January 1994. London suburbs.
Hermione hissed and grabbed her head: her skull felt like it was being burned from the inside. And a moment later, she watched with concern as the runes of the Forecast, which she had recently so carefully constructed, began to disperse in the warp and get tangled up with each other. Someone had interfered with the Threads of Probabilities, rudely and brazenly disturbing the warp, confusing all the main paths of Destiny.
"What the?!..." was all the girl could say, as she was again twisted by a painful spasm. Passers-by on the railway platform, where the girl had been suddenly hit, looked suspiciously at Granger, but no one came up to her - a massive figure in a black jacket and dark glasses loomed next to her, one of the Lord's men, sent to make sure that everything was alright with their boss's partner. Not that she needed it in case of danger, but in such moments, when she needed to scare off onlookers with just her appearance, the colorful bully was irreplaceable.
"Smart guy?... He's not answering," Hermione muttered meanwhile, not paying attention to those around her, analyzing the remaining Forecast runes and more or less intact Threads of Fate. "Something with Harry!" - the girl frowned. "What is it connected with?... Goblins... Teddingale!" - she exclaimed, hitting her fist into her palm.
"Miss Granger?" - the "bull" accompanying her frowned. She herself selected the "bodyguard" from the people proposed by the Lord - first of all, of course, by impressive appearance, but also by some intelligence. Well, vocabulary and a bit of manners also played a role.
"Nothing..." - the girl shook her shock of chestnut hair. "Our route hasn't changed, it's just..." - she gritted her teeth and waved her hand at the "bull": "We're not going by train!"
The bully didn't ask any questions: by "manners" of her companion, Hermione primarily meant silently following the instructions. And the Lord gave his man exactly this instruction.
Of course, the sight of a cute schoolgirl in the company of a thug with a gangster's mug entering a dead-end alley could have alerted a particularly vigilant bobby or a simple passerby. But Hermione was not up to showdowns with Mordred Muggles, and so she pricked her finger with a hairpin on the go, drawing blood and muttering an activator spell. So the gazes of passersby began to slide past, as if noticing the couple passing in front of them, but not remembering. An excellent short-term analogue of a Muggle-repelling charm - only completely not registered by the Ministry analyzers. It's convenient, and you don't have to take your wand out every now and then. Of course, the Ministry officials haven't yet reached the point of being so insane as to track even the mandatory and simple in principle Muggle-repelling charms. But who knows, how does this affect schoolchildren? Hermione and Harry were interested in the secrets of magic and the Universe, and not the bureaucratic delights of the bluestockings from the Ministry of Magic!
And so they entered the gateway, completely unnoticed by anyone. Hermione immediately snapped her fingers, calling on a personal house elf, who quickly moved them to the desired point. Why couldn't they do it right away? Because they were going to meet "rebbe" Shalom, to whom the Lord had promised "a very promising girl for his business." That is, Hermione had to pretend to be an underage prostitute in order to get close to the "rebbe" and begin preparations for the "move" of the Lord's gang from South Helens. They decided to get there by regular transport because, most likely, Shalom's people would start following them from the Teddingale station — and therefore it was not worth giving them extra reasons for suspicion by suddenly appearing right in the city. Now these precautions, of course, were no longer relevant.
They appeared with a loud bang in the middle of a deserted alley — surprisingly clean. However, Teddingale was a fairly licked and clean city. Not as sleek and clean as Little Whinging, but the scale here was somewhat different.
"Damn, I'll never get used to this mystical crap," the "bull" muttered inaudibly, as it seemed to him, but Hermione ignored him. Concentrating again on the Threads of Fate darting about like headless chickens, she strained to understand what was happening in the headquarters of the Jewish gangster, opposite which they had apparated.
"There's a fight there!" the girl said shortly, jerking her head towards the nondescript building in which the so-called headquarters was located. "You can't see it from here, but…" Suddenly there was a loud bang, the window on the second floor of the building in question shattered into a pile of fragments, and smoke poured out of it. Several shots and screams were heard - after which everything became quiet again.
"Should we go inside?" — the "bull" asked in a businesslike manner, smoothly pulling a pistol out of a hidden holster and deftly checking it. He didn't even ask whether it was necessary for him, let alone the chestnut-haired girl, to drag himself into this hell. This is what Hermione called "manners."
"Yes. And quickly! I… feel," here Granger winced from the pain in her head, "that something extremely unpleasant may happen very soon!"
They approached the door shoulder to shoulder. Moreover, the "bull" tried to push the girl aside, but she raised her eyebrow so expressively that he preferred to yield the palm. And Hermione looked at the locked door, raised her hands and… A cluster of crimson-black energy arrows flew from her fingers, which literally swept away the obstacle from her path!
The building they broke into looked like a shabby office of some middling company from the outside. However, it looked the same inside. Even the standard attributes of such establishments: a ficus tree, a water cooler and a reception desk - were not damaged by the Chaos magic attack, so strong was the office spirit in this room! Only a few corpses of varying degrees of dismemberment and the walls riddled with bullet holes hinted at the fact that a fight had taken place here.
Hermione just shook her head, driving away the uninvited thoughts. Harry was obviously frolicking somewhere in the inner rooms. And with him, as the scraps of the Threads of Fate signaled, there was someone else.
When she and the "bull" were already running along the corridor of the first floor, somewhere ahead of them in the direction of their movement, an inarticulate roar, screams and shots were heard! The roar, however, was somehow thin, as if screaming ... ... A girl. More precisely - a twelve-year-old girl. Ginny Weasley.
Right before the eyes of Hermione, who raised an eyebrow and the dumbfounded "bull" Lord, the fragile red-haired schoolgirl, having made several completely acrobatic jerks to the sides, dodging shots from a pistol, caught up with her victim. Which was a young guy with a big nose, a thin black beard and characteristic sidelocks hanging from his forehead, screaming at the top of his lungs and shooting towards the mad fury. Ginny, having caught up with the poor guy, literally tore the boy's head off! And yes: one of the girl's hands was covered in something black, like soot, with scarlet glowing veins. It resembled smoking lava - especially if you consider that the veins also emitted otherworldly smoke. The fingers of this hand lengthened and became pointed - in fact, thanks to this, Weasley separated the head of the militant Shalom from the body.
"How wonderful you have become!" - she howled terribly, raising her blood-stained head. "What a glorious... A good present!... For him! He's got a gift!..." After that, not paying attention to the "bull" and Hermione watching this scene, Ginny ran her tongue along the cheek of the severed head, licking off the blood.
The "bull" looked at this with such a stunned look that it was clear: he had fallen out of reality a little from the sight that had opened up. But Hermione did not fall out. Granger quickly looked around the room. A pile of dismembered and necessarily decapitated corpses, bullet holes on the walls - Ginny had minced almost six of Shalom's "bulls"! Hermione added "almost" to her reasoning because it was unclear where one corpse ended and the second began - everything was covered in blood, littered with entrails and severed limbs. And she was not particularly interested in this. Something else was interesting. For example, the fact that Ginny Weasley was now positively emitting the emanations of Ruffnut, Harry's Khorne friend. That is, the emanations of Khorne himself, of course. And that meant that it was time for them to leave: in this state, the little Weasley could pounce on them at any moment, without distinguishing whether they were her own or enemies. The Blood God had now completely taken possession of her, so this relaxed trance, during which Ginny was licking blood from severed heads with delight, could end at any moment.
And so Hermione silently pulled the Lord's "bull" (by the way, she should ask his name - a thought flashed - not everything can be called "bull") behind her, leading him away from the scene of the slaughter. As Granger understood, Ginny took upon herself the cleanup of the two above-ground floors of the headquarters, while Harry was having fun underground. And judging by the waves of frantic pain coming from there, one could assume that he was "having fun" to the fullest extent!
And so it turned out. Because when Hermione and the "bull" assigned by the Lord went down, Shalom was already almost dead. But, unfortunately for the "rebbe" himself — exactly "almost".
"You're not trying!" Harry Potter barked at the one who was beating the screaming Shalom from behind. "More expression, I want to see Art!!"
The Boy Who Lived was transformed. His eyes were glowing green-crimson, long fangs were sticking out of his mouth, and his hands… His right hand was covered in blood, but overall it hadn't changed much — just a couple of long scratches and black burnt marks. But his left hand was lumpy with ulcers and gaping with rotting wounds, his fingers had turned into gnarled branches ending in broken yellow claws. Harry was half-immersed in the warp, at the moment surrendering to the will of the voice of the Gods!
However, the sight of Harry half-turned into a demon was not the most terrible thing in the room. The "bull" accompanying Hermione suddenly turned pale and, covering his mouth with his hand, rushed into the corner - for him it was already too much. Because the sight was damn scary even for this hardened and cruel man, beaten by a life of crime! In a room furnished specifically for the production of hard BDSM videos, the former owner of this film studio - actually "rebbe" Shalom - was being raped. Well, how, raped... Just a pumped-up porn actor, with empty eyes and pink foam at the mouth, literally impaled the venerable gangster boss! Time after time, the huge structure, consisting of a strange mixture of meat and bone, into which the actor's penis had mysteriously turned, pierced the fat bandit through the ass and came out of a hole in his shoulder. Hermione remembered the engraving with the victims of Vladislav Tepes - that's how, approximately, the stake passed through the body of a person. True, those victims died quite quickly - relatively, depending on the skill of the executioner. But "Rebbe" Shalom did not die. Even despite the fact that he was not simply impaled on this penis-piercer, but literally fucked along the entire body, internal organs and all that! But the left one was lumpy with ulcers and gaping with rotting wounds, the fingers had turned into gnarled branches ending in broken yellow claws. Harry was half-immersed in the warp, at the moment surrendering to the will of the voice of the Gods!
However, the sight of Harry half-turned into a demon was not the most terrible thing in the room. The "bull" accompanying Hermione suddenly turned pale in face and, covering his mouth with his hand, rushed into the corner - for him it was already too much. Because the sight was damn scary even for this hardened and cruel man, beaten by a life of crime! In a room furnished specifically for the production of hard BDSM videos, the former owner of this film studio was being raped - actually "rebbe" Shalom. Well, how, raped ... Just a pumped-up porn actor, with empty eyes and pink foam at the mouth, literally impaled the venerable gangster boss on a stake! Time after time, the huge structure, consisting of a strange mixture of meat and bone, into which the actor's penis had mysteriously turned, pierced the fat bandit through the ass and came out of a hole in his shoulder. Hermione remembered the engraving with the victims of Vladislav Tepes - that's how, approximately, the stake passed through the body of a person. True, those victims died quite quickly - relatively, depending on the skill of the executioner. But "Rebbe" Shalom did not die. Even despite the fact that he was not simply impaled on this penis-piercer, but literally fucked along the entire body, internal organs and all that! But the left one was lumpy with ulcers and gaping with rotting wounds, the fingers had turned into gnarled branches ending in broken yellow claws. Harry was half-immersed in the warp, at the moment surrendering to the will of the voice of the Gods! However, the sight of Harry half-turned into a demon was not the most terrible thing in the room. The "bull" accompanying Hermione suddenly turned pale in face and, covering his mouth with his hand, rushed into the corner - for him it was already too much. Because the sight was damn scary even for this hardened and cruel man, beaten by a life of crime! In a room furnished specifically for the production of hard BDSM videos, the former owner of this film studio was being raped - actually "rebbe" Shalom. Well, how, raped ... Just a pumped-up porn actor, with empty eyes and pink foam at the mouth, literally impaled the venerable gangster boss on a stake! Time after time, the huge structure, consisting of a strange mixture of meat and bone, into which the actor's penis had mysteriously turned, pierced the fat bandit through the ass and came out of a hole in his shoulder. Hermione remembered the engraving with the victims of Vladislav Tepes - that's how, approximately, the stake passed through the body of a person. True, those victims died quite quickly - relatively, depending on the skill of the executioner. But "Rebbe" Shalom did not die. Even despite the fact that he was not simply impalled on this penis-piercer, but literally fucked along the entire body, internal organs and all that!
"Hermione, my dear, it's so good to have you here!" the Smarty's voice rang out in the girl's head. "As you can see, we've got an unplanned party coming up."
"I see," Hermione replied mentally, looking at the scene with some detachment. "But what happened?"
"The goblin god made his move," the Tzeentch chuckled at this. "Ruffnut and Sweetie are temporarily out of action, and Harry has had to urgently find an opportunity to... let off some steam."
"What does Ginny Weasley have to do with it and what happened to Harry's arm?" Granger asked, raising her eyebrows even higher. The terribly wheezing and bleeding Shalom did not distract her from the conversation at all, nor did Harry Potter, who was enthusiastically shouting at his executioner. "Although, let me guess: Ginny just got in the way, and the arm itself was the work of Harry's Nurgle companion?"
"Something like that," the Smarty grinned again. "The girl witnessed Harry being overcome by the madness of Blargolag. I had to grab the little Weasley and drag her along - but in the end everything turned out for the best." The Lord's "Bull", having vomited, to his credit immediately returned to his "ward". Responsibility and loyalty - Hermione especially noted this! True, he now looked at his "ward" and her friend with a fair amount of apprehension.
Meanwhile, Shalom had finally died, and the porn actor who had been banging him began to wheeze terribly, choking on pink foam. His eyes glowed purple and... burst. With a disgusting squelch, having pulled the rubber-bent penis-splitting device out of the gangster's corpse, the muscleman fell on his back with a bang, twitching as if in an epileptic fit.
"Tch! Weak, worthless nothing!" - Harry spat with annoyance, raising his eyes, emitting warp fire, and finally paying attention to the people who had entered. "Hermione!" - he exclaimed joyfully. "And I suddenly decided to visit "rebbe" Shalom. To show him REAL art, and not those unfinished products that he films here!"
"Harry, are you okay?" Granger asked carefully, carefully approaching her friend. Not forgetting to prepare new warp bolts on her palms. "The threads of Fate are all torn and twisted: anything can happen! It's time for us to go…"
"Anything?" he looked at the girl strangely - and from this look Hermione almost suffocated! It was as if hot air washed over her, a strange languor, clouding her mind and exciting her senses. It was pleasant... but damn disturbing!
"Stop it!" she exclaimed, shaking her head and closing her eyes - this at least somehow neutralized the influence of the Love Look used by Harry. "We need to go! We need…" She did not have time to finish what they needed, because Potter quickly approached her, lifted the girl's chin and sank into her lips with a predatory kiss. And Hermione couldn't find the strength to pull away, that kiss seemed so sweet to her!... However, the very next moment they both pulled away from each other, spitting the pink poison of Slaanesh onto the floor. Because it suddenly began to terribly burn the Gryffindors' tongues!
"As planned," the Smart Guy's voice sounded in their heads. "The spell from Slaanesh has been neutralized, but at the same time you didn't have time to do anything extra to each other: after all, the one who developed the age protection at Hogwarts was a Mordred genius!"
"Ugh!" - Harry spat back in irritation. "I didn't think it would work like that! And why did it work at all?!"
"Your poison, Harry, is a powerful aphrodisiac! And the blocks placed on you by the Sorting Hat protect schoolchildren under 16 not only from inappropriate body movements, but also from rape, including under the influence of such drugs!" - the demon of Tzeentch explained. "When you kissed, you both tasted it - and the protection decided to intervene."
"This is not how I imagined my first kiss," - Hermione muttered in turn, wiping her mouth with the back of her hand.
"Let's do it again in a calmer environment?" - Harry raised an eyebrow in response. "Without poison?" - At this, he earned a frown from his friend.
"We need to hurry and get out of here!" - she sealed it. "While you were here... covered," - she glanced with disgust at the two corpses in the center of the room, "- the warp was stirred up so much that Smarty and I can't even imagine what will happen next! And who will notice! You urgently need to get back to school!"
"Yes, yes, I remember!" - Harry winced in response. "We're leaving already. I'll just take Ginny..." He found himself in the center of attention once again. Who could have reacted to the sudden massacre in Teddingale? The goblins with their Blargolag, who had started this mess? Or the Order of the Phoenix, which had been keeping an eye on both Potter himself and the suburbs of London for some time now, looking for unknown warlocks? All of them together? In any case, it was necessary to get out - and quickly!
"Well, at least Shalom and his gang somehow freed up a place for the Lord," - the boy smiled carefree, examining his left hand. With which the effects of the Good Man's influence were already fading - literally by sheer force of will, Harry was driving Nurgle's mutations inside himself. Not removing them completely, just masking and hiding them inside his own flesh. Until the time came.
"Yeah, just a carefully verified filigree plan - down the drain!" - Hermione muttered discontentedly. "And I was preparing, calculating ..."
Harry did not answer anything. He had already become serious and fully realized that they were in real shit!
"Miss, we have to leave!" - the Lord's "bull" intervened. Pale as a corpse, but not losing his composure. Hermione briefly noted to herself that she needed to recommend him to the Lord as the future Chosen One - such restraint was worth paying attention to. "I don't know what kind of shit is going on here, but ..."
"We're already leaving," - Hermione answered him socially. And then she asked Harry: "And why do you need Ginny... ah, now the Chaos Gods speak clearly!" - she nodded understandingly, looking at the little Weasley, who was no longer licking blood, but huddled in a corner and pale as death. "An anchor? Original... To divert Khorne's influence to someone else, who was already on the edge - it is sufficient to just push... But what to do with her now?"
"Better think about how you'll cover your tracks, Harry!" Kindly One, who had been silent until then, broke into the boy's thoughts, which made Hermione, who was standing next to him, immediately wrinkle her nose in disgust, but she didn't comment. "There was a real massacre here with traces of dark magic! You shouldn't leave such evidence - not in the city where you're going to found a new center of your power."
"Rotten is right," Smarty snorted slightly condescendingly. "But everything has already been thought out and calculated without you, Kindly One! Of course, it's not such a multi-stage ideal plan as the one that ruined Blargolag... but it'll do."
"Complexity for the sake of complexity only leads to even greater complications," the Nurglite rumbled reproachfully. "In general, everything that happens is for the best," he grunted with satisfaction.
Harry grinned, feeling the Smarty's obvious irritation: the rotting rival of the Tzeentchite was clearly hinting that the attack of the goblin god gave him much more than the ever-cunning and complicating follower of the Architect of Fates. For example, Harry's new mutations: albeit half-hidden for now, the Gifts of Nurgle manifested themselves on Potter's body.
"First: Ginny Weasley," the Smarty said coldly, as if pursing his lips in resentment. "There won't be any problems here at all: Legilimency and partial Obliviate - so that the influence of Chaos remains, but there are no traces that something is wrong with the girl. I think the locals call it mental bookmarks. Hermione is quite capable of this - after her parents, she has advanced greatly in the magic of thoughts," the Tzeentchite chuckled smugly at this phrase, and Granger smiled. "As for covering up the tracks... It's both simpler and more complicated at the same time!"
"I swear by the Skull Throne, I'll tear you apart one day, you Mordred verbose bastard!" Ruffnut didn't even growl, but groaned deep in Harry's skull. "Can you express yourself more clearly and briefly?!"
"A manipulator and a liar, playing with words - they're all like that," Kind did not fail to add caustically. But Smarty had already regained his composure and, not at all embarrassed, continued: "The Aurors don't really monitor what's going on in the Muggle world - we've already seen that. But that doesn't mean that, um, private structures don't monitor it."
"The Order of the Phoenix!" Harry and Hermione exclaimed in unison, looking at each other. Which caused a puzzled look from the Lord's "bull" - but no one was paying much attention to him.
"Exactly," Smarty nodded contentedly. "And all the probabilities indicate that not only the Order will soon show up here for a visit, but also those who have eyes and ears inside it!"
"Clever girl, you are of course our main megabrain", — the Sweet Tooth croaked tiredly, as if the morning after a drinking binge combined with an orgy, also joining in the conversation. "But I'll join the others: you're too verbose! It's not the right situation, don't you think?"
"Yes, yes, I already understand!" the Smart One "winced" again, who, it seemed, at that particular moment really wanted to show the other tenants of Harry's soul his intellectual superiority. But there really was no time. "With a probability of slightly less than 80%, Alastor Moody will soon descend here with a couple of more or less undiscovered fighters of the Order of the Phoenix. And almost simultaneously with them, our new acquaintances. Who are friends of Sirius Black. The appearance of him himself... is also quite likely."
"They will clash in a fight and?..." Harry raised his eyebrows in a silent question - although he already knew the answer to it perfectly well.
"And they are unlikely to leave a stone unturned here," the Smart One sang. "There is no evidence, the culprits of the chaos have been found, everything is covered up!"
"Clever!" Sweet Tooth chuckled skeptically, while Harry and Hermione were already lifting the insane Ginny Weasley from the floor and calling their personal house elves. "And if they still don't come?"
However, a new explosion from the side of the building entrance showed that someone had come after all.
"When have my plans and predictions not come true?" Smart Tooth chuckled, when the trio of schoolchildren and the Lord's "bull" warily glancing first at one, then at the other, had already grabbed the hands of the summoned house elves.
"Never. They just don't always come true as originally intended," the Slaaneshi muttered in response.
The house elves and their passengers disappeared in whirlwinds of Apparation. But the wizards who had broken into the building no longer had time for the fugitives. Other problems had arisen.
January 1994. London - Teddingale.
"Mr. Chorney need not worry," - hissed a vile-looking guy in a greasy frock coat, hinting at the former high cost of clothing. "A couple of brothers and I will always be ready to act on your side! And in the case of paying a decent deposit," - here the guy bared his teeth, showing a pair of needle-like fangs, "- then immediately!"
That's for sure, Andrei Dolokhov did not think and did not guess that he would seriously negotiate with creatures that in his previous service he considered something like very dangerous animals! Werewolves, vampires, and even just dishonest wizards - they were something otherworldly, the offspring of another alien world. A world that periodically broke through into the world of ordinary people, and people like him, representatives of the "special" departments of the Office, were required to destroy the consequences of such a breakthrough before the losses became critical. Of course, those guys eventually came themselves in most cases and restored order, cleaning up traces and eliminating the consequences. But, unlike the Muggle Offices, they completely disregarded the number of corpses and destruction.
And here he is, former KGB agent Andrei Dolokhov, sitting opposite this degraded bloodsucker - most likely not even a purebred vampire, but a half-breed dhampir - but the essence is the same. He sits, listens, nods, and promises money. And is ready to use his dirty services for this very money! As far as he managed to study the local society - that is, the society not so much of magical Britain as a whole, but specifically Knockturn Alley - such creatures frankly did not measure up to true vampires, even the lowest ones. Despite the strength, agility and speed granted to them by their undead ancestor, these bastards were frankly weak even against the background of ordinary werewolves or xenocrypha from other magical creatures. Cowardly, small-time scavengers, prowling through cemeteries and dumps in search of corpses from which they could extract at least a couple of drops of coagulated rotten blood. Or, occasionally, they risked attacking lost Muggle children - and for them it was a real feast!
Andrey looked at this magical scavenger - of which, it must be said, there are quite a lot among ordinary people - and could not suppress his disgust ... and indignation. No, of course, he never suffered from fastidiousness - he did not have that kind of profession. But he was not such a notorious cynic as to have a positive attitude towards such subjects. Only now disgust was literally squeezing Andrey's throat! Having barely suppressed the inappropriate impulse, he discussed the terms of their little agreement with the dhampir for a couple more minutes, after which he stood up and, turning up his collar, left the seedy pub where the meeting was taking place.
Of course, Dolokhov changed his appearance - more than once, alternating Polyjuice Potion and the usual detective techniques, such as changing small details of clothing, gait, posture, and so on. The fact that the locals couldn't conduct surveillance properly without magic didn't mean they should relax. That same Cracktooth Betty, the leader of the small gang of dhampirs they had just been chatting with, could very well have snitched to someone he shouldn't have about what the mysterious Mr. Chorney's agent looked like. And given the local criminals' interest in the latter, he could probably get into trouble next time. He'd have to meander through the winding narrow streets, throwing off a possible tail, turn into an even narrower alley, activate the goblin teleporter... and there he was at the next meeting place - the Point. That's what they called the places where they arranged meetings with Mundungus Fletcher.
"Mr. Fletcher," Dolokhov smiled with his lips alone, silently sneaking up on Mundungus standing in the alley. This made the balding swindler in the shabby jacket shudder and turn around abruptly. "M-Mr. Smith!" he muttered nervously. "I can't imagine how you sneak up on me like that every time!"
"It doesn't matter. You wrote that something interesting would happen soon," Andrey interrupted his babbling, touching the pocket of his jacket, in which lay a scroll of parchment with proteus charms. Of course, they were now in the middle of some abandoned industrial zone, in a completely Muggle area, but it was better to hurry Fletcher. Otherwise, he would get on his favorite hobbyhorse: he would try to play on pity and whine about lack of money and "eating up the last crumbs". A familiar song.
"About Mr. Mal…"
"Let's not name specific names," - Dolokhov interrupted him, narrowing his eyes unkindly.
"Yes, yes!" - Fletcher immediately began to sweat and nervously wiped his bald spot with a dirty handkerchief. "About this gentleman, you said that you would provide yourself with further information - well, I ..."
"Get to the point, Mr. Fletcher," - Andrey spurred the swindler again. His fear was completely understandable and even beneficial to the former KGB agent, but sometimes ... it was very irritating. Especially with this indecisive manner of mumbling and fear of saying too much.
"Some information from ... your organization?" — Ahem... Anyway, about half an hour ago, a couple of guys from the... reserve pool of the organization," — Mundungus gave a complex construction, apparently meaning one of those members of the Order who were not officially listed in its ranks and had not been exposed to the Ministry. — "They received a Patronus from Alastor Moody with the text... well, something like 'something is happening - move!'"
"And more precisely?" — Andrey asked, straightening up.
"Mister Smith, you ask too much of me!" — Fletcher pleaded. "Moody is still paranoid, and the fact that I ended up in a pub next to two of his guys is a real miracle!"
Dolokhov said nothing to this, although he rolled his eyes to himself. Of course, if it weren't for his and Sam's recommendations, there's no way this swindler would have been able to follow two militants trained by a veteran Auror. But their own skills were an order of magnitude superior to those of wizards - at least these ones for sure. And so the dexterous and tenacious Fletcher, having caught what he was taught literally on the fly, managed to eavesdrop on Moody's conversation with his comrades, and then intercept the moment the Patronus appeared.
"Alastor has been visiting Teddingale a lot lately," - Mundungus chattered meanwhile. "A town in the suburbs of London... By the way, I've even been there a couple of times on business!"
Andrey only nodded at this, and so Fletcher continued: "So... Moody mentioned that some kind of Mordredism was going on there and in a couple of other places. And then there was some kind of rumor that the Muggle bandits, from whom the strange things actually come, had agreed on something, and a certain guest would soon arrive in Teddingale. I don't know how Moody knew she was a young witch, but…" he spread his hands.
"Go on," Dolokhov encouraged him.
"Well, so… Ahem. And then — bang! Get over here, guys, we've got an emergency! And not with an owl, not with a Proteus charm — with a Patronus!" Fletcher raised his finger to indicate the importance of what was happening. "But the main thing," here he lowered his voice even more, "is that he mentioned some dark wizards… he had mentioned them before, but apparently, now I've definitely spotted them in Teddingale!"
"Your mother!" - Andrey cursed at this. But he did not continue: there was no point in cursing at this slippery swindler anyway. "I need to go there urgently! Although no..." - not paying attention to the pale Fletcher, he angrily rubbed the bridge of his nose. "Mister Chorney will definitely want to visit this place. And you will help him!"
"Have mercy, Mister Smith! But I can't shine..." - Mundungus tried to jump up, but was interrupted: "Mister Chorney will apparate us himself. Your task is to transmit the apparation coordinates, okay?"
Fletcher nodded hesitantly, and Andrey thought for a second. On the one hand, dragging this idiot to Black's mansion was not the best idea. But what other options?
"Wait here. As long as it takes!" - Dolokhov abruptly cut off any possible questions. But he still decided to set at least some time limits: "In thirty minutes you can be free. But until then - wait!"
With these words, Andrei squeezed the goblin teleporter and disappeared.
In fact, Dolokhov did not know why the hell he rushed headlong on this trail! Lately, some kind of unhealthy thirst for action had settled in his skull, like an irritating itch. Not even that - more like a desire to cause fuss and chaos! And not through negotiations, not underhanded games, but loudly and ostentatiously - as if throwing dynamite into a cesspool. So the fact that he had moved straight to the mansion on Grimmauld Place and raised his small team to its ears could only be attributed to this.
"Where is the fire?" - Sam could not stand it, already finishing shoving spare magazines into the unloading. What Andrei was damn grateful to his friend for was that he did not object to the sudden sortie in principle. He must have thought that they were just scouting the area.
"There's a lead on some mage-terrorists that hasn't reached official sources," Dolokhov explained, pulling on his balaclava. "If we find them, we can speed up the search."
He himself understood that his words and, especially, his actions were damn impulsive and unprofessional! Just rushing headlong into who knows where? Why?! He stopped at the entrance to the living room and thought for a moment. Why? For what? Or better yet, with what!
"Andrew?!" Sam looked at his friend in shock when he returned from the utility room, weighing the pick given to him by the goblins.
"Let's go," Andrey didn't give his friend a chance to come to his senses. "Mr. Black, you're coming with us too!"
It had been almost two weeks since they had forced Sirius to stop his drinking, and the wizard had reverted to his Mr. Chorney persona, the same polished and arrogant Eastern European aristocrat who occasionally flitted around the fringes of London's criminal underworld, causing a stir and arousing interest. The two Squibs had even returned his wand—with a few conditions, of course. And so Black stood in the doorway of the living room, looking at them with a burning gaze.
"Have you decided to test me in action after all?" he grinned.
"You'll just apparate us to the specified coordinates. Well, and then you'll play Big Boss in front of Fletcher," Andrey shrugged.
But Sirius had a different opinion. "I'm a fucking former Auror!" the wizard barked. "I'll act under disillusionment, or even under Reverse — as you say! I won't be a burden. Just take me on the job! Otherwise, I'll rust soon!"
And then Andrey realized that refusing Black now was not the best idea. Especially since he was clutching a wand in his hands — and a shootout between friends is not what you need in such a situation. Especially since time was quickly running out!
"Okay, you'll help us," Dolokhov said, wincing.
Twenty minutes had already passed from the half hour he'd promised Mundungus. In general, nothing special... But in Teddingale, everything could have ended ten times over!
There were no problems with Fletcher - Black had an excellent command of the basics of legillimency, so the old swindler quickly passed on the coordinates. And even faster - he disappeared from the sight of the creepy "Mr. Chorney". But they did not pay attention to this.
Teddingale greeted their trio with nasty wet snow and a gloomy sky. And then another s-m-i-l-l problem arose.
"Your mother!" - Andrey cursed under his breath when he realized that he had no idea where to look for this Moody in a small town compared to London, but quite a large one. "How could I have missed this?!"
Irritation and anger at everything: at the blockhead Fletcher, who was unable to find out the specifics, at himself, who had so stupidly rushed to who knows where and against whom - this cocktail was bubbling inside Andrey like a boiling cauldron! He knew it was stupid, unprofessional, and generally irrational — and that made him even angrier. And Sam with his worried look!
Inhale… exhale… Dolokhov more or less pulled himself together. What did they have? The fact that he and Sam were dressed like armed collectors. Or special forces. Or terrorists — in general, underline as appropriate. And they were standing in an alley in the middle of an unfamiliar city, in which somewhere there is a showdown of wizards, which they absolutely have to get involved in! Of course, if they find the place of this showdown.
What always saved Andrey in such seemingly hopeless situations? Intuition! Taking another deep breath, the former KGB agent closed his eyes for a moment and… And he lowered his palm onto the goblin pickaxe hanging on his belt.
"Ah!" the Russian even closed his eyes – his head and arm were shot with pain! He had experienced something similar when he had looked at the strange rune that had been inscribed in the letter attached to the pickaxe. But then suddenly the realization appeared— where and how to go.
"You know, I never thought I'd say something like that," Sam chuckled a little later, when the three of them, under a Muggle-repellent spell, approached the right place: a gray office building. "But lately I've been terribly uneasy about all this magic and, what's worse, mysticism. Especially when it comes to you, Andrew!"
Andrey winced. Sam still burst out to express concern about the changes in his character and impulsive actions. But no matter: after today, he would seriously study his actions and they would discuss it. AFTER!
"Assault on the Alpha-Gamma-Zero phase," Andrey said instead of an answer, forcing his companions to approach. Even Black, who did not understand anything in this gibberish, which for him were his and Dillinger's personal codes, understood that the time for talking was over. It was time to fight!
"Siri, you're in the center," - Sam translated for the uninitiated. "Andrey in the vanguard, you're backing up with magic, I'll cover the back. Forward, go, go!" - the American sent Black forward with a familiar special forces gesture.
The office door - but it was unlikely to be an ordinary office - had been knocked down. And most likely - by unknown magic. So their precautions were not superfluous.
"Clear," - Andrey reported, looking around the destroyed hall. In dashes, hiding behind interior details, they moved deeper into the building. And everywhere they came across corpses and body parts. To Black's credit, he silently walked along with everyone else - after all, working in the Auror Office left a certain mark. What you can't see, chasing all sorts of dark magicians! So a pile of dismembered corpses was almost a familiar sight for the former Auror, who had also been enduring the terrible memories sent by the Dementors for over ten years.
And, of course, the scarlet beam of a spell that flew in from around the corner was no surprise to any of them. Just like the creaky voice from the semi-darkness:
"Aha! So it's too early to write me off. As I thought - Mr. Chorney in person!"
"What are you?!" - Black exclaimed muffled.
"I've been called many things," - Alastor Moody croaked again. "But never an idiot! And that's why I can hear and see. And analyze. So it was easy to figure you out, not very respectable Mr. Chorney! Or should I call you Mr. Black?"
"Your mother!" - Sam cursed from his hiding place. "What a bloody turn of events!"
"Surrender, Black!" — Moody barked in the meantime. — "Give evidence of what is going on here — and I promise to simply avad you, not handing you over to the dementors."
Sirius only swore dirty in response.
"Okay, if you want it badly, then it will be badly," — Alastor Moody snorted and the vase next to Black's shelter exploded from the spell he cast. The semi-darkness was immediately cut by several more rays from the wands of the wizards accompanying the one-eyed Auror. In response, Andrey and Sam fired machine gun fire and curses from Black's wand roared.
And Dolokhov, in addition, suppressed a burning desire to jump out of cover and go into close combat. He was overcome by a strange feeling that if he did so, he would be invulnerable! He suppressed this desire, but soon it returned with renewed vigor. It was like some kind of collar, squeezing his throat, calling and demanding! ... ... Demanding that he take the bronze pickaxe he had grabbed with both hands and go crush skulls! And promising that the vile magic would not touch its owner ...
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