Double Dog Dare! -- Episode 7
Clare, 31 December 2001

"Jeremy David Michael McCarthy, just what do you think you're doing, running off like that? You know we're in a foreign country, who knows what strangers are wandering around just waiting to snatch up young boys? And where's your brother? Didn't I tell you to keep an eye on him? We had to abandon the tour to look for you and your father's been tearing his hair out with worry, haven't you, Michael?"

"Yes, dear. With worry." Michael McCarthy tried to arrange his features into a most abject look of anxiety for the sake of his wife.

The woman in question currently had her hands on her hips and was frowning at the sheepish looking Jeremy, her eldest. "Well? What have you done with Jason? Answer me, young man."

"Mom, Dad! Look what we found!" The relevant missing person made his appearance, red head first, over the rise of a ditch as he came scrambling out. He was covered from head to toe in dirt and he held a struggling bundle tightly in the crook of his arm.

Jeremy tried to frantically wave his brother back without attraction his mother's attention, but Jason seemed either not to notice the hand flapping behind his brother's back, or chose to ignore it. Probably the latter, Jeremy thought. Jason might be younger than him, but the boy always assumed charge of their operations. Suddenly it dawned on him that in a perhaps not so strange twist of fate, he was the one that usually ended up in trouble for the said operations.

Jason seemed oblivious to his mother's flashing eyes and the tired, but attempted stern look on his father's face. He ran towards his family, big grin stretching from one ear to the other, and held out his twisting trophy for them to see.

"Lord! What is that?" Vera McCarthy took an involuntary step back and shuddered. "Jason! Put that vermin down at once! It could be diseased. Did it bite you? You silly boy. You know that this country is rat-infested. Isn't it, Michael?"

"Lots of rats, dear," Mr McCarthy echoed. "Although that doesn't..."

"It's not a rat!" Jason said proudly. "See." He shoved the creature in his grip closer to his mother so she could better inspect it.

Mrs McCarthy took another step back and held her nose. "You boys will be the death of me. Jeremy, can't I once trust you to look after your brother? What will you say when he comes down with some plague and we have to cut our holiday short and go home? Do you want that?"

More than anything, Jeremy thought, and for a split second, he attempted to stare his mother down. Of course, in the end he just looked away and muttered something compliant.

"And Jason, for heaven's sake, put that thing down," Mrs McCarthy continued. "We're going to be late as it is. And look at you - to think I gave birth to you - you look like a tramp. What will the Weasley's say when they see you?"

Jason grinned again and held the small animal close to him. "It's all right, mom, it's a tiny dog - has a collar and all - but the name tag seems to be missing. He must belong to someone in the village. Perhaps our cousins will know and then we can return him. It's probably some little old lady who's distraught that she's lost her pet."

"Well..." Mrs McCarthy didn't sound too sure, but her youngest son had the most charming smile and a reasonable way with words.

"We really shouldn't leave him here by the road. He's so small - what if he got run over or something. It would break that old lady's heart."

"Of course it would, honey. You're quite right. He's right, isn't he, Michael?" She ruffled her son's hair with a bit of a smile while Jeremy rolled his eyes behind her back and Mr McCarthy agreed with his wife. "We'll have to go back to the hotel to get cleaned up. I certainly don't want the Weasleys to think we're low class and look down their noses at us. You know what these people think of Americans. They're all prim and snobbish and think they know best. Well, the McCarthy's are just as good as any Weasley. Come along, Jeremy, we're late as it is."

~~***~~

Meanwhile, Sirius Black tried to collect the frayed edges of his mind together. It wasn't really so bad, when you got used to the pain. It was, after all, just another stimulus; a set of nerve endings sending a message to the brain which was interpreted in one way or another. If you were good, then you could control just exactly what interpretation your brain made of the message and feel something entirely different to what was originally intended. You could, for example, turn hunger to satiation, coldness to pleasant warmth and pain to ecstasy.

Sirius Black was very, very good. He hadn't spent long years in the most sensory deprived prison in the world for nothing.

Curse after curse the woman threw at him (he had forgotten her name by now) and the more pain he experienced, the more he enjoyed it. At some points, it was almost orgasmic.

Janet Tewksbury realised her efforts were in vain when Sirius looked up at her with a riktus grin and manic eyes. It was enough to make even her shudder.

"Very well," she said, "I can see what you're up to. Bastard. I guess I will just have to change my tactics." She sheathed her wand and pulled out a small metal disk that was oval in shape. "Perhaps the little dog will lead me to someone who is not as impervious to my charms as you are. And I always thought he was on our side..."