"Are you planning to leave already, Alia?"
When Alia and, Sirius who had once again transford into the massive black dog walked out of Bryan's room and began hurrying toward the elevator, Uriel appeared ahead of them with seemingly perfect timing.
It was as if he'd been waiting just around the corner, listening for the sound of the door opening.
His already naturally upturned eyebrows were arching even higher with suspicion and curiosity. His posture showed he had no intention of simply letting them pass without explanation.
"You ca here just to have a late-night snack with Watson?" He asked with skepticism. "That's a rather long al for simple dining, isn't it?"
"That's absolutely none of your business, Uriel—"
Alia's voice erged cold, each word clipped. Her distaste for the people in the Security Departnt had grown greatly over the past days. The anger that had been simring now leaked through in her tone.
Uriel shrugged his shoulders casually. He glanced nonchalantly at the tightly closed door of the room where Watson was staying. A flash of suspicion and hesitation crossed his face.
'Was Watson really still in there? '
"If you're worried that Bryan might have sohow sneaked away under your eyes, why don't you go in and check for yourself, Uriel?"
Alia had precisely caught the emotion flickering in Uriel's gaze and she spoke harshly, her voice sounding sharp with challenge. "Go ahead. Knock on the door. Wake him up. I'm sure he'd appreciate being disturbed in the middle of the night by paranoid Aurors checking if he's properly apprehended."
The suggestion dripped with sarcasm.
"Oh—"
Uriel's face seed to show a mont of temptation. But imdiately after that initial impulse, a bitter, knowing smile touched his lips. He shook his head slightly with resignation and a trace of fear.
"I think we'd better not provoke Mr. Watson any further than we already have," He said with frankness.
Alia turned her face away with dismissal, done with this conversation and this man. She walked directly around Uriel's still-suspicious scrutiny, her shoulder deliberately passing close enough to his that he had to step back slightly. She strode toward the elevator lobby with her back straight and her head high.
Sirius, still in his dog form, paused just long enough to bare his teeth at Uriel before also scurrying after Alia.
Uriel watched them go, his expression looking troubled. Sothing about this entire situation felt wrong, but he couldn't quite put his finger on what was bothering him.
The pair moved quickly through the hotel lobby and out onto the street. Once outside, they imdiately abandoned any trick of casual movent. After a brisk walk that took them several blocks from the hotel, they darted into a sparse grove of sycamore trees that occupied a small park between buildings.
The trees provided cover from both street lights and any prying eyes. Alia cast a quick detection charm as she searched for any magical surveillance or tracking spells.
Only after she had confird with certainty that they weren't being followed by Aurors or monitored by remote observation did she nod to Sirius.
With a rippling shimr of transfiguration magic, Sirius resud his human form.
As one of the most advanced and demanding forms of human transfiguration in existence, Animagi were extrely rare in every magical civilization around the world.
The process of becoming one required years of dangerous preparation, perfect execution, and a level of magical control that few wizards ever achieved. There were never too many wizards who successfully mastered it in any generation.
Before eting Sirius Black, Alia had never personally encountered a wizard who had achieved this remarkable transformation. She'd read about Animagi in her studies, of course, had seen the registry listings at MACUSA headquarters, but seeing it perford in person was entirely different.
She stared at Sirius with curiosity and admiration as he completed his return to human form, brushing dog hair from his robes.
Then, as a thought occurred to her, she blinked and asked with sudden understanding, "That's how you did it, isn't it? You used your Animagus form to escape from Azkaban? The Dentors couldn't sense you properly when you were a dog?"
"That's right, exactly—"
The cleverness of this young girl, whose chaotic familial relationship to Bryan remained unclear, surprised Sirius. He looked at her approvingly.
"Those Dentors sense human emotions. But when I was in my dog form, my emotions were... simpler, perhaps more animal. They couldn't identify properly as a prisoner because I wasn't quite human anymore. That confusion gave an opportunity to slip past them."
He paused, his expression darkening with the mory of that desperate escape.
"Of course, that trick doesn't work anymore because Azkaban has since implented other identification asures specifically designed to detect Animagi. They've closed that loophole. But it served its purpose when I needed it. Now then—"
Sirius pulled out the tracking fang that Bryan had given him from his robe pocket, handling it carefully. He held it flat in his open palm, watching it with attention.
The enchanted fang imdiately began responding to his intent and floated slightly above his skin, trembling at its pointed tip, spinning slowly as it calibrated and searched. Then it locked onto a direction and held steady, pointing like a compass needle finding north.
Sirius raised his head, squinting at the scattered buildings and skyscrapers visible in the direction the fang indicated.
After a mont of assessnt and consideration, he said concisely, "We'll use broomsticks for pursuit. That's the most suitable thod for following a moving target through an urban environnt, I think.
It's far more maneuverable than Apparition in a city this dense, and we can adjust course as needed. Arican Aurors should have received training in aerial pursuit using broomsticks before taking office, right?"
"Oh—"
Alia's cheeks reddened with embarrassnt, the flush visible even in the dim light coming through the sycamore leaves. She stamred slightly, her earlier professional confidence evaporating.
"I'm sorry. I... I haven't actually had the specialized training you're describing. The program was offered but I... well, I'm not very good at broomsticks."
"Well, that's no problem at all. I can give you a ride."
Sirius said unconcernedly, as if carrying passengers during dangerous pursuit missions was sothing he did every Tuesday.
He pulled a Nimbus 2001 from his traveling bag. He mounted the broomstick with ease. Then he beckoned to Alia with an encouraging gesture.
"Co on up behind . You can help by casting a Disillusionnt Charm on both of us to avoid being spotted by Muggles."
Alia gave a soft sound of agreent—a small "mm-hmm" of understanding.
She raised her wand with steady hands despite her nervousness about the impending flight and tapped Sirius's shoulder first, then reached around to tap her own shoulder.
The Disillusionnt Charm fell over them both like an invisible cloak, making their bodies shimr and blend with their surroundings until they were nearly impossible to see except as slight distortions in the air.
Then, taking a deep breath to steel her nerves, Alia carefully rode the broomstick behind Sirius, placing herself as securely as possible on the narrow shaft.
Although Sirius wasn't as naturally gifted at flying broomsticks as Harry or Jas Potter had been, his flying skills were still absolutely first-rate. With just a light tap of his toes against the ground, they shot up with breathtaking acceleration. The scenery on both sides suddenly blurred into streaks of color and light in Alia's vision.
In probably three or four seconds, they were several hundred feet in the air, suspended above the city with nothing beneath them but empty space and a terrifying drop.
Glancing down at the ground beneath her dangling feet, Alia's face turned pale. All the blood seed to drain from her face in a rush. She let out a high-pitched scream that was torn away by the rushing wind and clutched desperately at Sirius's wind-blowing robes with fingers that had gone white-knuckled.
But before she could even begin to steady herself, Sirius holding the tracking fang in one hand and controlling the broomstick handle with his other, suddenly executed a sharp turn to avoid a tall skyscraper that was ahead of them.
The violent, stomach-churning swing made Alia cry out again, louder this ti. Pure survival instinct took over. She abandoned any thought of maintaining a proper, respectful distance and clung tightly to Sirius's waist with both arms, wrapping herself around him like a terrified child clinging to a parent!
"Are you alright back there?!"
In the roaring wind that tore at their clothes and hair, that made conversation nearly impossible, Sirius shouted without looking back. He couldn't afford to take his eyes off their flight path, not at this speed and altitude.
"I—"
Suppressing the powerful urge to vomit that rose in her throat with each violent maneuver, Alia tried her very best not to look at the buildings rushing past beside them like cards being shuffled.
The vertical architecture of Manhattan beca a disorienting blur of windows and stone and tal. Her voice erged shrill and strained and just clear over the wind: "I can manage! Just... just keep flying!"
"Good! Hold on tight!"
Sirius shouted back. Then he imdiately executed another sharp maneuver, this ti a sudden dive to avoid an observation walkway that connected two skyscrapers.
The sudden sensation of weightlessness as they dropped that horrible feeling of the stomach being left behind while the body plumted, nearly caused Alia to pass out completely.
Her vision tunneled; dark spots appeared at the edges. But Sirius's suddenly solemn voice cut through her disorientation and startled her back to full alertness:
"We're almost there! Get ready!"
'Almost there?!'
Surprise flashed through Alia's mind, cutting through even her motion sickness and fear. She forced herself to check the ti, to orient herself temporally.
At this mont, less than two minutes had passed since she and Sirius had begun their pursuit from that grove of sycamore trees. Perhaps ninety seconds of actual flight ti.
She had naturally assud that the vampire who had stolen Bryan's fang would have imdiately Apparated far away from the scene of the cri to a safe house across the city, to another state, anywhere distance and ti would make pursuit difficult.
But she hadn't expected the creature to still be nearby. What kind of target would stay so close to where they'd committed theft and attempted murder?
Sirius steered the racing broomstick down in a controlled fall, aiming for a relatively flat section of rooftop. They landed with only a slight bump on top of what appeared to be a fast-food restaurant, the sll of fried food was drifting up even to this height.
He fixed his feet carefully on the graveled surface and held the broom steady.
Standing there with the fang still active in his palm, Sirius carefully focused his attention on the sensation the enchanted object was transmitting to him. The magical pull was strong, and very close. After a mont of attention, he confird that the vampire who had poisoned them with Draught of Living Death was indeed in the building ahead.
He started to get down from the broomstick, ready to begin planning their infiltration and approach, when he made an unexpected discovery.
Alia who had been clinging to him throughout their flight was still attached, her arms still wrapped tightly around his waist in a grip that showed no signs of loosening.
"Ahem, we've arrived—"
Sirius coughed heavily, embarrassnt flashing in his gray eyes.
After a brief silence, Alia neither spoke nor released Sirius's waist. Instead, she stared at the building ahead with absolute disbelief written all over her pale face.
"Ahem, Alia? You can let go now. We need to move."
Unable to see Alia's expression from his position, unable to understand why she was still clinging to him when they'd clearly stopped moving, Sirius felt the awkwardness in his eyes grow even more intense.
"Oh, sorry—I'm so sorry—"
Alia finally snapped back to present awareness, shaken from whatever horrified realization had frozen her.
She quickly released Sirius's waist as if his robes had suddenly beco burning hot and practically jumped down from the broomstick. But even as she put distance between them, she continued staring at the building ahead with that sa expression of shock and growing horror.
"How could it be... but how is this even possible?"
Sirius gazed down at the tracking fang still active in his palm, double-checking its reading, carefully sensing the direction and distance it indicated. After a long mont of verification, he raised his head to look at Alia with concern and confusion.
"I can confirm that the fang Bryan gave us does indeed point to this specific building," He said with certainty. "The vampire who poisoned us is definitely inside this building. You seem very surprised by this, Alia, more than just surprised, actually. You look horrified. Why? What is this place?"
Alia blinked hard several tis, as if trying to clear her vision. She stared blankly at the brightly lit building in front of them with confusion eident in her voice.
"But... this is the Woolworth Building. The headquarters of the Magical Congress of the United States of Arica."
At these words, Sirius's brow furrowed imdiately, recognizing the problem at once.
Last night, a MACUSA employee had been brutally murdered inside that very building. Bryan's wands had been stolen as a direct result of that murder. One could reasonably imagine, in fact, one could be absolutely certain that tonight, in response to that catastrophic security breach, the protection level of the MACUSA building must have been raised to the highest possible alert status.
So how did this vampire dare to break back into such a fortress? What thod could it possibly have used to treat those powerful, expensive security asures as if they didn't exist at all?
"Let's go inside and take a look," Sirius said with grim determination.
He carefully put away his racing broomstick, shrinking it and tucking it back into his traveling bag. Then, with another ripple of transformation magic, he changed back into the large black dog.
In this form, he could enter more easily, and move through the building without drawing much attention.
"Dylan? Dylan, wake up!"
Alia rushed toward the Woolworth Building at almost a running pace. She burst through the shared entrance that served both Muggles and wizards and looked desperately toward the security desk.
An old wizard with a white beard sat slumped behind the revolving door, apparently sleeping soundly with a newspaper covering his tired face like an improvised blanket. His chest rose and fell with the slow, steady rhythm of deep sleep.
"Dylan, I need to ask you sothing important!"
Alia called out, her voice sharp with urgency. "Who went into the building just before ? In the last few minutes, who ca through?"
The old wizard seed to be sleeping very soundly indeed, not stirring at her first call. But after Alia asked her question more loudly, more insistently, he finally responded.
However, he didn't bother to remove the newspaper from his face, didn't open his eyes or sit up properly. In a muffled voice that showed he resented being disturbed, he said:
"Your boss ca through, Alia. Just a few minutes ago."
"Graves? Trask Graves ca back?"
Alia cried out in shock, but Dylan seed to have truly fallen asleep and didn't answer any more questions.
"Hey! You there—young lady! Control your dog imdiately!"
Behind the revolving door, in the main security checkpoint area, several wizards in official MACUSA security uniforms stood holding Probity Probes and Secrecy Sensors. They stared at Alia with distinctly displeased expressions, their faces showing irritation.
"That animal looks dangerous! It needs to be properly restrained or removed from the premises!"
Just monts ago, when they had tried to perform their standard security inspection on the oversized dog, it had bared its teeth at them in clear aggressive intent. It looked ready to bite them. After they had retreated in alarm, it had imdiately and alertly darted into the building and was now crouching in the lobby waiting for Alia.
"Oh, I'm so sorry about that!"
Alia called out with apology. "I was distracted just now by the surprising news... I didn't expect Mr. Graves to return here to work so late in the evening…"
"Oh, who knows what drives that man?"
A male wizard with chestnut curly hair and tired eyes listlessly waved his Probity Probe over Alia a few perfunctory tis, clearly going through the motions rather than conducting a thorough search. His attention was divided, and his enthusiasm for his job clearly worn thin by the late hour and long shift.
"He's probably checking to see if we're slacking off, keeping proper watch. The man never sleeps, apparently. All right, you're clear—go on in. But keep that beast under control!"
The vampire had disguised itself as Graves and swaggered right into the MACUSA building through the front entrance, Alia realized with certainty.
The audacity was incredible. But even as that thought appeared in her mind, she glanced up at the Probity Probe suspended over their head.
She couldn't understand how the vampire had managed to avoid triggering the alarm asures.
Alia rushed to where Sirius was crouching. Before she could ask about the vampire's whereabouts, Sirius raised his front paw, extended a sharp claw, and pointed at the ground.
'Downstairs—'
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