Chapter 66: Raids III

Penny found herself looking over yet another shelf loaded with confiscated items the caretaker had taken from students over the years. They had spent over an hour so far exploring the room, and it was fast approaching midnight.

Once again she thought about what she was doing and concluded that she was being quite the naughty school girl, which surprisingly gave her a thrill. Normally, she would be nearly fast sleep by now, or patrolling the school halls, however the excitement of seeking out and 'raiding,' as Harry called it, kept her wide awake and filled with energy. And the constant fear that they could be caught by the old caretaker at any moment heightened the exhilaration.

She had always been a well behaved individual, respectful and obedient to the rules, never causing trouble, but right now she was in a storeroom taking items she fancied that had been confiscated over the years with a mischievous raven haired boy.

Naturally, she had been nervous at first, torn between her good girl nature and its fear of getting caught, and her rebellious teenage girl side which really liked the idea of adventure. It was like the teen shows that she had watched at home during the summer, where the girl would sneak out of the house right under her parent's nose to meet up with her Prince Charming under the moonlight for a romantic rendezvous.

She took a moment to look over her shoulder to where Harry was currently going through the items, examining the ones that didn't have any brown name tags on them. He was hardly Prince Charming at the moment, and was far too young for her anyways, but he was her oath bound Lord, and therefore was a Prince in a manner of speaking. 'He does have nice raven black hair, it's almost like a lion's mane,' her mind added for her.

Turning her attention back to the shelves she was searching she found even more magazines which she carefully looked through, taking out the newer, undamaged copies just for something to read, as well as to give to some of her mates who were interested in the gossip sections.

She added the undamaged copies to the stack of items she was taking, while trying to juggle everything she was carrying. She silently wished once again that she had brought something to carry them in, since she had no real pockets with her current outfit.

She was currently wearing her school blouse and skirt, the same she wore to that day's classes. She also cursed keeping her tights on; she was hardly dressed appropriately for 'raiding', but at least they kept her legs warm and showed them off fabulously, she noted privately. 'But who am I showing them off to?' she questioned.

She made a mental note to wear some jeans next time and ditch her school shoes, since 1 and a ½ inch heels were hardly suitable for running in if she was required to leg it out of here, and heels did make considerable noise, unlike trainers. She mentally slapped herself at these thoughts, 'there won't be a next time, damn it, this is a one off. I am just helping a friend out,' she told herself.

She heard soft mumbling from Harry's direction; turning to see what he was doing, she saw him transfiguring some magazines into a useful brown canvas sack, which humorously reminded her of the cartoon robbers that were on kid's TV and comic strips and how they would make away with their ill begotten loot.

She quickly copied the rather useful idea, before chastising herself for not thinking of such an obviously good idea herself; she was a witch wasn't she? Quickly turning some damaged Witch Weekly magazines into her very own 'loot' sack, she recast the lumos charm. Placing the good magazines she wanted to keep into her sack, she was confident that the very simple transfiguration spell would last for a couple hours at least, long enough to make a clean getaway.

Turning her attention back to the shelves, she realized that most of the stuff was either junk or pranking items that she had no absolutely no interest in. She did find a small handheld mirror with a rather elegant design that caught her attention though, one that would easily fit into her loot bag. Since it had no name tag, she added it to her own brown sack.

After all 'waste not want not' was an excellent maxim to live by. Then she saw some firewhisky, other alcoholic drinks and a couple of rather nice shot glasses; she decided to take them as well as Ravenclaw house often held unofficial parties. Before putting it all in her loot sack she cast a bevy of unbreakable charms on them; the last thing she needed was for them to break in the sack and damage the magazines she had 'reclaimed,' already.

"Hope you are going to share some of that," her partner in crime said cheekily from behind her. She looked over her shoulder at her partner to see him looking at her and the alcoholic drinks with a smile, before responding in her best cheeky tone, "Of course, as long as we're sharing," she replied playfully, feeling renewed confidence in the idea that they wouldn't be caught tonight.

"Of course, a 50/50 spilt," Harry responded mischievously, before turning back to looting the shelves.

...

Most of the stuff that was scattered around the gloomy storage room was harmless prank materials and jinxed stuff used solely for mischief, along with junk of absolutely no real value, but for some reason hadn't been thrown out.

He was more than a bit annoyed that the map wasn't in the room, as that was the sole reason behind this risky heist; however, the raid so far was proving to be surprisingly fruitful.

He had already found several things that had taken his fancy, one of which was the simply massive pile of chocolate frog cards, including some he'd seen, from a brief scan, which hadn't been produced in centuries. He hadn't looked through them all yet, but hopefully the collection would contain even more of the rarer ones he needed to complete his own collection.

A complete collection was a rare thing and highly valuable in the wizarding world. In the future they might even serve as much loved gifts given to prospective business partners who were fans of the cards. Little gestures like that went a long way to secure and keep a business relationship on good footing.

Before putting the cards into the sack, he had the sudden thought that he was becoming a kind of a collector of things, considering the type of things he had taken so far. After all, why take a chess set when he already had a very good one? Sure he liked chess, but he had no use for another set and it would just take up space.

The chocolate frog cards, however, were actually monetarily valuable to collectors and useful for information purposes, as they contained short summaries of all major wizards and witches who had been deemed influential enough in European magical history to be added to the famous card collection.

A business idea came to him at that thought. Why limit the cards to Europe alone and limit the market of customers? Perhaps the cards could be sold in other parts of the world with a more targeted collection of figures. North America, for instance, would have a collection of cards featuring prominent American, Canadian, and Mexican wizards and witches throughout history, including the Native American shamans and sorcerers of legend.

South America, Australia and Asia, could be done the same way, with perhaps something other than chocolate if their cultural tastes didn't enjoy that particular treat. He'd have to have Bloodmoon look into who owned the company which produced the cards and see if they might be willing to sell.

Back to the matter at hand, unless you had a good size collection of cards, including the rarer ones, most cards weren't individually all that valuable.

The ones he had found, though, were some of the rarest cards ever produced, still in mint condition. He also found an everlasting bouncy ball, based on the tags description; he added that to his sack since he had always wanted one, plus he liked the colours, since they shifted randomly with each bounce, but it had little practical use. The enchantment/magic which allowed a sort of perpetual motion, now that had possibilities.

The first and most revolutionary possibility which came to mind was in muggle power generation. That was the basis of wind and hydraulic power after all, blowing wind and flowing water moves a turbine, which in turn produces electricity. The idea that a wizarding child's toy could have the basis for changing the world forever made him laugh internally.

Once again focusing back on the task at hand, he found what appeared to be a good half dozen full body sized glamour mirrors, similar in design to the one he had found on the 3rd floor. He read the accompanying brown tag: "Charmed to show what its counterpart mirrors see - Confiscated from Sirius Black for being used to spy on female students."

He let the tag fall from his hand; he was not surprised at all by what his traitorous godfather had done with these mirrors, due to his mother's own disapproving views of the man.

As far as his mother was concerned, his godfather was a bit of a hound dog, a womanizer always chasing some girl's ass, trying to get into her knickers, then bragging about it like a jerk to his friends.

His mother's journal had found it ironic that should he have been known for being discreet about his various encounters that the dog would have had many more girls interested in him.

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Hey guys I really need some power stones to Elevate the ranking :)

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