Chapter 12: The place between
Black. It seemed as though this singular colour had invaded the earth making it cold and dark. It was so dark in fact, that as Janie opened her eyes expecting to see a burst of light, she was surprised to find that it was as if she had never opened them at all. If this was what the other side of death looked like, it was nothing like what she was expecting it to be.
She was certain she was dead. She had felt it happen. Her breath had stopped her muscles had relaxed. Yet now, Janie felt as she had always felt in life, she was breathing. She could feel her chest heave up and down with the beat of her heart. She was even vaguely aware of her pulse beating steadily in her wrist. Where was she? She could not be in what some people had called heaven. This was far too cold. Nor could she imagine that she was in hell for this was certainly no type of after life she had ever heard of.
Janie lay flat on her back for what seemed like hours. Listening but expecting to hear nothing but the sound of her own breath. It wasn't long though before she realized that her breath was not the only thing she heard. Echoing, very softly from somewhere in the large black space, she heard the sound of voices. There seemed to be only a few, whispering at first. Then however, the voices grew. They were not speaking, not as normal humans would be expected to speak. It was almost as if they were chanting or perhaps singing.
As the voices grew louder Janie could hear what they were saying:
Sympathies exist
Presentiments and signs That baffle our mortal comprehension To dream or to feel or to see or to hear What seems not to be there? But such things exist Things beyond this earth Things beyond our sacred thoughts of heaven These are the things that reason defies But reason sometimes lies
They sang these words over and over again growing louder and more numerous each time. Janie sat herself up but did not dare go as far as to stand. She had a strange urge to join the voices in song, or to cry out to them as if they were long lost friends. But she kept silent. Eventually the number of voices began to decrease leaving Janie once again alone in this unfamiliar state of being. But was she alone? Even as the last voice faded from earshot she could feel the presence of someone or something in this dark space with her.
Slowly she turned her head to look behind her. She saw nothing but black, but the feeling was still there. She began to pick herself up from what felt like a floor. Janie found that as soon as she did so a small flicker of light grew opposite her illuminating a small television like screen which showed the familiar sight of her dressing room table at West End. She stared at it for a few moments and then hesitantly began to walk forward.
"Jane" Janie whipped around. Some one had called her name. It was soft but she was sure that she had heard it. They had called her Jane. Almost no one called Jane, and there was something very familiar about that voice
She waited for several more moments. The voice did not come again. She walked steadily back in the direction of the television screen.
"Jane" She stopped once again. The voice was louder this time, more pronounced. There was something in it that she was certain she had heard before. However, there was only one person she knew who called her Jane and there was no possible way that they could be here.
"Jane!" The word was yelled in a full and powerful voice this time. She had no doubt anymore. she knew who the voice belonged to. But how could it be possible?
"Otto?" She asked in a slightly tentative voice. After she said this another small light appeared directly opposite the small television screen. Instead of shedding light on a small picture however, this blaze illuminated the wrinkled, plump face and figure of the aged Greek stagehand.
"Hello Jane" Otto said in reply. His face, which usually bore a rosy completion now looked pale and overtly worn.
"What's going on?" She asked her voice still shaking.
Otto took two steps closer to her. The light seemed to move with him, almost like a spot light.
"I had hoped it wouldn't come to this." He said shaking his head slightly. "But you do have the right to know. No matter what she says you have the right to know."
Otto said all this almost to himself so that Janie had to strain to hear it.
"Otto what is going on? Where are we?" She asked more forcefully.
Otto surveyed her with an almost pitying look in his eyes. Janie couldn't stand it when people pitied her. She stared him down with a dangerous glance. "Tell me." She said stubbornly folding her arms across her chest
"You are in what is called the place between." Janie looked at him skeptically. The place between what? Was this some kind of after life? But how could it be if she still saw her dressing room clearly displayed before her.
"What is the place between?" She asked. Otto continued to stare at her for several moments as if forming an explanation in his mind.
"This is the place a fictional character enters after death. You see, when creations of the imagination are killed, either in the novels they inhabit, or simply in the minds of their own creators when the authors abandon their ideas, these characters are ushered into what you might call the real world."
Janie still didn't understand. How could it be possible for fictional characters to become "real humans". Still, hadn't Sirius been real? Otto must have sensed her confusion.
"Allow me to explain. Every time a child is born a fictional character somewhere, either on paper or in someone's mind has died. Do you understand?"
"Are you saying that everyone on earth was once a character in a novel?" Janie asked. She was no longer hesitant. At last she was going to get the truth. About Sirius, about everything.
"No. Unfortunately there are too few authors and far too may humans. There are, very few now who are born with the soul of a character. One of my aunt's largest mistakes" He added the last part as if speaking to himself once again. Janie continued to question.
"Then do I have the soul of a character?" She couldn't help asking even though she knew this was completely irrelevant to what she truly needed to know. Otto looked at her and slowly began to shake his head.
"I wouldn't have been able to send you into the fictional world if you had once been part of it." He took a few steps closer to her.
"But. how did I get there in the first place?" She had meant to ask "Why did you send me there?" but somehow she already knew what the answer was.
"The answer to that I'm afraid, is quite complicated. The beginning in fact doesn't even involve you, but you still have the right to know." He began to mutter again to himself. Janie took two steps tword him and said in the harshest voice she could muster
"Otto, tell me everything." The old man smiled at her and sighed. " Patients was never your strong suit was it? All right Jane, I will tell you. For the past several months you have known me as Otto. A Greek stage hand employed at a west end theater around the age of 65." He paused here lowered his head and began to pace the floor, the small light followed him.
"In truth, I am a good deal older. I was born in the year 146 B.C soon before the fall of the Greek Empire." Janie stared at him not daring to believe what she was hearing. Then again, she had long since given up all concept of what she knew to be reality. Anything was possible. Otto continued. "My mother was, is I should say, Melpomene the ordained Muse of tragedy. It was her duty to give the world contrast between the happy endings of my aunt Calliope's novels. Whenever a character dies in these, it is usually my mother's doing. She told me that one-day I would follow in her footsteps. Hers was never a path I wished to undertake. While I was born to tragedy I've never felt a need for it. From the day I saw my father, a mortal, die, I went to all lengths to avoid mention of death at all. Calliope, my aunt, the muse of epic poetry, what is now known as literature, has always shared my particular dis-like of tragedy. She has had to learn to live with my mother's interference with her novels as tragedy brings the necessary balance of drama to a story. Not that she didn't dis agree with mother's decisions to add what she saw as "un necessary death" to her fictional works. The Harry Potter series was the center of one of these dis agreements."
Janie's eyes widened. Now she would know the entire truth. She would finally have the answers to every question that had been burning inside her for the past five months. She felt her heart quicken with anticipation as Otto talked on.
"Calliope never wanted Sirius to die. Mother felt it necessary to the plot of the . My aunt did everything she could to dissuade her but nothing could stop Mother from interfering. She had made her final decision. There was only one thing left Calliope could think of to do. You see, the decision of a muse may only be changed by bringing another character into the story. This character must be from the mortal world, and must already have access to the fictional world which to be changed takes place in. This mortal may be sent between the worlds through an ancient cloak. Called the cloak of Erota, another of my kindred."
Janie's heart was now beating so wildly that she was sure it was audible even in the silence that surrounded her. Why hadn't she thought of the cloak before?
"She decided that she had to find some one. A person who knew the story of the fifth book well enough to be able to remember when the death was supposed to take place. This would have to be someone who cared enough about the character of Sirius Black to be willing to risk their own life to stop his death. There was one hitch however. She could not materialize in the mortal world and would not be able to travel the world looking for some one. My aunt discussed the entire situation with me. Since I am half mortal, I am able to enter the mortal world in any human form I wish. I volunteered to find her a suitable person."
This was the part she knew would come. She had dreaded it. "Me?" Se asked softly Otto nodded his head slowly Janie knew from the time she regained her memory that she had been sent there to save Sirius's life. She had done that, but she could not explain why she felt so cold. She did not care about her own death, but this feeling was as if she had failed some how.
"I visited many nations, lived among many social groups, and took many different forms. I found no one who would be able to counter my mother's decision. As the books publish date drew nearer, I began to grow desperate. When I came to London however, I knew my search was over. The first day I saw you, you were reading a Harry Potter novel. I quickly learned that Sirius Black was your favorite character in the books. Also, you your self were perfect. You had no family ties and would not be particularly missed if you were somehow lost in the fictional world. You were sensible enough to find a way of keeping Sirius out of danger. By all accounts you were perfect but."
Janie's heart began to drop. "But what?" She asked franticly. "I DID save him didn't I? I did exactly what you had sent me there to do!" Otto frowned and looked at her with his annoyingly piteous stare.
"Not exactly. I had forgotten two important elements of the plan when I sent you to the fictional world. The first was that by tradition, all mortal memory of the story would be lost once you were placed under the cloak. I thought you would remember the story, have time to plan a way for Sirius to be far away from the department of mysteries before."
Otto's voice broke off. Janie was lost in a haze of confusion. Did this mean that she some how hadn't accomplished what she was supposed to, did this mean that Sirius was. no it couldn't be. He was alive. He had to be.
"The second was that, by greek law, no mortal is ever to enter into the place between. When you came here, all that you had done was reversed. My mother had absolute power over the story once again. And she found a way of achieving her ends." Otto looked to the floor in an un-mistakeable expression of greif.
"No!" Janie said backing away from him. "No, I saved him! I was there! He didn't have to die! The curse that was meant for him killed me instead, I- I know it did!" Her mind was turning in the most peculiar circles she could possibly imagine. All she could think of was he wasn't dead, how could he be dead? She had died in place of him. Otto was lying he had to be.
"Sirius, being the character he was, attempted to avenge your death by murdering Bellatrix. My mother found a way to rebound the curse on him. He fell behind the veil."
The familiar sensation of ice water was pouring through her veins. She wouldn't believe it. After all, how could it be true. But there was something inside her that knew Otto had no reason to lie. She now knew why she felt as though she had failed. Still, perhaps there was an explanation, perhaps Otto was mistaken. Frantic to find a plausible way to discredit him she asked:
"What about the spell, the ancient shield. When Harry's mother gave her life for him, she left a protection around him so that it was impossible for him to be killed. Shouldn't the same thing have happened with me and Sirius? Why didn't he have the sheild around him protecting him?" Yes this made sense. He couldn't possibly be dead. Otto was mistaken. But Janie was shocked to find that Otto was looking at her wearing a patronizing smile.
"I thought you would have worked out by now that the magical laws, for better or for worse, do not apply to you. How did you think I got you to Grimmuald place without the proper information from Dumbledore? How do you think you were able to use Remus Lupin's wand with such powerful results? The rules did not apply to you Jane."
As Otto said this Janie had felt her legs give way as she fell to the floor. She was drained of all hope. There was no way to explain it away any more. "Then why did the spell kill me?" Janie asked from her place on the floor like ground, her voice growing softer with realization
"Death is the only element familiar to all creatures. No one can escape it. Weather you die in the fictional world, or the mortal world. All will die. The situation in which you die is not subject to revision as ancient spells and seceret messages of the fictional world are."
"So you're saying that I was sent there for nothing? Nothing changed at all?" Janie's voice was shaking. Half with anger at the man who stood before her and half in an effort to keep herself from weeping.
"There are things, visions, which are better left un disturbed. Things which fate alone must decide. I was foolish to believe that I, a half mortal, could interfere with the musings of two worlds. But it is not too late, to restore two lives, if not in this world, in the next." He said the last portion of this speech almost to himself. Janie didn't listen. There was a deep rage burning inside her that she had never felt before. Half of this rage was directed to the man in front of her, part of it was directed to the fact that there was nothing material in the black space which she could pick up and throw, but most of her rage was directed upon herself. She wished she had never met Otto, she wished she had never read the Harry Potter series, she wished she had never run away from home, she wished that she had never lived, never been born at all.
There was silence for a few moments. Janie was looking determinedly away from Otto and biting her lip so hard that she could feel blood beginning to trickle down her chin. Then suddenly Otto moved directly in front of her so that she could not avert his eyes any longer.
He picked her up from the floor and moved her directly in front of the television screen, which held the frozen portrait of her dressing room.
"It's time. You will understand latter." He told her. Before Janie could ask what he meant by this he had pushed her into the television screen which had begun to grow. She was falling very steadily until she landed in her chair, next to her table, in her room.
Her eyes were closed and she could feel the tattered old cloak on top of her. She opened her eyes. The florescent lights which decorated her room blinded her as she drowsily began to sit up.
"five minuets!" She heard the call ring out downstairs.
Perhaps it had all been a dream. Maybe none of it had ever happened at all. There was only one way to be certain. Janie reached into the pocket of the tattered cloak which had been covering her. She felt around inside for what felt like hours before she found it.
The piece of parchment, which had housed Sirius's letter, lay limply in her hand. It had not been a dream. Janie unfolded it expecting to find the entire note. But most of the message had faded somehow from view. All that remained were the last three words of the note. These were now larger than they had been and had transformed in color from plain black to blood red
I love you
Janie read these words over and over again in her head, completely ignoring the three minuet warning call. Then very suddenly, forgetting that she was meant to be strong, forgetting that all emotions were to be kept inside, forgetting the wall surrounding her feelings that she had promised to keep well guarded, forgetting that she had never done anything like this before, Janie Elseman Buried her face in her hands and cried.
Black. It seemed as though this singular colour had invaded the earth making it cold and dark. It was so dark in fact, that as Janie opened her eyes expecting to see a burst of light, she was surprised to find that it was as if she had never opened them at all. If this was what the other side of death looked like, it was nothing like what she was expecting it to be.
She was certain she was dead. She had felt it happen. Her breath had stopped her muscles had relaxed. Yet now, Janie felt as she had always felt in life, she was breathing. She could feel her chest heave up and down with the beat of her heart. She was even vaguely aware of her pulse beating steadily in her wrist. Where was she? She could not be in what some people had called heaven. This was far too cold. Nor could she imagine that she was in hell for this was certainly no type of after life she had ever heard of.
Janie lay flat on her back for what seemed like hours. Listening but expecting to hear nothing but the sound of her own breath. It wasn't long though before she realized that her breath was not the only thing she heard. Echoing, very softly from somewhere in the large black space, she heard the sound of voices. There seemed to be only a few, whispering at first. Then however, the voices grew. They were not speaking, not as normal humans would be expected to speak. It was almost as if they were chanting or perhaps singing.
As the voices grew louder Janie could hear what they were saying:
Sympathies exist
Presentiments and signs That baffle our mortal comprehension To dream or to feel or to see or to hear What seems not to be there? But such things exist Things beyond this earth Things beyond our sacred thoughts of heaven These are the things that reason defies But reason sometimes lies
They sang these words over and over again growing louder and more numerous each time. Janie sat herself up but did not dare go as far as to stand. She had a strange urge to join the voices in song, or to cry out to them as if they were long lost friends. But she kept silent. Eventually the number of voices began to decrease leaving Janie once again alone in this unfamiliar state of being. But was she alone? Even as the last voice faded from earshot she could feel the presence of someone or something in this dark space with her.
Slowly she turned her head to look behind her. She saw nothing but black, but the feeling was still there. She began to pick herself up from what felt like a floor. Janie found that as soon as she did so a small flicker of light grew opposite her illuminating a small television like screen which showed the familiar sight of her dressing room table at West End. She stared at it for a few moments and then hesitantly began to walk forward.
"Jane" Janie whipped around. Some one had called her name. It was soft but she was sure that she had heard it. They had called her Jane. Almost no one called Jane, and there was something very familiar about that voice
She waited for several more moments. The voice did not come again. She walked steadily back in the direction of the television screen.
"Jane" She stopped once again. The voice was louder this time, more pronounced. There was something in it that she was certain she had heard before. However, there was only one person she knew who called her Jane and there was no possible way that they could be here.
"Jane!" The word was yelled in a full and powerful voice this time. She had no doubt anymore. she knew who the voice belonged to. But how could it be possible?
"Otto?" She asked in a slightly tentative voice. After she said this another small light appeared directly opposite the small television screen. Instead of shedding light on a small picture however, this blaze illuminated the wrinkled, plump face and figure of the aged Greek stagehand.
"Hello Jane" Otto said in reply. His face, which usually bore a rosy completion now looked pale and overtly worn.
"What's going on?" She asked her voice still shaking.
Otto took two steps closer to her. The light seemed to move with him, almost like a spot light.
"I had hoped it wouldn't come to this." He said shaking his head slightly. "But you do have the right to know. No matter what she says you have the right to know."
Otto said all this almost to himself so that Janie had to strain to hear it.
"Otto what is going on? Where are we?" She asked more forcefully.
Otto surveyed her with an almost pitying look in his eyes. Janie couldn't stand it when people pitied her. She stared him down with a dangerous glance. "Tell me." She said stubbornly folding her arms across her chest
"You are in what is called the place between." Janie looked at him skeptically. The place between what? Was this some kind of after life? But how could it be if she still saw her dressing room clearly displayed before her.
"What is the place between?" She asked. Otto continued to stare at her for several moments as if forming an explanation in his mind.
"This is the place a fictional character enters after death. You see, when creations of the imagination are killed, either in the novels they inhabit, or simply in the minds of their own creators when the authors abandon their ideas, these characters are ushered into what you might call the real world."
Janie still didn't understand. How could it be possible for fictional characters to become "real humans". Still, hadn't Sirius been real? Otto must have sensed her confusion.
"Allow me to explain. Every time a child is born a fictional character somewhere, either on paper or in someone's mind has died. Do you understand?"
"Are you saying that everyone on earth was once a character in a novel?" Janie asked. She was no longer hesitant. At last she was going to get the truth. About Sirius, about everything.
"No. Unfortunately there are too few authors and far too may humans. There are, very few now who are born with the soul of a character. One of my aunt's largest mistakes" He added the last part as if speaking to himself once again. Janie continued to question.
"Then do I have the soul of a character?" She couldn't help asking even though she knew this was completely irrelevant to what she truly needed to know. Otto looked at her and slowly began to shake his head.
"I wouldn't have been able to send you into the fictional world if you had once been part of it." He took a few steps closer to her.
"But. how did I get there in the first place?" She had meant to ask "Why did you send me there?" but somehow she already knew what the answer was.
"The answer to that I'm afraid, is quite complicated. The beginning in fact doesn't even involve you, but you still have the right to know." He began to mutter again to himself. Janie took two steps tword him and said in the harshest voice she could muster
"Otto, tell me everything." The old man smiled at her and sighed. " Patients was never your strong suit was it? All right Jane, I will tell you. For the past several months you have known me as Otto. A Greek stage hand employed at a west end theater around the age of 65." He paused here lowered his head and began to pace the floor, the small light followed him.
"In truth, I am a good deal older. I was born in the year 146 B.C soon before the fall of the Greek Empire." Janie stared at him not daring to believe what she was hearing. Then again, she had long since given up all concept of what she knew to be reality. Anything was possible. Otto continued. "My mother was, is I should say, Melpomene the ordained Muse of tragedy. It was her duty to give the world contrast between the happy endings of my aunt Calliope's novels. Whenever a character dies in these, it is usually my mother's doing. She told me that one-day I would follow in her footsteps. Hers was never a path I wished to undertake. While I was born to tragedy I've never felt a need for it. From the day I saw my father, a mortal, die, I went to all lengths to avoid mention of death at all. Calliope, my aunt, the muse of epic poetry, what is now known as literature, has always shared my particular dis-like of tragedy. She has had to learn to live with my mother's interference with her novels as tragedy brings the necessary balance of drama to a story. Not that she didn't dis agree with mother's decisions to add what she saw as "un necessary death" to her fictional works. The Harry Potter series was the center of one of these dis agreements."
Janie's eyes widened. Now she would know the entire truth. She would finally have the answers to every question that had been burning inside her for the past five months. She felt her heart quicken with anticipation as Otto talked on.
"Calliope never wanted Sirius to die. Mother felt it necessary to the plot of the . My aunt did everything she could to dissuade her but nothing could stop Mother from interfering. She had made her final decision. There was only one thing left Calliope could think of to do. You see, the decision of a muse may only be changed by bringing another character into the story. This character must be from the mortal world, and must already have access to the fictional world which to be changed takes place in. This mortal may be sent between the worlds through an ancient cloak. Called the cloak of Erota, another of my kindred."
Janie's heart was now beating so wildly that she was sure it was audible even in the silence that surrounded her. Why hadn't she thought of the cloak before?
"She decided that she had to find some one. A person who knew the story of the fifth book well enough to be able to remember when the death was supposed to take place. This would have to be someone who cared enough about the character of Sirius Black to be willing to risk their own life to stop his death. There was one hitch however. She could not materialize in the mortal world and would not be able to travel the world looking for some one. My aunt discussed the entire situation with me. Since I am half mortal, I am able to enter the mortal world in any human form I wish. I volunteered to find her a suitable person."
This was the part she knew would come. She had dreaded it. "Me?" Se asked softly Otto nodded his head slowly Janie knew from the time she regained her memory that she had been sent there to save Sirius's life. She had done that, but she could not explain why she felt so cold. She did not care about her own death, but this feeling was as if she had failed some how.
"I visited many nations, lived among many social groups, and took many different forms. I found no one who would be able to counter my mother's decision. As the books publish date drew nearer, I began to grow desperate. When I came to London however, I knew my search was over. The first day I saw you, you were reading a Harry Potter novel. I quickly learned that Sirius Black was your favorite character in the books. Also, you your self were perfect. You had no family ties and would not be particularly missed if you were somehow lost in the fictional world. You were sensible enough to find a way of keeping Sirius out of danger. By all accounts you were perfect but."
Janie's heart began to drop. "But what?" She asked franticly. "I DID save him didn't I? I did exactly what you had sent me there to do!" Otto frowned and looked at her with his annoyingly piteous stare.
"Not exactly. I had forgotten two important elements of the plan when I sent you to the fictional world. The first was that by tradition, all mortal memory of the story would be lost once you were placed under the cloak. I thought you would remember the story, have time to plan a way for Sirius to be far away from the department of mysteries before."
Otto's voice broke off. Janie was lost in a haze of confusion. Did this mean that she some how hadn't accomplished what she was supposed to, did this mean that Sirius was. no it couldn't be. He was alive. He had to be.
"The second was that, by greek law, no mortal is ever to enter into the place between. When you came here, all that you had done was reversed. My mother had absolute power over the story once again. And she found a way of achieving her ends." Otto looked to the floor in an un-mistakeable expression of greif.
"No!" Janie said backing away from him. "No, I saved him! I was there! He didn't have to die! The curse that was meant for him killed me instead, I- I know it did!" Her mind was turning in the most peculiar circles she could possibly imagine. All she could think of was he wasn't dead, how could he be dead? She had died in place of him. Otto was lying he had to be.
"Sirius, being the character he was, attempted to avenge your death by murdering Bellatrix. My mother found a way to rebound the curse on him. He fell behind the veil."
The familiar sensation of ice water was pouring through her veins. She wouldn't believe it. After all, how could it be true. But there was something inside her that knew Otto had no reason to lie. She now knew why she felt as though she had failed. Still, perhaps there was an explanation, perhaps Otto was mistaken. Frantic to find a plausible way to discredit him she asked:
"What about the spell, the ancient shield. When Harry's mother gave her life for him, she left a protection around him so that it was impossible for him to be killed. Shouldn't the same thing have happened with me and Sirius? Why didn't he have the sheild around him protecting him?" Yes this made sense. He couldn't possibly be dead. Otto was mistaken. But Janie was shocked to find that Otto was looking at her wearing a patronizing smile.
"I thought you would have worked out by now that the magical laws, for better or for worse, do not apply to you. How did you think I got you to Grimmuald place without the proper information from Dumbledore? How do you think you were able to use Remus Lupin's wand with such powerful results? The rules did not apply to you Jane."
As Otto said this Janie had felt her legs give way as she fell to the floor. She was drained of all hope. There was no way to explain it away any more. "Then why did the spell kill me?" Janie asked from her place on the floor like ground, her voice growing softer with realization
"Death is the only element familiar to all creatures. No one can escape it. Weather you die in the fictional world, or the mortal world. All will die. The situation in which you die is not subject to revision as ancient spells and seceret messages of the fictional world are."
"So you're saying that I was sent there for nothing? Nothing changed at all?" Janie's voice was shaking. Half with anger at the man who stood before her and half in an effort to keep herself from weeping.
"There are things, visions, which are better left un disturbed. Things which fate alone must decide. I was foolish to believe that I, a half mortal, could interfere with the musings of two worlds. But it is not too late, to restore two lives, if not in this world, in the next." He said the last portion of this speech almost to himself. Janie didn't listen. There was a deep rage burning inside her that she had never felt before. Half of this rage was directed to the man in front of her, part of it was directed to the fact that there was nothing material in the black space which she could pick up and throw, but most of her rage was directed upon herself. She wished she had never met Otto, she wished she had never read the Harry Potter series, she wished she had never run away from home, she wished that she had never lived, never been born at all.
There was silence for a few moments. Janie was looking determinedly away from Otto and biting her lip so hard that she could feel blood beginning to trickle down her chin. Then suddenly Otto moved directly in front of her so that she could not avert his eyes any longer.
He picked her up from the floor and moved her directly in front of the television screen, which held the frozen portrait of her dressing room.
"It's time. You will understand latter." He told her. Before Janie could ask what he meant by this he had pushed her into the television screen which had begun to grow. She was falling very steadily until she landed in her chair, next to her table, in her room.
Her eyes were closed and she could feel the tattered old cloak on top of her. She opened her eyes. The florescent lights which decorated her room blinded her as she drowsily began to sit up.
"five minuets!" She heard the call ring out downstairs.
Perhaps it had all been a dream. Maybe none of it had ever happened at all. There was only one way to be certain. Janie reached into the pocket of the tattered cloak which had been covering her. She felt around inside for what felt like hours before she found it.
The piece of parchment, which had housed Sirius's letter, lay limply in her hand. It had not been a dream. Janie unfolded it expecting to find the entire note. But most of the message had faded somehow from view. All that remained were the last three words of the note. These were now larger than they had been and had transformed in color from plain black to blood red
I love you
Janie read these words over and over again in her head, completely ignoring the three minuet warning call. Then very suddenly, forgetting that she was meant to be strong, forgetting that all emotions were to be kept inside, forgetting the wall surrounding her feelings that she had promised to keep well guarded, forgetting that she had never done anything like this before, Janie Elseman Buried her face in her hands and cried.