Chapter 18.4- Doom Days

“Was that a dark healing spell?: I asked, curious about the emotions that had flashed on his face as he used it.

“Don’t be ridiculous. The dark arts do not heal. They exist to take and destroy and pervert everything they touch.” He said with tone as dark as his name.

“I find that to be a bit limiting, don’t you think” I said, commenting on the viewpoint before I noticed the way his expression morphed. His grip on his wand tightened, and his lips were pressed so closely together that one would be forgiven for mistaking them as a single line running across his face, breaking the furious visage into two halves. His eyes, grey as the clouds, were wide open as he stared me down. I absently noted that he needed a haircut and could just barely stop myself from chuckling at the ridiculousness of the observation in light of the fury he was displaying.

“I won’t tell you not to use dark spells. Morgana knows I know hundreds of them, but the real dark arts are things to beware. You have to run from them. People like my cousin Bellatrix, or even Wormtail, they’re par for the course, not the exception. The dark arts will turn you into a hollow shell of yourself if you let them” I nodded at the words, silently changing the classification I’d given him in my own head.

“Good. Don’t forget it. Anyway, that was just a basic healing spell I picked up when I was younger” He said.

“How young?” I asked, trying to move away from the awkwardness of the previous conversation.

“Too young. I’d been stubborn as a child and dear old mom couldn’t deal with it. She punished me in cruel and unusual ways, and when she was done, my father, Orion, would sit with me and heal me while trying to convince me that she wasn’t always a crazy bint.” He chuckled, but the spark of bare laughter never appeared in his eyes.

“I see” what could one even say to something like that. At this point, the part of me that was Doom was the only person here who’d had anything even vaguely resembling a normal childhood and he’d done multiple orphanages and foster homes before being permanently adopted.

“Enough of my dear old family, what do you say we test out my new wand? I’ve been watching your training and I think it’s time for your Dogfather to show you a few tricks”

“Dogfather? Really?”

“Knew it was terrible the second it left my mouth, don’t worry” He said and I nodded while giving him a skeptical look and taking my stance.

“Of the four of us, not that Wormtail really counts as worth anything, I was the best duelist by a bit more than a shade, so I’ll go easy on you” The former Marauder said as he took his own stance.

The elm wand lashed out without any warning and I found myself deflecting several spells that could barely even be considered as hexes. The only issue was that there were too many of them, I thought to myself as I fucked up deflecting one pink curse and had to find the time to flick my wand and dispel the toe-nail growing hex that made it through. I put up a shield that took the next volley without problem but had to reinforce it as a deep orange that I recognised as the blasting curse, Confringo, shot from his wand with little fanfare.