Turning Time

Chapter 4

Remus took one glance at Callie, immediately feeling pity for her. She didn't deserve to have as much pain as he already had to handle himself. He immediately stood up for one purpose: to help her to her feet. The pity was too strong for him to resist. Perhaps suffering ran in the family.

Out of the corner of his eye, he saw a blurred figure, which he could tell had dark brown hair, rise to his, or even possibly her, feet from a table, but only momentarily, sitting down soon after. He didn't bother turning his head to look, afraid of causing a sense of awkwardness about the room.

He saw Callie cover her face in her hands, obviously ashamed of what had happened, and he held out a hand for her to take, unsure that she would see it through her hands. He didn't think she was crying. She didn't seem to be sobbing.

He spoke her name softly, and she came out of her shameful appearance, though he couldn't say that she was not shameful. She still looked troubled. She saw his hand and flinched shyly, her face turning pink. Remus couldn't tell whether this was out of pure shyness or if she was just embarrassed by what had happened.

Her hand trembled as she laid it in Remus's. He pulled her to her feet, and trying not to look nervous at all, she walked as calmly but quickly as she could up to her dormitory, giving him a slight smile before she walked off.

***

"Well, you know about Professor Lupin. That's probably why she fell apart."

"What if she's not really safe?"

"Well, what's going on with Callie? That was awfully odd, wasn't it?" said someone who obviously did not know anything about Remus Lupin and his condition, most likely someone who had arrived during Callie's fourth year or later.

The mutters of the Gryffindors upset Callie as she returned to the common room to get her book, which she had left on the table earlier that day. The least her classmates could do was not talk about her while she was in the room, even if they thought she couldn't hear. Glances ranging in level of fear from uneasiness to unmistakable fright were turned in her direction

This was exactly the reason she had retreated immediately after the incident to her dormitory, closing her curtains around her, because she knew Parvati and Lavender to be very gossipy and talkative, always exchanging the best bits of information that they possibly could. They even dared to talk about Callie (which she had gotten quite used to. She was a perfect gossip and rumor victim), or even Hermione, in the dormitories when she was just the one who was with them. If her curtains were closed, then she wouldn't be able to catch the giggles and glances being thrown at her.

Callie caught the glance of the one person who she did not want to have to look at. Her sad eyes just happened to fall upon Kevin, who stared at her with a sorrowful concern. She wanted to go to him to tell him she was afraid, miserable, and confused, but she knew that she would start crying so hard, harder than she ever did as a very young child, but she probably wouldn't have the courage to, even though she knew he did care, and she wasn't about to do it right then, in the common room, especially when she was surrounded by frightened stares.

Callie stopped staring at him, picked up her book from a table that was thankfully empty, and she immediately quickened her pace and turned around to go back to her dormitory, where she would withdraw to her bed again.

***

Remus was back in his part-time home, though it was twenty years older and a little more battered. The "Shrieking Shack," as the other students called it. He did not like to refer to it as another home, but he didn't have any other ideas of how to keep himself under control.

It was coming, any second now. Every time he underwent a transformation, he would suddenly feel very weak and frail, immediately unable to resist a voice that only had to speak a single sentence or even a word in his ears before he surrendered.

This weakness struck him. He fell to his knees and panted heavily, sweat rolling down his face, as if he'd been fighting some sort of karate match to the death and was about to receive the final blow.

"Come with me," said the voice.

Remus immediately accepted this offer, in knowledge that he did not have a say in whether or not he became what he always did.

Suddenly, he saw his fingernails become a wolf's claws, his skin began to grow thick, brown fur, and after that, his thoughts were overcome by those of a flesh-eating wolf's mind. He needed blood... He needed it...

He scurried desperately about the room. He headed straight for an extremely battered chair, banging into the corner of the seat. One of the legs was completely torn off, another ripped in the middle, the other two incredibly loose, the seat's corner touching the floor of the Shrieking Shack.

Suddenly an image flashed into his mind: a wolf's shadow following a human child. What was this? What was it there for? Why did he remember this?

All of a sudden, there was a different human child, a girl, staring up into his face and smiling. He didn't know what this was either.

"Don't worry, you'll be alright," said a young girl's voice, after the vision was gone. "I'm just the same as you, right?"

Was this the little girl he'd seen? What was she telling him? He was human? No, this was not possible. He was not human. For a second there, he'd even forgotten what human was! How could he forget about something that he was?

He thrashed and fidgeted violently about the room around him, saliva dripping from his fanglike teeth as he looked for the human blood he craved.

***

"See what happens?" said the voice. "Just give me my way for once, and maybe I'll leave you alone."

"Uh-uh..." sighed Callie, speaking quietly under her breath. She was too weak to keep her side of the speech between the two sides of her heart, one good, one evil, within her thoughts.

"If you really want me to go away and leave you alone forever, you'll have to accept that you cannot escape the evils deposited within you from birth!"

"I know I can't...." Callie whispered to it. "That's why... you're talking to me right now. If I surrender, I'll be doing what Papa.... What he told me not to do. I don't want to disobey!"

"Disobey?" Darkness laughed within her head. "You mustn't have the slightest idea what danger you put your friend Abigail into at the end of last year."

"Not... my fault. Never.... No! I wouldn't do that to her...." Callie said, about to cry, now that she had let it sink in that Darkness was inevitable. "She overheard.... Wasn't brave.... To go without... me...."

"Well, you shouldn't have gone either way." Darkness laughed again. It was a malicious, evil laugh that made chills spread through Callie's body.

Callie wept silently, like she always did when she was upset, so as not to draw attention or sympathy to herself, and turned over onto her pillow and tried to sleep, though try as she might, it would not be a pleasant sleep. It never was, not at these times when the moon was full.

"There were times the wrens would sing

And the squirrels would nestle in trees

And wolves would howl to the moon

And the deer would walk in grace.

There were times when the ones I loved

Would be brought before my eyes

And the angels would sing

For you and me.

There were times when the leaves on the trees would flitter.

There were times when the dark storms came, so bitter.

There were times when the snow would fall in winter,

And times when the rain would fall aglitter."

There was another voice singing the song in Callie's head. It was the voice of her mother, but if she tried to ask herself if it was her father, she couldn't tell which it was. She hoped it was her mother--her poor, dead mother who should never have died in the first place; who died for some strange reason, who could only return to sing lullabies inside her head as she tried to sleep in peace.

"There were times when we could sing...

When the angels would play sweet music for us...

So lay down your sweet head and dream sweet dreams

To awake to tomorrow's light..."

Callie sang the next verse, and then she wept into her pillow, muffling whatever sobs that might come from her.

***

When Remus was finally back to normal the next night, barely any time before dinner (a near twenty minutes before), he went straight to the library, looking tired, pale, and much like death itself. He didn't know just what book he was looking for, but he wanted to go to the library, and that was decided.

His normal sense of mischief gave him the urge to go into the restricted section and pick out a book full of dangerous spells. He was simply strolling around the library without a certain destination when he saw Callie handing a signed note to Madam Pince, the librarian. Those notes were only for restricted section books.

***

Callie had gotten the book she wanted. The book she had been looking through in Dumbledore's office. She had convinced McGonagall that it had information about Lupiredes within it, and McGonagall wasn't intent on keeping the entire truth about what the girl was from Callie.

"Mysteriorus Ostentare

This will reveal writings straight from the mind and heart of one. This may reveal certain ambitions that may be dangerous as well as part of the truth that may be frightening. This spell should not be used frivolously, as the spell could reveal dangerous things. This spell is used on a book of writings that should be the spell's user's own, and that may be used as a disguise to your device.

As you speak the spell, you must swivel the wand in a complete circle, loosening the arm to move with the wrist, and then flick the wand very quickly onto the book. As well as these movement requirements, you must focus very intently to visualize the person whose secrets you wish to reveal.

A mistake often made with this spell is that the book is not changed back to that of the user, and when he begins to write again, the person who holds the secrets can see the odd handwriting very clearly. This will reveal quite a few of the user's secrets, as well as that someone has been reading the victim's secrets."

Callie was smiling slightly at what was in the book. This could come in handy if she ever wanted a reason to blackmail someone by reading information from diaries, though she didn't believe she'd ever get around to doing such a thing.

She went looking for other books that might have information on werewolves and Lupiredes. She was very intent on finding such information, and right out of nowhere. She found a book in an aisle that had books related to werewolves, about Lupiredes, but she couldn't reach it. It was up on a high shelf, and there was nothing nearby to help her get up there. She was already very tall. She didn't think that she'd find much help if she bothered asking. This is why she simply stood on tiptoe, trying to remain balanced, and hoped to grab hold of it and fall down with it tight in her clutches.

She recalled a time when she was very small, trying to get the cookies down from a shelf for Chira, Abby, and herself. This made her smile, and being the champion of getting objects from high shelves, she continued to try with high confidence.

***

Remus continued to wander around, and then he saw Callie reaching up high to get the book. He decided he might as well help her. "Allow me," he said. He saw a boy with shaggy, dark brown hair, and thoughtful eyes rise to his feet, obviously the same one who had done so the night before; just as he had that night, he immediately lowered himself back into his seat, and Remus saw he looked sullen. The boy stared at Remus with a hurt look upon his face.

Callie just stared at Remus in partial gratitude, but a bit of nervousness, and even a bit of shock. She flinched. Remus decided that this meant that she was pink the night before because she was shy of him. She couldn't still be thinking about the incident of the night before; she would be terribly upset and retreat to her dormitories for all the time she was able to.

Yes, Callie was tall. But she couldn't even get it while standing on her toes. But Remus was taller than she was, and he could probably jump higher than he could stand on his toes. But even then, he couldn't say for sure.

He jumped and made a swipe at it, but he couldn't do it. He made a different attempt, but he decided to do it quickly, hoping not to break the shelf. This was because he was stepping quickly onto the shelf closest to the ground, using it to boost his weight off the floor, and quickly getting the book down. Fortunately, it worked without breaking the shelf.

"Here it is," Remus said, handing the book to Callie with a kind smile.

Callie returned the smile sorrowfully but sweetly. "Thank you, Rob." She bowed her head to him politely, probably a less formal bit of the same bows she gave to her headmaster and other teachers when she was addressed or was to thank them.

Remus noticed the sorrow in her smile. He didn't want to go nosing into her business, as it was none of his concern, even though it was. It was of his concern to know, as he actually was her father, or at least would be at one point, but he didn't want to seem overly concerned, for fear of giving himself away.

***

Remus was being very kind to Callie. She appreciated that. Not many people, much less boys (who were at least one of immature, rambunctious, or arrogant in her eyes), would even care to give her a look that wasn't full of fright, hatred, or at least free of any good feelings or happy thoughts whatsoever.

After she thanked him, she walked forward and saw Kevin looking at her in a very upset manner. She looked at him very confusedly. He shook his head, sighed, and left the library. She decided that since dinner was coming close, she would return to her common room until then. She had to pack her trunk. She was leaving less than an hour after she ate.

She had been so busy watching Kevin leave that she hadn't noticed that Remus was still standing behind her, watching her with a very confused expression. She turned to face "Rob" and saw him staring right at her. And she stared back for only seconds before walking past him and out of the library.

***

"She's upset about something... something..." Remus thought. "She doesn't have so much to be upset about. Not as much as I do..." Then he snapped out of it. "What is this? A competition for how much pain we can bear?"

It was just as dinner was starting, and Remus saw Callie joining hands with three girls, one from each of the other houses. Two were the Ravenclaw and Hufflepuff he had seen with her before, Chira and Liz, most likely short for Elizabeth, and then the Slytherin with long, black hair she had sat beside in potions. He knew she was a Slytherin, and she looked just a little a bit like Sirius, so why couldn't she be the girl Callie was risking a lot for?

After they had finished this joined-hands ritual, each of them gave Callie a friendly hug. Remus didn't understand the constant hugs that seemed to happen between girls. He probably never would. After all, he wasn't a girl himself.

Callie was crying a bit, but she smiled a sensitive, sweet smile all the same. Then she left the entrance hall without dinner.

***

Callie looked across the lake, as if she were seeing it for the last time she ever would. "Well, this is it..." she thought.

"This is a very stupid end for you to meet," Darkness said. "Do you really want to save your friend if it means bartering your life for hers?"

"You wouldn't understand friendship if you tried," Callie told the voice.

"Take a look at this," Darkness suddenly said, as if she were about to show Callie something.

Callie's thoughts totally shifted to Darkness in a way. She began to accept the things Darkness had been telling her. "I do cause so much trouble. I'm to blame for almost everything! Mum... Sirius... everything!"

She looked at the sun setting a brilliant gold upon the lake.

"I should live alone. Where I can't get anyone hurt. They'd all be safe, right? Besides, it's not like anyone could ever really appreciate me and care about me and be safe. Apart from Papa, Chira, Liz, Abby... even Kevin." She stopped in her thought. "Especially Kevin."

"Callie?" she heard a soft voice say. It half-startled her, but she also felt like she'd been expecting it. She was glad to hear it, but she was also scared to hear it. She wanted to turn in the direction from which it was coming, but also, she wanted to run in the opposite direction. This is why it took a while for her to finally say:

"Hi... Kevin." She continued to stare across the lake.

"You weren't at dinner," Kevin noted.

"No," she replied. "I wasn't." She turned at a 135 degree angle to her left, turning to face him. He was about four inches taller than she was. He wasn't as tall as quite a few of the boys, but he was still tall.

She noted that his expression was between curiosity and concern. She didn't know why it did, but those two were the first emotions to come to her mind. She probably looked sorrowful and guilty. Guilty about everything she had never caused.

"Callie..." he said. "Callie?" Suddenly, when she least expected it, Kevin drew her into a soft, loving, protective embrace, her eyes at a level to see just over his always-relaxed shoulder. She began to cry silently, unsure of what was going on, pained by everything she had to suffer.

"I notice this, Callie, and I don't want to bring it up, but...." He took a breath, stroking Callie's loose, fluffy hair that, if it were longer, would have been beautiful waves, but it only made a sharp half-wave at the ends instead. "You really seem to like that Robert Lewis guy. He suddenly just shows up, and he's treating you like an angel. Which I don't understand how anyone couldn't, but..." He paused again. "Something's going on between you two, I know it is."

"What?" Callie said, in half a whisper, half a sob. "No, it isn't true... Kevin..."

"I'm sorry, Callie. I don't know if I can say this for sure, because I don't know if I'd stand petrified with fear or not, but I wish I could say I would die to save you. I love you, Callie. I really do. But...I can't just force you to spend your love life, which I know is precious to you and must be used carefully, on me. I just don't want you to have to pretend."

Callie had been sobbing into his shoulder as he spoke. "Kevin, you know that's not--"

He stopped her with a kiss full of sensitivity and tenderness, not making her feel very secure, but it made her feel truly loved. Callie knew he loved her... He wouldn't have said he did if he didn't mean it... He was honest!

"It's not true..." she said, once he'd pulled away. "If you love me, then why won't you just believe me when I say I've never cared about anyone more than I care about you, and that I have never once thought of you as inferior to anyone? Why won't you just go where your heart wants you to and let me remain a part of it?"

"You still are, Callie. Only, it is the cage that is keeping you from where you want to go. I demand it release you."

Callie broke down into sobs and unstoppable tears. "What?" she croaked. "Why... why are you doing this, Kevin? If it's a cage at all, then it's the best cage I've known to exist! And I want to stay in it!"

Kevin gave Callie a quick kiss on her trembling lips. "I love you Callie," he whispered to her, brushing a stray strand of hair out of her face. He started to go, but Callie threw her arms around him, sobbing uncontrollably. He didn't know what else to do but say, "Callie, please stop... I don't want to put you through any more pain..."

"Then why won't you just accept me?" she said sorrowfully and pitifully.

"I'm sorry," he said, walking backwards slowly, out of Callie's arms. "I wish you luck," he said in the same soft-spoken voice that had broken her heart. She watched him look at her, pained, and he turned to go back to the castle.

Once he had, Callie sank to her knees and then noticed the snow. It was frigid, but she felt that she couldn't suffer any more pain that of which she had been going through for the past few months, especially tonight. She saw some grass sprouting through the snow.

"Grass," she thought. "Every blade is just the same as the next. Like everything that happens... Every bit of it is painful."

She picked up her trunk, three feet away from her, and sat on it. It was warmer than the snow she was kneeling down on, so she would be more comfortable.

***

Remus lugged his trunk down the stairs of the entrance hall. He saw Callie leaning against the opposite side of the staircase, the wall that concealed the underside of the stairs. She most definitely was not smiling, and sorrow was immediately revealed through her red eyes, which showed that she had most likely been crying.

"Callie?" he said, stopping when he had gotten to the point on the staircase where he was behind her. He didn't get a response. "Are you ready to go?"

"Yes..." she said, her voice seeming to drift off into the unknown. "You did this!" she wanted to scream at him, swiveling around murderously and viciously. "You caused this pain!" She was still very upset about what had happened out on the Hogwarts grounds.

Suddenly, there was a bang from the top of the stairs that Callie didn't even seem to notice, but Remus turned very quickly and alertly to the top of the stairs, eyes full of curiosity. It was Sirius dropping his own trunk.

"Hey, Rob!" he said. "How about we go with Paul and Jon to find a perfect victim?" Remus knew that a victim meant the next person they were going to play a mischievous prank on.

"Hey, Cal'," he said.

His voice brought her out of her trance. "Please don't call me that," she said, quietly and solemnly, not having turned away from her fixed gaze on the bottom of the wall ahead of her.

"Oh, alright," he said. "Well, you mind if we take a run around for about five minutes."

"No, I wouldn't mind, but I really would like to leave as soon as possible, okay? This place has lost its cheer..." Neither Remus nor Sirius could comprehend exactly why she was saying that.

"That's settled then, Sam. Prepare to leave," Remus said, suddenly being the one to command Sirius around, rather than usually being the one taking orders from his friends.

"If you say so, Re--" Sirius had almost said Remus's real name. "Rob," he corrected himself. He went back up the stairs, perhaps to fetch "Paul" and "Jon." In other words, that was Peter and James.

Remus turned back to Callie. Her hair color, clear to him, as she had her back turned to anyone who walked down the stairs, reminded him of someone who he should have been paying his attention to at that very moment. Someone who he knew truly mattered more than his own life. And there were not many times when one can feel such a great emotion as love. "Callie?" he said.

"Yes?" she said, her voice crackling.

"Are you scared about this?" he asked her. "Leaving, possibly dying? I mean, we're probably going to have dark wizards on our tail, trying to stop us."

She sighed. "Yes, I am afraid. I've never actually risked my life without adult supervision, to tell the truth..."

Remus then began to wonder, "What kind of adult would let her risk her life in the first place?" Then the thought of himself came to his mind. "What kind of father am I?"

"Excuse me?" he said, contemplating the fact that she had actually risked her life.

Callie began to wonder if it was a good idea to tell him that she had risked her life twice before. After all, anyone who took sides with Sirius Black was either considered criminal or insane. That was made clear by Professor Snape at the end of her third year, who had called Hermione, Ron, and Harry delirious for stating that Sirius was innocent of any of his charges.

"Well, to tell the truth, my father let me volunteer to lend a little help under two circumstances."

"I am not a good father!" he said to himself.

"The first time though, it was more as if he told me to help and supposed I'd be alright. Nothing all that grand."

The thing was, she had managed to get herself into a great deal of danger. She had underestimated the danger of her abilities. She had discovered that the powers of a Lupirede were not to be used frivolously. This was one of the two times that year that had amplified Darkness's voice in her ears. She was filled with regret for making such a frivolous choice, living in fear caused by that moment ever since it had occurred.

***

"Leave it to me--RUN!" Sirius was saying.

Her father was becoming the inevitable wolf that showed up every time the moon was full. He wasn't safe. Just being a descendant of the same kin was not enough to protect herself and keep him calm. She had to use her abilities. After all, she was born as an animagus wolf, wasn't she? At least that's what she thought.

As he began to thrash about, she focused hard on her wolf form and took the form. Only, that was when she lost control of everything. There was another wolf, staring at her gratefully, and then four people, and a rat, scurrying away.

It was only a matter of seconds before there had been a pandemonium and she had fled with the other wolf into the forest.

***

"Callie?" said Remus.

She whimpered aloud, much like a dog would, beginning to breathe heavily. "What?" she whimpered.

"We're going now, alright?" he said, noticing her gaze had shifted up the wall, fixed upon one point, as if she were actually looking at something delusional. "The other three are still getting their stuff all together, trying feebly to get their trunks shut," Remus said, pausing to notice that this thought made Callie smile, "and I just thought maybe we could get started on our way?"

Callie just stared straight ahead. "Oh?" she said suddenly, finally snapping her head around to look at him. She obviously had come out of her trance. "Yeah. Alright."

"Hey, are you okay?" he asked her, as she picked up her trunk, beginning to walk out of the double-doors alongside the person she did not recognize as her father.

"I hope I am," she said.

"Oh," he retorted very quietly and unnoticeably.