[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]

"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?"

[mnt_leo]

"Manhattan," Leo says quietly. "And we're to Portkey into Brooklyn and make our way there on foot."

"Like fuck we are," Raph snaps back.

"Raph," Mike starts, but doesn't get to finish, because Raph interrupts him.

"Don't try to handle me here, Mikey! This is the same bullshit he pulled that Christmas. The same bullshit that got us sent here in the fucking first place, or had you forgotten? Making decisions that are supposed to be all of ours to make without any say or input from the rest of us!"

[interrogoiterum]

(There's a bookshop round the corner that might sell maps of New York.)

"Raph," says Renee sharply, without looking at him. "Shut the bloody hell up."

It's almost the same tone of voice she uses when he's arguing a point at Quidditch practice, but angrier.

[mnt_leo]

Raph stands up angrily, shoving the chair as he does so, and stomps off towards the bar, muttering something about not his soldiers to command under his breath.

"Sooo, how about them Cannons?" Mike asks once the dust from Raph's strop has settled slightly.

"He's not wrong," Leo says quietly. "And I'm sorry."

[interrogoiterum]

"For assuming your brother would have basic human decency?"

Renee shakes her head and stands, putting a hand down on the table before she leaves the smoke. There's a twenty pound note under it.

"Someone run outside to the main street. There's a bookshop around the corner, which'll sell travel guides. Get something with as large a map of New York as possible.

"And I think we'll need something of hers. Or something she gave someone."

Then she leaves them and walks right over to Raph at the bar.

[mnt_raph]

A few seconds after Renee leaves the table, Mike gets up and bolts for the door.

Raph, for his part, is seated at the bar nursing what appears to be his third firewhiskey of the day. Aaaand it looks like there might be another one hot on the heels of the one he's drinking.

[interrogoiterum]

Renee picks up the one that's waiting for him and downs half of it in one go.

"Is this going to end with us hitting each other again?"

[mnt_raph]

"Prob'ly," he fighting back the urge to smirk. Damn it, Renee.

[interrogoiterum]

"Damn."

She always loses those.

"Alright, let me finish this and then we'll go outside."

[mnt_raph]

"What do you want, Renee?"
Because he had a really good funk going on here a second ago, and she's being all...Mikey at him.

[interrogoiterum]

"Answers," she says.

And shakes her head before he can respond to that.

"Not from you. But when you're done over here you can help me get them."

[mnt_raph]

"Answers to what? What the hell are the questions?"

He gestures to the barman for a glass of water, and then at the last second orders two.

[interrogoiterum]

Ew, water, really?

"Other than 'what the bloody hell is going on?'"

Obediently she drinks it, because she supposes she should be sober for this.

"Let's go with what is that thing the message said? Why does a Hogwarts Professor even have that thing to start with? Why not go herself? What's going on with the Ministry?

"But I think I'll start with 'where's my old Quidditch team mate?'"