[HP AU]

[mnt_raph]

"An' you're sure this is the right address?" Raph asks again, for what Mike thinks might be the millionth time.

"Yes, I'm sure Raph. For like the millionth times. I told you," the smaller boy says sighing. "I read the map. I followed Donnie's instructions to the letter. Just...be still, look tough, and try not talk so much. Your accent kind of a dead give away that we're tourists, okay?"

"Bite me, Mikey."

"You'd probably like that too much," he says with a waggle of his eyebrows as he presses the doorbell of the Montoya's East London home.

Comments

[interrogoiterum]

"Second floor," says a harried looking witch next to him.

This shop didn't look like it had a second floor from the outside.

Renee is already heading towards the spiral staircase, and the big department store sign next to it.

Sure enough:
Second Floor: Medical charms and baby supplies.

"What are you in the market for, Raph?"

[mnt_raph]

Raph's impressed. You wouldn't know it by looking at him, but he's impressed, and usually is when it comes to the whole bigger on the inside thing.

"A beer. Some peace and quiet.

...

The name of the cute blonde from before."

[interrogoiterum]

Fifth Floor: The Swift Sphinx Tavern

Renee looks around for a lift rather than stairs, and when she can't find one, starts up the staircase.

Under her feet, it suddenly starts spinning under her, rising up in a screw motion.

Renee grabs on to the bannister with both hands, including the one clutching her wandumbrella.

"Moldwart!"

[mnt_raph]

Raph is dumbfounded for a second, and as such has to jump at the last second to catch up with Renee.

"Wait...seriously?"

He never was very quick on the uptake.

[interrogoiterum]

Renee's eyes are wide with annoyance at being taken by surprise.

"Why can't wizards ever do anything simply?" She demands of him, like he should know."

[mnt_raph]

Raph blinks at her in confusion, but eventually he comes to realize she was cursing at the stairs, and not actually giving him the girl's name.

"Because that'd be simple, and if things are simple then there's no need for magic."

[interrogoiterum]

"Ugh," she says.

The stairs twist them up to the fifth floor, where there is indeed a wizarding pub, and she hops off.

"Abi."

[mnt_raph]

"Abi?" he repeats as he follows her to the pub, seemingly more bothered by the rampant children than by the moving staircase. "An' she lives around here?"

[interrogoiterum]

"And she is a muggle," Renee says, as she sits at a table, "and she is younger than you, and she is my brother's friend. Just be aware of all the different reasons I'd have to kick your arse."

She'd have to get good enough to kick his arse. This is a challenge she's willing to rise to.

[mnt_raph]

"Lookit the bark on Montoya," he says with a laugh paying at the edges of his words. "Question is, how much bite you got to back that up?"

Considering the bruise already forming on his cheek, one could easily say quite a bit.

"What're you drinkin'?" Because Raph thinks you could use something right about now.

[interrogoiterum]

She's got more than she used to. And if it comes to protecting muggles around here from becoming just another one of Raph's girls, she'll get more.

"Anything but butterbeer," she says; that stuff is disgusting. "Firewhiskey."

Assuming they'll serve him. And they'd better serve him.

[mnt_raph]

The boy has needs.

And right now those needs involve alcohol. There's precious little chance he won't be served here, if his identification was good enough for unrestricted travel through the floo network, a bartender in London won't be much trouble.

While Raph's placing his order Mike comes up from downstairs. The flashing orange turtle is less flashy at this point...but no less orange. He spots Raph at the bar, and then a few feet away spots Renee.

He looks pensive.

[interrogoiterum]

Renee catches sight of Mike at about the time he comes up. She turns away from Raph to give his brother her attention, and waves him over.

"What is that?"

[mnt_mike]

"Hey," he says to her as he takes an extra chair at the table. "What this? It's just a thing me and Donnie cooked up. Long distance communication for the socially impaired."

Mike places the turtle in the center of the table. There's a regular pattern to the blinking, and if one watches it long enough...one can see that the blinking is slowly speeding up.

[interrogoiterum]

"And what does Donnie have to say?"

And where, says her glance over her shoulder, is her drink?

[mnt_mike]

"That he and Leo are going to meet us here in about five minutes, and that it's an emergency."

Which...kind of goes without saying really, since it'd take an emergency to get Leo to leave the grounds of Hogwarts.

Raph, may have gotten distracted by the bartender, but a few seconds or so later he begins to make his way back to the table with not two, but three drinks. Two firewhiskeys, and a milkshake for Mike.

[interrogoiterum]

"Oh."

She pauses here to take the first mouthful from her drink. Obviously, with the tension at home and the boys just showing up, and now what sounds like a family emergency, she needs it.

"So much for our afternoon out."

[mnt_mike]

Raph turns his chair so he can lean his arms on the back.

"Wait, what?" he gives the turtle on the table a look, before raising an eyebrow at Mike.

"I was just telling Renee that Leo and Don are on their way here."

"The fuck. Why?!"

"Don didn't say, just that it was an emergency."

"It'd fucking better be. The whole plan's freakin' shot if they catch Leo off Grounds."

"I know, I know...I tried to remind him of that, but they were on the move quick. Don was rerouting floos left and right to try and mask Leo's tracer."

[interrogoiterum]

Renee listens over her firewhiskey, a look of concern crossing her face as she follows the conversation.

She's only aware of the existence of a plan - she's good at figuring things out and she's been hanging out with Mike and Raph for two years now.

But she also knows Leonardo cannot - and will not - leave the grounds.

"What - wait."

She shifts in her chair and pulls out a wallet from her trouser pocket. From that comes a book of matches, and one of those she lights and shakes out.

The smoke thins out and gently, barely noticeably, surrounds the table.

Two things Renee is good at - finding things and obscuring charms.

"What plan?"

[mnt_mike]

Mike stops paying attention to Raph the moment he feels the affect of the charm kick in. It...it's a beautiful piece of magic, is what it is, and Mike is impressed. Very impressed.

"You are soooooo going to have to show me how you make these some day," he says with palpable awe in his voice.

"The Plan," Raph grumbles, trying to bring Mikey back into the conversation. "To get us home."

It's not the whole of the plan, but...really, that's the basic gist of it.

[interrogoiterum]

Renee shrugs. It's not a big deal, she'lll totally show him.

She's more interested in what Raph is saying.

"Today? You're going home today?"

She shouldn't be thinking it, but what she is thinking is - they're leaving her in the middle of the school year?

[mnt_mike]

"That's not the plan," Raph says, turning towards Mikey. "Is it? Because it sure as hell wasn't the last time we talked about it."

"Hey, I only know what Donnie told me," Mike says putting his hands up in surrender. "That Leo said it was go time, and that he left the school. And that we're supposed to stay in one place and wait for them."

This time he gestures to the turtle on the table, which is still intermittently flashing orange.

"Maybe if you answered your comm, Raph. You'd have more information."

Raph grumbles, taking his own turtle out of his pocket...and it flashes red several times. This only serves to make him grumble more.

[interrogoiterum]

Renee takes another mouthful of her drink - now she's had a couple she's used to the burn and can take a more generous mouthful.

While Raph's on the turtle, she glances at Mike: "So this was just a test run for the plan?"

[mnt_mike]

"Yeah, we kind of wanted to see how far away from the school we could get with our new credentials, and...well, I couldn't pass up an opportunity to come and say hello."

Because Hogwarts just isn't the same without her.

"I really didn't mean for us to botch up things with your folks."

"We've got Don runnin' interference in Hogsmeade, and Leo was supposed to stay put at the school, but it looks like that's going pear-shaped in a rather spectacular way," Raph interjects before Mike gets even more schmoompy.

[interrogoiterum]

Renee shrugs.

"My Mum's not a bitch," she says. "She's just firm in her beliefs. Ben says she'll come round. I leave next year anyway.

"So how's it gone pear shaped?"