Remus snarled at the monster who ruined his life. He'd spent nearly a decade now trying to catch Greyback's tail; every knut he had that wasn't spent on basic living necessities had been used to try and find the werewolf, but now he'd shown up all on his own. Greyback just smiled at him, his own fangs standing out far more than Remus's, a clear sign of attunement with the beast inside him.
Izzy had Timothy gripped tight, her eyes were wide and he could see the sweat beginning to form on her forehead. Hydrus wasn't anywhere to be seen, no doubt still under the invisibility cloak. The night air was digging into Remus's skin like little hornet stings, a side effect to his body's artificial instinctual reliance on fur to keep him warm, but that hardly mattered now.
"Greyback," he started. "I knew you'd be here."
The other werewolf just laughed at him. Although his speaking voice was gravelly and deep, his laugh was like the yipping of a coyote. "Of course you did, ain't that how its supposed to be between a man and his son?"
Remus's hands balled up into fists so tight it hurt. Greyback's distorted and demented definition of family was something that had haunted his nightmares for too long. The monster considered anyone he had turned to be his children, the ones they turned his grandchildren, so on and so forth.
"I will kill you."
Remus almost surprised himself with how calm he sounded.
"You? Kill me?" Greyback laughed again. 'You ain't got the—"
Izzy screamed and Remus jumped as Greyback's throat split open and a geyser of blood shot out. The werewolf began to practically strangle himself to try and stem the flow, but he suddenly gargled and dropped to his knees, then face first onto the gravel parking lot. A knife was planted in the centre of his lower back. Remus continued to stare at where he had stood though, and Hydrus revealed himself, an insane smile splitting his face.
"I told you I'd handle it," the boy said, giggling. It seemed the Black madness was in full effect. "You shouldn't get so angry, Professor. It's bad for your health."
Remus frowned. Professor?
"Little shit!" Greyback roared. The monster was lying still on the ground despite his exclamation. "I'll carve your fucking heart out!"
Hydrus giggled once more. "Not without an intact spine you won't."
Izzy was hyperventilating now. Despite the woman's usual bravado and eccentric nature, she was the absolute worst person to have around when a crisis reached a certain threshold. It seemed she'd hit that point now, and that only made Remus all the more furious. How dare she work with that monster again? And for something so much more foul?
Still, there were bigger fish to fry.
"Hydrus, you need to calm down." He slowly approached the teen, not wanting to accidentally set him off. "Everything is okay. Timothy is safe, you took down Greyback, we're all alright."
Sirius's son glared at him. "Quit killing the mood. Lil Tim-tim should get to enjoy watching the dog who bit him suffer."
Greyback cut in with a contemptuous bark of laughter. "That kid ain't my son!"
Remus frowned. Hydrus was looking down on the paralyzed werewolf with his head cocked to the side, looking like a child who'd just found a particularly fascinating bug beneath a rock.
There was a crunch of footsteps on gravel, coming from multiple directions.
Remus's head snapped back and forth. Three more people were approaching them, two women and a man. Like Greyback, they were all impeccably dressed, and like the monster as well they wore feral and fanged grins. His heart dropped when he recognized one of the women as a girl he'd helped Izzy rescue years ago.
Her name… He couldn't remember her name now. They'd picked her up together somewhere out on the Isle of Wight, and the last time Remus had seen her she didn't even reach up to his shoulders. Now she was swaggering towards him; tall, proud, and with teeth bared.
He could almost hear the demented smile on Greyback's face as the werewolf said, "He's my grandson."
'Fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck!' he thought. 'I knew I shouldn't have stopped Sirius from coming.'
His panic was momentarily halted when Hydrus let out an almost squealing-like sound that the teen cut off with a cough.
"Imperio!" Hydrus snarled. Remus gasped as the spell apparently struck Izzy. "Take the boy inside and wait in the lobby. If anyone's there, tell them you're waiting for your husband. Go."
The woman nodded and began to half-lead and half-drag the trembling Williams boy away.
"Remus. I know you ain't exactly a power house magically speaking, but I need you to give it your A-game here, understand?" The three other werewolves were closing in on them now, ignoring Izzy and the boy as they stepped into the dingy motel. "You know the Fumosorte Charm right? Third-year spell?"
Remus couldn't risk looking away from the approaching werewolves, but nodded.
"All I need you to do is cast that spell, and don't stop." Hydrus snorted, then apparently growled at himself for the sudden outburst. "It doesn't need to be strong, it needs to be wide. I need you to make sure the muggles inside that building or driving by don't see that we're casting magic. Leave the rest to me."
Sirius's words echoed in his mind. 'He's unlike anything you've ever seen, Moony.'
"Alright."
"Wonderful!"
And like that, the madness settled back onto Hydrus's face. Remus took his wand, swallowed a deep breath, and shouted "Fumosorte!"
Smoke came billowing out of his wand. He'd pointed it at the ground, and immediately their lower halves were hidden. The smoke was a plain, dull white that people would hopefully mistake for mist. The last thing he saw as the tendrils of magical smoke crept upwards was the other three werewolves throwing themselves forward, two at him and one at Hydrus. He clenched his eyes shut and prayed that he hadn't just made the worst mistake of his life.
Hydrus hummed, then threw up a modified protego spell that Hermione had invented whilst searching for a permanent protection from muggle bombardments. She'd called it an 'umbrella shield', because it would form a dome around the target without actually coming all the way down to the ground. Perfect for long-term stays in the shields as it would allow airflow while still protecting most of whatever you were guarding. In this case, that airflow meant Remus's illusory smoke could continue to pour out of his wand.
Hydrus's dual casting, while not the absolute best, was certainly greater than the vast majority of wizard and witches'. As of late he'd been constantly practising it as well to keep up with healing his arm, so he didn't doubt that he could keep the shield going while handling these mongrels. The real problem would be managing to keep the shield up, heal his arm, and kill them.
He cackled. Time to see how his triple casting was.
One of the werewolves apparently swung a fist at him, it was hard to tell with all the smoke, but that was fine. It cracked against his cheek and would've split skin and bone alike if it weren't for the healing magic that repaired the damage as soon as it was done. There was a small glow from the smoke nearby as a spell rebounded off his shield, and Hydrus tried to silently step away so the werewolves could come to the conclusion he wanted in peace.
Unfortunately, they were a bit faster at deduction than he'd expected, and immediately he had to deal with all three launching spells at him. He laughed and began to wave his wand in a circular motion in front of him, burning magic to deflect the attacks as they came in. Normally you would need to be precise with deflections, only doing it at the last second as it required a hefty sum of magic to redirect incoming spells, but if there was anyone who could get away with being wasteful with the technique it was him.
In theory, this was the ideal hunting situation for the werewolves, regardless of their form. Without a line of sight he was at a severe sensory disadvantage thanks to their heightened senses of smell and hearing. He had no idea where they were, whereas they knew exactly where he was. That would make them overconfident.
He grinned maniacally as he re-lived the first time they'd put this strategy into place; when he, Neville, Hagrid, and nearly two dozen other of his soldiers had finally moved in on Greyback's pack. Back then it had been roughly a hundred werewolves against them, so even now by himself it was roughly the same odds.
Once he was confident in the rhythm of the werewolves spells, he broke off his deflecting and jabbed his wand forward. "Confringo!"
The explosion was deafening even for him, so he could only imagine what it was like for the werewolves who'd been relying so much on their hearing. He reached out with the divine sense he'd been blessed with in exchange for his ability to love, and locked onto their presence using the Trace.
Despite what many thought, especially those who would feel uncomfortable if they knew the truth, the Trace didn't just go away when you turned seventeen. The ancient working, a relic from the time of Merlin and long before Hogwarts or any other magical institutions had been founded, was like a spider web that stretched across the entire world.
It had been intended to connect them all, bring the magical community together to learn and prosper. Merlin and half a dozen other practitioners had gathered to create the gossamer net that bound them, but even those legends weren't able to completely fulfil their goal. All but two of them had died, and the resulting achievement did little besides allow wizards and witches the slightest intuition towards who was magical, and only if the person knew what signs to look for. What governments could use it for now was just a pittance compared to what Merlin had intended; it required countless artefacts and workers to achieve, and even then they could only sit like spiders around the web, feeling for minute vibrations so they could find children who were endowed with magic.
Hydrus, on the other hand, could strum and still those strings like a musician.
While the werewolves were distracted, he sent a light jinx down those mystical lines to cause their bodies to light up like crimson Christmas trees. He giggled at the metaphor, and began to move his wand.
"Avada Kedavra!" The bolt of green light struck the glowing red mass within the smoke, and like that the thread connecting the wolf to him and everyone else in their world was snipped. "Avada Kedavra!"
The second wolf's light vanished, but the third had recovered sooner than he had expected and was barrelling towards him faster than he could move his arm. He dropped the shield over Remus, dropped the healing magic that had been protecting his arm, and willed out a transfiguration of the earth around him to transform it into a stalagmite-esque spike that impaled the red glow.
The body kept sliding forward, however, carried by its own momentum until the soon-to-be corpse was just a foot or so away from him. The werewolf's eyes were wide and wild, portraying fear and anger in equal measures. It reached out a trembling hand, as if making one last attempt to kill him by reaching for his throat, but it dropped back down to the body's side. Hydrus's own arm was slowly healing, and he tried not to groan too much at the pain of regrowing half the limb's flesh.
"Avada Kedavra."
And like that, the last light faded away. He took a long, deep breath to still himself. It was a fight to reel back in the madness that he'd allowed to take over, but eventually he got it under control.
"Almost done Remus!" he called. "Just one left!"
'Right, where the fuck is Greyback?' He felt for the werewolf using the Trace. '...Son of a bitch.'
"You can stop now."
Remus gasped in relief and finished the spell that had been draining him for the past five minutes. The Fumosorte Charm was meant to be used in massive bursts to distract and hide, not to provide long streams of cover like this. He regretted that he'd never learned a more advanced, and sustainable, version of the spell, but more so he just hoped to never have to be in a position like this again.
The smoke cleared away quickly, and a sudden gust of wind that nearly sent him tumbling over finished the job. Hydrus was standing there, shoving his wand into his pocket. The teen was drenched in blood, and Remus thought he wasn't going to be sick until he looked away and saw three severed heads sitting by the wheel of Moses, Izzy's truck.
He turned and puked.
"Sorry," Hydrus muttered as he moved over and began to rub at the werewolf's back. "I should've warned you. I'm sorry, Lupin."
It took the werewolf another minute to recover. It wasn't his first time seeing someone dead. He'd once broken into a house in order to try and find out if a husband was cheating on his wife, only to discover the man had hung himself. Still.
Seeing Hydrus like that , seeing those heads? Seeing the head of a girl whom he'd once held some sort of familial love for with pale and drained cheeks atop a pool of blood?
"It's alright," Remus muttered. He took a panting breath. "I'm alright." A thought struck him. "Where's Greyback?"
Hydrus sucked at his teeth. "Got away in the confusion. I tried following the blood trail, but he healed too quickly."
"Damn it." The werewolf punched his thigh. "Damn it!"
"I know." Hydrus helped straighten him up. "I'm sorry for that too. But we gotta go check on the kid. Sirius showed me that spell you made, can you clean me up?"
Remus frowned, then realised what Hydrus was talking about. "Excourgify."
The spell nearly finished Remus off with how little magic he had left, but it did the job of getting all the blood off Hydrus. The boy nodded, then removed his robe and folded it up. He was wearing muggle clothes like Remus underneath, though he'd gone with a purple button up shirt that was tucked into jeans, and he ran a hand through his hair to get it into a more tamed state.
"I'll deal with things. Do your best to play the part of an annoyed father on a stressful road trip." Hydrus paused and snorted. "And don't tell Sirius I asked you to pretend to be my father, he'll be insufferable."
The teen didn't bother waiting for Remus to agree before heading inside, so the werewolf had to follow without complaint. It certainly wouldn't be hard to act annoyed right now with the way things had gone. It was at least warmer inside.
"Oh!" They both glanced over to see a tired looking man give them a smile from behind a counter. "You must be, um, that woman's husband. She said she was waiting for you." Remus glanced over and saw Izzy sitting in a chair in the lounge, Timothy practically cradled in her arms. "Is she… Alright?"
"She's fine," Hydrus answered. "Took some anxiety meds before we flew into Liverpool and, well…"
"Got it, got it." The clerk nodded quickly before turning to Remus. "Your wife wasn't able to tell me, how many beds will you need?"
Remus's eye twitched at the man calling Izzy his wife, but Hydrus cut in before he could answer. "Let us talk to my mom first, and we'll get back to you."
They made their way over to the dopey looking woman, and she looked up at Hydrus expectantly.
"First off," he said. "You will only tell me the truth from here on out. Do you understand?"
Izzy nodded.
"Why didn't you tell Remus that you were helping the Williams family?"
"Because he said he was working with the Blacks."
Remus blinked, and the realisation of what he must've sounded like to her washed over him like a bucket of cold water. "What?"
"Next," Hydrus said. "Were you planning to give the boy to Greyback?"
"No." The woman shook her head. "No."
The teen grunted in acknowledgement. "Why did you take in Timothy?"
"His parents didn't have the money…" she droned, sounding like a drunk trying to tell a story from a foggy memory. "Wouldn't be safe. Not for them. Not for him."
"Perfect." He waved his hand, and the woman jerked back like she'd been slapped. "In that case, I hope you learned a valuable lesson."
"You, you!" Izzy's face had gone bright red with anger. "How dare you!"
"SHhh!" Hydrus snapped. The red-haired woman flinched. "We're around muggles. I've been under that curse enough to know that you remember what happened. You should also remember just how close you came to getting yourself killed."
She looked away impotently, and Remus felt some guilt creeping up inside him. "Izzy, it's alright, we just wanted to help him."
"Oh, is that all?" She turned to him, finally finding a target to vent at. "The boy used one of the unforgivables, and you expected me to trust him?"
"Two of them, actually," Hydrus said. Remus winced. "Greyback got away, but I took care of the other werewolves who were coming to hurt the boy."
Remus's former love's eyes widened in horror at the implication. "You… You used the killing curse?"
"I did." He leaned in close and the woman pulled back, maintaining her vice-like grip on the boy in her arms. "So you should know just how serious I am about keeping this child safe."
For the first time, Timothy pulled his head away from where he'd buried it in Izzy's chest. "Are… Are you Hydrus?"
"I am." Sirius's son gave a gentle smile that reminded Remus so much of his best friend that it was creepy. "I'm guessing your sister told you I was going to help you?" Timothy nodded. "Good. She came and asked me to help, and I always try to help people who need it."
"Just what are you trying to pull?" Izzy demanded. "You expect me to believe that a Black would step in to—"
"Enough, Stonefoot," Hydrus ordered. "If you haven't figured out that we're all on the same side here by now, then I certainly can't trust you to be intelligent enough to take care of him."
Izzy stiffened up, but didn't say anything in response to that.
"Remus. Go get them a room." He fished around in his pocket for a moment before coming out with a money clip. He pulled a stack of muggle currency from it that he handed to the werewolf. "Stonefoot, you're coming outside with me to swear an oath that you'll raise and protect the child. Timothy?" The boy looked up at him. "I need you to stay here with your uncle Remus while me and Ms. Stonefoot have a chat outside. Remus is like you, so if you have any questions, he's the best person to ask, alright?"
The child nodded, and Hydrus returned the gesture.
"Come on."
Izzy looked at Remus, as if searching for an ally, but he sneered at her. "Go."
She sighed and sat Timothy down before following after Hydrus. Remus turned to go talk to the clerk, but the boy grabbed onto the wrist of his sleeve. The werewolf looked down at his much younger compatriot and the child stared back up at him with dewy eyes.
"Are you really like me?" the boy asked. "A… A werewolf."
Remus took a breath to steady himself. "Yes." He knelt down and scooped the boy into his arms, lifting him up and shifting about till the boy was settled. "Come on. Let's go get you guys a room."
"What are you playing at?" Stonefoot demanded. "Why are you helping him?"
Hydrus sighed and ran a hand through his hair. The woman was exhausting. On one hand, that meant she'd probably do a good job of looking after the kid, on the other it meant she was starting to get on his nerves.
"Because his sister asked me to, and as you've done a fine job of proving, as a member of House Black I need to bust my ass in order to help repair my family's reputation." She blinked at him. "I don't give a shit about her, I don't give a shit about him, I don't give a shit about you.
"But I need to try and fix the dark and despised legacy that my family has, so when a muggle-born witch asks me to help her werewolf brother because she thinks that her parents are going to kill him, it's a free pass to get 'good guy' points." He stared deep into the woman's eyes. "There. Does that explanation fit better in your world view of me and mine?"
"I…" The red-head swallowed. "Maybe."
"What I want from you is an oath that you will raise him as best as you possibly can. You will support him and at least act like you love him. You will, without hesitation or reservation, take care of him as if he were your own child," he said. "Will you do that?"
"Yes," she answered immediately. "I swear."
"No, no, no." Hydrus shook his head. "I mean an oath."
"I… I can't." The woman looked away, a hot flush on her cheeks and a scowl on her face. "I'm a squib."
"Oh." Hydrus blinked. "Fuck. That complicates things."
He scratched at the back of his head, not really sure how to proceed from here. He'd planned to bind the woman with a magical oath in order to put his mind at ease regarding the child's future, but that was out the window now. He wouldn't have even been so suspicious of her if Remus didn't have so much anger directed her way. That man was anything except irrational, so she must've done something to deserve it.
"You said it yourself, didn't you?" she said, almost pleading now. "We're on the same side. I just want to help him."
Hydrus began to tap his foot against the ground. "What happened between you and Remus?"
"Excuse me?"
He glared at her. "Tell me what happened between the two of you, I need to better understand you, and that will tell me a lot."
"It, it's none of your business!" Now the woman's cheeks were red for a different reason. She glared back at him. "He and I—"
Hydrus flared his magic and the woman dropped. He'd kicked in his healing spell a second too late, but the blood stain was easily hidden by folding his arms over his chest. The gravel around them behind the motel was beginning to disintegrate into sand, and Stonefoot was trembling at his feet.
"It wasn't a request." He knelt down and pulled back his magic. "What happened between you two?"
"I helped Greyback once," she said after several seconds of trembling. "He was injured in some fight with aurors, and… And I couldn't turn him away. I swore to help people no matter what, but Remus… He didn't understand."
"I see." Hydrus stood. "In that case, things should be fine. Tell Remus I said you could take the boy." A thought occurred to him. "And give the kid this."
He reached into his pocket, which had been enchanted to be far larger on the inside than it should've been, and removed a ring. Hermione hadn't had enough time to properly come up with a rune scheme for the things yet, but that was fine. He tossed it at her so that it was directly beneath her bowed-over head.
"What is it?" she asked.
"It's the sign that he is on my side." Hydrus began to turn away. "For now its not worth much, but in the future he'll be able to give it to anyone in magical Britain and receive shelter until I can come and pick him up. It's a guarantee on my life that I'll help him."
Without bothering to wait for a response he left. Remus had looked exhausted earlier, but Hydrus was downright empty after that little display. Bella might've coached him on how to use his madness for his advantage, breaking past the limits of what the conscious mind would think is possible, but she'd failed to mention just how drained an experience like that could leave him.
Sirius leapt to his feet when Remus stepped through the Potter Manor floo, and Amelia took his hand as he went. The werewolf looked dead on his feet, but otherwise unharmed. His friend's eyes widened when he saw just how many people had been waiting for him.
"Uh…" Remus said. "Hi."
James and Lily were there, obviously. The Hogwarts sweethearts were nestled together in a large recliner that easily fit them, and both looked far more concerned for Remus than Sirius was. He knew better than to underestimate the man. Amelia was probably less expected, but he didn't doubt that Remus would skim over it easily enough.
Much more surprising would be Albus Dumbledore.
"Hello, Remus." Albus stood and moved over to shake his former student's hand. "It's good to see you again after so long."
"You too…" Remus glanced over at Sirius who grinned back at him. "What are you doing here, professor?"
"He and I agreed to let the other know whenever Hydrus gets up to something," Sirius said. "When I told him about your little kidnapping plot he just had to join us."
"Right." Remus moved over and took the bottle of gin James handed him. He threw it back and, despite it being nearly full, polished it off in record time. "Right."
"You alright there, Moony?" James asked.
"Fine, I'm fine." He turned back to Sirius. "Hydrus is fine too."
"Then why're you acting like you just got out of jail?" Amelia demanded. She and Remus hadn't interacted much, and although she never opposed her boyfriend and James hiring him for odd jobs, she didn't like it either. Said it reflected poorly on the department that they required outside help. "What happened with Greyback?"
Remus scowled. "He got away."
"Fuck." James took the empty bottle from Remus and sighed. "Sorry, mate."
"It's fine," Remus said. Sirius knew it wasn't, but it wasn't like the other man could let loose with his complaints in front of all these extra people. "Hydrus killed the rest of them."
"Rest of them?" Amelia asked. "How many were there?"
"Four in total, if you include Greyback," Remus said. "The other three were members of his pack."
Albus summoned up a chair for Remus and he sat in it with a nod to their former headmaster. The werewolf let out a long, low groan as he sagged deeper into the seat, and Sirius worried he'd fall asleep before telling them anything.
"Do you need any assistance?" the headmaster asked. "Were there any… Complications?"
Remus shook his head. "No. I don't know what Hydrus did with the bodies, but he cut off their heads and took them with him. The Williams boy is going to go live with Izzy—"
"What!" Sirius jumped at Lily's exclamation, then smiled at her sisterly anger. "Why on earth does that bitch have him?"
"The boy's parents arranged it." Remus rubbed at his brow. "Apparently I shouldn't have mentioned Sirius's son when I asked her if she knew anything."
Sirius grunted in acknowledgement. "Obviously can't stand her, but I can't blame her in this case either. The Blacks do have a certain reputation."
His whole family hated non-humans, especially his grandfather. The only one the old man could even stand to be around was Kreacher, and even that was only because the little shit 'knew his place', as he would put it.
"Hydrus wasn't like that though." Remus gave a small grin. "I was surprised. Even when he went mad the worst insult he called me was 'professor'."
Albus snorted into the cup of tea that he was sipping from, obviously amused by the 'insult'. Sirius stiffened on the other hand. "He went mad?"
"As soon as the fighting started." He drew his thumb over his neck. "Snuck up on Greyback and slit his throat, then stabbed him right in the spine. The bastard got away during the fighting somehow.
"He had a plan from the start. Had me cast a smokescreen, then deafened the rest of us with an explosion and…" He paused, not wanting to share with everyone what the boy had done. "Then he killed them, one by one. Had everything cleaned up before telling me to wrap up my smoke screen."
"Did any muggles see? Did you report this to the ministry?" Amelia asked in a stern tone. "You can't just go around killing people without—"
"I think that'll be enough, Auror Captain Bones," Albus said. "Remus said everything is taken care of, and I will handle anything that is not."
Amelia turned to glare at the chief warlock, but said nothing in response.
"And you said Hydrus is fine, right?" Sirius asked. "Nothing happened to him?"
"Seemed fine to me." Remus rubbed at his forehead. "You weren't kidding about him being something else."
"Tell me about it." Sirius grunted and helped Remus to his feet. "C'mon, I wanna talk to you and Dumbledore alone."
"What?" James stood. "What about me?"
"Don't tell me you expect me to leave someone as unscrupulous as Lily Potter, notorious breaker and enter-er of Hogwarts, alone without an auror to keep an eye on her, do you?" Sirius grinned as the woman huffed at him. "We'll just be a minute."
The Black Sheep led the other two men away and into the Potter dining room, where Remus immediately re-collapsed into one of their chairs. A part of Sirius wanted to just send his best friend away, tell him to get some rest, but he needed answers. Clearly the man had been holding back. He took the seat beside Remus and the other man nodded at him to go ahead.
"What else happened?" Sirius asked.
Remus shook his head. "He… He used two of the Unforgivables."
Sirius's heart nearly stopped. Even his family had never used those on him. They'd used everything short of them, torturing him in order to 'prepare him to do the same', but even they had never gone that far. His hands began to tremble.
Albus just hummed. "The killing curse to deal with the werewolves, and… The Imperius Curse on 'Izzy' or young Timothy? Or both?"
"Uh, yeah." Remus nodded after blinking at the headmaster. "Exactly."
Albus nodded back. "He isn't one to use the Cruciatus curse unnecessarily, and nothing you described led me to believe it would've been needed."
Sirius's own words echoed in his mind. 'You've got all the pieces, don't you?'
"It doesn't bother you that he used them?" Remus asked.
"Stop," Sirius said. "He knows more about him than we do."
Now Remus turned to look at him in confusion. "You're okay with it?"
"It's not that we're okay with it." Albus leaned down and placed a gentle hand on Remus's shoulder. "It's just that it's going to take some time to help him. For now gawking and gaping over his… 'Issues', won't help anything."
"My grandfather's used the killing curse before," Sirius muttered, more to himself than the other two. "Told me about it one day when he was drunker than usual. Said they all did back in the war."
"A great many of them did, yes." Albus looked away. Sirius wasn't particularly close with the wizard, but if he wasn't mistaken, this was the first time he'd ever seen something resembling shame in the old man's eyes. "Dark times make for hard men, and Hydrus has certainly been through his fair share of those." The ancient warlock shook his head. "As I said though, no need to dwell on such things. If you'll excuse me."
He left, but Sirius waited with Remus for a while longer. It was an almost nostalgic thing, the two of them just silently waiting together for nothing in particular. Back when they were kids, they'd tell James they'd been waiting on him when he asked. Or Peter, if that shit was around. They'd joke and say they were waiting for lunch or dinner if one of their stomachs grumbled. Sometimes they'd claim that they were waiting for the other to give in and get up first.
But in truth, they were waiting for nothing.
"Are you two done yet?" Amelia had poked her head into the dining room. "We need to talk, Sirius."
He grinned at her. "Just waiting to see how long it'd take you to get annoyed."
Bellatrix nearly split her lip with how quick and big her smile was at the sight of Hydrus stepping through the floo. Her little water snake looked tired, and had a strange bag tied to his hip, but otherwise was completely unblemished. She scooped up Apophis from where the cutie had stretched his front half out onto the couch, and moved over to embrace her love. To her delight he returned the gesture emphatically, albeit with a groan.
"It's been a long day," he said, half-sighing. "Can I take some of your magic?"
"Of course," she purred. "It's all your—"
She stiffened and winced when the drain happened. It felt like a giant wrapping her up in its hand and slowly squeezing the blood out of her. Luckily Hydrus left her with around a quarter of her power.
"That should carry me to bed, at least." Apophis had slithered onto his shoulders and he began to absentmindedly run his hand over their make-shift child's scales. "Arcturus still up?"
"Yes," she confirmed, mildly annoyed and mostly aroused at how little the majority of her strength meant to him. "He's been back and forth on the floo all day after the Wizengamot meeting."
Hydrus nodded in acknowledgement and headed towards her grandfather's office. She followed after him, and frowned when she noticed the small blood stain on the back of his elbow. He had mentioned that he was having trouble with his magic as of late, that it was damaging his body because he couldn't control the massive amount of power he wielded, and it had driven her to every dank and dusty corner of the Black libraries to try and find a solution.
Thus far the best she'd come up with was a Visigothic curse ritual that involved slitting the throat of a magically impregnated virgin when Mars and Jupiter were 'within spitting distance of each other' whilst the target was impaled upon a branch of lightning-struck yew, thus leaving them unable to call upon their full magical prowess.
Unfortunately, lightning-struck yew was hard to make.
Hydrus knocked at Arcturus's door and the lord gave the call to enter. The Black patriarch looked up at them and stood. "It's about time you showed up."
"Forgive me," Hydrus drolled, clearly unconcerned with Arcturus's impatience. "I hope some gifts will buy your satisfaction."
Finally he grabbed the bag that had caught her eye earlier, and moved towards her grandfather's desk. It was a simple, burlap sack a little bigger than a quaffle with a tweed drawstring that he pulled on to open it. When he turned it upside down above the desk, three pale and bloody heads came tumbling out of it.
"A few of Fenrir Greyback's children," Hydrus announced, voice dripping with pride. "An opportunity came up to put some of the dogs down, and I couldn't resist."
'Aha,' Bellatrix thought. 'I was wondering how he would get away with skipping the Wizengamot.'
The good side of Arcturus's lips twitched, and Bellatrix knew he was fighting back a smile. The ancient lord reached out to the one closest to him and pulled back its lip, revealing an enlarged canine. He nodded and grabbed a handkerchief from his pocket, wiping off the hand he'd grabbed the skull with. "Filthy mongrels. Trash like this is exactly what's wrong with this country."
"Slit Greyback's throat too, but the bastard got away." Hydrus lifted up one of the stiff-faced heads by the hair and it spun back and forth in the air. "Sacrificed his pups for the opportunity, however."
A pleasurable tingle ran through her body, and Bellatrix giggled in time with Hydrus as he allowed a bit of madness to slip through. When he'd broken at the first trial, she was amazed to discover he'd held out for so long without succumbing to the powerful ability, and quickly assured him of its efficacy. Fools like Sirius just didn't understand what such a thing could offer them.
"Kreacher," Arcturus snapped. "Take these to the cellar. I'll find something to do with them later."
Their house elf appeared and nodded. He cracked away with the heads and Hydrus cleaned off the top of the desk with a wave of his hand, vanishing away the blood and grime that had temporarily marred its surface and papers.
"I'll be heading to bed now, grandfather." Hydrus bowed his head. "If you see fit to offer me another chance to stand at your side for a Wizengamot meeting, I shall strive to ensure I don't have to miss it."
"Hmph." Arcturus settled back into his chair, still clearly not at all displeased with his heir's antics. "See that you do. You're dismissed."
"As you say."
Hydrus plopped onto his bed in the Black summer home, and groaned in relief at finally getting off his feet. Apophis slithered off of him, and Bellatrix immediately took the opportunity to sit beside him and latch on.
"How are you feeling, dear?" she asked. "Were you hurt?"
"Not by the wolves, no." He sighed. "Just the usual issues."
Bellatrix whined in response. "Poor baby. I promise I'm trying to find a solution."
"Don't bother. For now the healing magic is working, I just need to properly master it."
He'd asked her weeks ago to try and come up with a solution for his overpowering of spells, but clearly it was more than just his magical core being too powerful for his body to handle. So far the only reasonable hypothesis he had was that maybe the Black family magic he'd bestowed upon himself were too corrosive at such massive levels. Even if the rest of his 'family' combined their powers it wouldn't be able to stand against him.
Except perhaps Sirius's.
"Dear?" Bellatrix asked expectantly.
"Hm?" He paused. "Sorry, what did you ask?"
"I asked if there was anything else I could do to help."
He chuckled. "I was originally going to see if I could bribe you into giving me a massage, but at this point I just want today to be over. There's just one last piece of business to attend to." He stood with another groan. "Dobby!"
His favourite house elf popped in and Hydrus smiled down at him. "How can Dobby be servings you, Master Hydrus?"
"To begin with, I order you to call me just Hydrus from this point forward." Dobby gasped and his already owl-like eyes widened even further. "You helped to save my life by warning me ahead of time that there would be poison in my meal, and I would like to offer you your freedom, if you so desire it."
Now Bellatrix was giving him a bug-eyed stare too, but he ignored it. Dobby swallowed. "D-Dobby would never wish for such a thing, Mas—" The elf cut himself off with a high pitched whine. "H-, H-, H-, HYDRUS!"
Hydrus just laughed in response. "It's okay if you do. Anything you wish for, it shall be yours."
"Dobby only wants to serve Master Hydrus!" he squealed, then he paled. "A-, And for Dobby to call Master Hydrus, 'Master Hydrus', … Master Hydrus."
"Fine, fine." Hydrus couldn't stop laughing at his old friend's ridiculousness. It would take time to rehabilitate him again. "Apophis, come greet your Uncle Dobby."
"Uncle?" The snake slithered up to the elf, and began to taste the air around him. "He smells strange."
"He used to serve the Malfoy's, Bella's sister's family," Hydrus hissed. "He means the world to me though, so I've taken him for myself."
"Mother's sister…" Hydrus's eye twitched in annoyance at his familiar once again calling Bellatrix its mother. "Very well. He is allowed to be my little brother then."
"He's older than you."
"I'm more powerful."
"You're not."
"I am!"
The little basilisk reared up and hissed at Hydrus but the time traveller just laughed and flicked his nose.
"Dobby, this is Apophis, my familiar." He lifted the annoyed serpent up and hoisted him onto the diminutive elf. At first his friend braced for the burden, but quickly straightened back up when he realised the creature was weightless. "Be sure to look after him if he ever needs anything."
"Yes, Master Hydrus!"
Hydrus gave a gentle grin at the sight of Dobby staring in awe as Apophis wound his way around the elf. It looked almost as ridiculous as the outfits his friend had worn back when he'd first earned his freedom, like the snake was an entirely different kind of boa.
"Now then." Hydrus took Bellatrix's hand and helped her to her feet. "On to business."
She allowed him to lead her to the parlour, resting her head against the top of his. "Is it the pet werewolf you wanted?"
"Not quite." Hydrus paused before the fireplace. "It turns out the boy was going to some place safe, so I let them have him."
"What was the point then?" His fiancee was grimacing as they stepped into the floo. "All that work for nothing."
"Hogwarts, Professor Black's Office," Hydrus said as he threw down the powder. There was a great whoosh of flame, and he grinned at Bellatrix's gasp when they arrived. "Nothing?"
Sitting in a stone chair, bound by silver chains, with Hydrus's knife plunged through his throat and vocal chords, was Fenrir Greyback.
"I never said I walked away with nothing, Bella."
Hydrus moved forward and flicked the end of the knife handle, not unlike what he'd done to Apophis just earlier. A gurgling sound erupted from Greyback's throat as he tried to growl at him, but the monster was harmless for now. Kreacher had provided the silver chains, saying that they'd been in the family for generations, from back in the day when wizards would go 'wolf hunting'.
It was what passed for sport back in the sixteen-hundreds, and involved finding (or in shadier circumstances, creating) werewolves, capturing them, and starving them until the full moon. They'd be kept chained up and fed alchemical concoctions to modify their 'performance' until the hunt, and then they'd be released into a wild area for wizards to track and kill. Apparently the Blacks were notoriously talented at the game, and regularly hosted and won such competitions.
Bellatrix had a hand over her mouth. "You said he got away."
"I lied." Hydrus leaned against his fiancee's desk as Fenrir glared at him. "I wanted a pet werewolf, and now I got one." He hummed. "On the positive side, this one's fully grown so I won't have to wait for him to be useful. Less positive is the fact that he'll have to be broken first."
"Are you sure this is wise?" Bellatrix asked. "I'm not sure if even our family can clean a slate as dark as his."
"Clean it?" Hydrus laughed. "I don't want it cleaned. He's exactly the sort of tool I've been missing." He reached over and jerked out the knife, launching a torrent of blood directly at himself. "Someone to handle the darker work I need done."
He'd done a fine job of building up his more reputable resources. He had a few dozen students at Hogwarts he could call on without question, most of Hogsmeade owed him at least some small favour, and he had a line of social credit a mile long with the pureblood circles. Unfortunately, unlike he and his soldiers had counted on before he travelled back in time, those same pureblood circles weren't quite as dark as he needed.
They were vile, to be sure, but they weren't evil. They weren't the same men and women who had slaughtered muggles in Voldemort's first bid for power like he'd expected. They were just pompous twats. If he needed someone dead and couldn't be bothered to do it himself, the only person he could trust to pull it off was Bellatrix. Since she had a job at Hogwarts, had a sterling reputation legally-speaking, was by far his most loyal companion, and was very warm, he couldn't risk her on such simple matters. She was valuable in countless ways.
Fenrir Greyback, on the other hand, was as rotten as they came and completely expendable.
"I'll gut you, ya fucking cunt," the werewolf said, voice hoarse and quiet. "Rip your intestines out and feed 'em to the pups."
Bellatrix moved before Hydrus could speak, backhanding Greyback with a ringing crack. "Quiet, dog."
"Come here, Bella." Hydrus pulled her back and into a one-armed side embrace. "That's no way to train our pet."
Greyback growled at him. "Fuck you."
"Eloquent," Hydrus chirped. "Come now, Mr. Greyback, I'm sure we can come to an agreement."
"Fuck you!"
"Let's make this simple," Hydrus said. "The 'carrot' in our relationship would be my continued support for you and yours, both directly and otherwise. Things like financial contributions and the like, as well as working to improve your people's stations in the wider world. Hell, I might even drop an entire country in your lap, for you to rule as you see fit.
"The 'stick', on the other hand, would be the knowledge that I can, and will, rape your mind in order to retrieve the information I need to find your pack. Your children. Your grandchildren. I will hunt every last one of them down, and drag them before you in living chunks." He took a long, husky breath. "I will make sure the only scents you smell are their rotting flesh and soiled remains. The only sights you'll see are their tortured expressions and broken bodies. The only sounds you'll hear are their screams of pain and wails of terror. The only flavours you'll taste are their flesh and blood to sustain yourself with."
Hydrus unwound himself from Bellatrix and leaned in close, gripping the stunned werewolf's face to keep him from turning to bite him, and whispered in his ear.
"And when they're all dead, I'll throw you in a hole so deep that you'll never crawl out of it, and watch you die as a weak, pathetic beast." He half-released and half-tossed the other man's face away. "I'm not asking you to bow and scrape before some human, Mr. Greyback. I'm asking you to do so for me. Or else."
A graveyard quiet took hold of the room. The sort of pause in speech and breathing that usually came when the preacher asked for a moment of silence at a funeral. It was intentional and pregnant, inscrutable and poignant. Even the blood that had been slowly rolling down the werewolf's neck seemed to slow to a stop, just above his collar.
The werewolf looked up at him, and Hydrus knew he'd already won. It didn't matter what the beast actually said at this point, there was a fear and curiosity behind those eyes that the one-time war leader recognized. He'd beaten and broken countless people in his time, had the same things done to him in spades, and knew for sure he'd won.
"Fuck you."
Hydrus grinned.
"Kreacher!" The elf appeared with a whip-like crack. "Take our soon-to-be friend here, and put him in the dungeons of Castle Black." He paused, then his smile grew even wider. "The second furthest cell from the door, on the right. The one without a window."
BBaRtS
We're up to as many chapters as there are hours in the day. We got to the bottom of what happened between Remus and his old flame, resolved saving Timmy from the wel-, I mean, werewolves, got some fun interactions between Hydrus and his ragtag, partially evil family, got to see Hydrus himself getting way darker than normal, and got some more information about just what makes his second bargain with magic so useful/powerful.
I enjoyed getting to expand on the Trace, especially since it isn't really explored in the books. Not gonna lie, it's been a loooong minute since I've read through them, but the wiki was rather barren on it. If anything, the wiki basically pointed out a ton of potential plot holes with the thing, so I hope no one minds my interpretations of it: the people in charge just suck at taking advantage of it to its full ability, mainly because the people who originally implemented it weren't able to fully pull through with their intentions. Magic gave Hydrus full control over it however, and that's how he's able to do what he wants without worrying about the Ministry (or anyone else) noticing him. .
Idk how much I'll get to use Greyback, but I do like the version of him I'm trying to implement. He is Evil, capital E and all, but he's also a twisted family man. He envisions a world where werewolves stand above humans, is doing better for himself this go around than he did in cannon/Hydrus's original world, and was at least charismatic enough to 'win over' someone that Remus helped save and partially raise.
Speaking of Remus, I really tried to find the right amount of giving him and Izzy's interactions depth and showing how others in Remus's life reacted to hearing that she was involved. He was hell-bent on revenge, she swore to help people wherever she could, and at some point in the past it caused their relationship to implode. Unlike Fenrir, I'm 100% certain she won't be a frequent character, but I hope I still did a good job of giving her depth. Or at least, I hope I gave the impression that there was depth there, without wasting too much time digging into an extremely tertiary OC.
On to reviews!
"Part of me really wants him to drop an unforgivable or two in this upcoming werewolf battle royale with Remus, even if it'd probably be unwise. I hope he gets his magic fixed and I really really hope he doesn't get bitten in the next chapter."
His magic still ain't fixed obviously, but we're getting closer to what's causing this issue for him. Although I think a good werewolf bite scene can be fun, I don't think Hydrus is the character nor this the story that it would fit in. He's got enough issues lol. Remus was too exhausted at the time to really react beyond how he did to the unforgivables happening, but who knows what else will happen in the future. Right now Sirius and Dumbledore have formed a sort of pact between the two of them, maybe others will do the same...
"it's a nice story and the writing is ok, but from time to time you are a bit wordy or too descriptive of unimportant stuff like the room or objects or places. Cheers and thanks for the update!:)"
This is the sort of thing I mean when I say I'm trying to practice. When I read back through my works, primarily the rough drafts, my first reactions are usually that they're way too dialogue heavy. Not that there's too MUCH dialogue mind you, just that it's 80% of what I've written, with the barest of bones outside the quotation marks. I still gotta get better at finding just what and how to fill in the rest of the blanks.
"I could foresee an ending that would be somewhat ambiguous but... hopeful?" ... "I would say the sub-plots would be what takes away from the overall story."
I will say I have a one-hundred percent definitive ending to the story in mind. I know where Hydrus will be, I know what he will be, and I think it'll line up perfectly with where we've come from and gone through thus far.
As for the subplots, I didn't really get a definitive answer on those yet. I think I'll try and make the 'mini arcs' focus more entirely on Hydrus in the future, at the very least, but I've gotten contrary comment(s) saying that they loved this. Future ones would be more along the lines of Hydrus and Dumbledore going to Switzerland and retrieving Apophis, though maybe with less important consequences. We'll see, as I've said, I'm here to figure out how to do this whole 'writing' thing in the first place lol
"Hope Greyback gets Merced."
I mean, he definitely did, both in the sense that he was immediately taken out AND that Hydrus is trying to hire him (like a mercenary) to do his bidding
(You've also left a ton of short, positive reviews in the past, I always recognize your icon, so thank you for those lessthanthree)
"Finally we find out how Bellatrix has been tracking Hydrus! I'll admit, I was not expecting magical divination skin graft."
I love divination, especially more esoteric aspects of it. Everyone, myself include, goes off on the prophecies, but I think less straight-forward and more... flippant? Minor? Situations like this are wonderful. Its not just about telling the future, its how you interpret situations you aren't actually there for (yet.)
"FYI, Euros weren't introduced into circulation sometime around 2001 iirc."
TIL, good catch. In my defense, I was still taking spelling tests and trying to unravel the mysteries of analog clocks back in '01. If, when this story is finished, I get the urge to go back and edit this fic I'll make sure to fix that.
"There's one thing that seems like an Americanism: "His plate was still piled high with sausage, bacon, grits, and eggs". Aren't grits almost exclusively eaten in the American South?"
I just love me some grits. I grew up with an American father and a Scottish mother, so I got the best (and worst) of both worlds. I try to at least keep my spellings mostly British, even though day-to-day I use a Canadian-esque bastardization between the two, but little cultural slip ups like this might happen.
And that's all! Thank you guys for the reviews so much. This week was genuinely nothing but positive reviews, I didn't just skip over ones complaining about angst or Bellatrix! Legit nothing but kindness or positive, constructive criticism, so it really helped me knock out a chapter that was on the longer end of my usual six to eight thousand words. See you all next week.
