Black Dog

Black Dog

by Essayel

An R rated, Post-Voldemort fic that is now, sadly, also AU. Much angst, some fluff and my idea of what Draco might grow up to be if given a severe enough thrashing at just the right moment. All usual Disclaimers apply.

Black Dog - Prologue

All day long the heat had been growing. Soft and still, full of the scents of summer, the air pressed down upon everything like a great soft warm paw and the small creatures of the countryside, knowing well what this forbodes, twitched their whiskers and retreated to burrow and crevice and form. Only the mistle thrush remained, perched high in an alder tree, with head thrown back, speckled breast glowing in the low light of the sun, carrying out his duties as the storm cock as he filled the air with his heady song of warning.

In the old quarry the heat was even more oppressive. Overgrown, with crumbling walls, the cirque of golden stone was almost filled with a great tangle of brambles. The villagers had long since ceased to come for stone to build their walls and houses, preferring their building materials to be delivered neatly vacuum-packed on a pallet. It had been busy once, yielding stone for the church that nestled in a fold of the hill, for the castle, proud upon its brow like a broken crown and for the villa, now only to be seen at sunrise or set as a faint series of marks under the pasture. It was a quiet place, a safe haven. A few bold rabbits ignored the thrush's warning and ventured out to feed but a new scent was in the air and only the very boldest, hopping carefully between the barbed stalks, went far enough to look and see and retreat with a flash of white tail.

Beneath the arching stalks, if one knew where to look, was a hollow, once used for bonfires but now deep with dead leaves and the dry stalks of fireweed. Here lay the cause of the rabbit's alarm - an immense black creature. It looked as though it could be dead but the rabbit had known better and a blowfly, landing speculatively upon the tip of one ear, took off with an angry buzz when its perch flicked reflexively. The beast gave a low groan and moved a little before subsiding again. It was a dog, enormous, heavy-boned and long-legged, with dense, shaggy black fur, now sadly patchy and showing bare and angry flesh in several places on shoulder and flank. The poor beast's head was distorted with swelling from its left eye back across cheek and brow. There was a raw burn across its muzzle and lips and the fur of its breast was thickly matted with blood. The fly landed again with the persistence of its kind, crawling across a damaged paw and the dog twitched the paw with a groan, brushing the fly away then raised its head, panting. One pale eye opened briefly, the other was a mere slit in the swollen flesh and the dog turned its head to lick at a wound on its shoulder, searching the torn flesh with its tongue until blood flowed sluggishly. It whined and lay its head down again, breath harsh and whistling.

At length the creature's breathing slowed and it slept while the light faded from the sky. Eventually the rabbits emerged again and sniffed around the edge of the hollow, eyes staring at the scent of blood and pain, and managed to snatch a few mouthfuls of grass before a cold little wind rattled the leaves of the brambles and from far, far away came the distant rumble of the gathering storm. The rabbits hopped back to their burrows and so were warm and dry when the first fat raindrops came plopping down onto the hot, parched ground. The dog in his hollow sighed as the heat began to lift but he did not wake.

*

It was a bad storm. Trees came down across the road out of the village. The chimneypot on the roof of the doctor's house was shattered by a lightning bolt and three cows, sheltering beside a wire fence, were laid low by another.

The publican, closing early, because even his regulars hadn't ventured out on this wild night, said to his wife, "What a month for storms we're having! Look at that rain! Mind you, it's not as bad as that one last night."

She came to stand at his elbow and peered uneasily down the deserted street.

"Last night was something special," she agreed. "It didn't rain at all - just that awful lightning and the ground throbbing like a drum. A storm like that comes once in a lifetime... if you're unlucky." She sighed and took his arm and rested her cheek against his shoulder. He slipped his arm around her waist, feeling that she was shivering slightly, and pulled her close, as much for his own comfort as for hers. He looked out and winced as the white flicker behind the tower of the church illuminated the tossing branches of the churchyard yews.

Last night's storm had indeed been something special and a time or two he had had the strangest notion that something momentous was about to happen...that perhaps the world was coming to an end? A foolish notion, now, but not at the time. He remembered the constant roar of the thunder, how the sky had glowed with dancing blue and green and scarlet streamers like the northern lights, the white forks of lightning stabbing the ground to the east, always the east, and how, finally, every edge and surface in sight had lit up with St Elmo's fire and gooseflesh had rippled painfully across his body. It seemed that the whole world had held its breath before the awful final detonation had shaken the building and an equally terrible silence had fallen.

But it was just a storm, that's all...surely.

He sighed as well and held her tightly.

"At least this looks - natural," he said, "but it's still no fit night for man nor beast to be out. Early night, love?"

"Early night," she agreed, pushing the door closed and tripping the latch, then they went off to bed. Hand in hand they climbed the stairs and, once under the covers, turned to each other to give and receive loving comfort until eventually they slept and their memories of fear faded as memories will.

*

As the storm raged and the thunder increased in frequency and volume, the dog whimpered in panic, paws scrabbling amongst the dirt, then the lightning flashed again but this time instead reflecting dully from sodden black fur it illuminated pale skin and torn fabric.

A man crouched in the hollow, his body as damaged as the dog's, his garments tattered, his face cut and burned and swollen. The rain battered his chilled flesh and a deep groan tore from between his lips as he writhed in the grip of his dream:

a white face with burning eyes

a cruel voice whispering,

whispering terrible things,

urging terrible deeds

the small man watches, face alive with horrified glee

blood and the pain and the screams of another

a person he should never have had to hurt

The red eyes turn to him and a long hand gestures

"Crucio" the small man cries

the pain of the curse is almost beyond bearing

The battered body bucked at the memory, cracked nails driving into the palms

the little man laughs

the sight is almost enough to drive the pain away

the red eyes turn away with contempt to direct the curse against others

a girl this time, shrieking, eyes wide

a red haired boy, a youth, a man

covers her with his own body and shrieks in his turn

and the others come, flinging themselves into the fray,

eyes blazing with futile gallantry.

He gave a great cry, a cry that sounded as though he expelled his soul with the air from his lungs.

They died

the boy with the green eyes

the man with the golden eyes

they stood and fought and died while he grovelled in his pain.

What's left but revenge?

The small man's screams are sweet to the ear,

his blood is sweet to the tongue,

without him the white faced one is impotent.

So easily, so cheaply the battle is won!

One life, the life of a rat!

So hard, so high the cost of discovery!

All lives - all the dearest and the best.

His body shook with sobbing and he threw back his head and cried in denial, the sound merging eerily with the wail of the wind. Then the man was gone and in his place the dog raised his muzzle to the uncaring sky and howled his heartbreak until his desolation was drowned by the thunder.

*

The rumbling crash shook the makeshift ceiling and all the candles and torches flickered but the medic did not falter, his wand moving surely and steadily, his voice intoning softly but clearly. Tony Lyle had been working for twenty three hours straight and this burned and damaged body was just the latest in the long procession - though perhaps more badly damaged than most. At least this one was young and strong. He glanced across at his companion. Ray was labouring over another barely breathing carcass but he could not spare the time to look away.

The volunteer medics had waited off shore. The entire Welsh contingent had retreated to Ynys Enlli and the Scots to Lindisfarne with such of the English as could be spared. The Russians, he had heard, had landed in Iona and most of the Americans in Eire, while he and his group had found themselves on a sun-drenched beach on the island of Sark. There had been some kind of warning. For God's sake stay away, we'll call when we need you, don't risk yourselves, you may be our last hope. At least, that's what he had been told the message said. And so they had waited on the beach while the tension mounted and some of them had shucked off their robes and splashed in the surf until the senior medic called them to order. Not a patch on Bondi, of course, but it was nice enough until the alarm was raised and they had clustered around and taken their Portkeys - apparently - to an outpost of hell. Tony shuddered at the memory of their arrival, his first sight of the battlefield mercifully obscured by drifting clouds of thick, black, meat-smelling smoke, then they had seen the survivors and had realised why their stay on the beach had been so necessary.

He sighed as he finished the final incantation then levelled his wand at the young man's heart. Revelare salus, he murmured and looked closely at the colours of the man's suddenly visible aura. Citrus yellow with physical stress shot through with the ugly smoky brown shadows of injury, yet there was still a steady, beating core of intense blue-green at the centre of it.

"This 'ns a keeper," he said. "How're you doing, Ray?" Ray didn't reply but the grim expression on his face was answer enough. Tony turned and gave his assistant an encouraging smile

"Any more for me?"

The English mediwitch shook her head as she reached for a bowl and sponge and began to gently clean the blood and grime from the newly healed flesh of their patient.

"These were two of the last to be brought in," she said, wearily. "Nobody else that close to the epicentre survived." She drew a deep breath and blotted her eyes on her sleeve and he wondered who she had lost in the battle. "There are minor injuries," she continued, "and your Psych people are going to have their hands full." She stifled another sob and continued with her work, doing by hand a job that would have taken moments if she had still been able to use the wand at her belt, if she had still been able to use her magic.

The door opened and he turned to shout at whoever it was to bugger off out of it but paused as he recognised the man who entered. This was the first man Tony had seen on the battlefield...Advancing through the smoke he had heard voices raised in agony. This man had been on his knees, useless wand discarded as he tried to staunch the blood flowing from the wounds of a pale faced woman. He had raised his head and begged for their help, bloody to the elbows, his Auror robes tattered and singed. Tony noticed that he had washed his hands and changed into clean robes but his pale hair was still stained with blood and smoke and his eyes were desolate.

"Hey," Tony stepped forward hastily as he staggered and caught him under the elbow. "Are you hurt?"

The young Auror shook his head then gave a bleak laugh and extended a burned and blistered arm. "This is nothing," he said, "in comparison."

Tony didn't need to ask with what. "I'll sort that out for you, mate, come and sit down here."

"No." The Auror shook his head. "I haven't got time. How many patients have you got in here?"

Tony shrugged. "Half a dozen we're still working on," he replied.

"Any identifying features?" the Auror demanded. "I'm looking for a man with a scar..."

"This lot have all got scars," Tony replied sadly, "or will have if they survive."

"A scar here," the Auror's unburned thumb drew a jagged line across his forehead. "I've checked all the wards, the walking wounded and the mortuary. This is the only place left."

Tony stared at him, realising the significance of his remark, and drew breath to reply but was distracted by Ray who let out a howl of fury.

"No, damn you," he was raging at his patient, " you will bloody well not die on me!" Tony fled to his side and together they levelled their wands at the faltering heart while a pugnacious little Welsh medic boosted the decreasing blood pressure with an incantation that rolled off his tongue in a soaring melodic baritone.

"Duw mawredd," he gasped. "Almost lost him there, boys."

Tony shook his head. "This guys too tough to die - from the look of him he had survived worse than this."

The Auror had followed and he looked down in pity at the damaged body, the twisted and broken limbs with the bright new wounds overlaying old, long healed, white ones. He leaned forward, studying the swollen and blistered face intently, then he turned to the other table where the English witch had just begun to wash the face of the young man who lay there. He held his breath until she had finished then let it out in a long exhalation of relief. He was quite appalled when his inhalation turned into a sob but that, most fortunately, was drowned out by the mediwitch's exclamation.

"Good grief, this is Harry Potter!"

Tony turned to her, his mouth dropping open with astonishment and the Auror gave a rather snide laugh.

"Yes, good job he didn't die on you isn't it?" he said.

**