To Lestrange Manor to Break the News

Jack had collapsed in on herself at home. In private. Where no one would ever see her. She had tracked down Nemo's last footsteps all the way to his kidnapping. She had alerted everyone she could, she had contacted all, but there was only so much she could do without ruining herself as the person meant to be the Order's spy.

It was a long time before she withdrew from her self explosion. When she did, all she wanted to do was something useful, something for Nemo. She asked herself- who would he go to, besides her. And a very unpleasant revelation hit her, one she resisted for as long as she could. But Nemo had even told her where to find the man she meant to speak with now. All signs pointed towards Lestrange Manor.

She dressed and apparated there, slipping through the gates and walking up the path. She raised her fist and knocked three times, trying to quickly gather her bearings. Her skin was pale (she had not slept in about five days now), dark circles highlighted her eyes, and she looked a tad thinner. Jack, in short, looked like a ghost.

Matt would rarely ever admit that he was ever sick. He could be hacking out his lungs and he'll be out having a duel to prove he was healthy. So you know when he has to find a temporary place to rest for longer than two weeks he's incredibly sick. His temporary residence, although not by choice, was his old family home. It was the only place he was certain he would be safe. As far as he was concerned muggles only saw an old haunted house. And he was the last living Lestrange, the Death Eaters would never look for him there. And so, bed ridden, Matt Lestrange was at his most vulnerable.

Nemo had been to visit him though. He had brought a very old Scotch that he was certain came from the man who had interrupted their first meeting. It stood, half drunken, on the floor next to his bed. Nemo had done most of the drinking, and talking. Performing dangerous stunts for the sick Lestrange. Matt didn't have a better friend then Nemo. Matt had found napping to be a waste of his time so he spent most of his time zapping flies with his wand and watching the tele he had set up in one of the larger guest bedrooms. He had been enjoying a rather nice dream staring a beautiful redheaded woman when he was woken very abruptly. Someone was at his door.

He made an attempt to get out of bed and swaggered, he coughed a very loud and painful cough and put on his robe. He slipped his wand up into his sleeve and made his way outside the room and down the main stairwell. He was very uneasy, who would know he was there. He very carefully peered through the peephole only to be welcomed with the not so brilliant features of Jack Dyllan. He groaned and opened the door forcefully. It had been a long time since their last encounter. Which had ended in a destroyed hotel room and multiple bruises. "What do you want?" Matt said angrily as frowned at her.

Jack shivered a little in the chill of exhaustion, pulling her jacket more tightly around her body, pulling it tight over her shoulders as a faint tremor racked her shoulder blades and spine, clanking all of the bones against each other. She forced herself to hold back another shake, because she was fairly sure she would fall apart, piece by piece, limb from limb.

The door was yanked open and she met the harsh countenance and words of Matthew Lestrange. There was no kindness, no forgiveness, no compassion. And there seemed to be no prior knowledge. He didn't know. He had no idea that Nemo had been taken from them in a most forceful manner.

Jack stared at Matt and the glanced down. "I came to..." She looked up at him. A strange sensation gripped Jack's bones and the shivering became internal. She suddenly looked very much like what she truly was... A nineteen year old girl. Her eyes locked with his, her mouth opened slightly...

And Jack Dyllan burst into tears.

There as no kindness or compassion usually present in Matt's eyes. They were black, they were cold and lifeless. They were the eyes he saved especially for threats to his family and friends. As far as he was concerned Jack Dyllan was bringing hell wherever she went. He stood there, staring down at the woman who carried hell around with her like it was a dog. The woman who was so quick to dish back whatever Matt sent out first. The woman who stood before him, always angry and looking for a fight. But as it turns out she wasn't full of anger nor was she looking for a fight. She simply stood there, looking up at him, crying.

Matt was caught off guard at the sudden addition of tears into this situation. He hadn't seen anyone crying for months. He had almost forgotten how to react to the type of situation in which tears often made an appearance, almost. Within moments the father inside of him instinctively scooped Jack up into his arms and brought her inside the house. He could hear her sobs and he escorted her to the living room and sat her on the couch. Throughout this process not a word was uttered between the pair of them.

All anger had left Matt's system, all the hatred they shared for each other seemed to disappear. There was no tension of the angry kind. Matt simply stood over Jack, waiting for a break between her sobs long enough for her to talk. He had gathered that there was something she had wanted to tell him. He intended on listening to her.

She saw arms come towards her and she stumbled towards their marvelous openness, allowing a warmth to enter the chill that had become her body. She was lifted away to what she hoped was safety, and she clung to Matt, allowing herself this. THIS. She had bore everything else with a resilience no other woman, and probably few men, could have matched. She could be allowed this.

And she had no choice. Could she have stopped it, she would have tried. She simply could. not. stop.

He took her in and she shook and cried against him, letting herself be taken wherever she would be taken. She ended up on a couch and he moved away, watching. She doubled over, biting her knee until it began to bleed- anything to stop the crying. Her shoulders and chest heaved a few times and she loosened her bite on her knee. Blood stained the jeans knee but it was a small price to pay. Tears remained on her face, and small sobs shivered in her chest. But she had stopped the majority of it, enough to choke out a few words.

"They took Nemo."

Matt watched intently as Jack's emotions poured out all at once. He had always seen Jack a strong figure in a world full of despair and disease. But he knew people, humans, hand their breaking points and it was only a matter of time before Jack hit her very own. He wasn't smiling, he wasn't finding any shred of joy in the state in which Jack had entered. A state he knew all too well, misery and pain. Hopelessness and anger were the only companions when you hit rock bottom. But judging solely on the state Jack was in this news was not of a light nature.

"They took Nemo."

A vase exploded shattering into pieces and flying everywhere. Another vase followed and eventually the bulb in a light post popped as well. The window shutters blew open and Matt's eyes turned blood red. His wand was radiating so much heat it was burning his hand, but he hadn't noticed. His anger was so intense that he was scared for his own safety and that of Jack's. He turned quickly and flipped the table in front of the couch over. He pointed his wand at it and it blasted into pieces.

After a while his anger had subsided and turned into misery. He had taken a seat next to Jack and put his hands in his head. "Son of a b!tch." he said quietly. "No matter how hard I try, I can never escape them. Everything I bloody I touch, every fcking place I go, there they are. Those sons o' B**** are gonna pay for this." he stood up angrily. But soon had to sit back down as he succumbed to a coughing fit.

Chaos erupted, but Jack remained unmoved. She remained in her crumpled state, at home among destruction and anger. After the blood, hate, and demolition of Vito, and the discord and tragedy tied to living with Nemo, this was a shade, a ghost of a way of living that felt much more familiar to her. She swallowed a hiccup, shaking and trembling as she fought to control the churning storm in the pit of her stomach.

He sat next to her, but she remained. Crumpled. Holding it in before it all poured out. "It's not you," she said, a trembling voice. "He was taken because he is Head of Law Enforcement and because his roommate was the other Head. I doubt they know you guys are closely affiliated. No one keeps their mouths shut in the Ministry."

But what did it matter. Who's fault?

"They could make me torture him," she whispered. This deep fear had revealed itself to her as she tossed and turned the night before. "They could tell me to kill him. By the end of the next Death Eater meeting, either Nemo or I could be dead." She had to root for the latter. She did not understand how she could survive the former. Not again. Not again. "What can we do, Matt?"

Matt had been lost in his own thoughts for the duration of his rage. Only once he had calmed down did he address Jack's worries. He felt personally responsible for most of them. After all it was he who had assigned her the very task that put her into this position. He looked at her sadly, he fully understood how difficult this was for her. She had saved Nemo's life far more than anyone had, including himself. And he had done it more than most people did. He had specifically started studying healing spells simply for the sake of his friend. And now it was his time to make up for all the wrongs he had done.

He looked at Jack with intense eyes, meaning every word of what he was about to say. "Jack, you keep doing what you're doing. As long as you show no signs of any interest in Nemo it's very unlikely that they ask you to even go near him. However if it does come down to it then you may have to go with it." he told her sadly. "Don't think of it as doing it for the sake of The Order. Right now this is about keeping you safe. You need to stay safe for Nemo," he trailed off. "because I'm going to break him out." he told her. There was passion in his voice and a calm anger that would worry most people.

He was sick of everything going wrong. He wasn't going to lose Nemo, and he didn't want to lose Jack. This situation had realized how vital she really was in his life. Without Jack his life would probably be really boring. "Jack, I know, I know we haven't had the best history." He told her as he took hold of her and looked her in the eyes. "But I can promise you, it's no longer an issue."

Matthew stood before her, offering to take on some of the weight currently pressing down upon her. It was two times in the past two days, now, that someone had taken away some of her fears and worried and tacked them onto herself. They had done it without permission, with equal parts understanding and strength, and never making her feel incapable of saving her friend. In short, both James Potter and Matthew Lestrange had offered her something she had rarely ever felt the power of, something she did not have the power to deny from them: friendship.

He told her she may have to do the unthinkable, and she closed her eyes against the words. Jack would completely compromise herself in this campaign as a spy, but this would be her one failing. She knew she would be unable to harm Nemo. Even if she used an unforgivable curse against him, one had to mean it for them to work. And she would not be able to mean it.

She didn't understand how she would be able to be so close and yet force herself not to act. She would be the only one with power to save him, and yet completely incapable of doing so. But his argument was the argument that had kept her alive for so long. Matt and Nemo were good people, but they were pretty thick if they thought that, between the three of them, she was the most innocent of self destructive thoughts. How many times Jack had walked into a battle, hoping not to walk out. How many times Jack had lied awake in bet, fingering the small vials capable of giving the relief to her eternal exhaustion. How many times had Jack lingered in a place of danger, waiting, hoping, that some accident may relieve the world of her presence. But Jack had never allowed action, because she told herself: you are needed. It was Vito, then Chase, then Ariel, then Nemo. Too many people who needed her there. They held her feet to the ground. And Matt reminded her of this again. With a miserable little internal squirm, Jack thought If I keep myself safe, who keeps Nemo safe? And then Matt gave her his word: he would save Nemo.

A small breath trailed from her lips and she closed her eyes. A moment later, another wave of deja vu hit her. James had gripped her this way too. This must clinch it- if she considered one a friend, she must consider the other a friend. Her eyes slid open and met his eyes. She allowed a small flicker of a smile. "It's not even an issue that I won that last fight?"

((I'm referring to the fight we haven't RPed yet. The intense fist fight duel thing. I imagine Jack will leave there saying something along the lines of "BTW, I won this."))