Hannah wondered vaguely what a 'thank you for saving my life'-pie would consist of Who: Hannah Abbott & Tracey Davis What: Tracey helps Hannah out Where: Hannah's flat, above the Leaky Cauldron When: Wednesday May 21st, after this
Bloody, stupid, awful Theodore! Tracey scrounged around frantically for one of Seamus's pack of cigarettes and pulled one out for a smoke before she settled down enough to figure out what she needed to do in order to help save his precious little Hufflepuff from a pack of Death Eaters who knew more ways of slicing up a body than Tracey had shoes.
1. Go to Hogwarts 2. Find Theodore's living quarters. 3. Get into Theodore's living quarters. 4. Do not get cursed into oblivion by the wards guarding Theodore's living quarters. 5. Find ugly tribal statues. 6. Do not get cursed into oblivion by ugly tribal statues. 7. Do not drop ugly tribal statues. 8. Take ugly tribal statues to the Leaky. 9. Find fat Hufflepuff. 10. Give ugly tribal statues to fat Hufflepuff. 11. Help fat Hufflepuff set up ugly tribal statues. 12. Do not get caught or killed by Death Eaters.
She was going to die.
And time was running out; Tracey quickly finished off her cigarette, drew a deep breath, and grabbed a quill to pen a quick note to Seamus:
Dear Finnigan,
Off to mount a rescue mission for Theodore's latest shag. If I die, you're not allowed to find anyone else or I shall haunt you.
Love you, Tracey
She stuck it on his bedroom door, took one last look around the flat, and Apparated out. Dear Salazar, she was doomed.
As soon as she had received Theodore's urgent message Hannah had begun to worry. Everything about it, his words, his harried tone and the shakiness of his usually very neat handwriting, had Hannah panicking. However, despite the panic, she did trust Theodore and it was that thought, more than anything else, which had Hannah rummaging underneath her bed, past half-read discarded books and odd shoes to find the bag Theodore had placed there. It took a while but eventually, Hannah pulled out the bag and stared at it for a long minute. What exactly was she meant to do with it?!? It was Theodore who was good with all of this sort of thing, not Hannah! She could bake the best strawberry cheesecake you would ever taste but she couldn't put up wards for toffee. Hannah sighed, running a hand through her hair as she stared down at the bag in despair. She just didn't understand what Theodore wanted to do!
Adrenaline and fear of impending death drove Tracey to be more efficient in retrieving the ugly tribal statues than she normally ever would have. Once that was done, she Apparated straight to the upstairs corridor of the Leaky Cauldron, bypassing the pub below. She would have gone straight into Abbott's room -- she remembered it well enough from the time she'd visited Theodore -- but she had no idea how twitchy Theodore's girlfriend was. The last night she needed was to be turned into a flamingo by the person she was supposed to be rescuing. At least she was wearing better shoes this time; the heels didn't get caught in the knots of the wooden floor as she made her way down the hall. At the door to Abbott's room, she knocked sharply. "Hannah Abbott! Are you in there? It's Tracey Davis. Your boyfriend sent me."
Tracey's voice cut through the silence and startled Hannah so much that she dropped the bag she had been holding. Her eyes darted nervously at the door and it took a long moment before she was able to summon the strength to climb to her feet and cross the room to open the door. Pulling open the door, Hannah was greeted by the blonde Slytherin. There was something about Tracey Davis that made Hannah feel incredibly inadequate; she was taller (although everyone was taller than the petite Hufflepuff), blonder and obviously very beautiful, so standing next to her made Hannah wonder just what it was that Theodore saw in her.
Hannah sighed though, coming back to reality with a jolt, "Come in," she murmured, ushering Tracey into her tiny room and closing the door behind her. "What's all this about?" If Theodore didn't tell her then Hannah wanted someone to do so.
Almost immediately Tracey started pulling out statues and handing them over to Hannah. "There's a pack of Death Eaters coming for you, and they're making Theodore lead them," she said shortly. She had no time to remark upon the Hufflepuff's sad excuse for an outfit now. She just wanted to do this and get out. Once the statues were out, she scrounged around in her handbag for her journal, where Theodore had given her the instructions for setting them up. "We're going to make sure that no one gets in here."
Tracey really, really wished Abbott wouldn't do that, because once the Hufflepuff started getting scared, it was that much harder for Tracey to suppress her own terror. She took refuge in annoyance, because that was a much easier emotion to handle than fear. "I don't know!" she snapped, her hands trembling slightly as she flipped the pages of the journal. Right, there were the instructions. "But unless you want to ask the Death Eaters when they capture you, we need to get started. I don't know how much time we've got, and I've got to be out of here before they arrive."
She didn't know how she managed it but somehow Hannah nodded as she bit down on her lip. For some reason (most likely to do with Theodore) Tracey Davis was helping her and Hannah wasn't exactly in the position to turn her away. Instead she picked up the statue she had dropped and, after placing it carefully on her dining table, she made her way towards Tracey. "What do we have to do?" Her voice was still shaky but there was surprising strength behind it.
Oh, good, Abbott wasn't going to turn into a nervous, babbling wreck. That was good. That meant Tracey was going to have to keep herself from turning into a nervous, babbling wreck, but perhaps if she concentrated hard enough on setting up the statues, she might forget that there was a group of Death Eaters coming.
Hah.
"Distribute the statues in equidistant positions around the room," Tracey read aloud. "The one with the red markings must be placed in the centre of the room. The first spell is cast on this statue, and the subsequent spells on the rest."
Hannah was surprised to find herself smiling as she listened to the other woman read the instructions aloud. The words were just so very Theodore that it reminded Hannah of when the pair of them had first set up wards on her flat. It was almost like a very small slice of normality. If normality involved the man you were seeing leading an attack on your flat. "Right," the Hufflepuff nodded to show that she understood and, after locating the statue with red markings placed it on the table beside her sofa, which was roughly the centre of the room. "That's about central, right?"
Tracey, who had started on setting up the statues in the perimeter of the room, paused to take a look. "About," she agreed. "Here, help me with the rest." Those statues were heavy, with little notches on them that caught on Tracey's nails. She hoped she wasn't going to break a nail in the course of saving Theodore's girlfriend.
If the situation hadn't been so terrifying then Hannah would have had to laugh. Never in a million years could she have ever imagined herself and Tracey Davis, of all people, working side-by-side. Hell, she could never have imagined Tracey Davis working to save her. Oh Merlin, if this worked, would that mean that she owed the Slytherin her life?!? Hannah wondered vaguely what a 'thank you for saving my life'-pie would consist of as she placed the final few statues around the perimeter of the room, completing the circle around the central statue with red markings. "What's the spell?" Hannah asked, taking a step back, almost as if to admire their handiwork.
Tracey stepped back to examine the statues as well, but mostly to make sure that they were spaced as evenly as they could manage it. Theodore hadn't said how important it was to have those statues 'equidistant' from each other, but she imagined that he would have said something if it really were important.
She turned to review her notes and read out the instructions on the spell. "How's your wandwork?" she asked suspiciously. If it were decent, Tracey was going to let Abbott cast the spell on the central statue; otherwise, she'd attempt it herself. The last thing she wanted was a spell, especially one as powerful as what this seemed to be, to backfire in such a small space.
"I got an E in Charms?" Hannah offered, not knowing whether or not that was good enough for what Tracey had in mind. It wasn't as if the Hufflepuff had cause to cast many extremely powerful spells on a daily basis. No, given her job, all she usually needed was simple household charms (to clean up the bar or kitchen in a jiffy). "It's been a while though," she admitted. The last thing she wanted was to mess up such an important spell, especially if - and she cringed to even entertain the thought - her life depended on it.
And Tracey had mainly concerned herself with glamour charms for the past seven years. She did have some more experience with artefacts against the dark arts than Abbott likely did, but she didn't want to mess up a spell with Theodore's girlfriend's life on the line either. She didn't want to be responsible for letting in the Death Eaters and getting the girl killed.
"You can do it," she said abruptly. "I'll watch in case anything goes wrong."
Hannah swallowed awkwardly, suddenly feeling as though she were under rather a lot of pressure. She had a feeling that no other spell she cast would ever be as important as this one and she had a habit of messing up under pressure. Hannah winced visibly as she remembered, what she termed the 'flamingo incident' from her Transfiguration OWL. "Okay," she nodded, sounding much more confident than she felt. Hannah took the journal, which described exactly they had to do, from Tracey and examined it in absolute silence for a long minute. "Okay," she repeated, the spell running through her head at an astounding rate.
Hannah stared at the central statue, bit her lip nervously and then, concentrating intently, raised her wand and cast the spell, closing her eyes as she did so, so that she wouldn't be able to see if she messed it up completely. "Are there any flamingos?" She asked, her eyes still firmly shut.
"No," came the strangled reply from Tracey, somewhere to Hannah's left. "But will you get this bloody wombat off me?"
Hannah's eyes opened with a start and her head snapped to the left, where she saw a rather large wombat clinging to the blonde Slytherin. "Oh Merlin!" Her hands flew to her mouth and Hannah cringed, she just knew that she shouldn't have done this. "Maybe you should try it," Hannah suggested as the wombat disappeared with a wave of her wand.
"Augh!" Tracey staggered once the weight of the wombat was taken off her and wiped her face with the back of her hand. "I think it was trying to lick me. Or eat me; I'm not sure which. Blech!" She hated animals. She only barely tolerated Finnigan's giant monster of a cat, and that was because he was careful to keep the two of them separated -- as best he could, anyway, in that tiny flat of his.
She shuddered, then reached for her journal. "It usually helps if you keep your eyes open for your spellcasting," she muttered. Bloody hell, she was too nervous for this. But time was ticking away, and she had to get out of there quickly. "All right..." Taking a deep breath, she began the incantation and wandwork for spell.
Hannah cringed apologetically and realised that she should probably avoid any sort of wandwork that held any sort of importance whatsoever, as evidently she wasn't at all blessed with the ability to work well under pressure. Although she did seem to have the talent of being able to conjure completely bizarre animals from thin air. Hannah wondered idly if that could even be defined as a talent as she couldn't really see the use for it, as she watched Tracey perform the spell. No animals appeared and Hannah let out a breath she hadn't even known that she had been holding. "Did it work?"
Tracey gingerly checked the statue for traces of a magical signature. Ah, there it was, humming away just under the surface. With a sigh of relief, she nodded and pulled back. "Now we have to do each of the other statues, but it's an easier spell. Here." She thrust her journal at Abbott. Now that the main spell was set up, the rest shouldn't be hard to do; it was just a matter of getting them done, and before the Death Eaters arrived. "Keep your eyes open this time. I'll start on this side."
Hannah nodded apologetically once again and, following Tracey's instructions intently studied the new spell, which Theodore had described in-depth in the journal, for a few moments before turning in the opposite direction to the blonde Slytherin. Deliberately keeping her eyes open (which was harder than she would have thought) Hannah cast the spell on the first of her statues. She held her breath as she waited for the inevitable animal to appear (what would it be this time? An aadvark or perhaps a platypus?) but nothing happened. "I think I did it." Hannah blinked in surprise.
"Brilliant!" Tracey replied with false cheer from her side of the room. "Absolutely smashing. Good job, Abbott, marvelous work and all that. Now finish up the rest of these damn statues."
Hannah rolled her eyes in Tracey's direction but that didn't stop the smile on her face as she turned her attention to the next statue in line. Feeling much more confident she cast the spell on that statue and when no animal appeared there Hannah grinned even wider. It didn't take long then, before she had successfully cast the required spell on each of the statues she had been allotted. "There," the Hufflepuff nodded once she was done. "Done. Now what?"
Tracey was just finishing up her section, and now she got up and put her journal back in her handbag. "Now I'm going to get out of here before anyone realises I'm here, and you're going to stay and laugh at the Death Eaters when they can't get in. Whatever you do, do not step outside this room until Theodore tells you."
The smile faded from Hannah's face as the severity of the situation hit her once again. She was going to be alone when the Death Eaters arrived and, even though she had every faith in Theodore's warding abilities she couldn't help but feel slightly panicked. Tracey's presence had been a comfort and now that she was going Hannah almost wished that the Slytherin would stay. She could see that it didn't make sense though and so she nodded mutely. "Okay." Hannah tugged a few strands of hair and chewed her bottom lip nervously. "Tracey?" Hannah turned around to face the blonde, "thanks for doing this." She smiled tightly, her stomach suddenly doing somersaults as she realised that all that stood between her and a group of Death Eaters (led by the man she was falling in love with) was her own wandwork.
Tracey looked up then, looking at Hannah with much more gravity than anyone would ever attribute to her. After all, this could very well be the last time she saw the Hufflepuff alive. She straightened, then nodded shortly in acknowledgement. "Good luck," she said very quietly. And then she was gone.
Hannah stared at the door for a long minute, fighting the urge to vomit before she finally settled herself down on the sofa, her knees pulled up to her chest as she continued to stare at the door. All she could do now was wait.