Chapter 10: Waiting in Wallyworld
A/N: Thanks for all who have posted reviews…they really do motivate me to keep this story moving along (vanity thy name is fanfict author).
Disclaimer: Not my story, no money being made, not responsible for the language I used whilst watching USA's 1-1 draw with Italy.
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Harry and Tonks opened the door to Dudley's bedroom, only to find the way blocked by one very hacked-off familiar.
"Hey Crookshanks," Harry said as he reached down to scratch an ear. The half-kneazle ducked his head away from Harry's hand and hissed at Tonks.
"Wotcher, Crookshanks," she said. "Oh, I see." Tonks said, as she realized what skin she was wearing, "You're probably wondering why…" She quickly morphed back into her baseline bubble-gum colored hair form. "See, it really is me."
The half-kneazle glared at Harry, then back at Tonks, and hissed again.
"Erm, Crookshanks," Harry said, "there is a perfectly good explanation why Tonks looks like Hermione, and why she and I were in…erm, in my bedroom…but we don't have time to explain right now, ok?"
Crookshanks stared at Harry unconvinced.
"Look, Crookshanks, we really don't have time…Hermione's parents may be in danger, and Tonks and I have to go check things out....Hermione's with them, though, ok?" Harry said, a bit nervously. "Now, while we're gone we'll need somebody to watch the Dursleys to make sure that they don't do anything stupid…will you do that for me?"
Hermione's familiar stared over at Tonks, who'd changed back to Hermione's form. He then looked back at Harry with disapproving eyes and slowly walked back into the master bedroom.
"Geezsh," Tonks said as they headed towards the stairs, "Didn't expect to have a chaperone around here."
"Oh," said Harry, "he's just looking out for his best girl," Harry replied. "Speaking of which…"
Harry ran back into Dudley's bedroom and poked his head out the window. A quick scan revealed his cousin watering the backyard with his sweat, but no signs of Hedwig.
Guessing that she could do a better job of taking care of herself than the Granger's, he pushed finding Hedwig to the back burner and ran downstairs with Tonks.
They found Brian, the two security men and his Uncle Vernon in the dining room, gathered at an object newly hung on the wall across from where his Uncle usually sat for meals.
"Vernon," the younger security man said, with a newly displayed lisp, "you've been holding out on us, haven't you dear?"
Harry could tell that his Uncle's anger was simmering just under the boil.
"Here we were," Wally continued, "imagining that we'd just moved into a typical suburban neighborhood, with typical suburban neighbors, and then…well, there you are with this most amazing piece of art."
Wally walked over to his partner and put his arm around his shoulder. "It's brilliant, luv, don't you think?"
Harry couldn't decide what was more interesting: the strain with which the older security man was playing the role of gay neighbor, or the "artwork" that they were all staring at.
Somebody had nailed the door to Harry' old bedroom had been up onto the wall, with the locks facing out and the cat-flap hanging out on its hinges.
Frankly, the only thing Harry thought was brilliant at that moment was the gleam in Brian's eye.
"It's just so powerful…" Wally romped on, "such a strong statement…were it hung in a gallery I might think the artist was commenting on the human condition, and how much we cruelly bar the love of those around us from reaching us. But here, hung within the context of prototypical suburban kitsch, it says something quite different to me."
The young security man gave Harry a wink as he walked over to Vernon and grabbed one of his hands with both of his.
"Oh, Vernon, my dear man," Wally said in a soothing tone, "we understand…it must have been so painful, to have locked away your feelings for so long, in such a desperate attempt to conform within this suburban hell…. How brave you are, Vernon, to have bared your tortured soul with this piece of art…such a desperate cry for help to those who of us who have walked in your shoes and struggled with our own closeted thoughts and feelings."
Harry had never seen his Uncle look so nervous and agitated. His attempts to keep from bursting out in laughter at his Uncle's situation weren't helped when he looked over and saw Brian biting his tongue in an attempt to do the same.
"Vernon," Wally said sweetly, and he lifted up the hand he held and lightly kissed it, "We're here for you."
Vernon, whose head was about to burst, looked over at Brian, who'd cocked his head at an angle and raised his eyebrows in an expression that clearly implied that he'd best be polite to his neighbor. Or else.
"Erm…thank you," Vernon stammered. "I'll…I'll remember that."
The older security agent walked over to his partner and put a hand on his shoulder.
"Wally," he said, "I think Vernon could use some alone time. Shall we make good on our invitation for his nephew and friend to cross the street for some tea?"
"Good idea, luv," Wally said, remembering that torturing the Dursleys was only a secondary assignment. "Vernon, are you going to be okay? Can we steal your nephew and his guest away for a while?"
"Erm, sure," Vernon quickly replied. "Be my guest….steal them away for as long as you want."
"Okay, then," Wally said as he grabbed Vernon's hands. "But you know where to go if you ever need a shoulder to cry on, don't you?"
"Uhhh, right," Vernon replied, with gritted teeth.
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Harry's glee at the Queen's men's ability to get so deeply under his Uncle's skin was quickly replaced with guilt and concern when he realized that those three minutes might have been better spent helping the Grangers. As they left the house and crossed the street Harry called Hermione on his cell phone to update her and get assurances that they were still safe. Once told where the Grangers were located, Tonks set off on her own to join them, telling an understanding Brian that she could get there quicker than any muggle transport.
The security men showed Harry inside the house that they'd been living in for all of a month. The downstairs rooms seemed normal enough, from what Harry saw. The living room showed definite signs of having been lived in (as opposed to, say, his Aunt's aseptic aesthetic); throw pillows were laying haphazardly on the leather sofa and a matching club chair; magazines and a remote were spread out over the coffee table.
Once inside the house Brian and Steve, the older security guard, bounded up the stairs, leaving Harry alone with Wally in the front entranceway.
"So you guys really have been living here for the past month?" Harry asked.
"Yeah," Wally said. "Not such a bad assignment, although Steve is a bit of a pig around the house."
"And you guys aren't really….erm, are you?"
Wally laughed. "No, we aren't a couple. Steve's not my type, and while I might bat from the opposite side he's as painfully straight as they come. We're just partners on the job."
Harry nodded, realizing that by answering a question Harry hadn't asked Wally had answered the original as well.
"Nice job needling my Uncle," Harry said. "You knew just what buttons to push."
"Oh, thanks," Wally replied. "Amazing how nervous folks get when I feed their stereotypical fears and play the swishy hand routine." For emphasis, Wally waved a limp wrist towards Harry. "Of course, it also gives me a chance to make Steve squirm, so it's always a good time for me."
Harry grinned. "So why are you pretending to be, erm…a couple?" he asked. "I mean, if you're trying to lay low and stay undercover…it's not like you two blend in very well around here."
Wally grinned back at Harry. "No….you think? It might be counterintuitive, but acting as a gay couple in this neighborhood actually helps us do our job."
"How is that?"
"Well," said Wally with a smirk, "we've got a job to do minding you, and some equipment to do it with that we wouldn't want the neighbors to catch on to, right? This way, we haven't had neighbors pounding on our door wondering when we're handing out invitations for a housewarming party."
"That makes sense," Harry said as he nodded. "And given the prejudice around here, they probably expect you having men running in and out of here all the time, and imagine you two spending all day lounging about snogging each other, so…"
"Yeah, so they haven't caught on and wondered why we don't leave home for day jobs, or why other agents come and go." Wally grinned at Harry. "Not bad, kid…makes me think that it wasn't a fluke how well you handled your guests last night."
"You mean you saw?" Harry asked with alarm.
"Yeah," Wally replied, "where did you think Brian went while you and Dame Hermione were busy?"
"Wait," Harry said, "if Brian told you about us, and our, erm…skills, then…"
"No worries, Sir Harry," Wally grinned, as he produced the same kind of identification card from his billfold that Brian had shown him the night before. "My brother's a wizard, and Steve's mum and sister are witches."
"Merlin," Harry exclaimed as he looked at Wally's card, "does everyone at the Palace have one of these things?"
Wally laughed. "No, Sir Harry, it just seems that way. There's really only a few of us in the know…we're kind of a team, I guess you could say, that handles situations involving both our worlds.
"Wow," Harry exclaimed, "guess I never realized that there were muggles out there that didn't always try to pretend that magic didn't exist even when they knew better."
"Yeah," said Wally, "there are a few of us that aren't really bothered by the thought…sort of like there are some witches and wizards that don't have problems living in the muggle world, huh?"
Harry's reply was interrupted when Brian and Steve bounded back down the stairs.
"Here's the situation, Sir Harry, best we know it." Brian said. "Remote surveillance indicates that those two badly-dressed blokes are the only threats within a two block radius of the Granger residence. We've got people both inside and outside the Savoy, and they haven't seen anything…our perimeter here is also clean. We'll have on-the-ground confirmation of all this within the next ten minutes."
"Merlin, Brian," Harry said as he shook his head with slight amazement, "you sure that all you did at the Palace was cook?"
Brian nodded his head and blinked in acknowledgement of Harry's insight. "Another time, Sir Harry. Right now we need to make some decisions about the Grangers."
"Right," said Harry, as he gathered his thoughts about the information he'd just been given. How much information should he provide or did he need to provide to help the muggle security men do their job? "We do need to compare notes sometime soon on what each knows, and what we think it safe for the other to know. As for now…"
Harry thought for a moment, then reached a decision. "The woman that visited earlier today, Tonks? She's someone Hermione and I can trust with our lives. She's also an Auror….mean anything to you guys?"
All three men nodded their heads.
"Right then," Harry continued, "in a perfect world we'd be able to trust every Auror with our lives, but the fact that our guests last night were also Aurors should dispel that idealistic notion fairly well for you."
Again, the three men listening to Harry nodded their heads.
"Erm," Harry said, choosing his path and words carefully, "you guys know about Death Eaters?"
The nods from all three men were accentuated with eyes that narrowed and backs that stiffened.
"The two blokes in front of the Granger house are probably Death Eaters, or their stooges…no other reasons for wizards that we don't know to be hanging around their house. Pretty surprising that they've discovered where Hermione's parents lived…we've got some hard work to do following up on that question, but I'm thinking that they're just a couple of low-level scouts waiting for the Grangers to return from picking up Hermione at the station."
"We were thinking the same thing," Brian replied.
"If the Grangers hadn't visited the Palace and stayed in town last night, I'm sure the plan was for those two to go get help once they'd returned…they probably could have attacked at the train station, but I imagine that it was pretty heavily guarded, and that the house would be a much softer target. Much more of a statement, as well, if they were able to raise the Dark Mark there."
"Dark Mark, Sir Harry?" Wally asked.
"Oh, sorry, keep forgetting that you guys might not have what's common knowledge in our world. Anyway, important thing is that they are still waiting to ambush the Grangers at their house. Means, I think, that the Grangers haven't somehow been tracked to their current location….you guys certain that there's nothing unusual down where the Grangers are staying?"
Brian nodded. "Given what you've just told us, and what we've already pieced together, we think that the safest thing to do is to move the Grangers from the Savoy to a safe house…might not take long for the bad guys to figure out what's happened and retrace their steps."
"Agreed," Harry said. "Is there any way that you guys can quietly bring Hermione and her parents here?"
"Here, Sir Harry?" Steve asked. "Not to discount the defensive skills you put on display last night, but if they know where the Grangers live shouldn't you also expect them to know where you are right now? Might just be placing the Grangers out of the frying pan and into the fire."
Harry thought for a moment. "Normally, I'd agree, but let's just say that there are some extra security measures in place around my Aunt and Uncle's house…for the next eight weeks, at least…anti-apparation wards, for example."
Harry recoiled when he realized that he might have broken some rules talking about apparation with muggles, but the fact that nobody blinked, or asked for an explanation, suggested that he hadn't revealed information that wasn't already known.
The three men silently looked at each other; after getting two curt nods from the security men Brian turned towards Harry.
"We can have them here safely within the hour, Sir Harry," he said. "Will there be others there to
transport?"
"Just Tonks and Hermione, for now," Harry replied. "I ought to be there as well, but for reasons I can explain later I'm rather constrained when it comes to defending myself…or others, for that matter. Tonks should be there though, and I imagine she and Hermione aren't going to be shy about having their wands at the ready, so…."
"Not a problem," Brian said. "I'll knock on their door myself. It'll add an hour or so to the arrival time, but it does sound like a prudent course of action."
"Right, then," Harry said. "Sounds like a plan."
"What about those Death Eaters?" Steve asked.
"First things first," Harry replied. "I want to make sure the Grangers are safe before we figure out that problem." Harry paused for a beat. "So Brian, you're going to join Tonks and Hermione, while I probably should wait across the street, so…"
"Want some company while you wait, Sir Harry?" Wally asked.
Harry, who been a bit worried about what the Dursleys might try if he were alone with them, nodded his head. "Thanks, I'd enjoy that."
"No problem," Wally said with a wink. "Gives me a chance to dress down your Aunt for her heinous window treatments."
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It was a painful two hour wait for Harry, even with the amusing entertainment provided by Wally and his Aunt Petunia. Had he been a normal muggle teenager, he'd have probably spent the entire time on the telephone with Hermione, ensuring that things were still okay. But Harry wasn't used to the concept of accessible methods of communication that didn't involve fireplaces, so his contact with Hermione had been limited to a single call after the strategy session had broken up.
The fact that Wally wasn't showing a lot of concern was comforting for Harry, up until the point when Wally's cell phone went off. After a brief conversation, he informed Harry that the Grangers would soon be there; he then left to work out some security arrangements with Steve. Harry made his own welcome plans by grabbing his invisibility cloak and heading for the concealment provided by the shrubbery in front of the house.
It was typical weekend afternoon on Privet Drive; the only real difference Harry could detect was that the neighbors all seemed to have the same televised football match blaring out their windows that he'd been watching with Wally. It was supposedly a big deal, this muggle game of football; preliminary matches for their own version of the Quidditch world cup. Wally had tried to explain the game, but Harry frankly found it a bit boring and two-dimensional.
With seemingly the entire neighborhood glued to their tellies it wasn't hard to notice when a large Land Rover with black-tinted windows rumbled down Privet Drive. It slowly passed by, stopping only after it had reached the next intersection and turned around to face back towards Harry. Harry then spotted a rather large truck as it turned the corner and headed towards him, with an identical black SUV just behind. The second Land Rover stopped short as the lorry stopped in front of him. Two men dressed in gray overalls jumped out of the cab and quickly looked up and down the street. The insignia embroidered on the backs of their coveralls matched the large advertisement painted on the side of the truck.
From all appearances, the Dursleys were about to get some furniture delivered from Harrods.
After about fifteen seconds, one of the men walked behind the container and opened the doors, while the second watched with one hand inside his jacket. A metal ramp was extended from the trailer down to the street, and several people emerged from the back of the truck carrying pieces of bedroom furniture. They all wore the same overalls, but had matching caps that were pulled down low on their heads.
The man who'd open the back door of the trailer walked up to the front door of the Dursleys and rang the bell. A somewhat wary Vernon opened the door then stepped to one side, having been made aware of what was expected of him. The mattress-carrying workers marched them right into the house. Had anyone been watching the work rather than the match, they may have thought it strange that four of the overall-clad workers who'd brought in the first pieces of furniture never came back out.
It took all of ten minutes for the truck's contents to be emptied, and for the trailer to be filled with what they were replacing. Harry, who had been watching all the time from under the front window, could hear his aunt sob a bit as her faux-French colonial bedroom set was marched unceremoniously out to the truck.
The swap-out completed, those men who'd finished the job packed up the van and drove off, accompanied by the two SUVs. Harry, wand in hand, shed his cloak and stood out from the bushes. He found Wally and Steve, who both gave thumbs-ups from their locations, and returned their gesture. He then turned to enter the house, relieved to know that those whom he now considered to be his real family were safe and sound within his Aunt and Uncle's house.
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