WHO: Sturgis Podmore & Winthrop Abbott feat. Thaddeus the Cat. WHAT: Welp. Sturgis had a good run of near twenty-six years of keeping his secret identity a secret. WHEN: Wednesday, April 11th in the early afternoon. WHERE: The Podmore home outside Vicarstown, Ireland WARNINGS: Violence. Blood. Fire. Unforgivables.
Approaching the building in the distance was an easy enough task, though the dark robes and the mark that covered his face easily gave away exactly who Winthrop was sided with. The smell of fresh flowers blooming had been a welcome scent, but he wasn't here to engage in the pleasantries of the Irish countryside.
Instead, he was here to kill Sturgis Podmore, that Order scum.
He'd made sure to charm his voice so that it sounded nothing like the cheerful Winthrop Abbott that most people knew, and instead, it was hoarser. He was plenty happy with it.
He spotted Podmore tending to his vegetable garden, which only caused him to chuckle for a moment. Of course. Podmore, always so busy with his vegetables.
Shaking his head, Winthrop sent fireball at the garden, fully intent on destroying it.
For all his small idiosyncrasies, Sturgis was strangely a creature of habit. He had cultivated a routine over the past few years since the loss of his job and he was hard pressed to deviate from it. After making breakfast and seeing his wife off to work, he usually spent the mornings somewhat tidying up the home before sitting down for lunch. It was after that meal he usually spent time in his garden, which ran year long thanks to various charms and spells.
Unlucky for him, it was this routine that caused him to be outside when the Death Eater decided to visit.
“What the fuck!” Sturgis yelled as a fireball suddenly whizzed past his face and landed in the middle of a crop of asparagus. Using his wand to spend a spray of water in the direction of the burning vegetables, he turned to see where the fireball had originated. He wasted no time in conjuring his own fireball once he saw the mask and sent it barrelling toward the Death Eater. “Do you know how long it takes for asparagus to become viable?!?”
Though older than the typical Death Eaters around these days, Winthrop was still agile enough that he managed to bend at exactly the right moment to see the fireball whirl past his face. He smiled and applauded the effort.
But then Sturgis had to go and talk again, and ruin the bloody moment.
"Oh, don't be an absolute bore, Podmore," Winthrop whined, rolling his eyes in the process. But the corners of his lips curled upward at what he had just said, and chuckled to himself. What a great rhyme that was.
He didn't waste any time before sending a well-timed Crucio at the suspected Order member, as he took a few steps towards him.
As the red light struck him in the shoulder, he dropped to the ground as the horrific pain swept over his body. This wasn’t the first time the particular Unforgivable had been used on him, though that small fact didn’t make the current torture any easier. Despite not wanting to give the Death Eater the satisfaction, Sturgis eventually let out a scream as he tried to think of anything he could do to end the assault and keep himself alive. It was easier said than done and in the end it was an unplanned roll to his left that moved him out of the beam of red light.
“That was a terrible rhyme,” Sturgis said as a few stalks of corn rose out of the ground, turned parallel to the ground, and shot toward the Death Eater.
The corn struck Winthrop at various places and he flailed his arms about, trying to get out of the way. "Oh, come on, corn." Winthrop rolled his eyes, and sent another fireball at the vegetable patch, making sure to set more of the garden on fire.
And then, "Imperio!"
Another stalk of corn had been sent careening toward the Death Eater when he was struck by the other sadly familiar curse. As a wave of calmness washed over him, Sturgis lowered his wand while his gaze fixated on something in the distance. Behind him, the stalks of corn began to snap and spark.
"Podmore," Winthrop started, taking a few small steps towards the man, a curious smile on his face, though the mask covered it all the same. "Are you a member of the Order of the Phoenix?"
“Yes, I am,” Sturgis answered as a top of a carrot a few feet from his left foot caught fire.
Winthrop sighed, even though he knew that this was a very real possibility. He caught sight of the garden shears. With a wave of the wand, it appeared next to Sturgis. "Take the shears and stab yourself with it," he ordered Podmore, tilting his head to one side.
Calmly, the other man looked down at the garden shears that had appeared beside him and picked him up with his free hand. Sturgis wasted no time in facing the blades towards him and plunged them into his abdomen without so much as a flinch or a yelp. Pulling the bloody implement out of his body, he was about to stab himself for a second time when from the left came a rather disheveled looking Thaddeus the Cat, who promptly launched himself at the Death Eater with an angry yowl.
"Ow, what the hell!" Winthrop yelped before swatting at the cat, though the cat had cut him deeply on the side of his neck, a plethora of blood flowing down his side. He disgruntledly waved his wand, as the cat levitated towards the fire patch in the garden, but Winthrop knew he had to get out of there quickly, before leaving behind any evidence.
Scowling, he turned on his heel and disapparated with a loud crack as the cat dropped into a patch of fireless potatoes.
“Good job, Thaddeus,” Sturgis said as he pressed a hand against the wound on his abdomen and hissed from the pain. “But I think we need to skedaddle.”