There were many things Tamora hated about the Ministry, but their new rules about handling the prisoners brought things to a new level. Unless their condition required immediate assistance, no Undesirables over Number 77 were taken in between eight in the evening and nine in the morning, which meant they often got stuck with the prisoners all night.
It wasn't always that bad. Some of them, especially Mudbloods liked to hide in uninhabited Muggle homes, so once they even got to sleep at a magnificent country house near Windermere, but tonight they had no such luck. They caught up with Celeste and Archibald Fairchild at what felt like the coldest, darkest and exact middle of nowhere, so it was another night to be spent lying on the forest floor.
To some of the boys nights like that were a sort of blessing. It was the same drill every time: once they were finished with the unpleasant task of properly identifying their prisoners (for some reason they seemed to run into a Half-Blood named John Smith every single week) they would tie them up and make camp. They would light a fire, and someone would go and fetch some food and a few bottles of booze, but after an hour or so most of them would turn in, because there would be not much worth staying up for until the break of dawn.
But while it could be a few extra hours of beauty sleep for the rest of the group, it was often a night of tossing and turning for Tamora.
She enjoyed the forest during the day. It wasn't like with Grandma, strolling around, looking for mushrooms or potion ingreedients, but it was all right. Walking through it by night was also fine, and she liked the occasional slipping away to the bushes with Scabior, but now that she was forced to sleep in it again, she really felt like giving the Fairchilds injuries that could make the Ministry take them in so that they could go home.
Knowing that the harder she concentrated on getting some rest the more tired she would be in the morning, she sat up with a sigh and looked around.
It was Scabior's turn on the watch, and while he liked letting the others collect firewood or go and get them food, he knew it wasn't a task that could be passed on without consequences, so he was sitting with his back against the fallen tree trunk, smoking one cigarette after the other to keep himself awake.
As she leaned closer to the fire and grabbed what was left of her can of soup from dinner, Tamora considered telling him that she would take it from here, but then she decided to give herself some time before that generous offer. She sat beside him, put her back against the tree and drank some soup from the can, hoping that it would warm her a little, and when she finished it, she moved closer to Scabior and pulled his arm around her shoulder. It's been three months since his release from Azkaban, but he still had a slight fever that made him kick off the sheets every night, and Tamora envied him for that. It's been more than two years for her, and she still had shivers coming from nowhere.
"What is it, love?" he asked, running a thumb up and down the back of her neck. He seemed to like how she went a little overboard with the scissors, giving him an extra inch or two of exposed skin, because he just couldn't keep his hands and kisses off her neck these days, and it made Tamora wonder if she sould try to cut it really short next time.
"Nothing," she took a cigarette from the pack he offered her, lighting it with the tip of what he was already smoking. "I can't sleep."
He pulled her closer with a symphatetic purse of his lips and caressed her neck again. Back at The Leaky Cauldron it would have been easy enough to solve the problem with a few drops of laudanum, which they always kept close as the cheaper alternative of sleeping potions, but it wouldn't have been wise to take it here, in the forest.
"So I'll probably finish this, take a walk behind those bushes, then take your place," she smiled at him, putting a hand on his thigh. "There's no need for both of us to be on watch."
"'Ow sweet of you," he grinned, pulling her closer. "But give those ones a wide berth, Norell 'ave spent around fifteen minutes be'ind 'em after supper," he warned her.
"I will," Tamora wrinkled her nose, and she felt truly happy that they made camp in an area where each of them could have his or her personal bush at a walking distance.
There was one thing she felt even happier about; there were good, dry fallen branches scattered everywhere around the forest floor for her to collect once she finished her business with Nature and her call. The wood their fire was built of had been enchanted to last all night, but she wanted a few more logs on it to keep her feet warm, so she flicked her wand and Summoned an armful of them.
As twigs and branches came soaring towards her, something moved in the dark, and she could hear something like a muffled yelp too, so she dropped everything and raised her wand in the direction of the voice instead.
"Show yourself," demanded Tamora, but when the man stepped out from behind the tree, there was nothing obedient about him. He attacked without hesitation and with great force, but it was his face in the light of his curses that made Tamora gasp.
"The prisoners!" she cried as loud as she could, blocking his Stunning Spell. Athelney Fairchild had been the main target of the Ministry, and the team only decided to settle for his parents after his escape, but if he managed to follow them despite his injuries, he could have brought help too.
Tamora could hear Scabior raising the others and shouting his orders to them, but she couldn't listen to him any longer. Undesirable No. 44 wasn't labelled as dangerous because of his skills in combat, but he could still put up a good fight, keeping her busy.
But in fact it was her who had to keep him busy for a little longer. Her people were coming, and Scabior sent his first curse towards Fairchild long before he got within range, so she smiled at the wizard and battled on, and she even laughed at him when his spell missed her by at least a metre.
Her laughter was cut off quickly as something grabbed her by the ankle and lifted her off the ground so quickly she could only cry out when she was already dangling upside down in the air. Fairchild only gave her a single "ha!" in return, but Scabior and the others were getting really close, so he had to turn and run without properly savouring his victory.
"Go, just go," gasped Tamora as Scabior halted and looked up at her with concern. The rope around her ankles held her securely and the branch it was attached to swayed under her weight only a little, so there was no need for him or any of the boys to stop and help her instead of catching up with their target.
"I'll just hang in here," she smiled, snatching the bad pun from right under his nose just as he opened his mouth to say it, and when he turned and joined Bart and Octavian in the race with a grin, she sighed deeply and let her arms relax and reach towards the ground.
With Fairchild as their prisoner they could march into the Ministry as they pleased. They could be back home within the hour too. And all she had to do was dangle on a tree like a sweet little apple, ready to be plucked, while the others toiled. Her night was finally getting better.
I might have fallen in love with Harley Quinn hanging from the ceiling from the new Suicide Squad trailer a bit.
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And for more Tamora & Scabior, try She'll Be All Right! :)