WHO: Owen Dearborn, Jasper Williamson, Rodolphus Lestrange, Graham Montague, Audrey II. WHAT: Attack of the plants!!! WHEN: Sunday, 26 November. WHERE: Upper Flagley. WARNINGS: Plants.
Jasper hadn't been to Upper Flagley much. The last time had been to see a Great Aunt his father had insisted on him wishing a Happy Birthday to, because Family Was Important, Jasper. Since he'd only spent time in St. Oswald's Home for Old Witches and Wizards, he was almost expecting the entire village to smell like hospital-grade disinfectant with the taste of stale biscuits lingering in the air.
He was wrong. It smelled more like the village had been covered in a bouquet of flowers, and sweet-smelling fruit.
Relaxing his grip on his wand, Jasper looked over at Owen as they walked through the village. "Sure you trust your hot-tip, mate?"
"Definitely trust them. The description seemed too specific to be a false lead, but not so specific that it seemed like they were planning a trap," Owen explained, trying to tailor his own response to sound like something official, rather than being information that came through his vigilante group channels.
Whereas Jasper's grip on his wand relaxed, Owen's was out and at the ready. "I'm not going to do anything that involves having to fuck around with killer plants unless I have to." One more thing to add to the list of things that Owen Dearborn didn't fuck with. "Have you seen the movie The Wizard of Oz? There's a scene where all the human characters nearly get murdered by a poppy field."
“The movie with the kid and the dog and the yellow brick—“ and there it was, not too far from the south entrance of Old Witches and Wizards Home loomed a giant Venus fly trap. An empty wheelchair sat next to it. “Uh, so… how carnivorous are those things again?”
“Hello,” said the fly trap.
"Oh FUCK no," Owen exclaimed, immediately shaking his head and pivoting on his heels to stalk off back in the direction he and Jasper had come from. It was talking. The plant was talking. After a few long strides in the opposite direction, though, Owen stopped to take a deep breath and returned to Jasper's side in front of the plant, his wand out and at the ready. He was an Auror. He could handle a giant talking leaf.
"Hello," Owen returned the greeting. "I… see you have a wheelchair. Where'd you get it?"
“Oh, you know, a tasty old gentleman brought it to me,” the fly trap replied very politely, pivoting its head towards Owen. “How do you do? Such fine weather we’re having today.”
And then it ate him.
Or more accurately, it attempted to eat him, only managing to close its mouth around half of Owen’s body before Jasper fired a reducto spell at its stem. The fly trap lifted Owen off the ground, screaming in pain.
“Mmmffgghhh!” said the plant, unwilling to lose its next snack. It had been hours since the last time it had something to eat.
The alert roused Rodolphus, who had been out tending to his horses. There was nothing more important than a call to do work for the Dark Lord, though, and Rodolphus was quick off the mark — summoning robes, he apparated to Upper Flagley, appearing with a loud crack as the plant attempted to eat Owen.
A smile bloomed on Rodolphus’ face and he laughed, briefly taking in the sight of the plant attempting to digest a man, whose legs were kicking about in the air. His amusement was apparent in even his curse as he sent a nice bone-breaking curse at Jasper.
Jasper’s yelling switched from trying to rudely parent the plant to a short yelp of pain as his left arm fractured out of the blue. Oh great. Just what he needed. More murderous sons of bitches. And not just any, the same brother of the man who taunted him only days prior.
The rage that had simmered beneath the surface since Rabastan’s list bubbled up again. So Jasper did what any rational person would do in this situation. He sent a fireball charm his way.
Fire burned through the air, crashing against Rodolphus’ shield close enough that he could feel its heat on his face. He was still smiling, though; Rodolphus loved a fight. “I’m not interested in being flambéd. The two of you are dinner, not me.”
His next spell was a sharp slicing curse.
It bounced off Jasper’s shield charm and into the direction of the giant Owen-eating plant, directly into —
“My wheelchair!” the plant wailed, releasing Owen so it could inspect its now damaged toy.
Swathed in his cloak and robes, Graham came hurrying towards the fight, wand at the ready. He couldn’t help but laugh at the scene in front of him, the cry of the giant plant funnier than he really could ever explain.
He flicked his wand to send a bubble jinx towards Owen, a flash of bright purple light and smoke.
Owen, meanwhile, had no concept of anything that was happening outside of his traumatic plant prison. He couldn't see, he couldn't breathe, and the more he It's flailed around inside the plant's mouth, the further he seemed to slide into the sticky, sweet-smelling plant while its digestive… acid, or fluid, or whatever it was called (Owen didn't know, and Owen didn't care) burned away at his skin.
But then it was over just as quick, and he went tumbling out of the plant's mouth while it bellowed about its broken wheelchair. "WHAT THE FUCK," Owen yelled, scrambling up to his feet and looking positively manic, his hands flying up to his hair to make sure that it was okay, while his shirt disintegrating right off of him as it was digestive fluid ate it away into nothingness. Now there were Death Eaters???? A frantic shield charm tossed Graham's bubble jinx away from him and towards the other Death Eater. "You should eat THEM. They taste better!" Owen yelled at the plant, his eyes darting back and forth between the two.
The plant pivoted its head towards the Death Eaters and snapped at Graham.
Graham had been momentarily distracted by Owen’s shirtlessness, staring blatantly for a few long moments.
Until the plant snapped at him and he had to scramble, his robes protecting him from the slobber that dripped as he barely missed being swallowed. He was on your side plant!! This was not cool!
“Confrigo!” He sent a blast of fire at the plant, trying to scare it off.
“Gosh,” Rodolphus said, a smile playing on his face, “keep your shirt on, Mr Dearborn.” He nodded slightly at the other Death Eater, dodging out of the plants way as Graham sent fire towards it. Rodolphus darted forward, snapping off a few knee reversal curses.
Jasper neatly dodged the last knee reversal curse just as the heat from the other Death Eater’s spell near scorched his back. He did not have the time or patience to dodge A LESTRANGE and a fucking (screaming) people-eating plant.
Incensed at all of the above, he flung a bone removal spell at the nearest Death Eater, hoping to slow them down.
While Owen managed to avoid the fire, he dodged right into the path of Rodolphus's knee-reversal spell and cried out in pain as his bones twisted around inside his leg. After aiming a quick numbing spell at his knee to help the pain, he fired off an Incarcarous spell at each of the Death Eaters. Not… that he was really sure what would happen if they DID manage to arrest them and take them into the Ministry, all things considered, but that didn't mean that Owen wasn't going to try.
Diving out of the way of the bone removal curse, Graham instead got tangled in the rope of Owen’s spell. He twisted frantically trying to get out of it, the wand clutched in his hand ineffective against the spell-summoned trappings.
“Expulso!” He yelled, the curse going nowhere but into the ground near his feet, grass and sod flying everywhere.
The dirt hit Rodolphus, pelting his back as he vanished the ropes coming his way. His next spell was short and to the point: a crucio tossed off, with a vicious slant to his mouth.
Waves of pain ravaged Jasper’s body. “Stupefy!” He tried yelling through it all, desperately hoping to salvage some ground in this unexpected fight. The spell misfired into the direction of the plant, whose head suddenly slumped into stillness.
Seeing the unforgivable curse ravage its way through his fellow Auror was horrifying, and turned Owen's attention entirely on bringing down the Death Eater who cast it. "STUPEFY!" he shouted at him in a shirtless knee-reversed rage, followed by a slicing spell, and an incendio, and a blasting curse, and a spell that would make the Death Eater puke slugs. He was going down.
Finally throwing the ropes off as well, Graham flicked them back at the dude trying to attack Rodolphus, being distracted by his shirtlessness again for a moment. After a moment he smirked and wolf whistled, yelling, "Looking good!"
The curse he'd been going to follow up never manifested, as he felt the older Death Eater grab a hold of him, the dreaded feeling of being Side-Apparated away wiping any other thoughts from his mind.