struggling muse right now. My dog needs a wheelchair, which we got with donation help and FedEx lost it. Also still trying to save up to get a ramp installed for my dog IF the wheelchair comes.
Feeling a bit hopeless like sev right now tbh.
Grimmauld place was buzzing with Order members, all talking about the news of Lord Prince getting his Order of Merlin, to the spectacle seen in Diagon Alley and Flourish and Blotts. Albus stood at the fireplace, scowling while he listened to Minerva speak of lesson plans and students, she believed to being Death Eaters.
Sirius and Remus sat across from each other in an awkward stare down where one would only look while the other wasn't. Their friend Peter sitting between them and speaking as if there wasn't an elephant in the room.
The front door opened, and James stormed down the hall and into the library with his wand drawn, Lily hot on his heels with a red face and puffy eyes.
"Where is he?!" James demanded as he crossed the threshold into the room, "I'll kill the bastard for what he did to my wife!"
Sirius' eyes went wide, and he physically jumped out of his seat, spinning to see his best friend with a ready to murder look. Remus' lip curled and his brows furrowed, shaking his head at Sirius as if telling him that no help would come from him.
"Calm down, there are children present!" Arthur immediately scolded from his seat by the fire with his children in his arms. Molly had given him a sharp look of, handle it or I will as she held another babe in her lap.
"What is the meaning of this?" Minerva turned and scolded the younger man, causing the buzzing room to come to complete silence.
Sirius had swiftly moved himself to the other side of the room behind the couch Remus sat on, putting himself as far away from James as possible. His eyes looking from Lily to James, yet not daring to open his mouth and ask what the fuss was all about.
"Snape!" James' face was bright red and his glasses were shoved so far up his nose they were nearly fogging. His hair stood on end and his fists balled up tightly, one with his wand, "He better reverse the spell immediately!"
James didn't want to hear it, "Why are you having her do these little missions? You know she's pregnant!" he pointed his wand at Dumbledore threateningly.
"Calm down," Frank stepped next to him and put his hand firmly on James' wand hand, "Potter, you need to calm down. Let's talk this out. He's not even here yet."
"No! I want answers!"
"Have you tried," Frank tried to suggest but was cut off by his friend's continuous rant.
"I've tried everything!" James shoved his friend in the chest.
Albus and Minerva stepped forward with their own hands up and stern looks on their faces. McGonagall went to Lily and put an arm around her, "First tell us what's happened to the poor child."
"She can't talk! Not one noise out of her all day!"
"How do you know it was Snape if she can't talk?" Frank asked, which only seemed to set his friend off further.
"I know it was!" James argued loudly.
The room was buzzing with excitement and whispers until they heard the deep baritone announce itself. It did not seem to come from any location and Lily jumped, hiding between her two elder professors. Sirius and the Prewitt Twins pulled out their own wands upon hearing the words.
"You're welcome for silencing that banshee you call a wife."
The hair on Remus' neck stood, causing the man himself to arise from his seat and yelp. Everyone paused to look at him after he made the uncharacteristic noise of fear. He looked around the room wildly and started sniffing the air while backing up towards the door.
His friends who always looked to him for the source of danger or target were surprised to see their friend acting fearful. Nothing ever snuck up on a werewolf, and nothing scared one either.
"Moony, where is he?"
A small whine from the back of his throat escaped as he answered in a hushed whisper, "I don't know."
"Come out, Snape! Fix what you did to my wife!" James called out to the room and swirled around madly, looking for him.
"You cannot repair what is not broken." An amused tone responded.
The twins looked up, "What the hell, is the bugger above us?"
The small children in the room began to cry. Molly scooped up the closest one and called over her shoulder, "Arthur get the children! There's dark magic about!"
The man sitting near the fire with twin babes gave her an exhausted look, "My hands are busy at the moment, dear!"
Her older brothers formed a protective semi-circle around their sister and her family, "Black, where could he hide in the house?"
"The attic!" Sirius exclaimed, then quickly adding, "Or the basement… or any of the rooms actually. This place is huge."
"Come out so I can kick yer bloody arse!" James hastily pushed the sleeves of his robes up to his elbows, "No one lays a hand on my wife!"
"I would never put my hands on her, let alone another man's wife." After a brief pause, he casually added, "Black on the other hand, have you asked him?"
"What the bloody hell does that mean?!"
Sirius started to panic and changed the topic quickly, "What did you do to Lily you sick son of a bitch!"
"And where is her wand? You stole her wand!" James added.
"Tsk… tsk… The Great James Potter, Member of the Order of the Phoenix and a Ministry Auror can't figure out a simple silencing spell?"
"Bugger it, start firing at the walls- "
"YOU WILL DO NO SUCH THING!" a familiar gravel voice called out from the doorway. Moody walked into the room, his trench coat dripping water across the floors. He rounded on them like a muggle drill sergeant, "HAVE I TAUGHT YOU NOTHING?! WANDS OUT READY TO BLAST AT NOTHING IN A ROOM OF CASUALTIES! CIVILIANS!"
"That's right!" Molly chimed in.
Moody rounded on her next, "Merlin's sake woman, every time I see you lot, ya multiply! This is an Order meeting, not a dinner party. Leave the kids at home or stay with them!"
Albus finally found his voice, "Everyone calm down, we have business to discuss."
"Not until Snape gives Lils her wand and voice back!" James cut in again.
"The Headmaster sent her to be made an example of, had Lockhart not entered my shop when he did, I would have had to kill her. Make note of my mercy. It will not happen again."
They heard a small clatter on the floor in the middle of their standing group. Everyone spun to see Lily's wand roll across the floor. Frank saw it land and turned pale white. He slowly took a defensive stance and reached for his wife.
"It came from above"He whispered while not taking his eyes off the ceiling.
Moody looked around the room quickly and took his wand out, "Yer done playing mind games with these fools, Snape!"
"Hey!" the twins called out but were ignored.
"Yer bloody Aurors! Act like it! His dark magic is suffocating the bloody room!" Moody pointed to all the fires in the room barely lit.
"I didn't realize how dark it's gotten in here, have you?" Sirius nudged Frank with his elbow.
Remus' golden eyes fixated on the darkest corner of the room, but he did not move nor say a word. Moody followed his line of sight and squared his shoulders while facing the same direction, shushing everyone in the room as he did so and pulled out his own wand.
The room got silent, only the sound of the crackling fire that started to pulse in its faint glow. A guttural growl and a pair of large red glowing eyes made Alice scream and duck behind her husband.
"Lumos!" James cast but his light could not penetrate the darkness that filled the corner furthest from the fire. His anger getting the best of him, he pushed through the Order members between him and the corner and charged the corner.
He hit the bookshelf face first and landed on his rear with his glasses askew on his face and his wand rolling off under one of the couches.
Severus had them all in one room, exactly where he wanted them. He could easily set fire to Grimmauld place and lock them all in. Such a shame the Order was taken out by a candle too close to the curtains. Then he would pick her scent off Moody and follow his tracks to his wife. His nostrils flared and he did not smell his wife. The scent he picked off Moody was that of the sea. Anger rose in him quickly; he wouldn't be ending them tonight after all. At least not Moody.
"Use the bloody vow to get him off the bloody paint!" Moody snapped at Albus who finally seemed to grasp what he needed to do.
Holding his wand hand out, he balled it into a fist and twisted, "Come out, Severus! This will only get worse for you."
"What once brought me to my knees can no longer control me."
Moody looked over his shoulder to Albus, "Load of good that does now, yer just pissin' him off!"
A tall thin shadow slowly stepped forward, standing just on the edge of their ability to see in the dark. His hair curtained his face, making his features even harder to make out. His black tailored suit seemed to blend into the darkness surrounding him, as a part of him.
"I've grown tired of these games and hoops you've made me jump through," Severus held his glowing golden hand up, "I've held up my part of the deal. I've joined your pathetic order, put up with the idiots within it, became your spy and crucified myself for your greater good. Then when I solidify myself amongst the ranks of the Dark Lord, you send a pregnant muggleborn to send a message an owl, elf or Patronus could have easily done. Why? To back me into a corner and have me publicly choose sides."
Clutching his burning fist, he diminished the golden light and opened his palm to a medium sized flame floating above it, "I will not ask again, where is my wife?"
"I told you, when I trust you-"
Severus slowly closed his fist, suffocating the flame and with it all the remaining light in the room.
"Know it was his doing that ended your lives."
As soon as the lights went out the women screamed. Everyone rushed towards where they thought the door belonged and the children started screaming.
"The doors locked!"
"Into the floo!"
"You need fire to floo travel, idiot!"
"Then start a fire!"
"That's not the fireplace! Put it out!"
"Hold my hand!"
"I'm not your wife, let go of me!"
"Sorry dear."
"I'm over here!"
While everyone ran around the room, Moody growled angrily and got to work. He'd hoped their first order meeting after Severus' transformation would have gone smoother. He didn't anticipate the boy becoming stronger and uncontrollable.
Moody slid his wand across the palm of his hand, using a slicing hex to cut across the thick calloused flesh. A pool of blood quickly formed in the cup of his hand, overflowing onto the rug.
"What are you doing?" Albus asked him, holding his wand up to provide very limited lighting as Severus' magic encompassed them.
"Bringing in the only person able to tame the bloody beast we created. Since you're doing a piss poor job of it." He grunted his response as he dipped the tip of his wand into his blood and began writing in mid air.
"No one said kidnap his wife!" Albus spat, "You stepped out of bounds and went over my head!"
"With yer head up yer arse, everyone can go over it." Moody paused and scowled at him, "Stop bloody arguing and distracting me, can't you see his darkness is infectious?"
His finished his last rune, the bloody marking suspended in the air briefly before a shimmering and quickly pulsing white light began to glow brighter and bigger in the center.
The brightness blinded everyone in the room, only for a moment before doing back to nearly pitch black again. Juliet stood in the spot the blood runes were written, her hair cascading down one shoulder and simple blue dress swirling around her knees and she spun around the room looking wildly for Severus.
When her eyes landed on the darkest corner of the room she lit up in a bright smile and all but ran towards it.
Multiple hands reached out to stop her.
"NO!"
"WAIT!"
She all but threw herself into the darkness, quickly consumed by it as a loud guttural sound shook the room. The room went silent as everyone held their breath.
Just as it came, the darkness quickly receded and the light returned to the room. Moody still held his wand with a light up as he moved closer to the dangerous part of the room.
"Where did they go?"
"Did she die?"
Severus and Juliet were nowhere to he found. As if they sank into the walls and left Grimmauld place through the cracks of its weakened magic.
"Don't matter. I got her tagged." Moody grunted as he poorly closed the wound on his hand with a spell.
