The wait for Mrs Anderson's acquaintance didn't last long.
In the meantime, I asked Hermione and Daphne to cover Mr Anderson and Dad if it became necessary, while I stood next to Mrs Anderson and waited for this "acquaintance" to arrive. The bound, unconscious Aurors — or whoever it was they were claiming to be — lay nearby.
"Could this become a problem?" I nodded in the direction of the three unconscious wizards.
"Unlikely," Mrs Anderson shook her head, though she glanced at the supposed Aurors with a degree of uncertainty. "Self-defence and all that."
"You're not sure of that," I said — not a question, a statement.
"I'm not," Mrs Anderson agreed. "It depends entirely on how you frame the matter."
The moment those words were out, the side gate swung open, and through it came a wizard in a beige coat, moving quickly — briskly, one might say. His most notable feature was his hair: seemingly half grey, but in an alternating pattern — one strand grey, the next jet black.
Stepping onto the property, the wizard didn't stop — he swept a quick glance over everything, taking in the situation, and made straight for Mrs Anderson and me.
"Hello," Mrs Anderson greeted him.
"Good evening," the wizard replied in English with an accent — he'd evidently been forewarned that few here spoke Italian. "What exactly happened?"
Mrs Anderson gave him a quick, concise account of the situation, and from the conversation I gathered that we had arrived literally a minute or two after the Aurors had appeared.
"I can confirm these are indeed our people," the wizard nodded towards the bound unconscious Aurors. "They'll need to be revived."
A minute — that was all it took to dissolve the binding spells and so forth. The Aurors looked extremely displeased and angry, but in the presence of the newly arrived wizard they kept themselves in check. They stood, said nothing, letting their superior do the talking, and directed dark looks at me and the others.
"I propose we don't escalate the conflict," the wizard said. "No one here is entirely in the right, and we would only be wasting time. That said, we are obliged to conduct a search regardless."
"Can you tell us what's happened?" Mrs Anderson asked him.
"At this stage the information is for official use only," the wizard shook his head. "But in broad terms… A group of highly dangerous wizards have committed a series of crimes across the country. Analysis of their movements indicated a significant likelihood of them appearing in this town. Given the possibility that they may have accomplices among the local wizarding population, search warrants were issued."
"But there are only five wizards in our town," Mrs Anderson said, surprised.
"That is so," her acquaintance nodded. "However, it also coincided with three wizards crossing the town boundary…"
At this point the wizard glanced briefly at me and at Daphne and Hermione standing a little way off.
"…I take it those are your guests."
"It would seem so," I nodded — which drew indignant looks from the recently bound Aurors, along the lines of: who does this little upstart think he is, inserting himself into adult conversation — or whatever it was they were thinking.
"We are all on edge at present," the wizard continued. "I ask you to excuse a certain sharpness and haste on the part of my colleagues."
He turned to the three of them.
"The warrant."
One of the Aurors reached into the inner pocket of what passed for a jacket, produced a bundle of parchments, found the relevant one, and handed it to his superior, who in turn presented it to Mrs Anderson.
"Hm…" She took the parchment, verified the magical seal, and ran her eyes quickly over the text. "Very well. This is where you should have started — along with presenting your identification. And in any case, you most certainly should not have raised your wands at my guests, regardless of their background."
Mrs Anderson led the Aurors into the house, and I decided to go with her — I simply didn't trust them.
"Your presence, young man," said the senior Auror on the team — Mrs Anderson's acquaintance, whose name I still hadn't been given — looking at me with mild contempt, clearly connected to the matter of background that had been mentioned during the explanation, "is entirely unnecessary."
"Quite," I agreed, and kept walking alongside Mrs Anderson.
Silence. We covered several metres along the path to the house, and the senior Auror spoke again.
"Then you understand, young man, that you're quite free to go about your own affairs."
"I understand."
We were nearly at the front entrance when one of the three less-than-astute Aurors lost patience.
"You, lad — they're telling you to go and mind your own business. Stop getting underfoot…"
"I understood perfectly," I replied, with the same calm as before.
Mrs Anderson opened the door, letting us into the house.
"Don't you trust us?" continued Mrs Anderson's considerably more restrained acquaintance.
"I don't."
"You're hoping that if it comes to it, you'd be able to do something against four adult wizards?"
Instead of answering, I simply looked at him with precisely the same slight smirk and faint contempt he'd directed at me a few moments earlier.
The search of the house and grounds proceeded fairly briskly, with various modifications of Revelio applied to detect anything concealed — should anything of the sort be present — but the only "concealed" location proved to be Mrs Anderson's personal workshop. Though calling it a laboratory was perhaps inaccurate; it was more of an enchanter's workroom, with a small shielded space for testing results.
Once the Aurors got to work, they paid no attention to anyone. But I noticed something interesting — making their way along the upper floor in the central part of the house, one Auror appeared to drop something, as if by accident. Something small. Inconsequential-looking. Nobody noticed it at all, and I wouldn't have seen it either, for all that the object slipped away from sight and attention even when you knew where to look. And I did know — thanks to my ability to sense my surroundings.
It struck me as important to leave this for now without drawing attention to it, but not without observation — I immediately conjured a simple little spider and dropped it nearby. Through it I could now see what the object actually was: visually, just a small sphere, which had rolled silently to the wall.
When the search concluded and the Aurors departed — having found nothing — I returned to the spot and examined the sphere with a diagnostic spell. From the feel of it, it was something along the lines of a beacon. I didn't know precisely what it might be used for, but one possibility was as a destination anchor — allowing someone who had never been to this place to Apparate here directly. Interesting. I committed the Auror who had dropped it to memory in precise detail.
After the search, we all gathered in the sitting room for supper, after which an entirely predictable conversation began.
"Does this sort of thing happen often?" Dad decided to open.
"Searches?" Mrs Anderson took up the thread. "Even back when I lived in England — and the situation there was fraught enough — something like this almost never happened."
"Never here either," Mr Anderson agreed.
"Something genuinely serious must have occurred," Hermione said thoughtfully. "At school we rarely heard anything about searches. Only once, actually — about four years ago."
"And what was the reason then?"
Hermione glanced at Mrs Anderson, conveying with her expression that the reasons weren't especially significant.
"The Ministry initiated a search for prohibited Dark artefacts — they were searching the homes of people who had been connected with the Dark Lord at one point or another."
"Hm," Mrs Anderson gave a wry smile. "Always trying to put pressure on the old families."
I took a sip of tea and decided to join in.
"The Ministry is an absolute muddle at the best of times, and everyone's trying to make someone else's life difficult."
"Politics is politics everywhere," Mr Anderson shrugged. "I'm reminded once again that the difference between the magical world and the ordinary one isn't as great as it might seem."
"Of course not," I agreed. "Because in both — there are people."
"Actually," Hermione said, clearly remembering something, enthusiasm rising, "I heard there are only five wizards in this town. But the town isn't that small."
"Nothing surprising about that," Daphne said — unexpectedly, from her seat beside me. "My family lives practically in a town as well. About the same size. Or large — depends how you look at it. And apart from us, I don't know of a single wizarding family in the area. Though there might be a couple of individuals."
"There aren't that many wizards," Mrs Anderson nodded. "And those who prefer towns to isolated houses out in the countryside, or something of that sort… well, they tend mainly to settle in large cities. Or in unusual ones."
"Unusual?"
"Yes, Hermione," Mrs Anderson smiled. "Venice, for instance. Or Florence — if we're talking about Italy. Rome, for understandable reasons, many tend to avoid."
"Surely not because of the Vatican? Is that conflict still relevant?"
Daphne smiled and shook her head, as did Mrs Anderson.
"There was never really any conflict as such. If I'm remembering correctly what acquaintances of mine who were keen on history used to say — that whole witch-hunt business was practically a joint initiative between the Church and the wizarding community. A means of dealing with outright criminal wizards, maniacs and the like. One has to understand that the times were harsh, life was far more dangerous, and there were far more reasons to exact revenge — and to do so severely. And wizards, of course, have far greater means of exacting that revenge with flair, particularly ruthlessly and on a large scale."
"Clear as mud," Hermione said, clearly dissatisfied with this.
"No one will ever tell you, Mione," I smiled, "how it truly was. The truth remained behind, in the centuries. Historians write history as they see it. History is reshaped in the interest of one party or another. Or for propaganda. I've leafed through the Muggle Studies textbooks — entertaining reading."
"What's entertaining about them?"
"Think it through yourself," I shrugged.
"Quite," Daphne agreed. "Those stories about wizards who supposedly didn't burn — rather amusing."
"Propaganda."
"Yes, Hector — propaganda. A wizard without a wand burns on a pyre just as well as any other living creature."
"But then why—"
"What interesting dinner conversation you all have," Mr Anderson said reproachfully, and my parents were broadly in agreement.
"It does rather happen by itself, dear," Mrs Anderson smiled at her husband.
"Since we've raised the question of wizarding vulnerability…" I decided to nudge the conversation in a slightly different direction. "…perhaps we ought to take some measures to protect ourselves and the house? I mean, if there's a chance that criminal wizards are abroad somewhere, shouldn't we do something about our own safety?"
"You think," Dad looked at me seriously, the others abandoning their idle smiles as well, "that something ought to be done?"
"Something ought always to be done. The only question is what."
"The perimeter is protected — don't worry," Mrs Anderson said with a smile.
After a little more small talk, everyone dispersed according to their inclinations. Not entirely individually — they broke into groups. The adults in one direction, almost certainly to drink wine and pick at fruit and cheese, while we young people went in another — to the garden pergola in the inner courtyard.
We simply sat there under the soft light of the lanterns in the pergola and talked, insofar as the somewhat strained relations between Daphne and Hermione allowed for normal conversation. But my attention wasn't on the conversation — it was on the little sphere left behind in the house. To keep the situation under observation, the phoenix-self had even slipped secretly into the house and taken up a concealed position, rendering itself completely invisible across every conceivable and inconceivable spectrum.
Over the course of their inconsequential chat, the girls settled on the fact that Hermione would give Daphne an introductory lesson tomorrow on the concept of beaches, swimming costumes, and everything else people tend to associate with the words "seaside holiday" in the same sentence.
"Is there really nothing like this in the wizarding world?" Hermione looked genuinely shocked, sitting across from me and Daphne in the pergola — Daphne had her head resting on my shoulder.
"There is," Daphne replied. "It's just… From what I understand, the seaside holiday is an enormous part of Muggle mass culture. For us it's something more… family, I suppose. What I mean is, all the swimming and sunbathing — it's generally not for other people's eyes. And even the swimsuits themselves…"
"What's wrong with them?"
"Leaving aside the fact that current fashion, as I understand it, leaves almost nothing to the imagination? A rather liberal interpretation of underwear?"
"That's not quite right."
"The only difference is the intended use," I found myself quite unable to stay quiet on this subject.
"Oh, and you have thoughts on the matter?" Daphne smiled up at me.
"Naturally," I said, putting my arm around her. "I think all this underwear can be divided into three categories. Purely utilitarian — comfortable, designed for comfort under clothing and nothing else whatsoever. Then beautiful, elegant, with hints of something daring or otherwise — not especially comfortable, with one sole purpose: to make the blood run hot in the one person who'll be taking it off her."
Hermione went red. Daphne only pressed closer to my side, though she coloured too. What still amazes me is that capacity of hers to push through her embarrassment at any cost. I wondered how long she'd go on being embarrassed by certain things. I recalled an acquaintance — I can't say precisely whether from a past life or from the shard memories, only the essence of the recollection remains — who was embarrassed by the same things his whole life, though with age he learned to ignore the embarrassment when necessary, and that was as far as it went.
"And…?" Hermione reminded me that I'd mentioned three categories.
"And swimsuits. Apparently the same thing as underwear. But if a girl puts on the 'second category' for herself and one particular person, the swimsuit she puts on to be seen by everyone. Taking it off is not necessarily part of the programme. And all in all…"
Remembering the fashions of various eras and the looks girls had appeared in on beaches over the years, I smirked.
"What is it now, go on then," Hermione said with resigned exasperation, though she wasn't the least bit upset.
"Just an amusing thought," the smirk stayed put. "If you happened upon a girl in her underwear — first or second category, doesn't matter — she would be thoroughly outraged. Assuming you're not together, of course. Even then it's not guaranteed. She'd cover herself, and you might well get something thrown at you…"
"Speaking from experience?" Daphne raised her eyes to mine, full of mischievous light.
"No, second-hand intelligence from other lads, but reliable. Yet in a swimsuit, often considerably more revealing — that, apparently, she's quite happy to be seen in. It's peculiar."
"Well, a swimsuit and underwear are different things," Hermione explained, as though stating the obvious.
"Yes, but what exactly compels a girl to behave so differently in each case? And to experience the situation so differently? If a boy is embarrassed by the look of himself in his pants, he'll be equally embarrassed regardless of whether they're swimming trunks or ordinary ones. But catch a girl in her underwear and it's immediately: 'You absolute cad, get out, I'll gouge your eyes out!' Put her in a swimsuit and it's: 'Look how lovely I am.'"
"I wouldn't say that," Hermione shook her head. "The first time I put on a swimsuit I was terribly embarrassed at the thought of being seen in it."
"Embarrassed specifically 'in it,' or embarrassed by 'what it doesn't conceal'?"
"Er… I've never thought about it that way. And why are we even discussing these sorts of things with you — a boy, I might add?" My sister decided to go on the offensive, as she tends to do in any situation that proves even mildly awkward or embarrassing.
"For what it's worth," Daphne said, closing her eyes and settling her head more comfortably on my shoulder, "I would personally prefer the most modest swimsuit possible. Like what athletes wear. Covering as much as possible. If I have to wear one at all."
"But…" Hermione looked Daphne over. "You have such a figure."
"Not for public consumption."
"But even that kind of swimsuit won't hide your figure. Although…"
"I mean like divers wear," Daphne clarified, gesturing to mid-thigh. "Down to about here, and with sleeves."
"With your figure," Hermione began, with faint notes of envy, "even something like that — if you can call it a swimsuit — won't save you from male attention."
"I'm only interested in the attention of one particular male," Daphne said with a sly smile, glancing at me with slight shyness. "There will be looks, won't there."
"Inevitably."
"And if other boys stare?" my sister smirked.
"May the asphalt lie heavy on them."
After sitting a little longer, the girls decided to head off to their room. Not even a meaningful glance from Daphne — though I see nothing strange in that. Neither she nor I are especially susceptible to hormonal surges and the pursuit of pleasures in one form or another when there's no particular call for it. And I… I stayed behind for the time being, in the pergola in the middle of the garden — I turned off the light, at least. I sat and waited for some move on the part of the unknown wizards — the beacon hadn't been planted for nothing.
Why hadn't I told Mrs Anderson about it? Because who knew what measures she might decide to take as the mistress of the house? She might have conjured a pit full of long sharp stakes, suspended the beacon above it, and that would have been that — end of intruders. But then who would be left to interrogate? How would I find out who to thank for the disrupted holiday? Precisely — no one. And that's no way to handle things when this sort of interesting unknown is hanging over your head.
Capture and interrogation would be unavoidable. It's one thing at Hogwarts, where I know practically every step of every student, can analyse and plan, where interrogation isn't needed at all — you need only respond in time, or put a stop to some activity in your capacity as prefect. This was an entirely different matter. I knew absolutely nothing, and being in a state of such complete ignorance is something I dislike very, very much.
All quiet on the surface. The parents were talking with the Andersons — I could sense their movements about the sitting room. Towards one in the morning they evidently grew tired of being indoors and headed for the pergola, which meant I had to vacate my settled position — no point imposing on their conversation with my presence.
I relocated to the corridor itself, to the very spot where the sphere-beacon sat against the wall. I moved in and concealed myself completely, and the phoenix-self, having handed over the watch, went off to circle above the town and the surrounding area, looking for anything of interest. Anything to pass the time.
I stood, waited, turned a coin over between my fingers — a gold Galleon. I felt a bit of a fool, frankly, but faith in human fallibility wouldn't let me abandon the watch. And standing here without sleep, with the support of Life energy, I can manage for days at a time.
At roughly half past one in the morning, the beacon activated. In the same instant, I readied myself — for anything. Wand raised, the triangles from my bracelet hanging in the air before me, thoughts gathered, mind clear.
In the corridor, for a fraction of a second, a vortex appeared — reminiscent of the kind that forms during Apparition, but instead of one person it resolved into three. I immediately unleashed a rapid sequence of spells, aimed first and foremost at knocking the wind out of the uninvited guests — various air-concussion blasts, Stunners and the like. Pale grey jets of light flew in all directions.
The visitors proved astonishingly well-prepared — or else psychologically immune to the discomfort of Apparition or Portkey transit. They began defending and counter-attacking immediately. Instantly. Without hesitation, doubt or assessment.
To spend less concentration on casting and more on the situation, I began using the ring-artefact with its stored protective charms, alternating it with my own wandwork. I put one opponent out of the fight almost immediately, leaving two — a woman and a man in black clothing, their faces hidden behind the simplest possible white masks with eye-holes cut out.
"Take them alive," the man said in German — I understood it the moment he said it. I knew the language well enough to follow words, not well enough to speak it.
Him — clearly the senior of the three — I managed to drop fairly quickly, almost straight away. The woman, however, was another matter. She moved fast and precisely, and answered each spell with countermeasures no less effective and sometimes considerably more striking. We moved through the corridor — I attacked, she defended. Sometimes the reverse. Without words, without hesitation, without emotion. We exchanged spells, flooding the corridor and then the hall we'd moved into with them. Fire, water, ice — the works. Neither I nor this witch was aiming to kill — that much was evident in the spells. Maiming was another question.
At a certain point I managed to catch her with a combination of a Transfiguration and two offensive spells, throwing her into the wall. She appeared to have shielded herself partially — she smashed through the wall and rolled out the other side without injury. The dust, stone fragments and noise, however, were considerable.
At that moment Mrs Anderson came hurrying towards us — it was quite impossible for the adults sitting in the pergola to ignore what was happening, and especially the destruction of part of the house wall. A quick combination of spells from me against a slightly disoriented opponent, and the witch was paralysed, unconscious, bound hand and foot.
"What is going on here?" Mrs Anderson arrived with her wand raised.
"An intrusion, ma'am. The threat has been neutralised, but the intruders should be secured properly. Immobilised, disarmed — the full treatment."
"Understood," she said with a short nod, and began casting over the witch I had just put down.
I recalled the triangles, condensing them back into the bracelet on my wrist, and moved quickly to the upper floor where the recently defeated opponents lay. Search, disarmament, removal of several enchanted items — all of it done very quickly, followed by a thorough removal of all freedom of movement, after which we dragged them into the main entrance hall and arranged them side by side against the wall.
"We can prevent them from regaining consciousness at all," Mrs Anderson said. "With a potion."
"As you think best," I shrugged. "I can simply monitor their condition."
"No need to complicate things."
The noise had already brought Hermione and Daphne down — in nightgowns, wands in hand — though they hadn't descended further, taking up positions on the staircase from the upper landing. Silently.
While Mrs Anderson went to fetch the potions, I removed the masks from the intruders. The men were entirely unknown to me, but the woman — or rather, the girl…
"Romanova?…" I said aloud, in genuine surprise, lifting the mask to reveal a familiar face.
Familiar, but marked by a vivid scar running from eye to chin. She was the one who had given me difficulty in the fight, and if not for the pace I'd set — pushing the speed very hard, giving no quarter — it was impossible to say how things might have gone.
"What?" Daphne caught my words. "Romanova?"
"Yes," I said blankly. "I don't understand any of this."
And that was the plain truth. I didn't understand what was happening at all. But one way or another, I would find out. One way or another.
---------------
Give me Powerstones if you like the story.
If you want to read 60+ advance chapters, you can do so on my Patreon.
Patreon(.)com/TheRedSpell