Chapter Ten
Orias awoke in his cell to the scent of blood.
Nostrils flaring, he was on his feet in a blink. Staring about in the never ending semi-darkness of the dungeons, he searched for the source.
Snickering under his breath, Fenrir shook his head. Not paying the younger werewolf any further mind than that, he returned his attention to his work.
Orias tipped his head to one side as his newly-sharpened vision adjusted to the poor lighting. "Is that . . . ? Good God, man! What've you done to yourself?"
Fenrir held up his free hand in a silencing gesture, his forearm dripping crimson from the elbow. With his other hand, he continued tracing symbols on the floor behind the bars of his cell. "Hush you, you'll break my focus."
"Tell me what in the name of Merlin's right tit you're doing and I'll shut up," the blond wizard retorted in a hissing whisper.
His fellow prisoner answered through clenched teeth, doing everything to maintain his concentration on the task as he spoke. "Old magic . . . . Wolf magic. Probably the very reason wizards have never liked our kind much, only they don't really know this is why. Not anymore."
Seeming awed by the unexpected response, Mulciber nodded, forgetting his own statement just now about shutting up if he got an explanation as he echoed in a low voice, "Wolf magic?"
With a deep, calming breath, Fenrir pulled his gaze from his work to meet his pup's eyes. "As I said, old. Ancient, probably. You heard me tell my pretty little thing that my parents died before the First War?"
Orias nodded once more, hunkering down cross-legged on the floor, as though prepared to settle in for story-time.
Smirking, Fenrir nodded back. "That's true. Those fuckers never taught me shit. This? I learned from the one who bit me. More a parent to me than both of them put together." He returned his attention to his spellwork as he said, "Prove yourself worth what I've given you, and maybe I'll teach you, too."
Mulciber knew Greyback considered lycanthropy a gift rather than a curse or an affliction. But now, learning this—that there was some ancient power only those like him could access? He finally thought he might agree.
After what seemed hours, though logic dictated only minutes had passed, Orias could feel a shiver in the air. He could sense the wards surrounding Greyback's cell weakening. He wasn't certain how, not entirely, but he could feel the potency of that woven magic being leeched away.
There came a sound like the crackling of electricity and then a strange pop. The noises were followed by a release of tension in the air.
That typical smirk of his curving his lips, Greyback climbed to his feet. Looking across the dungeons to the face of his surprised pup, he reached out blindly. His fingers gripping into the lock on the door of his cell, he clenched his hand tight.
The metal buckled and splintered, coming apart in his grip. As the door swung open, he turned back to the bloody sigils he'd drawn on the floor.
"Bollocks . . ." Mulciber said in a barely audible whisper while he watched the other man smear dirt across the spellwork, smudging the symbols beyond recognition. It would probably look more like he'd torn himself up a bit in his escape rather than anything that resembled some old Barbarian magic or whatever the hell this was.
As he watched the werewolf turn and exit the cell to cross to his, Orias truly felt himself in fear of Fenrir Greyback for the first time.
A few strained heartbeats ticked by. Fenrir merely stood before the bars, staring down at Mulciber. Uncertain quite what to do, Orias got his feet under him and stood. He used to think the centimeters he had over the 'so intimidating' creature were amusing. Now he realized how little his larger stature truly meant.
Orias just barely refrained from jumping as he heard another crunch of rending metal. Scowling, he dropped his attention to the source of the noise in time to see Fenrir's hand fall away from the destroyed lock on his own cell door.
He'd been so distracted—how and with what, he wasn't even entirely sure—he hadn't even noticed Fenrir move to grab the lock.
Stepping backward and pulling the door open, Greyback's smirk widened into a grin. "What say we get some fresh air, pup?"
His board shoulders slumping, Orias shook his head as he walked out of his cell and started following Fenrir out of the dungeons. "You going to stop calling me that?"
"Not any time soon."
Hermione didn't know why she was sneaking. Well, yes, she knew why. Trailing after two of her most respected professors as they slipped into the Forbidden Forest acting rather suspicious was reason enough. But it was hardly as though they'd look over their shoulders and see her. Her footfalls, though light, could easily be mistaken for the sounds made by creatures moving through the brush, and she was not near close enough for either of them to hear her breathing.
Still, she had all she could do to keep her own nerves in check as she pursued them. With everything happening the last few days, she was even more on-edge than she'd felt during the months leading up to last week's battle.
"I've no idea what such a thing would be doing way out here. I barely stopped Mr. Finch-Fletchley from seeing it."
Justin had been out here? Hermione held in a snicker at the mental picture of that consummate worrier wandering about the Dark Forest with Professor Spout as night fell.
"I have never heard of . . . ." Minerva broke off her own words as she shook her head, her voice low and troubled. "Well, we'll have to see what we can find out about this, ourselves, before deciding what's to be done about it."
Hermione recognized this path. They were heading toward the Whomping Willow.
Yet, meters from that massive and violent plant, the elder witches paused. The illumination from their wands let Hermione see that Professor Spout had signaled the headmistress to halt with a hand on her arm.
"There," Pomona said, gesturing.
Nodding, Minerva eased the other witch's hand from her arm. Holding out her wand, she crept toward something.
From where Hermione was, she couldn't make out what they were looking at. Biting back a sigh, she carefully rounded their position. Her attention was so focused on what was ahead of her, she nearly jumped out of her skin as she heard a whispered growl behind her.
"There you are."
Sooner than she could react, a hand clamped over her mouth and an arm wound around her, pinning her wand against her side. She felt herself lifted from the ground, the hood falling back and the sides of the Cloak falling open, dispelling its effect as she was bundled off to one side.
Everything seemed to happen in vacuum, or the moment distorted her senses, as she could still hear the hushed whispering of the witches she was spying on, but their words were lost on her now and her immediate surroundings seemed a void. Nothing in the interaction happening around her made a sound. Not the crunch of dry grass underfoot, nor the breath of her captor as he whisked her through the trees.
More, she sensed—rather than heard—that someone followed close behind them.
Hermione struggled, but the hold on her was too tight. She tried to scream, but the hand over her mouth muffled it to nothing but a rough keening sound—she probably sounded like a bloody bird, or something, from a distance.
Professor McGonagall and Professor Sprout were just far enough away, just distracted enough with whatever they were examining, that they never heard the dull thud of people dropping through the hole under the Whomping Willow and landing in the tunnel below.
"Sorry for this . . . Oh, wait, no I'm not." She heard Mulciber's voice whisper as her wand was wrenched from her hand. "Stupefy!"
Her body sagged and she blinked drowsily, trying to hold onto consciousness. That growling whisper . . . she'd suspected, but now she knew for certain that the one carrying her had to be Fenrir Greyback. That made sense. The Invisibility Cloak wouldn't matter a wink if she was tracked by someone who had a wolf's sense of smell.
"Thank you," Greyback said, his tone relieved as he shifted the witch in his arms to cradle her against him, instead. "But you ever use an offensive spell on her again, and you'll have to answer to me. Got that?"
She was surprised by the delicate way Greyback carried her—she'd have suspected him the type to carelessly toss her over his shoulder—and even more so by his words to Orias. Letting her head loll against Fenrir's shoulder, she managed to look up at him. God, stunning spells were a bitch. At least it hadn't knocked her out completely.
"How'd you . . . ?"
"Shit, she's not out?" Orias sounded petulant. It was rather amusing to her in her groggy condition to imagine him like a giant toddler. He could certainly do with a pacifier in her opinion. "Here I'd thought I got her good enough to pay her back for that stinging charm she tagged me with."
"You used her own wand on her. You're lucky it was even that effective."
"Right. Right. Shit. She took mine, I remember now. It's probably still back there."
Hermione tried to push herself, aware they were probably going to Apparate once they were far enough out of range of the Hogwarts grounds. In her current state, she'd be far too disoriented by that form of travel to pull together a coherent thought, let alone sentence. As if going from fight or flight response—though in her case, it had been fight—to barely conscious in the space of a heartbeat wasn't disorienting enough all on its own?
"How'd you get out?" she finally manage to ask, her words tumbling out in a disjointed murmur.
"Not sure you're in a fit state to understand it," he answered, his voice sounding strangely sympathetic. She thought perhaps he wanted to tell her, but only while she was in full possession of her faculties. "We'll leave it at 'old magic' for now."
"Old magic." Her eyes were drifting closed of their own volition. She wanted to fight him, she wanted to remind herself how much she feared and loathed him, but right now, it was all she could do to keep herself awake with the lulling motion of his movements as he walked. "You've . . . you've shit timing."
"I've perfect timing."
It took extraordinary effort to furrow her brow at him. "No, no. The professors. They were acting odd . . . investigating something in the Forest. You took me away before I could see what it was."
Fenrir sighed and shook his head. His curiosity was piqued, but this was not the time. "Sorry, pretty thing, you're just going to have to be upset with me for that. We'll add it to the list."
They halted, and Hermione knew what was coming next. Before they could Apparate—using her own damn wand against her, again—she asked, "Why did you take me?"
With a shockingly gentle smile, Fenrir tipped his face down to look at her. "Trust me, you're not going to want to be anywhere near that castle come tomorrow night."
She realized then, in that jarring and disoriented way, that Greyback hadn't been waiting for the full moon at all. His words suggested an assault on the castle was going to take place with or without him.
If he wanted to ensure she was nowhere near the place, then . . . ? She opened her mouth to ask just how bad he thought it was going to be, but the words never came.
The last thing she remembered was Mulciber clamping his hand on Fenrir's shoulder to drag them both side-along as he Apparated.