This is so far the longest chapter I have written. I decided to give some special love for Remus and Kia this time. If there is an aspect or a character you would like to read more about just leave a review and Ill see what I can do ^^


Chapter 8

Where shifty-eyed and restless one dreams of a presence

He was lying on a dusty wooden floor in a room that had clearly not been used for quite some time. What small amount of furniture was left was broken and pushed against the walls. The light was dim and pale, like grey winter mornings, seemingly coming out of nowhere and everywhere at once. Nothing had a shadow. "Tik, tok, tik, tok tik, tok" He could hear the hollow sound of an old grandfather-clock from some other room. He stood up carefully, slowly, as if not to disturb the stagnant world around him, dusting his clothes of before walking to the door and placing his hand on the handle.

His surroundings shifted, and for a heartbeat everything was just a swirl of colours before settling again. Now he found himself standing in the middle of a field. The hey was high - up to his waist and moving like an ocean in a breeze that he was unable to feel against his skin. Above him was an endless black sky without a single star in sight. It was so vast that it almost gave you a claustrophobic feeling while looking at it. He turned frantically on his spot, trying to find something to focus his eyes on when the world turned with him…

It was a room again, but that was the end of the similarities with the first one he had been. It was a rather large space, the ceiling patterned with the night sky so skilfully that it looked convincingly real. The walls and the floor were made of white stone. Walls and pillars were carved in detail in the forms of trees, leafs and even small twigs included. It was impossible to say whether they were actually made of stone or real trees turned into it someway. In the midst of the branches small glimmering balls of silvery blue light illuminated the room softly, creating dancing shadows everywhere. The furniture was just as breathtaking, with intricate ornamental forms that twisted and turned, as light and effortless like a summer night breeze. It was probably a bedroom of some kind, even though it was hard to say with everything looking so different than he was used to. The silvery fabrics were flowing like a morning mist, light as a baby's breath, looking like they would be just as soft to the touch as the finest silk, or – as he added as an afterthought – James' cloak of invisibility.

The colour scheme was a seamless continuation from the night that spread out behind the three French doors open at the far side of the room. Together they took up that wall almost completely, only white treelike pillars standing in between. The curtains, flowing in the wind coming in from the open doors, were an extension from the night sky on the ceiling, stars pooling down in a stream of liquid blue velvet. Feeling calm and nostalgic in a peculiar sort of way, even when he was certain he had not seen the room never in his life before, he proceeded to move closer to the nearest door, curious to see what he would glimpse outside this mysterious place, and maybe finding some clue as to where exactly he was. But just when he reached the threshold, the world shifted yet again.

A feeling of complete terror overwhelmed him. He heard cold, metallic laughter around him. Several voices, but he was unable to distinguish exactly how many people there were. Dark figures without faces, closing in on him, laughing all the while, only one of those had eyes at least as far as he could see, but after seeing the sinister and ravenous way those eyes observed him, he wished he could unsee them, or at the very least - forget. The world sifted yet again, just as the figure was stepping closer, leaning over him… and he screamed, at the top of his lungs he screamed, and not a sound came out.

"Remus… Remus wake up, you are starting to scare the hell out of me." It was James' voice that was breaking through the walls of his sleep. The insistent shaking on his shoulder dragged him ever so slowly closer to consciousness and after a while, he slowly sat up in his bed, rubbing his eyes with shaking hands. He was covered in cold sweat and shaking all over, the terror of his dreams still somewhat lingering in the background of his mind.

"Thanks mate, I really needed the wakeup." Remus said earnestly, attempting a shaky smile when he finally met the worried gaze of his friend who was sitting on the edge of his bed.

"What was that about? You were trashing in you bed for almost an hour with this really pained look on your face. You looked like you might have as well been under the Cruciatus Curse or something of the sort. I couldn't even wake you up…" James rubbed his face tiredly; he was obviously stunned by the scene he had had to witness, not as much as Remus was however.

"It was the dreams again, the ones I told you about." he explained. Every cell of his body felt so heavy and tired, but after the dream he had just had, the thought of sleeping send shivers down his spine.

"I don't really feel like sleeping after that, so I'm probably just going to take a shower… what's the time anyway?" he asked while swinging his legs over the edge of his bed and standing up.

"It's just over four." James answered, without even glancing at the clock.

"You should go back to bed. I'll just go down to the commonroom to do some reading and wake you up when it's time for breakfast." He attempted to smile again to assure him, but could tell that it came out rather pathetic. James just nodded and crawled back under his cowers most likely falling asleep in the matter of minutes.

Remus patted barefooted in the dark to the bathroom, trying to avoid all the various objects scattered around the floor. He flicked the lights on with his wand and turned to stare at his reflection in the mirror. To say that he looked terrible was an understatement. The dark circles under his eyes were now almost bruise-like. His cheeks were hollow, bones jutting out and the numerous small scars on his face were even more prominent against the pale gloom of his skin. With a sight that belonged more to an old man than a 17 year old boy, he turned on the hot water and stepped under the comforting droplets of warmth raining down on him.

-XXX-

"Remember that you have to return your assignments regarding transfigurating large mammals by Monday. Class dismissed." McGonagall shouted over the noise of students gathering their belongings and leaving the classroom.

"I think we should try to talk to that girl. You know the one Val hangs out with sometimes. She would probably be able to give us some useful information." Sirius suggested when they were walking down the hallway after their last class of the day. Peter had waited them outside their classroom after his mugglestudies lesson and was now silently walking behind them, looking a bit nervous for some reason.

"You mean the Ravenclaw girl with the wild dark curly hair and weird last name?" James asked, confirming that they were indeed talking about the same person. This caused Remus to let out a dark laugh and the other boys to look at him questioningly.

"Her name is Kia, and good luck with that." he explained with a shrug. It didn't really appease either Sirius or James, but they let it slide, taking into account that he looked like a walking corpse at the moment.

"You know where we could find her then, at the library?" Sirius suggested, thinking that it was the most likely place to find a Ravenclaw.

"Probably not, but if you are lucky someone there can tell you where she is." Remus yawned and fixed the strap of his bag while dragging his feet like they weighted a ton.

"Well you and Peter can go wait for us in the common room. We'll go look for her and tell you if we found anything useful. Its not like it needs to be all four of us anyway and you could use some rest." James told him when they reached the point where they would have to part ways.

"I have somewhere else I should be." Peter squeaked in timidly, like he was afraid of what the others would say.

"It's all right Peter. I would be sleeping in any case, so you go do what ever it is that you need to do." Remus assured him patting him on the head condescendingly.

"Rrright…"Sirius frowned at them, looking suspiciously at Peter, wondering what on earth he would have to be doing. "I have been spending so much time in the library lately that I am probably turning in to a nerd at this rate." he shuddered.

"Don't worry; you would need to actually look at the books for that, maybe even read a few." James laughed while dragging him away to the general direction of the library. "See you two later all right?" he yelled over his shoulder and Remus nodded at him before gradually shuffling to the other direction.

-XXX-

"Why we didn't think of using the map in the first place?" Sirius whined after two hours of running around the school without avail. They had finally been able to spot her name in one of the unused art classrooms in the east wing and had almost reached the door by now.

"Usually people are a lot easier to find." James shrugged, opening the door and peaking in. "Found her!" He stated triumphantly, producing the girl to glance up from her painting at the door. After seeing them entering the room she looked rather puzzled, clearly wondering why on Merlin's sake they were there.

"May I help you with something?" She asked. She was quite a funny sight, to tell the truth. Her dark hair was even wilder than normally, sticking up on every imaginable direction and there was some green paint smudged on the side of her nose, red and blue spots on her chin and hands. Her robes were haphazardly hanging on her frame, and generally she looked like a person who had been focusing on something so intensely that they forgot everything else including themselves for a period of time. There was this certain restlessness to her. She was never really staying completely still, always moving like a river after a heavy rain, like it was a force of nature that made her so.

"Actually we were looking for you." Sirius told her, moving a chair closer to her and sitting down. James followed his example, trying to discreetly peek at the painting at the same time.

"You were?" the girl asked, sounding a bit shocked, witch was not surprising considering that they had never really talked to each other before this.

"Yes, and you are really hard to find you know that?" James grinned at her. This made her seemingly relax and laugh a bit as a response.

"I suppose so. Now what can I do for you gentlemen?" She wiggled her eyebrows suggestively, but somehow in such a manner that it was clearly just a joke. Sirius smirked, thinking that she was actually kind of nice to be around, even despite the fact that she was obviously a very eccentric person.

"You are friends with Val right?" he asked. Kia's smile fell from her face instantly and she turned back to her painting, mixing the colours on her palette feverishly.

"So it was you then? I have to say, I thought better of you." she said bitterly, not looking at them anymore.

"Well that's actually why we are here. You see, it wasn't supposed to go like that and we feel really awful about what happened. We want to make it up to her, but for that we need some information." James tried to reason. He had ruffled up his hair and tried to act all nonchalant; considering that it might possibly butter her up a bit, if she were to think of him as devastatingly handsome. Kia only glanced at him with her intensive green eyes before sniffing affectedly and returning back to her painting. Sirius frowned and shook his head a bit at James, assuming that Kia was probably the type of person who just weren't influenced by that kind of tactics. If nothing, they only worsened their possibilities at pumping information out of her.

"Look. Is there anything you want, that you might trade the information for?" He asked hopefully.

They waited nervously at her answer knowing fully well, that she was probably their only shot. They hadn't seen Val talking to anyone else, and really needed anything they were able to dig up in order to make amends with her. While Sirius was watching how she twirled her wand in her fingers, mixing the colours with it and adding it to the canvas with quick sharp movements, the tip never really touching the oily substances like there was an invisible brush tip attached to it, he wondered why her. Why of all people living under the roof of Hogwards Val had chosen this girl to be the only one she would converse to.

"A prank." she finally said. "And not just any sloppy one either, it has to be a good one, and I get to decide the who's and when's and where's." Her declaration made the boys exchange mischievous grins. Oh they liked this girl all right.

"Of course, that's an easy promise to make." James exclaimed, spreading his arms like he would embrace all the pranks in the world like the old friend he was. "Now give us the goodies!" Kia frowned at that, chewing her lip while pondering what to tell them.

"There isn't actually much to tell. She doesn't really talk all that much, and even less when it comes to stuff involving her self. I know her dad has something to do with politics and has run into problems with The Death Eaters apparently. I'm only assuming this sense she never really confirmed it herself… I've only seen her smile a few times, when she gets letters that are delivered by this really big raven. And I tell you, that bird scares the wits out of me every time I see it; witch thankfully is not all that often…" she took a pause, collecting her thoughts while adding some more colour to her canvas.

"I think there is something troubling her. I wish you would have just left her alone, she seems so sad already without you bullying her and making her feel even more miserable." at this point she shot a murderous look at their direction.

"What else… well she is kind of good at school, but she is a Ravenclaw after all… Oh, and she likes books. She is often reading one when she wants people to just leave her alone. I don't know what kind of though; sense I have never really seen anything like those before… She also has some weird diet; they keep her food in some box behind lock and key. I once asked her about it but she just pretended that she didn't hear me…she does that a lot" She continued rambling bits and pieces of information in no particular order except when they happened to pop in to her head.

"Could it be that you don't know that she is a fay?" Sirius blurted out suddenly realising what it was, that had been troubling him for some time now. It was James' turn to look at him murderously when Kia turned to them with a shocked expression on her face.

"She is afay?" she stammered.

"Well it is kind of obvious when you think about it." Sirius told her with an apologetic grimace, like he was genuinely sorry that she hadn't noticed all the signs. It took some time to sink in, but when it did, the girl turned back to her painting with an irritated scowl splashing some angry streaks of red paint while muttering to her self.

"I can't believe she never told me! Didn't say a word… laughing…. stupid…. arrogant…." the rest of her rant was just incoherent grumbling and it sounded like she had changed in to another language at some point too.

"I think we should leave" Sirius whispered his eyes round while staring at the sight. James just nodded at him and together they silently rose from their seats and left the classroom.

"You know… I never saw what she was painting. "Sirius mused when they had been walking for a while.

"I got a glimpse at it." James told him rubbing at his chin absentmindedly, his thoughts visibly elsewhere.

"I'm curious; do tell me what it was." Sirius prompted, wondering what a girl like Kia would possibly paint.

"Well… I could never say for sure." James eventually said, his eyebrows rising so high that they almost blended to his messy black hair.


So here it is. Just tell me what you think or whether the language was weird or not. Sometimes I get confused about what sounds good in what language and all that... The last two chapters have been especially hard to write. My sleeping patterns have been a lot like Val's lately. I hope it doesn't show too badly :D but I think I will put off writing more chapters until I get my days and nights back to their rightful places. I haven't decided whether to write the next one from Val's or from the Marauders POV. Any opinions on that?