A/N: Hola! In case you’re confused about this chapter’s title, I changed the previous title to, ‘The Wolves’ as it makes much more sense to have this chapter as “Casebook Closed”. Many apologies! I can’t believe how many incredible reviews I got for the last chapter – as always, your support has meant the world to me guys, so thank you very much.

Man, summer’s almost over and I’ve got uni coming up (I’m terrified XD). Apparently the actress (name?) who plays Hermione is starting at the same university, so that’ll be weird. Oh, and it’s my birthday on Monday – REJOICE! Anyways, about this chapter – it’s a little short, because the original chapter grew too long and so I’ve cut it in half. Don’t be fooled into thinking it’s filler – okay, technically it is, but everything that’s happened in all the fillers is very important to the overall plot (especially in these two chapters).

Wedding fingers are sweet pretty things,
Bloudie Jack!
To salute them one eagerly strives,
When one kneels to propose,
It’s another quelque chose,
When cut off at the knuckles with knives,
They are tied up in bunches of fives.

There they lie, one, two, three, four!
Bloudie Jack!
There lie they, five, six, seven, eight –
From their state,
It would seem they were severed of late,
Bloudie Jack!

“Ho! Ho! She is mine!
This will make up the nine!”

- Bloudie Jack of Shrewsberrie (from Ingoldsby Legends)

oOo

Twin Vice Paranormal Detectives
Casebook Closed: Greed and Sloth

oOo

It was getting late. In fact, it was getting so late it was getting early. Fred imagined he could still see the distant flicker of the flames that had engulfed Blackwater Hall; emerald green like the Unforgivable that had once struck Tonks in the heart and the thin spidery writing on the wall at Weasley Manor – the house, he knew, that Salazar Slytherin had built.

The line of his mouth moved into a sardonic grin. Despite the overwhelming feeling of gratitude for an escape that had seemed impossible, it sometimes felt like the war had never ended. Fred tried not to think about how many others had escaped Blackwater Hall with their lives.

George’s eyes had turned to flint and his jaw was set in a grim line as he examined the gold statue of Luna Lovegood, Percy and Captain Moody peering darkly over his shoulder. Fred watched his twin work, casting one failed spell after another. It was a harsh reminder of the war, of the nights when they’d run around half-cocked, following the news of the last Death Eater attack or Snatcher sightings. Only once had they run into a crowd of Voldemort’s hooded underdogs. It had been difficult, near impossible, to know where Bellatrix Lestrange or Antonin Dolohov would strike next, but you always knew where they’d been by the bits of their victims they left behind.

Their mother never knew what he and George had seen, and they wanted it that way, because no one should ever find an ex-classmate strewn across the floor of their own flat, Towler near unrecognisable had it not been for the bit of face they’d discovered by the fireplace, or discover Patricia Stimpson’s entire family, only minutes after it had happened, reduced to a bloody stain on the floor, or to see a witch, wandless and crying for help, burned alive in Diagon Alley. As the war drew on and the casualties rose, their mother had complained they were looking too thin, too gaunt. She’d probably been right. It was hard to keep anything down after a patrol.

Those nights had been long and hard, and little by little Fred began to see the war take its toll on George’s face. There was something always lurking behind his eyes, even when he smiled – no, especially when he smiled; something grim, like dread, for they both knew their luck was no longer infallible – one slash of Snape’s wand had proven just that.

And now, five years on, here they were again, surrounded by death and the familiar flash of green light, only now there was Nox involved and she wasn’t a witch or a Squib, and she owed them no loyalty. She was just a daft Muggle; one who had the natural rhythm of a traffic accident.

Fred hovered unsurely above her, watching the dark blood running down her calve and forming a little black pool on the deck of The Earnest Vice. She was resting her head between her knees; for some reason it made him uneasy and a little angry that he could not see her face.

He wasn’t a man who often felt guilt (more often people felt guilty on his behalf), and the laws of space, time and physics didn’t really relate to ghosts. Technically, he wasn’t apart of them, they moved along quite well without ever noticing he existed, or not existed as it were. He could Apparate long distances, step through steel doors and access the deepest vaults in Gringotts bank if he so pleased. Why, then, could he not take a single step towards her?

“My dad used to say there’s no such thing as coincidence,” she said suddenly. “Wrote whole books on the theory. There was nothing he believed in more firmly; that all decisions and actions in this world are interconnected in some way and therefore there is no coincidence, only inevitability. I always thought it was nonsense and it still seems, well, farfetched. But-”

“-I don’t believe in all that predetermination stuff. It’s a load of bull,” Fred said, firmly. “How boring would life be if everything you did was down to the decision of a bunch of Fates?”

“No,” Nox shook her head, “it’s not Fate. Not exactly. More like cause and effect. Like a rolling rock. Something so small as that can effect numerous things, and those things in turn affect other things and so on. Once a rock starts to roll, it’s very hard to stop. It just gets faster and faster until it reaches the end of the road.”

“Huh. Very perspicacious of you, but your making my eyes water,” said Fred, shaking his head. He knelt beside her. “Sure you haven’t gone and done your nut in?”

Nox rubbed the back of her hand against her nose, sniffing wetly, the corners of her mouth lifting in a pained smile. Fred suddenly realised she had been crying. He shifted edgily on the balls of his feet. He did not like crying women, especially when they did that thing with their bottom lip so that it wobbled like a plate of jelly. They made him uncomfortable at the best of times, but the idea that Nox had been crying was a bit of a shock. Normally when she got upset, she swore and smoked a lot, or chucked something through him, like George for example. Crying was a turn for the books.

“It just makes me wonder what all this is leading up to and how much of what we do is only chance. How can any of what happened be mere …coincidence?” She looked at him, all puffy red eyes and running nose. “You remember what Hati told us about the importance of the promise you make with your pinkie and ring fingers?”

She pulled off the string pouch that had been hanging around her neck and emptied the contents onto the deck. Nine shrivelled objects, like mini sausage links, fell out, followed by the dull clunk of a glass shard.

“Ring fingers,” she said, her tone grim. “These belonged to Minos. He wore the wedding rings around his neck on a chain. I suppose he gave these to me because he wanted us to know what he’d done. Some sort of repentance for his crimes-”

“-Before the fat lady sang her bit and croaked? Bit late for that.” Fred let a low sound of disgust rise from his throat as he looked at the nine severed fingers. “That big bag of puss. And I thought Minos seemed alright. What do you think happened to the rest of his beloved brides? They must be missing those.”

Nox cast a glance at the two solid statues of Luna Lovegood and Draco Malfoy, gleaming under the ship’s dribbly lamplight. “I guess it doesn’t take a great deal of imagination.”

Fred’s thick silver eyebrows pulled closer in deep thought. “Come to think of it, Eldred Worple mentioned something about bits of people turning up around Freudenstadt, all solid gold.” He sighed, running fingers through his hair. “You reckon Vik knew what Minos’d been up to?”

“Of course he did,” Nox said, calmly. “But he did not stop it. He was too afraid; afraid for himself and afraid of what would happen to his friend. But like Luna said, Viktor’s not a coward, not at heart. Something was affecting his judgement, his thinking. Something that made him abandon V.A.M.P. and stopped him from warning anyone of the danger Blackwater Hall was in.” She stretched out a hand towards him, opening the palm face up. In the middle of it, scratched and glinting in the soft lamplight, was a second glass shard. “Something like this.”

“Blimey, two?” he spluttered, eyes moving between the glass shard in her palm and the one that had fallen from Minos’ leather pouch alongside the severed fingers.

Nox nodded, solemnly. “Greed and Sloth.”

For a moment, Fred could only stand in stunned silence, but the second passed quickly as nothing could keep Fred stunned or silent for long. “Hold on, Viktor is…was a vampire. My curse never mentioned anyone other than Muggles being affected by these shards.”

“Yes, but I don’t think Viktor was a wizard before he was bitten. You said most witches and wizards go to Hogwarts for schooling, but Viktor attended Cambridge with Minos, a Muggle University, so perhaps this shard pierced him before he had his vampire encounter.”

Fred mulled this information over, remembering his conversation with Viktor that evening. He suddenly realised how nice it had been confiding in someone like Viktor who knew about his curse. He and George had had no outside help or wise mentor like Dumbledore to go to for help, and benevolent Gods or Faerie Godmothers only ever took an interest in tragic heroes, like Harry. Real people always got the raw deal.

“Guess it explains what Viktor meant about ‘still having a choice for now’,” he said, scratching his chin idly. “Must’ve been his vamp’s blood. Probably made him aware of the shard he had and allowed him to fight off its effect a little longer than the others could. He still had his own mind, for the most part.”

Nox cast her eyes down and nodded. Her mind kept turning back to Viktor’s last words and Luna’s pale face under the rubble at Blackwater Hall. Now one was dead and the other’s life was hanging in the balance. Her shoulders sagged. Every part of her ached, but worse than any physical damage was the idea that she could lose Luna, too.

Fred eyed the wound on her leg.

“You’re hurt,” he stated, frowning.

“It’s only a bite.”

Fred’s eyes turned hard. “From what? Nox, an Inferi bite will-”

“A wolf bite,” she corrected, calmly. “I’ve received worse injuries from George’s cooking, you know.”

“His cooking almost never takes a bite out of you,” he argued shortly, then bent down and, to her surprise, wrapped his hands around her sticky calve. There was a sharp hiss as she sucked in air, wincing at the sting of his icy cold hands against the open wound. “Might bring down the inflammation a bit. George’ll dress it once he’s done with Luna.”

Nox couldn’t help smiling at the look of intense concentration on Fred’s face. It made her realise how fond she was of him around; after all, you get used to people. “That look doesn’t suit you. Don’t tell me you were actually worried. I might lose respect for you.”

Fred snorted. “If you get yourself killed, it’s going to be difficult for us to keep working together. Maimed and disfigured on the other hand, that we can deal with. After all, I’m handsome enough for the both of us.”

“Hmm. Cheers for your concern.”

Nox cast another glance at Luna and Draco; her fiftieth in the last thirty seconds. George was leaning back on his haunches in front of them, looking increasingly more frustrated. She wrung her hands. “You can turn her back, can’t you?”

“Mmm.”

It wasn’t an answer, but then he didn’t have one to give. This was serious magic and while he and George were quite clued up on Charms and Transfiguration, Luna and Draco’s predicament went way beyond their own capabilities.

“Wasn’t exactly how I imagined bringing in the New Year. Definitely less explosions when I pictured the scene. How do you feel now?”

“Better. Now all I want to do is be sick.”

Fred chuckled. “Don’t do that again. Moody’ll boot us off his ship for sure.”

“ALL RIGHT!” the Captain suddenly hollered, in a voice that could grate cheese and grill it. “Who’s not dead? Sound off!”

“Ah’m still here, Cap’n!” a ruddy-faced man with a ring through his nose, replied cheerfully.

“Hmm. Pity. Well, there’s always next time ah suppose.” Captain Moody hovered over Fred and Nox, a grim looking figure in his fisherman’s coat and gnarled lobster-claw hand. “And what about you two, eh?”

Fred shrugged and waved a transparent hand in the air. “Felt better.”

“Thank you for coming to our rescue, Captain Moody,” Nox said, getting stiffly to her feet.

“Hpmh. You were lucky,” he grunted. “We were back in London t’day. Only got to you in time because some shady bloke in the pub tipped us off about things in the Black Forest lookin’ a might iffy.” Captain Moody scratched his dirty bristled chin, then spat on the deck with a grunt. “That tower ain’t never been right. Some say that’s where the Snow-witch lived, the Dark Majesty of magic and all that palaver. Mind you, most folks will say anything after a few pints.”

Fred and Nox exchanged a wary look. The silver dagger Viktor had given them was poking out George’s blood-stained jacket.

“You’re brothers aren’t having much luck with turning your friends back to normal, but that’s no surprise. That’s a curse from Pendragon’s Pear tree that’s done that. Folks call it the Midas Touch. Strong magic. Aye. You’ll be needing Nam’s help I think,” the Captain said quietly, half to himself. “Flapper! Set a course for the Soul Islands!”

The nose-ringed young man turned pale. “Soul islands? B-But, Cap’n! We can’t take-”

“Set course or ah’ll remove that ring of yours and stick it in a less family-friendly place!”

“Aye, Cap’n,” said Flapper grudgingly, then added as a muttered afterthought, “yeh jumped up son of a hag...”

“AH HEARD THAT YEH GREAT GRUNGE HAIRED PILLOCK!” Captain Moody hollered, sending a shower of fiery sparks towards the man’s backside.

“Soul Islands?” George repeated, wiping his sweaty brow tiredly. His wand was still in hand and smoking faintly. “Why’s that sound familiar?”

“I’ll tell you why!” Percy snapped, stomping across the deck towards Captain Moody, his thin face livid with rage. “I knew I recognised you. You were in the Glass Eye Inn earlier this evening. Don’t try to deny it! The Ministry is inundated with owls every day over illegal trading and smuggling in the vicinity of the Soul Islands. Why, just last week I had to deal with a particularly vexing report on a delivery of tampered pewter cauldrons.” He jabbed one long, bony finger in the Captain’s chest and scowled. “You’re pirates.”

There was a collective hush over the ship as all eyes turned to watch in amazement the act of sheer bravery, (or stupidity; nobody seemed sure) on Percy’s part. Fred and George crossed their hearts and put their hands together in mock prayer.

The Captain leered. “Oh, aye? That so, wee man?”

Percy was tall, but what height the Captain lacked his broad shoulders, beady eye and overall presence certainly made up for it, and gave one the impression that causing an inconvenience for him might be as wise as kicking a wasp nest and sticking around to see what happened next.

“Say, for arguments sake, we are,” Moody conceded, in a tone that was far too pleasant for it not to mean terminal and definitive retribution was about to be dished out Percy’s way. “Why then would we let a skinny, wee, pencil-pushing, twit put us out of business when we could just as easy drop him overboard or play Hangman Jack? Ah’m sure the lads would like a bit o’ entertainment this New Year, seein’ as all we’ve done so far is fly around savin’ certain respectable, law-abidin’ arses from havin’ their THROATS TORN OUT.”

“I will not be intimidated!” Percy spat.

“He won’t, you know,” Fred nodded. “We’ve tried.”

“That ego of his is like an impenetrable shield,” George added.

“Although he can be egged, tortured and dangled from, oh, say any great height.”

Percy ignored them, clenching his teeth and glowering until his spectacles slipped down his long nose. “Your impertinent disregard for the law will no longer be stood for, regardless of your aid with our situation tonight.”

The Captain smiled a horrible crooked smile that lit his one, visible, bleary eye; the kind of look a butcher gives his lambs. “Ah was hopin’ you’d say that. Tuba.”

There was a blur as a spell shot through the air faster than the eye could follow, striking Percy’s throat dead centre. George leapt up, throwing his wand arm out towards the attacker, but to his surprise the entire crew had erupted in hysterics.

“Good ‘un, Tuba! Got ‘im right in the throat!” Flapper yelled, doubled over the wheel of the ship with laughter.

“What have you done to him?” Nox cried, catching Percy around the waist, who was clutching his throat and gasping for breath like a fish out of water. “He can’t breathe!”

George thrust his wand in Moody’s face, Fred looking mulish at his side.

“Oi, you better tell us what you’ve done to our brother!”

“We understand that Percy can be an insufferable, unbearable, know-it-all, prat better than anyone-”

“-But the privilege of taking him down a notch belongs to me and Fred only, got that?!”

“Shh!” Nox hissed, turning Percy around to face her. “He’s trying to say some-” She stopped mid-sentence and stared at the red face in front of her, a wave of uncomfortable familiarity washing over her.

Percy himself was squinting through his lopsided horn-rimmed glasses, a look of remembrance on his thin face as he peered carefully back at her, but when he spoke all that came out was, “Half a pound of tuppenny rice, half a pound of treacle. That’s the way the money goes –” Percy gasped, a look of horror creeping over his face. He opened his mouth again. “POP goes the weasel!” His hand clamped firmly over his mouth and he spun towards Moody furiously, pointing his wand and trying a spell. “Diddle, diddle, dumpling, my son John! ARGH!”

Now the entire crew, with the addition of Fred and George, were clutching their stomachs and howling with laughter. Nox coughed into her own hand, having at least the grace to blush.

“Tuba’s got a penchant for casting good musical Charms and curses,” Flapper explained, wiping his streaming eyes on the back of his filthy striped shirt.

The crewman in question, Tuba – a large, muscular man with sharp, intelligent eyes as dark as his skin, a map of the world tattooed across his bare back and, for one reason or another, a squirrel perched on his shoulder – handed Percy a mug full of something hot and steaming (with the obligatory nameless object floating on top that may or may not have been an olive). “The spell does sonnets too and the occasional Poe or Shakespeare quotation. Don’t worry, it will wear off in ten hours, friend. Until then, keep your throat moist.”

“Ring around the roses,” Percy grumbled, accepting the drink grudgingly.

“Why’s he called Tuba, then?” George muttered to Flapper.

“Mind like a poet, but he can’t half sing bad. Only Moody knows his real name, so we call him Tuba,” said Flapper, then reached out a grubby hand first to George, then Nox, leaving their palms feeling slick with grease. “Jack the Flapper, pleased to meet yeh. Here, I’ll introduce you to the rest of the crew. Yeh already know the Cap’n – most folks who know him call him Fishhook.”

“Because of his hand?” asked George.

“What? Naw. He just loves fishin’. Him up there in the Crow’s Nest is Wong Chao Peeker.” He jabbed a grubby thumb skywards.

Nox looked up and instantly wished she hadn’t. Two intensely white eyes were staring down at her from the gloomy darkness at the top of the mast. They could hear a heavily accented voice, chattering incessantly.

“Wong Chao peeks, but no one sees him. He is spy, sly like cat. Servant to ze mistress of the night! Je suis les yeux de la lune, l'ombre derrière des ombres; aucun peloton villainous n'obtiendra après ma montre, mwahahahaha!”

“Ah wouldn’t ask too much about him,” Flapper said, carefully. “He’s…complicated.”

“Don’t worry,” said Fred.

“We weren’t gonna,” said George. “How about old pink-eye over there...”

A tall, bony man was hunched by the side of the ship, bloodshot eyes watching them over a nose that made a parrot’s beak seem not so beaky. His pale skin, every square inch of it pierced with nails and silver hoops, had an almost translucent quality about it so that he might have looked at home amongst a gaggle of ghosts. Whatever he was, he wasn’t quite human, (although, what he was chewing on might have been).

Nox tried not to gawp. “Who’s he when he’s at home, do you think?”

“‘The Nailer’.”Fred grimaced. “I’ve read about him in The Prophet.”

“Yeah, that’s The Nailer by the looks of him… It,” George corrected himself. “Heard he nailed some poor old codger’s ears to his ankles just for bumping into him down Knockturn Alley.”

Fred smirked. “Bet his old pops regrets giving him his first lesson in carpentry.”

“Too right he did,” Flapper quietly said behind them. “’Specially after his son nailed him to the ceiling.”

“Delightful.” Nox felt her eyebrows were incapable of climbing any further up her forehead. “Wonder what he does for hobbies.”

Fred beamed. “Well I’ve heard -”

“It was a rhetorical question.”

“So are you Moody’s first mate?” George asked.

Flapper shook his head. “Nah, that’d be Cliff.”

Nox and the twins looked around the snowy deck of the ship for the sixth crew member.

“Where is he?” said Fred. “Down below?”

“No, he’s right in front of yeh.”

George stared at the empty space. “Where?”

“There.” Flapper pointed at the wheel of the ship where a small bonsai tree sat, its tiny branches heavy with the drifting snow. “Cliff Bonsai, the first mate.”

The twins snorted with laughter.

“You what?”

“You’re bleeding mental, mate.”

Flapper wagged a finger, warningly. “Watch what you say about Cliff – he dun’ like it when people talk bad about him.”

“It’s a bonsai,” said Nox patiently. “It doesn’t think, it only-”

“Makes like a tree and leaves?” the twins quipped, smirking devilishly.

She put a hand to her forehead and sighed. This was just typical in a world of magic that held too much fluffy thinking and irrationality. When you got fluffy thinking, you got fluffy people who gave themselves names like Fishhook and The Flapper (what on earth did that mean anyway?), and produced social miscreants who took jobs as sky-pirates or turned you to gold because they’d read one too many Grimms’ fairytales.

One day she would listen to that warning voice in the back her head, which insisted that such things simply did not exist; the rational mind would not allow it.

One day – she was sure of it.

oOo

It was seven in the morning, a time when most people in Britain were trying to forget the night before, unless they were still passed out in a pool of something they’d regret a couple of hours later. However, The Earnest Vice was drifting far from home through stony clouds above the sea. The crisp snow had turned to hail, then to sleet and finally to a miserable, unrelenting drizzle that had everything and everyone onboard soaked within seconds. If someone had told George skin was waterproof, he would have hit them.

He never knew he could feel this exhausted, the last of his adrenaline having long since been used up, but he couldn’t sleep, not when Luna was frozen solid, shock eternally etched in her round gold eyes. George sighed and leaned his head against her chest, listening to the soft, reassuring thump of her heartbeat. He felt responsible for her; for what had happened to her. What if he couldn’t turn her back? The horrible reality that question evoked made him sick. He knew Fred would have snorted at this and said ‘couldn’t’ wasn’t in their vocabulary, but George could only imagine the look on Xenophilius’s face. Xenophilius had already lost his wife; George remembered his parents taking Bill and Charlie to the funeral. Luna was all her father had left, his most important person, just as Fred was George’s. He knew what losing that person was like.

But worse than that was the idea that he’d never see her again, never hear her ask about Crumple-Horned Snorkacks or Ninny-Nasled whatcha-ma-call-its. Her innocence and blatant disregard for the impossible grew on you after a while.

“Here.”

George opened his eyes to find a bag of something dark and gloopy shoved under his nose. Flapper grinned.

“Ah got us some breakfast in London before we left. Help yerself. Found it just sitting outside on a bundle of rags. Somethin’ about donations fer the poor ‘n needy. That’s us, innit? Anyways, try out this French thing – foy grass and Con …Con… Feet? …Whit?”

“Foi Gras and Confite de Vin,” Tuba corrected, looming behind him. “French delicacy.”

“Huh…” Flapper chewed thoughtfully then said, “Dun’ half make yeh fart.”

“Quiet,” Captain Moody said, in a low whisper. “We’re getting close.”

George rubbed the sleep from his eyes and moved to join Fred and Nox at the bow of the ship. They had been losing altitude for a while now, but it was hard to tell how far above the water they were. George could smell the salt in the air and a thick sea fog was beginning to tumble over them, coiling around the dribbly lamplight and through the ship’s sails. The pixies along the port and starboard wings had stopped all movement and were staring rigidly ahead, their yellow eyes wide.

“Capitan!” Wong Chao Peeker shouted down from the crow’s nest. “We’re in ze graveyard…”

“Good. We should be approximately two ‘undred and fifty yards from the skull then. Get ready to drop anchor.” Captain Moody paused, then added, “And load the canons.”

“What’s the graveyard?” said Nox, straining to see through the thick mist.

“Shipping graveyard.” The Captain’s eye narrowed, then he dropped his voice and said, “All the souls of dead ships and drowned sailors who don’t cross over wind up here. Most of them are harmless enough, but the ones that keep a grudge – the Vengefuls – well, they aren’t so kind to ships like mine.”

“Ghost ships?” Fred exclaimed. “Brilliant.”

“Wheesht!” Moody snapped. “There’s more in these waters than Ghost ships, Weasley; things that don’t have the manners to warn yeh with a howl or cry, or wait for you to scream; they just take you down into the dark and the cold where there’s no escapin’ or crossing over, not from these waters. Get caught by one of them and you’ll be beggin’ for the Grawny Man.”

“So, not a place you want to come picnicking, then,” George commented, brightly.

A ship’s bell was ringing in the near distance. There was a creaking of old wood and the smell of rotten fish hung heavy in the air; at least George hoped it was fish. Occasionally, the fog would clear and he could see that their ship was now drifting twenty feet above sea level. Broken masts and rudders bobbed in the inky black waters below, having lost their lives to battles or storms, and here and there a pallid face stared lifelessly out of the water.

The sound of Flapper munching happily broke the eerie silence. “Chicken wing?”

Nox turned an unpleasant shade of omelette.

The fog closed around them once more, the ship graveyard lost to sight. Suddenly, the Captain removed his hood, replacing it with an old tricorn hat atop his grizzled head, muttered grimly, “Almost there,” and the fog lifted like a curtain to reveal an enormous skull the size of a small mountain, rising out of the ocean depths and blackly outlined against the dark morning. It grinned at their approach, but it was not a welcoming smile, although the sign nailed across the empty right eye socket beside the half-rotten body of a very ex-wizard, did read, ‘WELKOME ALL YE WHO ENTERE’.

“Gotta hand it to them,” Fred grinned, “they win points for originality.”

“Looks like a happy sort of chap,” George added, as The Earnest Vice disappeared into the skull’s dark eye socket. “Bet he knows how to get ahead in life.”

“Hmph. The big ship sails on the ally-ally-oh,” Percy said, with an added roll of his eyes to emphasise his extreme disapproval with their situation.

“A giant, you think?” asked Fred, looking upwards as the ship drifted through the inside of the skull. He wondered vaguely what giant’s brains looked like, if indeed they were equipped with any.

Tuba’s voice rumbled like thunder inside the cavernous skull. “They say this is what remains of the great giant Ymir.”

Nox whistled, appreciatively. “I’ve heard of him. Scandinavian mythology, right? Or, well, I suppose it’s more like Scandinavian history. I wonder what killed him.”

George grinned. “Maybe he wasn’t headstrong enough.”

She drew him a withering look. “Are you done with the puns yet?”

“Nope. Gotta head full of them right here.”

Dull light was filtering in through a large hole in the back of the giant’s skull.

Fred smirked. “Well, now we know what killed him.”

When the ship left Ymir’s skull, they found themselves far above a string of small islands unfurling beneath them – the infamous Soul Islands. Lower and lower the ship flew, spiralling around the closest island until they could make out hard grey mountains, frozen lakes and finally the signs of civilisation.

The city that spread out beneath them was indescribable, though many journalists had tried, Gilderoy Lockhart the most famous amongst them, who wrote, ‘the city is as colourful as a bruise, as fragrant as an old sock on a hot summer’s day and as bustling as a dead corpse smeared with honey on an ant hill.’ The city was built around the cone of a mountain, its streets filled with strange music and the sort of witches and wizards who were square, hard and generally bad for your health. There were shops that would appear in order to supply some wandering blue-eyed hero with the object of their destiny – like magical swords or harps that sent you to sleep for a thousand years. Fred and George were pointing excitedly at two flaming hoops close to the open bay, where several witches and wizards were passing an iron ball back and forth on the back of brooms; the remains of the previous game was being swept off pitch.

“It’s brilliant!” the twins laughed. “It’s fantastic!”

The Captain snorted. “It’s Scrum.”

“Scrum?” they blurted out, blinking back their surprise. “Scrum?”

“A secret pirate’s cove sitting in the crux of space and time, and you call it ‘Scrum’?” Fred exclaimed.

“Maybe Tortuga or Skull Island or something fittingly nautical,” said George, “but come off it; Scrum?”

“Do I LOOK like a bleeding poet?” the Captain snapped. “It’s Scrum. Take it or leave it.”

“I’d rather leave it,” Nox muttered, Percy nodding in agreement, his long nose clasped between an equally long thumb and forefinger in an attempt to block out the rising stench. Apparently Scrum did not believe in sewage systems.

At last they landed at the docks amidst a myriad of ships all shapes and sizes. Nox had never had a head for geography, but she had a very strong feeling that Scrum wasn’t locatable on any known maps. Of course, such flighty fantasies as mysterious islands that rolled in and out with the mist did not exist. Being a realist, Nox was quite certain of that. Scrum was a mere piece of undigested cheese or perhaps the manifestation of the shock she had suffered, given the previous night’s events. Still, against all rational considerations, Nox pulled herself over the edge of the ship and onto the ramp leading onto the pier.

‘If it is a figment of my imagination’, she reasoned, ‘I might as well take it seriously.’

After all, there were questions needing answered and her intuition told her this Nam was the one to answer them. In any case, Draco and Luna were counting on it.

oOo

Oof. I don’t know if I managed to pull this off or not, but I just fell in love with the idea of Mad-Eye Moody having a grim ‘n grizzly pirate for a brother (full name, Captain Allardyce “Fishhook” Moody) who leads this rag-tag group of pitiful pirates, (whose arses have been saved by Bill more times than I care to imagine). I really hope you guys liked it! Please let me know what you think, especially where the dialogue's concerned. Dialogue always drives me nuts XD

HT: Thank you for the review, mate! In answer to your ? it was Nox who was attacked/bitten. Nobody knows exactly what happened to the Malfoys, mwahaha!

Stark40763: Much love for the review! And yes, you're spot on with the unrequited love between Viktor and Minos. I'll probably write their story down someday, as I'm really fond of them (despite Minos being a total arsewipe XD).

Kitty-hiime: Thank you for the loverly long review! I always love your critique, you keep me on the straight and narrow mate! Yes, JKR stated in a recent interview that Draco marries Astoria Greengrass, sister to Slytherin Daphne Greengrass. I kind of like that he marries an unknown character rather than, say, Pansy for example. Leaves more up to imagination. Oof, I had to rewrite Viktor's explanation at least a dozen times - I'm still not entirely happy with it XD And yes, sad to say the twins are rubbing off on Nox a bit. It's my feeble attempt at developing her character lol!

Thanks for reading guys! : D Next time I post, I'll officially be a year older (sob)