Victor and Adele materialized in the very depths of a dense forest, where the canopies of ancient trees almost completely blocked out the sunlight, plunging everything around into a perpetual twilight.
— What the hell?! Where are we... — one of the Aurors exclaimed, looking around in a panic.
He didn't get to finish. A brilliant green flash of Avada Kedavra slashed through the air, striking him squarely in the chest. The wizard collapsed onto the damp earth, his eyes instantly glazing over.
Adele narrowed her eyes, shifting her gaze to the second Auror—the very same one who had so caringly reassured Victor on the train. Now, he was gripping his wand, a manic, triumphant smirk plastered across his face. Noticing that her brother remained entirely unfazed, Adele calmed down as well, merely tightening her grip on his hand.
The traitor turned to the children, expecting to see terror, but upon meeting their icy composure, his brow furrowed in confusion.
— What, this doesn't surprise you at all? Is murder an everyday occurrence at Hogwarts now, since you didn't even blink?
Victor slowly turned his head toward him, tilting it slightly to the side.
— Surprised? Not in the slightest. I expected this from the exact moment you touched my shoulder. I knew right away you were on the "bad guys" team. — He then turned his gaze toward the thick undergrowth: — Come on out already. So, you're the famous Fenrir Greyback who's been so persistently hunting for my head?
— Ha-ha-ha! What an interesting boy! — from behind the ancient trunks, like shadows, figures began to step forward. Twenty-two wizards filed out and stood before him, but Adele's eyes were locked onto the one laughing the loudest.
It was a man with wild, predatory features. His sharp, yellowish teeth were bared in a snarl; he resembled a beast far more than a human.
— Even with a blindfold on, you see much more than everyone else. How fascinating, — Greyback rasped, licking his lips in anticipation.
Victor turned to face him. He could feel Fenrir's power—it was roughly on Snape's level, but it lacked any semblance of elegance; it was a savage, churning, and untamed beastial might.
— Boy, you have caused us quite a lot of trouble, — Greyback growled, narrowing his eyes. — We planned to snatch you right out of Hogsmeade, right from under Dumbledore's nose. Can you imagine the uproar it would have caused in the papers? I was damn well surprised to find out the Ministry had already caught wind of it. We had to change the plan on the fly. Now, everything will be framed differently: they'll write that the Hogwarts Express was attacked, and the raiders fled in cowardice, dragging some random student along with them.
Victor let out an understanding sigh and nodded:
— Yes, my condolences. You really ought to keep a better eye on your little pups—I imagine the leak slipped out through them.
Fenrir bared his teeth viciously, a low rumble echoing in his throat:
— I know. And I swear: when I root out the rat, I will tear them to shreds.
— If I were in your shoes, I'd do it publicly, — Victor suddenly advised. — And I'd make sure the traitor suffered for as long as possible. Believe me, that will completely kill any desire in the others to blab where they shouldn't.
Greyback fell silent for a moment, observing the boy in surprise, before bursting into an even louder roar of laughter:
— Ha-ha-ha! You truly are an intriguing specimen. If it weren't for Lord Voldemort's explicit request to have you put down, I would gladly turn you into one of us. You would make an excellent wolf.
Victor raised an eyebrow barely a fraction:
— Ah, so he's the one who ordered the hit? Little Tommy got that upset with me? Is it because I destroyed his Horcrux? Damn, and here I thought I was just spitefully messing with Dumbledore.
— How dare you, you filthy upstart, speak of my Lord in such a manner?! — the traitorous Auror boiled over with rage, his face contorting into a mask of fanatical fury. — You know, by his command, you are to suffer a long and agonizing death. And I think I'll begin your lessons in pain with your sister.
A cruel, expectant smile played on his lips as he slowly leveled his wand at Adele. Victor, without breaking his smile, turned his head toward him and casually snapped his fingers.
The Auror froze, suddenly feeling a bizarre, searing heat bloom inside his chest. He lowered his gaze in utter confusion: from beneath his collar—right where Victor had so meticulously straightened his uniform on the train—a blindingly brilliant radiance began to pierce through the fabric.
A muffled, whistling pop rang out, like the sound of a snapping string. The traitor went rigid. In that very fraction of a second, right where the light had been pulsing, the first crimson torrent burst forth. The tree trunk behind his back was instantly painted in a fan of thick, spraying blood. With an expression of absolute bewilderment frozen on his face, the Auror crashed face-first to the ground.
Adele sharply whipped her head away, having no desire to behold her brother's handiwork. The traitorous Auror's back was quite literally turned inside out: his ribs had flared open like the petals of a gruesome flower, and fragments of his spine lay scattered across the dirt.
Even the hardened werewolves, along with Greyback, froze for a beat, momentarily mesmerized by this anatomical atrocity.
— HA-HA-HA! ART IS AN EXPLOSION! — Victor shouted manically, throwing his head back.
Fenrir, finally snapping out of it, erupted into a corresponding coarse laughter:
— HA-HA-HA! Kid, you are a total psychopath!
Victor, never ceasing his laughter, nodded in enthusiastic agreement:
— I KNOW! HA-HA-HA!
— I never could've imagined you'd put him down like that, — Fenrir wheezed through his laughter, wiping away a tear brought on by the mirth.
— HA-HA... Wait, what? — Victor instantly cut his laughter short, his face twisting into an expression of sheer horror. — Killed him? Dammit! Did I actually kill him?!
Under the flabbergasted stares of the werewolves, Victor rushed in a panic toward the mangled corpse. He flipped what was left of the body onto its back and began frantically administering chest compressions, staining his hands with blood.
— One, two, three... Adele, get the potion, quickly! You, baldy! — he stabbed a finger at the nearest werewolf. — Get over here and give him mouth-to-mouth! Hurry! How many times have I pumped? Whatever, baldy, kiss him, drag him back from the afterlife!
The wizard Victor addressed stood in a complete stupor, glancing wildly at his companions, completely unable to tell if this was dead serious or a twisted joke.
— Adele! Where is the damn potion?!
Adele merely shook her head wearily, looking down at him:
— If you want to jumpstart his heart that badly, you should probably put it back inside first. It's over there, under the bush.
— What? — Victor froze and tracked the direction of her hand. Spotting the organ resting a couple of yards away, he let out a heavy sigh and slowly stood up. All of his panic vanished instantly, replaced by sheer annoyance. He reached up to his face and, with a swift motion, ripped off his blindfold.
— SON OF A BITCH! — he barked, kicking the corpse's head with all his might.
— Adele, why didn't you stop me?! — Victor threw his hands up in exasperation. — I could have just knocked him out!
Adele merely scowled in irritation:
— How was I supposed to know that your casual hugs turn people into living bombs now?
— I don't even get how it happened myself, — Victor grumbled, his mood turning dark. — I just felt what a piece of filth he was, and my body reacted automatically on instinct.
Fenrir Greyback, who had been watching this entire theater play out, finally snapped:
— Kid, are you actually out of your mind?
Victor sharply snapped his furious gaze over to him.
— Yes! — he snarled. Stepping over to his sister, he drew his cane with a familiar gesture. — Dammit, nearly ten months of meditation, breathing exercises, and anger management—all down the drain! The moment I run into some cheap piece of trash, I snap instantly.
With a metallic ring, he drew the katana from his cane, spun the hilt in his palm, and forcefully drove the blade into the ground at his feet. Immediately, a massive, transparent dome shimmering with magical energy began to rise rapidly from the blade. Within seconds, the barrier enclosed the clearing, sealing them off from the rest of the world.
While the werewolves grimly inspected the obstruction, Victor produced several protective amulets and hung them around his sister's neck.
— No, screw it all. I am who I am, and there's clearly no fixing me. I just need to try and be a bit more restrained.
He offered a soft smile and gently patted Adele's cheek. But when he spun back around to face the werewolves, his face transformed into a mask of absolute, glacial calm. Within his eyes, a blood-red Sharingan was already spinning frantically.
Every primal instinct Fenrir possessed screamed at him to run, but his pride bound him to the spot. Standing before him were just two children, while behind him stood more than twenty loyal fighters. If he backed down now, how could he ever hold his head high and lead the pack again?
— Boy, don't be a fool! — Greyback growled, attempting to smother his rising dread. — There are too many of us; you can't handle everyone alone. If you don't care about yourself, think of the girl. Surrender willingly, and I give my word—we won't touch her.
Victor, taking this in, merely tilted his head slightly.
— Too many? — he echoed, a smile creeping onto his lips. — Are you absolutely certain you can trust every single person standing behind your back?
— What do you... — Fenrir didn't get to finish. His beastial reflexes forced him to leap violently to the side.
— BOMBARDA MAXIMA! — a deafening explosion ripped through the exact spot where the werewolves were clustered most densely. Bodies and chunks of earth scattered in all directions; half the squad was incapacitated in a single strike, and the rest were left utterly dazed.
Greyback whipped around to face the one who had unleashed the curse. It was one of his own men, but his eyes... they were crimson, perfectly mirroring Victor's Sharingan. Without a second thought, Fenrir struck the traitor with a powerful curse, blasting him aside. The man smashed into a tree with a groan and slid down the trunk.
The werewolf quickly shifted his gaze back to where the boy had been standing, but he had already vanished. Only Adele remained, watching the werewolf dead in the eye with a chilling, serene smile. Greyback began to scan his surroundings frantically, until his ears caught a strange, sickening sound nearby.
One of the wizards, dazed by the blast, was struggling to rise from the ground. His ears were ringing, and the burn on his arm stung unbearably. He dropped to his knees, blinking in disorientation, when he suddenly felt someone's palms softly cup his cheeks and chin. Looking up, he beheld the handsome face of the youth. Victor's mesmerizing, blood-red eyes were twitching from side to side at an impossible velocity.
Then came a violent, lightning-fast twist of the hands in opposite directions. *Snap.* The absolute last thing he heard before dying was the foul, dry sound of fracturing cervical vertebrae. His body collapsed like a sack of potatoes onto the dirt.
Greyback spun on his heels toward the noise. He caught the sight of Victor moving with inhuman grace as he drove his bare hand right through the ribcage of the last wounded man groaning on the grass. The moment Fenrir's wand locked onto him, the boy dissolved into a burst of crimson mist, vanishing without a trace into the shadows of the dense forest.
And the second the crimson mist dissolved among the branches, the forest came alive. A terror-stricken shriek shattered the silence.
— WHAT THE HELL?! — one of the wizards shrieked.
Heavy, thorny vines, resembling living serpents, coiled around his ankles and yanked him with terrifying force into the depths of the thicket. The shadow of the woods swallowed him instantly. The exact same fate befell two others; the forest's snares struck with lightning speed and zero mercy. The last of the ensnared managed at the final moment to claw onto a protruding tree root.
— Boss, help me! — he croaked in desperation, but the vines tautened, a sharp crack of snapping branches echoed, and he was dragged howling into the blackness after the rest.
For several agonizing seconds, muffled screams and the crunch of breaking bones drifted out from the depths of the woods until everything finally went dead silent. Fenrir and the surviving werewolves, who had finally recovered from the initial explosion, froze, trembling with fear. Their eyes darted erratically from side to side, trying to spot the enemy in every shifting leaf.
The wizard who had been under the influence of the Sharingan groaned as his eyes fluttered open. Propped against a tree, he blinked disorientedly, only to meet the venomous, suspicious glares of his packmates.
— What happen... — he never got to finish.
With a deafening whistle, a thick, sharpened branch flew out from behind a tree. Hurling at incredible speed, it impaled the unfortunate man's chest, pinning him clean through to the trunk. The wizard gave a singular twitch and went still.
— Eight, — Victor's calm, entirely emotionless voice seemed to emanate from everywhere at once. — Barely five seconds—and eight of you have already become fertilizer for the forest. Little wolf, do you still happen to think there are "too many" of you for me alone?