Owl to Padma

[anon_regulus]

Date: April 18th, 2003
Character(s): Regulus Black, Padma Patil
Status: Private
Summary: Regulus lets Padma in on the trouble her sister is in.

Comments

[anon_padma]

The letter dropped from Padma's shaking hands. It didn't matter. She'd read it enough times to know what it said. Disbelief flooded her first, unable to believe the letter, especially its nonchalant manner, and for a long moment, she thought someone was joking with her.

Then she rationalized. No one would ever play this kind of joke. Not even her sister, and certainly not someone she barely knew. that was when the letter had fallen to the ground. She sank down beside it, clutching the kitchen counter with white-knuckled hands. She stared down at the parchment for a long moment, her breathing shallow and harsh. The world seemed to spin a moment, and she shut her eyes. She counted to ten and opened them again.

Padma pulled out her wand and summoned her pen. With a shaky hand, she penned a short answer.

Face-to-face. Now. St Edmunds Road. Flat 2B.

Padma

The owl took the letter and flew off. "Marcus!" Her voice cracked on the word as she buried her face in her hands and started to cry.

[anon_regulus]

The minute he received the owl, he had pulled out his wand and Disapparated from where he stood. A second later, he reappeared on St. Edmund's Road in the middle of the street. He headed towards the right flat, knowing Padma was likely to be worried sick.

He and Sirius had been looking ever since they'd found out Parvati was missing without ever really stopping. After they'd realized they'd start needing to look through the private residence areas of town, they'd split up and promised to owl immediately if they learned anything. After that, he'd owled Padma.

When he reached the right door, he knocked and waited. All the while, he was trying to think of ways to find her, ways that didn't involve stalking through town on the prayer that Parvati might scream at an opportune moment. As it was, however, he hadn't slept and he hadn't eaten much, and he wasn't thinking as well as he used to. He'd just have to keep trying.

[anon_padma]

Padma heard the knock and peeled herself off the floor. She willed her knees to stop trembling and to pull herself together. Now wasn't the time to fall apart. She needed to know what was going on, and she needed to know absolutely right now.

Taking a deep breath, she eased the trembling from her body and let go of the counter. Then she walked away from the kitchen and over to the door. She wiped her eyes carefully on her sleeve, trying to make it look as though she hadn't been crying, but then stopped. Fuck it. What did she care if Regulus knew she was upset? She ran a hand through her hair and opened the door.

"Regulus." She stepped aside to let him in and then shut the door behind him. She turned and leaned against the door, looking him over from head to toe, eyes like ice. "What happened. From the beginning, as I think I already have the gist."

[anon_regulus]

Regulus stepped inside, noting that Padma had been crying. He couldn't blame her. Even if she and Parvati didn't always get along, they were still sisters. And it was all the worse because they didn't know where she was and had no way of helping her until they did

[anon_padma]

Padma listened to the story in silence, leaning harder against the wall as Regulus went on. She felt as though she'd been punched in gut. She'd just spoken to her not a month ago. She'd been stalked then. He could have followed her to the restaurant. And Parvati never told her she was in trouble.

Of course she hadn't told her, Padma reasoned. Why would she? They'd barely spoken in months, and Padma had given Parvati no reason to confide in her. For a moment, a look of immeasurable pain crossed Padma's face, and she shut her eyes tightly. She took another deep breath and opened them again, looking at Regulus.

"What have you been doing since she's been taken? Are there any clues that might help us find her? Do we have anyway of tracking her?" She lowered her voice instead of raising it, afraid that her voice would crack on the words or that more distress would show. She needed to stay calm. She would halp no one by being hysterical.

[anon_regulus]

"We've been searching for her," Regulus said. "So far, we've checked the Beedle Bar, all of the town's fields, and at the moment, my brother's going through some of the residential areas of town." He wasn't sure how well it would work, searching in the hope that Parvati might cry out at an opportune moment, but it was the best they had at the moment.

"As far as clues... we don't really have too many," Regulus said. "Macnair goes to the Beedle Bar frequently, that's where he met Parvati and where he ran into my brother once. I've been checking it every few hours but I haven't seen him there, and the people that work there swear he's not staying in one of their rooms."

"I don't think there is any way of tracking her," Regulus said. "Macnair probably Apparated her back to wherever he's keeping her. And if we'd wanted to have some kind of marker on her, we would have had to have put in place before now."