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Ottery St Catchpole, Devon, England
–Damian Hawthorne–
He looked at the quaint little magical settlement that was situated smack dab in the middle of nowhere, surrounded by green plains all around it, with a stream going through the center of it.
It could be the wallpaper of most computers. A scene so picturesque that people twenty years from now might debate if it was real or a polished picture of a scenery that couldn't be naturally occurring. Hopefully, that particular future where sights like these became exotic never came to pass.
The town itself was remote, but the address he intended to go to was even further out from the town, in the middle of a small clearing, with just grass on all its sides, with no sign of agriculture, even though they had all this fertile land around them. Wizards didn't really need to worry about land titles as such, especially since this place was not even plotted on most mundane maps.
Once again, he was reminded of his curiosity regarding the arrangement between the magical government and its non magical counterpart regarding such vast swathes of land simply non existent in their maps, areas out of phase with the rest of the world, where no property taxes could be collected, where no water meters could be installed, where no road taxes could be gathered, where no money could be charged for sale and purchase of property, where no zoning laws existed, where no regulations existed on what could be grown or not, or if the land could be used for agriculture or not, where they did not have the monopoly on violence and thus could not tax anyone.
It must burn something fierce, he assumed.
Shaking his head to divert those amusing thoughts away, he looked at the house itself and had to resist the urge to do a double take. Now, he knew, both from his meta knowledge and from the magazines about interesting magical architecture, a new addition that was likely done because of the non magical influence, about the bizarre house and its, frankly, impossible construction.
First of all, it was narrow, very much so. It was tall, yes, but that tallness had character, to say the least. It looked as if the house was first built to only have the ground floor, and only for the couple. Then, they had a kid and thought about expanding the space, but instead of expanding along the ground floor, they decided to move up a floor, adding a room that only looked as if it was precariously balanced but was secured properly using magic.
Now, the legendary Weasley family was well known for their above average numbers. So, the Weasleys just kept on adding rooms as the number of people in their family increased. Not once did they stop to think about the implications of building a room on top of a room, with all individual rooms with their own roofs, some even had their own chimneys, as if each room was just an individual house built atop another house.
It was…odd, to say the least. He did not think there was a house like the Burrow anywhere in the world. That alone should get them like a Rare House award and some money to solve the one issue that any wizard should not have.
Poverty. Sure, luxuries require money, and one could be poor in that regard, but basic necessities? Clothing, wands, food, and more? All of that was either easily accessible, wizards could make it themselves, or with only a little bit of thinking, exploit the non magical world for that.
As it turns out, the entire household of nine wizards in the Burrow is financed by a single low level job in the Ministry, with Arthur Weasley heading what was quite literally the most neglected department of the Ministry. Hell, he was technically the head of that department, but then again, the entire department only had a handful of employees and virtually zero budget, so that position wasn't exactly a prestigious one.
Sighing, he took one look at the magical construction and after deeming it safe enough, slowly floated towards the house, wary of any magical traps he could not detect. Or non magical ones, even, as the Weasley Twins were nothing but an ever-flowing fountain of genuine creativity in matters both magical and non magical.
Even so, this was not his first rodeo entering a magical space that was potentially full of traps, magical or otherwise. After a couple of seconds of actually examining the palace, he realised that there was nothing. Quite literally nothing on the house that could be counted on as protection, at least from wizards.
Sure, the weak Notice me Not charm was there, but that was basically useless since the entire locality was under the effects of a ritual that already worked on making sure that no non magical ever reached the place. No, the protection against non magical was not even necessary.
But seriously, no protection against wizards? That was….bold and dumb. Mostly dumb.
Did Tommy Boy's defeat really throw everyone into such levels of complacency that they didn't even keep the protective wards they no doubt had up when the Death Eaters were roaming around?
Shaking his head, he let his senses wash over the house, lamenting that not even a magic scrambling ward was used, which was just basic in his opinion, but not so much for the rest of the world.
He sensed four magical signatures, two of them in one room and the other in the topmost room. Judging by a rough hierarchy of rooms, he wagered that the topmost room was likely for Ginny, being the youngest of the Weasley siblings.
Of the four, two must be the husband and wife, and the other two… His mouth curled in a smile as he floated up, leaning forward to get a better look. Ignoring Ginny Weasley, he looked around, trying to find the obvious pet house, assuming they had one for their pet rat.
He could sense the Rat, but it was in the same place as Ginny, which led him to a rather distasteful conclusion, as he barely held himself back from blasting through the glass to make sure Pettigrew was not performing any more crimes.
He was going to die anyway, but his actions here will tell if he died painlessly in a Ministry cell or be delivered to them as just a torso with no limbs whatsoever, cursed to the point that no healer would even dare touch the case.
With the vengeful thoughts flashing through his mind, he looked at the Glass window, and realised with furrowed brows that it was open. It was not locked, just pushed against the wall.
Internally, he was all but seething at the lack of security measures. Pushing past that, he flew into the room, flight making, aligning his body without any leverage quite easy. He entered the little girl's room without making a single peep.
That definitely sounded bad.
He winced as he went near her bed and, after making sure that the rat was not near her bed, tried to get a more accurate reading and realised the rat was below the bed.
With a thought, his magic took hold of the bed in its entirety and, after making sure no noise will be cared, lifted the whole thing, with Ginny sleeping on it. His control allowed him to do it in such a way that she remained undisturbed.
The bed raised sufficiently, his gaze fell on the rat that was now awake and staring at him with what he hoped was undisguised terror. Quickly knocking the rat out, he grasped the dirty rat with his magic.
After that, letting Ginny's bed down without a sound and flying out of the room in the same manner he came in was laughably easy. After he flew a dozen miles out of the wards around the settlement, he teleported to his Portal Room, and then straight into the Prison Dungeon, dumping Pettigrew into one of the energy cells, keeping him in suspended animation.
After registering his energy signature with the overall Ward Matrix and making sure that the rat could not even move a muscle without the ward making sure he remained unconscious, he moved to his office, retrieved the letter, and then flashed to the Portal Room.
In there, he mentally tried to recall if there was something that was left doing, and after finding nothing, flashed out of his Lair.
Dumping the letter in the PO box he reserved to send out such clandestine letters, he moved back to Hogwarts. He would go back to visit Sirius in a couple of days. Hopefully, until then, he will have a concrete answer from Dumbledore instead of useless questions.
He wondered just how far Sirius would go if he knew that Pettigrew was sleeping just one floor above him?
Nah, no need to risk a vital witness, and a living piece of evidence, especially since he couldn't really trust Sirius to think of the long term instead of focusing on the sweet revenge in the short term.
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