*gateway*
It hung in the air, seemingly suspended between two trees, a shimmering opalescent haze. A gateway-- to what? The foursome eyed it uneasily, Remus even more so than the rest.
"You-- are you sure you want to do this?" he said. It was the wrong question to ask: it immediately put Sirius' back up.
"Of course we're sure!" he said, sounding slightly harsh and irritated because of course he wasn't. No one knew what lay on the other side of this gateway-- only that many of the people who stepped through it never came back. The people who returned could never remember what had happened.
Peter was looking distinctly green. Remus could imagine how he felt. He flashed the other boy a sympathetic, encouraging smile but Peter cut his eyes away, perhaps embarrassed that his fear had been detected. He was always touchy about receiving sympathy, and maybe he blamed Remus for what he, Peter, was about to have to do. But he didn't have to do it. None of them did.
"You don't have to do it," Remus reiterated.
"We want to do it," said James quietly. His face was suffused with excitement, he looked as if he wanted to laugh out loud. "It's an adventure, Moony! I wish you could come..."
"So do I," said Remus, his voice almost breaking.
Peter's eyebrows jerked upwards at that remark, but he made no comment.
Sirius took a deep breath and squared his shoulders.
"Now or never, everyone-- shall we hold hands?"
There was an infinitesimal pause before James remembered to laugh at that suggestion.
"Ooh, does ickle Sirius need his hand held? Well, come on then." He extended his hand to Peter, who held out his other, trembling hand to Sirius.
Together, the three of them stepped through the gateway. Remus watched them disappear, and let out a long-held breath. It issued in a thin high-pitched moan, like a canine whine.
With worry etched into his every feature, Remus settled down on his haunches to watch the gateway, and wait.
*happy daze*
They were in a wood, cool and dark green. Large red flowers and bright jewel coloured butterflies caught the eye wherever they looked. And although just a moment before it had been dark, the sun was now bright overhead.
"Nice," said Sirius, looking round and rather inadequately summing the place up.
"There's a beautiful smell in the air..." said James. He drew a deep breath.
"Who's that singing?" said Peter in a slightly panicky voice. He didn't seem to appreciate this place as much as the other two.
Sirius cocked his head to listen. There was someone singing alright, a high, clear female voice which sent shivers down his spine.
A beautiful woman in a long red hooded cloak stepped out from between the trees. She had a very long blonde plait pulled to the front of her left shoulder, and ice-blue eyes. As she smiled at them Sirius felt his knees go wobbly. He glanced sideways at the slack, gaping jaws of the other boys and hastily closed his own mouth.
"So.. three more would-be Animagi?" she said with a slightly mocking smile. "Come to encounter your elemental selves. I hope you're also ready to encounter your deepest fears."
She looked searchingly at each of them. Only James pulled himself together sufficiently to say "Yes, we are... milady?" He trailed off, unsure how to address this fairytale vision.
She didn't answer his implied question. With a tinkly laugh she said "Just as well! If you'd said no, I'd have had you stuffed in my collection before you could blink. There's no turning back once you step through the gateway, you know. Let's see how the three of you young fools perform when I put you to the test."
She said that last flirtatiously: Sirius couldn't stop himself from wondering what, exactly, she meant--when suddenly the world shifted, changed shape. He was standing on his own.
*filthy rat*
He was standing on his own.
He twitched in sudden anxiety, and darted from tree to tree, shadow to shadow, he was...
the shape of a survivor.
He laughed to himself, twitched his whiskers.
A rat!
Well, what it lacked in glamour it made up for in smarts. He'd be able to hide anywhere, spy on anyone. No-one would bother to hurt a rat. Rats always survived in the wreckage... no one ever even noticed a rat.
"What, no-one at all?" said a soft, musical voice in his ear.
He twitched his head frantically, but no-one was there. A dark, hooded shape was looming over him-- a pair of eyes, like a snake's was searching, pinning him rigid in their gaze.
"Sooner or later, everyone has to choose," continued the female voice, relentlessly. Not even a rat can stay forever on the sidelines-- even a rat sometimes has to stand up and fight. Who are you going to fight for, Peter Pettigrew?"
And Peter as running through a maze, right-or-left, and again right-or-left, and all the paths looked the same to him, but he knew he had to keep running, maybe he would find the way out if he kept running...
*thrill of the chase*
He was standing alone.
He was on top of a hill, it was night-time, and the moon was high and clear in the sky, and a wide, flat stream was bouncing its way from rock to rock below them. He was one with the earth,. He could feel a leaf dropping to the ground. He could feel human footfalls half a mile away. It was marvellous! He threw back his head as if to laugh: the extra weight of the antlers threw his whole delicate, finely-tuned body off balance and into motion. He began to run down the hill, taking great joyous leaps. He was so light! The slightest twitch of his muscles did so much more than the greatest straining of his puny human body: there was no barrier between thought and action.
He jumped for joy again, crossed the stream at a bound and began galloping into the distant hills.
In this shape, he was free.
"Free from everything?" a female voice asked him suddenly. "Free from your past? Look behind you, James Potter..."
And he did, to see a pack of hounds, with the dark shadow riding behind them, the same shadow which had been chasing him all his life.
And he ran, but they ran faster.. he was the stag at bay, panting, exhausted now, and they closed in on him, jumping at him from all sides, with the dark man-shape looming over it all.
And all the while the voice was running a relentless commentary, a near musical counterpoint t the dog's barks. "No-one can escape their fate, James. No one can outrun the past. no-one can outwit the future..."
He collapsed in pain on the ground, huge teeth tearing into his flesh.
*grim deceit*
He was standing alone.
It was night again: stars like little pinpricks in a near-black sky.
He was black as well, his fur shimmering softly when the light shifted. He was huge and powerful, almost as tall as he was as a man. Interesting, he thought, and essayed a slight growl: almost frightening himself with the menacing result.
He wondered why he'd chosen this shape. An image of Peter crossed his mind, and he thought of all the times he'd had to defend him from bullies like the snide, poisonous-tongued Severus Snape. And Snape had been sniffing around Remus too lately, trying to find out secrets... Sirius growled again. He'd like to see Snape attack his friends now! He'd-- he crouched down, made a practice spring for an imaginary throat. Yes, this shape was a good shape to be. A guard-dog, he could protect Peter, Remus, even James from whatever it was that gave James his nightmares. He could--
"Can you really?" a silvery voice interrupted him. "Go and look at yourself."
A ray of moonlight lit up a still round pond. He padded silently towards it, and stared in. An omen of death stared back up at him.
"Are you sure it's not you who gives James his nightmares?" said the voice. "That's not a guard dog, that's a Grim. You're cursed, Sirius Black., you bring bad luck. You can't protect the people around you, you're what they need protecting from. You're the dangerous one, you're the evil one, can't you see it?"
Sirius looked at the Grim which glowered back at him from the pond. He suddenly felt weary, too weary to argue with the voice. Maybe she was right...
Black dizziness took him.
*the revenge of red riding hood*
The woman in the red cloak bent over the three very small figures that lay prone on the ground. "Idiots," she muttered under her breath. "My toy cupboard is going to get full up at this rate." She scooped them up under her arm-- they weighed hardly anything-- and set off home, singing.
*nightwatchman*
He was squatting there, alone. He didn't know how long he'd been watching the gateway for. Hours. He was cold. Where were they? What was happening?
The gateway shimmered-- he thought it was growing thinner-- it couldn't be. It just couldn't be.
He remembered the passage from one of their numerous spellbooks which James had read to him. He'd asked whether he could come too...
"One who does not seek above all else to become Animagus, or one who has not prepared his mind and body thoroughly with the Rites and Meditations detailed on pages 400-515 has no business in the land of the She. Such a person risks his life and soul merely by passing through the gateway."
The passage looped through his mind again as he stared in total concentration at the gateway, scarcely even taking time out to blink.
The silvery mist trembled again. It was definitely thinner, more transparent than it had been. What if it disappeared altogether, with his three friends trapped behind it?
They were doing it for him. The best friends-- the only friends he'd ever had. He'd couldn't have them die, disappear, for him.
Howling aloud at the thought, he gathered his strength and charged through the gateway....
*native territory*
landing four-footed on in the green, shadowy woods on the other side.
A blonde haired woman with a red hood on her cloak approached him at once.
"You haven't been properly prepared!" she said, reproachfully. "I should be able to take you home at once and put you in my collection. But you seem to have protection. Part of you belongs here."
She reached down to caress Remus' head. He didn't bit her head off; instead he found the action rather soothing. He gazed into the woman's face with affection: the wolf-Remus knew, without words, that she was leader of his Pack. He was where he belonged, and his rage against the world had vanished.
"Come home with me, Mr Wolf," said the woman, and led him through the woods, casting an occasional, faintly-seductive glance back over her shoulder at him.
Remus trotted adoringly after her.
The cottage she led him to was made of chocolate. Entirely of chocolate, from the flagstones of the floor to the chimney-post. Remus' human part wondered how it didn't melt. His wolf part just felt hungry.
"Do you like it, Mr Wolf?" said the blonde woman. "The architect wanted to do gingerbread, but I can't stand the stuff myself. Chocolate, I said to him, give me chocolate. It's the staple diet round here anyway."
She broke a piece off the windowsill and sucked on it languorously. She tossed a larger piece to Remus, who devoured it with gusto.
Normally his wolf-side wasn't fond of chocolate, but in this country he rather liked it.
"So, what brings you here, Mr Wolf?" she said. "It's so nice to see someone who belongs here, for once. You wouldn't believe the bad-mannered louts who come traipsing through the doorways. They seem to think thirty day's worth of meaningless purification rituals is enough to prepare them to meet the She! No-one understands any more, it's the mind that has to be ready. They don't treat us with the respect we got in the old days. Why, you wouldn't believe the three half-trained teenage idiots who arrived in here only this afternoon-- what's wrong?"
For as she'd been talking Remus had been remembering. His friends-- he'd come here to save his friends. In his wolf-state the uneasiness of his human self manifested in tail-twitching, a few whines, a little bark and eventually a long-drawn-out howl.
"Oh, I see now," said the woman. She waved a hand dismissively, and Remus returned to his human self.
*what big eyes you've got, grandma!*
"You're so much more attractive the other way," she said looking at him hard. "To think I thought finally, here's someone who isn't after anything. Someone who's here because he belongs here, rather than a blundering human looking for favours. I was wrong, wasn't I? You came here to collect the idiots. They aren't worthy of you, you know."
"They're my friends, " said Remus faintly. He felt dizzy. The sweet chocolate smell of the house was overpowering.
"They don't even know you," said the woman. Her voice dripped scorn. "If they saw you in your--real state, they'd run a mile. Or else you'd chew them to bits. Wouldn't you?"
"This is my real state," said Remus as firmly as he dared.
"No, it's not," said the woman equally firmly. You're masquerading. You're a fraud. Shall I show you?" She waved her hand again-- Remus was a wolf once more, but something felt odd...
The woman laughed-- another wave of her hand and a full-length mirror appeared in front of Remus.
Remus stared in to the mirror. His human self wanted to laugh in dismay. His wolf-self whimpered. A floral dress covered almost all his fur . A huge flowered bonnet enveloped his canine head like a funnel-- only his snout protruded past it. A pink ribbon, tied tight to choking pint, secured he bonnet around his neck.
"Don't think you're fooling anyone!" she said laughing. " A wolf in human clothing, that's all you are on the other side. I could keep you that way here too. I could put you in my collection like this. Yes, that's right, snarl at me, show your true colours! What big teeth you've got, Grandma!"
Another brisk wave, and Remus stood there as a human once more, still wearing the dress and bonnet.
"You are quite, quite ridiculous," said the woman. "You're afraid of the best, the most beautiful and elemental part of you. All the other parts are just frills."
Remus opened his mouth to speak. The woman raised a hand to stop him. "Yes, I know," she said sadly. "You came here as a human, to ask a boon. You're afraid of me, so I'd be quite within my rights to punish your presumption. But I don't want to punish you, you should be allowed to run free. Ask. "
"Let my friends go," said Remus.
"Are you sure that's what you want?" said the woman. " I could offer you something else-- I could cure you of being a werewolf if you wanted..."
"Could you?" gasped Remus before he could stop himself.
"Oh yes, I could," said the woman. "Ask."
"Let my friends go," said Remus again, very hastily.
"Haha! I can't! said the woman. "They shouldn't have entered this land in a state of fear. They broke the rules. You've wasted your wish. Get out and go!"
But something very old and very deep inside Remus knew the right response to this, and spoke up in a half-growl:
"They entered this land out of love for me."
The woman studied him carefully for a second. "Too clever for me, Mr Wolf. I see you haven't entirely forgotten the rules. Here, you can have them. " She walked over to a chocolate chipboard cupboard at the back of the house and opened it-- a multitude of stuffed toys fell out onto the floor, burying the woman up to her waist in furry animals.
She looked embarrassed."I'll have to tidy my toy cupboard soon." She picked three toys out of the mountain that surrounded her and jammed them into Remus' arms.
"There, take them. They'll turn back to themselves when you get out. And yes, they'll be Animagi. I don't want you being lonely when you leave me..."
She looked into Remus' eyes.
"I think you should stay. You belong here really. Nobody on the other side appreciates you properly."
Remus waved his armful of toys.
"These do," he said.
"Don't be too sure," said the woman. "And don't expect a Happy Ending, either, you only get those here..."
"Goodbye," said Remus a little sadly, turning away. He walked cautiously through the woods to the little gap between trees that he somehow knew was the exit.
*happily ever after *
They spilled out laughing into the moonlit night.
"What happened?" said Peter.
"Something wonderful!" said James. "Can't you tell? It must have worked!!"
"Why were you with us, Moony?" said Sirius.
They all looked at Remus, and began laughing.
"And why are you wearing THAT?" said James.
Remus put up his hand to feel a large funnel-like bonnet completely enshadowing his head.
He took it off, and began turning it over and over in his hands. "I don't know," he said at last, although something about the bonnet tweaked at odd corners of his memories. "There's a note pinned to the inside, though..."
They crowded round to look at it.
In a childish scrawl it said:
Come back to me when you're tired of being silly, Mr Wolf. I can give you chocolate and a Happy Ending."
There was no signature.
"Who's that from?" said someone curiously.
'I've absolutely no idea," said Remus truthfully. But he folded it up and put it in his pocket anyway. They were all staring at him wide-eyed, wondering why he looked so sad.
Remus forced a smile, and pulled himself together.
"Come on, you guys, don't you want to see if the Animagus thing worked?"
The whoops of excitement that rose around him were answer enough to that-- and as Remus' friends transformed around him, he glanced up at the menacing bulge of the moon, and knew that forever afterwards he would be just a little less afraid of it.
* * *
a/n: Yes, that story did have a point. But I'm not sure that anyone else will be able to follow its twisted internal logic. I seem to keep increasing the degree of weirdness in my writing, and will probably continue to do so till you all flame me and tell me to stop. I apologise to anyone who feels like they wasted their time reading that. I can only reiterate that there actually is a point, somewhere.
Incidentally the story of Red Riding Hood is all about seduction if you look at it that way... big bad stranger leads scarlet woman off the path, said woman comes to bad end, be careful my child etc. I've reincarnated Red Riding Hood here as Instant Gratification Woman from the Planet Fluff, or something similar. She's completely amoral, but if I could be a superhero I'd choose to be her.
There are some reviewers I want to say hi and thank you to, but I'm feeling too dubious about whether this story works to do it here. I'd rather thank you at the bottom of a story that I feel a bit happier about. If I ever write one of those again. I'm only blethering here so I can put off posting this....
--morrigan