January 1997
11:15pm
The woods outside Aberfoyle

"Expecto Patronum."

A silvery strand seeped from the wand of a cloaked figure on the side of the road. It grew and grew, soon condensing into the form of a spectral bear. It lifted its head and blinked silver eyes slowly.

"The thestral flies at midnight," spoke the wizard. And with that the Patronus sprang into the air and streaked serenely away. Soon the wizard was left on the road in darkness again.

They had plenty of time. And they were always careful. The plan was laid and every precaution was in place. Little comfort to Knox Greyfriar who, unlike his collaborator, was a wizard of words and pages, not an agent of ambushes and sabotage. It had been weeks of this: cold nights, close calls, uncertain outcomes. Scores of magical folk and muggles alike were disappearing as the days went by, victims of ruthless extremists. Arthfael had told Knox 'the choice is none'. And he was right. If Knox wanted to atone for the cowardice of his youth, he had to put everything on the line.

He pulled his cloak around him tighter against the wet and cold and stepped from the road down into the brush. The Snatchers were on the move, stalking the muggle couple who Knox and Arthfael had already safely smuggled to Amsterdam.  He counted his paces as he walked, measuring his speed, keeping quiet - timing was critical if this was going to go off with the only limbs being lost were Death Eaters'.

The crunching of dry leaves woke Art from his light nap.  Overnight operations in the wilderness would set most on edge, but the sounds of the forest were like a mother's heartbeat to him.  He silently admonished himself for dozing off...again...but quickly snapped his attention back to the sound the was growing closer.

It was footsteps, he was sure of that much.  He grew more tense as light began to grow along with the noise, reaching for his wand.  Snatchers had been frequenting these woods and magical combat had never really been his strong suit. His over-long, vine-wood wand wobbled as his hands shook with anticipation.

Controlling his breath, he noticed the air was cool enough to turn it to fog and hoped it wouldn't betray him to the snatchers.  He waited until the light shown bright around the tree trunk that hid him and the crunch seemed deafening.  Art jumped out, wand raised and wiggling, hair flinging about, and suddenly stopped short.  He was greeted by a glowing bear, wearing a quizzical look.

"The thestral flies at midnight", the bear proclaimed in Knox Greyfriar's voice before disappearing in wisps of light.

They should have come up with a better signal.

Art lowered his wand and gave it swish. 

"Expecto Patronum" he said as quietly as he could.

A glowing Rottweiler appeared before him.

"You about gave me a damn heartattack, old man" Art said to the dog and with another swish sent his patronus to deliver Knox the message.  He immediately regretted it, realizing it wasn't necessary and could only serve to reveal them to the snatchers that skulked about.

But he had bigger things to worry about right now.  Knox had spotted the snatchers coming in on the south road and Art had to get to the rendezvous point with his share of the mackled malaclaw bombs.  The pair need to work quickly if they were going to get the trap into place before the Death Eaters arrived and realized the muggle couple wasn't actually traveling through the forest outside Aberfoyle.

Art hurried through the brush as quietly as his hulking figure and the darkness would allow.  He tripped on an unseen root and stumbled, potion bottles clanking in the satchel he flung over his broad shoulder. 

"Merlin's arse, what are we doing?" he grumbled to himself as the flash of panic receded and he continued his perilous trudge.

It wasn't much longer before the luminous form of a stout rottweiler Patronus joined Knox at a lope with a message from Art. Knox could only grin despite the tension; he gestured for the Patronus to be on its way now, or its light might give him away to the band of Snatchers he'd seen coming up the road behind him.

Now that he had confirmation from Art, he moved more quickly. It was too risky to Apparate now; in these unfamiliar woods, they could easily splinch into a tree - that and it was still a mystery how Snatchers were so easily able to track their victims.  They had to be cautious. 

He was out of breath by the time their decoy automobile came into view. It was parked dead still on the side the road, utterly dark. Before stepping out of woods, he looked back down the road the way he'd come. He knew they had time, but he had to be sure.

Nothing.  He crept slowly up the embankment, wand drawn but darkened.

"Arty. Art. Are you there?" 

"Ye better hope so, ye old fart.  If it isn't me it's the Snatchers." Art said a little louder than he meant to.  He emerged from the dark treeline a bit winded from his quick trek.  He was built for caber tossing, not jogging.

"Ye can point that somewheres else if ye dinnae mind." he said a bit quieter, motioning to Knox's over-sized wand.

He joined Knox on the embankment near their decoy car and shrugged off the satchel of malaclaw bombs, lowering them carefully to the ground.

"Where we gaun put these?"

Knox breathed a sigh of relief and lowered his wand. Good.  He doffed his hood and scratched his beard at the jawline.

"I thought you'd already thought of that," he said.  He approached the car and looked back down the road again.  "They'll come from that direction. I doubt they'll spend too much time on prologue. They'll come up on both sides, blast off the doors, drag them out and, well." 

The stories that had been going around were grim. Sometimes there were bodies, sometimes there weren't. In any case, things went down at the tip of the wand. "They'll get close."

Knox used his sleeve to wipe dew from the windows.  Inside were two eerie silhouettes, dummies propped up and seat-belted. The Ross's. 

"It is a convincing wig," he had to say.

"Niffler fur is surprisingly luxuriant, innit?" Art replied with a grin.

He knelt down and cautiously withdrew a pair of bottles from the satchel.  The sickly grey-green brew swirled and clung to the glass. He joined Knox by the car and could see the uneasiness on his friend's face.  Truthfully Art wasn't sure about all this either, but they couldn't count on anyone else to what needed to be done.

"Here, catch!" he said as he feigned an underhanded lob with one of the bottles.

Knox jolted! He threw his hands up and sucked in air a half second before he realized the gag. "For-!"

He swore at Art in the dark and again checked down the road. Did he hear something? Was that a voice in the wind? He shook his head, trying to calm the nagging anxiety.  "We have time," he reminded them both.  "We have time."

Not much time, but there was no reason rush through it and make a mistake. He went to the passenger side and opened the door. The dummies didn't have legs or a lower half.  Or faces. Mr. Ross had a pair of spectacles. Mrs. Ross a genuine niffler fur toupee. Knox stood aside and waved to Art where to plant the bottles.  "Maybe there, one at each of their feet. Both sides."

While Art handled the malaclaw brew, Knox walked round to the back of the car.  "Has to look like they broke down," he said. He aimed his wand at the tail pipe and mumbled an incantation. There was a pop and a piff and soon a dark smoke was billowing merrily from the back of the sedan.

He then took aim in turn at each of the tail lights and lit them up with a simple light enchantment. He nodded at his handiwork. It looked convincing.  Hurried round to the front of the car and did a similar number on the bonnet and front lights.

"All set, Art? Got them in order, there?" He looked down the road. The tableau was a beacon in the dark now.

"Yeah, Ah got 'em.  I'm gunta put a few more about" Art whispered loudly.   

He hustled back up the embankment and grabbed 4 more bottles of brew from the bag.  He hid a pair on either side of road a bit to the south and another pair nearer the car.  He was covering the last couple with some leaves and twigs when he heard the faint noise of foot steps coming from down the road.

Art pursed his lips and let out the quiet hoot of a long-eared owl.  When Knox made eye-contact he made some hand motions to try to indicate that he heard the Snatchers approaching.  Upon utterly failing, he whispered insistently

"C'mon, old man"

and hurried back up the embankment to gather the potion bag and hide in the trees.

What was he-? Art was jerking his thumb into his armpit? Knox mouthed a question at Arthfael in the darkness, and recieved a verbal confirmation in return.  The Snatchers were here!

Knox didn't need to be told twice. He got his large frame quickly up the hill and into the brush after Arty, and hunkered down.  He felt like they were breathing really loud.  "Are we breathing loud? This feels loud. Muffliato!" Knox's wand lit briefly and he felt like the air around them thickened - the spell would conceal he and Arthfael's voices from being overheard. 

"It looks good. Damn."

Their trap certainly did look convincing. The smoke coming out from the bonnet, the headlight beams cutting through the fog. If the Snatchers knew what Art and Knox think they knew - that the Ross's were on their way back from a quiz night in town - their little scene would look too vulnerable to pass up.

And sure enough, Knox caught an ear of what Art had - voices. And a moment more, lit wands.

There were four of them walking down the middle of the road.  Their wand tips moved all around like they were talking and carrying on, not like they were keeping them level and cautious. Knox could make out a voice clear in the night as they came into sight of the car.

"Up there. You don't think that's them do ye? Honestly, these muggles and their rubbish contraptions. It's barbaric."

"Careful."

"Of what, ya pisspot? Muggles?  Honestly."

Knox elbowed Arty. With the spell, he could have used a regular voice, but the gravity of what was about to happen kept him at a whisper: "I recognize that one. Sorkin. His picture's up in the Three Broomsticks."

"Aye, that's him.  Let's see if we cannae muss up that bonnie face o' his" Arty said in his normal overly-loud volume.  He donned a goofy smile, opened his eyes as big as he could and wiggled his bushy eyebrows a few times to punctuate.

He drew his wand and hid as well as he could in the brush, waiting for the right moment to spring into action.

This is going to be easier than I could have hoped!

Things aren't as hard when you're not stupid.

No kidding.....hey wait!


They needed the bunch to get close enough to the car before they sprang the trap, but not too close or the jig might be up.  Of course the dark lord's lackeys weren't always know to be the brightest wands, so they'd probably be fine.

"You know what to do, old man" Art said to Knox with with a curt nod, more reassure than question.

Honestly, I don't think I'll ever get tired of this.

said a crooked, lanky man through his sinister grin as he approached the car.

Just a few more steps Art thought to himself.  But the man stopped short and peered into the car.

What the bloody hell...

Great, they had to get a smart one.

"Figuram Faci" Art pronounced and waved his wand in wobbly, bending circles.  The smoke emerging from the car began to swirl and form the shape of a figure.

"Quick noo, we're blown" he said to Knox

Shit! Their scene only deceived at some distance - once the Snatchers got close, with their lit wands and headlights, the dummies looked as false as they truly. Arthfael was already on his feet casting something.  With the darkness and the anti-eavesdropping spell in place, both he and his collaborator were out of sight, but the Snatchers were on guard.

"It's a set-up!" It had been the one called Sorkin at the car window and it was he now who began shouting orders. "Watch it! Curse anything that moves!"

One of the other Snatchers took Sorkin at his word and shot off a bolt of acid-green magic at the smoke that was beginning to take shape at Arthfael's hidden hand.  Knox ducked back down again.  "I don't even know why we bother to plan these! We always seem to end with wet socks and trading spell fire! Ugh!"

He got himself back up into a crouch and took off further up the street, still hidden in the brush. They had to get the Snatchers into their poison potion perimeter. Maybe he could lure them a bit further on? He had no idea of what Art was planning.

"Yeah, that's good, ye head up the road a wee bit.  Maybe make some noise or something, get 'em ta come at ye" Art said to Knox, who's look seemed to vacillate between frustrated, confused and a bit scared. 

"Damned muffiato" Art grumbled to himself as he took to hand signals again.  He pointed at Knox, did little walking fingers and then pointed up the road.  Then he pointed to himself, pointed at the brush nearer the car and pointed at his wand while he feigned spell casting.

He finished with an insistent wave and began to sneak closer to the car.  The smoke figure had only bought them a few extra seconds, but this could still work if they hurried.

Knox waved back at all Arthfael's waving.  He pointed two fingers at his own eyes, then flipped them around at the car. He knew what he was doing. Well. He'd figure something out.

After a few more yards, Knox moved out of the woods and onto the road proper.  He took a deep breath and tried to relax his hand from shaking.  He must have looked a sight. A wall of a wizard cloaked in black, mist swirling at his feet and a limb of a wand in his palm. From here he could see the four Snatchers clearly.  He took a deep breath and raised his wand.

"Avis!"

From out his wand erupted a murder of crows. They swam into the sky, cackling loudly.

Then, "Oppugno!" A light cracked and the birds turned all at once towards the Snatchers, who lit into action. As the birds lit into them, they began to defend themselves.

Knox, at his place down the road, stood a moment his wand still frozen in time and his eyes wide. After a moment of hesitation, he darted back into the woods.

"Don't let him get away!" shouted Sorkin through the noise.

As the crows descended upon the Snatchers, Art finished moving into position.  Their attention elsewhere, he was able to get even closer than he thought.

He heard Sorkin shout and saw Knox disappear back into treeline.  Turns out the old man can move when he needs to  he thought and smirked to himself. 

The Snatchers, struggling against the clawing cyclone of corvids, began to stumble down the road, bringing them just close enough to the car.

Art sprang into action.  Emerging from the brush, he swung his wand in a wide circle above his head, cracking it like a whip at Sorkin and his lackeys.

"Incarcerous Radicibus!"

The roots of the plants near the car burst from the ground and began to entangle the Snatchers' legs.

"Crucio" retorted a squat Snatcher that had fought off his birds.  A red streak flew over the car toward Art.

"Carpe Retractum!" he bellowed as swept his wand toward a downed tree limb by the road side.  Vines emerged from his wand, grasping the limb and reeling it toward Art.  He swung the branch to intercept the curse, it splintered to bits when they met.

"I can keep up the caber toss all night ye dunderheided shites!" he roared, "Where the hell'd ye go old man?!" 

As soon as Knox hit the brush, the sound of the fray dulled but not nearly enough for Knox not to have heard the creaking, heaving, and crashing of Arthfael of clan Oglesbee wresting root from earth and bough from trunk. What they lacked in proper training, the pair of them made up in anti-fascist vengeance and raw homespun spellwork. The birds and the trees.

By the time Knox arrived back at their hole, the Muffliato charm had dissipated and Arthfael was in the road hollering for Knox.  He took a breath and counted wands.  One, two, three...four! All the Snatchers were in place.  There was no time to waste: Knox needed to get Art out of the blast radius and they had to set off the malaclaw traps.

Wand in the air, he incanted in a deep bellow, "Riata Laqueum![1]" In half a breath, Arthfael was hauled off his feet, straight backwards through branches and brambles to land roughly at Knox's feet.

"Art, now!"

1.	Lasso Spell