They Returned ~ AU HP fan fiction ~ The Marauders Return

Chapter 16 - The Escape Paradox

The thing was that the gang was bored of waiting. So once Lestrange had finished torturing the adults (he didn't even need information - he was just doing it for fun) the group devised a plan. 

James would turn into his animagus form and slip out when one of the guards opened the door and wreck havoc (James was quite looking forward to this part. Lily Evans Potter however was not. She did not want her husband dead thank you very much). 

With the guards sufficiently distracted the rest of the group would slip out through the air vent in the wall. It had taken them nearly a week to get open and another few days to find out where it led to. James would then sneak out of the house and they would run through the forest on the west side of the house.

The next day they put their plan into action. After one of the semi-regular checkups form the guards James sneaked out and used all of his tricks from his Hogwarts days to cause as much confusion as he possibly could. Ginny, Hermione and Lily managed to get the children and themselves through the air vent after which they met up with James by the edge of the field. Althought they were nearly given away by Sam who was, like his father, terrified of spiders, and didn't want to go through the air vent because it could 'have spwiders in it mummy and I don't wike spwiders'. James, remarkably, was unscathed (though lily put this down to how many times he had managed to escape bing caught by McGonagall before the prank happened and he and Sirius were sent of to detention because 'who else would do such a thing'. Answer: only Sirius and James with the occasiona" help from Remus). 

James managed to guide them around the edge of a forest which led them to a road and later a village where they promptly found out how to get to the ministry. 

The only problem was that Harry and Ron had also discovered where they were and had just left on a rescue mission.  Due to a series of fortunate events, namely having overheard some private conversations that gave the boys all the clues they needed to find where  The other half of the gang were being kept.

Remus Harry Ron and Sirius had left the ministry to the house where everything was in uproar due to the earlier escape. This made it rather easy for the boys to slip in and capture Lestrange.

Their problem was that Lestrange didn't know where the others were. So, Harry and the boys took him and his followers back to the ministry to an interrogation room where they proceeded to try and subsequently fail to get information out of Rudolphus Lestrange (because he actually didn't know where the others were). 

It was around five minutes later that the intercom started buzzing. Harry ignored it because he thought he might be getting information out of Lestrange (he actually wasn't but that's besides the point). 

However the intercom was persistently buzzing. Ron answered it. 

"Harry, Harry list-"

"Not now Ron we might be getting somewhere"

"But harry-"

"I said not now Ron!"

"But Lestrange can't know!"

"How can he not know Ron? He's the one that captured them!"

"Yes but..."

"Ron, please, let me finish this"

"Buthecantknowbecausetheothersalreadyesaped!"

"I have no idea what you just said Ron so I'm going to go back to interrogating this murderer."

"What do you mean they've escaped Ron?" Asked sirius (for once being serious).

"They escaped not an hour before we go there! They just came back to the ministry now! That's what I've been trying to tell you Harry!"

"Oh." Was Harry's *brilliant* response.

The reunion wasn't all hugs and tears, though there certainly was a lot of that. It was very hard to describe because there was no order to it whatsoever. If I had to then I'd say it was like a flock of seagulls fighting over a few pieces of bread that were actually more seagulls (weird I know but if you get what I mean then great. If not then it's fine. Just think of the reunion as big gaggle of people. That's probably the easiest way to describe it.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~

~ I'm so sorry. 

I know I haven't updated in ages and I'm sorry to those of you who have been kept waiting. But I decided that I did really need to update this chapter. Just an epilogue after this one!

The thing that really pushed me to update this was that we've hit 1.6k reads!!! I can honestly remember when I first started writing this I didn't think that I was ever going to get more than 100 reads. To those who have started out alone in this, like me, you may get what I mean. I had no idea that people would ever find this book and actually read it so to that I can only say thank you ever so much it means so much to me. I can't believe that I have got over 1.5k reads (I never thought that in such a short space of time I would get anywhere near 1k reads). I also can't believe that almost every day another person reads this. It means the world to me that a hobby of mine is actually being read. Thank you all so much.

But my exams are done and I did really well (even tho they don't count towards anything). 

Just another point I would like to stress: this is an ALTERNATE UNIVERSE. I know that in the Harry Potter books Harry only has 3 kids and they are named James Sirius, Albus Severus and Lily Luna. I also know that in the books no one can come back form the dead. The marauder triplets thing was a funny joke from something I read off Pinterest that I thought would be fun to include in my story (imagine if Harry had triplets and named them James, Sirius and Remus and when McGonagall found out she said "oh no not again). If you don't like you don't have to read and yes I have the books so I know a lot of the stuff that I've added is factually incorrect. Sorry. Rant over.

Happy Pride Month! I may not be LGBTQ+ but I honestly believe that every one has the right to love who they want and be who they are - gender, skin colour etc etc don't matter. 

Enjoy this part!

~ Emma482 xxx