A loud explosion shocked the silent night. "What are we even doing here? In an abandoned Victorian Orphanage?"
"Quit your whining, Sandra. It's not that abandoned, by the looks of it", Bloodfang sneered, sending a spell at a window. It erupted in blue flames.
"Every time we go to battle, I leave behind my toys", Sandra whined.
"Appearances may be deceiving, when it comes to our archangel of Death. We have not fought for Cillian's Imperium Arcana in weeks", Marigold replied, sending a spell which blasted over the front gates.
Bloody, gory battle commenced once they were inside, the defenders giving them no quarter, yet they fell to the last man and woman.
"What are we even doing here, then?"
"You, truly, are the stupidest of the arbiters. Master's searching for something. Innit though?" Marigold told her, with disdain.
Bloodfang tore at man's neck, drinking the blood while killing another woman with his wand.
"Shouldn't be long now," he said, blowing up a barrel-full of a liquid in another room, through an open door.
"Is this it? I thought they'd pack more of a wand…" Marigold sounded disappointed the battle was over so quickly.
"Ministry Aurors can't defeat us, you think a bunch of Rosicrucians will?" Sandra replied, cleaning her hands in her robes.
"What are we searching for?" Bloodfang asked, searching through the rooms.
"We are not", Marigold said. "We are the…welcoming committee", She smiled.
Just then Azrail and Ernaline apparated in.
Azrail progressed through the building, killing a straggler or two. Finding the stairs to the basement he descended them speedily.
"Bloodfang, Marigold with me. Ernaline and Sandra, stay here", he told them, without breaking his stride.
After some one hundred twisting, white stone stairs, winding ever deeper into the Earth they came to a red-bricked dark-lit corridor with just the one door at the other end of it.
Two men guarded it, looking scared and hesitant.
Azrail, cloaked in his pitch-black hooded garment approached them with Marigold and Bloodfang behind him. Marigold in her long, white laced dress and Bloodfang in his red suit and black tie.
"Sanguinis effugium", he said, his wand pointed at them. In seconds they lay on the floor, drained of blood, but somehow still alive. Azrail stood above their scared bodies, looking down on them with anger in his eyes. "Only one person alive knows your pain, rest assured he will join you beyond the veil", He looked up, at the heavy metal doors behind the two dying guardians.
"Marigold do your thing", She studied the doors well, before she begun to remove protective wards and curses placed on them.
It took her a little more over half an hour. With a final tap of her wand silence reigned on the cold corridor.
She looked over at Azrail with a smirk, motioning him to enter.
Azrail extended his hand out, curving it over his head at the doors. "Confrigo!" The doors were blasted inwards, off their hinges, pieces of red brick flying everywhere.
Azrail entered the dark room, lit only by a single torch. It was dump and cold, colder than out in the corridor.
"What are we to find here?" Bloodfang asked, peeking inside.
"Not what, him", Azrail grabbed a man, lying on the floor with his back up against the wall and dissaparated.
They landed in a dark, moist room.
"Ready?" Azrail asked his twin sister.
"Always", she replied, landing next to him.
Azrail motioned with his head and Bloodfang forced the man to his knees.
"Where am I? Who might you be?" The man, a thin, scrawny, white-bearded man with cyan-ice eyes asked him with a heavy ascent.
Azrail kneeled in front of him. "There are more important matters to discuss. I have been researching the items the Old Gods left behind. I have been…consumed with desire to find them. You are the last of your order, I used my father's war to find them and kill them all. So, let us assume I have asked you some questions, you have done your best to lie to me, lead me away from my search, and I know you are lying. Shall we?"
"What order? What do you want from me?" the man asked, without fear.
"We shall not…crucio", The man doubled over from the pain, Bloodfang holding him from his nape.
"You would…dare torture one such as I?" Azrail, Bloodfang, Ernaline and Marigold were blown back, against the room's walls as the man rose to his feet. "You impudent children!"
"How can he perform such powerful, focused magic without a wand?" Marigold asked in awe as Azrail rose on his feet.
"Wands?" the man asked, in disgust. "Those who have drunk from the holy tree of life and knowledge need no such trinkets to use magic!" he said blasting Marigold to shreds.
Azrail laughed, sounding pleased with himself. "As I thought. Sister if you would, please."
Ernaline waved her wand, lazily and the environment around them dissolved, Azrail still kneeling in front of them and, on his hands and knees, doubled over from the pain.
"You are not the only one with tricks up your sleeves. Bloodfang, Ernaline. I need him alive, but I need him not possessing…hands or feet. Tenderize him. I'll be back later, sister and I have a job to attend to, one years in the making", Azrail stood up.
"It's time?" Ernaline asked him, exiting the room after him.
Azrail nodded with a cruel smile forming on his lips.
"The battle can't be going well for him", she stated.
They walked up some stairs and around a corner and inside a room bare of any furniture, but one throne-like chair made of bones and broken skulls with a skeletal dragon wing on either side of it, alight only by torches emitting purple, red and deep red flames.
Azrail sat on the chair with Ernaline standing to his right and in front of him, four meters away with Marigold to his left. He raised the hood even more, over his face, covering his forehead entirely, down to his green eyes contrasting his pale skin.
Screams echoed from below.
"Will you not wear it? We went through all that trouble to acquire it from Athens last year, I'd think you would in this moment", Ernaline asked him, in her usual apathy.
"I will when I am deserving it, soon", he replied, resting his hands on the chair's arms for a second before retrieving his wand. He murmured a spell, now resting his wand hand on his lap.
Not more than ten seconds later his father apparated on the floor in front of them, bloodied and looking tired, very tired.
Azrail said nothing, did nothing.
Cillian got on his hands and knees, panting. "What is this? Why have you not joined me, my children?" His voice strained.
"You have made many an error in this life, father. None, though as calamitous as assuming your interests and desires were also mine", Azrail replied, his voice a mixture of loathing and suffering.
"You are my son, created to facilitate the tasks I had in mind for you."
"Imperium Arcana was never my task, desire or want, father", Seething rage, bubbled in the surface, as Azrail tightened his grip on his wand.
"You fought for it! You will continue to fight for it!" Cillian continued to struggle not realizing the peril he was in.
"We did not fight for it. We created chaos, which helped hide my activities", Azrail explained. "Your gall, though, ends not there, father dearest."
"What other activities? You live to serve your brother, once he accepts my invitation and his destiny", Cillian tried to stand up.
"Tell me father. While you controlled that Adams bitch…did you use her to cast one of my invented spells on anyone? A Hogwarts Ravenclaw student perhaps?" asked Azrail, now shaking in rage.
"Your spells? What you created was never yours, it is for the…"
"Crucio!" Azrail bellowed rising to his feet. Cillian did not scream.
"In twenty years, father, in twenty fucking years you have not once called me by my fucking name.! CALL ME BY MY NAME!" Azrail teared up.
"Stop this nonsense, son! Don't force me to punish you, again", Cillian would not relent.
"You! You would DARE use my inventions! The arrogance! The gall! CRUCIO!" Azrail exploded at his father.
Cillian tried to stand up, after crucio wore off and cast a curse at his son. The other three had yet to move a muscle.
"Crucio doloribus!" Cillian fell back down on the floor, vomiting. "Accio wand. Confrigo deleo", Cillian's wand exploded in three big pieces.
"No, father. Crucio! You had your way, now it is my turn. The shadows no longer service my needs. Your shadow is not required or wanted. Crucio", Cillian lay on the floor, a mess of his own creation.
"Crucio! Crucio! Crucio!" Azrail unleashed on his father, before turning to his sister."
"Want to have some fun, sister? No one is more wronged or hurt by him than you."
Ernaline pointed her wand at her father, a wide grin on her lips. "Crucio animus!" Cillian arched his back, releasing a voiceless scream. "You would dare to possess my body? Oh, father will I have my fun with thee. Crucio conscientia!"
"Now, now I am deserving of it. I'll leave you to finish him off, take all the time you want, enjoy this. Marigold, come. We have work to do."
Ernaline cast a curse at her father. Then another and another.
In Hogwarts Dreogan woke up, drenched in sweat and panting.
"Fuck", He fell back on his bed where he remained, until it was time for breakfast some hours later.
He sat next to his friends, feeling tired. "You saw it as well?" He asked, seeing them just as weary.
Charles nodded, rubbing his eyes. "I felt the pain…vomited in my sleep…" His voice trailed.
"It was horrible…" Emerick confirmed. "How can a human being have so much hatred…"
"MY house's prefect thought I was being attacked, by how loud I screamed in my sleep", Claudia said, trying to sip some tea.
"I'm sorry you all had to go through that", Dreogan apologized, he felt even more horrible now.
"You didn't cause this, mate", Emerick tried to console him.
"Yeah, I keep hoping the Ministry will catch them, already", Charles said.
"What I'd like to know is why did we all see this? Azrail did not seem to know we were."
"He did not seem aware of us participating, no", Claudia nodded.
"There's something that's bothering me…what happens to me, now?" Dreogan voiced in a low voice.
"Hmm? You remain in Hogwarts?" Claudia replied, uncertain of what he meant.
"And during vacations? What if Azrail inherits everything and somehow, I can't pay for Hogwarts? What if I no longer have a house to go to? Can I even live with my mum yet? And what about you? It's been a month and you still haven't told me what happened…" Dreogan told Charles, before storming out of the Great Hall.
Charles and Emerick looked stunned, Claudia less so.
"Uhm…you should go after him, mate", Emerick told him.
"Even Emerick got that! What are you even still doing here?!" Claudia tried not to laugh. "He's the only cousin you have, go!"
"Hey!" Emerick said, not really offended.
"Right…" Charles run after Dreogan, catching up with him outside by the lake's shore.
"Wait, please!" Charles yelled at him. Dreogan stopped walking, keeping his hands by his sides. The sun was rising from beyond the mountains, bathing the castle in hues of red and orange, clouds reflected on the lake.
"I'm sorry."
"Why? Why did you behave as you did?" Dreogan asked. "I thought you'd be ecstatic we are not only friends but family, like I was…" He sat on the moist soil.
Charles sat next to him, his head lowered. "That's the problem…"
"You don't want us to be family?" Dreogan said incredulously.
"Yes…no…I don't want to have to share you with my brothers, okay! Everything I've ever had, I've had to share with them, and finally…finally I have a best friend, a brother just for me and now you are family and I…I just feel cheated", Charles said, sad.
"Is that it? You…that's just stupid! You are my best friend and that's not changing, doufus! You ain't got to share me with anyone, any more than you already did during the summer. Out of all the people that could have befriended me, you did! You did not because you knew who I was or for what I could do for you and your family, but because you liked me. Being family should be a wonderous thing, not something to make you sad. You showed me kindness and compassion when no one else would or had. If for no other reason than that alone I will forever be your best friend and there is no force in this galaxy that can change this."
There was a momentary silence.
"I'm sorry, mum told me much the same", Charles sighed. "You're right, I'm sorry and yeah us being related is great! Who would have thought!" Dreogan smiled.
"Yeah! Now I can learn all your lil' embarrassing baby stories!" Dreogan grinned from ear to ear.
"Don't you dare!" They laughed.
"Oh hey, it's Caladrius and my Bella!" Charles said, as Dreogan's Augurey and his brown, tawny owl landed next to them.
"Oh, it's a letter from mum about my birthday", Charles said, opening the envelope Bella had brought. "And yours? Aunt Hope?"
"No, I mean we mail almost daily, but this is from a lawyer friend of Claudia's father. Wizarding one", Dreogan replied, opening the white envelope sealed with red wax and a law firm's initials.
"Changing my name. I am no longer Dreogan Delphin Cadmus Gaunt Riddle Lestrange. I want to be Elario Felix Burton."
7