[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

[mnt_don]

"Honestly? I'm actively trying my level best to not comprehend the contents of the letter, and would appreciate it greatly if you'd assist me in that endeavor."

Don reaches for what's left of Mike's chocolate milkshake.

"But as for the charm, yes there are. I'm attempting to write out the specific parameters we'll need to make sure we get the reaction we want, but I'll need Mikey to help me with the bulk of the casting. Little anklebiter's always been the best at charms."

It's said with love.

"So you're coming with us, I take it?" She did say five.

[interrogoiterum]

"Looks like," Renee says levelly. She's still looking at the letter, but it's with a thoughtful expression that has nothing to do with the words on it.

Mike is the best at charms. Mike is also the best at human emotions. He'll be able to work it.

"I mean, someone's got to level out the sausage fest, right?"

And to make this whole thing a proper five-token band.

[mnt_don]

"Good. I can scratch that off the large list of Narrative Concerns." The way he says it, it almost sounds like he really does have a list with that as a title.

"This is nice," says after silence descends over the table. "Not the circumstances, of course. But this area seems nice."

[interrogoiterum]

"It's not as nice if you're a Muggle," Renee says, distracted. "Wizards kind of see it as quaint, and there's this place to hide from the muggles."

She shrugs. "It's home. I like it. Do you have a quill?"

There's notes she wants to make.

[mnt_don]

Don, having grown up in the Foster Care system, understands completely.
Don, being Don, not only has a quill, but several colors of ink, and even a couple of ball point pens.

Because seriously, quills? SERIOUSLY?

He reaches into his bag, a reach that seems to go much further than the bag's geometry should really allow, and retrieves several.

"For the record, I tried to talk them out of it. Just showing up unannounced, but...they never listen to me."

[interrogoiterum]

"I'm not mad at you," Renee says. She starts to write on the back of her hand, then writes on some spare parchment Don's also left on the table.

Just a few charms notes.

"I'm hopping furious at those two, but I'll get over it."

[mnt_don]

"They excel at eliciting that kind of response from people, always have," he says with a sigh.

He's just craning his neck to see what she's taking note of, when another small jade turtle figurine catches his attention. This one glows purple.

"Here he comes." And sure enough Mike can just now be seen heading into the bar area. He's just about to walk towards where he knows the table to be, but pauses...no wait double-takes at Leo and Raph seated at the bar next to each other. It appears like they're talking civilly, so Mike moves back towards the table.

"Mike, over here," Don calls.

"Oh there you are," he says entering the protective bubble. "SO they're not killing each other. That's a bonus. I have maps. All kinds of maps. Maps of places we've already been, and others we've never dreamed of! So many maps I need another map just to find them all."

[interrogoiterum]

"I just wanted one," Renee says, holding her hand out. "Largest New York City possible?"

She also now looks over her shoulder at Leo and Raph.

She wasn't expecting it to take this long.

[mnt_mike]

"But they were on sale," he says grinning his most innocuous grin. "And I thought it'd be kind of fishy if a random stranger in a map store just up and bought a really big map of New York City right before a group of overly-ambitious young men decided to descend upon it for the purposes of wreaking havoc and fucking things up."

Don even looks up at this, raising a single eyebrow.

"What? You don't have to look so surprised that thought of that."

[interrogoiterum]

"It's a muggle store. Tourists go to New York all the time."

She opens up the map, flicking between Brooklyn and Manhattan.

"Alright, give me your wands."

She holds the book in one hand, and holds out her own wand hand to the boys.

[mnt_mike]

"Aren't you going to buy us dinner first?"

Don rolls his eyes. "Might I ask why?"

[interrogoiterum]

"Cause they're the best things to mark you onto the map with," Renee says. "you can have them back in a second."

[mnt_mike]

Mike looks to Don.
Don looks to Mike.

"Just give us a second."

Both of them reach for their wands and whisper a spell in a language that is most certainly not Vagueness and Latin.

Why yes, they have booby trapped their wands. Why do you ask?

[interrogoiterum]

Renee rolls her eyes at both of them, and takes the wands, and hers in the same hand. Mutters something that is vagueness and Latin and jabs the ends onto the page of the map.

Three question marks: silver, orange and purple, appear where she made the marks, and then disappear in showers of sparks.

Then she hands the wands back.

"Pumpkinbrains."

[mnt_don]

"One can never be too careful," Don says, easily brushing off the insult.

Mike merely shrugs.
"I just like messing with people."

Don's attention has been diverted to the map itself, or rather where the question marks once were."What level of accuracy can be we expect with regards to the map. I'm assuming that was a tracking charm of some sort."

[interrogoiterum]

"Yep," Renee says, "but I dunno, I never used it before. I guess we'll find out."

She glances over her shoulder again. She hasn't heard from Raph in a while and this worries her.

[mnt_mike]

"That's the spirit," Mike says beaming broadly, before following Renee's gaze.

"Don't worry, they're fine. If the weren't Raph would have put Leo through a wall by now or something. Raph doesn't handle human emotions well." His smirk is audible by this point.

[interrogoiterum]

"Dinah and Leo," Renee says thoughtfully.

"Did you know?"

[mnt_mike]

Don looks up and over at Mike...who sighs.

"Yeah, kinda," he says running a hand through his hair.

Don cuts in, "He assured us it was merely training, but apparently not," he says with a gesture towards the note.

[interrogoiterum]

"Apparently it is possible to keep a secret in that school."

She could learn from it. Mike, too, come to think of it.

"She always did like the bad boys."

[mnt_mike]

Mike just kind of blinks.

"The idea of Leo being a bad boy? Kind of hurts my brain."

Don nods, and then returns to his notes.

"I mean...I get up to waaaaay more trouble than he does. How does Leo get to be the bad boy? It's because he doesn't talk unless spoken to, isn't it?"

[interrogoiterum]

"I'm not denying that," Renee points out. "Are you saying that you're having problems getting laid?"

[mnt_mike]

"Well there was a dry spell for a while there, but...thanks to my girlfriend?" Here he leans up and gives Renee a smooch on the cheek.

"I'm sitting right here, you know," Don says without looking up.

[interrogoiterum]

"Yeah, yeah."

Renee squeezes Mike's hip in acknowledgment of what an excellent boyfriend and certified Bad Boy he really is.

"What are you working on, now?"

[mnt_don]

"A magical dampening array. Or...something like it," Don says adjusting some of the arithmancy written in the margins of the parchment.

"Don's kind of afraid that the moment Leo touches that portkey all the bells and whistles attached to Him and Magic are going to off at once," Mike explains.

"I don't want to be dead in the water before we even get on the boat."

"Which, you know...good plan all around."