Disclaimer: I don't own Harry Potter but when I'm rich and famous my work too will become a theme park.
Sage simply gaped, it wasn't possible, Fenrir Greyback in St Mungo's! Never mind the blond Death Eater, how the hell had he gotten in? And how did he get Katie in a hospital corridor? This wasn't happening, it couldn't be! Even after the last week Sage refused to believe it, no not possible, nope, no way, not real!
But there was that little voice in his head saying it has to be, it has to be real. He expected a trap but not this, never this. With that thought came a paralysing horrific surge of fear and along with it a sudden unexplainable rage within him, red hot terror and ice cold anger. He shook violently.
Then, looking up, he saw Penelope's face besmirched, the gag cleaving her mouth open, tears flowing freely staining everything with distress and the pain evident on her face , her nose wrinkled trying to withstand. He saw Katie in her place. Rage won the battle inside of him and he raised the wand.
"DIE, YOU BASTARD! REDUCTO" He bellowed aiming at Fenrir as he closed the door. The blond Death Eater jumped in the way, swung his wand and deflecting Sage's spell. It hit the bed, slamming through it destroying it utterly and causing the wall to shake. Suddenly there was dust everywhere and no one could see a thing. Sage blind with dust and rage hurtled forward.
"Expelliarmus" someone said and the wand flew from Sage's hand but he didn't care. He saw a shape, a figure, a face and lashed out as hard as possible. The punch collided with a jaw and there was a crunch. Both jaw and fist broke. Sage cried out at the sudden pain in his hand and then a fist appeared amidst the swirling whiteness and collided with his cheek.
"Stupefy" came from two voices in front of Sage and both spell slammed into his chest and he was shot across the room and the whiteness was replaced by black.
Sage regained consciousness. The black faded to a dark grey and then came colour, though the world was spinning and was fuzzy. Sound returned and he could hear muffled dialogue.
"You got to hand it to the kid, two stunning spells to the chest and he still gets up from it!"
"Little bastard, I ought to rip him to pieces." Came the unmistakeably growl of Fenrir.
"You know the Dark Lord would never forgive you."
"I'll settle for his girlfriend" Fenrir rasped manically "I'd love to sink my teeth into that fresh young skin"
There was a squeak from somewhere, but Sage couldn't work out where exactly, everything was a blur but he just make out three shapes. He tried to move. Then came the pain. It was as if a bomb had left a crater in his chest, a mixture of numbness and seizure. He doubled over, coughing and wheezing his chest hurting more every time. The black returned.
When he regained consciousness for a second time, he felt much better than the first. His vision and hearing were back to normal though his head throbbed and his chest pain was more than a simple ache.
Looking around he could see that the three Death Eaters remained in their earlier positions; that being the blond man sat on the armchair rubbing a healed but evidently sore jaw; Fenrir slumped against the wall, which now donned a large crater and the Animagus sat in a rather cat-like position on the floor next to Katie who was laid down, still bound, gagged and shaking but otherwise unmoving. Sage noticed that it actually was Katie; there was no trace of Penelope. It was only then that he realised that there was long black hair dangling in front of his own face. The Polyjuice potion had worn off. How long had he been out for?
"The boy is up" Fenrir said and the others looked at him, including Katie at which point Sages heart leapt in despair, "You had better not try anything else or the filthy squib will experience a painful end to its pathetic existence." There was a savage glee to Fenrir's voice.
"Now now Fenrir" the blond man said with that mocking ironic tone "that's no way to treat a guest, now let me introduce ourselves. My name is Claudius and this is my brother Legimin, I'm sure you're acquainted with Fenrir. We know a lot about you Sage Valentine, such as the fact that you are now about to help us a great deal."
"I'll never help you" Sage growled as he tried to stand up finding he was far too dizzy and nauseous and flopping down again.
"On the contrary Mr Valentine you've been helping us for about a week now, not that you would remember that." Claudius sent a knowing grin at his brother, "I must say I'm disappointed, you would make a fine disciple for the Dark Lord, all of that anger. No, ok perhaps you need some persuasion. Crucio" he pointed the wand at Katie. She began to roll erratically, she forced her wrists against the rope but they wouldn't budge, tears flowed down her cheeks and she screamed wildly through the gag. Sage felt as if his heart were being cut in two.
"No" he screamed tears appearing in his eyes. He staggered to his feet, collapsed and tried again, "No Stop, Stop"
Claudius however looked as if he were enjoying himself and had no intention of stopping. "Stop, what on earth for?" Sage saw the manic gleam of savage pleasure in his eyes, he meant every word he said "You can't possibly like this filthy little squib. Give me a good reason to stop."
Tears were blurring his eyes but Sage could see that both Legimin and Fenrir, especially Fenrir, had similar looks of pleasure at the wriggling girl.
"Stop" Sage cried "she's my friend, my friend, stop please stop."
"Your friend" Claudius cried to the obvious amusement of his associates, at the point Katie began to flip from side to side still howling in pain "Your Friend! I am disappointed! How can a pure blood like you befriend a filthy disgusting wretch who besmirches the name witch?" he kicked Katie hard in the stomach.
"She is! She is my friend! STOP STOP!" Sage pleaded.
"She is! She is my friend!" Claudius sang in a high voice, "Well lets see what she has to say about it shall we!" he bent down and removed the gag. Her scream was truly unbearable. Sage stumbled over to the squirming girl. She looked over to him with bloodshot eyes.
"Sage please" Katie screamed "Sage please help me. Help me please"
"I'll do it" Sage roared to the Death Eater "I'll help you, just stop hurting her please"
Claudius gave a satisfied smile but he still thrust his wand at Katie, she screamed and wriggled harder than ever.
Are you sure this isn't a ruse?" he asked babyishly.
"I'LL DO IT" Sage yelled. Claudius gave another satisfied smile and took his wand away from Katie. She stopped screaming and wriggling and lay shaking and sobbing, gazing with eyes full of tears up at Sage. Then her eyes rolled back and she lost consciousness. Sage put his still-damaged hand around her small, shaking abdomen and the other around her head and stroking her stained cheek with his thumb, pulled her close.
Claudius laughed "I thought dear, sweet Katherine might change your mind" Sage looked up to see him beaming "I should let you know that Bellatrix has told me it takes a long time to torture somebody into insanity, if you do not do exactly as I say, I intend to find out whether she tells the truth before giving her to Fenrir."
"What is it?" Sage asked, not taking his eyes from the girl in his arms wanting desperately to untie her, "What is it you want me to do?"
"Ahh to business then" said Claudius triumphantly reseating himself and still wearing the sinister grin, "take a look at this if you will". He pulled an envelope from his robe pocket and threw it to Sage. Sage grabbed the envelope and pulled out its contents, there were several photographs inside. The photos, all moving, all depicted a woman, her walking along a street, her practising spell work, her eating with associates among others along the same lines. Sage recognised the woman immediately, braided hair, pierced lip and an Aurors crest upon her robes (in a picture of her at some ceremony), a woman who he had last seen blasting spells at him…right before he allegedly murdered her partner.
"Recognise her?" Claudius smirked; Legimin had a deeply satisfied look on his face, "yes thought you might, her name is Miss Strangle"
Sage had a horrible feeling in the pit of his stomach as he asked "What about her?"
"Well you see dear Trixabell has become a bit of a problem and we would like her to be, shall we say, removed." Sage's eyes widened as Legimin gave a soft chuckle "Put simply, tonight Legimin will lead you to her home, he will remove all potential problems and will make sure the job is done, you will wait for her to return and kill her, understood?. We have no worries over how it is done; only she must die and you must do it. You will return to us at a location only Legimin will know. Doing so will provide us with enough restraint not to kill your little girlfriend and we will decide what to do after that."
Sage gaped. "But…But, I don't understand. Why do you want me to kill her? If you know where she is why couldn't you kill her? You know…you know that I couldn't...I couldn't do it, I couldn't even kill you when you tried to kill me the other day and what chance do I stand against an Auror? I don't understand, why me?"
"There are many reasons, none of which I am going to share with you albeit to say that it has to be you. And don't worry my brother is better at this than he looks." Claudius said.
"I I I couldn't kill anyone, I don't have…" Sage spluttered.
"You will or little Katherine will die understood?" Claudius cut in sharply, "Oh and I should warn you, any funny business and we can make her death very painful. Put it this way, Strangle will die if not by your hand then by one that knows no mercy and one that could make the affair much more unpleasant."
Sage looked helplessly around the damaged room, to Fenrir bearing his pointed teeth, to Legimin positively beaming with the anticipation of killing yet another Auror, to Claudius who stared at him expectantly, to Katie unconscious but looking more beautiful than he remembered her looking before; there really was no way out of this. But he couldn't kill, there was no way .But he had to help Katie, he couldn't just leave her with these three maniacs. He had no choice, there was no way to fight back without ending up like Dandlefield who was still sprawled out dead in the corner and he couldn't help Katie if he was dead. He could do nothing else; he had to do as they said. He owed no favours to a woman who had tried her best to kill him.
"Well what do you say Sage?" Claudius said "How much do you care for the filth in your arms?" There was only one answer and Sage knew it. Maybe he could stop Legimin while he was on his own. No there was no maybe about it; Sage was no killer, that's what he had to do. There was no other way.
"I'll do it" Sage replied darkly.
He had no choice. Kill or be killed.
"At the base of my spine I get a tingling sense something evil is about to commence, under the cover of a darkened sky 99 Death Eaters go by" - Draco and the Malfoys, 99 Death Eaters.
I thought that was quite fitting. I love wizard rock! Anyway as usaul reading this and reveiwing it is appreciated.
Next Chapter- Somebody will die tonight, but who?