The Vale Beyond

Part I: Risk

Treading with slow and quiet footfalls down the amphitheatre-like steps, three cloaked figures approached the dais in the centre of the silent chamber. Upon the raised platform loomed an ancient stone archway, across which was hung a ragged black veil. The intruders could see that this shroud-like hanging fluttered ominously in the still air, as if some invisible hand caressed it, or a faint breeze blew only within the confines of the crumbling portal.

Several days had passed since the Battle of the Department of Mysteries, and this chamber, known by the wizards of England as the death chamber, had since been scoured of most traces of last week's desperate skirmish between the Death Eaters and the Order of the Phoenix. Only a few blackened streaks now marred the surfaces of the dais and the steps, remnants of the more powerful curses that had been thrown.

As they reached the central platform and stopped just in front of it, the three black-cloaked figures turned to each other with solemn looks. Tears shimmered by flickering torchlight in the eyes of the two young women. The man's face, already lined and care-worn past its otherwise youthful appearance, seemed further aged by his grim expression of grief. He was the first to speak.

"Well, here it is," he said quietly. "I've brought you like I said I would. But are you two sure... are you sure that this archway is actually a portal to another world? To your Otherworld, Hitholos, and not somewhere else entirely?"

The women both nodded, and the one with long, curly brown hair answered calmly, "We are almost completely positive, Remus. We've looked into it extensively over the past few days, and we already knew that there are several ancient passageways between our worlds that still stand. From all the descriptions I've read, this looks exactly like one of them. It is old enough, to be sure, and the design has some distinctly Hithian features."

"Maeve's right," piped up the second woman, whose features were small, round, and girlishly pretty, as opposed to the other's more angular and elegant ones. Her dark brown eyes had dried a little since their arrival at the chamber, and she now pointed eagerly at the apex of the archway. "Look at those carvings up there," she elaborated. "See the way the swirls curve down and flow into that complex knot-work pattern at either side? That's very Hithian, right there."

While Remus peered up at the still faintly visible designs she had indicated, Maeve smiled at the other woman and said, "Rhiannon knows what she's talking about. You should see all the stacks of books she's got piled up in that cluttered room of hers...."

"I have," said Remus; then immediately he blushed and looked away.

Maeve's eyebrows went up, and she waggled them suggestively at her companions. "Oh, really?" she asked Rhiannon--from whom she would be more likely to glean further information. "Was this yesterday after I left you two at our flat and went to contact Korbin?"

Rhiannon was blushing now, too, and she mumbled, "Yeah. I was just showing him some of the books that have pictures of the different realms of Hitholos, and of where we lived before we went to Hogwarts."

"Sure, sure," Maeve said, still in a lightly teasing voice. If the current situation had not been so somber and full of uncertainty, she would have continued her playful torment of her favorite cousin and Rhiannon's still-unofficial beau.

But as soon as the remembrance of courtship and love surfaced in her mind, Maeve grew doleful once again. My own dearest love, she thought painfully, is believed to be dead, by almost everyone who knows what happened. Even Remus, his longtime best friend, has given up hope and resigned him to the grave. ... What if they're right? About this veil, about what lies beyond... Are Rhiannon and I out of our minds? Do we truly dare to follow after Sirius into the unknown, possibly never to return? Can I in good conscience take Rhiannon with me?

This last question had been troubling Maeve ever since she and her cousin had begun formulating their plan for a rescue attempt. Of course they should think to carry it out together--it was a given that Maeve and Rhiannon rarely left each other's side. As babies, they had often shared a playpen and drooled on the same toys; years later, the pair could be found plotting and scheming up the most fantastic pranks in Gryffindor Tower. Currently, the cousins shared a cozy little flat in Hogsmeade and had both been working undercover for the Order of the Phoenix. Neither had been present during last week's fateful battle in this very room--although its outcome had certainly struck both Maeve and Rhiannon with the force of a well-aimed Cruciatus curse.

But I'm the one who was struck most harshly, Maeve asserted to herself. Sirius and I were to be married--not Sirius and Rhiannon. Sure, the two of them were close friends, but does that really give me enough justification to let Rhiannon come along? She's still got her own love, right here, and I fear... I fear that if I pull her away from Remus now, they might never see each other again. This is wartime. Any one of us may be killed at nearly any moment, and it would be better to let them stay together and be happy for however much time they have left. I know I can take care of myself alone. This is my task, my responsibility, my beloved... and my heart will surely die unless I bring him back to the land of the living.

She held not a single grain of concern for her own safety now, but she wasn't going to jeopardize Rhiannon's. She must find some way of keeping her cousin from following her through the veil.

~<><><>~

Even as Maeve's thoughts ran their ever-more-determined course, Rhiannon steeled her own nerves and covertly studied the other woman's face. She had a shrewd guess as to what was going on behind those veiled green eyes. If she knew her older cousin at all, she knew that Maeve would play the protector and the guardian over anyone she considered weaker and more vulnerable than herself. (This meant almost everyone--her enemies excluded from the protection part, of course.) But Rhiannon was not a child, nor some helpless creature that needed cosseting. And she had become quite sick of being treated like one by her older relatives.

She's only a year and a half my senior, and we've both had the same Hogwarts training. For heaven's sakes, I've hit thirty this year! That's not far from middle age in the human world. I will not let Maeve boss me around or forbid me to come along. ... Besides, she's not the only one who loved Sirius. And I don't believe she's quite as strong as she thinks she is. We both need to look after each other--two are better than one. She waited at the ready for the battle of wills to commence openly.

Before it did, Rhiannon felt a gentle hand on her shoulder and turned to look up into Remus' concern-filled eyes. No, "concern" wasn't nearly a strong enough word for the emotion that pooled there like imminent tears. Remus looked as if he was about to say farewell to her for the very last time.

"You can still change your mind," he said softly, his voice husky. "Rhiannon..." Her heart nearly broke at the way his tongue caressed her name, with all the tenderness of a master painter stroking his brush lovingly across a canvas.

Just as gently she cradled his hands with her own. "I know," she whispered. "But you see that I've got to do it. No matter how self-sufficient Maeve thinks she is--"

Her cousin chose that moment to interrupt, quickly blurting out, "Rhiannon, I don't think you should come along."

Ah. So Rhiannon had guessed correctly. Slowly she turned to face Maeve, her dark eyes defiant and her jaw set in a stubborn line. Maeve glared right back at her, bristling up like a wary cat.

"And just why are you trying to change our plans at the very last moment?" Rhiannon challenged. "After all that work we did together... after all the research I helped you with, and all the things we've faced side-by-side in the past--"

Maeve's weary sigh cut her words off short. "This... is different, Rhiannon," she managed at last. "I mean, the stakes are different. I've already lost my fiancé, and my heart with him, to the perils of some unknown Hithian realm--possibly even to death itself, on the off chance these wizards are correct. But you... well, come on, you two, it's been quite obvious for a while now that you've got strong feelings for each other. This is no time to be shy! This is wartime, and it's just about as dangerous here as beyond this veil, and your heart, Rhiannon, is on this side of the thing. Why risk losing your love when you don't have to? If there is, indeed, no return from beyond the veil, you will have sacrificed yourself unnecessarily. Why should you, too, die for Sirius and leave Remus here alone? Let me take the risk, as I've got nothing else to lose. You should stay and be happy with Remus for as much time as you've got left."

There was a long, thick stretch of silence. Rhiannon did not know what to say. Maeve's words had certainly struck a note deep inside her. The risk of losing Remus was a terrible prospect that she had had to consider heavily for the past several days. And she knew that, once before, Remus had already lost three of his dearest friends (Wormtail, Padfoot, Prongs) in one tragic event. Would she be leaving him completely alone again if she went along with Maeve tonight?

As she struggled with all these thoughts, Remus suddenly spoke up. "Let me go, too," he said staunchly. "Take me with you. I loved Sirius before even you did, Maeve, and I'd do anything to get him back! And then we wouldn't have to risk losing each other, Rhiannon. Or at least we could die together."

"But Dumbledore needs you here," said Rhiannon quietly. "You can't just abandon the Order. You're doing very important work for them, and they need you to stay and help them stop Voldemort."

"But if you and Maeve can just up and leave..."

"We've already talked to Dumbledore about that," Maeve said, "and he understands we must go--or that he can't stop us, anyway. It is our world, and if anyone could bring Sirius back from Hitholos, it's us. Actually, Dumbledore doesn't really believe this veil leads to Hitholos. Not yet. He'll come around when he sees that Sirius has returned and hears our story. But he never knew about the ancient passageways between worlds--apparently Korbin wanted them kept secret from him. Probably afraid of Dumbledore's power..."

Rhiannon cocked her head at this. "So Dumbledore was never told how to get to Hitholos? But he and Grandfather Korbin were friends, and he knew that Korbin was from a different universe--or parallel dimension, if you will. He must have been curious about how we Dragonborns travel between this world and ours."

"Yes, he was, and he asked, but Korbin only ever told him about the Stones we use now," Maeve explained. "Oh, Dumbledore may have wondered if there are other ways, but he didn't push Korbin about it. Grandfather wouldn't have told him, anyway... you know how he likes to have his secrets, protect his 'investments' and such. 'Keep your friends close but your enemies closer,' he always says. And you're never close enough friends with Korbin to be told everything. I don't think he's even told me everything, and I am the Lady Dragon."

"Wow," said Rhiannon, shaking her head in amazement; "sometimes I forget exactly how dodgy Korbin is."

"Dodgy and dangerous," Maeve said darkly. "See, there's another reason you should definitely not get involved with this, Remus. If Korbin got wind of our sneaking off to some unknown part of Hitholos, and bringing an outsider on top of that, he would be very displeased. You do not want to be on the receiving end of his wrath. And he'd be especially angry about the rescuing-Sirius part of the deal. He may have used Sirius in the past to draw out my... more powerful and forceful qualities, but young Sirius Black the childhood friend was never meant to turn into Maeve's adulthood fiancé, in Korbin's plans. Oh, sure, the Blacks are pureblood wizards and everything, but they're not Hithian. They wouldn't bring a powerful enough alliance to win the auction of his eldest granddaughter's hand in marriage.

"Well..." she continued tartly, "unfortunately for Korbin, Sirius did a very good job at encouraging me to be stubborn. No one's going to stop me from trying to be with the man I love! And once I've got Sirius back and we're married, Korbin will finally have to realize that he can't control me anymore." Her eyes blazed with a fervency that challenged anyone to oppose her.

Although Maeve's speech had wandered a bit from the subject of Rhiannon's (and Remus') coming along, Rhiannon had been thinking of little else the whole time. Oh, she knew Korbin would be angry if he discovered the rescue attempt, but there was one good thing, at least, about being the last in line for the family "succession": Korbin's wrath wouldn't fall quite as heavily on her. He did not need Rhiannon to make an alliance with a powerful Hithian family. He pretty much left her to her own whims and devices, a situation she'd taken somewhat for granted in the past. Now she was glad to be free of the burdens of being eldest and Lady Dragon.

No, Rhiannon hardly feared her grandfather's reaction, but she did still fear Maeve's going off alone on this dangerous quest. As difficult as it was to leave Remus, even for just a little while (as she hoped it would be), she knew deep inside that stepping beyond the veil with Maeve was what she needed to do. Love tied her to Remus, yes, as Maeve had argued--but its bond was just as strong between the cousins, though in a different way. Maeve had asked her how she could abandon Remus... well, Rhiannon wondered, how could she abandon Maeve? Either way, with either choice she made, she'd be forced to risk losing something--that is, someone. It was her duty, now, to choose the risk that more desperately needed taking.

She tried to explain all of this to Remus and Maeve. "And so you see," she finished, "I've got to go with you, Maeve, or betray my conscience and my heart. I'm the only one you've got who could come along and help you. We both know the dangers of Hitholos and what might happen to Sirius if he were captured by the shadow beasts from the mountains, or worse--the Darong." She shuddered at the very mention of the formidable race of beings who were the Keepers of Death's Door.

"As much as this hurts, Remus," she said, turning to him, "you and I both know that you are meant to stay and help the Order. They need you; never underestimate your value in their fight against Voldemort. You've still got Dumbledore and Kingsley and the others for partners-in-arms, but Maeve needs me. That is my choice. I love you both, more than I can express. This certainly isn't an easy decision."

Choking slightly on hot, unshed tears, Rhiannon cast her gaze to the floor. She waited for her companions' reaction.

Maeve, it seemed, had relinquished some of her willful determination to rescue Sirius alone. She sighed deeply. "I can see that your mind is made up, Rhiannon, and I don't want you to go against something you believe so strongly." She stroked the younger woman's short dark hair soothingly.

"You mean that? You'll let me follow you?" Rhiannon asked, raising her eyes hopefully again to meet Maeve's.

"Yes. I love you, too, my dear cousin, and it means so much to me that you're willing to go through all this with me. I just miss Sirius so badly, and I'm afraid for him, afraid of what may be happening to him right now...."

"I know, I know." It was Rhiannon's turn to comfort. The two women moved as one into a tight embrace. "You see? We're a matched pair, you and I," whispered Rhiannon into Maeve's ear. "We're always better together."

Their hug lasted for several long moments. Both women had tears in their eyes again; and this time, so did Remus.

When the cousins pulled apart, Maeve stepped a few paces away and busied herself with checking through the packs of provisions the women had brought for their journey. Rhiannon was grateful for her cousin's sensitivity in allowing her and Remus a bit of privacy to say goodbye.

She turned and looked up into his thin, weary face. A single tear now traced a silvery course over his left cheekbone and down to his jaw line. It occurred to her that she had never seen Remus cry before. Not even when he broke the news to us last week about Sirius--although I'm sure he was very close to it then.

His warm hands came up to envelop hers. They were rough and callused and patterned with scars, speaking eloquently of the kind of life he'd led. Her own felt far too soft and small in comparison to enable her to face the dangers she and Maeve were about to confront.

Neither of the two could speak for what seemed an infinite moment, until Remus at last blurted out, "I love you, Rhiannon Dragonborn. I cannot deny it. I have loved you since the day I met you."

"At Maeve's coming-of-age party?" she murmured, slightly surprised. "But I was only fifteen then."

"And I was twenty-one... I know." He smiled faintly. "It wasn't a romantic attraction at the time, since you were so young. It was the year--well, the year that James and Lily died, you remember, and the first war was still raging fiercely. Sirius convinced me to come to the party because he knew I needed a distraction from all the horrors we faced daily. And there I met you... and you were quite the distraction, indeed."

Rhiannon knew she must be blushing furiously.

"Your kindness, your humor," he continued, "your sheer feistiness and zest for life reawakened something in me then. I felt hope that night, new courage and resolve. And even a couple months later, when the greatest friends of my childhood were torn from me, the spark you had kindled never burned out completely. Not even through the next eight years when we were separated."

She smiled shyly up into his eyes. "All that when I was fifteen years old?"

"When you were fifteen," he nodded firmly. Then he grinned, as at some new thought. "I'm sure, back then, your father would have killed me if I had tried to kiss you or anything."

This elicited a giggle from Rhiannon.

"What?" Remus raised an eyebrow. "I do recall that you filled out that dress you were wearing quite nicely. I wasn't blind."

As heat rushed into her face once more, Rhiannon thought she heard a small snicker coming from Maeve's direction. She also seemed to recall that the dress she'd worn for that party had been rather low-cut.

"I would have slapped you, myself," she teased Remus. "Cheeky fellow."

"Would you slap me now?" he asked softly.

Rhiannon's teasing grin vanished. Her stomach did a little flip, and suddenly her heart seemed to be hammering to get out of her rib cage.

"...No..." she managed to whisper, as the room around her grew hazy and dreamlike. It now seemed as though she and Remus were the only two real things left in their own sweet, golden sphere of honeyed light.

His arms drew her closer, moving downward to encircle her waist. She found that her own hands were snaking up to rest behind his shoulder blades. His face, his lips came nearer and nearer to hers, and then his eyes were fluttering closed, and hers were too, and she was tilting her head so their noses wouldn't get in the way, and then their lips met with the sweetest warmth she had ever tasted. She pressed her body closer against his as their kiss lingered on and grew deeper.

At last remembering that Maeve was still nearby and was likely very anxious to get going, Rhiannon reluctantly pulled away. She stayed within the circle of Remus' embrace as she once more looked searchingly into his eyes. "Wait for me," she murmured.

"Always," he responded fervently. "Forever."

Her thoughts echoed his words. Always and forever... But what if forever never came?

"Remus..." She hesitated. "I want you to wait, but only for a year."

Bewilderment crossed his face at these words. "A year?"

"Yes," she sighed heavily. "I will try my very hardest to come back to you, but if this quest becomes too dangerous... well, I may not make it through alive. In fact, if we aren't back within a whole year, it will almost certainly mean we are dead. So after that time... I want you to move on. Open your heart to someone else, if she comes along. I want you to be happy."

"Move on?" Remus protested. "I couldn't-- no-- it won't happen, anyway. We will see each other again! Why are you saying these things?"

Fresh tears glistened in her eyes as she replied, "Call it a premonition. A foreboding that's been haunting my mind."

"It's just your fears telling you that," he asserted.

But she sadly shook her head. "I wish I could say it was only fear, but I've had these feelings before, and they turned out to be correct. People died. ... Now, I'm no Seer, but I just can't help thinking that we'll never be reunited." Sobbing, she fell upon his chest.

~<><><>~

Remus clasped her to himself tightly. It was almost more than he could bear, seeing Rhiannon like this. She was so small, so vulnerable, so childlike in her sorrow that he wanted to hold her and comfort her and never, ever let go.

He glanced across to Maeve, who now gazed back with a compassionate expression. She stood up from among the supplies and stepped over to the pair of seemingly star-crossed lovers. Her hand once again stroked Rhiannon's hair.

After a few moments, Remus felt Rhiannon shudder out a long breath, then push away from him. Wiping her cloudy eyes, she took a minute to compose herself again and muttered, "Sorry. I really didn't think I was going to fall to pieces like that."

"You didn't fall to pieces," Maeve reassured gently. "Remember what I was like just last week?"'

Her cousin sniffled and nodded.

"But are you ready now," Maeve asked seriously, "to come along with me to Hitholos? This is your last chance to change your mind."

Rhiannon drew herself up. "I'm ready," she said levelly. Her old spark seemed to be back, or at least her streak of pride, which Remus had always regarded as a bit amusing. With her flair for the dramatic, she could certainly pull off some pretty hilarious falls right after a bit of boasting.

He hoped that this time, there would be no falls of any sort. Sirius had fallen in battle, having just taunted his cousin Bellatrix out of his own hubristic tendency. Remus knew Rhiannon wasn't reckless, but Maeve and Rhiannon sometimes egged each other on to do things that weren't exactly sensible.

Is this really sensible of them? he wondered, then admitted, A lot of things done for love are not what you'd call "sensible." But they are the right things to do. He couldn't rebuke the women for their actions, for the risk they were taking required a great deal of love to see it through. Rhiannon may have felt in some way that it was her duty to accompany Maeve, but there was no mistaking the deeper motivation: love.

Love and duty, oddly mingled.

Remus wished the duty side of the coin had fallen his way, and he could keep her here. But love allowed him to let go.

And maybe soon, he would see Sirius again....

He watched as the women gathered up their packs and moved closer to the dais. He walked at Rhiannon's side as they all climbed onto the platform and approached the veil. It fluttered eerily.

In a sudden gesture, he pulled an embroidered handkerchief from his pocket and carefully wiped a trail of tears from Rhiannon's pale cheek. "Chin up, love," he encouraged in a tone that sounded much lighter than his heavy heart. Pressing the hanky into her hands, he said, "Keep it. And think of me."

Bleakly she nodded. Her finger traced the initials RJL sewn on one of its corners before she tucked it away into her robes.

Maeve stood just in front of the archway now. She stretched out a hand toward the ragged black folds, which reminded Remus so much of a dementor's cloak. Then she parted them.

A gust of something moved through the room. Hushed, whispery voices echoed around the three intruders. Remus thought he heard Maeve mutter, "It does sound like Darong."

He could see nothing through the archway but the other side of the room in which they stood--although he was starting to detect a faint glow around the edges of the portal. Maeve stepped forward after one last glance at Rhiannon and farewell nod to Remus. "We'll try to send word to you about our progress, if we can," were her final words. And she faded slowly, seeming to blend into the air around her.

The next sequence of events was even more surreal to Remus. Rhiannon was stretching up her hand to caress his cheek, he was leaning down to plant another tender kiss on her lips, she was whispering "I love you," and he was replying in kind. They held hands as she turned and faced the archway. She drew a deep breath, squeezed his fingers before releasing them, and parted the veil herself.

"I'll wait for you," he called hoarsely as he watched her petite form dissolve away. Just before the veil fluttered back into place, he caught the fading words, "I ask only a year."

He sank to his knees then, and buried his face in his hands. He made no attempt at stemming the flood of tears that came. How long he knelt there and wept he could not say. He had never felt so alone in his entire life.