radicalducati Chapter 68 The Hijackers
Chapter 68 The Hijackers
"Only one person? Could it be an Auror?"
"Foolish! No one should let their guard down!"
Snape, already on guard, had already pulled up his hood before he could finish speaking. He, who had been agonizing over whether or not to find fault with Harry, seemed oblivious to the fact that as long as he wasn't looking into "Lily's eyes," he couldn't resist the urge to nitpick.
On the other hand, Harry, who was a little slower, was not actually "letting his guard down." The reason he covered his face a step later than Snape was because he cast an extra spell to conjure a thick blanket to protect the Thunderbird egg in his bag.
The shadow in the sky grew larger and larger, and as its outline gradually became clearer, Harry and Snape both abandoned the idea of starting a fight directly.
In fact, as a matter of common sense, cross-border law enforcement is extremely troublesome in both the wizarding world and the Muggle world. Therefore, neither the Aurors of the European Ministry of Magic nor the Magical Congress of the United States would easily meddle in matters outside their own territories.
However, the significance of the Thunderbird to the American magical community surpasses even that of the bald eagle, the national bird of the local Muggles. If any criminal sets their sights on the Thunderbird, the law enforcement officers of the Magical Congress of America are not hesitant to work overtime or even overstep their bounds.
……
"Phew! Looks like I've run into a fellow traveler. You've also fled here for refuge?"
DB Cooper, now sporting the face of a long-haired young man, deliberately landed his flying broom near Harry and Snape. He shook off his soaking wet robes, then pointed to his waist and said:
"I need to grab my wand and clean myself up, so please don't get excited."
Snape wasn't afraid of the unfamiliar wizard before him, but his years of experience made him sense something amiss, and he interrupted the wizard's actions with a warning:
"Don't move..."
DB Cooper seemed startled; seeing Snape's wand already aimed at him, he quickly raised his hands in surrender:
"I won't move! I won't move! Please don't hurt me!"
Harry and Moran had seen the face that DB Cooper was using in the past, so even if Snape didn't intervene, they would still use forceful coercion to test him.
"Hey!"
With a hoarse voice, he went along with the plan and said:
"Be smart! Hand over the Thunderbird Egg!"
DB Cooper paused for a moment. The next second, Snape, understanding Harry's intention, stepped forward, wand raised, and said:
"Didn't you hear what he said? Hand over the Thunderbird Egg!"
"I don't have any Thunderbird eggs. If I had really stolen any, I would have found a place to hide long ago. How could I dare to provoke others outside? I was just inexplicably targeted by the Aurors and had nowhere to hide, so I ran all the way here."
While D.B. Cooper's words seemed plausible, Harry and Snape didn't believe a word he said. The other party wasn't a time traveler and had no intelligence advantage from time travel. Given this, how could he freely traverse Arizona, a state teeming with the resources of the Magical Congress of the United States, and ultimately find the Thunderbirds? It's no wonder he had something to hide!
"So... you're not the guy who stole the Thunderbird egg?"
Harry appeared slightly relieved, but didn't give D.B. Cooper a chance to speak again. He slowly walked to Snape's level, raised his wand, and pronounced:
"In that case, you have two choices. First, hand over all your belongings and clothes for us to inspect. If there are no problems, we'll let you go. Second, hand over your wand. Since everyone's here for the Thunderbird, we're not happy about coming here empty-handed. You can use this opportunity to make some money with us, how about it?"
Upon hearing this, Snape's expression under his hood became even more fascinating than that of D.B. Cooper. Unaware that Harry possessed Moran as a strategist, he was almost certain that Lily's son had been influenced by Voldemort to become so shrewd.
For all time travelers who use time converters to travel back in time, the biggest, and also the most dangerous, problem often comes from the unknown.
Unlike histories that are destined to be filled in by their own hands, the unknown past can easily be inadvertently altered by time travelers due to a lack of information. And once actions are taken that contradict history, the timeline can easily deviate from its original trajectory due to the butterfly effect. At that point, those who manipulate time will be manipulated back by time itself in a more cruel way.
DB Cooper was tasked with relaying the plan to Harry to steal the Thunderbird, so he certainly couldn't die. But what he did during that time, and where he should be afterward, was not something outsiders could know.
Harry's threat, seemingly a superior's attempt to control DB Cooper's fate, actually handed the course of history back into the other's hands.
What will you choose?
The same thought popped into Harry's, Moran's, and Snape's minds at the same time.
……
Facing the unfriendly gaze hidden beneath his hood, DB Cooper couldn't help but regret his actions. He had prepared for this opportunity to lay eggs with the Thunderbirds for years, his real intention being to take advantage of the chaos between the underworld and the legitimate world to disguise himself as an Auror and steal some Thunderbird feathers. But he never expected that two powerful dark wizards would appear out of nowhere in this small state of Arizona.
Let's rewind to a few tens of minutes earlier.
A small team led by experts in the protection of magical creatures, relying on intelligence gathered from other members of the Magical Congress of the United States, has made its way to the vicinity of the Thunderbirds' nest.
However, just as they were trying to use their unique expertise to continue approaching, protecting, and collecting the feathers shed by the ptarmigan during its breeding season, the male ptarmigan inexplicably became agitated. In the blink of an eye, it had flown several miles northward.
The sudden turn of events made everyone in the team feel uneasy, including DB Cooper, who had infiltrated the team in disguise.
Without the protection of the male ptarmigan, the female ptarmigan, who has entered the egg-laying stage, becomes more sensitive and irritable. In this situation, forget about approaching the nest to collect feathers; if the team members do not follow the instructions of the wildlife conservation experts even slightly, they may incur the malice and hostility of the ptarmigan mother.
"Get closer, and from this moment on, whatever you do, do not step outside the magical barrier, otherwise..."
Click!
Before the man could finish speaking, a thunderclap interrupted him.
Everyone instinctively looked up at the sky in the direction from which the loud noise came, and then a fog-like monster, as black as night and as thick as ink, came into their view.
"What kind of magic is that?"
"Is he a wizard? That doesn't seem right."
Have you ever seen this kind of monster?
At first, the team members, unaware of the seriousness of the situation, were still able to exchange a few words. But as the female Thunderbird and the Silent One officially began their battle, the sight that seemed to tear the sky apart immediately silenced everyone.
Boom! Boom!
Click!Click!
The terms Apocalypse, Judgment Day, and Genesis seemed to take on precise meaning at this moment. Even DB Cooper, who once considered himself knowledgeable, almost couldn't maintain his Magus disguise. What was supposed to be a "human-bird duel" lasting only a few dozen seconds turned into a series of minutes of stunted control over the group.
"Attention all squads! An unidentified dark wizard has apparently stolen a Thunderbird egg! All Aurors south of Lake Roosevelt, please halt your current tasks and proceed towards Tucson to join the manhunt!"
"Attention all squads, there seems to be another dark wizard involved in stealing the Thunderbird Eggs. Please send reinforcements towards New Mexico!"
"Attention all squads! The dark wizard with the Thunderbird Egg is heading towards Tucson. All Aurors, please join the operation with the primary objective of retrieving the Thunderbird Egg!"
The voices coming from the two-way mirror pulled DB Cooper back to reality. He glanced at his still somewhat dazed fake teammates, then at the direction Harry had just ridden off on his flying broomstick, and made a decision he would soon regret.
"Captain! Be careful, I'm going after that guy!"
……
"Well... I guess I'll stick with you two and make some money. To be honest, I've really invested a lot in this to turn things around."
DB Cooper chuckled and revealed the wand he had hidden at his waist.
Thinking he could fool Harry and Snape with this feigned retreat, he was still pondering how to use disguise magic to steal the Thunderbird egg. Little did he know, in the short time that followed, Mo Ran had already thoroughly analyzed his psychology.
"I guess he wanted to use this opportunity to memorize what you and Professor Snape looked like, and then find a suitable opportunity to impersonate one of them to ask for the Thunderbird Egg. But this guy never dreamed that we actually traveled back in time from the future, and his disguise Magus couldn't fool us at all."
Harry agreed with Moran's reasoning, but he preferred that D.B. Cooper leave as soon as possible rather than have him follow him.
He said:
“I understand, but I’d rather he find something to do soon. It’s only a few days until our first trip to Arizona to look for the Thunderbirds. If Cooper can’t get back to that bar, then history will be changed.”
"Don't worry, that kind of thing shouldn't happen."
Mo Ran's words of comfort puzzled Harry, who continued to ask:
"why?"
Mo Ran replied:
“When we used Legilimency to probe his thoughts just now, we felt a slight resistance. However, this feeling is different from Occlumency. Combined with his unwillingness to show us the package, I guess he must be carrying some extraordinary magical artifacts. Otherwise, he would never have dared to teach us his wand.”
"So what does this have to do with letting him go back to the bar?"
"He's basically convinced we're the Thunderbirds now, but he won't leave easily until he sees us with his own eyes or finds concrete evidence. Remember the story of how he hijacked a plane and stole $20 while pretending to be a Muggle? This guy is clearly a wizard, but he's unwilling to use magic to steal money from the local Muggles, which shows that he engages in criminal activities for the thrill and a sense of accomplishment."
Harry seemed to have grasped the concept, and he asked:
"You mean, to get rid of him, we have to satisfy his need for stimulation? But wouldn't that be too troublesome? If you ask me, why don't we just scare him away with sheer force? With his meager abilities, wouldn't it be easier to intimidate him with overwhelming power?"
Mo Ran patiently replied in the live stream:
“We can try this method if we have no other choice, but DB Cooper is good at making plans and is more enthusiastic about accepting challenges. Unless we kill him directly, it is very likely to arouse his desire to win. We took the Thunderbird Egg by surprise this time. If we can’t deal with his problem, this guy is likely to continue to cause trouble for us in the future.”
"Okay, so do you have any ideas now?"
"Yes, and the most suitable helper is right beside us."
Harry and Moran's private chat room was completely closed to the outside world, but for some reason, Snape, who was standing next to them, inexplicably felt a chill.