Connivance of Silence: First Impressions

Chapter 6

It was James Potter. He stood in the doorway still in his sleep-gear, eyes wide behind his glasses and hair even more ruffled than usual. "Hey! What did you do to her?"

Fennel rolled his eyes in disbelief. "Oh, good God, another one." He raised his wand to fire off a curse, but James was quicker on the offensive than Lily.

"Expelliarmus!"

The spell was not strong enough to overcome a master wizard like Fennel, but it was enough to make him briefly fumble with his wand. James, foolishly, chose to rush to Lily's side instead of try another spell.

"Lily! Are you okay?"

Sev could have told him not to waste his breath; the Stun spell would last a long time if it wasn't magically lifted. Realising she couldn't hear him, James twisted around, but Fennel was already pointing his wand triumphantly. "Care to try your luck, Mr. Potter?"

Unnoticed, Sev stepped out of the shadows behind the pair of them. His shadow-spell was falling away quickly, but he had a cure for that. Ducking over to Fennel's discarded invisibility cloak, he tugged it over his head.

Unbelievably, James was actually raising his wand for another spell. But even his lightning reflexes weren't enough this time. "Stupefy!" He slumped to the ground beside Lily.

Fennel shook his head, and moved over to the door to check no one had heard them. Audley Fletcher, amazingly, hadn't even stirred. Sev couldn't tell if he was charmed to keep him from waking, or just an incredibly heavy sleeper.

He'd hoped, when James had showed up, that this could have been fixed without him having to tip his hand. He should have known better than to rely on somebody else. Now he'd have to reveal himself - unless...

He looked across the room for a likely object. Ah! Under the cloak, he pointed his wand arm and whispered "Accio beaker!" The empty glass beaker on a table by the wall leapt into the air and sped towards him.

Before it could complete its journey, he reversed the Summoning Charm with a Banishing Spell. Caught between two conflicting spells, the beaker came to its own conclusions - and fell to the ground in an explosion of glass.

Fennel jumped as if he'd been cursed, and whipped round. "Who's there?" he demanded furiously. "Peeves? If that's you-"

Had Sev not been busy, he would have stopped to consider the ridiculousness of Fennel shouting at the obnoxious poltergeist for interrupting his murder plot. However, unlike James Potter, he knew when to take advantage of a distraction.

Still invisible, he glided over to the unconscious Lily and touched the end of his wand against her shoulder. "Enervate! he whispered, whilst Fennel was still staring round the room in furious anxiety.

Lily pushed painfully to her feet, and made as if to speak; Sev stepped directly behind her and covered her mouth. She struggled, but he whispered directly against her ear "It's me." She stopped trying to fight him, and allowed him to pull her down to the ground again where she wouldn't be seen.

"I'll wake James," he whispered. "Keep him quiet. Use the Stun charm on Fennel - both of you, together, and I'll do the same."

She nodded in mute understanding, and Sev dropped to his knees beside James. "Enervate," he muttered, and then he quickly ducked out of the way before he could be aware there was an invisible person lurking over him.

Lily, he was gratified to see, performed perfectly. She gagged James as Sev had done her, and communicated in sign language the plan. Then she did a three-two-one count, holding her hand up so that Sev could also see.