Only the Brave

Chapter 45: Friends

Interlude: Remus' POV

Sweat sticks his shirt to his back as Remus crawls over the floor, trying to get to where Dorcas and Sam are cornered by three Death Eaters. Spells fly in both directions, flashes of colour carrying hurt and death and all manner of awful things Remus very much wants to inflict upon his enemies but wants to shield his friends from. The girls are putting up a good fight. They're both magnificent, but Dorcas is just a tad... feral. Like she's fuelled by a passion that runs deeper in her than it does the rest of them. She's fighting tooth and nail and has taken a couple of hits, but she simply will not stay down.

Sam, who is a force to be reckoned with too, has been distracted because Sturgis Podmore is unconscious and she's trying to keep him out of harm's way. The Death Eaters have picked up on it, and they're backing her into the wall. Dorcas, who also noticed, has joined her in the fight but there's very little room for them to manoeuvre.

Remus needs to get to them and help, if his arms will stop being pathetic and complaining with every crawl. There are shards of glass all over the floor, digging into his palms, but Remus knows pain. He hones his mind with it. Whets his anger.

He's bleeding and he's hurting.

It helps him stay focused.

Blood drips into his eye from a cut on his eyebrow, which is fucking annoying because half the world appears pink at the moment. But he can't get distracted. He needs to get Dorcas and Sam out of here before it's too late.

Crouching up behind a fallen bookshelf, Remus hisses from the pain in his leg. He took a hit from a nasty curse earlier and his thigh is protesting every movement. Fuck. He's hurting in way more places than he'd like.

Stop being a little bitch. Help Dorcas and Sam.

Gripping his wand, Remus hauls himself up and jumps over the shelf, shooting a stunning spell that catches one of the Death Eaters by surprise. He crumples down, and Sam takes the small window the distraction grants her to take down the other. The third Death Eater abandons Dorcas—because she's just become wandless, having been disarmed a second before Remus jumped in—and turns towards Remus and Sam.

Big mistake, underestimating Dorcas Meadowes. The moment the Death Eater looks away from her, she reaches down and picks up the broken leg of a chair from the floor. She swings it like a bat savagely. It connects with the side of the Death Eater's head with a sickening crunch. He crumples to the ground in a boneless heap.

"Fuck," Dorcas says, wiping her brow with the back of her hand. "That felt good."

"That was pretty fucking awesome," Sam pants, looking around to double check all the hostiles are down.

Remus snatches Dorcas' wand from the floor and throws it across the room to her. She catches it smoothly. "Are you alright?" Remus asks, blinking to clear the blood dripping into his eye.

"We need patching up, but we'll live," Sam says. She crouches next to the fourth Order member who came with them on this mission, Sturgis Podmore. He's unconscious, but still alive. When the Death Eaters first attacked, he took the brunt of the blast and hit his head when he fell. Dorcas was fast enough to get out of the way. He wasn't.

"Someone needs to get Sturgis to St Mungo's immediately, though."

"You take him," Remus says. "Dorcas and I can secure these three before they wake up."

"No," Sam replies. "Dorcas, you take Sturgis. I'll help Remus."

Dorcas looks like she's going to protest, but Sam gives her a look. There's a tense moment, and then... she simply acquiesces. Remus would have expected Dorcas to argue a bit more, but then again he supposes that it's been drilled into them, how crucial the chain of command is.