(T.Broomsticks) Vite, Vite!

[redrose]

[This one is for Elijah.. and for Michael to interrupt rudely in a post or two. Its timing is the same evening as the thread "Summoned".. Michael will be coming straight from that. Also, its December and Scotland hence the snow.]

It was half an hour or so past closing time when Aurélie put the last chair on top of its table, before plonking herself down at the bar and charming the broom to sweep around the room. It had been agreed that an ally at Hogsmeade was vital for the Red Rose League and so she had been working in the Three Broomsticks for a good few months now. You would think that people would find a better place than a pub to rendezvous, but considering the sheer amount of important conversations Aurélie had eavesdropped on – obviously not.

rat-a-tat-tat

Aurélie’s head shot up as the sound of the quiet knock came to her ears. Sliding off the barstool in a hurry, she quickly unlocked the door to see who it could be.

It was their youngest member of the League. She grinned at the sight of the Gryffindor before returning to her useful face of bossiness. ‘Don’t stand zair all day, somebody will zee you! Get in, vite, vite!’ She ushered him in, locking the door behind him before brushing off the snow covering his cloak. She put her hands on her hips and considered Elijah for a moment. He looked perfectly calm - it seemed he had just come for social call.

'Nicholas wouldn't approve,' She observed, as a smirk slowly appeared. 'But zen again, when 'ave I eveur listened to 'im?' She pointed out, grabbing a bottle of butter beer off the side.

When had she ever listened to anyone was the real quesion.

[Elijah Ellerby]

As usual the Hogsmede weekend had caused the village to be teeming. All students who were in the third year and up had been milling around the village since the crack of dawn nearly, hyper on sugar from Honeydukes and causing havoc in their energetic states. With all the snow about it had been relentlessly exciting, and more than once Elijah had spotted students being reprimanded for pelting snowballs at old warlocks...

Of course, this particular weekend had been very different in the fact that the teachers at Hogwarts had practically pushed the students out of the gates, even signing permission slips for students whose parents were not so keen on them waisting their money. Even second years had been purposefully let slip under the radar. Recent events had left Hogwarts elders prickled with frustration and in their panic they had done poor jobs in concealing it to the point of wanting the castle empty so they could have breakdowns in peace. Consequently the busy streets had left Elijah with little privacy, and his main reason for coming down into Hogsmede - to see Aurélie - had been postponed.

The Three Broomsticks was already shut and locked up, even the shutters on the windows fastened tight. For a moment Elijah considered just going back to the castle, but upon knocking on the door three times he did not have a chance to decide as Aurélie immediately answered, dragging him inside with her usual reckless grin. 'Well hullo to you too!' He smiled, flustered, as she roughly patted the snow off his shoulders. 'I suppose what Nicholas doesn't know can't hurt him. He does worry too much,' he added wryly.

Shrugging off his cloak and draping it over a chair by the door, Elijah followed Aurélie toward the bar, resting his elbows on the brass rail as he eyed the ales with a suggestive smirk, wondering if Aurélie would consider giving him one on the house. 'Speaking of Nick, I went to meet him in the forest the other day but he never arrived.' He said, a thoughtful frown crossing his face. 'Have you seen him at the Head Quarters since? I tried to find Michael earlier but I found out he had a ministry gathering.' This often happened, and while Elijah had found it slightly vexing at first, he had come to accept that Michael had more important duties than waiting around for Elijah to come running to him...

[redrose]

Aurélie stopped in her tracks. ‘Nicholas neveur turned up?’ She repeated, her face gaining a frown. Nicholas always turned up. He was always very meticulous about things, particularly when it came to the League. Something must have come up. She dismissed with a shrug. ‘I ‘aven’t seen him, but he iz always off somevere.’ She finally said in reply to his question.

‘You’re not ‘aving much luck zen.’ Aurélie smiled, pouring a glass of butterbeer for both her and Elijah. ‘And you ‘ave no ‘ope with speaking to Michael-’ She pushed the tankard towards the Gryffindor, probably the only time you would ever see her give a drink away for free. ‘-‘e only meets up with me regularly because I threatened to break a stool over ‘is ‘ead.’ She said jokingly, neglecting to tell him that she actually resorted to hitting him with the stool – fortunately, Nicholas had seen the argument stew and managed to transfigure the stool into the sponge right at the last moment. Michael still managed to get the point though.

Aurélie started fishing in her pockets and finally pulled out an exploding snap set with a grin. ‘Shall ve?’

An hour or so passed as a very loud game of exploding snap was played (the loudness mainly coming from Aurélie of course, who swore every time she did badly and yelled every time she won.) The two of them were just about to put the pack away when there were two frantic bangs on the pub door. Aurélie head shot up and she gave a frown - it was very late. She slowly made her way towards the door, and was just about to put her hand to the handle when the door burst open knocking her backwards.

[michael]

<sub>Allen Lamb… sent to Azkaban, for the betrayal he was committing. Michael had no time to feel guilty, it wasn’t in his job to feel guilty so he just pushed it to the back of his mind.

It had taken longer than he wanted to get out of the castle. He just wanted to storm out and head straight for the RRL, but he knew that would put him in a suspicious position. Michael had waited till the other ministry men had left… then waited longer still so Gabriel wouldn’t suspect anything.

As soon as he could, he slipped out of the school and sped straight towards Hogsmeade. The Auror reached the Three Broomsticks, out of breath and holding his side from stitch. He banged twice on the large oaken door, praying that Aurélie hadn’t chosen this night to go elsewhere. Come on… come on… There was a slight noise from the shop opposite the pub and Michael darted his head in its direction. He knew he couldn’t risk staying outside any longer, and muttering a quick spell, barged straight into the pub and nearly sent Aurélie flying.

‘We’ve been so stupid!’ He blurted out angrily, before quickly shutting the pub door. ‘All these months we have been carefully watching the wrong bloody git!’ He didn’t allow the time for the others to reply, not that he had noticed Elijah’s presence yet. ‘Nicholas has always said how could such a fool could be in charge of it all… its because he’s not! How could we have been so stupid?!’ He continued, pacing the room at an alarming rate. ‘She knows that the public would never want her to get to the top, so she found another way to get herself there. And now that she has got the power… she can take away the publics choice and stay there!’ He hit his fist against the table and looking down, he shook his head vigorously.

A moment later he raised his gaze and finally noticed Elijah. ‘What are you doing here?!’ Michael’s normally easy going attitude seemed to have gone, but it was understandable after the night he had been having.</sub>

[Elijah Ellerby]

Elijah guffawed in triumph as his card blew up in his face, declaring him the winner of that round. Despite his blackened fingers and slightly singe nose he was actually having a very good time - something he hadn't had in a while. Elijah had always guessed that Aurélie would've been at the center of the network working right in the middle of Hogsmede, but he was beginning to realise that the days when there was no news to share she probably got very lonely and out of sync, just sitting, waiting here. Rarely could she get back to HQ anymore with so many people watching. It must've been impossibly frustrating.

The two of them launched into a new game, several empty butterbeer bottles lying around them, when someone began to bang on the door in haste. 'Closed!' Elijah yelled in annoyance, forgetting that that was Arélie's job.

There was a great boom as the door hit the wall and Aurélie staggered backwards as someone swept in, shouting. Elijah nearly fell off his chair in fright, quite loosing his calm demeanor, and whipped his wand from his robes ready to rattle off the first curse that came to mind - but he quickly had to abort and bite his tongue as he saw the intruder to be Lance - who was in quite a state.

Elijah, still poised in attack-mode, listened to Lance with wide eyes and bated breath. Aurélie's face mimicked his own and he shot her a puzzled look, asking who Lance was on about. Then it clicked. Deitrch and Marvello. 'Wait - you don't mean - ' Elijah was cut off rather abruptly as Lance rounded on him.

Elijah's cheeks boiled red, and his usually expressionless face turned rather nauseous. He wasn't used to being shouted at. 'I came to make sure Aurélie was - was - alright... and she is.' His lie was more than obvious in Lance's eyes, and he saw the man glance at the butterbeer and exploding snap. His voice broke a little as he spoke. 'Its... been very quiet lately, and neither of us are suspected - I just thought perhaps I'd come say hello - and...' Elijah sighed and shook his head. 'Sorry, sir. It won't happen again.' He glanced apologetically at Aurélie.

[redrose]

Aurélie paled as she took in the words Michael threw at her. Marvello was nothing... no one... all that time and effort wasted. She felt a tightness in her chest as the realisation really began to sink in. Michael, for someone who had a lot longer to sort the facts in his head, was still very angry and suddenly turned on Elijah.

Aurélie put a comforting hand on Elijah's shoulder before glaring at Michael. 'Now don't you start taking zis out on 'im!' She had resented the position at Hogsmeade for as long as it had been assigned to her, and Michael was well aware of it. Contact with anyone who wasn't in happy ignorance about the ministry was the only thing stopping her from pulling her hair out and strangling the next customer with it. 'You know 'ow crazy I'm going in 'ere, so don't take it out on 'im.' She repeated, full colour now back in her cheeks.

It looked as if Michael was about to retort and Aurélie merely pointed at him, enunciating each word slowly. 'Don't. You. Dare.' If ever there was a person who could make a grown man feel like he was a little boy in trouble with his mother again, it was Aurélie.

'Ok.' She said finally, shaking off her own anger. 'The little I got from zat outburst was enough to tell me ve need to get to the HQ now.' She turned towards Elijah. 'We need you to get Nick for us, everyone else vill be easy enough for us to round up.' She gave the Gryffindor an encouraging smile, again feeling the need to look after him even though he wasn't too much younger than herself. Aurélie turned back to the auror, looking more serious than probably both Mike and Elijah had ever seen her. 'Michael, we need to leave.'

[Elijah Ellerby]

Aurélie had remained quiet in the background, and Elijah could tell by the look on her face that she was taking everything in, putting it together and adding it to the bigger picture to see what mess they were now in. The result was obviously rather bad. Elijah hoped that she wouldn’t go into a rage like Lance. ‘Are you alright, Aurélie…?’ Elijah asked as she walked up, placing a hand on his shoulder. For a moment he though she was merely using him to support herself, but her usual vehemence suddenly returned, and she quickly fixed Lance with stern eyes and warded him off. Elijah’s cheeks tinted pink, loving that Aurélie was sticking up for him, but terrified that Lance might resent him for it.

Aurélie and Lance composed themselves now, coming to stand taller. It was time to regroup. Given to job of sniffing out McNiven, Elijah quickly mustered an easy although slightly risky plan – call him to the school. It was golden that the League try and avoid meeting near or in Hogwarts full stop, but time was of the essence – besides, what were the chances of anyone coming across McNiven in the forest of all places?

Nodding determinedly, Elijah marched toward the door, looking over his shoulder at the two other League members. Lance was still recovering from his outburst, but Aurélie was already leading him toward the fireplace that was connected via Floo network to HQ. ‘See you soon!’ Elijah called over him shoulder as he grabbed his coat, rushing out into the blustery street. Pulling out his wand, there was a moment’s pause before a bright, silvery collie leapt from the tip. A hundred years ago the Order of the Phoenix had mastered how to communicate with one another through Patronuses – McNiven had taught the Red Rose League to do the same. Elijah had taken a ridiculously long time in mastering the charm, but as he watched the dog silently race off up the street in the direction McNiven must’ve been, Elijah turned on the spot, apparating away toward the school gates.

Of course, there was one stop he would need to make before going to meet McNiven.