Chapter Fifteen: Red Like Courage

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"Siggy!" Daniyel cried, nearing her first and dropping down to the ground. His heart was thudding painfully against his chest, squeezing all the air out of his lungs as he reached for her. She was curled up protectively around the child, who was sobbing softly against her chest, and she raised her head to stare at him. There was a streak of blood smeared across her pale face, and she was breathing hard, seemingly incapable of words. He brushed a hand against the stain on her cheek and she disentangled one hand from around the girl and brought her trembling fingers to his.

"You're mad," he breathed, as the crowd pressed around them. "Shit, Siggy. Are you all right?"

"Y-yeah," she gasped, glancing down at the girl still clenched in her arms. Before she could say another word, a dark-haired woman appeared beside them, having pushed her way through the crowd, and all but ripped the child from Siggy's arms, sobbing uncontrollably.

"You saved her!" a curly-haired blonde woman shot at Siggy, gripping her shoulder as she struggled to rise.

"Oh, I suppose…" Siggy mumbled, grinning sheepishly as Daniyel pulled her to her feet.

He stared as more people rounded on them, his eyes trailing across the white sedan inches away, its visible side dented in from its impact with the shield. He could see a shadow of movement behind the shattered passenger window as two men tried to pry open the door. The other car, a grey SUV, had drawn to a halt in the crossroads several feet away, its bonnet scrunched up like an accordion.

He lifted his arm, the wand still buried in the fabric of his jacket, and aimed it at the sedan door before shifting it hurriedly to wrap round Siggy's waist to disguise the motion. The door popped open, and the man who had been tugging on it let out a triumphant curse as he nearly stumbled to the ground. The other reached in, grabbing the hand of the driver.

Siggy was suddenly pulled roughly from his grasp and he whirled to find the girl's mother hugging her tightly to her chest, mumbling thank yous all the while as Siggy patted feebly at her arm.

"C'mon," Daniyel said softly, disentangling her as best he could from the woman's iron grip.

"Oh, but…" Siggy said, still partially trapped in the hug. "Shouldn't we stay?"

"Thank God for you!" the woman was all but wailing. "Miss, you're a hero."

"It's best if we don't," Daniyel whispered, his lips inches from her ear. He could hear sirens growing louder in the distance. If they got caught in the thick of it… How many people would they have to Obliviate if Siggy's identity or his own came into question? And then there was the car, with its spell damage nearly mirroring the impact of the crash. He cursed inwardly. But he could hardly fix it now, with eyes everywhere and cell phones rolling to memorialize the tragedy. It would be best if they could slip away, vanish before the police arrived. There was nothing more they could do here now, with the imminent danger behind them.

He pulled Siggy's hand again, until the woman finally released her, and then they were slipping away, hurrying past the onlookers as they reached out to grab at Siggy, to pat her shoulder, to shove their phones in her direction. She nodded and smiled at their kind words, thanked them as she followed him through the crowd until they finally reached the buildings that lined the street just as a fire truck pulled up, its siren blaring. And then another. The scene was so loud, so busy; now that they were out on the fringe of the crowd, no one gave them a second glance as they slowly backed away.

"This way." Daniyel pulled her beneath the scaffolding that wrapped around the face of the adjoining building. There was a covered pedestrian tunnel, just feet away. He hurried toward it, his hand still firmly clasped around hers. They were two feet away. A foot away.

"Hey," a man called, his voice carrying to them across the metal bars as his footsteps grew louder. "Where are you two goin'?"

"Er—" Siggy glanced back, hesitating.

"It's all right," Daniyel said firmly, squeezing her hand as he locked his eyes on hers. "Trust me."

She gave a small nod, her arm still trembling in his, and he pulled her under the cover of the tunnel. Once there, he turned on the spot into the compressing, airless darkness, dragging Siggy alongside, until the cries and cars and sirens of the city vanished, with a sharp crack, into silence.

The pavement collapsed from beneath their feet, the ground sinking abruptly into softness. The air turned crisp, filling his nose, and the smell of dense foliage was suddenly thick enough to taste. He inhaled deeply, the forest air filling his lungs as he opened his eyes and glanced around at the light filtering in through the turning trees that lined the trail they stood upon, leaves falling sparsely in the light breeze.

"Where are we?" Siggy gasped, staring around. She took a half step back, leaves crunching beneath her boots.

"Epping Forest." Daniyel glanced down the trail and through the trees, which were a tangle of greens and yellows. They were alone. He let out a relieved breath. "My parents used to take me here to hike when I was little. Sorry, it's the first place that popped to mind. Are you all right?"

She nodded, and he brought a hand to her face again, examining the scratch above her eye, which was still bleeding. "Let me heal that, all right?"

She nodded wordlessly again, and he traced his wand along her skin with a muttered "Episkey." The wound knit back together, and he vanished the smeared blood off her face. "Are you hurt anywhere else?"

"No," she said, running her hand across her healed skin. "I'm— I'm OK."

"Are you sure?"

She nodded. "Just a little banged up. It's nothing, really. I just hope she's all right. The girl…"

"She was fine," Daniyel said. "You saved her, Siggy. Her mum had her. She'll be all right."

Siggy grinned sheepishly, and Daniyel stared her down, worrying his lip as his heart rate slowly returned to normal.

"Bloody hell, Siggy," he whispered, reaching up to cup her face. "You saved her, but that was so—" He bit "reckless" off his tongue —"dangerous."

"I know," she mumbled, the grin sliding off her face in a blink.

"The shield nearly—"

"I know." She looked stricken now. "I just… I didn't think. It happened so fast. I couldn't just let her…" Her lip trembled, and Daniyel abandoned his half-formed lectures of how stupid using a hard Shield Charm had been, considering the car's velocity; how reckless it was to run straight into its path; how a Ventus would have been better, or a Levitation Charm, or even a Banishing Charm — anything that would have given her a measure of control over the car's trajectory. If he hadn't been there — if he hadn't adjusted the shield… But he had been there. And Siggy was alive, and so was the child, and the driver… and hadn't he done enough reckless things of his own? Hadn't he punched a Death Eater once? Spat insults at Voldemort himself? Relied on help for all of it, when he didn't know help was coming. Who was he to lecture her when she had done her best?

So he choked down the words and pulled Siggy to his chest, wrapping his arms around her as she whispered, "She looked just like Kasia…" against his jacket.

"It's all right," he said. "That was bloody brave. Real Gryffindor thing to do."

She let out a choked laugh against his chest. "I always wanted to be a Gryffindor. But the Hat wouldn't have it."

"Where'd it put you?" he asked.

"Ravenclaw," she whispered. "I guess it didn't think I was brave enough to be a lion."

"Well," he said, grinning at her as she glanced up at him at last, "eagles are brave too. Brave enough to fly, right? I mean, do you see any lions flying? No matter what the Hat says, you're a bloody hero."

She smiled at that, seemingly not put off by his cheesy joke, and raised her face to plant her lips on his. And then he was kissing her back, arms wrapped firmly around her; the kiss a thing of passion fueled by all the adrenaline of being alive. The whole world was reduced to nothing but the taste of her. Nothing but the feel of her body pressed against his. She was pulling him closer as he reached up, running his hands through her tangled curls, down across the small of her back. It was perfect. Magic. For a second it didn't matter where they were standing, what layers lay between them. The accident, the Ministry — the entire world had fallen away, melted into shadows that didn't exist. Nothing mattered but her lips, her hands. Her heart, beating in rhythm against his chest. And then he slid his hands down, brushing them across her hips, and she let out a pained gasp and drew back sharply, the moment shattering.

"What's wrong?" he said quickly, letting go and taking a step back. "Sorry, I didn't mean— are you all right?"

"No, no it's not that," she gasped, wincing. "Er— that was amazing. Sorry, it's my hip. I think it's bruised, from earlier…"

"Right," he said, glancing around sheepishly as he inwardly shook his head at himself. He was nearly 30, and yet here they were, in the middle of the day in bloody Epping Forest, planning to… well, clearly 'planning' had never entered the equation. "Let's get you back home. I reckon that's enough adventuring for one day."

She nodded sheepishly, brushing the wrinkles out of her jacket as he reached into his pocket for the Stone. The day had turned out significantly more exciting than he had planned. But as he locked eyes with Siggy, whose face broke into a huge, blushing grin as she reached out to place her hand on the Stone atop his, he thought that perhaps he didn't mind at all.

And they had plenty of time, after all, for the sort of dating adults considered 'normal' — the type that didn't involve stopping dangerous car accidents that caused a scandal in the Muggle news and drew endless questions from his parents when he stopped by to visit the following weekend.

"Is this you?" his mum had asked, greeting him at the door with a tablet in hand before he even removed his shoes. "You don't entirely look like you, and yet I'm quite sure it is you."

"Er—" He'd glanced at the shaky phone video of him pulling Siggy to her feet at the scene of the accident as he slipped out of his boots. "Possibly."

His mum raised her eyebrows. "So you pop in to London, are involved in a suspicious traffic accident — they still can't quite sort out why the car was damaged on both sides, by the way — get caught on camera, and don't even visit your parents? I see how it is."

"Er—" Daniyel said again, guiltily. "Well… here I am!'

"Very funny," his mum said, though she looked more relieved than cross.

"They haven't identified me, have they?"

"Oh no. They haven't the faintest. They're calling you two the Mystery Couple. Speaking of, who's the girl?"

Daniyel grinned sheepishly. "Her name is Siggy."

"And?"

"And she's lovely."

"So you're seeing someone?" His mum seemed to have forgotten that she was ever cross as she led him to the kitchen. "You must tell me more."

Which he did, over tea and biscuits, because until Ella had finally handed him a Stone, seeing his parents had been terribly difficult. So every time he'd made the jump, he held nothing back. Which is why his mum knew that he and Ginny had all but stopped speaking, that he hadn't dated anyone with any degree of seriousness since, and had deduced, easily enough, that his heart was still trapped in a box with the key well hidden away. So when he told her about ice skating on the pond, going back to work for Robards, and Siggy rescuing the little girl, his mum had grinned like a teenager, proclaimed Siggy an excellent influence, and asked for more frequent updates.

"And be careful at that job," she had added, when she and his dad saw him off in the foyer later that evening. "Don't take any crazy risks, all right?"

Which he promised he wouldn't do — and really, the last few weeks had been uneventful in any case. Robards was all but going spare. Harry was entirely on edge — even more so now that Ella had started her second round of chemo. And they had nothing new on the Ministry. Nothing new on the murders, even with Hermione down constantly to assist them. The Daily Prophet had sensationalized the story, still releasing articles almost daily about the victims of the explosion, the terrorist threat that Rookwood posed to the wizarding community, and the Ministry's utter inability to locate him. The entire Azkaban Early Release program was under scrutiny, and the pressure from Kingsley on their department was through the roof. And still, they had nothing. He couldn't remember the last time he'd felt more useless.

So between achingly long hours at the office, he had managed to see Siggy only once more the previous week, and she joined him for a quick lunch on Sunday before they parted — her to spend the day with her mum and him to check on Ella while Harry returned to the office to meet with Robards and Kingsley on a status update.

Ella had looked rather miserable when she opened the door and let him into the flat. "Chemo sucks," she informed him, by way of greeting. "I got my favorite sandwich at the Leaky before class Friday. The one with the jalapeños. I thought I was going to actually die before I finished explaining the many-worlds interpretation."

"Sorry," he said cautiously, trying to gauge if her mood had moved past Humor as a Defense Mechanism to land on Sad at Face Value. "Do you need a hug?"

She sighed. "I need all this to go away. My non-baby tried to murder me, a witch doctor is injecting me with Muggle drugs, and I can't even have my bloody favorite sandwich. This is all fucking bollocks… But sure, I'll take a hug."

Daniyel stepped into the flat, wrapping her tightly in his arms. He didn't have any words that he thought would do. An "I'm sorry" had never seemed quite as empty as in that moment. And Ella had always hated pity. So he didn't offer her anything but the embrace, which she accepted with a sniff, and used like a tissue. He didn't mind. It was much easier to get snot out of a shirt than forget you had cancer, or "cancer" as Ella called it. And if offering his shoulder to cry on was the only thing he could do, he would do it a million times over.

He made a point of visiting Ella more frequently that week, trading off with Robert, who had finally returned to work, but appeared at the Ministry so rarely it was almost as if he weren't there at all. Sirius had also gotten into the habit of showing up in the evenings with several containers of food, despite Ella insisting every time that it really wasn't necessary, and that Harry was in charge of the cooking anyway — words that seemed to fall on the deaf ears of Sirius's good intentions.

By Wednesday, Ella had taken to spending hours with the laptop, scrolling endlessly through the forum of her support group, and all but ignoring them all when they attempted to make conversation. Daniyel was quite sure she had grown sick of the lot of them treating her as if her heart were made of porcelain. It didn't stop Harry from taking Thursday morning off to accompany her to chemo, however.

Daniyel, for his part, went to the office early, intent on reading through the remainder of the wand reports from Magical Forensics. When he arrived, the Auror office was empty aside from Ernie, who nodded at him in greeting over a stifled yawn. Daniyel had barely sat down at his temporary desk with a steaming mug of tea and a stack of paperwork when Robards burst out onto the floor, swept the empty space with his eyes, and made straight for them.

"There's a situation," he said shortly. "We have some kind of Dark magic attack in a Muggle village."

"What?" Daniyel gasped, dropping the report. "Where?"

"Up in Lancashire. There's a miasma of Dark magic shrouding the entire place. Set off every Dark detector in the region. Local Law Enforcement Patrol's already on the scene — they're reporting that the Muggles are attacking each other." Robards's face was set into a hard line, his frown getting thinner with every word "There are several casualties already. We need to assist. Now."

"I'll send out the messages," Ernie said hurriedly, already on his feet as he reached for his wand. "What's the inbound Apparition point?"

"The village is called Brycetown," Robards said, reading off a set of location coordinates in a voice of forced calm. "Direct them to arrive immediately to the staging area and be prepared for a Level 5 threat with all the protections involved. Make sure you get Weasley, Spinnet, Potter—"

"Harry's off until afternoon," Daniyel said quickly. "He's going to St. Mungo's with Ella."

Robards cursed, his frown deepening. "I'll take care of it. Get to the Apparition point. Now! Move!"

And he took off, running across the length of the office, his Patronous preceding him in a blur of glowing light as it darted away. It cut through the far wall and vanished, streaking off through London's concrete walls, likely to Notting Hill to track down Harry. Being an Auror required certain sacrifices. But they had all agreed to pay that toll so they could put their courage into action. The right thing. No matter how much it cost.

Daniyel's wand trembled only slightly in his hand as he tore off after Robards, holding steady under the weight of responsibility.