Author's Note: Thanks to everyone that commented at DLP and to the helpful reviewers here at PC. 

This chapter has bee re-edited to fix my glaring errors. 6/26

Chapter Four

The Hounds of Tindalos

Harry got three steps out of the Special Section before he was able to identify the exact location of the screams. Twenty feet to his left he spotted a sign that read Restrooms.

"Crap," he said to nobody in particular and then rushed toward the loo. "Padma, lock off the area. Get everyone out!"

Not wanting to slow his increasing pace he flung out his wand and yelled, "Reducto!" The dark red beam shot out and blasted the restroom door to splinters. He quickly noted the wet tiled floor and a small u-bend corridor before he deduced he would enter the restroom proper.

His boots slid on the tile and he grunted as he slammed into the wall. Spinning around he finally faced the creature. It stood on six extremely muscled legs ending in large clawed hands, not paws. A barbed three foot long prehensile tail whipped back and forth. The most disturbing feature was the almost human-looking face with pure white eyes and a gaping maw filled with jagged teeth dripping with grey ichor. It reminded him greatly of Moony in his werewolf form except the mouth unhinged and expanded well beyond what should have been possible.

"Bloody hell!"

Manspark lay screaming on the floor mere feet in front of the creature clawing at his face, his face that was covered in a blue mucoid substance.

The creature turned its head and gave Harry its full attention as it emitted a high-pitched ear-piercing screech that made him think his ears were going to implode. Without waiting for further preamble he slashed his wand in a diagonal swath through the air. "Sectumsempra!"

The effect was immediate and disgusting. The curse ripped into the hide and part of the creature's face opening a three foot long gash which resulted in a spray of blood in a downward arc. Within a second Harry noted two things: the blood was bright blue, and the creature was severely pissed.

Leaving Manspark to rip at his face it turned fully to Harry and leaped. With almost no room to maneuver he jumped to the side and the exit of the room. The creature's claws dug into the tile at its feet and ripped apart the floor as it gained traction to turn. It bounded up the wall and leaped backward as it spun in the air to tackle Harry.

"Avada Kedavra!" Padma yelled from behind

The sickly green curse that Harry had become intimately familiar with throughout his life hit the creature in the face and had absolutely no effect. He pushed backward and rolled to the side as the creature slammed into the floor inches from his body. Its claws dug through the thin carpet and into the concrete underneath.

Harry rolled away again but he had no time to gain his feet before the creature opened wide its maw and snapped at him. Its tongue shot out another two feet beyond its mouth and Harry noted with a surprised yell that it had a mouth full of fangs all its own.

"Gah!" Quickly deducing that typical curses weren't going to work he played with the idea of incinerating the foul thing with Fiendfyre, but doubted its effectiveness. Instead he stayed with what he knew worked.

"Sectumsempra!"

This time the curse cleaved the large face in half and the keening wail sounded again louder than before. Harry slammed his hands against his ears and winced at the lancing pain. Blue blood sprayed and he pushed back with his feet digging in to the carpet for traction to put as much distance between himself and the creature as was possible.

Padma invoked the curse as well, hitting the creature from the side, amputating one of its middle legs. It spun on her and as it did a spray of blue blood whipped across her body. The effect was immediate: she screamed.

"GET IT OFF! GET IT OFF!" She spun around and threw herself to the floor tearing at the blue blood coating her face.

Black rage filled Harry's soul and he lanced out again forgetting his doubt from before. "FIENDFYRE!"

Living flame engulfed the creature searing its hide. The flame swirled in tornadic circles eating at its flesh as the creature literally bounced in the air and then to the ground several times in agony. "Die you fucker!"

Harry took his attention away from the creature for a split second to whip his wand at Padma. "Scourgify!"

Her screams continued but in a less demanding tone. Harry hoped that he had cleared all of the blue blood away but he was too distracted by the monster from hell.

The creature flailed for another moment then bounded back trailing the living fire along with it and ran at the wall behind. Smoke billowed out at the inverted corner and the creature disappeared into its depths.

"What the fuh?"

Padma's screams ceased moments after the creature's disappearance and turned to sobs as she curled into a fetal ball. Harry got to his feet and moved to check her injuries. Her hands were spotted with her own blood from clawing at her exposed skin in effort to rid herself of the creature's blue blood.

"Padma, you'll be okay. Here, let me heal the scratches," Harry said in soothing tones. She fought him briefly, struggling with his attempt to see her face. Finally he used his strength to pry one of her hands away. He passed his wand along the fingernail wide cuts she had inflicted on her face and hands incanting a skin knitting charm along the way.

"What the hell was that thing?" he muttered when he finished.

She looked up at him and shook her head with lack of knowledge. Once he saw that she was in control of herself he looked back at the restroom. "You okay?"

"I'm fine. Go," she said in fear for their traveling companion.

Harry still held his wand in front of him as he entered the restroom just in case the creature decided to make another appearance. He blew out a breath of relief when all he found was Manspark's body on the floor, unconscious.

His face was a mess of self-inflicted wounds and Harry noted one of his eyes had been punctured and was leaking a clear viscous fluid down the side of his face. He checked the pulse point at Manspark's neck and sighed at the irregular rhythm.

Numerous yells filled the air as campus security decided to show up. Harry dug in his pocket for his Auror badge and had it out and open when two of them entered the restroom.

"What happened here," the older of the two men snapped.

Harry didn't bother with answers just yet. "This man needs a healer. You can interrogate me later." He looked over at the younger man who held his face in a disgusted grimace at seeing Manspark's visage. "Now!" yelled Harry.

O_o

"I don't give a crap if you allow it or not. I'm not leaving this room until I see at least three Aurors here standing guard," Harry said with determination at the security guard that first arrived at the scene in the library.

While the campus hospital seemed safe enough so did the basement of the library. Two healers were working on saving Manspark's eye while others were insuring that he actually stayed alive through the shock that his body had been though. Apparently being over sixty years old and being attacked by a rampaging demon type creature wasn't good for the heart.

"Auror Potter, it's not …"

Harry cut him off. "That's Senior Auror Potter."

"Excuse me?"

Harry held up a finger and retrieved his credentials again. Flipping them open he pointed to the rank in front of his name. "See, Senior Auror." Harry shrugged and gave the guy a shy smile. "Yeah I know. It's a recent promotion but darn it, I'm proud." He sighed noticeably. "And to think, I've only got about five more years and I can be considered for Head Auror."

The security guard gave Harry a face that said he wasn't buying the act.

"Though Head Auror kinda has a … yanno, a gay tone to it," he mock whispered. "I was hoping I could change it to Chief Auror or maybe Auror-in-Charge. What do you think?"

The security guard turned around and left the room. Padma stood aside as he was leaving and gave Harry an inquiring look. He returned it with a baffled shrug.  

"All I asked him was if he thought the sword made my butt look big." He shook his head in resignation. "I guess some guys just aren't secure with their sexuality."

After rolling her eyes Padma took a quick look at Manspark, or at least his legs considering he was surrounded by healers. "How's he doing?"

"He's not dead and that's all I'm concerned with for now," he replied. "What'd Lizzie say?"

With a disapproving scowl Padma leaned against the wall. "The Queen sends her regards for saving Sir Rupert. She has the Deputy Secretary under close guard around the clock."

Harry leaned back mirroring Padma's stance against the opposite wall and crossed his arms. "I'd really like to get back to the library and catalog this thing. It kinda pisses me off that splitting its freaking head in two had almost no effect except for making it run away." He made an exaggerated look of disgust. "Fiendfyre, Padma. It acted like it was just normal fire and it still didn't die. I mean if someone split my head open and set fire to me I'd at least have the decency to lay down and die."

"You didn't use the sword," mentioned Padma.

"Pardon?"

"The sword?" Padma said as she pointed to his side. "We gave it to you so you could maybe kill the thing."

He arched an eyebrow at her. "Tell you what, the next time the six-legged psycho man-dog from hell is racing at you I'll give you the two foot sword that glows in the dark and see how well you do. Me, I'm putting as much distance between us as humanly possible." He shook his head in reflection. "I mean did you see the size of the mouth on that thing? Oh, Oh, and the tongue! It had a mouth on its tongue. Who does that? I mean here I am, I'm God or Satan or whatever, and I say to myself, 'self, one gigantic freaking mouth isn't enough, let's put another one on the tongue!'"

"Mr. Potter?" said on of the healers as he rounded the bed.

Harry arched his chin in the air. "That's me."

The healer slid his wand into his smock and struck a lecturing pose with one hand in the pocket at his hip and the other waving around emphasizing his points. "Mr. Manspark will recover. We've grown a new eye to replace the damaged one; however we are unsure whether or not it will function properly because of a foreign contagion. We had a devil of a time growing new nerves." The healer gave off an excited air. "It was quite a challenge."

Harry's eyes went a little wide. "Well Doc, I'm glad we could get you off so easily. Want to step outside for a cigarette?" Before the healer replied Harry slid in a question. "When's he good to go?"

The healer looked thoughtfully. "Ideally I'd like to keep him overnight for observation just in case there is a problem with the new eye."

Harry nodded. "Fine. I'm having the Department of Magic send over some Aurors to keep guard. Would you inform your staff that they are not to send them away for any reason?"

Now the healer looked kind of wishy-washy. "It's not really department policy…"

Harry leaned in and his face hardened. "This is a close personal friend of the Queen of England and she would be greatly pissed off if this man dies while under your care. Now Padma and I took care of the thing that tried to kill him a couple of hours ago, but it's not dead yet and will likely try again." He stepped closer and watched as the healer retreated a couple of paces back. "If anything happens to him before I come back because of department policy I will be well and truly pissed off. And Doc – you really don't want to be around when that happens."

o_O

Once the Department of Magic provided the requisite Aurors Harry gave them a quick briefing and left them to do their business while he did his. Upon their return to the Special Section they noted that everything had been repaired and no sign of the attack remained.

"Creepy," Padma said in hushed tone. "We almost died here only two hours ago."

Harry shrugged. "You can't think like that, Padma." He jutted his chest out a little to appear more confident. "We kicked the bad guy's ass just a couple of hours ago and sent him back to lick his wounds."

She held her head a little higher at that realization.

"And you kicked ass, by the way."

A satisfied smile crossed her face. "I did, didn't I?"

Harry closed and laid his left arm across her shoulders. "Yeah, kinda made me a little excited seeing you standing there all pissed off, protecting your man. Avada Kedavra, and all that."

She stopped and reached over to remove his hand with a single finger and thumb. "There will be no more warm oil massages, Harry."

He stopped while she continued. "Wha…" He cursed himself and tweezed his fingers. "That close."

The librarian gave them both a wary look as they entered and Harry returned a fish-eye. "Do you guys practice the disapproving glare or something?"

He found himself ignored and the librarian pushed on to a more pertinent subject. "The materials have been returned and I have instructions not to allow you further access."

A bright smile lit up Harry's face. "Oh really! I finally get to kick somebody's ass?" He leaned into the counter. "Hop on your little phone or floo, or whatever it is you Yanks use to yap at each other and get whoever gives you your marching orders down here." On second thought Harry added, "There's about to be an international incident."

Padma set her hand on Harry's shoulder and closed next to him. "We just need to see the Necronomicon. The rest of the materials were not fruitful."

The librarian's eyes jogged back to Padma and Harry could see the internal fight he was giving himself to resist Padma's charms. "It's just … the library has one of the most valuable collections in the world. We can't take the chance on …"

"What's your name?" Padma added in a seductive tone.

Harry rolled his eyes, turned around and leaned his elbows against the counter as he looked the other way.

"Chip," he answered.

"Oh, that's such a cute name," Padma said in delight before her face turned semi-serious. "Chip, look, Harry and I are trying to find out what that thing was that attacked our friend … and me." A sad look came over her face. "What it did really hurt me, Chip. Do you want me to get hurt again because we didn't know how to defend ourselves properly?"

Chip shook his head in a daze. Harry looked like he was going to lose his lunch.

She smiled thankfully. "That's so sweet of you. Well if you let us look at that nasty book we'll get out of here and you won't ever have to see Harry's face again."

Padma laid it on thick when she tossed her hair to the side and tilted her head revealing her long, smooth neck.

Chip's eyes shot straight to the bared region and he almost jumped to his feet. "I'll give you guys one hour. That's shift change. After that I can't do anything."

Padma's eyes brightened. "Oh Chip, thank you!"

After turning back from a big pile of goo, Chip disappeared into the stacks.

"I think I'm going to vomit from the sugar overload," said Harry as he stuck his finger down his throat mockingly.

They made their way to the workroom they used previously and waited for Chip the Librarian to bring the dark tome. When he arrived he set it in front of Padma with an eager smile. Harry wondered if she was going to give him a nice scratch behind his ears and say 'good boy.'

Instead she asked, "You wouldn't by chance know if it's indexed?"

Chip shook his head. "I'm somewhat familiar with the content. What are you looking for?"

Padma ran her finger across the table in lazy arcs and pouted slightly. "We're trying to find out what that thing was that hurt me."

Chip opened the book and checked the table of contents then he paged though until he reached about three-quarters of the way. "Planier Creatures are listed here. You'll have to search through to find what you are looking for."

She gave him a bright smile. "Thanks Chip. I don't know what we would have done without you."

The librarian turned into a pile of metaphoric goo again and slithered off with a dumb look on his face. Harry just looked on dumbfounded. "Do you always get what you want?"

Her bright smile dropped and her eyes closed slightly as she turned to him. She opened her mouth just enough to run her tongue slowly across her top lip. She inhaled slow and deep in effect lifting her breasts slightly in an overly seductive gesture. Harry swallowed while other parts of his body twitched.

"Never mind," he said as he looked away and whispered to himself, "Bloody women."

Padma smirked and looked down at the book and the first etching before she paled.

O_o

"Okay, now I'm sure I'm going to vomit," Harry said as he pushed the book back toward Padma.

Her face had regained its color after the last time they had switched. Taking turns between pages had reduced the amount of revulsion they both felt at the etchings.

"I mean a polymorphous frog demon that slurps up its victim's intestines like spaghetti is putting me off pasta for a while," he said as he swallowed down the bile rising in his throat.

Padma held up her hand. "Please, I'm still trying to get over the parasitic cephalopod that burrows its way into the brain by way of the spine and makes you eat swine droppings."

Before Harry could respond with something sarcastic she cut him off. "Harry! Here it is!"

  Harry took a breath and leaned in over her shoulder. "The Hounds of Tindalos. What's a Tindalos?"

She pulled the tome back to her and let out a frustrated sigh. "I think it's more of a where not a what. Look it says here that they materialize through angles. When the hound is about to appear smoke gathers at a corner and then you will see its head appear. From what you told me, that's what happened when it left."

Harry backed up. "Let me get this straight. It comes from corners? That has got to be the lamest thing I've ever heard?"

She pointed out something else. "Here, it says that 'the foul expresses itself through angles; the pure through curves.'"

He lifted up an eyebrow. "So all we have to do is stick Manspark in a big round inflatable ball and he'll be cool, right? It'll be like that bubble-boy movie I saw."

"Would you please be serious for one moment?" was her reply.

He sat down and leaned back. "Fine, so how do we kill the hounds?"

She held up a finger. "Give me a minute."

After a few minutes she leaned back with a far away look of dread in her eyes.

"What?" Harry asked as he sat forward in his seat. She didn't say anything so he followed her finger as it still lay against the last passage she read.

The Hounds are immortal and are believed to lust after something in humankind and other normal life, and will follow victims through time and space to get it. Once a human becomes known to one of these creatures, a Hound of Tindalos will pursue the victim through anything to reach its quarry. The Hounds are like fire, and ice, and rage. They are like the night and the storm and the heart of the sun. They are ancient and forever. They burn at the centre of time and they can see the turn of the universe.

"So this is bad," Harry deadpanned.

Padma turned to him. "Harry, they're immortal. They can't be killed. And we've become known to them. They won't stop until we are dead."

"According to this thing," he said with much doubt in his voice. "Padma, I've killed Evil that thought itself immortal before. And we already know that it can be hurt." He leaned back and brought a thoughtful look to his face. "We just need an edge."

"The sword?"

His eyes sharpened. "What? No. I … do you actually thing that this thing would take down that beast we fought without it ripping off my head in the process?"

"The spear then."

Harry shrugged. "Perhaps. It's nice and long."

Chip the Librarian opened the door and stuck his head through. "Time."

Harry stood up and waited until Padma gathered herself together before brushing past Chip. "Oi, Spanky! Give it up. I don't share well."

Padma stopped and gave Harry a dark glare as he passed her up. "What makes you think I'm yours to share?"

Harry smirked. "You were mine as soon as I felt you spend more time than was necessary spreading oil on my butt this morning."

Her eyes shot open. "Wha…"

"Don't deny it. You rubbed that butt nice and good."

She looked back at Chip. "It was an anointing ritual. I did not rub his butt any more than was absolutely necessary."

Harry made his way down the hallway. "Just letting you know up front, Patil, I don't go in for the whole pegging thing so get that out of your dirty mind."

He jumped through the doorway to avoid the stinging hex she threw his way.