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Chapter 5 - In Which Sirius Is Deafened, Peter Looks Innocent, and Dreams Occur
by Scott
Yes, we're back! And things seem to be unfolding here. Ooh.
The small explosion contained within the Marauders’ dorm room could have provided, at best, enough energy to illuminate Paris for three years. Or so Sirius would later claim, having been deafened by the outburst.
“Have you gone absolutely CRACKERS?!” Peter yelped, directly in Sirius’ left ear. Also in Lily’s right, which caused her to whack him on the back of the head, but he barely noticed.
Sirius flinched and clapped a hand over his ear, then turned to stare at Peter, looking wounded. “What? It’s a good plan.”
“A good plan? You think that’s a good plan?” Peter was still shouting, if not actually at the tops of his lungs, very near them. “Why would you think that’s a good plan? WHY?”
“Er…” Sirius rubbed his ear. “So we don’t have blokes escaping who really shouldn’t see the light of day ever again?”
Peter stared at him, completely dumbfounded. “If you haven’t noticed, one of those ‘blokes’ was you! Or at least somebody who’s got your name and your friends!”
“And if you haven’t noticed, there’s somebody with your name who sold out to Mold-the-Warts,” Sirius snapped back, “and since I can’t see either of those things ever happening in real life, I’m not too terribly concerned!”
Peter winced, but brightened at Sirius’ ending comment.
“Calm down,” Remus said, his tone placid. “There’s something else to consider.”
“What?” James said, running a hand through his hair.
“This book tells the future. And that means we can change it.”
“Well, yes,” said Peter, “I know, that’s the point, of course it is, but—” he looked apprehensive, “but what if we can’t? I mean, this is changing time! That’s big. That’s bigger than anything we’ve tried before, anything we’ve even touched! Bigger than the Noodle Incident, o-or becoming Animagi, or—”
“Peter,” said Lily firmly. “You’re babbling.”
He flushed and closed his mouth, but kept looking worriedly around at them all.
“He’s got a point,” James acknowledged. “I think time has to have changed already, because unless we all get major Memory Charms just reading this book will’ve done it, but…I’m not sure how much we can even try changing things deliberately. How would we keep it straight?”
“Well, since none of us are queer…” Sirius was interrupted by several loud groans and a smack on the back of the head from Aletha.
“What I was going to say,” he continued with a reasonable semblance of dignity, “is that we could try to figure out what caused most of the trouble. If we knew that, maybe we could fix it by stopping just one or two little things.”
“Be still, my heart,” said Aletha coolly. “Sirius Black, talking sense.”
“It happens sometimes. Maybe if you weren’t so rude all the time, you’d hear it more.”
“You say rude, I say truthful.”
“Truce,” Remus said, waving a hand between them. “Lay off, you two. I like the idea, Sirius, but what do you think we ought to change?”
“I don’t know yet. Why don’t we get back to reading—” Sirius waved a hand at the book. “—and maybe when we’ve finished the book, we’ll have a better idea?”
“I suppose we should… Azkaban won’t be going anywhere in the next couple of weeks,” Lily said. “For my part, I think finding out why Peter went to Voldemort would be a good thing. What if someone had Imperiused him?”
“Um… where’s the book?” James said.
Everyone looked around and then stood up.
“Maybe if you boys were NEAT…” Lily muttered.
“James had it last,” Remus said, ignoring the neatness comment. “Did you toss it somewhere, Prongs?”
“Maybe when Pete here made our heads explode?” Sirius muttered.
Peter went slightly pink again, but stuck out his tongue at Sirius. Aletha just rolled her eyes.
“How on earth do you put up with this lot, Lil?” she asked.
“Oh, you can tune out their worst descents into boyhood with practice,” Lily replied, smiling impishly. “Besides, they grow on you after a while.”
“Like a fungus,” Aletha muttered. “And I don’t know why none of us have bothered with the obvious solution.” She drew her wand. “Accio Book.”
“I would have thought of that,” said Sirius. “Eventually.”
“Well, we could all sit here and get grey hair while we wait for your eventually.” Aletha seated herself on the floor again. “Or we could get back to reading.”
“Fiiiine.” Sirius made the word as close to a whine as a teenage wizard reasonably could.
Aletha opened the book to the marked page, glanced down the first few lines of text she’d be reading, and stopped. “Why doesn’t someone else read this section?” she suggested very calmly, sliding the book out into the centre of the floor. “I’d hate to break the mood.”
“Why?” Sirius asked, scooping up the book. “Is it—ooh, it’s you! And you’re—scared? No, you’re not scared. Of course you’re not scared. You’re happy.” He beamed at her. “Happy because I’m coming home. So happy you just might cry. Is that it? You don’t want to cry and make us all cry too?”
“Not exactly…” Aletha drew the words out long and slow. “I was worried about the opposite reaction.”
“The opposite—” Sirius stopped. “Oh.”
This, unfortunately, had the exact effect on James, Lily, and Remus that Aletha had supposedly been hoping to avoid.
Aletha sighed and took the book back, and in as fast a voice she could manage, began to read about Sirius’ homecoming. She was unsuccessful in drowning out the fit of giggles that had begun. She was also unsuccessful in ignoring the lecherous grin that spread over Sirius’ face as she read. When the chapter was concluded, she placed the book down and took out her wand.
Sirius spluttered as about six pounds of ice cubes fell down on him.
“Is this Pick On Sirius Week or something?” he said.
“Of course it is,” said James. “Every week is Pick On Sirius Week.”
Sirius pulled his very best sad puppy face.
“We can’t help it.” James spread his hands wide. “You’re just so pick-on-able…”
Lily picked up the book and, despite Aletha’s protests, flipped back a few pages. “Well, really,” she pointed out, “I could hardly hear anything by the time you got to the end.”
“And whose fault was that?” Aletha asked, looking at her dangerously.
“Theirs, mostly,” Lily said, waving a hand at the boys. “But I have to admit it was funny. The expression on your face…”
James snorted, and Aletha looked mutinous.
“Honestly, did you even look at this?” Lily continued, looking over the pages. “Can’t you just see them, those huge mattresses every which way on the floor, little Harry and Neenie buried in the middle…” She trailed off, smiling.
“Well…I suppose that was kind of cute,” Aletha admitted, softening.
Sirius showed signs of opening his mouth; Remus kicked him in the shin, flashing a hand-sign.
“Indeed,” Remus said. “Now, if we’re all done, let’s move on.”
“Oooh… we’ve shifted to Hogwarts,” Lily said as she began the eleventh chapter. “That should be… oh my.”
“What?” Aletha said.
“Everyone’s really scared… oh, let me start at the beginning.” Lily began to read out loud, receiving nods as everyone recognized the comforting familiarity of the Hogwarts administration—at least that was still the same. But when she got to the part where Minerva reacted to the escape of Sirius Black, an uncomfortable silence fell.
“You okay?” James said to Sirius.
“Of course. Don’t worry,” Sirius replied. But everyone could see that seeing—well, hearing—the black and white text of how much he was feared and hated was hurting him. Even if he said it wasn’t.
Lily did her best to move quickly over the parts directly concerning him, and snorted softly as Dumbledore found his ‘expectations’ upended.
They all stiffened a little as the clues he’d found at Azkaban were described, and they wondered how long it might take him to put everything together. A certain anger returned as he conversed with Petunia Dursley, but was then largely diffused by the statements the Curse’s magic had him make. Remus was very much intrigued by the process of viewing the nonexistent wards and the Curse’s magic, and clapped a hand to his head and muttered “Of course,” moments before the story’s Dumbledore asked the magic who had cast it.
James nudged him as Lily read out the letter his story self had left in his house. “Bit obvious, aren’t you Moony?”
“Well, how was I to know anyone from the wizarding world would even come looking?” Remus asked. “It’s only really obvious because Dumbledore knows I was involved already. Besides, I was in a hurry.”
“Yes, he was much too preoccupied with me,” said Sirius, puffing himself up and trying to look debonair. Peter snorted and Remus raised an eyebrow, but no-one retorted, for at that moment Lily cleared her throat sharply and continued to read. Everyone fell silent, but it didn’t last, for they all—Lily included—laughed uproariously at the final lines.
“I am not looking forward to informing Minerva of this. After she recovers from her heart attack, she will probably beat me senseless, then throw me from the roof of the school. Or at least, I would prefer that she did so, because what she will actually do will be far worse.
“She will say, ‘I told you so.’ Loudly, repeatedly, and worst of all, truthfully.”
The die had been cast. The players were set. Well… almost all of the players.
Gertrude Granger, known to one and all as Danger was in a bit of a bad mood that Sunday afternoon. She’d had a weird dream the night before. Something about a book and four boys. Two girls as well, one of whom she knew: Aletha Freeman.
There had been a rhyme or something with it as well, but she hadn’t heard it well enough.
There’d been only one bit she’d gotten, but now in the light of day, she wasn’t even sure she had heard it right.
“Times will change from a small thing, accept it well, what it will bring,” she said to herself. “What does that mean? God, I must be going crazy. I am crazy! I’m worried about something from a dream! Something I’m not sure I heard right!”
Shaking her head, Danger started to go back to her book, but paused to smile at the music on the radio. “Every day has the same view, no anticipating a breakthrough…” she sang along.
The book was as good as advertised, but somehow Danger found herself yawning only a few pages in. She’d slept well last night—why was she so tired?
“It’s not my fault, I’m not to blame,” the radio sang.
Danger’s eyelids slipped down, and she relaxed into sleep.
The dream wasn’t immediately strange, this time. Well, it was, but only in the way ordinary dreams are strange.
She was falling, almost flying, only the wind wasn’t rushing in her ears, it was the music from the radio still playing. An absolutely enormous neon green butterfly came by to tell her she was too predictable, and then it was her mother telling her she’d left spots on the dishes, and not to break anything this time, and especially not to let her father go downstairs because that’s where the fairies were and he was too busy becoming a millionaire.
Then she’d landed, in the sudden sort of way that sometimes happens in dreams, and she was standing in a stone corridor, with torches on the walls. She was absolutely certain she’d never been anywhere like it, and yet she was also sure that she knew every turn of this corridor like she knew the odd pattern of freckles on the inside of her elbow.
She walked forwards, and found the corridor soon opened into a cavernous room with a tall staircase, some staggeringly huge doors to her right, and a smaller but more intricate set ahead and slightly off to the left.
She walked slowly toward these doors, footsteps somehow not echoing on the flagged floor. She crossed a large crest involving bright colours and several animals, and if she looked down she’d be able to see it clearly, but she didn’t want to look down; she knew, somehow, that if she could just get to those doors and open them, every question she never knew she’d had would be answered.
Her hand brushed the door—
“Oh, no, you don’t,” said an amused voice close by her left ear. “Early is fine, but not this early. Go listen to the story.”
Before she could turn to see who was talking to her, she was somewhere else.
This room was smaller, cosier, hung with red curtains, and filled with beds and people.
Here we go again. Danger moved slowly around the periphery of the room, retagging the people with the names she’d invented for them. Messy-hair, Stuck-up, Mouse-boy, Redhead, and Aletha. And Him.
‘Him’ was sitting with his back against a bed, holding the yellow-covered book. “I want to keep going,” He said regretfully, “but I do have homework.”
“Aw, come on, Moony,” protested Stuck-Up. “Just one more chapter?”
“Well. I suppose if it’s only one more.” He—Moony—opened the book at the place he’d had marked with his finger and started to read. “Chapter Twelve. Another Angle.”
Really, she couldn’t help herself.
Danger stepped forward and brushed her hand over Moony’s, wondering if he’d feel anything.
He didn’t appear to notice anything, though he did scratch at his hand before beginning to read. As for Danger, she jerked back, her mind suddenly filled with the entire story from the previous eleven chapters, not just bits and pieces. Stifling a gasp, she found herself a seat and listened.
“Albus Dumbledore stood in the entrance hall of Hogwarts,” Remus said, “feeling slightly nervous.”
“That’s a new one,” Stuck-up said.
“He’s experiencing a lot of new things, or have you forgotten last chapter?” Redhead said.
“Yes, but this doesn’t seem to follow the last chapter,” Moony said, puzzled, “or at least not directly. He doesn’t know why he’s in the entrance hall, either.”
“What?” said Aletha, sounding concerned. “Has he been Memory Charmed or something?” She must really respect this fellow, Danger mused absently. That was the same tone she’d used the time their primary school teacher had broken her leg and been subbed out for months. They had had fun with those teachers, though…
“I don’t know,” Moony said, frowning down at the book and skimming a page or two rapidly. His expression cleared. “No, it doesn’t seem so. He thinks he’s dreaming, and I think I’m inclined to agree with him.” He smirked, and Danger told herself she’d never found smirking particularly attractive on a boy and didn’t intend to start now. “Especially given the subject of the dream.”
“Ooh, ooh!” chimed in Stuck-Up, practically bouncing in place. “Is it fun, or exciting, or naughty? Or all three?”
“Down, Padfoot,” said Aletha, pressing a hand against the boy’s head. “Sit. Stay. Good dog.”
This caused undue merriment from Danger’s point of view, but she was willing to accept there might be something she didn’t know about.
“I’d say it ranks as fun,” said Remus, the smirk smoothing out to a smile, and Danger realized with a start that she was thinking of him by his given name. How did I know? They only called him by his nickname…
The half-remembered dream from the night before slipped diffidently into her mind, and she relaxed a bit. Of course. I heard their names there. I just hadn’t had a chance to match them up yet…
By the time she got everyone sorted out, Remus was reading again. She tuned back in just in time to hear about Dumbledore lifting the bride’s veil.
Five seconds later, she was very glad no one could see or hear her.
Seven minutes later, she had wrestled the dirty thoughts back into their box—and you can stay there, thank you very much—and was listening to the group of friends chuckle about how a Muggle got the better of Albus Dumbledore.
“Could she do that?” Remus said to Aletha. “Could she really outsmart Dumbledore?”
“Sure she could,” Aletha said. “Did I tell you once, our teacher broke her leg? And we had subs for months. Now, the subs would take the roll from the office—only permanent teachers had their own roll. And students were sent to get it and take it back. Danger was sent one day…”
Danger grinned. She’d switched the roll with one that had names like “Maya Buttreeks”, “Amanda Hugginkis”, “Al Coholic”, “Oliver Clothesoff”, and more.
The boys were silent before Sirius exploded in laughter. “She is AWESOME!”
“I suppose she is, at that,” Letha agreed, smiling, it must be said, rather smugly. Danger joined her.
“Anyway, keep going. You said at least a chapter, Moony,” piped up Messy-Hair, who Danger had decided must be James.
“I said only a chapter,” Remus corrected, raising an eyebrow, “but I did say that. All right then, on we go.”
Danger listened intently, smiling as the Professor decided to misdirect others if he did find something out, and sinking back against the dream ‘wall’—successfully, though it was oddly yielding—when Remus read a dream-description from apparently her other self. That sounds just like my dreams have been, until this one. I suppose that poem snippet I remember is in iambic tetrameter? Even that voice…
The next few sections were so unbelievably cute that Danger felt the need to make sure she wasn’t going into sugar shock. Sirius and Hermione talking—and won’t that be an interesting surprise for Mum and Dad, another baby when they haven’t even got me out of the house yet—Sirius and Aletha kissing (the blushes on both parties’ faces were quite amusing), Harry and Hermione snuggling (eliciting awwwws from all females present), and then…
Here we go. Danger settled in to listen.
“Storied year,” she mused aloud. “A year that has a story about it, maybe? What’s that novel called—1984? Maybe that’s it. So they’ll have four children before 1984 is over? And I thought two was bad…”
She frowned at the next few lines. “Before the swine her like is cast… it’s pearls before swine… pearls, pearls… pearl! That big pearl from the dream sequence way back when! Something to do with Sirius and Letha… but there was a dragon in that one too, and there’s nothing in here about a dragon…”
The rest of the prophecy baffled her, just as it was baffling her future self. If that is me. I suppose it could be. I don’t want Mum and Dad to die… but the rest of it sounds good. She smiled, looking sideways at Remus. “Yummy boy,” she said aloud. “Miiiiiine…”
Remus broke off in the middle of a sentence and turned his head to look directly at her.
Oops. Danger clapped her hands over her mouth and scrunched herself down as small as she could.
“Moony?” said Sirius, looking oddly at his friend. “What’s wrong?”
“Nothing. I just… nothing.” Remus returned to the book.
The line in the newspaper article—However, another source within the Ministry, speaking on condition of anonymity, claimed that the so-called “fix” on Black proved to be false and useless, and would have been no good even if true. “I mean, what do you expect?” the source said. “Muggle law enforcement, really—what are they going to do, say ‘Stop’ to him? And if he doesn’t stop, say ‘Stop’ again?”—proved thought-provoking to Danger. Either wizards were more powerful than Muggles, or wizards were complete idiots about Muggles. Perhaps it was both.
“I’m sure an atomic bomb would level this place, no matter what they did,” she said to herself.
Remus looked at her again and she tried to ignore it. He couldn’t have heard her. It was impossible.
Remus went back to the book and suddenly smirked. “Oh, you’ll like this.”
“‘Should have, would have, could have, all add up to one thing, Sirius,’ Aletha said gently. ‘Didn’t. We didn’t see. None of us saw. And we all took the punishment for it. You just got the worst end of the deal. Which you did not deserve, and you are not even allowed to think that you deserved it.’
“‘Tyrannical woman,’ Sirius muttered into his tissue. ‘Even regulates what I’m allowed to think.’”
“That’s never going to happen!” Sirius said.
“Looks like it will, if you intend to marry her,” James said.
“Well—but—I mean—” Sirius sputtered for several moments, and then gave up. “Just read it, Moony,” he muttered. Lily and Aletha worked very hard to hide their grins.
Remus cleared his throat and read the next few paragraphs very precisely, until Peter suddenly whacked him over the head with a pillow.
“Gyahh! Peter, don’t sneak up on me like that!” he gasped, breathing deeply.
“Who’s sneaking? I was sitting right here the whole time,” Peter said innocently.
“Not right behind me you weren’t!”
“So, I moved over to see the book better. What’s wrong with that?”
“Well, nothing, but—guys, help me out here!” Remus pleaded.
His friends, however, appeared to be busy. James had his glasses off in order to dab at streaming eyes, and Sirius had toppled off the beds entirely, and was now twitching on the floor.
“Oh come on, it wasn’t that funny,” Remus said crossly.
“It was pretty funny, Remus,” Lily said, lips twitching. Aletha just grinned, bouncing on the heel of her foot. Remus swept a glare around the room, including the corner in which Danger was trying desperately to suppress giggles. The effect was spoiled somewhat by the tuft of hair that was now sticking up.
“Why didn’t you tell me?” he said.
“Who, me?” Danger said. “Didn’t even notice him. But why am I talking? You can’t hear me.”
And yet… Remus did seem to have heard her, for he looked confused and peered in her direction again, as Lily also professed not noticing and Sirius just smirked, keeping strangely silent. Remus sighed and went back to the book.
“Wait, part banshee?” James said, surprised by Aletha’s reference. “Remus, what kind of family are you marrying into?”
“A Muggle one,” Peter said. “Remember? She’s being metaphorical.”
“Oh yeah,” James said. “Right.”
Danger, still shaking her head over Neenie’s revealed full name, which had done much to convince her this was in fact her family—Honestly, Dad, there are other writers than Shakespeare, you know—found herself brought up short by the chapter’s final line. “I have a feeling life will never be dull around here,” spake story-Sirius. She nodded. “I’m pretty sure my life won’t ever be dull again, either.”
As though the words had been a signal, the room blurred around her, and she was on her own couch again, the sour taste of sleep in her mouth and her back and legs stiff.
“Oof,” she said, sitting up slowly and checking her watch. An hour had passed since she’d fallen asleep. “So… real time, then?” she said, looking up.
More or less, said the voice she’d heard in the strange bright castle, making her jump. More less than more. But you’ll see when it’s time. Pun intended.
“Oh, I have the feeling you intend all kinds of puns,” Danger muttered. “This should be good.”
You’re right. It should be. And the voice elaborated no further.
Drop us a line, as you will.