Wizards vs. Muggles (Free-form)

Jay smiled deviously, "So that means you'll go along with this plan, right? I didn't hear a 'No' in there."

Or if she did, it was in Spanish, which she didn't understand anyway so she discounted that.

Jamie spoke up. "I have no problems with that," she declared. "I'd still like to know if I can play lookout, though."

"... You said you wanted to fly invisibly... something tells me flying with a broom indoors isn't safe. Regardless of invisibility." She took a deep breath. "you could be to the side of the group, walking, and doing your best no to look like you know who these people are. I was planning on doing that, unless you think it'd be better if I transfigure my clothes to fit theirs."

edited 7th Jan '11 1:04:28 AM by Faramir

"It'd only be until we reached the station," she scowled. "Until then, we have to get to the Station. And to do that, we're going to have to cross busy streets, correct?"

"..." Lita scanned the faces of the two older women around her, and thought a little more about her plan.

"Do as you wish. I'm guess years of experience mean you know best."

"Okay then," Jamie sighed. Pulling her wand from her pocket, she opened her trunk and pulled out her broom.

I'm assuming she has a trunk, even if she shrunk it down or something. Surely no Dark-Wizard-Hunter would leave home without some supplies at hand.

Tapping her wand againt her broom, she held on tight as the broom turned invisible in her hand.

Turning around, she addressed the people around her. "Anything else anyone needs to say before I go up there?" she asked.

"Remember I'm avoiding deaths"

Charmdrummer poked his head into the room. "Mister Jack Green? This way, please. Her most high needs you for something." He took a look around at the room of disguised kids, and something must have attracted his approval because he gave a shallow nod.

"Right, it'll just be you three. I hope you'll make the best of it. The good news there's going to be more wizards and witches at King's Cross. They won't be apparent, but if something does happen you'll have help against the Muggles. You'll meet up with one of them at the station; do what they tell you. I can't stress this enough — some of them have a twitchy wand hand."

One of the older children in the group, in his mid-teens, turned to Jay as the oldest available. "Er, pardon me, marm. D'you want us to go in one big group? And would you like some help shepherding some of the young'uns? It's just that some of 'em, well, they've never been to the big city before..."

edited 7th Jan '11 12:25:43 PM by SabresEdge

edited 7th Jan '11 3:34:33 PM by CyganAngel

"Thats a great idea!" Jay smiled. Outloud to everyone she said loudly, "Okay, you older kids, take a few of the little ones each at keep track of them. You little 'un, stay with the big boys and girls now, you hear?"

She clapped her hands like the cheerful kindergarten teacher she used to be. "Okay class, we're walking to the station now, okay? Stay together, look both ways before crossing the street, and don't talk to strangers. Lets go!" She marched out the door with the children in tow.

Before she left she looked to Jamie. "See anything suspicious come right back, okay?"

9:45AM, London, .5mi from King's Cross.

The assorted wizarding students and their two minders did look much like a class trip, led by a teacher and trailed by an older student who might have been an assistant. It was a bit early in the year for large-scale trips, but there was no undue attention, and one or two passers-by smiled at the sheer normality of it in a city at war with itself.

An intersection. A nervous-looking policeman fanned himself. He gave the group a brief look from across the block, but seemed to ignore them. At that point there was a brief whine, and a micro-UAV flitted into view barely a hundred feet above the ground, ahead of the group and roughly level with Jamie...

edited 7th Jan '11 8:28:22 PM by SabresEdge

Jamie looked curiously at the device that was flying ahead of her.

Smiling slightly, she nudged her broom forwards, intending to get a closer look at it.

The UAV looked much like a fairly large model helicopter, three feet long with contra-rotating rotors, painted police-blue. Beneath its chin was the turret housing the cameras; a megaphone was built into the side, protruding out in a rectangular fairing. It had not yet noticed the approaching Jamie, who was slightly above its field of view

Lazily, it dropped altitude slightly and began a slow turn to the left, roughly towards the wizards.

The boy who had volunteered to take charge earlier stiffened slightly; he turned to help out a classmate who had dropped his steamer trunk. "Whatever you do, just look normal. Pull out any wands, do any magic, and you're done for."

Jay still had tha nagging feeling in her stomach but put on a happy face for the children's benefit. Well, happy as a teacher could be.

"Hey!"she shouted at a 12 yar old once they had all crossed the street. "Spit out that gum! And you!" she said to another, "On the sidewalk, stay out of the gutter! Pick up tha wrapper!" she snapped at a third offender, "Trash goes in trash cans! Stop polluting!"

""Whatever you do, just look normal. Pull out any wands, do any magic, and you're done for."

Jay aloud herself a big grin, at least she had some responsible students with her.

edited 7th Jan '11 8:56:31 PM by Scholastica

The UAV never approached closer than 50 feet, never stopped. The camera slewed round to scan the crowd of students briefly but fairly disinterestedly, and that was it. Several of the older students were shaking slightly after it passed by.

King's Cross Station, entryway. Security had been beefed up considerably but rather quietly: in addition to the black-and-white-clad policemen, there was a truck parked rather ostensibly on the pavement, the yellow stripes denoting it to be carrying weapons. There was something unusual, too: London police didn't usually carry firearms with them. These MPS patrolmen had holsters by their hips.

After entrance into the station proper, a rather burly-looking man in civilian clothes walked up unobtrusively to Jay.

"Ms. Hood? I'm Longbottom from the Ministry of Magic. How many people have you?"

edited 7th Jan '11 9:24:40 PM by SabresEdge

"Just this bunch." She replied, indicating the small group behind her. "And another guard combing the area, she should meet up with us in a few minutes." Her voice dropped to a whisper, "Are we safe yet?"

"Not yet, ma'am. Not till we get everyone into the platform proper." Longbottom paused briefly as several porters passed by, carrying several large luggages; one of them stopped and nodded briefly to the Ministry man before continuing.

"Here's the drill. Whenever you're ready, I'll lead you to the assembly point. From there, we'll get them into 9 & 3/4 in small groups — the fuzz is going to be bound to notice if everyone disappears into a wall, at once. We have limited anti-Muggle spells cast, but don't count on them in a place as crowded as this."

Alex looked out the windows of the vehicle at London. "So this is London huh? Not quite what I imagined" he muttered, before glancing at the others in the vehicle. "Say, where in London are we going again?" he asked.

Jamie angled her broom sidewards, aiming to stop near the train station. Pulling up near one of the buildings, she dismounted from her broom. Not worrying about disenchanting the broom- a simple Summoning Charm would allow her to grab it, no problem- she stowed the broom in her trunk and cast the disenchantment charm on herself.

Visible once again, she hurried over to the train station.

"This is everyone? Good." Longbottom checked his watch briefly; from the brief glimpse available to everyone else it didn't look like the hands only showed time.

"Fortunately you are the last group," he explained as he guided the children to the train station. Several additional people who had then been idling joined up with the group; to an outsider they could well be mistaken for anxious parents. Anxious parents with terrible fashion sense, that is. Several of the children seemed to be gaping at Longbottom — he was hardly an unknown face. As they walked, the traffic flow around them seemed to decrease.

"Here we are. Now, standard procedure is to wait here, send off the students by pairs into the barrier, youngest students first. The first pair — luggage in hands, eyes forward, steady walk. A confident stance will open a path for you—and yes," his voice broke from the dry toneless bureaucratese into a wry, ironic tone, "I really do have to say all that. Now, next group..."

Through this unhurried way they'd gotten through most of the students; only the six most senior students and their escorts were left when Longbottom cursed with enough force to turn the students' heads.

"Oh, hell! It's the Praetorian Guard come again..."

A quartet of strongly-built men—among them a very disgruntled-looking Charmdrummer—all carrying various pieces of luggage. In their midst was an elderly, toadlike woman with a handbag and a feather boa of impressive ugliness. The two or three years she'd spent in the Dementor-free Azkaban, it seemed, was not enough to show their marks on Dolores Umbridge.

"Make way, be a dear," she said in a high, childish voice. "I'm here on official Ministry business, and I'm afraid that I'll have to go first through that barrier."

"Excuse me, ma'am." Jay said politely, though the woman's brusk tone ticked her off and Longbottom's change in tone made her weiry. "We have to get the children through first."

edited 7th Jan '11 10:18:22 PM by Scholastica

"Children, mm? Such cute little dears." Umbridge shook her head as if amused. "But, almost certainly, not from any of the families on the Ministry Priority List—most of them are already on the train. Besides," she added in the same singsong tone, "I have express orders from the Minister of Magic himself. Platform Nine and Three-Quarters is a secret Ministry staging area for Upper-Tier Magic Officials—did you know that?" Charmdrummer winced at that, although Umbridge didn't seem to notice.

Longbottom glared at Umbridge with rage in his eyes. "I can't care less about about you and your Tier-One crap. Right now, we have to get the kids out of the way—"

"Wizard Charmdrummer, why don't you and Starpesly go on through with my luggage first?" Umbridge simpered as she pulled out her wand. To his credit, Longbottom didn't snatch it out of her hands, although his hand darted to his pocket.

"I'm sure that Neville here and I have some points in etiquette to discuss."

"Ministry Priority List? The hells is tha - "

Jay watched in horror as the old woman pulled out her wand.

"Are you nuts!" she whispered fiercely, falling back on American slang. "There are muggles here, you can't just point that around!"

Jamie stepped forward from the back of the group, fingering her own wand fro where it lay hidden in her sleeve.

edited 7th Jan '11 10:38:19 PM by CyganAngel

"Muggles!" Umbridge laughed merrily. "They won't notice a thing with the spells in place—"

That was when every wizard felt a brief surge as of rushing wind. The anti-muggle field in place was improvised and hasty, nowhere near as powerful as the ones in place around key locations. Its power to deflect attention had just drained sharply when several nonmagical observers noticed the presence of the wand despite the best efforts to cloud their recognition, enough to collapse the field entirely.

"Oh, dear..."

That was when a youth in a shabby-looking coat "accidentally" jostled Jamie, enough to push the wand slightly out of her sleeve. Enough. The grin on his face was predatory and slightly drunken as he turned, twisting his features.

"This is my country," he announced. "Commies, witches, freaks, and foreigners out." Suddenly there was a knife in his hand, a sharp military model with spikes along the reverse edge. "Especially the likes of you, bitch."

edited 7th Jan '11 10:55:59 PM by SabresEdge