the tables have turned,

[James Sirius Potter]

A group of three wizards who were known to be a part of the Nex were standing opposite of Sirius, Claire and a couple of other aurors who had accompanied them on this mission. Everyone was on edge, wands at the ready, waiting for someone to make the first move.

They had only been going in to obtain information - a routine mission that should have been over in an hour. How had these guys gotten here so fast? Sirius found himself wondering. They had been in an abandoned looking building that as far as they knew, the Nex had left weeks ago for a new location. Had their information been wrong? Was there an alarm of some sort on the place, that let them know someone was there? Either way, Sirius was finally going to get the exciting mission he had been craving for weeks - but how they had gotten to this point he was not really sure.

The day had started off just as normal as any other that week...

After waiting for what felt like ages to be cleared for field work, watching Claire and everyone else going out day after day with him stuck at a desk, he had finally been cleared. Of course though, day after day since he had been cleared earlier that week, there had not been a single mission that was more that collecting information. Those missions were just as tedious as sitting at his desk and just as boring too.

Though he had been hoping for something a little more physically challenging after all this time, he knew that it was really better this way. Claire wouldn't worry the whole way through like he knew she was going to when the time for a real mission finally came. After all, she had made a fuss about him trying to run as much as he wanted and that was already a battle he was no longer winning.

Sirius went in with the expectations of the same thing just a different day. When he arrived at his desk he was not wrong, there was a pile of papers a mile high that were awaiting his signature for approval or for him to assign tasks to the other aurors. He groaned loudly as he sat down at his desk sifting through the mountain of papers, complaining to Claire that he had not signed on for this job to do paperwork. Sadly, she made a good point when she said that he knew paper work would be involved whether he liked it or not.

When they came back from lunch there was a whole new pile of papers waiting for him. "How does this damn pile grow so fast?!" he grumbled as he ran a hand through his hair and sat back at his desk to sift through the ever growing pile. Then he noticed the bold and red colored writing on the a paper about halfway down the stack. "Why wouldn't they put this on top?" he muttered to himself as he looked it over.

There was a location that they had known to be property of the Nex and from what their scouts had found, it was abandoned. No one had been there in weeks if not longer. That meant it should have been left alone long enough for them to make a quick and and out and try to find as much as they could. Anything the Nex left behind could be useful to them.

"Claire, would you do me a favor, love? Could you find us a couple of people to join us this afternoon? It's just another chance to get information but it's a little more high priority than usual. A Nex building has been evacuated or abandoned from the looks of it. I want to check it out, see if there is anything we can get out of there... They had to have left something behind they seemed to leave pretty quick..."

The entire time he spoke to her, he never looked up, he was still reading over the papers attached to the main one with the red writing. This was the closest thing to a real chance to get useful information in regards to the Nex since the last attack. Other than the letters he had personally received from Blackwell that is - he had not mentioned those to Claire yet either.

Less than half an hour later, he, Claire and a few other highly skilled aurors were on their way to the abandoned building. Within minutes of being inside, the Nex had appeared. They stood there in anticipation, wondering how they had been discovered so quickly. Then just as suddenly as they appeared - they attacked and spells were flying in every which direction...


notes,
hope this is good! Can't wait for yours! I am super excited for this.
squeeeeee!

[Claire Pierce]

These sort of days always seemed to start off so normally. They had gotten up and had breakfast and coffee together like any other morning. They went into the office, Sirius immediately groaning at his pile of paperwork, and gone to a meeting at 10. The morning and lunchtime passed without incident, simply full of his complaints and her reminders. He could complain all he wanted about the tedium of paperwork and no "exciting" assignments, but she thought there was something to be said for the quiet safety of it. It really had not been that long since he had been in the hospital as the result of a fight that left him injured pretty badly; she was still thinking about that day, and she wasn't itching for another similar one.

Naturally, her day changed dramatically when he noticed a sheet of paper amongst his stack. Before he had even read it, she commented, without glancing up from the report she was reading for approval, "That's why you need to go through it and organize and pay attention to it." When he didn't immediately respond, clearly focused on that memo, she stopped and looked across the desk at him. Without looking up from the paper, he asked her to pick out a few people to bring with them on standard information gathering, just a bit more high priority. "Yeah, I will. Get ready to go," she said. She snatched the paper out of his hand to review the exact place and issue in order to better choose which people to bring. Then she turned, calling out the names of four top Aurors. She explained the situation to them in a low voice, while she switched her office heels out for shoes she could move in more comfortably, before instructing, "Be ready to head out in ten minutes."

The group of six fanned out the moment they arrived, following Claire and Sirius’ usual methods and plan for this sort of standard trip. A few minutes later, one of them tapped Claire’s arm and motioned to the end of the building; three were approaching. “Sirius,” she said as quietly but sharply as possible. In seconds, the group had readied themselves, with the situation six to three. She still didn’t like it. It was silent for a long moment, everyone on edge, but what was coming was inevitable. "Are you fucking serious?" she snapped, truly exasperated, just before moving into action, taking control and making the first move. It was chaos within seconds.

Well, he had certainly gotten the dangerous, action-filled mission he had been missing and wanting to get back into for the last several weeks.

At some point, Claire and Sirius found themselves momentarily hidden, the fight going on a bit beyond them, so they took a brief moment to make a new plan. Still hidden, Claire gripped his arms tightly, thin fingers not even close to wrapping around his arms but very tight nonetheless. Looking up at him, she said fiercely, "Don't you dare even try to do something stupid." But because of her job and the situation and her compulsive analyzing of the conflict, she knew the dangers, the risks they were about to take. So she took the last few seconds to kiss him desperately before letting him go so both of them could go back out.

When they reemerged, it started to become clear to Claire that something was different here. Instead of ruthlessly going after Sirius, as they tended to do, this seemed oriented to taking her down. They hated her, for obvious reasons, but she fell behind Sirius in the priority of who to deal with. But unusually, Claire began to feel that they focusing on her more than on him. Dodging a particularly nasty curse, she saw one of the team fall to the floor on the other side of the room, and then Sirius, beside her, was thrown sideways. Somehow, one of them managed to grab her, her wand skidding across the floor. At least a foot taller than her and much bigger and stronger, he had gotten her in a tight grip. The distant wand shouldn’t have been a problem; she was extremely skilled at wandless and unspoken magic, but every single thing she tried wasn’t working for some reason. Sirius scrambled up and saw what was happening; his eyes widened, he began to shout, and the guy holding her gave a threat to Sirius.

Forced to rely on her physical strength, more than what one would expect from her thin frame but not nearly enough in comparison to him, she managed to move a leg and kick him in the crotch. When he stumbled back a step, bending over, she turned, kicked him again, this time his stomach to shove him back, and landed a perfect punch to his face. She moved back as fast as possible, breathing heavily, before she spat, “Don’t underestimate the tiny person.” Obnoxious and nasty even in this situation. But the guy straightened up, the other two moving closer as the third Auror fell and the fourth was trapped by a curse, and the three focused on her.


notes: hope this is good!

[James Sirius Potter]

It had been a long morning that dragged on through a lunch that didn’t last long enough. Sirius was getting tired just from the boredom of the day when he saw that paper in the middle of the stack. The one that completely turned the day around, though at the time he didn’t know just how badly. He never looked up from the paper, taking in every word on it as he asked Claire to get a team put together for this mission.

Just as he finished reading the last line on the paper she snatched it right from his hand and told him to get ready. He nodded as she turned around to get together the best group. This assignment wasn’t supposed to be difficult, but it was always better to leave with a team – you never know what might happen, right?

Sirius pulled open the bottom drawer of his desk and pulled out the knee brace he refused to wear while sitting at desk and wrapped his knee up. Once Claire finally left his desk to go get ready herself, he reached for the flask in that same drawer and drained it of almost half its contents in one sip. No matter how often he tried to quit drinking, (or at least slow down on it…) he still did this before any mission – his excuse was to help with pain, but really it was probably just a stress reaction that he had never managed to change.

Everything from there had escalated so quickly it was almost hard to keep up. They had hardly been in the building for minutes when he heard Claire mutter a sharp and quick, ”Sirius!”. That was all he needed to put him on his guard, then suddenly the room was at a standstill. It could have been dragged out, but that just wasn’t their style. Claire was the first to cast a spell and the room was ablaze from that point on. Sirius was definitely glad they played it safe this time, bringing a team with them.

Amidst all the chaos, Sirius and Claire managed to find themselves secluded from the fight just a ways beyond them. It gave them just long enough to come up with a new course of action – the others seemed to be having trouble holding their own right now, this trio of goons were stronger than he had anticipated. Just as his reflexes were telling him they needed to get moving again, she grabbed his arm with a tiny and yet powerful grip. Her eyes held his and then she said to him those ever so familiar words, "Don't you dare even try to do something stupid."

Sirius could only grin a little and respond with the answer she should have expected, “I don’t know what you’re talking about. I’m always careful,” They both knew this was untrue and they both knew what they were getting into when they left this semi-safe spot. She leaned forward and kissed him and he held her close and kissed her as passionately as ever and whispered, “I love you, Claire…” as they pulled apart and just as quickly found themselves back in the middle of the action.

Within minutes, Sirius noticed a difference between this fight and any other they had previously been in. For some reason, they seemed to be after Claire rather than him. This made no sense whatsoever. The first of their team fell and Sirius took a quick look around to see where everyone was at. Just as quick as he had done that he felt himself being propelled from Claire’s side, thrown through the air until he collided with a table that had been in the room, breaking it as his body crashed into it and then hit the ground.

He couldn’t see what was going on at first, the pain from that crash was enough to keep his eyes shut tight for a moment. He could hear Claire struggling against one of those creeps and that was all it took for him to start shouting obscenities at the guy from across the room, before getting to his feet quicker than he probably has in years. He couldn’t let anything happen to Claire and for some reason they were all focused directly on her.

As he was starting to get near enough to attack again, Claire managed to fight her way out of the guy’s grip. Showing her true colors as she told them not to underestimate the tiny person, Sirius couldn’t help but grin at this. That smile was short lived, though, as one of their other teammates went down and the last one was trapped away from them, unable to help. The trio of Nex wizards were closing in on Claire and Sirius shot a spell at one, taking him out – but for how long?

The one who had thrown him sideways before did so again and just as he felt himself being hurtled through the air again. His heart was racing, it all felt as thought it were slow motion until he finally fell to the ground again in a heap. He had to get to her… “I’ll kill them…” he said fiercely, under his breath as he pulled himself up again, realizing how far away they were now…

As he pulled himself upright again, he saw them closing in on Claire together. It was like they didn’t seem to notice him at all…



notes, Hope this is good, sorry it took so long, I accidentally deleted it last night and got mad. >.<

[Claire Pierce]

The situation erupted into chaos and quickly escalated. Claire was cursing one of the three men with both swear words and real curses, quickly taking care of one of them for a short time. He stumbled back a few steps and then fell back, unconscious for a little while, so she turned her attention to the next one. Sirius and another Auror had teamed up against the second guy, so Claire ran to the other end of the room, where the other two Aurors were facing the third man. Initially winning, the two were beginning to struggle, so Claire jumped in to help, receiving a cut on her shoulder when she ducked to avoid a spell, but it still grazed her. Ignoring the blood that started to seep through her white shirt and run down her skin, she continued to fiercely attack.

The first Auror was down a moment later, receiving a set of harsh curses. Nobody could get to him yet, each stuck in their conflicts, but Claire tried to keep an eye on him as he lay unmoving on the floor. She ended up at Sirius’s side again, momentarily incapacitating another guy, before gesturing to where the first Auror lay. She quickly said, “Cover me. I need to check on him really fast.” She created a shield around the two of them as she bent next to him, but felt reassured with Sirius covering her while she quickly worked to help him. She let out a relieved sigh; he still had a pulse, and she was able to stop the bleeding of a wound with a quick spell.

Forced to leave him there, she tried to shield his body and leave with a healing spell, and then got back up and hurried back into the fray. When she and Sirius had a brief moment distanced from the conflict, he simply said, “I don’t know what you’re talking about. I’m always careful,” grinning out of habit. “Shut up, idiot,” she managed to snap, her fingers tightening even more around his arms. He kissed her back, a fleeting moment of passion that still didn’t allow her to forget what was happening. “Love you too,” she said, a surprisingly gentle for the situation, before slipping back out around the wall with a rush of adrenaline.

Not long after, he was driven from her side, thrown through the air several feet before falling onto a table with a crash. Knowing she couldn’t run to his side, she was left to fend for herself, hurling curses with a ferocity that rarely came out to this degree while trying to see if he could get up. The ferocity increased the more he was in danger. While Sirius struggled to get up, the man managed to grab her. After he yelled obscenities from the floor, which would have made her roll her eyes if she weren’t so focused on getting out of the creep’s grip, Sirius was soon back up, faster than she would have thought possible.

Despite the situation, Sirius grinned at what she said when she fought her way out away from the guy. She was too focused to make a comment about that, as the three started to close in, entirely concentrated on them – or really, on her. Sirius was hurtled to the side again, and while he got up, she was about to say something threatening and mocking, as was her tendency, when a spell punched her in the stomach as she was torn from her place to fly backwards. She collided with the wall before falling to the floor in a heap, landing hard on one leg. As she pulled herself together to get up, the rational part of her noted that her ankle was probably broken and her wand had been pushed several feet away. While she got to her feet, trying to ignore her ankle, her shoulder screamed in pain from the powerful collision with the wall and she could feel the blood from a wound on her head from smashing into the wall.

She didn’t have time to do anything before one of them laughed, a harsh sound, and said, “Crucio.” It was even worse than she remembered from the last time she had experienced this, several years ago. Losing control over herself, she screamed, falling to the floor. When his control on the curse weakened, she managed to fight her way out of it by drawing on some deep reserve of strength and her previous experiences with the curse, but she had collapsed. From her position on the floor, she could hear Sirius attack one of them, and she struggled to get up again. Even Claire was left shaking after that experience, unable to bite out a nasty comment or do something, and she tried to work up the strength to curse them.

She had only been standing for a few seconds before a new curse hit her; forced back, she crumpled to the floor. The last things she noticed before falling unconscious were the growing pain and the shout Sirius let out.


notes: well i was obviously nice to her

[James Sirius Potter]

Claire fell to the ground again, but this time she didn’t get up… His heart sank with fear. “Nooo!” he screamed at the top of his lungs. “Claire! Answer me love, can you hear me?” he called from far off as he rushed in on the two bastards who had done this to her. He was running at top speed, all conscious ability to notice pain was gone, this was all adrenaline.

She didn’t answer him. Instead of breaking down like his heart wanted to, it merely fueled his anger. He had promised her he would never put his life at risk without thinking about it again… This thought flooded his mind as he used the same attack used on him, propelling both of them through the air and across the room with one spell as he ran past them to Claire.

Sirius knew that this time, he couldn’t risk himself. What good was he to Claire if he got himself injured like that again or worse, killed? If something like that happened to him, he could not get her to help. They could both die if he made one wrong move and that thought scared him to death.

Once he reached Claire, the other two were in heaps on the floor. He knew they wouldn’t stay down for long, he had to move quickly. He checked for breathing, a pulse, a sign she was alive. That was most important and he was quickly able to find both, though both seemed sort of faint. Still, she was alive, but unfortunately she was the one with any sort of medical magic knowledge not him. He couldn’t do anything for her, except get them out of here.

The two on the other end of the room were getting to their feet already, he had less than a few minutes at most to figure out what to do. He couldn’t leave the rest of the team right this second or those two would surely kill them in his absence. Sirius picked Claire up as gently as he could and put her near the others who three who had fallen, taking in a quick survey of the group – they all seemed to be alive but in very bad shape.

Wand up and ready to attack, he headed over to free his injured and trapped fourth teammate. He broke the cursed magic barricade that had kept held him, but the man was bleeding so badly Sirius was sure he could hardly move. Sirius noticed one of the two members of the Nex running towards Claire and the others out of the corner of his eye and shot a curse at him and hit him square in the chest. That left one to more to worry about at the moment.

Sirius had trouble being able to lift this larger man, but once Sirius had moved him enough to get him off the ground the man became conscious and was barely able to help get himself over to the others. Sirius instructed him to keep his wand up and stay conscious as long as possible to protect the others.

By the time he had done this, the third member of the Nex had managed to help one of his fellows back up. Sirius growled in anger, and it truly was a growl, no words just the sound of pure anger and hatred raging through him. His eyes had a colder look than ever before – these people were going to pay for this and Cato Blackwell would soon know what he was really dealing with.

The two men were definitely weakened by the last few attacks, but clearly they were not the type to give up easily. Sirius was still past the point of being able to feel the pain he should be in right now. He was scraped and bruised up badly, his knee really should have given out prior to now, but other than that they had really left him alone compared to everyone else. He didn’t know why, but if there was a time to take advantage of that fact this was it.

Taking one glance back, his last somewhat standing auror was still conscious, but barley. Bringing his gaze back to the two men walking towards him with the intent to kill, he raised his wand and with unspoken magic, used the cruciatus curse right back on them as they had done to Claire. They wanted to put her through hell, he would give it to them right back.

He moved towards them with a menacing look on his face, angrier than he had been in years. Yes, he had been angry face to face with Blackwell when rescuing Ethan a few months ago. That was the man who had murdered his family – but after all that time had passed, he was starting to get better, thanks to the one person who mattered the most in his life, who had always been there: Claire.

These two bastards were trying to take her away from him. He knew he didn’t have time to play around like he would have liked. Put them through the same hell all of his loved ones and himself had suffered. He would save that for Blackwell one day.

Sirius lessened the intensity of the curse slowly as he approached them. When he was sure they had had enough, both barely conscious and clearly broken, he lifted the curse entirely. As they fell limp to the floor, he spoke with a very loud, forceful and cold tone. “You’re lucky I didn’t kill you both. Tell Blackwell, he better get ready. I’m not playing his games anymore. If he touches one more person I love, there will be no chance for prison. I will kill him. I’m not afraid of him.”

With those last words, he kicked both in the ribs, until they were in a pile with their third, similar to that he had put his own team in. He said nothing more to them, half hoping they all bled out right there, even if that meant Blackwell never got his message. The message was clear enough as he left the three men to die unless someone of their own team came looking for them.

This was coming to an end soon – they pushed him over the edge when they started to target Claire directly. He would never allow them to take another person from him again, he would lose it. But if he lost Claire, he would lose himself. Without her around, he may never have gotten himself back in the first place.

Once his back was turned to them, he started to sprint across the large and now much more open room. They had cleared out a lot of space with all the destruction from the fight. His heart was racing, he had been away from Claire long enough, and he needed to make sure she was still alive. He had to get her to St. Mungo’s as quickly as he could.

He skidded to a stop just in front of her and quickly dropped into a squatting position, mind still moving a hundred miles an hour and keeping his body from recognizing pain. He checked her first as he had before, the fourth member of the team still hardly conscious muttered, “They’re all still holding on, sir…”

Sirius nodded and thanked him, then having the man hold onto two of their teammates and Sirius holding Claire and the last, the two of them apparated the group of six to St. Mungo’s emergency floor.

As soon as they had landed in the middle of the emergency floor, the last member of the group besides Sirius to stay conscious could manage no longer. Healers gathered around them, shouting orders and lingo Sirius only half understood in every which direction. They gathered Claire and the others up and took them all off in different direction to rooms to be worked on.

Sirius saw them taking Claire away and for a short moment he was cemented to the ground. This had never happened before, he was always the one in that position – either completely knocked out or barley there, as she ran after them. Only once or twice had he seen her get hurt badly, but never like this. It was almost impossible for him to wrap his mind around… Why did this have to happen, he kept wondering.

Before a whole minute had passed, he took off running down the hall after her and the healers who were helping her. There had been two healers trying to speak to him as he stood watching but he paid no attention to them. He just needed to know Claire was going to be okay.

One of the healers that knew Sirius particularly well (he had been the one assigned to him ever since Sirius was a teen, Sirius being one of his first patients), saw Sirius run off like that and took off after him. Sirius was unable to speak as he busted through the door to the room where Claire lay, still unconscious as they worked on her as quickly as possible.

The healer caught up to him and argued that he needed to be looked over too, but Sirius refused. He watched intently as they worked on Claire, not understanding a word they were saying. If there were a moment Sirius could say was the most terrifying in his life, it would be the loss of his family. If there were anything that rivaled that and possibly surpassed it – definitely surpassed it, he noticed – it was watching Claire in this situation and being completely helpless.

After a while, the healers forced him out of the room – had that ever happened to Claire before? Had they ever not known what shape he would come out in and literally had to force her from his side? This couldn’t be a good thing, he knew that much.

He still refused to leave the hallway, right outside the door, but the healer did manage to get him in a chair. Sirius was finally starting to come down from all the adrenaline of the fight, being left with an extremely tired and sore body.

All the energy he had left was being spent wondering what was happening on the other side of that door…



notes, hope its not toooo rambly.

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[Claire Pierce]

She wasn't aware of what happened next. She didn't see how Sirius furiously took care of the three guys and worked to get the five injured people, including her, to safety. She didn't hear his threatening message for the three to pass along. She didn't know he left them alive. She didn't know that he restrained himself from being excessively stupid and idiotic like he normally would have been. Instead, Claire had blacked out, sinking deeper into unconsciousness as time went on.

As Sirius waited impatiently and worriedly outside the room, a set of healers worked intently to treat what had happened to her. At first it wasn't even apparent what had been done. They were able to slow the effects but time passed as they struggled to identify what specifically had been done; it was painful and terrible, and it was very dark. Eventually, as time ticked by, they figured it out and rushed to end it. The very dark curse was rarely used or treated, and its strength was hard to stop. It was like a poison going through her body, drawing out her death in a very painful manner, but luckily she was unconscious and not fully experiencing it. Worry and uncertainty hung over them as they first had to slow the ultimate effect of the curse - slow down her death.

It was slowed down, but the next step was eliminating it. Counteracting it proved difficult, a long process that took quite a while. At one point, she started to toss and turn, and they moved to settle her, placing a charm to keep her in a comfortable and stable position. Some time after, she abruptly woke up, eyes unfocused in pain and no color in her skin. She screamed, a ragged and harsh one of pain, before it broke into quieter sounds of pain, and then she fell unconscious again.

It was good Sirius was not in there to experience that, but although he couldn't see her in that state, some of the sound still came through the wall.

Sirius's healer, who had treated him for around twenty years, kept him from getting into the room - he knew he wouldn't be able to handle being in there, as much as he wanted to be in the room. Claire would later be grateful that the healer had prevented Sirius from being in an even worse situation. She knew what it was like; they had never been able to keep her out, but she never forgot those moments. He was not used to it, and he was too upset to handle something even worse.

It took a long time, but a few hours of emergency work later, they had gotten rid of the curse. However, she had been left with numerous other injuries, plus extreme weakness as an after effect of the curse. She was alive, but her body was still in bad shape. While she was unconscious for several more hours, his healer told Sirius, "She's made it through, and she's going to be all right. But she's going to be out for a while longer and they're still doing some work, so I'm sorry, but you can't go in yet. So I'm going to treat you now, and you're not going to argue." Then he quietly added, "Don't worry - she's a fighter. She didn't get affected by it as fast as she should have been. She's going to be okay, Sirius, so let me treat you now." He didn't wait for agreement, just started healing the injuries Sirius had acquired from the battle.

The hours passed until she finally woke up. One of the healers was in the room and quickly moved to help her. Everything felt numb thanks to the healers, instead of intensely painful, and weakness seemed to weigh down every bit of her body. Naturally, she tried to speak, to ask questions, immediately, but her brain didn't seem to be fully working. After being given water and two potions (to further ease the pain and to restore her consciousness) and some time to process what had happened, she finally managed to say, "Where's Sirius?" Her voice was so weak and soft the healer could barely hear it. "Is he okay?"

Trapped in bed without strength or ability to move for the moment, she was unable to go find him, and they wouldn't let him in right away. Instead, they hovered over her for a little while longer. Her frustration built as they asked her questions and didn't answer hers, and as her brain took time to feel back to normal. Eventually, though, a healer agreed she was ready for visitors (normally she would have snapped, "it was time a while ago!" but she was too tired and weak now). The door opened, and in came Sirius, and she softly said, "Hey." He was bruised and battered and bandaged, but he was alive, and much better off than she was - she had gotten that out of the healers, at least. She sighed in relief, but even that was shaky and noticeably abnormal. "I'm so glad you're okay."

And then, her voice still weak and lacking the usual sassiness, she said, "Look at this reversal of roles," but her heart wasn't in it at all, and that was clear.

[James Sirius Potter]

Hours went by of him sitting outside that door, listening for any sign of change inside that room. Sirius hated sitting out here, not knowing what was happening to Claire on the other side of that door. His healer never left the small space between where Sirius was collapsed in a chair and the door.

No matter how many ways Sirius asked, the answer was still “No, you have to wait here. I’m sorry, Sirius.” At least the man did truly look sorry when he said it. It was clear he did not want Sirius in there for his own good, he had known him for years and he knew Sirius was barely holding it together as it is now. Still, no matter how many times he was told no, he would continue to ask. He couldn’t take this.

Suddenly there was a horrifying scream echoing off the walls from the inside of the room and even though there was a wall between them it rang clear in Sirius ears. He felt himself starting to fall apart inside, a feeling he had hoped to never experience again. He forced himself to get a grip – he couldn’t lose it just yet, Claire would be fine… Right?

The next hours went by even slower, his mind finally starting to replay the events back in the abandoned building. How had they figured out they were there so quickly? Was there a spell already meant to do this or was this a spell one of them came up with? He stored those thoughts away for another time.

The whole fight was replaying like he were there all over again – even as he sat outside this hospital room waiting for Claire. This was all wrong, they had gone after her, why did they do that? He knew Claire was a threat, but never had they targeted her over him. He sat there aching and still bleeding in several places, his face in his hands as he waited for news about Claire.

This whole situation was completely wrong! It was always him, he was targeted, and she would be pushed away from him. They would try physical and magical confrontation while Claire attempted to get back to him – he would fight his way through that with a cocky attitude. Things would look better for a moment before all hell broke loose. Usually it was around then that either he rushed in too soon or they struck faster than he had anticipated and things went south.

Claire would be sitting by his side, he doubted she ever got forced out the door as he had been. He wanted to go in but it clearly was not going to happen and he was finally too weak to keep moving or he might have kept trying. He had never once been stuck on this side – he had managed to win that battle in a way he hadn’t taken the time to do before. Normally, he rushed in hoping brawn was enough – in reality it was always Claire’s strategies that kept them afloat.

This time he had to do that work himself, and now he was the one sitting there in a chair, completely conscious and not nearly as bad off, while Claire was the one battling for her life. Never in his life would he have expected to be in this situation – and yet before now, no one had ever targeted Claire, at least not like this.

After all these years, it had finally sank in. Just how much he must have put Claire through time and time again. Right at that moment, he realized that this new style he had finally adopted in the last battle – the one where you actually attempt to come out alive – was how he was going to have to go against Blackwell and anyone else. No more risking himself to save the world – he couldn’t put Claire through this again… Not if he could help it…

Finally the door opened with some good news… Not the best and not ending with what he wanted to hear, but good news nonetheless…

"She's made it through, and she's going to be all right. But she's going to be out for a while longer and they're still doing some work, so I'm sorry, but you can't go in yet. So I'm going to treat you now, and you're not going to argue." Then he quietly added, "Don't worry - she's a fighter. She didn't get affected by it as fast as she should have been. She's going to be okay, Sirius, so let me treat you now."

Sirius was not even able to speak before the healer went to work with what he could. He didn’t bother to put up a fight, he had no fight left in him right now. His body and mind were spent and while it was a small relief to hear that Claire was okay, it would not feel real to him until he was able to see it for himself.

The healer gave Sirius a few different potions, one for pain, one to help build his strength and one to help calm him down as he was obviously close to losing it right now. He had never put up such little argument or resistance to treatment before in his life (at least for the times he came in awake). He allowed the healer to work on the deeper cuts, wrapping his arms up in thin bandages to soak up any more blood; he never even pulled away when his knee was checked and magically treated as best it could be and then a new brace put on.

This whole situation was a moment of shock to Sirius and his mind just could not seem to wrap around it. Finally his healer backed off, finished with everything he could do. He gave Sirius water and told him to drink up (and warned him that if he saw one sign of him drinking something other than water they would have a problem). Sirius nodded, not really taking in what was being said. His thoughts were still on the recent events and his anxiety getting worse by the minute of not being able to see Claire.

Finally, that moment came. The healers that had been in the room with Claire, the couple who never left, came out to tell him he could go in finally and that she was awake, but very weak. Sirius told them he understood and was finally allowed in.

Relief flooded his body as he opened the door and saw her laying there in bed, awake and alive. That was the most important thing to him right now, was knowing that she was alive, that she really was going to be okay. He couldn’t keep a smile of pure happiness off of his face for even a moment as he limped slowly and tiredly towards her bed and sat in the nearest chair, scooting it closer yet.

The soft and tired tone of her voice was like music to his ears and he reached out and gently ran his fingers across her cheek, then reached for her hand and held her much smaller hand gently in his. He wanted so badly to be able to joke, to say something like I told you I knew how to be careful, but it just wouldn’t come out. Words were lost for a long moment as he took in the simple fact that she was alive. Alive and she had been worried about him!

This day had been one like no other before and he hoped there would never be one like it again. Sirius took a breath and then sighed and closed his eyes, then opening them again when she said, “Look at this reversal of roles,”

[/b]

“Claire, I’m just glad you’re okay… Don’t worry about me… I’m alright, I promise… This time you had me worried sick, so don’t go trying to worry about me. I…” his voice trailed off here. He didn’t even want to say it, to think about that possibility. He had almost said I don’t know what I would do without you. He smiled tiredly at her again, it was well past the middle of the night now, they were into the next day. “I love you and I’m just so glad you’re okay, Claire… Don’t scare me like that again…”

Then it hit him, just as he said it. That’s what they had been doing, they had gone after Claire, they were trying to get to him. They were trying to bring him down in the worst way – just as they had before. He had been so close to useless after losing his family, they were trying to repeat the process by taking away Claire… Cato Blackwell had threatened to do it in the letters months and months back, but until now it had slipped his mind…

Sirius tried to push this thought from his head – he would worry about that another time. He just needed to keep on his guard more from now on. No matter if those wizards had died or been saved, either way the message was clear.

For now, he just wanted to take the time to finally relax, seeing Claire alive and holding her hand in his, it was the happiest feeling in the world for him right now. It was clear he had a lot on his mind – but first and foremost was Claire and he couldn’t take his eyes off of her and he couldn’t stop smiling at the love of his life.


notes, apparently it was almost as long. Holy shit, wtfff, but okay. Hope its not too rambly, he has lots of thoughts, he is still in shock. [/blockquote][/blockquote][/size]

[Claire Pierce]

Before they let her see Sirius, they had to give her potions and check her recovery. While she drank the first one, a truly awful tasting concoction, she tried to shake off the fatigue and weakness that weighed heavily on her mind. She didn’t remember anything from the moment she was hit with the curse, so she must have passed out, and stayed that way; she didn’t remember how she got to the hospital, or how Sirius was, or how the team had fared. But she did remember some of the pain from the curse, and despite the numbness, some aching and even sharp pain lingered in her body.

As they prolonged the time until she could see him, she was growing more and more impatient. As her requests in a tired and weak voice didn’t succeed, she managed to ask a few questions. “What time is it? How long was I out?” About seven hours, she was told. It was nighttime, nine o’clock. “What was that curse?” They explained it to her, adding an explanation of how they stopped it when she pushed for more information. “How long will I have to be here?” The healers weren’t sure yet; it would depend on how well and quickly she recovered. She groaned.

Her last question was, “Do people know?” They understood her question after a moment, responding, “We did not tell your family until we were certain that the curse had been lifted. They’ll be here later now that you have woken up.” She sighed, sinking into her pillows. “It’ll just be my father. Let me know when he gets here,” she said, not looking forward to her father having to deal with this. It was just Claire and her father left in the family, and she had always hated putting him through the experience of seeing his daughter in the hospital. However, it was even worse now that her mother was gone; the first time she had been in the hospital after her mother’s death, because her investigation of the murder had landed her there with treatment and a brief stay, had clearly been extremely difficult and sad for him.

“It won’t just be your father,” the healer told her, smiling a little. “I know the Potters are coming.” At that, Claire did smile, at least the tiny bit she was able to. They were her family too, after all, so naturally they would come. Her second parents and the two she considered like siblings. It was nice to have the extended family; it had only been Claire and her parents, but she had the adopted family as well. “They will be here in a little while, but for now you can see one of the Potters,” the healer said, seeming to give in, or at least decide she could handle a visitor now.

He limped over, a huge smile on his face, and suddenly she felt a wave of contentment and happiness wash over. He was okay; limping and bandaged and bruised, but he was walking and not in a bed. Settling in a chair next to the bed, he reached out to touch her cheek before holding her hand. Her previously limp hand twisted to entwine her fingers with his, tightening her grip. For once, he was speechless, so they remained quiet for a long moment.

Finally, he said, “Don’t worry about me,” and she laughed, weakly but still genuine; “I’ve told you a thousand times. I always worry about you,” she said, rolling her eyes. “It’s not like it was guaranteed you would be all right. I passed out, so how was I supposed to know how you were?” she added, dropping the flippant tone. “Don’t scare me like that again,” he said, and now she wanted to raise an eyebrow at him. Even injured and tired and weak, she still managed to have a comment on the tip of her tongue: it wasn’t like she tried to make him worried sick, whereas Sirius was less careful… Instead, she just said, keeping herself from saying it pointedly, “Trust me, I wasn’t trying to be in this position.”

She closed her eyes, sighing again. “What happened after I passed out?” she asked; she always wanted to know everything, and now she was left with a gap in her memory, in the timeline. This never happened to her. Suddenly, something occurred to her, and she asked, eyes snapping open, “How is the team? Is everyone all right? They didn’t look so good from what I remember.” Even in this state, Claire couldn’t help but start worrying, needing to know everything and beginning to back track. Her mind still didn’t seem completely awake and normal, but she started imagining everything. It was just how she was; she couldn’t take even a moment to relax. Before long, she would be trying to figure out how they knew the team had gotten there, why they were there, and why they had targeted her.


notes: not my best... ahh sorry!