Snippet #1313892

Smiling, Lucius raised his hand and efortlessly caught the trinket between two spindly fingers. A wave of his wand transfigured the sphere into an ornate silver key. "And a happy New Year, no?" he replied as he deposited the key in Natasha's hand. "West wing, third door on the right. I believe if you look there you'll find a rather generous holiday bonus. Unless, of course," he added with a smirk, "you want to help with the interrogations downstairs first."

Natasha took the key in her hand and twirled it between two fingers as Lucius spoke, “I’ll join you in a minute, if you don’t mind. I hardly look fear inducing in this outfit.” She replied, silently noting the fact that she was also barefoot, having left her shoes in the sand back at the beach.

Without listening for a response, Lucius turned to the little boy, who by now was trembling feom head to toe with fear. "You must be him," the sinister man sneered, a cruel smile plastered on his face. "You'll do."

Natasha let go of Dimitri and turned away from the pair without another glance, not caring what Lucius did with the boy. She had made it halfway across the room, on her way to the West Wing, before se heard a hideous shriek echo across the room. Out of pure instinct, she found herself fully spun around, black sarong on the ground with a gun held firmly in her right hand which was pointed in the direction of the sound.

"Damn brat!" he cried as he withdrew his hand from the child's arm. It took only a fraction of a second for the man to realize the folly of his instinct. The boy hadn't gotten far when Lucius sent a spell in his direction. "Crucio!" The dark wizard reveled in the shrill scream of his captive, the virgin scream of one who had never experienced true pain.

She lowered the gun and silently watched Lucius for a moment, eyes narrowed in disgust. While Natasha wasn’t opposed to torture (on the contrary, she was actually exceptionally good at it), she had never tortured a child. Even if she had to, she doubted very much that she would get the sick satisfaction out of it like Lucius did.

"I trust that you will learn to not do that again," Malfoy snarled, kicking the boy's shaking body for good measure. Not wishing to take any more chances, Lucius magically bound and gagged the child and used a simple levitation charm to move him drown the hall.

She turned around then and noticed that Jim had been looking at her, liking assuming the high pitched scream had come from her. She raised the key between her fingers, as though that would explain where she was going, and then quickly walked to the West Wing.

She could hear screaming and crashing coming from the dungeons and sighed loudly. Leave it to Lucius to fuck something this easy up. Well, she would deal with it in a moment. It really was of no concern to her if Lucius got himself hurt, though getting himself killed probably wouldn’t look to good on her record…

She unlocked the large door and walked into a dimly lit room full, which was full of elaborate weapons. Her features lit up at the sight and she laughed to herself, shaking her head slowly, “At least you know how to give a gift, Lucius.” She muttered, stepping further into the room. She looked over some of the weapons while slipping out of the bathing suit, placing it back in her tiny belt pocket, and then pulled out her normal outfit and got dressed. All the while she could hear the screaming and yelling getting louder in the dungeons and she grudgingly decided she couldn’t ignore it any longer.

“Mustn’t be greedy.” She spoke out loud, running a finger along a few of her favourite weapons in the room, and then quickly selected three of them (despite wanting to take them all): A high powered dart gun full of poisonous darts that would magically refill itself (with a convenient switch would also allow her to change the potion that filled the darts), A long leather whip that could sprout hundreds of blades along it’s length, and a set of 10 potions (varying in strength and effect).

Natasha tossed the small key on the counter and left the room, making her way quickly to the main room again so that she could cross to the dungeons. The shouting had stopped for the moment, which she thought was more concerning than the yelling, and it caused her pace to quicken.

"Well," he said in a low, yet conversational tone, taking another look at his watch. "I do believe this is what they call 'the calm before the storm'."

Natasha had just entered the room when Jim spoke. She kept walking, but looked up to lock eyes with his own, “You have an interesting idea of what calm is, James.” She remarked, unholstering the heavy gun at her hip, “I’m going to make sure Lucius hasn’t completely fucked this whole thing up. You coming?” She asked and was going to wait for a response when she heard the shouting start up again. Swearing under her breath, she moved swiftly out of the room and down the hall to the dungeon.

She was met with quite the sight. Lucius looked like he had been mangled by some sort of animal (one cautious glance around assured her it wasn’t the werewolf), Drake was crying against the far wall, the elf was standing between the lizard and the werewolf who looked as though he was about to change at any moment. Then, in the middle of the room, lay Dimitri with a beautiful (though eiry) necklace floating above him. She had arrived just in time to hear the end of Sander’s threat, which hung in the air.

Or perhaps you and your bloody lackeys can take the highroad straight to hælvete, piss off, and leave us alone?" The last words were said in a quite literal growl, before the boy seemingly calmed down.

“I’d hardly say I’m a lackey.” Natasha commented dryly, not looking at Sander but rather at Lucius. “This has seemed to play out rather nicely for you, hasn’t it?” She dead panned, cool grey eyes regarding Lucius in annoyance.

Natasha flicked the safety off her gun and pointed it directly at Sander, her stance strong but her voice uninterested, “Calm down, mutt, or you’re going to change and I’m not promising to shoot you before you tear apart your little group of friends.”

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"Ruddy hell." He spat, his upper lip curling up, keeping his wand up as well as one of his knives. "Now what...?" Keeping his weapons at the ready, the thief quickly cast another Protego charm around them just to be safe, although he wasn't sure if it would really do anything, before casting a Lumos spell to try to illuminate the woods nearby to see if he could cast a little light on the situation

Evelynne unconsciously moved closer to Ryu, straining to see into the dark forest. She could only see the outline of trees, but the sound of the beast rumbled in the shadows, “Okay, we need to figure this thing out now and get out of here.” She whispered, placing a hand on Ryu’s arm to force him to start moving slowly backwards. The protego charm moved with them and they slowly made it back far enough that the music box appeared within their little bubble.

While she wasn’t sure if the box would explode at any moment, it seemed safer than leaving the bubble. Her eyes searched the box, long fingers running over the entire thing (she flinched when she noticed that she still had some of Charlie’s blood on her hands), and frowned, “I don’t know.” She sighed, tossed her messy muddy hair from her face. The song needed to end (or at least she thought it did), and so she eyed the handle for a moment. It was completely still and she had noticed that it was moving around before, when the music had played… hmm…

“Ryu, I’m sorry if this kills us.” She said quickly, grabbing the handle at the side of the music box and pulling it down to (hopefully) continue the song.