The Marauders: Year Four

Well Now It's a Party, Isn't It?

Well Now It's a Party, Isn't It?

Absolute pandemonium was breaking. Frank Longbottom knelt in the place Rudolphus had left him, trembling, he fell to his splayed palms. Honey was still clutching Ali in the cage, covering her eyes... Frank looked over at them, and though his body was weak and muscles sore, he staggered up. "Magna," he said, waving his wand at Ali and she squeaked, her voice returning to her.

"Frank, oh my stars. Frank, you ruddy fool." She struggled out of Honey's grasp, slamming against the wrought iron bars and stuck her arms out the gaps as Frank fell against the cage, her arms wrapping around him. "He could've killed you!" Ali was sobbing. "He could've killed you, you idiot!" She frantically kissed every bit of his face she could reach through the bars.

Frank waved his wand at the lock on the cage door at his wrist. "Desolati," he whispered, and the lock melted away. He stumbled back and Honey opened the door.

Ali quickly wrapped herself around Frank, her arms surrounding him and he winced as she touched his bruises and cuts, but didn't stop her. He fell against her and she held him up, tears in her eyes. "I love you, I love you Frank, I love you so much." She put her hands on his face, in his hair, kissing the blood-crusted lips as he stood before her, "You're so brave, you're so impossibly brave."

Honey was peering through the doorway of the room, down the hall in either direction, her skeletal form eerie in the low-lighting of the dark green room. There were screams and shouts coming from outside the wide-opened front doors, the Death Eaters all trying to stop the fire from consuming the house, Rudolphus's shouts... The roar of the fire itself... And from the other direction, the bellows of the Dark Lord in the private parlor he'd taken Peter Pettigrew to. Honey turned to look at the embracing lovers behind her.

"We gotta go Ali, we've got to get out of here," Frank said, and it took all his strength to pull away from her. "We've got to get back to Hogwarts."

"What about my son?" Honey demanded. "Peter. We have to get Peter."

Frank said, "He's under the imperius curse! He'll kill us as look at us. We need help - we need - we need Dumbledore. You saw how many Death Eaters there are. And it took but one to do this to me... You and Alice without a wand... We are sorely outnumbered. Three battered wizards to -- what? Ten? Twenty?"

"Make that five."

All three of them turned as a door on the opposite side of the room opened - the servants' door, the door from the kitchens - and through it came Sirius Black and James Potter, wands aloft.

"Well now it's a party, isn't it?" Frank said, shaking his head in disbelief and amusement. "I should've known you lot were on the way..."

"James! Sirius!" Ali cried in surprise, running over to throw her arms about their necks in a hug.

Sirius grinned, shrugging out of Ali's hug uncomfortably, "You bloody gits aren't leaving us out of all the action!"

"Ruddy good try, though," James added, patting Ali on the back.

"How in the hell did you get here?" Frank asked.

"Rode the motorbike, didn't we?"

"What motorbike?" Frank demanded.

"What motorbike!" Sirius exclaimed, "The bloody motorbike that's just blasted it's way through the front of his shoddy old manor, that motorbike! James you hear that? What motorbike!" Sirius rolled his eyes.

James smirked at Sirius's tone as Ali turned back and grabbed hold on Frank's hand.

"Where in hell did you lot get a motorbike from?"