(HP) Missing Spaces (3/5)
Please see the Missing Spaces Chapter List for story details including summary, warnings, etc.
Chapter Two
Missing Spaces
Chapter Three
Placing the three folders on the desk, she opens the first one and scans its contents. Luna Lovegood, age sixteen. Thorn in the Carrows' sides. Inciting younger students to cause mischief. Hestia would laugh at the sheer amount of trouble the girl and her friends are causing for the Death Eaters running Hogwarts, but all she can think of is how much danger they're all in.
She knows from putting together and then updating file after file that the students will be headed home in the morning to spend Christmas with their families. They'll grab her directly from the train, she thinks, and she sighs and begins the charm to copy the file's contents onto blank parchment. She copies it exactly, every word and detail the same. The last thing she copies is the girl's picture.
The duplicate doesn't move like the original; in the original, the girl is blinking dreamily at the camera, then smiles and waves for a moment before she seems to drift off into thought. She looks so impossibly young and innocent that Hestia's heart aches, and a long moment passes before she's able to tear her eyes away from the photograph and close the file. She puts the copies into their own folder and scribbles across the front, "Saturday: train from Hogwarts. Prior to reaching the station," because maybe snatching her away before they reach the station will keep others from dying too. Then she sets the file on the edge of her desk. There's nothing she can do for young Luna Lovegood, and she has to hurry. There's no time to dwell on guilt or regrets.
She copies Xenophilius's file just as quickly, then returns the two original Lovegood folders to their usual places before sinking back into her chair and studying the Ryland file.
Paul Ryland is twenty-two years old, Muggle-born, and lives with his ailing mother in a tiny little flat in London. He left his position with the Cannons last year to care for his mum. He has a handful of friends from his school days that he saw on a regular basis until the war started. He only leaves his flat these days to run errands, and those are all handled in Muggle shops.
He never runs errands on the weekends because his mother's nurse doesn't come on the weekends and he has to make sure she gets all of her medications on time. It's guaranteed that on a Saturday, he'll be home.
The charms and spells guarding his flat are weak.
His dueling skills are substandard at best.
His location isn't Secret-Kept.
Paul Ryland and his mother are as good as dead.
Waving her wand at the file, she watches the text alter. He is home on Sundays now, but almost never on Saturdays. She picks up her quill and quickly writes on the front of a new folder, "Sunday: after dark due to Muggle neighbours. Silencing charms would be prudent." With those sentences, she buys the Order nearly forty hours.
Chapter Four
Chapter Two
Missing Spaces
Chapter Three
Placing the three folders on the desk, she opens the first one and scans its contents. Luna Lovegood, age sixteen. Thorn in the Carrows' sides. Inciting younger students to cause mischief. Hestia would laugh at the sheer amount of trouble the girl and her friends are causing for the Death Eaters running Hogwarts, but all she can think of is how much danger they're all in.
She knows from putting together and then updating file after file that the students will be headed home in the morning to spend Christmas with their families. They'll grab her directly from the train, she thinks, and she sighs and begins the charm to copy the file's contents onto blank parchment. She copies it exactly, every word and detail the same. The last thing she copies is the girl's picture.
The duplicate doesn't move like the original; in the original, the girl is blinking dreamily at the camera, then smiles and waves for a moment before she seems to drift off into thought. She looks so impossibly young and innocent that Hestia's heart aches, and a long moment passes before she's able to tear her eyes away from the photograph and close the file. She puts the copies into their own folder and scribbles across the front, "Saturday: train from Hogwarts. Prior to reaching the station," because maybe snatching her away before they reach the station will keep others from dying too. Then she sets the file on the edge of her desk. There's nothing she can do for young Luna Lovegood, and she has to hurry. There's no time to dwell on guilt or regrets.
She copies Xenophilius's file just as quickly, then returns the two original Lovegood folders to their usual places before sinking back into her chair and studying the Ryland file.
Paul Ryland is twenty-two years old, Muggle-born, and lives with his ailing mother in a tiny little flat in London. He left his position with the Cannons last year to care for his mum. He has a handful of friends from his school days that he saw on a regular basis until the war started. He only leaves his flat these days to run errands, and those are all handled in Muggle shops.
He never runs errands on the weekends because his mother's nurse doesn't come on the weekends and he has to make sure she gets all of her medications on time. It's guaranteed that on a Saturday, he'll be home.
The charms and spells guarding his flat are weak.
His dueling skills are substandard at best.
His location isn't Secret-Kept.
Paul Ryland and his mother are as good as dead.
Waving her wand at the file, she watches the text alter. He is home on Sundays now, but almost never on Saturdays. She picks up her quill and quickly writes on the front of a new folder, "Sunday: after dark due to Muggle neighbours. Silencing charms would be prudent." With those sentences, she buys the Order nearly forty hours.
Chapter Four