February 18th, 1978
CHARACTERS: Sirius Black and Emmeline Vance
SETTING: Hogsmeade, Sunday
RATING: PG-13 for cursing.
Sirius shoved his hands in his pockets, bouncing on his heels as he waited for Emmeline outside of the Ravenclaw common room entrance. He was really, really bummed about their game. Hufflepuff. They’d lost to Hufflepuff. It was pretty much all Marlie’s fault, since she’d lost the snitch to Gwenog (who seemed to be on a roll, word was that she was being scouted for professional teams already) but Sirius wasn’t about to say that to Marlie’s face, so here he was looking forlorn and waiting for Emmeline.
Frank had pretty much been on a stomp-y rampage all week because of The Rumor, and Sirius figured no one had really taken the time to talk to her about it. Not that Sirius was going to bring it up, but he was just going to… be there for her or something. Plus, he was running out of present ideas for Remus and needed a bit of help. He’d already exhausted that resource at Christmas and got the feeling James didn’t want to be annoyed about present ideas, again. Plus, Emmeline was a girl, and he wasn’t going to tell them the exact nature of their relationship, but she could still give other ideas than books, right?
Emmeline was trying rather hard not to look excited about Gryffindor’s loss. Okay, so she felt for Frank, but really---Gryffindor not getting a bigger lead in the cup score meant that Ravenclaw (even though they were now tied) had a better chance of taking it all. Really, Frank should understand, and she hoped Sirius would, if a little ribbing slipped out of her mouth (which…it probably would).
The statue moved aside as she left the common room and she grinned a bit oddly at Sirius, pulling her cloak tighter against her; with all the students leaving, there was a huge draft going through the corridors. “Ready when you are.”
Sirius raised and eyebrow at her and started walking along next to her. He let the topic be for awhile but once they were in the carriages heading toward Hogsmeade, Sirius huffed, “I just want you to know, just because you’re a girl and Frank’s cousin doesn’t mean I’m going to go easy on you. And if you tell James I was the one that sent you that beater’s bible, I will make you wish you never joined the team,” he said in a serious tone but couldn’t keep the smile from forming.
Really, he was kicking himself now for that present he’d sent to Emmeline for her birthday. Who knows what she’d learned, especially with the annotations he’d made for her. “How are you doing, Emmeline?” he asked, stretching his legs out and watching her intently. She seemed happy, but that could also be just because of the whole tie thing. Or maybe because she was gettin’ some on the side.
She just grinned a bit wider and decided to let that be all she was going to divulge from her feelings about the match. Emmeline had read that book back and forth, so it was Sirius’ own fault and demise if she just happened to use some of his tips during the match. Boy, May seemed so far away and yet she was already nervous.
“Me?” she said, a bit surprised. “I’m okay, I had a potions exam yesterday that this kid managed to literally burn a hole through the floor; was that the seventh year N.E.W.T. transfiguration class we looked down into?” Emmeline let out a laugh and shrugged. She really hadn’t thought about the rumors since the ball, and was particularly grateful for that. “And how about you, Mister. Black?”
Sirius laughed, “It might have been, I think I was napping at that point,” he joked rolling up his sleeves and opening the carriage door as they arrived. He jumped down to the ground and held his hand up to help Emmeline out without a second thought. “I think I am better,” he said carefully. He was still all twisted up about Lily’s treatment of James (he was a Black, he held a long grudge) and this loss to Hufflepuff didn’t help things but he wasn’t about to run off and kill himself or anything.
“Could be better, you know, but I’m not going to complain, since I’m living, breathing, loving…” Sirius said, trailing off with a slow smile in Emmeline’s direction as they headed down to the streets. He really didn’t want to buy anything, just look around. He was pretty much all stocked up… well he did have to get some Easter stuff (he had a plan for James and that whole thing) but that was forty-four days away and he wanted Remus’ help with that.
“Excellent,” she said with a grin. Okay, it was incredibly good to be getting out of the castle, but it was even better to get out with someone you could actually tolerate.
Emmeline really wasn’t quite sure why Sirius had asked her of all people to accompany her, but she wasn’t about to object. It was better than tagging along with Anneliese and her boyfriend, which was something Emmeline never, ever wanted to do again, errrrrrrgh, gosh, he was better than Prewett, but not by much. “Where to?”
“Uhmmmm,” Sirius said biting his lip and looking around, “I don’t know. Nowhere, I guess. I actually don’t have anything in mind. Window shopping, if you really want something we could get it,” he shrugged, making a vague hand motion in the direction of Hogsmeade.
“Nowhere, that helps so much,” Emmeline said with a laugh, but, they continued down the winding roads of Hogsmeade, making snide comments about everything and everyone as they passed. It really was something to spend the afternoon with someone as smart as you and with the same kind of sense of humor. The town was still in full swing after Valentine’s, and Emmeline was proud to say that hers wasn’t so bad. Davy had sent her that cute book, the Ravenclaw girls had shared their stashes of candy and woes (even those with boyfriends…and fiancées.), and the ball had been rather pleasant after she’d latched on more or less to Bradley.
So, giving up one of her Hogsmeade weekend days to helping Sirius shop for his friend was no sweat off her back, and it was only when they’d reached the very edges of town, did she realize he was a very, very picky shopper. Emmeline was about to make a comment on this, that Sirius could probably give the Hufflepuff girls a run for their money when it came to shopping, but the sound of a struggle, or at least, someone struggling (and cursing up a storm) down an alley way caught her attention.
Emmeline turned to Sirius, a concerned look on her face as she pulled out her wand. They weren’t near the alleyway where Frank had been abducted, but a single shout of anxiety from Hogsmeade; well, it didn’t sit well with her after the past few months.
He wasn’t the picky one, it was Remus. Because there was no way he was getting his partner another book this year and really, he wasn’t that picky, he’d said some of Emmeline’s ideas were good, and filed them away for later use with other people. There was just nothing that jumped out at him for Remus’ present. He stopped when Emmeline did, giving her a quizzical look in return, but felt the hairs on the back of his neck stand up.
Sirius let his wand fall from it’s holster into his palm, and gripped it tightly, holding up his hand in a ‘shh’ motion, and looking around. There weren’t any Aurors in Hogsmeade this week, everyone had seemed to forgotten what had happened at Christmas and that everything was all right. Sirius took a few steps to the corner of the building, peeking around the corner very carefully and trying not to start at the feel of Emmeline pressed against his side. His free hand grabbed hers and he squeezed, poking his head out a little more to see what was going on, and since he probably had the better hearing, it was best for him to go first..
He could really only see someone hunched over a… box, it looked like, and he was definitely not happy with it at all. “Stupid bloody-fucking Muggle crap! How am I supposed-fuckin’ piece of SHIT,” Sirius heard, pulling his head back and shaking his head at Emmeline with a frown. He didn’t know what the hell was going on, and he moved so Emmeline could stand in front of him, allowing them both to be able to peek around the corner. Really, they had the most curious and nosy personalities. At least it hadn’t been a couple of people snogging and such.
Emmeline stared curiously at the man down the alley, wondering if he was some homeless nut job, thinking that the box was a time machine. She sent Sirius a ‘let’s get out of here’ look, but a second later she backed up in shock; the man had turned toward them and instead of a face she saw he was wearing skull mask, the hood of his cloak having fallen back.
Was it possible for your heart to stop and have a million things race through your mind at the very same time?
“Death—Death---” she managed before the Death Eater’s wand struck out and a thick stream of red light shot toward them. Not sure why she didn’t let out a shriek, Emmeline threw herself at Sirius, knocking them both into the brick wall of the building and out of the way of the hex.
“Fuckin’shit,” Sirius said, rubbing the back of his head and rolling Emmeline off him. Why’d she have to go and do that? He was perfectly capable of ducking a hex like that without getting shoved to the side. He’d seen the mask and the wand just at the same time as her but hadn’t been expecting a full body tackle from such a tiny girl. God, Frank was going to murder him if something happened to her.
Sirius held up his wand and sent his nose-bubble charm (he’d been waiting to use it on Fabian, but this was a grand time too), but despite the bubbles of snot coming out of his nose, the piece of shit Death Eater sent another hex, straight toward Emmeline. Sirius stepped in front of her with a shielding spell just in time (but the problem with a spell hitting a shield that wasn’t quiet fully formed was a jolt that went up his arm, causing his skin to prickle, he would definitely feel that in the morning) but ducked his shoulder so Emmeline could fire off the hex she’d been mustering up. He felt, more than heard, the spell whiz past his ear, and looked back at her.
Perfect. Her diffindo hadn’t hit the Death Eater, but that was what she’d been hoping for; instead it sliced along the bricks at the end of the alleyway, tumbling down and scaring the Death Eater ten feet into the air while he got slammed by debris. Okay, she really shouldn’t be grinning at a time like this, but there was an insane rush of pride that went through her. Heh.
The Death Eater, shaking badly, looked down at the box for a split second before throwing his arms up and disapparating with a loud crack.
“What,” Emmeline said with a deep sigh, “is that?” She threw up a shield in case the box started to hurl hexes at them as they began down the alley.
Sirius rubbed his ear and moved toward the box, shrugging his shoulder and looking back at her to see if she was following (and to see that none of the spells had actually hit her). He tried to shake out his arm to get the tingling to go away but it was right there and causing his hand to shake a bit. “A box of kittens perhaps. Maybe they were just too cute?” he replied with a sardonic smile, but keeping his wand out as he approached the seemingly innocuous box.
He wasn’t going to touch it though, not even if you paid him a million galleons (he’d have to think really hard about it but he still wouldn’t). Sirius circled it carefully and looked to Emmeline for some help before he reached the back side where he stopped and stood stock still. This-this was really bad and not just-of fucking hell. “Emmeline, we have to get out of here. NOW!”
“What! What is it? What is it?” It didn’t look like much, and when she came around to Sirius’ side, she saw that the box had a countdown of numbers in red light. Well? What was so messed up about a broken clock? Emmeline turned to Sirius, not understanding his panic at all.
She bent down to examine it and heard a loud ticking going along with the numbers. Counting down from ten minutes, ticking, this had to be the most annoying wake-up call ever. “What is it?”
Sirius grabbed her shoulder and pulled her away, “Don’t touch it! It’s a bomb!” he nearly shouted, feeling the hysteria rise in his throat. He’d seen a movie that started off just like this. “That clock? The one that’s timing down? Well when it hits zero, boom. Big boom. Death, destruction. Boom,” Sirius was backing away and pulling her with him.
They needed to get out of here. “We have to tell Dumbledore. I’ll apparate to the gates and then run up, you try and get Rosemerta to let you use her floo.” Damn him for not bringing his mirror or journal. Fuckfuckfuckfuck, they really needed an easier way to contact other group members when something like this happened.
A bomb? Boom? Big boom---destruction, death! Oh, okay, so not what she needed to hear at the moment, but Emmeline pulled herself out of Sirius’ grasp and whirled around to face him.
“Are you mad there’s no time to get Dumbledore! If this goes off like you say it does, people are going to hurt, people are going to die!” Bloody Gryffindors, just jumping into things and getting everyone killed. How could he possibly think that they could just--- “We have to get rid of it, we have to---”
She paused to think of where they could dump the bomb, or whatever it was called. Think, think, there had to be somewhere close that no one goes… “The fields---the---there are caves, there are caves at the bottom of that hill, the one----” Emmeline had discovered the many different caves when exploring the village with Ben (exploring as in…looking for a place to snog), “Caves, there are caves we can throw it in.”
Sirius stared at Emmeline, blinking at her. He could have made it to Hogwarts in ten minutes if he’d changed into Padfoot (but that still… there was less than that on the clock) She… had no fucking clue about what this was, he could tell. She wasn’t nearly as panicked as she should be but-James and Lily were in Hogsmeade and a bunch of third years were across the street from the alleyway and, he didn’t want anyone to die but there was no fucking way he was touching that thing. He wavered for a moment before casting a levitation charm on the box, careful when he lifted it up. There were no… wires or anything sticking out and even if there were, what the hell would he do with them? In the movies everyone always chose right but they still didn’t know what they were doing anymore than he was.
“Well, show me these fucking caves!” he said, hurrying Emmeline along. Damn what he wouldn’t give for a broom. Emmeline was fast but Sirius’ legs were longer and he didn’t want to leave her, but this clock was ticking and it seemed like it was going faster and faster (but that was probably just him). When they reached the end of the field, he looked to Emmeline for direction, looking really hysterical, wanting her to tell him what to do right now.
Merlin’s bloody----They were at the bottom of the hill, the long winding path having been cut across and not followed so that required running through tall grass and jumping over tree branches and----okay, breath, because of she didn’t, Emmeline was quite sure that Sirius was going to pass out, drop the bomb, and she forced herself to stop her hand from running through her hair, and instead pointed up a narrow walk way. “Up there, there’s a close one, it’s deep, so---“
The brief thought of just banishing the bomb came to mind, but with the years of lessons from Flitwick, knowing that there was a specific Auror squad made for situations like this…they could blow themselves up, or send the bomb into the Great Hall at Hogwarts.
Brilliant. “There, up there.”
“Stay here!” Sirius shouted as he took off toward the cave, trying to go as fast as he could without falling off the path. God, there were too many zeros on that clock and Sirius set it down in the middle of the cave and tore out of there, resisting the urge to turn into Padfoot to get away faster. This, this was like a goddamn movie and there was always blow back and what the fuck was going to happen?!
Sirius reached Emmeline just as the bomb exploded. Bits of rock and rubble showered them so he pulled her into a protective huddle, pushing her head down and using his own body to shield her from some of the flying debris. Once it had stopped booming and stuff had stopped falling on him, he let her go, straightening up and looking at the cave that wasn’t really a cave, but more of a… smoking hole. “Fuck.”
“Holy shit,” she let out, managing to pry her eyes from the billowing smoke to look at Sirius, eyes wide. Emmeline choked out one of those nervous string of giggles, putting a hand to her head where she’d been knocked with a rock or something before Sirius had grabbed onto her. Huh. Battle scars. “Holy…holy…”
Emmeline stayed on the ground, gaping up at the smoke that was coming out of the cave. She coughed loudly, but remained seated, just staring at the mess the bomb had caused. What were they supposed to do now? Waltz back through Hogsmeade looking a mess (both of them were covered in dirt and soot and holy…) and go up to Dumbledore’s office to tell them what they’d seen?
Well. Yeah.
Sirius laughed with her, shaking out his hair to get more of the bits of rubble, trying to look at his back to see if anything was smoldering before standing and holding his hand out for Emmeline to pull her up as well. “Uh, yeah. I told you, big boom,” he said wryly, managing to use his humor as a cover for how scared he was. It brought a whole new meaning to the term ‘scared shitless’.
He cleared his throat and checked her headwound, it wasn’t so bad, just looked nasty because heads bled a lot and shrugged. “Yeah.” he agreed, blinking at her. “It seems cooler in the movies,” he said looking toward Hogsmeade where some people were gathering at the end of town and headed this way, “Oh fuck, we better go. Here I’ll apparate us to the gates and we’ll go to Dumbledore…. Unless you need to stay here.”
They really didn’t need to be seen at the site of a huge explosion, not only would that be awkward, but the whole point of being in a secret Order was to keep your part in events like this a secret. Emmeline nodded, knowing that she could apparate herself to the gates but not feeling up to being a little snot or…or something. Okay, shock, she was in shock, (how the hell were you able to tell that you were in shock when being in shock usually means you’re not aware of----shut up) and just kept nodding even though her head hurt a lot.
