Black Dog

Black Dog

Chapter Two

Dog awoke with a rush of adrenaline that brought him staggering to his feet, snarling. Scents of anger and aggression assaulted his nose. 'Fight or die' they told him and he glowered, looking for his enemy then cowered with a plaintive whine.

He was trapped! Imprisoned!

High concrete walls surrounded him on three sides, more concrete was beneath his paws and ahead was wire stretched on a metal framework. An unfamiliar pressure tight around his throat told him that he was collared. He reared against the side of the enclosure, but there was more wire overhead and the wire door, when he tested it, was unyielding and hurt his battering paws. Panting with suppressed panic he made circuit after circuit of the enclosure until he was panting with thirst and turned to the two large bowls beside the door. One was full of fresh water and he drank thirstily, splashing the water across the floor. The other bowl contained raw meat but he did not even glance at it - there was a wrongness about it beyond its carrion stench that made it impossible for him to eat it.

He licked the final drops of water from the bowl, sopped up the trickle that he had spilled then moved to the front of the cage.

His cage was one of many in a large barn-like structure, high roofed, with stone walls and a few long narrow windows. Opposite him a brindled bitch met his eyes and bared her teeth, a black and white dog in the next cage along hurled itself at the bars eyeing him with an eager hunger, and their scent frightened him more than his confinement. They felt - wrong - like the meat in the bowl. They stank of rottenness and corruption. All dogs are territorial but for these two and others in the barn their territory was the world and all other creatures were enemies fit only to die. The bitch barked, setting off a chorus as they challenged the stranger in their midst and Dog rose to the challenge, barking back in a deep roar that nevertheless silenced them for only a moment. They raved in return, promising a bloody death, until a door opened and they turned away, yapping and whining, tails a-wag, to welcome their God.

Colin was already on his way to the barn when he heard the bark and he chuckled.

"That's a boy," he murmured as he opened the door, then he flicked on the lights and walked down between the cages. Some of the dogs leaped whining to the fronts of the cages, tongues lolling in their delight, while others cowered at the back, eyes white-edged and rolling. Either response warmed his heart, but he was more intent upon inspecting his latest acquisition. Skinny old thing under all that fur, he thought as he approached, but he had the best part of a month to get it up to weight. A bit of retriever in it, possibly, though crossed with what he couldn't imagine - soft-mouthed anyway, not the type he normally liked - and he gave the brindled bitch an affectionate look before turning to peer into the black dog's cage.

It was standing at the back of the kennel, eyes watchful. The water was gone, he was pleased to see and the empty bowl was within reach but, he cursed mildly, the bowl of dog meat had been nosed to the middle of the cage but was otherwise untouched.

"I suppose it was too much to expect that you'd been trained," he said as he took a small box with a dial and button from a hook beside the door.

"Easy, old lad," he said soothingly as he opened the cage door, leaving it ajar, and stepped inside. The dog was watching him intently but with no sign of fear and he smiled and stooped to retrieve the dish. Fast as thought, the dog darted past him towards the open door but his thumb was already on the button.

There was a loud buzzing from the dog's collar followed by a fizzing crack and it leaped into the air screaming. He pressed the button again and again and it collapsed twitching, flattening to the floor, eyes rolling and panting with terror.

Colin picked up both bowls and left, locking the door behind him. Later, when he returned bearing more water and a bowl full of mixed standard dog food and biscuit, he didn't enter the cage but slipped both bowls through the hatch. The dog had recovered enough to move and was sitting in the straw right at the back of the cage. One lip lifted to bare a fang but it flinched when he moved suddenly and Colin smiled. A clump of black fur on the floor puzzled him a little, so he stepped back from the cage and busied himself fondling the brindle bitch while keeping an eye on the new dog.

After a few moments, the smell of the food was too much for it and it moved from its straw bed to the bowl, sniffed suspiciously then began to eat as only a starving dog can. Black fur trailed from the claws of its left hind paw and Colin grinned. It had been trying to scratch the collar off.

"Clever bugger, aren't you," Colin said to it, and he resolved to be very careful.

Later that evening he rang his mate, Baz.

"Twenty-fifth," he said shortly, "and I think I've found our showpiece. - Yes, it's enormous, black as your hat and teeth like a timberwolf. - How should I know? I haven't tried it out yet. - Yeah, right, there's only one way to find out. Come round Tuesday and we'll see."

Dog was left to his own devices for the next three days for which he was very grateful. He may not have remembered much, or understood much of what he did remember, but he knew about imprisonment and when to snarl and when to submit to his jailor. He behaved impeccably when Colin came to change his food and water, merely retreating to the back of the cage with a surly glare and made no more attempts to escape.

Then on the third evening, at a time when Colin would normally be feeding him, instead the man came carrying a long pole with a snap hook on the end. Dog growled softly and retreated as far as he could go but Colin was an expert and twisted the hook to fasten onto his collar. Another man entered the cage with another pole and did the same.

"He's bloody enormous," he said to Colin.

"Yes, he's big enough," Colin said, a trace of worry in his voice. "Come on, Baz, you pull, I'll push."

They tugged and pushed and chivvied Dog from his prison to a circular enclosure with high walls, shut the door on him then unhooked the poles from his collar. He stood for a moment, listening to their voices recede, then made a careful circuit of the walls. No way out, not for a dog. There was a solution to that, but he shied away from the thought and set his back to one of the walls and waited.

Before too long he heard the men coming back, the first two and many more of them, and knew immediately that there was some threat. Their voices were high and fast and he could smell the sharp reek of their excitement as they leaned over the high walls peering down at him in the pit. His hackles rose in an involuntary response and he moved away from the door. The door was opened a mere crack and another dog was thrust inside. An ugly, bow-legged, frog-mouthed beast it was already snarling before the pole was unhooked from its collar. Dog lowered his head and gave the warning 'don't mess with me' growl that was usually enough to put the most foolhardy dog off, but the other dog merely gave a squall of fury and leaped at his throat. He sprang aside, feeling teeth graze his shoulder. The other dog was a lot smaller but appallingly strong. Dog bounded out of its way, each time feeling teeth snap and draw blood. The men, leaning over the side of the pit were yelling encouragement and criticism, Colin as loud as the rest, his face scarlet with effort.

Dog was panting now but his opponent kept attacking, little eyes narrow with single-minded viciousness.

The man who had first come, who had helped Colin lead him to this awful place, howled with derision.

"He's not even trying, Col," he shouted. "Zap him and let the young dog make an end."

Colin was shaking his head with annoyance and lifted his hand, his thumb on the button of the little box, but took it off again as his black dog whirled in his own length and brought both forepaws down on the shoulders of its opponent.

"Wait," he shouted. "I think he's beginning to get the idea."

The young fighting dog was used to this situation. This was the fifth time it had been placed in the pit and matched against another dog and each time it had prevailed and felt the crunch of tissue between its jaws, the flow of blood in its throat. That the black dog was much bigger meant nothing, it would die and the young dog would feast upon its flesh. In contrast, Dog wanted nothing more than to get out of the enclosure alive. However, he now knew that the only way to do so was over the dead body of the other dog and while he did not want to fight at least his skills had been honed to perfection in sparring with a wolf.

Colin roared his glee as the black dog hunched its back and shot across the ring, bowling the other dog off its feet. It's huge jaws snapped once, there was a sharp yelp and it stood back leaving the smaller dog in a crumpled, broken-backed heap. The other men around the walls shouted and swore as they settled their bets and Colin slapped hands in celebration with Baz.

"It'll fight," he said.

"Think it could take Taylor's ban-dog?" Baz asked.

"Not a chance," Colin said, grinning, "but it'll be a hell of a show."

Dog looked up at the walls, at the blood on the floor and the celebrating men and stood shivering, waiting for them to come to put him back in his cell.

*

Auror Headquarters was situated within the Ministry complex but, as befitted the business carried out in it's grim offices and interrogation rooms, it had it's own well-monitored entrances and exits. Jason Fraser paused on the threshold of one of these and watched the recent visitor stride rapidly away across the Atrium towards his own department. Young Potter had healed well, he thought, and sighed for so many others hadn't.

"What was he doing here?" A harsh voice interrupted his reverie and he nodded to see his brother-in-law approaching.

"Same as last week, and the week before," Fraser replied.

Ken Norden made a disgusted noise. "Why can't he leave it alone?" he demanded. "We've got enough on our hands with chasing down the last of the Death Eaters as well as our normal low grade nastiness. Why can't he just accept that the bastard is dead - died in a ditch somewhere like the dog he was?"

Fraser made no reply but Norden looked sharply at him and laid a hand on his shoulder. "Sorry, Jase," he said more quietly. "I know you were close once but...well, all I can say is, if ever we find out what happened to Sirius Black...if he's still live somewhere...I only hope that I get to him before Potter does."