I Know the Truth Now

More On Wolves

Researchers, who have spent the greater part of their lives in the observance of wolves, cannot help but note their similarity to humans when it comes to social psychology. Often reports of the human "sixth sense"--as of a husband feeling his wife's pain when she is in great peril, or a mother feeling great fear should her child be kidnapped--seem similar to that between wolves and their mates and pups, a telekinetic link which may aid them in hunting. More than instinct, these senses show the innate need of both our species for others of our kind, and the great punishment exile and loneliness must truly be. Needed for survival, this telekinetic link is perhaps the greatest evidence of the soul.

Part Five

Thump thump, thump thump...

You don't know how you've betrayed me...

Whoosh! The subtle breezes found themselves bemused in the wake of a warm wind.

Thump thump, thump thump...

The gentle patter of light hooves cantering over damp leaves... the triumphant brush of lemon tea, fresh raindrops, grass and earth, essences that clung to the dew-spattered coat of a tawny young stag. Patches of lighter color clung to his hindquarters, where spots were still in the process of fading into adulthood. His hazel eyes reflected the brilliant, moonlit forest and healthy thirst for adventure. He used his antlers, not let large, but nevertheless impressive, to hold a whipping bough out of the way--

Another whoosh--a shadow had seemed to dart nimbly out of the undergrowth, bringing with it the incredibly fiery scent of ginger, the rich aroma of thick chocolate, and even a touch of exotic violets rubbed off from another--the shadow bounded up into a patch of light, dappling its shaggy black coat in iridescent blue and sending a frightening effervescence out from his pale azure eyes.

The shadow--a lithe, bear-like dog, was ahead now, throwing a playful glance backwards often, winning the race by a hair...

Thump thump, thump thump...

Whoosh--another heady breeze--of wild winter pine, sharp evergreen, and tangy wood smoke, finding gentle solace intertwined with the scent of old, battered books and the yellowed pages of well-loved texts. This breeze landed, none too gracefully, in a shower of soaked leaves feet in front of the dog--it was up in seconds, shaking fur of many soft brown shades, an eldritch wolf with discerning golden eyes--extending his body, muscles rippling, to embrace the very air and moon with a single, unearthly howl.

Thump thump, thump thump...

Like water set free from a dam the three were off once again, the stag emerging at the front, their breath converging into a single, holy union--and under the tangy, fresh, spicy scents of them, came a fourth... banana crème pie and mellow butter, touched by the slightly acrid cling of spilled ink. Nestled safely between the stag's antlers rode a tiny gray rat, ducking as the occasional branch swung down on him from above...

Thump... thump... thump...

Can't find yourself,

Lost in your lie...

"Look, Padfoot, I know he's a werewolf, but a Death Eater..."

"Voldemort's been recruiting them like mad, Prongs!" Sirius protested, putting his coffee cup down heavily, trying to ignore the sternness in James's voice and demeanor. The loud muggle coffee shop was ideal for meetings such as this--meetings hurried, rushed, and frightened, surrounded by muggles blissfully unaware. Before James could open his mouth, Sirius cut in again, looking his friend earnestly in the eye. "I know it's hard to take in, but think about it--who else? It has to be one of the five of us, it's certainly not Lily or Peter; aside from Lily being Harry's mother, she's also a muggle-born, Voldemort wouldn't take her, and Peter's nearly a Squib, he's too... well, weak. And it sure as hell isn't you or me--Remus has motive, Prongs!"

James's hazel eyes grew wide, disrupting his calm and discerning look, filling him with disruptive passion. "What motive? What d'you mean?"

Sirius took a calming breath and a deep draught of coffee; he didn't much relish his next words. "Harry. He... I think--I know--he wants Harry, James. Not for Voldemort--for himself. I've seen it. Just in his glances, the way he looks at him, when he holds him... he's jealous of you, James. Y'know he can't have children, he can't even adopt them unless they're registered Dark Creatures or something close to it. Or if he makes another werewolf... If he could get you and Lily out of the way--"

"You would get Harry, Sirius!" James glowered fiercely. "And--and I don't believe the spy is Remus--I don't think it's any one of us... It sounds like a load of Snape's tosh just to get us suspicious of one another, if you ask me. Voldemort could watch my movements easily enough without a spy, it's not as though Lily and I have been hiding from him until now! We've been up against his Death Eaters twice already, and him three times--"

"Listen to me, James!" Sirius cut in, eyes panicked. "Whether you believe me or not, I saw Remus's thoughts, I know what he wants. He can't know which one of us is the Secret Keeper." A sudden, brilliant idea came to him then like lightning. "We've got to switch! Use Peter instead of me, that way I can help you protect Harry while he goes into hiding! No one would suspect! I'd be your decoy, Voldemort would think it was me and Peter would be miles away, even if I did get caught!"

James furrowed his brow, a weight of worry upon him as he sighed deeply--to old for a twenty-two year old who had always possessed so much vitality. "Well... if you think so, Sirius... alright then."

Part Six

The Weasleys left Grimmauld Place in mid-August, to spend a few weeks in the Burrow, and Hermione too departed for some time with her parents--leaving Lupin and I relatively alone in the house. Members of the Order moved in and out all day, and Mrs. Black still screamed obscenities about half-breeds at us, but mostly we were by ourselves with the ghost of Sirius, and our thoughts. My mind often wandered to the Department of Mysteries, so much that when Lupin actually mentioned the Ministry, I half-believed I imagined it.

He held an official-looking letter up to the light one morning after breakfast (a responsibility we share, taking turns at the cooking and cleaning--his omelets are more than decent), frowning slightly at it. "Dumbledore sent this--the Department for the Regulation and Control of Magical Creatures seems to require us. Per Dumbledore's statements about the night Voldemort marked you, the Minister is keen to have you registered as a Parselmouth, before you come of age. That, along with any other curses and abilities that lie dormant within you from the Dark Lord." He looked distinctly unhappy about something; I looked up from the plate I was drying with bemused eyes.

"You said 'us'..."

Lupin's mouth twitched humorlessly. "I have to update registration each year, and be informed on any new... legislation, regarding my status or what have you... They've called you and I in on the same day to see if we come together--Fudge is still wary of Dumbledore, especially now that he has a war effort to work on. And the fact that Dumbledore has two... of us... under his belt while trying to fight the Dark Lord--well, it doesn't look for him."

I watched him shrewdly. "They think I'll go turncoat on them because of Voldemort's influence, right? Think he'll possess me, or that I'll turn out an even Darker wizard because I've got a Dark gift?"

Now I had made Lupin smile; he almost looked proud. "Getting keen, Harry, very good. You hit it on the nose--Fudge is afraid of the two of us--he didn't like me last time either, so I'm not surprised. He'll probably have them check if I made you a werewolf. A good thing I didn't give in to either of us, perhaps?"

He arched an eyebrow in question, and I looked away. We'd sidestepped the issue for a good week by this time, and I still felt as though I walked on eggshells to avoid it. I didn't feel embarrassed, or ashamed--but I knew I had pained Lupin to some extent and that I couldn't take the matter back, because I still meant it. I may not have been going out into the street and waiting for large trucks to snap my neck or squeeze my entrails out of my mouth, but the longing had done nothing if not intensified, gnawing at my stomach and demanding to be sated. I knew he understood it, but also that he couldn't indulge it--and this was the reason.

"Since when do Marauders follow rules?" I muttered under my breath, returning to the dish and momentarily forgetting the Ministry and all the implications that rested there.

I felt Lupin's sharp gaze on me and refused to turn and face it. I knew he would hear the comment--perhaps I posed it as a challenge, or perhaps I was simply questioning myself. The pounding of my heart, loud in my ears, grew faster and more feral with every moment.

"You ask the impossible and most forbidden of me, Harry, please don't. If I... were to bite you... you would hate me forever. It's a curse that cannot be removed--like Parseltongue--you cannot wash it clean from yourself."

I started on a skillet ferociously, keeping my eyes straight ahead, the remembrance of my nightmares haunting me and goading me onward. "You said it was incredible. You said it hurt--it tears you apart. You said you need something real to be with you. I need to be real, too... to just be... and not torture myself thinking. Why is it so impossible?"

I could actually sense Lupin shaking his head sorrowfully, still watching me with a mix of compassion and pity. "You are incredible. You want to be torn apart--there are easier ways of doing that without becoming a werewolf. You want your bones to break and the hair on your body to burn and re-grow itself, your muscles and skin to stretch and tighten and snap all in a few seconds? Just so you can forget how incredible you are for one night? Because you won't forget pain in that time, Harry, you won't forget grief, or death, or hatred, or love. I never do--that's why I loathe the transformations so much now."

If I had been holding a plate at the moment and not a skillet, I might have broken it in two. I go through these waves--acceptance for a short while, then anger, letting it boil up in me until it reaches combustion and I explode with passion and frustration. I began to sense that the pain I felt was no longer simply my own, but my companion's--love on levels I had never experienced lodged within, and betrayal I couldn't even conceive of, sorrow so deep it could cause the statues of Roman gardens to weep stony tears. How he remained so damned lucid and calm I attributed to his lycanthropy, the ability to purge himself in those nights of freedom from human bindings, which may have been partly true, had it no been for what he'd just told me. So many impulses and needs rocketed around my head at once, conflicting and contradictory; stay where I was, safe and somewhat neutral and not bring up the subject again; slam my fist into a wall to vent my anger without hitting Lupin, which was where I wanted to vent it; run to him, curl up next to him, apologize for being such an unforgivable brat and not understanding, once again, his pain as separated from my own.

The first of these is the closest to what I did, and without truly thinking about it either--a course Hermione would lecture me heartily for. I quelled. The need to run within me I stashed into a small box and hid it under the floorboard of my mind--knowing full well that its monstrous occupant would explode the truth forth sooner or later, but hiding it nevertheless, and praying that Lupin's eyes would cease their endless probing into my being. They did not.

"H-how exactly," I started, in an undisguised attempt to change the subject I had opened so unwisely, "will they find out what... powers--were transferred to me?" The asking of this question was not completely a barefaced lie; the idea did concern me a bit. Would there be a magical x-ray prepared to find various forms of Dark magic deep within me?

Out of the corner of my eye, I detected Lupin take a muggle newspaper off the stack he'd collected, searching for missing persons ads that may provide the Order with clues--it occurred to me long before this that Lupin's lack of missions was in an effort to baby-sit me, and had it been anyone else given the duty I most likely would have been heavily resentful. But he too was grieving and probably not entirely fit to be conducting long and drawn-out missions against Death Eaters; Grimmauld Place had been transformed into a virtual funeral home, a recuperative incubator for the pair of us so that we may "get over it" with the help of one another, then be shifted easily back into the flow of adult, polite society, school and work, with healthy mind. In short, a load of psycho babble and empty words. The shallow comforting of patting hands and falsely sympathetic condolences, eyes that reached the skin only, people who relied solely on their vision and screamed when someone broke a dish.

"Advanced curse detector," Lupin began, coolly answering my question, still boring his eyes into me in between making snips in the newsprint--face of a missing child here, kidnapped woman there--so what it they were politicians or homeless beggars? They were gone. "Used for finding those with Dark gifts, mostly by Aurors. No one quite knows what powers Voldemort possesses--what the Ministry finds in your body will help with the war effort." I could hear the anger and discomfiture creep into his voice, causing me to finally make a half turn, a watery glass clutched in one hand and towel in the other, to meet his eyes. He cleared his throat a bit. "Dumbledore said--I'm... to bring a report back. Of course--as they're still anxious to--what they find out, Harry, could land you in St. Mungo's." I hadn't seen him this uncomfortable in quite some time, nor this disconcerted. "If they detect certain latent abilities in you, Fudge might find you dangerous enough to be locked out of the way, to keep you from endangering his political stability, and make sure that you don't switch sides. They might find a way to declare you insane--it doesn't take much--and commit you. And your relations would never do anything to stop them, Harry, they don't know about our laws, they couldn't protect you if they wanted to." He put his paper down as though he couldn't concentrate on it any longer, and looked me in the eye, almost apologetically. "Getting the report is the only way to get around this; we've got to stay one step ahead of Fudge, or at least level with them. You could very easily be taken as a ward of the Ministry, and the Order would have no say in what happens to you. They could keep you shut away in a padded room at St. Mungo's for the rest of your life. I--I couldn't take that--I don't want that to happen, Harry."

I returned his look steadily, trying to hide my shaking hands that meticulously and obsessively dried the glass. "Look, it's okay--I know I'm a ham radio for Dumbledore, I'll get over it. You have orders... you don't have to blame yourself for everything. I want to stay with you, anyways--you think I want to go to St. Mungo's? But..." I remained still, catching the questioning in his glance. "Well... you're really all I've got left, you know..." I was surprised at how little awkwardness his gaze made me feel; his features had softened, allowing me to continue. "All I've got left of them--my parents, Sirius... If you're going to start going on missions again, you've got to promise me something first." It occurred to me how foolish it may seem for me to demand anything of him, but a cold fear in the deepest tissues of my heart spurred me forward almost valiantly. "Promise that you won't do anything stupid. That you won't run off and get yourself--well, killed... that you won't--you won't--leave me." My voice had begun to quaver and grow heavy. "Okay?" So feeble and so weak I sounded to my own ears, that I wanted to bury my head in the dishwater.

Realization dawned on Lupin's face. He abandoned completely the stack of muggle newspapers and came to stand next to me. "Sirius didn't leave you," were his quiet words.

I grew stiff, feeling distinctly cold, and ignored with difficulty the hand that had closed gently, but firmly, on my arm. My attention suddenly grew fixed on a troublesome spot on the glass I still was wiping dry. "Yes, he did. He left you, he left me, and it's all my fault. I shouldn't have looked in the Pensieve. I should have taken the paper off the mirror. I shouldn't have let our last conversation be about him and my dad's bullying--why didn't I tell him...?" I felt a hand on mine, forcing me to abandon my infatuation with the spotless glass.

"You flew a thestral to London, broke into the Department of Mysteries, and risked your life, all based solely on a dream that Sirius may have been in danger. You never had to tell him, Harry. Sometimes things don't have to be said, Harry, they're simple truths that we know by instinct alone. He knew a long time ago that you loved him, and trying to save him no matter what the odds only proved it more. It's Voldemort who turned that love against the both of you, used it to kill him and almost kill you, a matter that was beyond your control. If you had learned Occlumency, he'd have lured Sirius out and held him captive for real. You could not have predicted all the myriad of different paths to be taken, nor that the events that have happened would lead to Sirius's death, nor could you have changed it. It is not your fault, understand?" He dived into my eyes again, perhaps smelling the terror of my dreams and the smell of death that clung, irrevocably, to my skin.

"I'll promise you, Harry, but you must promise me something in return--quid pro quo, remember? Promise me that when we're at the Ministry, you won't go looking for the veil. You cannot dwell on death and forget that life comes before it." His lines of care and concern deepened for me, and I with an unfathomable web of thoughts into his eyes, finding that they mirrored my own. But how could I promise such a thing? I am as the pharaohs of Egypt, Victor Frankenstein, Owen Meany, all possessed with that boundless dimension called Death. The ragged veil flutters before my memory, the warm grip and ephemeral hands pull me between the two worlds without cessation. And like Owen Meany's Mary Magdalene, like Owen Meany himself once he'd filled his own doomed prophecy, I am entirely armless. GOD HAS TAKEN MY ARMS. I AM GOD'S INSTRUMENT.

Just will-o'-the-wisp little decisions, nothings and forgets. I never said a single nice thing to Kreacher; it was nothing, really. Forgot to clear my mind before sleeping; an excusable little mistake. Leave out a line at the bottom of a letter; I'll say it next time. And suddenly there is no next time. Miraculous how fast I could learn to produce a Patronus to protect during Quidditch, such a singular, selfish goal, and yet I'm such a slow learner with those little things, "fine distinctions," Snape had called them. Those hair's width little lines that separate truth and dreams, reality and imaginings, justice and expediency, Olympus versus bloody Troy, Electra battling her sister Chrysothemis--and then, of course, the incredible chasm that could appear between today and tomorrow, the day with life and love, the day without. GOD HAS TAKEN MY ARMS.

"I promise that I won't go looking for it," I at last said, picking the glass back up without purpose. For the rest of my days, I shall never have to look for that veil--I could sleepwalk and find myself before it.

Lupin appeared unconvinced, but spoke lightly nevertheless. "Good. Because we're staying at the Ministry for a good portion of the night."

I should have known that information about my "latent powers" would be highly confidential, and would never simply fly into a member of the Order's hands; much less a werewolf's. In order to stay in the Ministry, Lupin had to have cause--his registration--and couldn't leave until his mission was complete. We would hang about in the Misuse of Muggle Artifacts office until nightfall, meet up with Kingsley Shacklebolt and Nymphadora Tonks, and hide out somewhere in the Department of Mysteries until the place had emptied out sufficiently. I was to stay with Tonks while Kingsley and Lupin ran up to rummage the files and make of copy of mine. Then, with a hop and a skip, we'd all be back at Headquarters; none of this, however, did anything to ease either Lupin or myself all morning. We would be back in the Department of Mysteries--I wasn't the only one to whom the hands beckoned.

I AM GOD'S INTRUMENT.

The movement of a flock of pigeons is extraordinary. One flick, however small the flick may be, in their direction, a sea of gentle gray heads bobbing up and down in seeming chaos, and they can be counted upon to flinch. Not only the pigeon that suffered the unpredicted movement from a foreign creature--but all of them. It begins as a ripple, a wave as of sound traveling outwards, an explosion of wings and flaps and agitated pecks, until all pigeons are at rest again. To what exact position each pigeon moves, at what second the wave will hit every individual, cannot be calculated, but a single truth exists: they will move. It is no mathematical fact, but merely a constant of observation. The pigeons possess no hive intelligence or alike mind, they move simply because it I integral in being pigeon. Humans behave in the same fashion.

Pigeons moved in shocked droves as I appeared, trumping along behind Professor Lupin down the streets of London, cool and composed, as though I belonged. Too muggle to harbor Death Eaters--too wizard to harbor Dursleys. It seemed all that vast expanse of buildings and smoke and hazy mid-morning sky rent with the sounds of traffic could harbor was he and I. I think the passing cars taunted him as much as they did me, though I've never thought to ask him. So close, so damned easy, just a little step out from behind a parked van and there you go--once point to Free Will, take that, Predestination! I never like that team, anyway.

Lupin and I were wordless throughout the entire journey, both swathed in black cloaks and hoods, keeping to the shadows and seemingly invisible to surrounding muggles. Perhaps it is our shabbiness that renders us so unremarkable--baggy, faded clothes, pale, tired faces, the pervading drench of death upon us, and only the joint glitter of surreal eyes to mark us as something other, or more, than mere human. He kept his hand on my arm, assuring himself that I remained near. I found myself walking closer in step with him, intrigued by an unnaturalness in the way I could detect his scent. It gave me a curious shiver akin to déjà vu... I was suddenly transported to the Forbidden Forest, smelling the drug-like dirt and ozone of rainwater on damp, rotting leaves, the deep smell of old wood and pine resin hardened on trees, the fresh, intoxicating scent cold breezes. He could have led me straight off a cliff and I wouldn't have noticed, too drunk on him to care.

A red, double-decker bus racketed by and we both stopped abruptly. It had, in truth, passed within sheer inches of us; I'd felt the invisible air swell by my right shoulder. Lupin stared after it with a curious expression and I realized he had pulled me out of the way. No one walking by even noticed. It was as though we were the only people on the street in that instant, when his eyes left the retreating bus and found mine. I knew then that he is, and always has been, aware of that damn prophecy. I could have severed the chains then and there, flew away on dark wings of death. Crash.

His heart was beating with incredible speed.

Thump thump, thump thump...

And suddenly the pulse of traffic didn't matter. I knew far inside myself that I could walk deep into that fray and feel the same hands around my chest, beckoning m back towards life. I think, perhaps, that's what life means.

Predictable as always, the pigeons continued to flutter out of our path in foaming gray waters, landing again only to start the process all over for another passerby. Perhaps the thought not to do so would someday occur to them, but why?

My odd afternoon passed in a haze. Waiting for hours while Lupin struggled over nasty-looking paperwork, form d-25 to form g-32 and so forth--then his anxious hovering as curse experts and potion masters examined me, pouring countless concoctions down my throat and muttering to themselves, exchanging the occasional glance. When at last it was over, they left the two of us alone for some time in the examination room while they went to analyze their results. As the door closed with a terse snap, Lupin sat down next to me on the stiff cot and took my hand, which I only then realized had begun to tremble.

"They're probably just going to assign you a number in a few days, that's all. You might find things a bit hard, but they didn't seem overly concerned about what was found--a few changes in rights, some difficulty in getting a few kinds of jobs. Don't worry yourself too much--I'll take care of you."

The bitter, acid taste of the many potions lingered on in my mouth, mixing with my saliva and coating my throat. Lord Voldemort on the loose, and the idiots were trying to give me a number...? My mind wandered to a few days previous, when I'd awoken in the darkness of his quarters. Why I'd had such a dream when I fell beck to sleep continued to haunt me.

"Professor," I started tentatively, eyes dashing to the door and assuring it would not reopen. "I have something to tell you, but I'm... kind of afraid you're going to laugh. So you have to promise you won't, okay?"

Lupin licked his lips and nodded, searching my eyes but visually hesitating to smell me out. "Alright, I promise. Go on."

I decided it would be easier to say it in a rush; how it came out, however, was so stuttering it took forever to be done with. "I--the other night--that is I think I--had a dream--th-that you... that you... kissed me."

Lupin said nothing. His eyes fixed almost obsessively onto mine, an he appeared to ignore all else--including the hand that had tightened painfully on mine, and the other that was working uselessly, twisting and untwisting the fabric of my cloak. "You--you had a dream like that, did you?" he finally said, voice low and calm. I nodded, feeling increasingly ashamed. I was about to apologize profusely when I doubled over in pain. It was as though cold fingers had placed themselves around my heart and squeezed at the blood-infused flesh. Lupin half-caught me as I leaned forward into him, holding my chest and wanting to claw at it--find the hand--tear it out and stop the pain. And the hand that had been twisting in the fabric of my cloak wound around to my back, tracing light patterns along my spine and ribs. When I closed my eyes, the white, snake-like face of many a nightmare appeared, laughing hideously at something, holding his wand pointed at my heart, and cruel pain shot through me once more. I started and opened my eyes.

Lupin's concerned, careworn young face met me there, and the pain, as quickly as it had come, stopped. "I thought you'd learned to block his influence by now," he stated, soft but stern. I shook my head.

"I have, you know that. That wasn't Voldemort--I was seeing him, through someone else's eyes this time, and it wasn't my scar that hurt--I felt like I was under the Cruciatus, like he was pointing it at my heart." I gripped my chest reassuringly, as though checking to see the muscle within still beat. Lupin examined me thoughtfully.

"Sad that you would recognize the Cruciatus Curse so easily, Harry," he said almost dreamily, feeling my pulse, then placed a hand on my chest, over mine. "You shouldn't. You should be like Ron and Hermione, blind to thestrals and deaf to voices behind the veil. You should be practicing Quidditch right now, not being tested for long-term cursed in your blood and hiding in the Ministry. This isn't the way things were supposed to be."

I almost laughed at the irony of this. "Don't you--don't you believe in fate at all, Professor?"

He smiled wryly. "I believe in cause and effect--that we make decisions that shape the future. I believe we are ultimately responsible for our own lives, but we must also coexist with the chaos of millions of other lives around us. There is a dance to it all--the random violence, the chance victims. The things we cannot stop and that have no logical explanation. A plus of being a werewolf--things don't always require logic, one learns to accept the random waltz of it all and not look for justification. I do not believe there was any greater purpose to my becoming a werewolf--it merely happened, and I have strived to make the best of it. I think life is far more beautiful that way. It is only in instinct that we can predict anything."

I listened, enraptured, the longing flying against my ribcage once again. He was somehow beautiful in that moment, and I feared to take my eyes from him, afraid he would disappear like a spirit of dark wind in an instant. The lines around his eyes crinkled as he smiled again, somewhat sadly. "I know what you're seeing, Harry. It's nothing more than an illusion... the wolf luring you, trying to catch you and make you it's own. It's in love with you, you know. It has been your entire life. Not because you were the Boy-Who-Loved or the one meant to destroy the Dark Lord; it has no such distinctions. For no other reason than a pair of bright green eyes hunting for one person in an immense sea of many. For a silence simply waiting to break and howl misery at the moon, for something devoid of emptiness. No destiny to it... simply because you played a senseless game with me as a child. That's why it loved you. You smell like peppermint and chocolate because you seem to favor magical sweets shaped like amphibians, and for that it loved you too. It makes no logical sense--the heart seldom does."

As much as I like Tonks, it was sheer torture the first hour we hid together. The four of us boarded ourselves up in a musty cupboard, full of waxy boxes and broken hourglasses, sometime during the early evening. Tonks tried amiably to keep me entertained throughout, changing her hair and eyes into strange conglomerations of snake-like locks and cat's eyes--the kind of thing she does to keep Hermione and Ginny giggling all through dinner. However, she soon tired of this upon realizing I was too anxious and lost in thought to smile, let alone laugh, and left me to my agitated and almost obsessive reading. I knew I was to be left with her, safe and sound, while Kingsley and Lupin snuck off to the Department for the Regulation and Control of Magical Creatures, in search of my file. From the looks they kept exchanging, it promised to be quite some affair; the thing had to be heavily guarded by magical wards and curses, a primary reason why Lupin had to be present for this mission. I knew from experience that he wouldn't chance anyone but himself transporting me back to Headquarters, thus my dangerous presence on this little jaunt. There was simply no chance that we could be the only ones after this particular file--the Death Eaters, and Lord Voldemort himself, would without doubt be trying to be the Order to it. And aside from everything else, I think it was of some comfort to Lupin to see me there before moving into unknown peril, into Danger's unpredictable path again. Or perhaps he sought to comfort me.

He was sat on a box on my left, watching my eyes as they crawled and drank their way through page after page, "Aquifus Flaré Curse," "Curse of Suffocation," "Water Summoning Curse and Counters"--all the horrible things a Death Eater could potentially do and how I could use it against them. I have an uncanny knack for torturing myself. A constant dance, really, with pairs and lone dancers dropping randomly off the floor, to watch, whispering from the dark sidelines, just out of sight as we continue, exhausted, still trying to move instep under the harsh lights. Before I could find an adequate countercurse for misery, of course, the Ministry had emptied and Kingsley beckoned to Lupin, indicating that they'd better get a move on. He rose to the door but Lupin remained at my side, eyes still on me, waiting for their weight to force me into looking at them. After willfully reading the same sentence a good five times over, I acquiesced. On the surface I knew the danger of this was minimal, and that they'd done worse before. But woe befall the one to stop the bulbous maggots of strange, intense dread that ate away at my stomach lining, a sense that the source of the squeezing in my heartstrings had been all to near.

"Be careful, " I whispered tensely to him, and felt his grip on my shoulder.

"You don't worry about me, Harry," he said, smiling slightly. "Remember your promise."

Remember yours.

I remembered. God, how I remembered! I swallowed and nodded, letting my gaze fall. And with a pointed look at Tonks, Lupin straightened and swept out the closet door, letting it click softly behind him.

Hours passed. The silence of the walls and space around us was deafening. We remained wholly silent through the ordeal of minutes and seconds, cruel Time playing tricks on us every once in while--but when I saw her watch, complete with several strange dials and hands, click over to midnight, Tonks began to take on a distinctly worried air.

Another hour; despite my drooping eyelids, I had begun to pace, having finished Defensive Magic and It's Uses Against the Dark Arts, Vol. III, regrettably. Tonks, who had managed to keep herself planted firmly on her box, nevertheless shook her leg incessantly. My thoughts were frantic and virtually sporadic, leaping effortlessly from the utterly mundane to the castle-in-the-sky possibilities. The tiny voice in my head (which still sounds suspiciously like Hermione) kept reasoning these panicked tangents away in an almost soothing fashion. Perhaps I suffer some mild Oedipal complex, and have managed to make best friends with the girl most like my mother--or perhaps Snape has been right all along, and I'm the breathing, green-eyed reincarnation of my father, searching out a woman, in typical past-life fashion, whom resembles Lily Evans.

Perhaps Lupin had found the veil. Perhaps he was with my father and mother and Sirius, perhaps he broke his promise after all. If he did, so could I. I could find him, find the veil, drag them all back or stay on the other side with them, there would be no one to stop me--not Tonks, not Hermione, not Ron, not Mrs. Weasley, and not you, Professor Lupin. You could lead me over a cliff and I'd never notice.

I was so lost in thought that, when the scream sounded, I thought I had completely imagined it, or plucked it from some lost memory, a dementor nightmare from which I would soon be awoken from, on the History of Magic classroom floor, with Lupin tapping my face. It was heart-chilling and bone-splitting, reverberating around outside the door and seeping through its cracks, a high-pitch scream of pain that seemed to stretch on into eternity. Tonks leapt upwards from her box and leaned against the door, ear pressed against it cautiously; I stopped dead, still trying to decide whether this was a dream, hallucination, or bare reality. When Tonks had moved into the hallway with a murmur for me to stay firmly where I was, and slapping my own cheeks wasn't working, I knew this had to be real.

Minutes stretched on and I paced endlessly; the scream had been a woman's, I couldn't have been Lupin, the tiny voice said--this thought, however, did little to sooth me. The feeling in my heart intensified, of a far different caliber now; when I squeezed my eyes shut, I could, for an instant, see a blur of Bellatrix Lestrange's face twisted in excruciating agony, before the image was lost in a red of rage and misery. Confusion wracked me. Voldemort may feel rage, but never such horrifying sadness--it could not be his mind and heart pushing into mine.

I do not know to this day whether the next sound I heard was real or illusion; perhaps it was both. Perhaps the meaning of reality is not so much what atoms and molecules create, but what is tangible to our minds, and our hearts. Perhaps it was my longing that brought it on--perhaps I hadn't studied Occlumency yet hard enough. I know that my head snapped up, my muscles froze, my feet fell heavily in mid-step, my arms went limb, and my eyes retreated into mesmerized obsession, as an unearthly howl cut icily through the air, tickling my soul and silencing all else--a dark wind of rushing death and passion, ephemeral hands, calling me to it.

Without a second thought, I had grabbed my wand, opened the door, and was gone.