Department of Mysteries - AMoaB Part II

Yes, I know raghead is rascist. The context must be considered, especially by the fact that these two guys are intensely good friends that rascist terms don't matter.

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The door opened wide with a creak. A second passed. Another. Alan entered, wand at the ready. Step by agonizingly slow step he moved into the house, eyes constantly searching. Abe appeared behind him, wand also out. They stood back to back, circling around, maintaining a three hundred and sixty degree watch.

Finally Alan lowered his wand. Abe followed. Both sets of eyes kept roving around.

‘We’ll have to risk some light,’ Alan said.

‘Not like staying blind will help us anyway,’ Abe snorted.

With whispers of ‘Lumos’ their wands lit up with a fierce globe of light, illuminating the entranceway. Walls plastered with blue wallpaper adorned with pictures of smiling faces and the odd chip of paint. The floor was wood, looking none worse for the wear. It did not look like the house of a diabolical maniac, or a fiendish dark wizard or even a slightly mad professor. No, it seemed like an otherwise completely normal British house.

Which made it all the more suspect.

‘There are the stairs,’ Abe pointed ahead at the staircase.

‘It might’ve moved down, though, in the time between Arthur’s report and our arrival,’ Alan pointed out.

They looked at each other.

‘Don’t you even dare say, “Let’s split up”,’ Abe glared.

Alan smiled innocently. ‘Who, me?’

They began the sweep of the lower floor. Nerve wracking room by nerve wracking room they swept in, slowly approaching the doorway before blitzing in, wands ready and mouths ready to unleash a torrent of spells. Each time they were faced with the eerily lit rooms and nothing else.

Finally they had reached the last room on the lower floor. Alan shouldered the door open, wand aimed to the right, while Abe stepped in, wand aimed to the left. All that greeted them was a small kitchen, as un-suspicious as a kitchen could ever be. If anything even slightly disturbing could be said about this kitchen, it would have to be the fact that there was a perfectly unused tea bag on the table.

Motion caught Alan’s eye, but it was just the light fluttering of the window drapes; the window was open. He shut it.

‘Kettle’s lukewarm,’ Alan said, holding the offending article in hand. ‘He must’ve been boiling up a cuppa before our little escapee surprised him.’ He looked wistfully at the unused tea bag. ‘Such a waste.’

Abe motioned him to silence.

Creak.

Abe pointed up to the ceiling; the sound was coming above them. Alan slowly, carefully, placed the kettle down on the stove. Slowly, carefully, they left the kitchen, taking care to open the door with the utmost care, Alan placing a sticking charm on the door to prevent it from making any unnecessary noise. Abe went up the stairs first, carefully avoiding placing his full weight on any single step. Alan followed.

Another creak. This time accompanied with something that sounded…wet. They reached the top floor. It was a small hallway, one room to the right and another to the left, ending in a large window. The drapes were shut. Alan pointed to the right doorway, motioned for Abe to take the left. Abe put up three fingers.

Two.

One.

The two agents burst through their doors, tongues spitting out spells. Better safe than sorry. The next dozen seconds was a technicolor explosion of light and sound that would’ve made Walt Disney proud. When the smoke cleared, Alan found himself in a tornado of white feathers and mattress cloth. He sneezed. He had obviously hit the bedroom. The bedpost was so much slag, melted copper and wood, with burst springs testifying as to the carnage wrought upon the bed. The pillows could not give forwith any evidence, for, alas, they had been utterly annihilated in that opening salvo of spells, their feathery carcasses the only evidence that they had ever existed in the first place. Sniffing, he noticed the smell of smoke and looked down. Various books and magazines were on fire. He extinguished them with a spell, sheepily.

From the cursing coming from next door his partner had shared the same luck.

Abe came stomping out of his target wet. His sandy blonde hair was plastered to his face, which was twisted into a grimace, his brown coat damp. He was holding a towel. ‘Bathroom,’ he muttered as he passed Alan. Alan peeked in as Abe, still muttering angrily, began toweling furiously. The toilet was a broken ceramic fountain, gushing a three-foot spray of water. There were gouges in the plaster and the ceiling light was so much powder and dust. Shards of glass lay scattered across the floor. In fact, the only untouched item was a box in the middle of the bathroom, an unassuming metal box with a red warning sign declaring, ‘Danger, Highly Toxic Materials Within. Property of the Department of Mysteries’. It’s lid was popped off, the lock that once held it lying carelessly on the floor.

Alan turned to the grimacing Abe, smiling widely.

‘Good one mate. At least you managed to avoid hitting the box. We want to be able to actually carry the specimen back.’

‘Shut up, you white wanker,’ Abe growled.

‘Better than a raghead,’ Alan called back cheerily, just avoiding Abe’s tossed towel.

Motion caught Alan’s eye. The window. Ignoring Abe’s ranting about the differences between ragheads and Indians, he stalked towards the window. Something was not quite right. It was just as he about reached the window when he realized what was wrong: the drapes were moving.

The window was open.

Before Alan could even take in the air to yell a warning the drapes burst aside.