Open to anyone who could feasibly have heard the commotion. He's right near Padmore Park so a park patron, neighbor or someone passing by!

I think I got a lot of friends
But I don't hear from them
What's another night all alone
When you're spending every day on your own
— I'm Just A Kid - Simple Plan

30 Song Challenge

Saturday, February 25th, 1888 — Thimblewit Turn, Bartonburg

Barnabas Skeeter had many friends. Considering that he had dozens of supporters from running for Minister, work colleagues and drinking buddies, he had his pick of the litter when it came time to find companions for social festivities. This was what he told himself when he was sat at home on a late Saturday afternoon, twitching with boredom, as he awaited an invitation from one of his many friends to arrive so that he might find some manner of entertainment that evening.

He'd stationed himself at his writing desk in preparation. Any invitations received now would need to be hastily responded to in order to have time to prepare. Antsy, he shuffled through the scholarly papers on his desk for the umpteenth time when he'd heard the noise.

It had sounded almost as if it were a crash somewhere downstairs - reminiscent of glass breaking. At first, he didn't think he'd truly heard it and it had climbed up out of his lonely little heart to frighten him. He froze for a moment, ears pricked, listening. There was only silence. He settled back in his chair and picked up an article on the latest craze of the youngsters these days (children hexing each other to grow faux genitalia on their faces.) "Ridiculousness and immaturity," He grumbled, "If I were their parents, I'd-" CRASH

He scrambled from his desk so quickly the chair tipped over. That had most definitely been real. And even more worryingly, it was downstairs. In his home. Subsequent crashing noises followed. He struggled to attach his prosthetic, having taken it off whilst he waited correspondance, and used wandless magic to beckon his actual wand to him from the drawer he'd idiotically placed it in. Meanwhile, there were more crashes.. and was that... was that barking?

Immediately, his thoughts went to Penny, Amelia's dog. She'd barked before. Was it her? Barney only knows one dog that exists apparently. Was Amelia breaking and entering? His heart leaped into his throat. He was an odd mix of eager to see her and also terrified that she'd come to murder him.

He crept downstairs as quietly as he was able, wand clutched tightly in his hand and the other leaning heavily on the banister. His sitting room and kitchen were beyond trashed. Whoever was here was looking for something. Not Amelia then. She wouldn't have torn apart his house like this. It was murderers and thieves! (Odd time of day to break into a home, but he wasn't one to argue the logic at the moment.)

A coolness swept up the stairs. He quickly surmised that the source of it was his front window. Or lack thereof. The glass panes lay all over the floor beneath it. Fear clutched at his throat. Don't scream man, get it together. Warily, he forced himself to continue down the staircase. The sound of scuffling and grunts came from the kitchen. They were digging through his pantry! His coffee was imported from the states! Did they know how expensive that was?! Of course they did, that was probably why they were here, rooting through it all. Damn him for being a braggart about his morning beverage habits.

With his wand in hand, he shouted and jumped out at the intruder. The intruder yelped and spun around, his mouth full of sausage and cheese. Barnabas took a half-second to take stock - the intruder was a dog, a very very large scruffy dog, but a dog nonetheless. "Get out of here!" He roared and pointed his wand at the brute's snout. Just as he was going to utter a defensive spell, the dog launched itself at him.

Flat on his back, Barnabas howled in fright, "Go away go away go away! You can take whatever you want just leave me alone!" The dog growled (a playful growl, but Barnabas being dog ignorant hadn't a clue), took a millisecond to sniff Barnabas over and then promptly latched onto his prosthetic leg and took off. It dragged Barnabas through the first floor, all the while he screamed and kicked and shouted, fully believing he was being murdered.

"HELP! HEEEEELP!" He screamed so loud that his voice cracked. His prosthetic leg had loosened enough that the mangy mutt took off with it and loped up the stairs, leaving Barnabas alone on the floor beneath his broken window. Shards of glass dug into his back and rump. His heart pounding in his ears as he let out a breath of relief — and then he heard a voice from outside his window.

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   Holliday Fudge

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set by MJ | Kindly tag Prudence Browne in replies

Gabriel had been Lou's faithful full-moon companion ever since he had initially been bitten, and by now the dog had become more than just a pet; he was like family. No amount of love, however, could keep a dog from growing old, and Gabriel had certainly done that; he was having difficulty getting up the stairs from the basement the morning after the full moons, and he just wasn't walking as well as he had once been, in general. Lou had refused to see what was obvious until Daniel had blatantly pointed it out to him: if Lou didn't find a replacement dog soon, he'd be stuck without a companion during a full moon one of these days, and he knew from experience that he wanted no part of that.

The month where Gabriel had been missing the year before had taught Lou that he had a very particular preference for dogs, and although he knew that no dog could ever really replace Gabriel, he did manage to at least find a pup for sale in the same breed, and he was optimistic that, with proper training, this new dog could eventually serve the same function that Gabriel had for so many years. Of course, it had been so long since Gabriel was a puppy that Lou had forgotten how much work puppies were — even if the new dog, already half the size of a horse, certainly didn't look like a pup, he undoubtedly acted like one. Lou had grown older, as well, particularly over the last few years — and his condition made him feel older than he really was, particularly on the days surrounding the full moons.

He'd attempted to take them both out for a walk, thinking that perhaps Gabriel's much calmer influence would help stem the bouncy energy of the puppy, but that plan had worked about as well as trying to float a bag of rocks; they were only halfway through Bartonburg when the dog unexpectedly tugged the leash out of Lou's hands and was off.

He tried to catch up, but with Gabriel still in tow he could only move so fast. By the time he reached the house that the younger dog had stopped at, the place was already enveloped in chaos. The sight of the broken window, and the legless man lying inside, brought Lou up short. The dog wouldn't have bitten him, surely? He was energetic, but had never seemed aggressive — and certainly not aggressive enough to cause one to lose a leg!

"Oh, dear," Lou muttered, while Gabriel panted patiently at his side.

  

"Who's there?!" He demanded loudly, "If you've come to finish me off, I'll have you know I've my wand at the ready!"

Still lying flat on his back, he quickly patted at the pocket where he normally stored his wand. Empty. Damn it all! He'd forgotten that he'd dropped it when the dog had attacked him in the kitchen. There was no way he could mange to cross the flat without being seen, and then he'd certainly be done for. It was better to put on a brave front and hope that would scare what was undoubtedly the other half of whatever mad robbing murder-team this was.

  

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"Oh, er, no," Lou said quickly, rather caught off guard by the bold assertion. Finish him off? Merlin, it wasn't as though Lou was some sort of roving beastmaster, setting rabid dogs loose on the public in hopes of causing chaos. There were, of course, some rather romanticized and backwards ideas Muggles had about werewolves that painted them in just such a light, and the irony of the situation was not lost on him, but it was rather overshadowed by the stranger's evident distress.

"Look, I'm terribly sorry," he said, eying the front of the building and wondering where the front door was. "But I'm sure we can get it all sorted out without any duels." At least from this angle, Lou wasn't sure where the entryway was (or, more accurately, which door belonged to the correct residence; the houses in Bartonburg had always been crammed in rather too close, and the last thing he wanted was to go breaking into the neighbor's house by mistake and make the entire situation worse). After a hesitant moment, Lou eyed the broken window and gingerly moved to step through it. "I'm coming in, alright?" he said, unsure how much the man could see from his position on the floor and not wanting to find himself on the receiving end of any hexes — much as he might deserve them, after the chaos his new mutt had apparently wrought on the house.

  

The man certainly didn't sound like a murderous criminal. He sounded just as confused as Barnabas, which was disconcerting. If he was there to rob him and finish him off, he ought to have been speaking with a certain conviction in his voice. Not that Barnabas knew much about murderers and thieves... but he had dealt with petty criminals and the like when he'd been with the Improper Use of Magic Office. He should be able to trust his gut. And this time his gut was telling him to... believe the man.

Theoretically, the man was going to enter his home whether he wanted him to or not. Barnabas could at least keep it cordial and hope that this wouldn't end up on the front page of The Daily Prophet in the morning.

Nervously, Barnabas sat himself upright as he called out, "Alright. Be careful, there's glass shards all over the floor." He had assumed the man would use the door — as normal people do — to enter his home. He'd even been readying himself to crawl on all four's - or three's, as it were - to unlock it. Before he could do so, he caught sight of the man climbing in through the broken window so he did what any sane person would do, and scrambled out of the way. Ironically, a shard sliced through his palm as he did so, "Shit! Ow!"

  

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set by MJ | Kindly tag Prudence Browne in replies

Lou hardly needed the warning, since he could see the glass all over the floor. He was also wearing boots with thick soles — the only sort he owned, anymore, since anywhere he would want to walk to was at least half an hour through a pathless woods from the cabin. There was very little chance of a shard of glass puncturing the thick leather. It was the other man who should have been careful, as was made obvious when he sliced a hand open. Lou grimaced at the sight of bright red blood. The cut probably wasn't very deep, but it was long, and the blood made it look gruesome. Blood vessels in hands were so near the surface that it was nearly unavoidable.

"Stop moving, you'll make it worse," Lou recommended, crouching down and reaching out to take the man's hand in his without waiting for an invitation to do so. He held it palm-up and examined the cut for only a moment before deciding there wasn't any glass still in it, at which point he pulled out a handkerchief and tied it neatly over the cut. Healing magic was by far the area Lou had the least amount of expertise in, but due partly to rashness and partly due to stubornness (as well as a general inability to see proper healers over the past few years), Lou had plenty of experience in how to get things moving in the right direction to heal the Muggle way.

"What happened to your leg?" he asked hesitantly. That seemed like the sort of thing that would require magical intervention, whatever it was.

  

It was an odd feeling having a stranger climb into your home via a broken window in the middle of the night. Especially odd was being able to hear the monster dog snuffling around in the bedroom upstairs. He didn't appreciate the command — this was his house, after all — but it made sense. Barnabas sat quietly as his hand was tightly tied with a handkerchief. With that done, he had begun to glance around in search for his wand. Though he likely didn't need to use it on the man, he would still feel much more comfortable if he had a means to defend himself close by.

Distractedly, he answered the man's question with his mouth set into a grim, wide line, "Troll ate it." Unable to see his wand in the dim, he decided to deal with the most important matter at hand. He gestured to the staircase not far from them, "There's a rabid dog ransacking the upstairs - it dove through the window and attacked me! Do you have your wand? Can you call the authorities at once?!" His voice raised in pitch as he began to panic, "I haven't mine! I dropped it in the attack and I have no idea where it's gone!"

  

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set by MJ | Kindly tag Prudence Browne in replies

"He's not rabid," Lou responded immediately, realizing only after he'd said it that the man on the floor hadn't figured out yet that he was the owner of the mongrel upstairs. He hadn't had any intention of denying it, however, even had he been able to. He wasn't really in a position to try and pay for anything the dog had broken or destroyed, still being reliant on his estranged father for the supply of his meager income and basic need fulfillment, but he would at least take responsibility for the chaos and do his best to set it to rights. He was rather handy with a wand, when it came down to it, and he thought he'd be able to repair (or near enough) most things with magic.

"I can get the dog down — and I'll help fix what I can," Lou offered with an embarrassed frown, standing up again and patting his pockets down until he located his own wand within one. "And — just a moment — Accio wand."

  

It dawned on him then that this man was familiar with the beast that had so rudely barged into his home and destroyed the place. His eyebrows knit together skeptically as the stranger promised to make things right. His wand rolled across the kitchen floor before flying up to the other man's hand. Barnabas' face grew tight. The thing was nearly snapped in half. It was held together by several flimsy pieces of wood. He'd had it since he was a first year.

With his wide mouth set in a grim line, he said flatly, "I expect you won't be fixing that." Feeling rather silly for still sitting on the floor, he reached for the window sill and pulled himself to a stand. He propped himself up against the wall to keep his balance, "Fetch your dog and leave sir, apparently I need to have this seen to-" He waved his injured hand, "-seeing as how I no longer have a working wand."

  

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set by MJ | Kindly tag Prudence Browne in replies

Well, that was embarrassing. Lou had to admit that while he was hardly a novice when it came to most wand work, he knew very little about actually working on wands, and would be unable to even begin to help restore the one in his hand. At least he still had all of the pieces of it? Lou refrained from trying to point out the silver lining, because he didn't know enough about wand lore to actually know whether that was enough to fix a wand or whether it would have to be replaced, and didn't want to make himself look foolish trying to suggest the impossible. The man with the broken wand and the missing leg also hardly looked like he was in a mood to have someone encouraging him to look on the bright side. Best just to fetch the dog and leave, Lou thought, and hope he did so before the blond man tried to press him for damages.

"Er, right," he said, reaching out to offer the broken wand to the man rather awkwardly. Obviously he wouldn't be able to do anything with it, but it seemed rather disrespectful to just let it fall back onto the chaos of the floor once again. It wasn't just an accessory to be discarded when broken; a wand was basically an extention of a wizard's arm. If a mishap had befallen his own wand (for instance, at the collapse of the World Market), he would have wanted to carried what was left of it back with him.

"I'll, er, be right down, then," he said, biting his lip and glancing around the floor as he wondered whether he ought not to attempt some kind of damage control here before he left the crippled man to his own devices. A noise from upstairs, however, drew his attention to the more pressing matter of the dog, and he scurried away without waiting for response from the other man.

  

Gingerly, Barnabas received his snapped wand. He pressed it protectively against his chest. It would have been embarrassing to look mournful in front of the stranger, so instead he arranged his face in a stoic glare. The man disappeared up the stairs. Barnabas took the time to inspect his wand more closely. He'd had it since his first year at Hogwarts. It had been routinely polished, but that didn't keep it from forming grooves from where his fingers had worn the wood down. It had seen him through many misadventures.

The stairs creaked beneath the weight of someone descending them. Quickly, he wiped away a tear at the corner of his eye, determined not to let out a sniffle.

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   Lupus Jameshill

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set by MJ | Kindly tag Prudence Browne in replies

Once he'd gotten upstairs and located the dog, lassoing him was fairly easy. The big mutt was still little more than a puppy, and came over to Lou immediately when he saw him, tail wagging. He clearly had no idea that what he had done was in any way problematic, and wriggled only a little when Lou fit the leash back around his neck. Putting the upstairs back in order was a little more complicated, and required a series of spells, but the damage up here was nothing compared to what a mess the dog had made downstairs, and so it was shortly set to rights. The dog nearly pulled him down the stairs when he opted to take the steps in bounds rather than at any sort of reasonable pace, and Lou barely caught himself on the bannister to avoid ending up at the bottom of the stairs in a heap, with the dog on the loose again. He may have been a puppy, but Merlin, he was strong!

Once he'd safely made it downstairs, however, Lou wasn't really sure what to do next. The place was still a wreck, and the man who owned the house was still sitting on the floor missing a leg, but Lou wasn't sure whether he'd want help righting any of the above or whether he would prefer to just have the dog out of the home as quickly as possible, given how thoroughly he'd been able to wreck the house the last time he'd slipped loose.

"Er," Lou said, struggling to hold the dog's leash tight enough that he couldn't reach the man on the floor (because, naturally, his first instinct was to go over and attack the man with his tongue, which likely wouldn't be appreciated). "Should I... go, or can I help with something?"

  

Barnabas openly scowled at the dog, who was pulling on his lead like the poor-mannered brute that he was. Rather blandly - he was over this whole thing by now - he asked, "Did you find my prosthetic leg?" Really, all Barnabas needed was his leg so that he could move around again. He didn't have his wand anymore, so he'd have to clean manually - or at least put some things to rights until his housekeeper and maid could come in the morning.

"I need your name and contact information also," He said a bit more forcefully, "So I know of whom to send the bill for property damages to." He wasn't about to foot the bill for such nonsense. No wonder why he hated animals. They ruined everything.

  

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set by MJ | Kindly tag Prudence Browne in replies

Well, that was out of the question. As much as Lou felt bad for the damage the dog had caused, he didn't feel so apologetic he was about to hand over his actual identity and start all of the questions that would bring up. Nor did he have any money to pay for these supposed damages, whatever the man imagined they amounted to — aside from the wand, Lou had seen nothing that could not be set to rights by a skilled wizard with a functional wand in the matter of a few minutes. It was clear the other man didn't want his help, though, which meant he would have to tell him something.

"An owl addressed to Charlie Williams should reach me," he said. Why not? They had before, when Zelda Fisk had been writing him to ask for dancing advice. He wasn't sure how owls without any further direction had ever found his cabin in the woods when all they had to go on was a pseudonym, but... well, magic.

"And... er, for the leg," he continued, rather awkwardly. "I wasn't — exactly clear on what to look for." He'd never seen anyone with a prosthetic limb before, at least that he knew of, and had certainly never seen such a limb devoid of the context of a human body to identify it for what it was.

  

"Nevermind then, I'll find it myself," He scowled gracelessly. The humiliation was too much. He couldn't suck his ego up any longer — he'd rather go dig around in the mess for his prosthetic before he asked the stranger to traipse back up to his bedroom in search for it. Barnabas stayed where he was and pointed to the front door, quite done with it all, "Have your dog use the door this time, Mr. Williams. You can expect an owl within a fortnight."

  

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set by MJ | Kindly tag Prudence Browne in replies