บท 315: Wrath & Confrontation

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"So this is Hogwarts," said Fenrir Greyback, his small, dead eyes gazing around the hallways. "Hmm, looks different than what I had imagined it to be," he continued with a raspy chuckle, "I wonder how many would be reborn today with a changed fate— ah, just thinking about it gives me a thrill."

The Death Eater, all graduates of Hogwarts, turned their eyes to the werewolf with disgust.

"We're not here to play, Greyback," said Alecto Carrow, frowning. "We have an important responsibility today. The lord will be displeased if we failed, so keep your. . . antics in control today, or who knows what will happen if we were to return with a failure on our hands."

Fenrir twisted his towards Alecto and dully stared at him for a silent moment. He gruffed snort in response before turning to Draco. "So, young Malfoy, where can we find your dead, I'm sorry, dear headmaster. I can't wait to meet the old bat and get a good taste; I'm sure it'd make all of this worth it."

"H-He should be in his quarters or in his office," said Draco.

"It'd be not wise to corner him in his room," Thorfinn Rowle scratched his chin, "from what I'm aware of, the headmaster has gargoyles guarding his quarters and office— even if we act quickly, he'd know we're coming, and I refuse to believe Dumbledore doesn't have some hidden measures in place, all-in-all making our attempts to surprise him this way moot.

However," Thorfinn continued, "we can surprise him via an ambush. The question is how to get him out in the open."

The Death Eaters all began to think about how to get Dumbledore out in the open, so they could get a drop on him. It was then that Draco spoke up, "We can launch morsmordre just over the Astronomy tower to lure Dumbledore out— if he sees the Dark Mark over Hogwarts, he will come running out."

"That is a great idea, Draco!" Amycus Carrow exclaimed. "If my memory serves me right, the stairs to the tower are in such a way that we can pick out any pesky ones that try to interfere."

"To make sure that Dumbeldore is alone, I suggest that some of us go to the professor's quarters and stand guard there to hinder them," said Corban Yaxley.

There were nods and ayes from the other.

"Bah! Whatever," said Fenrir. "Just get Dumbledore to me," he glanced at Draco, "if he fails, I'd love to get Dumbledore's blood on my hands."

Draco held back a hitch in his throat.

"Are you ready, Draco? You're going to turn famous overnight."

Draco nodded with difficulty yet tried to seem brave.

"The Draco, if you'd lead Fenrir to the Astronomy Tower," said Thorfinn. He glanced at Gibbon and Yaxley, "you guys go accompany them and guard the base of the tower in case someone tries to get upstairs. I will go with the Carrows to the professor's quarters and block those who come out from there.

When the deed is done, cast another morsmordre high in the sky, and we will know to retreat."

. . . . .

The discussions were over, and the Death Eater groups made their way to the grand staircase. All of them, bar Draco and Fenrir, had put on their masks and had pulled up their hoods to hide their identities— they were prominent figures in public with their identities free of the Death Eater tag still useful in some ways.

"What is this?" said Fenrir, stopping, his nose twitching as he glared to the front.

Fenrir's gruff voice with cautiousness made the Death Eaters stop in their tracks and look where the werewolf looked. They furrowed their brows when they couldn't see anything, but just when they were about to question Fenrir, something entered their vision.

The segment of the hallway in front of them was drowned in darkness. The segment had no windows, and the torches on the walls were extinguished. Just next to the dark segment was a large window covered with clay grills letting in the pale moonlight, creating a crisp line of shadow and light. In that crisp line, a soft mist came spilling out from the shadows as if making a blanket on the floor's surface.

"Well?!" Fenrir questioned. "Is this normal?"

"No, I haven't seen this before," said Draco with a tight shake of his head.

Just in a couple of seconds, the mist that seemed endless flowed out in waves and reached the Death Eaters. It covered the entire floor, rising to just above their ankles.

"It doesn't seem dangerous," said Thorfinn, as his testing spell didn't give any negative response. "But what is this—"

Out of nowhere, the sound of footsteps sounded in the empty hallways. The Death Eaters all withdrew their wand as the footsteps closed in. A part of the mist was disturbed when a foot covered in overall black stepped out as if it had been the part of the shadow, only to break out just this moment. The foot was followed by the entire figure draped in black from head to toe.

Draco stared at the unknown figure with doubt. 'Who is this,' he wondered and glanced at his group to see that all of them had assumed a duel-ready stance with their wands positioned to cast spells at a moment's notice.

". . . You, you're," Yaxley muttered, but his voice echoed in the night. He glanced at his companions, and his eyes behind mask seemed to ask the question, 'Is the figure in front of them who he thinks he is?'

"Death Eaters, you dare come to Hogwarts," a voice that didn't seem human to any ear sounded from the figure that wore a plain black mask. "The castle is no place to people like you," he turned to Draco, who was fumbling out his wand, "and you have a student with you. . . is that how you got in here?"

The voice and words only worked to put the Death Eaters more on guard, especially Draco, who felt the gaze burrow into him.

"You're the one who they call the invisible vigilante," said Yaxley, "but what are you doing in Hogwarts. . . ?"

Quinn, who was dressed in his Noir gear, turned his eyes to Yaxley. He felt his heart pick up the beat as he spoke, "Where ever scum of the earth like you go, I shall follow to make sure follow to ensure that your mechanisms are shattered into crumbles, and just punishment is dolled for your crimes."

Thorfinn turned to his companions and immediately ordered, "There's no need to converse with this fellow. We will get rid of him and continue with our mission."

The Death Eaters nodded, and Friar, who had been silently looking at Quinn, stepped forwards with a yellow toothy grin.

"So you're the one who sneaked away Bones from under the lord's nose," he said, cackling. "Lestrange said she wanted to twist her dagger in your gut, but it seems she won't get the chance— or who knows, maybe the crazy witch would be happy mutilating your cold corpse."

Quinn's gaze focused on Fenrir, and his heartbeat was now rising on the stairs to an elevated beat. "Fenrir Greyback. . . you pride yourself as the 'progenitor' of the werewolves in this country. Does inflicting the curse that much joy to you that you target innocent children?"

At Quinn's words, Fenrir burst into laughter that travelled to every corner of the long hallway and to its neighbours. "Progenitor, I like the sound of that. Whoever you are, I thank you for this; I'm going to use it as my moniker. . .yes, Progenitor— it has a nice sound to it," he gazed at Quinn and grinned, "today you can die in peace knowing that you've pleased me."

Quinn could hear his heartbeat in his ears over the sound of his breath against his mask. His fingers under his gloves twitched, and his muscles turned taut with excitement.

"Me, dead?" he said, trying his best to keep his words from cracking. "All of you," he addressed the Death Eaters, "made the mistake of entering Hogwarts today uninvited. . . so don't think you'll be leaving here."

Two spell-lights manifested over his hands. The magenta bubbling with black thrummed ominously as Quinn pointed his palms towards the Death Eaters. "Only way you'll be leaving the castle today is dead." Quinn released the spells towards the Death Eater with a smile of madness behind his mask.

The moment the spells had manifested over Quinn's hands, Alecto Carrow had stepped forward and pulled Fenrir back. He began casting and completed his shields just before the spells came zooming towards him. The magic, instead of colliding with the shields, exploded into a burst of magenta flames, spreading everywhere like a wildfire, scorching the walls and floor.

The Death Eaters reacted to fire, and all pulled their shields and counter-charms to subdue the spells. The stubborn flame raged, licking the magic shields, corroding them with acidic sizzles. And even though the Death Eaters all conjured their shield, one of them was a beat slow and paid consequences.

"AAAAAHHH!" Gellert Gibbon screamed as the cursed fire came in contact with his shoulders and ate away his clothes, then at his skin, burning it like an acid splash. It was only until another member pulled him under the shield did Gellert escape the flames, but his injuries remained, stinging and burning.

"HAHA, take that!" Quinn yelled, his voice drowned by the flares of the fire. He didn't mind and pushed more and more magic into the cursed flames.

«I can't believe the day has come where I would see such gross poor use of a magic of my own design, and never in my wildest dreams I thought it would be me.»

Quinn's laughter died as a frown marred his face. He ignored shook his head, deciding to ignore the voice.

«Why would you use the wide-exploding configuration here? It makes zero sense.»

Ignore it, he thought. It had done sloth no good to respond, and it wouldn't do him no good.

«Haah. . . this is so foolish and embarrassing. Mindlessly forcing more and more magic into a spell that isn't designed to take this level of input. That's the problem with guys like you. They don't appreciate the intricacies of magic.»

He couldn't take it anymore, and a part of his concentration dove into the soulscape, where the voice originated. Inside there, he opened his eyes and found that his body was glowing red.

Standing in front of Red-Quinn was original Quinn with a smile on his face.

"Oh my, a guest," he said. "How exciting!"

"What do you want?!" said Red-Quinn with a growl in his tone.

"I'm just here to talk, buddy," Quinn softly smiled.

"If you hadn't noticed, I'm sort of busy, and you're disturbing me," there was grit in his voice.

Outside, Quinn's cursed fire spell was snuffed; however, the Death Eaters were still un-cocked. He raised his hand, and the temperature dropped for several degrees as ice boulders manifested in the air. He lowered his hand, and the huge boulders went catapulting towards the Death Eaters to crush them.

"But, I was bored~," said Quinn, also keeping an outside. "If you hadn't noticed, there isn't much to do here in this dump."

"Drop the bullshit, and come to the point," said Red-Quinn.

Quinn wiggled his brows for a moment before he shrugged. "If you keep fighting like this, you're not going to win— and while it would be difficult for you to lose with my capabilities, the Death Eater squad would trap you long enough to do the job."

Red-Quinn didn't bother to put his thoughts into words; instead, he chose laughter as the medium.

Quinn stared at the twisted personification of his wrath and shook his head. He knew this wasn't going to work, at least not the way he was trying to do things. And Red-Quinn seemed to think so as well as he vanished from the soulscape.

"Well, I can always play the devil on the shoulder," Quinn muttered.

And Quinn's warning soon came to be true as the battle continued to progress.

Alecto Carrow swiped her wand, and a colossal ice spear diverted from its flight path and crashed into the wall, piercing into the bricks. She didn't stop and shot a zap of killing green towards the sole assailant, but a tile broke away from the floor and exploded at impact. Alecto glanced at her brother, who was currently raising exploding spells at a thick floating barrier of ice that seemed to be perpetually recovering.

"Amycus," she called, "this isn't getting anywhere. We're wasting our time. We need to get out of here."

"I would love to," Amycus countered an exploding ice shard, "but this guy isn't letting us go!" He raised the wand at an angle and shot a projectile to bypass, but a snappy-fast spell came zapping out from Quinn's side and exploded to counter Amycus's magic. "How can he cast so much magic!"

They were six people, seven included Draco, and while one of them was injured, their opponent was striking their attacks down with defenses and counters while dealing his own damage.

They were getting nowhere.

"We need to get Draco and one more person past him to do the job," said Alecto. The group knew that the longer the fight lasted, the more the chance of getting noticed, especially with the ghosts roamed in Hogwarts. She turned to the rest of the group. "Who wants to go with Draco?"

"I'll do it," came a reply from Cabron Yaxley.

"What?!" Fenrir immediately interjected. "I'm the one who's to pass here!"

Thorfinn, who was listening, inserted himself into the conversation. "No, Fenrir, we need you here. You're the only one who can brute force here to him, especially if we want to get two out of here; we would need to create an opening that only you can make here," he said, keeping the disgust down and hidden.

The werewolf countered a spell before staring at Thorfinn, who matched his gaze.

"Alright, I will do it just this once," said Fenrir. "And by saying that only I can do it, means I'm allowed to let go and let it out."

"Yes, I'm expecting that to work."

Fenrir's teeth seemed to be sharper from before as he grinned. "You know it was getting difficult for me to keep it down; I'm not used to being human on a full-moon night."

The Death Eaters exchanged glances with each other and stepped back as they knew what was to come.

Unlike the other werewolves, Fenrir Greyback accepted his Lycan side, embraced it, loved it— and after hundreds of nights letting his other side run free, not once resisting it, had allowed him some control over the other side. And for today, he had a single dose of his most hated potion, which would allow just enough control that he could stay in his human form for several hours after the full moon.

The already tight Death Eater robes started to stretch further as the sound of cracking and creaking sounded from Fenrir's body, and unlike others in his situation, which would be screaming in the sheer pain, Fenrir was laughing in pleasure. There was a terrible snarling noise. Fenrir's head was lengthening. So was his body. His shoulders were hunching. Hair was sprouting visibly on his face and hands, which were curling into clawed paws.

The transformed werewolf threw his head up and growled before he looked at the Death Eater, and they clutched their wands tighter. But the werewolf didn't jump towards them, and in some way, they even thought that the werewolf was smiling.

Werewolf-Fenrir leaned forward with his feral eyes glaring at the blurry figure in front of him, hiding behind barriers of ice. He roared and then went charging towards the enemy.

Some of the ice on the barrier melted away, and a spell came hurling towards Fenrir. He made no attempt to dodge the spell and let it hit his body and then proceeded to shrug it off like a child's punch. The charge continued, and Fenrir exploited the hole in the ice barrier to rip the barrier apart and jump into melee range.

Quinn watched with wide eyes beneath his mask as the werewolf brought along a foul smell and, more importantly, the vicious claws and sharp teeth. Instantly, all the focus on the other magic was abandoned for a fast load of body magic inside his own body. He raised his foot and gave Fenrir a charged front kick, but unexpectedly, the werewolf staggered a couple steps.

The werewolf looked at Quinn with what seemed surprise in his feral eyes, mirroring the same emotion in Quinn's eyes. But Quinn's shock turned into annoyance almost instantly.

«Werewolves have high resistance to many magic and have elevated physiques. Letting them close like you did is the worst thing you could've done. But you already knew that, yet you got cocky, opting for destructive rather than efficient and useful magic.»

Quinn furrowed as he shot another spell on Fenrir, who tried to get close to him. In the corner of his eyes, he saw Draco hiding behind another Death Eater trying to sneak past him. He cast a spell to stop them just to abandon it when Fenrir came charging again, making Quinn focus on the werewolf.

«Ah, Wrath, I don't get angry easily or frequently. When I do get angry, I blow up— controlled fury isn't my thing. I remember how unloaded on the Icy Vault when it almost killed me. You who were born from within me would obviously gain my stats. . . . heh, you're not capable of making rational decisions, are you?»

Quinn(Red) frowned, and his hands clenched hard, stretching the leather of his gloves.

«If you keep this up, a professor or Dumbledore will come here, and the deadlock would end up making it so that we wouldn't be able to escape, and that would inevitably result in the secret identity getting exposed. . . and we don't want that, do we.»

If it had been Pride, he wouldn't have minded getting his identity exposed; even Sloth would've been quite lazy and made a mistake leading to exposure. But Wrath didn't have those limitations/motivations. He wanted the identity to stay secret, so he could continue to wreak havoc in the future.

«Come on, give me control, and I will take care of this situation. . . .»

The voice sounded like a devil's offer and the result. . . ?

Quinn raised his hand and shot a spell at Fenrir, who again didn't dodge it, but he came to a halt this time.

Fenrir looked down and saw his werewolf arm turning back to his human arm. He looked up at Quinn with one human and one werewolf eye, shock tainting both just before pain hit him.

"Now, Death Eaters," said Quinn, a smile hidden from his listeners, "let's move on with the events of this night."

It was good to have control back, thought Quinn, as his magic flowed under his control.

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Quinn West - MC - Corporeal bodies are the best.

FictionOnlyReader - Author - Hmm. . . out of all the Sins I have written, including those coming in the future. I think Wrath is the one I am most unsatisfied with.

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The link is in the synopsis!