"Moll!" Gideon hugged the owner of The Yellow Rose - or at least a co-owner.
"Don't give me a bad rep and make sure that hood stays up," his sister, Molly Weasley, chided.
"How are our nephews?" Fabian asked with a fond smile.
"William is acting like a little wolf all because of a story his father told him," Molly glared at her husband.
"Let the boy have some imagination," Arthur Weasley shrugged with a smile.
"Maybe he'll be a pirate!" Gideon praised.
"Charles is who is acting like a pirate."
"I told you my name's Charlie!" shouted the little boy.
"There's the little devil!" Fabian caught the boy running to him and threw him up before catching him again.
"I can't believe you prefer that idiot over your fun Uncle Gid."
"But, Uncle Gid, Uncle Fab is fun!" the little boy argued, behind him Uncle Fab putting his tongue out.
"How about you continue your little family reunion as I make sure I keep my side of the bargain," the redhead's emerald eyes met Molly Weasley's hazel eyes.
"It's good to see you, dear. They are in the back. Arthur will show you the way," Molly Weasley smiled.
Arthur Weasley did show them the way and went back to his wife.
"Nilly," Lily put her hood down the moment she saw those dark eyes of her friend.
"Lilium," he grinned.
"I will drive a dagger through you."
"But that's your name!" he argued.
James Potter couldn't hold the laughter, unlike Frank Longbottom who was doing a good job at hiding it.
"Use it once, Potter, and I kill you immediately," the redhead threatened before addressing the man she liked to call Nilly. "So, where is your sister William?"
"Okay, I get where you come from," he admitted just as the woman beside him ran to Frank, who caught her in a twirl.
When the princess and the pirate kissed, James decided it was the right time to speak up and ask, "William as in the prince? You've got ties with the royal family?!"
He was ignored, nothing that new.
"So, that's who she went and got married to?" William commented. "Huh."
"You've got a problem with that, mate?" Frank asked as he put Alice back on the ground.
"Not at all! As long as my sister is happy, in love, and won't be hurt," the prince's tone went from cheerful and lively to serious and threatening real quick.
Alice rolled her eyes.
"Yes, Will, meet my husband, Frank Longbottom."
William shook his hand and nodded, "I can accept this."
"You don't have a choice," it was Alice who threatened her brother now, which caused him to raise his hands in surrender.
"You said you have very valuable information for me."
"Yeah! A riddle rumor says helps with Treasure Marove."
"A prince who spies on his own people to help a pirate find a long-lost treasure," James mused. "There has to be some deal between you two. Love?"
"Why? Jealous?" Lily asked.
It took him a moment to answer, "Never."
"No, mate," William tried to speak like them. "Being a prince is boring, so I got to be more than that."
"I get you," James nodded, remembering a time when he was simply a farmer couple's child, whose house could be a shelter for those who feel unwelcomed by others.
After all, that was probably why Sirius Black stumbled into his life, and from then on? I do not think any of the Marauders regret their decision - and by Marauders, I imply the original five.
"The riddle?" Lily bought them back to their original track.
"Yeah, about that, the riddle is strange and makes absolutely no sense," William warned.
"Just give it to me."
"The tea from the tunnel doesn't mark the spot, but the reef with no double does," he recited what he has heard recently.
"What the fuck?" Frank blurted. His wife didn't even slap him for the curse.
"Told you it was weird," the prince shrugged. "But that is what I have."
"And you are a genius," Lily muttered. She addressed her group, "We'll have to go somewhere else."
"Where?" James asked, skeptical of the situation.
"The Secret Keeper, obviously," Mirit Clover spoke. "The Red Dragon's got a lead and she has places to lead us."
The Red Dragon they were speaking of zoomed past them and expected them to follow, which they did. Even the two royalties hidden in disguise slipped through the back. What can I say? They were curious.
⊱⊰ ⊱⊰ ⊱⊰
"It seems I've got visitors," Marlene McKinnon turned around when her door opened all on its own. "And it seems like I've got quite a bunch. Where's the warning, Red Cap?"
The woman had quite an odd look. She wore a dusty gray shirt knotted together in the center, right over her belly button. She matched with it a colorful skirt and no shoes of any kind. She rather liked her feet touching the hot sand and the cold snow, whenever that came.
"Warning later. Map Room now," the redhead rushed to the only room that was safe enough to hide all the maps they have ever used. The resulting lock sound was one that her own crew knew well, and they happened to also know that this - whatever it was - won't be done so quick and easy.
"Well, that's going to take a while, so I think it's good that I know my guests. You know, that's a rule in my household," Marlene sounded like the rich aunt royal families barely see. "I know the Princess and Prince of Druisia anywhere, even if they are hiding underneath cloaks. The man the princess is attached to must be her husband."
"How do you know?"
"Assumptions," Marlene tipped her imaginary hat. "So, you must be... someone."
"Frank Longbottom."
"Any chance related to Augusta Longbottom?"
"Mother," Frank clarified.
"Sorry for your loss."
He just shrugged, no words on his mind to say.
"Okay, so Alice and Frank, and little Nilly."
"Not little!" was the prince's argument, which Marlene ignored. Instead, she looked at the hazel-eyed man standing in between, "Who are you?"
"James Potter," he said after some consideration.
"From the massive Potter line?" Marlene tilted her head. "You've got a story worth telling, then. No backstabbing points to make you turn. Something had to make you want to be a pirate."
"This land didn't accept my friends, but the sea did," James simply shrugged.
"There's more to that," Marlene guessed but left him be. She turned to look at Mirit, "Then they must know everything."
Mirit gave her a warning look, which made Marlene gasp. "They're hostages?!"
"Well, not the royalties," Mirit shrugged one shoulder. "But these dufuses? Yeah."
"Lily has never had a hostage."
"Things change when The Marauding lands beside you after a storm," shrugged Mirit as if she was the captain. "Sometimes, you have to strike first before they strike you."
"We wouldn't have struck," James muttered.
"I'm pretty sure Black alone would have trapeze over to us and told us to surrender," Mirit visualized.
"And then later, he would have made an act of fainting from the women's beauty," James continued.
"Or because of that silly old myth about women on board," Frank added. He mocked Sirius Black's voice excellently, "I tell you, Poseidon was mad!"
That cracked a smile on people's faces.
"So, are we going to check on her?" James pointed to the door the redhead was surely hiding behind.
"You want to try, go ahead, but I'd say wait a little longer," Marlene slid down the stairs. "Maybe she'd knock her own senses and come out on her own. It's not the first time."
"What'd you do the other times?" he asked.
"Wait," the prince replied, which turned all eyes on him. "What?! It's not my first time either and Marlene can verify that!"
"I'm a Secret Keeper," she shrugged. "I'm sworn to secrecy."
"More like mysteriousness," muttered Mirit, following the blond to the mini kitchen for any sort of rum she could find. Just like Thora Webb, Mirit Clover did not go down easily with alcohol.
⊱⊰ ⊱⊰ ⊱⊰
When it seemed like it has gone too long, when in reality it had only been two hours, James Potter decided to knock on the door. If you thought that it was the first time for him to knock, then you are certainly wrong. It was the sixteenth time he knocked on that door.
James Hayward Potter was not really the patient kind of guy, or pirate if we may.
"I think you've been in there long enough, Evans! How about you share with the group what you're thinking?"
"The Red Cap that I know prefers to work alone," Marlene smirked from her crisscrossed-leg position on a nearby table.
To everyone's surprise, the door opened.
"You're lucky that I was busy or else I would have opened the door and cut off your hands."
"From the first knock or from the tenth?" he asked, looking down at her with a small smirk just to spite her.
She didn't hesitate to slap him before addressing the two women that were a part of her crew.
"So, I've figured where we're going."
"Willy Nilly here told me the line he heard running around the alleys," Marlene pointed to the prince. "I've come up with a few places that match the description."
"Well, the place is Trunne," the redhead announced, her voice filled with confidence. "Treasure Marove is in Trunne. I'm sure."
"But, how does that match the line?" the prince questioned. "The tea from the tunnel doesn't mark the spot, but the reef with no double does."
"The tea from the tunnel doesn't mark the spot," Lily recited. "Remember a year ago when people were convinced TM was in the tea-rich island Cam-Kay? It is filled with tunnels. Trunne is an island famous for its nearby reef. Rumor says that no two mermaids look the same."
"Makes sense," James agreed only because he was familiar with those facts, which reassured his mate.
"Is that where we're heading Cap?" William asked.
"Not you," Lily and Alice said simultaneously.
"Darn it."
"You keep your ass on this land, not one foot out," Alice warned. Her brother raised his hands in surrender.
"So, Trunne it is?" Mirit just wanted confirmation.
"Trunne," her captain nodded.
"Are you sure?" a woman came out, of what honestly seemed like the blue.
"Who are you?"
"Everyone, this is Emmeline Vance," Marlene hopped off the table and went to the girl with enchanting emerald eyes. "She ran away from bastards, and here we are."
"Are we sure of what?" Lily asked.
"Trunne. They say sirens fill the place."
"Well, good think sirens affect men only."
"Any siren could affect any mortal, even if that mortal is scornful and thinks they could possess the world."
"I'm much humbler than him," Lily pointed the finger at James.
"Oi!"
"Just... be careful. My father died on a ship heading to Trunne and the only thing they told us was that they were fated with the sirens' attack."
"I'll tie us up if I have to. Sirens are only near the island, not on it."
"Don't underestimate the voice of a willer," Emmeline Vance headed them with one final, meaningful, warning.
⊱⊰ ⊱⊰ ⊱⊰
Lily Verity Evans was sitting on a couch under the Tonks family's roof. She was playing with a little girl who had just came back from her teacher's nearby house. The redhead was dreading telling the little girl about the dangerous mission.
"Is this a final goodbye?" Nymphadora asked when the news was broken to her.
"Take it as..." the redhead tried to figure out the best words to say. "How about you take it as a 'we'll meet again'."
"We'll meet again," Nymphadora Tonks put out her pinky finger, which the redhead wrapped her own around.
"We'll meet again," the redhead said with a sad smile. "In some sort of way. "
Andromeda Tonks watched from afar, knowing what that meant. She really didn't want to think of worst-case scenarios, but she hoped the redhead would come back alive.
⊱⊰ ⊱⊰ ⊱⊰
The redhead rode the Red Dragon with Frank Longbottom, James Potter, Mirit Clover, and one more person behind her. There were whispers - from both the Red Dragon crew and The Marauding crew - going on and the redhead silenced them with one shout from her eagle.
"Thank you, Tawny!" Lily shouted up before addressing everyone on her ship. "Now, how about you lead us to Trunne? Snows, take the wheel!"
"Aye, aye, Cap!" both women nodded, heading to their stations.
People questioned both the island and the blond woman. And nobody dared to question their captain or her motives. So, nobody talked to Marlene McKinnon, which was boring her out. Marlene honestly thanked people like Nyra Patil, who was open to conversations with new people.
"So, you are the famous disguise creator."
"How else can one sneak around without a good disguise?" Nyra Patil winked.
⊱⊰ ⊱⊰ ⊱⊰
So, I'll admit this wasn't edited that much because I wanted to post it ASAP. Anywho, hope you enjoyed the eighth chapter of this tale. Let's just say the story is coming closer and closer to its end...
Until next time, mateys!