Shadow Bender.

Briony sighed, moving through the village of Hogsmeade as fast as she could so she wouldn't gain anyone's unwanted attention she ended up where she wanted to be. The Shrieking Shack. Perfect for what she was about to do. Briony felt that she had been becoming a little too rusty with her shadow bending skills as well as her blood magic so she had brought with her a very realistic dummy she had enchanted to behave like a Muggle.

Opening the door to the shack she turned around to check if anyone was entering after her or following, no-one seemed to be so Briony quickly slipped into the shack closing the door. Walking through briskly she enlarged the dummy to human size and set it down watching it stand still.

Gathering the shadows from the darkness around her Briony could feel their coldness surround her and she pictured in her mind what she wanted them to do, with a grin she shot them forward, the shadows leaking through the skin of the dummy and into it's veins. She smiled as she heard it make a noise of pain, of course a real human would be screaming right now but this was a shoddy dummy, this reaction would be ten fold on a person.

Richard yawned a little as he did his wind down exercises from his run through the outskirts of the Forbidden Forest. He'd had a nice chat with a couple of centaurs, once they'd run out of arrows of course. Rolling his neck muscles a little he stopped in front of the Whomping Willow. He'd been told that anything that went near it got pummeled into the ground. He grinned. Sounded like a perfect exercise to him.

Running towards the trunk of the willow, he laughed wildly as it attempted valiently to smeer him across the grass. He ducked and weaved until he was right near the trunk, where he stopped a little. Big mistake.

The Willow hit him with one of it's branches and he went sprawling towards the base of the trunk. But instead of hitting the trunk, he just kept rolling. Backward and backwards he rolled until he hit something that made him stop. Groggy, he pulled himself up out of the hole above him, emerging in a very dusty hallway in what appeared to be a very dusty house. Muttered about stupid scottish trees, he stood up and brushed some of the dirt off of his vest and trousers. He sighed a little and pulled his wand out of it's holster on his back, sniffing the air intently. He frowned a little when he recognised the scent,

"Briony?" he whispered to himself before confirming it with another sniff. He called out, louder this time, "Briony! You in here?"

Briony smirked a little more, the shack was the perfect place for shadow bending because there was so much of it! Focusing her mind once more and keeping the shadows inside the dummy Briony used another hand to swoop more through the air cutting the dummy nearly in half the white rubbery spine showing through the severed flesh. Laughing slightly to herself Briony took out several more dummies and enchanted them swiftly the same as the other one.

This time deciding to test out her blood magic Briony bit down hard on her finger scraping the blood down her wand, taking out her knife Briony ducked and dodged the attack from the dummy, weaving under the punches stepping over the lunges to get at her throat. Slitting the dummy's leg with her knife Briony licked the blood from it and muttered quiet incantations, as soon as she had finished a devious look crossed her face and she thought of wood. Instantly all the blood in the dummy, turned to wood, and it keeled over to the floor.

Richard scratched the back of his head a little and began to follow his nose. The problem was that Briony seemed to have come here more than once for whatever reason it was that she was here. With his wand held loosely in front of him, he reached the first closed door. He frowned a little.

He didn't want to surprise Briony in case she was working on some spell work. So instead he grinned and pointed his wand at the door, willing it to change. The wood of the door changed almost instantly into clear glass, showing an empty and equally dusty room. Reversing the change, he continued down to the next door where he did the same. He smirked, there she was.

Briony appeared to be in the middle of an exercise involving several inferior trainning dummies. He smirked a little and decided to let her finish, turning the door back to wood and going back to the first room he'd checked. Taking out a shrunken trunk, he placed it on the floor before enlarging it, floating the contents out onto the bedroom's floor. The contents of the trunk had also been shrunk and took another enlarging charm to return them to normal. Piles of elements and bell-jars full of liquids.

The contents of his trunk was the elemental components of his dead brother, Calab.

Gritting his teeth, he pointed his wand at the components and willed his magic into action.

A loud explosion rocked the house as the elements reassembled themselves into the working body of his older brother, Calab Romain. The resemblence was there, it was in their eyes and facial structure, but Calab was taller and more muscular than his brother. Oh and he had no higher brain functions at all, being almost an empty shell. Richard put his wand away in it's holster and looked at the instinct-ruled shell of his deceased brother,

"Come on then Calab... I want to kill you again." he told his brother with a glare. Calab, as brain-dead as he was, knew it was a challenge and charged at Richard. Richard allowed this to happen but wasn't prepared when the wall he was bashed into caved in behind them, sending them both sprawling into Briony's room. Richard shook his head to clear it as Calab was getting up, eying Briony up like she was a threat. Springing into action, Richard jabbed his brother's ribs from behind sharply before kicking in his knee, causing him to fall to his knee. Wrapping an arm around his brother's throat to choke him, Richard smiled up at Briony, his entire body caked in dust and plaster from the wall,

"Oh hi Briony... fancy meeting you here." he gestured down at his choking shell of a brother, "This is my brother, Calab."

Briony growled, she heard something from the next room and as soon as the wall began to crumble she flipped her shadows from the dummy to the figures that crashed through it, immediately doing the same to them as she had done to the dummy, the shadows from the room flooded into their veins and Briony growled harder, her eyes snapped to them and she saw a man she didn't know, then, she saw Rich.

Gasping Briony released the shadows from him but the man that he was holding wouldn't be so lucky, she yelled and pulled her hands apart at the same time, he was pulled apart too and he ended up quite literally everywhere. Only then did Briony stop, her adrenaline still pumping through her body, she felt cold inside when she heard Richard say it was his brother, looking at the most part of the body she grinned stupidly.

"Uh...my bad?"

Richard, his face splattered with his brother's blood, frowned and hummed a little in thought before nodding to himself,

"That's the seventh time I've had my Calab's blood splattered in my face while the rest of him is scattered across a room." he smiled a little up at Briony, "We don't exactly have the best of family reunions. After all..."

He stood up and whipped the worst of the blood away,

"He has been technically dead for about nine years." he told her with a smirk, "I just bring his body and lower brain functions back for stress relief sometimes."

Sighing slightly Briony narrowed her eyes, moving to stand away from Richard she watched him out of the corner of her eye kicking the body of the dummy that lay on the floor, even though the bottom half of it's body was immobile it was still crawling towards her, still trying to kill her. With a smile Briony quickly sliced her knife across it's throat cutting the head clean off.

"What are you doing here?"

She said rather coldly. Briony knew that she wouldn't be able to do any training now and that the small bit she had done wasn't good enough, she knew that her technique was getting sloppy because Richard didn't even feel pain from the shadows being inside his blood.

A little irritated with her weakness Briony kicked the dead dummy so that it moved halfway across the room. Eyes full of anger Briony looked at the other dummies still in the shrunken form lying on the floor.

Richard raised an eyebrow,

"Not wanting any visiters then huh?" he shrugged a little, "I decided to try and dodge the Whomping Willow for a bit of a cool down exercise. Stupid tree got a lucky shot in and I fall down some sort of freaky tunnel which ends up inside this place."

He pointed to the wall,

"And I started to train in hand-to-hand over in that room but it appears that the walls of this place are paper thin...."

"Indeed they are."

Briony sighed defeated and sat on the dusty floor gently poking the dummy's head across the floor smiling gently at the funny pattern it made on the dust as it travelled. She leant her head against the wall a fire place was on and decided that she had better explain why she was so grouchy to Richard.

"I'm trying to practice my special abilities, my shadow skills have come so weak I'm not even surprised you didn't react when I threw them inside of you."

Frowning softly Briony threw the head out of the door and listened to it bound down the stairs.

"I need to be much stronger than this. To do what I'm planning to do."

Richard gave a little chuckle,

"Oh!" he breathed with a smile, "So THAT's why I've been coughing up blood..."

He shrugged a little,

"Well I suppose I can help you there..." he pointed to the dummies, "These are... well they're crap."

He picked up the head of one dummy and squeezed a little. The dummy cracked before splitting it two. He shrugged a little,

"I'm a transfiguration master. Just say the word and I'll have a freaky humonculus for you to play with." he frowned, "Well a better one than that weak one I made to beat my brother to death... again."

Briony looked up at Richard with a keen look in her eye, that was true, these dummies were kind of crap, they didn't even really come after her and where she was going she would need to be able to react and move fast for any attack. She got up from the floor, dusting herself off trying to wipe the dust from the black skirt she wore but failing.

"Could you? It would be a great help."

She asked kindly, before remembering that she needed to do this on her own, so even if things got a little hairy Richard mustn't interfere.

"But, I need to train alone. Don't interfere even if it looks like I'm loosing, or if I'm hurt...alright?"

Richard nodded and waved his wand, drawing all of the dummy-parts and the remains of his brother into a large pile in the centre of the room. He walked over to Briony,

"Excuse me... I need to borrow this." he told her as he took her knife before slitting both of his wrists, handing it back to her with a wink, "Thanks."

Moving back over to the pile he let the blood pool in his hand before spreading it around the pile in a perfect circle, the skill having come naturally to him. Dipping his fingers into the wounds he began chanting as he drew circles and arcane symbols all across his body. With that done he held his hands out in front of him and began to chant even louder and more forcefully.

The pile of collective body parts began to glow and mold together, forming one massive body. It was massively out of proportion, easily nine feet tall and as wide across as five men, all of it's width a mass of disgustingly over-extended muscles. Veins, the sizes of regular people's arms, bulged dangerously with a mixture that was definately not all human blood.

Richard fell to his knees with the effort of making such a large creature without his wand. The creature stood there dumbly, not moving at all. He turned to Briony with a small smirk,

"This is the Tank." he slowly reached forwards with a hand and began to wipe at the circle of blood, "Once this circle breaks I suggest you run. It will hunt you down as soon as the circle is broken..."

He spat a little and wiped at the circle. A small part of the circle was wiped clean and the Tank instantly became aware, roaring as it prepared to charge at Briony,

"You've best have something good to kill this thing!" Richard called out as the Tank barrelled at Briony.

Briony watched Richard with mild interest when he began to work on the new dummies, she raised her eyebrow when she saw it was only going to be fused into one dummy, she snorted it would be easy she could take it down easily. Briony's jaw dropped when it finally stopped growing and fusing together, she managed a look of horror at Richard before she heeded his advice and began to run.

She heard it come after her, crashing through walls, thinking for a moment Briony thought it might be best to hurt it while it was distracted by the rubble coming down on it's head. Peering around a corner Briony saw it searching for her, feeling the cold seep through her Briony summoned all the shadows she could sending a large punch of them at it, managing to cut through an arm. Hearing it roar in pain Briony quickly spun out of the way of a giant fist as it crashed through the wall she was hiding behind.

Ducking and weaving in between the giant limbs taking swings at her Briony jumped on his arm and ran swiftly up to his back taking her knife and swooping a small amount of blood from him into her mouth. It tasted vile and she gagged, her body glowed with a faint black glow as it tried to process the new blood. Running into the room Richard had crashed through she retched silently, her nose beginning to leak blood.

A look of confusion swam across Briony's face as she dashed into another room, the blood, wasn't human, she began to panic slightly when she had to fight off convulsions as they wrecked through her body. The Tank sent another punch at her but Briony managed to put up a wall of solid shadows so the fist flew right back hitting him in the face. Giggling lightly Briony threw herself underneath it's legs and rolled to her feet.

Blinking rapidly while she was still trying to control the blood link Briony sent another sharp shadow blade at it, piercing it through the shoulder, rolling under the fist that flew at her Briony placed a hand on the knee of the monster sending a spike of shadows through it shattering the bones in it. Unable to move quickly out of the way from a stab of pain running through her Briony was swatted into the wall by a large hand a spike of wood impaling her in the stomach.

Groaning she got up from the floor, gently pulling the spike out of her stomach, not fast enough however because the dummy swatted her through another wall, the wound filling with dust and debris. Growling Briony's closed her eyes to fight the pain but blood leaked from them also, finally something clicked inside of her and the blood control was established.

With a roar Briony thought of the most painful thing to turn his blood into, she thought of acid, ducking and weaving the last punches of the dummy she slumped against the wall heaving up blood from her stomach as the dying dummy disintegrated, the acid having eaten it.

Slumping against the wall Briony took deep shuddering breaths and coughed up more blood, thumping her fist on the ground as she retched Briony tried to regain her composure. The pain was unbelievable. Her head pounded, her eyes hurt and her nose felt like it was being cut off with a spoon, groaning lightly Briony wiped the blood from her nose and tried to stop the bleeding from her eyes.

Briony took out her wand from her pocket and cleaned the wound of debris, it would do it no good, and she managed to heal the wound in her stomach all that was left was the cut. But Briony had no energy, she couldn't physically do anything else.

Richard walked through one of the ruined walls with his wand in hand and a frown in place. He was not at all happy with how this had worked out. Without turning to it, he flicked his wand at the remains of The Tank. Almost immediately The Tank began to fall apart at the seams, each falling part glowing before returning to one of the dummies which had originally made it.

He knelt down in front of Briony and frowned with concerntration as he waved his wand at her, casting a medical disagnosis spell. Noting that she had bruised a few of her ribs as well as the cuts she was still suffering from, Richard forced as much magic as he could into her chest, healing her ribs. He frowned when the ongoing examination spell found something wrong with her blood, as if it were tainted. Using his extensive research into human blood and it's composition he changed the tainted blood back into pure human blood. Finally he healed the cuts and gashes she obtained from flying plaster and wood from the walls. With a sigh he sat down next to Briony,

"And that is The Tank." he shook his head lightly, "My transfiguration master loved that one. He didn't give me the warning to run the first time. Spent two weeks in hospital with a collapsed lung, shattered skull and intestines resembling mush."

He looked at her with a small smile,

"I told you I could make better dummies..." he frowned again, "You should have told me what you're unquie magic was. I would have cleaned up the blood at least... not meantion probably not used the Tank in the first place."

He ran his hand through his hair,

"And god damn it Briony..." he was on the verge of crying now, "Was it too much to ask for you to just kill it outright with an AK? I almost lost you today... god damn it..."

He got back up and ran his hand through his hair once again,

"Can you move?" he asked her quietly, "Let's get you some potions and then take you home for some rest."

Briony gasped her body still sore and her skin painful to touch from the pain that had been going through it, she blinked rapidly the blood still coming down in small drips from her eyes. Even if Briony did feel a lot better for Richard's magic she just sat there numbly, ever part of her ached and she couldn't move a muscle. She couldn't even speak.

Slumping to the floor Briony gasped in pain as she tried to curl up into a ball, she shivered, her whole body convulsing as if remembering the pain. Briony felt tears now coming down from her face and however much she wanted to scream out loud she found she couldn't. Moving had taken the last bit of energy out of her and she just looked at the floor not even daring to move an eye.

Slowly Briony let her eyelids droop shut, she was just so tired. So tired all of a sudden. A cough racked through her and the remaining blood that was on her chest was cleared but she yelped in pain, the crimson liquid splashing onto the floor again.

Richard spun round and dropped to his knees in front of Briony again. He held onto her face, slapping her cheek lightly,

"Come on Briony... don't you fall asleep." he told her firmly, a note of panic in his voice. He cleaned the blood off of the floor almost instinctively as he started forcing more and more magic into Briony's muscles, willing them to have the strength to move her. With a very clear note of panic he whiped at the blood on her face, "Come on Briony... stay awake Briony... fight the pain god damn it Briony!"

Scooping her up in his arms he held her close as he looked down at her,

"Briony... we're going to St Mungos. Open you eyes and blink twice if that's okay." he tapped her cheek again, "Come on Briony... this is important. I need to know if I can take you there and not have them try and have you imprisoned because of your power."

Briony could feel Richard next to her, she could even hear him a little but everything came out in a tinny sort of sound she felt a little stronger and Briony didn't quite know why but she opened her eyes and looked dully at Richard. He looked worried and Briony groaned and tried to move a part of her. When Richard picked her up in his arms Briony yelped again when she felt his hands on her skin.

Ears pricking up when she heard St Mungo's Briony fought weakly against Richard's hold, not managing to break it but at least she was moving. Her breath came in ragged painful gasps but it was breath none the less. Dark black specks swam in front of her eyes and she closed them again, feeling her eyelids begin to droop and close once more.

"No."

She whispered, before gulping with the pain. Briony's voice came out raspy and she wondered if Richard would have even heard what she had said. Briony's eyes closed softly once more and her breathing became less noticeable.

Richard stopped moving suddenly and closed his eyes,

"Fuck." he cursed quietly. He'd hoped that it would have been one of those things that could be easily solved with a trip to a hospital, with little fanfare. But of course that was too much to ask for. With a wave of his wand he transfigured one of the dummies into a soft bed, which he gently laid Briony down on. He waved his wand over her body and mumbled a complex spell to himself, one designed to find the levels of pain found in the body it was cast on. Richard winced when he felt the same pain as Briony was, almost falling over as he cut the spell off. He cursed again before snapping a finger off of one of the dummies. Concentrating hard, he transfigured the digit into a syringe and quickly composed the air inside of it into the medical painkiller known as morphine. He walked back over to Briony, tapping the syringe to get any air bubbles out of the mixture. He smiled sadly, "Sorry about the needle."

He injected the painkiller into her arm before he began to deal with a much more pressing problem; her magical exhaustion. Dusting off a piece of knowledge he'd not had to use in years, Richard cut his fingertip before drawing a circle on Briony's forehead. With great care he then drew another circle on his own forehead. When that was done he pointed his wand in the middle of his own circle and activated the silent spell.

Instantly, Richard felt almost half of his magical reserves transfere straight into Briony's body. The shock of losing so much magical energy at once cause him to fall to the floor, his legs having seemingly lost all muscle power. He closed his eyes as he panted, lying on his back beside the bed he'd made for Briony.

Briony gasped as the needle went into her skin, her blood vessels were the most sensitive parts of her right now and if she could of Briony would have let out a loud scream. Shaking violently Briony felt the pain subside slowly, her eyes stopped leaking blood and her nose felt a lot better the constant pain in her body lessened so she merely felt a constant stabbing pain.

As soon as she saw what Richard was planning to do Briony tried to move her head away but she couldn't so half of his magical energy was transferred into her and Briony although feeling much better didn't want him to do that. After lying on the bed for about 2 minutes she got up from it, staggering slightly to the door and leaning on the frame to get her breath back.

"Don't do that again." She muttered

Briony made it to the stairs and sat on them, her head in her hands and she groaned once more the painkiller already beginning to wear off slightly but the dizziness it gave her stayed.

Richard nodded a little and sat upright from his position on the floor. Immediately the world began to spin and he clutched at his head to keep it from falling apart as the pain lanced through his mind. He groaned loudly and closed his eyes,

"I think you can count on me not doing that again..." he leant over to the side and dry retched for a few moments before groaning again, "God I forgot how much that sucks..."

Very carefully he pulled himself up from off the floor to stand on very unsteady legs. Slowly, so as not to fall over, Richard made his way over to the stairs, sitting down besides Briony. Leaning forwards, he put his head in his hands and rubbed at his temples,

"I'd give you another shot... but I don't think you'd appreciate it right now..." he muttered quietly, the now splitting headache not something he wanted to aggrivate by speaking too loudly. He cast a side-ways glance at Briony, "If you're feeling lucid enough now... care to tell me what hurts and how much? I might be able to numb the worst areas or heal something I missed before."

Briony growled and shook her head softly, moving away from Richard so that he couldn't touch her and give her any more help than he had already. She didn't want to hurt him any more than he had done already, true she was still in a great deal of pain but Briony was able to cope with it. Although it was nothing she had experienced before.

Her head shook from side to side to tell Richard that she didn't want any more help, she could handle this on her own. Briony could have done so without Richard's help she would just have taken a long time to be able to get back to normal. Groaning weakly Briony wrapped her arms around her stomach, it was sore with the retching and of course the pole that had been shoved through it.

She stood up as if to demonstrate how fine and dandy she was but Briony wavered a little bit and clutched the banister on the way down the stairs. Sighing slightly she sat back down and groaned, her legs and everything really still feeling fresh and stinging wildly.

Still not really wanting to speak, Briony stayed silent. Her whole body was a mess despite Richard fixing all the wounds, herself physically looked like a train wreck. She shivered once more, even thinking about it brought back the pain. Briony looked down at her hands, the veins were black still, she could imagine they were still like that all over her body. She must have looked frightful.

Richard slowly moved a strand of Briony's hair out of her eyes, careful not to touch her,

"Briony... are you sure you're alright?" he asked her quietly, a soft smile playing at his lips, "Because I've still got more to give if you need it..."

He swallowed a little and looked down at the blood on his hands,

"If it would make you feel better... I'd give every last drop Briony."

Briony moved her head slowly to look at Richard, she pulled her lips up in a small smile, her pain subsiding just a little bit. Briony coughed, trying to clear her throat so that she could speak to Richard, she needed to make the effort so that he wouldn't worry about her any more. The cough itself made her eyes widen a little bit with pain but she relaxed slightly once the wave had passed.

"I, I'm fine."

She managed to whisper quietly, her voice still raspy and Briony twitched her lips up in a smile once more.

"Don't give me any more."

That was all she could speak for now, her throat hurt again and began to constrict itself, Briony tried to take deep breaths and eventually the hurt subsided. Trying to stop a cough rising up in her mouth Briony took another lungful of air in.

Richard ran his hand through his hair in frustration,

"You're not okay Briony... I've been in unimaginable pain enough times to spot the signs." he noted dryly, now rubbing at his eyes tiredly, "But if you think you can handle it then there's nothing I can say about it. It's your choice after all."

He swallowed a little bit before standing up, a lot more steadily than before, and began to pace slightly,

"Well I have to do something with what I have left..." he ran his hand through his hair again, "To calm me down if nothing else."

Briony smiled weakly again, she knew that she couldn't hide anything from Richard really and that it would be pointless to try and keep this facade up, but, she hadn't put one up in the first place. Briony looked up at him with an eyebrow raised slightly, wondering what exactly he meant by doing something to calm him down.

"What..." Briony paused, took in a deep breath to steady herself and continued softly "Were you planning on doing?"

She stood up once more, managing to stay upright and Briony ran her hand through her hair, walking shakily back to the bed that Richard had transfigured for her. Flopping down onto the soft mattress Briony groaned and curled up in a little ball.