GOOD DOG || Sirius Black

(Twenty Eight: Maladroit)

Around Sirius, James and Remus crouched. As he glanced about the place, Oscar, Peter and Logan emerged from the shattered remains and joined him. All wore soot marks and slightly blackened hair, but appeared mercifully unscathed.

There was no sign of the Death Eaters.

"Where is she?" Logan demanded as soon as he reached Sirius, "Where's Alex?"

Sirius was wordless, scrambling to his feet, pounding in his head fading into the background blur of 'things not to worry about right now'. Voicing his lack of knowledge aloud seemed like it would waste precious time that could be spent looking for Alex Fawley, the girl who hid fireworks in other people's chimneys and had at least three fully prepared backup plans for a Death Eater invasion.

"There!" James pointed over to where a fridge was lying on its side, clearly an unfortunate victim of the incident. Two bare feet were sticking out around it, connected to a pair of jeans that disappeared behind the reflective refrigerator.

Sirius jogged over, aware of the others doing the same. Remus Lupin reached the girl's side first. Her eyes were closed, and there was a jagged cut on her forehead. Some of her other cuts, her werewolf scars, had reopened, and were spilling more red down her face. Sirius' heart contracted.

Remus reached out a hand, and gently touched the side of Alex's face. She stirred. A collective sigh of relief went around the assembled squad.

Her eyes shot open, she sat upright, almost stunning Remus back, and flexing her hands in front of her face.

"Okay, possible concussion." Alex blinked unevenly. She glared at her palms, "Ten fingers, I think." Her gaze focused downwards, on her bare feet. She narrowed her eyes at them, "Forty... Three toes. That's okay. We can cull the unworthy. I'm fine."

"I think you need to see Madame Pomfrey." Remus suggested gently. Sirius, for once, quite agreed. He would have been less scared, he thought, if she hadn't woken up at all.

"Why?" Alex demanded, "Do you have a problem with my excess toes? I like my feet just the way they are, quadrupled and all."

"No," Remus maintained, with the calm authority of a teacher, "You need to see the nurse because you've convinced yourself that you have forty three toes and your head is bleeding."

Alex wrinkled her nose, "I hate valid arguments. They're no fun."

"Yeah, well I hate grapes, spiders and the director's cut of The Hobbit." Sirius commented, leaning against the fridge and crossing his arms, "In that order."

Alex watched him shuffle for a moment in open curiosity, "That's a very specific list. You've clearly spent a lot of time coming up with it."

"Family dinners at my house were very boring." Sirius said shortly by way of explanation, "Like back-to-back episodes of Crufts boring."

James grinned at Sirius, and hit him on the shoulder, "You're just mad because they wouldn't let you compete."

"Hell yeah I'm mad about it." Sirius agreed, "They said I wasn't a pure bred. Moony tried explaining the irony of that statement, but still nothing."

Remus leaned towards Alex, muttering something along the lines of, "The last time Padfoot tried to enter a dog competition..."

"I was outdone by a Scottie!" Sirius cried, outraged, "Have you seen those things? They're like little walking beer barrels with beards. There is no way evolution made the decision to keep them alive. This is human evil." He nodded knowingly.

"I like Scotties." Alex muttered blearily, "My aunt has a Scottie."

The others looked at her, concerned. She was smiling ditzily, and swaying a little.