Author's Note:

School: Ilvermorny

Year: Exchange 2, writing for Year 5

Word Count: 2,990

Theme for Ilvermorny: Not only did Bellatrix Lestrange lock the cup deep within Gringotts to protect it, she also set up boobytraps. Write about something that is excessively protected.

Mandatory Prompt: 1. [Action] Kidnapping

Additional Prompt: 7. [Genre] Thriller

Disclaimers: Pygmy Puff death. Bad Guy death. Some body horror elements.

Beta Love: Many thanks to Dhrish and FlickMadHatter for the beta help.

The Singing Bones
Ted Lupin awoke to a hand over his mouth and the tip of a wand digging into his throat. Slitted, golden eyes stared down at him. It took a few groggy moments for him to process what he was seeing. A black mask with pointed ears and strange golden markings obscured the face of the person holding him at wandpoint. A gloved finger hovered over his lips like a warning, reminding him to remain silent so as not to disturb the other passengers in the sleeper car.

He caught movement in the corner of his eye and his heightened senses detected the presence of other unfriendly figures. It was no use running or fighting, at least for the moment. The train thundered on into the night, and as he was marched through the deserted dining car, he tried to take stock of how many assailants he was dealing with. Three flanked him, while another marched ahead of him with a silence and sureness that told Ted he was dealing with seasoned professionals. Whoever this mysterious lot might be, they were experienced. He had been allowed to keep his wand. His rumpled robes were thrown over his pajamas, and he knew his hair was more frightfully on end than his godfather's. It was only when the robed and masked kidnapper before him threw open the service door at the back of the car and leapt out into the frigid, moonlit night that Ted found himself balking at the precipice before him. A steep, snow-covered drop-off lay only a few feet from the tracks. Ted's breath clouded in the air, his hand tightening on the lip of the door to hold himself back from what seemed an imminent, icy death.

A gloved hand cuffed him hard enough that he instinctively moved to protect his head. As he did, another hand firmly pushed him out of the train. For a moment, Ted felt as though he was suspended in the air. Then a hand wrenched his arm, and he felt a familiar tug deep in his magical core as a portkey activated.

After that, there was only darkness.

"Get up, Lupin."

A rough, yet somehow melodic voice roused Ted from where he lay sprawled out on his back. He sat up carefully, his hand still grasped so tightly on his wand that his fingers cramped. The kidnapper sat on their haunches, mask tilted to the side slightly, giving the appearance of an inquisitive demonic dog.

"What are the terms of my release?" Ted said, his voice gravelly with lost sleep and stifled fear.

"So you realize you are our prisoner, then." The answer was cool and even.

"You're not the first to try and take me," Ted said, a grin stretching just a bit wider on his face than a grin ought. "The first time, I was only a few years old. Did you know that when my godfather was done with them, they were begging for Azkaban?"

The figure stood and stepped back just a little. "Your godfather is not here. And you are now an adult, stretching your wings and finding yourself, are you not? You've been terribly lax about sending them postcards on your travels, but then again, isn't that just so typical of young men?"

Ted could hear a slight accent, but couldn't quite place it with the slight muffling effect of the mask, and, he suspected, a voice distortion charm.

"What do you want, and how certain are you that you will not regret it?" he said, feeling his eyes bleed from icy blue to wolfish amber in a smooth and practiced motion. He called upon the anger that had served to scare away even the staunchest bullies at Hogwarts, and allowed his lips to twist further and further up his cheeks until his face nearly split in two. He winced as his newly-sharpened teeth nicked his gums.

The figure held up a finger. "One job. That is the price of your freedom."

"What if I say no?" Ted allowed his nose to elongate until his face was a terrifying parody of the jackal mask that his adversary wore.

"I highly recommend that you avoid doing so, if you value your life," his captor replied, pulling out a small box from a hidden pocket and placing it down on the floor. "Open it."

Ted slowly did as he was told. Inside, a small pygmy puff cooed and snuffled.

"What—"

"AVADA KEDAVRA!" shouted his adversary, drawing a wand with lightning speed, and the creature fell horribly still. "You will not say no."

Ted had the presence of mind to wait until his captor left the room before he began shaking uncontrollably, the wretched husk of the fluffy creature cradled in his hands.

"Get up. We're here."

Ted was roused from the bored stupor in which he'd fallen by a swift kick to his boot.

"Where are we?" he asked, brushing himself off.

He noted that the masked captor who'd come to retrieve him was shorter and a bit stockier than the previous one, but the voice was nearly the same. The markings on the mask were slightly different. Ted resolved to commit each to memory.

"Eat this." A roll of bread and a small block of hard cheese was thrust into his hands. "There's a toilet this way. Don't try anything funny. We put a hex on you. Any pain you dole out comes back to you threefold."

Ted nodded, taking a bite of the bread and chewed as loudly and annoyingly as he could. He ate quickly, as he was famished, and washed up as best he could in the cramped room that passed for a toilet. Though he still had his wand, he could feel the sensation of the wards covering every possible egress into the building in which he was being held. He could not send his patronus, nor could he charm a small bird from paper and cloth to carry a message to the authorities. It was up to him to find a way to escape. He had no delusions about his predicament. A group of secretive criminals such as these would have no qualms with disposing of him once he had served his purpose.

"Ah, come in. Thank you, Sia. I can brief him on his part."

The figure that stood facing the mantle at the far side of what appeared to be a massive study was distressingly familiar. Ted's fingers dug into the handle of his wand and tried not to think about the tiny scream he'd heard as the pygmy puff's soul was severed from its body.

"You may call me Aon. I am the head of the Jackal Syndicate and it is only my word that enables you to draw breath. Are we understood?"

"Yes," Ted replied, his lips curling back unconsciously into a feral snarl.

"It is well known fact that you are an accomplished metamorphmagus," Aon continued, as though they were talking about his career prospects. "And, if memory serves, you have a very specific skill set that we require."

Ted could feel long, canine teeth growing into a mouth that was not designed to hold them. He wanted nothing more than to lunge forward and sink his fangs into the hated being before him.

"Yes, yes, very good." Aon clapped as though Ted's fearsome display was some sort of parlor trick. "However, what we need is for you to become a very specific man. One you are familiar with."

Ted looked at the photograph on the table before him and nearly swore. "You must be joking."

"I assure you," Aon said, those golden glowing eyes fixed on Ted with laser precision, "I am deadly serious. Your training begins now."

Ted walked into Gringotts Bank utterly transformed. He led four white billy goats by their necks. Everyone's eyes were on Ted, and though he mentally tried to signal his distress without being obvious about it, the only glances he received were ones of disgust or amusement.

"Aberforth Dumbledore, here to access my vault," Ted said, doing a perfect impression of the bartender who'd come to substitute teach classes when other professors were out sick. Ted had become an expert in mimicking the grumpy old man, and when the Headmistress had let slip the fact that his mother had done much the same to imitate and mock her old Potions professor while at school, it had only increased his desire to perfect his craft.

The goblin teller had Ted complete a few basic identity checks, which he passed easily. Then, they had him load the goats into a special container, which would be transported to the vault separately. Ted still had plenty of more tests to pass, and after the grueling week he'd just spent learning how to seamlessly pass for the remaining Dumbledore, he was up for the challenge. As he rode down in the minecart with the goblin attendant, Ted held onto his transformation even as the spelled water crashed down upon him several times, and he was at one point expected to speak a passcode in Latin to access the Dumbledore Wing of the bank, which was so cavernous and long that Ted would have forgotten how to get to the correct vault had he not been drilled incessantly by his kidnappers. He finally found the door and laid his hand against a disk, which warmed against his palm and checked each whorl of his fingerprints. How the kidnappers had gotten full hand-prints of Aberforth Dumbledore was a mystery, but it had taken nearly a full day for them to force him to memorize their shape.

The door to the vault opened on well-oiled hinges, and Ted stepped inside, his hope of escape turning to dust in his throat. The criminals had already changed back to their usual forms and were sitting in the box with wands at the ready. Ted didn't know how they had discovered that vault cargo was not subject to the same scrutiny as patrons, but the ruse had worked.

The plan would be for them to disguise themselves as different goats on the way back up, which would be easy because Aberforth had built a goat paradise in his vault. There were walls for them to climb, grass magically grown underground, and all manner of enrichment as well. Food was dispensed automatically from charmed conveyor belts on the far wall. The vault itself was enormous. To the side of the goat paradise, he could see a separate little alcove and a door that glowed with wards.

"Come now," Aon said, threatening. "Time for your grand finale."

Ted's wand was beginning to slip from his sweaty palm. Holding this transformation for so long was beginning to take a toll on him.

Ted was no curse-breaker, and the wards were being handled by two Jackal Syndicate members, but there was something that Aon wasn't telling him, and he was beginning to expect it was yet another nasty surprise.

Finally, the wards were defeated. Ted's body ached to be itself again, even as the goats surrounded him, viewing him as their benevolent keeper. Ted found himself in slightly higher spirits at this show of affection, but he knew that it wouldn't last.

"It's time." Aon beckoned with a threatening wand towards the door as it swung open. "You will go inside and bring the box to me. Then we shall leave, and your part in this will be over."

Ted noted how his kidnapper had dropped the lie about letting him go free. Things would indeed be over for him if he did not find a way to escape.

"You have no idea what consequences will befall you because of this," he said, eyes defiant.

"We have planned for every eventuality," Aon replied. "Now, go."

Ted steeled himself and walked slowly into the darkened room, lighting the tip of his wand so he could see more clearly. Inside the vault, there were many things stacked haphazardly and covered in a thick coat of dust. It was obvious that only one part of the room was ever used regularly.

He raised his wand to see an intricate shrine before him. A framed picture of a young, smiling girl with her family, a comb, stuffed teddy bear, and a folded dress with matching parasol were all placed lovingly around a solid-looking box. The sides were inlaid with mother of pearl and abalone in the shape of swimming seals and dolphins. A name had been carved in the front and small gems lovingly set into the letters so that it glittered when Ted raised his light to look at it more closely.

"Ariana," he said, his voice muted in the dim, flickering wandlight.

He stepped forward, his hand outstretched towards it, but something deep in his magical core stopped him. It felt wrong somehow. He looked down and saw that someone had painted a dark blue ring around the shrine. His foot was pressed against the far edge of the mark, and his fingers, which were outstretched over it, felt as though they were vibrating with a strange intensity that he'd never felt before. It was almost as though it were singing at a very specific frequency that he couldn't quite hear, but could nonetheless sense. This was different than sensing hexes, wards, or enchantments. His grandmother had told him that wizards with his ability were more strongly attuned to sensing magic because of how much it took to physically change one's body, and he supposed it was true.

At that moment, however, his body was telling him, very clearly, to keep away.

"What is taking so long?" Aon's pointed jackal mask was peeking through the doorway.

"There's some sort of spell on it," Ted said.

Aon gestured, and the other two figures entered to examine it. They didn't seem to notice anything as they stepped over the painted line. Soon, however, Ted could see that they were panting with effort, and one collapsed to the floor. Another one of Ted's captives came in to grab the fallen figure as Ted stood to the side with a bad feeling in his stomach. As they lifted the sagging robes, they seemed to flatten oddly and golden butterflies made of light burst from the sleeves and throat of the robes. The mask fell to the ground just as the second captive collapsed, a similar change suddenly coming upon them. The helper stood next to the box dumbly holding the empty robes and glanced at Ted, the glowing eyes betraying nothing as they too sagged inward and another bright burst of light and wings shot into the air leaving three empty sets of robes and masks on the floor.

A familiar sharp wand tip pressed into Ted's neck. "Now it's your turn. Go and get the box."

"There's something wrong with it. You saw what it did to the others," Ted said, wincing.

"It must be some sort of spell attuned to the old man. Fix your face and get it!"

Ted took a deep breath and closed his eyes. He took a step forward over the line and his magical core thrummed like a tuning fork. He could feel something in the air pulsing like the rotating lamp of a lighthouse, searching for something to resonate in kind. Ted ignored the pain of the wand jabbing him and the hot, angry breath of his captor. He ignored everything except for the sound of the magic as it called out and searched for an outlet.

'I cannot lose myself,' he thought to himself, even as he felt the energy pulse through him, changing him.

What burst from Ted's robes and tore the jackal mask off of Aon's terrified face was not a wolf, nor was it a crocodile. It was not a snake, nor was it a massive bird of prey. There was something in the monster that Ted had become that perfectly embodied every possible nightmare of tearing teeth and rending claws, and it delighted in its terrible purpose.

Ted awoke with a start, his clothing in tatters and the carnage of his mindless rampage nearly erased by the earnest nibbling of the goats.

"It's a good thing that goats truly do eat anything," said a familiar voice. Ted looked up, baffled, at the face of Aberforth Dumbledore, who was closing and warding the little door.

"I feel ill," Ted croaked, touching his lips. His fingers came away bloody.

"It'll get better in time, Teddy," Aberforth said, offering a hand. "C'mon then. Your godfather is waiting. We need to get you to St. Mungo's."

Ted looked at the door fearfully, as though expecting to see the box burst through at any moment of its own volition. "What is it?"

Aberforth trailed his fingers against the door and smiled sadly. "When a magic core is damaged, it doesn't stay where it ought. It seeps into the bones and the blood. The core hungers for more, but it can never replenish itself. Eventually, it consumes the body, and all that's left of the one you love are bones."

"Ariana…they're your sister's bones?" Ted shivered.

"Aye, they are," Aberforth said, his brow furrowing. "But even bones can hunger."

Ted thought of the sensation of the power sending out tendrils as though it had a mind of its own. It had seen him and aided him in a way that he couldn't put into words, and there was a horrible part deep inside him that had liked it.

Aberfoth placed a gentle hand on Ted's shoulder. "Come away, now, lad. There'll be time enough to talk about this once we've got you sorted."

They turned their backs on the door and moved towards the vault entrance, but Ted thought he could hear a faint thread of the thrumming song still reaching for him and crying out that he should stay forever.