A Change of Plans

Chapter Thirteen

"Okay," said Patsy, propping up the pillow behind her to lean back on and using her legs as a desk to balance the laptop on. "Okay, here's the plan. For the next week--or however long it takes for me to get out of this bloody hospital--we're going to look up slash fics, memorize Hogwarts Meets FanFiction.Net, as well as the original Canon. Not that we don't already know it anyway, but I want from here on, for us to read just that and fanfiction. Memorize anything you think is good. If you think it's good for us both to know it, you e-mail me here and give me the link."

"How'd you get internet?" asked Annie, leaning over to read over her friend's shoulder.

Patsy shrugged.

"Dumbledore rigged it for me. I asked him and he let me. Said I was sick of sitting here with nothing to do. He knows, obviously. I'm willing to bet we'll have the Order standing by if we need help."

"That'll be good," Annie nodded. "Have you figured out where Voldemort's hideaway is yet?"

Patsy shook her head. For the first time she looked frustrated.

"No. I've asked around, in a subtle manner of course, but no one's telling me anything. The only probable place I can think of is Azkaban, mainly because this universe seems similar to the Unbroken Universe, and that's his hell hole, but I'm hoping it's not, because if it is we'll have about nil chance of getting in." She scowled. "I'm sure that he's got some sort of place in America, because how else would he have been able to plan the...well, the, um, attack, and to find out where Sirius lives. So, logically, he's got to have some base in America. The question, of course, is where?"

"That might be the question," Annie said gloomily, "but it's unlikely we'll get the answer."

Patsy sighed very deeply, then her eyes lit up.

"I just thought of something!" she exclaimed, quickly clicking on the Word Processing and opening a document that was obviously her outline for the plan. "Annie, didn't your Dad keep a gun in his closet?"

Annie stared at her, confused.

"Yeah, he did," she said.

"Do you think you could get it?"

"What for?" Annie was puzzled; Patsy looked excited.

"I once read a chat where the people were wondering why Harry didn't just take out a gun and blow Voldemort away, as a bullet can move faster than saying the incantation and firing off a spell."

"Brilliant!" Annie breathed. "They'd never know what had hit them!"

"Do you think you could get the gun, Annie?"

"I'll try," said Annie. "No promises though."

"Great," Patsy was obviously relieved. "And do some snooping, will you? There's no point in digging up a gun if we can't find the person we want to point it at.

<><><><><><>

And so Annie spent the next two days arguing and wheedling at James and Lily her case to go back to her house.

"I left some things there," she tried first, because it was almost the truth, but the answer she got with that was that she could just get some new things here, in England.

"People are going to wonder what's happened," was her next try, but then James brought up the very good point that people would get even more curious if she was there all alone.

Finally she used the easiest excuse: "I need to see where it happened." She felt almost like it was cheating, saying this, but it worked; it also had a built in excuse to let her go alone. "It won't be the same if you're there."

In the end, Annie felt that it had been too easy. She also felt guilty about lying, which was something she had not felt in a long time. She didn't like the feeling at all.

So when she took the Portkey Dumbledore had set up there three days since she and Patsy had talked, she had that sinking feeling in her stomach, the one you have when you know you're doing something wrong.

The Portkey had been set to send her straight to her room. Just using the Portkey was an experience Annie wasn't likely to forget. Though it didn't last long, she was decidedly sure of the fact that she did not like that feeling of the jerk behind her navel. She fell down onto the hardwood floor when she arrived in her room, slightly green. Trembling slightly around the knees, she stood up, and placed the computer mouse that had been her Portkey on the bedside table (how Dumbledore had gotten hold of a computer mouse and why he had chosen to use it for a Portkey she didn't want to know).

To her surprise, her room looked much like it had before the attack. She noticed a couple of holes in the floor where spells had burst through the dining room ceiling, but it was mainly the same old mess. The only real difference was the dust. The room had always had a well lived in look; now it looked as though no one had been here in a few years, instead of just weeks.

With a last look, Annie turned her back on the room and left, leaving the Portkey on the table. She didn't need it now, and besides which, one more touch and she'd be sent back. And that was not what she wanted.

There was a noise outside. She went over to her shaded windows, and peeked outside. There was caution tape surrounding her house, as well as at least two police cars parked on the street. They were staring at the window she was looking out of. She realized with a jolt that the sun was shining in such a way that you could see her shadow through the shades.

"Oh, shit," she whispered, backing up away from the window.

One of the policemen had a megaphone.

"You are in a restricted area," he said. "Please come out with your hands up. Otherwise we will be forced to shoot."

"Shit, shit, shit!" she whispered, her voice high-pitched in panic. She glanced over at the computer mouse, wondering whether to use it now.

If she used it, though, that would mean coming here was a total waste. And Patsy was counting on her.

"Shit!" she said again, running out of the room and down the hall to her parents'.

Unfortunately the hallway was lined with windows. And not one of them was shaded.

"Come out with your hands up. This is your final warning."

Of course, she had no intention of stopping now. She ran to bedroom and into the bathroom. There she knew there was a bucket, that could be brought out every time it rained and the roof leaked. She filled it halfway with water and balanced it over the second door that led into the room, and the one that the police were most likely to take. She had done it so many times before with Patsy that it took her about three seconds.

Now she had to get her father's gun and run off to the Portkey. If the police saw her with the gun, she would be in real trouble.

It was in the closet, so that's where she went. Unfortunately, many things had been added since her father had last come home from hunting, and the gun was buried. She started digging through, but something made her stop.

There was a bag, made of brown paper, toward the back of the closet. Printed letters on it spelled out Olivanders. Intrigued despite the fact that the police were about to break down the door, she opened it.

Inside there were two thin boxes and a scroll made of many pieces of parchment. She knew immediately what were in those boxes; she opened one with trembling hands and found a wand.

It was nothing like the wands that were in the Harry Potter movies, fancy with a handle at one end. In fact, if it hadn't been so shiny and polished, she might have thought it was just some old stick. One end was pointed, and the other round, so she knew where to hold and where the spell would come out of. She reached in and picked it up, and in feeling the rush of warmth she jumped, and knew that this was her wand. The other one was Patsy's.

Although she knew she had no time, she opened the scroll. The top sheet showed a map. Annie wasn't that good at map reading, but one look at some of the notes written on the side made her realize exactly what she was looking at.

Patsy had been right. Voldemort did have a base in America, and this was its floor plan.

There was a bang as the door to the bedroom was flung open. Water sprayed everywhere, just as it was supposed to, and Annie, seeing the hunting rifle right underneath the bag, grabbed them both and hightailed it out of there.

Unfortunately for her, the police had stationed themselves at both doors.

She stumbled back into the bedroom.

Every police officer had his or her gun pointed at her. There were about six of them, three at each door.

"Drop the gun and put your hands in the air!" shouted the one to her left. He was obviously the leader and had taken the brunt of the water bucket trick.

In reply, Annie grinned. And she raised the wand, still clutched in her hand, along with the bag.

It was time to work some magic.

<><><><><><>

At St. Mungo's, Patsy was surfing the net. Nothing new there. In truth, she was actually getting bored with fanfiction; she didn't really like slash as a general rule and reading it for hours a day was really getting on her nerves, especially when most of what she could find of it was badly written. But she knew that it was an important part of the plan. Important, but not very active. Patsy ached to get up and do something. But in her current condition--her legs were taking longer in strengthening than the Healers had anticipated--that was somewhat impossible.

So, because she needed to feel useful, she kept reading, taking breaks only every once in a while to rest her eyes. But she couldn't just read slash--it was really beginning to annoy her. So she began to read other fics on the side.

This afternoon one such fic caught her eye. It was a new fic, one about half-way down the new section on The Dark Arts. It had a fairly short summary, one that almost screamed Mary Sue, although it was clear that the author didn't want to be taken that way. But it seemed to be an interesting idea, so she clicked.

As she read the story, she was intrigued. It was not very well written, the story didn't seem to be at all original, and it had a few kinks that definitely needed to be worked out, but on the whole she liked it. It wouldn't help the plan, but it was an interesting thing to read on the side.

She sighed, realizing that she'd better get back to work. She didn't have time to review; she hadn't even had time to read the story. But something made her go up to the task bar on the laptop and place Dreams and Broomsticks: The Muggle that Witnessed the World Cup by P. D. Yerf under Favorites.

Just in case.

In case of what? she wondered to herself.

She didn't quite know the answer. It was hidden, deep down, waiting.

But of course, what it was waiting for, and why, is another story.

You all will just have to wait.

<><><><><><>

Annie, though excited, was somewhat nervous about using magic. She had seen it, of course, and read about it night and day, but actually physically practicing it? Not at all. There hadn't been time before the attack.

She also wasn't quite sure what was first and second year magic, and what went beyond that. It seemed to her that all the spells she might use were mainly learned in the fourth book, but whether those could have been used beforehand if there had been a need, she didn't know.

And, deep down, she had a feeling of foreboding. What if she, for instance, used the Jelly Legs Jinx (which, of course, she knew she wouldn't be able to, seeing as she didn't know the incantation) and then had to go quickly, without using the counter-Jinx (which she didn't know either)? How would the doctors deal with that? Not to mention the American form of the Ministry of Magic?

But she didn't have time to think of all this. As all these thoughts were going through her head, her mouth was forming the words for spells whose wand gestures she wasn't familiar enough with, and whose results she couldn't quite predict.

"Stupefy!" she tried first, without really expecting it to work, and she was not disappointed. A few sparks jetted from the wand tip, but either the wand movement was wrong or the spell was beyond her abilities. She did not wait to find out.

One of the police officers groaned.

"Aw, great, the kid's a Potter nut."

"Forget that!" snapped the lead officer. The sparks and the failed spell had been unexpected, and it had reminded the officers that they were dealing with a kid. "Drop the gun and the stick now!"

Annie hardly heard him. She searched her mind for a spell for which the hand movements were known to her.

"Silencio!" she cried, pointing her wand at the head officer and jabbing it sharply at him.

The officer's mouth was moving, but not sound was emitting from it. Annie stared at him, horrified. She hadn't really expected it to work; the spell hadn't been mentioned until the fifth book. Of course, there was not guarantee that the books were accurate but still...

"Finite!" she tried, and it worked; the officer could now talk again. And very colorful language indeed was spouting from his mouth.

Annie ran for it. The police were suitably distracted, and she was able just to duck underneath their arms and run down the hall.

"Wingardium Leviosa!" she yelled, swishing and flicking her wand behind her, the Olivanders bag bouncing on her arm. She did not look, just kept running, but from the yelling it sounded as though the spell might have actually hit a person, and he had been lifted off the ground.

She raced around a corner and into her bedroom, nearly tripping over one of the holes blasted in the floor, and made a mad grab for the computer mouse on her bedside table.

And just before she was whizzed away by the power of the Portkey, the police caught up, and she couldn't resist giving them a jovial wave as she disappeared from sight.

It was only later, when she was reading about herself in the Muggle newspaper (the magic being omitted, as the American Ministry of Magic had wiped the police officers' memories soon after she had left) she realized that she hadn't had that much fun in ages.

She couldn't wait to use her skills on the Death Eaters. Inexperienced as she was, she knew she would give them an experience they would never forget.

And she'd have fun doing it.