Chapter 5 - Obliviate Femmus
With a loud pop, Harry (still polyjuiced as Rita Skeeter), Tonks (looking docile with light brown hair, brown eyes and elfin features), and Draco Malfoy (looking, as always, like he was the most important person in the room), apparated into a comfortable looking chamber, bitterly cold, as there was no fire burning in the grate. Tentatively stepping away from Tonks and Malfoy, Harry looked more closely at his surroundings. Three giant four poster beds were draped in red velvet coverlets, with gold gauze hangings dripping like honey over the bedposts to the floor. The carpet was thick and cream-coloured, with a semi-transparent demiguise pelt thrown on the floor like a rug. There were several antique wooden chests of varying sizes around the room, the smallest barely big enough to hold a snitch - the largest could have accommodated a whole Quidditch team with ease. This enormous trunk was located on the back wall of the room, a heavy iron key the size of Harry's arm hanging above it. The overall effect of the room was awe-inspiring, fit for a king.
`Well, let's get settled then!' Tonks said brightly, disrupting Harry's thoughts. `They are expecting me, and my husband and guest for dinner in,' she glanced at her heavy antique watch, `5 minutes!'
`Here, Potter,' Malfoy said, handing Harry a neat silver flask filled with Polyjuice Potion. `Just use the replenishing charm anytime it gets low - don't empty it entirely though or the charm won't work.' Harry grunted a reply of thanks, before remembering what Hermione and he had talked about. It's up to me to make this work!
`Thanks Draco!' Harry smiled. They were going to have to start by working on a first name basis if they were to become friends.
`That's... alright Potter,' Malfoy was hesitant in his reply, unnerved by Harry's friendliness.
`Come on, come on!' Tonks interrupted the conversation, asking them why they hadn't changed for dinner.
Sighing, she transfigured Harry's lurid green suit into a knee length, brown skirt and a brown and white fitted pinstriped jacket, covered by a simple caramel robe. `Honestly Harry, am I going to have to dress you every day?' Harry, who had no idea as to what a middle-aged reporter witch would wear, simply nodded.
Draco, on the other hand, had transfigured his travelling robes into a black suit-robe, with green detailing on the cuffs and hem. `Once a Slytherin, always a Slytherin.' Harry muttered to himself. Draco had also taken the liberty of changing Tonks' clothes for dinner too. Her violet, slightly worn robes had become a tiny, spangled silver skirt and a strip of black fabric masquerading as a shirt, leaving little to the imagination.
`Draco Malfoy.' she said calmly, `I have no idea what you think you are doing, but whatever it is, stop it now.'
`Nymphadora, baby!' Draco smarmed, `you know in this country, a woman is a servant, in every way, to her husband!
When in Rome baby...'
`Oh stop that right now Malfoy!' Tonks said unblushingly, as she transfigured Draco's `outfit' into
something she was more comfortable in - a pair of navy pants coupled with a simple white blouse, again, covered in a
deep blue robe. She fastened the catch of the robe at her waist and look Draco defiantly in the eye, led the way to
dinner.
***
As the three Aurors, or what looked like two Aurors and one reporter, approached the heavy oaken doors before them
swung open. As Harry passed them, he looked closely and saw they were engraved with the images of the country's
most gruesome `Muggle trials', of the past. To his horror, he saw that the images were moving slightly.
`I don't like this at all...' he whispered to Tonks as she led them towards the heavy table where five men in heavy fur coats sat in silence. She didn't reply, but kept walking straight, her eyes never shifting from the quintet in front of them.
Harry felt very uncomfortable indeed. The chairs in front of them scraped back, inviting them to sit. Uneasily, Harry perched on the end of his chair, remembering, for once, to keep his knees together.
`Greetings, fellows.' Said the man at the centre of the five. `I am sure you have arrived safely, Ms Skeeter and Mr Tonks.' His English was stilted, with a strange accent that Harry couldn't place. `The fire has been lit, and the beds turned down in your absences.' The three nodded their thanks; it was not their time to talk.
`Please, you must be eating now. Your hunger must be great.' The man spoke again, as a thick meaty stew appeared on their plates. `I am Yosiv, as you are knowing.' The man to Yosiv's right took a noisy slurp of stew, the brown sauce slopping down his front. Yosiv turned to him, disgusted. `Borag, must you eat like the pig your Muggle mother was?' he said maliciously. `You know it is only by my favour that you have a place at this table.' The man named Borag wiped his coat nervously. `You want to stay in my favour, Borag.' This was not a question from Yosiv, but an order.
During this exchange, Harry, Tonks and Malfoy remained quiet. It was not for them to interfere, but to observe. After the food was gone, Borag rose, taking two of the other men with him. `Mister Tonks,' he said, `come and be joining us in the room of smoking.' These people seemed to have a way of making every phrase sound like an order.
As Draco stood, he kissed Tonks on the cheek. `Goodbye Nymphadora, I'll see you tonight.' He smiled. Their cover was to pretend all was as they expected.
`Goodbye.' Tonks replied, hiding the fact that she was appalled that Draco was still calling her `Nymphadora'.
`Myself and Ithas will be along shortly.' Yosiv said to Borag. `I wish to discuss matters with the ladies.' Borag nodded curtly, and led the other men from the room.
Yosiv bent to retrieve something from the pocket of his coat. It was a thick wand of dark wood. He pointed it at Harry. `Stupefy Femmus!' he said, and Harry slumped in his chair. However, what Yosiv did not know is that Harry was far from stunned. While Yosiv turned his attention to Tonks, Harry wondered why he had not been stunned. He had slumped in his chair automatically, to cushion his landing. He decided that it was to his advantage that Yosiv did not know he was awake, and listening. Yosiv was pacing, while Harry wondered why he was not stunned. Then he realised. Yosiv had been attempting to strengthen his spell by adding the word `femmus', or woman. But as Harry was not, truly, a woman, the extra word had nullified Yosiv's spell. Harry was thankful for Yosiv's particularity.
`So, you come here with your husband, yes?' Yosiv said to Tonks. She nodded warily, eyeing the seemingly unconscious Harry. `I only stun her to protect her, Madam Tonks.' Yosiv said. `I have no wanting for stories unwanted, yes?' Tonks nodded again, although she didn't really understand what he was saying. `I will be watching you, Madam Tonks.' Yosiv said, `and your husband too.' At this moment, Draco walked in. `Stupefy Hommus!' Yosiv said, and Draco too, slumped where he stood. Tonks gasped. `Now, my dear,' Yosiv spoke to Tonks, `I have things to discuss with my colleagues.' He paused and smiled. `Stupefy Femmus!' With a flutter, Tonks' eyes closed.
`You know you could have taken them back to their rooms instead of stunning them all, Yosiv.' One of the cloaked men said.
`Yes, Moros,' Yosiv replied, `but would I have known what they were doing in their room? No, but here I can be keeping my eye on them.' Moros looked at the floor. `Now, is the plan all ready, The Wizards Confederation have gathered here, all of them. We have the top witches and wizards here, in our castle. They agreed to host their summit here as a "gesture of magical cooperation",' Yosiv, Borag, Moros and the others laughed at this. It was all Harry could do to lie still. `So, now that the final country has brought its reporter here, the summit shall begin tomorrow. Little do the confederate heads know that England's chief representative will be under the Imperius curse, ready to hear our orders.'
Shocked, Harry knew he had to act quickly, and fast. He reached for his wand, thankful that he had mastered the non-verbal spells he began in sixth year. Yosiv raised his wand and pointed it at Tonks, smiled and said `Imperio!' Only seconds after Harry pointed his wand at Tonks and thought the incantation for the shield charm. He was the only one to notice the spark of Yosiv's curse stop short, centimetres from Tonk's unconscious form. `Now,' Yosiv said abruptly. `We shall awaken them... and make them forget.'
Borag swept his wand in a curve over Harry and Tonks. `Ennervate Femmus.' He said, then, as Tonks lifted her head slightly, `Obliviate Femmus!' Tonks looked at Harry with a dazed look, which Harry replicated. `Ennervate Hommus,' Borag smiled as Draco's face lit with recognition. `Obliviate Hommus!' With grim satisfaction, Borag poked the three of them with his wand and led them from the room, unaware that Harry was silently sending a communication to the Headquarters of the Order of the Phoenix.
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