Aurors

The blond woke up by the sound of something thrashing around inside his room, he lay completely still with his eyes closed listening to the intruder. He figured out that it came from the chair that was placed in the corner of the room, the squeaking noises from the leather gave it away.

Draco opened his eyes a peek just so he could see what was happening. It appeared that it was closer to noon, at least from what he could gather from the light that came from the window into the lake. When he saw that it was Auror Blackmoore writhing around in the chair in what seemed like pain he was wide awake. Quickly he looked around the room for any sign of otherwise danger, someone cursing her perhaps, but there was only them.

The Slytherin got himself free from the bedsheets and quickly walked over to the woman. For once he was too preoccupied to notice the cold floor sending shivers up his spine. Her movements in sleep were jagged and harsh like she was trying to free herself from being bound. Sounds of pain kept rolling off her lips as her head moved from side to side in a desperate attempt to get away from something. Draco carefully touched her shoulder, shaking her slightly.

"Auror Blackmoore?"

Her eyes opened in a flash and he was glared at with intense golden eyes. He jumped back in response raising his arms in a defence position by reflex. For a second nothing happened and the blond thought for a second that he might be dreaming it all when she suddenly lunged out of the chair like a kneazle, only more deadly looking. The wizard fell hard on his back on the floor making him lose his breath for a second, with the witch now sitting on top of him looking like a feral beast.

The gold eyes he now saw were different from the ones he saw last night, these were the eyes of a monster and it terrified him. Draco took a chance and reached for the Reject rune on his right arm but his hand got slapped away by the Auror. His eyes widened in fear as she curled her fingers around his neck, slowly squeezing. The blond started to try and pry her hands away from his neck but her grip was not letting go, it only made her press harder.

"P… Please… A… Art… Artemis… W... wake up!" His vision was slowly leaving him as black dots were shaping in front of him. The woman on top of him didn't seem to hear him at all as she did not stop what she was doing. Instead, she made a growl and banged his head against the floor making his vision swim even more.

As he was accepting that this might be the end his bedroom door was blown open and he could faintly see a person standing in the doorway. By the shape of the person, it had to be one of the Aurors or a Professor.

"Blackmoore! Let him go!" He knew that voice he thought in a daze. The witch's focus was shifted to the intruder and the grip she had on him slacked somewhat.

"Depulso!" He could suddenly breathe again as the woman on top of him got sent forcefully across the room hitting the bathroom door.

Draco quickly sat up coughing, tears running down his face in the process. Through the tears, he saw that his saviour was Auror Thompson and he was now running towards Auror Blackmoore.

"Malfoy! Close the door!" The blond quickly got to his feet to do as he was told, on shaking legs he ran towards the door to slam it shut, then proceeded to lean on it for support.

The male Auror was now sitting on top of the witch holding her arms above her head with his left hand and clearly searching for something inside his robe with the other. The brunette was desperately trying to get free from his grip as she started to kick his back to get him off. The animal sounds were getting even more feral now, it was like seeing a person transform into a werewolf but being stuck in between the human and the wolf.

"Fucking damn it! Artemis you have to wake up! Listen to me, it's Cyril!" Clearly not finding what he was looking for the man used both of his hands to hold her still. Draco looked at the male Auror wide-eyed as his uniform started to slice apart. Small cuts were showing up everywhere on his body drawing blood from beneath the uniform. The man seemed to not pay them any mind as he continued to try getting through to the woman underneath him. Without breaking eye contact with the witch, the male Auror shouted yet another order to him.

"Malfoy! Take my wand out of my holster, left side!" Draco hesitated only for a second before running over to the pair on the floor. The second he touched that wand someone at the Ministry would be notified, but hopefully, this was all going to get explained later. The blond found the wand almost immediately and felt the familiar rush of magic run through him when he grabbed a hold of it. Auror Thompson looked at him then with a serious face, now struggling to keep her down.

"Aim Aguamenti straight at her face, make it as cold as you can. Got it?" The blond nodded and aimed at the witch's face. He hoped that she would forgive him later.

"Aguamenti!" A jet of clean water shot out of the wand and hit her straight in the face. She started to struggle even more then and more cuts appeared around Auror Thompson's body.

"Keep going!" Draco gave the man a once over with his eyes, some of the cuts were bleeding quite badly now and drops of blood were seen on the floor.

"Sir! You're bleeding!"

"Never mind that! Keep going I said!" After what seemed like a decade the woman finally started to stop her struggling, the hissing and growling turned to coughing and what seemed like drowning noises.

Auror Thompson gave him a signal to stop with the water and he dropped the wand to the floor. Auror Blackmoore was now lying with her eyes closed in a pool of water, which was slowly spreading across the bedroom floor. The blood from the male Auror mixing with it making it a shade of sickening red.

Draco held his breath in expectation of what was going to happen next. Auror Thompson was breathing heavily, exhausted from holding her still for so long, however long that had been because Draco had no idea how much time had actually passed. The other male carefully placed his forehead on hers while whispering her name softly. Her eyes fluttered open and Draco let out the breath he was holding in relief to see they were once again brown.

"C… Cyril?" Her voice was raw, not unlike how his own had been the night before. Auror Thompson smiled at her.

"Welcome back, Artemis." She looked confused at him for a second before she seemed to notice the state he was in. He had cuts all over his body, not even his face had been spared as he had a slice running over his cheek which was bleeding heavily. His uniform was filled with cuts all over, but it seemed that not all of them had gotten through to the skin, those that had, however, were bleeding terribly.

"Cyril! Why did you-". The wizard stopped her from talking by placing a hand in front of her mouth.

"Listen here Artemis, remember what I told you? I meant every word of it, so this time I protected you, from yourself." Draco felt that he was intruding as the male Auror shifted himself off the woman and pulled her into his lap holding her close.

Now that the Auror was sitting the blond could clearly see all the cuts in the uniform. There was one directly over his chest which seemed to have been placed there on purpose rather than coincidence. The young wizard then noticed the tattoo that Loftwind had talked about earlier and studied it slightly puzzled. It was a 'Jack' card, but instead of holding the usual wand in his hand, there was a butterfly placed on his finger. The wings fluttered hastily from time to time looking like it was going to fly away at any moment. With sudden realisation, he remembered that Auror Blackmoore's Patronus was a butterfly and wondered if there was a connection. He was brought out of his thoughts when the witch looked up at him as if she just realised that he was there.

"Draco! Are you alright?" He was about to answer when his eyes met Auror Thompson. They clearly told him to say that he was fine, so he nodded.

"I am fine, Artemis. Are you ok?" He got a raised eyebrow in reaction to the use of her first name from the man and he smirked back at him slightly.

"Yes. I…" Auror Thompson tightened his grip on her.

"It's fine now. Just breathe." She nodded meekly at him before her eyes widened again.

"Where is Orion?" The man's expression turned sour again but he let it quickly drop.

"I'll get him here. My wand please Mr Malfoy." Not daring to touch it again Draco kicked it carefully towards the man on the floor. It rolled in a straight line towards him and he grabbed it with ease.

"Expecto Patronum." A small chameleon appeared on the floor in front of them. Waiting patiently for the message it was to deliver.

"Silver, I found her. Malfoy's room." After the message was received the little creature ran hastily across the floor and up the wall only to disappear through the ceiling.

"How long do you think it will take him to get here? Anyone wants to bet?" Auror Thompson chuckled, then slightly wincing from one of the cuts. The witch looked at him with worry.

"Cyril we need to get you the Hospital Wing." Draco nodded in agreement.

"It looks quite bad, Sir." The man waved them both off while shaking his head.

"I've been through worse. Let's wait for Silver, hm? You should put on some clothes Mr Malfoy unless you want someone to see." He pointed to the blond's chest, which made Draco realise that he was still shirtless from yesterday. Nodding in agreement he went to get a shirt and pulled it over his head. Just then a commotion could be heard outside of the bedroom door and Auror Silver entered looking ready to kill someone. He must have been close to the dungeon when the Patronus found him. His eyes immediately landed on the pair on the floor and his eyes turned to solid ice.

Draco could see several curious Slytherins behind him and swallowed. This was going to spread fast around the school. He decided that the best action was to close the door as soon as the Auror entered, which he did. To the disappointment of those outside.

"Thompson. What happened?" The men stared at each other coldly, before the man on the floor answered.

"Nightmare. Pretty bad one, but I got her out of it. No harm done." Draco and Auror Blackmoore started to protest at the same time, in the end, the woman shouted the loudest.

"Idiot! You're hurt! We need to get you to the Hospital Wing right now!" She turned her attention to Auror Silver.

"So either you help me get him there or move out of the way. We can talk about this back at the office."

~ཐིཋྀ~

Artemis' head was a mess, images of things that might have happened or not happened were still swimming behind her eyes. She was also dripping wet and was starting to shiver badly. But seeing her friend in this state made her force herself to take action to get him to the Healer. There was also the concern of Draco, she had no choice now but to sit him down and at least tell him some details or the fear she had probably put in the boy was not to be forgiven.

Struggling to get out of his tight grip she got herself to a standing position only to grip Cyril's arm and started to drag him to his feet. The man stumbled a bit, but she was surprised that Draco came over to them and supported him on the other side of her.

"We need an excuse for dragging you out of this room in that state." Cyril smirked at him.

"Isn't that your job Silver?" His laugh was a bit wheezy as it was clear he was struggling to keep himself conscious. The older blond frowned at him in return.

"Orion, please just figure something out, say it was an attack on Draco and it failed. Cyril was the one who took it instead. Just move out of the way before I make you." Orion looked like he was thinking hard for a few seconds before sighing, he shrugged off his uniform robe and went over to Cyril, carefully wrapping it around his shoulders to hide most of the cuts.

"If someone asked this was a cutting curse, understand?" He looked straight at Draco while he said it, the boy nodded hastily in understanding. Satisfied the man nodded and opened the bedroom door.

The hallway was filled with curious students as Artemis had feared. But with one quick cold order from Orion, they stepped aside.

"Move. All of you." With the help of Draco, they managed to help Cyril out of the room and down the stairs to the common room where Draco's friends were waiting impatiently. Parkinson ran towards her friend with teary eyes.

"Draco! What happened?!" The blond just shrugged off the question.

"I'll tell you later, I need to help Auror Thompson to the Hospital Wing. I'm fine Pansy." Artemis looked over her shoulder to the girl who was left standing in the common room as the wall closed behind them, she looked lost which the brunette could understand.

With Orion making up the front and barking to students to move the route to the Hospital Wing went smoothly. They only got stopped by Potter and his friends when they reached the second floor. Confusion was evident in the ravenhead's eyes, but again Draco promised to tell them later.

~ཐིཋྀ~

Cyril was barely conscious when they finally arrived and Madam Pomfrey quickly got him into a bed and started the healing process. In the meantime, she ordered Artemis to go and dry herself properly and put on some clothes. She was exhausted so for once she did as she was told after getting a confirming nod from Orion that he would take care of Draco in the meantime. Not wanting to be spotted walking through the castle again the way she looked she made sure no one was around in the hallway before Apparating straight into their private bedroom.

As soon as her feet touched the icy floor she ran towards the bathroom to throw up. Memories from what she had just done in the last couple of hours came flooding back to her. Pictures of her strangling the young Malfoy, hitting Cyril, making cuts appear on his body, the feeling of wanting to kill washing over her in waves. The witch started to sob loudly as tears streamed down her face.

She thought that the bond was going to stop this from happening, what use was it if it could not even stop her from doing this. In desperation, she started to claw at the branding but it did nothing, the claw marks immediately vanished leaving it just as clean as it had been which only made her sob even louder. Artemis did not hear the door to the bathroom opening and jumped when someone said her name.

"Artemis?" The witch looked up at what had been Septimus with cloudy eyes. The man knelt down in front of her.

"What happened? We have been searching for you for hours. What made you silence the bond?" His voice was soft like he was speaking to a child and his sky blue eyes showed only worry. The witch's eyes widened when he said that she had cut the bond, she must have done it in her sleep by accident. She had Apparated back to the bedroom after promising Draco to stay but she could not remember why she had done it.

Tears still flowing down her cheeks she reached for Septimus who had seated himself fully on the floor, leaning his back against the wall and spreading his legs so she could sit between them securely. When she was seated as comfortably as possible he carefully patted her head before speaking.

"Tell me."

Artemis sobbed between sentences as she told him what she could remember. He never interrupted her, only made humming sounds to tell her that he was listening seriously. Somehow she missed when he had summoned his Patronus and only registered it when it was sitting on her shoulder, snuggling her cheek.

The dove purred happily when it got a message to deliver to Orion and took flight quickly. Septimus hugged her again softly.

"Breathe, as you would know, Cyril has endured worse. Must I remind you of the case he worked with in 1996? His shape was atrocious when he returned, yet still made a full recovery. Do not worry, Artemis, he is strong, we will not give up just yet." Septimus' words eased her little by little until there were only silent tears left.

~𓅃~

Orion looked at his friend lying on the hospital bed, the wounds were not as serious as they had feared. Some of the wounds had been deep but they were not life-threatening and Madam Pomfrey had managed to heal them with ease. The Healer had not asked questions about the situation, it was probably the fact that they were Aurors and not students that made her not do it Orion thought.

The blond shifted his attention to the young Malfoy who had been seated in a vacant bed not far off, the boy seemed deep in thought. Not that that was a weird thing from what he had just witnessed. The older Slytherin sighed, this was getting more complicated by the day. Not that he ever thought coming back here was going to be a walk in the park in the first place.

He could feel Artemis struggling on the other side of the now-opened bond, waves of sorrow and guilt washed over him. Orion closed his eyes for a second, trying to calm her down to the best of his abilities. He had been woken rudely when she had popped into the bedroom in the early hour saying she was sleeping somewhere else and without explanation disappeared again. He had only been half awake at the time and not fully understood what she meant. Septimus had woken him up closer to ten and asked if he knew where she was. Seeing as it was a Sunday they got a day off from their Auror duties and could sleep in if they so wished. The shorter man had thought it weird that her shoes had been gone and checked the bed, only to see that she was not there. Even though he had gotten a Patronus from her stating that they would see each other in the morning. Orion had felt his blood freeze when he realised that she had shut him out again. He had no way of knowing where she was.

The blond was at the cemetery when he had gotten Cyril's Patronus, he had never run so fast in his life. On every step, he had prayed that she was OK and nothing had happened in the young Malfoy's room. If something happened to the boy it would be on her head. Something she would never let go of. He had marched straight into the Slytherin common room and walked the stairs up to the boys' room. He didn't know which room Malfoy was in so he barked at some students to tell him. Finally, some third-years had pointed him to the last door in the hallway. His behaviour, of course, attracted a lot of attention among the students and he quickly got a following trailing behind him. All curious about what the Auror wanted with the boy.

Everything was momentarily forgotten however when he saw Artemis sitting in Cyril's embrace on the floor, the man looking like he had been in a fight with a Griffin and lost. The jealousy was almost making him sick to his stomach but he somehow managed to keep it down.

Orion opened his eyes again when he felt that his partner was more stable. Suddenly a dove came flying in. It did a couple of circles around his head before landing on his outstretched hand.

"Artemis and I are in the office bathroom, we are fine for the time being, prioritise the others." Septimus' voice was like a whisper but it was calm and collected. It calmed Orion as well knowing that she was not alone and he pushed aside the jealousy once again. His eyes met Malfoy's as the bird vanished into wisps of smoke.

"Is she alright, Sir?" The young Slytherin's voice trembled a little as he talked. Orion looked him over once more and suddenly noticed small bruise marks starting to form around his neck. The man knew very well what those were. He peeked over to Madam Pomfrey who was still fretting over Cyril and drew the curtains around the bed discreetly. The blond looked at him confused then in slight fear when Orion took out his wand and pointed at him.

"Sit still Mr Malfoy." The boy froze like a statue as the older man said a few healing spells and watched the bruises slowly vanish. Malfoy touched his neck in surprise and looked up at him with newfound determination.

"She didn't mean it. She wasn't herself somehow." Orion sighed as he sat down on the bed, casting a Muffliato spell.

"Listen, Mr Malfoy. Did something happen prior to this morning? Did she seem odd somehow before this?" The boy shook his head but did not dare to look at him.

"No, Sir." The Auror clicked his tongue in response.

"I see. How are you getting along with her then, if I may ask?" Orion did not look at him this time and started to study the floor instead, the stones showed the wear over time.

"I trust her, Sir. I believe she never meant to hurt me, but then again we are even now." The older blond raised his eyebrow in question.

"Even?" Malfoy nodded slowly then took a deep breath.

"I hit her the other night. It was after a nightmare and she surprised me. I…" The boy looked down again, shaking slightly. For once feeling pity towards him, Orion patted him on the shoulder.

"She doesn't blame you, Mr Malfoy. You can trust me on that." The young Slytherin took another deep breath while sitting up straight, he looked at Orion with a look that told him that he believed him. The older blond clicked his tongue again.

"Now, this is going to be difficult to explain to McGonagall. You have no problem with lying to that woman I hope?" He smirked at Malfoy then, the other mimicking the smirk in return.

"To that bint? Never." Orion laughed at the same time as the curtains were pulled aside. A bandaged Cyril stood in front of them with a question on his face. The man looked far better than he had been earlier, the colour had come back to his cheeks and most of the cuts had been healed. Only the deepest needed some more time and were bandaged up it seemed.

"Talking behind people's backs, are we? How Slytherin of you both." Orion could not stop the eye roll that he gave Cyril then.

"She let you go then finally?" The auburn-haired wizard nodded.

"Yes and let's go before she changes her mind. I really don't want to be stuck here for the rest of the day." All of them started to make their way towards the door in silence before Madam Pomfrey shouted Malfoy's name loudly.

"Mr Malfoy! I need to give you a quick once-over before you leave! Come back here!" Orion turned to look at her with his most charming smile.

"No need Madam Pomfrey, I did it while you took care of Auror Thompson. He is perfectly fine. Sorry to bother you so suddenly." The three Slytherins hurriedly made their escape before the Healer could say anything else.

~𓅃~

"Jack, go back to the office. I will follow Mr Malfoy back to his dorm and look at the damage to it. We need to make a plausible scenario about what happened in there." Orion told Cyril quietly when the door to the Hospital Wing closed behind them. There were some students walking along the halls, some of them looked at them strangely as they passed.

The tall blond peeked a look at Malfoy and understood the uncomfortable aura that the boy gave off. He was still in his pyjama bottoms, with one of his school shirts thrown over himself, some buttons not even buttoned correctly. Orion motioned to Cyril to give his cloak back so that he could give it to the young blond instead. The other Auror slid it off of himself neatly giving it to him. Without saying anything he placed the piece of clothing over the boy's shoulders.

"Let's go Mr Malfoy." He patted Malfoy on the back and motioned him to start walking ahead. More students were staring now, but Orion paid them no mind. He was used to the staring, being partners with Artemis for so long had cured that anxiety a long time ago. On a good day, he might get away with just a few ugly looks thrown his way at the Ministry. There were a lot of people who wanted the witch to be punished for her previous mistakes even to this day, even though she had been proven innocent in most of the cases. The keyword being 'most'.

While they walked Orion was reminded about a similar situation when he had been a seventh year. It was a few weeks after the big 'incident', the Gryffindors had, of course, spread rumours about what had happened in that classroom. The blond had not dared to leave the then young girl alone no matter where she went and they usually met up after every class. He had met her outside one of the greenhouses after the Gryffindors had finished Herbology. Feeling brave he had taken her hand in his and started the walk up to the castle knowing all the surprised looks that were thrown at them. Artemis had been embarrassed and said that they were only going to stare more because of it. He still remembered what he told her.

Orion looked at Malfoy next to him, the boy looked like he wanted the floor to swallow him so he leaned a little closer to him before whispering.

"Look in front of you with your head held high and walk like you are Royalty in your own castle." Malfoy looked at him in surprise before realising what he meant and straightened his back so he became his full height and looked ahead with determination. Orion had to smirk at him before doing the same. People were still staring, yes, but it was now more in wonder than malice.

The pair walked in silence down to the dungeons only to find the common room in chaos. People had now gotten wind that something had happened in Malfoy's room and were trying to get a peek inside at the scene. A high-pitched scream could be heard from the boy's quarters followed by something that sounded like hexes being fired. Orion just managed to grab the end of his own cloak as Malfoy was about to run towards the stairs. Annoyed he looked back at him.

"That has to be Pansy. We need to hurry."

"I'm sure she will be fine Mr Malfoy. Come now, calm and collected. Follow me." As he passed the younger male he could hear him mumble to himself.

"It's not her I'm worried about." Orion started to calmly wade himself through the crowd of students piling in the stairs, pushing away the ones that were directly in his way with minimal force making sure that Malfoy was following close behind. He raised his eyebrow in surprise when a wand was pointed at him when he was about the enter the bedroom.

"Back off I said! Don't make me tell you all again!" Malfoy pushed past him and grabbed the tip of Parkinson's wand quickly forcing her to lower it.

"Pansy! That is Auror Silver! Calm down!" The girl blinked at him slowly a couple of times before realising what she had almost done. She put her wand away with haste.

"I am so sorry Auror Silver! I have been stopping other people from entering the room since you left earlier. These people are bloody savages!" She gave everyone behind Orion a cold look. Malfoy gave her a concerned look.

"Where is Blaise?"

"After you didn't come back again he said he was going to run up to the Aurors' office and get his brother to help us. He should be back any second now if he had found him." This was good Orion thought to himself. With Zacharias here, things could be held under more control. He turned around with a cold glare.

"You all have five seconds to leave this place before I alert the Headmistress of your behaviour and give all of you detention and house points reductions. One." Most of the students left immediately, hurrying down the stairs again as their life depended on it.

"Two." Some of the little older students left as well, realising he was serious.

"Three." His eyes met a boy who was probably a fifth or sixth year if he were to guess, he had not moved so far and if Orion was right the people around him were his friends. If one moved, they all did.

"Four." He took a step out of the room now, reaching for his wand. With that gesture, the rest of the students dispersed just as quickly as the first wave. Orion huffed to himself and was glad that he was not a teacher. The Slytherin house would be in the minus number of house points by now if it was up to him.

"Ooo, King! So you are the reason there was a stampede of bodies that came down the stairs, heh?" Zacharias was walking up the stairs with his little brother trailing behind. The blond nodded at the dark man.

"Correct. Good timing." The older Zabini grinned at him and brushed past him into the bedroom. He whistled in surprise when he saw the state of the room.

"Wow, someone been murdered here or what?" Parkinson slapped the man on the arm in anger making the man in question look at her in surprise.

"This is not the time for jokes! Draco could have been dead by now!" Stubborn tears were clinging to the girl's eyes as Orion looked at the younger Zabini.

"Mr Zabini if you could take Miss Parkinson down to the common room, please. I'll send down Mr Malfoy to you shortly." The young Zabini nodded and carefully took hold of Parkinson's shoulders.

"Come on Pans', let's wait downstairs." He started to drag the girl in the direction of the door when she started to struggle against him.

"No! I am not leaving! I want to know what happened!" Malfoy looked at his friend strictly.

"Do as you're told, Parkinson. Go with Zabini." The last name treatment seemed to do the trick as the girl nodded sombrely at her friend and she let herself be dragged from the room. Orion closed the door behind them softly followed by Zacharias putting some curses and wards on it just for insurance. Zacharias crossed his arms as he looked at Orion with a raised eyebrow.

"Alright, so what happened?" Orion ignored his question by retorting with one of his own.

"How is Artemis?" The darker man looked at him with what seemed like annoyance.

"A mess. Ace is taking care of her. You should go to her you know. She needs you." Orion cleared his throat pointing his finger towards Malfoy, who had taken the opportunity to change his clothes swiftly. He was now in the process of buttoning his shirt up correctly. Orion's cloak was laid neatly on his bed. Zacharias rolled his eyes.

"I don't think the boy is blind, King. It's pretty obvious you care about her." If he could he would have sent a stinging hex towards the darker man. The young Malfoy looked up at them both but he said nothing to either of them, it seemed he was patiently waiting for what was happening next.

"So going to tell me what happened?" Zacharias asked again, this time not masking his annoyance.

"Artemis spent the night in this room. She got one of her nightmares, one of the worst ones it seemed. Had it not been for Cyril I'm afraid that there would be one less Malfoy with us." The curse breaker nodded in understanding as he took out his wand.

"Well time to clean up this mess then, but what do we do about him?" He pointed his wand lazily over to Malfoy. The boy froze where he stood, anticipating danger. Orion looked over at him.

"Listen, Mr Malfoy, I need to take the memory of this and alter it if we are to show it to McGonagall. Which we most likely will have to do. The only thing you need to do is confirm that they are true. Understood?" The young Slytherin nodded. Zacharias grinned like a wolf then and took a small vial from his cloak. He stepped up to the boy and placed his wand to his temple, mumbling the incantation and pulling the memory from Malfoy's head. Placing the string in the vial carefully, hastily corked it and putting it in his pocket.

"Thank you for your deposit, Mr Malfoy. Go down to your friends now hm?" Zacharias peeked over his shoulder to Orion who nodded back at him. The young blond looked at them both before walking in long steps to the door, slipping out carefully.

After the young blond had left the room Zacharias swept the room with his eyes. The dark man went over to the big puddle by the bathroom door to study it.

"Good thing that Cyril can take a beating heh King? Seems like he lost a lot of blood in this ordeal." Orion walked up to him to take a closer look a the puddle himself. It had turned a sickly pink colour and was moving in patterns across the floor. The blond noted that several places on the floor were turning a rust red, evidence of blood that had started to stain the old wood.

Suddenly Orion noticed something that seemed like claw marks on part of the floor by the door. He frowned slightly while taking a closer look.

"Is that claw marks?" Zacharias turned to take a look himself and both of the men frowned at each other.

"Has she always had claws?" Orion's mind was racing, was the demon somehow evolving? He wasn't sure but this was something that hopefully the memories of the young Malfoy could answer for them. He looked at Zacharias with a serious look.

"It seems we need to alter those memories more than I thought. This can not get out to the public, Merlin knows what will happen to her if it gets out." The other Auror nodded in agreement.

"You should go back to the office and take care of Artemis, I will clean up here." Orion was about to protest but the look that his friend sent him changed his mind.

"Fine." Zacharias smirked at him while he waved him out the door, the blond rolled his eyes at his antics. The blond saw that the three younger Slytherins were still sitting in the common room talking. They were all huddled together on the sofa by the fire.

Once again he was reminded of his school days. There was one time when he had given Artemis one of his spare Slytherin ties and had somehow managed to sneak her into the Slytherin house with the rest of them. The group had spent the entire night playing various games, Snape had not been happy when he found out the next morning. Orion grinned when he thought about the lecture they had gotten, but at the same time, he remembered fondly the smile the late Professor had given them later.

"Auror Silver?" The blond was brought back to the present by Malfoy's question. He looked at the three people in front of him with a slight smile.

"I am going back to the office, Auror Zabini is staying behind to do clean up." Not bothering to wait for an answer the man strode out of his old House. When he had started to think of Artemis he was reminded of the woman that was now blaming herself in the office. The others were right, he should step up and do what was expected of him. He was the one who had made the choice of bonding with her all those years ago and she needed him now more than ever. It was time to be the man he was supposed to be.