Collateral Damage
Chapter One - Gathering Clouds
A/N Revised seventh of August '07!
The air was full of that crackling tension that came before a thunderstorm. In a dingy little corner of Muggle London a young man whiled away his hours in a gloomy little store.
Jake looked up at the gathering clouds and wished he were back home, instead of being stuck working his holidays away in the goddamned general store. He leaned back on the counter and glanced at his watch. Ten to five, it was just about time to start shutting up shop.
He stepped out around the counter, narrowly avoiding the precariously balanced display of Starburst products. His new shoes squeaked as he walked across the cracked and peeling linoleum. It was the only sound in the store. The quiet outside and in the store was unnerving and Jake shook his head slightly, as if trying to dislodge that sense of unease lingering at the back of his skull.
For a moment he watched the street outside through the grimy shop window.
Fog hung low over the streets outside as Jake flipped the 'Open' sign over to 'Closed'. He hesitated for a moment and the keys got stuck in the pocket of his jeans as his fingers fumbled over them. That unease wasn't moving, if anything it was growing, making his fingers fumble with the keys.
A loud crack like a car backfiring exploded into the silence. The door suddenly flew open, cracking Jake on the nose and sending the keys flying out of his hand.
A young man crashed into the store, his wet shoes skidding on the floor.
"Quick!" yelled the wild-eyed man, "Water, er, Bandages, quick!"
Jake didn't move, he physically couldn't move his gaze from the hem of the strange cloak that the young man was wearing. It had left a garish red trail across the floor where it had trailed and had completely frozen Jake's ability to think or speak.
The man followed Jake's gaze and for a single moment it seemed as if the wild energy in him faded. He sighed and sagged closer into himself.
"I'm sorry," The words seemed strangely vulnerable coming from such a proud face. "Accio Water!"
Jake watched in numb shock as the fridge containing dozens of bottles of Mount Franklin exploded. The glass shattered as the plastic bottles flew across the store and landed neatly at the man's feet. Jake looked up and felt a chill in his heart to see the strange man already watching him.
The hand holding a nondescript brown stick dropped limply to the man's side. He looked strangely at Jake again and for a moment no one in the store moved.
Jake looked away from the man for a moment, then another loud crack burst into the silence. When he finally looked up, the man was gone and so were some of the bottles of water scattered across the floor.
Blood was everywhere, trickling through the cracks in the pavement and creating a gruesome red spider web pattern across the ground. The entire street was splashed with it.
James shuddered involuntarily, recalling how the blood had simply exploded from Remus before he had hit the ground. His fingers curled tighter around his wand and he tried not notice how his hands were shaking.
Peter was looking at him expectantly, an anxious frown creasing his forehead.
"James, what are you going to do?" Peter whispered.
"I don't know!" James realised too late that he was shouting and tears were burning almost painfully at the corners of his eyes. He looked up as Sirius returned, apparating only centimetres away from Peter's left shoulder.
He was carrying bottles of water.
It was at that moment that Remus decided gain consciousness. He spluttered and gasped, his eyes screwed shut with pain. James watched Sirius's face and decided if his best friend's face told anything, Sirius was in as much pain as Remus, if not more.
"I can't heal this." James said his voice wobbling like a thirteen-year-old's. "We need to find a healer."
"But St Mungo's has shut down!" Pete was visibly trembling, the seriousness of the situation having caught up with him.
"I know!" James shouted again and Sirius jumped. James sighed, "Sirius apparate to HQ and get a healer. Or anyone. Get help."
Sirius simply nodded and apparated without another sound.
Peter looked at the Muggle bottled water.
"Why'd you send Padfoot to get water, Prongs? You could have conjured some."
"To get him out of the way." James replied, his gaze fixed on Moony's unmoving figure. Tears were blurring his vision, making the sight of Moony in a spreading pool of blood swim nauseatingly. "He looked upset."
Where was Lily? James suddenly needed to see her, to hear her snap at him and call him 'Potter' with her pretty freckled nose in the air. A tear dripped off the end of his long nose, splashing onto the pavement. And he couldn't have cared less.
"Are you okay, James?"
"No."
"What hit him?" Poppy Pomfrey's voice was sharp and worried, a fact that didn't serve to reassure James or Sirius at all. "I've never seen anything like this before."
"We're not sure," James glanced at Sirius, who looked equally stressed.
"It sounded like Sectum-scess-pra or something." Sirius said, his grey eyes worried.
James noticed that Padfoot's hands were shaking nearly as much as his own.
"Will he be okay?" The voice that came from Sirius was so vulnerable that it almost hurt James to hear it.
"I can't promise anything," Madam Pomfrey said, then her voice softened. "Here, drink this, it'll make you feel better." She passed them both beakers of steaming potion.
The potion didn't taste unpleasant, but it burnt all the way down. As the world began to tilt weirdly around James, he realised it was probably some kind of sleeping potion. Beside him, Sirius slid off his chair, the potion effecting his thinner frame more quickly.
"Where is he?" Lily sounded stressed.
James looked up, making an effort to remain conscious. A bright red blur burst into the room.
"Lily…?" he said through the fog of sleep that was descending quickly. He stretched out his hand and felt her catch it, before he too slipped off his chair completely.
"Oh, James," The little tremble in her voice scared him immensely.