DISCLAIMER: This story is based on materials owned by the great J.K. Rowling. I do not make any money with it or anything…Only the Sylvia Shaw character is mine.
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Padfoot1979: Thanks for the good words, I feel better knowing that my English doesn't suck too much. As for the evil end of the last chapter…that was fun to do. Knowing that people actually read it (I mean, wow!) makes it so very much more interesting.
Rugi: Don't worry, I will explain HIM soon. Thanks for the "fun Sirius fic" words. (glow of happiness J )
NiteQueen: Don't worry, I'm not about to quit. I'm too addicted to this story now… and to the reviews!!!
5- Shock waves
Sylvia woke up with a start, wondering why she was so cold and why the mattress was so wet. Then she discovered she was laying in a heap on the grass and remembered everything. She raised her head to look around and saw the strange man that had been Skif, crawling, trying desperately to reach the stick of one of the fallen dark men. He visibly could not stand and seemed in a lot of pain.
"S.. S.. Skif?" She called, unsure of anything. If she was mad, the madness was nothing like she expected, there was too much sense to it. The scene around her was exactly as she had left it before fainting and she had never heard of an hallucination that was so detailed with the clear consequences of previous actions.
The man she used to call Skif turned his head at the sound of her voice and again called out to her weakly "Please. Help."
She could not refuse him, not with those two familiar eyes pleading her. She stood up on her shaky legs and went to retrieve the stick he was trying to grab, giving it to him. She knelt near him and asked shyly. "What can I do, tell me how to help you."
"Owl…Dumbledore." He rasped, pointing his finger towards a nearby tree where she could see in the dim moonlight a barny owl sitting fretfully on a branch. Was the owl name Dumbledore??
Skif murmured a word and just beside him a piece of paper and a…a quill appeared out of nowhere! Sylvia gasped at that and a wave of dizziness grabbed her. She dismissed it by putting her head down on her knees. She had no time for that! Breathing deeply, she raised her head and took the quill with a steady hand. "What do I write, and to whom?" she questioned.
"Ask…Dumbledore…to come help…fast."
"I'll right, go girl you can do it." she thought, and started writing as fast as she could.
To whoever get this,I've been asked by a black dog, who have transformed into a man before my eyes, to demand the help of a Dumbledore because he is hurt bad. Black robe men with stick had ambushed him and he now need help fast. We are in a clearing in the woods near the little hunting cabin, on lake Gabriel's shore.
If I'm not crazy and this is real, please come as fast as you can.
She was afraid it was a little confused and sounded more than a little ridiculous but it was the best she could do right now. She also did not dare to put her name down since she gave the location of her cabin in it. Putting the quill on the grass and folding the paper she asked "Now what?"
He took the paper and with a trembling hand showed it to the owl who immediately flew down to take it in its beak. The man said to it "To Dumbledore. Fast. Go." And obediently, the bird took off in the night.
Just then, one of the dark robe man started to groan. Sylvia jumped to her feet and ran to knock him uncounscious again. To make sure, she checked all the others and took all the sticks, her mind scurrying away from the word wand, but everything seemed in order.
She came back to Skif, now on his back, his eyes closed, visibly out cold and examined him closely. He had sharp features with a strong nose, a stubborn round chin and an expressive mouth. His black slightly waving hair was long, almost covering his shoulders. He was also bleeding a good deal from his mouth and nose and seemed to have trouble breathing. Sylvia was pretty sure he had a good numbers of his bones broken and wince. "What kind of weapon can do that!?" she thought uncomfortably. She didn't know what to make of him, he was not Skif the dog anymore, her friend and partner, he was a stranger, and a very strange stranger at that. Finally, she took her handkerchief in her pocket and after going to the lake to wet it, start wiping the blood from his face.
A popping sound behind her made her turn sharply around, crouched low in a defensive position. An old man with long shinning white beard and hair, violet ankle length robe and half moon spectacles, was standing at the entrance of the clearing with one of those stick kind of wand in his hand. He looked at her hovering over Skif's body and smiled. "I'm Albus Dumbledore, " he said simply, "I'm here to help."
He looked around and noting the string of black robe man sprawled around the place, murmured a short command. A huge amount of rope came out of his wand and went down on the turf like weird kind of snakes to coiled itself around the bad guys.
Satisfied with that, he approached her, "I trust you're the one who sent me this?" He continued, showing her a piece of paper with her scribbling plain on it. She nodded, relaxing her position. He took a good look at Skif then asked "Is your cabin far away?" "No, not really." she answered in an amazingly calm voice. "I'm in shock." she thought absent mindedly.
"Show me the way then, he needs to be warm and Poppy can take care of him there." With that he said something that finished with "leviosa" and Skif's men body started to levitate a good 2 meters above ground. Dumbledore took him delicately by the right ankle, and gestured to her to precede him. Gulping down her nervousness, she started walking down the path, wondering what or who Poppy was.
***
She showed them in and opened the door to her room. Standing back, she let Dumbledore ease the body down on the bed. Letting him settle Skif, she went to the kitchen to boil water for tea. This was all even more surreal here in the hard light of reality, in her every day surrounding. She definitely needed something a good deal stronger than tea to get her through the night, so she fished some brandy from the sideboard and waited for the tea to get ready.
A moment later, Dumbledore came out of her room, looking out of place in the modern interior with her laptop and cell phone nearby. He came to her, "Thank you for saving his life, my dear, we would have missed him dearly. Can I be so bold as to ask your name?"
He looked so benign and fatherly that Sylvia relaxed a bit more "Sylvia Shaw, euh…sir." she had no idea how one was supposed to address a wizard, "Do you want some tea?" she added, making some effort at casualness as if she had magicians visiting her in the cabin all the time.
"Gladly, but first I must ask you if I can use your fireplace?" Sylvia start panicking a little bit at that, for some reasons she doubted he just wanted to start a fire. "What is he gonna do, ride up the chimney like Santa Claus?" she giggled nervously at the thought and sensing her mood, he added, his eyes sparkling "Don't worry, I'm not going to blow the place up, but I do need to call some people."
"Call?! With a fireplace?! " Stifling her laughter, she waved "Yea, sure, you go ahead, whatever you need."
To her utter surprise, he did cast a fire and started talking to it. She could only see his back so didn't really see anything, for which she was very glad. She catched the words "aurors", "death eaters" and "send a team" then "Mrs. Pomfrey" but not much else.
When he came back to join her at the table, she had prepared two cup of tea and had poured a good amount of brandy in hers. He nodded his thanks and sat down in front of her.
"Now, Mrs. Shaw, I'd like to know exactly what happened tonight. Don't rush and start at the beginning." She took a gulp of tea and feeling the warmth of the beverage spread and unclench her stomach, began talking, haltingly, starting with the strange dog that had become her friend.
Halfway trough her recalling, a knock at the door interrupted her. Answering it, she discovered on her doorstep a middle age matron with a bag of paraphernalia and trailing an odor of astringent. "Yes?" Impatiently, the women declared " I'm Mrs. Pomfrey, I'm here to take care of Mr. Black." Sylvia looked at her blankly. "Mr. Black?"
Behind her, Dumbledore exclaimed "Poppy, come in. Sirius is in the bedroom in the back." Bewildered, Sylvia let the women in and showed her the door to her room. Mrs. Pomfey went in, all business.
Sylvia looked at the old man and wondered softly "Sirius…Black? Is that his real name?"
"Yes, but I don't think I'm the right person to tell you his story. Why don't you come and finish yours?" He led her back toward the table, gently but firmly.
She ended up telling him everything and more. She had to catch herself a few times before saying too much about her past. It had been so long since she had had a good compassionate listener. She didn't know how he did it, but she find that she trusted him, his eyes were too warm, and his smile too understanding for her peace of mind. The need to have someone to share the weight of her worries became quite overwhelming and she stop talking when she started feeling the walls in her inner defenses cracking ominously. She could not risk trusting this man, she did not know him and what's more, she did not know exactly what he was.
Taking another sip of tea, she hurriedly rallied her strength before crumbling down, and said a little abruptly, "That's it, there's nothing else."
He stood there, pensively looking at her, as if he understood much more than the little she had said. That made her real nervous. Fortunately, Mrs. Pomfrey came in at just that moment, a frown on her face. Dumbledore immediately rose an eyebrow in question.
"He's going to be okay, I gave him a potion to mend his bones though, he's in for quite a painful night. The thing is…" she hesitated, glancing at Sylvia. She continued at a slight nod from the old wizard, "he should not be moved tonight, I'm afraid he'll have to stay here."
"Is that a problem for you?" the white hair men asked Sylvia. She shrugged, "No. I'll sleep on the couch. Is there anything I have to give him? Some drugs or…or potions?"
Looking relieved by her question, Mrs. Pomfrey put on the table 2 little bottles, one green and one violet. "Yes, please. Give him two spoonful of the green one in three hours and one spoonful of the violet in the morning, when he wakes up." She gave her a tight smile before hurrying up to the door, saying " I'll be back tomorrow around midmorning." Then she was gone.
Dumbledore stood there, seemingly lost in thoughts for a while. When he looked at her he said very seriously, "Mrs. Shaw, I know the day had been very trying for you and that you are not sure what to believe anymore. I can assure you that you are NOT dreaming and that you are definitively not crazy. There is one thing I can do to help you though; I can make you forget everything strange that have happened to you these few weeks. The only thing you would remember, would be the taming of a ordinary stray dog and its disappearance one day. Nothing else." He stopped, studying her, then went on when she said nothing. "I personally think you're made of a stronger stuff than you're willing to admit. I also suspect to what you need right now is a good friend, incidentally so does he." he indicated the room door with his hand. " I suggest you ponder that. You also might want to have a long talk with Mr. Black. You can tell me what you have decided tomorrow evening, in the meantime have a good sleep." He put a hand on her shoulder shortly, then went trough the door, closing it behind him. Steer by habit, she locked it and trying to make her mind behave in a normal fashion, went to get prepare for what promised to be a long, long night on the couch.