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IOU One Title
Chapter 6 - In Which Comfort Is Given, Snape Suspects, and Dreams Become Substance
by Scott
Thanks once more to Anne and Archy, and thanks also this time to Lyonesse for her contributions. :-)
James opened the book and was about to start reading when Lily firmly removed it from his hands.
“Oi!”
“We’ve read a lot today,” Lily said. “Some of us have homework. And we all need rest. We should pick it up again tomorrow afternoon.”
“But—” Sirius sputtered. “But—but—but—”
“You sound like a motorbike starting up,” Peter said.
“How would you know?”
Peter shrugged. “There were Muggle kids in my neighborhood growing up. They had one.”
“Motorbike.” Sirius frowned thoughtfully. “I wonder if I could get one… rework it to run on magic, of course…”
“What, becoming an Animagus isn’t dangerous and illegal enough?” Aletha said acidly. “You have to go looking for more ways to kill yourself?”
“I don’t want to kill myself! I just… what good’s life, if you don’t live it?”
“What good’s life, if you get your head smashed open like an overripe pumpkin the first of November?” Aletha countered.
The bickering continued out the door, down the stairs, through the common room, and out the portrait hole.
“Two Galleons says they snog by the end of the month,” said James.
“No bets,” said Peter.
“That or hex each other,” Remus agreed. “Or possibly both. Though I’d hope not quite at the same time.”
Lily just rolled her eyes.
“Now,” she said, turning to Remus, “If you don’t mind sharing, how many points did you find for that Charms paper? I came up with seven…”
“Letha?”
“Hmm?”
“Could you help me with something, please?”
Aletha looked up from the book she was supposed to be reading for that morning's History of Magic and saw Hestia Hesperus standing before her. A curly dark-haired Gryffindor in the same year as Lily, she was currently holding something small in her hand and wearing a rather nervous expression.
“Sure. What is it?” Letha asked and set down her book.
Hestia fidgeted. “Sirius…” she began.
Letha frowned. “Sirius? What’s he done this time?”
“Oh, no, it’s not something he’s done, it’s just…” she stopped, hesitating once more. Letha could tell that whatever it was she had to say must meant that something was up, because Hestia didn’t get scared into stumbling over words very easily.
“I’ve already said I’ll help,” Aletha said, putting out a hand to calm the older girl. “What’s going on?”
“Well, he’s sort of curled up. In the corner. And he won’t move, and he keeps groaning. When I asked him, he said he was practicing for…” Hestia shivered. “He shouldn’t joke about things like that.”
“Oh for…” Aletha got to her feet. “Where?”
Hestia pointed.
Aletha stalked that way, preparing a verbal barrage. Sirius didn’t need to be pampered. She’d break him out of this mood so fast…
Then she saw him, and her anger shattered.
She’d expected rocking, or tearing of hair, or perhaps grinning insanely at nothing. They suited Sirius’ somewhat overblown sense of style.
What she found was a somewhat formless mass of boy on the floor, seemingly smaller than he had any right to be, making an intermittent noise that could best be described as a whimper.
He wasn’t even keeping an eye out for his potential audience, but instead faced the wall, head pressed against the smooth, hard boards of the corner. Aletha slowed, hesitated, and then softly took the last few steps.
“Sirius?” she said quietly, shaking his shoulder. No response. “Sirius, are…are you all right?” Obviously, he wasn’t, but what else could she say? She shook him more vigorously.
Suddenly, he moved, half rolling over and sitting up all in one motion, leaving him cross-legged and gazing up at her. She flinched back from his haunting stare and the drying tear-tracks running down his face.
“Oh yeah, I’m just great,” he said, voice hardly more than a croak. “Abso-bally-lutely chipper, old gel!” His ragged attempt at a grin had razors in it, and she flinched again. “I’m positively sunny for a man going to Azkaban.”
“That doesn’t sound like you,” Aletha said, sinking to the floor in front of him. “Whatever happened to, ‘I never expect to see that happen’?”
“It’s a book from the bloody future!” Sirius said. “We know it is, you checked! It’s the future written down, it has to happen!”
“Not anymore,” Aletha said.
Sirius looked up at Aletha, his eyes showing confusion.
“Knowledge of the future changes it,” Aletha said. “You know that making Peter the Secret Keeper is a bad idea. So you won’t. And additionally, is Peter a Death Eater? No, he’s not. And because of this book, he won’t be, either. Lily and James will probably ask Albus to be the Secret Keeper if they need one. How can you go to Azkaban now?”
Aletha’s calm, logical reasoning sparked a glimmer of hope within Sirius.
“I—I—” he swallowed. “You know what we should do?” he said, his voice a little shaky. “We—”
“If you suggest that we go find Remus’ girlfriend, he’ll kick your butt.”
Sirius looked stunned, but then his slightly-open mouth morphed into a grin. “But it would be so worth it!”
Aletha shook her head in exasperation. “Apparently your little bout of communing with the floor didn’t affect your tendency towards idiocy.”
Sirius grinned again, on firmer ground this time. “Oh, but I’m a lovable idiot, really I am.”
“A lovable idiot, maybe, but an idiot nonetheless,” said Letha dryly, standing and brushing her knees.
Sirius got off the floor too, wincing. “You know…it’s too bad that the future’s going to change from what we’ve read, really.”
Her eyebrows shot up. “Oh, really? How?”
Sirius shrugged. “You were in it.”
Aletha was rather glad he was walking slightly ahead of her because he couldn’t see the red tinge on her cheeks.
“Maybe not everything changes,” she whispered to herself.
A few rows down, hidden behind a towering stack of books stood a tall boy with lank, black hair and puzzled expression. He peered after Black and Freeman as they left the library, mind burning with what he had just heard.
It was completely by accident that he had overheard them talking, if he were to tell the truth. He had been looking for a book to help him in Defense Against the Dark Arts (not that he’d ever admit that he needed help) when he heard whimpers and peered through the books to find Black curled up, whining like an old woman.
He was just about to make himself known and taunt Black when that Gryffindor Chaser, Hesperus, came to Black and started talking quietly with him. What they were saying, he couldn’t hear, but that didn’t matter as Hesperus left a minute later and came back with Freeman. Freeman was a year beneath them, he remembered, and never far from Black usually. They were both Beaters for their abominable team and Snape often got the feeling that their frequent rows were simply their way of flirting with each other.
Not that any of that mattered, as endearing as it was. He sneered. No…what had caught his attention was what Freeman and Black starting talking about after Hesperus left. What did he mean when he started jabbering on about going to Azkaban? If wishes were galleons and that were true, I would definitely be rich, he thought.
What Black had said kept ringing in his mind, reverberating off the walls of his consciousness and giving him a minor migraine. “It’s a book from the bloody future!”
And then, as if that weren’t enough, Freeman started spouting words that Snape would never have run together. Pettigrew, a Death Eater? That was laughable. And a Secret Keeper to anything at all was equally so. The simpering little worm couldn’t keep a secret if it were to jump into his hands and latch itself to his little finger.
But beyond that, he couldn’t help wondering. If they were telling the truth and they had somehow found a book to the future (which he had to grudgingly admit was entirely plausible, given that circumstances like these happened all throughout history)…
If they have, that book would be more valuable than the entire earnings of the families of everyone in Slytherin House.
And he knew only one person who would pay that much in blood to get it.
He shook his head, trying to clear his thoughts, because it was impossible. Not that such a book existed, oh no, but that it was in the hands of Potter, Black, Lupin, and Pettigrew, and who else knows who. Freeman was certainly in on it, and Hesperus might very well be.
But then… a little voice in his mind tugged, This could also be a set-up. I do not think they noticed me, but they very well could have known I was there and decided to have another one of their insidious little pranks at my expense. He seethed at the thought of being humiliated again at their hands, as they were so fond of doing.
Out of the corner of his eye, he saw Hestia Hesperus leaving the library alone, setting off down the long, empty corridor that led up to Gryffindor Tower. It only took a moment for him to make up his mind, quickly shelve the book he was holding, and set off after her.
He didn’t know whether this was all a set-up or not. But he was damn well going to find out.
Danger was puzzled.
Everything she'd seen last night had seemed to make so much sense, but… she wanted to write it off as a very vivid dream. Surely even a vivid dream she wouldn't remember so clearly the next afternoon, though—would she?
“It would help if you had some kind of proof,” she muttered. She flung her hand out. “Abracadabra!”
Absolutely nothing happened.
“Right,” she muttered. “Suppose that’s too obvious, anyway. There couldn’t be a real spell like that.” She giggled a bit. “You’d have sprogs all over the place pulling more than they bargained for out of a hat…”
Lets out ‘hocus pocus’ too, I suppose? she thought, but gave it a shot anyway, trying to concentrate on something magical happening.
Nothing.
She sighed. Surely if all this was magic it should apply to her somehow, shouldn’t it? Especially since her counterpart in that book seemed to have something going. More than she had, at any rate. And her best friend Aletha apparently had it, too.
“I suppose I’ll figure it out at some point,” she muttered. “In the meantime, can I maybe get back to listening?”
She yawned hugely, then shook her head, half-laughing. “So what’s this now, I can magic myself to sleep? And that’s all I can do? Some talent…”
Still—another yawn overtook her in mid-thought—it really did seem to be working. She stumbled over to her bed and flopped down on it just in time as her eyelids closed without her conscious decision for them to do so.
She was walking down a corridor this time, passing a pair of people in close and agitated conversation—a girl and boy, both about her own age or slightly older, the girl with long brown curls and a worried look on her face, the boy with stringy shoulder-length black hair and a determined expression.
Not anybody I know. And not anyone who’s been mentioned in the story, I don’t think. So… probably not terribly important.
She hurried onwards, eager to reach the dorm before the story continued.
Soon enough she was following a rather burly brown-haired boy through the portrait hole, and it occurred to her to wonder just how she happened to know exactly where the Gryffindor common room was. She more interested in what ‘her’ group was doing, though, so her steps only slowed for a moment before she shook the thought off and continued up the stairs.
It seemed she was in luck, because everyone was just settling down on various beds. The girls no longer confined themselves to Remus’, as several others had mysteriously begun to get made now and then, if not perhaps precisely crisp.
Danger was slightly surprised to note Aletha hovering rather closer to Sirius than she had been, and further concerned at the shadowed look on Sirius’ face, not at all usual for him. It did seem to be clearing now, however, as James produced the book with a flourish and cleared his throat pompously. “Chapter—”
“James.”
The warning note in Lily’s voice was clear and James visibly deflated, opening the book and clearing his throat again, this time in what could pass for an excited, but controlled manner.
James read the opening scene out and then paused. “I always thought Muggleborns would automatically get an owl. Didn’t you tell me, Lily, that in your introduction, you were told that owls were how we communicated?”
“Sure, we were told that,” Lily said. “Doesn’t mean that every Muggleborn wants an owl. And therefore, 3M is a good solution.”
“Could we use it to contact Danger?” Peter said.
“Wouldn’t work. We don’t have her address,” Remus said. “And we’d be better off using an owl. And you’re forgetting one thing.”
“What?”
“How would you react if an owl came to you out of nowhere and it had a letter addressed to you from people you don’t even know? And bear in mind that you know nothing about magic.”
Peter had to concede that point.
“But I do!” Danger said aloud, then clapped a hand over her mouth before she remembered that they couldn’t hear her.
Or can they? He certainly seems awfully interested in this corner…
Remus was, indeed, looking oddly at the place where Danger was standing.
I have to stop doing that. He can sort of hear me, or sense me, or something. And I don’t think I want to be sensed.
Though I might not mind a letter by owl. Change things up a little—everything is always so much the same around home…
Shaking her head, she sat down on the one unoccupied bed. “Please, read,” she said, sweeping her hands wide. “I can’t wait to hear what happens next.”
“Moony?” Sirius said curiously. “You’re looking weird.” He smirked. “More weird than usual I mean.”
Remus rolled his eyes. “Oh, shut up. I think we should just let James read.” He flicked another thoughtful glance at the empty bed, then looked away. “We can come back to Danger later, maybe Letha can get in touch or something. Go on, James.”
“Right, moving on…” said James. “Huh, lots of people getting promoted. Including you, Letha.”
“Oh, really?” Aletha asked.
“Yeah. Whole new division formed for you and everything.”
James continued to read, relatively without interruption, though there was an eruption of snickers when Remus compared a drawing of ‘Pa-foot’ to an Actromantula.
“He’s just a kid!” Sirius defended. “You can’t expect him to get every little detail right.”
“Yes, he did get the colour,” Remus allowed, chuckling.
They managed to suppress further mirth as the children discovered the joys of flour-fights, and then Aletha’s counterpart was putting her office to rights, and she and Dumbledore were quietly agreeing on just how much she wouldn’t actually interfere.
James’ eyes scanned down the page. Had anyone been looking at them, they would have seen a marauding look enter them. He looked up at Sirius. “I’m sorry, old bean,” he said.
“What for?” Sirius said.
“Dumbledore has a ring and he’s proposing to Aletha, even though she’s a little too young for him.”
Aletha’s eyes bugged out and Sirius yelped. “You’re not… you’re not serious?!”
“Of course I’m not,” James said. Sirius relaxed. “That’s you, I’m James.”
Sirius growled over the laughing of the others, punched James’ arm and grabbed the book. “You arse,” he said as he read the real scene out. Dumbledore did indeed have a ring, but it had been among Sirius’ things. He was passing it on to Aletha, with perhaps a little more ceremony than might be thought due a convicted murderer’s possession.
“Well, that’s interesting,” Lily said. “He suspects, at least something.”
The next scene only confirmed that, and at the end, everyone let out their breath as Dumbledore decided to let things stay as they were and indeed, even help where he might.
It was perhaps fortunate for Aletha that only Danger noted a certain dampness around her eyes.
Lily took the book to read the last few scenes in the chapter. “Intriguing,” she said, skimming down the page. “These are people we haven’t seen before, but it’s almost as if the author expects us to know who they are somehow.”
“Maybe she’s a magic author,” Peter volunteered.
“Well, she sort of has to be, Wormtail,” said James kindly. “I mean, if she was a Muggle, how would she know about Hogwarts? Or about us?”
“No, I mean maybe she put magic into the book.” Peter craned his neck to look at it. “Maybe if you put your hand on the person’s name, you know who they are and all about them. Magically.”
Lily looked skeptical, but rested her fingertips lightly on a portion of the page. One breath. Two. Three.
“Nothing,” she said, taking her hand away. “Just… words on the page.”
Danger couldn’t resist. “Here, let me try,” she said, coming around behind Lily. “Let me see here, fingers on the page…”
She leaned forward and misjudged. Her fingers hit the page with more force than she’d intended—
And went on through.
Danger yelped and yanked her hand free, but not before a disturbing cacophony of images and sounds had cascaded through her mind. “What,” she demanded of the ceiling, “was that?”
It’s usually known as a prophecy, said the unbelievably annoying voice which seemed to like teasing her. In this case, since you touched the name of Ronald Weasley, you now know more about his future. Go on, think about him.
Danger thought, concentrating on the name, closing her eyes to get farther into it. Flashes of a gangling, red-haired boy, tormented by elder twin brothers, looked up to shyly by a younger sister, loved but occasionally missed by mother and father and elder brothers simply because there were so many of them… farther into the future she sped, seeing other children his own age around him, flashes of school, homework, Quidditch, and then suddenly, completely clear, arms and lips fully involved with—
“Oh my GOD!” Danger shrieked.
Across the room, Remus jerked upright. His eyes fixed on her, and this time there was no hesitation in them. “Lily,” he said in a voice of preternatural calm. “Don’t. Move.”
“Why?” Lily said.
“Don’t ask.” Remus got slowly to his feet, his eyes never leaving Danger’s. “Just… don’t move.”
Peter followed Remus’ line of sight and blanched. Sirius muttered something under his breath, and for once Aletha didn’t smack him. She was too busy staring herself.
“Danger?” she whispered.
“Danger?” Lily Evans was many things. Slow on the uptake was not one of them. “Oh you are not going to tell me…” Slowly, the redhead turned until eyes like green headlamps locked onto Danger’s face.
“It only needed this,” James said conversationally. “Just this. To become the crowning strange experience of my life. I supremely doubt that I will ever experience anything stranger than this.”
“Um,” Danger said weakly, fighting a mad urge to giggle. “Hi?”
“Did she say something?” “I think she said something.” “Did anyone catch it?” The murmurs spread around the room, the five people still seated looking at each other in bafflement.
Remus cleared his throat. “She said,” he announced from his position in the center of the circle. “‘Hi.’”
“Yeah.” Danger coughed into her hand, drawing everyone’s attention again. “About that. I kind of think I need to go home now…”
The room turned gray and started to spiral around her.
Maybe I shouldn’t have said that. Danger gulped nervously—she was in no mood to find out what happened if she got sick outside her body—and looked for something stationary to focus on.
“No!” Remus’ voice drew her eyes to him, echoing down the funnel that was starting to form around her—he was reaching out a hand, and without thinking she reached back—
The gray clouds were growing stronger, any instant they would whisk her away, back to her body and her safe, quiet, boring home, the place where there was no such thing as magic—
Their fingertips brushed—a spark like electricity jumped between them—
And with a squeak, Danger shot upright on her own bed, in her own body, panting as though she’d just run all the way from Hogwarts.
Wherever that might be.
She lowered her head into her hands, and didn’t even notice the finger which had brushed Remus’, the index finger of her right hand. It was acting in a most peculiar manner—instead of lying flat and parallel with her other fingers, as it was surely meant to do, it was pointing off to the north, as though there were something there it wanted…
Things are getting twisty here, folks. Innit fun?