Remus Lupin (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
wolfymcwolf) wrote in ![[community profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/community.png)
riddlelog2017-12-09 11:45 pm
wolfymcwolf) wrote in riddlelog2017-12-09 11:45 pm
Entry tags:
it begins
It is either very late at night or very early in the morning depending on your perspective, and anyone with the smallest amount of sense is asleep.
A man with a distant look in his eye walks calmly down the streets of muggle London and stops before a residential building. Stepping into the alleyway beside it, he pulls out his wand, charms away the nearest window, and casts an incantation.
A pillar of flame shoots out from his wand with a deafening roar and into the building, the fire taking on the shapes of beasts, shifting every few moments. Then, there are screams. There are cracks of Apparition, right in the middle of a muggle street, parents carrying children in their arms, wizards and witches clutching their muggle partners tight to themselves. Some, unable to Apparate, jump out of windows, and a few people on the ground step up quickly to magically control their descent. Beasts of flame leap from the windows, soaring up every floor of the building. There's no time for worrying about being seen, not with no warning, and the fire too out of control for any one person to handle. Most everyone is in their bedclothes, many without any sort of foot covering out in what would be a freezing December night, were it not for the intense heat put off by the flames.
In the chaos, the man escapes.
at the apartment building → doghouse
He could just Apparate himself out, but there's so many other people living here who can't. He runs out of his apartment to his neighbor's, wasting no time to blast open the door. Mr. Mccullough, an elderly man, was making his way to the door and gives a terrified shout. Remus knows him to be a Squib.] Sorry, sorry about that, we need to get out!
[He rushes towards him as he speaks, already thinking about the couple a few doors down; the woman's a muggle, and pregnant, and the man works nights. Luckily, Mr. Mccullough understands the danger, and allows Remus to take him on a Side-Along out onto the street.
Without a word, he Apparates back in, running from one flat to the next to repeat the process, shouting for anyone still in the building to come towards him and he'd get them out safe.
It's a wonder no one ends up Splinched, but Remus' focus is singular, and the distance traveled short. He makes it all the way to the topmost level flats, and the smoke is thicker than ever. In the first flat he gets to on that floor, there's a toddler screaming and wailing. He scoops the child up, carefully setting her down before a coughing fit overtakes him. He takes deep, gasping breaths, trying to clear his lungs as quickly as possible, straightens, and is about to Apparate back to the topmost level when a hand grabs firmly onto his shoulder and stops him, another gesturing for him to look at the building.
It's entirely enveloped in flames now. There's nothing more he can do.
He feels dizzy, staring up at it.
Remus can't bring himself to look away, even as the last human screams from inside the building fade into the roaring din of the fire. His breath fogs in front of him, but he doesn't feel the bite of the cold.
It feels like an eternity until the aurors arrive, and that's when Remus Apparates one last time for the night, directly onto the doorstep of Sirius Black and James Potter.
He knocks at the door, then leans against it, finally starting to shiver in the cold. All he's wearing is an old jumper and a worn thin pair of pajama pants, his wand loosely clutched in his hand. It's doubtful anyone's even awake to hear him, when dawn hasn't even broken yet.]
pre-doghouse
There's no more time, Remus.
[ Marlene's voice is quiet and impressively steady, and far graver than the usual upbeat no-nonsense woman he's known since he was eleven and she was thirteen. What he won't have seen while he was Apparating his neighbors to safety was a bluebird flying around the building once, twice, and three times. It'll set off her Trace, she knows that much, but at least she knows that Remus got most of the building to safety. Then again, she also knows the terrified expressions on the faces of the few people that couldn't be saved, too, and Marlene's going to have that in her head for a long time. It's not the first time she's wished her animagus form was a little less useless. ]
no subject
If he'd just gone right back in, instead of succumbing to the coughing, maybe-- maybe he could have gotten someone else out.
He still feels a little short of breath (smoke inhalation, he thinks distantly), and he's fairly certain he's only still standing from the adrenaline. And the night is far from over.
His voice is rough, from waking up suddenly and immediately running around shouting and breathing in smoke.]
Where the hell are the aurors? This is too much for one person to handle. [save maybe Dumbledore]
no subject
Well, she's going to have questions to answer when the aurors do get here, and she looks behind them to see if there are any witches and wizards in dark robes moving out of the shadows. There'll be Obliviators too, she supposes - and this is all very clinical, for what's going on around them, and Marlene's hand clutches the wand in her pocket. Does she remember the counter well enough, she wonders?
She pulls the wand out. ]
They'll be here soon, Remus. And you...you should tell Sirius what's happened. And James. You don't want them to hear in a few hours.
[ He should get somewhere safe and protected before the shock sets in, she thinks, and even the kinder among the aurors are going to interrogate any witch or wizard who happens to be around. Marlene didn't just Apparate in and out of a burning building until the point of collapse. ]
no subject
He finally turns away from the building to look at her when she mentions Sirius and James. Right. This'll definitely make the Prophet, and he doesn't exactly have his MIAVI pen anymore to tell everyone he got out safe. Anyone who knows him would check with them first anyway.]
Right... If there's-- there's nothing more to be done here... [He replies faintly.] Did you happen to-- Did you see anyone who could've done it? [He'd been asleep, and then he'd been getting people out-- he hadn't had the slightest chance to see them.]
no subject
There were a few spells that did that - none good. ]
I didn't see anything that any auror isn't going to dismiss as nothing. Just a couple of people I couldn't identify, and flash of light from a spell casting.
[ Circumstantial, the Muggles would call it. She gives Remus a sidelong look. The aurors are concentrating on Fiendfyre, as they should. The obliviators are beginning to arrive to gently separate the muggles from the wizards. When the immediate crisis is under control, that's when they'll look for someone to blame - and a pair of half-bloods out after curfew are going to be on that list.
Remus has enough trouble in his life. ]
Remus, go tell those idiots before they hear from someone else and rush in like it's a damn Quidditch match that they're going to win out of sheer idiotic bravery.
no subject
Moony? Bloody hell, what happened?
no subject
He stumbles forward when the door opens, having been leaning against it, and nearly falls right onto James. He mumbles apologies, looking about as out of sorts as he does in the early morning after a full moon. He slumps in, eager to get out of the cold.]
My-- My flat, the whole building-- it's burned down. Fiendfyre. [His teeth lightly chatter as he speaks-- the adrenaline's wearing off, and now he's just completely exhausted]
no subject
Moony? [He squints a little, sleepy and ruffled.] Fiendfyre? You alright?