Post by Casey Winslow on May 19, 2012 18:27:57 GMT -8
17th December 2011
9:03 p.m.
"Casey, I'm scared. I'm terrified...."
The opening words to Seren's letter looped mercilessly through Casey's head as he made quick work of removing his broom from his chest where it was stored neatly with what few other belongings the man had. It was by far the most valuable monetarily, but even it had lost much of its value over the years since he had been on the Puddlemere team. It had been top of the line once upon a time, but nearly twelve years had passed. She was no longer the fastest out there, and that was something that Casey would have to hope wouldn't hurt Seren too much in the grand scheme of things.
But why should it? It wasn't like anyone could have known to intercept, right? He was just trying to make more of this than there was. He'd get to the school gates, and she would be there waiting, right? Only... Crap. Casey groaned inwardly. There will be guards. The Williams girls. It had been all over the Daily Prophet article someone had brought in this morning, not to mention the letter he had received from the Syndicate leader ensuring him the deed was done. He was supposed to go there tonight, but plans changed. They would simply have to accept that. Nevertheless, the man quickly walked over to his desk and scribbled a note to the Syndicate explaining something had happened and asking for a meeting at the same location at 10 a.m. the following morning. Old habits died hard.
Broom in hand, the thirty-two-year-old marched out of his room and down the hallway to the stairs, through the foyer, and out to the courtyard. He flew his way across to the owlery where he sent off his letter to the Syndicate leader and then flew his way to the mazes where he promptly stated, "Show me the way out." The hedges began to wind and straighten until there was a clear pathway out. The man took off at a quick jog as the hedges began to close behind him.
As soon as Casey cleared the maze, he disapparated to a place in Scotland he knew was close enough to Hogwarts to manage a quicker flight than flying all the way from the safe house's current location. Within half an hour, Hogsmeade Village came into view beneath him, but he ignored it, looking for the pathway that was hard to spot between the heavy tree line that grew leading up to the castle gates. Spotting it, he made an agile descent--or at least as close to such as he could after years of limited flying time. He landed on the path several yards back from the gates where he stuck to the treeline to make his approach. When he was close enough, he spotted guards. Damn.
He headed back down the path as quietly as possible before taking to the air and flying around toward the Great Lake. Maybe they wouldn't have too many guards over there. He was right. No guards in sight. The only thing was that he was now exposed, but hopefully they would simply assume he was just a student, though it was past curfew. Great. Just another thing against him. He did a U-turn without ever landing. There was a tunnel in one of the shops that lead to the castle. Evie had shown it to him once, and very few knew about it. Hopefully it was still there, and hopefully he didn't get recognized.
Landing in the village, the man shrunk his broom and placed it in his pocket before pulling his hood over his head and keeping his head down as he began to walk, looking occasionally toward the stores. This was going to be hard. The majority were closed, but he was pretty sure the one he was thinking of was in The Three Broomsticks. They should still be open as they did serve alcohol. He'd been on first-name basis with some of their staff back in the day, not that that had been a particularly great time of his life.
It took a while, but once Casey entered the Three Broomsticks, he sat down and ordered a Shepard's pie, figuring that if he ordered something it would be far less suspicious than if he simply headed in and back to the hidden entrance to the secret tunnel. He sat there a few minutes before standing and walking toward the hall that housed the loo. Once there, he headed straight to the far wall where he tapped the dark boards in a particular order and fashion and waited for the hole to appear.
Success!
As the wall opened, Casey ducked and stepped through. It closed behind him, leaving him in a pitch black tunnel in which he had to stoop ever so slightly. He never had had to do that before, but then again, he had grown a little since Hogwarts. He pulled out his wand and whispered, "Lumos." He took a moment to adjust to the light before he began a hurried trek toward the castle. Minutes later, he was reappearing in the dungeons near the kitchen.
Now, the question was: how did he get out to the gates without being spotted?
"Nox," he whispered again, realizing he didn't need the wand in the dimly lit passageway he was in. He made his way straight forward, taking the slight turn when needed, and ended up walking up the stairs to the ground floor. As he reached the top, he pressed his back against the wall and peeked his head out. Shit. Guards. Two were right where he needed to go.
Groaning quietly in frustration, Casey hit the back of his head against the stone wall a few times. He'd have to get up to one of the upper floors and fly out a window. There was no other way. The guards surely weren't going to simply let him out without seeing some sort of evidence he was a student or a professor, and he had none. He hadn't been a student or a professor in quite some time now.
The former Defense professor took a deep breath and released it slowly to the count of ten before walking out from the stairwell and into plain view. He paused and "awkwardly" beheld the guards before crossing his legs in the classic "pee-pee dance" in hopes they wouldn't leave their posts. They seemed to regard each other and shrug, and Casey took off at a bit of a jog toward where he knew the stairwell would be.
But Casey never made it to the stairwell to the first floor. He found himself feet away from Trevor following a familiar girl out of the Professor's Common Room. His heart leaping to his throat, he pushed himself against the wall, hoping to remain unseen.
By the time the stairs had set themselves so he could get up to the same floor as Williams and the slave girl, however, he had lost them. And the seventh floor was huge. He could have gone anywhere, taken her anywhere. He tried searching, but it was for naught. I'm sorry, Seren..., he thought to himself before heading to the nearest window he could find. There was nothing he could do now, not an hour after they had disappeared up to this floor. His search had revealed nothing. All he could hope was that Trevor wouldn't kill her.