Happy Friday!

Chapter 98

Jasmine was fuming as she sent a patronus to Bellatrix and gathered what few emergency weapons she had stashed in her office. She let out a groan when she remembered she had removed quite a few of them when Bill started to take lessons in the office during the summer. The "ornate" sword and knife collection she used to keep over the fireplace had been replaced with paintings to make the office look a bit more…normal.

Obviously, that had been a mistake, but she still had a few in her desk.

She pocketed four knives she hidden in her desk draws, a few rune-etched explosive minerals she had told Bill were decorative stones, and her had her two wands were securely placed in their holsters ready for battle.

As she approached the fireplace, she waited to see if Bella would respond to her patronus. Bella usually sent a response promptly. Jasmine didn't have a lot of time to spare, so when nothing came she grabbed some powder.

Jasmine should be able to get into the house and help deal with whoever, or whatever, was attacking the manor. While Jasmine knew she had the skill to take out large numbers, she couldn't be as careful with her spell casting as she'd like. Casualties would occur and then she'd need to explain all the dead bodies when the authorities showed up. Granted, she would have been acting in defense of the manor, but all the paperwork she'd need to file would be a nightmare.

Tom, the bastard, had distracted her just long enough for her to miss the initial message about the attack. He had more than likely made up the ridiculous "law" his allies were going to propose. He did all of that so that his followers could have time to kill the Malfoy Family. She knew that Abraxas was in the Manor as well Cissy.

Jasmine had designed their wards…she knew how complex even the basic protections she had placed on the house were. It must have taken Tom months to figure out how to get through even the base that was there. He had to have been planning this attack all along. Dumbledore had thought he was going to attack the school, Jasmine had thought so too. But the sneaky piece of shit had tricked them all and moved in on the Malfoy Family. Tom wanted to hit both the Malfoys and Blacks with this attack.

Tom was clever, she would give him that, but Jasmine also had a lot of layers to her wards. Quite a few people would have had to have been at least severely injured to make it through. Illegally breaking blood wards required a certain kind of sacrifice.

"Malfoy Manor!" Jasmine shouted in the green flames. It wasn't safe going alone, but she didn't have time to call for anymore help that wouldn't come. If Tom used himself as a distraction, he had to have sent someone he trusted to get the job done. She could feel Death's magic cheering her on as she prepared to throw herself into danger.

Miraculously, she actually managed to catch herself as the fireplace deposited her in main foyer.

The foyer was pitch black. None of the usual lights were lit, even the emergency magical candles were snuffed out. The only light was coming in from the full moon outside. Jasmine used her rune vision to look around and winced at the dead bodies littering the floor. Some were house elves and some looked to be Death Eaters. The elves were torn apart…mauled.

There was a piercing howl from the upper floor.

Werewolves.

Greyback.

The hair on the back of Jasmine's neck stood up. She could sense it with her rune vision. There was the briefest crunch of glass from her left. There was a blur of movement and her silver dagger was out in a flash as a large wolf pounced towards her, claws clacking on the tile floor, picking up remarkable speed as it dashed towards her. Jasmine dove out of the fireplace and stabbed the skittering wolf in the leg as it smashed into the marble hearth. The silver met flesh and the wolf screeched as the metal burned into their skin. The stone above the fireplace cracked, pieces started to splinter and fall, painting the wolf in a powder white coat as they crashed onto the floor.

It was more than loud enough to draw the attention of all the other enemies lurking in the manor.

Jasmine hadn't expected werewolves. Thank Merlin all of her knives were made of enchanted silver. She had her wand in one hand and her knife in another.

The werewolf snarled in the darkness as it forced itself into a standing position. It limped, but crouched low for another round.

Two could play at that game.

Jasmine threw her dagger into the wolf's front flank and rushed forward, the hilt imbedded itself in the wolf's shoulder. The werewolf faltered and Jasmine pulled out another knife. It appeared that the second knife may have connected with a bone and seared itself to the wolf. The creature screeched again, this time the dagger was stuck and the silver continued to tortuously burn the flesh and poison the werewolf from the outside in.

If Jasmine left the dagger the wolf could end up going into shock in the next couple minutes from blood poising, but that would also leave her with one less knife. The werewolf was trashing on the floor. Jasmine waved her wand and transfigured the wooden floorboards to grab the wolf and hold it in place while she pulled the knife out.

The transfiguration would hold until she did something about it, so that was one less wolf to worry about. Though, she had no idea how many there were or where they all were located within the house. The manor had three floors and she needed to find Narcissa and Abraxas.

There was another howl from the next floor up and Jasmine took a deep breath and then ran towards the stairs, taking two at a time as she made her way out of the foyer and into the upstairs west wing.

Before she could make it to the door, another wolf dashed towards her, its bloodied maw flashing in the dim light. Jasmine fired off a blasting hex that knocked the wolf over the railing and back into the foyer. There was a crash, a pitiful yelp and then silence. When Jasmine peered over the edge she saw that the wolf had been speared on a large piece of broken metal…it might have been a part of a table at one point, but it had managed to kill the wolf below.

Whoops…

A loud crash from the front door caused Jasmine to pause. "Come out, come out, puppies, Bella has come to play! I've already killed four of your friends."

Oh, lovely reinforcements had arrived. Or, at least, Bella had arrived, which was just as well. She took the place of about four or five people in battle.

The woman was, and always would be, a monster on the field.

There was a brief moment of silence before Jasmine saw another wolf rush towards the front entrance where Bella's voice had come from. Jasmine heard quite a bit of loud shuffling and extremely load crashing. The sounds of piano being overturned and a lot of yelping grew closer. Jasmine more than likely didn't want to see what was happening to werewolves downstairs, but she did peek her head back over the railing, only to have to duck out of the way as Bella cast a bright orange curse her way. Jasmine believed it was a form of severing curse. It was hard to tell since most of them were either orange or yellow.

"Bella, I need my limbs attached to my body!" Jasmine shouted down. Bella cackled as another wolf howled as it barreled towards Jasmine from the east wing. How many were there?

Jasmine threw her knife and buried itself in the beast's side. It wasn't as good of a throw as her earlier shot was, or maybe the wolf had moved, it was hard to tell in the dark. Bella sent a metallic blue spell at the wolf and it screeched as it writhed on the floor, frothing bloodily at the mouth.

A blood boiling hex.

That better not have damaged her knife.

Though, if this went on too much longer the wolf would die. They needed at least a few intruders alive to stand trial after this. Jasmine needed to have living perpetrators that she could lead back to Tom.

"That's enough, Bella," Jasmine snapped, "We need a few of them for Amelia to talk to."

Bella grumbled something under her breath that Jasmine didn't catch, but she made her way up the stairs to join Jasmine as they made their way into the west wing. Before they left Bella flicked her wrist in an unfamiliar movement and the wolf below screeched one more time before slumping to the ground. Jasmine could sense it was shallowly breathing. She wasn't going to ask what curse that was. Plausible deniability might be necessary if they were questioned later.

"How did you even get in here?" Jasmine asked as her voice echoed through the nearly silent hallways.

"Cissy made sure that I had access to the wards in case something like this happened. There was always a chance that I wouldn't have been accepted, but I'm a direct relative to Cissy. Your wards are usually very adept at throwing people out who aren't directly tied to the manors, but you hadn't finished them. Instead, you worked on the Hogwarts wards. It seems that the Dark Lord tricked us."

"You don't need to remind me. I'm livid." Jasmine seethed quietly as they slinked through the halls. Bella didn't seem to be inclined to make any kind of small talk as they waited for the next attack.

It was odd, it seemed that most of the werewolves had been dealt with. Bodies were strewn around the hallways. The house elves had come to the rescue. Their little bodies were among the wolves. Jasmine would champion for their rights after the war ended. Their sacrifice would not be in vain.

Bella pointedly ignored the gore around them. They just needed to find Narcissa before something horrible happened to her.

There was more carnage decorating the walls than Jasmine would have thought possible without any bodies lying on ground. Blood was splattered on priceless paintings that had most of their occupants grumbling about the indecency. Jasmine hadn't seen a trace of Narcissa or Abraxas, which hopefully meant that they were alive. There was matted silver fur all over the place, some of it was singed, along with what appeared to be the meat of some part of a wolf.

Someone had gotten a very lucky shot at Greyback.

Jasmine had fought him on more than one occasion during her time as Harriet and twice as Jasmine. The bastard was hard to hit and even harder to kill. Only very dark magic could hurt a werewolf. Bella had more dark magic cursing through her veins than most and that helped her fight dark creatures, but for people like Jasmine they had to get creative.

One of the paintings, a man in dented white armor pointed at her through the darkness. "I would hurry, my dears. Our lord and lady can only hold so many off while waiting for help to arrive!"

It seemed that Cissy was holding the house. Its magic must be going above and beyond to protect her and the Malfoy child she was carrying. Merlin, she hoped that Draco was in France. He might have been a spoiled little menace when she was Harriet, but she didn't want the kid dead. He was somewhat cute now.

Jasmine gave a brief nod to the painting and pushed through to the next area of the house.

She had a feeling that Greyback was trying to make it towards the study on the third floor. Abraxas was most likely in there. He was the Lord of the Manor and if he fell the remaining wards and family magic would go to Lucius. Merlin only knew where he was at the moment. Jasmine was nearly positive he was in France until the end of the week, but she couldn't be sure.

Jasmine hoped she was still alright. The two of them pushed forward, their weapons drawn.

That was when the hulking figure of Greyback came into view. The silver coated werewolf was bashing against a bright blue barrier being held by two small house elves. Narcissa was unconscious behind them.

Bella let out an inhuman snarl when her eyes landed on her baby sister. Greyback turned towards them in an instant. His amber eyes narrowed and his bloody maw almost curved into a smirk, if it could have been possible in that form.

Jasmine raised her wand, a knife wasn't going to kill Greyback. He had built up a tolerance to silver over his life. Harriet had found that out the hard way during one of her many lives. Hermione had paid the price for their oversight. Bella lunged towards the wolf a curse on the tip of her tongue. Her violet eyes were nearly glowing the dimly lit hallway. The only light was coming from the moon peeking through the window and the shield protecting Narcissa.

She couldn't risk Bella dying to Greyback, she wasn't thinking straight and Greyback knew it. Jasmine would only have one shot for this. If she missed and hit her ally, Bella was more than likely going to die.

Bella crouched low as Greyback leapt over her to run straight at Jasmine.

What an idiot.

"Sectumsempra!" She shouted as she jumped from a swipe of his razor-sharp claws. The spell hit home and partially severed his head from his body. Blood sprayed across the floor and splattered across the house elves' shield as the werewolf thundered to the ground in a motionless heap. It seemed the Greyback would share a fate with Nearly Headless Nick…though Greyback's head was at least a third still attached. But, with the amount of blood he had lost and arteries severed, he was dead in seconds. No amount of werewolf healing and dark magic resistance could save him.

Bella cackled as the once feared Fenrir Greyback was killed with a single spell. She kicked his body for good measure. The steal toe of her boot coming back coated in blood. "Don't get any of that on your skin," Jasmine warned feeling a little lightheaded.

Jasmine slumped against the wall, feeling drained and nauseated.

Dark magic was exhausting and the sectumsempra was particularly dark. It was made to kill through severing and anti-clotting magic. The combination was deadly, but highly effective.

The lights in the house flickered on, the wards seemed to be functioning again. Jasmine glanced towards Greyback. He could hold the answer to how the wolves breached the wards. Jasmine grimaced, as she nudged the body and cast a few detection charms. She carefully moved the body. She didn't want to risk an infection. That would cause more problems than she could list in a day. And, that's when she found it, an amulet with an ancient Roman blood ritual was carved into the stone. It was around his neck like a dog's collar. The rune would have been just enough to short circuit the wards they had here, but it needed live magic to feed from.

Once Greyback fell, the wards restored themselves. Jasmine memorized the rune. She was going to need to look into that and make sure the other homes she had completely protected didn't need to be updated to stop an invasion like this from happening again.

"Cissy!"

Bella ran towards her sister as the house elves dropped their shield. The youngest Black sister was unresponsive as Bella kneeled in front of her. Jasmine silently banished the blood from their clothes. The two house elves shuffled nervously to the left as Bella made more noise than necessary as she casted diagnostic charms.

As Jasmine took a closer look at the elves, she realized that the small one hiding behind a terrified female elf was very familiar. The overly large green eyes stared at Jasmine with something akin to admiration. It seemed some things never changed. Dobby was young, childlike, still clinging to his mother's pillowcase like dress, but he had lived to see Jasmine save his life.

"Hi, can you two tell me what happened here?"

Dobby wrung his hands and turned towards Cissy and then back to Jasmine. "The wards are not working. Dobby was learning to polish the silver when everything went dark. Dobby hid when the wolfies attacked. So many elves died…Mistress did her best to protect the house, so we tried to protect Mistress. Master Malfoy was locked in the study sometime during the fight. Dobby thinks he is still inside the study. Mistress Malfoy is needing resting. The wolfie didn't bite her. We has been protecting her…until you arrived!"

His excited information dump made Jasmine smile ever so slightly. It had been a long time since she had heard Dobby speak. It seems that his admiration for her transcended lifetimes.

Jasmine pat the little elf on the head as she moved towards Bella. She heard Dobby jumping up and down and with her rune vision could see him pulling on the older elf's dress and motioning to his head. He would always be an odd elf.

As she passed Greyback's body she resisted the urge to kick the nearly severed wolf head. Greyback deserved worse. She wished she could have made him suffer longer, but Cissy needed her far more than Jasmine needed the satisfaction.

Bella was scooping her sister into her arms. Cissy groaned a bit at the movement, but didn't wake up. At least she was responding. Jasmine looked back at the house elves. "You did a good job. Can you take us to Abraxas?" The older elf nodded and took Dobby's hand as she led them to the study.

Bella was muttering under her breath before she turned to Jasmine. "Is your healer friend around?"

Theo was always on the move, but he should be in Britain for the next two weeks. Some fancy magical herb was blooming under the full moon somewhere in Norther Ireland that was supposed to have healing properties that he was looking to research. "He should be. Let's get to the study. I can reactivate the wards from there and get both Abraxas and Cissy to the medical wing of my manor."

"No, she's coming home. It was why she was visiting England in the first place. Abraxas would be more than welcome to stay with us. The Dark Lord is going to pay for what he's done tonight. We've been passive in this war, but I'm putting my foot down. No one attacks the Ancient and Noble House of Black or its allies without suffering our wrath."

Jasmine supposed that this may be the only positive to come out of the fight, besides Greyback being dead. Maybe she could get drunk with Remus to celebrate.

That sounded like a great idea.

The small group made their way through the house. The dead werewolves lining the halls were beginning to smell, but at least they were dead. The door to the study was scratched, but still standing. Jasmine knocked on the door three times. She had designed the warding on the study. It was meant to be a panic room of sorts. She had managed to finish that before the Hogwarts project ate up all of her time. "Abraxas, it's Jasmine Peverell. We have Cissy. Greyback is dead. We have two of your personal house elves here. I'm going to put my hand on the door and deactivate the wards, this way you'll know that's me."

Magical signature identification and blood wards will always be superior to secret keepers. Her magic easily unlocked the knob and the group went in. The site that greeted her was not one she was expecting. Abraxas' complexion was waxy and he had a large claw mark that had torn his right arm to the bone. His wand was on the floor and he had tied knot over the wound as a tourniquet to stop the bleeding.

It would have been the best he could do with an injury caused by werewolf claws.

"Shit! Bella, take the floo and take Cissy to my place. I'm going to bring Abraxas in after. We're taking them straight to the medical wing."

Her tone brokered no arguments and for once Bella did as she was told.

Jasmine quickly cast a patronus and sent it to Theo and then another one to Severus. They were going to need more potions. He would hopefully receive it and meet her back at her house. If not, well she'd be stuck doing the primary healing and that would be messy. She could do it, but…she'd want a professional to magically knit his arm back together.

The trip back to her estate was quiet and tense. Luckily, Theo had received her message and had vials of potions ready and waiting when they arrived. Nearly three hours later Abraxas was stable and Cissy was awake drinking tepid water through a straw. Bella was running a hand through her knotted hair. Theo had checked and the baby was fine, thank goodness, but Narcissa was a bit shaken and would need to take it easy for the next few weeks. Draco and Lucius were on their way from France.

Theo was finishing up the wrap on Abraxas' arm when Jasmine felt her friend's mind magic brush her thoughts. "His arm will scar, but there was no infection in his blood stream. You know, you always manage to get yourself into horrific predicaments that you have to fight your way out of."

"Greyback is dead. That's a win."

"At least something good came of that fight then. Abraxas is going to be lucky if he ever has full mobility back in his arm."

Jasmine heard the floo roar to life from the entry way. She assumed it was Lucius until she heard the shout of, "Jazz!" from the office. It was Sirius? Merlin, where had he been this evening? It was nearly one in the morning.

She excused herself, not wanting to make too much noise around the infirmed. She closed the door and cast a silencing spell to make sure that no sound got in. "In the medical wing!" She called back.

Sirius' heavy footfalls was the only thing she heard before he rounded the corner. He was ashen and covered in blood. There were tear tracks where some of the gore had been.

The two embraced. Sirius' grip was almost tight enough to hurt. His breathing was ragged.

"What happened?" Jasmine asked, as she pulled away. What else could have happened this evening?

"It's the Weasleys. There was an attack."

And the war has truly begun! I mean, it's mostly been a closet and dagger kind of thing so far, but Tom has officially made it personal. And now we will see the consequences of his actions as the next few chapters unfold. I hope you enjoyed the action scene. There will be more actions coming soon. =)

Just to let everyone know, I am cross posting this to AO3. So, if you see it there, it is me posting the chapters. I've had concerned readers PM me about it. Thank you for the concern! It actually brought a smile to my face to know I have people looking out for this story!

Thank you for all the reviews, favorites and follows! You guys are the best!

My next post will be on the 19th of February.

See you soon,
~Animerocker