Son Of Riddle

Chapter Twenty-Six - The plan

McGonnagle stood over the chaos quartet from behind her desk, looking increasingly more and more angry as the clock behind her ticked.
"Do you need something, or...?" James said in an effort to lighten the tension.
"You are under no circumstances, going to try to stop Rodolphus Lestrange, do you hear me?" She finallly said.
"If we don't, he's going to try to do what my father did, and I'm not going to just stand here, doing nothing, and let it happen."
"This is a school, not a miliary." McGonnagle countered. "I will get some aurors to investigate him right away, but you four are going to go nowhere near him, do you understand?"
The Chaos Quartet exchanged nervous glances. "Understood." James said, though the look on his face didn't make it look like he understood at all.
McGonnagle looked at him through squinted eyes, as though she could see exactly what he was thinking. "If I find the four of you not on school grounds during this break, each of you will find yourselves on the train home, and you won't be returning.
James quietly scoffed. She was the one who wanted him here in the first place, this was an empty threat.

"Well, now what?" Benjamin asked as they walked down the stairs from the office. "We can't directly disobey the Headmistress."
"She said she didn't want the four of us to go after him." James said, keeping his gaze on the ground. "She can't stop just me."
Adam stepped in front of him and held out his hand. "Ok, first of all mate, that's the most cliche thing you could have ever done. Second of all, even if you're perfectly capable of defeating him by yourself and whatever, we still want to come. You're our frined and we want to help."
"And also," Lucy added, "Then all that training will have been for nothing, and I'd have to wring your neck."
James chuckled. "I'd be training you anyways."
Lucy groaned and backed up against the wall. "Ok, nevermind, you can go get expelled."
James laughed and hugged her. "If you think I wouldn't find a way to keep in touch with and keep training you three even after getting expelled, you are sorely mistaken."

The quartet parted ways and went to their dormitories to sleep after the tiring day, only James found he couldn't sleep. He couldn't keep the thoughts of Rodolohus Lestrange off of his mind. How exactly were they sopposed to stop him if they were kept in the castle? Even if McGonnagle did send aurors, they wouldn't stand a chance against Rodolphus if he really was gathering death eaters, especially any of the old ones. Most of the aurors at this time were amateurs, as many of the old ones were surely dead by now, if not from the last battle of Hogwarts, from old age.
He spent half the night tossing and turning, the eluded solution still plaguing his mind, until about 5:00 in the morning. He shot up, hit with a sudden epiphany.

The remainder of the quartet shuffled into the room of requirement, tired eyed and confused.
"What the bloody hell is going on, mate?" Adam asked, quite irritated. All members of the chaos quartet had recieved a note that had been enchantetd to find whomever it was adressed to, sent from Riddle, who had told them to gather in the room of requirement as soon as possible, but didn't tell them why.
"Oh, I found a way to help defeat Rodolphus." James said, as though it should have been obvious.
"...And it couldn't wait until a normal time of the day?" Benjamin asked, rubbing sleep out of his eyes.
"Nope." James said. He led them to a small nook of the room of requirement. Lucy audibly gasped with joy as she saw the seven house elves that were waiting there for them.
"....What are the house elves doing here?" Adam asked, thoroughly confused.
"These aren't the Hogwarts house elves." James explained.
One female house elf stood up, clearly disturbed. "Heck no we aren't, you really think we'd work in the same place as those incompetent bas-"
"Be quiet, Wrath." James ordered in a quiet tone.
The angry house elf reluctantly closed her mouth and sat down.
"These are the house elves my father owned, and since he is no longer around, they were passed down to me."
"Cool!" Lucy squealed. She immediately ran towards them and started asking them rapid-fire questions.
"Everyone, these are my friends, Lucy, Benjamin and Adam."
Benjamin waved enthusiastically.
"Introduce yourselves." James told the house elves. "Did you forget your manners in the years I was away?"
The house elves immediately scrambled to form a single file line in front of them. Lucy also scrambled to the back of the line, causing confusion for everyone, inclusing the house elves.
James facepalmed. "Lucy, get back over here."
Lucy's eyes went wide and her face flushed. "I'm sorry, I was distracted, and your voice was very compelling." She walked back over to the rest of the quartet, her face as red as a beet.
The first house elf, the same one that spoke earlier, stepped forwards, looking very unhappy to be there.
"I'm Wrath, I don't know why we're here in the first place, back home was much better." She stomped back to her corner where she was grumbling to herself.
The second house elf stepped forwards and looked at all of them critically, as if studying them. "Name's Envy..." He stepped forwards and shook Benjamin's hand, but immediately stepped away from Adam and Lucy. "Don't trust these two Master Riddle..." He said, failing at whispering. "They're both entirely too close."
James shooed him back to his original spot, though he still looked at them all suspiciously. "He's a bit...posessive of me and the other house elves." James told them, though not loudly enough for Envy to hear.
The third house elf stumbled forwards, his wide green eyes looking around mischeviously. He extended his hand forwards to each of the quartet. "I'm Greed." He said. He stopped at Lucy. "Say miss, that's an interesting doodad you've got there." He said, pointing at the clip holding her hair out of her face.
"Oh, you like it?" Lucy said, her eyes wide with delight, far too happy that one of the house elves were talking to her. "It's just a barrett. You can have it if you want." She pulled it out of her hair and put it in the house elf's outstretched hands. The small being walked away, a joyful grin on his face, coveting his new trinket.
"You shouldn't give in to his begging." James chided. "He's called Greed for a reason."
"Oh, okiedokie." Lucy said, now stuggling to keep her hair out of her eyes.
The next house elf was asleep on the floor. The house elf behind him kicked him, and he jumped up with a yelp and scrambled in front of Riddle and saluted, rubbing his eyes with his free hand. "Yessir?" He asked drowsily.
"Introduce yourself." James said patiently, slightly amused.
The house elf turned to the rest of the quartet, and bowed. "I'm Sloth, nice to meet you."
"Ohh like the animal?" Benjamin asked eagerly. (This boy really liked animals.)
The house elf hesitated. "...Yes, sort of. Can I go back to sleep now?" He looked to James hopefully.
James waved him off, and the house elf happily ran back to his little nook in the corner and promptly fell asleep again.
The house elf after him floated forward. Even for a house elf, she was pretty, her big eyes shone a bight blue and she walked with the grace of a centaur. "The name's Lust, how do you do?"
The house elf behind her nudged her with his elbow, clearly impatient.
She bowed one last time, and turned around and left, back to the box she was sitting on.
The impatient house elf strutted forwards, holding his chin high. "Pride, how are ya?" He shook each person's hand, and had the general air of a politician.
The last house elf seemed perfectly normal. He walked over, and shook everyone's hand. "I am gluttany, it's a pleasure to meet you."
"He wasn't as weird as all of the others." Lucy said as he walked away, slightly relieved.
"So all we are is a bunch of weirdos to ya, huh?" Wrath grumbled from her corner. She turned to Riddle. "I told you, we should have stayed home, all your friends are the weird ones."
"Wrath, I told you, we need your help." James said.
"Of couse Master." Envy stood up quickly. "How may we be of service?"
"Do you remember Rodolphus Lestrange?" He asked them.
"Yes of course." Pride said. "We already know he's gathering the old death eaters and training new ones."
"I suppose you plan on trying to stop him?" Envy asked.
"Correct." He said. "But the headmistress has forbade us from leaving school grounds for the entirety of winter break. I have an idea of what to do, but I'm not sure whether or not it's going to work."
"What is it Master?" Lust asked. "It has to be at least worth mentioning."
"Well..." He glanced back at the chaos quartet. "I'm working on a new edition of a polyjuice potion that gives the drinker the memories of the person they're turning into."
"And you need help making it?" Wrath asked.
"Well, yes, but that's not why I called you here. I already have that position filled, by my friends." James replied.
Envy scowled.
"I just need four of you to take the forms of us while we're gone so McGonnagle won't notice we're gone." James continued. "That should fix our problem."
"Wait, wait, hold on," Benjamin said. "Wouldn't she see right through the potion? She's really skilled at knowing when there are any enchantments around here, I should know, me and Lucy used a spell to make passers-by trip in the hallway and get mad at the person next to them for tripping them, but McGonnagle came by and saw right through it, we got detention for a week for that."
"Oh right, I remember that." Adam said.
"Ah, but the beauty of this is that, not only am I working on a special part of this potion to make it basically non-discernable, but also if I'm right, she should't be able to detect this as a spell because it's not a spell, it's a potion."
"She'll be able to tell if there's a potion." Benjamin said. "I put a potion in another Gryffindor kid's tea (That's all they drink here!) to make everything he said sound like a trumpet, but McGonnagle was passing through the common room at the time and she hecking warned him not to drink it because it was poisoned!"
"Well then, I'll just have to hope that this new set of ingredients does the trick." James said.
"It will be our pleasure to help, Master." Wrath said.
"Good." James said. "We can start experimenting right away. Today's the last day of class, so it shouldn't be a problem if I skip classes, everyone does anyway."
"The rest of us should probably go though." Adam said. "We don't all have 30 years of magic training."
"Yes, yes run along children, we all have things to do." Envy said, shooing them all out.
"Do you think this plan will actually work?" Lucy asked.
"It's all we have so far." Adam said. "We just have to hope it does."