Chương 29: Lesson learnt
Rose felt tense as she watched the marina in Peterhead. She was worried about Scorpius. About James and Aunt Ginny too of course, but Scorpius had been missing for nearly a fortnight now. What had the impostor done to him during that time? How was he holding up? Scorpius was one of the strongest people she knew. He had stayed positive through so much hardship. But they had usually endured that hardship together. Now he might be all alone. Rose shook her head to prevent herself from spiralling into more negative thoughts. She had to focus. Worrying could be done later. It was pretty much all she had done the last few nights, which is why she had volunteered to take the late-night shift. She couldn't sleep anyway, so she might as well keep watch, and let someone else sleep.
A boat came into the marina area without lanterns. They were mandatory, so this suggested that the owner of the boat didn't want to be seen. Rose tried to see the details of the boat. The captain was a silhouette against the moon behind it. Then he passed under the conveniently placed marina lantern. It was not Dawson or anyone she recognised. That made it the third false alarm since her shift started four hours ago. That was the problem with a large harbour such as this, there was always traffic, even from relatively small boats like the one they were looking for. This was the largest fishing harbour in Scotland, if not all of Europe. Just to be sure, she took out the magic detector. The man was not a wizard. As far as they knew, there was no way to beat the magic detector. Yet. There probably was a way, but it was still relatively new, and few knew about it. But Dawson had been among those in-the-know.
Another boat came in with no lanterns. Rose saw him at once. The boat had sailed itself until now, but the Dawson impersonator had to steer it manually into the harbour. This was it. She quickly sent a Patronus message to Albus and Harry. It was time to end this.
***
Albus was the first one to board the boat. He was more than ready to get some answers. Harry came right behind him; Rose blocked the escape from the other side.
Albus knew what to do this time. Dawson had taught him one last important lesson at his exam. Don't leave the suspect able to get to a second wand or perform wandless magic.
"Incarcerous." he said as he saw Dawson's back towards him. He had quickly abandoned thoughts of chivalry, of not attacking when the enemy's back was turned. That was a stupid idea, it only led to more danger.
Dawson, or whoever this actually was, hadn't heard them but turned around quickly as he felt the ropes even as they tried to entangle him. But even though he managed to deflect the ropes, he was too slow to defend himself again, and Harry's Expelliarmus had him Disarmed in a moment. Albus had him tied up securely a moment later. They both held their wands pointed straight at him. The real Dawson would have been a lot quicker than this.
Impostor-Dawson actually smiled.
"Harry," he said, still smiling as if he greeted a close friend. "I didn't expect to see you here."
Albus may as well have been invisible.
"Where is my wife and my son? Where have you taken them?"
"Now why would I tell you that? After all the trouble I had getting them away from you. No. It is better this way. Now everything can go back to the way it was supposed to be."
"What do you want?" Harry asked.
"What I always wanted. I tried doing it the easy way, but you forced my hand. I've had to do all of this preparation, and at the most crucial moment, all but one of my friends abandoned me. But we are here at last."
Rose popped up from below deck. "We don't need him to tell us," she said. "We have the boat."
Albus didn't understand what she meant, but he was more than happy to leave this bizarre conversation and follow Rose. Harry seemed to come to the same conclusion. He encapsulated the impostor in some sort of bubble, a form of imprisonment. It would be enough for now.
As they came down, Rose inspected the engines. "We suspect that wherever he has taken Scorpius, and the others is Unplottable, right? But he has clearly been there and back again several times in this boat. When he came back here, he didn't control the boat himself until he was nearly into the harbour. Thus, I think that the boat can be made to travel to its last destination, no matter if we know where it is."
Harry just stared at Rose for about a minute. Then he smiled. Hope returned to his eyes for the first time since he had learnt that Ginny was missing.
"That is excellent work Rose. How long can we wait before doing that? We should ideally wait for back-up at the least. I wouldn't mind taking the impostor somewhere else either.
"I don't know how long we can wait. And I am afraid he must come with us. It is possible it is the Fidelius Charm that prevents the place from being found, and if so, only he can let us through, even with the boat."
Harry nodded. "Good point. I can have a group of Aurors here within a few minutes."
Just as he said that however, there were noises from above. They all drew their wands but sighed in relief as they saw who it was. Hermione, Ron, and Draco jumped onboard the boat.
"You started without us I see." Hermione said. Harry just smiled.
"Has he said where he's keeping them yet?" Draco asked.
"No," Harry replied. "He's not making much sense. But Rose reckons she can get the boat to take us there anyway."
Hermione nodded at that. She went down to assist her daughter. The rest of them started taking the boat out of the harbour again. As they rounded the last buoy, the boat suddenly shot out towards the open sea. It seemed the women had managed their task.
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