He looked at his watch for the fifth time in half an hour, growing ever more frustrated.
Sirius was pacing up and down outside Professor Oakley's office, waiting for his teacher to return from some errand or other, looking for all the world like a caged animal.
He could feel precious time slipping by him – time that Jenny almost certainly didn't have. He knocked on his Defence Against the Dark Arts Professor's door for a third time, hoping vaguely that Professor Oakley had been doing something important with his earmuffs on, but to no avail.
He thumped the door in frustration and stalked down the corridor, intending to find the man even if he had to check the staff room, all the teachers' offices and both pubs in Hogsmeade. Fortunately, however, he met Professor Oakley on the Main Staircase, and was forced to do a sort of mid-air pirouette between staircases.
"Steady on there, Black," he said, amiably.
"Sir, can I ask you a question?" Sirius asked, trotting along beside him.
Professor Oakley gave him a look which suggested that whatever Sirius was after, it wasn't going to end well for someone.
"And if I were to – say – casually mention that it is after curfew, I imagine that that would have absolutely no impact on you, would it?"
Sirius gave him his best Marauder grin, feeling wretched.
"No, I rather thought not…"
They had reached the door to his office now, and Sirius eyed it hopefully.
Professor Oakley sighed.
"Alright, you'd better come in," he said, with a sense of resignation. "What did you want to know?"
He pulled off his cloak and hung it up on a hook behind the door.
"I was reading about magical maladies," he lied, taking the seat that Professor Oakley had waved him towards. "And I came across this one I didn't really understand."
Professor Oakley steepled his fingers and looked at Sirius with cool, green eyes.
"Don't take this the wrong way," he said, evenly. "But your sudden attack of scholarly fervour is a little unnerving."
Sirius grinned, despite the urgency he felt; he had spent the last six and a half years deceiving his tutors, and now he intended to put all that practice to good use. Besides, Professor Oakley was one of the good ones, and Sirius liked him: he was a good teacher, treated his students fairly and was always scrupulously honest.
"I've never got less than an 'E' in any of my subjects," said Sirius. "I'm assuming you didn't all think I was copying off Remus…"
He trailed off. Talking about Remus made his chest a little tight.
"Are you seriously telling me that you do most of your work at night – clandestinely?"
"I do have a reputation to keep up," he said, lightly.
Professor Oakley chuckled.
"Well, I won't tell anyone," he said, with an amused smile. "What did you want to know?"
"There's this article in an eighteenth century journal that Remus had – but he didn't have the whole thing," Sirius invented. "It had all the symptoms, but nothing about what actually happened – it's really annoying me."
"I'm curious," said Professor Oakley, after a moment. "Why did you ask me instead of Madame Pomfrey?"
"It looked more like a curse or something," Sirius shrugged.
"Alright," said Professor Oakley, sitting back. "What were the symptoms?"
Sirius listed Jenny's symptoms, trying to disguise them as best he could by saying them out of order, but leaving the lumps until last.
Professor Oakley closed his eyes, thinking hard.
Sirius waited impatiently, fighting to maintain a calm exterior.
"It doesn't sound like a curse," Professor Oakley said at last. "They tend to have more of an immediate impact, and from what you've told me this is more of a long-term thing…"
"What, then?" asked Sirius, eagerly.
"I'd say it's more like a demonic possession."
Sirius felt his heart plummet like a lead weight.
Surely not…
"From what you described," Professor Oakley continued, "it reminds me of a case I read – years ago now – in an old Muggle book of Chinese legends."
Sirius hung on his every word, desperate and afraid.
"There was a young girl who lived with her father: a peasant in a small valley in Eastern China – she was called Weeping Jade. Weeping Jade was all the things a mythological peasant girl should be: beautiful, nimble and kind. She was also, unusually, clever. She spent her days roaming the countryside with the other local children, learning the secrets of the plants around her, that sort of thing.
"One day, Weeping Jade returned from one of these jaunts to find her father lying still in his bed, pale and sweating. They sent for the local sage, who lived in a monastery in the mountains; he was old, and blind, and wise. He told the girl that her father had a wasting sickness, and that he would die very soon. She begged the sage to save her father, but he said that he couldn't help her – the only thing that could save her father was the juice of a special kind of plum that grew on the edges of certain sacred pools.
"No one had seen one of these plants in decades, but Weeping Jade recognised the description. She ran to a pool in the middle of the nearby forest, where the water was always still and calm. There, on the banks of the pool, was the plum. Weeping Jade reached through the reeds to pick the largest and juiciest plum. As she was pulling it out from under the great, furled leaves, she caught her leg on a part of the plant that was under water and cut it open.
"Weeping Jade bound the cut and carried the precious plum back to the sage, who told her how to prepare the juice and feed it to her father. As soon as the juice touched her lips, colour flooded back to his face and he opened his eyes. The villagers rejoiced. As per the sage's instructions, Weeping Jade carefully fed her father three drops of plum juice every day, and every day he got stronger.
"But as he got stronger, Weeping Jade got weaker, and her father went to the sage once more, to find out what was wrong. The sage, who had become fond of the girl, spoke to her and discovered that Weeping Jade thought that she was being haunted. Every night a cruel man in the form of a terrible blue dragon came to her dreams and whispered awful things to her in her sleep. It wanted her to hurt the villagers, she said, and she was desperately afraid.
"The sage was rather at a loss and went away to the monastery in the mountains to consider the problem. The girl's father watched her diminish, growing weaker and more frightened every day. After a month, the sage came back down the mountain with a grim countenance. He had consulted his fellow scholars, and together they had decided that Weeping Jade had become a vessel for a water demon. It must have found a way in, he said, through the cut on her leg.
"The sage did not know what to do, and in desperation he and the girl's father prayed to their ancestors, and to the August Personage of Jade for help and guidance. He took pity on her suffering, and sent the sage's grandmother to him in a dream. She told the sage to pray to the Jade Rabbit, who continuously pounded medicine in his celestial mortar and pestle on the moon. This they did, and when they woke the next morning they found a bowl full of a dark paste at the foot of Weeping Jade's bed.
"They sent prayers of thanks to their ancestors, the August Personage of Jade, the Jade Rabbit and anyone else they could think of. When Weeping Jade awoke, they had the women of the village undress her – and when they did, several of them screamed and fled, finding thorns forming under her skin. The August Personage of Jade turned the cowardly women into birds as punishment, which is why birds are always skittish.
"The remaining women washed Weeping Jade and covered her from head to foot with the balm. Weeping Jade began to shake and wail, and the villagers were afraid. The girl struggled and shook, and the sage realised that the balm was not strong enough to exorcise the demon. The Jade Rabbit, who had been keeping a watchful eye on proceedings, took pity on the girl, and tried to get closer to her in order to ease her pain. The trouble was, in order to stay true to his oath to the August Personage of Jade he couldn't leave the moon. In his desperation to help her, he simply made the moon come out early, and it shone down on Weeping Jade, making her skin shine blue through the balm. The demon quaked in fear under the moon and in terror it jumped out of Weeping Jade and into the light.
"Everyone cowered in terror as the demon towered above them – he was taller that any man, with scales of vibrant, shining blue. He gave a great, rattling roar and the villagers thought that he would kill them, but all of a sudden, the blind sage started to laugh. Because he was blind, he couldn't see the demon's fearsome appearance, but he could hear the rasping in his voice.
"Without Weeping Jade and away from the water the demon could not draw breath, and by inches he died. The village as a whole rejoiced – although presumably not the families of the woman who had been transformed into birds – and immediately held a festival in the honour of the August Personage of Jade and his faithful Jade Rabbit. They burnt the body of the demon at the peak of the festival, and Weeping Jade grew up healthy and beautiful. The sage made her his particular favourite and taught her the secrets of the scholars. She tended to the people of the region as a witch, and thereafter no rabbits were ever eaten or killed in the province, and Weeping Jade forever wore a necklace of thorns."
Professor Oakley steepled his fingers and looked over them at Sirius.
Sirius, whose mouth had gone dry, coughed.
"It's quite a story," said Professor Oakley. "Don't you think?"
Sirius coughed again.
"Yes sir," he said, in a voice that didn't really sound like him. "Thank you, sir," he added after a moment's thought.
"Your article was probably a myth in itself," Professor Oakley said. "Based on the original Chinese legend. These things get embellished over the centuries – you find people believing in the most extraordinary things."
Sirius thought about this for a moment, and was briefly tempted to point out that they lived in a magical castle. He resisted, barely.
"You don't think it might have been real?" Sirius asked. "Not the bit about the rabbit in the moon, or what-have-you, but the stuff about the demon…"
Professor Oakley rubbed his chin, thoughtfully.
"Many myths do begin with a grain of truth," he allowed. "And many things that we know as dark creatures were at one point thought of as demons…"
"It was quite a specific description," said Sirius, clinging to the scant information that he had.
"True," said Professor Oakley, generously. "But something like that would probably have been noticed by now – given that we haven't heard of it, if it ever existed at all, it's pretty much guaranteed to be extinct."
Sirius just about managed to stop himself adding: 'until now'.
"Right," said Professor Oakley, getting to his feet. "Much as I have enjoyed sharing my knowledge, it is well past both our bedtimes. Now," he said, as Sirius stood up. "I know I'm going to regret this, but I'm going to trust that you will leave here and go immediately to bed."
"I will, sir," said Sirius, reasonably seriously. After all, while he wasn't intending to go to bed, it wasn't like he would be setting any pranks tonight.
"Hmm," said Professor Oakley, shrewdly.
"Thanks again," said Sirius, as he headed down the corridor.
"You're welcome," called Professor Oakley, shaking her head.
Sirius heard the door to the Professor's office click shut behind him and changed direction immediately.
Being the host for a demon wasn't the best prognosis he could have come up with, but at least now he had a starting point."
It was time to hit the library.
0o0o0o0
"Where's Sirius?" Lily asked, suspiciously.
They were stood outside Charms, waiting for Professor Flitwick to appear.
"He left a note," said James. "It said he thought he had Dragon Pox."
"I guess Madame Pomfrey agreed with him," said Peter, sleepily. "There's no way he'd have missed breakfast if she hadn't."
"Hmm," said Lily, who refused to believe anything that Sirius said on principle. "Oh, damn!"
With an extraordinary ripping noise, Lily's bag split along its main seam, spilling parchment and ink over the ground. An emerald stain started spreading up her skirt.
She swore; James stared at her.
"I didn't think you knew words like that," he said, without thinking. He took in her expression. "We'll take care of this," he hurriedly assured her. "You go and see if you can fix that stain."
To his surprise (and relief), Lily agreed and hurried away.
She had almost washed the ink out when the door to the toilets opened behind her. She looked up, caught Jenny's eyes in the mirror and scowled.
Jenny went and sat on a sink at the end of the row while Lily glowered at the fabric of her skirt, determined to ignore the girl that had utterly devastated her friend.
"You have a Prefect's meeting with Professor Sprout tomorrow night, don't you?"
the question was such an odd one, and had come so completely out of the blue that Lily had looked up before she could stop herself.
"Yes," she said. "All the heads of house will be there, what of it?"
"Can you give this to Professor Sprout?" Jenny held out an envelope, neatly addressed to their Herbology Professor.
"Why should I?" asked Lily, determined to be angry on Remus's behalf.
"Please, Lily," said Jenny. "I won't be able to give it to her in person, and it's really important that she gets it."
"Why can't you give it to her yourself?" Lily asked, suspiciously.
"I'm going away," said Jenny, simply.
"Home?" asked Lily, nonplussed.
She wouldn't be able to finish her exams – her chances at employment in the Wizarding world would be shot to pieces.
"I think it's for the best," said Jenny.
She was still holding out the envelope, hopefully.
Reluctantly, Lily took it from her.
"Alright," she said, abruptly.
"Thanks," said Jenny. "Oh," she said, looking at Lily's skirt. "Here…"
With a flick of her wand, she dried Lily's skirt, and gave her a warm smile.
"Well, goodbye then," she said, and walked out of the bathroom, leaving Lily staring in her wake and feeling like a total heel.
"Good luck," she said, to the empty air.
0o0o0o0
"How are you doing, our kid?" Frank asked, sitting beside her in their private nook.
"Weary," said Jenny, in the gloom.
"You weren't in class again today," said Frank, full of concern. "The teachers are really starting to fret."
"Let them," Jenny said.
Frank frowned to himself. It had been months since they'd started trying to solve the mystery of Jenny's sickness, stealing hours from their leisure time to sit in the library and research magical diseases.
It had got them nowhere, and Frank was officially terrified. Whatever it was that had got a hold on Jenny wasn't letting go, and he had a very bad feeling about where it was trying to lead them.
"Maybe we should have another crack at Madame Pomfrey," he suggested, gently. "By now it's fairly obvious that you aren't pregnant, and if we can convince her…"
We might have a chance at fixing you… he finished, internally. "We'll go together, tomorrow," he said, firmly. "After my rounds…"
Jenny sighed heavily, and Frank held his breath; he knew she wouldn't like this.
"She has to believe you this time," Frank prodded, and he felt her sag beside him.
"I suppose so," she said.
"Good," he said, light-headed with relief.
They sat in an uncomfortable kind of silence for a few minutes. Frank got the bizarre impression that Jenny wanted to tell him something important, but simply wasn't letting herself.
"I should get off," he said, eventually.
"Yes," said Jenny, sounding exhausted. "Yes, I suppose you should."
There was a pause as he got to his feet.
"Frank?"
"What?"
"You're the best friend anyone could ever want, did you know that?"
"You'll make me blush, Jenny," he smiled.
"I mean it," she said. "I don't know what I would have done without you over these past few months. Thank you."
Frank pulled her into a hug.
"It's only what everyone else should be doing," he said, into her hair and she hugged him back tightly.
"Alice is a very lucky girl," she said, as they parted. "You take good care of her, you hear?"
"I fully intend to," said Frank, grinning. "I'll see you later."
"Yeah."
He ruffled her hair and dashed to Transfiguration, feeling more positive than he had in months.
Madame Pomfrey would know what to do.
0o0o0o0
Remus groaned as he woke up. His recent transformations had been violent and painful, and this month was no different. He had vague memories of Madame Pomfrey putting some kind of healing unguent on his many wounds after he had limped back to the Hospital Wing that morning, when he had fallen into a fitful doze. He'd half woken up a few times to someone gently reapplying the foul-smelling gloop to the worst of his cuts; he could have sworn, though, that Madame Pomfrey had said she would be in a meeting all afternoon.
He wriggle his extremities and winced; sore as he was, he felt a strange sort of peace this morning – almost like contentment. He frowned, puzzled, and then stopped, because that hurt too. Some kind person had put a cool, damp flannel on his head at some point, and he was grateful; the usual feverish headache had already diminished, and he was content – at least for a little while – to continue to doze.
After a while, the feeling stole over him that he wasn't alone. Unwilling to open his eyes just yet – because that would mean he'd soon feel guilty enough at his present idleness that the need to study would overtake him – he sniffed the air, curious.
He caught her scent and his eyes flew open in shock.
She was sat there, bold as brass, in the chair that was usually reserved for whichever Marauder had currently escaped class, detention or (frequently) justice. She hadn't tried to speak to him since he had broken up with her and in many ways he had been grateful. He wasn't sure that he could have any kind of conversation with the harlot that had so willingly taken his heart and jumped up and down on top of it.
And now here she was, sat not three feet away from him, watching him carefully. A wave of anger coursed through him, amplified by how pretty she looked in the fresh morning light.
Pretty, he thought, suddenly, but utterly exhausted.
Suppressing a growl, he pulled himself into a sitting position; he glared at her, waiting for her to say or do whatever fresh torture she had devised. It wasn't like he could leave.
"Hi," she said, almost shyly.
Remus continued to glare at her; he might not be able to leave, but that didn't mean he intended to make it easy for her.
"Looks like a rough one, this month," she said, and when this failed to elicit a response, stared at her knees.
Remus, who felt that the sooner whatever this was was over, the better, briefly let his impatience take hold.
"What do you want?" he demanded, teeth tersely trapping every syllable.
Jenny winced at his angry tone, but she brushed it off.
Well, he thought, crossly. I should bloody well be angry.
"I wanted to talk to you," she said, uncomfortably.
"Oh, so you're finally going to come clean, are you?" he spat. "Fantastic. Who was it then?"
To his surprise, Jenny rolled her eyes at this; incensed, Remus felt like taking her by the shoulders and shaking it out of her.
While it really wouldn't matter who she had slept with, in terms of how angry he was (unless it had been James, Sirius, Peter or Frank, and he didn't believe that for a second), it was a question that had never been far from his mind over the past few months. He had found himself subjecting his classmates to jealous scrutiny, wondering just who it was that Jenny thought was better than him.
The ghost of a smile played about her pale lips, but she didn't look happy, just wry – as if there was some joke here that he just wasn't getting.
"There wasn't anyone," she said, with a sort of weary finality that surprised him just enough that he didn't scoff in derision.
"Of course not," he retorted. "This must be the second coming of the Messiah. An immaculate conception."
This time, he thought he saw a flash of anger in her blue-green eyes, and felt a momentary pang of guilt, which he squashed immediately. What right had she to be angry?
She looked away from him, her lips tightly pursed, as though she was steadying herself – preventing herself from saying something that she would regret.
"You can't actually make it worse, you know," he said, hotly. "So go ahead and say what you have to say."
He could feel the anger coursing through his veins now, and was aware that he was probably quite a sight, what with his flashing eyes and fresh wounds.
"I wanted you to understand," she began, but he cut her off with an indignant sputter.
"What more is there to understand?" he demanded, hotly. "You and some bastard – some utter bastard that is still walking happily around the school and smiling to my face – went and fucked."
She flinched at the word, but he was too angry to care.
"And now you're pregnant and on your own," he continued, with considerable venom. "And he hasn't stayed with you, has he? The bastard. And now you're stuck, all because you were too drunk or too easy to keep your legs shut!"
She slapped him then and he reeled from the blow, shocked.
"I'm glad I found out about you before we got any closer," he spat, wide eyed and furious. "Or I'd have spent the rest of my life with some cheap tart!"
It had all been bottled up inside him for too long, and he hadn't been able to stop himself. Part of him had hoped that he would feel better after he had said it, but he didn't. He just felt tired and dirty.
Jenny was looking at him with a curious expression on her face, somewhere between hurt and laughter.
His anger was ebbing now, giving way to pain and exhaustion. She looked so fragile sitting there, and for all that she had done to him he couldn't bear to hurt her.
He crossed his arms, feeling suddenly brittle and hollow inside.
He wished that she would stop looking at him like that.
"I'm sorry, Jenny," he said, more quietly. "Some things you just can't forgive."
There was that smile again. He didn't like that smile.
He let out a breath that he hadn't realised he was holding.
"Please just go," he said, and when she didn't move, he turned away from her, lying down on his side.
There was silence for a moment as he lay there, wishing that she would leave him alone. After a few, awful minutes he heard her chair scrape back; he sent a silent prayer to whichever deity was currently watching over him.
"You know," she said, and he felt his body tense. "Whatever you might think, I really do love you."
Remus swallowed, wishing that he was anywhere else – that things could go back to the way they were before he had first noticed her breathtaking smile.
"And I always will."
He listened as her footsteps retreated across the stone floor of the Hospital Wing, desperately trying to ignore the fresh sting of new tears in his eyes.
0o0o0o0
She stood quietly amongst the flowers.
It was dinner time, and she knew that everyone would be otherwise engaged.
She ran her fingers along the edge of the potting bench, smiling at the familiar sensations: the smell of the earth, the slightly warmer air inside the glass, the swishing sound of the Flutterby Bushes on the back shelves…
The plants bent to greet her as she walked through them, and she smiled as they touched her skin and hair, acknowledging them as friends.
When she reached the end of the greenhouse she closed the wooden door gently and walked quickly away, without looking back.
0o0o0o0
Sirius woke up with a start, and spent a few, bewildered seconds wondering why the hell he was cold and aching, and on the floor of the Astronomy Tower. He blinked at the pages scattered about him, covered with ancient script and horrific illustrations, and remembered.
He groaned, staggering to his feet in the darkness.
After he had left Professor Oakley's office, he had rushed to the Library and grabbed every book on ancient Chinese myths and demonology that he could carry and read until his mind had gone numb, and then he'd gone to find new books and read them until the sun had come up.
Being noticed had then become something of a problem, particularly as Madame Pince was notorious for making an early start in the Library. Avoiding the restless ghosts of the Castle was one thing, but the possibility of encountering an ornery librarian far too early in the morning was a bit too much for Sirius. He'd gathered up everything he could carry and retreated to the Astronomy Tower, which was always empty during the day.
He'd read enough by then to know that what Jenny had inside her really was a demon – a particularly nasty one – and that she was in real trouble. Nowhere could he find a mention of how to get the thing out of her – without killing her. Some of the older stories spoke of a balm, and others of the power of Weeping Jade herself, but none of them mentioned ingredients, or incantations, or – when you got right down to it – anything vaguely useful. All they seemed to want to write about was the stupid Jade Rabbit.
He huffed, frustrated, and his breath steamed in front of him. He must have been asleep for hours. It was a wonder Peter or James hadn't come looking for him – unless they had managed to get caught again. He looked at the large pile of books, sadly.
He needed help.
He decided to wait for the pins and needles in his legs to diminish and then he would head back to the Gryffindor Tower. Convincing Madame Pomfrey would be much easier if it wasn't just him doing it.
He leaned against the railing, tired and aching from where he had been lying on the cold stone floor. He gazed out across the moonlit grounds, restlessly shifting from one leg to the other.
What if there was nothing that they could do?
It was a possibility that he really didn't want to face.
Instead, he thought of Remus, and how angry he was. Just a day before it had all seemed so easy: Jenny was the enemy and Remus the friend in need, but now…
How was he supposed to break it to him? He wasn't going to t-
A movement between the trees below him caught his eyes and he craned to look, suddenly and inexplicably uneasy.
A figure was moving down by the edge of the lake – he couldn't quite make them out between the shadows. They moved into a patch of light between the trees and he saw her.
He watched, paralysed, as she took off her jumper, shoes and socks and took out her wand. Putting it carefully down between them she walked to the water's edge.
Sirius bolted for the door, almost wrenching it off its hinges, hoping desperately that he wasn't too late.
0o0o0o0
I'm reasonably certain that you have a fairly good idea of what is going to happen in the next chapter. I've split that section from the text so if that is going to unnerve you then I'd recommend skipping to chapter twelve. If not, you have been warned.