There are a lot of creatures to get rid of, and the third-story study is proving a bit of a challenge. [SB/RL fluffiness, somewhere between GoF and OotP. Minor spoilers only.]CLEANING CLOSETS
By Cherry Ice
A green blur roared around the room, knocking desks and couches askew and setting the tapestries on the wall fluttering. A cabinet let out a symphony of shrieks as the blur barreled into it.
"Bloody hell!" Sirius grunted, lunging for it with a sack as it passed too close to him. Chittering, it changed course, ricocheting gleefully off the wall and then the man's dark head. He sprawled across the carpet, a shaggy, dumbfounded rug neatly disguising one of the holes worn down to the hardwood.
In the centre of the room, hands braced on his knees, Remus laughed.
"Why don't you make yourself useful?" Sirius barked. The blur cackled. Remus doubled over. Sirius entangled himself more firmly with the canvas sack.
The room was a mess. Furniture awry, threadbare carpet, and tooth marks where various entities had gnawed at the walls and furnishings. Heavy dust filled the air; kicked into a whirling circle by the creature the two men had unearthed from the closet while de-creaturing the third-story study.
Sirius half staggered to his feet, hampered by the hastily conjured rucksack. Attempting to magic the unknown creature while it was moving had proved a spectacular failure – as the scorch marks liberally decorating the room bore witness. Not that it had stopped them from trying, no; and he had irately kept on muttering spells long after Remus had stopped.
He'd almost regained his feet when a small mountain hit him from the side and he fell again, cursing as the green blur raced off. "A little help, here?" he snarled as Remus exploded into fresh gales of laughter. Muttering implausible conjectures about the other man's ancestry under his breath, Sirius hauled himself up the wainscoting. Pausing, he leaned back against the wall and smiled, watching as the blur zigzagged to smack Remus behind the knees.
Remus hollered as he fell, knees making a hollow thump as his face smacked the carpet. He scowled up at Sirius, looming over him as he hauled him to his feet.
"I know, I know, serves me right," Remus said, rubbing his neck.
Sirius did his best not to smirk, and failed miserably.
The whizzing green thing smashed into them again. Heads crashed together, elbows gouged ribs and shoulders met throats, but they managed not to fall.
"That's *it!*" snarled Sirius through the ringing in his ears. "The beastie is dead."
It seemed to understand the words, or at least the tone, because it didn't knock into them again, just hurtled around the very edges of the room, circling faster and faster. Sirius snatched the canvas sack from the ground where it had fallen and eyed the creature cagily. "Should we ask one of the others for a hand, perhaps?" Remus asked with a raised eyebrow.
"No," the other man growled, faking a lunge at the blur.
Sighing, Remus jumped in front of the blur when it made its next circuit near him. It skittered to a stop and quickly reversed direction, leaving behind a glimpse of something leafy and mottled. Sirius blocked it out from the other side, and it zipped back and forth between them, indecisive. Sirius's lip curled back and he leapt at it, Remus mirroring the movement from the other side.
Their heads cracked together, again, and the thing darted sideways, snickering. Sirius sat on the floor, shaking his head. Remus grabbed his chin and tilted it upwards, eyeing his face. "You're bleeding," Remus said, brushing the dark hair back to examine the wound.
"I'll be fine," he snapped, brushing Remus's hands away. Remus frowned stormily, and Sirius sighed. "Oh, all right," he recanted slightly. "We catch this thing, and I'll look after it."
"You don't look after yourself," Remus said, offering his hand and helping the other man to his feet.
"Fine then. I'll guess I'll just have to let you look after it."
"I always do, don't I?" Remus said fondly, diving after the blur as it hurtled by their ankles. His face was a mask of surprise as his hands closed around something cool and organic, and he was jerked off his feet. The blur slowed down, but not by much. He hollered as it cornered, snapping his legs into the corner of a desk and his head into the baseboards. His knees and skull weren't the only thing to suffer – already sore shoulders and elbows groaned in protest, before a rather large, heavy bookcase toppled on top of them.
The bookcase moved. It squirmed, drove a knee into his ribs, and elbowed him in the head before dragging the struggling creature out of his grasp and stuffing it into a canvas rucksack. Remus found himself thinking that the bookcase was looking rather hirsute as it tied off the sack, whacked it with its wand, and watched it disappear.
He laughed, and the shaggy bookcase looked down on him in concern. "Few too many blows to the head?" it asked as it murmured something under its breath and tapped the wand to his head.
Remus shook his head slightly and eyed Sirius. "Thought I was supposed to be the one looking after you."
"Now, don't be blaming me -- you were the one to get yourself brained."
"You helped me along with that, if I recall correctly."
Sirius shrugged, doing his best to look wounded. "I don't know how much your recollection of those events can be trusted."
Sprawled flat on his back, regarding the ceiling, Remus paused. "We should have kept that -- thing -- and figured out what it was," he said. His morbid curiosity reared its ugly head. "Where did you send it anyway?" he asked, against his own best judgment.
Sirius settled down beside him, leaning on his elbows with his long legs sprawled across the abused carpet. "Don't know how well the spells on the bag would have kept it, and I for one didn't fancy capturing it again," he said with a sneeze.
Remus rolled onto his side. "Where did you send it, then, if you were so afraid of it getting loose?" he demanded.
"Malfoy Manner," Sirius smirked. "The parcel delivery apparation box. If I'd tried to stick it directly in my beloved cousin's bedchamber, all sorts of interesting things would have happened, but I felt this would be much more amusing in the long run."
"You just – dropped in their delivery chamber?"
"Yes."
"Sirius, does anything about a wanted felon playing tricks on he-who-must-not-be-named's right hand man strike you as a bad idea?"
"Nothing wrong with a bit of fun, now is there?" Sirius asked, tone light but eyes distant.
Fun? Fun? Remus wanted to holler. They had all the excitement they could handle, he wanted to remind the other man, and that thought drew him up short. "No, there isn't," he said finally, returning his gaze to the ceiling.
"I'm still bleeding," Sirius said, after an uncomfortable silence.
"Oh, hell – I'm sorry, Sirius," said Remus, searching for his wand. It had fallen on Black's other side, so he stretched across him to retrieve it. "There," he said, administering the proper spell, still half draped across the formerly wounded man.
"Still hurts," Sirius grinned.
"What? You want me to kiss it and make it better?" Remus sighed in exasperation and pressed his lips to the unbroken skin. "There. Better?"
"Better. But you bashed that over-sized noggin of yours off my teeth earlier, and I demand treatment."
With a dramatic exhalation, Remus crossed his arms on the other man's chest. "You," he said, kissing him quickly, "I hope you realize -- are *the* most vexing patient."
"You know you love me," Sirius replied with a wicked gleam.
"Now, that may be pushing it," Remus laughed as a hand tangled itself in his hair and pulled his head down.
"Sirius? Professor? Mrs. Weasley says tea—"
They broke apart, turning to see Hermione, standing just inside the door with her eyes very wide.
Sirius removed one hand from Remus's hair and waved to her cheerfully. "Tea's ready?"
She inclined her head once, without a word.
"Let Molly know we'll be right down. There's a good girl now," he nodded as she turned and quietly shut the door behind herself. They could hear the quick rat-a-tat-tat of her steps down the stairs.
As soon as she was gone, Remus started shaking. It took Sirius a second to realize that the other man was laughing silently into his shirt. "What?" he demanded.
Remus pulled his face out of Sirius's top, features still split with mirth.
"What?" he demanded again.
Remus shook his head and rested his chin on Sirius's collarbone. "It's nothing. Just -- I was her teacher for a year," he grinned.
"Rather common knowledge," Sirius rumbled.
Remus shook his head and laughed again. "I've given her questions even I had to look up the answers to. We've faced down boggles and Dementors, Malfoys and various other assorted evil minions, and this is the first time I have ever seen Hermione Granger speechless."
» Read Comments » Post Comment
» Updates » Due South » X-Types » Miscellaneous » Alias » Various and Sundry