Chapter Nine

Tony dropped his bag on the ground in his apartment with a sigh. Danny and Mac had left for New York the day before, soon after Danny had woken up. The looks the two of them had gotten had been priceless, but then, they had been caught 'cuddling' so to speak in the middle of the bullpen. "Like freaking girls," Tony grumbled, shaking his head with a small smile.

They couldn't help it, though, not really. The bonding ritual they had used to make them brothers (outside of the knowledge of Remus and Sirius who had only made them brothers legally) had changed them in more ways than one. They, all four of them, literally craved human contact. Especially each others'. It made for interesting and sometimes uncomfortable moments.

No one knew why the ritual had had that effect, although Robbie had commented that it might have something to do with Tony's cat blood. Cats were by nature an affectionate species who liked to cuddle and play with others. By using Tony's blood in the ritual, the others could have been affected by that.

Whatever the cause, it didn't make much of a difference. The point was, when any of the Black brothers got together chances were they would be very close together. Touching for comfort, companionship, or even just because they could. Greg had a habit of draping himself over any of the others whenever he could; Tony liked hugs, casual or comforting; Danny often leaned on any of his brothers and Robbie had a tendency to just place a hand on a shoulder, or against someone's back. And if they were angry, well, they were prone to try and beat each other up only to have to be healed by Robbie, who had always threatened to let them bleed if they didn't grow up.

Of course the bond had other results as well. If they were near each other, they could feel if the other was in pain, or upset, or, well any high states of emotion (which could get even more uncomfortable if one were to, say, have a girl over for the night…) That right there was one of the main reasons none of them lived in the same state. The distance that this 'feeling' lasted was only about two miles, but it was still disconcerting enough that they had agreed to go their separate ways, despite how close they were to each other. Of course, Greg moving all the way to Vegas had been a bit of a surprise, as the others had stayed somewhere along the Eastern coast, or near it at least.

Tony dropped onto his couch with a small groan, looking at the clock. Gibbs would be here soon, wanting to know what was going on. Honestly, the animagi didn't know how much he should tell. The fact that Tony now had a price on his head wasn't exactly something that he wanted his boss to know. Especially since the 'good guys' had been the one to order his execution. He really didn't want to think about what the 'bad guys' would do with him or any of his brothers.

Rubbing at his face he decided against grabbing any food, instead playing with the pendent that hung around his neck. It was an obsidian panther with emerald eyes and acted as his port-key to Ravenshold. Remus had given him the pendent soon after he had joined the family, but Greg had been the one to charm it, since Tony was the only one in the family that couldn't apparate.

All four of the brothers had pendants, actually, although Danny's were in the form of his dog-tags. There was a dragon carved on the back of one of the tags, with sapphire eyes. Greg had a phoenix, made of garnet with jet black eyes and beak. Robbie's was a unicorn, actually, but a fierce black one with ruby eyes and horn. Tony smirked, wondering if Remus had found a pendent for Harry yet, and if so, what it was.

A knock on the door had Tony glancing at the clock with a frown. Gibbs was an hour early. Sighing, he got to his feet and opened the door, only to find himself face to face with the tip of a wand and staring into a white, bone mask.

~*~

Gibbs was grumbling to himself about senior agents keeping secrets from their bosses as he climbed the stairs to Tony's apartment. Of all days for the elevator to break down, it had to be the day he was coming over. Finally making it to the right floor, Gibbs suddenly frowned, getting a bad feeling in his gut. The hall was too quiet. Much too quiet.

Making his way to Tony's apartment, he pulled his gun from his holster, noticing that the agent's door was ajar. Sneaking into the room, gun in front of him, he blinked when he saw Tony crouched on the ground, snarling at two men wearing long black robes in front of him. There was another man lying nearby, blood pooling from multiple injuries; he looked as though he had been mauled by some sort of large animal.

Tony was shaking, as though he was in a lot of pain, and there was blood running down his face from a long cut on his cheek. One of the robed men laughed, and Tony gave an animalistic growl, leaping forward, towards the laughing man. The other figure yelled something and Tony fell back with a pained cry, large gashes crisscrossing his chest and staining his clothing with blood.

Gibbs had seen enough, he fired off two shots, but they didn't meet their mark as the two men disappeared with cracks at the first report of the gun. Re-holstering the gun, Gibbs ran forward, dropping to his knees next to his agent, who was gasping for breath. "DiNozzo?"

"Hey…boss," Tony gasped, blood making a trail from the corner of his mouth. He curled into himself, coughing up more blood.

"We need to get you to the hospital," Gibbs said softly, pressing a hand against one of the gashes and wincing at Tony's cry of pain.

"No," Tony murmured breathlessly. He grasped his pendant with one shaky hand, green eyes glancing up at his boss. "Sorry, boss," he whispered before muttering something in Latin.

The world disappeared in a blur of colors and the two landed with a thump on a marble floor, Tony giving a harsh cry at the contact. Gibbs blinked and then frowned, recognizing a port-key for what it was, although not having any magic himself. He may be a muggle, but he had worked with wizards before…and he hadn't expected DiNozzo to be one.

Gibbs looked up at the sound of footsteps, and met the blue eyes of a blonde, who looked from him to Tony with a shocked look on his face. Taking a few long strides, the blonde dropped to his knees beside the two of them, turning Tony onto his back and assessing the injuries. "Kitten," he said softly. "Tony, please, I need you to stay awake for a moment," he ordered, seeing that Tony was allowing his eyes to close.

"Robbie," Tony gasped, coughing up more blood.

Chase sighed, placing a hand over the large gashes and forcing some power into them. He was frowning though, having caught the 'scent' of the crutatious curse. "Geez, I get a Fire Chicken and you get a Zombie Muncher?"

"Three," Tony murmured, eyes sliding shut despite his brother's orders.

Gibbs raised an eyebrow as the injuries knit themselves together, but Tony's shaking didn't stop. "Cough up the blood, Kitten," Chase said, propping the agent up. "You've got to get it out of your lungs." Tony did as he was told, slumping against his brother and gasping for breath. His lungs were in rough enough shape from the plague as it was, getting them sliced up by Death Eaters didn't do much good for them. "Good, now go to sleep," Chase murmured, putting him into a healing sleep.

Chase looked up at Gibbs then, holding out a hand. "Dr. Robert Chase," he introduced. And then he shrugged. "Black, if you want to get technical."

"Jethro Gibbs," Gibbs said, taking the offered hand and giving it a firm shake. "You want to explain what the heck is going on?"

Chase bit his lip, looking at his brother leaning against his chest. "Um…well…"

"I already know about the wizarding world," Gibbs said. "What I want to know is what my agent is doing here and what is going on!"

Well, if there was one good thing about working with House, it was that impatient men didn't do much to frighten him anymore. "Tony is my brother. We have two other brothers, Danny and Greg, and between the four of us we are the most powerful wizards alive, especially if you add our god-brother Harry into the mix. As such, both sides of the wizarding war want us as weapons…or in some cases just want us dead because they know they can't control us. So, we're fighting the war our own way."

Gibbs paused, and then nodded. "Okay. So, if DiNozzo's a wizard, why didn't he use spells against the Death Eaters?"

"He can't," Chase said shortly. "DiNozzo Sr. made it so that the only magic Tony can do is his animagus transformation." The doctor sighed shortly, not sure just how much Tony wanted him to reveal. "He's part-cat as it is. The transformation never really goes away, although he may look human."

Gibbs was silent for a long while and then nodded, getting to his feet. "Explains a lot." He looked about him, around at the manor that they had landed in. The floors were marble, and there was a large staircase made of dark woods in front of him. Doorways led off to various rooms, and overall it looked like a rather large house. "Where are we?"

"Ravenshold," Chase answered, still seated on the ground. "It's in Delaware." He glanced down at his brother with a frown. "Could you help me with him? We can put him on a couch in the parlor."

Gibbs helped get Tony settled and then stood there, staring at Chase, who had taken out his phone. "Were there any bodies left when you found Tony?" Gibbs nodded and Chase texted someone before slipping his phone back into his pocket. "Magus will take care of it."

"Magus?"

"Greg," Chase answered shortly. "Magus is Greg. I'm Medi, the healer. Tony's Kitten, for obvious reasons, although he hates that name," he grinned at that point. "And Danny's Eyes, because he's a Seer."

"Ah," Gibbs said with a short nod. "That explains even more." He glanced at his agent with a frown. "I want him back Monday morning."

Chase smirked. "Sure." And with that, Gibbs turned around and left the house. Chase watched him go, wondering just how he was going to get back to D.C. from here.

But then, he supposed it didn't matter much.