Another World

Remus held the smoking goblet for a moment and made a face at Ginny as he rinsed the cup and returned it to Snape's desk. By his estimate the transformation would be taking place soon. It was difficult to guess without being able to see the evening sky or smell fresh air from the outdoors. And he still didn't know how he felt about Ginny watching him change into a werewolf. Even his close friends had confessed to finding the sight somewhat disturbing. At least they had been honest. That was always important.

"Ginny, are you sure you want to watch this? You could go sit by the fire and wait for me. It only requires a few minutes, after all, and it isn't much of a show," Remus told her.

"Remus, I'm not afraid of you, but I will leave if you ask me to," she answered.

Remus smiled at her and shook his head, "You can stay. I just wanted to be sure that you were ready to see this."

"I am, or at least I think so," she said.

Ginny would never fail to surprise him. She was truly not concerned by the idea that he would transform into a werewolf right before her eyes in only a few minutes. He had offered her an easy way to avoid witnessing his change from man to werewolf, but she had refused to take it. But Remus didn't realize how strong her feelings were for him, no matter how many times she had kissed him that afternoon.

"I don't know how I should say this, but I want to thank you for not being afraid of this old werewolf and for ..." he said, looking down into her eyes; he could see nothing in them but compassion and trust, "looking at me with those eyes."

Her expression became slightly quizzical, but Remus only chuckled and kissed her before stepping away, feeling the familiar trembling of his limbs as the transformation began.

The sight of Remus becoming an extremely large wolf was somewhat disturbing to her, but she didn't flinch or turn away from him. She merely watched him, keeping her expression as neutral as possible. The comment about her eyes had made her somewhat self-conscious. She didn't want to him to find fear or anything else unpleasant in her gaze since it meant so much to him.

Ginny was surprised to hear Remus give a grunt or growl of pain as he changed before her eyes. She had never realized that there was pain involved in the transformation. She knelt and stroked his fur as the process was completed. He lay there for a moment, allowing her to run her fingers through his shaggy gray fur before nuzzling her hand with his nose. He whined softly as he rose from the floor.

"Are you all right then?" she asked him.

The werewolf nodded his head and padded toward the door to the other rooms.

"Do you want to go rest by the fireside then?"

The werewolf gave her an affirmative look and waited for Ginny to come to her feet before treading softly through the store room and into the parlor.

Severus had been napping, recovering his strength, with Hermione by his side, still reading through the potions' tome that Severus had risked his life to acquire and listening to the soft breaths of her professor. Then all of the sudden he found himself awake again, and his skin was prickling and tingling again. The sensation was stronger this time.

"Severus?" inquired Hermione, putting the book aside with a second thought. "Is it the wards again?" she asked.

"Remus must be changing. That always seems to draw undue attention from our fellow guests," he said, sitting up.

Hermione could tell that his strength had yet to return. She had coaxed him into taking another draught of healing potion before he had settled down for a little shut eye, but that had only soothed the pain, the beginnings of which she had seen return to his eyes even as she had kissed him.

"I suppose they can sense the presence of a Dark Creature. Maybe they are trying to make contact with him or something," shrugged Hermione.

"That must be it. It is folly, of course, but perhaps they believe that they sense an ally," said Severus, twisting uncomfortably as his skin crawled.

"Can I do anything to help?" she questioned.

Severus hesitated as he looked into her concerned brown eyes. The sensation would cease soon, he knew. It was not necessary to ask anything of her. He had borne intense pain before, and this was hardly even painful. It was irritating and caused him almost indescribable discomfort, but Severus did not wish to voice such a complaint to her again. He was afraid that she would perceive him as weak.

His reluctance to speak was noticeable. Hermione smiled, almost as though she understood some unspoken request that he had made. She lifted his hand and rubbed her fingers along the top of it. A sigh escaped his lips before he could control it. Touch, such a very simple thing, and the very thing that could still the pins that pricked at his flesh.

"Hermione ..."

"Is that better? Is it helping any?" she questioned, rubbing his arm upward toward his shoulder.

"Much better."

His eyes were beginning to close as she rubbed his shoulders. The instant comfort was more than his tired, wounded body could bear. The listening ears of the demons were going away, losing interest. Their uncomfortable testing of and prodding at his wards ceased. The fact that Remus had finished his transformation was dim in his suddenly sleepy mind. The potion and the gentle hands that were massaging his shoulders were taking effect rather rapidly. He heard a throaty feminine laugh somewhat distantly as the soothing hands slipped a pillow from behind him and eased him into a prone position. The top buttons of his robes were unfastened and his collar loosened. Soft lips kissed his forehead and sleep stole through his mind like mist through a garden.

Hermione was amazed at how quickly her charge began to drift away as she touched him. The needles and pins had robbed him of sleep, but she had been able to give it back. She admitted that the healing potion had probably helped with that. She knew that he was in need of as much rest as possible, though his color was beginning to return slowly along with his strength.

The hour was growing late. In the world where they belonged, day was giving way to night. She kissed Severus good-night as she acknowledged that the sunless day had been a long one. Extinguishing most of the candles that lit the room, Hermione curled up next to Severus and silently hoped that this night would be their last in the world of demons, but not their last together.



Two more mirrors had been found, which was wonderful news. One had been located in the prefects' bathroom near a painting of a mermaid. It had been discovered by Neville Longbottom, who was a prefect for his house, when he went into the bath to soak a couple of fingers he had inadvertently smashed in a door. The second had been located by Harry and Ron in the Divination classroom in the North Tower. Harry had pulled aside some draperies to find the small and ancient looking glass. This, of course, meant that they only needed to locate one more magical mirror and their friends and professors could be brought home.

But something was troubling Harry as they walked back down the stairs of the North Tower together, keeping a sharp look out for other mirrors they might have missed on the way up. There were things imprisoned within that world that were very dangerous, so dangerous in fact that they had managed to injure Professor Snape rather significantly. The quartet was obviously holed up in the dungeons, probably warded in by powerful spells designed to protect them from the demon hoard. How would they manage to get from the dungeon rooms to places like the prefects' bath or to the far off North Tower without being killed?

Remus was an expert in Defense Against the Dark Arts. He could probably manage the feat, but then the other three were not so lucky. Hermione was well-versed in several areas of magic, including defensive magic and charms, but she was hardly equipped to handle a large number of savage Dark Creatures. Ginny, thanks to her older brothers, was very good at nasty hexes, but that would hardly stop foes of this caliber, so menacing and perilous that the Founders themselves had sealed them away from the rest of the world. And Professor Snape, well schooled no doubt in the Dark Arts as well as defense against them, was injured and certainly not in exactly peek condition. To Harry the situation was not all that encouraging.

And they still had that one mirror to find before they could even think about their friends returning home.

As Harry and Ron reached a main corridor, intending to make their way to one of the other towers that had yet to be searched, such as the Astronomy Tower, they heard the sound of someone stepping up behind them.

"Potter, Weasley, come here a minute," said the cranky voice of Mister Filch, causing both young men to jump.

Mister Filch was holding Mrs. Norris, his creepy cat, in his arms as he stood in the hallway right behind them. Where had he come from? He looked at them impatiently and motion for them to follow him.

Harry looked at Ron and shrugged as he followed Filch between two suits of armor. The caretaker rapped on the stone wall with his knuckles to reveal a secret passageway, one of many in the castle. They entered the dimly lit passage behind Filch, who was moving at a rather rapid pace, obviously knowing the tunnel quite well.

The passage narrowed a few meters into it, but then they saw a dark, open doorway to their left. Filch took a lit torch from a holder on the wall and pointed them into the room with it. Ron gulped softly as he followed Harry into the room, Filch and his cat bringing up the rear.

Harry glanced around as he stepped into the room. There was a table, rough hewn and rather ugly, in the center of the room, two benches, and a few locked chests stacked against the wall. This had once been a private reading room or perhaps breakfast nook for someone once long ago. The room smelled a little musty from disuse, but it was rather clean despite that.

"Well, check that mirror. Do your magic," instructed Filch, waving the torch toward an aged looking glass on the far wall of the little room.

Harry pulled his wand from the pocket of his robes and walked forward to test the mirror. He tapped it twice in the center. The looking glass shimmered and the view changed slightly. The room was illuminated slightly better, and there were books and parchment on the rough table. Perhaps it had been a secluded study room in by-gone days.

"This is one of them!" Harry told Ron excitedly.

"Should've known," muttered Mister Filch.

Ron laughed aloud with relief, the small reading room ringing with the sound of his laughter. Harry grinned.

"Mister Filch, I could kiss you! We would have never found this place on our own," said Ron, continuing to laugh.

"See that you resist that urge, Mister Weasley. Go inform the headmaster of the discovery right away," ordered Mister Filch gruffly.

When Albus Dumbledore saw Harry and Ron dashing headlong through the corridor toward his office, which he had just left in order to search the hospital wing and the rest of that floor with Minerva, he knew immediately that they had found the fourth mirror. He smiled as they skidded to a halt and tried to catch their breath.

"Where is it, my boys?" he questioned, laying a hand on each of their shoulders.

"Secret passage on the third floor, sir," Harry told him.

"Mister Filch is waiting to show you the way, professor."

"Excellent job. Some people," he said, meaning Minerva and a few of the prefects, including Parkinson and Malfoy, "were beginning to have their doubts."

"Well, we showed them!" said Ron, giving Harry a bit of a look.

"You certainly have. I believe I can find my way down there. Why don't the two of you return to your dormitories and try to get a good night's sleep?"

"But what about Ginny? And Hermione and Remus? We want to be there when they come back and all," protested Ron, who had obviously yet to take the demons into account as Harry had.

"It will be several hours at least before you need to worry about that, Mister Weasley, and it is rather late, almost midnight I would say," said Dumbledore, looking over his spectacles at him.

That was almost always enough to silence any student who dared to question him. Ron sighed and was no exception.

"Yes, professor."

"Be assured that you will both be permitted to be on hand when they are returned to us," he assured them both.

"Thank you, sir," said Harry as they turned and began walking back to their tower.

Minerva was just leaving her rooms again with a cup of tea to keep her awake as the search was obviously not going to end any time soon and the night was going to prove to be a very long one; she just knew that it would be. Sibyl Trelawney had been right. She just didn't have the Inner Eye.

She nearly crashed into Ron and Harry on her way out of the tower. None of them, herself included, were looking where they were going.

"Sorry, professor," said Harry as she steadied herself against the wall.

"It's all right, Potter. We all have things on our minds. Just pay more attention in the future," she told them with a small sigh.

"If it helps any, the fourth mirror has been found," offered Harry, smiling.

"Yes, it does. It helps a great deal," said McGonagall with a pleasant, relieved smile, which was a rare sight indeed.

"Professor Dumbledore is on his way to inspect it just now. It's in a secret passage one floor down," Ron told her.

"Did he send you two to find me?"

"Oh, no, we've been ordered to bed," said Ron, his frustration and annoyance coming through a bit too clearly.

"Then to bed you should both go," said their head of house, not giving an inch.

"Yes, professor," sighed Weasley, starting to trudge up the stairs to the Gryffindor common room and dormitories.

"Professor?" asked Harry quietly, watching the retreating form of his friend.

"Yes?"

"How are they going to get to the other mirrors?" he questioned, looking her in the eye with a very searching expression on his face.

"We haven't worked that out yet, but Albus certainly must have a plan," said Minerva firmly.

"Of course, professor," nodded Harry.

Most of her tea had been sloshed from its cup during her collision with Harry and Ron, but Professor McGonagall didn't mind so much as she strode through the corridor toward the secret passageway that her students had mentioned. Albus was talking with Argus Filch as she approached the entrance to the passage. Dumbledore smiled at her as she approached. Mister Filch gave her a deferential nod.

"Sorry I didn't remember this place sooner, but no one uses the room for anything. It isn't even large enough for a proper storeroom," Mister Filch told the headmaster.

"Think nothing of it, Argus. You can't be expected to remember every nook and cranny in the castle. No one can," said Dumbledore.

"Professors," Mister Filch said in parting before making his way back toward his office with his gray cat slinking after him.

"So it's in there," said Minerva, nodding toward the opening between the two suits of armor.

"Indeed it is," said Albus.

"Now what?" she questioned.

"They will need the incantation, of course, which should be easy enough to provide to them."

"Naturally."

"And they will need a way to get to the mirrors located outside the dungeons."

"You have a plan then?"

"Not even the foggiest notion, Minerva. But I think very well at night."

"Albus, are you going to tell them that the mirrors have been located?"

"In the morning, perhaps quite early; you see, the moon is full at the moment, and I mean to have a conversation with Remus."

Minerva put her free hand to her mouth as she realized what he was saying. Remus was in werewolf form at the moment, which limited his abilities as a conversationalist for one thing.

"I didn't notice! With so many other things ..."

"No one faults you for that, Minerva. Severus had a fair store of Wolfsbane potion when last we discussed the matter, enough for two nights, if not three. No need to fret about it unless I am much mistaken about their accident."

"Of course."

"And they are all certainly sleeping right now, as you should be."

"Albus, how could I sleep at a time like this?" she questioned almost indignantly.

"Well, it usually involves a bed, some comfortable clothing, and putting out the light ..."

"You know what I mean."

"Minerva, really, there isn't very much that can be done at this moment. I told two of your students almost the very same thing. And you look to need the rest far more than they did."

"But won't you need me to help plan?"

"Perhaps later," Albus commented. "Or are you afraid?"

Minerva pursed her lips and drew herself up to her full height, which was certainly neither towering nor threatening, and asked, "And what would I be afraid of?"

There was a peculiar and unfamiliar sadness in Dumbledore's eyes as he replied, "The nightmares."

At first Minerva wasn't certain what he meant by that enigmatic comment. Then she inhaled sharply, recalling a particularly vivid nightmare that she had had fifty years earlier during the last hours of darkness on the day after Grindelwald had been captured and banished. In the dream she had followed Albus out of the school and into Hogsmeade, just as she had in reality, but when she had caught up with him and illegally apparated in tandem with him by grabbing him from behind and concentrating, it was no longer Albus. It was the insane Dark Wizard Grindelwald, leering at her and drawing his wand to perform a killing curse on her. His beady eyes had rolled crazily. She had awakened everyone in the sixth year girls' dormitory with her screams.

The nightmares had gone on for days, she remembered, until she had gone to Albus after class and requested that he place a memory charm on her. He had been reticent despite her blood shot eyes and the reports from the Gryffindor prefect complaining about her screams and her stubborn silence on the matter. Wiping the memory of a witch or wizard was not something to be done lightly. But Minerva had been adamant.

"You will forget everything we did. The good and the bad. Everything ..." he had warned her with regret in his eyes.

The kiss. That had been so important to her, though her friend and mentor had hardly kissed her back, returning only the most meager portion of her affection. Only that afternoon did Minerva realize that the kiss had meant anything at all to him. That Albus Dumbledore might have feelings for her that extended beyond those of a professor and the head of her house.

Her auburn-hared professor had allowed her to sit in his chair as he prepared to cast the charm. He was neither young nor foolish, but she was perhaps just a little bit of both, willing to trade that discovery for restful nights of slumber. He gave her every chance to change her mind.

"It isn't going to be a strong charm. I mean for it to be broken someday when you are strong enough, when you are ready," Albus told her, brushing errant strands of sable black hair from her face.

But Minerva McGonagall remained adamant. Nothing could change her mind, and he had honored her request, though it very nearly broke his heart.

Albus regarded Minerva as they stood in the vacant corridor with a strange expression as he watched her eyes widen as the fifty-year-old memories came back to her like a dam being burst by a flooding river.

"After all this time, Albus! Why didn't you say something?" she questioned.

"This is not in reference to the nightmares, is it?" he said, recognizing the expression of shock upon her face.

"You ... you ..."

"Yes, Minerva, your feelings were not unrequited. I had hoped that you would remember that too in time. But time has a way of cheating those that depend upon it," he sighed with a soft smile.

"Fifty years, Albus! You've kept this to yourself for fifty years!"

"Very nearly, fifty, yes," he agreed. "But they have been a very busy fifty years, you have to admit."

"You could have ... could have at least dropped hints or something."

"And you could have said how you felt even after the memory charm was put into place. But all of that was said and done a long time ago, Minerva, and in the intervening years between then and now I have had the pleasure of calling you one of my closest friends and staunchest allies."

Minerva looked at him with tears in her eyes and said, "But if you felt the same way about me that I did about you, there could have been so much more."

"I know."

They stood there in the moonlit corridor for several minutes, looking at one another, and then Minerva simply whispered good-night to the headmaster and began to walk back to Gryffindor Tower, if not to sleep, then to be alone and to think.

Albus simply chuckled as he made his way back to toward his office, shaking his head. Throughout their long acquaintance and their only somewhat shorter friendship, he had flirted with Minerva McGonagall many times to no effect. She had simply never noticed, not in all their long years together. Dumbledore liked to believe that Fate gave people many chances to get things right, and he tried to be so generous himself. But it seemed that his young student and himself had had only one opportunity, lost to them because of the horrors that had accompanied it.

He hoped that Hermione and Severus would have the opportunity to take advantage of their chance, and, if he read his signs correctly, that Remus and Ginny would have the same. Albus chuckled again and began thinking of the best the way to bring all parties home safely.



Hermione was sleeping soundly until she felt someone shaking her and was forced into wakefulness at what felt like a very indecent hour of the morning. She tried to hide at first, burying her face in pillow and groaning. But as her mind slowly found its way through the dim and murky depths of slumber, she realized that the person was far too persistent and wasn't likely to stop until acknowledged them.

She opened her eyes to find Severus staring down at her, looking mildly annoyed as he buttoned the collar of his robes with one hand and continued to shake her with the other.

"Finally," he said.

"What's the matter?" she asked, rubbing her eyes.

"The mirror awakened me. It says that the headmaster wants to speak with all of us," Severus informed her.

"I certainly hope it's good news."

"As do I."

"I'll go and get Remus and Ginny then," she said, sliding from the bed and smoothing her rumpled clothes.

Hermione walked into the parlor, yawning as she opened the door that separated the two rooms. She stopped in her tracks and grinned when she saw them curled up on the couch together. They had decided that the overstuffed piece of furniture was vastly preferable to the floor for sleeping.

Remus had changed back into human form, which meant that it was not quite so early in the morning as Hermione had believed, and he had his arms around Ginny, who was sleeping with her head resting upon his chest. They looked so peaceful, so happy as they slept that Hermione truly hated to wake them. But, of course, she did not want to keep the headmaster waiting.

"Wake up, you two!" she said, chuckling softly despite her best efforts not to do so. "We have business to attend to this morning. Professor Dumbledore wants to speak with us," Hermione added as they scrambled up from the couch with Remus looking every-so-slightly guilty for his part and Ginny appearing only a bit embarrassed.

They both nodded and followed her back into the bedroom where Severus was seated on the edge of the bed. Remus and Ginny strode toward the mirror, understanding that that was where the summons had come from, while Hermione helped Severus to his feet and across the room. His steps were still wobbly, but he seemed almost strong enough to walk unassisted.

"What news?" asked Severus with a slight smirk as he noticed an exhausted looking Minerva McGonagall standing just behind Dumbledore. It appeared as though she had not slept the night before.

Two of the most irritating Gryffindors ever to enter Hogwarts were standing to the side. Harry and Ron looked as though they had just been roused from bed, which of course they had been.

Severus watched the headmaster's lips move silently and waited for the mirror to relay the message.

"He says that the other three looking glasses have been successfully located."

"That's wonderful!" said Ginny, beaming at Remus and squeezing his hand, which she had been holding for some time.

"It certainly is!" Severus agreed with a relieved smile.

Despite his banter with Hermione the night before, he had been preparing himself for the possibility that he would have to remain behind if worse came to worst. He did not consider himself anything like a martyr nor particularly noble, but Severus would have done what was necessary to see Hermione home, and he knew Gryffindors in general and her in particular well enough to say that perhaps only the Imperious Curse itself would have been sufficient to force her to leave him. Remus, he believed, might have accepted his sacrifice with the proper amount of convincing, and where he went Ginny would follow, but not Hermione. She would have been most difficult.

"Where are they then?" questioned Remus with a pleased and much relieved smile.

"One is located in the prefects' bath. Another hangs behind a drapery in the Divinations classroom. The last is hidden in a sequestered reading room in a secret passage between two suits of armor in the third floor corridor," the mirror told them, speaking for Dumbledore.

The room became strangely silent at the locations of the exits to the demon realm were named. They all realized instantly how far away those places were within the castle. They were all outside the dungeons, far outside the wards and their sanctuary. They may as well have been on the moon.

Remus shook his head as he realized how foolish it had been to believe that escaping this prison was going to a simple thing. He pulled Ginny closer as he noticed that she was trembling. Severus and Hermione were standing in stunned silence next to him. Remus touched his colleague's shoulder. Severus nodded in soundless agreement that their luck had just taken a turn for the worse. They stood there for sometime before Hermione summoned the courage to speak.

"It can't be as hopeless as it sounds," she managed. Her voice was quavering.

"It isn't," the mirror told them. "With a little bit of floo powder and some luck, the Divinations classroom is quite accessible. That gives you two mirrors that can be reached easily enough, including me."

"Then the students can be saved," said Severus.

"And we can take our chances," nodded Lupin with a steely, resolute expression upon his face.

"What about all for one and one for all?" objected Hermione rather strenuously.

Severus felt her tighten her grip upon him, her hand clenching a fistful of his robes as though she would never let go.

"The secret passage on the third floor is not very far from the trophy room, which also has floo access. A short sprint between the two should be quite manageable," said the mirror, obviously imitating the hasty tone of the headmaster, who was no doubt privy to their argument.

"And the prefects' bath?" asked Hermione.

The mirror was silent for a long time as Albus and Minerva appeared to confer for some time. Harry and Ron were shifting anxiously from foot to foot as they listened. But whether because no one had asked it to or because Dumbledore wanted to keep the conversation private, the four people on the other side of the looking glass could not hear their discussion.

Severus opened his mouth to speak, but Hermione beat him to it and said, "You will not, Severus. You are in no condition to make a run for it."

He closed his mouth with a snap. Hermione was far too insightful for her own good.

"Professor McGonagall suggests that distance between the bath and the Divinations classroom is not insurmountable. The headmaster suggests that anyone who attempts this be well versed in Defense Against the Dark Arts," the mirror told them.

"Leave that one for me then," said Remus.

"Severus should exit through this mirror. I'm sure Ginny could handle the classroom as it sounds perfectly safe. Remus would be going with her too. That would mean that I would take the passageway mirror," said Hermione, reasoning out their choices. "And don't you dare protest, Severus," she added, giving him a glare that matched his own almost perfectly.

"Professor Dumbledore says that he was going to make the very same suggestions and congratulates Miss Granger on her clever observations."

"A lot of this hinges on whether or not we have an adequate supply of floo powder," said Severus suddenly.

"I will check the hearth," nodded Remus in agreement.

Ginny went with him as he dashed from the room. Severus snickered at the sight before looking down at Hermione.

"Never followed me like a lost puppy," he told her quietly. She giggled and blushed as she watched the faces in the mirror. Severus flushed slightly as he realized that he had been heard. The looking glass did not see fit to pass along any comments made back in their own world.

"You can be sure that I won't," Hermione replied with an amused expression.

Remus returned only a few moments later with a full pot of floo powder and a relieved, yet determined expression on his face. He had obviously said some encouraging things to Ginny in the other room because she didn't look nearly so worried or fearful. She was the very picture of a Gryffindor in a pinch, and Remus was very proud and had said so.

"We are well supplied here," Remus assured Dumbledore.

"Good. Are you ready to write down the incantation?" the mirror asked, relaying a question from Dumbledore, who had a large book in his hands.

"Accio quill and parchment!" said Remus after drawing his wand. The two objects flew into the room from the writing desk on the parlor. "I believe so," he answered.

Dumbledore held the book up to the looking glass, pointing out the particular spell that Remus needed to copy for them to use. It was not incredibly complicated, but then it was meant mostly to help rescue students and not necessarily for fully trained wizards. It was a very elegant spell that they all felt that they could manage easily, even if under pressure.

"When do you want us to do this?" asked Severus.

"Soon, unless there is something that would keep you from doing so."

They all looked at one another. They had no way of predicting the movements of the demons and no notion of what parts of the castle they inhabited, save perhaps that at least one slept in the library.

"Very well," said Remus, whose journey was longest and who was therefore going to take the greatest risk. "We will begin immediately."