[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]

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?"

[mnt_mike]

Mike reaches across the table for Renee's hand. Sure the romantic portion of their relationship might be a fraud, but the rest of it isn't, and he really doesn't like to see her upset.

Raph gives Mike a meaningful look, and Mike just simply nods his head. She should know, it's the least they can do.

"Leo shouldn't be leaving the school," Raph drawls. "He's the one with the tracker on him. The rest of us...so long as we don't get into no trouble, we're fine. So him leaving the school? Kind of fucks the rest of us seven ways from Sunday.

It'd better be damn important, is all I'm saying."

"I'm sure it is, Raph. We just have to wait. Renee, the more we tell you, the greater the risk on your part, you know that right?"

[interrogoiterum]

Renee squeezes his hand with one of her own. The other doesn't leave her drink.

"Mike," she says with the ghost of a smile. "When have you ever known me to leave a question unanswered?"

It's less risky to tell her than to let her start investigating, is the thing.

[mnt_mike]

"Nature makes things pretty so you know just how dangerous they are at first sight," he says with a smirk in her direction.

"We're going to kill the son of a bitch who murdered our mother. Or we were anyway," Raph says finishing off his drink. "Now, who knows what we're doing."

[interrogoiterum]

Never one to let Raph beat her for long, Renee follows suit with her drink.

"How?"

[mnt_raph]

"How do you think," he says darkly and smiles. It's not a particularly nice smile.

"Don's hacked the Floo network, it's how we've been able to get radio communication from New York at the School. We've been tracking the guy for months, but...it's too soon. This has to be something different. We're only just checking our travel options. Something else is up," Mike adds.

The turtle on the table is now solid orange in color.

"They're here, I'm going to find them. Raph, keep your comm out so I can find you guys when we get back." And with that Mike us up and moving his way through the department store towards the street level exit.

[interrogoiterum]

"Just call him over when he comes back up," Renee says. "It won't break the beclouding."

She has her wallet out again; a beaten up duct tape affair which contains muggle money and paraphernalia until she folds it a couple of times and then it opens up to spill galleons on the table.

Sadly, there probably won't be time for another.

But she looks at the money anyway, considering a few things.

Raph is her best friend. Mike is her - sort of - boyfriend. But this really isn't her fight.

[mnt_raph]

Raph nods his agreement, but looks puzzled at the whole money-on-the-table thing.

"What's this all about?" he gestures to the galleons.

[interrogoiterum]

She scoops them up and folds them back in the wallet.

"Me wondering if I've got enough for another round," she says. "Or, y'know, if American wizards have the same currency as British wizards."

[mnt_raph]

"There's more than enough for another 'round," he says eyeing her. "And only another round. We ain't taking your money, Renee. We got this."

[interrogoiterum]

"Sounds like you ain't got time for another round."

Which was what was really bothering her.

And for that matter, "You don't even know what it is you've got, Horsebrain."

[mnt_raph]

She's not wrong, on either account, which is why Raph merely shrugs.

"Yeah, but how's that really any different from any other time."

The other turtle on the table begins to glow a bright shade of red now.

"Here they come," he says craning his neck to try and catch a glimpse of his family coming towards them.

"Yo, Mikey!"

Mike's eyes dart around looking for the source of the sound.

"Over here, you knob."

Realization dawns and Mike leads Leo and Don over to the table, making sure to snag an extra chair on the way over.

Don pulls his spectro-specs down as they approach, and then pushes them back up again.

"Truly ingenious," he says when Raph and Renee come into view. He too appears to be impressed.

"Well well well, what do we got here? What's the matter, Fearless Leader. Couldn't handle it on the inside?"

Leo lets Raph's insults just wash over him, and instead turns his attention to Renee.

"Good afternoon, Renee. I'm sorry for the intrusion.
...
And also the intrusion on the intrusion."

[interrogoiterum]

"First one's not your problem," Renee says with a shrug.

"No offense, Leo, but you look shite."

That's kind of her way of saying the second one isn't a problem either.

[mnt_leo]

"She's not wrong," Mike pipes in as he reaches across the table and gives his brother's shoulder a swat, causing a small cloud of soot to momentarily form.

"That's my fault," Don says quietly. He doesn't seem like he's paying all that much attention to what's going on around him, mostly because there's this distracting little gadget in his hands that's drawing all of his focus. "I had to re-route us mid-floo a couple of times before getting here."

"Why didn't you just apparate?" Raph asks before he takes a sip of Mike's milkshake, causing the younger brother to protest.

"Wasn't sure if that'd ping the tracker or not, though it'd be best not to chance it."

[interrogoiterum]

Renee is staring at Leo. Listening to Donnie, but studying Leo, swirling the ice in her otherwise empty glass.

"Probably would," she says. "You know what Apparition's like. Messes with every spell you've got going."

[mnt_leo]

"And never in a way that would be the slightest bit helpful or useful," Don adds.

Leo...doesn't squirm under Renee's watchful eye, but he is very aware she's looking at him.

"Yeah yeah yeah. So we gonna know what this's about? Or are you just going to leave us with our asses hanging out in the breeze?" Raph leaves off the again, but it's kind of understood.

"Are we secure?" Leo asks Don, because...well, he trusts Don more than he trusts Renee.

"Looks like." Don looks up briefly at Renee and gives her a small smile, before going back to his gadget. "Mikey wasn't kidding. This is a beautiful bit of spellwork you've got here."

[interrogoiterum]

Renee shrugs, uncomfortable with compliments.

"It's alright," she says. "Keeps my folks from bothering me when I'm doing homework."

When you are constantly scared of being kicked out of the house, you develop ways to stay well in the closet.

"What's that?" the gadget that has his attention.

[mnt_leo]

"This?" Don says fiddling with the gadget more. "It...it's nothing."
Seems like Renee isn't the only one not great with compliments.

"Nothing? He's just being modest," Mike says, casually draping his arm on the back of Renee's chair. "That's the thing that hacks the Floo network. The entire Floo network."

"Not at once," Don protests.

"Close enough!"

"Yes, it's great that the egghead does amazing egghead things. But what I wanna know is why we're suddenly..."

"Because," Leo cuts Raph off before he can go any further. "We've been asked to do recon for Professor Ross."

...Well that shut Raph up.

[interrogoiterum]

Renee was about to ask Don why he's still fidgeting with it, but she stops, blinks, and turns her expression back to Leo.

"The History of Magic Professor?"

Not that there's any other Professor Ross.

[mnt_leo]

Leo nods once.

"There's been an incident. Dinah Lance is missing in action."

"Dinah Lance? You mean your Not-Girlfriend Dinah Lance?"
Mike is helping. Really.

"We're putting our plans on hold for some girl," Raph says, his annoyance at being in the dark quickly sparking into anger.

Leo's demeanor turns on a dime. He's more than ready to deal with anything you think can deal out, Raph.

"Oooookay, so not so much a not-girlfriend then, huh? I knew it."
Mike tries to lighten the situation a bit...Don just keeps to himself. They can do all the posturing they want as far as he's concerned, he's got too much in the way of logistics to deal with right now, thanks.

[interrogoiterum]

"Okay," says Renee mildly, with what attention is not watching Don fiddle.

"But didn't she become an auror? Isn't the Ministry of Magic supposed to be all up on that, not five kids?"

Seriously, Professor Ross?

[mnt_leo]

Leo doesn't break eye contact with Raph until the other boy has looked away, muttering a cranky whatever under his breath.

"Apparently they're washing their hands of her," he says. "There's not much to go on, aside from this."

As if on cue, Don pauses his fidgeting and reaches into his bag to retrieve a memo encased in what appears to be a ziptop baggie. Though...there's clearly more to it than that, because every now and again the baggie crackles with electricity, and there's a slight whiff of ozone.

Don slides the baggie across the table so that everyone can read it if they like. Then, before returns to his gadget, he catches Renee's eye and mouths the word five, and raises a single eyebrow.

[interrogoiterum]

Renee shrugs.

She would rather it be four. Really would rather, in fact. She's got other things to worry about. And if she isn't home this evening she's not sure what will happen.

But Dinah Lance was on her first Quidditch team. Dinah Lance actually encouraged her to play despite having a fear of heights. And - well, what's she going to do? Go home and be a muggle until the end of the holidays?

She drops eye contact and reads the memo.

Canary Two: broke routine in Op. Warthog. Deny involvement.

"What's Operation Warthog?"

[mnt_leo]

"That's what I'm trying to figure out," Don says returning to his work.

"What ever it is, it's in New York. Professor Ross provided a portkey," Leo adds.

"SO that's just it then? You know there's no coming back for us if we go home, Leo. You know that right? When they realize you're gone they're gonna lock you up an throw away the key. Who knows where they'll put the rest of us. What about Mom, Leo?" Raph is livid.

"Well...if we find her before the Easter Holidays are over, maybe no one will notice we're gone?" Aahh Mike, ever the optimist.

Leo, however, says nothing.

[interrogoiterum]

There are other questions.

Where in New York?
Why are the Ministry denying involvement?
What is keeping that destruct spell from activating?
How did Professor Ross get this?

What is the deal with Professor Ross?

(How is she going to get back from America is down there.)

Renee taps her teeth with her fingernail.

"Did she say where in New York? The city, I guess?"