Chapter 8: Late Night Event

The death eater was the first to react. "Centaurs!" he said, somehow managing to instil a sense of disgust into the word as he said it through hidden lips that seemed reluctant to pronounce the word. "What is it you want?"

The leading centaur who had been observing the diverse group of humans gathered at the clearing spoke. "You have laid claim to something over which you have no legitimate claim, nor any idea of how dangerous it is." he said in a low resonating voice, talking slowly and taking care to enunciate each word as one would when explaining something important to a wayward child. "You have no concept of the consequences your actions would cause. You would tangle the threads of destiny in their skeins and cause disastrous knots to appear in the tapestry of f…"

"Oh spare me the cheap, third rate conjurer, mumbo jumbo! Divination is just a load of bull, or horseshit in this case." The death eater scornfully interrupted the centaur leader. In spite of being surrounded by over a dozen armed centaurs, ready to shoot their arrows at a moment's notice, he didn't sound intimidated, just annoyed. He went on, "is that why you're here? To spout a bunch of nonsense about destiny? Typical centaur!"

The centaur leader snorted loudly through his nostrils, obviously offended at the dark wizard's dismissive words, for a moment it seemed like he would give the order to shoot, but then he spoke again. "Leave the artifact and go, you have no idea of how dangerous it is."

There was no way to know what the death eater's face looked like behind his mask, but the covetous tones of his voice suggested something lizard-like. "You really have no idea how to negotiate, centaur, everything you've said only makes me want it more!"

"You believe the artifact will give you great power, you are wrong. It bears the seal of great spirits, possession of it cannot be taken, only granted." The centaur fixed his stare on the death eater before continuing. "But that is not what makes it dangerous, by itself it's just a tool. But for those with eyes to see, it is a turning point in destiny. It has the potential to become a linchpin for several threads, unravel the tapestry of fate around it, or both!"

"Like I said centaur, you're not selling me on the idea of giving it up." Ice cold eyes stared from behind the mask, greed and contempt could be seen in the death eater's stare.

The centaur just gave back an equally stern glare. "Think it thoroughly, your next choice could have consequences beyon… WHAT IS THAT BOY DOING?!

Everybody followed the centaur's gaze and watched in horrified fascination as Formeus walked towards the centaurs directly in front of him with a goofy smile on his face. Which somehow managed to make him look more threatening.

Formeus was feeling quite frustrated. First Marigold had been a wet blanket all night, or to be accurate, since he'd woken up after being knocked out. Marigold, constantly telling him not to do all of these things that were such great ideas had understandably ruined his groove. 'No Formeus, you can't turn the ground into lava to stop any pursuers', she'd said, and when asked why she'd just told him 'One: because we want to throw them off our trail, not lead them to it. Two: because we still have to get back after we're done here. And three: I don't know if you've noticed, but we're IN THE MIDDLE OF A FOREST!'

It was a shame, but he had to admit they were good reasons, still, she didn't need to shout in his face.

And now all of this talking was threatening to bore him out of his mind.

But when the centaurs arrived, Marigold, worried by the possibility of taking an arrow to the kidney, the lung, or any other bit she might need whole and unpunctured, had stopped paying as close attention to Formeus. Something he took as his cue for a chance to test the idea he'd come up with after seeing the latest arrivals to the party.

"Why horses?" thought Formeus, "Could any other animal work? Like, how about a spider? Yes, a giant spider like the one he'd caught a glimpse of when he'd wandered off to see if turning a redcap mushroom into a viable two bedroom house was possible. But Marigold had grabbed him by the ear and pulled him back. Honestly she was such a killjoy. How was he supposed to prove he was the greatest transfigurator of all time if she was always there to undermine him?"

But Marigold wasn't looking at him right now, and the horse people were standing right there, just waiting for him to test out his brilliant and inspired ideas. He started walking towards them. Barely registering the bows they were holding, beyond the fact they seemed to be made of oak.

"WHAT IS THAT BOY DOING?!" shouted someone.

The centaurs tensed their bows, just as Marigold turned to check on Formeus and saw him several paces away already and walking without a care in the world. She tried to make a grab for him, but that only made more centaurs pull on the strings of their bows, so she fell flat to the ground attempting very hard not to move while she reached for her wand and angrily whispered at Formeus to: "come back, you maniac!" Unfortunately he didn't give any indication of having heard her and kept on walking.

The centaurs let go of their bow strings.

After he'd recovered consciousness, Formeus had felt supercharged (in a rather literal way as the little octarine sparks flying off the tips of his hair could attest to) and ready to tackle any challenge set before him. His eyes had been opened, his consciousness expanded and his chakras, whatever they were, cleansed. It was as if everything he'd ever known about transfiguration had coalesced together to form a single, perfect entity. Every single piece of separate knowledge, fitting together perfectly into a beautiful whole that granted him new perspective and understanding of the art.

Patterns arranged themselves in his mind, he only needed to think about it to envision the precise wand movements necessary for a new spell and knew instinctively how much power to pour into it. Everything seemed so clear and simple now, as new and elegant solutions flooded his mind. He smirked remembering how crude his past efforts had been.

At the time, he was unaware of it, but Formeus had become the first person in wizarding history to suffer a thaumic overload. The effect would later, often be described as being extremely drunk, with the inevitable hangover being ten times worse than what even the cheapest firewhisky could achieve.

When he saw the arrows fly, Formeus didn't even break his stride, he lazily waved his wand in a simple pattern and the arrows suddenly became moths fluttering harmlessly past his head into the night sky.

The centaurs stood there looking dumbfounded for a moment, before they remembered they were still holding their bows and lined up a second shot.

Whether those arrows would have fared any differently became a moot question as Marigold at that moment tackled him to the ground and saved his life by scant inches from being pierced by arrows aimed at Formeus' back.

The centaurs behind Formeus had witnessed the whole thing and as one had decided to test whether he'd be able to defend himself just as readily from a shot from behind. The answer as the arrow flew past the space that a fraction of a second before had been occupied by Formeus' body, was a resounding no.

And like a dam breaking, movement exploded all over the clearing as Formeus fell to the ground.

The death eater pulled out his wand and with a cry of "Kill the vermin!" started throwing curses at the centaurs closest to him. Spells flew off his wand, cutting curses, boiling hexes, and all kinds of nasty magics bombarded the centaurs who took cover behind the trees as well as they could. A few were able to release their arrows but the projectiles were deflected by the shield spells the death eater had managed to weave between the offensive curses.

Malfoy knelt on one knee and tried to imitate him, attempting to throw a wide area hex capable of thinning the victim's blood. But as he finished his incantation, a flurry of octarine sparks instead of the yellow-green light the hex was supposed to be, flew out of his wand and right into the scepter he was still holding in his left hand.

He looked at the thing confused and tried again, disregarding the warmth he was feeling, even through the dragon hide glove. This time he attempted a different spell, a blinding curse. Percival, who was still working out whether it was preferable to help the death eater or lie on the ground and play dead, heard Malfoy's incantation, recognized it and sprang into action.

"Don't!" Percival shouted and if Malfoy hadn't been preoccupied with other things, like a horde of centaurs intent on doing them harm, he'd have taken offense at the tone Percival had used with him. The "you idiot", while unsaid, was clear enough implicitly. Percival threw himself at Malfoy in the same way Marigold had tackled Formeus moments earlier.

Malfoy's curse was a nasty piece of work intended to blind someone by searing their corneas. The worst part was that it wasn't a targeted spell, it was indiscriminate, affecting everyone who looked at the sudden flash of bright purple light. Which meant that the caster was the person most at risk since he was standing closest to the curse. Whereas those beyond a certain distance could simply negate the spell's effects by looking away or closing their eyes, the caster would be so close to the light that it would burn him even through closed eyelids. As such, special protection was necessary prior to casting that curse, protection that Malfoy hadn't prepared. He also hadn't given his allies any warning of what he intended to do, which meant that if the death eater looked at Malfoy in that precise moment and happened to be blinded, not only would they lose their main line of defense against the centaurs, he'd also be supremely pissed off.

For all those reasons, it was quite fortunate for everybody involved that the spell fizzled out of existence, pretty much the same way as the prior one had. As soon as it began manifesting at the end of his wand, the supposedly sun-bright ball of light sputtered for a second, before finally dissolving into a cloud of golden sparks sucked into the scepter.

This time Malfoy noticed how the scepter got significantly hotter in his hand.

The centaurs confirmed that Malfoy had failed to conjure any spells and broke cover to let loose a volley of arrows at him.

Percival collided against Malfoy just a second before the arrows turned Malfoy into a novelty pincushion. The impact made him lose his grip on the scepter which spun through the air several times before falling on the ground halfway between Malfoy and the place where James Potter and Sirius Black were crouching down.

As if activated by a switch, both children sprinted towards the object running as fast as they could while staying low to avoid the whizzing curses.

There was a shout of 'ACCIO' from the death eater, for a second the scepter shuddered but stubbornly remained on the grass.

"Stop them you fools!" Shouted the death eater as he cast a couple more shield charms to deflect even more incoming arrows. Then followed up with a couple of blistering hexes aimed at the tail ends of some retreating centaurs.

Malfoy tried to get to his feet, but found himself pinned under Percival's weight who sensibly refused to stand up while projectiles kept flying all over them.

James Potter reached the scepter unimpeded, scooped it from the ground and held it over his head in victory. A second later, realization hit that he'd just made himself a target for everyone else in the clearing and his face went from triumph to 'oh bugger' in less than a second.

It was very fortunate for him that at that precise moment he was suddenly surrounded by very thick smoke.

Victor Von Doom wasn't happy, at all! He'd already been angry when he'd woken up to find his research subject stolen and his coffee tampered with, but everything that had happened since then had only managed to further sour his mood.

Discovering that it had been none other than Malfoy and his cronies who were responsible for the theft at the lab had been part of it. The fact that a bunch of cravenly ignoramuses would even dare to entertain the notion of crossing him, much less actually do it, had been infuriating, to say the least.

But the worst of it all had been the sudden appearance of the death eater, suddenly throwing his weight around, taking charge, giving orders and acting like he owned the place. Who did he think he was? That was his job, damnit!

The sudden appearance of the centaurs was a minor annoyance by comparison.

Then Formeus, whom Doom suspected might not be all there, had suddenly walked towards the centaurs at the edge of the clearing and the whole thing had gone wahoonie-shaped, turning into a free-for-all.

That was the only silver lining in this whole disastrous situation, at the very least he could claim self-defense for anything that happened from this point on.

He fidgeted with his gauntlet and aimed his steel clad hand towards the nearest centaurs at his right. The disruptor field designed to interfere with a wizard's wand and render it momentarily inoperative would be useless against the centaurs, the modified repulsor beam on the other hand…

He moved his hand almost imperceptibly and a thin, concentrated beam of energy shot out from his palm, striking the side of a tree under which two centaurs stood aiming their bows. The tree exploded, raining splinters and branches on the centaurs who had to fall back to avoid being crushed.

He pivoted to his left, adjusted a setting in the gauntlet and fired the beam again. Incoming arrows were suddenly deflected by a short-range wide-area repulsor beam, visible only by the slight shimmering haze it left in its passing.

"Severus, brambles at nine o'clock if you please." Victor said, as calm as if he'd just asked Snape to pass him the table salt.

The words seemed to break through Snape's apparent paralysis and he whipped into action, reaching into his pouches for the appropriate vial and throwing them towards the nearest group of centaurs on his left standing between the bushes. The glass container broke, splashing a green and earthy smelling liquid on the shrubs, which promptly started growing at an explosive rate and surrounding the centaurs with sharp, dagger-like thorns that threatened to cut them to ribbons.

Victor, watching out of the corner of his eye, gave an approving nod as he focused a low frequency repulsor beam on a group of three centaurs, the wide area wavering haze from the gauntlet struck all three creatures, throwing them off their hooves. "Good, now glue together the next two at 8:30. Then quicksand the ground under the tree, at my 2 o'clock.

Snape's hands moved without conscious thought, finding the adequate vials by instinct. He threw a second vial in the general direction of the centaurs at his left like Victor had said. One of the centaurs ducked out of the way and the vial broke against the side of a tree behind him. It released a white mist which immediately enveloped both of the magical creatures, completely hiding them, before it suddenly coalesced into a mess of sticky goo that bound them in place. He faced towards his next target and threw another vial.

In an impressive display of marksmanship, one of the centaurs was able to snipe Snape's vial in mid air before it reached them. This actually proved to be worse for the centaurs it had targeted, since the liquid spread over a wider area when its container broke, instantly turning a much larger patch of ground into a muddy, waist deep bog that immobilized anyone in it.

"Note to self, make some explosive vials." mumbled Snape under his breath.

Victor heard it and grinned, "that's a good idea Severus", he said as he aimed another high energy beam towards an old fallen tree behind which some centaurs were trying to take cover. The rotten dead wood exploded leaving the centaurs without any cover to hide behind, helping them realize that discretion was the better part of valour before turning tail and running away. "Perhaps you'd like my assistance?" he said without breaking stride and deflecting a new volley of arrows with another wide area repulsor beam.

"Maybe," he replied, grinning in spite of himself as he felt the adrenaline pumping through his body, "we have to survive this first."

Victor laughed heartily. "Come on, Severus, do you honestly think this pitiful attempt at a brawl could even hope to leave a scratch on Doom?" As he said this, he held up his armoured arm and clenched his hand into a fist. A sudden dome of force spread around them, protecting them from the latest coordinated assault of the centaurs which had attempted to attack them simultaneously from opposite directions.

'Still talking in the third person, but now he's laughing, I don't know which is worse.' thought Snape. Out loud he said, "Not really all that worried about them Victor, I'm more worried about Dumbledore tanning our hides after this is over." He replied as he threw a nauseating essence potion at another centaur.

"Ah, but we're legitimately acting in self defense here, Severus." answered Doom as he finally pulled out his wand and started blasting stunning spells at the few centaurs that still hadn't legged it, through the force dome.

Snape considered this and thought it very unlikely, he found himself utterly unable to conceive a scenario in which Victor acted purely in self-defense, maybe self-offense.

There was a triumphant shout and they turned to see James Potter standing tall and holding the metal scepter in his outstretched arm.

Victor sighed in annoyance, "Severus if you'd be so kind as to provide some smoke cover for our suicidal friend over there?" He considered for a fraction of a second before adding, "Bright smoke please, it's nighttime, no need to give away our position with lumos."

"Right!" Snape answered before reaching into his pouch and throwing another vial.

A sudden thick and luminous white fog hid James Potter from view and quickly spread around the whole clearing.

From her foxhole, Marigold looked at the mayhem in the clearing and promised herself to stay as far away from Doom as was magically possible.

After Formeus had kickstarted the battle and she'd tackled him to the ground, she'd improvised a foxhole by using a levitation charm on a bunch of earth, literally ripping a hole in the ground. The soft soil had yielded easily to her panic fueled charm. She'd quickly jumped in and pulled Formeus after her and tried to help in the fight however she could, throwing shielding charms to protect both of them, while Formeus used transfiguration offensively. She'd been somewhat impressed when she'd seen him turn the leaves on the branches directly above some centaurs into sharp, jagged, lead slabs.

But very soon, she found her shield charms weren't protecting them from anything much. The centaurs were mostly ignoring her and Formeus and focusing on the two most obvious threats, one of them was the death eater, who was casting a lot of very nasty looking curses, the other was Doom.

She saw him gesture without a wand and throw out spells towards his attackers, that either toppled them or made things explode. She heard him laugh, laugh! As if the whole thing was nothing more than a game. Worst of all, she saw Doom's stooge, Snape, throwing potions around and giving a damn good account of himself.

It was official, whatever Doom had was contagious.

She crouched down in the foxhole and idly wondered if there were any wizarding jobs available in New Zealand.

James Potter was about to thank Merlin for the sudden miraculous appearance of the smoke that covered him, before he realized that it probably wasn't that old geezer sleeping away in France whom he should thank, but probably someone much, much closer.

The fog was extremely thick, but also gave off a soft pearly light, which allowed him to see perfectly up to three feet in front of him. Sudden realization of what he'd done struck him, and for a moment he felt the icy chill of terror spread over him. But he remembered his friend Sirius had run with him towards the scepter and had been there next to him all the time. He focused on that thought and managed to calm down enough to think what he should do next.

"Sirius!" he called out in a soft voice, well aware that Malfoy and the death eater were near. "Sirius, are you there?" he said slightly louder.

"I'm here James." came a voice very close to him, The reply was heavy with restrained fear and slightly trembling. But it was quiet and James felt proud that his friend had the presence of mind not to give their position away. "What do we do now?"

He pondered for a moment but there really weren't that many choices. He moved slowly closer to the voice until he could see a blurry outline before him which two steps later resolved itself into his friend Sirius.

"We run," he said, "we run as fast as we can until we're out of the fog and then we run back to the castle even faster, just like Remus said. We find Dumbledore and tell him what's going on!"

"What about the others?"

"Remus is probably already halfway to the castle, trying to get some help, he's got too much sense to stay here. And if Peter stays hidden, no one will be able to find him."

"So we go back to the castle?" asked Sirius, still worried and not a hundred percent certain about leaving his friends behind.

"And get Dumbledore." replied James.

"I'd rather you didn't, that will just add some unnecessary hassle to this whole affair." A voice suddenly cut through the fog from somewhere behind them.

James and Sirius turned around with their wands at the ready. Two shapes advanced through the fog towards them and revealed themselves to be Doom and Snape. Doom was holding before him some kind of muggle looking device with a weird spinning gauge, which he put away as soon as he was close enough to be seen clearly through the thick fog. "That scepter you're holding was under my custody and stolen by Malfoy from my laboratory earlier tonight, I would appreciate it if you could return it now."

Sirius looked astonished "Are you serious? Didn't you hear what that centaur said?! We have to get it to Dumbledore and away from that death eater!"

"Away from who?" asked Victor, slightly confused by the term Sirius had used.

"That death eater, you know, one of the guys from Volde… the dark lord's army." answered Sirius, growing more nervous by the second.

Victor raised an unimpressed eyebrow. "Dark Lord you say?"

"He means Voldemort, you know, tall, thin, claims to be the greatest wizard ever, has been on the papers a lot recently." supplied Snape helpfully.

"Oh, that, dark lord", Victor said off-handedly while allowing himself one moment of brief recollection, "I think my mother once caught one of his guys in our neighbourhood. We weren't impressed."

Sirius' mouth hung open and James stepped in. "Look it doesn't matter, we have to get away from him before he figures out what's going on and…"

Victor cut him off, "I will deal with this, death eater." The sarcasm dripping off the last two words was palpable. Doom obviously held no respect for the name, and why would he? It was tacky and overly dramatic. "I assure you of that. But now, I'd like the scepter back." He extended an empty hand towards James.

"VENTUS!"

The sudden hurricane wind succeeded in dispersing the thick fog blanketing the clearing. The centaurs had recognized a losing battle and took advantage of the smoke cover to retreat back into the forest, leaving the wizards alone in the clearing. Malfoy was still struggling to get Percival off him, while Marigold and Formeus peeked up from the edge of their foxhole. Remus and Peter were nowhere to be seen.

The death eater stood alone, his eyes glowing red with rage, through his mask. "GIVE ME THE BLOODY THING! I AM WELL AND TRULY PAST PLAYING AROUND ANYMORE!" He roared.

Victor was unimpressed. "What a coincidence, so am I", he said with a smug smile.

For a moment the death eater focused his hatred filled stare on Doom, he trembled with the effort not to curse Doom right there. The moment passed, his shoulders relaxed and he addressed James Potter who was still holding the metal scepter.

"Give it to me now, and you can all go back to your beds unharmed."

"Very generous of you, however I cannot make you the same offer." Victor said, slightly irritated at being dismissed, but somewhat satisfied at the sudden flash of anger in the death eater's eyes. He then gave James a quizzical look.

"Mr… I'm sorry, what was your name again?"

James gave him an appalled look, not so much at the notion of Doom not knowing his name, but at the dismissive way in which he insisted on treating a dangerous and very angry dark wizard. "Potter, James Potter." He managed to answer.

"Ah yes, Mr. Potter, you said you wanted to take the scepter back to the castle?" Victor waited patiently for James' answer until the bespectacled boy nodded. "Very well, as much as I fear it will be a terrible headache to recover it from the headmaster's custody, you may go. Sometimes I fear one must allow small concessions in favour of the bigger picture." He turned his gaze back towards the death eater. "I will take care of our friend here."

"YOU!" he roared, his anger so great that octarine sparks jumped off his clothes, his eyes now twin smoldering embers of rage. "You think you can stop me?! Me who sits at the right hand of the dark lord, who is amongst his most trusted inner circle! Me, whose power is recognized by none other than the most powerful wizard of this generation! And yet you, a mere child, have the audacity to challenge my power?!"

Victor shrugged. "It's not audacious to do something that already has a foregone conclusion. Go Mr. Potter, I will join you shortly."

There was an almost imperceptible change in the death eater's posture obscured by the cloak and hood, some tension left his hunched shoulders and he seemed to relax, ever so slightly.

"Yes, Mr. Potter, he will be joining you very soon." The voice was oily and brimming with amused anticipation. "Just not where you think."

"Avada Kedavra!"

Victor raised his gauntleted fist and activated the disruptor field that should, in theory, protect him against even the unforgivable curses. Someone else would probably frown upon the thought of taking such a risk with just a working theory, but theory and practice were pretty much different gradients of the same thing to Victor Von Doom.

The sickeningly green light of the curse shot out from the tip of the death eater's wand and whizzed past Doom towards James Potter.

Doom turned his head, looking behind him outraged. It hadn't even occurred to Doom that the death eater would target anyone else other than him.

The bolt of green light sped towards James Potter marking him for death.

And hit the scepter James was still holding.

The metal scepter suddenly started to violently shake as the spell coalesced into a green ball of light surrounding the scepter and was slowly decomposed into golden sparks before being absorbed. It also became very hot, so hot it burned his hands and James Potter was forced to let it go, throwing it away with a small yelp of pain.

The scepter arced through the air away from James and towards the death eater.

Who was staring at James with wide incredulous eyes. The damn thing had protected the boy from a killing curse, from his killing curse. It could shield against even unforgivable curses, if he had it, he could…

Sudden movement brought him out from his reverie as he noticed Doom reach out for the scepter now lying on the grass between them. He lunged for it a split second after Doom. A black velvet glove and a steel gauntlet reached for and grabbed a different end of the scepter at the same time. In their other hands, each held a wand ready to unleash an offensive spell on their opponent.

"Expelliarmus!"

"Avada Kedavra!"

The spells met, orbited each other for a second, then flew directly towards the scepter they were both holding.

Everything went white.