67 Blood and black magic

19 October 1996. Saturday. London. Magic Control, observation room.

- Michael, look! - The nearsighted Daniel Murphy brought his face very close to a flashing section of the map currently showing some wasteland in the north of the country.

The shift superintendent, Michael Connolly, as well as his partner, recently transferred to the main magic control department from the juvenile magic control department not without the help of Bleck's gold, of which the official was well aware, gazed at the model.

- Unforgivable spells! - he squeezed out, tensely considering what to do. On the one hand, he was instructed to draw up a report immediately, and to send his subordinate to the aurorate to the head of the duty team. On the other hand, Matilda Chmelkirk demanded that all such cases be sent to her desk first, so that she could personally notify the head of the Aurorate, and the latter could send the order to the head of the duty team.... Which took an average of an hour instead of five minutes, if you kicked Murphy right now to fly to the wing occupied by the Aurors.

In the end, Michael decided to do both. Especially considering that for every timely tip he was unofficially given a small, pleasantly jingling pouch that supplemented the official's modest salary very well. Brown, the deputy head of the Aurorate, was personally in charge of the ghastly aurors in purple robes, whose hands, it was whispered in the Ministry's smoking rooms, were covered in blood. However, Michael Brown was unfailingly polite to the small official of the Control Department, always friendly in enquiring about the health of Connolly's wife and little daughter, and sometimes even handing over some small souvenirs for the child.

- Daniel, run quickly to the Auror's office, to Brown, and keep a low profile," he mumbled to his short-tempered subordinate. - Then go back and sit here, waiting for me. I'm going to Matilda's, and today it's my turn to listen to her screams.

Murphy laughed and went to the lift, not realising that the shift supervisor had distracted him from his real purpose with a joke.

- Sirius," Brown appeared in the through mirror, already dressed in his Moody Squad uniform. - Muggles are being killed in the village to the north.

- Coordinates! - Bleck commanded curtly, snapping his fingers to Lupin's attention and gesturing for him to gather his men.

A couple of minutes later, the Alliance wizards who had been on duty today began to run out of the fireplace: ten wizards who had spent the languid hours of waiting playing poker and bridge in the underground halls of the Bleck and Potter mansions, as well as ten of Brown's aurors who had slipped out of the barracks unnoticed. A dishevelled godson literally flew out of the fireplace, fastening his equipment belt as he went, his neck decorated with numerous scratches and teeth marks that made Bleak grin derisively.

- Everybody ready? - he said curtly. - Potter, you and I are trying to take their leader. Lunatic, you're in charge of the operation. Beat them all to death, leave no survivors. The Ministry aurors will be here in half an hour, so we act quickly, but carefully, if we can't kill the enemy without risk - don't get in, throw mass spells from afar.

- Ready," Blek pulled a long rope from the cupboard and read out the portal charms in a cursive voice. Around him, and around some of the strongest mages of the group, including Potter, the air began to shake faintly, as if on a hot day over a hot pavement, the faint smell of death wafting into their nostrils. - BEGINNING! Portus!

* * *

After an elusive moment, my eyes became clearer, and I immediately flew high into the air, caught in a levitation spell, both surveying my surroundings and clearing a sector for my comrades to attack.

Black columns of smoke stood above the village on the outskirts of which we had just appeared, the Eaters couldn't help but set fire to everything in their path... And the wild screams of the Muggles coming out of the village told us that the mortals were indulging in their second favourite pastime, torture.

- Go," Remus wheezed, clutching the dimly glowing lump of power in his hand. - Kill them all.

Stretching in a frequent chain, we ran forward.

- Crucio! - Over the desperate screams of a woman struggling under a torture spell, a young Eater in a black cloak had not heard me approach.

- Sectusempra," from across the room I saw the wizard's clothes explode as if torn by dozens of invisible blades. Dropping his wand, he fell silently to the floor, into an almost black, ever-widening pool of blood. The dead man's eyes stared up at the ceiling, but I didn't see it, raising my shield to face the slashing curse of his mate.

- Avada Kedavra. - The beam of my godfather's spell killed the second Eater before he could react. - Next, Harry! Find the ringleader!

As we rushed through the centre of the village, house after house of newcomers on their first solo mission, a vague unease was growing inside me.

- We're going too easy," Sirius caught my gaze and grinned with a bloody mouth, the blood of one of the revelers lavishing it all over the place.

Bringing the through-mirror up to his face, Black called out to Brown.

- Michael, we're making our way to the centre of the village. But I've got a bad feeling about this. Gather the others, I think it's going to be hot tonight.

- Okay, Sirius," Brown's image disappeared and the godfather hid the mirror.

- Under the spell of one of the aurors who had rushed out into the central square, the wand-holding hand of the Eater disintegrated into ugly-looking shreds. A second later, the body collapsed, convulsing and then, a second later, shriveled up like a mummy. Moody's aurors had long ago disregarded the colour of charms and how many centuries of Azkaban were due for their use. As Alastor himself had said, "It's the enemy, and what you use to kill him doesn't matter."

Having broken the resistance of the Eaters, our squad made its way to the centre of the village, almost without diminishing in numbers. Only young Lionel Durrk, who was not far behind us, caught an Avada in his chest, and the other squad, coming in from the next street, was missing three people I didn't know personally.

With a low, barely audible clang, an anti-apparatus dome appeared over the village, and a large group of men in black robes turned towards us. They outnumbered our thinning squad, but not enough to make us think of retreating.

- Two lines! - Remus growled behind us. - First rank on your knees, hold your defences. The second will attack. Shields up!

The tall figure of a man with red eyes stepped through the line of black-robed Eaters.

- I knew you wouldn't hesitate to strike," Voldemort hissed in satisfaction, raising his wand. - There will be no talk of your surrender.

The flood of darkness that burst from his hands was met by Bleek's magic," Sirius groaned, first stopping the deadly spell and then sending it back with as much force as he could muster.

Spells flew from both sides, crashing with a clatter and clang against shields that crumbled with weightless crystal dust, then ricocheting to the sky. All of this passed my consciousness as the two of us and Sirius, with the cloud of blackness growing thicker around us, charged at Voldemort. And under the hereditary dark wizard's desperate attacks, even the Lord retreated a few paces, allowing us to push him away from the Drugged and away from the Aurors.

It was as if Bleek had been transformed, as thick bundles of noxious smoke flew from the cloud in which he had taken cover to Voldemort, flames blazed brightly around the Dark Lord, and branching bolts of lightning struck the murky film of his shields. From beneath the cloud of darkness came the utterly insane laughter of the godfather.

The stream of sparkling discharges from my hands did not pierce the lord's defences, but it drained them, and I tried to put all the strength I could into this spell.

A scream of inhuman pain broke through the pounding of my heart in my ears. The blazing, liquid fire-covered body of what looked like a devourer or an auror collapsed to the stone pavement beside me.

The shields that had hidden Voldemort from our eyes suddenly burst into black fire-the wizard had gathered his strength, and now I had to do my best to change the polarity of the shields in time to fend off the Dark Lord's attack. There was a steady roar of clashing elemental spells from where Sirius stood, so I knew my godfather was still alive.

Blood streamed down my face as if boiling from the heat around me - one of the steel shards flying in all directions between us had slashed me in the face. I didn't know which of the two mages had created the spell, but the space between us was now filled with debris and sharp pieces of metal and glass, some of which had melted to crust on the pavement.

For a second, shrugging off the pressure of the spell that was trying to turn me into a bloody mess on the ground, I threw my answer at Voldemort - the Breath of Chaos was almost the entire distance between us when the Dark Lord flew upwards, missing the impact beneath him.

With a loud roar from the cloud where Bleek was hiding, a new wave of blackness swept towards Voldemort, shattering the Lord's attacking charms in its path, and my body was permeated with the finest needles of sudden fear, as if my godfather had crossed some line in plumbing the depths of dark magic.

Midway between the godfather and Voldemort, two streams of blackness converged with a rumbling crash, like oncoming landslides in the mountains.

In the heat of battle, we gradually moved further and further away from the Aurors and Devourers, where, so far, no one could gain the upper hand. The square and the surrounding houses had long since been reduced to rubble under their spell, but the battle continued unabated, and it was clear that victory would only be achieved if all the enemies on either side were destroyed.

The air around me felt sizzling hot for a moment, and then, just as I was changing the polarity of my shield, the unbearable heaviness came back on my shoulders, and the fire energy absorbed into my aura burst into flames, breaking the bonds of the spell-press. With a wave of my wand, I struck, trying to press the Lord into the transfigured lake of lava.

A couple of minutes later, my nose was bleeding - we were spending too fast to send our opponent to hell. The cloud of blackness hiding my godfather had also faded, but the attacks of Voldemort, who had seemed almost invulnerable, had weakened. Our spells were no longer destroying everything in their path, but seemed like pale shadows of those that had been created at the beginning of the battle.

Sirius was the first to tremble - even the hereditary dark mage, who had mastered some of his grandfather's fighting techniques, could not withstand the attacks of the greatest wizard of our time. The crimson lash whipped across his chest, leaving a bloody streak. Sirius roared in pain, staggered backwards, but managed to fend off the torrent of Erupting Mist that followed the lash, meeting it with a wave of Hellfire.

As the stone spikes that had suddenly grown around me and tried to thread me onto their points, I darted closer to my godfather. Because the Lord had initially perceived me as his weakest opponent, I still had more strength than Sirius, who had been getting the bulk of Voldemort's attention from the start.

Behind me, Sirius hissed in pain, and then, from the sound of it, slumped to the pavement; Voldemort's spell had a catch, as did the Bleck family magic, which often began to digest the person affected by it alive. And now the godfather, who had been fighting the Dark Lord's spell, was temporarily out of the fight.

- Sorry, Harry," the godfather's emergency portal went off with a quiet pop, but it was only thrown to a pile of stone rubble at the edge of the square, the anti-Apparition Dome keeping Bleck's body out. Flashes of magic from the other side showed Sirius still fighting for his life, but now I was left alone with the great black wizard.

Voldemort dropped his dimly flickering defences for a second and smirked bloodily, looking at my soot-blackened face. His cloak, too, was gaping with many gaps, and some of the blood was visible. Not all of our attacks had gone to waste.

The next moment I was buried under a wave of blackness, and only my godfather's lessons allowed me to meet it with a shield. Even a necromancer's fog could be deflected, even if it required a very specific enchantment, little known in the last century.

I whirled around, fending off attacks aimed at me, and couldn't even think of hitting back. Shield followed shield, and every moment could be my last if I delayed with the defences that were constantly being torn to shreds by Voldemort's blows. At the same time, I felt that if I took even a moment to retaliate, the snake-eyed man's shields would crumble under my attack just as my own defences were cracking. And for the sake of the ghostly chance of victory in the future, for the sake of Sirius groaning in the distance, I held on.

The wind turned from a light breeze to a roaring gale that made even the struggling wizards falter, despite the shroud of defence that surrounded the two formations. Immediately afterwards, as soon as my magic surrounded me in a cocoon that broke the wind current, I was hit with a bone-chilling chill, a blizzard that flew from Voldemort's hands as if from the very depths of an icy hell, and only a counter-flow of fire, created at the last moment, prevented me from turning into a block of ice.

And the Lord was wrong. He couldn't undo the spell, or the fire bursting from my hands would have reached him instantly, nor could he apparate, avoiding the blow. Nor could I undo the spell myself. Despite the sparks and drops of hot moisture evaporating on the hot cobblestones of the pavement, I held on to the elemental spell with all my remaining strength.

- Hold on," Sirius wheezed behind me, hissing in pain. I didn't know if the godfather had managed to stop the Lord's cunning curse, or if it was still devouring his body, but the support of the godfather was empowering.

With a terrifying rumble that made me deaf for a few moments and nearly missed the threads of the spell, the anti-apparatus dome above our heads disintegrated into ash. Auror figures began to appear around us with the clapping of apparitions - Brown had managed to bring nearly half of the Aurorate onto the field, and a disgruntled Scrimgeour's face was visible next to Brown's, which immediately changed to a bloodthirsty grin at the sight of Voldemort.

The Lord vanished silently into thin air, as did his surviving wizards, who should have been enough to finish us all off if it hadn't been for Bleak's paranoia.

- Damn thing," my godfather, pale as death, clung to my shoulder, still staggering visibly. - His spell had nearly eaten my guts out.

- He's gone," I shuddered from the strain of the experience.

- Sirius, Harry, are you all right? - Brown came up to us, accompanied by the Aurors of his squad.

- What the hell did you do to this village?! - On the other side came Scrimgeour, also followed by aurors loyal to Ministry policy.

- Watch your language, Rufus," Black hissed, forcing himself to square his shoulders and straighten up. His hand on my shoulder showed what his stubbornness was costing the proud wizard. - Your men crawled here at the speed of pregnant turtles when the village had been fighting with forbidden magic for half an hour.

- Lord Black, I will put the matter before the Minister to investigate your actions in England," Scrimgeour disappeared with a clap, followed by most of the Aurors.

- You rotten bastard! - Sirius spat on the hot pavement, "You filthy ministerial rat.

- Yeah," Brown scratched the back of his head. - I didn't even think it was that bad....

- I'll rip the bastard's heart out as soon as I get the chance...

Brown's aurors, the last to arrive, were now tending to the few wounded and trying to scrape identifiable remains from the pavement.

- Merde," Sirius groaned, looking around. - How will the wipers' department staff work here...

- We'll have to fake a terrorist leak," Brown revealed his knowledge of the department's methods. - There'll be a lot of noise.

- Tramp, Harry, how are you? - A limping Remus, half his hair gone and sporting a blood-soaked bandage on his chest, walked slowly toward us from the direction where his squad was fighting.

- We'll live," Sirius wheezed, wobbling more and more. - The lord had broken through my defences with one of the spells my dearly departed sister had obviously taught him. So I won't be helping you all anytime soon.

The two wizards who had come with Brown picked up Remus and Sirius and apparated away. The devastated square was gradually emptying out, the only people left were those who had been given orders to search for survivors and disguise the destruction as the result of Muggle weaponry. It was usually the Muggleborns in the Aurorate who had a better idea of what it would look like than the purebloods.

I waited until the shivers that shook my body had passed, and then I went to look for any survivors. As I walked a few paces, however, I felt a monstrous weakness.

- 'Suzerain,' Brown apparated next to me with a clap. - You're exhausted, and you need to rest.

Before I could make a coherent reply, the auror quickly threw my arm around his shoulder and apparated into the Potter-Manor sitting room.

* * *

- I'm alive," her lips pressed against my cheek, and Fleur wasn't even embarrassed by the fact that I was covered in soot and blood like some kind of burned man.

Carefully I put my arms around my wife, savouring the warmth that enveloped me from her touch.

- Thank you, Mr Brown," Fleur smiled at the saluting auror. - 'Come to our house for tea sometime.

- I'd be honoured, Mrs. Potter," Brown smirked, who I knew for a fact was almost completely immune to Weil spells. - Allow me to take my leave.

The Auror disappeared, and I headed upstairs to our rooms, with Fleur's help.

- Did you get hurt badly? - There was pain in the girl's voice.

- I'll live," I grimaced. - Sirius, on the other hand, is seriously hurt. He caught some kind of nasty curse from Voldemort.

Fleur's hand clenched tighter.

After finally getting me to my bedroom and dumping my limp body on the bed, Fleur destroyed my jacket and shirt with a light sweep of her wand, sparing only the potions bandage.

- I expected worse," the girl said, calming down. - Mostly burns and extreme exhaustion.

After some time to regain my strength, a houseboy appeared in the room, bringing a letter.

An envelope made of aged parchment, fancy curlicues on the letters, a coat of arms burning with living fire on a sealing wax seal. The coat of arms of Aurelius Cimus.

I pulled a thick volume of spells out of my chest to make sure, and began to test the letter for enchantments one by one. Half an hour later, however, there were no spells, except for a spell that prevented anyone but the recipient from opening the letter. And given that the spell had been elegantly and completely unimaginable to my mind attached to something that looked very much like a hellfire spell.... I would not envy an outsider who ventured into Lord Aurelius's mail.

"Lord Potter, congratulations to you and your young wife," Aurelius Cimus' elegant handwriting was unmistakable, "and congratulations to you personally on your reinstatement as head of the family. The interesting man we spoke of last time we met has been visiting my castle for the past few months, and he is intimately acquainted with your honourable parents and especially your honourable grandfather, Charles Potter. If you have time, both he and I would be happy to talk to you about matters relating to the time of your grandparents' deaths. My guest plans to spend the next decades at my castle, so I will not insist that you come soon.

Aurelius Cimus, Grand Master of Dark Magic and Necromancy."

- Lord Zimus's guest is Nicholas Flamel," I explained to Fleur, who was reading the letter from behind me with her breasts against my back. - They're doing some kind of large-scale research together.

- I wonder what a great alchemist could want with an English lord," Fleur said, pulling herself tighter against me.

- I don't know," I turned round and picked up my treasure in my arms, pulling her into my lap. The look of Fleur's wide-open eyes, always so trusting and gentle, not unlike the image of a proud and strong girl, caused me tenderness.

- Did I tell you I love you? - My palm slid down the girl's smooth cheek.

- You did," I answered with a satisfied smile, "but I don't mind hearing it again.

- Sly," I tugged lightly on a blonde strand of hair. - I love you.

* * *

- Today was the turning point in the war," Sirius's voice, husky and still weak, was a mixture of pain and satisfaction.

The wizard was pale, but he looked incredibly content, covered in healing artefacts and lying in bed.

- What do you mean? - Remus looked worriedly at his friend, who had been so badly hurt in the battle that Slughorn and Alika Greengrass had spent hours by his side, repairing the extensive internal injuries the wizard had sustained.

- Harry fought Voldemort almost equally," the mage smirked and hissed in pain as he moved awkwardly. - True, I've weakened the snake-beast slightly, but overall Harry is ready, at least in strength, to settle the matter once and for all.

- And in terms of skill? - The frowning werewolf listened intently to his friend.

- If he were to fight Voldemort one-on-one right now, he'd be crushed to dust in about five minutes, the bastard's too experienced," Black grumbled. - And today, if it hadn't been for the Aurors coming in, we would have been destroyed.

- Well, the only people who believe in the beautiful duel between the Boy Who Survived and He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named," Remus mocked the newspapers, "are the philistines. I have no idea how to kill this creature, since there are still two Horcruxes left.

- The question is, what was the last Horcrux but his devil snake," Sirius sat up on the bed, leaning back against the pillows with a groan. - The Lord could turn a boulder into a Horcrux and hide it somewhere in a remote grotto in the north. We wouldn't find a Horcrux like that if every mage in Britain searched the whole country for a couple of years for the bloody cobblestone. There are too few of us.

- The Lord is too strong, and he still has enough supporters that the force option is pointless," Lupin refilled his glass with juice.

- There is an interesting option... - Mark Greengrass, who had been sitting silently near the wall in a comfortable armchair, absorbed in a stack of parchments in his lap, entered the conversation. - As I said, the Lord is only a consequence of the problems that have accumulated in England. And if he dies, a disgruntled part of the aristocracy will lie low, but a few years or a decade later the war will resume with renewed vigour.

- Are you suggesting we don't kill the lord? - Sirius smirked.

- I'm suggesting we knock the ground out from under his feet with political reforms.... - Greengrass stretched out. - If the changes that Felstein's office is preparing can be implemented in England, then the Lord, even if he rises again, will have great difficulty finding rich and powerful allies. And the mercenaries he's recruited and the undead like vampires are unlikely to be much of a force apart from the gold of the old families and their inherited magic.

- For that, we need power in the Ministry," the werewolf said, clearly getting to the point of a long-standing argument.

- And to do that, we need to have most of the Aurorate on our side," Bleck parried. - So far, Scrimgeour, with his grassroots ways, had kept half the people safely under the Minister's control. The Wizengamot and the rest of the Lord and Dumbledore's henchmen can't be counted. They are good only in behind-the-scenes struggles and intrigues, and if the Minister is replaced by force, they will turn out to be useless old men. Amelia Bones is the only real power there, and she's with us.

Sirius leaned back against the pillows, waiting out the onset of pain. Then, in a huskier voice, he continued.

- I'd like to nominate you, Mark, for the position of Minister of Magic if we win the Ministry. It's a position you're clearly qualified for, unlike, say, me.

- I appreciate the confidence, Sirius," the satisfied wizard grinned. - But it will require you to take control.

- When what we've spent nearly half a million Galleons on is ready," Sirius grumbled, "then we can discuss the matter in more detail. If nothing changes in the Ministry's policy, the coup could be successful.

- I think," Mark Greengrass grinned, "the best people to know about these conversations we've had so far are just the three of us... And the two people in Germany. The main thing is that there should be no leak from Felstein's office.

- Naturally," Sirius snapped his fingers and grinned, "the old squib made his team because some of his subordinates who liked to talk also disappeared after a while. And for that reason, his team is the most popular for those who are looking for a confidential solution to their problems. The main thing is that Voldemort doesn't try to seize power by force....

- Well, he won't go into battle himself anyway," Greengrass shook his head. - Even if he were to somehow miraculously take the place of the Minister of Magic, having broken the Aurorat's resistance, we are left, and Voldemort is on the throne.... It's a case for either a national revolt, which I have little faith in, or a general panic and flight abroad. He won't go for that, most likely Malfoy and the people loyal to the Lord will try to put their protege, some petty official, in the Minister's chair.

- A protégé of the Lord is not the same as the Lord himself," the werewolf smirked.

- We need to think about what to do with the headmaster if we take over. - Sirius closed his eyes. - If we manage to take him alive, he has too much to tell before he goes to the frying pan of hell.

- And if we don't? - Greengrass remarked. - He is a great wizard, and is not likely to surrender without a fight ... or even try to die in battle.

- At the very least, there are still strong enough necromancers in Europe," Sirius said ominously. - There should be enough of them to create at least a talking head on a platter. And during the time this ritual is in effect, it will be possible to pull out at least the essentials.

- Perhaps... - Lupin stretched out. - I don't like the increasing civilian casualties. If this gets in the papers, there'll be an uproar.

- What can we do?! - Bleck shouted, lifting himself up and immediately falling back onto his bed, waiting out the pain. - If there were only newbie Eaters in that village, we'd kill them very quickly. But if we keep getting ambushed like this every time... We'll quickly find ourselves with irreparable losses.

- The Lord has finally thought of a way to dislodge our fighters by luring them into prepared traps..... - Lupin rubbed his forehead, the burn marks gradually fading. - It's a pity Alastor isn't here, he would have found the most successful way to counter the new tactics....

- I can only see one way so far," Sirius growled. - For every signal that comes through the control room, the three of us, in addition to the aurors and the mercenaries, must be deployed. If any of us weren't there today, we'd be lost before reinforcements arrived. You, Lunatic, kept the formation defended against the attacks of the superior Eater forces, and Harry and I tied up Voldemort's fight. One on one me, as it turned out.... - Bleck chuckled briefly and angrily," I can't stand up to a snake-hearted man yet.

- Do you think that time will ever come? - Remus looked at his friend with concern.

- I don't know," Sirius sounded a note of uncertainty in his voice. - Voldemort was a great wizard even before Horcruxes, and even if he had taken the risk of creating Horcruxes, he must have performed the most vile rituals to increase his sorcerous power.... I don't think my future wife would like it if I got gorgeous scales on my face and red eyes.

Sirius looked at Greengrass, who raised an eyebrow politely, and hesitated. Then, making up his mind, he continued.

- Lord Greengrass, it would be a blessing to me if you would allow me to ask for your daughter's hand in marriage.

A thin smile curved the nobleman's lips for just a moment as he nodded slowly.

- 'Regardless of the consequences of my offering a marriage contract to you, Lord Black,' the wizard grinned, and Lupin relaxed and laughed openly, 'I consent to your wedding. I hope that this time my mansion will at least stand still.

The laughter of the three men was interrupted only by a groan of pain that escaped from Bleck. Alika Greengrass, who had run in at the signal of the spell that had worked, looked like a raging fury and hovered over the pain-stricken wizard, ignoring her father and Remus, who continued to laugh.

- Mr Black! - a small, sharp fist struck the shoulder of the wizard who laughed at the ridiculousness of the situation. - You need to lie down and talk less!

Continuing to laugh despite the obvious pain the wizard was in, Sirius glanced at the snickering Greengrass, reached out his right hand and took the girl's palm in his.

- Miss Greengrass," the wizard's black eyes were filled with laughter, despite the seriousness of his words, "I have just had the honour of receiving your father's consent to my marriage proposal.

The girl flinched in surprise, and Black continued with unexpected heat.

- Miss Greengrass- Alika, I am asking you to become my wife.

Lupin waved at Greengrass and slipped out of the room, followed a second later by Alika's father, whose face reflected deep satisfaction.

- Why-- why do you ask this now? - The girl's voice was breaking with excitement.

- Why? - Black asked hoarsely, -because before I didn't want to leave behind a widow even a lovely girl like you, Alika.

The mage's palm stroked the delicate hand, causing a slight shiver in the girl's body.

- And then I realised that perhaps the war would drag on for a long time, and I wouldn't be able to tell my friends in the other world that I was married to the most beautiful girl in the whole world," Blek grinned crookedly. - Well, and because I don't see any other wife for me but you.

The mage's hands were already holding both of Alika's palms, and with a mental command that gave him a brutal headache, Blek forced the currents of air to lift his own body upright and keep him on his feet.

- You can't get up! - Alika tried to lay the mage back on the bed, but failed miserably.

Straining his will, Bleck knelt down in front of the girl, the wind rising in the room, tugging the wizard's will to his body and preventing Sirius from falling sideways.

- So, what will you say to my proposal... Alika? - Sirius' voice was still hoarse. Black gently kissed the palms of the frozen girl's hands.

- Я... agree," the sorceress replied in a weak voice. Slender fingers burrowed into Bleek's black, grey-haired hair, still kneeling in front of her.

Sirius, struggling to rise, gently pulled the girl to him, stroking the fluffy hair with the palm of his hand. The wind was blowing through the room, flipping the scrolls of parchment and swaying the cords that adorned the canopy over the bed. Alika lifted her head, peering into the mage's face, and Blek slowly kissed the ajar lips.

The kiss lasted for a long time until the girl felt short of breath. When she opened her eyes, she found the magic bursting out of Blek's body, more unlike a hereditary dark mage than ever before.

- Love and advice," Remus' mocking voice came from the doorway, returning his friend's taunt. - I love you too, my children.

Sirius waved his hand, still on Alika's lips, and Remus was blown back into the corridor, where the door slammed shut in front of him. The loud laughter of a werewolf came from the corridor, followed by footsteps that gradually receded.

After a few seconds, Sirius sank back down onto the bed, even his stamina not allowing him to further resist the weakness from his injury. Bleak magic was insidious, and could send a man to his grave even if it didn't kill him immediately.

- You need to lie down! - warm palms laid on the wizard's chest, and the girl's literally glowing eyes looked at Blek with concern.

- If you look at me with those eyes, - the wizard said slowly, - then I'll lie down today.

Alika's ringing laughter filled the room.

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