All in the Family

Chapter 69: Aboard the Hogwarts Express

This fic is now caught up on this profile to where it is on my others. Chapter updates will proceed on the 8th and 18. 

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"AHHHH! Get it off of me!"

"Who's dying?"

"Nobody move a muscle until we know what's going on!"

All of this was nearly drowned out by a loud, pounding noise like metal being slammed against metal. Head spinning, the cacophony likely to drive them all mad soon, "Lumos!" was shouted in varying degrees of panic. No lights appeared.

Sirius began turning crazily on the spot waiting impatiently for his eyes to adjust, then yelped in pain and felt his wand roll away from him. James and Remus darted to where they heard him, before they too cried out and their wands fell to the ground.

"Freeze!" Frank commanded with determination this time. "Do, not, move!"

Alice, Lily, and Pettigrew were all breathing raggedly, eyes darting around as they slowly adjusted to the natural light trickling in through the front window, to try and discern what was happening, keeping their wands closer to themselves now rather than aloft.

Trying to swallow around a painfully dry throat, Frank cast his eyes slowly away from Alice and forced himself to really look.

It was definitely somebody's living room. The furniture was old and worn, a highbacked chair closest to him seemed to be what was holding Potter hostage. He thrashed desperately against the woven cloth keeping him in place, but as Frank watched closely, it didn't seem to be doing anything but restraining him.

The pounding noise continued, but the other screams had subsided. Cautiously, never moving his feet as he kept shifting around to get the rest of the picture, he spotted Lupin and the older Black lashed to the couch in much the same fashion, and the youngest of them dangling from the ceiling light upside down in a tangle of chains. Craning on his toes, he could just make out the window onto a front lawn, and saw two dustbins slamming against each other as if both were determined to have all the trash contained in the other.

The rest of the house seemed just as inconspicuous. A tiny kitchenette was only just visible in the dim light, a worn bed in the far corner with the covers all over the place. At the foot of that was an odd looking trunk with seven keyholes, and it was shaking.

"Well?" Pettigrew hissed at him. Frank could barely make out his proportions, but could see his eyes locked on the others with far more worry than Frank would have given him credit for, considering how they'd been treating him lately. "Are we just going to stand here, or help them?"

"I think Frank's right," Lily called as she frowned up at Regulus still struggling, face already turning red from his position. "If we try to help, who knows what else in this place will attack us. Where are we anyway?"

"Haven't a clue," Alice shivered, "not sure I want to know."

"Think if we summon the book it'll come with its own trap?" Frank asked of no one, debating the pros and cons of this in his head.

"What if they don't come along with us when they're stuck like that?" Pettigrew snapped. "We have to get them loose first before we try."

"That's an odd assumption," Alice frowned at him. "The magic taking us around has actually gotten us out of just as many scraps as it's put us in."

"But we don't know!" Pettigrew insisted stubbornly.

The dustbins continued their horrid banging, it was giving Frank a headache. Before he could come up with any other conclusion, Pettigrew vanished from sight, just the slight glint of a bald tail visible along the floor was all that illuminated his path as he began darting around through shadows.