InsaneJournal

RP Log: Caoimhe, Doyle, and Morgan
Characters: Doyle and Caoimhe Sullivan, plus one werewolf and Morgan MacDougal
Setting: Diagon Alley, near Madam Malkin's, around 8 p.m.
Summary: Caoimhe and Doyle go out for Chinese and find trouble instead. Major trouble.
Rating: R for violence.



Of course, Doyle knew now why Caoimhe hadn't wanted him to go to the masquerade ball. She and her vigilante friends must have known that something like that was going to happen. He hated that he hadn't been there to protect his twin, though. He'd always been there to protect her, and when she really needed it, where was he? At home, working on making copies of jewellery. The only people on the streets were parents and little kids, nothing worth filching but candy from the trick-or-treaters, and Doyle was not going to steal candy from little kids. And where was his sister? At the Halloween ball, fighting those ruddy Death Eaters and watching the Minister get killed.

Right now, though, Doyle was just happy to have his sister all in one piece. They were sitting on the couch, and it was starting to get dark outside. They hadn't had dinner yet, and Doyle was getting hungry. He nudged Caoimhe's knee with his. "Hey, Kee, y'wanna go down to that place just past the library, get some take-away?" he suggested. Caoimhe had always loved Chinese food, and he thought maybe going to get some for dinner would cheer his twin up.

Immediately, her attention was drawn from the television and she brightened a little. She did love Chinese food, and it had been long weeks of hard work both mental and physical. The idea of a real eggroll and some Hunan Beef that she did not have to make herself sounded remarkably attractive.

With a slight smile, she nodded. "Let's do that," she agreed. "And let's just walk it - it's a nice night. Not as cold as it's been."

Taking a walk down to the take-away place sounded like a bril idea, really. They could just enjoy the nice night out, and Doyle could see for himself that she really was doing okay. He grinned and stood up, offering his hand to his sister, to help her up. Not because he thought she needed it -- though he did worry about how she was really feeling, but that was because he always worried about her, with the vigilante stuff she did -- but because it was just what he did.

"Sounds bril to me," he said. "And when we get back, maybe we can see if we can find that station on the wireless that plays muggle music."

Caoimhe took his hand to pull herself up on and smiled. It sounded like an evening to her - and a good one, at that. It was always just a little more fun to listen to the music on the radio; there were surprises every now and then, that way. And on the illegal station, there was both Muggle music and no commercials. Throw that in with some Chinese food and life would be good.

"Let me grab my cloak and we'll go," she said, heading for the closet by the door. She pulled the dark green wool from its hanger and draped it around her shoulders, fastening the frog as she walked.

A moment later they were down the stairs and out in the crisp night air, walking down Boomslang Bend toward Diagon. For her part, the weather could stay like this all year 'round, Caoimhe mused. Not too cold yet, but just enough to need a jumper or a jacket. Perfect, as far as she was concerned - she had always hated hot weather.

Doyle much preferred cooler weather to warmer. Likely it came from growing up in Northern Ireland, and from not always having the money for the best coats, hats, gloves, and scarves. Or maybe from those times when he couldn't get his rent in on time and was booted onto the street, and he didn't want to impose on Kee, or cause her to worry. Either way, the temperature outside was just about perfect. Doyle himself didn't need a jacket.

Hooking his arm through his sister's, he stuffed his free hand into his pocket. See? He wasn't even going to try to steal anything on their walk. He tried never to filch anything around his sister. "How's the restoration comin' on yer library?" he asked.

"We're getting there," she replied, smiling a little at the thought of it. So much of her floor being destroyed had been very difficult for her; Caoimhe had never worked anywhere but Brookstanton, and she felt something of a personal connection to some of the works in Special Collections. Helping to put it all back together had helped a lot, though. Time marched on, and they kept plugging away at putting it all back together...some things had been lost forever, but all was not lost, and that was the important thing.

"Remus and Severus haven't worked too very many hours together so far, thank heavens," Caoimhe went on. She had told Doyle about her two part time staff who couldn't stand the sight of each other, of course. Doyle heard about most of her work stories, since he was the one who was around most to hear them - and because he always seemed interested to hear. "I wish I'd known when I sat Severus that the two of them didn't get along. It's some kind of stubborn point of pride with them to not move carrels now, though."

Doyle liked listening to Caoimhe talk about work because of the way she lit up when she talked about her library and the books. Doyle had never been much for books himself, but he knew that his twin loved them. They turned onto Diagon as she talked, heading toward the Chinese place. "Well, s'long as they don' work at th' same times, at least yeh won' hafta worry about them fightin'." He nudged his sister gently in the side with his elbow. "They're boys, they won' give in an' let'cha move one of 'em now."

Caoimhe smiled faintly. "Boys're stupid," she replied, but not without some degree of affection for the species. She had grown quite fond of Remus in the months that he'd been working in the library, and Severus had already proven himself to be capable and per--well, he was personable with her, anyway. They were being stupid boys about this one, though, and there just wasn't anything else to say about it.

Her thoughts were on the library, and that was all. She hadn't even gotten as far as letting her mind drift on to the Order or the events at the Masquerade, or even to the eggroll she had planned to eat in a few minutes. Her attention just barely split for the growl she heard come up behind them, and the footsteps.

Constant vigilance! That was what Moody was always barking, and Caoimhe had taken it to heart. She respected Moody, and she knew that at least right now, he was right: it wasn't ever safe, not for any of them. But this wasn't a Death Eater coming out of the alley at their right - it was a beast.

Caoimhe barely turned before she began pulling out her wand. She saw a huge shadow, the flash of teeth and claws, and by reflex she jumped back - which was fine with the wolf. He was more than willing to pounce on the easier target, and his front paws went straight to Doyle's back, knocking him face-forward on the ground.

In response to the 'boys're stupid' remark, Doyle smiled crookedly at his twin and pointed out, "Yeh already knew that."

He was still worried about her, but she seemed to be doing well enough. Eating Chinese food and listening to the wireless would make his sister all better, he knew. And as long as she was happy, he could relax and stop worrying about her. He was thinking on that when he, too, heard the growl. The reflexes that helped him to lift a purse out of a mark's pocket and be down the street and around the corner without them realising it kicked in and he pulled his arm free of his sister's and -- years of protecting his sister kicking in -- moved between her and the beast. The words, 'Kee, run!' died in his throat as the wolf pounced, riding him down to the ground. His hands and face took the brunt of the impact, breaking his nose and left wrist.

The claws tore into the muscles of his upper back, and heavy, powerful jaws clamped on his right shoulder, the teeth tearing apart muscles and ligaments. The wind knocked out of his lungs by his fall, he couldn't even draw a breath to scream from the pain.

"DEFODIO!" rang out hysterically through the mostly-empty street, bouncing off walls with a force that no one would have expected from the shy librarian.

She was reacting on instinct, throwing the first thing that came to mind - the gouging charm had been handy two nights before to tear up Walden Macnair's shoulder and get him to stop cursing civilians. This time, however, she wasn't dealing with a man: she was dealing with a wild animal. After all, no one stopped to check for a tufted tail when she was watching a large part of her brother's shoulder get ripped away by gnashing teeth. She aimed for the head, because that was the quickest route to stopping him.

Blood sprayed back and fragments of skull flew, and only a second passed before the beast slumped down, lifeless.

"Doyle!" Caoimhe cried, immediately dropping to her knees beside him and shoving with all her might to push the wolf's body off of him. That was difficult only for the first push - Caoimhe felt the transformation occur under her hands, and the body became lighter as it morphed back into a human man.

What was left of a human man, anyway. With growing horror, Caoimhe Sullivan realized that it was not a simple beast she had mostly destroyed the head of: it was a werewolf. She had killed a human, and her life and her brother's were about to become a great deal more complicated.

There was no time to worry about that, though. Doyle was losing blood fast, and Caoimhe ripped off her cloak to press it to the wound at his shoulder. "Doyle!" she shouted frantically at him, her hand shaking as she extended it in her left hand for the emergency service. "Doyle, please! Can you hear me?"

Doyle's vision was going dark and fuzzy around the edges. He was cold, so cold. He hadn't been this cold since he fell into the ocean when they were seven. It was so long ago that Doyle didn't even remember how or why he'd ended up in the harbour, just that he'd fallen in and was thrashing about, not being a very strong swimmer. A fisherman had dragged him out of the icy waters, and he had been shivering so hard that he felt like his baby teeth would fall right out. He couldn't feel his fingers or toes for hours afterwards, he'd been dumped in a hot bath and wrapped up in warm towels and blankets. Caoimhe hadn't left his side for weeks afterwards.

This was worse than that. He couldn't feel his right arm at all, or much of anything else below his shoulders.

Shouting, there was shouting. Doyle could hear ... Kee? He tried to turn his head, but everything hurt, and it would just be so much easier to just close his eyes and go to sleep. "..... Kee," he barely managed to rasp out. Was she okay? It hadn't gotten her, had it?

"Doyle Sullivan, you keep your eyes open!" she shouted at him, and quickly realized that the reason she couldn't really see him was that tears were welling up in her eyes. "You do as I say, Doyle! Eyes open, and don't you dare close them 'til the mediwizards tell you that you can!"

Had she ever panicked like this? Caoimhe didn't think so. Usually she was very good at staying calm in a crisis. It was different now, because this was Doyle, and because it wasn't just Doyle spending a night in jail or Doyle hurt just a bit: he could die. She tried to remember anything Morgan had told her about healing, but none of it covered the cursed wounds left by a werewolf's teeth and claws. She tried, but the blood kept flowing, so Caoimhe just held her wand out in the left again, praying that she'd been heard.

The alert came, and Morgan MacDougal's first thought was another attack. Not forty-eight hours before, the call sounded for the Starlight Ballroom, and Morgan's entire body froze with a sense of forboding. Another attack? Please, let it be some fucking kid who's blown his dog up to the size of an elephant.

CRACK! Only slightly off her feet, Morgan looked around. Diagon Alley. In that first instant after her arrival, she heard sobs, and more than that, Morgan smelled blood. A lot of it, not just a papercut. It wasn't until she spun around that she caught site of the victims. Fuck. Caoimhe and Doyle Sullivan. There was an unidentified body, and from the looks of it, they weren't going to be able to identify it.

"Move over. I need to get in there," Morgan shouted, throwing herself onto her knees and shoving Caoimhe over. It wasn't that she had no sympathy for her favourite librarian; quite the contrary, she have to get in there and stop the bleeding. Doyle could bleed out before she even had a chance to try anything. Pressure at a point just below the wound, Morgan leaned her weight on it. Fuck, this was just like Mad-Eye's leg all over again. "Caoimhe, I need to know what happened. I've gotta know what happened to figure out how to stop the bleeding."

More shouting. Doyle tried to keep his eyes open, like Kee had said, but it was so hard. He had to try, though, for his sister.

Someone else had come, but he couldn't recognise the voice. Everything was starting to sound like it was coming from way off down a tunnel. Why couldn't he close his eyes? Right, Kee didn't want him to. For her, he'd keep them open.

"Werewolf," Caoimhe managed to get out. Focus on the information. She got to her feet, biting down hard on her lower lip. She was good with information, and she needed to just tune in on that and not think about the fact that Doyle was on the ground bleeding out. The only way she could help him was to talk and to be clear, and she could do that.

"It was a werewolf," she repeated. "Came from behind us, out of an alley. Got him from behind." The blood covered Caoimhe's shirt and her hands, but she was clearly moving around fine - she was all right.

Damn, that was going to make treating these wounds quite different. Morgan wasn't going to be able to save him, except to keep putting pressure on the wound and perhaps a muttered spell or two to slow the flow of blood. Apparating Doyle out of there was priority 1; everything else was secondary.

"Were you bitten or clawed?" Clearly, Doyle had been. No need to ask the question on whether or not he was. Her wand tip twirled over the top of Doyle's wounds, clearing out the blood to fully assess the damage. The right shoulder was badly gnawed on. "Did he get bitten or clawed anywhere else but this shoulder?"

"I don't think so," Caoimhe said quickly. "He didn't touch me. I think it's mostly the shoulder. And he hit hard on the street." That was all she could say for certain as she anxiously watched Morgan work.

"I've got to Apparate him to St Mungo's. Pepper and Belby ought to be able to help him, and all the salves and potions for werewolf wounds are there," Morgan told her. At the very least, she could give Doyle a potion to lessen his pain. Unfortunately, he appeared too far gone to really drink the potion, so she did the next best thing. She dumped it directly onto the wound, nearly smothering it in pain potion. "That should help with some of the pain, but it's not going to be the same as if he'd digested it."

Caoimhe nodded, and found her eyes suddenly drawn to the dead body that was still so close by. That was the blood that covered her hands both literally and figuratively, and she had to force herself to look back at Morgan instead, nodding shakily.

More apparations sounded ahead of them: the DMLE arriving. Four hitwizards had arrived, and Caoimhe knew she was going to have to talk to them - and she was going to have to let Morgan take Doyle to St. Mungo's. There would be help for him there, and there wasn't any here.

"I'll see you soon," Caoimhe whispered, and laced her fingers anxiously together. Now she just had to wait.