A/N: so sorry for the interminably long wait! It's been months since I posted! But school and pneumonia does that to a person! Well, here it is! Hope you enjoy!
“Wait, wait, wait, wait,” James blurted out, interrupting Lily’s explanation of the events that had taken a hold of them that night.
All six of them had run quickly up to Gryffindor Tower upon re-entering the castle, casting fearful glances behind them as if they expected Voldemort himself to pop out of a suit of armor. Panting for breath, they had arrived at the common room and had perambulated slowly about, absorbed in their individual thoughts, before sitting down one by one in front of the comforting blazing common room fire.
It had been silent for quite some time before James had requested to hear the whole story. Lily soon embarked on telling her side of the series of events, and everyone listened with every ounce of attention they held within them. Alice and Sirius interjected occasionally to clear up an obscure detail or two.
“So… while we were being attacked by this Manticore, you two-” James pointed at Alice and Sirius, both of them sitting side by side on a large, red velvet couch, “-were being attacked…by yourselves?” James asked blankly. His look plainly asked, “You’re kidding, right?”
“No, James, we’re not joking around,” Sirius groaned, as he sank back into the comfy couch, closing his tired eyes and rubbing them. James’s incredulous expression changed into a look of utmost surprise and horror.
“And, and then,” James said after a moment of silence, a wild and desperate laughter creeping up his voice. “A bunch of half-human, half-bird monster…things-”
“Harpies. They were called Harpies. Firenze told us,” Lily corrected quietly.
“Right. Well, these Harpies…they attacked us…and then we were saved from these half-human things by another half-human thing?” James’s voice cracked. “And this centaur, Fireballs-”
“Firenze! Why can’t you men get it right?” Alice practically screamed, making the whole group jump about a foot off their chairs.
“Right, right. Fireb- I mean, Firenze, brought us four to some supernal place where we all just kind of fell asleep and then, next thing we know, we’re on the Quidditch pitch without a single scratch?” James asked, trying hard to keep his voice calm and composed.
“Correct,” Alice grunted, as she too, fell back into the plush cushions. She laid her weary head on Sirius’s shoulder.
“Right,” James said. He looked at Lily sitting beside him to see if she looked a bit more sure and clear-headed, but she looked just as dumb-founded as he felt. The comforting fire’s flames danced about in her green eyes as she stared deeply into fire, lost in her own thoughts.
“Well,” James said after a while, clearing his throat and straightening up in his seat. “I suppose we four aren’t the only ones that were attacked in the forest, or wherever the hell we went. Anne, Remus… an explanation of your side of the story, if you please?”
He looked pointedly at the two, who were seated on either side of Alice and Sirius and obviously trying very hard to not catch each other’s eye.
Lily looked up from the fire, and Alice and Sirius both raised their heads. They also didn’t know what Anne and Remus had encountered.
There was a long period of silence, during which Sirius shifted uncomfortably in his seat and the others continued to focus their entire attention on either Anne or Remus. Both of them had their mouths clamped shut.
At long last, Remus spoke up.
“I vanished.”
Everyone raised an eyebrow at this enigmatic statement. Even Anne threw a furtive glance at him.
Remus took a deep breath before plunging into his account of the past events. He re-told the amazed group of how he and Anne had been captured and locked away into the darkness.
“Then the black thing slithered up to me. I barely had a second to see it coming, and then…” He suddenly shuddered as if he had been doused in ice-cold water. He put his forehead in his shaking hands before continuing.
“I was alone. Alone in a red room. I felt like I was suspended in blood, only I could breathe in it. And, and I heard whispers and laughter. They told me that all of you guys were dying, that I could do nothing to stop it. They just kept repeating it over and over,” Remus’s voice was muffled, as he had buried his terror-stricken face into his trembling hands.
Everyone had turned quite pale. Anne was now staring so intently at Remus that Lily thought her eyes would leap out of their sockets.
Remus drew in a deep breath as if he had emerged from a pool of water as he lifted his face from the depths of his tremulous hands. All eyes were glued on him.
“And then it started,” he whispered. “I kept…I kept...” He let out a shuddering sigh and gripped his knees to stop his fingers from shaking.
“I kept transforming,” he finally said. “Over and over again…”
James, Sirius, and Anne suddenly jerked up and sat as straight as a board in their seats. All of them had turned a great deal paler, and a look of utmost pity had engraved itself onto all of their faces.
Silence stole upon them once more.
The fire crackled and sent up bright pieces of glowing embers that disappeared into the dark depths of the chimney above.
“What did you transform into, Remus?” Lily asked slowly.
Sirius, James, and Anne exchanged swift looks before settling their eyes and furrowed brows on Lily. Alice, however, turned around to face Remus, a perplexed expression on her face.
“Yes, Remus. What were you changing into?” she asked. All eyes fell on Remus once more.
“That’s not important,” Anne suddenly growled.
Alice turned around to shoot Anne a surprised look.
“How is that not important? We need to solve this crazy mystery, don’t we? In order to do that we need all the fac-”
“I’m sure that Remus doesn’t remember. Am I right, Remus?” Anne cut Alice off succinctly and cautiously gazed into Remus’s eyes; the intense gaze that they fell into shut Alice up. There was a tense moment of silence before Remus answered.
“Yes. I don’t remember,” he said finally. “But, I do remember it all ending. There was this sort of ripple in the place I was trapped in, and it all just sort-of vanished. I was floating there for a second, then I fell. I just kept falling into nothingness. It was only then that I suddenly knew that the rest of you guys were okay. Only then did I get some peace. After that split second in which I regained my hope, I just sort of blacked out. When I woke up, I was on the Quidditch pitch with not so much as a scratch on me.”
All of this convoluted information was on the point of exploding within Lily’s head. What on earth had happened? Had it all just been a dream? But it had all seemed so very real. The pain, the horrors - they were all a sharp as needles in her mind’s eye. But if it had been reality, how did they all end up sleeping on the Quidditch pitch? Had Firenze brought them back? But then how did Remus and Anne come to be asleep on the field alongside them?
Lily’s head began to spin as all these thoughts fluttered wildly about her mind like quarry frantically attempting to escape a hunter’s lethal shots.
James’s voice pierced her bewildered musings like one of Firenze’s arrows.
“Anne, where were you?” he asked.
Everyone jerked out of their individual thoughts to turn their concentration towards Anne.
Anne avoided everyone’s questioning looks. She sat completely still and straight in her seat, her face impassive and her eyes averted to the carpet. Lily noticed, though, that Anne had suddenly tightened her grip on her robes at her knees. Her eyes still boring through the floor, she answered in a tone Lily knew was forced to be calm and poised.
“This is all Black.”
“What?” the others said perplexedly after a slight pause.
“It was her. It was Black. IT WAS BELLATRIX!” she screamed suddenly, all restraint shattered and tossed into the violent winds. Everyone cringed into the back of their seats as she jumped to her feet. Her face was white and contorted with fury, anguish, and frustration. Her hands were shaking so hard that they seemed to be threatening to fall off her wrists.
“IT WAS HER! WE DUELED AND I DEFEATED THAT EVIL BITCH! THAT BITCH! THAT FUCKING BITCH! HOW COULD SHE DO THIS? HOW CAN I STILL BE SILENT ABOUT IT? WHY? WHY? THAT EVIL, EVIL BITCH!”
The energy it was taking Anne to scream all this had rendered her down onto her knees. She gripped the carpet with both hands and began to tear at it, screaming herself hoarse. Tears began to cascade down her cheeks.
Everyone was paralyzed with shock as they sat paralyzed in their seats, staring at their hysterical friend.
No one had seen Anne lose control like this. In fact, it was rare for her to even scream, let alone lose it completely. Nobody in the history of Hogwarts had ever perceived this side of her. This was an Anne unknown to anyone, even to her closest and dearest companions. Out of all the surprises the night had supplied, Anne’s current behavior was the most shocking.
Anne collapsed onto her side, tearing at an invisible face with out-stretched fingers, screeching as if someone was attempting to kill her.
Lily could only watch, thoroughly frozen with shock, as her friend continued to writhe and squirm on the ground as if she were on fire.
Remus suddenly sprang to his feet.
He rushed over and grabbed Anne firmly by the shoulders. She tried wildly to beat him off, but he wouldn’t let go. He drew her tightly into his arms as she desperately flailed about, screaming and crying. Lily couldn’t tell which one of the two looked more immersed in pain.
Suddenly, Anne stopped screaming and struggling as abruptly as she had started. She filled her tired lungs graciously with a shuddering breath of air before her head lolled limply to one side. Her body relaxed, and her wild eyes closed peacefully. Remus continued to hold her tightly in his arms. He was breathing heavily. Anne had driven herself to the state of unconsciousness.
“Oh my goodness.”
Lily’s eyes, still wide with shock, looked towards Alice. She was sobbing quietly, one hand covering her mouth in order to repress the words of distress tumbling out.
Next to her, Sirius’s face looked as if he had run into his horrific duplicate again.
Lily’s eyes wandered onto James, who’s mouth was hanging open, all color drained from his face.
She looked at Remus. If she had been a stranger, who had happened to walk into the room at the moment, she could have sworn that someone had used the Cruciatus Curse upon him. A look of such profound pain and sorrow was imbedded into every aspect of his face, that from just looking at Remus’s countenance, Lily could of sworn that Anne had died and not merely fainted.
Everyone was dead silent.
Lily was the first to rally. She swallowed painfully, slowly wipe the tears from her eyes, stood up, and walked over to Anne and Remus. She knelt down.
“Alice and I should put her to bed now. She’s only just fainted,” Lily gently placed her hands upon Remus’s and pried them off of Anne’s limp body. Lily wrapped her own arms around her instead.
She lifted her face to look at the others. The faces that met hers were all entrenched in shock. She spoke with a calm voice. There was a look of determined coolness and composure upon her countenance.
“As for what happened tonight, I don’t think we should speak a word of it to anyone just yet. We can barely connect each other’s stories, so how could we ever prove that it was real and not just our imagination? People will think we’re crazy,” Lily concluded quietly.
“I…I think we should figure this whole thing out before doing anything else. And I also think that we shouldn’t press Anne to tell us anything for a while. She told us that it was Bellatrix, and that’s all we need to know for now.”
The others nodded stiffly.
“In fact,” Lily continued, determined to keep herself serene, “I think out of all the things we’ve told each other tonight, Anne’s makes the most sense. Sirius said before in the forest that he thought all this was caused by Dark Magic, and now I think it’s pretty obvious that he was right. I don’t know what happened, but I think it’s safe to say that Bellatrix Black was definitely involved.”
Anne suddenly gave a start in Lily’s arms. Her eyes opened a fraction of an inch. As if in a deep trance, she whispered,” I’ll protect you. I promised. Over my dead body. Over my dead body…”
Her eyes closed once more.
Everyone exchanged fearful glances. Everything was so confusing and strange, but one thing was certain, they had been in grave danger tonight.
With a sinking feeling in the depths of her stomach, Lily sensed that life would become much more confusing in the future.
The fire in the Slytherin common room flickered in its grate, illuminating the cold stone walls encasing the room. The green lanterns swayed mysteriously above on their rusty chains. They seemed to look gloomily down at the chilly room below as the large black grandfather clock chimed three a.m.
The flames suddenly and violently wavered as Bellatrix Black rushed past, her black traveling cloak billowing behind her. She hurried to the stone door ahead, but before she made her exit, she slowly turned around, panting as if she had run a mile, and let her eyes take in the familiar aspects of the common room that she had grown attached to during her last six years at Hogwarts.
She let out a long sigh, trying to calm her nerves and stop her whole being from shaking. She brought her pale, trembling hands up to her forehead and tremulously wiped some of the cold sweat that had beaded up on it. The fire sputtered once more, illuminating the fathomless fear that filled Bellatrix’s eyes.
As the heavy door slid open and as she hastily stepped out into the darkness, the dying flames gave a last splutter of an attempt to stay alive before extinguishing itself entirely.