All in the Family

Chapter 121: Seen and Unforeseen

The house was dimly lit, very old, and had seen better days before the eight of them crash landed in here.

Sirius was thrown so bodily into an old couch he felt something snap inside of it.

James crashed upon a bed that spit up on an unseemly amount of dust.

Remus slammed against a bookshelf so hard, it wobbled dangerously, like it was all going to crash down right on top of him.

Peter landed alone, in a dingy room that had the nearest excuse for a bed in a corner, the book on top, and that was it.

Alice was in some sort of wine cellar that clearly had the most use, judging by all the missing bottles on the rack.

Frank was thrown so hard against a door his nose busted.

Regulus found himself in a barren backyard, in an unfamiliar neighborhood, spotting a dirty river that wound between overgrown, rubbish-strewn banks. An immense chimney, relic of a disused mill, reared up, shadowy and ominous. There was no sound apart from the whisper of the black water.

Lily landed on the roof, and was not inclined to come down when she recognized a horribly familiar house in the distance with a cat weather-vane, that patch of trees behind the park just across the street, or the sign at the end declaring this is as Spinners End.

Frank blinked the spots out of his eyes as he realized he was in the room with Remus, and made a valiant effort not to flinch and run from the room as he fumbled for his wand in the semi-darkness and pointed it at his own streaming nose silently casting the spell, still trying to blink the stars away.

He wasn't entirely convinced he'd managed to hide it all, but it was still better than screaming. At least they were both saved from any stilted conversation by a shouting from behind the bookcase he'd landed in, Peter demanding if anyone could hear him.

Frank and Remus moved in tandem without even looking at each other, both tapping the bookshelf first, but whatever spell they'd tired had no affect, so giving it a shove, and still it didn't seem to want to move.

Sirius roused himself from the couch, shaking his hair out of his face as he went over and called, "stand back Pete!"

Frank looked at him in confusion. "What are you-"

Remus grabbed the back of his robes and pulled, pushing Prongs back into the room he'd just tired to leave from and slamming the door behind the three of them.

There was a soft, muffled exploding noise that seemed to shake the whole house, but at least when seven of them converged back in the living room, it was to see the two of them waving smoke out of their face and bickering.

"Could have killed me you arse!" Peter was huffing as he brushed dust from his long ruined clothes.

"What, I got you out didn't I?" Sirius pointed out in exasperation. The bookshelf lay in a scattered mess around them like a war map.

"Remind me never to get rescued by him again," Frank muttered quietly to Alice, who snorted in surprise at him making such a dark joke.

"Where are we?" James interrupted the two, circling curiously on the spot.

Remus went over to a mounted wall light and flipped it on, but the bare bulb only cast the corners of the room into heavier shadows and illuminated their destruction upon arriving. There was an empty mantle, and Regulus knew there to be a very tiny kitchen he'd passed through to get in here, with a few muggle contraptions he couldn't recall what they were called, but he'd seen back in the Dursleys house, if lesser models in here.