Double Dog Dare! -- Episode 37
Juliane

Ron tripped over Charlie and landed in the embrace of the twins, who promptly dropped him in a patch of briars.

“Ow-“

“That was interesting, but it took forever to get back here. I wonder if Voldemort’s farts have delaying properties,” mused Charlie.

“Shush,” hissed the twins. They were well accustomed to the niceties of sneaking into the Burrow unnoticed, and hoped against hope that they would be found, sweetly snoring, by their parents, about, oh, twenty-four hours from now.

“Too late,” said Charlie. “Hello, Mum. And Dad. And, er, Ms. Hopkirk and Professor McGonagall and...”

“Well, Mr. Weasley,” said Minerva, a subdued twinkle in her eye, “I see you found the twins and Ron. Where, pray tell, is Jason?”

Ron gasped and the twins tried to look unconscious, or at least invisible. Charlie, after a surreptitious glance around to make sure his boneheaded cousin hadn’t landed in a treetop, blanched and prepared to Apparate. “Oh, er, him. I’ll go back and get him right away...“

He trailed off at the sight of his mother and Mafalda collapsing together to the grass, clutching each other and giggling. Murmurs of “snake...Tom...always did have a well-filled pair of trousers...now he has two snake heads....” came from their direction.

“Ma’s tight,” proclaimed an awestruck George.

“And we like her that way,” added Fred, noting they hadn’t yet been asked where they had gone, who they had been with, and what they’d been up to.

“So do I,”chimed in Arthur, just before Molly pulled him down for a roll in the grass. Horrified garden gnomes scurried away to find a garden that didn’t contain drunken, lascivious humans.

Minvera laid an elegant hand on Charlie’s arm. “Jason is upstairs, Charles, in possession of a most remarkable bat.”

“Bat!” shrieked Mafalda. “Let me tell you about some of the remarkable bats I’ve seen-“

Minerva glared her into silence. “ What I’d like to know concerns the whereabouts of a snake-headed git in a corset. Did you happen to run into one during your sojourn in Knockturn Alley?”

~*~*~

Viviane fell back against the wall and shook out her robes in futile distaste. The muck from Janet’s basement clung firmly to the wool, resisting her halfhearted attempts to dislodge it. Sighing, she turned to the more important task at hand.

“I’m awake now, you mangy incontinent pup. If you find Severus, tell him I’m getting tired of rescuing him, and he owes me...well, I’ll tell him what he owes me when we meet up. Now, if I can just get out of this closet Sirius shut me into.” She looked around the narrow space. “No window - not even a sash.”

The memory of her stolen sword made her swear and pound the walls in frustruation, bruising her palms. Then she cursed the hardness of the rocks. Unlike her wand, the sword wouldn’t have been any help in this situation, but it would have been a comfort. Although she was well equipped to saunter through the brains of recalictrant men at will, breaking out of a closet was, alas, momentarily beyond her.

~*~*~

Malhereuse was irritated and discontent. She hadn’t been around for a long time, and hunting was no fun without Her, even if She did have an unaccountable aversion to fresh vole. Her shoulder was still his favorite perch, and he shifted poutily on the wooden stand that he made do with when She wasn’t around. Something else was bothering him, too, a faint vibration in the very atmosphere that was lingering around the edges of his acute bird-sense. Something was wrong, and it had to do with Her, but it wasn’t Her Herself, it was....

Suddenly, with a chime that made Malhereuse start back and nearly fall off his perch, a lovely blue hummingbird blinked into view.

“Nice,” thought Malhereuse, puffing up his chest.

“A bit scrawny,” thought Brunnehilde, “but he’ll do.”

Turning on her radar and tilting her head in her most fascinating manner, she told him, “Death dove flying towards Azkaban. You need to stop it before it reaches its goal, a woman prisoner there. I’d go, but I don’t have the strength to stop her.”

“Not even a please. Huh. Nice manners,” radared back Malhereuse. “Besides, I just found something that I have to do.” An image of Her sword had flashed into his mind, hovering over the dark North Sea, and he knew that he had to fetch it and return it to Her, wherever She was.

Brunnehilde clicked her beak. Falcons. “This is very important. If you don’t stop the dove, it will combine the souls of two of the Darkest witches of our time, rendering whatever errand you may have useless. There isn’t another bird here that is capable of what I’m asking you to do. Please, I need your strength and speed.”

Malhereuse indulged in a long, lazy spread of wings and more chest-puffing.

“All right. I’ll go to Azkaban and stop the dove. I think that’s where I’m heading, anyway.”

Brunnehilde fluttered at him for a moment before blinking away.

Malhereuse stood on one leg and smoothed his chest feathers back down. Dinner now, or when he got there? He remembered the northern pigeons being very tasty - all that dead fish they ate. He’d eat later. Hopping to the window ledge, he flapped up and out of sight, heading northeast, away from the setting sun.