So, I had a MCL strain and then I got sick. But, I'm going to try and catch up a bit here. I still need two more before next weekend, so we'll see how it goes. This chapter is a bit less funny, and a bit more terrifying, but you didn't think you could use Fiendfyre a bunch without shit hitting the fan, did you?

Anyways, as always, enjoy!

"Hey Daniel."

I looked up from my notes. Matthew was almost shuffling his feet in the doorway. "What did you do?"

His eyes snapped up to me, "What?"

I snickered, "You look like a firstie out after curfew."

He huffed at me, "I didn't do anything."

"All right..." I layered my tone with a touch of doubt, just to further tease him. "What's up then?"

"I need- Could you-"

I raised an eyebrow, "Can I finish your sentence? Unfortunately not. Spit it out."

He huffed again, but carried on without further comment, "Could you make another batch of fertilizer?"

"Ah." The awkwardness now made sense. "I can do that. I assume you still don't want to be around when I do?"

He shook his head, "Seeing it once was enough."

I shrugged. "Fair enough. You wanna pop me there and then come back for me and the fertilizer in a few minutes?"

He nodded, "That would be ideal."

"Awesome. I'm ready when you are."

He took two steps towards me as I stood up. I nodded as he grabbed my shoulder, and we popped away.

I sneezed a few seconds after we finished Apparating. "You know, it doesn't smell any better the second time around." I snarked.

He snorted, "It takes longer than that to get used to it."

"I hope to never find out." I muttered loudly enough for him to hear. He probably had a response ready, but I sneezed again. "Get out of here so I can start destroying this shit."

He followed my instructions, leaving me alone in the near pitch black darkness. It had been nearly a month and a half since the first burn, so although the weather was a bit warmer than last time, the new moon did not give any light output. I could still make out the big pile of compost I had to roast, and that's all that really mattered. One deep breath later, and my turtle friend was out to play.

It was at this point I realized that Matthew was right; I really do need to give him a name.

Names notwithstanding, the turtle dove through the waves of orange and red and quickly demolished the compost pile to fertilizer. As the pile reached nothingness, I had a momentary lapse of judgement and called out, "Should I give you a name?"

The turtle glanced at me sideways, gave a quick nod, and then jumped high before winking out of existence.

"Fucking hell." I didn't anticipate an acknowledgement of my question at all, so the nod left me somewhat reeling.

The polite applause behind me snapped me back to reality with all due haste. I spun around in a crouch and trained my wand on the intruder.

As my conversation with Matthew played in my head, I didn't exactly wait for the other person to start moving. I snapped off a stunner, two disarmers, an Incarcerous, and another disarmer right on the tail of the rope. Expelliarmus is a wonderful spell because it's somewhat transparent. In the non-existent lighting, my hope was that the very last cast wouldn't be caught by my opponent. I'm not the most powerful wizard by a long shot, but my wandwork is solid and I can silent cast exceptionally well.

The first three spells were eaten by their Protego. The ropes caused them to use a specific counter, which left them open to the last disarmer. Their wand flew behind them several dozen feet.

I kept my wand trained on them. "Don't go sneaking up on people. Merlin!" I kept my tone light so I could backtrack if needed, but my steady wand belied my feelings on the matter.

The response was soft and feminine, but carried easily, "We often sneak up on people, Mister Pond. It's in the job description."

That reply was almost definitely going to be bad for me. The "we" had me snapping off a revealing spell, which came back empty.

The person slowly reached up and took off their hood. Correction, her hood. "While your diligence is respectable, we have many ways of hiding."

"Well, fuck."

"You curse in front of a lady?" Her tone was light.

"I gather you're either a Hit Wizard or an Unspeakable. I'm sure you've heard far worse."

She smiled at my response as her wand gently returned to her hand. "Your logic is sound, Mister Pond."

"Not as sound as my wandwork needs to be to survive this." I muttered.

Her smile remained, "If we wanted you dead, Mister Pond, you would be."

"Going to Azkaban counts as 'dead,' in my eyes." I clarified.

She nodded once, "Again, I cannot fault your reasoning." She allowed a short pause, "We only seek to expand our knowledge. You can produce something no one has seen before, so we wish to study it."

"Forgive me if I'm a bit skeptical."

"You are forgiven."

My jaw dropped. I hadn't expected that. "Let's be frank here. It's Fiendfyre. There's not much mystery to be had."

"You control it remarkably well."

"So I've been told."

"We have a specialist in arcane magics. They wield Fiendfyre well. Do you wish to compare?"

"Not terribly." I replied mildly, "A Fiendfyre Duel doesn't sound like one that has two survivors."

"Hmmmm." She paused "Perhaps not. How about we do one at a time then?"

I raised an eyebrow. "I haven't exactly learned tricks."

"You have a familiar with your Fiendfyre. I don't believe any of us have seen that before."

I shrugged lightly, working out a kink in my still upraised left shoulder.

She frowned slightly. "You should also let us look at your shoulder, Mister Pond."

"Mungo's already did."

"We are not Saint Mungo's."

I sighed. "Don't you guys have anything better to do?"

She smirked, "At the moment, we do not."

"Wonderful. Can I at least see how many people are out here with you?"

"Of course. That was rude of us." She made a gentle hand motion, and several people melted into existence. Two, four, six, and her. There were six in a relative circle around me, no more than sixty feet away from me. The woman was at a mid point between two of the others.

"Yep. I'm fucked."

She opened her mouth to retort, but was drowned out but a very loud explosion behind me. I quickly rolled forward and the my right, away from the blast. I knew that I was never going to survive this, but damned if I wouldn't give it a shot. I fired out a wide area cutting curse at the four in front of me. It's classified as Dark, but they already had Fiendfyre casting on me, so the gloves were well past being off. The two at the edges fell to it, which just left me with the woman and the person who was directly to her left. I ignored her for the time being, since she didn't seem interested in fighting.

"Fire with fire!" The one Unspeakable yelled, and with it, he unleashed his Fiendfyre.

"Mother fucker!" I yelled. I didn't have a choice at this point. "Let's go buddy." I muttered to myself as my turtle took to the skies. The pull on my magic was a bit greater since there wasn't any available fuel, but my turtle went straight for the opposing blaze and slammed out a huge wall between it and myself. The waves were now absolutely enormous, reaching thirty to forty feet high. I felt the aggression of the Unspeakable's Fiendfyre ramming against my protection, but my turtle held. Then, the drain of my magic ceased entirely. The wall still held strong against the onslaught, but it didn't need my help to do so.

I couldn't help it. I cackled.

I spun back toward where the explosion was, only to see two bodies tied up and a very confused-looking Matthew.

My first thought was, "Oh. The explosion was him." But that thought was quickly demolished by, "My roommate took out two Unspeakables!" They were going to lock us away or toss us through the Veil in probably less than 24 hours, but damn if that wasn't the coolest thing I've ever been a part of.

"Um. Daniel?"

"Yep?"

"Are you just holding that wall there?"

Just stay nonchalant. "Yep."

"Bloody fucking hell."

I grinned, probably a little too wildly "Yep."

I heard that fucking applause again. "Mother fucker." I sighed.

I waved my turtle off. The wall dropped and he retreated towards me, but he didn't extinguish completely. The message of protection was clear, and I didn't feel like fighting the little bastard at the moment.

"Your skills are quite astonishing, Mister Pond."

"We took out four of your people. Quite pretending like we're going to live."

She laughed, "You took out four illusions. Only my partner and I are real."

Her partner was breathing hard. "You're a strong fucker, you know that?"

I raised an eyebrow. "I don't think my magical strength even reaches average, truth be told."

I was enveloped by a dim light for a moment.

"104. Slightly above average, Mister Pond."

The male Unspeakable's eyes widened, "That's one badass turtle, Daniel."

I glanced up, "What do you think? BaT, for short?"

I was given a slow nod before BaT finally winked out of existence.

"There. I fucking named him. Happy, Matthew?"

Matthew just stared at me. "Bat?"

"Yes." I nodded before turning back to the Unspeakables. "Did you get what you wanted?"

"We did, Mister Pond."

The man smirked, "You can relax, Daniel. You aren't using Fiendfyre."

"What?"

"In fact, I'm not sure it's fire at all."

"Are you insane?"

"I'm an Unspeakable." He drawled out.

"Fair point." I acknowledged. "What is it then?"

"It's a multi-faceted spell. It can devour plant matter into fertilizer and can drain energy from offensive attacks. Once it got ahold of my actual Fiendfyre, it sucked it dry and lived off the power for a bit."

"Where did you learn of it, Mister Pond?" The woman interjected.

I shrugged, "Old family book. It didn't have a name, incantation, or wand motion. It just spoke of a mindset, and that only a few would be able to use it."

"Does the book still exist?" She continued.

"Yes."

"May I scan your thoughts for its location?"

"As long as you're kind about it." I responded.

She nodded, "Bring the memory to the forefront."

"Done."

She snapped her fingers, touched a house elf that appeared for less than a second, and then the house elf popped away again. "Your brain does not hold images, Mister Pond."

"I know." I replied tiredly, "Transfiguration is a bitch."

The elf popped back with the book. She took it and turned to a particular page. She handed it to the man, who scanned the page and closed the book. He tossed the book to the elf (who popped it away again), took a deep breath, and cast.

Nothing.

He smirked a little, obviously re-centered, and cast again.

Still nothing.

He let out a loud laugh, "It's not for me, Daniel."

Matthew spoke up, "What do you have to do for it?"

The woman replied, "For the first cast to be successful, you must have no expectations. You must allow the magic to pass through you and form as it will. As such, very few are willing to give themselves up to magic. That is why I dared not attempt it. I specialize in... expectations." Her lips quirked up into a half smile.

"Oh fuck right off." I shot back.

Matthew gasped, "You can't curse in front of a lady."

"She's cultured the appearance of being a proper lady to keep people docile and willing to please. It's generally effective, I would imagine, but BaT lets me cut through bullshit."

Matthew's sputtering was drowned out by her laughter. "You refuse to comply, Mister Pond."

"I'm stubborn, and not a fan of being manipulated."

"Once again, sound reasoning, Mister Pond. Fang, please fix Mister Pond's shoulder."

"It's fine." My answer was unheard as he put a hand on my left shoulder. I felt a few things move around slightly, but I refused to flinch or wince.

"It's better than fine now." Fang winked at me and vanished.

"Good night, Mister Pond."

"Good night, Miss-"

"Shadow."

"Good night, Mistress Shadow." I intoned with a bow.

She laughter started mid-vanish, and continued to somehow echo around us for a few seconds. "We'll be in touch."

Mathew and I looked around for a bit, and then stared at each other. "Shall we?" I asked.

Matthew grabbed my other shoulder and popped us back to the apartment.

"What in the bloody hell was that?" He nearly yelled.

"I have no idea." I muttered. "At least we don't have to worry about it being Fiendfyre."

Matthew flopped down on the couch. "Thank Merlin for that."

"I'm fucking knackered." I commented as I nearly staggered towards my bedroom.

"Hey, Daniel?"

I glanced over my shoulder, "Yeah?"

"That fire thing was fucking awesome."

I smirked, "Your flash-bang was pretty good. Scared the shit out of me."

He leaned back on the couch. "I thought they were the Knights."

I raised an eyebrow. "You were ready to go 2-on-7 against them?"

He smirked, "It was 2-on-3 before the dust cleared, and that fucking turtle of yours should count as a person."

I snorted, "Maybe I'll get a picture of him."

"Go to bed, Daniel. You're being stupid again."

"Fuck off."