Summary: Sirius, James, and Remus are all bitten by a Kamora, a dangerous beast that steals the sanity of whoever it bites. They are treated by Mikalan, a psychic witch who can only save them if they never fall in love. So what happens when James begins to break the rules...? AU
Thunder boomed.
Athena grimaced to herself and pulled her hood tighter around her face, her feet splashing audibly on the sidewalk puddles as she hurried down the streets. Streetlights she passed revealed a hood drawn tight around a worried, creased face with young, piercing purple eyes staring out into the darkness. She tried hard not to look behind her, at the two huge forms silently following her, carrying one other.
Tunder boomed again over her head and she pulled her jacket tighter, picking up her pace as her sneakers hit the sidewalk. She hated rain, but it was a good cover--no one would be looking for these three or see them in this rain, in this fog. The only sound on the empty street was Athena's sneakers hitting the pavement, thunder booming, and the soft steady pounding of the rain.
Athena picked up the pace again, going faster as she passed the last block of flats on the street, heading towards one tall building at the end of the street, surrounded by a fence. Local stories had it this was an asylum, for the insane, and the fence--twenty feet tall--was to protect them. A useful story, the kind Mikalan would engineer. She herself was regarded merely as a strange old woman--though the term old hardly applied to a fifty year old. Not when you were a witch.
Athena stopped when she reached the door, the bright blue paint barely visible under the rain and the darkness. One pinkish street light gave the whole scene an eerie, bare glow. Athena knocked, the sound loud on the step, then knocked again, three times.
There was a silence, then Athena gave a low whistle. The door opened. A woman stood there, thirtyish, brown hair and brown eyes, wearing a purple robe. "Yes?" she asked briskly.
"I have three," Athena said without preamble. "Werewolf, two illegal Animagi, all bitten."
"By what?" the woman asked sharply.
"Kamora," Athena replied crisply. "You know what it will do to them."
The woman nodded. There was nothing more to be said. "Bring them in immediately," the woman said briskly, opening the door wider and reaching out for the dog, a huge bear-like shape in the shadows. It bared its teeth at her in a low, angry, threatening growl. Athena laid a hand on the woman's arm.
"Be careful, Mikalan," she warned. "You know the Kamora sucks their humanity, and it takes all the self-control they have not to start attacking you."
Mikalan paused, then recoiled her hand, nodding silently. "I see. You two, come in," she ordered, and the huge bearlike dog, bearing something on its back, entered the house, followed by a creature who's head was dominated by horns, eyes flashing in the streetlight.
"Be careful, Mikalan," Athena warned. "I know I hardly need to tell you this, but you know these are dangerous."
"Athena," Mikalan said gently, "That's what I do. I'm here to stop this from happening. I can take care of myself. You did tell your sister at the school?"
Athena nodded grimly. "Minerva was...not pleased, obviously," she said dryly, "to find out that three students had become Animagi illegally, but even less pleased, and concerned, when three were bitten by a Kamora. Take care."
And with a turn, she disappeared out into the night, Apparating with a small pop into the night. Mikalan closed the door and turned to the animals, flicking the light switch. The animals recoiled, but stood their ground. She looked them over carefully--one was a huge, bearlike dog with gleaming pale blue eyes, the other a brilliant white stag, brown eyes shining at her, and the person the dog carried on its back...sandy hair, bruised, bleeding, unconscious...probably a broken bone. Mikayla shook her head silently, then addressed them.
"You two...I know you're Animagi. Change back."
The dog growled at her, but shook its head. Mikayla shook her own head. "I know what you're thinking, and I can handle you in human form wheather you attack me or not. Sometimes you have to trust your self-control. Change back."
Slowly, unwillingly, the dog shook the person off his back, then both began to transform, the speeded-up evolution happening in less than an instant. Mikalan didn't even give them a chance to move--immediately she bound them in Full Body Bind.
She ignored them at first, focusing her attention on the boy unconscious in the floor. Kneeling beside his head, she put a hand to his forehead, and at the connection, something seemed to click. Her eyes lit up and glazed over, and a faint purple light began to glow around her hand and her eyes, and around the boy's head and eyes. She moved her fingers over his head absently, flicking as if she were moving something, her eyes far away, until she found someting. Her eyes grew wider, and she shivered, then her hands were still as she seemed to dive into something. For one instant, her eyes focused and pupils dialated to intensity, and the purple light flared, blinding the previous dog and stag. The boy yelled, sitting up, his eyes dialiting as he shook faintly.
The light faded from both of them and Mikalan shook herself. "I hate doing it that way," she murmured to herself, wiping her hand across her forehead, where a sheen of sweat glistened, her breathing uneven. "But there's nothing for it. Sit back against the wall," she ordered the boy. "I'll take care of these two first."
Once again, she reached out for the boy who had been the stag--untidy black hair, brown eyes shining with rage and unsupressed emotion. Mikalan shook her head in...was it pity? then put her hand to his head, and her eyes shone with the same light, rummaging around until she found what she was looking for. Once again, the boy yelled, his whole body tensing up in the body bind, writhing on the floor, until Mikalan shook herself out and performed the countercurse, now shaking and shivering, her robes become drenched by sweat.
She stopped before she went at the last one--black hair that fell sexily into his eyes, pale blue eyes shining at her with anger. Leaning on her elbow beside him, she took several ragged breaths. The two boys against the wall watched her in silence, and an expression stirred in their faces--an expression that might have been pity--if their faces had not been so hard.
Dragging in one last ragged breath, Mikalan put her hand to his forehead, purple light shining faintly as she rummaged through his mind again, then dived into whatever she needed to find. The search was much faster this time, much more abrupt, and when the light flared, the boy sat up screaming, and when Mikalan lifted her hand, he put his head in his hands, grabbing his head roughly. She fell to the floor, sitting there, drehcned in sweat, breath ragged.
"Let's go in the kitchen," Mikalan said raggedly, her voice harsh and hoarse. She gestured down the hall. "We can talk."
They stood up silently, the former dog helping Mikalan up silently. She smiled, but it was a weary smile, and she sank into a chair around the kitchen table gratefully before downing a glass of water that had been sitting there. "I don't usually do it that way," she said hoarsely. "It's too...draining."
"I didn't notice," the former dog said wryly. "I'm Sirius."
"James," the other one spoke up. "Thanks."
"And Remus," the third added, sounding tired. "Thank you. What...happened to us?"
"I'm Mikalan. You were bitten by a Kamora," Mikalan said flatly. "It's a highly dangerous beast that feeds upon souls."
"Like dementors?" Sirius asked, but Mikalan shook her head.
"Dementors feed off happy memories. Kamori--the plural--feed off sorrow. If it goes untreated by a psychic...me...then you will eventually leave every sad memory that ever happened to you. It might sound great, but it's not. You begin to go insane, always laughing, unable to stop, and you feel no guilt. Then you begin to hear voices, voices that sound like whispers from the next room, always telling you to kill, always telling you to hurt, to kill, to see the thrill of blood welling up under your knife, to feel the power, the ecstasy, of killing without guilt, the feeling of power it gives you."
All three boys stared at her. "Fun, isn't it?" Mikalan asked wearily, giving them a smile.
"But...how do you know?" Remus demanded. "How do you know what happens to them?"
Mikalan gave a funny smile. "I was bitten myself. I was brought to the edge of insanity...I was locked up, locked away, before they discovered the psychic powers that can....help...you now. I was locked in one small room, captured there, until even my own mother denied me, until they were getting ready to kill me. I was brought to the edge of insanity, and I returned."
They stared at her again. "How...how did you return?" James asked.
Mikalan shrugged. "I don't know. I know that one minute, the whispers in my mind were deafening me, threatening to overpower me, screaming at me to kill, to rip, to tear...and then there was blood. Then I was staring at the Healer, standing there with a knife in his hand, and I shouted at him: 'Don't! I know!'" She smiled wearily agagin. "You cannot talk after so long, after the insanity sets in...the whispers overpower you. Then, I was healed. In that instant, I also gained...this." She touched her head. "And I can help you. That's all I know."
There was a silence, and Mikalan stood up on shaky legs to pour four glases of water, setting them on the tables, the liquid still quivering. She sank back in the chair and drank deeply.
"So...what happens to us?" Sirius asked finally, breaking the silence.
Mikalan smiled. "Nothing like that. You will have to do treatment every day, by me, but other than that, you can live a normal life. Remus...you might have some problems," she said frankly. "I don't know. A werewolf has never been bitten by a Kamora before. There is always the possibility. But I should be able to heal you after you are human again."
"So, are we living with you?" James asked.
Mikalan shrugged. "It is safer. Unless you really want to go back to Hogwarts, endanger your fellow students, and take the chance of going insane and being put to death...?"
"We don't have a choice," Remus said glumly.
"You always have a choice," Mikalan corrected. "In this case, it's live or die."
"Easy choice," Sirius said dryly. "So are we going to live the rest of our lives like this?"
Mikalan shrugged. "It...depends," she allowed. "Everything is circumstantial except what the human believes, and sometimes even that. But in this case, there are always disadvantages. You can never fall in love or get married."
"Why?" James asked curiously. "Not that I'm in love with anyone, of course."
"No," Mikalan said absently. "I would have felt it in your mind. The part of the mind the Kamora feeds on is the part which harbors love, which is the same part that I have to clean, which I can't do if there are feelings there. There are some advantages. I can clear up most minor crushes, for example, and brotherly/sisterly love never complicates things. But major crushes are the ones that develop into true love, which can never be pried out, which is exactly what the Kamora wants. You can forget about it, but it's always there."
"Mysteries of love, explained by the great psychic witch, only twenty five Knuts," Sirius joked. Mikalan smiled.
"It's late. It has to be four o'clock." She leaned back and glanced at the clock. "It is. You have to sleep. There are bedrooms upstairs on the left side...first three doors. We're the only ones in the house. I will see you..." she stood up, yawning, and dumped her glass in the sink. "In the morning. Sweet dreams," she added wryly before she left the room. Neither of the three boys got up for a moment, and thunder boomed outside, ringing in the silence within.
Author's Notebook: This was an introductory chapter, really, giving my dream (the gist of it) and the background details. I made up the Kamora for my own purposes. Next chapter is when things become complicated, going beyond my dream into what I make up. And did anybody catch the Athena/Minerva joke? They're sisters.
Disclaimer: I don't own James, Lily, Remus, or Sirius. I own Mikalan, the Kamora, and Athena McGonagall.