Banish Misfortune

Chapter 5: 

There was not a tree and scarcely a plant on the island of Farne, for the bitter winds blew salt spray from every side. The brothers sought to dissuade him, saying, “Have we not ourselves heard the demon shrieks and their wild wicked laughter? And have we not seen the glitter of demon lights set to lure poor fishermen to their destruction?”

“The greater need, then, that I should go,” said Cuthbert. “A soldier like myself is the fittest champion to fight the powers of darkness.”

                                                                -- A. Steedman, “Our Island Saints”

 Needles…. If there were such things as eight-foot needles, its teeth would be needles. Alice peered out from her refuge in the rocks, watching as the Thing gnashed those teeth against them, trying to get at her. She was standing shoulder-deep in the water, surrounded by gigantic columns of black stone. Hard, very hard, volcanic stone from the dawn of the Earth’s existence. She kept her mind focussed on thoughts of the stone’s hardness, on her own safety as she stayed among these rocks. To think of anything else would involve those teeth, the stench of decay surrounding the monster, that unspeakable face with the horrible empty eye sockets as deep as she was tall. It was silent; the only sounds were the clash of teeth on stone, and the thrashing of its huge body in the water. There was no vocalisation, no hiss of breath. She wondered, almost dispassionately, whether it could smell her: didn’t smelling involve breathing?

There was something wrong with her arm and shoulder on the left side: she’d been tossed out of her boat and had fallen against one of these rocks, it must have been an hour or more ago. It had been numb, but now was beginning to hurt; she couldn’t move her arm at all. She didn’t see her boat anywhere; perhaps it had been smashed. Illogically, this thought infuriated her: how was she supposed to escape if this Thing had smashed her boat? She yelled abuse at the Worm—some choice words that came back to her from her childhood: she was the daughter of a dockworker.

The Worm was stung by Alice’s anger—this was not edible: it was an irritant. The Worm renewed its efforts to gnaw through the rock columns and kill this thing.

Alice watched as the Worm’s teeth broke against the rocks, and hundreds of deadly new ones sprouted to take the place of the broken ones.

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Sirius and the boat appeared in the water without a splash, and the boat set off purposefully among the islands. Sirius looked around him, trying to place where he was. He didn’t know the names of all these bits of rock, but he knew that he was somewhere to the northeast of Alice’s home.

He smelled the Worm before he saw it: faintly at first, like a warning of things to come. The faintest hint of wrongness, decay, death, evil. It smelled like a dementor. He remembered the seals’ reports: ‘if we make our minds quiet, it can’t see us.’  Right, it all fit together—it made sense now. Remus had guessed correctly.

The smell grew stronger as he sailed around the point of the little island: sickening, overpowering, nearly intolerable. He fought against the urge to vomit: steeled his mind against the unwillingly remembered feeling of despair, telling himself: “I’m not in prison; this is different—I can fight now.”  The habits of twelve years, developed for survival, kicked in: he made his mind quiet, invisible.

Sirius was better prepared for the sight of the monster than most humans could have been. He was not, however, prepared for the sight of Old Alice yelling furious insults at it from what seemed a pitifully vulnerable position among the shore rocks. He stared, dumbfounded, for a long moment. Then, keeping his mind quiet, he grinned and directed the little boat on a circuitous path between and around the rocks to Alice.

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Andie and the Wolf awoke some time later, transformed (Remus), dressed, made tea, checked the clock for information of Sirius’s whereabouts:  “Sailing.” Gone to order Alice to stay ashore, no doubt, and set of with her when she refused to listen. They made jokes about the perverse pleasure Alice and Sirius gleaned from each other’s company. They decided to go for a walk, then come back and learn Cuthbert’s curse.

 The Wolf, inside Remus, sniffed the air uncertainly.

The day was windy, cool, the clouds shifting in huge, rolling mountains. Remus, absorbed with the beguiling way that the wind had of tossing Andie’s hair into her eyes, tripped over a stone in his path. Andie exclaimed and reached out a hand to steady him. He took her hand and they walked on, smiling, quietly mindful that they were now holding hands.

Their walk took them for several miles over the hills, through patches of forest and back home along the burn. Sirius still had not returned. They checked the clock again: “Island.” They nodded, satisfied; he wouldn’t be long now.

Andie shook her head over the unforgiving, punitive nature of the curse, but learned the words anyway. Saying them over to herself, she got up and helped Remus make sandwiches for lunch. They shared a bottle of beer and waited for Sirius.

“He won’t be long, surely,” murmured Andie. She glanced uneasily at the clock, then at Remus.

Remus shook his head and pulled at the label on the empty bottle, old memories bringing a smile to his lips. “No, you needn’t worry on that score: Sirius will be here. Do you know, after we all left school and went our separate ways, no matter where he was or what he was doing, I could depend on seeing Sirius on my doorstep the evening of each full moon. He never missed a moon, not one, until they put him in prison. I’ve wondered sometimes if he wasn’t removed from Aurors’ training because someone there thought he was a werewolf himself, disappearing every month as he did. Obviously, it wasn’t Moody who thought so, because he took Sirius on personally after that.

“Every now and then James came with him; they almost made it a festive occasion. I didn’t ask, would never have asked him to come.  He just came, usually full of jokes and damn-fool silliness about being on the road with his Quidditch team, or later about his trainers, or the Ministry, or whatever was going on. He’d park his motorbike behind the Hut, run with me all night, usually be gone before I came to the next morning. But I’d always wake up in bed, warm, with hot food and tea waiting nearby. I have these hazy, half-memories of him sometimes carrying me into the Hut, in early dawn. I asked him, once, why he came. He said, ‘Because I choose to, so shut up.’” 

Remus looked up to face Andie, regret and self-reproach in his eyes. “I had better cause than anyone to know about Sirius’s loyalty—and still, along with the rest of the world, I believed him to be a traitor. There’s no excuse…”

A sharp click from one of the hands on their clock made them jump—that would be Sirius, home now. They went to the door to watch for him, coming up the path. Puzzled when he didn’t appear, Andie walked over to the mantel for a look at the clock. She stopped dead in her tracks, and turned to Remus with panic in her eyes: the hand labelled “Sirius” pointed straight up. “Deadly Peril.” 

The Wolf, sensing fear, whined gently and scratched at the door of Remus’s mind.

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Sirius found that the rocks offered more protection than he’d first thought they could. The columns were so tall and wide, and so close together, that the Worm’s head would not fit between them; they would be safe here for a while. He had sailed to within ten feet of Alice before she noticed him. As he expected, she showed none of the surprise he knew she was feeling: “Only the one of you? I suppose you think you can handle this thing by yourself…. Hmph.”

Sirius grinned at her: “Your boat wasn’t very specific; it just showed up on my doorstep and told me to get in. I thought none of us, including you, would be going out today, because of the storm. Trust you to go out on your own and stir up a monster!” He lowered his voice then, and spoke more urgently: “Alice, remember what the seals told Andie, about keeping your mind quiet? They were right: this thing is a bit like a dementor. It hears emotions; it knows when we’re agitated or upset. That may be why it spins ships around before it swallows them: it wants that fear. So giving it a piece of your mind, as you were doing,” he smiled, “may be just what it wants. Try not to feel anything at all. Between the two of us, we should be able to make it out of here. And we should do it soon; I have an appointment tonight. Let me help you into the boat.”

“No need, laddie; this boat knows me,” she whispered. She touched the side of the boat and was instantly inside it, with hardly a splash. Sirius gently turned the boat around and slowly crept back the way he had come, staying among the protecting rocks.

They made it, for nearly forty yards.

The Worm was baffled. A full day and night of hunting had turned up only this one small boat. It had heard human fear, then anger; it knew it had capsized the boat, and the human had taken refuge among the infuriating rocks. Suddenly, there was nothing. Had the human found a way to get to land? It held its horrible head still, listening. Nothing: had the human drowned? They did, sometimes.

Thrashing its great body in frustration, the Worm flung itself through the rocks, churning up gigantic waves, bashing against the black columns. Its coils reached up higher than the highest pillars as it swung itself seaward. The end of its tail made a swift, immensely powerful sweep, blindly hitting the little boat broadside. Suddenly, there it was again: the encouraging sound of Fear. The Worm reversed its direction and waved its head back and forth, hunting once more.

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“Deadly Peril.” Remus stood in dismay, staring at the clock, trying to think, to make his mind move beyond the word “No!” Sirius had to be at Alice’s: the first reading had said “Sailing” and the second one had said “Island.” He felt Andie’s hand on his arm and turned to her, reaching out to touch her cheek.  “Never mind, love; we’ll find him,” he assured her, and hoped it was true. Without further words, they ran down the path and Disapparated, heading for Longstone. The afternoon shadows lengthened.

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The sound of Fear had come from Alice; Sirius appeared to be unconscious.  She’d seen Sirius thrown out of the boat; heard the sickening crack as he hit the side of a slanting stone column and slid down into the water. She touched the boat and it righted itself. With her good arm, she pulled Sirius’s head free of the water. She told the boat to take them both in.  This spot was more open than seemed safe; she guided it back amongst the rocks.

She hid her thoughts once more: the Worm had started that awful silent swaying. It had heard her when the boat went over; she would have to be more careful. She looked down at Sirius, lying in the bottom of the boat, moving slightly, his eyes open but unfocussed. She couldn’t tell how badly he was hurt, or if any bones were broken. There was rather a lot of blood oozing through his hair, a sizeable bruise forming on the side of his head. Concussion, possibly. She spoke his name; received an incoherent answer. She smiled grimly: who was supposed to be the rescuer here?

But they were in a fix, now, and no mistake. The pain in her shoulder had grown to the point that it was taking up nearly all her attention: she was finding it impossible to think, to come up with a plan. Nearly a full day up to the neck in the North Sea had left her aching, chilled to the bone, unable to move very fast or with much purpose. It occurred to her that, possibly, she was old. As quietly as she could, she guided the little boat into a deep, narrow cleft in the rocks, then closed her eyes wearily.

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The lighthouse was empty. The boat was gone. Andie and Remus stood on Longstone’s rocky shore and stared at each other helplessly. “There’s nothing to show where they’ve gone,” Andie said, looking out to sea. “Maybe you should transform, and see if you can catch a scent. I know it’s not very likely, but we can’t do anything else. We’ll walk the perimeter of the island and see if you can pick up anything on the wind. They have to be near here somewhere.” 

And so the Wolf was freed. He could hear Remus in his mind, asking—begging—for news of Sirius—of Padfoot. Yes, he wanted Padfoot too. The Wolf ran along the shore, sniffing the air, the rock, casting back and forth, looking. Andie followed, the smell of fear evident from her. His Pack, in distress. The Wolf waited for Andie, jumped up and licked her on the cheek, then dashed on down the shore. Longstone was one of the larger islands, but it was quick work to walk all the way round it. There was nothing—no indication that Padfoot had ever been here. The Wolf paced up and down the last bit of shoreline, whining in his agitation. He had no words to express the uneasiness, the worry, the need to find, comfort, and protect his own. His Pack. The wolf looked out to sea and howled. Again and again.

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Sirius awoke in darkness, his head pounding, freezing cold, with the stench of death and decay in his nostrils. The smell of prison, of dementors. He’d obviously been dreaming again, such a vivid one this time: dreaming he was free, dreaming he was with people who trusted him—who loved him. From long habit, after the first desolate waking breath, he fought against the crushing despair: best to transform. To be Padfoot for a while, to get through the agony and disappointment of waking up.

He transformed, and as he did so, a whole galaxy of other smells, under the horrible one, came into his consciousness. Seaweed. Bird droppings. Fresh air. Blood—his own. Salt water. The boat. Alice! With an enormous rush of joy and relief, he remembered where he was. Elated, grateful, he welcomed monsters, pain, numbing cold—he was free. Then, realising that he was deliriously happy to be soaking wet, freezing in a ridiculously tiny boat, with a broken head, a seriously injured old lady, and a horrific monster weaving to and fro right over them, he laughed.

Then he cocked his head to one side, listening intently: Yes, that sound was welcome too: Moony’s voice! He sat back on his haunches and howled with all the fierce delight in his soul: “We’re here!” The howling made his head hurt. He did it again.

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Andie’s eyes closed in relief as she heard the answering howls coming over the water. Whatever deadly peril threatened him, he was still alive and able to transform, able to howl. She rested her hand on the Wolf’s neck. “Can you tell exactly where he is? Can we get there?”

In an instant, he was Remus again: “Yes, I know exactly where. We can Apparate and be right beside him.” He paused for a moment, and added, “He sounds a lot happier than I was afraid he would.”

As it happened, they arrived right beside and twenty feet above Sirius, standing on the cliff edge. The Worm was horribly near, horribly silent: a black shape, or series of shapes, gigantic in the water below them, writhing slowly around the rocks, its huge, repulsive head weaving back and forth at eye level with themselves, hunting. They stared at the thing in disbelief, unable to move or speak for a moment. Then Andie took a deep breath and called softly, “Sirius? Padfoot?”

An answering bark, followed almost immediately by Sirius’s voice, broke the spell of horror that the sight of the Worm had created. He sounded—incredibly—quite normal and happy.  “Brilliant! You found us! We’re down here, in the boat. Alice is in fairly bad shape, some broken bones probably, and I have the devil’s own headache, but we’re alive and out of its reach. I don’t think that thing can hear actual sounds, only emotions, as the seals told us. Can you get us up to where you are? There’s nowhere for you to stand down here; it’s all vertical.”

Remus took out his wand and looked over the cliff edge. He Lifted the boat to the top of the cliff, set them down gently and reached a hand to Sirius, who climbed unsteadily out of the boat. Alice, her eyes still closed, murmured, “I’ll just stay here, if you don’t mind.” Andie Conjured a thick quilt to wrap around her, received a whispered “Thank you, Flower,” and turned her attention to her Pack.

Andie and Remus looked anxiously at Sirius, who could not stop grinning. They glanced at each other, the silent message “Head injury” in their eyes, but he laughed at them and said, “Believe me, there are worse places to be than here. I’m not off my head, not yet. Let’s decide what to do with this thing. I hope you two practiced Cuthbert’s curse while I was out sailing today.”

Andie answered: “Yes we did, and now I’m glad: Remus, you were too patient with me; I didn’t believe there were creatures like this in the world.  I didn’t understand. A thing like this—it’s not an animal, is it.” She turned away from the swaying Worm with loathing.

The Worm heard something. Not fear, exactly—not terror—but perhaps that would change if he moved toward the sound. He turned his head to the little group on the clifftop, snaking forward.

Sirius saw the movement first. Snatching out his wand, without thinking, he roared at the top of his voice, “Expecto Patronum!” Shouting instantly sent hammering pains through his head, but in his heightened state of elation at being free, he accepted this as proof that he was alive. He laughed aloud, and watched as his Patronus appeared.

The silvery cloud shooting from Sirius’s wand hovered in the air and formed a vertical shape, taller than any of them. It solidified into the form of a powerfully built young man, with short blond hair, wearing sandals, and robes belted in the middle. He pointed his walking staff at the Worm and began to speak, in a grim, implacable, thunderous voice. Slowly, familiar words in a cadenced, rhythmic speech unfolded. The Curse. Andie and Remus stared at one another, realisation dawning in their faces.

Then, eyes glittering with fury, Andie pointed her wand stiffly at the Worm and began repeating the words in rhythm with the Patronus. Remus watched her for a moment in amazement and admiration, then took out his wand and focussed his own anger on the Worm, repeating the words of power in Cuthbert’s curse along with the others. With each additional voice the Curse became louder and again louder, deafening, ten times louder, echoing off the rock walls and carrying for miles out to sea. Sirius swayed slightly and sank to his knees, holding his head, groaning and laughing.

The Worm recoiled. There was an advancing wall of carefully directed, implacable rage in front of him: he couldn’t escape its relentless phrases. Huge waves crashed over the rocks, drenching them as he retreated, backing away from those intolerable words. He felt himself drawn down and outwards, into the deepest hole in the sea; felt nothing more as his awareness faded. He didn’t know when the Words pinned him to the bottom of the sea bed.

Andie, Remus and the Patronus remained motionless as the dreadful shape sank into the sea. They kept their wands and staff trained on the spot where the Worm had disappeared, willing it deeper than any living creature ever had gone. At last, when every wave in the sea looked like every other wave, they lowered their wands and turned to each other.

The Patronus smiled and nodded appreciatively to Andie and Remus as one professional to another. He then turned to Sirius, raised him to his feet and placed a hand on the side of his head, over the damaged place. The pain vanished. He knelt beside Alice, lying in the boat, and laid his hands gently on her injured shoulder. Then, giving a comradely wave to all, he dissolved into the mist. The Pack watched the place where he had been for a long moment. They stood silent, holding each other close.

Eventually, Andie cleared her throat, gazed up at her brother and spoke: “All right, would you mind telling us what was so funny?”

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It was Sirius who guided the little boat home to the lighthouse. Everyone sat silent, content, watching the waves break over the rocks as they passed. The clouds parted momentarily, showing the moon, round and full. Remus gazed up at it, suddenly struck by a thought. “Do you know, I completely forgot about it for a while, this evening. It’s ruled my life for all these years, but now….” He stared out to sea, wondering, considering the possibilities. Nobody answered him, but they wondered and considered along with him, sharing his thoughts. Fervently sharing his hopes.

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Alice’s lighthouse was, after all, a rescue station, and Alice herself seemed revitalised after her encounter with the Patronus. She ushered the Pack inside and took charge instantly, opening various cupboards and trunks, hauling out blankets, hot food and whisky. Even Sirius proved unexpectedly docile, allowing himself to be ordered about, shown into the showers, given dry clothing and whisky with honey and hot water. He swirled the liquid around in the cup and listened to Alice praising their skill at monster hunting.

“I have to say, I wasn’t sure what would come of this job when Dumbledore told me to write to you,” Alice declared. “A werewolf, an animal healer, and a half-mad escaped convict.” She grinned at Sirius, who grinned back and made a mildly rude gesture. “But I needn’t have worried. You young people are every bit as good as he said you’d be,” she said. “You remind me of myself in my prime, back when I was working with… a different Pack.” She stood up slowly, smiling more at her memories than at the Pack. “I’m going up to bed, but you three can stay up as long as you like. You should stay here tonight, save your strength, and go back home tomorrow. Make yourselves comfortable down here, or go up into the bedrooms on the first floor. Good night, dears.”

They spent what was left of the night just where she’d left them: in the lighthouse sitting room, sharing impressions, falling asleep in two of Alice’s huge armchairs. Andie contentedly curled herself into the chair with Remus and drifted off to sleep with her arms round him, her head resting on his shoulder. Remus gazed down at her in bewilderment, as if wondering how she came to be there.

Sirius, sleepily observing this not-so-subtle shift in Pack dynamics, chuckled to himself. Remus looked up quizzically at his old friend and gave him a slow, hesitant smile. “Kun? (Is this right?)” he asked, quoting a suddenly remembered line from a story, shared long ago, when they were children.

Sirius smiled back fondly, approvingly, at both the memory and Remus. “Payah Kun (That is quite right).”  He leaned back and stretched slowly, luxuriously: long arms over his head, long legs toward the fire, making himself even longer, catlike. He closed his eyes, and thought drowsily to himself that they should think about adding a couple more rooms into the Hut’s interior.