Grrr, these are getting worse as they go on! I hated writing this--except the last scene, that was fun. But I'm sick of filler. I want some action, damnit! And I will get action. Yehehes. Yes I will. There was actually a really great scene in here where Anika had a PMS-induced hissy fit and went completely insane, and it was very lovely and I had great amusement writing it. But it really didn't have anything to do with the story at all, so it's not here anymore. I just liked the idea of Anika having PMS. I don't know why. ^^;;;;;;

The next part should be up shortly, for all two of you who care. :P I already wrote most of it, then split it off into a separate chapter. I like it quite a bit better than I like this. First of all--prepare yourself for a shock--something actually happens. That's right! Something happens! Don't faint or nothin', now.

Everybody belongs to J.K. except the people who don't. The short verse (which is the one part of this chapter, besides the end, that I actually liked! Huzzah!) belongs to Nick Drake's song "Time has Told Me". Rave's soul belongs to Satan for the almighty sin of making Remus slightly--SLIGHTLY--hormonal. Only slightly. Don't hurt me. *g*

Thank you so much (again) everyone who reviewed--you seriously make my world a better place. (awwwww....*sniffle* how nauseatingly sweet. *gag*)



Bryter Layter--part IV

A Troubled Cure

It was the middle of one of a series of long, awkward pauses.

"So," said Anika at length, taking another sip of butterbeer.

A pause.

"Er," Remus attempted, tracing obscure patterns with his finger on the tabletop.

Another pause, followed by a short lull.

"Right." Anika finished the drink, setting it aside. "Well."

"This really isn't going anywhere, is it?" Remus sighed, nearly put his elbow into his steak, gave a start and placed it firmly on the table. "I'm not very good at the whole dating thing."

"No, me neither. Maybe if we didn't think of it as a date so much, it would go better."

"That's like if someone says 'Don't think about pink elephants.' Of course you're going to think about pink elephants, even if you hadn't even considered pink elephants a possible topic of thought."

Anika eyed him quizzically, lifting an eyebrow. "Pink elephants?"

He shrugged, slightly mortified. "It was the first thing that came to mind."

A silence, this time succeeded by a few short hushes and a lapse of conversation.

Anika poked at her plate with a fork for a moment, then made a decisive movement, throwing her napkin into her lap. "Enough of this. Remus, want to go sledding?"

Remus gaped at her. "Sledding?"

"Why not? It's snowing, and I feel like actually doing something. Come on, please?"

"I've--I've never been sledding," he admitted sheepishly.

Now it was her turn to stare at him in surprise. "You're kidding! Never ever? And you're sixteen?"

He shook his head. "Sorry..."

"Come on! You'll like it, I swear." She was already fishing in her pockets for money to pay for the half-eaten food on the table.

He pulled out his own money, thunking it in front of his plate. "But..where?"

"I don't know! A hill!" Anika was positively exuberant. "I haven't done this since I was ten. It'll be brilliant. Hurry, hurry!" She seized him by the arm, pulling him out the door of the Three Broomsticks, her face wreathed in smiles.

They stepped out the doorway into a wonderland of snow--the clouds had cleared, but wind still whipped at their hair, pinching their noses and cheeks into a rosy glow. All around them, students whooped and shouted with glee, hurling enormous snowballs at each other. Even a few seventh-years, mostly too dignified for this sort of activity, could be spotted making snow-angels over by Dervish and Banges.

They trooped down the lane, huddled under their coats. "There's a hill up this way," Anika gasped out. "You can see Hogwarts from it." Sure enough, the ground beneath their feet was definitely sloping upwards; the snow crunched under their boots, underscored by Anika's constant giggling. She couldn't help it: something about the cold air and the altitude made her giddy. At least, she rather hoped it was the cold air and the altitude.

She sneaked a glance at Remus, who was laughing himself. It was such a contrast from the way she'd seen him that night at the astronomy tower, when he'd looked so...well...tragically heroic. Now he just looked happy. Anika wasn't sure she'd ever seen him look happy before.

They crested the hill, shading their eyes against the pale winter sun. Hogwarts could be seen off in the distance, standing tall and asymmetrical against the light blue sky.

"All right," Anika said determinedly. "Lie down on your stomach." She pulled her wnad out of her sleeve, hoping she'd remembered the proper charm.

Obediently, Remus did so. "Do you really know what you're doing?"

"Absolutely," Anika assured him, lying down herself. "You ready?"

Remus, looking only slightly green, nodded.

"On three, then. One--two--three! Propellius!"

They shot forward as though they had been launched from a cannon, sending out a sparkling cascade of snow behind them. Ice flew into Anika's face, spangling her eyelashes and streaming hair as she laughed aloud with pure exhilaration. "Yaa-haaa!"

"I'm going to die!" yelped Remus, before a large quantity of snow hurtled into his mouth. "Mm gubba dmmm!" He spat it out against the wind that thrashed his wet hair into his eyes, screaming half out of fear and half out of euphoria. The trees flashed by them, quicker then thought, and then--

Whump.

There was suddenly a snowbank where there hadn't been one before. Anika and Remus lay, half-submerged in snow, giggling hysterically and trying to breathe again.

They lay in companionable silence for some time, watching the sky, as their laughter slowly got under control. Remus rolled over.

"That was actually...fun."

"Naw, really?" Anika grinned happily at him, her entire face wet and her hair in long dreadlocks from the ice. "I'm glad. I thought it was fun too."

"Better then picking at our food and trying to make intelligent conversation," joked Remus.

"God forbid!" Anika had started to laugh again; she had to roll back onto her back, her hands resting on her stomach. "I haven't done that in years. It was really, really lovely. Who cares if our robes are soaking?"

"Not I!" Remus took a deep breath, sagging into the snow with the weakness of laughter. "Oh, God, I can't believe I haven't done that before." He chanced a sideways glance at her."I admit, I wasn't really expecting it to be fun. But somehow...unexpected things tend to happen around you..."

Without really meaning to, their lips sort of stumbled into one another.

And then there was suddenly a kiss, Anika's lips pressing tightly against his as her arms came up around his shoulders, her wet hair tickling his face. He closed his eyes, wanting only to taste her against him as she melted into his embrace, cold and snow forgotten.

*

Time has told me
You're a rare rare find
A troubled cure
For a troubled mind....*

She nuzzled Remus's shoulder affectionately, bringing him back to the present. "Earth to Moony...you all right, love?"

He shook himself, picking up his quill again. The moon was waxing full; this time of the month, he was always a bit jumpy, and everything seemed to be worse this March. He couldn't explain it--he'd passed a very pleasant half-year with the Marauders and Ani, so there was no reason for this bizarre sense of doom that kept creeping over him.

Remus grinned at her, trying to concentrate on his DADA essay. "Sorry, Ani, guess I'm just a bit tired...what were you saying? Let's get this thing finished..."

Anika gave him a sideways look, but turned without comment to her own parchment. "Okay, so like I was saying, in 1941 Grindelwald struck America for the first time, with the..."

She's so beautiful, Remus thought with sleepy, slow bliss, watching the bent-over black head poring over her parchment. Not like Lily, though...Lily is beautiful in every way you expect; you just look at her and you're stricken. Ani's different. How did it take me so long to see it? He leaned over, kissing her softly on the back of the neck.

Anika pulled away, somewhat irritably. "Come on, Moony, we have to finish this. Rookwood will absolutely slaughter me--he hates me anyway, I don't need to give him any provocation to fail me."

A rather bitter memory struck Remus for a moment--Professor Rookwood, during his lecture on werewolves, staring pointedly at Remus as he explored, in great detail, the best ways to kill werewolves. Now, however, did not seem to be the time for bitter thoughts; he brushed it aside. "He hates everyone, Ani."

"Well, we should finish this anyway." She turned back to her paper.

"Mmm," he concurred, smiling sleepily at her.

She looked up at him, fixing him with the full impact of those stormy gray eyes; after a moment, a reluctant smile broke out on her own face. "I wish you wouldn't look at me like that. I can't concentrate when you do that."

"Who needs concentration?" he whispered seductively into her hair, doing his best Sirius impression. She smelled good, like the earth after a hard rain.

"I do," she protested, trying not to laugh as she pushed his face away with one long hand. "Come on, stop sniffing me."

"You smell good, though." Remus's hand crept to her back, pulling her closer. "We can finish tomorrow. I have to go visit my mum in a few days...shouldn't we just enjoy ourselves?"

She finally acquiesced, letting him embrace her as she put her quill down. "Oh, you and your poor mother. And here I thought you were different. Typical sixteen-year-old boy. You all only want one thing..."

"Yep," said Remus cheerfully. "We all want you."

"That's not what I meant..."

"Yeah, but what I said was sweeter." Remus's hands tightened around her waist, as she brought her arms around his neck, bringing her lips up to his...

The door to the study room where they had been "working" flew open, and two people, locked in a giggling, obviously very busy tangle, tumbled inside.

Anika and Remus jumped apart, Anika smoothing her hair guiltily.

The male half of the new tangle looked up, shocked, and released his counterpart. "What are you doing here, Loopy?" He leered unpleasantly at the two of them through a curtain of shining black hair. "Finally scrape together enough money to get yourself laid?"

A low, animal growl escaped through Anika's clenched teeth. Remus tightened his hold on her shoulder. "I hate you!"

Snape's eyes shifted to her; for a moment, they widened in surprise. "Ooh, that hurts, Donelan. Who'd have thought you'd like skinny little invalids?" He looked up at Remus, snickering. "Even you shouldn't have any trouble getting her to put out, Loopy--even for a Ravenclaw, she's easy..."

"I see far more in him than I ever saw in you, Tall, Dark, and Greasy," retorted Anika fiercely, throwing Remus's hand off her shoulder. "Now sod off."

Gretchen Stoop threw her brown hair haughtily behind her shoulder, clutching at Snape's neck. "Fine. Come on, Sevvie, let's get out of here."

"Yes, Sevvie," mocked Anika, sending them both looks that could kill. "Why don't you get out of here? And you too, Gretchen--I guess friendship's just not what it used to be, is it?"

"I guess not," said Gretchen, softly and dangerously..

There was a moment of very tense silence.

Then Snape and Gretchen turned and were gone, the door slamming behind them.

Anika spat furiously at the floor where they had gone, as Remus watched in amazement. "I hate him! I'm going to get him back if it takes me my whole life--I hate him!"

"Anika, how do you even know him?"

"We went to the Halloween Masque together last year." Anika was breathing heavily, still scowling at the door as though she could burn a hole through it with her eyes. "Afterwards, he almost--that is, he tried--we didn't have a good time," she finished lamely.

"Apparently not," breathed Remus, also watching the door.

She was picking up the books from the table now, the amorous mood broken. "I'm going to bed. He's put me in an awful mood. I'll see you in the morning, Moony."

"Right," said Remus, not looking at her. "Right. Hey--" she stopped-- "you don't wanna talk about it, or something?"

"No," said Anika decisively. "No, I don't. I don't want to think about him." She laughed, humorlessly. "That's my attitude towards life--if I don't think about it, it'll go away. Lovely way to get by. You can imagine how I deal with my family." A short pause. "Not that my mother really counts as a 'family.'"

"What's she like?" asked Remus, his curiosity getting the better of his natural tact.

"Needy," said Anika shortly.

"Oh." There seemed to be very little to say. "Look, I don't...I don't feel right, just letting you go off to bed hating everything."

"I don't hate you."

"That's something," he admitted, amber eyes slanting towards her.

"That's everything," she corrected him, and for a moment she was almost smiling.

*

The tall, dark man paced furiously back and forth, his robes swirling around his booted feet and his crimson eyes narrowed. Each footstep echoed into the cavernous ceiling of the marble chamber, reverberating through the ears of the blind angel statues who adorned its pillars.

"Listen to me, Graves. I want those runes deciphered. I don't care what you have to do--I don't care how many people you have to kill to find out the translation. Has your incompetence no bounds?"

"My Lord, I assure you--" The man who stood in front of him was kneeling, his back and shoulders trembling convulsively. "We had thought that the Wilsons would possess the knowledge needed to translate them, but they would not tell us, even after we killed their children--at our current level of knowledge, we can only produce the first stanza--"

"Graves, Graves, Graves." The Dark Lord's smooth, silky voice was thick with threat. "The first stanza was deciphered over a thousand years ago. I already have it memorized." He paused a moment, then seized the collar of his subordinate's robes, hoisting him a foot off the ground. Graves choked and struggled, his sky-blue eyes wide with fear. When Voldemort spoke again, it was through teeth locked tight with rage. "You--and your team--are a little behind the times, don't you think?"

"My Lord," gasped Graves desperately, "the quality of the etchings is sketchy at best! They are so old--the stone has crumbled--you must understand--our best restorers are working on it now! We cannot present Your Lordship with an inaccurate translation--"

Voldemort regarded his sniveling servant with total disgust, no longer listening to his frightened babble. He hated them, these crawling, servile wretches who served him out of fear and hatred, nothing more. When the runes were deciphered, he would slaughter them like the sobbing, driveling vermin they were. If there were only one who could match him wit-for-wit...if even one of them served for the glory of their quest...

But they were all like Graves, young cowards with no brains and no new ideas. Only the other Vessels could match his intellect, and they were his targets and adversaries. It would be a pity, he thought vaguely, to destroy the only three people who could possibly be a match for him. The only three people who he could ever...he quelled the thought. It would be a pity.

But he would do it.

He would do it as soon as the Runes told him how.

With a snort of contempt, he hurled Graves to the floor, ignoring his moans of pain. "Get back to work, Graves."

"Y-yes, My Lord!" Graves managed, amazed at the reprieve. He turned, heading for the door, and had almost reached it when Voldemort pulled out his wand, almost lazily.

"Crucio."

The Dark Lord let a smile twist the corners of his still-handsome mouth, feeding on the fear and pain that emanated with Graves's tortured screams. He drunk them in, those high, sharp, salty emotions, tasting their metallic edge. "Don't fail me again, Graves."

"No, Master! Never!"

Master.

He rather liked the sound of that.