A/N: This chapter is really more on the dark/angst side, but I think it turned out okay! I was originally going to merge it with the next chapter, but then everything got confusing and long and…well, it kind of got out of hand so I split it into two chapters and I think it’s perfectly fine now! Enjoy!
“OUCH! IT GOT ME!”
“What? What’s wrong? What happened?”
“The stupid branch poked me!”
Alice rolled her eyes as she slapped her forehead. After letting out an exasperated but relieved sigh, she mechanically spun around and, with narrowed eyes and pursed lips, slapped Sirius straight across the shoulder with all her might.
“MMMFFF! It burns, it burns, it burns!” Sirius gritted his teeth as his eyes began to water. “Argh! Let go! I said let go, you evil spawn of a woman!”
Sirius’s shouts of anguish were muffled by Alice‘s hand, which had been expertly trained over the years to automatically clamp itself around Sirius’s mouth upon forcefully hitting him.
“You scared me Sirius! I seriously thought that you were in danger for a moment there,” Alice sighed irritably, her hand not budging from the tightly compressed position on top of the mouth of a desperately struggling Sirius, who was now anxiously attempting to bite off Alice’s fingers.
Alice coolly waited for Sirius to calm down, which he succeeded in doing a few minutes later, as usual. As he did, he stared at Alice with large tearful eyes, causing Alice’s complexion, at first scathing and unmoving, to slowly melt into an expression of pity and sympathy.
“Oh, all right Siri. You win. But I’ll only let go on the condition that you keep that highly animated- but wonderfully handsome,” Alice added hastily, glancing at Sirius’s tear-brimming eyes,” -mouth of yours shut. We have to concentrate on finding our friends before who knows what happens.”
Sirius nodded vigorously back in response. Alice slowly removed her hand.
“Ack- finally! Free, free at last!” Sirius quietly rejoiced, opening and stretching his jaws as soon as Alice was a few paces in front of him and out of slapping distance.
Alice gave him a worried look.
“Now remember Sirius, you promised not to make a peep. And, in the case you do cause up a commotion again, Anne has trained me very well in the area of slapping. Speaking of Anne, she’s going to have my head when I tell her that I let you scream,” Alice muttered anxiously, pacing back and forth like she always did when nervous. She spun around to face Sirius once more.
“She and Remus trusted us enough to let us pair up and go search for Lily and James without them. I know Remus and Anne will do a great job looking for James and Lily on their own, but that doesn’t mean that we shouldn’t try our hardest either!” Alice said determined, but hushed voice.
Sirius stared at her for a moment before smiling tenderly. He walked over to Alice and gently placed his hand on her shoulder.
“Don’t worry. I won’t fool around anymore. After all, Prongs is my closest friend, and you and I both know that I’d do anything to help him.”
Alice gazed up into Sirius’s strikingly handsome grey eyes.
“I know, Sirius, I know,” Alice smiled back, her body relaxing a bit.
Sirius beamed at her, then wrapped her into a comforting embrace. A few minutes passed before they broke away.
“Now, on with ‘Mission S.M.S.O.B.: Uproot the Flower With the Potter,’ as Anne phrased so nicely for us,” Alice said cheerfully. “Come on Sirius…Sirius?”
Alice stared confusedly at Sirius, who had suddenly frozen. His whole body seemed to tense up, as all his senses began to tingle with the instinctive warning that had been built into his system over his many years at Hogwarts. He tightened his grip on his wand.
He turned sharply around, causing Alice to gasp in surprise and hastily fumble out her own wand. Sirius’s eyes wandered into the tree-infested distance in front of them, then gradually traveled up to gaze into the night sky. As he aimed up into the heavens, both he and Alice heard the flapping of many wings.
It came quickly forward, like a thunder storm appearing seemingly out of nowhere in a clear blue sky. The flapping grew closer and closer with every second and seemed to sound from every corner of the forest. The smell of rotting flesh ensnared the misty atmosphere surrounding the two frightened teens.
Alice, following Sirius’s example, had also directed her wand up at the sky. She desperately tried to block out the increasingly foul smell that was smothering them with a fist full of the sleeve of her robes.
As the sound of flapping wings continued to fly speedily towards them, Sirius snapped around.
”RUN!”
He lunged at Alice, grabbed her by the hand, and began racing though the forest, dodging innumerable branches and leaves and causing the carpet of dry leaves on the forest floor to continually crackle and snap under their swift feet.
Alice made no queries whatsoever, but ran with Sirius with all her might, breathing in rapid and terror-stricken gasps. She managed to glance over her shoulder and thought she saw the glinting of a strange myriad of countless pieces of metal suspended mid-air.
Sirius furiously tugged on Alice‘s hand whenever she slowed down, forcing them to run faster and faster until he spotted a large fallen trunk of a tree lying on the ground in the distance. He never would have thought that such an old, ugly tree could look like such a holy sanctuary.
“QUICK, BEHIND THE LOG!” Sirius bellowed, as he desperately threw Alice and then himself behind the decaying wood.
He did so not a moment too soon, for as soon as Sirius and Alice had flung themselves into the safe haven of the shadows cast by the gargantuan tree, a countless number of gigantic, pitch black birds swarmed overhead, creating a bizarre moving ceiling above the pointed treetops.
As Alice pinched her nose with her fingers in an attempt to block out their sickening odor, she noticed that all of the humongous beasts carried talons of jagged, shiny copper. Try as she might, Alice couldn’t make out anything else in the mass of flying black that had merged with the darkness.
The strange creatures flew swiftly on into the night, their mammoth wings slicing through the air. Like the flow of the ocean’s tide, they soon disappeared into the dark horizon.
Sirius waited several minutes before unplugging his nose and daring to speak.
“What the hell was that?” he exclaimed, his eyes focusing towards the direction the uncanny mass had vanished to. He groaned and began to massage his temples as he turned around to face Alice. “Are you okay Alice?”
Sirius turned around and stared. For a few seconds, he was paralyzed with shock. He gave his head a violent shake and pinched himself, but the image before him remained as clear as ever.
Sirius had come face to face with not Alice, but himself.
Sirius stood immobile, nailed to the ground as he continued to stare, dumb-founded, at his exact replica. The replica returned Sirius’s stare, but unlike the actual Sirius, it was wearing a cryptic grin.
Sirius was pushed violently out of his daze as he heard Alice let out an unnerving screech of terror. He barely managed to snatch a glance of another replica, this time one of Alice, brandish its wand at the true Alice. There was a sudden blinding flash of red light as Sirius yelled out in horror. As the light receded, Sirius saw to his devastation, Alice lying limply on the dusty ground.
He barely had time to register the sight of Alice’s body, before his own duplicate turned its wand on him. The duplicate raised its wand, but before it had brought it down in a forceful slash, Sirius swiftly waved his wand in the pattern of a pentagon above his head.
A silent flash of lightning erupted from the tip of the duplicate’s wand as it brought it crashing down onto Sirius’s skull.
“Do you think they went in far, Moony?” Anne whispered to Remus, who was a couple paces in front of her, as she nimbly leaped over a fallen log.
“It’s hard to say. We merely saw them come in this way, and with all these wretched leaves on the damn floor, we can’t pick up any tracks,” Remus muttered agitatedly. He gave an aggravated sigh, and after a moment, turned around to face Anne. “Do you really think it was such a good idea to split up? I mean, I know Sirius can handle himself physically, but verbally, I’m not so sure.”
Anne smiled. Remus always seemed so poised and calm, but she knew that many of the times he was actually very worried in the inside. He just didn’t show it in case it made the others nervous.
“I’m sure they’ll be fine. And if he does misbehave, Alice hasn’t been around me for years without learning anything. She knows how to shut people up if she wants to,” Anne grinned as she stepped up next to Remus.
“Yeah…yeah I’m sure they’ll be fine,” Remus murmured, calming down as he observed Anne’s own composure. He made to turn around and set off once more, but before he did, he whispered to Anne, “You know Anne, you’re like fresh water to me. You always refresh me, and quench me in my times of dire thirst. Always cool and clean…Yeah, cool and clean.”
Remus grinned at her, then turned around and continued to walk ahead. Anne stared.
“That smile…The smile that makes my heart skip and my chest tighten. Every time I see it, I feel like I’m sinking into a pool mixed with anxiety and nirvana,” Anne blushed.
“Why, Remus Lupin, why can’t we be together?
Anne gave her head a forceful shake. The thought that had haunted her for years began to penetrate her thoughts once more. Even though she promised her conscience every day to never let that thought come up again, her sub-conscience wouldn’t let it go.
But she knew that they could never be together. They had agreed on it themselves many years ago. They had acknowledged it as their destiny ever since that night. The night she found out…
Remus suppressed a scream as Anne unknowingly stepped onto his heel.
“Oh! I’m so sorry Moony! Did I hurt you badly?” Anne startled.
“No, no. You just surprised me, that’s all. I’m fi-” Remus abruptly stopped speaking. He had suddenly sensed that someone, or something, was lurking in the darkness of the trees, spying on their conversation.
Anne, too, felt a strange sensation. Both she and Remus quickly side-stepped behind a tree while simultaneously whipping out their wands. They stood back-to-back so that if something attacked them from one direction, at least one of them would be ready to defend against it.
A few silent seconds slipped past, during which both Anne and Remus held their breaths, hoping that their instincts were wrong in that they both sensed something dangerous was creeping towards them on noiseless feet.
After a while, they lowered their wands and let out a sigh of relief. They laughed uneasily.
“That was a tad bit scar-” Anne finished her sentence with a scream of surprise and fright.
The tree that they had been using as a shield had suddenly sprung into life. As quick as a flash, it wound its long, jagged branches tightly around Anne and Remus‘s wrists and ankles. In their surprise and confusion, they both lost hold of their wands and watched helplessly as their only source of defense dropped to the ground.
Both of them struggled furiously with all their might, but neither of them prevailed. The strength of the tree was too great for them, and without their wands it was hopeless. Soon the monstrous tree had tightly stretched out their arms and legs, so that they resembled strange and distorted human stars.
Anne tried not to scream in pain, as she felt the sharp branches slowly press into her skin. She twisted her head to the right to try and catch a glimpse of Remus, but as soon as she did, the tree wrapped its branches firmly around her neck, slowly choking her.
She could hear Remus frantically screaming her name as everything in front of her began to spin, and she no longer could feel the continual supply of air that she suddenly realized she had always taken for granted. She struggled, but it was no use. She knew that these few horrific moments would very likely be her last.
“Remus,” she gagged. She could barely make out his voice still yelling out her own name.
Just as Anne began to lose all hope and consciousness, she felt her ensnarer loosen its grip about her bleeding neck. She choked and coughed as she graciously filled her lungs with precious air.
Suddenly, the tree’s firm grips about their ankles and wrists transformed into cuffs of iron, and its long branches likewise turned into long heavy chains.
Anne, still suspended mid-air by the chains, watched in amazed horror as her surroundings began to distort itself and melt like wax. She felt as if she were being thrust into a Dali. Everything- first the ground along with their wands, then the trees, and even the stars- began to twist and warp itself. They kept twisting and twisting, until they suddenly stopped and stood still.
Anne looked about her, bewildered. Then, in a blink of an eye, everything disappeared and all was swallowed into a vast void of pitch black darkness.
Anne hung limply with shock, her breathing coming out in short rasps. She tried to master the terror that was creeping up her throat.
“Remus?” she cried out into the darkness.
“I’m right here, Anne!” Remus sounded from somewhere to Anne’s right.
She quickly turned her head to see Remus chained mid-air beside her. Besides the fact that he was extremely pale and bleeding at the wrists and ankles, he wore a relieved and almost happy expression on his face.
“Are you all right? Your neck- it’s bleeding,” he stuttered.
“Yes, I’m fine,” Anne managed to smile. She suddenly realized that they were both drenched in cold sweat. She swallowed painfully as she felt the marks the wretched tree had left upon her neck.
She gazed at Remus, who was rattling his chain in renewed attempts to free himself. As long as he was okay, she was sure she would make it too.
But no longer had this thought escaped her mind, something stirred out of the darkness. With lightning speed, a strange elongated mass of black blob stretched and slithered its way like some demented snake towards Remus. He didn’t even have time to blink as it swiftly suctioned itself directly onto his face.
Anne didn’t realize that she had begun to scream. All she was aware of was the sight of the love of her life literally being erased into nothingness.
As Anne feverishly tugged at her chains, the black blob continued to take swift swipes at different sections of Remus’s body, each time erasing that specific part of him.
In a matter of seconds, Remus had disappeared, and Anne was left alone in the endless expanse of darkness to be drowned by the stifling quiescence, which was only periodically punctured by her sobs.
Please, somebody, anybody. We need help. Any help…
There was a rustling of leaves. Lily’s head snapped around to her left and stared at the spot where the rustling had come from. She quickly whipped out her wand and aimed as the leaves of the bushes shook again. The rustling continued, then Lily heard someone shriek. Lily’s eyes widened as she heard the same voice give another scream a moment later.
“AHHH! Sirius, Sirius I’ve found them!”
Lily’s heart skipped several beats.
Could it be?
Just as this thought flashed across Lily’s mind, Alice’s round face emerged from the bushes.
“Lily! James! We’ve found you!”
Alice shrieked with joy as she ran to where Lily lay. Alice’s face was wet with tears, and, as she helped Lily lift herself off James and shakily rise to her feet, Lily began to sob.
She threw her arms around the neck of her beloved friend and sobbed hysterically, letting out in short gasps and stifled mumbles of the horrors, trials, and the feelings of endless hopelessness she had endured throughout the night.
At that moment, though, Lily felt as if she were the happiest person on the face of the planet. Alice was there now, and they’d get James to the castle, safely into the hospital wing, and all would be well. She could finally say that everything would be okay.
But even as she related these feelings to her dear friend, she couldn’t help but feel that something was amiss.
Her tears began to recede as she realized that Alice- warm, affable, loving Alice- was not returning her embrace. Lily gulped as her heart suddenly skipped a beat. At the same time, she felt an odd and nerve-racking sensation fill her stomach. It rather felt as if the bottom of her stomach was falling out.
The paralyzing effect of horror and fear, now so familiar to her after all the events of the night were beginning, once again, to snare Lily’s senses. Terror-stricken, she couldn’t bring herself to pull out of the cold embrace.
“Alice, how did you find me?” Lily whispered, more afraid to hear the answer than anything.
Alice didn’t answer, only adding to Lily’s increasing emotion of dread.
“Alice?”
Taking a deep breath, as if preparing to dive into death‘s arms, Lily slowly withdrew her arms around Alice, and looked into the eyes of the one whom she had assumed to be her loving friend.
What she saw made her nearly vomit but her inestimable fear made everything within her freeze. She even felt herself stop breathing.
In the face of the stranger, Lily saw not the familiar warm brown eyes of Alice, but two gaping eye sockets, raw and red with rotting flesh. Even more gruesome than its eyes, was its mouth, which was twisted into a horrific grin.
The shock of seeing something so disgusting and wretched resemble one of her closest friends paralyzed Lily‘s very soul. She couldn’t even budge as she felt the horrible creature press its wand into her back.
“Alice…”
BANG!
The sound of the deadly curse echoed throughout the entire forest.
A/N: I hope that was suspenseful enough! REVIEW PLEASE!
A/N #2: Okay... so I just finished writing almost the rest of the Shattering Dreams sagas and there's more than just two parts to it. I hope that's okay... I don't want to make the Shattering Dreams saga very long if this first part isn't interesting with the readers. Well, review and tell me what you all think! Thanks!
A/N #3: Two of you guys reviewed saying how confusing this chapter is and I'm glad you told me because I just wanted to clear it up. This chapter is very confusing. All these things just start popping up with no explanation, right? Good! It's supposed to be that way! I'm almost done with the next three chapters and the answers will become more and more clear, but just to warn you, this is only the beginning! Thanks to all the readers! I'll stop writing this gigantic A/N now!