Stag Night

Stag Night

~ IX ~

Prey

“The others will be here in a minute,” said James after making sure that Peter could stand up on his own. 

He frowned slightly as he noted the cut on his friend’s forehead and his shallow, uneven breathing. Peter had wandered off without anyone to look after him and the result was predictable.  I should’ve been watching out for Peter, he thought as he absently rubbed his sore neck, and I shouldn’t have had so much to drink. 

“I’m fine.  I told you.  Fine.”  Peter’s voice cracked in a shaky falsetto.  “I just slipped and there was this wall.  Yeah, the wall, and I hit it and the rats--“ 

Peter stopped abruptly, clamping his jaw tightly.  His head felt remarkably clear, perhaps owing to the fear pumping through his veins, the fear that he’d already babbled too much.  He smiled in a way that he hoped was disarming. 

“James, are you--” Sirius rounded a corner and then skidded to a stop, avoiding a collision with both of them by barely a wand’s breadth. “What happened?  Peter, good Lord!  You’re hurt.”

“Just a scratch,” said Peter quickly.  He flicked his hand across his mouth to wet his fingers and then pawed at his forehead in an attempt to erase the gash above his eyebrow.

“Who did that?  Did you run into someone?”  Sirius said suspiciously as he moved off, throwing light from his wand into this corner and then that corner of the narrow, dingy alley.

“No, no, I fell.  Clumsy of me,” Peter chuckled weakly.  “You know how clumsy I am sometimes, but I’m fine, really fine.”  He scrambled to reach Sirius, as if to stop his investigation, but James held him back with an arm extended across his chest.

“Hang on, Peter--” he started and then froze.  The effort to restrain Peter threw his neck and shoulders into a sudden spasm.

“For Merlin’s sake, James,” said Sirius irritably, stepping toward the pair of them, “you ought to let me fix you up.  A simple charm and it’ll be--“

“No.  I’m not going to have you putting any spells on me the day before my wedding,” grumbled James as he moved his head from side to side, trying to work his neck into a position that wasn’t excruciatingly painful.  His neck cracked with each movement like a malfunctioning metronome.  “I remember the Shrinking Spell that you put on Auggie McKinnon last year at his wedding reception.”

“That? Well, he’s still speaking to me, isn’t he?  And Viola thought it was funny, too.”

“Forget it,” James said dismissively, although he was grinning as he straightened up and turned his attention to Peter.  “Now, let’s take a look at this.  Bit of dirt in here. You don’t happen to have a… Thanks,” he said as Peter produced a handkerchief from his pocket.  He dabbed the cut while Peter--never brave in the face of any sort of pain--cried out, thrashing his arms in a way that did nothing except make James cross. 

Sirius, meanwhile, had gone back to scouring the area for evildoers.  After he’d satisfied himself that their little patch of alley was safe, he turned around to see a squirming and yelping Peter almost hidden behind James’s taller frame.  He smiled at the sight of Peter’s flailing arms, splashed with the acid-pink and yellow flowers of the patterned Nehru jacket.  He wondered if he’d gone a bit overboard insisting that Peter wear the gaudy thing.  James could have pulled it off, of course.  In spite of his upbringing in an old wizarding family, James managed to wear everything--even Muggle clothing--with a certain style.  But Peter needed a bit more guidance; finding the right outfit for him was a challenge.  Remus, like Sirius, had grown up in a village that was mostly Muggle and had no trouble blending in. 

“Where the hell is Remus?” Sirius muttered impatiently into the darkness behind them.  There was no answer and he growled restively.

“I hope Remus hasn’t got hurt as well,” James remarked as he peered at Peter’s gashed forehead by the light of his wand.  “Hold still, Peter!  Yes.  Got it.  Now just another minute or two and we’ll be done.”

With a flick of his wrist he extinguished the blue light and then passed his wand over the cut, murmuring the words of the healing spell.

“Aw, Moony’s too tough,” concluded Sirius with a small shake of his head.  “I’ll bet he spent his whole holiday looking for bloody trouble, Dark trouble, and he came out of it okay.  Well, perhaps a bit more cross than usual.”

“Mmm.  Have you--Oh!  Do hold still, Peter,” said James as he inspected the result of the healing spell.  “There you go.  Let’s see...one minute and no moving that head, all right?”  He stepped back from Peter and waved his wand at eye level, conjuring a glowing hourglass containing blobs of white light that trickled through the narrow waist while the luminous timer floated in front of Peter’s face.

“Are you sure he’s okay?” James asked, turning from his reluctant patient to Sirius.  “He’s been awfully quiet tonight, even for Remus.  I haven’t been able to get him to talk much about his holiday.  Have you?  He seems--Oh, I don’t know.  Perhaps it’s nothing.”

 “What?” Sirius’s face hardened and his eyes narrowed. 

James shook his head, reluctant to give voice to what was troubling him.  Sirius, however, grabbed the bone and ran with it.

“Bloody Remus and his bloody poking about in things he shouldn’t,” he said, pacing the little bit of alley between one corner and the next with his hands clasped behind his back like a teacher giving someone a dressing-down.  “Used to be he’d just sneak books out of the restricted section at school, remember?  Now, it’s not just books.  He spends a lot of time, too much time, going off in search of stuff they don’t put in books.  Come on, James, you know what I mean.”

“I hadn’t noticed,” said James slowly, trying to work out the implications. “But, of course, he’s always been good at that sort of thing.  Let’s not jump to conclusions, Sirius.”

“Fine. Don’t jump to any conclusions, then.  But moths that fly too close to flames sometimes get burnt,” said Sirius darkly.  “And if he is acting a little odd, well, there are a lot of different explanations.  I suppose it’s possible that he ran into something or even that someone might have--that he might not even know--”

“Do you mean--No, of course not!” said James quickly.  “Besides I don’t think there’s a wizard alive who could do that.“

“Yeah,” said Sirius, rubbing his chin pensively, “you’re right.  You wouldn’t think it would work, but--”

“Remember seventh year?”

“Hell, yes.”  Sirius nodded emphatically.  “He was one of the only ones, at least on first try.”

They stared at one another as an uneasy silence settled between them like an uninvited guest, only taking flight after the floating hourglass vanished with a loud pop.

“What?  What wouldn’t work? What first try?” Peter blurted out, his eyes darting between James and Sirius.  

“Imperius,” James answered quietly.

“Imperius,” Sirius said more forcefully.  “It happens more often than most people realize.”

“Oh, but that’s ridiculous, er, assuming it could work at all, ‘cause Remus is, y’know, Remus,” said Peter, unconsciously scratching his left arm.  “I mean, it could …it does work from a distance.  That is, once you cast it and all, but not for that long.  Depends on who casts it, doesn’t it? But anywhere from a couple of hours to all day, then it wears off and…” He stopped, noticing that Sirius and James were both staring at him.

“How do you come to know so much about an Unforgivable, Peter?” said Sirius suspiciously.

“Er, well, I hear people talking at work, you know,” Peter replied, his tongue tripping over the words.  “All sorts of people--clients, that is--come in and I try not to…but the other clerks, though, they will go on.  And why would someone want to put the Imperius Curse on Remus?”

“The wedding, for starters.”  Sirius turned to scan the dark places in the alley once again.  “Oy!  Remus!  Where the hell are you?”

“Oy!  Remus!  Where the hell are you?”

The words came to him from far off, as if someone stood on a moving train and shouted whilst receding into the distance.  He’d somehow managed to fall off the train and become ensnared in a stinging thicket of memories. 

He stumbled around another turn and the dim, narrow alley brightened.  He ought to use his wand, but he was afraid of what the next bit of light would bring.  Somewhere ahead of him, he heard the voices of James and Sirius and choked sobs that he didn’t at first recognize as Peter’s.

He wasn’t ready to face them.  Not yet.  

Although it seemed like several years ago, it was only this morning that he’d awoken alone in the forest, lying next to the body of the fallen unicorn.  He had gotten unsteadily to his feet, absently brushing away leaves and dirt.  His clothes were otherwise clean.  That hadn’t been right, though.  He’d remembered how he had retched at the sight of the abominable murder, soiling himself in his half-paralyzed and helpless state. After the unicorn had been killed, he’d passed out.

Why was he still alive? 

All day the question had dogged him like a vengeful ghost bent on driving him mad.  He was the only witness to the murder of a unicorn, by itself a heinous crime, carried out by Lord Voldemort.  Why hadn’t he been killed?

He shook his head, amazed at his own thick-headedness.  Oh, it was obvious, painfully so, as the floodgates burst open and he struggled to keep his head above the rising torrent of memories.

“Kill him? That is for me to decide,” Lord Voldemort laughed to the Death Eater at his side. 

The black-cloaked figures stood with their backs to Remus.  He was glad that from where he lay on the ground he couldn’t see the dead unicorn, limp and motionless with its neck ripped open, first by the inhuman fingers of Lord Voldemort and then by the more fastidious gloved hands of the Death Eater, who had filled his glass vials with the silvery blood. 

When Lord Voldemort turned around, all thoughts of the unicorn evaporated in a heartbeat. 

Skin like sun-bleached bone. 

Nose like a snake…flat with slits where nostrils should be.

Eyes like a cat…or a reptile, a travesty of any living snake with those blazing scarlet orbs and slits for pupils. 

The monstrose face was grotesque, a mockery of all that was human, perverted with a conscious and twisted purpose that he knew was beyond his understanding.

The Death Eater turned and whispered something to his master, causing Voldemort to eye Remus carefully.  Then, the servant whispered more urgently, his gaunt frame shaking, but Remus couldn’t make out the words.

 “Interesting… but no concern of yours,” came the hissed response. “Your work here is finished.  Go and prepare the rest of the ingredients,” he commanded, not taking his livid eyes away from Remus. “I shall make the potion at midnight tonight and it must be...perfect.”

The Death Eater gave Remus a final frigid stare, and then Disapparated.

They were alone and Lord Voldemort smiled at him.  It was not a pleasant thing to see.

”And what shall become of you, werewolf?” 

As Remus lay partially paralyzed on the ground, the cold question pierced him like an icicle.  He wanted to find his wand and flee, but only managed a feeble effort to twist onto his side.  He retched again for his labors, painful dry heaves because there was nothing left inside him.

“Filth,” spat the dark wizard.  With a well-placed kick in the ribs, he pushed Remus onto his back like a small boy tormenting a tortoise. 

He felt the impact, although owing to the effects of the hex, which caused numbing and paralysis, he was spared the full quota of pain.  On the other hand, he could do nothing to protect himself.  If he survived, he could expect a very large bruise and maybe a few broken ribs. 

“Dirty animal.  Barely human.  Look at you--rolling in it, covered in your own filth.  That is how your kind always ends.” 

Remus thought that his life might end rather soon as he lay staring at the dim remnant of twilight overhead, his eyes watering while Lord Voldemort circled like an enormous black carrion bird and spouted caustic bile, wounding him in ways that were not as easily healed as bruises or cuts.

“I find it disgusting,” laughed Lord Voldemort viciously, “but you frighten most wizards too much to disgust them.  You are a mindless, savage beast as far as they are concerned. You kill without conscience.  You steal away their children, perverting them if you get the chance.  You consort with Darkness.” 

The dark wizard stopped pacing and leaned over Remus, crimson eyes flashing as the pupils widened. 

“You are Darkness.”

Remus closed his eyes tightly, blocking sight and feverishly hoping that this would somehow block sound as well.  His hands twitched uselessly at his side when he wanted to use them to cover his ears so he couldn’t hear the torrent of words that rained down on the shadowy places in his head and gave form to thoughts that he tried hard not to think.

“And they are right to fear you, are they not?” crooned Lord Voldemort in a softer voice that was about as sweet as rat poison.  “You are strong, much stronger than anyone suspects.  Even now, you are fighting the curse that my servant gave you.  Is that not so?“

Voldemort chuckled at the sight of Remus’s feeble twitching, and then casually raised his wand.

“Finite Incantatum.”

The curse retreated like the tide going out.  Remus felt beached; his arms and legs flailed uselessly.  To steady himself, he rolled over and got up on his hands and knees.  He was still shaking, but the earth beneath him damped the spastic twitching.

After what seemed like an eternity of staring at the ground, he struggled to his feet awkwardly and with much labored breathing.  He’d be damned in whatever hell was reserved for half-human monsters before he’d let himself be killed while on his hands and knees.  Miraculously, he was still alive when he stood erect, face to face with the most powerful Dark wizard of the century. 

Lord Voldemort watched him, the expression in those scarlet catlike eyes incomprehensible.

Remus stared back, though it took great effort to look upon the twisted, once human face.  An ominous silence blanketed the darkening forest and his hand traveled to his cheek, crusted with vomit, leaves and dirt.  He wiped it off, slowly and deliberately.

Voldemort raised his wand slightly and Remus braced for the killing curse that did not come.

“Exos Lavanum.”

In the blink of an eye, Remus was clean, purged of the dirt-encrusted filth that had been the focus of so much abuse moments earlier.

“That is better.”  Lord Voldemort smiled like a snake that had just swallowed its first meal in half a year.  “Ah, you do not tell others of your strength, do you?” he continued.  “But, Lord Voldemort knows.  Within you there is much power, power that you dare not use.  Why not?  They--” He gave a particularly nasty sneer.  “--tell you that your power is uncontrollable, as if you were a mere beast, a slobbering, drooling, mindless creature.  But that is not so.  Lord Voldemort knows…and has many werewolves in his service.  Many others are ready to join when the time is right.  Not here, though.  The Ministry keeps English werewolves weak; they tie you up with ridiculous laws and fill your heads full of lies and half-truths.  But they are fools to think this will be enough.  You can control what is inside.  You will learn this, werewolf, and you will be glad of it...”

The words had a seductive flavor that made Remus giddy, reminding him suddenly of a particular Defense Against the Dark Arts class in his seventh year, the day that the lot of them, laughing and boisterous as usual, had arrived to find their teacher gone.  In the place of Professor Spinoza stood a nondescript-looking man in tattered robes and a dark brown traveling cloak.  He did not introduce himself.  Instead, he began telling them about the Unforgivable curses that they must prepare themselves to face soon. 

“He’s an Auror,” whispered Columbine Rookwood, whose father worked for the Ministry.  Once the news diffused through the class, the silence was absolute.  All stared with rapt attention as the Auror--who never said his name--described the effects of two of the Unforgivables:  the killing curse and the Cruciatus curse.  They all wondered, though none would say it out loud, if this mousy little man whom they would likely ignore if they met on the street had ever used these forbidden spells to catch Dark wizards. 

The third Unforgivable curse he not only described but demonstrated on each of them.  The class continued after the bell rang; no one wanted to leave, even though the Auror was harsh with them, berating the seventh years until each could detect, if not defeat, the Imperius curse. 

Watching his classmates one after another grow slack-jawed and glassy-eyed as they were made to carry out ridiculous tasks, Remus had assumed that the curse would make him feel thick-witted and fuzzy.  He was not prepared for the clarity of thought and the dizzy feeling of freedom that suffused his mind when the curse was laid upon him.  He was happy, so deliriously happy to be free from all his cares that he did not notice at first that he had started to climb up the curtains that flanked one of the tall narrow windows in the classroom.  Why bother with what his body was doing, after all, when he felt detached, bobbing in a sea of contentment?

Even as he submitted to the blissful feeling in his head, he felt the currents of the curse surge at a deeper level. Once he knew that a polluted stream was feeding the happy waters on which he so carelessly floated, he could see the lines of the spell in his mind and almost trace the seeping poison back to its source.  With this knowledge came pain.  The harder he resisted, the more intense the fire that tore through his mind.  He fell from his high perch as the struggle in his head weakened the curse.  Then came the physical pain as he hit the stone floor of the classroom and shattered his wrist.  Thus ended his one and only exposure to the Imperius curse. 

“…You will learn this, werewolf, and you will be glad of it.” Lord Voldemort’s words echoed in his mind almost as if the voice alone could conjure up the Imperius curse without the use of wand or word of power.  And like that curse, nasty black threads lurked beneath the silky voice, trying to trap him. 

“The night my father was murdered,” Remus said through clenched teeth, half-expecting to feel a stab of searing pain as he struggled to speak, “the Dark Mark could be seen for miles around the village.”

Did he detect surprise or anger in the inhuman expression on Voldemort’s leering face?  He could not be sure.

“Perhaps you’ve killed so many that you don’t remember,” Remus went on, the coldness growing in his voice, “but I cannot forget.”

“Lord Voldemort knows everything, Remus Lupin,” came the reply, a soft hiss with a hint of malice underneath.  The dark wizard laid a long bony finger thoughtfully along his cheek.  “I cannot forget that your father wrote lies about me, clever lies that would have been misunderstood by weak-minded witches and wizards.  This angered my faithful servants.  They only sought to correct the obvious mistruths, my Death Eaters.” 

The forest was fully dark now.  There would be no moon and the vaulted ceiling of trees hid the sky in any case.  In spite of the darkness around them, Remus could see clearly the bleached white face and red eyes that leered at him.  Perhaps the hidden heart of the forest wove its own spell or else Lord Voldemort glowed with a terrible magic all his own. 

“Yes…your father and his nasty, bothersome lies.  When the wizarding press refused to print them (and my friends were most insistent on that score), he printed them himself, as if Lord Voldemort could be defeated by mere paper and ink.” 

High-pitched shrieking laughter filled the little clearing.  With a swirl of his cloak, he stepped behind Remus where he continued in a low, angry hiss, “Your father was a Muggle, was he not?  It is a… perversion for Muggles to marry witches.  It must not be allowed.”

Relief at not seeing the snake-like face mingled with the fear at having the dark wizard at his back.  Remus looked down at the ground, unable to avoid the still luminous body of the unicorn, and drew a deep, steadying breath.

 “This Muggle father of yours,” said Lord Voldemort in a calmer voice as he completed his circuit and reappeared before Remus, “do you think he ever understood you?“

It occurred to Remus that he could have fled at any point, but instead he stood paralyzed--not by a spell, but by feelings of confusion and outrage.  Reminded by Voldemort’s taunting, he remembered keenly the burden of guilt that his mother still bore for ruining his father’s life; she seemed to believe that, merely by being a witch, she had saddled her husband with a monster for a son.  But his father--dead for two years--had always regarded his son’s condition as just another challenge and had borne the inconvenience and injury with his usual calm detachment.  Or had he? 

“You cannot be sure, can you?”  Voldemort echoed Remus’s thoughts; his nostrils flared as if he could smell the uncertainty in the air.  “Your family and your friends will eventually give you up for lost; you know that.  There is no refuge, no place to go in the wizarding world--a world full of misguided weaklings who do not have the courage to value real power.  They will turn on you sooner or later and you will die like a cornered animal.”

Remus sprang, not at the leering face, but toward the wand that lay on the ground.  He scrambled to stand again as the other wizard, eyes widening in what might have been surprise, raised his wand and laughed. 

“Only Lord Voldemort knows how to value you, werewolf.  In my service you will find power and more, much more.”

The dark wizard swiftly stepped closer as Remus tried to calm him mind enough to call forth even a simple spell.

“Expect my emissary to call upon you…soon,” hissed Lord Voldemort.  “You will have much to discuss.” 

Remus recovered enough to tense, ready to spring, but the Dark wizard was quicker.

“Stupef--”

Remus slumped against a wall and rubbed his eyes with the heels of his hands.  The alley was lit just ahead and occasional snatches of his friends’ conversation drifted toward him, but he didn’t appear to notice.  He let his hands fall, cupping them over his mouth and exhaling as if trying to warm himself on a frigid winter day.  Oddly enough for a muggy summer evening, he was shivering.

“C’mon,” sighed James dispiritedly.  “He can’t be far behind us.”

He gave Sirius a half-hearted punch in the arm and pointed his wand toward the passageway that led back to Seven Shoe Alley.

“Lumos,” he muttered and shuffled stiffly past Peter and Sirius.

“I’m sure he’s okay--Remus, I mean,” said Peter in the silence that followed James’s departure.  He peered after the disappearing light from James’s wand and went on, “And I’m sure we’re not far from this place.  It’s probably just around the corner.  Really.  Won’t be long…”

Peter’s voice trailed off, the words evaporating without an echo, gobbled up by the rough alley walls.  For a few minutes there was only silence, and then Sirius began snoring.

“Huh?”  Peter turned around in surprise to find Sirius leaning against a wall with his eyes closed and his mouth hanging slackly open.  His wand had fallen to his side, still glowing weakly, and in the feeble light the lack of sleep was splashed across his face like paint on the canvas of an abstract painting:  dark circles under the eyes, ashen skin that lacked the usual ready-for-anything ruddiness, and a pinched expression that refused to be gone even in sleep.

“Sirius? Eh, you’re not… Wake up,” Peter said hesitantly, prodding Sirius gingerly.  When that didn’t work, he tried taking his friend by the arm and shaking him, lightly at first and then harder.

Sirius tensed and his eyes flew open, as if he’d been struck by a bolt of lightning. Peter cried out in surprise and tried to get away.  He wasn’t fast enough.  Sirius reached for his throat even as the wandlight failed and they were left in darkness.

“It’s me! It’s Peter! Don’t you rec--” Peter spluttered as Sirius’s hand closed around his windpipe, wand poking menacingly at his heart.

“Wha--Oh! Shit, Peter, you shouldn’t sneak up on me like that,” said Sirius.  He dropped his wand and let go of Peter’s neck.  Then he murmured, “Lumos” and inspected the other man in the light of the glowing wand, just to make certain that he really was Peter.

“I wasn’t!  I wasn’t sneaking up on you!  You sort of… closed your eyes for a bit and you didn’t seem to be listening, so I., er, tried to wake you up,” said Peter with a ghost of a smile.

“Sorry,” mumbled Sirius and ran a hand through his hair, tugging on it as if the pain might help wake him up.  “I am a little tired, but only a little.  And mind you don’t go mentioning this to James either.  How about a Fatigue Banishing spell, eh?  That should do the trick.”

“Oh, I don’t--I’m not sure that…”  Peter backed away, shaking his head.  “You know that spell doesn’t work well if you’re too tired and you’ve had a lot to drink.  That is, I don’t know how long--”

“Come on,” snapped Sirius and grabbed the sleeve of Peter’s jacket.  “Just a couple of hours, that’s all I need.”

“All right, all right.”  Peter raised his wand and coughed nervously before beginning. “Vanquo!” he cried in the firmest voice he could muster and waved his wand across Sirius’s face.

In the blink of an eye, the color came back into Sirius’s face and the dark circles were erased from under his eyes.  The bruise across his cheek still lingered menacingly.  The spell hadn’t done a thing to vanquish that.

“Hey, thanks.  I feel great!  Should’ve done this hours ago.”  Sirius bounced on the balls of his feet and then launched himself in the direction that James had taken, grabbing Peter by the arm and dragging him along in his wake.  “And your wand technique has really improved, Peter.  Have you been practicing?”

“Remus has been acting funny tonight, hasn’t he?” Peter said hastily, struggling to keep up with Sirius’s long strides.

“Something’s up with him, I could swear it,” rumbled Sirius as they followed the twisting of the alley, first to the right, and then to the left.

“When you and James were talking you…you didn’t mean like what happened to Annie Abbott’s brother?”  Peter was sweating again, trying desperately to deflect the conversation away from the question of why his wand technique had improved recently.  

Sirius stopped and gave Peter a penetrating stare.

“Of course, he killed those Muggles and then confessed that he wasn’t in his right mind and maybe he wasn’t, I mean, we don’t know, do we?”  Peter babbled on, knowing very well that Julius Abbott was innocent, a victim of the Imperius curse that one of the Death Eaters--Peter thought his name was Mulciber--had placed on him. 

“It happens more often than people realize,” Sirius went on, “and it’s damned hard to catch.  Makes it bloody tricky for the Aurors, I can tell you.”

“We only have his word on it,” said Peter hastily, not wanting the conversation to take a turn toward those Dark wizard catchers either,  “but it looks like… never mind, the thing is that--“

“It looks like he couldn’t resist Dark forces,” Sirius interrupted irritably,  “so who’s going to trust him now?”

 “Remus?” whispered James.  “You all right there?”

In the light of his wand, Remus did not, in fact, look anywhere close to all right; his face had that washed-out color usually reserved for the day after the full moon and his arms were wrapped around his chest as if he were trying to keep warm on a winter’s night.

“Hey, is there something that I--“

Remus shuddered and his eyes opened suddenly, the pupils large, black and feral.  He raised his arms and crossed them over his face to shield himself from the light. 

“Oh, gods…it’s you…James.”  He dropped his arms and squinted, recognition trickling onto his face.

“Not up to our usual standards tonight, are we?” said James, trying to sound casual.  The response from Remus was a puzzled expression, so he continued hastily, “I mean, here we are, the little band that mapped all of Hogwarts castle and most of the Forbidden Forest, and we can’t seem to find our way down a poky little alley.  We’re not as young as we used to be, I guess.”

Remus shook his head and detached himself from the wall.  He took a hesitant step and then stopped. 

“James? Can I ask you something? I’m no bloody good at Potions, but … if someone were going to make a potion with unicorn blood, what do you think it would be for?”

“What? Whatever made you think of that?”

“Just something I saw… recently made me wonder.  It’s noth--No, I shouldn’t say that.”

“Well, unicorn blood isn’t something you can buy on the street, is it?  Not even in Knockturn Alley,” said James in an even tone, as if they were discussing a homework problem. “And it’d have to be a Dark potion to need that. Did something happen on your holiday that made you think of this?”

Remus opened his mouth as if to speak, but didn’t make a sound.  He met James’s eyes for an instant, but then turned and started to walk away

“What did you see? ”  James caught hold of his arm lightly.  “Come on.  You can tell me.  If it’s a puzzle, we’ll work it out together.”

The alley was silent for a moment.  Remus halted.  The scuffling of his boots stopped abruptly and James was left staring at the tense set of his shoulders for a minute’s worth of heartbeats. And then something changed.  Remus shrugged and turned around.

“I don’t know how to…” he began with the familiar half-smile that ran through the spectrum of emotions, from fear to bitterness to wry amusement.

James waited.  He knew Remus well enough to understand that more questions wouldn’t help, that Remus would answer in his own time, if he was going to answer at all. 

Quite suddenly they weren’t alone. 

“… never mind, the thing is that--” came a snatch of Peter’s voice, heralding the reunion of the little band of adventurers.

“It looks like he couldn’t resist Dark forces, so who’s going to trust him now?” was Sirius’s gruff reply.  From the sound of it, the other two were just around the corner.

Remus gave a quick glance down the alley.  When he looked back, James saw something he’d never seen on his friend’s face, or maybe he hadn’t understood it so fully before, that look of mingled rage and fright, a hint of the wolf, like the ripples on the surface of a lake marking the passage of some Leviathan of the watery deep, unseen and perhaps all the more frightening because of its shadowy uncertainty.

“About bloody time!”  Sirius appeared from around the corner, doubling the amount of light in the narrow alley and doubling the number of great, hulking shadows splashed on the walls.

In the aftermath of the explosion that was Sirius, Remus’s face altered--a door closed, a book snapped shut, the wolf vanished.  James scarcely had time to take in the change before he was hit by the sudden claustrophobia of the four of them together.  The reek of an evening of drinking mingled with sweat--each could pick out the smell of the others like neon signs in a dark room--had become an almost physical presence. Add to that the lack of any kind of breeze and you probably could have cut the atmosphere with a knife, wrapped it in brown paper and sold it in a cheese shop.

“Remus, you all right?” Sirius held his wand high and looked his friend over from head to toe.  “Peter bashed his head up and James is still a near-cripple, though he won’t admit it.  You sure you don’t have some injury you’ve forgotten to mention?  Broken bone?  Internal bleeding?  Hangnail?”

The glare on Sirius’s face was not lighthearted, despite his words.  Remus met his eyes for a moment, and then looked down, mumbling something that sounded like, “Don’t worry about me.”

When the silence went on too long for James’s comfort, he cleared his throat and tried to say something only to be cut off by Sirius.

“And I am feeling great, just bloody marvelous in fact, did I mention that?”  Sirius said with a grin that seemed a little too large to be genuine.  He continued to stare at Remus even as he reached over and gave Peter a shove, saying, “Let’s get moving, Wormtail.  You’re in charge.  Ha!  But we won’t let you get lost this time.”

Peter stumbled hesitantly, but James gave him a reassuring pat on the back and said, “Come on, then.”

The two of them squeezed through the narrow alley side-by-side and disappeared around the corner.  Peter’s voice could still be heard, now chattering to James:  “Thanks for fixing me up.   I’m feeling loads better.  Oh, how’s your neck?  Is it still bothering you? You’re walking a bit better.  I’m sure we’ll be there soon…”

“And we’re not losing you again,” Sirius said shortly.  He grabbed Remus’s arm and tugged, intending to drag him along behind James and Peter, if it came to that.

“I said I’m fine,” Remus answered softly, still not meeting Sirius’s eyes.  He twisted out from under the hand gripping his arm and made to follow the other two, pushing roughly past Sirius.

“You expect me to believe that?” Sirius said to Remus’s disappearing back.  “Too fucking noble for your own good, aren’t you?”

He had to dash a few steps to catch up, giving Remus a shove from behind when he did.  By that time, the passageway, barely wide enough for two people to walk abreast before, had become narrower and he couldn’t get a look at his friend’s face nor get him to say more.

After another few twists and turns, light from a source other than their wands began to seep into the alley, a yellow glow that reflected dully off the bricks and grew steadily stronger. And there were sounds, faint at first but becoming louder and more coherent.

James stopped answering Peter’s questions and then tuned out his friend’s words entirely.  He was listening.  At first, he didn’t know what he was listening to, something ticking, and maybe the occasional musical note?  Music? What did he think lay ahead, after all, a brass band?

“--so clever about the Portkeys,” Peter was saying.  But even Peter was capable of being silent on occasion.  The sight that greeted them around the final corner made him stop in mid-sentence.  “Now that the wedding’s almost here, d’you mind letting me in on--”

If they had expected to find a smaller Seven Shoe Alley, or a classier version of a Soho strip club, or a hidden house of magical mirrors, they were wrong. What they saw was not like any of those.

James and Peter stopped, causing Remus and Sirius to bump into them.  For several moments, the foursome was a tangle of arms, legs and curses, until they sorted themselves out and looked around at where they’d landed: a square courtyard four meters on a side ringed with the same high brick walls that had had defined their journey thus far, had scratched and bitten them and had looked down on them with an almost sinister regard.

Two lamps mounted on one of the walls threw off the warm yellow light that oozed over the ever-present brick walls like melting butter on a haphazardly stacked pile of hotcakes.  Between the two lamps crouched a stone tiger, most realistic for all that it was carved from pale marble. Its fur seemed to ripple; its teeth gleamed in the yellow light; its mouth was frozen in mid-roar with fangs seemingly ready to tear apart whatever came near.

If the tiger were to spring and leap into the air, it would have landed in a round pool a little more than a meter in diameter that took up most of the rest of the courtyard.  A fountain bubbled in the center of the dark water--not a garish fountain filled with foam or fireworks, just a simple jet that plinked and splashed rather cheerfully.  A set of chimes in the fountain played brief snatches of unidentifiable tunes whenever the water hit them, five or six measures that were almost recognizable, if only there were a bit more… 

Around the margins of the pool, hanging over the surface of the water, grew large, pale flowers that looked as if they only bloomed at night, creamy white, mysterious cousins to lilies with deep, shadowy centers.  The little courtyard was awash in their sickly sweet smell.

James looked around, confused.  He had the feeling that if he stood still for too long, the light might wrap itself around him, cocoon-like, lulling him into closing his eyes and floating away. The heavily perfumed air crept under his clothes, down his neck and around his chest, worming its way into his heart.  Yes, his heart. For in spite of all the jokes and innuendo and winking that went on when thinking about a place like Tigerseye, wasn’t it really a matter of the heart?  And he found that his heart was pounding.

Peter freed himself first from the tangle of his friends and stumbled into the center of the courtyard where he froze, transfixed in front of the stone tiger, unable to tear his eyes away from the petrified snarl and the softly gleaming teeth. The others, meanwhile, stood framed by the walls of the passageway that had brought them to such an abrupt end, a trio of confusion against a brick backdrop.

“Augh!” 

In the act of backing away from the beast, Peter smacked up against the wide stone lip around the pool and lost his balance, sprawling forward.  Sirius laughed and the sound cut the thick atmosphere like an oar attacking the still water of a lake.  Ripples of Sirius’s laughter splashed James and dispelled the lethargy that had been lulling him into stupidity and thick-witted confusion.

“Up you get,” chuckled Sirius, extending a hand toward Peter who was sprawled on the stone floor.  “Not hurt, are you?  Good.  Now, let’s find the door or gate or…”

Sirius turned around slowly, wand out, and inspected the little brick-walled courtyard.  There was no door, no bell to ring, no gong to strike, just the tiger, the fountain, and those stultifying flowers.  When Sirius tapped the stone beast impatiently with his wand, the eyes opened, yellow gems with a starburst pattern in the center that made them come alive in the lamplight. 

“I don’t suppose that your brother told you how to find the entrance to the bloody place?”

Peter stared sheepishly at his feet, afraid to look up at the menacing yellow eyes.

“Great.  Marvelous.  Ruddy fabulous.  Mind if we toss you to the tiger, Peter?”

~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~