Chapter Sixteen

Cry Havoc

For three nights, Regulus's mind and his body had been battling each other, leaving him behind as their casualty. Sunday night was the worst. Neither he, nor Rabastan, had slept the entire night, instead using that time to plan the battle cry that would announce the commencement of war. Monday night had gone better and after they had set things into motion, he had managed a light three hours of sleep. Then Hermione's unconscious body began haunting his dreams and he had called it quits to sleeping at two in morning, preferring the delirium that came from insomnia over seeing her like that. Now in the brightening hours of Wednesday morning, he slapped his hands down on the mattress in frustration and stared up at the canopy of his bed. She had finally graced his dreams as she had before only for the connection to suddenly get cut off several hours prior, leaving him too bereft to go back to sleep.

"Fuck it," he grumbled, reaching out from the part in the drapes for his wand.

Grumbling further when he confirmed the early hour, he dug the heels of his hands into his eyes and tried to scrub the clinging need for sleep from them. Sitting up to grab the silk nightshirt that matched his bottoms, he felt his back painfully begin to peel from the sheets of his bed making him grit his teeth and hiss. Bearing down against the coming agony, he took a deep breath and ripped his body up from the bed, cursing himself for having forgotten to bandage his back.

Merlin, you would think we've never had to exist without her, he thought, further swearing at himself for being so careless.

His breath came in short pants as he angled his wand over his shoulder and tried to murmur the spell that would stitch his reopened wounds back up. Becoming angry that he still couldn't contort his body enough to reach them without assistance, he slashed his wand over the bed, stripped the bloodied sheets, and banished them to the bottom of his laundry hamper.

Grinding his teeth even more, he glared at an absent spot on his bed as he spoke up, "Rab are you awake?"

"Unfortunately."

"Would you mind?" He reluctantly asked.

Rabastan didn't say anything in response, he never did when Regulus would need his help. He simply got up from his own bed and a moment later, slipped through the drapes and came to sit behind him.

Giving the top of his shoulder a push, Rabastan instructed, "Scoot and lean forward just a bit and give me some light to work with."

Following the directives, he exposed the road map of scars his friend had seen and tended to countless times over the years, the feeling of shame still as fresh as it had been the first time they had seen his back.

"Did you get to see her as well?" Rab asked, steadfastly ignoring what he saw while the warm and pinching magic of stitches laced up the cursed lashings on his back.

"Yeah, but it severed after only a few minutes. Can you still not feel her?"

"No, like I tried to tell Evan before he dislocated my fucking jaw, I only feel her when she's aroused. And even then, the feeling disappeared the moment Severus reciprocated in the room on Sunday. I barely even felt anything after waking up from the dream and the more I focused on it the further away it got."

"She needs to wake up," Regulus said softly, pulling his back away from Rabastan as his wand went to tie off the stitching.

"Stop that," he snapped. "Otherwise, the thread won't be tight enough to matter and you'll begin bleeding all over again."

"I know, I just - shite, that hurts!" He exclaimed, wrenching his back away again.

"Good, when done properly it's supposed to. Now where's the cream and soaked bandages Severus makes for you?" He asked, standing up to rifle through Regulus's night table and desk.

"I ran out," he muttered.

"Reg seriously?" Rabastan asked in disbelief. "Why the fuck haven't you had him make more? No wonder your back opened up."

"Well we haven't exactly been talking the past couple days, now have we?" He snapped, snatching his shirt from the foot of his bed.

"This is fucking hippogriff shite!" Rabastan roared, sweeping his hands across Regulus's desk, sending the piles of books, parchment, and inkwells to the floor. Grimacing as he clutched his bruised ribs, he growled out, "She needs to wake the fuck up already, we need her."

"You're telling me things I already know," he murmured, tugging on his shirt to cover up the evidence of his father's anger and unattainable expectations. Dropping his feet from the bed and standing up, he added, "Come on, if we get ready now we can have a couple hours with her before the post is delivered."

"Probably the only bright spot in our day today."

"I wouldn't count those chickens just yet," Severus announced, breezing into their dorm room, looking uncharacteristically exuberant as he fussed with buttons on the cuff of his Oxford, the laces of his boots undone and forgotten.

"Who drugged you with a dose of Euphoria Elixir?" Regulus asked, unnerved by the shining presence of his normally dour friend. "I think he's as high as a broom," he added in a whisper to Rabastan.

"No, I don't think so..." his friend answered slowly, examining Severus as he rubbed the inside of his right arm, checking that the buttons were fastened.

"Do either of you have a set of cufflinks I can use?"

"Salazar's fucking sac!" He exclaimed. "She marked you, she's awake!"

"Got it in one," he congratulated, catching the silver links Rab tossed his way. "Evan is getting Eloise up and I came to get you two. Just throw on some clothes and let's get back. I'm feeling-"

"Itchy," Rab interrupted knowingly, already shucking off his pajama bottoms to pull on his school trousers.

Pointing at him, Severus said, "Exactly! How the hell did you deal with it?"

"It wasn't bad because I was with her in the hours following but after... It was awful. It'll be downright torturous for you I reckon, considering you can't be alone with her and just bask in the feeling of her magic and the ease of being able to explore her. It'll pass in about twenty-four hours though."

Looking at his other three roommates' beds and finding them still blessedly asleep with their silencing charms in place, Regulus quickly changed out his shirts and pulled on his trousers, collecting his things from the mess Rab had made.

Bending over to finally see to his boots, Severus said, "If you two pretty boys don't take forever with your hair, we should get a couple of hours with her before Madam Pomfrey kicks us all out to go down to breakfast. Then we can finally begin planning our retaliation because I don't give a fuck what El says, Lupin has turned a blind eye to everything Potter and Black have done over the years. It's not that big of a stretch for him to distract her if she interrupted their plans for Hermione."

"Agreed," Regulus said, shoving his shirt tails into his trousers. "However, we've sort of-"

"Already set something into motion," Rab finished, pulling his sweater on but leaving his shirt untucked. "This shite's been a long time coming and we weren't sitting back while we waited for Hermione to wake up. What they did to El was already too far, but they attacked our witch. Something had to be done."

Halfway through Rabastan's words, Evan and Eloise had opened the door and were standing in the frame listening, Evan's face growing hard.

"We agreed to wait!" He barked.

Stepping forward, Regulus matched his aggression as he said, "No, you and Severus commanded us to wait. We never agreed to that. Unlike your sister, Hermione belongs to all of us, so you two don't get to make decisions for everyone else in regards to how we handle this shite. Now let's get to the damn Hospital Wing because unlike the three of you, I haven't had a real conversation or contact with her in almost a week."

Putting a hand out to grip his shoulder as he went to shove past, Evan said in a softer tone, "Reggie, we didn't want you to have to make the choice between us and your brother. We've always respected that while a royal arsehole, Sirius is still your brother."

"And I thank you for always allowing me to remain neutral but this is about the honor of the witch that's going to be our wife before the year's end, the future mother of our children. I'll fucking choose her over a brother who couldn't wait to be rid of me every fucking time. Besides, what's about to happen this morning has been a long time coming. Now come on, Severus is itchy, I'm needy, and Eloise is about to combust."

Continuing past them, he and Rabastan stopped in the bathroom to brush their teeth, with Regulus dunking his head into the sink basin to rinse out the remaining hair product from the day prior, leaving his dark curls to dry naturally. Arranging one errant curl while Rab attended to his vision, he called himself good enough for the day. He was currently the most unkempt he'd ever been and yet couldn't find it in himself to care, even with half his school uniform absent, no prefect badge in sight, and trousers he wasn't entirely sure he hadn't already worn.

Leaving the bathroom, the four of them randomly collected things from Eloise's arms, leaving her with only her and Hermione's school bags to carry. Severus had taken the most important job of carrying a bag that held her coffee supplies, Evan an unenviable stack of books and journals that had been left on her desk, Rab with her obscene amount of mail and parcels, one of them having come from The Witch's Boudoir that they were all desperate to see the contents of, and himself with her bath items, several sets of undergarments that reminded him of the pale pink garters and lace top nylons he had seen on her, and a set of school robes and lounge clothes so she was prepared either way based on what Madam Pomfrey said about her release.

"Merlin, she has a lot of unanswered mail from Gringotts and a T. Rowle," Rab observed, sifting through her letters as they traversed the castle to the infirmary. "Which one is T. Rowle again? Aren't there like four or five Rowle sons?"

"Actually between Sigurd's first and second marriage, there's eight Rowle sons," Eloise answered easily. "T. Rowle, could be Tarben, Thorfinn, or Tyr. It could also be Asger. He has a T middle name and to my understanding often goes by that. However, I think all four of them live in Norway or Sweden... and I think Tarben is engaged and Asger is married but I didn't attend any of the Season's events this year for obvious reasons, so my information could be wrong."

Giving her a dumbfounded look, Regulus asked, "Where the hell did that all come from?"

"What? I am still a pure blooded witch and member of the Sacred Twenty-Eight, even if I'm considered spoiled goods," Eloise defended in a huff. "It's a daughter's duty to not just marry but marry well and produce heirs. We're taught the names and brief family histories and scandals of all pure born sons within a range of ten years older than us and ten years younger than us. It's so that we can make an informed decision if we don't have a pre-arranged betrothal contract or even if we do, if we meet someone with potentially better standing. Just because our parents made arrangements with yours for Sirius and I doesn't mean that our mother still didn't teach me the time honored art of husband hunting."

"And this is why I've never actually slept with a witch," Evan said proudly. "I have a sister and am acutely aware of the tricks mothers teach their daughters when it comes to trapping well-to-do wizards."

"While all that is fascinating," Rab interrupted, "It still doesn't answer why Hermione has six unopened letters from T. Rowle."

"Oh fuck no, I'm not going down this rabbit hole again," Regulus said, physically distancing himself from his friend as though Hermione was able to see them.

"I just want to know who he is and why the fuck he's harassing our witch," he defended. "Six letters since she's gotten here is a bit obsessive, don't you think?"

"He's not wrong," Severus agreed as they approached the large double doors of the Hospital Wing.

Crossing the threshold, Regulus's eyes sought Hermione out, his gaze instantly landing on the now exposed bed that had been covered by partitions since Sunday afternoon. She sat propped up against the metal headboard of the hospital bed with the powder blue strap of her innocent yet alluring silk camisole slipping off her shoulder. Her wild curls that almost always looked as if they had been ruffled by sex were piled on top of her head, her wand fighting a valiant battle at keeping them in place as she hunched over a file she had resting on her knees, its contents making her brow furrow.

As if she sensed their arrival, she looked up to the doorway before they had all gathered into the infirmary and beamed at them, tossing the forgotten documents she was reading onto the bedside table.

"You came," she said, sitting up and allowing the blankets to drop from under her arms, exposing her peaked nipples that poked through her sleep top.

Closing the distance, he dropped the packed bag on the empty seat beside her bed and threaded his fingers through her hair, removing her wand and setting it on the table as he replied, "Of course we came," before sealing his lips over hers.

It had been days since he last touched her and felt her lips on his and the soft whimper she let out as she melted against him drove him mad with the desire to make up for lost time. Flicking his tongue at the seam of her mouth, he groaned when she opened up for him and brought her hands up to his hips, holding onto the waistband of his trousers and using them to pull him closer to her. Snaking an arm around her back, he tugged on her just the same, bringing her to stand on her knees so that she was flush against him, his hands cupping her bum once she was balanced.

Using the leverage he had on her, he lifted her up and turned them around so that he sat on the edge of the bed and she straddled his lap, his legs spread open. Just after they were situated, he felt Rabastan step into the opening and come up to Hermione's back.

"Mmm... Bast..." She sighed, pulling her mouth from his as she turned her face to meet his friend's, one of her hands leaving his shoulders as she reached behind herself to touch and kiss him as well.

Regulus watched with rapt attention while he rubbed the inside of her thighs as Rabastan's hands came around Hermione's stomach and began to tease her. When one of his hands caressed up to the bottom of her ribs, her hips jerked against his lengthening cock making them both moan.

"Bast... Regulus..." she breathed. "We need to... Evan, Severus... Eloise... And Dori..."

Catching most of what she was trying to say, Regulus pressed a kiss to the curve of her neck with Rab matching his movement on her other side. His friend stepped back from her, taking a place on the bed at the headboard, pulling her into the cradle between his thighs while he sat leaning against the footboard, content with seeing her awake and smiling again.

Looking to her left with a dreamy face, Hermione said, "Come here you three," holding out her hand for one of them to take.

Severus took her offered hand, and chuckled as she yanked him towards her, giving him a shortened but no less passionate kiss before making him take a spot on the already crowded bed.

Reaching around Severus, Evan cupped her face and placed a chaste kiss to her forehead making the bright smile she wore turn to a soft pout as she tried to capture his lips.

"If you're feeling up to it, we still have a date planned for Saturday. I would much prefer to wait so I can kiss you uninterrupted. Can you be good and wait till then sweetheart?" He softly commanded, flicking his finger over her taut nipple, making her breath stutter as she nodded her head, the rest of them groaning at the sight as they shifted on the bed to adjust themselves while Evan sorted out a spot for himself.

"Okay, okay, everyone put your erect cocks away, literal and pseudo sister coming through," Eloise warned before jumping into the bed and forcing Rab's leg wider so she could slide in beside Hermione.

Tucking herself under the blankets with her, she rested her head on their witch's shoulder and proceeded to throw them all under the Knight Bus.

"You can't do this to them again, do you understand me? They're a right wreck without you. Evan and Rab lasted all of thirty minutes, and that's being generous, after getting you up here before they came to blows. Six cracked ribs between the both of them, a broken nose, dislocated jaw, and detention for the both of them. Two weeks of inventorying the Hospital Wing for Madam Pomfrey."

"We've had worse," Rabastan countered, making Regulus snort as he and Evan both tried to avoid the disapproving glower from Hermione.

"That's just the tip of it. I don't think a single one of them has slept more than four hours in the last three nights, after the fight Severus sided with Evan and Reggie with Rab so the four of them have barely spoken, they won't leave me alone thinking I'll be next, and apparently the two younger dunderheads decided to seek revenge on their own, which I only found out about this morning."

"You can feel free to shut up at any point, El," Evan growled, pinching his sister's arm, prompting both witches to swat at him.

"Be nice to your sister, she's only telling me things I need to know that none of you would have shared," Hermione admonished. She gave them each an assessing look as she slowly asked, "And what exactly does Eloise mean by, 'revenge?'"

"One of the many questions I would like an answer to as well," a deep voice asked from beside the bed. "Along with wanting to know which one of you thought it acceptable to bare my goddaughter's body before your eyes without so much as a sealed offer of pre-engagement? By the way, I've cleared it with Horace for all six of you to come to the village with us for the day."

The piercing blue eyes of the dark haired wizard that could be no one but Dorian Nott, bore into each of them as he silently assessed them to come to his own conclusion. Beside him stood a mountain of a wizard with blond hair that was braided on the sides and tied back in a knot, ice-like eyes, and tattoos spilling out from the right sleeve of his t-shirt, wrapping all the way down his arm to his wrist. He gave them all a predatory smirk as though he couldn't wait for the show that was about to unfold before him, his face contorting as he looked at Eloise whose attention was captivated by him.

His nostrils flared as he took a deep breath and stepped closer to the bed, making Rabastan lean forward and put himself between the witches and the unknown man.

"Relax little pup, I'm not going to harm your witch," he growled, though whether it was just his voice or not, Regulus wasn't sure. "Tell me love," he asked, coming closer to Eloise who was near panting as he put his nose to her neck. "When did you start rolling around with wolves?"

"Get the fuck away from my sister!" Evan roared, shoving the wizard back.

"Evan stop!" Hermione scolded before turning to the other blond. "And Finn, have some bloody manners will you? You can't just go around sniffing witches like a dog, it's not polite in regular society."

"Hermione love, do you not know what your friend is?" He asked with a wicked smile, that set Regulus and his friends on edge. "She's a little wolf... Tell me pet-"

"I'm not going to fucking tell you again, get the fuck away from my sister," Evan seethed, coming around the bed to force himself between the two. "And she is not a fucking wolf."

"Not entirely no," Rowle responded flippantly. "Someone seems to have botched that job up. Greyback if I had to guess, the disgusting animal, someone really ought to put him down. The full moon will be here soon enough though and one small little nip from my wolf can solve that problem for you."

"Thorfinn Rowle, back away from Eloise this instant," Hermione coldly ordered. "And so help me if you try to claim her, I will skin your pelt from your body and use it as a rug."

"You and I both know you don't have the stomach for that," he teased. Looking down at Evan he said, "I can smell another wolf in this castle, one that isn't at peace with his designation which makes him dangerous. Your sister's pheromones are rising in an attempt to jump start a suppressed heat, which I apologize for, I wasn't expecting to meet someone so... well never mind about that. The point is, she won't be safe from him till it passes. At least let me scent her to keep him away from her while her body chemistry balances back out."

"Let him do it, Evan," Severus ordered, surprising them all.

"And then go sit down wind from her," Hermione added in exasperation.

Evan grumbled as he stepped aside, Regulus and Rabastan looking at each other as though hoping the other could silently explain what was going on.

Eloise, let out a needy whimper as she rose on the bed and rubbed her thighs together, meeting the hulking wizard's eyes as she pleaded, "Please... It hurts..."

Rowle took her wrists in his hand and murmured, "I know pet, I'll take care of you though," before raising her hands to his mouth and running his tongue half way up both her arms. "Now your neck," he quietly instructed, repeating the process along both pulse points. "Very good, pet."

When he stepped back, Eloise slumped against Rabastan with a deep sigh, making Rowle turn around and growl, his blue eyes flashing gold for a moment before Dorian pushed him back.

"Relax Finn, he plans to marry Hermione, provided I don't string him up from his bloody bollocks first for what he did to her body," the Dark Lord's right hand ordered.

"How the hell did you figure that out?" Hermione demanded in disbelief.

Looking at her as though he was insulted, Dorian responded, "Princess it's my job to know. Little Lestrange here has been petting your hip and the top of your thigh this entire and Snape has a fresh bite mark on his neck, so clearly he was the one up here with you this morning. Salazar, I wish your father could have come in here to deal with this or better yet your mother, may the gods rest her soul. We aren't equipped for this sort of thing."

Latching on to the rapid change in subject, Regulus cleared his throat and asked, "How are you here? I mean Dumbledore couldn't-"

"Since I became her legal guardian this summer, I received the customary letter from Poppy detailing her brain aneurysm. Dumbledore tried to prevent me from coming, but Lucius, who is sitting in for Abraxas since his health is failing, took the case to the Governors for me and they overturned his decision. I'm not a marked Death Eater, nor am I tied to any of the alleged crimes of the Dark Lord, therefore I can't be barred from coming to see my stubborn goddaughter who refused to expel her build up of magic, as if it hasn't already tried to kill her in the past."

To prove his point, Dorian pushed up the sleeves of his sweater and exposed his unmarred arms for their examination.

"Wait, you weren't attacked?" Rabastan asked.

Hermione, Dorian, and a much more calm Rowle all laughed at the question.

"You can't be serious?" Rowle asked, his eyes never leaving Eloise. "This little spitfire could probably attack and kill all five of you without breaking a sweat if she wanted to."

"Not that I would," Hermione clarified, still laughing. "I can't believe you all actually thought someone managed to jump me in the loo. I mean I have to admit, given the state I was in it would have actually been a possibility, but only because my magic was having a temper tantrum that made it near impossible to even walk. Under those circumstances, anyone would have had their arse handed to them though."

Cocking an eyebrow at him, Evan didn't miss a beat as he pounced on the opportunity to rub it in, "Told you, we should have waited till she woke up before acting. So what exactly did you two fucking idiots do and can it be stopped?"

Rubbing his eyes against the realization he was having, Regulus summoned his bag and began digging through it as Rabastan, rested his chin on Hermione's shoulder and murmured, "We honestly thought the mudblood had done something to you. So between that and what Potter and Black did to Eloise during their fifth year, we decided it was time for things to come full circle. They don't get to keep coming after our witches and only suffer a busted face that Pomfrey will heal for them within minutes."

Duplicating the photograph that he and Rabastan had taken on Monday night, Regulus passed around copies of what they had caught Lily Evans and James Potter doing when they were supposed to be on patrols. In a near exact replica of what the Gryffindors had photographed Eloise doing with Sirius, they had found Evans on her knees with Potter's hand wrapped around her hair as he relentlessly pistoned his cock into her mouth and down her throat.

"This will arrive with the morning's post to everyone who had received a copy of Eloise in the same situation, whether they're still at the school or not. The ones that Potter and his friends receive will also have a note scrawled across the print, saying, 'We warned you against coming after our witch, now we have cried havoc and will let slip the dogs of war.'"

AN:

- "Cry havoc and let slip the dogs of war," is a quote from Julias Caesar.