sturgis podmore (hitsyouhard) wrote in find_horcruxes, @ 2010-01-05 21:59:00 |
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Entry tags: | remus lupin, sirius black, sturgis podmore |
RP Log: Sturgis Podmore, Remus Lupin, & Sirius Black
Who: So, a werewolf, a hitwizard, and an Animagus walk into a bar... (Sirius Black, Sturgis Podmore, & Remus Lupin)
When: 6 January, 1980; somewhere around 1:00 AM
Where: St. Mungo's
What: Sturgis wants to know WTF happened, and Remus is the only conscious witness.
Rating: Sturgis cusses, Sirius cusses, and Remus is the odd man out.
Status: Complete!
"Everyone just shut up and tell me what the fucking fuck is going on here!" The roar was impressive, by anyone's standards. Sturgis Podmore had a good set of lungs about him, and the hallways of St. Mungo's possessed excellent acoustics. A man with an eyepatch in the waiting area bit his fingernails. A sick-looking little kid began to cry. Three healers rolled up their sleeves and headed toward the hitwizard who'd so rudely intruded upon their hospital. And Sturgis wasn't having any of it. Sirius Black's note in the journals had told him just enough to lend him superhuman rage. Caoimhe was in the hospital, apparently on death's door, and no one could really tell him what the fuck had happened beyond "werewolves or something, man, I don't know". He wasn't feeling charitable. And while he quieted down enough for the healer's not to escort him outside, it wasn't enough to keep him from flaring his nostrils as soon as he recognised the tousled head of a certain Remus J. Lupin, looking pale and ill in a hospital room of his own. "Lupin!" he snarled, marching inside with the air of someone who was five seconds from lighting someone on fire. Remus jerked his head in the direction of the bestial noise purely out of reflex. Had he his full wits about him, he would have recognised the voice and the approaching man, but with a brain half-scrambled and still reeling from all that had transpired in the past few hours it was a delayed placement of identity. He made a stubborn insistence that he was fine (despite bleeding rather profusely out his side), which Morgan MacDougal ignored and hauled him in to St. Mungo's all the same, and so here he was. And there Sturgis Podmore was. And suddenly Remus looked to Sirius without even masking the alarmed expression on his face. What Remus expected, he didn't know, but things never went well when a Sturgis Podmore was hulking toward you and snarling your name. This much, Remus recognised. Another bit of recognition was how the sudden movement was not agreeing with his open wounds -- dark magic being the culprit, there was little healers could do -- and he slumped back, pulling a face. Just because he could tolerate the pain didn't mean it didn't still smart like hell. This was why Sirius had made haste down the hall as soon as he had word that Marion Banges was on her way to sit with Doyle. Well, not the only reason - he'd wanted to check in on Remus for his own peace of mind, first of all. In a very close second, however, was that in addition to Marion, Sirius was also aware that Podmore was on his way in and that he had been using an awful lot of capital letters in saying so. The capital letters seemed to still be there in his voice, or at the very least a strong underline, which was why Sirius felt the most appropriate reaction was to immediately hold his hands up like a surrendering bank robber. "Please don't hit us," he opened, because Podmore definitely looked like he was considering it. Sirius Black had been stupidly brave on many occasions, but he knew a losing battle when he saw one, and first priority here had to be making sure Remus didn't get throttled for something that wasn't really his fault. "Remus is hurt pretty bad, and this isn't his fault." "Your fat mouth seems to be working just fine," Sturgis returned shortly as he rounded on Sirius. "What the fuck happened, Black? I hear something about a goddamn werewolf wizard attacking Caoimhe and here I come and they goddamn tell me I'm not family, and then one healer tells me on the down-low that she's actually hurt really fucking bad, and then here's Remus, looking like he went two rounds with a beater bat and the beater bat won. Let me see that," he huffed, his rant winding down as he carefully grabbed Remus by the chin and gave him a firm looking over. So sue him; he was someone's dad, and some instincts just came naturally. Satisfied that Remus wasn't actually going to die on him too, he looked back to Sirius expectantly. "Well!" He barked. "Report!" There was something about Sturgis Podmore shouting REPORT that seemed to require an instant response, so despite not knowing a whole lot, Sirius just started talking. Sirius had been in trouble enough to know exactly what sort of reply was required for any particular sort of trouble, and this was clearly the "matter of life and death and you'd better not try charm" sort of trouble. Remus knew more and was better qualified to explain, but Sirius figured he'd need a minute to formulate his thoughts first, given the large amount of pain and potions he was working under. "Remus and Caoimhe were on their way out of the library and got attacked," Sirius began, because Remus had at least been able to tell him that much. "Remus thinks they were werewolves out for revenge because Caoimhe killed one. They used Dark magic and they went after Caoimhe first, and--" Well, that was where it got hard to say, wasn't it? Sirius grimaced, and his voice got a little quieter. "She was hurt really badly. They told me more earlier, because I was the one who brought her in. As of ten minutes ago when I left her brother, they still weren't absolutely sure she was going to make it. She'd lost a lot of blood and they were still trying to get the curses countered enough that they could replace it." Remus tried not to flinch back as Sturgis invaded in, breaking roughly every rule about personal bubbles. Once he realised that there wasn't a throttling to follow, he eased up again; fortunately, Sirius was the one on the receiving end of the questioning by the time his heart started to calm down again. Even though there was a fair amount of painkiller potion running through his system and aside from the overall attempts of his mind to wander defensively away from thinking about Caoimhe's unmoving body, Remus was fairly keeping up. "They screamed out 'Murderer', and there were too many -- she didn't even finish locking up. We were... we were just about to leave," he finally chimed in, looking to Sturgis now. It could've been an apology the way his voice was quiet, almost uncertain. Something about how mad Sturgis was seemed to make Remus feel oddly like he was in Professor McGonagall's office, being asked what it was his friends did and if he had anything he wanted to share before she called them in. And he knew it was just his brain being rattled up because they were clearly in a hospital, and someone had clearly almost just died. 'Murderer'. Then it was in all likelihood the same group of werewolves that had attacked Caoimhe and Doyle several months before. "Were you able to injure them?" Sturgis asked, thinking that if there was a blood trail... no, but they were wizards. They'd have apparated, splinching be damned, as soon as help drew near. "Never mind. We'll send more to the scene." Sturgis himself wasn't going. No, not with Caoimhe hanging by a limb, not with Remus looking so pale as he remembered what had happened, and Sirius hanging around to seemingly keep him from knocking out his friend. Dammit, he was scattered and angry and distracted. That was why he'd rarely dated anyone in the years after Lydia; besides the necessary amount of time it'd taken to get over his ex-wife, there was always the nagging possibility in the back of his head of impending tragedy. Remus was lucky. It was up to the gods to see if Caoimhe would be. Dragging a hand through his hair and forcefully getting control of himself, Sturgis turned back to Sirius. "Sirius - get back to Brookstanton and get some volunteers to double-check the library. This may have been solely a revenge-trip, but it might've been another bid to get inside to steal something. Check it out, and for fuck's sakes, don't get caught. Use Peter if you have to; a rat won't get noticed. We've got to ensure that this was just a personal attack." Sirius nodded - some kind of mission was a good thing. Lily and James would be on their way soon enough to see to Remus, so he'd be all right. Podmore looked less inclined toward killing either of them now, and doing exactly as he was told seemed to Sirius the best way to keep that state of affairs going. He was already taking out his journal to tell Peter that Wormtail was needed at the library. "Doyle said he'd let us know when there was something to know," he said as he flipped pages. "And he had me talk to Marion Banges and tell her to let the rest of their friends know. Should I let the Order at large know what's going on while I'm getting Peter?" "Yeah, do a quick note," Sturgis agreed, mentally ticking off where to go next. Dark magic had been involved. More than likely, the case would end up in Auror territory. "We should be fine on the Order side of things - you were a bystander, Remus, in a bad situation at the wrong time. They went after Caoimhe in revenge of her killing that other werewolf a few months ago. There's nothing to connect you two to any broader organisation, so thank Merlin for that. Actually, Sirius, maybe put a note to anyone on the journaling network. Just because you're a suspect for the vigilante group doesn't mean that Caoimhe needs to be implicated by staying silent. I'm thinking staying wide-open on this one's gonna be the way to go." Fuck, Caoimhe. He glanced at his watch, chewing his lip. "I'm gonna go find Doyle. See what he knows. Caoimhe's gonna be just fine, you hear me?" And if he sounded like he was trying to convince himself, well. Too bad. Remus's eyes fell on the bedsheets as the other two spoke between themselves. He had enough of his wits about him to know that it was Sirius and not him who could help at this point, and enough to realise that it was a stupid thing to dwell on it at all. He closed his eyes for the moment, trying to review the events as they panned out from the moment he noticed all the figures looming closer from the darkened street. Sturgis and Sirius's voices faded out from his hearing. Lights went out, shouting, Caoimhe hit, attempt to fend them off with an exploding hex, hit in the side, Caoimhe down, hit again, and then a pause when one of the assailants called for a ceasefire... "I think they knew me," he said. There was that wand light forced onto his face, and right before Disapparating Remus could swear that they were observing him. "They had to be Greyback's. I remember one voice -- didn't stay to hear it out, but..." He slid down onto his pillow. "Oh, God." Sirius looked up sharply from where he was journaling as instructed. "Werewolves who knew you?" he asked, because that seemed somehow worse. They didn't know Caoimhe's part in things, of course, but it did pretty well wreck Remus's chances of getting back in there...and if Remus was known to be friendly with a werewolf killer, it also might well turn Greyback and his lot right on Remus. "Fuck. Fu--they'll go straight back to Greyback with it. Damn it." It hadn't even occurred to Sturgis that the same werewolves who'd attacked Caoimhe and Doyle several months ago might have gotten together with Greyback's pack in the meantime. He cursed his own stupidity under his breath. If this hadn't been Caoimhe of course he would've drawn that conclusion, but-- "Remus, I need the names and addresses of your immediate family. We've got to get them warded and we've got to get it done fast. Sirius - include a ward on there to Fenwick and anyone else good at warding. We're already protected but we're going to have to broaden that web as quickly as we can, and we're gonna have to do it tonight." Fuck, fuck, fuck. "Remus," Sturgis added, wanting to get this out quickly before he had to go or forgot to, "Remus, you did great tonight, okay? You gave the Healers time to fix Caoimhe. We'll make it work. If they were able to figure out who you are, that doesn't mean that you're not gonna be protected." It took a fair amount of focus to draw in a breath and try to relieve it without making too much noise -- though why Remus was fearing that of all things, he couldn't say. It had been so easy to separate the Order from his family, and now he needed addresses and -- God, what was the number of his parents' house? He knew it. He knew that he knew it. Maybe he was just trying too hard to remember it now that it was evading. Another breath. Sturgis was saying his name. Remus looked up. "Okay," he echoed, clinging tightly to a small amount of calm he'd found through Sturgis's words. "I'm fine. I'm -- you should go to Doyle. I'm fine now." "And I'm getting everybody mobilized here," Sirius added, for both their benefits. He figured both Remus and Sturgis needed to know he had a handle on things here. "General notice to the world at large that there was an attack on Diagon, stay in your homes and under your wards; general notice to the Order of what happened, and request for Peter to meet me behind Fortescue's to change and then take a look around the library; and now request to Order - particularly Benjy - to see to Remus's folks and make certain they're okay and no one's gone after them or can. And James and Lil are already on their way for Remus." He looked up at Sturgis to make sure that he had it all right. Mistakes were pretty well unforgivable under the circumstances. Sirius apparently had missed his calling as someone's personal secretary. "Good. Finish it up," Sturgis said, loosening his tie. "I'm gonna track down Doyle, see if he's heard anything. He might be next - either as a victim or a potential recruit. Either of you see Bones, let me know. My journal's in my pocket. Remus, stop going into shock," he added as a helpful suggestion. "Parry the questions if they're asked, and I'll let you know soon as I hear about your family, got it?" There was little more for Remus to do than to nod an understanding, feeling that, as far as orders went, not going into shock was something he could handle. "Got it," he confirmed, finding a strength of voice to answer with and feeling sufficiently confident that it was not that of someone going into shock. "Thanks," was added, despite Remus feeling it couldn't quite contain all that he wanted to say to both Sturgis and Sirius. Anyway, they had to be going. It wouldn't do to start rambling now. "Wait for James and Lily," Sturgis ordered, already half-out the door. "And get 'em up to speed before you leave with Peter. And for Merlin's sakes, be careful." Sturgis was not a believer in extended goodbyes or sad speeches of heroism and encouragement. Sufficiently satisfied that Remus was not on the verge of curling into a fetal ball and sucking his thumb, Sturgis set off down the hallway, sick grandmothers with canes and weak-looking little children tripping to get out of his way. Sirius was finishing off the last of his writing, trying to make sure all the bases were covered. He just nodded to Sturgis as the hitwizard made his exit. Then, done writing, he turned to Remus and set the journal on the table by his bed. "Brand new journal here," he explained. "I just bought it in the gift shop since I didn't have mine here, so if you need to get hold of anyone while I'm gone, you've got this. I'm sticking here 'til Clan Potter arrives, though - I don't want anybody getting ideas about a hospital assassination and you being here by yourself." Remus would have smiled at that, the macabre humour that he thought he sensed, but maybe it was just the combined effect of the potions and the off-kilter set of his mind despite trying to keep his thoughts straight. "You know," he started, once Sturgis had gone from the room, "I think Professor McGonagall was right about us..." Remus shook his head. "We just can't seem to keep out of trouble." And he didn't smile at that, either. Sirius just snorted, not a trace of mirth to be found in the sound or his expression. For most of school, they'd gone looking for trouble. Then they got out of school, and it seemed that trouble just knew what they looked like well enough to hunt them down itself now. Do the wrong thing and you paid the consequences, but do the right thing and there were consequences for that, too--was that how his brother ended up a Death Eater? No, Sirius firmly told himself. That was a bullshit excuse, whether it was true or not. It was legitimate at fifteen, maybe, but they were adults now. They made their own choices, and they couldn't give up just because the right choice brought as much trouble down on their heads as the wrong one did. "But we always get out of it in the end," Sirius reminded him quietly, none of the usual bravado in his voice. "It's been bad before, but we always get through. We will this time, too." |