"Ah, shit! Damn those monsters!"
Quinn stumbled into his hotel room. He dropped the 'John' disguise as the door shut behind him. He groaned his way to the bed; his body hurt inside and out: Voldemort's cursed lightning made his insides feel all types of wrong while Dumbledore's exploding push into the pillar had rattled his bones; moreover, his back was killing.
"The old liar was aiming to kill me!" Quinn groaned as he dropped onto his bed. "I was using body magic for magic's sake!" Now as he thought about Quinn was sure that Dumbledore was trying to injure him to the point he couldn't move. "Not caring about me, my ass. He was trying to have at least one lawbreaker today."
Quinn grunted as he got up and dragged his feet into the hotel suite's bathroom. He stripped down naked and sat himself down in the tub. With one flick, the water tap began to pour into the empty tub. He closed his eyes and felt the water level rising, and as it did, Quinn gently injected magic into every drop. Soon everything below his neck was submerged in shimmering water.
It wasn't as good as the calm water in the last room of the Aquatic vault, but it did help soothe the pain from the beating he had taken. He had gone into the Aquatic vault a fair number of times to fasten the recovery from injuries suffered during experimentation that he couldn't show Madam Pomfrey or when he was feeling particularly fatigued and needed a place to relax. Enjoying the room's healing properties had made Quinn (of course) want to replicate it outside the Aquatic vault. Marking it as one of the long-time projects he had going on. He hadn't been able to make a strong healing room like the Aquatic vault, but he knew enough to create a diluted portable version in any body of water he wanted.
As the aching dulled, Quinn thought back to what had happened in the Ministry. All in all, he thought everything had gone well today. Voldemort and his Death Eater had arrived at the Ministry; they had taken innocent people hostage— but no one had gotten killed despite the more than ample use of Fiendfyre. And most importantly, he had stabbed Voldemort in the eyes.
"Should've thrown it harder; it would've been better if I had gotten his brain along with his eye," Quinn spat in frustration, but he was nevertheless elated about taking Voldemort's eye. He just hoped that the curse weaved into the Empyrean throwing knife had enough time to spread.
Quinn closed his eyes and slipped underneath the water completely. Inside the water, he shut off his mind, pulled down his Occlumency, and simply let the thoughts that came naturally. . . and right now, nothing came to his mind, and he was fine with the emptiness.
He opened his eyes and got himself out of the water with a splash. He exited the bathroom, dried himself, and went to change into a lower-grade suit. After packing up, he checked out of his room, walked out of the hotel and into a narrow alley while in the disguise of the John persona. Standing in that desolate alley, Quinn stared down at the floor with drooping eyes. He sighed deeply, took out a palm-sized metallic cube, triggered the Portkey charmed into it, and whisked himself across the ocean back to America, with his old plan of trying inter-continent apparition discarded.
. . .
Quinn walked to the study table inside his West-owned suite in America. There sat a small wooden case resting on the table. He waved his hand over it, and the locks on the box glowed blue as the interlocked latches snapped open.
A small wooden, beautifully engraved card rested inside the box with the wording specifying the details of the Potkey home. Quinn picked up his suitcase and grabbed the card before triggering the Portkey weaved in to exit the States and thus end the three-day farce that he had woven for something that had lasted than ten minutes.
. . .
"How was the trip?"
Quinn sat down on the sofa in the West manor's lounge, where George who sat in front of him and asked him a question in greeting.
"It went well," said Quinn at a sedated pace. "Went to the Broker, met Lia, talked about the building repairs with the building manager, and even went to the far countryside away from literally everything to look at a piece of land that I'll be buying soon."
Quinn looked at George. The extensive alibi planning he had done by going to America, somewhere far away from the British Isles, was done in part to keep his identity as the Invisible Vigilante hidden from the prying eyes who were looking for the outlaw. But, as far as he knew, no one was actually looking for him as a suspect for the Invisible Vigilante. Thus, him going to America and taking the risk of getting caught using illegal Portkey to avoid getting seen as the Invisible Vigilante was massively overdoing it.
The only reason he had done something so extreme was the man sitting in front of him. George was the reason why Quinn had to go to such lengths. He couldn't use his usual excuse of going to the non-magical world and get away with it without gaining suspicion. To ensure that his grandfather, who was already suspicious about him trying to go after Death Eaters, didn't get suspicious, Quinn needed to go the extra mile or the extra thousands that he actually went.
It was tiring.
He had done so many things in the first two days.
He had gone to meet with the Broker to talk about his investments while having Voldemort occupying his brain— he had paid half attention to the people there— who knew if he had paid more attention, he could've formed more substantial connections with the team and the Broker himself. Not only that, because a majority of his wealth was invested in the non-magical world, Broker had deserved and earned his full attention, but Quinn had not given him so. By doing so, he had put his future at risk, as the money he was making now was going to be used to fund his research in the future.
He had spent time with Lia, whom he met so scarcely these days, but again, there was a part of his mind thinking what would happen if Voldemort decided to attack a day earlier. What if he was attacking the Ministry right as he talked to Lia. For Quinn, who set his personal life apart from his professional and secret life, it was a massive violation to be distracted while talking to Lia.
He had to meet the management staff who ran the building, and while he acted polite enough, it would've been better if he had communicated with them better. He had bought a building a costly building in a prime real estate location. While the purchase was emotional, who knew how many years Abraham would keep his restaurant in the building, he needed to get a return on his money. The only way to get returns on that building was the rent he got, and if the building manager didn't work well with tenants, he would be losing money.
For the past one week, his time had gone living with Voldemort in the back and forefront of his head.
"Did you hear about what happened at the Ministry?" asked George.
Quinn pursed his lips, "I heard about it. The Dark Lord and his minions have been getting bold lately. First the blast in the Aurors Office and now this. . . I fear this is a resurgence of the war; what do you think?" He hadn't experienced the war firsthand, but he could imagine that infiltration of the central governing body's headquarters couldn't be anything but a declaration of war.
"It was already a war when they blasted the Aurors Office. The bill supposed to be voted upon today was the declaration of war," said George. "If Bones doesn't declare war on You-Know-Who, then I and everyone would lose faith in the Ministry. Wizengamot will convene again soon for the bill, and it will be passed this time."
". . . Those who will vote against will be voting themselves supporters of the Dark Lord. . . . I can see it, a full vote in favor of the bill."
"Or, people shedding their facades and publicly declaring themselves as supporters."
"Why would they do that?" asked Quinn. "It serves them better to hold on to their positions."
"Yes, it is better, but You-Know-Who might just not care. Last time, he wanted to usurp the Ministry and exert total control over it. If he's going to do that, then the ones in Wizengamot and influential positions right now won't matter. . . . But declaring themselves as Death Eaters or their supporters will be a sufficient proof of loyalty in the eyes of the Dark Lord."
Quinn further slumped into the chair as he hummed in agreement.
". . . You seem tired," asked George. "Did something happen?"
Quinn shook his head and put on a 'fake' smirking smile. "I haven't slept for the past three days. Went out experiencing the nightlife all night long. Let me tell you, drunk American college students say a lot of interesting stuff if you ignore all the stupid gibberish. It is different from the interesting stuff that drunk Oxford and Cambridge guys, though the stupid gibberish is the same."
It wasn't a complete lie. He had gone out at night with Alan the last time he was in America. The mind magic master's idea of fun was running some tests on drunk people, and Quinn, who tagged along, heard a lot of strange things.
"When did you go out at night here?"
". . . You don't need to do that." Quinn stood up, "I wish to sleep now. I bought some gifts for you; I will have Polly send them over. There's some cool non-magical stuff in there; try to figure it out until I wake up."
As Quinn turned away, George called out, "Are you sure you are alright?"
Quinn didn't stop as he replied, "I'm fine. Just dead tired. There were these two old dudes who went hard, and I ended up following them because they were exciting."
The two old dudes— one who tried to kill him while the other tried to break his bones so the Aurors could apprehend him.
"I can't imagine anyone your age who will spend time will do that."
"Yeah, I know. . . others my age would get destroyed by those two old dudes," said Quinn as he exited the lounge with a last whisper: "Damned monsters!"
Quinn walked to his room and changed his clothes to go to sleep.
But as he was about to go to sleep, Quinn felt something, and he looked around with furrowed brows. 'Was that a magical fluctuation?' he wondered, but it was just his usual room. He looked towards his walk-in closet, where his suitcase was stored, and wondered if something had happened there.
After heaving an exasperated sigh, he went inside the suitcase to check if any of his experiments were the source of the fluctuation, but after a search, there was nothing odd.
"I haven't been this tired in such a long time," sighed Quinn as he dropped onto his bed, filling the whole thing as something he imagined.
When Quinn slept that day, he didn't wake up until the following day. He slept like a log, finally relieved as he didn't have to worry about a terrorist attack on the Ministry.
But the next morning, he would wake up to something strange, and it would be only a little while after that that he would realize that the weird feeling wasn't his tired-imagination at all.
.
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Quinn West - MC - Listen. . . I'm not equipped with a foreshadowing detector. I'm looking for that upgrade, but it is like really tough to come by.
FictionOnlyReader - Author - My productivity dips on Saturdays when I know I can stay up all night because it's Sunday tomorrow.
