Author's Note: Hello everyone! Sorry this bit took so long – I've just started another fic here, so this one's been competing for my attention with the new one. (It's called "The Jealous Suitor", and it's a Pirates of the Caribbean fic, if anyone's interested.) And now, here's chapter 10, including "the part with the dog" as Tamashii Hime put it. Enjoy! Please review!
Chapter Ten
Our first stop after arriving in London was the exchange counter. We didn't change all of our money, just enough to buy some lunch and maybe a ride or two in one of the town cars. Then we bought ourselves a couple of deli sandwiches and went to eat in Trafalgar Square. I sat at the foot of one of those enormous stone lions and Justin leaned against the pillar beside me.
"Have you ever been here before?" he asked, taking a huge bite out of his sandwich.
"Just once," I said, "For a school trip. It wasn't much fun though – all we did was go on museum tours and stuff."
"That doesn't sound too bad. I thought you liked museums."
"Yeah, but I like to take my time. I don't like being rushed off to the next exhibit so fast, you know? It gets on my nerves."
He laughed.
"What?"
"Nothing," he said, "Just the fact that you always have to do stuff your own way."
"Well," I said thoughtfully, "If my way doesn't work this time, I'll try not to be so stubborn."
He looked down at me gravely. It was probably the first time I'd ever admitted I would be willing to be wrong. Or course, this was a matter of life and death, but it was still a big step for me. Suddenly I felt something cold and damp nudge my hand. I glanced down and saw an enormous, shaggy black dog sniffing at my sandwich. I laughed.
"Hey there!" I said sweetly, "You like turkey and provolone, huh?"
I tore my sandwich in half and gave the part I hadn't bitten to the dog. He gobbled it up hungrily, laying down beside me and thumping his tail on the ground enthusiastically.
"What, are you crazy?" asked Justin, "We're not gonna get any more food for a while, and just wasted half of it on a stray."
"Don't be so mean!" I scolded him, scratching the dog behind the ears, "He's half-starved, look at him. He probably needs that sandwich more than I do."
"You're such a sucker, Esther."
"I know," I said, laughing as the dog grinned up at me; the sandwich was already gone.
"Whatever," said Justin, crumpling up his sandwich wrapper, "Well, we need to talk about the plan."
"Right," I agreed, "The plan. What is the plan?"
"We don't have one yet – that's why we need to talk about it."
"Okay, so let's talk about it."
Justin suddenly burst out laughing. He'd just figured out I was teasing him; we did this kind of thing a lot, teasing each other just to see how long we could talk about a given subject without actually talking about it. The dog lay his head down on his paws and sighed contentedly. I scratched at his fuzzy head; I love dogs. Always have, always will. And they seem to understand me for the most part, so I've never met a dog I didn't like.
"All right, all right," I said, "I'm done. What do we need to do first?"
"I think we should try to find Hermione first."
"How, by looking her up? I thought we'd already decided that wouldn't work."
"It might work, it'll just take a long time."
"What about Harry? He'd be easier to find since we know where he lives."
"I guess so. . . Where is Privet Drive, exactly?"
Justin glanced down at the dog nervously. I followed his gaze; the dog had gone rigid. Its ears were perked up attentively and its eyes were fixed on me and Justin. If I hadn't known better, I would have sworn it was scowling at us.
"What's the matter, boy?" I asked, wondering if it might be rabid.
"Um, Esther?" said Justin, "Let's go somewhere else. You're finished now, right?"
I crumpled up the last bite of my sandwich inside the wrapper and nodded, then stood up and followed Justin around to one of the small streets across the Square. We kept talking about our "plan," but we didn't make any more progress. Suddenly I noticed that the black dog was following us. I turned to look at him and he perked up his ears and wagged his tail at me.
"Looks like you made a friend, Esther," said Justin, laughing.
The dog barked once at us, then turned and trotted off down an alleyway. When we didn't follow him, the dog reemerged from the alley and looked back at us inquisitively. I glanced over at Justin; he just shrugged, so we turned to follow the dog into the alley. The dog wagged his tail excitedly as we approached, then turned and disappeared down the alley. We followed, but when we turned the corner the dog was nowhere to be seen.
"Weird. . ." muttered Justin, "Where'd he go?"
Suddenly a large shaped rushed forward out of the darkness and forced me and Justin back against a brick wall. A saw the glint of dark eyes and a mass of dirty black hair, and then I glanced down and noticed a strange, stick-like object pointing straight at my throat: a wand. My mouth dropped open when I realized what was happening.
"S-Sirius Black?" I gasped.
"What do you want with Harry Potter?" he asked in a low, dangerous voice.
I swallowed hard; I was both excited and terrified. Here Justin and I had been trying to think of a way to get in touch with the wizarding world, and now that we had succeeded, our only contact was threatening us at wand-point.
"Nothing," I said unconvincingly, "I mean, it's not that we want anything with Harry necessarily, but we need help."
"What about Hermione? What do you want with her?"
"I'm sorry, I was trying to think of someone who could help us," I said desperately, "She knows so much about the wizarding world, and we don't."
"What is it you want?"
"Look," said Justin, "We're not trying to hurt anybody, but there's this dead girl that's been following us around and we don't know how to get rid of her."
"What?" asked Sirius.
I shut my eyes and sighed hopelessly; this was going to be difficult. All the sudden I felt a change in the air, and the dark alleyway reeled out of focus. I was in a stark white room, mostly empty, and the stale air was tense with foreboding. In the middle of the room was a single table; Becca sat at one end, her dark hair disheveled and her eyes bloodshot, and Rachel sat at the other. I was in an asylum, the institution where Becca had been taken to be treated for severe trauma and paranoia. Rachel had come to question her. I moved closer to Becca's side of the table. I saw Rachel's lips moving, but I couldn't hear her at first. In the background I heard voices barely louder than a whisper from the world I'd just left.
"No, don't touch her," Justin was saying, "I think she's having a vision."
"How did she die?" asked Rachel, her voice finally coming through clearly.
Becca was silent. As I moved closer I could feel strange quiverings in the air, and at first I didn't know what to make of them. The first was a rapid fluttering, like a tiny bird beating its wings frantically. The second was subtler, more difficult to sense: it was like a slow poison leaking out and spreading through the room, but it was also reluctant, as if it was trying to keep itself at bay. I have no idea how I knew all this; I could feel it somehow. The rapid fluttering got stronger the closer I moved to Becca, but the dull, poisonous feeling increased steadily as time wore on. Becca still hadn't said a word.
"Becca?" asked Rachel, "What happened?"
I felt a sudden animosity towards Rachel for asking the poor girl to relive that horrible night. She was only doing her job – Katie had been her niece after all – but she didn't understand just how deeply the other girl's death had affected Becca. This wasn't fair. On the other hand, Rachel was getting desperate; she'd seen the tape herself at this point, and she was trying to solve the mystery in order to save her own life. She had no choice.
"It's all right, Becca," I told her, "She's only trying to help."
The fluttering slowed to a steady, rhythmic thumping, and in a flash I understood: it was Becca's fear, rattling inside her like a caged bird. She must have either recognized my presence or something else had told her it was okay now. She relaxed, and raised her sleepless eyes to meet Rachel's. Rachel said something, a comforting word of some sort, and reached across the table to take Becca's hand. The air thickened at her touch and then an almost audible rumble passed through the room. The slow, poisonous feeling seeped away and was replaced by a sharp, pained ringing. I didn't understand what was happening, but something was different now. There was something inexplicably familiar about Rachel's aura right then, but not familiar to me. I can't explain it – there was something in her presence that I knew had been around before, but it was nothing I had ever experienced. Becca silently turned Rachel's hand over so that it lay palm-up on the table, then she folded the thumb inside the palm and straightened the four remaining fingers. I didn't hear her voice when she spoke, but I could read her words unmistakably: Four days.
Rachel's eyes widened and the strange ringing increased to an almost deafening roar. And then I understood the second feeling: it was Rachel's fear, but it was different because she was trying to control it. The seeping poison was her doubt and anxiety slowing taking hold of her no matter how hard she tried to ignore it. But something had passed between the two women when they'd touched, and now Rachel's fear was reeling out unchecked. I tried to think of something to do that would calm her, but I felt myself drifting back to my own world. I felt pleasantly lightheaded for an instant, the same as I had before, but then an all too familiar presence surged out of the darkness of the alleyway. I screamed and shrank back against the cold brick wall, and I felt her glide past me. Cautiously I opened my eyes. I was breathing hard, and Justin and Sirius were both looking at me with confused apprehension. She was gone. I stood back up shakily.
"Did you see her?" I asked Sirius.
"Who?" he asked, searching my gaze suspiciously.
"Samara! She was here, she must have known I saw Becca again."
Justin shook his head; he hadn't seen anything. But Sirius was watching me with a strange, calculating expression.
"Samara Morgan?" he asked in a low voice.
"You know her?" I asked incredulously.
"I know the name," he replied, slipping his wand back inside his robes, "That girl's been giving the Ministry a headache for decades. I don't know what they found out, but I know they gave up the case about twelve years ago – they seemed to think it wasn't important because she only attacks Muggles."
"What are you talking about?"
"No, I can't explain here; it's too much. Listen, if she really is following you I know one person in the Ministry that could help you – he's the only one there that didn't want to give up the case."
"Can you take us there?"
"To the Ministry of Magic Headquarters? Hardly. But I can help you get in touch with the man you need. This way."
With that, he seemed to double over and shrink rapidly; he transformed back into the black dog and trotted out of the alley. I glanced over at Justin, who merely shrugged inconclusively, and then we followed the dog down the dingy streets of London.