Gah! Too long! I have put this off for TOO LONG!

Chapter Twenty-Five:

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Sirius' PoV

I hit the Initium so hard that he fell over, snarling and thrashing around, struggling to get a shot at him. My teeth clashed together on thin air over and over again, the chains that drooped from my form preventing me from moving quickly. I could hear Hermione's startled yelp from the wagon, shortly followed by a furious roar. I ignored her blatantly - let her sit there with elfy! I had been imprisoned in a place eerily similar to this one: Azkaban. And those had been the most miserable twelve years of my life, scratching about in the darkness, dementors floating past and sometimes stopping just outside my cell...their rattling breath assuring me they were there, even if they melted into the endless shadows so perfectly that I never saw them!

No. I wasn't going through that again.

I reared back, dragging the chains with me as I parted my jaws and dove down towards the Initium wizard, aiming for the throat...and a sharp, stinging pain swept through my side. My snarl caught in my throat as the pain just increased, getting to be so great that I stumbled to the side, just disoriented enough for my would-be victim to shove me off.

It wasn't a spell that had hit me, of that I was sure. I knew what a spell-inflicted injury felt like - pain, lots of it, like now, and a faint buzz of magic that helped it to spread. The deep wound on my side didn't feel magical in the least - it just hurt, and...

My nose twitched.

Poison.

My eyes snapped open and I flipped onto my feet, staggering as a fresh wave of pain flooded my being. The Initium Novum had backed away warily - for whatever reason - and I was left looking at the absolute foulest creature in this world. It would have given Kreacher a run for his money! Wait - scratch that. Kreacher lost, hands down. This thing looked like a blacksmith shop blew up on him.

It was seven feet tall, easily, with a too-small, squared head and menacing beady eyes. I instinctively shrank away, but my teeth were bared. The...thing raised its rusted sword, displaying the rows of jagged metal that were embedded in its sickly, bumpy hide, and I leaped out of the way just in time as it came crashing down. The weapon was already stained red with blood - my blood. That was what had hit me. And, sure enough, it was poisoned. I could just barely catch the unwholesome scent that rolled off of the metal, a bloodcurdling stench that made me want to vomit, change back to human form to escape it, and vomit again. The same smell - but less of it - clung to my wound, making me light headed from the pain and blood loss.

"Sirius!" I glanced at the wagon out of the corner of my eyes as I inched away from the beast. Hermione was standing up, held back by five Initium. I perked one ear to show I was listening - wolfish was hardly her language of choice. This was probably important. "Sirius, watch out! That's B-"

Whatever she said next was blotted out as the thing's sword swung at me and I twisted wildly to avoid it. My brain screamed at me as the blade nicked my paw, sending a fresh wash of exaggerated pain up my leg. Hermione had resorted to barking angrily at my attacker, lunging against her holders. There were no words in the cacophony of ripping snarls - at least, none that I could hear. But, as I had figured out from my first fight with them, wargs had several...less than friendly words that only they knew. And they also weren't afraid to throw them at what or whoever ticked them off.

My landing was awkward at best, with my injured leg lifted high off the ground. I might have been able to stand a bit more stably if that was my only wound, but no - and not only was I hurt beyond that, but it was on the same side as my injured leg! I drooped sideways, stomach churning as I saw my own blood pooling dangerously on the dusty earth.

I'm far from invincible.

Hermione's barking increased exponentially, and I looked up to see my opponent towering over me, blade raised for the killing blow. I snarled quietly and bared my teeth with quiet, weakened menace.

But so's he.

That was the last thought that entered my mind before I lunged up at the thing's face, teeth finally finding purchase on the side of his throat. I tried to pull back, taking a piece of flesh with me, but a moment later, the sword collided with my stomach instead of my leg or flank...and everything went black. Pain was all I knew before my mind dropped off into oblivion.

...

Hermione's PoV

I had felt terror before, and grief. In fact, the latter had almost dominated my life at times. When I thought I couldn't restore my parents' memories, the deaths of several of my friends following the Battle of Hogwarts and preceding it...when Ron and Harry handed me over to be killed. But those had all been weak compared to this - there was always something to be done, a way to distract myself, or so little knowledge that I just knew that things had gone bad. This time...I was being held back by my own kind - my former own kind - while one of my only friends was beaten to a pulp by my old master's son.

Bolg. Bolg had survived the Battle, and he was all the nastier for it. New scars laced his skin, some with new metal plates sticking out from them, and the shaft of an arrow stuck out of his ribcage, along with another on his shoulder. One was obviously elven, but the other...I'd seen eleven others just like it in Kíli's quiver when I'd met him just after the Battle. Why couldn't he have been a better shot?! I made a mental note to give a heaping spoonful of Liquid Luck to the next idiot that tried to shoot the remainder of the Gundabad orcs.

Sirius fell down hard and it looked like he would stay there, his own blood clogging the dirt around him. His hind paw - the one that Bolg had nicked - twitched feebly, the blood that trickled from it tainted with black. Orc-poison was strong, but not as strong as my friend - he threw himself at the deformed orc, jaws digging into the side of his neck. It wasn't a fatal wound, though: I had tried the same with Azog in the earliest days of my imprisonment. Instead, Sirius met the rusted blade that the orc wielded, and his limp body was tossed away like trash, ricocheting off of a boulder before he fell to the ground, thrashing briefly as if in unimaginable pain, and then...

He went still. Alarming amounts of his blood had been shed, and it continued to pump out of all of his wounds, especially the new one that curved across his stomach. One of the Initium started forward to collect him, but was stopped by a snarl from Bolg.

"Leave it. The beast deserves its death." The wizard backed away, casting an annoyed glance at Greyback as he went.

"Well, wolf-man? Have you brought the two?"

"Yes." Greyback looked as proud as ever as he strode to the wagon, the orc trailing behind him. "It was almost too easy. The she-wolf softened him. He didn't even have a guard with him!" The werewolf barked a harsh laugh, gray eyes shining with a harsh light. I snarled and pinned my ears back, feeling the heat of unshed tears behind my eyes. It would be relief to shift and let them out. Bolg looked grudgingly impressed.

"Well, then. It seems I underestimated you, Fenrir of England. Hand over the elf, and I will leave you the warg. That was the terms we made our pact on, yes?" Bolg had gotten...smart. Well, smarter. It was impossible for an orc to be smart. But he had only spoken Black Speech before now! How much effort had he put into learning English?

I found the answer in the way the words weren't in sync with his mouth. None at all. It was a spell.

Hand over the elf.

My eyes flew wide as I registered that. Thranduil. They were going to take Thranduil away, and Sirius was already gone - his flank had been unnervingly still for quite a while now. I growled and edge back, crouching protectively over the Elvenking. Bolg just laughed.

"So Redhorn has traded one master for another! I always expected it - I told Father, as well, but he didn't listen. And look where that got him!" I snarled and bared my teeth in anger.

"I am fully capable of repeating the process, Bolg. I advise you to keep your distance, you-" I let out a harsh string of wolfish curses, slamming my foot into the wagon bed.

It was useless. Nothing I did could stop them, and I was being led away by Initium on wargs as Thranduil was dragged along the rocky ground by Bolg, a nasty concussion showing itself.

My head lowered until my nose brushed the ground dejectedly. Could this get any worse?

Cue clichéd rainstorm.

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