Funeral

Fenrir tried to swipe behind himself, to get a hit on the assailant, yet inadvertently released his firm grasp on Irma. She turned around, and seeing the situation, instead of relief rage could be seen on her face.

"He was mine!", she snarled, her facial expression extremely unsightly and haggard. It was clear that the only thing that had kept her going until that point was the thought of finally getting her revenge.

"Relax, will you? I only immobilized him, must've missed the spinal cord though, seeing how lively he still is. The meds can fix him up like new and you can fight him as much as you want after you've recovered. You are in no condition to fight right now."

As Ross was talking, any Werewolf that was getting too close to him suddenly clutched at a dart in their chest, soon after falling over.

Ross took a set of restraints with runic arrays carved into them from a pouch on his hip, and one hand still holding the alley cleaver inside Fenrir's body so he wouldn't get any ideas, he used the other to quickly cuff one of the Werewolf's wrists.

Fenrir started struggling immediately, trying to avoid his other wrist getting cuffed. Irma seeing what Ross was trying to do, however, captured one of the unruly arms and with the remaining strength of her whole body, she held it still until Ross managed to slap another cuff around it. Immediately, the chain between the two wrists started contracting, pulling them tightly behind his back.

"Get the legs.", Ross instructed Irma.

Begrudgingly, Irma followed his orders, Ross removed the blade that was piercing the Werewolf's torso and Fenrir Greyback soon looked as if he had been hogtied. He shifted into his more human form, but the cuffs tightened as his wrists shrunk, not allowing him escape.

#AN: warning, do not google 'hogtied' at work.#

The only thing missing now was a gag in his mouth, or perhaps a muzzle would've been the more appropriate item.

Ross gave a nod to the side and a dart landed in Greyback's chest with a thud. The Werewolf was as lively as ever, and Ross raised two fingers. After a few repeats, Greyback's chest had no less than ten darts sticking out and he looked woozy for a while before he seemed to become still, not even breathing visible.

"The fuck's with that guy?", Ross shouted in exasperation.

Greyback's Werewolves, seeing that their Alpha was finally truly and well defeated, stopped advancing, as if waiting for something.

Irma glared at them, eyes still glowing golden, her knees almost buckling and shouted: "Kneel!"

As if they were the ones suffering from the side-effects of over-exerting their body to the extreme, all of the remaining Werewolves dropped to their knees. Then they lowered their chest down to the ground, waiting to be accepted by the new Alpha.

As Ross had been the one that did the actual defeating, he was the only one qualified, thus he shifted into a Werewolf, went to each of them and squeezed their necks with his clawed front paw, drawing some blood.

Irma finally fell onto her knees and then to her back – she had been using everything she had just to stand up and push through the pain of the side-effects.

Meanwhile, the little Dragon was hissing, no voice left in his throat. He seemed to be struggling with something. Finally, however, his scales started fading and his body contracting, until he had transformed into a very normal-looking boy.

In his human form, he felt the aftermath of using a 'Shout' even more clearly. His throat felt completely raw, as if it was stuffed with shards of glass, every time he swallowed, every time he breathed brought pain. He shuddered at the thought what trying to talk in that condition would feel like.

'Elves, I think whatever Wards were up, they're down now and you're free to move. Get me the Firepit medical team. There should still be knights and Werewolves from our side that can be saved int that pile.', as he transmitted the non-verbal and honestly quite complex order, he pointed at the mountain of bodies in the middle of the clearing. It looked like they would need an excavator instead of a medical team to retrieve all his men from there.

Gaude didn't believe it himself as he looked at it, there had to be thousands in there, he felt like there was no way they had killed or at least incapacitated that many.

There was also the matter of what he had done as a Dragon. He had used a Shout! That wasn't supposed to work, it was something from an entirely different universe! Once again, Gaude made a mental note to study the matter in more depth.

Gaude had completely lost his voice. He might be able to speak in whispers, but even that hurt like hell. If only he had a Dragon Egg to sip on, that would surely alleviate his condition.

Of course, the thought about a Dragon egg was something from Gaude's former life, at least he thought it was. He couldn't be sure anymore, the current and former life seemed to get more and more jumbled with each other, sometimes he even felt that some of his memories and ideas were a bit alien to him, as if somebody had put them into his head.

Gaude's magic reserves had recovered significantly ever since he had transformed – possibly having something to do with a Dragon being able to absorb ambient magic through their skin even when it was extremely resistant to magic that had already been shaped into spells.

Once Gaude had confirmed that Fenrir was completely incapacitated, he started going from one armored knight or Werewolf to another, using diagnostic spells to see if there was some life still left in them. It was quite obvious that those who had succumbed to the side-effects of Potion No. 5 would eventually recover, as they were rather loud about what turned out to be every voluntary muscle in their body cramping at the same time.

Fenrir was to be thrown into a solitary cell and hung from the ceiling by the chains. Fortunately, one of the elves had enough sense to fix the Werewolf's shorts, concealing that knotted piece of beast-meat from sight.

The medical team soon arrived and with a few words from the elves, started looking for survivors on Gaude's side and feeding them potions to stabilize them.

The elves helped out massively – they kept apparating away with the bodies of Greyback's troops, throwing those that had some life in them into one pile and those that were properly un-alived into another one.

The pile of dead bodies kept piling up at a rapid pace and finally, Gaude found out that he had lost a total of two hundred and thirty-seven knights and fourteen Werewolves. Gaude's heart bled at that – not because Gaude was on friendly terms with them. Gaude couldn't give less of a damn about their personality. It was because so much work had gone to waste due to his own mistake. He wouldn't let any more go to waste, they were his precious investment, the private army he had put so many resources into.

Of course, considering the number of enemies they had collectively killed, they were still deserving of some respect.

Once Gaude's surviving troops had been treated to the point of being able to move on their own once again, he commanded the elves wordlessly: 'Take the surviving enemy Werewolves into the holding chambers, around twenty per chamber should be about enough. Make sure to dose them with the Loyalty Cocktail, they'll be replacing the Werewolves their side killed and then some.'

The enemy side's Werewolves were treated for their most grievous injuries as well, with the exception that they were also given a teaspoon of Draught of the Living Death, so that they wouldn't get any strange ideas. They would be stored in piles until Gaude was ready to process them.

Next, Gaude contacted the trustiest of his elves and commanded: 'Laly, you'll be my voice for now. Take me up there.'

Gaude pointed towards the top of the pile of Werewolf corpses. The corpses of his knights and Werewolves were seated atop the pile in a circle, facing outward.

Laly cast a voice illusion in front of Gaude. It was one of the more complex pieces of House elf magic she could manage.

"Listen up, everyone!", Gaude shouted in a voice synthesized by Laly, waiting until every single one of his suborinates' faces were turned towards him.

"Tonight, many brave men came to fight an enemy that would've brought death and suffering to the innocent. Many of those brave men fell fighting that enemy. Let me tell you now, they will not be forgotten as nameless soldiers, for they are warriors whose brave deeds and name will be immortalized on the memorial wall of the Academy, to be an inspiration to those that come after. There are still many battles to be fought, as long as there are men with evil hearts in this world, we will be there to stop them.

In our first battle, against the Sanguini Vampires, we fought an easy battle, and because of it, I became complacent. It is my oversight as your leader to not gather the maximum intelligence possible, and my warriors were the price for it. I have learned my lesson and will do my utmost to reduce casualties in the future battles.

It is time to say your goodbyes to those brave souls as we send them away with the corpses of their enemies."

As Gaude's speech went on, the men seemed to regain their energy even faster than the potions would allow. They were expressing their pride in the victory and even their thoughts that Gaude couldn't have discovered the enemy's numbers beforehand. It felt almost as if they were about to get ready for the next battle.

Of course, the men were close to sweating loyalty potions, so they wouldn't be able to disagree with Gaude in the first place, but it was good to keep their morale high, nonetheless.

A few elves apparated atop the pile of bodies and started pouring gasoline onto it, preparing them for the funerary rite.

"In this world, there are a few things that one should keep a careful eye on: your castaway body parts, such as hair and nails; your blood and personal belongings and finally your corpse. All those things can be used against you by those that have sufficient means or knowledge. That is why all corpses must be cremated."

By the time Gaude finished, the elves had also finished dousing the corpses in gasoline. He had Laly apparate him off the pile. 'He' said: "Flesh to ashes, bones to dust. I hereby lay your soul to rest."

A bolt of fire flew out of Gaude's wand, quickly spreading on the pile of corpses, catching onto the gasoline, and as the heat rose and fat started seeping out of the mangled bodies, it caught fire as well, helping the process along. With black smoke, the flame rose skyward and Gaude's troops watched in silence as the giant pile of bodies burned for a while.

Finally, Gaude gave a mental command to his elves: 'Take everyone back to the Academy. Give them two days of vacation. They are to inform the families of the fallen that they died fighting for the Queen and country.'

It wasn't an outright lie, even if neither the Queen nor country had asked for Gaude to take his troops and fight a war against Fenrir Greyback. Still, the Werewolf had been a menace of the highest order and a danger to society.

Finally, Gaude had himself returned to the Dragon habitat.

With the help of Laly, he found a Dragon wrangler and, with the appearance of Charles Vywin said: "I'll need a Dragon egg for an experiment. Please fetch me one. It has to be fresh, not in the process of being hatched."

"Yes, sir.", the man said, going into a small heavily reinforced building within the Dragon habitat, the incubation room. The incubation room had come to use due to the fact that some female dragons were rather irresponsible with their eggs, allowing the eggs to cool too much and risking the fetus' death.

Soon, the man returned with a head-sized egg.

"It's a Norvegian Ridgeback's head. Is that good enough?"

"I believe it should do the trick."

Gaude stored the egg in his bottomless pouch and got himself apparated back home.

He was greeted by a worried-looking Amanda, who spoke: "What took you so long? Irma didn't say anything, she didn't even shower, she went straight to sleep and now the bed is stinky."

"Well, things got a little bit out of hand, but it worked out in the end and we got the one we were after. I think we shouldn't disturb Irma. She might not be showing it on the outside, but she's very frustrated, she wanted to fight that guy herself, but she was way too tired by that point.", Gaude whispered, his voice far from being recovered. He winced a little with every word he spoke, but Amanda was one of the people he cared about enough to make that extra effort.

"Why are you whispering?", Amanda whispered back, just in case. Each bedroom was warded against any outside noise and she knew that, she just thought there may have been a different reason.

"I have no choice, when we were in a tight spot, I tried something new and the price of breaking out of an encirclement was my voice. I have no idea how long it will take to recover without this.", he explained while taking out the Dragon Egg. Gaude had walked to the kitchen by that point and with the help of a large-caliber drill, he managed to make a reasonably sizeable hole into the side.

Gaude had already tried magic and discovered that the egg was at least as resistant to it as the scales of a Dragon, meaning it would either have no effect or when the spell was powerful enough, it would most likely destroy the entire egg in one go.

Gaude took out a large two-pint mug and poured some of the egg's contents into it. His gut feeling was telling him he needed to consume the white raw for it to have any effect on remedying his condition. Still, he wasn't going to drink it straight from the egg, he wasn't a barbarian after all.

Gaude gulped down the egg and felt the soreness in his throat receding, as if the egg white was melting those shards of glass in his throat away.

"There, much better.", Gaude said in a voice that broke and crackled, as if he had fast-tracked it straight to puberty. He figured he'd fully recover by the next morning at the latest.

Yet, it turned out to be too early for Gaude to celebrate, one of Laly's subordinates suddenly apparated in front of him.