Sage is only unconscious for a few minutes at most, but she sits with her eyes closed for a long while after she wakes up. She's just hoping this whole shitty scenario is just a dream; maybe she ate cheese too soon before sleeping, or perhaps that scary story she read with Stevie is coming back to bite her in the arse. She can hear voices. They're muffled and fuzzy-sounding, but she makes out the words 'marauder' and 'Snape'. She feels a hand shake her shoulder slightly.
"Are you alright?" A gruff voice asks. She cracks open an eye, and sees Sirius Black's face much too close for comfort.
"Get away from me," she mumbles, giving him a dirty look. He nods and shifts away from her on the floor. His eyes remind her of a kicked puppy- no, like one of those dogs you see on the side of the street that are all ribs and joints and foaming jaws. A mean dog, but a sad dog. But he springs to his feet shortly after, and Sage wipes her tear-gummed eyes to see that, like the vampire bastard he is, Snape has somehow materialised from the darkness. She's not surprised. She's always reckoned he could do some shady shit, and now she has proof- oh, shit, look, there's the invisibility cloak. She'll have to save her conspiracies for another day.
Snape says something ridiculously stupid and Sage wants to kick him for it. "You forgot your potion, Lupin. You're lucky I brought a gobletful."
"Oh, shut it," Sage mutters. Black hears, and shoots her a toothy grin that scares her more than it reassures her.
"While I was in your office, I happened to notice a certain map lay open on your desk. It showed that you were here and- dare I say I wasn't surprised- were in the company of Sirius Black."
"Severus, if you'd let me-"
"I've warned the Headmaster time and time again," continues Snape, not really caring that Ron's lying on the bed with a snapped leg and Sage is half-dazed on the floor. Of course he doesn't, Sage thinks. He doesn't care about anything, really, except his necrophiliac obsession with Lily Potter. "But it doesn't matter now. There'll be two more for Azkaban tonight, I think. I do wonder, though, how the Headmaster will take this. Imagine him believing he could employ a werewolf... a tame werewolf, he seemed to believe..."
"Is your schoolboy grudge really worth taking a decent man away for?" Sage pipes up. Her throat's dry, she notices, and Conner perks up at the sound of it. "You'd ruin his life just to get your own back on a prank that happened, like, twelve hundred years ago?"
Snape hisses, "Be quiet, Laurent."
"Don't tell her to be quiet, you slimy git," Black snaps. Then Snape whips his wand around, and Lupin is bound in snake-like cords. "HOW DARE YOU-"
Sage starts crying a bit. She feels like such a wuss, but seeing anyone, let alone one of her favourite professors, tied up on the floor like an animal for slaughter isn't something she'd ever wish to see in her life. Sirius starts towards Snape, but Snape points his wand in between the prisoner's eyebrows.
"Give me a reason, Black," Snape spits. "Give me a reason, and I swear I'll do it."
"Professor," Hermione stammers, "It wouldn't hurt to- to hear what they have to say?"
"I would have thought you heard me tell Laurent to keep quiet-"
"But if there's- if there's been a mistake-"
Snape turns to her, cloak snapping at his heels, and roars, "KEEP QUIET, YOU STUPID GIRL."
Sage raises her wand and aims to disarm him, but she's not the only one. Harry, Ron and Hermione got there before her, and the man is thrown across the room like a rag-doll. She stifles a laugh, but her joy is gone when she sees the blood trickling from under his hair.
"He'll be fine," Black shrugs nonchalantly. "Maybe the brain damage will knock some sense into the bloke. But you really shouldn't have done that. You should've left him to me."
"Oh, yeah," Sage scoffs as the prisoner moves to free Lupin from his bonds. "Because leaving him to a convicted murderer is, like, the best thing we could have done."
"Thank you, Sage," Lupin says pointedly, as Hermione's standing there rocking and muttering, "We just attacked a teacher... We just attacked a teacher..."
"Just because we did, doesn't mean we believe you," Harry says, directed at Lupin and Black, who share a glance. Sage makes a pointed glare at the professor, who is decidedly ignoring her looks. She scowls and frowns her arms.
"Professor, should I try to fix Ron's leg?" She asks. He finally looks at her. "I'm decent at healing spells."
"Yes," he agrees. "Do it while we explain."
"Wait- how do we know she's not on your side, believing all this rubbish so quickly?" Ron demands. "She might sever my leg off! She could ruin it forever! She might-"
"Shut up, you daft git," scoffs Sage. "You've known me for how long? Have I ever seemed particularly murderous to you before you found out my dad was mates with Remus Lupin and Sirius Black back in the seventies?"
Ron's silent.
"That's what I thought," Sage nods. So she lays her hands on the boy's leg and starts reciting every healing spell she knows (which, honestly, isn't that many) (but she's trying her best, okay?) and half-listening to what the others are talking about. Something about Peter Pettigrew. Something about Peter Pettigrew being a rat. Something about Peter Pettigrew being Ron's rat. Something about the rat bastard blowing up a street of muggles and framing Sirius Black, then hiding out as Scabbers for thirteen years.
Then, Scabbers turns into a crusty, middle-aged man. Sage almost throws up. She's strongly reminded of the reasons she's a lesbian.
Scabbers(Peter?) tries to talk to Harry, then to Ron, then to Hermione, but Black and Lupin grab him and absolutely fucking launch him across the room. Sage snorts down laughter. Then, everything sort of gets a bit peaceful. Lupin and Ron end up chained to Peter to stop him running away. Sage grips Hermione's hand to walk after them down the tunnel, Harry and Black take up the rear.
"What the hell just happened?" Sage asks, rubbing a hand over her face. "What... what the hell?"
"I don't know," Hermione says. "And that's rich, coming from me."
Sage laughs. "You aren't wrong, Granger."
They walk a bit in silence. Sage lets go of Hermione's hand. Then, Harry walks up ahead and says that Black wants to speak with her. Sage nods.
Sirius is quiet for a second, then says, "Hello."
Sage would have laughed, but she'd rather look broody and dark. "Hello."
"You've never met me."
"You've never met me either, really."
He smiles. "What are you, a parrot?"
Sage smiles back. "No. I know that you've met me, when I was a baby. But then you got carted off to prison. Dad told me about it."
"Dad- oh, right. I keep forgetting," Sirius laughs. He sounds like a dog when he laughs, she notes. It contrasts to her witch cackle nicely. "Arielle Laurent is your dad."
"Correct. Flick's my aunt."
His expression glazes over at the mention of the woman. His eyes are cloudy, his smile is dreamy. "Felicity Laurent."
She lets him have his moment, then says, "She's doing well. She lives in the States with Elliot."
"Who's Elliot? Boyfriend? Husband?"
"Son," she answers, and when his eyes widen, she cuts him off. "Not yours. He's five."
"Who's is he?"
"We don't know. But he doesn't need a dad, he's got Flick. She's parent enough for him. The Laurent's are particularly good at single-parenting."
Sirius nods. "I didn't want to talk to you about Flick, actually, I wanted to talk about you."
"Oh, yeah?"
"I just- I want you to know that I'm not what everyone says I am. I love your family, almost like I didn't love my own. And I want you to know that I wouldn't hurt you."
"You were well creepy when you broke into my dorm, though. Fancy just sitting there staring at me."
"I wasn't in my right mind. Hungry and tired and all that."
"Surely you couldn't have said 'sorry, not actually here to murder you, just wanted to say hi to my mate's kid daughter'."
"I'm sorry. I wasn't thinking."
Sage nods. "It's okay. But you really didn't need to spook me over it."
He's sheepish, which doesn't really go with the whole escaped prisoner thing he's got going on. "Sorry."
"Forget about it. I guess we're cool now, hey?"
He nods. "I suppose."
Sage can see the end of the tunnel, which is good, because her tall arse can barely stand to crouch in this tunnel any longer. She sees Snape, who Sirius has been hovering along in front of them, knock his head into the wall of the cave as they climb out. She laughs.
"Hate him as much as I do?" Sirius suggests amusedly.
"Double as much," Sage answers. "You know him when he was a shitty teenager. I know him now that the supposed love of his life is dead, and he hates literally anyone who had anything to do with his life before that. You don't know the half of it."
"Want me to wipe his memory?"
"Not before I tattoo my name into his forehead."
"Go on then, I'll move his hair- I know a great spell for that-"
"Nobody's tattooing anybody," Lupin says loudly from up ahead. Sirius and Sage share that look. "Nobody."
"Fine," Sage grumbles, crossing her arms and glancing up at Sirius, who's looking down at her with a wide smile that makes his gaunt features look a little bit more like the man Flick fell in love with.
"Where did you grow up, Sage?"
"All over. Dad's a travelling teacher in America, Europe, all the big schools. Couldn't just leave me behind for the first eleven years of my life, so I came along with him."
Sirius nods. "Explains the weird accent."
"It does," she agrees with a smile.
She's just thinking about how well everything's going, how Flick and Sirius are going to be reunited and Sirius is going to be a free man, how she can tell her dad about the truth of why Remus left him all those years ago, and how Harry won't have to go back to that godawful house-
And then everything goes tits up.