Only one thing changed in Sirius' routine in the weeks after the addition of Avery to the muggle-baiting team: he started throwing a dart in his room every evening after placing silencing charms on all the walls. He transfigured the dart out of a stone he had found in the woods that seemed the right weight, and he changed the dart into a figurine of a grim when he was finished. His target was a page of the potions notes Bella assigned him back in April. By mid-July, he could consistently hit the paragraph he was aiming for, but not the word. That was inadequate for his purposes, so he started working on cheating with silent, wandless magic. By the end of the month, he could dot all the i's.

Meanwhile, he continued asking Lucius if he could throw the dart to choose destinations. Avery asked the same. Lucius indulged them both, passing the dart between the two of them on alternating missions whilst the older Death Eaters leaned back in their chairs and commented on "youthful enthusiasm." Sirius thought that was a bit rich, since the oldest of the group, Titus Crabbe, was barely twenty-seven. And an idiot; that family looked to be going the way of the Gaunts.

Only when both Bella and Rodolphus were out of the house, Sirius plotted quietly with Moody's portrait, sometimes whispering to it, sometimes showing it ideas he wrote down whilst pretending to take notes from different books on Dark magic (he always vanished the ink later when he did that). His original plan had to change when Lucius instructed him to make sure Avery got out before he did whenever the aurors showed up, thus increasing the odds of him getting stuck behind the anti-apparition ward. Luckily, Bella had him practicing breaking the ward every night before allowing him to go to bed as soon as he informed her. It took him about an hour the first night they practiced, but he managed it in five minutes more recently.

The issue of Richard Avery was becoming more uncomfortable the more Sirius got to know him, and the longer Sirius plotted against his coworkers. He definitely wanted Lucius, Amycus, Crabbe, Goyle, and Parkinson arrested and sent to Azkaban if he could manage it. He wasn't sure about Avery who had rather latched on to Sirius like an annoying younger sibling after their first outing together. Avery outside of school wasn't quite what he had been when they were both at Hogwarts or even what he had been several years ago before Sirius left Grimmauld and he would see Avery in passing at social gatherings over the holidays. He made plenty of blood supremacist comments and jokes, but then, so did Sirius in order to blend in. He was just as likely to make awful puns. He knew a lot about the Dark Arts, but no more than Sirius did. He knew much more about Ancient Runes, which had been his favorite subject of study. He even offered to lend Sirius his notes from the last few months of classes he had missed, since Professor Babbling's lectures often included original material from the book she was working on.

He was perfectly comfortable with dealing out non-lethal jinxes, even nasty, painful ones. That hadn't changed since Hogwarts. However, unlike Sirius, Avery had gotten cold feet on that mission in June when Lucius sent him to demolish the first, still-occupied house. He had turned pale and sweaty, then cast a verbal Homenum Revelio of his own, which he really shouldn't have in Sirius' opinion if he was afraid of what he would find. He had been visibly trembling when Lucius urged him towards the house, and then he had simply gone in and thrown the family of four onto the street before setting fire to the place. To his credit, Lucius had not criticized Avery's performance, nor had anyone else, but he didn't have to. Lucius merely cast the killing curse on all the muggles before proceeding as if nothing had happened. Avery did not meet the Dark Lord that night, and to Sirius' knowledge still hadn't. He definitely did not yet have an ugly skull and snake tattooed on his arm. He had learned his lesson and stopped checking for people before burning down or blasting houses, at least not so obviously. Still, Sirius knew for a fact that Avery hadn't killed anyone. He knew because ever since the last of his own accidental deaths - a family of three - he magically watched for muggles throughout the entire operation start to finish, no matter how much it hurt to see.

What he didn't know was if it would be better for Avery to let him be captured and sentenced to prison or to keep him as a junior Death Eater. Unfortunately, Portrait Moody didn't know either, now that Bartemius Crouch, the Head of the Department of Magical Law Enforcement, had started sending every suspected Death Eater captured directly to Azkaban while awaiting trial, and not even in the upper levels. No, they were all right next to the dementors. Sirius had never met a dementor, and he never wanted to, patronus be damned. The thought of sitting next to one without a patronus was horrible, mostly because he knew it would force him to think about Ivan, Marcia, John, Billy, and Barbara non-stop.

Bella hadn't really been interested in the Azkaban policy when she heard of it, but Abraxus Malfoy was. "The Dark Lord should care about this," he grumbled when he unexpectedly joined them over lunch. "The ones who make it back out of there won't be as much use to him. It will break them, or drive them mad, or both, and he can't just leave them there once we win. They will be our problem again." The Malfoy patriarch eyed Sirius then and concluded, "Of course, our magnificent lord never did consider insanity to be a significant limitation."

On the fifteenth of August, all plans were laid. It was Sirius' turn with the dart, and he threw it unerringly at Kettering, in the East Midlands.

They apparated into town and started rounding up muggles, setting fires, and blasting houses as usual. A lot of the houses were already empty, their inhabitants out for the day. Sirius knew that was because the "amusement park" on the other side of town was having a big event all week, according to Moody. Lucius, fortunately, was completely ignorant of the existence of amusement parks (to be fair, so was Sirius most of the time), would never have anticipated this hiccup, and would never have thought to target the park itself. In four months of muggle-baiting, Lucius never once raised the possibility of figuring out the schedule for some popular event and for instance targeting one of the muggle sports stadiums Sirius had seen from a distance. No, they always hit residential areas, town centers, or big infrastructure like bridges, targets they could count on always being important, even if the human impact was often middling. Sirius had long since decided this was mostly because Lucius was lazy, but he wasn't about to suggest new ideas that might get more muggles killed.

The first warning of the enemy this time was not the telltale crack of apparition. Nor was it the light of a curse or the sound of an incantation. No, this time, the first warning was Sirius screaming in agony when Moody's silent transfiguration hit him. He had been expecting it; it had been his idea, in fact. It was brilliant, because transfiguration spells were almost always invisible. Silent castings were harder and more likely to be partial or even botched. Botched transfigurations took longer and more skill to undo. It was the perfect way to very obviously incapacitate him without actually taking away his wand or rendering him unconscious. None of the other Death Eaters would be able to help him in the midst of the fighting even if they wanted to. And he wouldn't be able to summon help by touching his own Dark Mark, either.

It really hurt like hell, though, when his wand arm seized up, twisted around on itself, and sprouted leaves and tree bark. His wand remained clasped in his useless, wooden fist. His shoulder felt the worst, where the transfigured wood merged un-gently with his own flesh. It felt like the nerves were clenched in a vise that was slowly ripping them out from the roots. "Finite," he wheezed. He couldn't reverse it with just a Finite, just arrest it. Peripherally, he saw Avery twist on the spot, attempting to apparate away as he had been told. There was a sound like a bell as he hit the anti-apparition ward tied to a particularly ferocious knock-back jinx and fell to the ground, senseless.

Two down, five to go, Sirius counted on Moody's behalf.

"Sirius, stay close to Richard," Lucius ordered harshly. Then the curses started flying.

"Protego," he said through gritted teeth. He edged a little closer to Avery so he would be protected from any wayward spells by Sirius' shield, even though none of the aurors or Order members were aiming at the two helpless teenagers.

Mostly helpless. Sirius did have an image to uphold. He couldn't actually duel in his current condition, but he did, technically, still have his wand in his hand, even if it was stuck pointing skyward. He also had to act quickly to do his bit before it was over. The ambush was going extraordinarily well. Crabbe was already down. Goyle and Parkinson would be next. Moody had the same tactics Sirius used to in school when facing multiple opponents: confine, distract, take out all the minions so no one could hit your back, and only then focus on winning the main duel.

Sirius bent his body nearly in half to level his wand, aiming towards Moody who knew to expect this. Moody was currently distracted casting hex after hex at Parkinson, but he wasn't the only one. He waited for Moody to slow his movements and make eye contact. As soon as he did, he shouted out an Avada Kedavra. It was really screwed up that the Unforgivables were amongst the few curses that didn't require any flashy wand movements, just pointing. Moody was expecting it and dodged of course. Someone else launched a stunner Sirius' way, but it bounced off his shield.

Parkinson was down. Sirius took a few more pot-shots at Moody, then straightened up and switched to a frenzy of left-handed tripping and stinging jinxes. They wouldn't significantly hamper anyone here, and Sirius' wandless casting was only successful about seventy percent of the time. He did surreptitiously aim one of the tripping jinxes at Amycus' back when none of the Death Eaters were looking.

Goyle was down. Lucius darted past, casting a quick Rennervate on Avery that didn't take. He must be badly concussed. Sirius had learned after the incident with Snape that Rennervate did not often work on physical brain injuries and could in fact make them worse. He forgot about pretending to fight for a moment and knelt down to check Avery instead. Breathing with a strong pulse.

Lucius rolled under another curse and came up within Sirius' shield. "Synchronized Finites against the anti-apparition jinx. If it works, you get Richard out. If it doesn't, I'm calling him." Lucius set off a blistering wave of stunners and killing curses, forcing their opponents to shield or duck for cover. "Now! Finite Incantatum!"

Sirius and Amycus shouted the spell too. Sirius was even putting in a fair amount of effort, but all the while hoping the jinx would hold a bit longer. It did. Lucius cursed. "Keep trying, Sirius. That's the best help you can be right now." So saying, he dove away, trying to find sufficient cover to roll up his sleeves.

Sirius obediently kept casting Finite at the sky. It was just Lucius and Amycus now... then all at once, Lucius snapped into a full body bind. Amazing someone had gotten him with a first-year spell. It wouldn't last, surely. Except then whoever it was just kept layering more and more basic hexes on top. And then a purple spell splintered Amycus' shield. Sirius did not hesitate any longer. He cast Finite skyward again, this time pouring all his strength into it. Moody would know to let his part of it down, but even so, Sirius wanted to break it himself, for some reason. And he did. There was a great flash and rending sound from above that caught all the aurors and Order folk unawares, except Moody who took the opportunity to finally disarm Amycus and encase him in a kind of golden haze.

Then he looked at Sirius and raised his wand, in mocking challenge. Jolted back into action, Sirius grabbed Avery's hand, twisted, and apparated them both away, first to an alley in Hogsmeade, then to Malfoy Manor to further cover their trail, and finally to the lawn outside Lestrange Manor. He looked quickly at Avery to check that he wasn't splinched. He wasn't. He turned towards the manor. "Bella!" he shouted. "Rodolphus!" He waved his left hand at Avery but failed to manage a wandless levitation charm. Crack. He jumped and turned towards the sound. "Posy?"

The house elf bowed low. "Master Sirius is hurt!" she squeaked. "Posy will finds Mistress Bella."

"Are they home?"

"Posy will finds them."

"Wait! Take my friend inside first."

"Posy can does that." She snapped her fingers and levitated Avery easily, just as if he were laundry or a tea tray. He followed her in, wincing with each subtle movement that jarred his arm, now that the excitement was over. The elf settled Avery on the settee in the drawing room, then vanished. Sirius sat in another chair but ended up moving to the piano bench so he could rest his wooden arm there instead. It was a better height than the small desk. He fiddled with his collar, attempting to undo his robe enough to see how bad his shoulder looked.

Bella blew into the room while he was still fumbling with the buttons. She grabbed his wooden arm roughly, and he howled at her in agony. It felt like she was ripping all the tendons in his shoulder. She didn't let go. "Who did this?" she snarled. "I will murder them."

"I don't know," Sirius groaned at her. "I was the first one hit, before we even knew we were being ambushed."

"Ambushed? What happened?"

"I got Richard out once the anti-apparition jinx finally came down, but everyone else was captured."

Bella stilled.

"How did that happen?" Rodolphus asked, voice low and dangerous. Sirius hadn't even noticed him come in.

Sirius shook his head. "They were ready for us. I don't know how, but they were." He used his left hand to lift his right arm out of Bella's slackening grip and turned around on the piano bench. He gestured weakly at his arm. "This will keep. Check on Richard. He's been out cold ever since slamming into the anti-Apparition ward at the start of it. Lucius tried to wake him with a Rennervate, but..."

Rodolphus nodded grimly and turned to the younger boy. Bella picked up Sirius' hand once more, muttering obscenities. Then she dropped it carelessly again, causing Sirius to wince. "Sirius, we were at headquarters, and yet we heard nothing until Posy came for us. Why didn't you call for help?"

Sirius rolled his eyes and waggled his left arm closer to his right tree branch. It was immediately obvious what he meant. Meanwhile, Avery had yet to be branded, even after over a month of accompanying Lucius' attacks.

"Why didn't Lucius call for help?" Bella amended.

"He meant to, but he was pinned down and never got the chance. There were dozens of them, Bella."

Bella clenched her jaw. When she took up his hand yet again and turned her wand on it, she was trembling with rage. "I'm glad you got out, Siri."

Unfortunately, rather than detransfiguring his hand, she set it on fire. She put it out quickly enough, but Sirius snatched his hand back. "Maybe let Rodolphus try?" he suggested.

"But-"

"I appreciate you, Bella, I do, but I only just broke this wand in. Ollivander will be furious if I show up again and tell him I set it on fire and need a new one." She smiled slightly at him. "Besides, don't you think someone should let headquarters know what's happened?"

She cursed. "You're right. You're right, right, right." Her brow pinched. "Siri, you're brilliant with transfigurations. If Dolph can do enough to get the wand extracted, can you finish the rest left-handed?"

"Er, probably." That had been his plan all along, actually. He had even practiced, surreptitiously, first on a chipmunk in the woods, then on his own little toe. He had to be reasonably sure he wouldn't permanently handicap himself before proposing the plan.

"Good. Dolph, how's Richard?"

"He'll have a nasty headache when he wakes up, but he'll live."

"Right. See if you can get Siri's hand undone, quick-like. Then you can take Richard home while I accompany Siri to headquarters."

It took Rodolphus ten minutes to loosen up Sirius' right hand enough to drag the cherry wand out of it. Sirius inspected it briefly for scratches, relieved to find none. By then, his left arm had started to tingle. He noticed when both Bella and Rodolphus looked at their own arms grimly. "What?"

"He knows something is wrong. Come. We're going to headquarters. Now. You'll have to take care of your arm later."

Ah. Bella had mentioned his Mark would burn when he was called back when he first got it, but it had never happened before. Sirius nodded tiredly and followed her out.

There was rather more scurrying about going on in the Death Eaters' headquarters when Bella and Sirius arrived than there had on his several previous visits. Sirius attracted a few stares with his mangled arm, but they did not linger in the common rooms where just anyone could watch them. Rather, Bella led him straight through to the conference room, which was empty, and left him there to wait while she tracked down the Dark Lord and whoever else needed to be briefed.

Sirius went back to working on his arm. He could barely see his own shoulder through the narrow eye holes of his Death Eater mask and vanished the thing irritably to better inspect the problem. He ended up just using a severing charm on his robes to expose the shoulder properly. He swallowed when he saw it. The skin was tearing and oozing blood where it met the wood, and some rather impressive, deep purple bruising was springing up. That hadn't happened when he'd tried the partial wooden transfiguration trick on his toe, but then his toe wasn't so big and heavy as his arm. He dreaded to think what the damage was inside the joint, hopefully nothing a few basic healing charms couldn't fix. Not that he was very good even at basic healing charms. He'd never healed anything worse than a broken nose and the superficial scratches obtained on a night of the full moon out with the Marauders. First things first, he started the slow, painstaking process of reversing the botched transfiguration. "Reparifarge..."

Although his arm was still rigid and wooden, he'd at least gotten rid of the branch twigs and leaves by the time the door burst open behind him. He stopped what he was doing and watched the Dark Lord and select, senior Death Eaters file along the edge of the table. Disconcertingly, rather than taking his usual place at the head, Lord Voldemort stopped short and sat down right next to Sirius. Bella took his other side. The others hesitated for a moment before arranging themselves.

Voldemort studied him expressionlessly. Sirius came to his senses and bowed, as much as he was able while already sitting down. He couldn't really stand up or kneel with the chairs so close together. It was strange, when he bowed. He realized Voldemort's body exuded more than the usual heat, like a fever, or even a fire. He could feel the warmth on the exposed skin of his shoulder and back where his robe and shirt were cut away. It was also slightly mortifying to realize the Dark Lord and a bunch of Death Eaters were getting a good view of his ridiculously over-sized and ornate dragon tattoo. Its head was on the right.

Voldemort smiled, thinly. "You do not fear to show your face here, my young friend."

Sirius wasn't sure how to respond to that, but it became clear quite quickly that he was meant to. "Er, no, my lord." After a moment, he added cheekily and very foolishly, "Or the rest of me, I guess." Voldemort stared at him. "I couldn't see well enough with the mask on. Or the robes. To work on my arm, I mean," he added weakly and in a rush.

One of the Death Eaters on the other side of the table made a small, choking sound, and Sirius flinched slightly. Everyone else was silent. Voldemort looked lazily towards the other person, then back at Sirius. Surprisingly, he actually laughed. It was short, and cold, and too high, but it was laughter. He reached out and ran a single long, pale finger along the border where Sirius' flesh met wood. "You may proceed." He waited expectantly until Sirius raised his wand and recommenced detransfiguring his arm. "My favored lieutenant informs me that Lucius' mission today has failed, that your group was ambushed, that Lucius, Amycus, Percival, Titus, and Gaius were all captured, and that you alone escaped."

Funny how he didn't mention Avery, as if he didn't even exist without a Dark Mark on his arm. Also funny how real names were only granted to the good-as-dead. "Yes, my lord," Sirius answered simply.

"Tell us how this came to pass."

"Yes, my lord..." Sirius started describing the morning meeting at Malfoy Manor, lowering his wand as he spoke.

"You will continue with that," Voldemort interrupted, nodding at Sirius' arm.

"Er, yes, my lord." This was either some kind of test or the arbitrary whim of a madman, but he wasn't going to argue. He raised his wand again, splitting his attention between his maimed arm and his story with effort. By the time he finished the summary of the fight and his escape, he'd gotten his arm to look like an arm again, and feel like one to touch. He would have sworn it was on fire if he wasn't looking at it though, and he could barely move it.

"Show me," Voldemort ordered, drawing Sirius' gaze up with the power of his voice. Sirius realized Voldemort alone was not affected by the voice-distortion charm on this place. Which meant that girly cackle was really his. Sirius quickly hid that thought before meeting Voldemort's eyes.

He let the Dark Lord see his Occlumency shields before appearing to drop them fully and offering up the memory of today's events while carefully concealing every thought that would get him killed. Voldemort did not immediately take what was offered. He turned aside and perused Sirius' other surface thoughts. It was rather a blessing so many of them were currently concerned with pain and fear that he wouldn't get full use of his right arm back even with magic. The Dark Lord was not looking for anything in particular, fortunately, and quickly returned to the matter at hand. He dwelt on the meeting at Malfoy Manor for a surprisingly long time, causing Sirius to recall it several times. He only watched the dart throw once, seemed more interested in Lucius' perfunctory speech and the traditional socializing over the meal. He lingered on the instants leading up to Moody's transfiguration attack, probably looking for any warning signs that Sirius or the others should have noticed. He also lingered on Sirius struggling to aim an Avada Kedavra through his transfigured arm, his use of wandless stinging hexes, and especially the moment Sirius successfully broke through Moody's anti-apparition ward and escaped.

When Voldemort's mind finally withdrew, Sirius half-heartedly tapped his wand against his right hand some more. There was nothing left to transfigure there.

"You did well at the end, breaking through that ward," Voldemort said softly. Sirius heard Bella's sharp inhale behind him, and several of the other Death Eaters shifted in their seats. "Crucio."

His voice remained soft and level, and Sirius did not even see him draw his wand. There was just, suddenly, pain. Everywhere. It was like the burning in his arm had intensified and spread to envelop his whole body. At the same time, it wasn't, because there was nothing on this earth to which Sirius could realistically compare the sensation. He was probably screaming, unless he had stopped breathing instead. He was probably convulsing in his chair, if he hadn't fallen out of it. But he could not say for sure, because his entire consciousness was consumed in the torment.

And then it stopped. Sirius fell back in his seat - he was still in it - gasping for breath, quivering in shock and relief. The pain hadn't gone completely away, though. Rather, his right arm hurt even worse now than it had before the Cruciatus. He lolled his head to the side to look at it and felt his stomach roil. The shoulder looked dislocated, forced out of joint over the course of the curse.

A warm hand took his. Voldemort gently lifted his right arm, supporting it expertly and then without warning snapping his shoulder back into place. Sirius bellowed in pain and clapped his left hand over his mouth, letting go of his wand in the process. "Shh..." Voldemort said soothingly. He started wandlessly casting healing charms. Sirius could see bruises yellowing and literally felt torn tendons knitting back together. It took longer before the burning started to fade, slowly. "The Dark Lord is merciful," Voldemort told him. "Do you know why I punished you?"

Because you're insane! Sirius forced a nod and answered, haltingly, "Because... we failed. We got complacent. And I should have broken the ward sooner."

"Correct."

It didn't matter that Voldemort had seen no warning of the attack in Sirius' mind. It didn't matter that all of them had been trying to take down the anti-apparition ward from the beginning. It didn't matter that Lucius was in charge, not Sirius, that Sirius had followed every order to the letter, or that Sirius had been injured throughout the whole fight. It didn't matter that Lucius was actually perfectly competent at his job, even if he was coasting in it, and that anyone else at this table with the exception of the Dark Lord himself would have been outmaneuvered today just as badly. When it came down to it, Sirius was the only one available to take the fall, apart from Avery who didn't count.

"And yet, I said you did well. And you did. You survived and escaped the ambush where others did not. You saved one of our precious youth where others did not. And you have demonstrated exceeding magical potential." His smile sharpened. "Where others did not. Do you continue to serve me?"

"I do, my lord," Sirius answered instantly. His voice did not shake.

"Good. Then you shall take over muggle-baiting operations in their entirety as of today. This may or may not be a permanent placement, if your service pleases me. You will retain your little friend as your assistant, but no others until and unless you can convince me you would use them more wisely than your predecessor."

"Yes, my lord."

Voldemort nodded and let go of Sirius' arm, which dropped like a stone to his side. With effort, Sirius bent it up part way again but had to use his left hand to lift it fully and settle it against his stomach. Voldemort frowned. "That will improve. I suppose you may wait until it is strong enough to wield your wand to launch your first mission."

"Thank you, my lord."

Voldemort nodded and turned away from him at last. "Our young associate has brought it to my attention that even amongst senior lieutenants, there is laziness and laxity. Lucius would not be on his way to Azkaban if had not turned his assignment into a game." Voldemort never raised his voice, but his fury was evident. "We do not fight for frivolous self-gratification. We fight for a cause greater than ourselves. I should not have to remind you of this. I will expect everyone to work harder and with more dedication after today. Now, what do we know of the casualties amongst the Ministry and Order after this? And have we yet confirmed that our brethren have been moved to Azkaban?"

The meeting grew boring from then on, but Sirius stayed and listened intently through all of it. Moody was listening too, he was sure.

Author's Note: there is precedence for transfiguring human tissue into plant matter and back; at some point in the books someone (Ron?) gets his ears turned into kumquats in class and wanders around like that for awhile before getting them unstuck. That said, Sirius' plan is definitely really, really dangerous since we also see some people in St. Mungo's long-term care ward with refractory partial human transfigurations. I'm going with Sirius is uncommonly gifted in transfigurations, supported by the fact he and James figured out how to become animagi in fifth year. Admittedly, half of the animagus ritual is potions, but that could have been James' principle contribution (son of expert potioneer), while Sirius did more with the transfiguration research. McGonagall dislikes him for shockingly horrible rule-breaking, not for his grades. Thank you for the reviews, will continue to aim for Saturday updates.