Chapter Four: Kneazles and Naked Weasleys

Disclaimer: I own none of the material written by J. K. Rowling, or her publishing company, or Warner Brothers.

Trigger Warning: Suicidal thoughts and hopelessness in this chapter along with gratuitous violence. Read on at your own peril.

OOOO

When Ruby awoke, surrounded by rubble and death, she could only at first think it was a miracle. That beautiful moment turned to dread the moment she looked about for Hermione. "HERMIONE!" She screamed with a hoarse voice. Shouting and shouting as she crawled out from under rocks, throat wailing before it shattered. The tower they confronted Pilliwickle in had collapsed. By all rights she should have died. Her panicked, delirious, delusional mind could not conceive of the fact that she was alive. Not when Hermione, her sweet girl, was nowhere to be found. She dug in the rubble until her fingers bled. Stumbled about on her injured ankle until the truth had to be acknowledged.

Hermione Granger was gone. With Pilliwickle gone it would be any day now until Ireland fell to the Serpentine Palace. Thatcher was dead as well. Hermione was dead. The truth of it ached. She sobbed into the ruins of Cashel, and would have continued to do so for a day and a night. If not for the voices and footsteps that started clattering across the wasted space. A peek over a patch of crumbling wall revealed the glittering green uniforms of BWD Aurors and soldiers. Capture or suicide. There was no other option. They would assassinate her like the rest of the Windsors or use her the same way Pilliwickle and Thatcher had intended on doing. Ruby had lost too much to keep going; This was a blow that simply could not be overcome.

All the years of sucking cocks so Hermione could eat. Learning how to read. Helping Hermione to purge BWD of monstrous men. All of it had been for nothing. She was crushed and there was no going back.

Though never having been particularly pious there was something to be said for God's intervention. It came in the form of a long lost friend. One moment she was debating how best to end her suffering. The next a familiar, purring friend sat at her feet, rubbing against her bloodstained legs. Despite all odds, Crookshanks was sitting there. She wondered for a long moment after picking the little terror up and squeezing him in her arms at how it was even possible. Was she hallucinating, or had the universe given her some sort of sign in her most pathetic moment. Standing to both feet, Ruby gave a despondent glance over her beautiful girl's expansive graveyard.

Then she limped as quickly as possible into the surrounding treeline, avoiding detection by the advancing forces the best she could.

OOOO

Days melted into nights. Moons rose and fell. She marched her way along the underbelly of Irish wilderness as though in some sort of perverse pilgrimage. Crookshanks mostly led the way, in some cases he simply followed alongside her. The last of the Windsors worked odd jobs where she could for new clothing and food. Helping old washerwomen with laundry. Assisting fishermen on the sea. Whoring herself out in Cork. On the cliffs after having wandered south for so long she stood and contemplated death again. Staring out beyond the Shield at ships, brooms, and enemies that looked to assault the isles from their most chaotic, disorderly part.

Ruby was about to jump too when Crookshanks began mewling. Biting at her pants and urging her along. To more madness presumably. Their destination was still as unknown as it had been the moment they left Cashel. Still, for whatever reason, the girl followed. Pulling her black cloak further around herself, mourning hanging over her head like a sickness.

OOOO

She found herself in the abandoned city of Bandon not many days later. No one was around to tell her why the place was so desolate and empty; Ruby didn't mind the emptiness. So desolate was the young woman that it made her feel somewhat better to be in a place that perfectly mirrored her internal state. For a long time the young woman stayed in that sad town. Scrounging for food, drinking herself to death in empty pubs, sleeping in the bed's of long gone strangers. Until Crookshanks once again began to scrabble insistently at her, and she once again decided to leave.

The Bandon-Cork road was derelict of humanity. Not seeing even a quarter of the traffic it might have once been subjected to. In her travels of the land Ruby only found the homeless, unsavoury, and wilderness. Nothing bothered her. She wouldn't have cared much if something of the sort had come to pass anyways. At Innishannon things were much the same as they had been at Bandon. Apart from one half-crazed man. He greeted her at the bridge. Rambling about a Banshee. Gurgling about death, ruin, and salvation. Urging her not to go onwards in broken gibberish.

The young woman decided to head further along anyway. Quite enthused by the prospect of certain death. More excited about something than she had been since standing on the cliffs of Southern Ireland. Crookshanks, oddly enough, did not seem to mind her decision. Either the cat was finally coming around to the inevitable, or he was leading her to something even still. Ruby only hoped that it was her certain death. Something quick and painless. The forest she entered did not seem dangerous at first. Close to the river still Ruby found herself compelled to stop and listen. Nothing chittered. There was nothing living around her. It was entirely suspicious. So when anguished screams suddenly became audible the muggle whore of a Princess decided to investigate. Winding through the trees as nighttime fell. Stumbling upon a quite macabre scene indeed.

Stakes lined the clearing. Bear heads dangled from the top of the sharp sticks. Symbols were carved in the dirt. Entrails hung from the tree branches above to create a sort of disgusting, patchy canopy. Cauldrons stewed on fires and littered the clearing, pressed into accumulated filth. Something sentient was clearly living here. Something that liked human flesh and body parts for decorations. Dug into the centre of the clearing was a pit. More wooden stakes keeping whatever was screaming inside. She moved ever closer, peering down and finding something strange indeed. A man with a shock of red hair, muscles rippling, covered in filth, stopped shouting as they regarded one another. "Help me," He called hoarsely, "Please fucking help me."

Lost in her grief as she was, Ruby could hardly have acted so monstrously as to leave him there. Besides, hopefully whatever trapped him there would kill her in retaliation. So it was that the man informed her he could travel up the sides of the pit and climb free as long as she removed the barrier. She was just strong enough to prise some of the makeshift bars out of the way. His broad shoulders almost didn't make it through. After pulling at him for a while they finally collapsed together in a heap.

Years of working as a whore left her completely immune to his nudity, though he seemed embarrassed by it. Cupping his large cock and balls in both hands after they stood to both feet. Crookshanks mewed and sniffed at the encampment as though wanting them to leave immediately. "We need to leave Miss…" The handsome, rugged man said as they stood there breathing heavily.

"Ruby. You should probably leave, but I have no intention of doing the same." She answered in a dismissive tone. "If you wouldn't mind, promise to take my cat. His name is Crookshanks. He deserves a very good, very happy life."

The man blinked at her. Blue eyes quite the picture of befuddlement. "Are you crazy? Haven't you heard of the Bandon Banshee? It is almost nightfall. It will be back."

"I am not crazy. I am tired, and maybe I want to meet this Banshee." She answered easily enough.

"It won't give you a quick death," He finally threw some convincing logic her way. "Kills are harder for it to come by now that everyone knows to stay clear. The thing will lock you in this pit, terrorize you for months, and torture you in unspeakable ways. Trust me." She considered his words. Deciding easily it would be better to escape, foist Crookshanks off onto this stranger, and head back to the cliffs. They fled the way she had come; Towards the river. His muscles rippled from his shoulders down to his glorious arse as he moved expertly through tangled undergrowth. Then night fell and everything went to hell.

A scream echoed through the air then. Unlike anything Ruby had heard before. Even Crookshanks trembled from where she had wrapped him around her shoulders. "It knows I am gone," The ginger hissed, "We need to run for our bloody lives now." They did. Obviously. However, it turned out that Banshees could fly. They were by the river when the thing came erupting out of the treeline in an explosion of wind and leaves. Exploding into the earth several metres from them with disturbing rapidity. Ruby eyed her, or it, carefully.

The womanly figure wore a crown of disturbing origins. Finger bones poked out in imitation of spikes. A skull dominated the central structure. Eye holes peering desperately down at her. The woman herself seemed not to be entirely human after all. Silky black hair hanging down to her buttocks. Towering over most men in height. Skin a mottled green where it peeked through a hole-ridden tent of swirling, black fabric. The cloak about her shoulders was one of human flesh. Dark holes glanced with far too much knowingness at Ruby and Charlie where eyes ought to have instead.

"Bloodguzzler is my name," A voice whispered in her head, though no sounds came from her body. "Not many princesses have put themselves in my way." Crookshanks hissed at the thing violently. No longer trembling from his perch.

The man looked between them carefully. "Is it talking inside of your head?" He asked in a tremulous tone, "Ignore it. We have to jump in the river now."

"Give me the wizard. We can share him in kind. Take our delights however we might. Together." The thing continued on.

"You're a wizard!" Ruby hissed in a disgusted tone, stepping away from him. Fingers clenching into fists. Crookshanks leapt from her shoulders and curled around his feet. As though to let her know who he thought was the worst enemy there. The wandless, naked wizard, or the Banshee bitch that just so happened to be named 'Bloodguzzler.' Ruby had gone for so long without caring about danger that her brain simply could not discern what the right course of action was here. Wizards were cruel, corrupt, genocidal rapists and reavers. She hadn't met a good one apart from Hermione, but nothing good had happened to her sweet girl.

"Ah, your friend, so powerful, 'tis true," The thing had the voice of something that had lived a long time. Perhaps too long even. "She is alive. I sense here on this earth even still."

"Where?" Ruby snarled out, walking closer to the Banshee even as the man protested. "Tell me now or I'll fucking-."

"What?" It tilted that crown of bones her way as though amused. "You'll do nothing but listen to me now. This wixen thought to tame me, conquer me, rob me of my woods. Yet he found himself in a pit. The people of Bandon and every village in between thought to scorch me out. Yet now I wear a crown of their bones. My forests will grow; Those who would seek to molest them stand no chance. Who would you assist? An escaped man wixen, or the one who can give you everything you desire?"

"Everything?" Ruby breathed out shortly. Sorely tempted, though not quite sure if this Banshee could truly deliver.

"Everything and more," The creature rasped, "This lad is strong. In magic and will. His seed will give me an army of children to do my will. His seed will give you a son of royal and magical blood. His wand will light the way of my kind. I can see it as plainly as I smell the air. Our children joined in blood and common cause. These woods would be their castle. My song would be their sword." The imagery painted a grotesque picture. This was unnatural. The question of why she wanted it, even for a split-moment, would haunt Ruby until her dying day.

"You made a mistake." She smiled coldly, finally answering the offer. "You told me Hermione, my girl, is alive. I don't need a song or a son. Nor will I ever find her in these woods." With that, in a moment of adrenaline-fuelled savagery, the woman ran forward. Crookshanks seeming to approve. Charging right along after her. It seemed that the Banshee was not used to such bold, direct attacks. For the knife that Ruby had smuggled from Bandon in her pocket was easily jammed into a rib. Crookshanks was a blur of orange as he utilised astonishingly sharp teeth to attack the giant monster's ankles. In the very brief tussle Ruby managed to knock the crown of bones onto the grass below. Then she was smacked away easily enough. Vision going black for a long moment.

When her consciousness returned to her body the young woman observed as the thing advanced on the naked wizard. He was drawing in the mud with a stick like a lunatic. The mottled-green jawline of the Banshee dropped as the mouth of a snake might have so prey could better be consumed. Ruby knew that whatever was about to happen wouldn't be good. Then that stick glowed a shining white as he chanted in some obscure language and jammed it into the ground. With a ferocious cry the naked, strapping warrior thrusted the magical stick into the Banshee's wide-open mouth.

In an explosion of purple light, Bloodguzzler was no more.

OOOO

"The Irish Ministry used to take care of Banshees. Even when they were resisting Riddle." Charlie Weasley explained over a cup of mead back at Innishannon. Firelight played off his hair as he rubbed at the heavy bags that lined his eyes. "Then the Ministry fell. Pilliwickle wasn't keen to help regions that abstained from directly joining his cause. Young men started to go missing by scores. The muggle women tried to storm the forest with pitchforks. They failed miserably. The Banshee was then free to venture forth from that awful forest. She wiped out whoever was left."

"So," Ruby still didn't fully trust him, "Why would a wizard ever go anywhere near that place?"

"I work on a dragon reserve." He grimaced bitterly, "Or I did. Until a pack of poachers broke through the wards. The Macfusty Clan- they have always minded the Hebridean Blacks- gave as good as they got. It is a bit north of here. The poachers gave me and some of the Macfusty lads to the Banshee as some sort of sick, territorial tribute." He shuddered, "I was a plaything for that monster for months. I'm only lucky you came along and gave me enough time to work some runes into the stick during that fight. Picked up that trick during my mandatory two years service in the BED Navy."

He was clearly not attracted to women. After years rutting with men Ruby could tell who would break down while trying to desperately perform the deed. Those ones were dangerous; Not men who simply liked men, but the ones who were repressed. It made her feel easier around him though. There was one less thing to guard against him which brought her mental threat levels a bit lower. Perhaps that was the only reason she dared to remain near a wizard. "Is Hermione your daughter?" He finally asked, shifting in oversized clothes which they had stolen from the abandoned village.

"As good as," Ruby answered him for whatever reason. Crookshanks had more than proven he was no ordinary cat. Hermione was alive, and she only knew thanks to the beloved, little terror. Even still he lay purring in Charlie Weasley's lap, as though to let her know the wizard could be trusted. She hesitated, "Hermione is a powerful witch. Not even eleven yet. Everyone wants her. Justus Pilliwickle kept us trapped in Cashel for months. She managed to best him in some sort of duel. I was barely conscious when they brought the whole place down on our heads."

"Pilliwickle is dead?" Charlie repeated slowly, "One of the most powerful magicians in the world bested by a little girl?" He whistled slowly. "I've read theories. Some claim that the complete erosion of the International Statute of Secrecy is changing the world. Making magic more potent. Even during global war there has been an explosive growth in the global population of dragons." She almost rolled her eyes; All this man could talk about was dragons. "Point is," He seemed to remember who he was talking to, "I believe you."

"Thank you," Ruby nodded at him, "But that doesn't help me find her."

"Well, I reckon it could be said that I owe you more than I could hope to repay." Charlie grinned at her. "I have no wand, and no friends left in Ireland now the MacFusty Clan has been done in. If I did I could see about helping you locate her."

"I could walk miles of Ireland and not find her." Ruby admitted. Inspiration struck quickly, though it wasn't necessarily something she wanted to take the time helping with. "How many poachers attacked the MacFusty clan?"

"Twenty, though I'd say their numbers were cut down to six wizards at worst."

"Even if we walked somewhere that sells wands, you were naked when I found you, and my muggle-standard currency is worthless when converted to wizarding currency." Ruby decided. "No one will care if a few poachers meet the sticky end they deserve. I say our best bet is to strategize on the way north of here, and raise some hell. You can make some more fancy sticks, yes?"

"I have a few tricks up my sleeve," Charlie grinned.

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Next Chapter: The Demon at Lough Derg