Son Of Riddle

Chapter Twenty-Five - Preparations

  The remainder of Fall passed like sand in an hourglass. The grassy hills became covered in snow, and Hagrid had to add several more layers of wood to his hut, with the help of the Chaos Quartet and some other students.  
All throughout the remainder of Autumn and right into Winter, The Chaos Quartet anxiously awaited a reply owl from Rodolphus Lestrange. A week away from Christmas break and still no reply, they had nearly given up.
"I told you it wouldn't work." Benjamin told Adam.
"It doesn't make sense." Adam said. "He should have been scared enough to at least reply."
"Maybe he thought it was some kind of threat from another death eater, so he just ignored it." Benjamin suggested.
"It's possible." James said. "However, Rodolphus was a man who craved power, and to have me on his side would give him a lot of it, so if there was any possible chance the letter was the real deal, he would at least send another death eater in his stead to make sure if it really was some kind of a trap, he would be safe, and if it was real, the death eater would bring me to him. He's not an idiot."
  "So the only way to actually trick him is to make him trust us..."Adam mused. "It's going to be very risky, and it's going to take a while to actually gain his trust...Will we actually be able to do it, while still trying not to break the rules here?"
"We might just have to break the rules." James said.
"If succeed, Headmaster McGonnagle might pardon us." Lucy suggested. "If you remember Uncle Harry and Aunt Hermione and Uncle Ron, McGonnagle let them off the hook when they broke multiple rules, as long as they succeeded in the end."
"What if we don't succeed though?" Adam asked. "There are so many ways thiscould go wrong."
"Worst case scenarios, we die, or we get expelled." James said. "So I guess we'd better succeed."
"But there's also no guarantee that she even will pardon us." Adam added.
"You are just so certain to make sure we don't go into this with a positive attitude, aren't you?" Lucy said, half joking.
  Adam just looked at her. "If we die, then I wouldn't think that's exactly something to have a positive attitude about."
"Well, I've found if you have a positive attitude while about to do somehing, you'll do better. Remember when you dad told us about the liquid luck thing he did to Uncle Ron? He thought he would do better, so he did do better. It's all part of the human mind."
Adam shook his head. "Sometimes it's difficult to understand you."
"...Is that because you just got lectured by a lesser being than you?" Lucy asked, nudging him playfully with her elbow.
Adam didn't answer her, and went right back to looking over his plan. "So...assuming the worst, what do we do?"
"We'll have to just defeat him, and any others he has with him in a battle, rather than by trickery." James answered. "Our best bet would be illusion magic at first, which Benjamin is our expert at, then while they're distracted, we'll hopefully be able to hit them from behind, spell or not."
"Is there really anything else we can do?" Lucy asked. "We're prepared for every possible outcome, and we can't really prepare for anything we aren't expecting." 
"Well...what do we do until then?" Adam asked.
"Absolutely nothing." Said James. "There is nothing we can do until then."
"Except agonize." Adam concluded. He folded his piece of parchment with the lists of things to do into a paper airplane.
Benjamin looked at him with a sly look on his face and flicked his wand at the paper airplane, which began to fly around on its own accord.
The entertainment ended as it flew out of the chamber of secrets.
  "Actually..." James started to say, a thoughtful look on his face. "I have an idea of something we can do."
"Do tell." Benjamin said, turning to James, eager to do anything to distract himself from the danger they would be putting themselves in.
"Do any of you actually know how to fight someone without using magic?" James asked.
Everyone shook their heads.
"Well then, I have things to teach you."

James led them down a corridor in the castle, staring at the wall to his left the whole time.
  "What are we looking for, exactly?" Adam asked, starting to question his sanity.
"The room of requirement." James answered simply, as though they should have known.
"The room of re-what now?" Benjamin asked, also questioning his sanity.
"The room of requirement." James said, exasperated. "It only appears when you need it for something. The room takes the appearance of whatever you need it for."
"Aaand how do you need this for what you were just talking about?" Lucy asked.
"I think he means to use it for a training room...of some sort." Benjamin said. "The room looks like whatever we need it to, right?"
James nodded.
"So one would assume it would take the appearance of a training room of some kind." He took a blood pop from his belt and shoved it into his mouth.
"Since when do you keep candy on your belt?" Lucy asked.
Benjamin's eyes widened, as though he's done something wrong. "Since now?" He said with an air of uncertainty.
Lucy laughed.
"Finally!" James said, now running towards a big silver door that seemingly appeared in the wall.
Lucy looked to Adam, confused, but he just shrugged and ran to catch up with James.
  "Why isn't it just there all the time?" Lucy asked.
"Ruins the magic, I suppose?" Benjamin suggested with a shrug.
"Because it can appear anywhere." James said. "It's just usually in this hallway."
They opened the door and found your average run-of-the-mill training room. It was mostly empty with blue foam mats lined up in rows on one side, and had straw dummies in the middle of the room with targets on their heads and chests.
  "Bruh." Benjamin said, his blood pop nearly falling out of his mouth.
"Well..." Adam started to say. "It certainly does it's job well."
"This is so cool!" Benjamin said, running forward. "Every time, magic is still a fascinating mystery."
"Well..." James said, a smile spreading across his face. "Shall we then?"
James brought them over to the foam mats, and started teaching them martial arts, such as karate, jujitsu, and tae kwan do. Since this was their first time ever being exposed to it, they didn't do very well, in fact it took them several hours just to get the general gist of it.
After a couple hours of trying to teach the young children how to properly fight, James brought them to the straw dummies, so they could practice using both magic, and the basic martial arts they just learned at the same time. At first the only thing the did wqas his the dummies with spells while running at them, then abruptlystop when the dummy either caught fire, or exploded, then after a while, they started to get it. Adam was catching on extremely quickly, as was benjamin, who found he was rather good at martial arts, due to his increased stamina.

By the time they finally decided they were done for the day, it had already gotten dark out, and Adam, Benjamin and Lucy staggered out of the room of requirement, their sore limbs turned to jelly, James walking behind them, perfectly fine, smiling in fact.
  "Why do I get the feeling some part of you enjoys seeing us suffer like this?" Adam asked, trying to stay standing.
  "Well, you aren't wrong." James admitted. "You now know how to fight with more than just magic, which will be very useful dealing with Rodolphus, so you could say yes, I am in fact happy to see you suffer."
  "We suck though." Lucy commented.
"We have to whole week to help you get better." James said.
  The rest of the quartet groaned in response.
  They walked (Well wobbled, really) down the hall, just about to go to their common rooms and sleep off the pain... and were abruptly stopped by McGonnagle, who looked very upset, and held a crumpled peice of parchment in her hand, which very much looked like it had once been a paper airplane at one point.
The color quickly drained out of each of their faces.
"I need to see the four of you in my office, immediately." She demanded.

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Author's note- sorry this chapter's kinda short, I don't have much time or motivation to write lately. :/
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