Dysfunctional

29 - Greyback and Padfoot

Saturday, September 28

"Perfect. I can't see a thing," said Sirius, looking at the disillusioned selves of Fred and George standing before him.

"Do we take turns patrolling or-" came the disembodied voice of Fred, or George - he couldn't tell which.

"You both can stay together and patrol the left of the house and I'll take the right," said Sirius. "If anything happens-"

"We'll send a Patronus," came the voice of one of the twins. Sirius had to admit it was quite eerie.

"Right. Stay alert," said Sirius and then departed to the right side of the house. He cast the Disillusionment charm on himself and waited.

The Abbotts' house was an ancestral home and consequently, an old and large one. Hestia and Dedalus had cast the protective charms around the house that morning and Arthur had alerted Edmund Abbott about the threat to his family and given him the general idea of what the Order would do to protect them.

Edmund's sister-in-law, Joanna, had been murdered just weeks before and the whole family was mourning, including Joanna's daughter and Edmund's parents. The Death Eaters would probably follow Edmund when he came home from work and so it was essential that the family stayed put, so as to not alert the Death Eaters that they had already gotten wind of their plan.

If worse came to worse, Arthur had given them a portkey that would take them straight to the Burrow. Sirius hoped it wouldn't come to that.

He sat on the ground behind some bushes and waited patiently, wondering what Remus was doing at the moment. The full moon was shining bright above him and he felt slightly glum knowing that he wasn't with Remus when he transformed into a werewolf tonight. Since his legal acquittal, he was yet to accompany Remus on full moons. He made a promise to himself to do just that when Remus returned - after kicking his arse for doing what he did to Tonks, that is.

He froze suddenly when he heard the sound of a muffled yell and the next moment the Patronus form of a bear had charged towards him speaking in George's urgent voice, "We need help!"

Sirius transformed into his Animagus and ran as fast as he could to the other side of the large house. It took him almost half a minute to reach them; he quickly counted the presence of at least four Death Eaters surrounding the twins whose Disillusionment charm had come off. He switched to his human self and pulled out his wand and charged forward, stunning a Death Eater who had been caught unawares by his sudden presence.

This however, alerted the rest and one of them rounded on Sirius with a jet of the tell-tale green light of the Killing Curse. In the blink of an eye, he had conjured a circular wall of iron floating in front of him, which shook violently as it absorbed the Killing Curse before dissolving into thin air again.

Sirius shot a 'Reducto' at the man's feet and the ground exploded with dirt, temporarily giving him cover. Quickly, he cast a full Body-Bind but the man jumped away from the spell at the nick of time and ran towards Fred and George, who were duelling with the other two Death Eaters. Sirius aimed a Stunning spell at him but he dodged it and reached the Death Eater that Sirius had stunned earlier. Sirius swore as the man revived the fallen Death Eater and he jumped out of the way of two Killing Curses rushing towards him.

Sirius crashed hard onto the ground and before he could get up, he heard one of the Death Eaters yell, "Let's go! Greyback will be here any minute."