First floor...
Ron and Hermione sat together on a sofa, watching as the adults who had gone up to the attic, voiced their opinions one by one, and been assigned tasks by Dumbledore came downstairs one after another.
They exchanged a glance and raised their eyebrows in perfect sync.
There wasn't any real danger anyway, so neither of them was in a hurry. They simply sat comfortably on the sofa, quietly watching these boring adults perform.
As for when they planned to start the real show?
Emmm...
Still no sign of it yet.
Professor Kasenhis did go out once, though, and then brought Hagrid back.
According to him, Hagrid, that brilliant genius, really had gone all the way to France just to buy soy sauce.
"Can you tell me what exactly you were thinking? Riding a motorbike to France?" Kasenhis asked speechlessly.
Hermione looked puzzled. "How did Hagrid get to France on a motorbike? Through the Channel Tunnel?"
"Hagrid's motorbike can fly," Ron explained.
"Huh? I didn't even know that!" Hermione said in surprise.
"Of course. That was my work. Clearly, I'm extremely talented at alchemy too..." Sirius puffed out his chest like a proud peacock at first, but quickly remembered something and amended himself. "...fairly talented."
After Christmas dinner, the adults obediently stayed in the corner playing Dungeons & Dragons.
Ron and Hermione exchanged another glance and sighed helplessly.
Clearly, the big show wasn't happening today.
Better go to bed early. They could only wait until tomorrow.
The next day...
"What the hell? Where is everyone? They moved this fast?"
After coming downstairs, Ron stared blankly at the completely empty first floor before looking toward Hermione, who had come down a little earlier than him and looked equally confused.
Hermione, however, slipped into character much faster. She hurried over to Ron, quietly told him to shut up, then gently raised an eyebrow.
Clearly, she had been waiting for this moment for a long time.
"The problem is, I haven't even had breakfast yet..." Ron said pitifully.
"Ron, Hermione, there is an important task that requires your help."
Dumbledore's phoenix Patronus suddenly flew over to the two of them and began speaking.
The two exchanged a glance. In the end, Hermione spoke before Ron could, completely eliminating Dumbledore's last chance to notice anything suspicious.
"Where did everyone go?" Hermione asked.
"Order of the Phoenix business. These are troubled times, and to put it simply, everyone is extremely busy."
"What about us? Why didn't you wake us up?" Hermione continued.
"Your current task is to go to Sherwood Forest. Tonks has been injured there. You need to fly there on broomsticks and rescue her. The broomsticks are in the attic. They're from the batch Kasenhis specially made before."
The phoenix Patronus ignored Hermione's question and simply continued delivering its message.
Hermione frowned and looked at Ron.
Her meaning was obvious.
Why did this phoenix sound like an NPC that couldn't understand what they were saying?
Ron shrugged. "A Patronus can carry a message, but using it as a wizard's second mouth is probably a bit too much."
"So?" Hermione still didn't understand.
"It means this Patronus is a recorder, not a telephone," Ron explained.
"Fine." Hermione sighed. There probably wasn't any more information to squeeze out of the phoenix, so she stopped trying to talk to it and hurried noisily up to the attic.
Before long, she came running back down carrying two broomsticks and tossed one to Ron.
"These look like the ones Professor Kasenhis made before. The ones that can break the sound barrier," Hermione said in surprise as she examined the broom in her hands.
"Who cares about that? I've wanted to try this thing for ages!" Ron excitedly mounted the broom, pulled out the map, and checked the general direction.
"Shouldn't we make a plan first?" Hermione frowned.
Ron merely raised an eyebrow, and his meaning was even clearer.
Dumbledore and the others had gone so far as to make up a ridiculous excuse that fell apart the moment you thought about it, all just to mess with them. Why should the two of them waste brain cells making a plan?
The most important thing right now was obviously to fly!
Then he shot straight out of the window.
Bang!
With a powerful sonic boom, every pane of glass in the entire Black family home shattered instantly.
"Couldn't you have gone a little slower?" Hermione said speechlessly as she mounted her broom and flew out after him, finishing off the few surviving windows with a second wave of damage.
"Next time, I really should have Kasenhis put a speed limiter on those brooms."
The phoenix Patronus left behind suddenly transformed, and Dumbledore simply appeared in the room as naturally as could be. He waved his wand and cleaned up the entire Black family home, which had been thrown into chaos by the sonic boom.
Naturally, brooms capable of breaking the sound barrier were absurdly fast.
At the very least, Kasenhis, who was flying invisibly above the forest, clearly saw two tiny dots with white trails behind them rapidly approaching from the distance.
Then, deeper in the forest, an undisguised magical fluctuation appeared.
Since the two of them already knew the general outline of the script, they weren't nervous at all. They leisurely slowed down and flew toward the centre of the magical disturbance.
Tonks, concealed beneath an ordinary invisibility cloak, sat helplessly on a massive tree branch and watched speechlessly as Ron and Hermione crouched beside "her corpse" and repeatedly poked her face with their wands.
"Those two are seriously rude," Tonks muttered through gritted teeth.
But soon, she saw Ron and Hermione lift "Tonks" together.
"Why aren't they using a Levitation Charm?" Tonks continued complaining.
"Maybe because you're too heavy?" Lupin teased. He was also wearing an invisibility cloak and happened to be sitting on the branch beside her.
"You really ought to learn the art of speaking properly," Tonks shot back in exasperation.
Before long, Ron and Hermione below looked like a pair of cannibals hauling away their prey as they tied "Tonks" to the back of a broomstick and prepared to take off.
"Seriously, they're so rude. Were they not even planning to wake me up?" Tonks said, sounding slightly annoyed.
"How exactly are you supposed to wake up when you're a rock that was Transfigured into you? With the Monkey King?" Kasenhis said faintly from behind them as he floated in the air.
...
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