Untitled

Olivia Wood

Footsteps echoed throughout the dungeon long after they had lost sight of their captors. Remus felt dazed. The whole situation had a surreal quality to it, intensified by the heavy metallic clang followed by the click of the lock, baring their only portal to the outside world. It sounded depressingly appropriate for a horror movie or a nightmare, but was out of place in reality. Although the events of the past half hour or so could very accurately be described as nightmarish, Remus knew he wasn't asleep... and he was pretty sure he wasn't going suddenly insane. The ringing in his ears died away and the silence, coupled with the smell of dust, mildew, and decay, became rather stifling. Suddenly realizing he'd been holding his breath he relaxed and let it out slowly. He tried to make out his two companions, but the darkness was absolute.

"So..." he said finally. It was hard to believe his eyes were open.

"What the hell just happened?" Remus jumped, the voice had come from right behind him, and he had been looking for Sirius in the space to his left. He turned and took a step back, but knocked into James, causing them both to lose balance and fall. James must have grabbed Sirius on his way down because soon the air was thick with swears recognizably his.

"Remus, Sirius, are you guys all right?" It was still pitch black. Remus vowed to learn the wandless equivalent of Lumos once they got out of this mess.

"Fine," he answered at last. Sirius grunted in the affirmative.

The rustling noise coming from Remus' left informed him that James was getting to his feet. He shivered. The floor was cold, damp, and slimy; getting up seemed like a good idea, but before he could move the door at the end of the chamber was opened again and he was momentarily blinded by the sudden stream of light. He could make out the outline of a figure being dragged in by two others, but it was too skinny to be Peter. Remus recognized the taller of the two as the blond man they had 'met' earlier. The shorter one was cowering away from him and whimpered as it addressed him. Remus wasn't surprised, the man reeked Evil. They were close enough now for Remus to discern the man's response.

"Put him in with the others, they're not going anywhere." Although he couldn't see his face, Remus was sure the man was smirking. He had his wand out and pointed at the prisoner, who was staggering slightly, as though not fully conscious. When they reached the cell already occupied by Remus, James, and Sirius, the blond unlocked the bared door with a spell and shoved the wizard, who was definitely not Peter, straight at James, who caught him but barely managed to remain standing himself. The man's eyes were glinting maliciously and, Remus had been right, he was smirking. "Happy Reunion," he said, before slamming the bars shut and striding quickly from the room with the shorter wizard trailing behind.

Remus caught a brief glimpse of a bewildered James supporting a messy-haired teen about their own age, with thick, round glasses before they were plunged into darkness again.

"Who is it?" whispered Sirius from James' other side. "It's not Wormtail, is it?"

"No..." Remus finally clambered to his feet. "Is he awake?" The wizard was groaning softly.

"I don't know... What do I do?" The whisper was uncertain with an edge of desperation. Remus groped his way to his friend through the darkness. He thanked the powers that be there were still two and a half weeks until the next full moon as he helped James support the stranger.

"Let's put him down on the floor." But the wizard (at least Remus assumed he was a wizard) seemed to have other ideas; he groaned louder and pushed off of Remus, apparently trying to regain his footing. They heard him take a couple of steps back and presumably lean against the bars. There was a moment of stillness, then:

"Who are you?" The voice was hoarse and strained, yet surprisingly alert.

"We could ask you the same question." That was Sirius.

A pause. "Hold on..." A soft rustling, a murmur, and a vague blue spot of light shimmered in the area ahead of them, materializing into a softly glowing sphere, about the size of a snitch, floating about two inches above the open palm of the stranger. Remus was impressed. The wizard was rocking his hang gently back and forth under the sphere and the glow was becoming steadily brighter. The way the ghostly-tinted light was illuminating his features from below accentuated the bags under his eyes... it was mildly unnerving.

"What spell is that?"

"So who are you?" Sirius again, blunt and to the point.

"It's my friend Hermione's, and I asked you first."

James sighed, and Remus could actually see him now. "This is Remus Lupin, Sirius Black, and I'm James Potter." Remus turned back to him expectantly but the stranger just stared, and Remus thought he looked suddenly pale, although it was hard to tell in the eerie blue lighting.

"Shit." The light flickered and died.

Shit. Harry felt as though he had been smacked abruptly, full front, by something large and heavy, or ran headfirst into a brick wall. Shit, shit, shit.

He hardly registered that the charm he had so painstakingly set up had gone out as his hands curled into fists and he fought to comprehend what he had just heard. He considered repeating his query, but his mouth had gone dry and he suddenly didn't feel up to the task. He knew the answer would be the same, in any case; what he had seen of their faces in the dim light had been unnervingly familiar. He felt nauseous. Damn Voldemort! Damn him and his bloody time-turners. He leaned heavily into the bars behind him as he struggled with his emotions, trying to calm his ragged breathing. He was glad the light had gone out, he didn't want to have to look at them. I should have expected this. What better way to use his newly acquired power over time than to mess my life up even more? Damn him. Typical, really...

His mind went blank, and he was unable think of anything for a moment... But he couldn't afford to panic now. Get a grip on yourself. He straightened up abruptly and tried to compose himself. You don't even know it's them. Odds are they're actually just some Death Eaters in disguise or... it's probably not even them. Don't do anything stupid until you're sure. He took a deep breath to steady his nerves, letting it out slowly. It had been a long time since he had felt so thoroughly at a loss. He wasn't thinking straight, he had to deal with this objectively. Right. First things first. Taking another deep breath, his voice sounding remarkably calm, considering the circumstances, he said "Prove it."

Silence answered him. And darkness. Sighing in frustration, he set about repairing the charm, stalling for time. What do I do?

"What?" That was Sirius; he recognized the voice now, although he hadn't heard it in over a year. It sounded much younger than how he remembered it... like in Snape's Pensieve... Pre-Azkaban. Harry didn't look up from the glowing ball that had reformed in his hand. You don't even know it's him. Realizing he had been silent for a while now, and that they had no idea what he was talking about (or pretending they didn't, whichever the case may be), he cursed himself silently, cursed the situation, and cursed Voldemort, them proceeded to elaborate. "Prove you are who you say you are."

He looked up. They were staring at him with a mixture of shock, confusion, and disbelief, although James was leaning more towards bewilderment and Sirius looked downright suspicious. Harry lowered his right hand, the one holding the ball of light, and on pretence of steadying the charm brought his left hand over it, casting his own face in shadow, and focused his attention on Remus. Seeing him look so young made Harry appreciate afresh how much older and more haggard the present-day Remus looked. Harry hadn't been the only one hit hard by Sirius' death...

This is too weird, I can't handle this. Harry thought as the Sirius in front of him cleared his throat loudly and spoke with unmasked distrust. "And who are you?"

Harry ignored him. He was still staring at Remus, so he addressed him instead. "How old are you? What year are you in?"

Remus looked taken aback. "Sixth year," he said, hesitating a second before adding "Why?" When he didn't receive an answer, he exchanged uncertain looks with his two friends. Very cautiously, as though they thought Harry was deranged, they took a few steps back and proceeded to have a whispered conference.

Harry, meanwhile, was busy doing some very quick thinking. If they were in sixth year, and if they really were who they said they were, which was extremely doubtful, then they would have learned to be Animagi by now. He was pretty sure, although not entirely certain, that he had heard Hermione say that there was no way to fake the Animagus transformation; someone using Polyjuice potion (which didn't seem practical anyway, because you would still need the hair of his seventeen-year-old father and friends) or something similar wouldn't retain an Animagus' ability to transform. Any other type of human transfiguration required the use of a wand and an incantation, plus, while the Animagus transformation was instantaneous, most other transformations required at least half a minute to execute, and required the aid of an able bodied wizard with a wand to undue, or else were irreversible for a set amount of time... Harry frowned and bit his lip. Of course, that wouldn't mean that the whole thing can't be some sort of complicated illusion. He didn't know much about those, except that they were very hard to do and they would be studying the basics later this year; he vaguely recalled Hermione mentioning it in connection with the charm he was now holding, and cursed himself again for not paying more attention to her. How hard would it be to produce a real-time, life-sized, interactive illusion of a werewolf and two Animagi? Harry didn't doubt Voldemort's ingenuity; if anyone could do it, he could...

Then again, what motive would Voldemort have for sticking him in a cell with an illusion of the teenage versions of his dead father, his dead godfather, and his old Defense teacher? Did he think Harry would take them back to headquarters? Surely he didn't think him that stupid? Harry couldn't think of any other reason why he would be put in this situation, aside from wanting to cause him emotional pain, and he somehow thought even Voldemort wasn't that petty. Why fool around with illusions if the Cruciatus will suffice? Harry's frown deepened. Unless he wasn't actually here, but was asleep somewhere and the cell and the three people in front of him were all a hallucination or something... He shook his head as if to clear it. No, it would be almost easier to get the real thing. And he did know for a fact that Voldemort's latest plans involved time-travel. Dumbledore had said he had stolen enough from the ministry during his fifth year to travel across a century or more, surely that would also be enough to pull three people through a couple of decades?

Harry glanced up nervously at his three companions. They were still whispering together, now occasionally throwing him dark looks. He was starting to doubt his earlier conviction that they weren't genuine, and it was making him uneasy. Assuming that they were what they seemed to be, though, out of all the things he could do, why would Voldemort choose to bring them here? Voldemort wasn't stupid, he knew that if he changed anything too major he would risk destroying himself in the process. Did he intend to keep them here, or return them to their time? Did the Imperius curse, perhaps, work across time? If he kept his father here, he, Harry, would never be born, Voldemort would never loose his body the first time around, and, presumably, the first Rein of Terror would never end... But then why bother bringing along Sirius and Remus? Did he hope to turn them all to the Dark Side? Or cast some spells on them that wouldn't become active until years later? Judging by his own limited experience with time-travel, and his rather more extensive experience with Lord Voldemort, Harry had to admit, however reluctantly, that the idea presented possibilities. It also made his head pound.

He was getting ahead of himself, anyway. The simplest solution is usually correct: they were Death Eaters and they couldn't even do the Animagus transformation. And this was easy enough to check.

Somewhere below the feeling of confusion and vague terror that had dominated his emotions for the past quarter of an hour (and it was hard to believe it had only been a quarter of an hour), Sirius Black was starting to get annoyed.

He had no idea what was going on. Less than fifteen minutes ago he had been enjoying a butterbeer with the charming-if-petite Leslie Hills and the glamorous Olivia Wood, and now he was stuck in a cell in some bloody dungeon and he had no clue as to why. It was extremely irritating. He didn't know why the Death Eaters, if that is indeed what they were, had apparently targeted him and his friends. He didn't know where they had taken him, and he didn't even really know how he had gotten here. He didn't know where Peter was and why he wasn't with them. Most importantly, he didn't know, assuming their captors really were Death Eaters, why he was still alive. And he had absolutely no clue as to who the wizard in front of him was.

Surprisingly, it was the last of these that irked Sirius the most. The kid didn't look any older than they were, he was a couple of inches shorter than James, had a thin build, dark hair, and wore a nondescript baggy tee-shirt and jeans. His appearance would have been altogether unremarkable and unimpressive if not for the brilliantly green eyes that shone from behind the round frames, clearly visible even despite the poor lighting and the shadow the wizard was casting (deliberately, Sirius thought) onto his own face.

But what the wizard lacked in formidability he made up for in creepiness. He was undeniably creepy. It was creepy the way he seemed to know who they were, creepy how he kept staring at Remus, while completely and deliberately ignoring him and James. The odd mixture of emotions that flickered past his features was creepy, and the way he wouldn't answer any of their questions, but just stood there, lost in thought, as if the situation meant a lot more to him than it did to them, was creepy. And the dungeon would have been creepy enough without him in it.

"Who d'you reckon he is? I've never seen him before in my life, and he looks around our age, so he should go to Hogwarts."

"Just because you don't remember seeing him doesn't mean he doesn't go there," whispered Remus. "And anyway, maybe he goes to Durmstrang or Beauxbatons or something. He must go somewhere if he can do wandless magic like that. Have either of you ever heard of anything like that spell? And he said it was his friend's?"

"I haven't. Why do you think he keeps on staring at Remus like that? And why did he ask us to prove who we are, when we don't even know him?" said James.

"I don't like him," whispered Sirius. "He's creepy."

"Do you think he knows where we are? Or why we're here? Or where Peter is?"

"Are you sure he was with us?" Remus sounded desperate.

"Pretty sure..."

"Yeah, he was definitely with us," answered Sirius, shifting around uncomfortably. They exchanged nervous looks.

"Who were those guys in the hoods? Death Eaters, do you think? That blond guy was definitely evil enough." James said uneasily.

"If they were Death Eaters, I don't know what they'd want with us. I mean, we're all pureblood, right?" Sirius was staring at the stranger with his eyes narrowed. "D'you reckon he's one of them?"

"I don't know..." Remus whispered slowly. "That still wouldn't make any sense. It looks like he's in the same situation as we are... Why did he want to know how old we were?"

"Do you think he has a wand?" said Sirius abruptly.

"If he did, he wouldn't be wasting his energy with that wandless spell." James pointed out.

"Yeah, but if he is one of them..." Sirius trailed off suggestively.

"Then what? He doesn't seem to be doing much at the moment. I have no idea why we're here, but if they'd wanted to kill us I reckon they would have done so already... probably..." An uncomfortable silence filled the air when James finished speaking, and all three of them stared at the stranger nervously.

Quite suddenly he looked up at them and took a step forward, as though he'd come to a decision, a determined look on his face. Again, he addressed Remus, occasionally glancing at James, but not looking at Sirius at all "Right," he said. His voice was neutral and Sirius got the impression that he was working hard to keep it that way. "I need to know if you are who you say you are. I know that you two," he glanced quickly at James and Sirius, then looked back at Remus, "are unregistered Animagi. I want to see you transform - the Animagus transformation can't be imitated." Sirius just stared at him, dumbstruck. "Right now," he added, sounding slightly irritated.

"How d'you- but nobody - how did you... ?" James regained the use of voice first, but Sirius was first to regain his composure. "Who are you, and why should we trust you?" He asked defiantly.

The stranger was still addressing Remus, who just gaped back at him, horrified. "Do you have much of a choice?" he said evenly, apparently nonplussed.

However unwilling Sirius was to acknowledge it, he knew that, no, they didn't have much of a choice. If it wasn't for this guy, whoever he was, they'd still be standing around in the dark. Sirius had no idea how the stranger could have found out that he and James were Animagi. Nobody knew except him, James, Remus and Peter. Just when I thought he couldn't get any creepier... thought Sirius. But since he already knew, there wasn't much that they could do about it... and he did seem to have a much better idea of what was going on than they did, even if he didn't seem too willing to share at the moment ...

Sirius glanced at his friends; Remus wore a tense, worried expression, and James was chewing his lower lip. "Who else would we be, if we weren't who we say we are?" James asked suddenly.

"Death Eaters," was the answer. Nobody said anything for a moment.

"Well?" the stranger said finally. "Are you going to transform?"

Sirius turned to James. "Couldn't hurt?" he said. James nodded.

Sirius couldn't take the tension anymore. He wondered vaguely how the stranger was going to see him change when he wouldn't even look at him, transformed with a little pop, and jumped on the stranger, lolling his tongue and wagging his tail madly. The wizard staggered a few steps back, startled, and dropped the little ball of light, which, to everyone's surprise, dropped to the ground and rolled away a few feet. Sirius could see Remus staring after it, as he leapt back and sat obediently on the floor, tail still wagging, not wanting to push his luck. The stranger shot him a pained look and summoned the charm back into his hand with a little flick of his wrist. "Alright, you do it too," he said to James, sounding slightly nauseous. "Great," he said after James transformed, but Sirius thought he sounded as though he had hoped all along that they actually were Death Eaters. "You can turn back now."