Caught Red Handed [open]

[Lyra Isabelle Hawkins]

Lyra was making her rounds around the world. The Sahara was her second last stop. Her last stop would be to Antarctica, because the protection of that one was where she couldn't apparate there. Yes, she was the one who placed the devices on every continent in the world. 7 in total. Those were what had brought the people from the future here. She was determined to save her father. She didn't care about Voldemort or anyone else. Sure it was selfish, but that was Lyra's way. She was driven by the loss of her father.

As soon as Lyra apparated to the spot where she had placed the device, she turned around several times, not seeing the light which it gave out. What had happened? Where was it? The other five were safe given the varying protections. Europe one couldn't see it, unless she told them it was there, America's was underground. Asia's was on the top of Mount Everest, and the coloring blended in with the sky. Australia's was in the middle of no where and had a repelling effect on anyone who tried to approach unless you knew the right spell. South America's was being protected by some people who lived there, who regarded her as a hero when she placed it there. Those people wouldn't let anyone except for her near it. She did save them from all dying from hunger before, so it wasn't like she was using them. She did make sure they were taken care of for their service to her of course.

But this one was the one she wasn't worried about, Europe's was the one she was most worried for. But Africa? Who would really come out here? Were they on to her? It must have been Dumbledore! That nosy wizard. Oh she hoped that no one else besides Dumbledore knew... Then she'd be in trouble. She continued looking around the Sahara, thinking there was a chance she apparated to the wrong spot. This desert looked the same everywhere.

[Emilia Lianne Auditore]

Emilia whistled a little tune to herself as she held up the little device she'd found. Whoever had hidden the thing had been clever, for sure. That little glowing trick was nifty, but Emilia had stolen things that were much more well-hidden than this in the past. She wondered how much she'd fetch for it on the black market.

She heard a noise behind her and turned to find a woman that she recognized as Lyra Hawkins standing a little ways off. Emilia grinned to herself. This would be fun.

"Hey, are you looking for this?" she called, holding up the device.

[Lyra Isabelle Hawkins]

As soon as Lyra heard a voice she turned around quickly, spotting the Auditore standing a little bit away from her... holding her time travel device. That thing took ten years to build! How dare the little thief steal it! How would she even know anyways? She was a worker at the ministry in the Department of Mysteries, working on classified projects, mainly this one. She bet it was that idiot Rodrick who always was snooping in on her work. Maybe he told her something... Or... Maybe she wasn't careful enough about her projects.

She was getting ahead of herself. She didn't even know if the Auditore knew what the device did. Lyra calmed her mind so it matched her body language of a fake annoyance. "Why would I have use of something like that?" Lyra asked walking up to the Auditore looking lazily at her time travel device. If only she could get it back. Lyra was probably the one who understood time travel the best. Maybe one of her special spells she came up with during her research could confuse the Auditore for long enough. And then maybe a memory charm to make her forget about this.

((Woot! Finally someone replied! Keep in mind Lyra has been in the past a year longer than the rest, and has been coming back to this time about an hour at a time for years before that to gather information... well not only this time, others too for her research, such as the Founder Era and such. And finally, yes she is as arrogant as she comes off to be.))

[Emilia Lianne Auditore]

Emilia hummed noncommittally and held up the device to get a better look at it in the light. She pursed her lips in disgust. It was a really ugly little thing...Hawkins' aesthetic sensibilities were clearly nonexistent. Honestly.

She shot a disbelieving look at Hawkins through the corner of her eye. What a horrible liar this woman was. She really needed to take some classes or something...the issue could also be that Emilia was a professional liar and therefore easily caught others in their lies.

"Fascinating question! I actually meant to ask you that! I saw you with these things for years, and then, in the middle of one of my heists, I would like to add, poof! I find myself in the 90's!" she remarked with false pleasantness. "Now, if you're nice, and you have something really pretty to trade for it, I might be convinced to give this back to you! It's dreadfully ugly; I don't think I would fetch enough for it to pay for the time expended on finding it."

((I don't think I mentioned this in her application, but Emilia just so happens to be very good at both wandless and silent magic, though she's only mastered wandless. She was in the Dueling Club in Hogwarts! I was actually thinking of having her come into Hogwarts to lead the Dueling Club while spying on Snape and the other Death Eaters in the school undercover for the Order.))

[Lyra Isabelle Hawkins]

She wasn't worried about how the devices looked. Just how they worked. It was hard enough to be able to create them. The instant everyone went back to their own time, she didn't know if things would stay changed or go back to how they were before. Honestly, why were people complaining? Mostly the Resistance people, at least, had no reason. They could change the future to where Voldemort lost this darn war. Then again, the Auditore probably wasn't part of the Resistance.

The device needed to be reactivated, quick. With at least one down, she didn't know if the time travel would remain stable. Though her calculations said differently, with time things were always a mystery no matter how great the calculations were made. She was sure that they all needed to be shut off to return all the time travelers to their own time (she didn't know if it would be the future she knew where her father died, or if it would be changed), or all of the time travelers could travel back to the future.

This Auditore obviously knew what was going on, or at least part of it. Deciding to play it safe and play along with the Auditore, Lyra sighed. "That depends on what you would want. I don't have much that's pretty," Lyra said eying her time travel device, planning to modify the woman's memory afterwards, if she could manage it, of course. She wasn't too worried about it, she was good enough of a fighter and memory charmer to do it. At least, that's what she thought.

She couldn't let this girl get in her way of finally being able to change one thing. Lyra's life had been full of everything but happiness. She was a werewolf, though she managed to hide it from most people, her father died, her brother was a bloody Death Eater, and she had no one. No one she loved anymore. No one cared about her anymore. Even that snooping Rodrick only cared about her work and stealing her work to claim it as his own. She was alone. She had to change at least one thing so she wouldn't be alone anymore.

[Emilia Lianne Auditore]

She wasn't really sure why everyone thought she was so anti-Resistance. She certainly wasn't pro-Voldemort at any point in her life. She didn't necessarily think that the Resistance had the wrong idea. She just didn't really care about them. Emilia was, inherently, a selfish person. She cared for herself; that was the only way that she knew how to stay alive.

She quirked her mouth into what resembled a sympathetic line in anyone else. She knew loneliness....oh, she knew loneliness. She remembered being cold and hungry; she remembered living on the streets. Why else would she have become a loathsome thing like a thief? There was a thrill associated with her chosen career, most definitely, but it had mostly been because she wanted to feel less lonely. She wanted to find one person that gave a damn about Emilia Auditore. Short of finding that, she had settled for the grudging admiration of the public.

"On second thought," she sighed, tossing the ugly device in the woman's direction. "Take it. We're not so different, you and I. You're lonely, right? You thought that this was the way that you could change it. That's where we're different."

She smiled bitterly.

"You're an idealistic fool."

[Lyra Isabelle Hawkins]

Lyra always assumed the worst in people, probably because she had been let down so many times. Emilia was a thief, and therefore, Lyra placed her in the 'Enemies' column, because in her mind right now, there was no in between. If they weren't with her, they were against her, and really, no one was really with her right now, unless you counted her father, but she couldn't see him right now, or it would blow everything and create a huge problem.

Lyra never thought that anyone could feel the same way she did. The only two people she ever loved either died, or killed the other one. She could never let anyone get too close to her or her secret could be revealed, and she couldn't have that. Lyra had entered the Department of Mysteries, because she heard that all those there didn't really have too many loved ones, and maybe she could find someone like her. But she didn't. She found a way to get those she lost back. And perhaps then she might have someone. She didn't find it idealistic, because she was able to make the dream a reality. She was the only one to manage such a feat as traveling years in the past and staying there. The only drawback was the pulling of so many from her time to the past with her. Lyra did not expect it, but if they had not, then she wouldn't have this opportunity. It was the lesser of two lives she could lead. Loosing everyone she loved, or saving those she loved. There could be no other life for her. No one else could get close to her, or they would get hurt, or hate her forever if they ever found out about her secret.

"You're the fool," Lyra said biting her lower lip, catching the device, seeing that Emilia actually wasn't that bad, if she was willing to let her continue with all of this, "I worked hard to get this opportunity, my hard work will reward me. It wasn't supposed to bring all of you back, but I don't know any other way to send everyone back and let me remain. I don't care about the consequences, as long as I can get back those I love."

[Emilia Lianne Auditore]

Once, a long time ago, before Ian, Emilia had loved ones. Her family had been poor, but she'd loved them. Her brother, and her sister-in-law and her kid sister...they'd been all she needed. Unfortunately, they died. Then she had Ian. Same thing. He managed to teach her one very important lesson before leaving her forever, though: the only person you could really, truly rely on was yourself. She'd stuck to this guiding principle ever since. It could be called incredibly selfish of her, but she only really cared about herself, anymore. The entire world could burn, and she'd let it as long as she wasn't personally threatened.

"No, you're definitely the fool," she laughed. "You still care. Haven't you learned yet? Everyone lets you down sooner or later. You think that I'm the scum of the earth, and you're probably right, but my life is much simpler than yours. I just don't give a damn about anyone else. Voldemort. Potter. It's all irrelevant."

[Lyra Isabelle Hawkins]

She didn't get Emilia, personally, Lyra didn't. Of course, Lyra had been raised by her father who loved her very much and wanted her to do the best as she could, despite her condition. Her father had been there for her, until her idiot of a brother betrayed them and killed him. She couldn't just push the feeling of having them, even her idiot brother, and having their love and support, mostly, in her brother's case. Lyra would never give up that little feeling of hope. It was selfish of her to only care about a few people, but at the same time she felt the slightest bit of regret for some of them. She and Emilia did share one thing though; Lyra didn't care if Voldemort or Potter won this war... as long as she got those she lost back, she was happy.

"I'll agree to disagree," Lyra stated, knowing that she couldn't convince the intransigent woman, just as Emilia couldn't convince Lyra otherwise, "I grew up knowing a little bit of love, until I was older and moved a little bit away. I won't pretend I understand you, as I don't know much about you, at all, but you and I are much different, and I don't think we could ever understand each other." Lyra looked at her device and almost closed her eyes in relief, finally allowing herself to relax about loosing it before. She had to set it up more carefully this time. Somewhere else on this continent, with better security where no one could find it.

[Emilia Lianne Auditore]

Emilia really didn't care if anyone understood her. To put it bluntly, she didn't understand anyone else. They were so wrapped up in their connections to other people, connections that would be brief and painful, in her experience. It was painless and easy to live as she did. If more people realized that, the world would be a better place.

"I suppose we'll have to respectfully agree to have our differences," she agreed. "By the way, and you should take this as my good deed of the decade because I make it a point to not help anyone if I have nothing to gain, there is a village not far from here that owes me. If you take that device to them with my blessing, they'll protect it for you."

[Lyra Isabelle Hawkins]

Ok, now Lyra was confused. Why in the world would this woman help her? They barely knew each other, and Emilia actually knew what was going on here. Lyra didn't understand, but she shrugged it off, trying to keep positive. She would need to check Antarctica later anyways, and time was running out.

"I really appreciate what you're doing, but I want to know, why are doing this for me?" Lyra outright asked. It wasn't normal for anyone to ever help her out besides her father, and occasionally her brother. Really, she didn't get this. Even before people would find out what creature she was, she was always shunned by being called, 'That girl', or 'Blood Traitor', 'Idiot Gryffindor', 'That Girl who always is tinkering away on something', or 'That Weirdo who is Sorin's sister. Geez, I feel bad for him having a sister like that'. Then again, she knew that many had it worse off than her.

[Emilia Lianne Auditore]

Emilia pursed her lips when Lyra asked why she was helping. She wasn't sure either, really; it was a pretty much a whim. She didn't often commit good deeds; they were time-consuming and tended to bore her. Lyra should've considered herself lucky that Emilia helped her at all.

"It's my good deed of the decade," she repeated. "I suppose I'm in an especially good mood today. I wouldn't question it in your shoes."