November 17, 2012

Author Note: Thanks to nagandsev for Beta reading and especially for encouraging me that my ideas are worth writing down.

I have had some help from Saava to find a more appropriate Russian pet name for Dolohov to use for Hannah. For continuity, readers should assume that Dolohov previously called Hannah "my suka" [instead of "my blyad]."

Warning: minor character's death; slight amount of gore.

Chapter 10

The Warrington boy interrupted Dolohov's cooing and shushing of Hannah's sobs. "You bitch!" Cassius shouted. "You barking, boggin bitch!"

Antonin held Hannah closer to his chest and drew his wand. "Stay behind me," he whispered into the frazzled blond hair over her ear before he gently let her go and stood in front of her. "Watch your tongue, Warrington," he growled in warning.

Marcus Flint lowered a glowing umbrella shield from his body. "Buggering shit! What the fuck just happened?"

"The slut exploded a bottle of Firewhiskey. Now give her over, Dolohov. We had her first, and I'm in the mood to punish her," Cassius demanded through his clenched teeth.

"Find someone else to maul. She is under my protection, and Flint will attest that I brought the girl—"

Marcus interrupted, "Blimey, Dolohov, that dragon summon was bloody fantastic!"

Hannah started to say, "He didn't summon it. The dragon—"

Dolohov spoke over her, "The dragon was simply a trick I picked up at Durmstrang."

"Simply a trick! Damn, that was brilliant. Listen, Warrington, give the man first dibs on the go-round with the bint. He bloody deserves it after that show."

As Cassius protested and Antonin threatened dire consequences, two men in heavy-booted feet clunked down the cellar steps. The gruff voice of Fenrir advised, "You've never seen Dolohov's wand work, Warrington. Don't incite him to a duel."

Scabior slunk from behind Fenrir, whistling through his teeth in amazement as he sauntered toward a browned-and-leathery-skin burnt body: that of Adrian Pucey. He kicked the lump of boy and muttered, "I prefer 'em raw, meself."

A weak moan issued from Adrian's crackled lips.

Hannah jerked her head up and then darted out from behind Antonin to kneel next to the boy. Dolohov restrained himself from hexing her out of anger and fear of what Warrington might attempt with the girl in the open.

"You're still alive," the girl whispered to the curled up body. "You're burnt all over! I thought the Firewhiskey would blow us all up. You're not supposed to be suffering. I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm sorry." Her renewed tears rolled onto Adrian's burnt skin and down to the blackened earth. The boy flinched in spasm, a residual effect of the Cruciatus curse.

"Oi, slut, get away from Pucey," Marcus seethed.

Dolohov shifted his attention from Cassius just in time to see Flint bare his teeth and cast a stinging hex at Hannah. She clutched her forearm to her chest. In the next moment, Antonin shot a cutting hex that slashed Marcus on his wand hand. This wand fell to the ground and his blood dripped onto it, while he howled in pain. Fenrir and Scabior quickly stepped back, wands in hands, surveying Flint, Warrington, and Dolohov.

Cassius sent a curse toward Antonin in a ray of weak chartreuse light, which Dolohov side-stepped with ease. Rather than following with an offensive attack on Warrington, Antonin cast a yellow jet of Protego at Hannah. She gave a start, her mouth dropping open in shock until she realized that her protector had not betrayed her.

Antonin gave her a wink and mouthed, "My suka. Mine." He deflected a curse sent by Warrington, and then another. Turning his attention toward the young Death Eater, he sneered and said, "You are too young to die a fool."

Fenrir agreed. "He's giving you a way out, boy. Take it before you go the way of the other idiots. Few have survived sparring wands with him."

Cassius snorted in contempt and said to Fenrir, "Dolohov's no threat to me. He's a has-been. Look at his filthy robes and crazy hair. Azkaban made him as deranged as the wife of Lestrange." He cast three jets of green-lit curses at Dolohov, gnashing his teeth when he saw how easily each was parried. In desperation, he raised his wand high and began to shout, "Avada—"

The words were cut off when Antonin's gravelly voice incanted, "Offensio рассечь!" A ray of purple light thrust into Warrington's shoulder and cut across his heart, all the way to the bottom of his opposite rib cage. Cassius gasped and looked down at the searing gash that cut open his robe and left a bloody trench in his body. He dropped his wand and then fell forward, his limp corpse smashing into the ashen floor with a sickening splash of blood.

Scabior grabbed Marcus Flint, encumbering the young man's arms at his sides. Despite his smaller frame, he clearly had the advantage of stronger muscles, and he easily overcame the clumsier man. "One dead is more than enough carnage between friends. Upstairs with you."

"I will hunt you down, Dolohov, and kill you," Marcus ground out between pursed lips as he tried to wrest out of Scabior's grasp.

Fenrir growled, "You have the making of a Snatcher. Stick around for the full moon, boy, and I'll turn you myself."

Marcus gave a maniacal grin, showing his crooked teeth. "I'd get wolfy to get revenge for Cassius."

Scabior dragged Flint up the cellar stairs. "Dolohov's untouchable, kid."

Hannah tore her eyes away from the spilled intestines and the pool of blood growing beneath Warrington's body. With a trembling hand, she lifted her wand in the air. A burst of white light shot from her wand tip, dispersing the Protego charm surrounding her. The ceiling glowed where the light passed through it. In the pub above them, there was a ruckus as several men jumped aside, knocking over chairs and smashing glass bottles of liquor. Hannah closed her eyes and began to chant guttural monosyllables, gliding her wand over Adrian.

Antonin grimaced and looked to Fenrir. "She's going to heal the bastard," he muttered in disbelief.

There was a shout from the elderly wizard Aberforth, who was now on the main floor of the pub. "Hell's knells. Who summoned this blasted chariot?"

Hannah looked toward the stairs leading out of the cellar. "It's here," she muttered before she levitated Adrian off the ground.

Antonin countered her charm, and the body of the Pucey dropped to the ground, resulting in his distressed moan. Hannah spun to face Antonin, her wand pointed at him.

Fenrir cleared his throat. "You saw what Dolohov did to the boy. Think twice before you make your man angry."

"My man?" Hannah snarled. "No murderer will ever be my man. I save lives, unlike those who take them. Speaking of which, I have to get this guy to a hospital before he dies, and no one is going to stop me."

"I killed Warrington because he was going to cast the Killing Curse on me and then rape and kill you. But I've killed for lesser offenses," Dolohov said with a cold patina of flat emotion. "Don't make the mistake of feeling sorry for a man who cannot defend himself or who makes poor judgment calls. Like the boy on the ground. He was in the wrong place at the wrong time. Let Pucey die."

"He deserves to die for refusing to let that other ogre of a man shove his penis down my throat, does he?" Hannah yelled.

Dolohov was calmly stepping closer to her, pointing his wand down low in a dramatic show of being harmless. His wand fingers twitched as be began a wordless spell to subdue the girl.

Hannah saw his hand movements and whipped her wand in a figure-eight motion. A silvery barricade of energy formed a wall between herself and Antonin. "I'm not stupid," she hissed at him. "Haven't you heard that even the small dog can hold a boar at bay?"

Dolohov lowered his wand at hearing her rhetorical question and peered at her in wonder. Fenrir chuckled and said, "You make for a charming 'small dog.'"

Hannah grimaced. "Go ahead. Call me a bitch. I'm getting used to it."

"No such thing, runt. If you know the pass-phrase 'the dog holds the boar at bay,' then you should consider us family, child. I can promise you this, young one: you won't be touched by a man again while you're here with me."

"We'll be having a chat, Greyback," Dolohov retorted with raised eyebrows and a smirk. He was testing the Abbott girl's magical barrier with his wand with little success in finding a way to remove it. "You won't be keeping me from my little suchka," he uttered, fully intrigued with the power of the magic before him.

Hannah shook her head to dash away her confusion at the sudden change in both men's demeanor. They were acting relaxed and even pleased with her. On the floor, Adrian began to wheeze, gasping for air. She turned her attention back to Adrian and whispered, "Mercy!"

A winged horse drawing a brilliant white chariot magically squeezed down the passage of the stairwell, flying into the basement, and alighted next to Hannah. Antonin was pushed further away as the shield of silver light floated to make room for the beast and its burden. The horse nickered at Hannah's hand, as they were clearly acquainted, and Hannah smoothed her other hand down the long bridge of its face while speaking in a hushed voice to the horse's ear. "Deliver this man to the hospital, dearest Valerie, to heal him of these burns."

Fenrir produced an apple and held it to the horse. The beast sniffed him and stepped back in hesitation until the werewolf knelt on one knee and spoke with reverence, "A gift, honoring the goddess Eir, who rescued me from death." Only then did the winged horse accept the fruit offered in his hoary hand. Satisfied, Fenrir stood and turned to the Pucey boy. He lifted the wheezing body and bit the young man gently on the wrist.

"Stop!" Hannah cried out. "Get your teeth off him!"

The startled horse brayed loudly and jolted forward, pushing Antonin further back behind the silver barricade.

Fenrir laid Adrian's body in the bed of the chariot as he explained, "When I was bitten, the physicians at Mount Lyfia Hospital healed me. My saliva has the power to heal and the power to kill. It won't prevent the women from healing him, but the boy must choose his own fate."

Hannah eyed him with suspicion, trying to decipher how the werewolf could speak in such a soothing voice. Her preconceptions of him as overbearing and malicious, the incarnation of evil, were now shattered and useless.

She stroked the frosty-snow mane of the horse. "Go now, Valerie, with speed," she urged the horse, and she then kissed the beast's nose. Stirring up a whirlwind as it turned, the horse flew up the stairwell. Then there was a quiet crack of the chariot's Disapparation.

Fenrir looked at Antonin, who was now pressed against the cellar wall by the silver field of energy. "You going to let him go or just make him suffer there all night?" he asked with a light-hearted nod toward the wall.

"Oh!" Hannah gave a sheepish smile and flicked her wand in a circle to release the barrier.

Disgruntled, Antonin crossed his arms over his chest and glared at Fenrir and the girl.

Hannah quickly turned her face away from his look of consternation, but she paled when her eyes fell upon the dead body of Cassius Warrington. "I should have saved him too," she groaned to herself.

"He was dead 'ere he hit the ground, little one," Fenrir soothed.

Notes:

"Offensio рассечь!" is a spell of Dolohov's own making, combining Latin and Russian. The Cyrillic рассечь can be written as rassech. The general meaning of the spell is "thrust and cut." Saava provided the Russian word in the spell for me. Thanks for the support, Love!

Dolohov will call Hannah his bitch by using suka and suchka interchangeably, as they are two forms of the same word in Russian.

I have a personal philosophy that most Snatchers are Fenrir's werewolves. It is not based on canon, but it suits my purposes for this story and does not directly contradict canon, as far as I know.