Greyback and Padfoot

Chapter 29

Saturday, September 28

"Perfect. I can't see a thing," said Sirius, looking at the disillusioned selves of Fred and George standing before him.

"Do we take turns patrolling or—" came the disembodied voice of Fred, or George - he couldn't tell which.

"You both can stay together and patrol the left of the house and I'll take the right," said Sirius. "If anything happens—"

"We'll send a Patronus," came the voice of one of the twins. Sirius had to admit it was quite eerie.

"Right. Stay alert," said Sirius and then departed to the right side of the house. He cast the Disillusionment charm on himself and waited.

The Abbotts' house was an ancestral home and consequently, an old and large one. Hestia and Dedalus had cast the protective charms around the house that morning and Arthur had alerted Edmund Abbott about the threat to his family and given him the general idea of what the Order would do to protect them.

Edmund's sister-in-law, Joanna, had been murdered just weeks before and the whole family was mourning, including Joanna's daughter and Edmund's parents. The Death Eaters would probably follow Edmund when he came home from work and so it was essential that the family stayed put, so as to not alert the Death Eaters that they had already gotten wind of their plan.

If worse came to worse, Arthur had given them a portkey that would take them straight to the Burrow. Sirius hoped it wouldn't come to that.

He sat on the ground behind some bushes and waited patiently, wondering what Remus was doing at the moment. The full moon was shining bright above him and he felt slightly glum knowing that he wasn't with Remus when he transformed into a werewolf tonight. Since his legal acquittal, he was yet to accompany Remus on full moons. He made a promise to himself to do just that when Remus returned — after kicking his arse for doing what he did to Tonks, that is.

He froze suddenly when he heard the sound of a muffled yell and the next moment the Patronus form of a bear had charged towards him speaking in George's urgent voice, "We need help!"

Sirius transformed into his Animagus and ran as fast as he could to the other side of the large house. It took him almost half a minute to reach them; he quickly counted the presence of at least four Death Eaters surrounding the twins whose Disillusionment charm had come off. He switched to his human self and pulled out his wand and charged forward, stunning a Death Eater who had been caught unawares by his sudden presence.

This however, alerted the rest and one of them rounded on Sirius with a jet of the tell-tale green light of the Killing Curse. In the blink of an eye, he had conjured a circular wall of iron floating in front of him, which shook violently as it absorbed the Killing Curse before dissolving into thin air again.

Sirius shot a 'Reducto' at the man's feet and the ground exploded with dirt, temporarily giving him cover. Quickly, he cast a full Body-Bind but the man jumped away from the spell at the nick of time and ran towards Fred and George, who were duelling with the other two Death Eaters. Sirius aimed a Stunning spell at him but he dodged it and reached the Death Eater that Sirius had stunned earlier. Sirius swore as the man revived the fallen Death Eater and he jumped out of the way of two Killing Curses rushing towards him.

Sirius crashed hard onto the ground and before he could get up, he heard one of the Death Eaters yell, "Let's go! Greyback will be here any minute."

Sirius' eyes widened in alarm as he sat up and watched the Death Eaters Apparating away.

Suddenly, Fred yelled, "SIRIUS, LOOK OUT!"

Sirius already knew what would be behind him when he spun around. The grey werewolf was growling ferociously and bounding towards him.

He had just barely changed to Padfoot again when Greyback got to him, lunging and pushing him to the ground. Padfoot struggled against the werewolf's strong grip, his claws scrambling for release. Greyback was snarling; his jaws clenched and then opened wide as he reared towards Padfoot.

Suddenly, someone had thrown a curse at Greyback but it clearly wasn't effective as it simply bounced off. But, it had caught Greyback's attention. He snarled, looking around and bounded away from Padfoot and straight towards Fred and George.

Padfoot got to his feet and followed him, barking. Fred and George looked identically white as a sheet, the moonlight reflecting on their faces as they tried to run to safety. Greyback lunged but Padfoot had already leaped and pushed him away before he could reach the twins. Sirius became human again as he urgently said, "Go home. NOW!"

"We're not leaving you!" said George, his voice quavering even as he jutted his chin in defiance.

Greyback stood up, considerably larger than Padfoot, and advanced towards them menacingly.

"Get the Abbotts out of here, then!" yelled Sirius.

Just as Greyback lunged forward again, Sirius turned to his Animagus and met him halfway and it became a very violent fight between the two canines.

Padfoot saw Fred and George edging towards the entrance out of the corner of his eyes, the bear Patronus galloping inside the Abbotts' house.

Greyback snarled and scratched across Padfoot's forelimb with his sharp claws. Padfoot yelped in pain just when George yelled, "Sirius, they're out of here! Come on!"

Padfoot pushed Greyback away with as much strength as he could and galloped towards the twins, warm blood seeping through his forelimb. He changed to human mid-run and Fred (or George) had already gripped his uninjured arm firmly as they Apparated away with him.

oOo

Molly Weasley was cleaning up after dinner, her wand twirling in her hand as the dishes washed themselves. Fleur had already retired for the night and Bill, Charlie, and Arthur were chatting together at the drawing room. She was somewhat glad that she had Bill and Charlie stay in the Burrow instead of finding their own place like the twins had. Granted, both of them had left behind their careers in Egypt and Romania respectively and they were in war, but she still loved it when the Burrow had more than just Arthur and herself at home.

She dried her hands on a napkin and she joined the rest of her family in the living room. They seemed to be talking about some Order matters and she found herself grimacing in disapproval. Her entire family was in the Order and it worried her to no end to think what could happen to them. She had already lost both of her brothers, Fabian and Gideon in the last war and they had been part of the Order too. Though she believed in what the Order stood for, a very small part of her blamed the Order for what happened to her dear brothers. Of course, they joined the Order by their own will, but still, it was easy to blame rather than deal with the consequences…

She was shaken out of her thoughts when a bright, blue light glowed outside their window. Bill and Charlie jumped in alarm, pulling out their wands.

"What was that?" said Molly breathlessly as the frantic thought crossed her mind that it could be the Death Eaters.

"Arthur! Arthur!" came the worried yelling of a man and Arthur's eyes immediately widened in recognition.

"Edmund! It's Edmund Abbott."

Bill looked surprised and he rushed out of the door followed by Charlie and Arthur. Molly was startled when Arthur ushered in about four people who she vaguely recognized as the Abbotts.

"What's happening, Arthur?" asked Molly, unable to understand why they had suddenly materialized out of nowhere outside their house.

"Your boys! Arthur, they're still there!" exclaimed the man, Edmund. Arthur had gone white and Molly started to panic. "What do you mean our boys? Not Fred and George?"

"Mum, stop panicking. They'll be fine," said Charlie, who seemed to be struggling to stay calm himself

The elderly woman, Mrs. Abbott, who was tightly clutching a girl about Ron's age to her side, said, "We heard howling. We think there was a werewolf!"

Molly felt faint as she clutched her heart, which seemed to be hammering wildly. What in Merlin's name were they both doing?

Arthur stood up immediately. "Bill, Charlie, with me. Hurry!"

Both of her sons had their faces set as they followed their father out and before Molly could even ask them what was going on, a loud crack sounded followed by a dull thud.

She breathed a sigh of relief when she saw Fred and George, standing outside their door, trying to hold up Sirius, who seemed to have crumpled to the ground.

Charlie rushed forward to help. "What happened?"

Molly gave her sons a once-over and when she was satisfied that they were unharmed, she watched as Bill and Charlie helped an unconscious Sirius up on the couch.

She gasped on seeing his left sleeve, torn and drenched with blood, steadily dripping onto her carpet. She hurried over to help just as Mrs. Abbott too came forward. "I was a Healer. We need to clean the wound, quick."

Molly tore off the bloody sleeve with a Severing Charm and Mrs. Abbott cleaned the blood with a whispered 'Tergeo'. She heard the twins talking behind her, explaining what had happened.

"We were ambushed by four Death Eaters" said Fred quickly. "We fought them, but then they retreated because Greyback was there and it's the full moon tonight."

Molly gasped in horror. "You mean Sirius was scratched by a full-fledged werewolf?"

"He was in his Animagus form when it happened, you know that giant, black dog?" said George. "It was horrible to watch; Greyback was fighting him brutally and at some point, Greyback scratched him. He barely had time to get to us before we could Apparate."

"That is not good at all," said Mrs. Abbott as her wand sealed the gaping wound, fresh blood smearing around it. "One should never Apparate when you have a bleeding wound. It accelerates the blood loss."

"We had a giant werewolf on our heels! What else were we supposed to do?" said Fred irritably and Mrs. Abbott looked at him quite kindly. "It was not a reprimand, dear boy. I am merely saying that he has lost a lot of blood and is in dire need of a Blood Replenishing potion."

"I don't have any," said Molly, shaking her head. "It's not something I commonly keep in stock."

"We'll get it from St. Mungo's then," said George, indicating him and Fred.

"You are not leaving this house without explaining what it is you were doing tonight!" exclaimed Molly angrily.

"Dad will explain. Sirius saved us tonight, mum. It's the least we can do," said Fred with determination.

Arthur looked sternly at Molly. "Let them go, Molly. Sirius needs the potion and fast."

Molly pressed her lips but she nodded. She did understand that Sirius was in an emergency and no matter what her misunderstandings were with him, she would never deny him the help he needed.

oOo

It was late afternoon when Sirius woke up in a strange house he had never seen before. He blinked blearily, wondering what on earth he was doing here. He brought up his hand to rub his eyes, but then hissed in pain when his left arm stung.

He was baffled to see that his arm was bandaged heavily and felt quite sore.

"You're finally up then," came the familiar voice of Molly Weasley and he turned to look at the face of the older woman.

"Where am I?" whispered Sirius hoarsely.

"The Burrow, of course. Do you remember what happened last night?"

Sirius thought back and instantly it came to him. The Abbotts. Death Eaters. Fred and George. Greyback.

Sirius tried to sit up and asked quickly, "Is Fred and George okay?"

"They're alright. Thanks to you, Sirius," said Molly quite kindly as she summoned a throw cushion and placed it behind his back.

"Where are the Abbotts?"

"Arthur took them back to their house today," said Molly and she turned to enter the kitchen. "Bill, Charlie and Moody have gone too, to strengthen their protective enchantments."

"Look who's awake!" came the cheerful voice of Fred Weasley as he came down the stairs with his twin.

"You gave us quite a fright last night mate," said George, taking a seat beside Sirius.

"Here, Sirius. Drink this," said Molly and she handed him a goblet of potion. He raised his eyebrow inquisitively. "It's Blood-Replenishing Potion. You need to take it every hour for the rest of the day. You were badly injured last night."

"Mrs. Abbott said werewolf scratches can make one… um, unusual," said George uncertainly.

"Yeah. You're not going to turn into a werewolf on us are you?" asked Fred bluntly.

"Fred!" reprimanded Molly but Sirius smirked.

"If it had been you that was scratched last night, I'm sure we would have seen at least some side-effects. But since it's me, there's nothing to worry about."

"And why is that?" asked Molly curiously.

"Because, I'm an Animagus and I have much experience with werewolf scratches, thanks to Remus," said Sirius.

"Do you mean to say that if you're an Animagus, a werewolf can't turn you into another werewolf?" asked George incredulously.

Sirius nodded and Fred grinned. "I'm totally becoming an Animagus just for that!"

"NO, YOU AREN'T!" said Molly, shaking with suppressed rage.

Fred said pleadingly, "Oh, come on, mum—"

"You'll be really glad the next time a werewolf tries to bite us," pointed out George.

"YOU BETTER PROMISE ME THERE WON'T BE A NEXT TIME OR ELSE—"

"Alright, alright! We're not becoming Animagi. We'll just call for Sirius the next time we find ourselves in the company of a werewolf," said Fred, winking at Sirius.

Molly calmed down considerably and she turned to Sirius with a genuine smile. "Thank you for that by the way, Sirius. Goodness knows, they wouldn't have been alive if it wasn't for you."

"No problem, Molly," said Sirius, grinning.