Author's Note: The characters that belong to JK Rowling belong to JK Rowling
Thanks to SilverWind for the help proofreading, and my brother for miscellaneous stuff.
Also, a note on pronunciation: Necrognest is pronounced "Neck-ro-nyay"
Chapter 11: The Gens de Mortigenae
James leapt of the broom, sending it one direction and him in the other. Between the two came Remus, in his werewolf state, landing on the ground at the same time James did.
"Remus! It's me!" James yelled as he ran away from him. But Remus simply roared and shot off after James.
"James!" He looked up to see Lily and Sirius racing towards him, but from the opposite direction.
"HE'LL TEAR ME APART!" He yelled. Sirius and Lily realized what he meant, and simultaneously levitated him out of Remus's reach. They then grabbed him; Sirius's left hand and Lily's right, holding James between them.
"Someone's coming from the forest!" Screamed Mary. It was true, the expertanimi were again coming out of the forest. They were moving quickly though, and stopped only a few feet from the edge of the wood. They raised their wands and performed some spell on the fallen Metamagus, which now began to stir.
The Metamagus then shot into the air suddenly.
"Fly me to my broom!" Yelled James. They brought him that far (Remus was just a few yards away) and dropped him. Before James could reach his broom, however, a blast of fire shot from the Metamagus's mouth and shattered the broom into a flaming heap of wood scraps. James immediately shot into a different direction, still avoiding Remus. He spotted Allyn.
He quickly ran towards where Allyn and his broom were laying. James shivered so wildly that his legs nearly gave way, but he passed by Allyn and yelled,
"Up!" The broom rose into the air, and James jumped onto it, taking off just out of Remus's reach again. It took a moment to adjust to the slower speed of Allyn's Tinderblast, but soon James was flying smoothly again. The Metamagus had shot straight into the air, and was now diving back towards the ground. The four remaining, Lily, Mary, James, and Sirius, were circling high and away from the wizard, however.
In their moment of panic and running from Remus because he was a threat to their lives, the group had unfortunately forgotten for the moment that he was also their friend.
"Desmetus magus!" Screamed all four, but the Metamagus was flying too agilely for them to accurately hit it. It swooped down over Remus, and with it's tiger arms, grasped the werewolf, and enclosed him into a cage of it's scorpion arms. It flew low along the ground for a bit (still dodging the spells coming from the group), then folding its wings in and landed onto its feet, running into the forest.
"Off your brooms!" Yelled James, and the four swooped in to low level, and leapt off their brooms, letting them crash were they may, and dashed into the forest after the beast.
The Metamagus was thick-legged, and lumbered relatively slowly for its long stride. The trees were dense as well, and though it blasted many out of the way with it's explosive fireballs, the ground was still very uneven, and it had to dodge many a burnt stump.
Those disadvantages, however, effected the four as well.
"Desmetus magus!" Yelled James. The shot hit the beast's wing, and blew apart at the joint.
"Desmetus magus!" Came Sirius, but his hit a tree.
"Desmetus magus!" Chorused the girls, but both missed again. Just as he was preparing to send another blast at the Metamagus, James tripped on a root and fell flat on his face.
"Keep going!" He quickly yelled, and scrambled to his feet in search of his wand.
"Where'd it go!?" He screamed, grabbing stick and branch to no avail. Suddenly he heard a clop-clop and an odd neigh. He looked up. There, standing before him, was a large stag, his wand in it's mouth.
"That's mine." He said calmly, and reached out and took it. The stag then bent down onto its knees and nodded its head backwards.
"You don't mean..." The stag neighed impatiently again, and James got the idea.
"Alright...." He hopped apprehensively on the animal's back, and it immediately shot up and galloped quickly in the direction of the party. It was much quicker than the group or the Metamagus, and quickly it had passed the former and gotten even with the latter.
"Desmetus magus!" Said James, and successfully tore off another wing of the beast. Unfortunately, that in no way hindered it. It's ugly snake head turned to James, and snapped. It looked back to watch where it was going, but then returned quickly to launch another fireball at James.
With his hand on the stag's shoulder, James guided it quickly away from the fire and back to where he wanted it; it was strangely a smoother ride than any broom he had ridden.
"Desmetus magus!" James roared again, and this time one tiger arm was knocked away. Three more from James's friends behind left it only with its scorpion legs. Without the tiger arms, however, it had lost it's grip on Remus.
"Stay with the Metamagus!" Yelled James and he galloped off after Remus. "Remus!" He said as the stag pulled even with him.
"Remus, can you hear me?" But the werewolf slashed at the stag, which dodged artfully under James's guidance. The stag, on its own now, thrashed its antlers at Remus, knocking him on his side.
"No!" He said. The stag trotted around to face Remus, who now leapt to his feet and charged. Once near enough, he lunged, but it was matched by the older and much larger stag. The stag pushed Remus back with its hooves, causing Remus to flee in the opposite direction.
"Petrificus totalus!" Came a voice. Remus froze completely.
"Quickly, Lord Necrognest!" Three cloaked figures dashed towards Remus.
"The potion, Lord!" Came another.
"Expelliarmus!" Yelled James. The figures looked up as their wands were knocked from their hands. Before they could reach them, however, the stag leapt past Remus and knocked them over. Wand raised, James dismounted and neared the sprawled three. However, the three quickly jumped up and reached their wands.
"Gens de Moritgenae!" They said in unison, and in a flash of green light, they were vanished.
"Mobililupus." Muttered James, and he rode the stag back to where is friends were, Remus magically in tow.
"It's Vedol!" Yelled Sirius as James approached. And much to his shock, their sat Ian Vedol, naked, trying to cover himself as best he could. James looked away quickly from his disgustingly pale skin. Sirius was holding Vedol's wand.
"You stay here. I'll get back to the house and send a post to someone...Professor Dumbledore, or Scuro." James quickly trotted off, Remus still frozen and suspended. When he came to Allyn's body, he lifted that magically as well. James remembered where Remus had shown was his safe-room, and James deposited him there, just in time, as he came out of the enchantment just as James secured the door. He laid Allyn's body on a couch.
The chessmen were no longer suspending Mr. and Mrs. Lupin. They said that they had just been released; James guessed that when the cloaked expertanimi had left, the influence wore off. The Lupins went out and collected Vedol, and brought everyone in the house, while James sent the Lupin owl to Albus Dumbledore, hoping he was still at the Hogwarts Castle.
Sure enough, within an hour, Professor Dumbledore arrived by Floo with the owl. Ian Vedol was expelled on the spot, and detained by Ministry of Magic officials who arrived minutes later. There were at least a dozen; they searched the house, gathered information from all present, examined the chessmen, searched the wood, and best of all, discovered that Allyn Synwyd was not dead; but knocked out severely. Professor Dumbledore correctly assumed that even with dark training, a young wizard like Ian could never fully perform such an advanced killing spell.
According to school records it was found the Ian Vedol's only listed parent was a man by the same name, though after exhaustive searches he was never found to be living anywhere in the British Isles.
"Professor Dumbledore?" James said as Dumbledore stood in the family room, pondering.
"Yes, James?" He said, his somber, contemplative face changed to a cheery one.
"I was wondering...do you know what Gens de Mortignae is?" Albus nodded, he had heard from James's account of the story about the incantation.
"I know only its translation; Clan of Death-Givers. There is no spell of which I know that includes such an incantation. It is obviously dark, secret magic." James nodded.
"Why did they want Remus?" He asked again.
"Ah, yes. You see, James, a human who can turn into a werewolf would be an incredible asset to any evil wizard seeking to do harm. Do you know the Imperio curse?" James nodded.
"And at such a young age; much training could be
given." Albus looked deep into James's eyes.
"You saved Remus tonight, James. He would have been worse than dead if not for your bravery." James looked out through the sitting room window and out at the forest.
James thought to himself, I had some help.
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A/N: Well, there it is, the (short!) final chapter. I hope you enjoyed it! I'm done with the sequel, "The Durmstrang Professor", and I'm posting chapters as I finish editing. It's id# 1083279! Please please PLEASE read both, review, and tell a friend! (If you liked it, anyway :-P) Criticism is accepted!