InsaneJournal

WHO: Serafina Proudfoot, Kera Ryan, and friends
WHAT: Rocks fall, shit happens
WHERE: St. Mungo's
WHEN: Sometime after this



Sera was going to kill someone today.

She limped as fast as she could through the St. Mungo’s corridor, her right leg losing its strength and getting dragged behind her as she followed the trail left behind the escaped patient. The bloody patient that she’d been guarding for the past month, Rhoda Mercer, had managed to harm a healer and distract the on-guard auror just enough to knock them unconscious. Sera had been rounding into the room as everything transpired, but not in time to keep Mercer from getting the other auror’s wand.

Disarming her wasn’t the problem, in fact, that had taken little-to-no-time. No, to Sera’s surprise and intrigue, Mercer had literally pulled the tattoo of a blade off her forearm and flung the very real weapon at her.

Serafina would’ve been very impressed with this magic if Mercer’s blade hadn’t slashed straight through the open flap in her robes and across her thigh.

Every alarm bauble that could be turned on in the corridor, Sera punched it on; the hospital needed to be put on lockdown, immediately, especially since Mercer hadn’t gone toward the exit. She’d gone up the stairwell, where the hell was she going?

“All units,” Sera strained into her wand, hoping to shoot the message to anyone in the vicinity and in time before this nutjob got where she wanted to go, “deranged suspect on the loose in St. Mungo’s, Proudfoot in pursuit---”

Kera ignored the blaring sirens, Proudfoot’s voice, the lights flickering in and out through the corridor. With a single-minded focus, she prowled a slow gate, her eyes never leaving the subject of her undivided attention a few feet in front of her. After losing her stolen wand (and Kera consequently snapping it in half), Mercer came to a halt to contemplate her next move.

Rhoda Mercer had rounded the hallway not moments ago, dragging Jake’s unconscious healer along with a brazenness that only came from presumptive victory. She didn’t realize Kera was here, guarding Jake’s door while he slept off his healer’s appointment, because she couldn’t see her. Separating Healer Podmore from Mercer hadn’t been tricky, but to prevent Mercer from dropping Podmore head-first to the ground and getting closer to Jake, Kera had lost her invisibility cloak and gained a broken nose.

It was barely an inconvenience. With one hand, Kera wiped blood from her face. With the other, she struck Mercer’s knife down mid air, its clatter to the ground lost in the chaos. Another flick of her wand, and the knife shot sideways to ram into the wall. It wouldn’t magically reappear in Mercer’s hand anytime soon.

How had Mercer known Jake would be here tonight when only three other people possessed that knowledge? For the time being, Kera ignored the searing burn that she should’ve figured it out sooner. She stayed close to the hospital door, not allowing more than two or three feet worth of distance.

“He’s going to die tonight,” Mercer taunted, teetering as she spoke. Her arms flailed like they were held by invisible strings. “You can’t stop fate!”

Kera shot a leg-locking curse towards Mercer’s feet to keep her wedged back against the wall.

“Why him?” Kera asked, purely because she had Mercer unarmed and needed information. “I’m what you want.”

“BECAUSE!” Mercer shrieked, grinning from ear to ear. She brushed her hand lazily up her own thigh. “Delphina said you won’t die until---!”

Kera gave no warning this time and shot Mercer in the knee. The witch toppled to the ground with a scream, her legs locking together. Kera dragged her forward.

“What contact do you have with Delphina Mopsus?!” Kera demanded, because there was only one Delphina anyone knew. The very real possibility that the old seer was connected to Mercer’s redrobe terrorist group made Kera downright furious. Was that how they managed to convincingly copycat the Bobbins, always be one step ahead? Dagworth, this whole time…

But instead of responding, Mercer simply shrieked with laughter. Kera pointed her wand toward her chest, knowing she shouldn’t waste anymore time on her. She had to get Jake out of here, find Louis, warn Chambers, protect his son and Hestia; take control of this situation before more people got hurt.

Just as Kera twisted her wand, she caught Mercer fiddling with something by her hip. She recognized the potion vial at once, and knowing what Mercer was about to do as she raised her arm, Kera quickly broke Mercer’s wrist with a snap of her wand. The witch screeched as Kera lunged to knock the deadly poison away from them both.

“Oh no you don’t!” Sera snapped, thrusting her wand sharply toward the tussling duo and flinging her target, Mercer, hard into the opposing wall of the corridor. The woman slid to the ground and binding ties shot from the tip of Serafina’s wand the moment she hit the floor.

The sound of Kera’s and her own heavy breaths gave Serafina a feeling of satisfaction, and she let her body relax for the one second her injured leg would allow her to. Letting out a low growl, Sera finally whipped her robes open and jabbed her wand to the gash in her leg and muttered an irritating, but efficient, healing spell.

“Well, you were right,” she muttered toward Kera, moving toward the down healer. Serafina knelt beside her and felt for a pulse as she looked to the other auror. “Woman’s fucking mad.”

Her wand moved over the healer’s body to sit her upright against the wall; she’d be fine, but Sera would let the professionals handle her healing. Her brow furrowed at the sight of Kera, partially at her bloody nose, but mostly at her presence in general. What was she doing in Mungo’s?

Good thing she was, with that nose.

“Why’s she got a hit on you?”

Kera didn’t immediately respond, her focus split between absorbing the ramifications of what she just learned and confirming Mercer’s lack of consciousness. When it was clear the witch was out cold, Kera rose from the floor. She made a few quick, important decisions as she jammed the vial of poison into her back pocket.

“No time to explain,” Kera let out, hastily reaching for her badge. They had to move before security made its way up here and shut everything down. Sera especially had to leave the scene before anyone saw her, if it wasn’t already too late…

Kera grimaced at the amount of blood covering her wand. She quickly wiped it clean across her front and proceeded to press the tip of her wand to her badge. As she called for Kingsley to respond, she probed around the floor with her foot for her invisibility cloak.

Kingsley didn’t instantly get back to her, but she did find her cloak. Kera crossed the short distance to Sera, ignoring the pain radiating from her face. Despite her mind speeding faster than a snitch, her voice came out calm.

“I need you to bring in Louis Bonaccord and Adian Rosenberg,” she said, sticking her hand out toward Sera in thanks. Unfortunately, she needed her to do a little more. “Right now. Their lives are in danger and I can’t go myself.”

Kera held out her invisibility cloak for Sera to take. She looked away from the auror only to glance at Jake’s door. She could get him out, she was sure. But Podmore would have to come along too, she couldn’t stay here. And that meant… Kera shook her head.

“I’ll meet you back at the office with them and tell you everything. I---” She cut off as Kingsley’s voice came through on the badge connection.

Serafina nodded as she quickly waved her wand over Kera’s bloodstained face. It was sometimes hard to remember that Kera was so much younger than her, but that didn’t mean she couldn’t provide the help that could slip one’s mind in the middle of madness.

“I’ve got mine,” Sera said, pushing back Kera’s cloak. Why was she insisting she go incognito? No time to explain? Who the hell was this Mercer woman? Sera knew that there were details the other auror couldn’t describe or explain, but---she was contacting Shacklebolt?

What the fuck?

Questions later, she supposed. Kera wanted her to find Bonaccord and--? The friend from the hit-wizard ward?

Sera’s eyes narrowed. She’d lost track of Bonaccord today because he’d gone out with Rosenberg and they’d disapparated a few blocks out. That wasn’t an odd occurrence, she’d seen the two out before so---

“Right,” she said with a curt nod. She’d trailed him long enough to have an idea of where they might be, who he might go see, but if Kera was saying that lives were in danger, then she had to use all that she knew. Sera nodded again and ignoring Shacklebolt’s voice getting a bit more strained the more Kera explained matters, she jabbed the badge,

“Oy,” she said, making sure she had Kera’s attention, “you contact me the second you need whatever it is you’re going to need.” The voice from badge got louder and Sera rolled her eyes.

“Stop panicking, Bolt,” Sera smirked, beginning a backward stride toward the staircase to begin her search. “We got this.”