27: Deserted
Damn, it’s cold.
The air felt like ice and the silence that shrouded it was deep, chilled and disconcerting. Remus could not explain, even to himself, why this hush that had penetrated the Institute was so very different to the quietness of the night before, but somehow it tasted stranger, colder, more threatening than the simple quietude of emptiness. It felt wrong.
We have to get out of here. Quickly.
The squeak of hinges as Felisha slowly eased back the silver grill of the Level Six lift pierced the silence with a stab for instant but then was swallowed whole. No sound here would live for long.
“Come on.” The researcher’s voice was a hushed whisper. “The portkey for this level is near the boardroom. We can kill two birds with one stone.”
“I’d have preferred a less violent analogy.” Remus wasn’t sure he’d ever felt less like making humour, but the oppressive chilly silence was weighing upon him, his heart pounding ridiculously in his chest as though to speed his pace along as he started hurriedly into the corridor, one foot after the other echoing briefly, faint and soft against the floor. “And you do realise that if I’ve just gloriously overreacted to a broken portkey, we’re about to walk right in on the very people we should be avoiding.”
Felisha fixed him with a pointed gaze. “Somehow, I was imagining that you might wait outside. Though for the look on Croll’s face, it might almost be worth it.”
Remus smiled slightly, a forced and awkward gesture. “Thank you but I can do without that pleasure.”
The corridor extended before them, empty, heavy, filled with cold; Remus fought not to shudder. I don’t want to be here, dear Gods, please get me out! He had never been even remotely claustrophobic but the weight of the pending moon and the shivers that laced his blood seemed to fray his nerves to breaking point. He longed to run, to sprint, to hurl himself through the corridors until he was out, blessedly free of this strange place with its strange air and unseen sense of menace but he couldn’t, he dare not. Time was of the essence, yes, but so was stealth. It was not good running hard and fast into the arms of danger.
We have to take care. Calm down, Remus. You’ve got time yet.
Ahead, the Level Five reception chamber opened out before them, its bright cushions and Moroccan rug all but overwhelmed by the suffocating silence around them. Cymone’s desk was its usual dishevelled mess, Rebekah’s office door was firmly closed and the silver grills that gave access to the lift and to the emergency stairs were…
Remus froze. His eyes fixed upon the entrance to the stairwell.
That’s not right…
“Felisha,” he said softly. “Correct me if I’m wrong, but shouldn’t the grill to the stairwell be sealed?”
“Yes, of course it…” Felisha’s sentence tailed away as her eyes followed Remus’ to encounter the very same sight. “It’s open,” she breathed in shock. “Why in Merlin’s name has it been left open? No one on the staff would ever be so…”
“Unless they were running for their lives,” Remus’ soft interruption drew Felisha’s instant stare. “And didn’t have time to close it.”
He felt Felisha’s free hand curl around his wrist. “I really don’t like this, Remus.”
“I know.” Remus was quite proud that he managed to sieve all of the anxiety from his voice as he spoke. Don’t dive down the stairs, don’t dive down the bloody stairs! Lupin, get a hold of yourself! “But we have stay calm and alert. It may be our only way out of this.”
Though the words were as much for himself as for her, he felt her fingers tightened. “I wish I knew where Avin was.”
“I wish we did too. But there’s nothing we can do about that now.” Remus hoped his words did not sound harsh “ that was not even remotely his intent “ but in his strangely heightened sense of anxiety, he found it difficult to tell. “But the best thing we can do is get out of here and bring back reinforcements as soon as we can. Now, which way is that portkey?”
Wordlessly, Felisha led the way across the deserted reception, past the gaping open maw of the dark stairwell and into the corridor beyond. They passed the entrance to her office still without speaking before turning right down a fresh branch of passageway and into a part of the Institute that Remus had not yet seen.
And he didn’t particularly want to see it either.
He couldn’t recall ever feeling quite like this before a change. The closest he could think of was that awful night when Kane had broken into Hogwarts and Remus had barely been able to control the rising anger of his wolf, almost freed for the first time in years. But this was something new entirely “ he felt as though certain parts of himself were being tweaked, picked at and he found himself battling with a mixture of irrational irritation and cold fear all bound up in an overwhelming instinct to bolt away before it consumed him entirely. Breathing deeply, Remus struggled to bring himself back into some kind of order.
Calm. Rational. Control. Calm. Rational. Control. Calm…
The chill was deeper here. It seared against his bones.
What the hell is the matter with me?
“There’s another lift that goes down to Level Four just ahead on the right.” Felisha’s voice, when it came, almost caused Remus to jump as it flowed into the silence tensely, riddled with an edge of forced calm and suppressed fear that seemed alarmingly familiar. “It leads to Zelia’s Potion labs and the rooms where some of us do research. The portkey is the lamp three alcoves beyond it. The boardroom is just around the corner of the corridor opposite.”
Remus nodded softly in response, forcing himself to chant his mental mantra once again as he struggled to maintain his air of composure. “I’ll check the portkey. You go and see if there’s anyone in the boardroom.”
With a brisk nod, Felisha took a firmer grasp on her wand and moved quickly ahead. A few steps later, she turned left down another corridor and vanished from view.
Remus took a deep breath. Odd shivers and sense of growing detachment was creeping across his body with alarming determination. Whatever else was wrong, there was no stopping the approach of the inevitable.
Only a few more hours to the moon. We have to hurry…
Moving rapidly, Remus passed the silver grill of the small lift and counted his way quickly along light globes beyond it, one, two…
Damn. Damn!
Even with the implications of the first portkey, of the Institute’s eerie silence, a part of Remus Lupin had still hoped he might be wrong, that the Institute staff would still be in their meeting, that his suspicions about a Death Eater takeover were nothing more than paranoia.
But two smashed portkeys was a different matter.
Reaching out, Remus scooped the shattered shards of the Level five portkey into his palm. He fought down the urge to grind the remains into powder with his fist.
So much for the easy way…
“Remus?”
A raise of his head found Felisha, appearing out the corridor she had vanished down with washed out features and uncertain eyes.
“The portkey?” she asked without much expectation.
“Somehow, I’m sensing a theme.” Remus raised a sardonic eyebrow as he lifted up the broken pieces, rotating them with one finger in the palm of his hand as he gazed down at the wreckage of another hope. “I don’t think we’re going to have much luck with these. The boardroom?”
“Deserted.” Felisha’s face had grown, if possible, even paler in the last few minutes. “But not in the way I expected. Come and see for yourself.”
Depositing the shards back into their holder with a flick of his hand, Remus turned and followed the researcher back along the passageway to a large set of double doors that had been flung broadly and dramatically apart. And beyond, lay the boardroom.
It was large and predictably grey, with a long wooden table set with severe looking chairs running nearly its length. The walls too were lined with seats all except for one corner into which was indented a small door that Remus assumed to be some manner of broom cupboard or storeroom. A large depiction of the Institute’s symbol emblazoned the wall to the left.
As Felisha had said, it was empty. But it did not look as though it should be.
In sconces around the wall, unexpectedly bright candles had been placed between each of the light globes, their wicks still glowing as a drift of smoke implied that they had been only recently snuffed out. Each chair was tidily, almost precisely tucked into its given place at the table, and beside each of these places sat a pile of paper, some neat, some skewed more scruffily, a quill and ink point and glasses of water, variously filled. Several half empty plates contained crumbly looking biscuits. The air hung heavy and stank of a powerful, saturating scent, musky and spiced. For an instant, Remus’ vulnerably weary eyelids were forced to battle with the urge to close.
“Croll is a creature of habit.” Felisha’s voice echoed gently against the empty walls, jerking Remus back to attention. “Even for an emergency meeting he would have insisted the formalities be observed. Notes and quills for everyone at the table. Refreshments available for all. I can just see him fiddling about with water spells while everyone else sat around chaffing at him to get to the point.” Her brown eyes raked over the immaculate grey but profoundly empty boardroom. “This is just how it always is for our meetings. Except that there’s nobody here.” Frustration keened in her voice. “You’d think if they had fled, there would be more of a mess. And surely if someone had taken them all, there’d at least be some sign of a fight. I know Avin and his colleagues wouldn’t go quietly.”
The wrongness seemed amplified here, such an ordinary room left barren, empty, stripped of life by an unknown hand. The chill had lessened a little against the heat of the remains of the candles, but somehow the residual stink from the drifting tendrils of smoke was worse.
“This is strange.” The odour in the air was whispering at his nostrils “ his treacherous eyelids flickered once more and irritably he fought them open. Bloody scent, what in Merlin’s name… “Leish, what’s that smell?”
Felisha rolled her eyes. “Oh, that. It’s Zelia’s Harmony Candles. They’ve got some kind of calming potion infused into the wick. She always lights them before every meeting to insure a harmonious and peaceable exchange of views.” She sniffed slightly and wrinkled her nose. “They aren’t usually this strong though. She must have over-egged this batch.”
To say they did not smell especially harmonious to Remus was an understatement. “Do they work?”
“Not really.” Felisha smiled wanly. “ Mostly they just put you to sleep. Which in these meetings is often a blessed relief to tell the truth.”
Diplomacy could go hang. “Well, they’re vile. And they’re making me dozy.”
Felisha wrinkled her nose but her lips were curling. “A man of taste.” The brief levity faded as her eyes raked over the room once more. “Remus, I don’t like this at all. There’s something creepy about seeing this room so empty. I think I just want to get out of here.”
“Agreed.” Remus sighed deeply, battling the slow rise of panic once more. “I doubt we’ll find a portkey intact in this entire building. I think all we can do is head for the front door and hope we get lucky.”
“I don’t think we need luck.” Felisha’s grasp on her wand, their only weapon, tightened noticeably. “I think we’ll need a bloody miracle. Someone wouldn’t go to the trouble of smashing all those portkeys and then leave the front door wide open.”
Her words almost precisely echoed the thoughts that were running through Remus’ mind. “I know. But we have to…”
But the sentence was never completed. For in that instant came a sound.
It was a small thing, just a clatter, the smallest of percussions, but in the overwhelming silence left on Level Five, it echoed like a scream. Remus froze instantly “ at his side, he saw Felisha wheel, her wand extended towards the corner of the room from which the sound had come.
Towards the cupboard door.
What the hell was that?
Remus looked at Felisha. Felisha looked at Remus.
On stealthy, silent feet Remus began to cross the room, Felisha just a step behind. With the tip of her wand, the researcher gestured him towards the door handle “ for an instant, Remus considered offering to take the wand instead but now did not seem the time for disagreements and anyway “ for him to lash out at present really did not seem a good idea. Instead he simply nodded, wrapping his palm slowly and precisely around the knob as Felisha braced herself, wand raised, a few feet away.
Remus braced.
Felisha nodded.
And with a single twist, Remus yanked open the door.
“Impedi…”
“Don’t hurt me, don’t hurt me, oh please, please don’t hurt me!”
Felisha’s spell froze on her lips. “Cymone?”
Remus was next to her instantly, his eyes confirming a moment later what Felisha’s lips had proclaimed. It was indeed Cymone Wrigley who lay curled up and quaking amongst dustpans, blank paper and empty boxes, her podgy hands clutching at her brown-rooted dyed red hair in tight fists as she winced away from an imaginary blow. For a moment, she continued to rock and shiver as though injured, sobbing out her desperate pleas for mercy “ but then, the slow realisation of her current intactness seemed to dawn upon her and one round eyes behind crooked glances peaked out from behind one palm.
Oh great. Well, isn’t that all we need?
“Felisha!” she gasped in astonishment. “I thought you’d vanished with the others. And…” Her voice trailed away as plump cheeks quivered and her eyes fixed upon Remus. Her jaw dropped.
And then she screamed.
“Mad feral! Mad feral! He’s got out, he’s got out!” Boxes went flying, dustpans clattered, plates smashed as the substantial bulk of Cymone hurtled backwards as far as was possible within the limited confines of her cupboard, screeching at the top of her lungs as her silver daubed fingernails clawed at the wall. “Help! Help! Hel...”
For an instant, it was all Remus could do to prevent himself from leaping forward and slapping the ridiculous little woman into silence. Fortunately, Felisha was quicker.
“Silencio!”
Cymone’s hysteria cut off instantly “ the assistant’s eyes widened as she clawed at her throat, but no sound emerged. Felisha’s expression was grimly resigned as she lowered her wand.
“Cymone, shush!” she ordered in a hiss. “Do you want someone to hear us?”
He could barely breathe. He struggled to speak. What was that, why did I think that? What’s the matter with me? What…?
Feral.
Am I going feral? Am I…?
“Remus?” Felisha’s frantic voice cut into his frantic musings. “I think I can hear something.”
Remus looked at her sharply. “I don’t hear anything.”
But a moment later, that was a lie.
Rattling breaths, echoing in the corridor. Coldness, chilled like ice, driven before the broken silence. And then….
Silver moonlight gleamed like a knife-blade. Claws sank into his back as golden eyes flashed viciously…
Pain, such pain as teeth sank into his side…
Remus staggered. Cold, no inner chill but a wash of icy wind brushed across his skin, arctic, biting, blowing in a tide of sudden horror. He felt Felisha gasp and stumble, saw Cymone’s lips part in a soundless cry of horror as the cold touch stroked them too…
Abraham Kane’s lupine eyes flashing with triumph as he darted towards the vulnerable students… the rise of his own desire to turn to bite, to kill…
The glowing candlewicks dimmed and flickered. The room was swamped by shadows as the cold deepened, lengthened, seeping into his soul as it leeched away any sense of the warm or the bright…
There was no mistaking that feeling. There was no mistaking what he’d been feeling all along.
In the last hint of the light, he met Felisha’s horrified eyes. Cymone’s scream had been loud enough to wake the dead. But it had woken worse.
It had woken a Dementor.