Chapter One - Taking the Prey
A split-piercing scream echoed through the wreckage, reaching him with violent, thundering animosity in the confined corridor. He quickened pace, stepping carefully between the mounds of rubble and dust and fallen debris, trailing through the remnants of the fight and turning a sharp corner - where the wall was stained with a spattering of blood - he moved on, keeping his gaze to the floor, fast approaching a broken door that hung by one hinge - with a gaping hole torn through the splintered wood, showing him flashes of a scene he did not want to enter.
But her shrieks beckoned to him and he lent against the doorway for support, his eyes travelling over the many hooded figures that were huddled over their victim like vultures sizing up their prey. Her sobs were met with piercing laughter, a cruel sadism that sent a shockwave down his spine. The leader of the group was lowering her hood to stare at the girl with fierce, heavily lidded eyes.
'The Dark Lord has plans for this one' she nudged the girl with her foot, who recoiled into a sobbing heap. 'He wants you to take her Severus… he believes you will be most merciless until the time comes' her voice was barely a ragged whisper, but each syllable intensified with sick excitement -
The circle of figures broke as he stepped forward-
The girl was beyond shock, her bloodied hand clutching her face as though to shield herself from the scene as he approached, towering over her. He raised his wand with a casual, almost lazy flick of his wand-
'Immobulus' he muttered, the girl fell with a thud and lay still, her eyes still moving and fixing on him with glazed panic.
He crouched and lent over his stunned, injured party as raucous laughter erupted from the circle of followers. He wrapped his cloak around her prone form, bundling her and lifting her with an immense strength few knew he possessed. A shudder passed through the circle and they scattered as he strode toward the door…
Had an innocent bystander crossed the scene of the burning wreck of house, straying unfortunately across its remnants, they would have met a vision that would have undoubtedly scarred them for the rest of their lives, a vision that would reside upon the inside of their eyelids and haunt them in their dreams. They would have witnessed a tall, hooded figure carrying a bloodied figure, illuminated in harsh green light from the flare of the ugly, neon skull that hung over the ruin, stride out into the open darkness and disappear.
They would have seen the arm drape from the bundle of stained velvet he held, with rivulets of scarlet blood run in streams down the delicate broken wrist, to the tips of the fingers flexed in pain, as the only sign of life within his arms.