Chapter 4
Chapter 3: Mission Endangered
If there was one thing that Howl hated, it was repeating himself. It irked him soundly to have to say the same thing twice. Because, not only did it waste time, but it meant that he was not being listened to, which was the same as being ignored., which was right on par with being overlooked.
Howl Pendragon was not at all fond of being overlooked.
Though in this specific situation, his reiteration had more to due with the fact that no one believed what he was saying. This was equally irksome, though on a completely different level.
“I don’t know. Like I told you before, I just panicked.” He recited for what had to be the tenth time that day. At least.
Dumbledore hmmed at him. “That was a rather high level spell you preformed, Mr. Pendragon. Very energy consuming. And yet, you do not seem in the least bit affected by it.”
Bugger. Knocking the fire back at the evil mask wizards had been nothing, just a minor wind spell that didn‘t require much thought. Nothing particularly draining. Unfortunately, it seemed these people were not like him. Yet another difference between their magic’s, and another reason why his was clearly superior.
“I’m keeping up a brave front.” Howl raised his chin slightly and pasted a noble look on his face. “I’m terribly exhausted, and famished as well, on the inside.”
The old man had the gall to look unconvinced.” I highly doubt that is the case.”
“Well, I highly doubt you know what you’re talking about.” Howl shot back rather childishly, he had to admit. But honesty, how long did the man plan to interrogate him until he finally accepted that he was telling the truth? Well, more or less telling the truth.
Strangely enough, the old man wasn’t at all annoyed by his retort. In fact, Howl could swear that his eyes actually twinkled. Twinkled, as in glimmered, as in shimmered with a spark of magic that had to have been used for that purpose. It seemed a like a waste of magic to Howl. He himself hadn’t used magic to enhance his already exquisite eyes since he was a particularly a child and even then, he had only used it to charm whoever had caught his interest that week.
Right. Howl decided two things then and there. The first was that Albus Dumbledore was one very strange old man. The second was that he really quite bored with this whole interrogation nonsense. They didn’t believe him. Fine. Howl didn’t care, he was going to leave the second he got a minute alone. No more sulking and wallowing for him, no sir. Bother these wizard and their backwards rules of magic. He was going to go back to London and return to this world on a much, much later date. Preferably, once he was sure he could walk into a bank without fear of being attacked, kidnapped, and interrogated.
“Will you kindly tell me when I can leave?” Howl demanded, sitting straight up in his seat for the first time since the meeting began.
He was rudely ignored.
Dumbledore seemed to be staring directly at something behind Howl. Odd. Howl looked over his shoulder, but the only thing on the wall behind him (other then an extremely dirty window) was an old, rather ugly, fogged up mirror. What was so interesting about the mirror? It didn’t even seem to be able to reflect things properly, the faint images that Howl could see were blurry and dark. Yet the old man was staring intently at it as though he could actually see something in it.
Howl turned back to Dumbledore to see him smiling.
Curiosity overcame his annoyance at being ignored. “What’s that?”
The old man seemed startled by the question for some reason, but he didn’t call Howl on it. Instead, he boorishly ignored that question as well and said, “I apologize for taking your wand, but you must understand our caution.”
Howl stared blankly at him for a moment before recalling the pen that he had charmed to look like a broken wand. His hand immediately went to his pocket, which he was unsurprised to discover was empty. He was surprised, however, that they had managed to get it without him noticing or realizing. When had they gotten it?
Dumbledore had been watching his movements with an odd look on his face. “Did you really not think to search for your wand before this?”
Howl responded with a sullen look. Despite that fact that he really didn’t need a wand, he couldn’t help but feel embarrassed by how slow the fact that he hadn’t even noticed its disappearance made him seem.
“I see.” The odd look grew as the old man suddenly stood up.
Howl blinked at him, embarrassment set aside for the moment. What was wrong with the old man and his unexplainable mood changes?
“Where are you going?” he demanded before remembering that he wanted to be left alone. Dammint though, rudeness seemed to go hand and hand with magically ability here. Howl was proud to say that he had never been anywhere as rude as anyone he had met so far in this bloody world.
It was just Howl’s luck that Dumbledore chose this question to not ignore. He paused, just a few feet from the door, and replied. “To lay Moody’s suspicions to rest and, ah, defuse some of the gossip that has been going about.”
He was amused, Howl realized. The old man was amused. What the hell was so amusing? Howl was not fond of being mocked, particularly when he had no idea why. If he didn’t know why he was being scorned, then he couldn’t defend himself.
He glared at the retreating back of the fashion challenged old wizard about to demand to know what was so funny about him when the aged wizard spoke again.
“The more time I spend with you, Mr. Pendragon,” Dumbledore said, pausing at the door. Howl bristled at the pleased tone. “The less of a threat you appear to be.”
The wizard smiled and left the room, leaving a gaping Howl in his wake.
Not a threat? Him? He was the Wicked Wizard Howl! Tales of his wickedness were told all over Market Chipping! Mothers only had to mention his name to get their little brats to behave! And this senile old man was saying that he was not a threat?
Actually, though, that was probably a good thing. The less these people had to fear about him, the laxer their security would get, and the quicker he’d be able to slip away and return home. But that still did not give them the right to imply that he was weak. Coward was fine, wicked was preferred, astounding would almost make him forgive everything up until now. But there was really no ground for the old man to call him weak. None at all.
“I resent that.” He complained to the shut door.
The door didn’t answer.
Howl took a moment to fume at the injustice pf the implication that he was weak, when he was really anything but, before turning his full attention to his current situation.
It seemed that while Dumbledore didn’t see him as threat, though he really should have, the old man wasn’t entirely convinced that Howl was as innocent as he claimed. Howl knew this because he was still locked in the old dusty room instead of racing home for lunch.
As earlier resolved though, Howl didn’t spend any moments on brooding. He’d sulked enough for the day, he reasoned, and besides, there was really just no point to sulking when there wasn’t anyone around to notice and attempt to console him. Howl decided to speed everything up a little and just free himself, instead of waiting for the old man to come back. These wizards might let him go eventually but he figured he’d save everyone some time and just show himself out.
Ten minutes later, he was still in the dingy old room, glaring at the window. It seemed that his captors had wards set up. Wards. The nerve of them, holding him prisoner in a warded building. He couldn’t leave if the bloody place was warded! Which was probably the reason for setting wards up in the first place, but why could they not have been even a little lax in that particular area of security?
Howl had tried to open the windows, poke a hole in the ceiling, heck, he’d even tried to pry up some of the floorboards. But all attempts had resulted in complete and utter failure. He couldn’t break, bend, dissolve, or go around whatever spells these wizards had put on them. That on its own was the most annoying fact of all.
There was nothing faulty with his spells, he knew because he had been able to convert his threadbare pillows into much softer, fluffier alternatives. Howl could feel his magic reach out to the window and he could feel the resistance the foreign magic encasing it offered. It seemed that his magic refused to interact with their magic.
This was in no ways fair.
Howl collapsed onto his much more comfortable than before bed with a scowl on his face. His stomach grumbled. He frowned at it. Broth and biscuits, while very tasty, were very filling. His stomach gave another feeble growl.
He was going to starve in here. His captors would open the door a week later, and all they would find would be a pile of nice clothes and bones. That’s all that would be left of the Great Howl. Sophie would never know what happened to him. Morgan would grow up and dedicate his life to gaining vengeance for the wrong done to his father. The villagers at Market Chipping would petition to get his birthday declared to be a National Holiday. The king, broken with grief at losing his most valued magician would agree and—
A knock broke into his fantasy and the sound of the door opening pulled him to his feet. Melodramatic thoughts pushed aside for the moment, Howl glared half-heartedly at the person in the doorway, the tired looking brunette from before. There was no point, Howl thought sitting down again, to knocking if one was going to just open the door before the individual on the other side had a chance to answer. Further proof that there people were utterly and completely manner less.
The brunette did not seem at all fazed by the glare directed at him. “It’s Howell, isn’t it?” he asked pleasantly. “Lunch is ready if you’re hungry.”
Howl stared at him. “I thought I was a prisoner.”
The brunette frowned. “Pardon?”
“Why are you inviting me to lunch when you’re holding me prisoner?” These people made absolutely no sense. One minute they were accusing him of an act that he hadn’t committed and the next minute they were inviting him to lunch. There was clearly something wrong with British wizards.
“You aren’t being kept prisoner.” The brunette said, with a slight frown. “Didn’t Dumbledore tell you that?”
“Then why was the door locked?” Howl demanded, crossing his arms.
It was the brunette’s turn to stare at him. “The door wasn’t locked.”
It was then that Howl realized that he hadn’t bothered to try the door. In his defense, he’d never thought that Dumbledore would actually leave without locking it. Hell, any sane person would assume that after all the trouble these people had gone through to accuse him of a crime that they would actually stick by that accusation for some period of time.
“Well, are you hungry?“ The possibly not-sane brunette asked again. “I can come back later if you want.”
Howl considered his options. Food or pride? Pride or food?
His stomach growled once more, louder than before. The brunette raised an eyebrow at him. Howl gave in. If he couldn’t have his pride with these people, then at least he could have some f their food.
“Alright.” He got up and followed Lupin out the door, determinedly ignoring the barely hidden amusement on the man’s face.
“I think I’m starting to see what the Headmaster meant,” Lupin remarked lightly as he passed.
Howl opened his mouth to ask what that meant, recalled the old man’s parting words, and decided, for the sake of whatever pride he had left, that he really didn’t want to know.
The first thing he noted when he stepped outside was that there was a chair standing forlornly by the wall next to the door to his room. Apparently, even though he was no longer a prisoner, he was being kept under guard. Howl didn’t really mind. Shaking off a guard was much easier than trying to escape a magically sealed room.
He turned away from the chair and scanned the hallway. He hadn’t paid much attention when he had been first shown to the rooms. He had been more focused on trying to figure out how to get out of this unruly predicament. But now, he took it all in.
Creepy, ugly, and grimy. In short, the place was eerily similar to the lairs of the evil bad guys in the games Neil loved.
The hallway was long and, there was really no other word for it, shadowy. Empty picture frames lined the dark drown walls, along with the occasional cobweb. Perhaps it was the lack of windows that gave the place a decidedly grim feel, but Howl couldn’t help but feel that no amount of windows would make the hall appear inviting. There was also a few what looked like to be shrunken heads, scattered here and there, but he could be wrong because he was not looking. Very carefully, not looking.
The two of them walked in silence down the unsightly corridor, and down a slight of very creaky and unkempt stairs.
Howl took the chance to study his guard. There was something off about the man. Howl hadn’t noticed in the earlier confrontation that day, it had been hard to focus on anything other than the dozen wands pointed his way, but now, after being in such close proximity to the man, he felt it. Lupin alluded a sense of danger that Howl had not gotten from the others. Well, from anyone aside from Scar Face. But Scar Face was more of a crazy-danger. Lupin on the other hand was more…feral-danger. Either way, both were two people he would definitely have to take particular care not to upset.
Actually, now that he thought about it, the old man had a dangerous vibe to him as well. Kind of like the vibe Madam Suilman had. Howl scowled. Damn it. Escaping might be a tad bit more harder than previously thought.
“Why are we eating eggs for lunch?” a slightly familiar, feminine voice grumbled as they neared a door which Howl guessed lead to the kitchen.
“Because that’s all I know how to cook, okay,” An unfamiliar voice snapped.
“I don’t like eggs.” The first voice complained. “Why don’t you know how to cook something good? Like muffins. You can’t go wrong with muffins.”
“Here’s an idea. How about you slave over the stove for three hours and I’ll sit here and complain. What do you think of that?”
“I think that if we want this house to remain standing at the end of today then Tonks should stay well away from the stove.” Lupin said stepping into the kitchen ahead of Howl with a slight smile on his face. “No offense meant, Tonks”
The pink haired lady from before grinned at them from the table that was placed in the center of the room. Like the rest of the house, or rather, like the parts of the house that Howl had thus far seen, the room was dark and gloomy. There was only one other person in the room, an unfamiliar red haired man about Tonks’ age.
“None taken.” Tonks said cheerfully. She turned to the red haired man as he placed a large platter of badly cooked eggs on the table. “It took you three hours to cook eggs?”
“Shut it.”
Lupin took a seat next to Tonks and Howl sat down next to the red head.
“Charlie Weasley.” The red head introduced himself, holding out a hand, once Howl was settled. “You’re the Gringotts guy right?”
Gringotts guy? How imaginative. “Howell Pendragon.” Howl said, shaking the offered hand. To his surprise, Weasley’s hand was rough and heavily calloused. A quick look revealed that his hands, and arms, were mutilated as well.
“Wother Pendragon,“ The pink haired lady said with a smile. “Call me Tonks.”
“Or you could call her Nymphdora,” Weasley put in, with a smirk. “If you want to.”
“Call me that one more time, Weasley,” Tonks threatened with a glare. “And I swear I’ll take a page out of your sister’s book.”
Weasley merely grinned at her, unperturbed.
“I’ll go see what’s keeping the others. Mr. Pendragon, please feel free to eat whatever you want.” Lupin said abruptly, standing up. He was out the door before anyone at the table had a chance to reply.
Howl frowned in the direction that the man had left. That had been decidedly odd. Lupin had given off the impression that he would be following Howl everywhere, possibly even to the loo. And now, all of a sudden, he couldn’t wait to leave the room. He turned to his two remaining not-captors to see their reactions.
Weasley was staring at the door Lupin had exited, looking as perplexed as Howl felt. Tonks on the other had was staring at her plate, looking decidedly dejected. If Howl didn’t know better, he’d have said that she looked decidedly like a maiden who had just been rejected. He turned back to Weasley to see that he was staring at Tonks as well.
“What was that about?” he asked, gesturing towards the door.
Tonks shrugged but didn’t answer.
Weasley eyed her warily, but didn’t comment. Instead he picked up the newspaper that was lying next to his plate and unfolded it, clearly intending to read rather than eat.
“Nothing about the attack on Gringotts,” he said, airily. “Wonder how they’re planning on explaining that.”
Tonks just dumped some eggs onto her plate and didn’t answer.
Howl’s stomach grumbled, reminding him that it was still empty. He followed Tonks’s example and helped himself to some eggs, making sure to take the least burnt ones. He was just about to take a bite when Weasley made an odd choking noise next to him.
“Bloody Merlin!”
“What is it?” Tonks asked absently. She wrinkled her nose at her eggs as she cut them into increasingly smaller pieces.
The red haired man stared incredulously at the paper. “The Prophet’s actually cleared Black’s name!”
“What?” Tonks demanded, snatching the newspaper right out of Weasley’s hands.
Howl looked up, interested, but not before he stuffed a bite of eggs into his mouth. Yes, he was curious about the exclamation but he was hungry too. There was little sense in starving while he gathered more data about this world.
“I was still reading that.” Weasley protested, though not very strongly.
Tonks ignored him, her eyes darting left and right as she read the article.
“I can’t believe they actually did that.” Weasley muttered, absently running a hand through his hair.
“What’s happened?” Howl asked, utterly lost.
“Dammit!”
Both Howl and Weasley jumped as the newspaper was abruptly slammed onto the table. Howl eyed the witch warily, but she didn’t seem to be mad at him. It was the paper that was bearing the full flare of her glare. Honestly, he was surprised it hadn’t spontaneously combusted yet.
“They couldn’t have done this last year?” Tonks demanded of the table at large. She was too upset by whatever she had read to notice that she had knocked over a glass of water when she had slammed the newspaper down and that water was slowly seeping into it.
Weasley snorted. “I’m still trying to get over the fact that they did it on this side of the millennium.”
Howl discreetly leaned closer, trying to catch a glimpse of the article before the water mixed with the ink and turned into a big, soggy, incomprehensible mess. He made out a headline that consisted of what had probably been an ‘S’ followed by some blurs, ‘us’ and “Bl”, more smears, “k”, followed by a few more words which had smeared beyond recognition.
S. Black? The name sounded vaguely familiar. A frown tugged at his lips as he took a sip of the water, searching through his mind for any information about an S-something-us Black. Where had he heard that name before? In Wales? His two not-captors were of no help. They were too busy arguing about Black and the paper, and someone called Harry. Dammit, where had he heard that name before?
Howl took another sip and promptly choked, spitting up water all over the front of his shirt.
Black. Sirius Black. The mass murder. The one whose face had been plastered just about everywhere a few years back. The one who murdered thirteen people. The one whose black and white photo Megan had pointed at, in the midst of one of her Moods, and demanded to know if he planned to end up like him. He didn’t by the way; the escapee’s hair was an absolute horror.
“Oi, you okay?” Weasley abandoning the argument to pound on Howl’s back in a misguided attempt to aid with his breathing.
Howl didn’t bother with an answer. He was too busy trying to breathe and keep up with the connections his mind was making.
Such as the fact that Black was a wizard. No wonder he was never caught by the common police. Sirius Black, the mass murderer, was part of these fashion-challenged, manner less wizards.
“Maybe we should call someone,” Tonk’s worried voice said, a lot closer than before.
Howl managed to shake his head a negative and take a deep shuddering breath, which caught in his throat as he finally realized what he should have thought of immediately.
These people knew Black. And they spoke his name without any fear or malice. And, they acted as though Black was part of their group…Oh hell.
Just his luck. Howl was currently in the custody of the bad guys.
He wondered when would be a good time to start begging for his life.
CURTAIN CHAPTER THREE