Edgar is a sparkling sight (bonesie) wrote in an_ill_wind, @ 2009-07-05 23:18:00 |
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05 July 1980
Who: Bellatrix, Edgar and Sirius (+ the Order ward-breakers OOC-ly)
When: Sunday night, 8pm
Where: A moor outside Devon
What: Ed attempts to rescue Sirius!
Rating: R for some screwed up stuff
Status: Completed log (+ OOC/IC log open to ward-breaks + Cally; please see note on aftermath & etcetera at the bottom of the log!)
Bellatrix was, admittedly, quite intrigued by Edgar Bones's apparent challenge to Sirius. She did not believe for a moment that he would be willing to walk right into such a fight without a whole host of his friends to back him up, a thought that left her lamenting the demise of proper duelling protocol. Never mind that she certainly did not intend to allow Sirius to show on his own either. That was different. She was not willing to alter the instruction that she had given him not to leave the house without her escort and if Edgar could not be trusted to show alone then she certainly was not going to allow her new toy to walk right into a trap.
But she did have more than a few ways to ensure that this was simply a fight between the two men. (Mostly anyway, as she was not likely to truly remain a bystander, even if her intention was to allow Sirius to handle this on her own - there was something deliciously fitting about having him be the one to kill one of his fellow Order members.) Earlier that afternoon she had gone to the site where their little confrontation was to take place and set wards that only she, Sirius and Edgar would be able to pass. Anyone else who attempted would experience a powerful jolt of pain, not unlike the cruciatus and oh, she did hope someone managed to splinch themselves trying to apparate in.
After dinner, she made one final check of the site under the cover of a disillusionment charm to ensure the wards were still in place and no obvious traps were being laid although as she was standing in the moor, she was struck by a sudden feeling of lethargy. Her limbs felt as if they had been weighted down, her senses dulled and everything muted and... this was decidedly not right. Even under normal circumstances, it would have seemed odd, but particularly a mere hour before a duel. Her first inclination was to think she had somehow been hit by a charm or curse of some sort, although she could not figure how. But when a finite incantatem did not work and a second pass at inspecting the wards did not reveal anything that might have caused such a thing, her mind went to the next logical conclusion. A potion of some sort. Again she could not figure how, unless Sirius was somehow resisting the imperius curse but if that were the case she expected she would have seen a far more dramatic display.
Returning to the house, she went immediately to their stock of potions and began rifling through the assorted antidotes that were kept on hand. (One could never be too careful when there were a great many people who dearly wanted you dead.) The first one she attempted had no apparent effect. The second only seemed to exacerbate her symptoms (and really, why had she not paid more attention in potions class?) But with the third, the haze that was clouding her senses was lifted and she shook her head as if trying to dislodge the last of the fog before grabbing another vial and slipping it into her robes.
How she had apparently been poisoned (if rather ineffectually) was a great mystery and one she fully intended to investigate, but first there was a duel to be had. Interrogating the house elves, as they did seem to be the most logical place to begin, would have to wait although as she settled into a chair in the front parlour to wait for Sirius, her thoughts were consumed with the various possibilities. No, she could not allow herself to be so distracted, she reminded herself as she rose and went to pour a glass of wine before lounging back in her seat to clear her thoughts.
Sirius had gone upstairs after dinner to change, wanting to be as least restricted in his clohing as he possibly could, for the occasion; it wasn't every day that one was given the opportunity to kill a particularly obnoxious and self-righteous twat of a cousin. He'd spent most of the day practicing the barrage of especially nasty magic that Bellatrix had been teaching him. Other than the House Elf Incident, he'd been positively giddy for the night's duel, and as he made his way upstairs he felt even moreso. Therefore it was a surprise that he found himself suddenly feeling decidedly sluggish and slow, and he frowned as he fumbled with the buttons on his shirt, wondering what the bloody hell was going on. He'd felt fine all day (even when cleaning up the mess the elf had left behind), so why had this come on so suddenly?
He shook his head a little and finished dressing, though it was taking far more of an effort than it should, and he stopped to think, wondering if he'd eaten something (of course Bellatrix and Rodolphus had eaten the same meal, and as far as he knew they felt fine) or had something more drastic happen like... what, a curse? How on earth would he have been cursed today and not know it? This was ridiculous. Limbs feeling heavy he finally left his chambers and went in search of Bellatrix, knowing he'd find her in the parlour, and that if anyone knew what the hell was going on with him, it'd be her.
"Are you feeling alright?" he asked, stepping into the parlour. He frowned when he spotted her with a glass of wine, looking quite the same as usual, and wondered if it really was something wrong with him.
Well that at least confirmed that it had not been Sirius's doing, Bellatrix noted as she arched a brow and ran her eyes over him from head to toe, silently inspecting his state. "I am now," she finally replied, taking another sip of wine and setting her glass down before reaching in her robes. Retrieving the vial of antidote from her robes, she flipped it between her fingers and held it out to Sirius.
"Although I am starting to think that perhaps we should have conducted this afternoon's training session in the kitchens. At the very least there is now a whole host of house elves that we might use for target practice since they will clearly all need to be replaced." Oh well first she did intend to at least ask if any of them knew just how this might have come about but if they did not provide a satisfactory answer, she had no qualms about killing the entire staff. Or letting Sirius kill them. Either way.
Sirius looked relieved when Bellatrix held out the vial for him, and he took it gratefully, not questioning her as he opened it up and drank the antidote down. He felt warmth spread throughout his body,and a moment later the lethargy and dullness was gone, replaced with the enthusiasm he'd been feeling beforehand. "Thank you," he said, tucking the now empty vial in his own robes. "What was that?" Surely the house elves hadn't saw fit to pay him back for killing... whatever it's name was, earlier today. "Were you ill as well?" he asked curiously. "And have you anymore wine?" Priorities, clearly.
"I do not know," she admitted with a slight frown. She hated not knowing. "Clearly a potion of some sort - to dull the senses - and I can only presume it must have been slipped into one of our meals if you were similarly affected. I would expect Rodolphus as well but I have not had the opportunity to ask. If he would have noticed," she added with a slight smirk.
She rose gracefully from her seat and went to pour another glass of wine, holding the glass out to him. "I will handle it, although you are welcome to assist in the appropriate punishment. But I do believe we have more entertaining matters to see to first."
"You don't think the house elves did it, do you?" Sirius asked, frowning a little. He hadn't meant to kill whateverit'sname was, and would be quite sorely disappointed if the elves saw fit to keep him away from his delicious food. He couldn't hold back a bit of a smirk at Bellatrix's comment about Rodolphus, even though he'd relaxed considerably around the older man. "Yes, well," he said with a shrug.
He accepted the wine and sat down in the chair beside Bellatrix's, settingly comfortably before he took a sip. He didn't want to dull (again) his senses, but a bit of wine might calm him down a little. Even the idea of trying to kill Edgar was making his pulse race and adrenaline pump through him, and he didn't want to get overly eager and carried away and end up making a foolish mistake.
"They are hardly capable of staging such a rebellion," Bellatrix replied with a dismissive wave of her hand as she resettled back into her own chair. "Not even after you killed one of their little...cousins or, no, I do not wish to consider how they might all be related," she declared with a face. Obviously the house elves did breed, but that did not mean she wished to think about it. "But there are precious few who are able to set foot on the property without an invitation. And no one can enter the house itself without the knowledge of the elves." Even with Sirius in his present state, she was still not so foolish to reveal the extent of the Manor's intricate layers of wards, but the more general sentiment - that the house was all but an impenetrable fortress - was hardly news. "If they are not responsible, they should certainly know who is."
Sirius made a face at the idea of the elves somehow breeding, really not wanting to think about the mechanics of that one. It'd make him celibate for life, and that would lead to very bad things. "Disgusting," he said, before he fell silent, sipping his wine as he listened. "Well given how secure the wards are, that means that someone we trust actually put something in the food, knowing full well that we'd eat it." Granted it hadn't been fatal, but that was beside the point.
"Indeed," Bellatrix agreed. And that was the troubling aspect of this, that even if someone had managed to slip into the house without either her or Rodolphus knowing, the list of who would have been capable was quite short indeed. "But we will determine who was responsible, how they managed such a thing and why they have apparently become suicidal soon enough. I can only hope for their sake that this was some terrible mistake." Not that a mistake would spare the culprit from punishment, but it might at least allow them to keep their life.
A clock in the hall began to chime the hour, signaling the end of their little discussion and Bellatrix drained the rest of her wine glass before standing and offering Sirius her hand. Her furrowed brow was gone, replaced by the predatory smile of anticipation as if a switch had just clicked over in her mind, sending her into fighting mode. "We would not wish to keep our dear cousin waiting."
Sirius frowned a little, not liking the implications of it all; he hoped, as well as Bellatrix did, that this was all some sort of mistake. It would certainly ease his mind, if that were the case. But those thoughts were firmly pushed out of his mind as the clock chimed, and he couldn't help but grin as he took one last sip of wine and set the glass aside, reaching out to take Bellatrix's hand as he stood.
"No," he said, the expression on his face mirroring hers almost exactly, smug, predatory smile firmly in place. "We would most decidedly not want to keep him waiting." He fully intended to do his worst to Edgar, to rip him limb-from-limb and send the pieces back to the Order. He couldn't imagine anything more satisfying at the moment.
Bellatrix was actually startled for a moment as she was struck by the feeling that she was looking into a mirror with the way Sirius's smile matched her own. But then they always had been remarkably similar, just opposite sides of the same coin, weren't they? "I confess, I am rather curious to see just how many of his friends attempt to join him. I can only imagine how desperate they must be to try and save you from yourself," she mused as they walked through the entry hall and out onto the grounds.
With a flick of her wand, the two arrived in the moor and Bellatrix rested her hand on Sirius's shoulder, her body close to his in a way that was not entirely proper as she leaned in to whisper in his ear. "I do hope you will show them all just what you have become capable of. The magic that they have held you back from." Oh yes, this was going to be brilliant. She had to wonder if the Order would even want him back after seeing just what had become of him. Just how much could they forgive?
"I'm certain they're all tripping over each other to rush off to my dramatic rescue," Sirius replied, smirking unpleasantly. "Each wanting to be the hero, to save me from myself." He rolled his eyes in a mixture of amusement and exasperation, knowing full well just how utterly ridiculous they all were; they'd never win the war based on good intentions and attempting to play the misguided hero.
When they arrived at the manor he felt his adrenaline kick in once more, itching for a fight, and it was only Bellatrix's hand on his shoulder that pulled him back to his senses. "I will," he promised, meaning it completely. "I will show them just what I'm capable of - what they held me back from for so long."
Edgar vaguely wondered if he might be having a heart attack.
He knew he could hold his own in a duel, that wasn't the primary worry, though certainly the prospect of Bellatrix joining in and having to deflect what dark fucking shite she'd taught Sirius on top of her own insanity did make him twitch a bit. It was more the worry over whether or not it would work. Edgar knew that planning things ahead of time would provide Bellatrix the opportunity to look at the setting from all angles and do all she could to prevent the Order from liberating Sirius from her. Knowing Bellatrix, she was having far too much fun fucking with them all to want to give him up. Edgar wanted him back, not only to stop the hateful spew of purist buzzwords that seemed to be pouring out of him from all angles, but also to intervene before she had him reclaim the Black legacy and marry and make the whole fucking thing more needlessly complicated than it already was. When the real Sirius came out of that excuse for an existence, he would just. Curl up in a ball and want to die for hurting everyone who cared for him so poignantly. The longer she had him, the worse it would be, and for Sirius most of all.
Edgar had had a few stiff drinks that afternoon. Now he was pacing around the yard. For all the patience he had most of the time, right now it all seemed to have up and left him. He was angry, for all of this. He wanted to fight. And that very large, prideful streak that ran through him wanted nothing more than to show Sirius and Bellatrix what he was capable of, and then some. Edgar might not have dark fucking magic on his side, but he wasn't some fall down nobody, or some incapable little twit. He was Edgar Bones. Once upon a time that had meant something. He had been groomed the same as the rest of the upper-crust twats, ascots and tailcoats, Latin and music lesson. He had had to memorize the family tree, and he had had to prove at every available opportunity that he was worthy to be on it. Gripping his wand and cracking his jaw, Edgar inhaled deeply, the cool evening air running through him like a shot of adrenaline. He was done waiting. It was time to go. The others would follow, and they would succeed. They would get Sirius back, and they would rub it in Bellatrix's face. Victory that night would be a resounding 'fuck you'.
Dueling in proper dress robes had lost it's appeal during the Hogsmeade incident, something Edgar had no want to revisit. Instead he wore plain brown trousers, one of his regular blue button up shirts and his regular leather boots, his long, blond hair pulled back in a tight ponytail. He wore robes embroidered with the Bones family crest; while he might take comfort over propriety, Edgar Bones was still a wizard. He apparated to the moor, gripping his wand as though he were about to whip it like a throwing knife. Arriving with a pop, facing Bellatrix and Sirius.
"Evening," he said evenly, smiling slightly. "I trust you're both in good health?"
Bellatrix did not move from her position at Sirius's side and merely quirked an eyebrow at Edgar's question, the implication obvious at once. That was at least one question answered, although the matter of how he had managed to slip something into their food would be quite thoroughly investigated. Later. The sound of others apparating into the area caught her attention and then a moment later... ahh there it was. The familiar sound of screams as they attempted to cross the wards.
"I have never felt better. Although I cannot say as much for your friends," she declared smugly as she glanced towards where unrecognisable bodies were crumpled on the ground outside the wards, writhing in pain. "Oh do not worry, they will live. But I cannot say as much for you. Afraid to face Sirius without reinforcements, Edgar? I cannot say I blame you, but I did expect so much more of you."
Sirius was torn between smirking and glaring when Edgar appeared, wanting at once to rub his new-found abilities in the bastard's face, and wanting to just take said face right off his bloody skull. He settled for looking incredibly smug as Bellatrix spoke, gaze flickering over to the bodies on the ground, feeling a rush of amusement at their misfortune. Oh, he hoped Fabian and Remus and Dorcas were there so very, very much.
"Perfect health, in fact," he agreed, feeling inordinately proud of himself at that moment. Clearly Edgar was afraid of him, he decided, and not only that, but the Order's pathetic attempts at 'rescue' had failed wonderfully - he'd never felt better, really. "Maybe we should be asking you that question," he added haughtily. "Feeling so weak you need an army to back you up? How embarrassing, Bones."
Edgar was effectively distracted by the screams of the other Order members, having to shake himself back to the task at hand. "Afraid?" he questioned Sirius, ignoring Bellatrix for the time being. He knew that this wasn't going to be easy. But here he was. Afraid? No. A slight self-inflated in his capabilities? Perhaps, but facing down something that was certain to be unpredictable allowed Edgar to avoid doubt for the time being. It wasn't as though he had any choice, really. His fingers twitched over his wand as he blocked out the sounds emitting from the other side of Bellatrix's wards.
"When have you ever known me to be afraid of a duel, Sirius?"
"If you're not now, you will be," Sirius promised, eyes narrowing even as a smirk curled at his lips. In past duels he'd started low, nothing to even really hurt, let alone kill, but this now was an entirely different situation. Oh, the urge to just tear Edgar limb-from-limb was overwhelming, but he would follow proper protocol at least for the moment; no sense in jumping the wand, so to speak. There would be plenty of time for action in just a moment. "You're in for quite a surprise, Bones."
While Bellatrix truly was content to let the two men settle this between them (mostly) there was still a part of her that could not help but rankle at being ignored. Of course she was going to chime in. "You cannot possibly think this is going to end well for you, Edgar," she sneered, twirling her wand between her fingers. With a smirk, she leaned in and whispered in Sirius's ear once again. "Kill him slowly. And painfully," she urged and then she stepped back to watch, her arms folded across her chest, wand still firmly in hand.
Well fuck propriety, Edgar thought to himself, shield charm followed in quick succession by a silent reducto and a slashing hex. He wasn't going to let them start with the upper-hand, that was for fucking sure, and given Sirius was imperio'd and whatever of the Order had followed him were writhing on the ground outside her ward of the area (and, not to mention that in proper duels, wizards typically didn't attempt to kidnap their opponents), Edgar was done waiting. He wanted to get the fuck going.
"Funny story, as since I haven't died yet, I must have some resilience," he snapped, punctuating the words with his spell casting.
Sirius had his orders, and he had every intention of successfully - and satisfyingly - carrying them out. His lips pulled back in an almost-snarl as Edgar began the duel without any sense of propriety (though, really, what had he expected, with the way Bones had become a complete and utter traitor to them?) and he threw up a quick shield of his own, deflecting the slashing hex as he sidestepped the reducto. He knew full well that Edgar was a formative opponent, but he was better, his mind insisted, and while he would not underestimate his bastard of a cousin, he also would not fear him.
"More like sheer dumb luck," he countered, slashing his wand through the air as he aimed a Sectumsempra at Edgar's throat and chest. He threw a reducto of his own, followed closely by another Sectumsempra, wand pointing almost furiously at all of the places that would make Edgar bleed the most.
"You're one to talk," Edgar snapped back, his shield charm deflecting both of Sirius' curses. No, none of this shite unless it's necessary, he thought carelessly, abandoning the shield and concentrating his attention on quickly putting an end to this that resembled nothing of cowardice on his part. A silent gouging hex was followed by a practically spat, "Confringo," aimed for Sirius' knees.
"Hardly," Sirius claimed, his shield deflecting the gouging hex. It faltered slightly and he threw up another one to block the confrigo, frowning slightly at how close a call it'd been. Edgar was not going to touch him, the filthy traitor, he was unworthy to touch him, to speak to him, even! Did the Order really think they would steal him back? That they could steal him back? That they had any power over any of them? Eyes narrowed he jerked his wand and hissed "Crucio," the curse errupting from the end of his wand as he focused all of his hatred on Edgar, on a perfect target for his anger, the embodiment of everything that was wrong with the world.
Well fuck that. Edgar barrel rolled to his left, not even remotely willing to let that fuckwad's dark magic overtake him in any capacity. Bellatrix had been bad enough on her own, but Sirius' contorted anger directed Edgar's way under her influence? Not even. He stopped, half down and half propped on one knee and touched his wand to the ground, making it shake in Sirius and Bellatrix's direction, hoping to knock them both off of their feet with his pseudo-earthquake. Standing quickly, he aimed a silent conjuctivitis at Bellatrix, and then a spoken, "Confundo!" at Sirius.
Well now that was just rude, Bellatrix thought as the ground began to shake under her feet. She was hardly doing a thing, after all, if you looked past the fact that she was the puppet master pulling Sirius's strings at the moment. She did not even need to reinforce her commands to get to this point, a thought that amused her to no end. But even if she was not actively fighting, she had still been watching intently and was not unprepared for Edgar's attack. (All right, she may have been a little distracted by the sight of Sirius attempting to cast the cruciatus on his friend. Details.) At the first tremor, she instinctively dropped to her own knees, choosing to fall of her own volition rather than be thrown to the ground and in the process, Edgar's conjunctivitis curse flew harmlessly over her head.
"That was a mistake," Bellatrix snarled, jumping back to her feet once the earth had stilled. Whatever had possessed Edgar to drag her into the fight that she was simply watching was beyond her, but oh, now she was most definitely in it. Her wand snapped around as she sent a bolt of searing hot lightning at Edgar, followed by a silent cruciatus of her own.
Sirius pouted just slightly when Bellatrix was given the silent invitation to join in the duel, even as he staggered to keep his balance from Bones' absurd little... earthquake. He wanted to be the one to kill Edgar (or at least to show off more before Bellatrix snapped and killed him), but he couldn't be petulant for long - his admiration for Bellatrix bordered on hero-worship, and he couldn't deny how lovely it'd be to see her unleash her fury on him.
Anticipating Bellatrix's movement, he cast another cruciatus a split second after she sent hers hurtling towards Edgar, the smug expression back on his face now that it was two-against-one. Stupid, stupid Bones. He aimed his wand at Edgar's chest and threw a flaying hex, quite liking the idea of recreating the flesh suit, of sorts, that Bellatrix had done during their hunt.
Fuck that was quickly morphing to I'm fucked in Edgar's head as the reality of Bellatrix's words sunk in and he very quickly realized the folly of attempting to bring her down while playing wand roulette with her puppet. Holy hell bent whoops. Ed remedied his previous decision to play without shield charms, casting as massive a one as he could manage around himself. The lightening bolt shook it and then took it out as though popping a child's balloon. Facing down another stream of light from Bellatrix's wand, Ed faltered backward, landing on his back (and feeling it; he'd never had it properly taken care of after the incident in Hogsmeade), narrowly avoiding her Cruciatus. He flung three blasting hexes as much in their direction as he could manage, Sirius' Cruciatus whizzing past in the split second it took Edgar to clamour to his feet again, half-crouched. The flaying hex caught him right in the face.
Ed couldn't help but cry out from the pain of it, a massive gash running from his hairline to his jaw (at which point Ed had stumbled back and out of the way of the rest of it). Blood poured out, covering his face, robes, front, hand, arm; it dripped over every available surface as he struggled to maintain enough composure to attempt a feeble shield charm. Falling to his knees he held his shaking wand to his face, closing the wound with a complete and utter hack job.
Bellatrix tossed her head back and laughed, the sound filling the air as her curse destroyed Edgar's shield and even if their cruciatus curses had missed, the sight of Sirius trying to rip the skin of Edgar's face clean off was far too satisfying. But despite her amusement, there was still a duel to be had. A shield charm of her own flew out of her wand, protecting both her and Sirius from Edgar's blasting hexes and then Bellatrix waved the shield away as quickly as she had summoned it, sending a quick sectumsempra back at Edgar. She was obviously more than willing to damage the man, but this was to be Sirius's kill, even if she had to keep reminding herself of that fact.
She moved, cat-like, back to Sirius's side and curled herself around his back, her hands on his arms as she took the role of whispering devil upon his shoulder yet again. "Show him what you are truly capable of," she urged. "Show him just what I have taught you." In the grand scheme of things, urging Sirius to unleash dark magic he was still struggling to control was likely not the best of plans but oh, she wanted Edgar to see. She wanted all of them, the Order members left standing helplessly around the periphery, to see just what had become of Sirius Black.
Sirius felt a rush of fierce pride when his curse hit home, and he watched in obvious satisfaction as the curse flayed Edgar's face, tearing at his skin from his jaw right up to his hairline. He'd have preferred to take off his entire face, but the fact of the matter was that they'd more than put him in his place, and now was the time to strike.
His eyes were dark as Bellatrix wrapped herself around his back, hands on his arms, body pressing against his. It was, really, beyond fucked up, but he could feel her power, could feel it inside himself, she was so close, and his lips curled up into a cruel smile at her urging, more than willing to comply. "My pleasure," he murmured, and his earlier mistake was forgotten as he focused on the pathetic sight of Bones at their feet, injured and ripe for the picking. He closed his eyes for the briefest of moments and concentrated hard, on his anger, on his hatred, on that infuriatingly confusing sense of loneliness that kept eating at him, and with a growl he threw himself into the magic, into feeling it, into creating it, and it burst from the tip of his wand in a black swirl of a cloud that rose with jerky movements above him. He struggled with it until it pulled itself into a tighter form, and while it still wasn't as large or as dark as Bellatrix's had been, it looked decidedly more deadly than it had before. Kill him he urged, seemingly speaking from within himself, feeling the magic ripple through his veins as he pushed it, sending the cloud bursting straight for Edgar.
Edgar felt a little fucked up. Mostly it from from the blood loss. He wanted to snap himself back into it, to focus on what was happening, but everything was dull around the edges. The moor itself blurred into nothingness, and Bellatrix and Sirius seemed so far away. Ed was still on his knees, and though he'd finished his rather terrible attempt at mending his face (at least Sirius would have a large, ugly, constant reminder of what Bellatrix had forced him to do, Ed decided vaguely) he continued to hold it with his bloodied hand, the arm of his robes saturated.
It wasn't until Bellatrix's sectumsempra whipped through his pathetic shield that Edgar woke up again. The mute on everything that the injury had seemed to caused ceased, and it was like someone had set the area on sonorus. Edgar hit the ground, the slashing hex buzzing by. Coming up again, willing himself to his feet, Edgar saw alright. "What in the name of fucking Merlin?" he questioned aloud, watching the black cloud nearly transfixed in confusion and surprise--least until he realized that it was dark magic that Sirius was creating.
He hesitated for a moment, then summoning up everything happy he had (the children, Calypso, Dorcas, his family), he pointed his wand and shouted with authority he barely felt, "Expecto Patronum!" a silver golden retriever bursting forth from it, and heading straight for Sirius' cloud.
Bellatrix really hated the damn patronus charm. She hated that half the damn Order seemed to know the one spell that had the power to destroy her creations (or Sirius's in this case), she hated that there were fluffy animals on her duelling ground and she hated that the damn dog was now breaking through the cloud, dissipating it into so much harmless nothing. (Well mostly harmless, the grass under where the forces of light and dark magics were colliding would soon be nothing more than scorched earth.) With a growl, she stepped away from Sirius and her own dark and malevolent cloud burst forth from her wand in a shimmering ripple of anger and she sent it hurtling towards Ed's patronus. The dog was consumed, shrouded in an inky black fog and then nothing. Perhaps it was pointless as the patronus could not harm them and would have disappeared of its own volition soon enough but it was a very plain statement on Bellatrix's part. I am stronger than you could ever hope to be.
And then the cloud hung in the air between them, pulsing with energy as it fought against Bellatrix's control, but she did not attack with it, instead turning to Sirius. "Kill him," she all but snarled.
Sirius was furious when Edgar's patronus burst right through his cloud, after all that bloody effort and willpower, and his hands clenched into fists, his right hand gripping his wand tightly as he fought off the urge to kill Bones with his bare hands. He would not be bested! He would win and he would kill and the Order would realise just what they were up against. He clenched his jaw angrily, thinking of nothing more than how much he wanted Edgar dead, how much he wanted to watch the light die in his eyes, how much he wanted to show them all and make his family proud, and with a snarl he called out, "Avada Kedavra!" and the sky above them burst into brilliant light as the tell-tale green of the curse errupted from the tip of Sirius' wand and hurtled right at Edgar.
Edgar resisted an amusing urge to conjure a mirror.
Though his thought process was still moving slowly, it was different than it had been when he had been running to Calypso's defense. Everything paused for just a split second, and somewhere between the consideration, the killing curse hurtling in his direction, and the dull throb of his face and back, Edgar managed to take a deep breath. And then. Then he was angry. Jaw set, feet planted firmly, staring the damn thing down like the prideful fucking idiot that he was, Edgar conjured the first living thing that came to mind out of thin air: a massive, angry, boa constrictor. And then he flung it bodily toward the green stream of light with a flick. The snake collided with the curse, then fell dead to the ground only a few feet away from Edgar.
Ed didn't waste a beat. Not this time.
He aimed a silent blasting hex for the ground between Sirius and Bellatrix, then another patronus in an attempt to get rid of Bellatrix' own Doom Cloud or whatever the hell it was. Ed set the dead snake on fire before casting oppugno on it, and then with as much force as he could muster, whipped it right at Sirius.
Sirius nearly roared in anger, infuriated that Edgar was still alive, that they hadn't killed him the moment he'd apparated in. He hurled a reducto at the flaming bloody snake and it exploded spectacularly, showering bits of blood and snakeskin and other disgusting bits every which way. He jerked his wand angrily and snarled "Crucio!" and as he did so he focused on the Killing Curse again, left hand extended, and as the Cruciatus burst from his wand, the Killing Curse ripped beneath his skin and burst from his palm, the rage he felt in that moment overwhelming as the two burst out of him. It was too much and he felt like his lungs were being crushed, unable to get any air in as the magic pulsed through him, tearing at him. When it was gone he finally sucked in a breath, chest burning, and staggered a little with the effort of it.
Bellatrix had been temporarily distracted from her efforts to control her own creation as Edgar's blasting curse exploded the ground a mere metre from her feet. It was enough for the damn patronus to get a hold on her cloud, but she fought back, forcing more of her strength through her wand as she tried to overcome his magic with her own. But if the blasting curse had been distracting, it was nothing compared to the sight of Sirius's magic literally bursting from his body and her eyes widened in surprise. Without her attention, the cloud was quite easily destroyed but she hardly noticed. There was a slight thought in the back of her mind that perhaps she had gone too far in her efforts to destroy Sirius, that she was giving him power that would one day be used against her, but this was clearly not the time for such considerations.
Forcing herself to pull her attention from Sirius as he seemed to stagger and sway for a moment, she turned on Edgar once again and added to the onslaught of attacks with a silent crucio of her own.
Edgar couldn't help but feel, what with the onslaught of unforgivables headed in his direction, as though they really wanted to hurt him. "Protego!" he shouted, the shield enveloping him as he tried very hard to ignore the fact that Sirius had just emitted magic out of his fucking body instead of his wand. What the fuck Bellatrix done to him? Edgar concentrated instead on deflecting the the stream of Very Shitty Things headed in his direction with a few conjured boulders, and then by running the hell out of the way. To say that the rock exploded would be an understatement, really, given the force that Sirius had put behind his two curses. Bigger pieces flew off, but the majority of it disintegrated into absolute nothingness, completely and utterly destroyed. Edgar was very, very glad that he hadn't been on the receiving end of it. Bellatrix's cruciatus went right through the nothing.
Ed could see that the Order were still trying to break through the wards. A little longer. A little bit longer and this would be over. He aimed both a silent gouging hex (at his head) and slashing hex (at his upper body) at Sirius, followed by a tripping jinx.
Sirius was still in a rage, and while he dodged the gouging hex (he would very much like to keep his bloody head intact, thank you) he was so caught up in his anger - and so exhausted from the magic - that the slashing hex caught him right across the chest, followed by the tripping jinx aimed at his legs, and he went sprawling, fire tearing across his chest where the hex had caught him. He exhaled sharply and pressed his hand to the gash to try to keep the bleeding to a minimum, fumbling with his wand to heal the wound as best he could. He tried to glare in Edgar's direction, but it seemed to take an awful lot of effort, and he knew full well that Bellatrix would make him fucking pay.
Oh, that was precisely what Bellatrix intended to do. Whatever lingering shock remained from seeing Sirius's little display of wandless magic was gone as he fell to the ground and anger filled her senses that Edgar would dare to break her toy. She was done showing off. She was done holding back so that Sirius might enjoy the kill himself. It was time to end this and Bellatrix went back to basics. A giant ball of fire exploded from her wand and went flying towards Edgar, followed quickly by a silent sectumsempra and then the insidious red tendrils of dark magic that yearned to wrap themselves around flesh and tear their way down to the bone. She aimed loosely for his chest and neck but really she did not care where they hit. Either way, he would burn and bleed to death in the most excruciating manner possible.
Excruciating? If Edgar could've maintained the ability to describe what he felt when the slashing hex caught his chest, stomach and arms (cutting through his clothing, blood seeping from what were deep wounds), and then when the white hot burns clung to his neck and along the fresh cuts that seemed to be everywhere, he would've suggested imagining falling into a fiery pit lined with metal spikes. The cutting tore him one way, the burning pulled him another, and the small victory that had come from the powerful jet of water that collided with Bellatrix's fireball was replaced with incomprehensible pain. His wand fell from his hand and Edgar just screamed and screamed as he lost the ability to support himself, falling forward onto the ground, bleeding heavily onto the grass. Rational thought was gone, the desire to retaliate was gone--all that remained in Edgar's mind was the acute awareness of the fact that he was, quite possibly, dying. The tendrils continued burning, over his arms, his back, his legs. The screaming continued for a just a while after Edgar blacked out, sobbing and bleeding into the dirt, still twitching after finally, mercifully, losing consciousness.
Bellatrix watched with a smug sense of satisfaction as Edgar fell screaming to the ground, the tendrils of magic still swirling around him as if they were somehow feeding off of him. No, he would not live much longer, that much seemed certain. And then, to add insult to injury she remembered her earlier conversation with Sirius and the need to dispose of the evidence - despite the witnesses still trying to fight their way through the wards. Without a body, there was little they could do or say to prove their guilt. With a flick of her wand, two ravenous wolves were conjured out of seeming nothingness and Bellatrix watched for a moment as they stalked towards their prey before turning back to Sirius. She hardly needed to watch the desecration of a corpse. "We will get you properly healed at home," she said, holding her hand out to him so that she could help him up and apparate them back to the Manor.
Sirius grit his teeth when he took Bellatrix's hand and hauled himself to his feet, taking a few unsteady steps before he righted himself. "Fuck," he swore, with feeling. He felt absolutely exhausted, although the sight of the wolves stalking towards Edgar's all-but-corpse did cheer him up significanlty. "Good riddance," he said with a sneer. The pain in his chest was rather begging for proper healing, and he thought he might need a nap (or ten), and he let Bellatrix apparate them back to the Manor without further comment. They had triumphed, and in the end, that was all that mattered.
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ORDER AFTERMATH (fyi as I (Alie) shall not be around until after 6 tomorrow): Once they broke through the wards, the Order would have had to kill some wolves in a effing hurry, get Ed out of there and back to his house (since that's the closest, safe place to apparate to, given the state of Ed), and then someone would have to owl/journal Dig. Someone else would (likely) let the rest of the Order know (?). Ed's status is baaaaaaaaaad. The outlook will seem very bleak and touch and go for a while (2-3 days). :(
Please comment OOC like with who was there, commentary on the duel if you like, the ward breaking itself, killing/getting rid of the wolves, reactions, and then saving Ed and the aftermath (at Ed and Cally's [def open to Cally reacting to her dying husband and a stampede of Order members and the like, Jamie!] place) etcetera, etcetera.