Ezekiel landed again of the floor after the last blast of pain had hit him in the chest like a freight train. The pain was so much that he couldn't open his eyes. He expected for it to leave again but this time he was attacked by an avalanche of new sensations: he felt as if he was being burned alive and frozen at the same time. An immense pressure, as if he was being thrown into the deepest part of the ocean was all over his chest and his limbs felt like they were being torn apart one cell at the time. Electricity run amok all over him, preventing him to concentrate enough to apparate away and tensing all his muscles, preventing him to even scream.
Had it been another wizard, literally anyone else, this would have been a death trap. A wizard that couldn't access their magic was as good as dead. Even the other four old families, their own magic didn't affect the world in the same way as his did. In this case many wizards would use every inch of their willpower to try to save themselves.
Him? He just had to let go.
He didn't had to open his eyes to know that his ring had started glowing with a silver eerie aura. He didn't have to feel it, to know that all the pressure and magic that was trying to destroy him were being redirected to the ring on his left hand. He only hoped that whoever had casted this on him was near, because the Black's family magic was about to be unleashed, and it wouldn't settle with just blood.
Forming a fist, he slammed it and the ring on the floor of wherever he was right now and felt the magic being released, producing a slight sigh, a death rattle, and just like that, all the pressure and the pain was gone as if it never existed in the first place. Except for the stabbing pain that he felt on his back, that one seemed to be disguised behind the pain that whatever magic had caused him.
Ezekiel took a deep breath and looked over his shoulder only to see a metal spike blocking part of his view, but no enough to cover the man that had his hand at the other the rod that was currently latched on his back.
A fire iron, he tried to kill him with a fucking fire iron.
It hadn't been the first time that someone had made an attempt on his life but, seriously, this? If it weren't for the adrenaline that was being pumped into his system and the seething hate that was almost blinding him from any sort of rational though he would've been offended.
The hell with that, he was indignant.
Really?
Seriously!?
Not even magic!?
Was he not worth the effort anymore? It had been decades since the Potter's and he still received cursed letters from time to time, even the occasional attack on the street but this? He was the Lord of the Noble and Most Ancient House of Black and this is the best that this man could come up with?
This was it.
Today was officially the worst day to mess with him and this man right behind him had officially pushed all his buttons. If he could feel pity right now he might spare him some... maybe later, but right now he was going to enjoy what about to happen and then, he'd get some answers as for how he'd managed to snatch him from the chamber.
He was about to show the man that what his stupidity had earned him when he heard it. The crying child, the same that he had heard when he was at Madam bones office, the same that had almost deafened him at the chamber. Except this time he could hear it more clearly and softly, directly under him. He shifted his gaze towards the floor and what he saw drained the color from his face. Suddenly his back didn't hurt him anymore and the rage that consumed him vanished, replaced by horror.
Directly below him, a small child laid in fetal position on his side with his arms covering his face. He couldn't see much of him but he couldn't have more than six years old. The only thing that he could see was how thin he was and how black his long, dirty, disheveled hair looked. He must had thought that the worst was over, since a deafening silence had taken place and opened an eye to see. Eye. Singular. The greenest eye that Ezekiel had ever seen suddenly tried to widen since having Ezekiel on all fours over him would have surprised anyone, but the look of pain showed that even that was hurting him, so the child shifted his position to take a better look at his face, and with that Ezekiel knew that the strike wasn't meant for him. He also knew that this man deserved something worst than death and he'd take no pleasure at all to deliver him to it.
Half of the child's face was beaten, some major bruises were starting to form, but the other half looked like a crime scene, the swelling wouldn't allow Ezekiel to see were the other eye was, and the rest of it wasn't much better. From what he could hear, the child was having problems breathing. The smell of blood and urine soon hit his nose, as if suddenly the entire situation became real to him.
He twisted again to see the man fully. He looked like a fat walrus, with a thick, dark hair, a bushy black mustache, hardly any neck and small, blue, mean eyes, but the big stupid expression that he had on his face was what caught his attention. He certainly didn't expected to see Ezekiel there. Not that it mattered now, the hate was back in full force and his own magic was numbing the pain on his back, stopping the blood from flowing out of his wound.A swift kick to the knee was enough to bring him down, and Ezekiel wasn't ashamed to admit that hearing that cracked noise and the walrus screams of pain brought him joy.
That feeling disappeared once he heard the sound of a broken plate. Now that the walrus was down he could see behind him, where an unhealthily fat kid looking scared and a thin, blonde-haired horse-looking woman who Ezekiel couldn't help to notice had a really long neck looked as she was petrified with both hands on the air, as she was holding something, it seemed that he had apparated on a dinning room. A quick look at her feet showed that it was a gravy boat. Ezekiel's mind was already in overdrive so the math wasn't too difficult, from his own experience getting beaten up he knew how long it took for a bruise to appear and those on the child were massive as well as the swelling, so that meant no one had moved a finger to help the kid. And now no one would help them, he though, as the Black's magic screamed to his ear to be let loose again.
Ezekiel raised up from the floor and made a quick flick of the wrist , which saw his wand appear on his right hand. This should have made those people scatter, or at least reach for their own wands but they appeared to be still frozen by the shock, minus the fat man on the floor who was still complaining over his broken knee. He couldn't help to notice the strange looks that the woman and the boy, who now suspected that were mother and son gave him, until she saw the piece of wood on his hand. The woman screamed at the top of her lungs with enough force to shatter glass, had Ezekiel not moved promptly to petrified her, same as the child for good measure, before moving to the sobbing man on the floor, raising him by the collar and ramming his head into a nearby wall before placing his wand directly under his jaw.
"Do I have your attention?" He asked the man who tried to start insulting him, only to have the grip on his collar tighten as much as Ezekiel could.
"Let me be absolutely clear, you're on the floor, minus one knee, no wand, no magic and the only weapon that you had is currently on my back. The more this takes the more I'll start feeling the pain of what you tried to do to that kid, which already puts you on my shit-list, you don't want to be there. The more pain I get means that I'll be more pressed to get my answers and trust me YOU. WILL. TALK. Now, I'm going to start simple and you'll answer but if you do anything else, say anything other than what I ask you, I promise you that the pain on your knee will be nothing but a warm memory compared to what I'll do to you. Understood?"
The man on Ezekiel's grasp was starting to turn purple, so he decided to release the pressure around his neck a bit before he passed out and he had to give the same over the top speech to the woman. Fear happens to be powerful motivator in the right dosage, and the man before him didn't strike him as the brave kind.
The man coughed and whizzed trying to get the air back into his lungs for a while before giving him a faint "Yes"
"Good. Now, your name?"
"Vern-argh-Vernon Dursley"
Dursley? What kind of family name was that? Muggle, perhaps? Probably, but that didn't say much.
"Very well, Vernon Dursley, where am I?"
"Privet Drive" Ezekiel awaited for the man to continue, but apparently the message hadn't gone trough. He tightened his grasp on the man's neck and didn't let go after he saw the man turn purple again. This looked like it was going to take some time, and that was a luxury that he didn't had.
"Full address, please"
"4 Privet Drive, Little-argh-Whinging" Ezekiel pressed again his neck until the man squeezed "Surrey"
Surrey? That was south, well away from the Wizengamot's chamber in London, a full county away. How the hell had he ended up there?
"Never mind" he thought, and waved his wand and exclaimed "Expecto Patronum!" a silver hummingbird shot out of it sending a rescue message to Madam Bones and Dora. The faster they get there the faster they could take that kid to a hospital, Statute of Wizarding Secrecy be damned.
Unfortunately the spell had caused Ezekiel a tremendous amount of pain, as his magic was trying to heal his body and this spell required much from would be a while before he could use his wand again, but by the looks of the man in front of him he didn't knew that, however, the strain had caused him to lose his grip on him and the man fell back on the floor again in agony, but he paid little mind to his wailing and limped towards the abused child that hadn't moved an inch from his spot on the floor.
"ARGH! Bloody freaks! You lot should be burned at the stake! I knew that little shit was nothing but trouble!" the man screamed.
For the second time that day Ezekiel's blood turn cold, as he turned towards the monster that he had left behind and again towards it's victim. He had heard of this from his days in school. Muggle parents who abused their magical children in an attempt to make them normal, as if beating the life out of a child could change the way that they were. Idiots he snickered, before the reality of that comment sunk in. If what he had said was true then that explained why Ezekiel could hear the child's cries: if the kid had used accidental magic he could have broadcasted his thoughts on a moment of high stress. Why on earth was he the only one that picked it up was beyond him. This also didn't explain how he was brought here, the amount of magic that would take for this sort of spell...
No, oh no. Please, no.
How could he been so blind!? How much time had he lost with that man? He needed to get that kid out of that house and he needed to do it now. The boy was magical, and he was right below him when he released his family magic, when he had slammed his fist on the floor right next to his face. That poor child had been at ground zero of the Blacks's family magic.
The Black family magic was unique, not only because it behaved like a living creature, a rabid animal that wanted nothing more than to be set loose on the world to rip and tear the magic in it. It devoured magic and used it to fuel itself, thus avoiding the stress that a prolonged use would cause on it's caster.
The good thing about this was that only the Head of the House of Black could use it. Sharing a family magic cause it to be diluted, the more members of the family had access to it, the less powerful it bad thing was that the Head of the House of Black was the only one who could control it once it was released and the one responsible of keep it under a leash, and once it wasn't needed anymore, to cancel it. Which left him exhausted in normal circumstances, but the adrenaline was doing its job right now. It created an almost literal dead zone, where only the caster's magic remained. Not even the natural magic that flowed through the world was exempted from it and he, as a complete and irresponsible moron had released that sort of spell right next to a wounded child. A child that needed every ounce of magic left in him to survive the beating that the coward that lived with him had given him.
Panic filled every fiber of his being as he ran towards him, ignoring the pain from his back, his magic trying to heal the wound but since the fire iron was still stuck on his back there was only so much that it could do. He kneeled beside him and quickly checked him, thanking whatever power above that he was still awake, which meant that some magic must be left in him.
"Hey! Hey! Can you hear me?" he snapped his fingers near his face to try to get his attention. This wasn't good, he was conscious, but it didn't look like it was going to last. He feared that if he closed his eyes he might not open them again. "Please look at me" Ezekiel begged, as he got no response except the kids eye movement "Come on, please. Keep your eyes on me, don't worry I'll get you out of here, okay? Just don't close your eyes, please."
The kid was looking paler and paler by the second. How did he still had magic on him was a mystery, but it was clear that it was not going to last much more. Ezekiel knew that apparating him wasn't an option and moving him from his spot was also dangerous. "Where the hell was Dora?" was the only thing that he could think of, as the Patronus should have arrived already and even if she couldn't apparate on the property itself, she could at least get near it and then follow the void. It would take at least an hour before magic came back to that house and he couldn't move the kid alone.
"Shit, this is gonna to hurt." He voiced his thoughts.
Ezekiel put away his wand and placed both hands on the boys chest, pouring magic into him, which meant that all the pain on his body started coming up again, just not the way he imagined it. He felt a warm patch spreading through his back but so far he didn't feel a thing apart for a small tingling sensation. He didn't have to be a genius to know that the wound that his magic was sealing shut was opening, and that the blood was flowing again, but why wasn't he feeling the pain yet? He kept pouring magic into the boy until he saw him recover at least some colour back.
Now came the part that he wasn't so sure about, his wand appeared back on his hand with a flick of his wrist and started chanting spells on the child. This sort of first-aid magic was mandatory for Aurors in account of the amount of injuries they suffered on the field, but Ezekiel didn't know if this would fix all the damage that it was done to the boy. He got so caught up with the spells that he didn't feel the movement on the fire iron on his back until it was yanked violently from his back.
He fell over the child again screaming in pain. Apparently the fat bastard that he had left behind him decided to take advantage of the situation and tried to finish what he had unknowingly started, as the man dragged his massive self over the floor while mumbling horrible insults and promises of bloody retribution. Ezekiel felt the man grabbing one of his legs and pulling him violently to the side, where the now terrified child could see and received a full blow on the chest with the fire iron, although this time he was lucky not to receive the pointy part on the side that had already been stabbed with.
He tried to hex the man but he realized that he had dropped his wand after being hit, he was able to see it near the kid but he wasn't able to reach it, as the obese man kept dragging him towards him and hitting him with his weapon over and over again. Ezekiel felt his world growing darker and darker with each hit, the injuries and the stabbing wounds bleeding that could no longer be contained by magic, as he had used almost all he had to ensure the kid's survival, only for both of them to die at the hands of a fat little bastard. Well, if that was the case then only one of them needed to go. Then when Dora finally decided to show up, because she had apparently forgotten how to fucking apparate, she could take the kid to a hospital.
That bastard Dursley yanked Ezekiel towards him again and used the fire iron to strangle him when Ezekiel made his move. Gathering all the magic that was left in him he placed his hand on his opponent's chest and let it all out in one charged burst. It was quite a sight to see Vernon Dursley's face when he found himself ejected towards the ceiling at a speed that he hadn't reached even in his young days. Ezekiel used all his will to move himself out of the way of the falling body, lucky once he had hit the floor had stopped moving. After all what had happened Ezekiel couldn't give a damn if the man had a pulse after a hit like that, but the loud wheezing that sounded later confirmed that Vernon Dursley was still among the living. Bastard had the the devil's luck.
Unlike him, Ezekiel found that the pain had fired up, having no more magic to at least stop the damage and that his back was now covered in blood, and breathing was becoming more difficult and no more energy than to breathe but that also was fleeing him. He closed his eyes and awaited
So this was it, apparently. After all this years, all the attacks, the fear, the effort and tears, this would be the end of him, not a member of the Light or one of those fanatic Death Eaters, but this. Death by stabbing with an fire iron by a fat cunt. In Surrey. He couldn't believe it. He refused to believe it, but as always reality tended to disagree. He could imagine what the world would say about him, the jokes, how he ended like he deserved. What would Dora say, or Ted, or Andi?
Andi.
The woman that had accepted him even though she had no reason to and had showed him what a real family was. The one that had his back since the beginning and believed in him when not even he did. The one that thought that there was more to him that even he thought possible. The first person that had loved him, without expecting nothing in return. And now he had disappointed her.
Good thing that no one was there to see the tears on his eyes or that would have been the definitive end of him. He was a Black, after all.
Ezekiel felt a small hand across his cheek, wiping away his tears. He opened his eyes to see that the child was healthy enough to move around and was currently kneeling besides him, just as he had done moments ago.
"S-Sir? Are you okay?" he asked. His voice was both full of fear and concern over a man that he didn't even know.
"Hey, kid. Don't worry about me, I'm just resting my eyes. Getting a bit tired you see?" Ezekiel tried to smile to the kid and sound as soothing as possible. "How are you feeling, are you alright? You scared me back there"
"Sorry, I didn't made uncle Vernon's beef like he wanted and he got mad at me" Said the child sniffling.
Uncle, uh? Well, now that he could take a good look at him he was surprised that they were related at all. Maybe he was related to the woman that was currently petrified in the dining room, because this kid was the complete opposite. He was small and skinny, too skinny. He was wearing a pair of broken round rimmed glasses, and behind them laid the greenest eyes that he had ever seen in his life, more so than actual emeralds that were displayed on jewelry stores. He wore clothes that were too big for him and looked ragged and dirty.
"It's okay, listen. Your uncle isn't going to hurt you anymore, he's-" Ezekiel got interrupted up by the child's sudden burst of tears. Still, he couldn't say that this surprised him. If he had his face beaten to a pulp by a bigger man than him with no option to fight back and then being told that the same man was going away, he figured that he'd also get emotional.
"No, he's not" the kid broke into a heavy sob.
What?
"Every time people the say that, that they'll get help and then they never come back. If I see them again they say that they don't know me and they kick me out." He said crying.
Ezekiel took a deep breath and took one of the boy's hands into his.
''Listen, I don't know what happened before. I'm not really sure what's going on right now, but I promise you this: no matter what happened before, you're getting out here and you're never coming back. Okay?'' He looked at the kid to his eyes and was surprised that he didn't look away. Not Dora, Ted or even Andi were able to do so, sometimes not even himself.
''You promise?" Said the kid in a hopeful tone.
Ezekiel did his best to smile before answering
"Yes, I promise you."
He was surprised when the child throw himself around his neck, crying with joy, only to back away when Ezekiel hissed in pain.
"It's okay, it's okay. Just a little bump." He made sure to calm the kid. At that point he realized that he didn't even know his name.
Ezekiel "The Inquisitor" Black, Auror, ladies and gentlemen.
"Sorry, what is your name? I couldn't get it with all that was happening before."
"Harry" he answered sheepishly.
Ezekiel couldn't help to laugh, despite the pain that it brought him. Harry, of course.
"Hello Harry, my name is Ezekiel Black." He offered his hand to the boy, who shook it slowly.
"Listen Harry, any second now you're going to hear a sound like a crack, okay? " Harry nodded. "When that happens some people are going to enter this house, but you don't have to be scared okay,? They aren't bad people. One of them is going to be a woman with funny hair, her name is Dora. I want you to tell her that Ezekiel said to get you to Andi. You understand? Good. They are good people, they'll take care of you."
"But what about you? Aren't you going with me?" asked Harry worried.
"Of course, but I'm a bit banged up you see, so I need to see a doctor. But Dora is my cousin, and she will keep you safe until I can see you again."
It was funny, he had lied before. To the people that he had interviewed, to his colleagues, to his own family. One time he even lied to himself. Yet it was this time that he felt sorry for it, to this one frail child that he had never seen before. He didn't wanted to admit it, but he saw a lot of himself in him. Up until his eight birthday he too lived in a house filled with hate. Nevermind, Dora would made sure that Harry met her mother. Andi would know what to do, she had done it before, even if the money was a problem Ezekiel had already listed her and her family as the receivers of the entire Black fortune, as both a middle finger to the Malfoys in case he fell in the field and a bit to thank her for what she'd done. He hoped that at least that would make them forget about him, even though he knew that it wasn't going to happen.
Suddenly several loud noises appeared outside the house, signaling that finally, the Auror department had decided to graze them with their presence. Ezekiel noted that the blood on his back had started to spread, almost touching Harry, but tried to distract him for that. The cold begun to creep up his limbs.
"Very well Harry Dursley, it seems that my friends are coming. Remember the name I told you?" Harry nodded, but looked paler when he realized the warm liquid that started touching his knees.
"It's okay, now go." He saw that Harry had started shaking and the tears were coming up again.
"GO! Look for Dora, okay? The lady with the weird hair, NOW." As Harry jolted from his spot and ran outside, leaving him alone. Good, he didn't need to see what would happen next.
Ezekiel laid on what was starting to look like a pool of his own blood, the more he saw the more his vision darkened. He could hear muffled noises outside and hoped that Harry had found Dora quickly. He was starting to fade into unconsciousness when the front door literally blowed from it hinges, and before he could even attempt to do anything a thunderous voice sounded and a red light enveloped him.
I don't own Harry Potter, all characters except OC belong to J. K. Rowling.