Mist of Shadows
patreon
Replacement Boy That Lived Part 6
🕑 Added 2022-03-15 07:24:34 +0000 UTCScarlet pulled her attention off the teenager with pink hair that was eating an ice cream cone at another table and focused on the letter Myst was carefully copying to parchment. "Writing an acceptance letter shouldn't take this long."
"I haven't used a fountain pen in years, quills are worse," Myst complained, not looking up from the letter he was writing to Amelia and Moody, mostly because his penmanship had a nasty tendency to get unreadable or at least close to it if he hurried while writing cursive.
"In other words, you've been slacking and you're out of practice?" Scarlet teased then went back to licking her ice cream cone in a way that was drawing attention from a couple of teenage boys.
"Pretty much," Myst replied, not seeing a reason to mention computers and that the only thing he generally wrote these days were notes for stories.
Scarlet stayed quiet for two minutes as she teased the guys watching her then smiled when Myst set his quill down and started blowing on the letter to dry the ink. "Done?"
"Close enough," Myst replied as he reached under the table and pulled a bag of fifty galleons out of his inventory. He set the bag on the table then pulled an envelope out of his inventory and folded up his letter, glad that the ink seemed to dry quickly once it touched the parchment.
"Where are we sending the letter?" Scarlet asked, wondering how the government worked in the wizarding world.
"To…" Myst trailed off when he saw a pink haired girl's hair change to a purple color. "On second thought, I've got a better idea." He pulled another twenty galleons out of his inventory then picked up the fifty galleons and walked over to where Tonks was finishing up her ice cream.
Nymphadora looked up when a dark haired kid and a red haired girl walked over to her table, clearly looking like they had business with her. "Something I can help you with?"
"Are you trainee Tonks?" Myst asked, hoping he wasn't making a mistake because the young woman in front of him only mostly resembled the actress that had played her in the movies.
Nymphadora glanced down at her auror trainee robes then glanced between Myst and Scarlet, wondering if she'd seen them before. "Do I know you?"
"No reason you'd remember a couple of first years," Myst replied. "This isn't a bribe, but can I pay you to take Moody or Amelia Bones a letter?"
"You want me to deliver a letter to the head of law enforcement?" Nymphadora asked in disbelief.
"Honestly? No, I'm hoping you'll take it to your overly paranoid instructor without opening it. He'll run a bunch of tests to make sure it's not hexed then with any luck he'll read the letter and show Madam Bones," Myst explained, figuring an owl would never get past Moody's wards and anything he sent to Amelia would get bounced around the department and the galleons would vanish, which would make his plan a lot less likely to work.
"What's the letter about?" she asked, wondering if this was some type of weird test from Moody.
"It's about unsolved crimes and something Moody would want to know about," Myst explained.
"How do I know this isn't a prank or a demented test?" she asked.
"You don't but like I said, I'm willing to pay you for the trouble. I'll give you twenty galleons to deliver the letter and I'll leave twenty galleons with the owner of the shop that Moody or Amelia can collect for you after you've delivered the letter," Myst offered.
"Forty galleons to deliver a letter?" she asked in disbelief.
Myst nodded. "It's an important letter and if everything goes well, an innocent man will get released from prison."
"What about the other bag?" she asked, fairly sure it held more than twenty galleons.
"Give it to Moody, the letter explains what to do with it," Myst said as he set the bags on the table with the envelope.
Nymphadora glanced between the bags and Myst. "What's the chance of the gold vanishing before I get to Moody, leaving me with an empty bag?"
"Constant vigilance, right?" Myst asked with a grin. "Take the coins, swap bags, get the owner of the shop to help check the coins if you want but I'm quite serious about the letter and I'm willing to give you forty galleons to deliver a letter, twenty upfront and twenty after you deliver it. Write up a receipt, explain everything to Moody and hand him the letter so he can check it. I'm not asking you to break any rules or laws, I just need a letter delivered and there is sensitive information in the letter which means you can't show it to anyone else."
'You're a bastard Moody, this is obviously a test,' Nymphadora thought then mentally reviewed the guidelines in the auror manual for accepting money and the spells for checking for counterfeit money that Moody had suggested she brush up on last week. 'I'm off duty, which means I can technically accept the money, they're not asking me to do anything illegal, just drop a letter off with a senior auror and give Moody money. If it turns out he's trying to bribe Moody, Moody can swing by the shop and ask Fortescue details about his appearance, assuming this isn't a test which seems unlikely. Still, twenty galleons if it's legit or a passed review, as long as I'm careful, it should be fine. If this isn't a test, I'll let Moody decide if I can keep the money. Worst case, I'll just donate the money to Saint Mungos.'
Nymphadora waved Fortescue over, glad that it was late enough in the day that he wasn't all that busy. "Fortescue, can you come over here for a second?"
"Of course," Fortescue replied as he walked around the counter and headed over.
'Keep it simple,' Myst reminded himself as he pulled another twenty galleons out of his inventory and set it on the table while Tonks was distracted, almost wishing that he'd just handed the letter to a post owl, but fairly sure it wouldn't have worked.
"What's the matter?" Fortescue asked as he glanced between Myst, Scarlet, and Nympadora.
Nymphadora pointed at Myst. "He's willing to pay me to deliver a letter to a senior auror, I need a witness that I'm not taking a bribe and someone to help me check the money."
Fortescue looked at Nymphadora for a couple of seconds then chuckled and pulled his wand out of his sleeve, not seeing a problem with helping Nymphadora out. "That's easy enough."
"Thanks," Myst replied as set the other bag on the table. "I just need the letter delivered and I don't want to cause Tonks any trouble."
"Why did you pick her?" Fortescue asked.
"I know she's honest, at least when it counts," Myst replied, hoping he hadn't gotten stuck in a world where she wasn't honest. 'That's almost as rare as Andromeda being evil or Sirius actually selling out the Potters. Relax, if things are that bad, you're already screwed and she seems honest enough.'
"Fair enough," Fortescue agreed as he waved his wand over the bag, running through a couple of basic tests to make sure the bag wasn't cursed.
0o0o0
"Sorry," Myst offered as Ollivander snatched the wand out of his hands that had just belched a stream of fire.
"Not your fault," Ollivander replied as he glanced around his shop for a wand that wouldn't cause destruction and devastation in the young man's hands. He paused when he saw the wand in the shop window that he'd never managed to sell. 'Might as well try, nothing else seems to be working.'
Myst watched Ollivander walk over and grab the wand that was sitting on a pillow on the window sill. 'Time to see if his wand likes me.'
"Try this one," Ollivander suggested, not expecting a match but fairly sure the holy wood wouldn't cause anything to explode, unlike the last three wands.
Myst accepted the wand and felt a feeling of warmth rush up his arm.
"Give it a wave," Ollivander suggested when he noticed the poor kid hesitating. 'Not that I can blame him, considering the destruction the rest of the wands caused.'
Myst waved Harry's wand, not sure if he should be surprised or not when a bunch of multicolored sparks shot out of the end of it, indicating a match. "Is that good?"
Ollivander glanced at the kid's hat that was flopped over his forehead. 'Now you're imagining things, Harry doesn't have a sister.' He forced himself to smile. "Of course, holly wands are protective in nature and phoenix wands only choose wizards with a great deal of power."
"Nice," Myst replied, happy that he'd found a wand and hadn't had to make one or try a bunch of shops until he found something that worked.
"Now for the young lady's replacement wand," Ollivander said, hoping that finding her wand wouldn't be as hard as her brother. He picked an ash and phoenix feather wand from the boxes and handed it to her. "Give it a wave."
Scarlet gave the wand a wave and smiled when her wand played music and created a floating line of color that lasted a couple of seconds before fading.
"That was easier than I was expecting," Ollivander admitted, glad that he'd found her a wand on his first try. 'I shouldn't have ignored my first guess with the kid, then again, I've had that wand for nearly sixty years.'
"Perfect," Myst replied as he started pulling coins out of the bag he'd stuck some galleons in for shopping. "How much do I owe you?"
"Fourteen galleons," Ollivander replied. "Are you from America?"
"No worries," Myst replied as he counted out the galleons.
"The accent? I've traveled around," Myst replied, hoping he'd drop it.
"That explains it," Ollivander replied as he accepted the galleons. "I expect great things from your wand."
"I'll try not to disappoint," Myst replied as he handed the last of the coins to the old man then turned and headed for the door, wanting to leave before he asked his name.
"Thanks," Scarlet offered, then followed Myst out of the shop, not sure what to think of the strangely intense old man.
'Great things,' Ollivander thought as he waved his wand at the mess and cleaned everything up once the kids left his shop.
"Is he always that creepy?" Scarlet asked.
"Probably," Myst replied as he slipped his wand under his sleeve into his new wand holster.
Scarlet put her wand in her holster then quickly drew it and pointed it at the ground. "That's going to take some work."
"We'll have plenty of time to practice," Myst assured her as he started walking towards the bookstore, wanting to grab a second copy of everything for Scarlet and some gardening books and the second year book of spells for himself as he doubted it would take him all that long to make his way through the first year material as he wasn't eleven. "Let's pick up your books then we'll set up the tent."
"Sounds good," Scarlet agreed, eager to get started.
0o0o0
Arthur Weasley frowned when he looked up and saw Amelia Bones standing in the doorway to his office looking uneasy. "What's wrong?" he asked warily.
Amelia studied Arthur's face, trying to figure out if he was involved with the mess that had been dropped in her lap. "One of my assistants received a strange message and a bag of galleons while they were having ice cream in the Alley."
"Strange letter?" Arthur asked, hoping his family was safe.
"Do you mind if I step inside?" Amelia asked as she glanced around Arthur's slightly disorganized office.
"Of course not," Arthur replied, wondering what she needed help with.
"Someone made some odd claims about your son's curiously long lived rat," Amelia admitted after closing the door.
"Such as?" Arthur asked, wondering if he had to ground the twins for a really bad prank when he got home.
"That he's an unregistered animagus," Amelia replied as she watched his face shift through disbelief and annoyance followed by consideration. "How old is the rat?"
"Percy was a kid, so maybe ten years…" Arthur trailed off as he thought about what he'd just said. "Some magical rats can live that long, right?"
"Has it ever done anything particularly magical?" Amelia asked, trying to get a baseline on how long the rat should live as ten years was decently old, even for a magical rat.
"Not that I know of," Arthur admitted.
"The letter claimed that the rat had lost his finger because Peter Petigrew lost a finger when he framed Sirius Black," Amelia said, watching his face.
"Framed Sirius Black?" Arthur muttered then frowned as he thought back to the day Percy had found the rat. "The injury looked recent when Percy found him in the garden, I remember because it was one of the reasons Percy gave for wanting to keep it."
Amelia sighed as she realized there were enough odd bits surrounding the pet that she couldn't just blow it off, as much as she didn't want to deal with the rest of the details in the letter that she was really happy trainee Tonks hadn't opened. "Normally I wouldn't put much stock in a random letter about someone that should be dead but it gave a number of disturbing details concerning Sirius Black's lack of trial and corruption in the ministry at the time. It also came with fifty galleons with orders to give them to you if you allowed Moody or myself to take a team of aurors and test the rat without warning your children or wife as the rat might notice and escape."
Arthur stared at Amelia. "Fifty galleons for something I'd do anyway?"
"Basically," Amelia replied, hoping he didn't make things difficult.
"Let me grab my coat," Arther replied as he grabbed his coat, figuring the sooner he dealt with it, the sooner he'd feel safe.
"Good," Moody replied as he took the hood of his invisibility cloak off. "I wasn't looking forward to stunning you."
"How do you want to do this?" Arthur asked, suddenly glad the twins liked pranking people as much as they did because it had gotten him used to people startling him without jumping. 'At least they don't have invisibility cloaks.'
"I have a team at Lovegood's house, we'll be sneaking over with silencing spells and cloaks, we just need you to floo over and walk outside in such a way that we can enter your house without being noticed," Moody explained, not expecting a problem but planning for the worst.
"That's easy," Arthur assured them, "I'm always grabbing things from the shed to show people and Molly baked a pie this morning, so I have a perfect excuse to show up for lunch."
"That makes it easier." Moody glanced at Amelia then focused on Arthur. "Let's get this done before someone that isn't supposed to notices something."
0o0o0
Myst took a couple of seconds to let his eyes adjust to the difference between the reasonably well lit alley and the poorly lit yard filled with waist high grass. "Do you want to try to deal with the yard tonight or move some furniture and set the tent up inside?"
Scarlet glanced up at the sky, figuring they only had twenty minutes of light left. "Let's just toss the furniture in your inventory then hit everything other than the windows with some cleaning spells and set things up inside. As long as the tent is facing away from the windows we should be fine."
"Sounds good," Myst replied and teleported them inside the cabin, not seeing a reason to make the trail through the grass worse and fairly sure their wands were clean of tracking charms since he'd stuck them in his inventory and checked. "Henry, did any aurors show up while we were gone?"
"It's been quiet," Henry assured them.
"Thanks," Myst replied as he walked over and tried to shove the couch into his inventory.
"I'm sorry, you can't store living creatures in your inventory," the voice announced.
"Lovely, rats," Myst muttered as he opened his inventory and went looking for his first year transfiguration book, looking for the spell to transfigure mice into snuff boxes.
"Rats?" Scarlet asked.
"I can't shove the couch into my inventory because there are living creatures in it, which probably means rats or bugs," Myst replied as he pulled the transfiguration book out of his inventory and opened it to the index. He glanced at the table then opened his runes menu and looked at his cleaning spell. 'Okay, I have a rune for cleaning and a rune for clothes. Can I just use the rune for cleaning?' He gestured at the table and pushed magic into the cleaning spell, focusing on the table, causing the caked on grime and mildew on the table and the floor around the table to vanish and his mana pool to drop a decent amount more than just cleaning clothes. 'That was a lot less efficient than using two runes to describe things.'
"Nice spell," Scarlet said with a smile.
"It's always nice to have a couple of wandless tricks," Henry said, rather proud of his great grandson.
"Using one rune took a decent amount of magic but it worked," Myst replied as he walked over and set his book on the table, figuring he'd grab some disinfectant later as he wasn't willing to trust his spell with food without running some lab tests.
"Is there a spell to remove rats?" Scarlet asked.
"Not so much remove them as turn them into snuff boxes," Myst replied as he skimmed through the first couple of pages of the book, already familiar with the basic concepts. "Okay, they have a basic description of wand movements…" he trailed off as he read the descriptions and realized they sucked.
"Problem?" Scarlet asked as she walked over to look at the book, recognizing the look on his face as annoyance.
"See for yourself," Myst suggested as he gestured towards the less than useful description of the wand movements in the book.
"Swish and flick, swish, spiral circle, a jabbing motion," Scarlet mused as she marked her place with her left hand and flipped to a random spell to see if they gave better descriptions. "This doesn't even mention right or left," she paused as she flipped to a different spell, "or up or down on the swish or even if you're going outside to inside or inside to outside on the spiral circle. Were they trying to be difficult?"
"Probably," Henry replied. "The books are designed to go with a teacher's lecture or to refresh your memory of the spell in question so you can't skip ahead."
Scarlet sighed. "Meaning there's no point in practicing."
Henry laughed. "I wouldn't say that, I might not be able to affect anything outside of my portrait but I'm more than capable of showing you basic wand movements."
"That would be appreciated," Myst replied. "It specifies a swish, is that towards the mouse or away?"
"Generally, in the direction from the transfigured part towards the un-transfigured part of the creature or object you're transfiguring," Henry said as he pulled his wand out of his sleeve and gave it a gentle flourish. "The wand motion is less important than the visualization and the incantation. Generally, visualization is the most important part of casting spells, but you can cast spells without actually knowing what the incantation does. I don't recommend casting spells that you don't understand."
"Are you telling me we could accidently use magic by saying something in another language?" Scarlet asked, wondering if that would cause trouble for her language lessons.
"Only if you're trying to cast something, waving your wand and you happen to say something that lines up with a spell that has been used extensively," Henry explained. "Most of the time you won't get anything but occasionally you'll activate something because you're visualizing the spell working, even if you don't know what it's supposed to do, magic does."
"That sounds dangerous," Scarlet said, thinking about some of her aunt's stories about her magic going out of control when she was younger.
"Generally," Henry replied as he waved his wand. "Aeneum arca."
Myst scowled as he realized that he was going to have a hell of a time trying to pronounce and remember the bad Latin phrases to make the magic work. 'At least he said the wand movements and phrases were less important than the visualization.' He drew his wand, turned so he was facing the wall and practiced waving his wand as he butchered the Latin phrase, unwilling to admit that Ron might have a point about learning magic.
"Aeneum arca," Henry offered as Scarlet drew her wand and started practicing.
Myst spent another minute practicing then reached down and flipped over the couch. He pointed his wand at the baby mice falling out of the bottom of the couch and cast his spell, "Aeneum arca!"
"Aeneum arca!" Scarlet chanted as she waved her wand at one of the mice, turning half of its whiskers bronze.
"Aeneum arca!" Myst chanted as he overloaded the spell with magic, causing five of the mice to turn into small twisted bronze 'boxes'. "Aeneum arca!" he chanted, focusing on one of the mice that he hadn't transfigured, trying to picture a proper bronze box as he waved his wand at the pests.
"You really don't like mice do you?" Scarlet asked when she noticed Myst's less than amused expression and the partially transfigured mouse.
"Not in the slightest, the damned things used to crawl around the shop, you could hear them moving around," Myst complained.
"Is there a way to turn them back?" Scarlet asked, figuring it would let them perfect the spell without having to find more mice.
"There is but I can't remember the incantation," Henry admitted, more familiar with the spell that turned mice into something useful than the reverse.
"Aeneum arca!" Myst chanted as he pointed at the last untransfigured mouse, wanting to make sure it didn't escape, turning it into a furry box.
"It's probably in the book," Scarlet said as she ran over to the book on the table to see what she could find.
"It's probably in the third or fourth year books, object to animal transformations are harder," Henry pointed out.
"Makes sense," Myst admitted as he walked over and shoved the couch into his inventory, happy that it actually worked without the mice. He looked at the dirt and bits of moldy couch left on the ground then looked at his collection of runes. "If I combine the cleaning rune with the spray rune it might be cheaper."
"Or you could vanish a section of the floor," Scarlet teased, fairly sure it wouldn't.
Henry shook his head. "Let's avoid that, there should be a broom and a dustpan in the kitchen."
"Thanks," Myst replied as he walked towards the kitchen. He froze as he stepped on a rotten board and it cracked, causing him to stumble and almost fall over as he shifted his weight in an attempt to avoid going through the floor.
"Are you okay?" Scarlet asked nervously.
"I didn't cut myself or anything," Myst said after checking his boot for any sign of damage. He glanced towards the kitchen, not sure how much of the floor was safe. "On second thought, safety first." He focused on the floor and pushed mana into the repair rune that he'd picked up from repairing Lily's clothes for Scarlet, causing the broken pieces of the flooring to snap back in place and the rest of the area to regenerate before their eyes. He winced when he realized that repairing things without a second rune ate into his mana pool like a hungry tiger. "That takes a decent amount of magic."
"Do you have enough to clean the floor? We can deal with the rest of it tomorrow," Scarlet suggested, wishing she had more mana so she could help.
"I should have enough," Myst replied as he focused on the middle of the floor and pushed magic into his cleaning rune, causing the dirt and grime to vanish along with the bits of trash.
"You should set up your tent and get some sleep, we can discuss things in the morning," Henry suggested when Harry yawned.
"Probably a good idea," Myst admitted as he pulled the larger and harder to set up tent out of his inventory. 'At least we'll have running water and bathrooms.'
Scarlet collected the various bronze boxes and moved them over to the table while Myst set up the complicated looking tent. "Do you need help?"
"Sure, you can hold the top of the tent while I get things set up," Myst replied, glad that the junk dealer had explained how to set it up as he was a bit out of practice. He was just glad that Scarlet didn't mind helping and seemed enthusiastic about the whole thing which made him wonder what type of princess she was because she wasn't nearly as spoiled as he would have expected a princess to be.
0o0o0
Scarlet giggled as she stepped through the tent flap and looked around the room that was larger than the living room while Myst grabbed his transfiguration book. "Nice!" she squealed when she saw the hot tub in the middle of the room. "We have a hot tub!" She glanced at the kitchenette then looked at the comfortable looking large bed that took up a decent amount of the floor then looked at the closets with full length mirrors and the fireplace that would set the mood. She danced over to check the door. 'Toilet and a shower, nice!' She opened her equipment page and pulled her clothes off and dropped them in a pile next to the closet then walked over and turned the shower on, wanting to clean up before she got in the hot tub.
Myst blinked as he walked into the tent and saw Scarlet through the open bathroom door. 'She certainly doesn't look thirteen, look but don't touch, it's like a nude beach,' part of his mind argued while another part was saying something that sounded a lot like a certain character from Firefly, 'Special place in hell.'
"I'm grabbing a shower, peek if you want," Scarlet called out, having fun teasing him.
Myst pulled his attention off the naked girl and focused on the single and quite large bed. 'That explains why the clerk was smirking. To hell with it, I'll deal with it in the morning,' he told himself as he focused on the blankets and pushed magic into his clothes cleaning spell, relieved to find out that sheets counted as clothing or were at least close enough. He pulled his pants off and dropped them at the bottom of the bed then climbed under the cover. He sighed as he realized he could see her in the closet mirror. 'Why do I have a bad feeling like she's going to hog the covers?'
Scarlet met his eyes and winked then worked on soaping up a washrag.
'Special place in hell,' Myst thought as he closed his eyes and tried to distract himself from the girl that was being a naughty witch. 'You can look once you get to know her and you make sure she doesn't actually care.'
