Chapter 3: Busted

CHAPTER 3: BUSTED

Beckett landed nimbly inside his brothers' shared laboratory, adjusting the snake over his shoulders. The big guy wasn't too heavy, but he still had to mind his balance.

"You okay?" he asked it. The snake just nodded. Scanning the room, Beckett looked for a place to set him down. The eleven-year-old boy didn't go there too often, and he was usually zoned out from boredom when he did. Spotting an empty table of stainless steel, Beckett stepped towards his destination. After this, I get Myles his shoes, he reminded himself. I wonder what happens if—cutting off his thoughts, the blonde twin stopped in his tracks. He sensed a cold, omniscient presence…

Without moving a muscle, his eyes drifted to a far corner of the lab. There, with his back facing him, Artemis was staring at some kind of chart or timeline or something on the wall.

Uh-oh, Beckett wasn't sure of what to do. Sure, Artemis promised not to tell before, but…they were kind of planning to nurse a giant snake back to health and sneak it away now. Artemis never agreed to keep that a secret! What would Myles do? He wondered. Myles liked to say 'better safe than sorry', so Beckett decided it best to sneak past his brother as quietly as possible.

"That snake is alive, is it not?" Artemis spoke up, his back still facing the frozen boy. Beckett knew that sinking feeling he got all too well: it happened every time Myles's plans against their big brother failed. Beckett sighed.

"If you're gonna talk to me, say it to my face," Beckett demanded. That's right, he noticed Artemis's shoulders tense for a moment, you never scared us. Artemis could bring his worst! Artemis turned around, but the look in his eyes shocked Beckett.

"I was only going to mention that if you want my help nursing it back to health and releasing it, I would gladly offer it," the look in his brother's eyes was compassionate, but also focused. It was like he saw this as a grave mission.

"It was that obvious, wasn't it?" Beckett slouched and finally unloaded his coiled up passenger. "Anyways, I gotta go help Myles up." He went to the safe and tried to remember the combination. Blink twice, wait three seconds, and…wink with the right eye! It sure was nice of Myles to code it to him, too. The hover shoes looked so cool! Way better than in the blueprints. Lightning bolts! Beckett gushed at the suggestion he'd made to Myles's design.

I'm sorry for the long wait, but this story requires careful planning to figure out how exactly I'll weave it together. Now if you'll excuse me, I'm off to research the entire Harry Potter universe's canonical history with extreme attention to details, then to look at how to tie that in with the Artemis Fowl universe's canonical history (particularly between the Fairies and the Mud People). After that, I'll see if I can find anything useful on the Hogwarts curriculum and school system. Of course, one can't write a Harry Potter fanfiction without researching the Ministry of Magic and all its workings, proceedings, goals, and evolution!

…

Perhaps I'm overexplaining the process…but what a lovely roundabout way to announce I OWN NEITHER HARRY POTTER NOR ARTEMIS FOWL :D!

UNTIL NEXT TIME! (Huh, so these are my author's notes when the time is nearing midnight…Lesson learned).