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The Intruders Within the Wards
They managed to be home a full week before Elaine's idyll was rudely shattered by a crash in the downstairs hall and the sounds of shouting. Elaine fumbled out of bed through the midnight darkness, groping for the door to her bedroom.
On the top of the stairs she stared sleepily down on what appeared to be some sort of battle involving shouts and flashes of luminous color—Severus against two intruders. She recognized them immediately as the fellows from the grocery. She was surprised to see that Severus was properly dressed.
She rubbed her eyes and stared again at the small sticks that shot colored light.
Severus dodged a well-aimed spark, his face set in grim lines and hair flying. With an answering flick of his dark wand and a stream of yellow light, the dark headed boy fell, bound inexplicably in ropes.
Elaine gasped and clutched the banister.
The brown haired man turned and froze, catching sight of her. Severus neatly disarmed him and laid him down next to the boy. He took the stairs two at a time, hauling himself along the handrail for balance, his cane nowhere to be seen.
When he reached her side, he cupped her face between his palms, the smooth wood of the wand cool across her cheek. "Are you alright?"
She nodded, eyes wide as they flickered over his face. Her hands rose to cup his elbows. "You?"
"I am unharmed." His voice was perfectly even and his face was grim. He had retreated again, behind a mask.
"What's happened?" She glanced down at the bound and gagged men laid out on the floor. They were both staring up at them, identical expressions of bewilderment scrawled across their faces. The younger one's glasses had come askew and the elder was starting to struggle.
Severus's lips tightened. "I want you to go into my room and get into my bed and wait for me there." Something about the cold glint of his eyes had her wordlessly nodding.
The men both started making squawking noises through their gags and struggling in earnest.
He shot them the deadliest glare Elaine had ever seen.
He watched her from the top of the stairs, silent and dark, until she shut the door of his room on the light in the hall.
The candles around the bed flickered to life like something out of a fairy tale. Elaine looked about her, intrigued by one of the only rooms in the house she had never seen. There were bookshelves along one wall, stuffed with all manner of tomes and paper, a large wardrobe and matching highboy on the other. The bed was centered directly across from the door and to it she fled, jumping up among the tussled dark blue and gray blankets. The room was silent, even the candles made no sounds, and in the dimness Elaine had a long time to consider what the hell had just taken place in the foyer of Spinner's End.
Yellow, #56