Like Rats in a Trap

Bloody Happy New Year, Poppy thought. She hadn't seen her mother in quite awhile. The letters had just sort of stopped. Her father didn't have an explanation. She hadn't even seen any sight of her over Christmas--something her mother just wouldn't have missed without a reason. She and her brother had spent Christmas with her father and his children--her new half siblings. And there were her grandparents, grandparents she was just getting to know.

She missed her mom. Her father had promised her a day's outing after Christmas. It would be just the two of them. Today was that day. There was to be quite a lot of snow today, but Poppy didn't care. With a bit of pleading and coaxing, she'd gotten her father to go against his better judgment and decide to take a chance and go anyway.

Diagon Alley seemed to be crowded with people getting ready to hunker in for a few days. Codswallop, Poppy thought. Sissies. Surely it wasn't going to get that bad.

"Stay close," her father told her, clutching her elbow, not wanting to lose her in the crowd.

"I'm a big girl," she sighed, annoyed.

"Of course you are," he said automatically. "Didn't you want more colored pencils or something?"

"Yes," she said. "Can I get the big set? There's supposed to be almost 175 colors."

He narrowed his eyes at her. That wasn't going to be cheap. He knew she didn't have that much money with her.

"Please?" she gave him her best puppy dog eyes. He rolled his eyes, and she knew he was giving in. She grinned at him, and they laughed. They went into the shop, and she saw that there were a lot of kids her age in the store, clearly looking to keep themselves busy if they had to be stuck indoors. She bolted ahead of him, wanting to go find the big colored pencil sets and the sketchbooks

It wasn't often that her mother let her go far from her sight except today for whatever reason Mummy had been occupied and had willingly allowed the thirteen year old to wander off to go look at the different books and art supplies that the store offered. She wasn't an artist per say but colouring was always a fun activity especially if she would end up being stuck inside with Nammie again, as much as she loved her grandmother it could be boring to hang out with her for extended periods of time.

There wasn't much money at the moment for frivolous things like art supplies in her Mother's budget (or so she'd been told) though her mother had given her a very small amount to add to what Nammie had given her for helping with the chores the previous day and the little bit daddy had managed to scrape together as a Christmas present. Between the three the blond had gathered enough to manage to purchase a few things for herself and maybe even a second colouring book to give to Nammie so they could colour together. Liza loved sharing with anyone if it would make them happy and her grandmother always thanked her profusely for any little bit the girl shared.

Everyone seemed to think that her father was some frightening nightmare of a man who should be avoided at all costs - including her mother which confused her to no end because she had obviously liked something about him in the past - which made her feel sad. Her daddy was the sweetest man who had willingly taken the knowledge that she was his without questioning about it or at least he hadn't questioned that she'd heard. Maybe she'd buy some plain paper too and make him a thank you card to tell him how glad she was to have a relationship with him even if sometimes he got growly at her.

With a bright smile the girl picked up a relatively cheap set of pencil crayons that would work for her purposes and a couple of the complex colouring books that were usually meant for adults but she had found entertaining along with a package of plain paper.

James was beginning to feel like he'd been under Fenrir's thumb just about long enough. Made him feel like his return to the proverbial nest was outliving its usefulness. His former pack were starting to integrate with Fenrir's, but James still had a few holdouts that wanted him to find a separate lair and start over. Fenrir was insisting James lay low and behave. James was itching to get out on his own. He'd spent months in Fenrir's lair in the catacombs, and now he was tired of it. He wanted to see daylight.

"Make yourself useful," Fenrir growled at James, seeing James' restlessness. "Take the cubs out and teach them to hunt."

"I'll teach them to hunt, alright," James snarled.

"Oi!," Fenrir commanded, rising, still able to intimidate every werewolf in the lair, including James. "No more messes. Understand me? You make one more screw up and I'll take you out myself."

James had no doubt Fenrir still could do just that. Fenrir motioned to a handful of Hogwarts' dropouts. Lads that might have been graduating in another year or two, had James not made off with them a couple years ago while they were smaller. James had turned them, and now the boys had nowhere to go but to live with the werewolves who had seen sense in banding together in this day and age for pure survival.

James and Fenrir actually provided fairly well for this pack. They were all well fed usually, they were clothed, and they were never in need of warmth of shelter. Fenrir kept a tight reign on the pack's money, but everyone had access to some funds of their own.

The boys got up and moved over towards James, obeying Fenrir, but they knew better than to get within arm's reach of James. James was quick and sometimes deadly, even with his own, just to make a point.

"You bring them back," Fenrir said sternly to James. "We didn't turn them to lose them."

"I know how to raise a cub," James said.

"We'll see about that," Fenrir said. He motioned them to leave. James led the way up into the alley and then climbed up the fire escape to the rooftops of the buildings of Diagon Alley. He breathed in the winter cold, glad for the change.

"Storm's coming," he told the four teens with him. "Good hunting weather. Humans panicking, not thinking--and getting careless."

"Let's turn someone important!" One of the cubs said to him excitedly, peering down at the wizards and witches below, all rushing about with their children.

"Nah," James said casually, taking more care than the cubs to not be seen. "This is your first hunt. Start small. You've got time. Let's see if you can manage to take an ickle or two." They groaned, bored. Younger kids were no challenge, they thought. "Well, if its so easy, then, prove me wrong. Get your ickles, and then we'll see if you're ready for grownups. Now get down before you're seen." He motioned them to move back away from view.

It wasn't often that Athena was allowed to go wondering around Diagon Alley by herself, her parents, Kace or Alex was usually with her. Although enjoying the freedom, Athena went to every store there was, looking from the different robes they had to getting some candy at the candy shop. She was told by her mother to meet her at the Leaky Cauldron for lunch, she nodded and promised to be back there at noon and not a minute after. Athena was fourteen years old, she certainly thought that she was responsible enough to walk Diagon Alley alone, it wasn't like she didn't know her way around. She been here SO many times, she could probably walk the place blindfolded.  


With a big bag of candy and fudge in her hands, Athena skipped down the street to get some more paint and supplies, she was running low on almost everything. She been painting and sketching alot of things lately, she also helped Vaughn paint the most beautiful things he whittles out of wood, it was amazing what he could do with a piece of wood. She still had her roses he made her out of wood, they felt like real flowers, she put a charm on them so it smelt like roses. Her parents gave her enough to get whatever she wanted, they knew of their daughter's talent, and didn't disagree with them as long as she was staying out of trouble.   


Athena walked into the shop with her list of things she was running low on, she was always prepared for things, even small stuff like this. " Lets see, I need some more colored pencils, paint and sketch books."said Athena checking her list. Athena walked over towards the colored pencils and looked at the selection of different colored pencils. Athena grabbed the one she usually did and placed it in her basket before she grabbed a sketch book and put it in her basket, now all that was left was some paint and brushes.

People. He hated being around people for the most part. Except the ones that were his friends. His mother was down the street in a sweets shop looking for treats for her son. She tried to spoil him when she could. Maybe it was to make up for the fact that she had a werewolf for a son and she could do nothing to make his life any better. His dad was who knows where. He had lost him awhile but that was alright. He wanted a bit of alone time by himself. He loved his parents but boy did they drown him in affection that he didn't really care for anymore. He hadn't since that day in the woods.

He shivered to himself as he walked down the street. He made his way to outside the pet shop and stared at the animals. He wasn't allowed to have them anymore. For some reason they didn't like him and he wasn't sure if it was because they knew he was something different or not. He used to have a few pets but after they started to act up they had gotten rid of them.

He sighed to himself as he looked around him before walking over to a bench and sat down. He knew that his parents would be awhile so he closed his eyes and shoved his hands in his pockets.

Dear Merlin, Diagon was EVER so boring. Calix tipped her head back and huffed in a halfhearted attempt to move her fringe off her face.

The action changed her perspective and now she noticed dark clouds brewing overhead. It was going to rain, maybe even storm. Calixta loved storms, so long as she was cosy, warm and watching it from the safety of her room while drinking hot chocolate, of course.

Without looking, she raised a fist to rap sharply on the window of the shop behind her.

"Hurry up, Buckley!" she called to the elf dithering inside. Why must house elves always take so long about everything?

"It's going to rain!"

Elliot was slowly getting used to Diagon Alley, not that he had ever been the wide-eyed, lack-jawed sort.  He'd read enough novels and seen enough films that this place was not that weird once you got used to the fact that it wasn't behind a screen.

He'd taken to carrying the wand with him, because it seemed to be useful in blending in.  But he'd also kept the knife he'd pilfered the night of the fire, although figuring out how to carry it around had taken some improvisation.  As it turned out, wand halters were a common accessory among the magical community and adapting one for a knife hadn't been too difficult.

This afternoon, as with most afternoons, he was wandering aimlessly. Ever since his last accommodation had been destroyed, his minders were less concerned with keeping him locked up, so long as he didn't venture back into normal society.

There was a rumbling overhead, and some kid yelled about rain. Just great. Getting drenched was all he needed.

This might work after all, if the cubs didn't buggar it. From his vantage point on a neighboring rooftop, he could look in the shop's window and could see it was crawling with little ickles, all excited about milking their parents for things to keep them occupied. Their parents had little interest and had, for the most part, wandered to the less interesting section of the store for magazines, newspapers, paperback books and cigarettes. Lots of bloody cigarettes. Looked like a run on them. Merlin, they did expect to be fit to be tied before the weather was behind them, didn't they? The good side in it was that the ickles were in the front of the store, and their parents were on the other side.  

One of the more rambunctious cubs marched to the doorway of the store and fired a huge firebomb, nicely planted straight in the middle. James was rather proud of him for sending it right down center. It spread in a heartbeat, separating the ickles from their parents.

He loved the sound of screaming and chaos. The rest of James' cubs fired their wands, making a bit of a one way exit outside the front door, bordering it on both the left and the right with lines of flame. Lovely. It still was going to be like herding cats, though. James recalled some rudimentary billiards skills, finding it all amusing.

As many of the little ones bolted from the shop, he found it relatively easy to keep them in line by firing loud blasts of sound along the firelines to keep them moving--straight away from their human parents, across Diagon Alley, into Knockturn, and then down, down, down into the catacombs below. They really didn't have much choice if they wanted to live. As James saw it, the adults were just expendables anyway if they weren't bright enough to know how to get out.

Calixta had just walked inside the shop to actually find Buckley herself (and, incidentally get out of the rain) when the world exploded.

She screamed. Well, what else was she supposed to do?

There was fire all around her, but Calixta could see a way out. It had been blown in the side of the shop, though, and that didn't seem like a good thing. But she hadn't learnt the kind of spells to fight this blaze yet, so it was either run or die.

Outside the shop, Calixta's head thrashed from side to side, looking for the house elf or at least a way out of here. Much to her dismay, long veils of fire continued outside the shop, stopping her seeing into Diagon Alley proper and letting off heat that made her eyes water.

Stomach plummeting, she continued to run away from the shop, into a darker part of the Alley. Calixta knew where she was, even if she'd never seen it before. She wiped her nose on her sleeve.

Sure, Elliot entertained fantasies of conspiracy and even espoused ridiculous theories aloud.  He'd never for a moment believed any of that stuff.  He certainly wouldn't have believed there was an entire magical world hidden in the centre of London.  Or that it was trying to kill him.

But as the shop to his right erupted in flame and that same flame separated him from the rest of the Alley, he began to wonder.  Were all wizards pyromaniacs as well?

He heard a scream as part of the wall was blown away before what he could only describe as a small herd of children came tumbling toward him, all running in the same direction.

As Elliot turned to follow the ankle biters, assuming they'd found a way out, he was dismayed to see they were surrounded with ribbons of fire on all sides.  He knew from the fight at the Inn that an adult wizard or witch would have no problem getting through that, but obviously these kids were too young.  And for the first time he found himself agreeing with the wizards that called him "just a muggle" as he was forced to follow the path so clearly laid out for them.