A Push in the Right Direction – Chapter 18 – emersli1!

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Standing on the coast looking out at the North Sea, Corvus readied himself.

His wand was a beautiful one, with two woods, light and dark, entwining.  The ball of the handle was made of petrified wood, and within it were two cores.  Powdered timber wolf fang and a single perfect snow goose feather.  And winding around those cores, a single white hair.

Now, Corvus Quinn raised his wand and focused on that one shining hair with his mind and his magic.  “Cafall.”

Immediately the hound shimmered into view before him, grown to the size of a small horse.  Corvus mounted the spectral animal, and they were off.  Between one blink and another, Corvus found himself on the island.

Cafall paced cautiously through the upper levels of the prison.  The ones for minor offenders.  Corvus looking around realized that no muggle country would allow such conditions.  

The deeper they went the worse it got.  The stench of unwashed bodies, the heavy smell of untreated infection, and bitter sobbing of souls dealing with Dementor exposure.   It just got worse and worse.

Would Sirius be anywhere close to sane?  And what would a muggle hospital make of his condition?

As Cafall took another downturn, suddenly floating before him Corvus saw a Dementor.  He had seen some on his way down, but they had either failed to see him atop the ghost hound or had ignored him.  This one was clearly seeing him, and prepared to block his path.  Remembering his Lord Arawn’s comment about taking the Dementor’s cloaks if they menaced him, Corvus spoke to the being.

“I am here on my Lord Arawn’s business.  Move aside.”

The being didn’t move.  Instead, it reached a hand toward Corvus.

Cafall began a low, menacing growl but the being kept reaching slowly.

Something about that reaching hand just … didn’t seem right.  It wasn’t threatening.  It was … entreating?  Yes, that was it.  The Dementor wanted something from him, but Corvus didn’t think it was his soul.

Slowly, he reached out and clasped the hand in front of him.

“Home.”

It came into his head with the weight of centuries behind it.  How long had the Dementors been enslaved to the wizards?

“You wish me to ask Lord Arawn to bring you home?”  Corvus wanted to make sure he understood.

“Son of Arawn.  You can release us.”  Well, he hadn’t expected that.

“And if I do, where will you go?”

An image slid into his mind, and looking at the being before him in the ragged cloak and hood Corvus saw superimposed on it the ghostly image of a man.  A man with the pointed ears of the ellylon.  “The Wild Hunt drew us in, but the Sassanach witch leached our souls from the Hunt and imprisoned us here.  We fought in the Brothers’ Wars, and were condemned to ride with the Hunt for three hundred years.  We have been imprisoned here much longer.  Please.   Let us go home to Annwn.  We have paid.  We have paid.”

A presence bore in around him, the weight of all the Dementors now surrounding him not in a threatening way, but in a desperate pleading.

“Home.  Home.  Home.”  The word whispered around him in a susurration.  

It had been seven hundred years since the strife between Owain Gwynned’s sons.  Surely that was time enough.  If Lord Arawn or Gwynn ap Nudd had sentenced them to three hundred years with the Hunt … they had more than served their time.  

“I have a purpose here tonight.  Assist me in that purpose, and I will release you.”  Better they assist than interfere.  And seven hundred years in this place was beyond the pale.

The Dementor Chief seemed to give the matter due thought.  “We are constrained by the enchantment that enslaves us.  And we will never again do needless violence to any being for pride or possessions.”

“I would not ask that.  My purpose tonight is to free a man who has been abandoned here not for any crime he committed, but so that another could steal his godson to torture to death.”  Quinn was certain that was what had landed Sirius in this pit.  He would unquestionably have interfered with Dumbledore’s plan for Harry, and the Wizangamot would have backed his case for guardianship.

An excited murmuring seemed to break out amongst the Dementor spirits.  The Chief looked regretful.  “We know the one of whom you speak.  But we cannot allow any of those placed here to leave alive without the proper authorization.  We have been as gentle as we can, but our mere presence is disturbing.  Death Magic surrounds us, and it maddens the living.”

“I do not plan to take him out alive.  I have walked Arawn’s paths and returned to the living.  I plan to offer him that possibility.”  Corvus intended to speak with Sirius.  If he was the least bit sane, he would have the final say in what happened here tonight.

The ghostly man before him seemed to consider the matter.  Then he nodded once, firmly.  Letting go of Quinn’s hand, he allowed the vision to fade away.  The Dementor Chief turned, beckoning him on with one spectral hand.

When they got to the cell where Sirius Black had spent the past three years (more or less), Severus could feel nothing but rage and pity.  Rage that another person had been caught in Dumbledore’s trap, and pity that his Family Magick, rather than protecting him, had turned on him as well.

Cafall padded through the barred door and into the cell, allowing Severus to get as close as possible to the weeping man curled up in the corner.  Remembering the frantic call, and the heart-wrenching wail of grief from the cottage in Godric’s Hollow, he knew what visions must torment this man.

Sliding down from Cafall’s back, though being careful to stay in contact with the ghost hound, Severus reached out to Sirius with his magic.  

It was horrible.  His magic was being eaten away in small, deliberate bites, by a black, noxious fog.  A ball of light had a grip on one corner of his magic, refusing to give ground while creating its own torments.  The Black Madness and Dumbledore’s Mark fought each other over the poor man’s magic, while two truncated bonds bled constantly.  A third bond was tenuous and sickly, barely holding on.  A fourth looked as though it had rotted.  And an old wound, deeper than any of the others, pulsed with pain.

Severus couldn’t bear it another second.  “Sirius.”

But the poor man was so constantly assaulted by visions, he no longer responded to calls of his name.  Hearing Bellatrix screaming further around the hallway, Severus wasn’t surprised at the lack of reaction to his quiet call.

Reaching out his hand, he touched one skinny shoulder.

The reaction was immediate.  Sirius flinched away and looked around wildly.  Severus reached out again and took hold of one foot.  It brought Sirius far enough into the ghost hound’s circle to see the man grabbing him.  Noting the pointed ears and the presence of the red-eared dog, he jumped to the logical conclusion.

“Are you here for me at last?”  The piteous question broke Corvus’s heart, as the weight behind it seemed to indicate how greatly death had been desired.

“Yes Sirius, though not in the way you suppose.  James Potter and Regulus Black have entreated me to aid you.  I offer you a chance.  I cannot take you out alive, but if you are willing to step onto my Lord Arawn’s path, I promise I will do everything in my power to restore you to the living.”  Seeing the man begin to shake his head, Corvus continued.

“Our Lady Cerridwen has prepared a potion for you that will regress you to childhood.  I will adopt you into my Family Magick.  I will raise you as my son.  Dumbledore will never get his hands on you again.  And while I cannot repair your bond with your godson, I can offer you a brother’s bond.”  

Corvus waited to see what Sirius would decide.

“May I know your name, my lord?”  Sirius was never again going to walk into a trap without at least trying to identify it first.

“I am Corvus Myrddin Quinn ap Gaiar Balfour.  I once held another name, but I fear that to share that with you now might unduly influence your choice.  I know trust is dear now, but please.  Your brothers want you to come home.  Indeed, they have doubtless nearly bankrupted me outfitting your room.  Their avi is no doubt even now performing the expansion charms on the upstairs bedroom that will be yours… if you just choose it.”

Sirius chuckled a bit.  A rusty sound, long disused.

“And where is this wonderfully outfitted room, and these brothers and … grandfather?”

Corvus nodded.  “Grandfather.  We live in Ansalonga, Andorra in a house up in the eaves of the forest with one avi, one papa, two brothers, one nanny-cousin, a cow, seven hens and a rooster who thinks way too highly of himself.  The boys are campaigning to get a puppy.  I have not yet given in, but I’m sure I will.”

Sirius gave the matter some deep thought.  “I do not fear death.  I fear rejoining the living afterwards.  But you have painted a lovely picture.  Very well Corvus Myrddin Quinn ap Gaiar Balfour.  I will come with you, onto Lord Arawn’s path.  I give myself to his care.”

Cafall leaned forward, breathing in Sirius’s face.  As the breath of the specter hound washed over him, the man smiled once … and died.