Immediately following When I Wake Up



The first curse struck just beside the cottage back door on his right as he’d thrown it open. The red bolt left a scorch mark inches from his arm. He stopped, retreating half a step inside the doorway, both hands above his head, cowering. The trigger-happy hitwizard’s colleague across the garden yelled out:

Three heads appeared over the stone wall of the Storms’ back garden in the dark, examining the figure in the doorway while the figure in the doorway took quick measure of them all and recalculated escape routes. He did not know exactly how long this face would last.

“Storm?” Dribbleby’s voice carried in the dark, the hitwizard’s wand withdrawing momentarily from strike position. It was enough of a signal he was perceived to be friendly, and he bolted out of the back door, running at a slight tilt through the garden, hands to his head in surrender. His angular face beneath the mop of black hair was bloody and swelling from the broken nose and eye socket. Enough disfiguration and blood to look suitable, and explain why he wasn’t able to speak. If he opened his mouth he was sure that he might give himself away with the accent.

The hitwizards resumed their stances as he grew close, but he kept his head down and ran headlong at the garden gate, which Dribbleby, bless his heart, held open, reaching to catch his arm. He spun on the spot, staring right into the hitwizard’s face, heart hammering in his chest.
“Is there anyone inside?” He pressed his hands to his face, partly grasping his nose in pain and attempting to conceal any slips in his appearance. He nodded clearly.

“Dementor!” The first voice yelled, and Dribbleby released his arm, allowing Lawrence to fall back away into the vegetation behind the house. He hadn’t meant to bring dementors, but they had found him. He turned, trying to apparate, but found they had brought down anti-apparition wards to prevent an escape. Mustering strength, and hoping this form could take it, Lawrence took the distraction of the dementor to get a head start on a run away from the Hogsmeade cottage in the dark. The third hitwizard gave chase, gut instinct proving true at the arrival of the dementors.

That was not Johann Storm who had just plunged out of the back door of the cottage.

The curse hit Lawrence square on the back of the head.





Crack!

The world spun. Lawrence yelled out incoherently, seeing stars, disorientated, ears ringing. His insides felt like they had been turned inside out and he’d been hit by the Hogwarts Express simultaneously. He rolled instinctively, smacked into something hard and scrambled to press his hands down, as he still had two. Those weren’t stars. This wasn’t brambles and tree roots. That wasn’t a tree.

“Where the fuck…?” Lawrence picked himself up, squinting and looked around himself. “Browxwood?!” He exclaimed, recognising his sister’s street. He’d come here not long after his release in the hope of some assistance, but she’d not opened her door. As Hannah had explained, uncle Lawrence had figuratively died the moment he’d been arrested. His conscious had latched onto it in the last ditch attempt to apparate as he found the edge of their wards. He flung the coat off into Cynthia’s front garden, paranoid of both recognition and of it being used to trace him.




Crack!

What little he’d eaten earlier heaved up on arrival. Bile spattered over his boots, over the ground. He inhaled a lungful of air and regretted it. The Shufflebottoms’ muck heap smelled worse for spring and Willy’s absence at the family home and brought on a sudden second heave. Distance, remote places were essential if he was to ensure he had thrown off any trace. His broken, dripping nose was leaving traces enough, but these were not new places to the aurors who pursued him.




Crack!

Four hundred and nineteen days. One year, one month and twenty-six days. A day short of sixty weeks. In that time Lawrence had both mended bridges, broken them and burned them beyond repair. The repentant convict released on appeal from the North Sea had only taken weeks to discover he would not survive unless he made pacts with the very people he used to put away.

Edwin had harboured him, nursed him when he was wounded from blowing up the Leaky Cauldron, but now he was a Ministerial candidate and had threatened him through Shufflebottom. Lawrence had led Ira to Edwin to save himself.

Shufflebottom had tempered his wish to destroy with dementors, watched his back with his dragon patronus when there was little gain for a penniless man. He had helped an old friend from school, made jokes about dementor hoovers to the Head Unspeakable, got himself arrested, wrecked his marriage and ended up in Azkaban all for Lawrence.

Mortimer had never been entirely sane, but as Lawrence had led Edwin, Glass in turn had led Gamp to Ira. Gamp fulfilled a lifelong ambition, one that killed young lives, and Lawrence had sourced them.

Arrow had sheltered him without question, but Ira had found him there. Lawrence had never gone back to find out what became of him.

Misslethorpe had repaired him, saved his life the second time and Lawrence had brought dementors, threatened to inform on an abusive past.

Andy had tried to help him, and Lawrence had come back, time and time again, beaten her husband black and blue, threatened their lives.

Ira had given him work and a place to live, laughed as she’d broken him, appreciated his touch of drama to please her, held her assistant on a leash, but now he had defied her, released Hannah. She would not hesitate to end his pitiful life.

Hannah had shown him mercy, and then he’d destroyed it with his involvement in the werewolf fights. Revealed their link, maybe led her to Almasy’s contract. Tonight he’d killed his own niece.

Eight months ago to the day, he’d lain beside a silver plated cage in the empty swimming bath below, waiting for the wolf to turn back into Hannah so he could get her to safety.

In the shadows, Lawrence slumped down against the cold tiles. His left hand fingers had faded back to the ugly stump, and dark curls had lengthened into brown and grey ones. He was alone, utterly alone. There was no-one he could turn to, short of threats and intimidation. He’d ruined enough lives along with his own. If Hannah didn’t live then all of tonight would be in vain.

He felt his nose, gritted his teeth and snapped it back into place. He couldn’t do anything about his face, and in his heart he couldn’t see why he should. Perhaps it was only just he felt it. He’d made an old man howl, someone who taught students, and an old classmate sob in fear of two people dying in her home. He was a monster. Ira Almasy hadn’t put him up to that, he’d made a decision. Yes, he’d done it for Hannah, and he would do anything for that girl, but it shouldn’t have come to this.

He should have made better choices. Married Susannah, looked after her, raised a family, a house somewhere - Godric’s Hollow, or Piddlehinton. A big shaggy dog, with kind eyes. Invitations to Hannah for Sunday lunch, excitement at preparing children for their first term at Hogwarts. He could have been a senior auror, worked his way up to Head of the Auror office by this time in his life.

Not be shivering in an abandoned swimming baths in Birmingham.

He only had himself to blame.

Himself to rely on.

Alone.