Infiltration (After the Flaw: Oligarchy, Chapter 40)
Title: Lycanthrope (After the Flaw: Oligarchy, Chapter 40)
Author: kanedax
Rating: R for language and graphic violence
Spoilers: Previous Chapters
Summary: The final stand against the Oligarchy begins
Notes: I used numerous translation programs for this chapter, including Babelfish, Kypros, and Google Translate. Despite these, I am sure that the structures of many of my translations from English are going to be far from accurate.
I own these characters. The others belong to JK Rowling.
Infiltration / Previous Chapters / Meghan Creevey
CRASH
Teddy spun away from Uri, Rose, and Hahnemann as the hospital wing door exploded. He ducked to avoid the wooden shrapnel and a flying Dean Thomas as two black-cloaked figures strode confidently into the room. One raised their wand.
"Skoupizo!""Three!"
A blue light flew over Teddy's head as, with a crack, the three witches disappeared into thin air. The Dualkey Galleon spun in mid-air for a moment and just began its descent when the blue spell connected with it, splatting it against the far wall as a smoking glob of glowing, melted gold.
"Skatta!" roared the figure who had cast the spell, a tall witch with a face-covering helmet that reminded Teddy absently of Magneto's from the X-Men.
Teddy flipped his wand forward, tossing a Stunning spell at the two Masks, which the other, a wizard with a large, angry mouth and a third eye, deflected easily, countering with a green jet of light that Teddy barely ducked.
"Don't kill him!" yelled the witch as Teddy dove for cover behind one of the beds. "Parapat!"
The semi-controlled dive became a tumble as Teddy's feet tangled up beneath him, and he slammed hard to the floor, a sharp pain in his mouth as the impact drove his teeth into his tongue.
"Why shouldn't I?" said the three-eyed wizard. "Rassi!"
With a violent tug at his ankles, Teddy was dragged back into the open. Another yank and he was lifted into the air by his feet, his wand falling from his fingers as he was flipped.
"For one," said the witch, striding forward and glaring into Teddy's upside-down face, "he's not alone. They would be foolish to only send three, and Ypourgos Weasley is not foolish."
"We... are... alone," said Teddy, feeling lightheaded as the blood rushed to his brain. Occlumency, Occlumency, Occlumency...
"Of course you're not," the witch snarled, stepping closer. "There are others, your brain is screaming it. Who is here? The great Harry Potter, perhaps? Or the diefthyntis of that joke you English call a school? Perhaps the Ypourgos herself? Who is here, Teddy Lupin? Who intrudes upon our destiny?"
"Lupin?" said the wizard, his three great eyes blinking in surprise. "Why do I know that name?"
"You didn't study Prospero's documents well, did you, Yama?" said the witch. "This is Theodore Lupin. Son of a metamorph, son of a lycanthrope, and one of our very own Protestevmenos."
"Until recently," Yama, the wizard, said. "He is no longer. So why is he still alive, Atrytone?"
"Why kill when he could still be of use to us?" said the witch, Atrytone. There was a cold smile in her voice, and Teddy could almost see her teeth glittering behind her dark helmet.
"Use?" Yama snapped. "What use could he serve? He won't join us."
"Bloke's got... a point..." Teddy breathed.
"Besides, he's proven that he's too idiotic to serve any purpose," Yama continued. "He's a metamorph, yes? Then why is he using his normal face? Why not pretend to be someone else?"
"Because he wants us to know it's him," said Atrytone. "It is personal for him. We have his family, after all. Well, had his family. She's back with her mother, yes, Teddy? Ah, well. No matter. We still have the Next. That's all that matters. It will only be a matter of time before Rose Weasley, as well as all of the Weasleys and Potters and the rest of the world, will serve us."
"Kill him, already!"
"Silence," said Atrytone, turning her dark gaze on Yama. "He serves a purpose yet. Purely academic, of course, but a purpose nonetheless. Let him down."
"What?"
"Let him down," she repeated calmly. "Agrypnos," she said, pointing her wand at Dean's unconscious body, who stirred sluggishly before pushing himself to his unsteady feet.
"Dean!" Teddy rasped. "Run!"
"I spoke to Kitsune a few months ago," said Atrytone to Yama conversationally as Dean began to move towards the pair of Masks. With an absent wave of her wand, he was stopped in mid-step, bouncing off an invisible wall. "Her territory had recently been visited by Kirios Lupin and his newly-wedded wife, as well as by one Antaeus Carrow. I said, let him down."
"But--"
"Do it," said the witch, accenting it with a short snap of her wand that caused Yama to flinch back as though shocked. He complied, and Teddy fell hard, a small splat of red saliva dripping onto the floor from his bloodied tongue. "Now, Kitsune had been told of Lupin's journey well in advance," she continued as though nothing happened. "Unlike you, Yama, she read up on him, since he would be under her protection for as long as he remained in Japan. And, from that research, she developed some interesting theories, which intrigued me as well when we discussed them soon after. Marioneta."
The pain on his tongue was gone. So was the pain in his head from the fall, the pain in his back from the Dualkey transit, and the pain in his heart from everything that had happened in his life since he and Victoire had met on that snowy night months ago. All the anxiety, the doubt, the hurt. Just... gone. Teddy felt calm. Content. More than content. He felt like he could face the world and win, with a grin on his face. Not that he wanted to, of course. Right now he was just happy to stand right here as the two dark wizards stared at him.
They didn't seem so bad. What was the big deal, anyway? Couldn't they all just get along?
"I wonder," said Atrytone at Teddy's absent smile, far and wee, "how much power this boy truly has. He can change into whoever he wants, yes. But how much of his father does he have left in him?"
The images weren't forced into Teddy's head. It was more like they were unearthed, unlocked from the hidden memories of his mind, melding them together into one main force. Bigby. Oz.
change
Underworld. Talisman.
change
Third year Defense. The diagrams. The photographs.
become
The descriptions and the methods and the fascination and revulsion and was Dad really like that?
become
He always knew his father was one of them, and he knew that Uncle Bill and Mrs. Finnigan were kind of one of them, but he never asked and he only knew what he saw in the texts and the books and on the screen when he and Hermione sat down as kids and watched Del Toro and Fox and Cheney and the American in London and all the other old movies and even that dumb Michael Jackson music video and he always wondered which one of them his Dad really was.
Would he ever become that? Would hair and teeth and howling at the moon come with the drop in voice and the Apparition license? Would a taste for blood come with a taste for girls? Was he only his mother's son until he got older, when he would suddenly become his parents' son?
He always worried. He always wondered. He never told anyone of his concerns, not even Hermione, his wife.
But there was that small part of him that wondered what it would be like. A small part of him that wanted to know...
become
Teddy Lupin changed so many times over the last twenty years. Changed height, weight, hair color, age. Even changed gender, although he decided that one time was more than enough to ever do it again.
He changed his face so often.
But he always kept his mind. Always kept himself.
Until now.
change
become
---------
"What do you think, Kirios Thomas?" said Atrytone as Teddy collapsed in front of Dean's shocked eyes. "Do you think we found the one tiny chromosome that Remus Lupin gave his son all those years ago?"
"Teddy?" Dean said, wanting to look around for a wand that he knew he needed but unable to tear his gaze away.
Teddy Lupin was shifting. Dean took a step backwards and bumped into Atrytone's barrier, which had trapped him inside this small section of the hospital wing with the young man whose clothes were now churning and rippling as though it was covering a barely contained wave pool. Its seams strained. He heard a creak as the boy's boots tightened, then popped. Teddy groaned. Teddy moaned. Teddy growled.
Where Teddy Lupin had once stood, within his black robes, now crouched a snarling wolf.
"Amazing, isn't he?" said Atrytone devilishly as Teddy's eyes honed in on Dean. "I don't even think I need to control him anymore. Oh, but he looks so hungry..."
Yama stood silent, his fanged jaw hung open as Dean circled away from the werewolf. Dean felt around the invisible barrier surrounding them, judging that the Masks were giving him maybe twenty feet of space. Not nearly enough, especially if Teddy was as far gone as they seemed to think.
"Teddy," said Dean, swallowing hard, trying to remain calm, "it's me. It's Dean. Mr. Thomas. Remember me?"
"Careful, Thomas," said Atrytone, laughing hard. "Lycanthropes can smell fear. Do you think he can, too?"
"Atrytone," said Yama, suddenly sounding unsure of himself, "maybe we should... um..."
"Should what?" said Atrytone. "Let them go? Do you truly want the wolf released? Surely not before we've finished the experiment."
"Teddy," said Dean, shaking at the sight of saliva glistening on the werewolf's teeth, "Teddy, come on, you can fight this."
"Perhaps," said Atrytone with a shrug. "But does he want to?"
A flick of her wand, and the wolf was upon him.
Dean was knocked off his feet, and he had the unnatural sensation of sliding down thin air as the weight of the werewolf pressed him to the ground. He would have been more bemused by the feeling if he wasn't wrestling with Teddy's muzzle, keeping his teeth from his throat.
Don't let him bite you, Dean's slowly fading rational mind pleaded, don't let him bite, don't let him bite
"You're right, Thomas," said Atrytone. "Don't let him bite you. You don't want to find out just how much of his father's disease he still carries, do you?"
Dean was fighting a losing battle, and he knew it. Teddy's jaws were like an iron vice, and he was doing everything he could to keep them open. The claws at the end of Teddy's paws weren't helping matters, the forepaws gouging into Dean's arms while his rear paws tore into his thighs.
If the saliva gets into these wounds is it the same as if he bites me? he thought, panicked. If I touch one of his teeth is it the same as if he bites me? What if... What if...
The jaws closed on his left hand, and Dean didn't need to ask anymore.
The pain was exquisite. he could hear the small bones snap like wet twigs, but couldn't feel it through the pain any more than one could pick out one violin in an orchestra. With the pain threatening to overwhelm him, and with the kind of strength reserved for superheroes and repairmen trapped beneath automobiles, Dean tore his legs from Teddy's rear claws, planted his feet on the wolf's chest, and pushed. Teddy flew back, pulling Dean's hand with him, and with one hard tug backwards Dean was able to wrest himself free from the teeth. But not all of himself; Teddy took Dean's middle and ring fingers with him, leaving the rest of his hand a mangled wreck.
"Atrytone," said Yama, scared now as he watched Dean find his balance and run to the far end of the invisible barrier, "this isn't funny anymore. End this."
"Why?" said Atrytone. "They broke in, stole our hostage. They deserve to die, yes?"
"Then kill him!" Yama yelled. "Don't toy with him!"
"But imagine the possibilities, Yama," said Atrytone. "The Oligarchy with an army of lycanthrope metamorphs, bred to change on command. We'll be invincible."
"But you're not invincible yet, Atrytone."
Atrytone and Yama turned to the voice that came from the door, and Dean felt the air around him shimmer as the the shield charm broke, the two Masks thrown through the air by one incredibly powerful spell. Out of the corner of his eye he saw a third wizard, this one with a golden mask and an imposing spear, stride into the room towards the two downed Oligarchy, but Dean's attention was instead on Teddy, who had quickly recovered and was rearing to pounce again.
Moments to think, Dean reached out to find something, anything, to defend himself. Teddy growled. Dean's right hand found cold metal behind him.
In the slow motion of battle, Teddy leaped. Dean pulled the metal pipe, hoping it wasn't attached to the ground. It wasn't, and he swung it around, a thin metal pole upon which hung two bottles filled with multi-colored potions for intravenous drips. Teddy was in mid-air now, halfway to Dean. Dean added his mangled left hand as he swung, stepping to the left and channeling every Beater, batsman, and home run slugger he had watched in his years as a sports fan, both Muggle and wizard.
Don't hate me for this in the morning, mate, he had time to think before the pole connected with Teddy's head, the two bottles shattering against the werewolf's skull. The impact drove Teddy off-course, missing Dean by inches and instead forcing him to collide with the end of an empty hospital bed.
"Thomas!" yelled the gold-masked wizard over the pained howlings of the young werewolf, tossing Dean Yama's wand. Dean caught it deftly with his right hand; thankfully his wand arm, except for a few gouges from Teddy's claws, was undamaged.
"Prodotis!" Atrytone yelled, rolling to her feet and hurling a jinx at the wizard. "PRODOTIS!"
Atrytone and the wizard began to duel, hard and blindingly fast. The jinxes, hexes, and spells tossed back and forth at each other were uncountable, of such intensity that Dean could feel the hairs standing up on his arm like the room had suddenly been charged with static electricity. The golden wizard hurled jinxes which smashed into the stone walls as they were deflected by Atrytone; Atrytone's own spells were deflected, both by the wizard's wand and his apparently enchanted spear, which he was wielding with a spinning, graceful ease. Yama's wand hung limply at Dean's side, amazed at the level of magic emanating from the two Circle members.
He barely noticed, then, when Yama slid across the hospital floor, his hand stretching for Teddy's lost wand. His fingers inches away, Dean reacted just in time, hurling a Depulso jinx that didn't quite feel right (You didn't win the wand, so it doesn't belong to you). It did the job, though, knocking Teddy's wand to the far wall.
Do what you can, Dean thought, wondering where his own wand had fallen. He knew that he should strike to kill, but also knew that a foreign wand wouldn't have the power to pull that off.
"Levicorpus!"
Yama was lifted into the air, his robes falling around him as he hung by his feet just as Teddy had been hung minutes before. He was prone, his robes hanging down, nearly covering his face. Dean had him. He--
"Atma Rassi!"
Yama threw his hand out. From beneath his sleeve flew a thin, silvery wire that flew with an incredible speed towards Dean, who barely had time to move before it wrapped around his neck.
Wandless magic, he can do wandless magic, I'm an idiot, I... I...
No one who ever experienced the Dementor's Kiss would ever be able to fully describe the effect of having your soul sucked from your body, but Dean knew that was exactly what he was feeling now. The pain in Dean's mauled hand began to fade. The heat that was slipping up his left arm, surely a sign of infection, cooled into the distance. Dean's feelings about the mission, his job, his life, slipped towards his throat, collecting inside the cool noose which cut bloodlessly into him and gripped around his very being.
"Bahuta jalda," said Yama, the mask slipping from his head yet nonetheless smiling demonically at Dean's slackening face. "Bahuta jalda tumhari atma meri hogi."
Fight it! Dean thought as he dropped to his knees, Yama's wand slipping from his hand.
Why?
From what seemed like the other side of the world, Dean heard a snarl. Saw a black shape leap, striking the hung Mask at the waist and pulling him from the air. Instantaneously, the noose around Dean's neck slackened, and the pain and fear and strength and existence slammed back into his body so hard that the back of his skull cracked against the floor as he was tossed backwards.
Dazed, Dean heard, but thankfully didn't see. As it was, the sound alone curdled his blood and would haunt his dreams for decades after. The screams of Yama, Mask of Delhi, cut silent with the sound of shredding meat. The victorious howl of Teddy Lupin after tearing out the throat of the wizard with his razor-sharp teeth.
The sparks and explosions from the two remaining Masks ceased, cut off like the flick of a light switch. Dean turned his head to see. Both of them stood in the middle of a newly-formed dent in the floor, a huge melted dimple created by their spell barrage. Both hoods were back, both masks fallen from their faces. The bearded wizard with the blond ponytail stood inches from the olive-skinned witch. Between them was the wizard's spear, blood pouring down its wooden shaft and onto his hands, his wand discarded. The back of the witch's robes were tented as the spear's point jutted from her back by at least a foot. Her wand, however, was still raised, pressed against the bottom of the wizard's chin.
"You... You..." Atrytone rasped, a river of dark blood down the corner of her mouth. "You would... destroy the Oligarchy... prodotis?"
"I am no traitor, Diana," said the wizard, his face a landscape of welts and bruises. "The Oligarchy does not die with you, no matter what you may think otherwise."
"It... does not... die... with you... either... Garrett," Atrytone said, her weakening mouth twisted in rage. "Thanatos!"
A spark from the tip of her wand threw the wizard's, Garrett's, head backwards. His hands fell from his spear, and Atrytone fell to the floor, lifeless in a pool of her own blood. The wizard staggered from the spell, but did not fall. Meanwhile, Dean struggled to his feet, picking up Yama's wand and pointing it at the blond wizard, who only looked at him with stunned surprise.
"I do not mean you harm, Dean Thomas," the wizard said.
"You'd be Gungnir, yeah?" said Dean.
"I would be," said Gungnir with a nod, rubbing his chin with a wince. "But not for much longer, I assure you. Will you allow me to retrieve my wand?"
"Can I trust you?"
"That is up to you," Gungnir shrugged. "But we must deal with your varulv friend before he decides poor Tahir isn't enough of a meal for him."
Dean had been keeping Teddy in the corner of his eye throughout the exchange between Gungnir and Atrytone. The werewolf was still tearing at the dead wizard's throat.
"It's been contained for, how old is he, twenty years?" said Gungnir, picking up his wand and pointing it at Teddy. "Twenty years before Diana's... Imperius Curse, you English call it... awoke his father's nature inside him. He is making up for lost time."
"You're not killing him," said Dean, firming his grip on Yama's wand as he pointed it at Gungnir's face. Blood was pouring down his leg from his wounded hand, and he knew it would only be a matter of time before he passed out from the pain and the blood loss, but right now he stood as straight and confidently as possible.
"We don't have a choice," said Gungnir. "I am sorry, Dean Thomas, but it is true. Just as the man half of a varulv has no control over the moon, neither does the wolf. Theodore, however, has the control the others lack. The man would never wish to become the wolf, and the wolf would never wish to become the man. And even if the wolf would want to become a man, he doesn't have the intelligence that Theodore the man has. He wouldn't know how to shift his body back. He could stay this way forever, regardless of lunar cycles."
"Then he stays a werewolf," Dean said, "cuz he's not dying. Not unless you kill me first."
"If that's what it takes..." said Gungnir, pointing his wand at Dean.
"Can't you Imperius him, too?" Dean said, desperate for an answer. "Atrytone did it--"
"Atrytone is a handler," said Gungnir. "Was a handler," he corrected, glancing down at her limp body. "Imperius spells are impossible to perform on animals unless you have a certain natural quality. She had that skill. I don't."
"But what do we--"
He cut off. Teddy looked up from his Yama meal and turned to the two wizards. His eyes narrowed. He snarled.
Gungnir raised his wand.
Then the impossible happened.
---------
"Ted?"
Victoire Weasley walked down the beach, their beach, looking for him. She was dressed in her Oligarchy robes and mask, but she felt no heat through the dark clothes.
Had they found Rose? Did they get her out? Were they found? Were they attacked?
Was he dead?
Of course he's not dead, she thought. You wouldn't be here if he was.
Why was she here? Why was she here? This was their place, their refuge. Not exactly a place to meet and exchange information.
"Ted?" she repeated, calling out. "Teddy?"
She couldn't wait here for long. She was currently standing in an alcove, and even from here she could feel the impatient, anxious eyes of Professor Ogden and Mr. Malfoy boring into her.
"Ted? Where are you?"
hunger
Victoire began to feel warm. The sky above her turned red. The sand and water developed a ruby tint. Somewhere her pulse raced and her stomach rumbled.
vic
"Ted?" she cried out, looking around for the origin of the voice. The tiny word seemed to come from nowhere and everywhere, yet she was still alone.
tear
"Ted, answer me!"
vic get out
"What's wrong? Are you hurt?"
Victoire was scared. It was a primal kind of fear, like she was standing in the eye of a
(wolf pack)
hurricane. Her mouth was
(watering)
dry as a cottonball, tasting of copper.
get out please
"No!" Victoire yelled, steeling herself against the new sensations washing over her. "Ted, talk to me! What's happening?"
Images now, washing over the tinted horizon. A mauled animal carcass. The framed photograph on Andromeda Tonks's mantel, Remus Lupin and Nymphadora Tonks with a blue-haired bundle of blankets. The full moon. Blood.
Ted's parents. Ted's father. Blood. A moon. The hunger. Fear.
Werewolves? Where?
But she knew the answer, didn't she? From the moment she stepped onto this beach she knew that something wasn't quite right. The colors were duller, yet more alive. Her nostrils were smelling things even in her mind, even more than she thought was possible in the real world. Things were... off. Like when she has entered Buckbeak's mind. Base. Instinctual.
Animalistic.
"Ted!" Victoire cried out, as loudly as possible. "Ted, what happened to you? Who turned you?"
leave please leave
"I'm not leaving you!" she screamed desperately, running down the beach towards who knew where. Ted's voice was fading, and the hunger was consuming him. Consuming her.
no use
SHE GET OUT
"Leave him alone!"
NO HE ONLY ME
A shape now, down the shore. Four legs, gray fur, and huge. Not just bigger than any dog she had ever met, but bigger than any human. Elephant sized, and it seemed to be growing larger as it neared her. As it did, she got a look at its face: blurred, hazy, and misshapen.
It's how the werewolf sees itself, Victoire realized, stepping back in shock. It's the representation of itself. It doesn't know what it looks like. It hasn't seen its own face, ever. All it knows is that it's hairy and imposing.
Philosophical analysis's great, and all, she countered, but those teeth look a little more than hypothetical.
"It can't hurt me," she rationalized. "I'm just a thought, it can't hurt me..."
SHE GET OUT
vic run
"It can't hurt me..."
But she knew that was stupid. What happens in here can easily affect her physically. Hadn't she almost lost her own memory by jumping into Luna's? And all those days and nights she woke up after Ted's psychic trysts...
run vic please run
She was her own soul in here. She could be hurt just as easily as if she were facing a werewolf in real life. Her body may not get physically mauled, but she could disappear nonetheless.
vicrunvicrunvic
"I'm not leaving you!" she cried out, as confidently as she could muster, and she felt the earth beneath her feet shake as her voice echoed across the ocean. The werewolf flinched backwards momentarily, then leaped.
ME NOT HE NOT HE ME HE GONE
It landed on top of her, and she felt her nonexistent breath knocked out of her. Felt the nonexistent weight of a massive paw, as large as the breadth of her shoulders, pin her to the ground, its massive claws, sharp as razors, bracketing her skull.
"Ted, stop it!" Victoire cried out. "You have to!"
cantviccant
"You can!" she yelled, beating helplessly at the wolf's leg as it leaned down to her. Each tooth was the size of a Beater bat; its breath smelled of spoiled pork.
sostrongicant
"Then help me!" she screamed into the wolf's opening jaws. "I'm not strong enough to fight it!"
vicpleasesostrong
"It's going to kill you!" Victoire yelled as her head entered the beast's mouth. "It's going to kill us both! I'm not leaving without you, I love you, help me fight back!"
The jaws closed.
Vic NO!"
She felt the weight pressing against her skull, horrible pressure. A cracking noise...
And nothing.
She stared into the beasts black maw (no tongue no tonsils no throat just emptiness), and knew she wasn't dead. Yet. Somehow.
Weight in her hand that she couldn't see. She could only act.
Victoire swung her arm up, striking the wolf's foreleg with whatever it was she was holding. She heard an odd voom noise as she moved, and the wolf howled in pain before falling back, releasing her. She rolled backwards, far more deftly and gracefully than she ever could in real life, and jumped to her feet.
She had stabbed something into the wolf's leg. The handle looked familiar: the Sword of Gryffindor that was hanging in Professor Longbottom's office. Instead of a blade sticking out the other end, however, there was some sort of green light?
(lightsaber)
"What?" Victoire said, blinking as the thought entered her head unbidden. She put her hand on her head, only to feel it was covered by some kind of
(dallas cowboys)
helmet.
The wolf was recovering. The sword slid through its leg like it was air, leaving a cauterized trail that was a little too jagged and visceral to be mere imagination. His fangs were shattered; blood poured from one socket where a tooth had been completely torn out.
"Let's get rid of him."
Ted's voice once again came from nowhere. But it was stronger this time. Almost like he was right next to her.
Her right hand felt warm. She looked down to see she was wearing some sort of futuristic
(saiyan)
armor, white and blue. There was a small flame
(hadoken)
in the palm of her
(kamehameha)
hand.
Victoire's hands came together, cupping the flame. Her body was no longer in her control, but she didn't resist. She didn't need to. She trusted what was happening.
Ted Lupin was helping.
"Ted?" she said as her cupped hands pulled back to her side, her wrists touching the side of her breast. "Love?"
"Yeah?"
"I don't know half of this stuff I'm wearing or doing or thinking, but... You do know you're a huge geek, right?"
"You don't know how often I hear that, lady."
Her arms flung out. She screamed, yelled, howled her own battle cry. The flame expanded, blasting out like a beam of light as high as her own body. It grew more, completely enveloping the wolf, who didn't even have time to cry out before he became a silhouette, a shadow, then vanishing completely.
Ted stood where the wolf once stood. He was dressed the same as he had been the last time they were here: an unbuttoned shirt and baggy shorts. The strange science fiction armor was gone from her body, as well, leaving behind not the black Oligarchy robes but the sarong and bikini top of before.
"You're okay," she said, her voice shaking with a sob of relief.
"Probably not," he replied quietly. "It's just pulled back. It's not gone. I can still feel him here."
"Are... Are we safe?"
"For a while," he said with sad smile. "I'm able to hold it back for a bit, thanks to you."
"But how do we--"
"Are you safe?" he interrupted. "You and Professor Ogden and Mr. Malfoy?"
"Yes," she said. "Did you find Rose?"
"We got her out," said Ted, "but Atrytone took out the Galleon before Uri could get back."
"What?"
"I don't know," he said, turning away. "But I have to get back. I... I'm starting to remember what happened and... I... I'll be back soon, I promise."
She kissed him. "Stay safe."
---------
Ted Lupin opened his human eyes, and was sickened by what he saw.
His hands were red. His face was wet. The body of the wizard known as Yama was beneath him, his throat torn out.
Ted fell back, his hands covering his mouth. Blood, everywhere. Shock overwhelmed him.
"What did I...?"
"You didn't do anything," said a voice behind him. Ted's head snapped around. Dean was there; he was also covered in blood, his left hand...
"What did I do?" Teddy repeated, yelling this time.
"You didn't do anything," the other wizard, the one next to Dean, middle aged with a blond beard, said. "Atrytone did this to you."
"But... But... Did I kill him?"
"Now is not the time for this," said the wizard sharply. "Time is of the essence. Your friends are walking towards the Next. I have sent Kitsune to them, but Meghan Cullen is protected by Prospero. Also, Amit, our steward and a very powerful witch, will be joining him soon. We must join them soon, but you must notify them of Kitsune's arrival."
Teddy sat motionless, the enormity of the situation washing over him. He couldn't move. Couldn't think. He kept looking back at the body.
"Teddy!" Dean yelled. "Stay with us, kid."
"Vekke," said the wizard, pointing his wand at Madam Cruz, the other nurse, who sat up quickly and alertly.
"Kona Cruz, this man needs medical attention immediately," he said, pointing to Dean. "He has been bitten by a werewolf."
"No!" cried Ted, looking once again at Dean's hand. "I did that to you?"
"I said stay with us," said Dean as calmly as possible as Cruz examined his hand. "It wasn't you, alright? Besides, I hit you with a few spells and a metal pipe, so we're even."
"Not if I... I..."
"There is infection," said the nurse. "I cannot yet say how severe."
"Do what needs be done," said the other wizard.
"Yes, Gungnir," said Cruz with a nod.
"Theodore Lupin," said Gungnir, putting his hand on Ted's shoulder. "You must do as I say. Contact Victoire Weasley. Tell her what we know. Tell her we are on our way, as is Kitsune. They can trust her."
"Um..."
"And you can trust me," said Gungnir. "The Oligarchy is no longer what it once was. Its ideals towards both wizard and Muggle have been twisted by Atrytone and her like. I wish to make amends, as does Kitsune and Manbo," he added, motioning to the unconscious black woman in the bed nearby, unmoved by the events that had taken place so close to her.
"What happened to her?"
"Again, this is not the time."
Teddy looked to Dean, who nodded. "He saved both of us," he said. "He's the closest thing we have to an ally in here. Call Vickie."
"Alright," said Teddy reluctantly. He closed his eyes.
---------
Victoire opened her eyes moments later. She looked at Professor Ogden and Mr. Malfoy, her eyes adjusting in the gloom of the alcove.
"Well?" said Malfoy impatiently. "What did he say?"
"We're close," she said. "And help's on the way."
Help for us, maybe, she thought. But what about for him?
She shook her head. That was something that would be taken care of later. But not now. For now, he was safe.
"Let's go."
Infiltration / Previous Chapters / Meghan Creevey
Author: kanedax
Rating: R for language and graphic violence
Spoilers: Previous Chapters
Summary: The final stand against the Oligarchy begins
Notes: I used numerous translation programs for this chapter, including Babelfish, Kypros, and Google Translate. Despite these, I am sure that the structures of many of my translations from English are going to be far from accurate.
I own these characters. The others belong to JK Rowling.
Infiltration / Previous Chapters / Meghan Creevey
CRASH
Teddy spun away from Uri, Rose, and Hahnemann as the hospital wing door exploded. He ducked to avoid the wooden shrapnel and a flying Dean Thomas as two black-cloaked figures strode confidently into the room. One raised their wand.
"Skoupizo!""Three!"
A blue light flew over Teddy's head as, with a crack, the three witches disappeared into thin air. The Dualkey Galleon spun in mid-air for a moment and just began its descent when the blue spell connected with it, splatting it against the far wall as a smoking glob of glowing, melted gold.
"Skatta!" roared the figure who had cast the spell, a tall witch with a face-covering helmet that reminded Teddy absently of Magneto's from the X-Men.
Teddy flipped his wand forward, tossing a Stunning spell at the two Masks, which the other, a wizard with a large, angry mouth and a third eye, deflected easily, countering with a green jet of light that Teddy barely ducked.
"Don't kill him!" yelled the witch as Teddy dove for cover behind one of the beds. "Parapat!"
The semi-controlled dive became a tumble as Teddy's feet tangled up beneath him, and he slammed hard to the floor, a sharp pain in his mouth as the impact drove his teeth into his tongue.
"Why shouldn't I?" said the three-eyed wizard. "Rassi!"
With a violent tug at his ankles, Teddy was dragged back into the open. Another yank and he was lifted into the air by his feet, his wand falling from his fingers as he was flipped.
"For one," said the witch, striding forward and glaring into Teddy's upside-down face, "he's not alone. They would be foolish to only send three, and Ypourgos Weasley is not foolish."
"We... are... alone," said Teddy, feeling lightheaded as the blood rushed to his brain. Occlumency, Occlumency, Occlumency...
"Of course you're not," the witch snarled, stepping closer. "There are others, your brain is screaming it. Who is here? The great Harry Potter, perhaps? Or the diefthyntis of that joke you English call a school? Perhaps the Ypourgos herself? Who is here, Teddy Lupin? Who intrudes upon our destiny?"
"Lupin?" said the wizard, his three great eyes blinking in surprise. "Why do I know that name?"
"You didn't study Prospero's documents well, did you, Yama?" said the witch. "This is Theodore Lupin. Son of a metamorph, son of a lycanthrope, and one of our very own Protestevmenos."
"Until recently," Yama, the wizard, said. "He is no longer. So why is he still alive, Atrytone?"
"Why kill when he could still be of use to us?" said the witch, Atrytone. There was a cold smile in her voice, and Teddy could almost see her teeth glittering behind her dark helmet.
"Use?" Yama snapped. "What use could he serve? He won't join us."
"Bloke's got... a point..." Teddy breathed.
"Besides, he's proven that he's too idiotic to serve any purpose," Yama continued. "He's a metamorph, yes? Then why is he using his normal face? Why not pretend to be someone else?"
"Because he wants us to know it's him," said Atrytone. "It is personal for him. We have his family, after all. Well, had his family. She's back with her mother, yes, Teddy? Ah, well. No matter. We still have the Next. That's all that matters. It will only be a matter of time before Rose Weasley, as well as all of the Weasleys and Potters and the rest of the world, will serve us."
"Kill him, already!"
"Silence," said Atrytone, turning her dark gaze on Yama. "He serves a purpose yet. Purely academic, of course, but a purpose nonetheless. Let him down."
"What?"
"Let him down," she repeated calmly. "Agrypnos," she said, pointing her wand at Dean's unconscious body, who stirred sluggishly before pushing himself to his unsteady feet.
"Dean!" Teddy rasped. "Run!"
"I spoke to Kitsune a few months ago," said Atrytone to Yama conversationally as Dean began to move towards the pair of Masks. With an absent wave of her wand, he was stopped in mid-step, bouncing off an invisible wall. "Her territory had recently been visited by Kirios Lupin and his newly-wedded wife, as well as by one Antaeus Carrow. I said, let him down."
"But--"
"Do it," said the witch, accenting it with a short snap of her wand that caused Yama to flinch back as though shocked. He complied, and Teddy fell hard, a small splat of red saliva dripping onto the floor from his bloodied tongue. "Now, Kitsune had been told of Lupin's journey well in advance," she continued as though nothing happened. "Unlike you, Yama, she read up on him, since he would be under her protection for as long as he remained in Japan. And, from that research, she developed some interesting theories, which intrigued me as well when we discussed them soon after. Marioneta."
The pain on his tongue was gone. So was the pain in his head from the fall, the pain in his back from the Dualkey transit, and the pain in his heart from everything that had happened in his life since he and Victoire had met on that snowy night months ago. All the anxiety, the doubt, the hurt. Just... gone. Teddy felt calm. Content. More than content. He felt like he could face the world and win, with a grin on his face. Not that he wanted to, of course. Right now he was just happy to stand right here as the two dark wizards stared at him.
They didn't seem so bad. What was the big deal, anyway? Couldn't they all just get along?
"I wonder," said Atrytone at Teddy's absent smile, far and wee, "how much power this boy truly has. He can change into whoever he wants, yes. But how much of his father does he have left in him?"
The images weren't forced into Teddy's head. It was more like they were unearthed, unlocked from the hidden memories of his mind, melding them together into one main force. Bigby. Oz.
change
Underworld. Talisman.
change
Third year Defense. The diagrams. The photographs.
become
The descriptions and the methods and the fascination and revulsion and was Dad really like that?
become
He always knew his father was one of them, and he knew that Uncle Bill and Mrs. Finnigan were kind of one of them, but he never asked and he only knew what he saw in the texts and the books and on the screen when he and Hermione sat down as kids and watched Del Toro and Fox and Cheney and the American in London and all the other old movies and even that dumb Michael Jackson music video and he always wondered which one of them his Dad really was.
Would he ever become that? Would hair and teeth and howling at the moon come with the drop in voice and the Apparition license? Would a taste for blood come with a taste for girls? Was he only his mother's son until he got older, when he would suddenly become his parents' son?
He always worried. He always wondered. He never told anyone of his concerns, not even Hermione, his wife.
But there was that small part of him that wondered what it would be like. A small part of him that wanted to know...
become
Teddy Lupin changed so many times over the last twenty years. Changed height, weight, hair color, age. Even changed gender, although he decided that one time was more than enough to ever do it again.
He changed his face so often.
But he always kept his mind. Always kept himself.
Until now.
change
become
---------
"What do you think, Kirios Thomas?" said Atrytone as Teddy collapsed in front of Dean's shocked eyes. "Do you think we found the one tiny chromosome that Remus Lupin gave his son all those years ago?"
"Teddy?" Dean said, wanting to look around for a wand that he knew he needed but unable to tear his gaze away.
Teddy Lupin was shifting. Dean took a step backwards and bumped into Atrytone's barrier, which had trapped him inside this small section of the hospital wing with the young man whose clothes were now churning and rippling as though it was covering a barely contained wave pool. Its seams strained. He heard a creak as the boy's boots tightened, then popped. Teddy groaned. Teddy moaned. Teddy growled.
Where Teddy Lupin had once stood, within his black robes, now crouched a snarling wolf.
"Amazing, isn't he?" said Atrytone devilishly as Teddy's eyes honed in on Dean. "I don't even think I need to control him anymore. Oh, but he looks so hungry..."
Yama stood silent, his fanged jaw hung open as Dean circled away from the werewolf. Dean felt around the invisible barrier surrounding them, judging that the Masks were giving him maybe twenty feet of space. Not nearly enough, especially if Teddy was as far gone as they seemed to think.
"Teddy," said Dean, swallowing hard, trying to remain calm, "it's me. It's Dean. Mr. Thomas. Remember me?"
"Careful, Thomas," said Atrytone, laughing hard. "Lycanthropes can smell fear. Do you think he can, too?"
"Atrytone," said Yama, suddenly sounding unsure of himself, "maybe we should... um..."
"Should what?" said Atrytone. "Let them go? Do you truly want the wolf released? Surely not before we've finished the experiment."
"Teddy," said Dean, shaking at the sight of saliva glistening on the werewolf's teeth, "Teddy, come on, you can fight this."
"Perhaps," said Atrytone with a shrug. "But does he want to?"
A flick of her wand, and the wolf was upon him.
Dean was knocked off his feet, and he had the unnatural sensation of sliding down thin air as the weight of the werewolf pressed him to the ground. He would have been more bemused by the feeling if he wasn't wrestling with Teddy's muzzle, keeping his teeth from his throat.
Don't let him bite you, Dean's slowly fading rational mind pleaded, don't let him bite, don't let him bite
"You're right, Thomas," said Atrytone. "Don't let him bite you. You don't want to find out just how much of his father's disease he still carries, do you?"
Dean was fighting a losing battle, and he knew it. Teddy's jaws were like an iron vice, and he was doing everything he could to keep them open. The claws at the end of Teddy's paws weren't helping matters, the forepaws gouging into Dean's arms while his rear paws tore into his thighs.
If the saliva gets into these wounds is it the same as if he bites me? he thought, panicked. If I touch one of his teeth is it the same as if he bites me? What if... What if...
The jaws closed on his left hand, and Dean didn't need to ask anymore.
The pain was exquisite. he could hear the small bones snap like wet twigs, but couldn't feel it through the pain any more than one could pick out one violin in an orchestra. With the pain threatening to overwhelm him, and with the kind of strength reserved for superheroes and repairmen trapped beneath automobiles, Dean tore his legs from Teddy's rear claws, planted his feet on the wolf's chest, and pushed. Teddy flew back, pulling Dean's hand with him, and with one hard tug backwards Dean was able to wrest himself free from the teeth. But not all of himself; Teddy took Dean's middle and ring fingers with him, leaving the rest of his hand a mangled wreck.
"Atrytone," said Yama, scared now as he watched Dean find his balance and run to the far end of the invisible barrier, "this isn't funny anymore. End this."
"Why?" said Atrytone. "They broke in, stole our hostage. They deserve to die, yes?"
"Then kill him!" Yama yelled. "Don't toy with him!"
"But imagine the possibilities, Yama," said Atrytone. "The Oligarchy with an army of lycanthrope metamorphs, bred to change on command. We'll be invincible."
"But you're not invincible yet, Atrytone."
Atrytone and Yama turned to the voice that came from the door, and Dean felt the air around him shimmer as the the shield charm broke, the two Masks thrown through the air by one incredibly powerful spell. Out of the corner of his eye he saw a third wizard, this one with a golden mask and an imposing spear, stride into the room towards the two downed Oligarchy, but Dean's attention was instead on Teddy, who had quickly recovered and was rearing to pounce again.
Moments to think, Dean reached out to find something, anything, to defend himself. Teddy growled. Dean's right hand found cold metal behind him.
In the slow motion of battle, Teddy leaped. Dean pulled the metal pipe, hoping it wasn't attached to the ground. It wasn't, and he swung it around, a thin metal pole upon which hung two bottles filled with multi-colored potions for intravenous drips. Teddy was in mid-air now, halfway to Dean. Dean added his mangled left hand as he swung, stepping to the left and channeling every Beater, batsman, and home run slugger he had watched in his years as a sports fan, both Muggle and wizard.
Don't hate me for this in the morning, mate, he had time to think before the pole connected with Teddy's head, the two bottles shattering against the werewolf's skull. The impact drove Teddy off-course, missing Dean by inches and instead forcing him to collide with the end of an empty hospital bed.
"Thomas!" yelled the gold-masked wizard over the pained howlings of the young werewolf, tossing Dean Yama's wand. Dean caught it deftly with his right hand; thankfully his wand arm, except for a few gouges from Teddy's claws, was undamaged.
"Prodotis!" Atrytone yelled, rolling to her feet and hurling a jinx at the wizard. "PRODOTIS!"
Atrytone and the wizard began to duel, hard and blindingly fast. The jinxes, hexes, and spells tossed back and forth at each other were uncountable, of such intensity that Dean could feel the hairs standing up on his arm like the room had suddenly been charged with static electricity. The golden wizard hurled jinxes which smashed into the stone walls as they were deflected by Atrytone; Atrytone's own spells were deflected, both by the wizard's wand and his apparently enchanted spear, which he was wielding with a spinning, graceful ease. Yama's wand hung limply at Dean's side, amazed at the level of magic emanating from the two Circle members.
He barely noticed, then, when Yama slid across the hospital floor, his hand stretching for Teddy's lost wand. His fingers inches away, Dean reacted just in time, hurling a Depulso jinx that didn't quite feel right (You didn't win the wand, so it doesn't belong to you). It did the job, though, knocking Teddy's wand to the far wall.
Do what you can, Dean thought, wondering where his own wand had fallen. He knew that he should strike to kill, but also knew that a foreign wand wouldn't have the power to pull that off.
"Levicorpus!"
Yama was lifted into the air, his robes falling around him as he hung by his feet just as Teddy had been hung minutes before. He was prone, his robes hanging down, nearly covering his face. Dean had him. He--
"Atma Rassi!"
Yama threw his hand out. From beneath his sleeve flew a thin, silvery wire that flew with an incredible speed towards Dean, who barely had time to move before it wrapped around his neck.
Wandless magic, he can do wandless magic, I'm an idiot, I... I...
No one who ever experienced the Dementor's Kiss would ever be able to fully describe the effect of having your soul sucked from your body, but Dean knew that was exactly what he was feeling now. The pain in Dean's mauled hand began to fade. The heat that was slipping up his left arm, surely a sign of infection, cooled into the distance. Dean's feelings about the mission, his job, his life, slipped towards his throat, collecting inside the cool noose which cut bloodlessly into him and gripped around his very being.
"Bahuta jalda," said Yama, the mask slipping from his head yet nonetheless smiling demonically at Dean's slackening face. "Bahuta jalda tumhari atma meri hogi."
Fight it! Dean thought as he dropped to his knees, Yama's wand slipping from his hand.
Why?
From what seemed like the other side of the world, Dean heard a snarl. Saw a black shape leap, striking the hung Mask at the waist and pulling him from the air. Instantaneously, the noose around Dean's neck slackened, and the pain and fear and strength and existence slammed back into his body so hard that the back of his skull cracked against the floor as he was tossed backwards.
Dazed, Dean heard, but thankfully didn't see. As it was, the sound alone curdled his blood and would haunt his dreams for decades after. The screams of Yama, Mask of Delhi, cut silent with the sound of shredding meat. The victorious howl of Teddy Lupin after tearing out the throat of the wizard with his razor-sharp teeth.
The sparks and explosions from the two remaining Masks ceased, cut off like the flick of a light switch. Dean turned his head to see. Both of them stood in the middle of a newly-formed dent in the floor, a huge melted dimple created by their spell barrage. Both hoods were back, both masks fallen from their faces. The bearded wizard with the blond ponytail stood inches from the olive-skinned witch. Between them was the wizard's spear, blood pouring down its wooden shaft and onto his hands, his wand discarded. The back of the witch's robes were tented as the spear's point jutted from her back by at least a foot. Her wand, however, was still raised, pressed against the bottom of the wizard's chin.
"You... You..." Atrytone rasped, a river of dark blood down the corner of her mouth. "You would... destroy the Oligarchy... prodotis?"
"I am no traitor, Diana," said the wizard, his face a landscape of welts and bruises. "The Oligarchy does not die with you, no matter what you may think otherwise."
"It... does not... die... with you... either... Garrett," Atrytone said, her weakening mouth twisted in rage. "Thanatos!"
A spark from the tip of her wand threw the wizard's, Garrett's, head backwards. His hands fell from his spear, and Atrytone fell to the floor, lifeless in a pool of her own blood. The wizard staggered from the spell, but did not fall. Meanwhile, Dean struggled to his feet, picking up Yama's wand and pointing it at the blond wizard, who only looked at him with stunned surprise.
"I do not mean you harm, Dean Thomas," the wizard said.
"You'd be Gungnir, yeah?" said Dean.
"I would be," said Gungnir with a nod, rubbing his chin with a wince. "But not for much longer, I assure you. Will you allow me to retrieve my wand?"
"Can I trust you?"
"That is up to you," Gungnir shrugged. "But we must deal with your varulv friend before he decides poor Tahir isn't enough of a meal for him."
Dean had been keeping Teddy in the corner of his eye throughout the exchange between Gungnir and Atrytone. The werewolf was still tearing at the dead wizard's throat.
"It's been contained for, how old is he, twenty years?" said Gungnir, picking up his wand and pointing it at Teddy. "Twenty years before Diana's... Imperius Curse, you English call it... awoke his father's nature inside him. He is making up for lost time."
"You're not killing him," said Dean, firming his grip on Yama's wand as he pointed it at Gungnir's face. Blood was pouring down his leg from his wounded hand, and he knew it would only be a matter of time before he passed out from the pain and the blood loss, but right now he stood as straight and confidently as possible.
"We don't have a choice," said Gungnir. "I am sorry, Dean Thomas, but it is true. Just as the man half of a varulv has no control over the moon, neither does the wolf. Theodore, however, has the control the others lack. The man would never wish to become the wolf, and the wolf would never wish to become the man. And even if the wolf would want to become a man, he doesn't have the intelligence that Theodore the man has. He wouldn't know how to shift his body back. He could stay this way forever, regardless of lunar cycles."
"Then he stays a werewolf," Dean said, "cuz he's not dying. Not unless you kill me first."
"If that's what it takes..." said Gungnir, pointing his wand at Dean.
"Can't you Imperius him, too?" Dean said, desperate for an answer. "Atrytone did it--"
"Atrytone is a handler," said Gungnir. "Was a handler," he corrected, glancing down at her limp body. "Imperius spells are impossible to perform on animals unless you have a certain natural quality. She had that skill. I don't."
"But what do we--"
He cut off. Teddy looked up from his Yama meal and turned to the two wizards. His eyes narrowed. He snarled.
Gungnir raised his wand.
Then the impossible happened.
---------
"Ted?"
Victoire Weasley walked down the beach, their beach, looking for him. She was dressed in her Oligarchy robes and mask, but she felt no heat through the dark clothes.
Had they found Rose? Did they get her out? Were they found? Were they attacked?
Was he dead?
Of course he's not dead, she thought. You wouldn't be here if he was.
Why was she here? Why was she here? This was their place, their refuge. Not exactly a place to meet and exchange information.
"Ted?" she repeated, calling out. "Teddy?"
She couldn't wait here for long. She was currently standing in an alcove, and even from here she could feel the impatient, anxious eyes of Professor Ogden and Mr. Malfoy boring into her.
"Ted? Where are you?"
hunger
Victoire began to feel warm. The sky above her turned red. The sand and water developed a ruby tint. Somewhere her pulse raced and her stomach rumbled.
vic
"Ted?" she cried out, looking around for the origin of the voice. The tiny word seemed to come from nowhere and everywhere, yet she was still alone.
tear
"Ted, answer me!"
vic get out
"What's wrong? Are you hurt?"
Victoire was scared. It was a primal kind of fear, like she was standing in the eye of a
(wolf pack)
hurricane. Her mouth was
(watering)
dry as a cottonball, tasting of copper.
get out please
"No!" Victoire yelled, steeling herself against the new sensations washing over her. "Ted, talk to me! What's happening?"
Images now, washing over the tinted horizon. A mauled animal carcass. The framed photograph on Andromeda Tonks's mantel, Remus Lupin and Nymphadora Tonks with a blue-haired bundle of blankets. The full moon. Blood.
Ted's parents. Ted's father. Blood. A moon. The hunger. Fear.
Werewolves? Where?
But she knew the answer, didn't she? From the moment she stepped onto this beach she knew that something wasn't quite right. The colors were duller, yet more alive. Her nostrils were smelling things even in her mind, even more than she thought was possible in the real world. Things were... off. Like when she has entered Buckbeak's mind. Base. Instinctual.
Animalistic.
"Ted!" Victoire cried out, as loudly as possible. "Ted, what happened to you? Who turned you?"
leave please leave
"I'm not leaving you!" she screamed desperately, running down the beach towards who knew where. Ted's voice was fading, and the hunger was consuming him. Consuming her.
no use
SHE GET OUT
"Leave him alone!"
NO HE ONLY ME
A shape now, down the shore. Four legs, gray fur, and huge. Not just bigger than any dog she had ever met, but bigger than any human. Elephant sized, and it seemed to be growing larger as it neared her. As it did, she got a look at its face: blurred, hazy, and misshapen.
It's how the werewolf sees itself, Victoire realized, stepping back in shock. It's the representation of itself. It doesn't know what it looks like. It hasn't seen its own face, ever. All it knows is that it's hairy and imposing.
Philosophical analysis's great, and all, she countered, but those teeth look a little more than hypothetical.
"It can't hurt me," she rationalized. "I'm just a thought, it can't hurt me..."
SHE GET OUT
vic run
"It can't hurt me..."
But she knew that was stupid. What happens in here can easily affect her physically. Hadn't she almost lost her own memory by jumping into Luna's? And all those days and nights she woke up after Ted's psychic trysts...
run vic please run
She was her own soul in here. She could be hurt just as easily as if she were facing a werewolf in real life. Her body may not get physically mauled, but she could disappear nonetheless.
vicrunvicrunvic
"I'm not leaving you!" she cried out, as confidently as she could muster, and she felt the earth beneath her feet shake as her voice echoed across the ocean. The werewolf flinched backwards momentarily, then leaped.
ME NOT HE NOT HE ME HE GONE
It landed on top of her, and she felt her nonexistent breath knocked out of her. Felt the nonexistent weight of a massive paw, as large as the breadth of her shoulders, pin her to the ground, its massive claws, sharp as razors, bracketing her skull.
"Ted, stop it!" Victoire cried out. "You have to!"
cantviccant
"You can!" she yelled, beating helplessly at the wolf's leg as it leaned down to her. Each tooth was the size of a Beater bat; its breath smelled of spoiled pork.
sostrongicant
"Then help me!" she screamed into the wolf's opening jaws. "I'm not strong enough to fight it!"
vicpleasesostrong
"It's going to kill you!" Victoire yelled as her head entered the beast's mouth. "It's going to kill us both! I'm not leaving without you, I love you, help me fight back!"
The jaws closed.
Vic NO!"
She felt the weight pressing against her skull, horrible pressure. A cracking noise...
And nothing.
She stared into the beasts black maw (no tongue no tonsils no throat just emptiness), and knew she wasn't dead. Yet. Somehow.
Weight in her hand that she couldn't see. She could only act.
Victoire swung her arm up, striking the wolf's foreleg with whatever it was she was holding. She heard an odd voom noise as she moved, and the wolf howled in pain before falling back, releasing her. She rolled backwards, far more deftly and gracefully than she ever could in real life, and jumped to her feet.
She had stabbed something into the wolf's leg. The handle looked familiar: the Sword of Gryffindor that was hanging in Professor Longbottom's office. Instead of a blade sticking out the other end, however, there was some sort of green light?
(lightsaber)
"What?" Victoire said, blinking as the thought entered her head unbidden. She put her hand on her head, only to feel it was covered by some kind of
(dallas cowboys)
helmet.
The wolf was recovering. The sword slid through its leg like it was air, leaving a cauterized trail that was a little too jagged and visceral to be mere imagination. His fangs were shattered; blood poured from one socket where a tooth had been completely torn out.
"Let's get rid of him."
Ted's voice once again came from nowhere. But it was stronger this time. Almost like he was right next to her.
Her right hand felt warm. She looked down to see she was wearing some sort of futuristic
(saiyan)
armor, white and blue. There was a small flame
(hadoken)
in the palm of her
(kamehameha)
hand.
Victoire's hands came together, cupping the flame. Her body was no longer in her control, but she didn't resist. She didn't need to. She trusted what was happening.
Ted Lupin was helping.
"Ted?" she said as her cupped hands pulled back to her side, her wrists touching the side of her breast. "Love?"
"Yeah?"
"I don't know half of this stuff I'm wearing or doing or thinking, but... You do know you're a huge geek, right?"
"You don't know how often I hear that, lady."
Her arms flung out. She screamed, yelled, howled her own battle cry. The flame expanded, blasting out like a beam of light as high as her own body. It grew more, completely enveloping the wolf, who didn't even have time to cry out before he became a silhouette, a shadow, then vanishing completely.
Ted stood where the wolf once stood. He was dressed the same as he had been the last time they were here: an unbuttoned shirt and baggy shorts. The strange science fiction armor was gone from her body, as well, leaving behind not the black Oligarchy robes but the sarong and bikini top of before.
"You're okay," she said, her voice shaking with a sob of relief.
"Probably not," he replied quietly. "It's just pulled back. It's not gone. I can still feel him here."
"Are... Are we safe?"
"For a while," he said with sad smile. "I'm able to hold it back for a bit, thanks to you."
"But how do we--"
"Are you safe?" he interrupted. "You and Professor Ogden and Mr. Malfoy?"
"Yes," she said. "Did you find Rose?"
"We got her out," said Ted, "but Atrytone took out the Galleon before Uri could get back."
"What?"
"I don't know," he said, turning away. "But I have to get back. I... I'm starting to remember what happened and... I... I'll be back soon, I promise."
She kissed him. "Stay safe."
---------
Ted Lupin opened his human eyes, and was sickened by what he saw.
His hands were red. His face was wet. The body of the wizard known as Yama was beneath him, his throat torn out.
Ted fell back, his hands covering his mouth. Blood, everywhere. Shock overwhelmed him.
"What did I...?"
"You didn't do anything," said a voice behind him. Ted's head snapped around. Dean was there; he was also covered in blood, his left hand...
"What did I do?" Teddy repeated, yelling this time.
"You didn't do anything," the other wizard, the one next to Dean, middle aged with a blond beard, said. "Atrytone did this to you."
"But... But... Did I kill him?"
"Now is not the time for this," said the wizard sharply. "Time is of the essence. Your friends are walking towards the Next. I have sent Kitsune to them, but Meghan Cullen is protected by Prospero. Also, Amit, our steward and a very powerful witch, will be joining him soon. We must join them soon, but you must notify them of Kitsune's arrival."
Teddy sat motionless, the enormity of the situation washing over him. He couldn't move. Couldn't think. He kept looking back at the body.
"Teddy!" Dean yelled. "Stay with us, kid."
"Vekke," said the wizard, pointing his wand at Madam Cruz, the other nurse, who sat up quickly and alertly.
"Kona Cruz, this man needs medical attention immediately," he said, pointing to Dean. "He has been bitten by a werewolf."
"No!" cried Ted, looking once again at Dean's hand. "I did that to you?"
"I said stay with us," said Dean as calmly as possible as Cruz examined his hand. "It wasn't you, alright? Besides, I hit you with a few spells and a metal pipe, so we're even."
"Not if I... I..."
"There is infection," said the nurse. "I cannot yet say how severe."
"Do what needs be done," said the other wizard.
"Yes, Gungnir," said Cruz with a nod.
"Theodore Lupin," said Gungnir, putting his hand on Ted's shoulder. "You must do as I say. Contact Victoire Weasley. Tell her what we know. Tell her we are on our way, as is Kitsune. They can trust her."
"Um..."
"And you can trust me," said Gungnir. "The Oligarchy is no longer what it once was. Its ideals towards both wizard and Muggle have been twisted by Atrytone and her like. I wish to make amends, as does Kitsune and Manbo," he added, motioning to the unconscious black woman in the bed nearby, unmoved by the events that had taken place so close to her.
"What happened to her?"
"Again, this is not the time."
Teddy looked to Dean, who nodded. "He saved both of us," he said. "He's the closest thing we have to an ally in here. Call Vickie."
"Alright," said Teddy reluctantly. He closed his eyes.
---------
Victoire opened her eyes moments later. She looked at Professor Ogden and Mr. Malfoy, her eyes adjusting in the gloom of the alcove.
"Well?" said Malfoy impatiently. "What did he say?"
"We're close," she said. "And help's on the way."
Help for us, maybe, she thought. But what about for him?
She shook her head. That was something that would be taken care of later. But not now. For now, he was safe.
"Let's go."
Infiltration / Previous Chapters / Meghan Creevey