Chapter Forty-Five—Boundaries Blur

Spun gold around flesh, both gaoler and prisoner.

The scent of promise heated by blood flow, a vow of lust and violence.

One heart pulsing in fear, heard by another that flexed with the coiled energy of an animal poised to strike.

Duty binding her to subservience. The way it should be.

Skin pale, smooth, soft. Unmarked. For now.

No more than this. No thoughts beyond that of possession. Of satiation. Of ruin.

His eyes lifted from her neck, focussing sharply on the plump, delectable prettiness of lower lip, catching the quiver that his hands had put there as they ran along her arms, as they dug into her ripeness with a steely resolve.

He would take her until she was destroyed, until she wept in recognition of what she should have known all along. The way it should be.

Fingers closing around her neck, tightening the trap she had been condemned to walk straight into, pressing deep into the throb of despair.

She opened her mouth to scream.

A voice lifted to shattering heights in desperation, in warning, in terror.

But that voice did not come from her mouth.

Macnair turned his head toward the door a fraction of a second before it disintegrated into long, jagged splinters that rained down on them, bodies turning away in reflexive protection. His wand was in his hand as he spun to face the breach.

"Bitches, leave!"

The three women scrambled past Greyback's hulking form, the shredding sobs of relief like fingernails tearing through skin, their dread driving them from one nightmare past another to freedom.

The werewolf's head turned slowly, taking in the scene before him. Macnair saw the madness in his eyes, the cold exactitude of purpose, and for a brief moment glimpsed his end in them.

"The two of you fornicate together?" The man's disgust twisted the brutal harshness of his face. "And they call me an animal!" He stepped further into the room with an inexorable resolve, as if oblivious to the wand pointed directly at his heart. "But then, I shouldn't be surprised to find the both of you engaged in such activity. Fucking others is all you seem capable of." He loomed closer, the stench of his breath raking at Macnair's nose, his cracked and stained teeth bared up to disease-spotted gums. "But I don't much care for being fucked, Macnair. It's very, very bad manners." His gaze flicked over to the figure reclined on the chaise longue. "One move, Brachoveitch, and I will ensure you pay dearly. With your own dear son's blood."

The gaunt, one-eared man with the deep set eyes stilled his hand on its move to his own wand, struck into immobility by Greyback's words.

The werewolf laughed nastily. "You're not the only one who knows how to inflict pain, and when properly motivated I can be thoroughly creative." He gritted his teeth together. "Try me. I dare you!" Saliva leaked from his mouth and trickled down his whiskered chin, tainted red from the sweetness of savagery. "I always take out an insurance policy when dealing with scum."

Brachoveitch raised both hands slowly, away from his pockets, eyes flat in unwilling obeisance.

Greyback turned his attention back to Macnair. "I made the mistake of thinking you were smart. You certainly waste no opportunity to grind your superiority in my face, yet here I am, wondering how... the fuck... you expected to get away with this!"

Macnair bared his brown teeth at the werewolf, his moustache bristling under his nose and he firmed his hand's grip on the wand. The gap between the two men vanished as Greyback screamed in the Chief Executioner's face.

"Tell me, Macnair! How did you plan to escape me tearing you to shreds and feeding you to the cats?!" The barely restrained madness in the man's eyes flared into throat-cutting insanity. He knocked Macnair's hand aside with terrifying speed and had him slammed up against the wall before the hex could even form. "I should have recognised the stink of treachery on you long before."

"What the fuck are you talking about?" Macnair gasped, his windpipe being crushed by Greyback's forearm across his throat. He found himself thrown forcefully across the room to land heavily next to the chaise longue.

"You stupid bastard!" Greyback roared, the fingers of his hands splayed in outrage. "Where have you taken them?!"

Macnair stared uncomprehendingly at him. He wasn't fast enough to dodge the jagged piece of wood flung at his head. The impact with his skull made his ears ring.

"The lyc-females! Where have you taken them?!"

The floored man clutched his bleeding head in his hands and groaned, swaying as the room spun around him in a woven streak of colours and brutality.

Greyback switched his focus to Brachoveitch, who merely returned the werewolf's unhinged demand with a cool, silent, emotionless glance. Nothing ever rattled him. He was notoriously devoid of emotion; something of an advantage for a torturer. Of the two of them, he was deadlier. Macnair had the capacity to be dangerous, but he could be swayed by emotion if one knew which buttons to push. Brachoveitch had the heart of a dyed-in-the-wool serial killer. It was near impossible to tell what was going through his mind at any time, and therefore his actions could rarely be predicted.

The werewolf searched hard to find some clue in the man's pale, sharp face, some indication of guilt that would serve to justify Greyback's outrage. He may have well have been looking at stone.

"Don't know... what you're talking about," Macnair slurred, trying in vain to get back on his feet, one hand mopping about on the floor for his wand. It was a pointless effort anyway. Greyback was always careful to have himself primed against the effect of magic by draining his captured seevy as often as he could. It left him temporarily devoid of his own magical ability, but then his overwhelming brute strength filled the gap with a surprising efficacy.

"The women are gone from the warehouse! Must I spell it out to you, you traitorous, greedy milk-sop!"

Macnair stared up at him stupidly, the search for his wand abandoned. Brachoveitch, on the other hand, was on his feet immediately.

"This was never a partnership in your minds, was it?" Greyback noted. "Just an unashamed use of my time and my resources for you to get what you want. Some things never change." He spat on the floor in blunt emphasis. "More fool me for thinking they would."

"They're gone?" Macnair repeated, a constricting clutch of dread in his guts. "Where? How?"

"Why are you asking me, you arrogant turd!" Greyback roared. "How should I fucking know?!"

Macnair flinched as the volume of Greyback's voice split through his throbbing skull. "But I was there only five... six hours ago. They were there! I saw them!"

The werewolf clenched his fists and shook them in utter rage and frustration. "Listen to me, you terminal shit of a man! They're... not... there... because you took them! I lost three of my finest men in your little stunt. You painted the fucking walls with them!"

"It wasn't us," Macnair told him, the iron returning to his voice as his head began to clear and the adrenalin returned strength to his muscles. He dragged himself to his knees awkwardly.

"Ah, spare me the bollocks, Macnair. I've had a gutful of it."

"Speaking of bollocks, Greyback, how do we know this isn't some shallow hokum on your part to steal the women yourself and feign ignorance under foul-mouthed accusations?" the gasping man inquired, leaning heavily against the wall for support.

"Fuck me, Macnair. What kind of retard do you think I am? If I'd taken them, you'd be all over me like fleas on a dog! I was going to get them in the end anyway, so why the hell would I risk that by taking them now? Who else knew they were there? Eh? Tell me that!"

"There's only one way to find out." Macnair wiped the blood trailing down his forehead with the back of his hand.

Greyback bared his teeth and raised his hand, finger pointed directly at Macnair's face. "We will go together. On foot. Either of you as much as flinch in my direction, I will rip you in twain like a wishbone. If you think of hexing me or Disapparating, the heir to the Brachoveitch estate dies and the Ministry's Executioner goes down in a tawdry ball of flames when his sexual deviancy makes headlines in the Daily Prophet tomorrow morning." He waited a few heavy seconds to ensure his words had sunk in. "Now, gentleman, zip your cocks back in your pants and let's go for a little stroll, shall we?"

The cluster of women at the bottom of the stairs edged backwards nervously as the three of them descended, trapped against vacating the brothel by the darkly threatening figure standing in front of the doorway to the street.

Macnair stopped dead on the steps.

Greyback laughed harshly. "Your puppies weren't very happy when they found out what had happened. They think that perhaps I can offer them something more suited to their long term goals. Isn't that right, Evanton?"

The Teverington Striker said nothing, but the gravelly rumble from his chest spoke volumes, his green eyes locked firmly on Macnair, who developed a rather energetic tic in his left cheek.

Greyback shoved Macnair roughly. "Get moving."

The torturer and the executioner edged around the Striker carefully and out through the door to where Evanton's Handler waited in the shadows.

"Madam," Greyback acknowledged the tall and statuesque woman who shielded her girls as best she could from the hulking mass leering at them. "Such a pleasure to visit your establishment. A shame about the clientele, though."

She returned his gaze coolly, almost regally, her chin lifting slightly. Her wand remained pointed unerringly at Greyback's chest. The werewolf looked at her raised hand with a condescending twist to his mouth and chuckled. Only after the men had left did she lower her hand again.

"All of you, go home. Wait to hear from me."

The girls fled at her command, desperate to be as far away from the brothel as possible.

The madam stood alone at the bottom of the stairs, her gaze fixed on the wall opposite, a carving of feline beauty lost in thorny thought.

She turned smoothly, the hem of her pale green satin robes whispering at her feet as she ascended the stairs. An almost dismissive wave of her wand locked and warded the door securely. She swept her wand around her head delicately to secure the rest of the building. Her girls would already have left, and any clients that knocked on the door would have to seek their pleasures elsewhere for now.

The Floo powder trailed in an arc from her fingers and into the flames under the mantel in her private room. She leant down and further into the licking heat, the curls of her hair swinging forward and over her shoulder in a tumultuous wave of perfumed softness.

"Lucius. I must speak with you."

The slender figure darted from shadow to shadow, her loose hair swinging around her as she turned her head to check that none followed. She had zigzagged, backtracked and Disapparated in a confusing pattern to ensure that anyone trailing her would be left utterly bewildered. Her father had taught her well. She blessed his name and slipped swiftly across the street, avoiding the dirty orange pools of illumination thrown by the street lamps.

Her feet carried her silently into the building and up the three flights of carpeted stairs to the loft. Tapping lightly on the wooden door to warn its occupants, she waited a few seconds before entering, crooning softly and reassuringly. The birds shuffled on their perches, blinking cautiously at the gentle light from the end of her wand. Her eyes searched out the one she needed. Good, he was there. Perhaps the hunting had been poor tonight.

She hurried to the small writing table and scratched out her message with a shaky hand, cursing at the way the quill jittered in her fingers. The scrap of parchment was rolled tightly, a length of slender ribbon plucked from the drawer.

"Fly fast, my friend" she told the owl, tying the scroll carefully to his outstretched leg. He clicked his beak at her, stretching his wings and beating them gently a few times, the triangle of white feathers on his chest stirring in the air currents. And then he was gone.

"You knew nothing of this?"

Trint shook his head. "First I've heard of it."

Malfoy drew his finger slowly back and forth under his lip, digesting this.

"And you caught the entire conversation?" he asked the woman sitting opposite him.

She raised an elegant eyebrow at him. "They were hardly keeping their voices down," she pointed out.

It was possible that it had been an elaborate ruse by Greyback to grab the lyc-females for himself, feign ignorance, and lay the blame on Macnair and Brachoveitch, but that wasn't the werewolf's style. It seemed that someone else was playing their hand. Another person in the game. The rules had shifted once more.

"Interesting," Malfoy understated, looking away and into the shadows at the edges of the room. He tapped the top knuckle of his index finger lightly against his mouth.

"What will you do?" the madam asked curiously.

Her question brought Malfoy out of his reverie. He inhaled as if to reply, but smiled instead.

"As always, my dear, your information is timely and appreciated. Do you require compensation for the inconvenience of having so many... unsavoury characters intruding on your establishment?"

The madam returned his smile with a tight one of her own. "The offer is appreciated but unnecessary, Lucius. In a fashion, Greyback has done me a favour."

Malfoy arched a graceful eyebrow in query.

"I came close to losing three of my girls this evening. Macnair and Brachoveitch paid highly for them, but that wasn't why I sent them to what would have been a gruesome end." She stood fluidly, arising from the high-backed armchair as if it had been a throne. "To deny those two would have marked us all for death. The needs of the many," she sighed, a mixture of disgust, regret and frustration rippling across her smooth, high forehead. "I do not wish ever to be placed in that position again."

"What will you do?" Malfoy handed her earlier question back to her as he also stood.

She smiled enigmatically at him. "My regards to your delightful wife, as always." An elegant hand reached towards him.

"Stay." Malfoy took the proffered hand into his own. "Narcissa has so few genuine friends left from her school days. She would love to see you."

The curve to the madam's lips took on a melancholic twist. "And I her, but I would not have her reputation affected by mine in any way." She nodded faintly. "It is better this way, however much I wish it was not so." Her hand slipped from his and sought the fine powder of her departure from the drawing room.

Malfoy waiting until the flames had warmed to gold before turning to Trint.

"Well?"

Trint sighed. "They have made their move. And smartly."

"How so?"

The information peddler rubbed his hands together slowly, elbows propped on his knees. He seemed not to notice his missing fingers any more, but perhaps the three fleshy stubs served as a deterrent to such inspection, markers that they were to his continued "failure" in Greyback's eyes. Perhaps it was just the promise of the eventual return of those missing digits that allowed him to withstand their brutal and agonising removal, otherwise Malfoy would have struggled to secure the man's loyalty.

"Macnair and Brachoveitch had planned to steal the women away at dawn tomorrow," he revealed. "I just found out this evening that they'd laid a very careful trail to a den south of the river. Greyback couldn't have failed to have followed it to the scapegoats, leaving those two blameless." He gave a hollow laugh. "I wish I could have seen their faces." His face twisted into a vicious grin of shadenfreude.

"Where will the women be taken?"

Trint swivelled his shrewd brown eyes up to meet Malfoy's cool blue gaze. "Nowhere and everywhere," he replied cryptically. "No-one knows better how to hide these women." He straightened in his chair, the wood creaking in slight protest as his bulk shifted. "What will you do?"

Malfoy turned his head away from the man, his blonde hair swaying gently down his back, and smiled a smile of secrets, of decisions, of silence.

"What did you find?"

Parr lifted her head and looked at Dumbledore, the lines at the edges of her eyes showing strain.

"It looks like they were moved about five hours before it was discovered." She bowed her head to resume watching Snape stitching up the cut across her palm. His face was so close to her hand that she had to lean to one side to get a good look.

"Stop fidgeting," he told her absently, his breath tickling against the exposed skin of her wrist.

"Moved?" Dumbledore repeated, patting distractedly at his long beard. "Then they weren't killed?"

Parr shrugged, earning her a hiss from the man sewing her skin together. "It's possible that some of them may have been killed but I don't think so. At least not there."

"Then why all the blood?"

Parr drew the index finger of her free hand down the length of her nose a few times as if musing on this question. "I... think it was lyc-male blood."

"It could be that someone else, some other group has stolen the lyc-females away from... Greyback," said Lupin from behind Dumbledore, taking his chewed thumbnail away from his mouth briefly. "Whether it's another lyc-group, a different faction amongst the Death Eaters or an organisation we have yet to identify, we can't tell." He kept his eyes trained on Parr's hand resting on Snape's knee.

"Could it be other seevy?" Dumbledore posed.

Parr took an even longer time to answer that. "No. Whoever it was planned the ambush well. They have foresight and I suspect some experience in dealing with lycanthropes in order to mortally disable some and control others in order to remove them from the location, but seevy?" She shook her head. "It doesn't smell right for that."

Snape blinked. She was lying. Or at least, deliberately withholding something. He had no idea how he knew that, but he was certain she was keeping something to herself. He could almost... smell it.

"Then we can't be sure the lyc-females are in any better situation than they were before," Dumbledore concluded.

"They're not with Greyback or Macnair," Snape revealed quietly, using a small knife to cut the suture thread. He stuck the needle in the cuff of his coat-sleeve and squinted at his handiwork.

"How do you know that?" was Lupin's rather suspicious inquiry, drawing him a frowning glance from Dumbledore. He didn't see the way Snape's mouth compressed into a thin line at his tone.

"They're both at each other's throats, each accusing the other of theft." Snape picked up a slender, amber glass bottle from the floor near his feet and shook it. "This incident may be enough to fraction the two of them apart, which could potentially make things even worse."

"It could work in our favour," the Headmaster pointed out. Snape merely shrugged instead of voicing his doubt on that and poured a thin line of the flask's contents along the knife wound on Parr's palm.

"Chara? Was she there?"

Parr's fingers curled reflexively, but whether that was in response to Dumbledore's question or from the way Snape's thumb drew over the sutured cut to spread the brownish-red antiseptic was hard to tell.

"No." The terse, one-word answer betrayed none of the boiling disappointment and anguish that roiled out of Parr. It made his hands tighten momentarily around her injured one in disorientation. Was she deliberately pushing it onto him the way she had once pushed her hunger? Did she even know she was doing it? He shook his head slightly to clear the slight spinning sensation deep in his brain and took the dressings from Pomfrey's outstretched fingers.

"What happened to your hand?" Dumbledore asked finally, making Snape pause, his shoulders tightening as he waited for Parr to answer. Would she tell him she'd cut her hand to stain the knife she'd given him? Something inside him prickled in hostility, something he knew didn't come from Parr. Something that hissed in blood-fuelled possessiveness. He blinked several times at the unexpected reaction.

"Just one of those things, Headmaster," Parr replied smoothly. "It's nothing to be concerned over."

Something rippled over Snape's awareness, a gentle caress that silenced the sibilant irritation like a calming stroke down an agitated animal's back. He covered his confusion hastily by wrapping Parr's hand up tightly in the bandaging, trying his hardest not to jiggle his leg.

"We have a new safe house, Chara." Dumbledore informed her. "This one's a lot more secure than the last one. Professor Moody had been exceedingly thorough."

"I'm... pleased to hear that, Headmaster," said Parr carefully. Snape looked at her sharply wondering if he was the only one to hear the lie behind her words. She studiously avoided meeting his gaze.

"Poppy, when will Chara be well enough to resume her work?" the Headmaster asked, seemingly oblivious to the falsity of Parr's statement. "There is some urgency involved."

"Some of her wounds must be kept open. Therefore it leaves her prone to exacerbating them further with significant physical activity. I would much rather she did not do anything strenuous for a further ten days at least."

The corners of Snape's mouth pulled down as the prickly hostility rose in him again. Dumbledore was right to ask Pomfrey instead of him, but he couldn't shake the sensation of territoriality. He'd forgotten how jealously possessive he became over those he treated, bristling like a cat being edged away from a fresh kill at anyone who tried to elbow him out of the way, no matter how subtly or graciously they tried to do it. It was yet another behavioural tendency that had gotten him in trouble as a trainee, and it seemed the passing years had not lessened the proclivity for it in him.

"Anything that you can do to speed her recovery would be welcomed, Poppy."

Snape had to clench his teeth together to prevent a rather vituperative sentence from slipping out of his mouth. Had it been anyone but Dumbledore, he wouldn't have bit it back. He looked up automatically and straight into Parr's eyes. She shook her head slightly at him, the movement so minimal that she surely meant only him to see it. He wasn't certain, but he thought she smiled. Just a fraction. The hissing cat retracted its claws and purred. Sweet Hecate, what was she doing to him?

Snape grabbed the front of her jacket and dragged her to a standing position away from the cot. "Up," he instructed harshly, desperate to mask his uncertainty. "Follow the end of my finger." Her grey eyes tracked his calloused finger back and forth unerringly, her brows raised in faint surprise.

"Remus, if I may speak with you a moment," said the Headmaster, drawing the werewolf away from the end of the infirmary. "What are the chances of you being able to make contact with the den near Epsom? Hestia says they've been unusually active and I think maybe..." His voice trailed out of hearing range as the two men moved towards the entrance.

"Close your eyes and point where I click my fingers," Snape told Parr. He winced as she grabbed his wrist tightly after the first click. "Point, not mangle!" he snapped, pulling his arm out of her grip. She was fast and unfailingly accurate. He tried to trick her by using magic to set a click behind her, but she snatched his wand out of his hand and threw it along the length of the infirmary without opening her eyes. It landed with a clatter not far from Lupin's boots.

Pomfrey tutted. "Chara, it's rude to do that," she chided and rustled off to fetch it.

"How did you know?"

Parr opened her eyes and wrinkled her nose at him.

"Can you smell magic?"

She smiled tightly. "I can smell you."

His eyes flicked over to where Pomfrey plucked his wand up off the floor.

"Why did you lie to the Headmaster?"

Parr gave him a penetrating stare. "I do not trust him..." She paused and frowned. "... either," she added quietly with a mix of astonishment and inquiry.

He saw Pomfrey linger to say something to Lupin, buying him a few extra seconds. "Can you communicate with your sister?" He saw the blank expression start to form. "Don't try and dissemble. I know she's your Handler."

The rumble in Parr's chest warned him he was skirting close to offending her again. "You know all too much, and all too little, Professor," she whispered. "Regardless, you should know better. We do not speak of such things where others can hear."

"I've... seen her."

Parr's eyes went wide.

"She looks like you. She's your twin, isn't she?"

"She is Handler before all else," Parr hissed. She looked back quickly to where Pomfrey was talking with Lupin and Dumbledore. The mediwitch started on her return. Parr's head turned back, a wisp of hair falling loose from her plait to slide along her jaw with the movement. "You should know that!"

"Why?"

Parr searched his face, looking up at him in apparent confusion. "Because you are Dual!" She took half a step towards him. "Where did you see her?" The desperation in her words was keener than a blade.

Snape realised that Pomfrey was too close for him to answer, so he showed Parr in the only way he knew. The pad of his outstretched finger touched her forehead lightly and briefly.

"Severus, Remus says he needs to speak to you before he goes," said Pomfrey, holding out his wand to him. "I can take care of Chara's neck for you."

The image formed in his mind, and he pushed it clumsily toward hers before turning away. His hand slipped the wand from Pomfrey's grasp wordlessly and headed over to where Lupin was waiting for him just past the infirmary's doorway.

"What do you want?" he asked the werewolf impatiently, sneering down his nose at Lupin.

"Why have you got your hands all over her?" Lupin demanded to know truculently, peering at him through his faintly bruised eye. "It's highly inappropriate for you to grope her the way you do."

Snape fixed him with a nasty stare. "I think, Lupin, you're confusing a medical examination with one of your disgusting, drunken one night stands. Regardless, what I'm doing is none of your business."

Lupin's face went rather steely. "As a matter of fact, it is my business. As Chara's guardian I have a say in her treatment, so I would appreciate it if I am kept informed of anything that you do to her."

"How very lycanthropic to regard a woman as chattel, Lupin," Snape told him silkily.

The werewolf's expression screamed effrontery. "I would never..."

"Unless Miss Parr wishes it, the details of her treatment are to remain unshared with anyone else, and quite frankly I don't care what you think you are. She is of adult age and therefore free to determine her own needs."

"You have no understanding of the arrangement between us, Severus, so stop twisting the situation into a knot."

"I don't think you realise how little you differ from other werewolves," said Snape, lavishing the kind of disdain he reserved especially for Lupin on the hunched, tattered-clothed figure before him. "One minute you act like a spoiled child who's had his favourite toy taken off him and then you carelessly discard that toy when something else glints prettily at you."

"You snide..."

"Are you going to ask for her leash back?"

That forestalled Lupin's tirade as abruptly as if Snape had struck him. He gaped, unsure of what to say in response; of what he could say in response.

"Are you going to make her run around like a pet? Is that it, Lupin?" His contempt for the man rose like bile in his throat. "Does it give you a thrill to drive her to do your bidding while you dangle the possibility of rescuing her Handler just far enough in front of her so she'll obey you? Just far enough out of her reach that you'll never actually give her what she wants?"

Lupin flinched back at his words.

"You could have found her Handler months ago. Even you: a sorry excuse of a man who can usually only find his way to the next bottle of cheap liquor. Yet mysteriously the search continues. Why is that, Lupin? Tell me why that is."

The look in the werewolf's eyes was like that of an animal being backed into a corner, uncomprehending as to the reason why it was being herded so.

"I've tried!" he whispered. "I've tried but I can't find her." His hands opened and closed convulsively in front of him, the shadows in the corridor smothering him in his frantic despondency. "I can't find her!"

"Such a disappointment," Snape pronounced with a twist to his mouth. "The boy's failure becomes that of the man's. But then, I shouldn't have expected anything else. Should I?" he asked softly, half-closing his black eyes at Lupin, the full force of his derision turned on the cringing figure before him, attacking him verbally when he was at his weakest, at his most vulnerable. Snape waited until the flicker of defiance returned to Lupin's eyes before he turned his back on him and walked away.