known our house had a basement until Barnaby had shown it to me when we arrived home with Ben. It was a pretty dingy place. Few lights, lots of cobwebs and too many doors to rooms I'd never been inside. I didn't like the idea of keeping Ben down there but I just didn't know what else we could do with him. I explained to Barnaby that I thought we might want to hold off on telling Alexi everything for a little while.
"How long exactly? I didn't agree to this being a long term arrangement. People are going to start to notice he's missing. His parents for starters, how long has it been since he checked in with them?" Barnaby asked as we made our way down the shadowy hallway that led to Ben's room.
"I don't know, a day, maybe, if he saw them before he went to St Mungo's yesterday. I don't want to be keeping him here either, I only agreed because no one else was going to volunt-" The words died in my mouth as I opened the door to Ben's room and saw four of my friends bound back to back in pairs on the floor. Ben was gone.
"Crap." I cursed, hurrying into the room to untie our friends. Barnaby followed me with his wand out, eyes scanning every corner for signs of Ben.
"My god you two are slow! We've been freezing our knickers off down here for ages waiting for you to find us. Copper's probably walking into the Ministry right this very min-" Barnaby cut Merula off before she could go on a tangent. "No, he can't have done. I set a Caterwauling Charm, and it hasn't gone off."
I met his panicked eyes over our friends heads. "He's still in the house. Oh! Alexi is upstairs alone." I jumped to my feet leaving Merula to finish untying her legs and the rest of our friends. I'd made it nearly to the door when Barnaby caught me around the waist. "Samhain, we can't split up. Wait. We'll all go up together. And you lot-" He rounded on our friends. "You start explaining how Ben managed to escape ropes and magical locks."
I knew in my head Barnaby had a point. Rushing upstairs alone would have been stupid. Ben was loose, under the influence of a curse and he had his wand, plus four more he'd gotten off our friends. He was extremely dangerous. But Alexi was alone, injured, unarmed and unsuspecting, he didn't even know Ben was in the house.
I couldn't wait around for something to happen.
"Diffindo!" I slashed my wand through the ropes binding Diego, who uttered a muffled yelp through the rag in his mouth as I nicked his hand. "Sorry, I don't know a faster way." I told him as I moved on to Chiara's bindings as Barnaby freed Ismelda more gently.
Diego and Merula talked over each trying to explain what had happened. Each blaming the other for the outcome. Apparantly Diego and Chiara had fallen asleep waiting to be relieved from Ben watch duty. Somehow, Ben had managed to get one of their wands and freed himself before he tied them up. Then he waited for Ismelda and eventually Merula to come down and check on them. Not one person had seen him before they'd been disarmed. That made me all the more nervous. I'd never known Ben to be particularly skilled in stealth.
When we were all on our feet Barnaby took the lead with his lit wand held high and we moved silently as a group through the basement to the stairs. I stayed at the back of the group, ready to throw a shield charm at the first sign of trouble.
The situation was bad. Merula, Ismelda, Chiara and Diego were completely defenseless and were relying on Barnaby and myself for protection. We also had no idea where Ben might be. The house was just too big, I realised. With a wand he could have even got up to the fifth floor, or be using a Disillusionment Charm to be hiding in plain sight.
But I didn't think he was hiding. He'd disarmed his captors and escaped, but hadn't left the house. He was seeking something, and my guess was that something was Alexi. It hadn't escape my notice that he'd left Chiara tied up but otherwise unharmed. Ben clearly had a mission and I was already regretting giving him a headstart.