Letting out the biggest and most woeful sigh he could manage, Harry pulled himself from the floor.
'Some men are lucky, and some men are unlucky… Does perhaps God hate me?' he wondered, looking around the drawing room.
It had large windows overlooking the street in front of the house, a large fireplace flanked by two ornate glass-fronted cabinets, and an entire wall covered with… the tapestry of the Black family tree.
He was back inside the house, back inside 12th Grimmauld Place, the ancestral house of Blacks…
'I probably shouldn't have enjoyed threatening Dudley too much with my wand.'
Glaring at the offending family tree with disapproval, Harry's eyes landed on a blackened head and finally broke from his reverie.
'Sirius!'
"Kreacher," Harry trumpeted.
A moment and a cracking sound later, the demented elf appeared in front of him.
"Dirty young master called for Kreacher," stated the elf with obvious confusion.
"Yes, now listen to me. Sirius is unconscious and under an invisibility cloak on the next house's lawn. When you find him, take him to the house you two mentioned before," he ordered quickly, sensing the aurors closing on the house.
"Is nasty master on the house eleven or thirteen?" Kreacher asked with no small amount of irritation from being ordered around by Harry, Circe knows why he felt compelled to follow his orders…
"Eleven," the said boy simply replied.
The elf, unwilling to stay in Harry's presence any longer than what was required, excused himself and went to find Sirius.
'Now that that's settled, I should try phoenix flashing ag-'
His thoughts were cut out by a sudden flood in his magical sense.
"Oh, you've got to be kidding me… Bloody hell, not another one," Harry muttered and let out a tired groan.
'Well, there goes that plan,' he thought dejectedly, sensing the new and reinforced anti-apparition ward covering him.
The youth barely managed to stand up and as quickly as he could, made his way out of the room, hoping to at least get into a good vantage point.
'I hope Fawkes makes it in time,' he thought just as he reached the entrance hall.
Luckily, no one made their way inside just yet.
"Shields up," a stern shout came from outside the door a moment before it got blown up, its splinters flying everywhere.
'Lucky my ass,' Harry thought mockingly and raised his wand.
"Bombarda maxima. Bombarda maxima. Bombarda maxima," ****he iterated while pointing his magical stick at the smashed-up door frame.
Had he aimed at the opening, there was a chance that his spells would have connected with someone and turned them into gory bits…
Harry wasn't planning on killing anyone though, the thought alone made shivers run down his spine. He simply had to stall.
Also, a bunch of enraged and vengeful aurors would be anything but slow…
A moment after Harry cast the last spell, the first one reached its destination.
Despite the deafening explosion sound, which was swiftly followed by two more, Harry managed to catch a couple of cries of pain.
'God, I hope no one's dead,' he thought dejectedly and gazed at the devastation he caused.
The entrance of the Black family house was no more.
There were pieces of marble, bricks and concrete lying all around and also a mundane dust cloud that covered both parties' sights…
The aurors were the good guys.
They were simply following their orders and trying to enforce the law by catching Sirius Black and his unexpected new accomplice.
There were partners and children out there who were anxiously awaiting for them to return safely back home.
And that's why Harry was at a disadvantage even before any spells were cast.
Speaking of the youth, he narrowly dodged two purple curses that flew towards him and wordlessly erected a shield to meet a fast-moving stunner.
'Stall,' he thought and threw back a few curses.
However, lacking the element of surprise, they didn't have the same devastating effect as before.
The auror force easily defended against Harry's spell barrage and made their way into the house.
The youth dropped his position and moved deeper, onto the great staircase, not giving any attention to the severed house-elf heads this time.
'Damnation. Except for the kitchen, I don't know anything about this house at all,' he thought inwardly, feeling the tendrils of desperation latching onto him.
He transfigured some obstacles that mostly consisted of living mammals with the sole intent of stalling the penetrators and briefly allowed himself to wonder what would happen if he revealed his identity.
Could he hide in a room, transfigure some chains and when found, spin a story of how he was abducted by the notorious Sirius Black?
'Probably not.'
The unrelenting man-force swiftly moved towards his new position and continued their chase.
They easily dispatched Harry's transfigurations and kept on their way, both parties moving up.
Harry had to admit that by limiting his spell arsenal as he was, he was making things incredibly difficult for himself.
Sadly, using powerful and esoteric curses and charms was a no-go.
He still had some non-fatal aces up his sleeves though…
'Now,' he thought with delight as the auror body took another step forward.
His last scheme, the transfigured hounds and a nice spell barrage was a ruse, meant to lower his aggressors' guard.
And it worked!
He watched giddily as the first of the rallying enforcers grew green.
The others quickly followed and after but a few seconds, every single auror was showing signs of being poisoned.
Harry was well only due to his bond with Ash and the dreadful basilisk venom that flowed inside him, unable to devour him.
Those two things together combined granted him a surprising resistance to most toxic and poisonous things, albeit just the basilisk venom could provide him an almost guaranteed safety when ingesting any kind of toxins.
'I can get out of this,' he thought with renewed determination and wordlessly cast more poisonous spells, this time not in parseltongue…
The aurors weren't an inexperienced bunch though.
One of the men who was previously tasked with firing spells at him took a step back, getting behind the shields, and as if to mock him, swirled his wand in an elaborate manner.
Harry felt a surprisingly heavy concentration of magic coming off the man. The only reason he didn't sprint to the top of the stairs was because he didn't feel any ill intent coming off him.
"Mundar," the man stammered and a white glow engulfed his comrades.
The man fell on the floor from exhaustion and the aurors' complexions immediately showed signs of improvement and they picked up their slackened pace.
Harry instantly stopped any further attempts to poison the men and kept raising shield after shield.
The only reason he had preserved so far was because of the protego variations that he cast, each meant to encounter a specific kind of spell, thus making them much more potent at the expense of being very bad at defending against other kinds of magic.
When a bombarding charm was fired his way, he'd conjure a tiny bit of wood to meet it followed by a shield meant to defend against shock-waves.
Unable to cope with the renewed pressure, Harry reluctantly moved up the stairs until there wasn't any further to go to…
He immediately moved into the floor's only room, throwing every bit of locking and surface-enhancing charms he knew at the door.
Needless to say, the aurors weren't going to be stopped by those feeble attempts of stalling.
Unwilling to see a repeat of the earlier incident, they swiftly blast the door down.
"Well, well, well… Put your wand on the floor and raise your hands. You have nowhere to escape," a voice mocked Harry from the end of the entourage.
The youth immediately recognised the man who while talking, moved to the group's front.
'Yellow-eyed bastard,' he snarled inwardly and wordlessly raised the most sturdy shield his battered reserves could manage.
The simple, yet impenetrable, protego was proven to be a correct choice as it materialised just in time to meet five different coloured beams.
'Bloody hell,' he cursed.
Somehow, the shield had managed to survive the first spell barrage, but it was obvious that it would not do so again.
Even if Harry wasn't able to sense magic as he did, the luminous, web-like cracks that decorated most of its translucent surface said more than enough.
Luckily, Harry didn't plan to do so, he didn't want to fight.
'Stall,' reverberated through his dense skull.
His wand, which was aimed at the floor between him and the aurors, let out a flash of light.
'Bombarda diabolica,' he inwardly chanted.
The blue, blazing charm flew at an astonishing speed and connected with the floor, effortlessly devouring every spell that it met.
'What in Salazar's name?' the youth wondered whilst examining the devastation the previously extinct spell caused, it had been over a thousand years since it was last cast with any kind of success.
.
AN
[https://www.patreon.com/Mr_0ne] -> "Ch. 39 - Fleur changeante"
[https://discord.com/invite/NJ3WV9RVgR]
I've picked up my writing again...
As you can see, I've written a few chapters and posted them on Patreon so it's 6 chaps ahead instead of whatever it was before.
As I'll quit my work this week, expect more chaps heading you way then.
For those of you interested, I've passed all of my 10 exams, albeit a professor was doing his damn best to fail me in his class...
Edit: I've just read some comments, I may have been putting them off, and wow.
Wow.
Thanks.
Thank you, thank you and thank you for your words.