Hogwarts AU: New York City

[serinusniger]

It's been days.

She doesn't know how many. But if must have been days. There's been food, there's been the occasional sleep.

Not enough of either.

Dinah has told them... she can't remember right now quite what she has told them, but it feels like she's told them everything. Like there's nothing in her lefty to tell them. She'd tell them more, if they asked her.

She gave up trying to escape a long time ago. She gave up hoping for a rescue not long after.

Now she's just waiting, and hoping it ends soon.

Comments

[interrogoiterum]

Renee rolls her eyes at Raph.

"Didn't we already check this?" she asks. But she stays perfectly still, once her wand is back in her hand.

[mnt_don]

"We did, yes. Which is why I'm more than a little disconcerted." Don turns a dial or two, and the tricorder bips.

"We weren't in a charm field last time," adds Mike from where he stands outside of the potential blast radius.

[interrogoiterum]

"It's an obfuscating field," Renee says. "It makes all spells invisible from the... oh."

Before she can finish, the footprint on the paper starts changing: expanding and morphing until it becomes an oval frame, in which the face of yet another red haired man appears.

[mnt_leo]

They're all quiet, staring in disbelief, when Casey breaks the silence.

"Who's that guy?"

[interrogoiterum]

No one answers, except the man in question, who speaks up quickly in a West Coast accent. His eyes stay focused on nothing, and he responds to no one in the room.

"Fuck this. I'm serious. This is a whole fucking mess and I guarantee the world is going to pay for this.

"I don't know who the hell you are listening to this. But you'd better he twice as good as Trickshot says you are if you're going to get her out of this, okay?"

He looks over his shoulder furtively. "Look, they abandoned her, you get that? They sent her after the fucking F... well, they let her follow a lead that they knew would get her killed. I'm going to get you an address and stick it on this message, but you better get her out with as much noise and as much violence as you possibly can.

"Just get the Pretty Bird out, okay? Remem..."

He's about to say more, but the recording cuts off abruptly. From one corner, the paper starts to curl, blackening and glowing orange.

[mnt_mike]

"Well...I don't know who the fuck this guy is, but I like him already," Says Raph as he stows his wand up his sleeve and goes back to drinking his beer.

"No no no nonononono!" Sadly no amount of Don's tinkering will get the paper stop burning and finish reciting the recording.

"Give it up, dude. We're not getting anymore out of that thing." Mike claps Casey on the shoulder. "You are now free to move about the cabin."

Leo has turned pale. He swallows hard.
They sent her after... and Pretty Bird replay over and over again in his mind. He shakes his head to clear it, and then starts issuing orders.

"Michaelangelo. Ward this place as strongly as you can. Outside too. I want this place harder to break into than the Salem Academy, and then some.

Raphael, you and Casey go with Mike. Find the best sightlines, and tell me where we're going to need to keep watch."

"Donatello. I want your ear to the Wireless. Have they figured out we're gone yet. Do they suspect we're here. And anything you can find out about local Tweakers who'd know anything about those parks."

"Renee..." It's clear that by this point Leo's resolve is tapped. Just utterly and completely tapped. Dinah's in trouble. Real trouble. Trouble with a name and a face Leo knows all too well. For a moment he just looks so utterly lost.

[interrogoiterum]

Renee rolls off the couch in one smooth motion and points first at Leo and then at the cushions. "Get. Raph'll keep an eye out, Don'll keep an ear out. Me n'Mike'll make this place invisible. We'll even go check that Fidelius charm is well and truly impenetrable.

"You're gonna be useless unless you get a recharge. No one's going anywhere without you, boss."

[mnt_leo]

Leo watches her, his eyes tracking the motion of her hands as she orders him to sit on the couch. He doesn't get it. Someone is trying to take care of him and he just doesn't understand.

It's not until Mike sidles over and places a hand on Leo's lower back and steers him towards the couch that he understands.

"it's okay bro, we got this," Mike whispers to Leo, as the taller boy does eventually sit. Mike then reaches into a pocket and produces a Flake bar. "Here, it'll help."

Mike pats his brother on the head before extending his arm to Renee.

"Did I ever tell you how I broke into the Salem Academy?" His smile could charm the pants of the Grey Lady herself.

[interrogoiterum]

Renee smirks as she slips her hand into his. "Oh just a few thousand times, by my count."

She turns her head away from Leo and leaves him to himself. Before they actually go out, she'll probably drop a sleep charm on him so he gets some rest, but right now they've got work to do.

"You do for defence, I'll go for stealth?"

[mnt_mike]

"And it just keeps getting better, every time I tell it," he says with a lopsided grin. Mike holds the door open for her while she casts her sleep charm. It's only after Leo's already starting to drift off that he answers her question.

"That'll work, but...we're going to need to double up because there's a whole mess of wards these Foot guys have that'll cut the usual stuff up like wet tissue paper.

Seriously Renee, these guys are no joke."

[interrogoiterum]

"I'm not known for my sense of humour," Renee says dryly. She nods, however, glancing over her shoulder at the door and holding her wand to her face as she works out a few good charms.

"Mike?"

[mnt_mike]

Mike drums his fingers on a nearby wall as he thinks. Always in some form of motion, this one.

"...yeeaah?"

[interrogoiterum]

Renee casts a couple of her strongest protective charms before she says:

"We're in trouble, aren't we?"

[mnt_mike]

The only sound that comes from Mike is the rapid fire sound of Vagueness and Latin as he casts a baseline layer of protection and then a warning layer on top of that.

"...yeah, we really kind of are."

The casting stops, and he turns to look towards her.

"You know, you...you don't have to do this. Right? I mean, this is...if you wanted out no one would judge you."

[interrogoiterum]

"I would," says Renee. She doesn't look at him, only because she's busy, touching his charms with her wand and reinforcing them with her own magic. "Maybe I'd live but I don't think I could live with myself."

And that's that, really.

"If I asked you to do something, would you say I was being morbid and tell me to shut the hell up?"

[mnt_mike]

He understands. He really truly does, which is why he doesn't press the issue, but rather goes to work checking her spells and meshing them with some potentially illegal ones.

"I'd do anything for you, you know that. Morbid or not. And well...I always reserve the right to tell you to shut the hell up."

[interrogoiterum]

"If something - y'know , happens."

She takes a breath.

"You lie to my family, okay? Tell them you were my boyfriend and that we were the straightest of straight couples that ever didn't have sex because we're still just kids."

[mnt_mike]

This is where Mike stops, turns, and looks at her, his face a mask of sincerity.

"I promise. We were waiting for marriage. I swear."

Until it isn't.

"If I die? Will you tell them I'm really at seminary because I've decided to be a priest."

[interrogoiterum]

"My folks?"

Because his brothers will know.

"Yeah, I'll tell them that. The kids at school, too. I'm sure they'll believe that."

[mnt_mike]

"Of course they will," he says as he turns back to his work. "After all, I am nothing if not a godly child of god."

[interrogoiterum]

"Yeah, sure you are."

Renee casts another spell, and steps back, tapping her wand against her teeth recklessly.

"Okay, you think we can do this Fidelius thing? Or too risky to try?"

She's read about it, but never tried it, and it's ridiculously advanced.

[mnt_mike]

There's a sproing of spellwork and a slight whiff of octarine, before Mike steps back beaming with pride at his work.

"Honestly? Yes. Eventually. If we'd known about it a year ago when we started planning our return to New York? We'd be golden right now."

[interrogoiterum]

"Yeah, and I didn't really plan on coming along."

Renee shakes her head, and decides that if she's going to die, it's not going to be because she exploded trying to do a spell that isn't even Hogwarts level. She adds another layer of obfuscation and figures that should do it.

She steps back, nudging her shoulder against Mike's.

"Now what?"

[mnt_mike]

"Now?" He sighs. "I guess we wait. How long was that Sleep Whammy you put on Leo good for?"

[interrogoiterum]

"Until he's rested," Renee says, "however long that takes. It's usually about two hours, but you can't use it twice in a row without having real sleep between, I'm not sure why."