Disclaimer: I don't own HP. (Imagine that.)
A/N: This chapter took a long time to write, for which I apologize. I was having some technical difficulties (damn floppy disc), among other writing-related problems (damn contorted analogies), unfortunately. A lot of the content of this chapter came as a total surprise to me when I wrote it, so some stuff I said last chapter (the explanation, Lupin and Bridget's talk, Alan and Aurelia becoming fugitives) has been delegated to future chapters for the sake of space and my desire to update. At any rate, I think I'll stop doing those little "NEXT CHAPTER" thingys, just because sometimes things don't turn out how I plan. But oh well.
Thanks to my reviewers, all six of you. Just kidding, I love you guys, you're so great. And to aihjah: thanks for the recognition on that pun, I've been waiting on that from my other so-called "faithful" reviewers. I'm kidding again, I was actually quite impressed at myself when I came up with "D. Umb. Act," for I normally have no talent when it comes to puns. Anyway, enjoy the story.
Chapter 8
The Quiet
The eternal silence of these infinite spaces fills me with dread.
-Blaise Pascal
"Remus Lupin find himself in the depths of an admittedly peculiar and perplexing predicament, unsure of his footing, mostly because he can't use them."
Lupin's quill ceased scratching. He shook his head, and crossed out what he had just written. Use them? Surely there he had meant his feet, but the whole thing was phrased oddly. And, as if that wasn't bad enough, there were too many "p" words in the first sentence. Thinking this may take him all night, he began again.
"Remus Lupin finds himself in the depths of a peculiar predicament, living in a mysterious mountain called, simply, the Hill, his only contact to the outside world being a young woman named Bridget, hereafter to be referred to as 'the Jailer.'" He stopped to grin slightly and then continued. "The Jailer refuses point-blank to respond even remotely to any of my--." He stopped again and crossed the last word out. Writing in third person was hard. "His queries as to his presence there, and only making vague references to a certain member of the Wizengamot (hereafter referred to as 'the Spawn of Hell') and a mysterious, phantom-like creature called the Speaker (official title pending, though he personally thinks 'the Speaker' is an odd enough way to refer to somebody all ready).
"Getting back to the subject of the Jailer. She would be considered odd by anyone's standards, even by my his own, and his standards for odd people are quite steep, being what he is. For instance, despite her insistence of being a Muggle, she seems capable of doing magic."
Lupin paused again, not to think of what to write, but to ponder what he already had.
He had been there five days as of that evening, and since then absolutely nothing had happened. And nothing, while often used as hyperbole to express a subject's utter boredom, in this case was terribly applicable to his situation, for nothing had happened, save for his periodic visits from Bridget, who, he noticed, looked exponentially nervous every time he saw her. He had a theory about that had been worked out in his hours of extensive lethargy.
It had been the evening after he had feasted on the corn flakes with Bridget and the news about his legs was varied. They weren't numb anymore, but he still couldn't move them. And they hurt. A lot. Even someone as accustomed to pain as him had to grit his teeth and stare at the ceiling to keep his mind off the burning sensation.
It was because of this that he didn't see Bridget standing in the door of his cell until she spoke.
"Awake finally, are you?"
His head spun around. He had actually been up for several hours, but she wasn't to know that.
"What time is it?" he asked, as he had no watch, and the only thing lighting up the cell was a lone lantern that cast an eerie golden glow over everything.
"Late. Guess eating cereal can be stressful work."
"You have no idea," he told her, sitting up. "What are you doing here if it's so late?"
"I thought you might be hungry. How are the legs?" she asked, entering in much the same fashion she had before; with a tray of food, though this time it looked like supper.
"Terrible," he said, deciding not to mince words. "You said they'd get better."
She shrugged. "I lied. What? You should keep away from small children with that stare, you know. It would freeze their insides."
That didn't stop him. "Bridget, you lied? Why would you--,"
"Oh, a few hours, a few days, it's all the same to me. Time sort of runs together in my head."
The strangeness of that statement would fail to hit Lupin until later, though it did make him reflect a little more on "the Jailer's" appearance. She had a worn look of a book you put away for a long time and then one day find by accident. She was young yet looked quite old, you could see it in her enormous eyes. Lupin knew the look quite well, as it was what he saw every time he looked in the mirror.
Before any further arguments could take place on the state of his legs, however, Bridget got up.
"You have dinner, I'll go see what I can do for you."
Lupin was halfway through the ham sandwich she had brought him when she returned, saying, "All right, I've got it."
"Got? What have you got?"
"You'll see." She knelt by the cot and carefully took the blanket off his legs and placed both of her white hands on his knees, staring at them intently while Remus simply watched her, too stunned to question. Even if he did, he doubted she would respond, for she looked totally locked into what she was doing, whatever it was she was doing.
Then he felt it. Pure energy was radiating from her fingertips. It traveled from his knees, it entered his bloodstream, navigating through all its little tributaries like an armada of determined little riverboats. It traveled up and up, and slowly he felt the pain in his legs leave like birds taking flight, darting upward into a bleached sky.
Finally, it stopped and she stood up, clapping her hands together. "There. That better?"
He considered. His accursed appendages could still not move on their own accord, but they didn't hurt. She had made sure of that.
The only people capable of doing wandless magic, as far as he had ever heard, were Healers who needed "unfiltered" magic, in a matter of speaking. They wanted it without the hindrance of a wand. But that was only spectacularly advanced older Healers, who could do it, a category Bridget surely didn't fall into.
"Bridget, are you a Healer?"
Her eyes widened. "You mean--oh, that's a wizard doctor, right?"
He stared at her. This was impossible, how did she--
"Well, no, I'm not one. I was training to be a nurse, though."
His jaw came very close to dropping open. "Bridget, a nurse? As in a Muggle hospital nurse?"
She nodded. "Yes. What's wrong?"
"Bridget, how could you do what you just did if you're a Muggle?"
The girl got a panicked look in her huge eyes. "Never mind. I just--,"
He surprised himself by grabbing her wrist, forcing her downward so her enormous eyes peered into his. "Bridget, tell me. Stop treating me like an old invalid in a home and give me some damn answers."
It was then that it happened, so quick it was like lightning, and if he hadn't been staring at her so intensely he would have missed it completely. Her eyes flickered, for just a second, to the doorway. The split second that she stared, so intensely, at that doorway, he could see straight through the nonchalant face she wore at all other times. On her face, taking root in those huge eyes of hers, was pure, unadulterated fear. She was terrified of whatever lurked outside of that cell, and suddenly, so was he. At what, he could not quite say. It served to reason that it was this man she kept referring to. The--
Speaker.
A tiny little seed of an idea was dropped into his head. What if-and this was a pretty big if-this Speaker could possess people? He was an immensely powerful wizard, if that were true, and indeed he must be, if he could do the wandless magic. Moreover, force someone else to do the wandless magic. Force a Muggle, with seemingly nothing of the sort in her, to do an incredibly advanced practice usually only attempted by top-of-the-line Healers. Now that would be a truly powerful someone.
A pretty sick someone, at that. A someone who kidnaps young Muggle woman to do his bidding and, for some reason, (he gulped) werewolves.
That had been several days ago and he'd been brooding on the idea ever since. Brooding on things in general, really, experiencing what Bridget thought of as "that deathly quiet." But while her quiet was a bit like a rolling plain, with nothing in sight for miles around, his was like that eerie stillness before a storm. He could remember being in a situation like this when he had been travelling and had been unlucky enough to be caught in a tornado in the American state of Kansas. Before the funnel cloud had touched down the sky had been a creepy, vomit-colored yellow and the hairs on the back of his neck had stood straight like soldiers at attention, as if the body can almost sense that change in air pressure, that ominous calm that precedes the unthinkable.
Lupin shivered and turned back to his "memoirs."
That had been more a joke. He normally hated to get in that reminiscing-the-old-times sort of mood, it made him feel, well, old and goodness knows he didn't need anymore of that. But one memory in particular had surfaced to his mind, and it involved Sirius. Odd, because normally any memory involving Sirius Black was promptly ignored by him. Not this time, however.
He'd come up the stairs to his dorm. It was late and he was more tired than usual, having just spent the last few hours of his prefect duty being pummeled repeatedly with heavy spellbooks sent his way by Peeves. Opening the door, he observed his three friends. Peter had been on the bed, immersed in his Arithmancy homework, James had been playing with that dumb Snitch again, and Sirius was at the desk writing furiously.
James looked up at his arrival. "Ask Padfoot what he's doing, Moony, just ask him."
Knowing full well that Sirius would have long been finished with any homework they'd had, he did as James had said, walking over to Peter's bed to look over his figures.
"I," Sirius proclaimed, "am writing my memoirs."
He said "memoirs" with such feigned sincerity that they all snorted into their respective activities.
"Memoirs? Little young for that, aren't you? And you forgot to carry the one there, Peter," Remus had said.
While Peter furiously scribbled out a whole column of work, Sirius replied, "I figure it's never too early to start these things."
"I see. Are you writing these as Padfoot or Sirius Black? Or maybe a pseudonym you haven't informed us about yet?"
Sirius had looked vaguely troubled. "I dunno. Would you write yours as Moony?"
Lupin pretended to look thoughtful. "Hmm... yes, I can see it now. 'I'm Moony and I have an undeniable urge to rip people limb from limb when I see them.' Nah, you better stick to your real name. And that figure's wrong, Wormtail, you'd better check it"
Grunting frustratedly, Peter crossed out another column. "I never should've taken Arithmancy! Bloody awful!"
"The point is," Sirius had continued placidly, "that the memoirs of one Sirius Black will be a glowing homage and nothing else."
"As if I expected anything else," Remus had said, collapsing on his bed and rubbing the heels of his palms into his eyes.
James finally put the Snitch away. "What do you mean by 'glowing homage,' exactly?"
Sirius explained that, while writing memoirs, one is always expected to blow up the importance of himself, "it's just what you do when you write memoirs." He told them that these were the types of things you learn when brought up in a "privileged" home such as his.
Remus had not thought of that night in the dormitory for so long, but now that he did, he thought he'd do what Sirius had said, figuring it might take his mind off things and give him a way to spend his hours. So he had requested to Bridget that she give him the writing utensils. She had been confused at first, but he had explained it to her and she had obliged.
He continued writing:
"He does not know what has happened or what will, but he is quite certain that his Lady Love--,"
He snorted, knowing how much Aurelia would appreciate her title. A glowing homage indeed. A glowing homage written in third person seemed so incredibly stupid, but that had been one of Sirius' rules for writing memoirs, and besides, he was only doing this as a way to entertain himself.
"His Lady Love will be able to find something out about the situation, as he has ample faith in her ability to discern things from rather sticky situations. And besides. Something's bound to happen soon.
"Right?"
We need help, the Poet reckoned.
-Edward Dorn
"You've got to get a certain flick of the wrist about these things, you know," he told her, placing his hand on hers to demonstrate.
"Like this?" asked Belinda, flicking her wrist with youthful abandon.
"Mhm, you got it," said Simon, standing back and blushing slightly.
Aurelia sat on the couch and looked up at the pair from over her parchment, while Alan stood at the doorway feeling, to his surprise, a hint of jealousy.
"Good lord, you don't have to teach the girl how to duel," said Aurelia, writing on the parchment. "It'll only aggravate her."
Belinda looked offended. "Aggravate me? How would it aggravate me?"
Aurelia looked at her now. "It aggravates me, how's that?" she asked in a voice that could be considered a sneer.
The other woman opened her mouth and then closed it again. "Right. No more lessons, then, Simon."
The young man shrugged. "Whatever. I just figured it would be useful to touch up a bit on dueling if we, ten humble werewolves and a pretty damsel, choose to take on Umbridge and her deathly minions on our lonesome. But all right. I'm starving. I'll get us some takeout. Any good places round here, Alan?"
Alan sat down on the couch as well. "There's a Chinese place down the block, how's that?"
"That'll do. You want to come with, Belinda?"
"Um, sure..."
Their voices faded from the hall, and brother and sister were alone, the only sound being the scratching of the quill from Aurelia. Finally, she let out an exclamation of frustration.
"It's useless!"
"What's useless?" he asked her without any real conviction.
"Never mind, I just don't know how to ask it without sounding like we're practically begging him for help."
Normally, Alan would have poked and prodded her about what she was doing, whatever it may be, but today he did not say anything. Aurelia found the lack of argument disconcerting, for she looked over the expression on his face, quite forgetting about her struggles with the phrasing of the letter. "You all right?" she asked. He looked very preoccupied, and, if her eyes weren't deceiving her, a little depressed.
He shrugged. "Guess. Just a little down. We haven't gotten very far on the Butler thing so far, have we? And you still don't want to ask Belinda if she's heard of him."
Aurelia shrugged. "Listen, Alan, we have to be sure we can trust her first."
"Oh, bloody hell, you just don't like her that's all it is, isn't it Aurelia?"
Aurelia's lips formed a perfect straight line on her face. "Maybe, but that doesn't have anything to do with it."
"Yes it does. You don't like her even though she could help us find Remus."
Aurelia's eyes narrowed. "Just what makes you so sure she could?"
"Come off it, Aurelia, she works in the place, there's a good chance she's heard the goings-on and general..."
"General what, Alan?"
"Stuff, that's what. Like the Butler fellow Billings told us about. He's the one Remus saw in the Ministry and in the park both times."
"So?"
"He was with Umbridge both times, wasn't he? Whatever's happening here has got something to do with her, we know that, don't we? And Belinda works at the Ministry, she's got ins, as we say."
"She could just as easy be a plant from Umbridge. We just have to tiptoe around her for a while, that's all I'm saying. And I don't dislike her as much as you think I do. I just...don't like titchy people."
"That's brilliant, coming from you. When are they coming again?"
"20 minutes. Hope Simon and Little Miss Titchy will think to get enough Chinese for everyone."
"Shut up, Aurelia."
Aurelia was being dreadfully unfair to Belinda, Alan thought, who actually had tried to spy a little on Umbridge for the last couple few days at work.
"I tried to sit a few seats closer to her at lunch the other day," she had confided in Alan that morning. "I didn't see anything odd or something cool like that, but still, the thrill was..." she trailed off, seemingly not sure of how to describe it.
"Thrilling?" he had offered.
She had smiled shyly at him. "That's it." Perhaps it was just the darkness of her skin that caused it, but her teeth were incredibly white. She must look in the mirror in the morning and get blinded by those things, Alan had thought. It had been morning and he had invited her for breakfast at the flat (the flat being Remus and Aurelia's, Simon having dubbed "the base of operations"), deciding to explain some things out to her. The things Aurelia hadn't forbidden him to tell, of course. Nothing about the conference with Billings and not too much about what Remus had seen in the park and the Ministry. That would come later. Despite the restrictions on what they could speak of, Alan was determined to have a good conversation with her nonetheless. The first girl to come literally knocking on his door in ages and his sister has to do everything she can to antagonize her. Honestly.
"Do all of the werewolves in Britain live in London?" she has asked suddenly.
"Yes," he told her from the stove, taking out the skillet.
"I thought so," she said, watching him as he cracked three eggs into it, where they floated and sizzled, miniature versions of the sun now rising in the eastern sky.
"Why?"
"The bill. It says you have to. Live in London, I mean."
Alan had nodded gravely. "Yes, but we did even before the D. Umb. Act."
"The--what, sorry?"
He explained the origins of the D. Umb. Act and then decided to tell her exactly the circumstances that had brought the gaggle of werewolves to one particular city. "You see, four years ago some Potions egghead from...I think it was Armenia, funnily enough. At any rate, some Potions guru comes up with this serum that tames the minds of werewolves. It can't stop them from changing altogether, but it makes them keep their own psyche, though I have to admit in my sister's case it's probably up for debate if it makes her much better."
Belinda had grinned only slightly. Aurelia was in the other room constructing letters (she did a lot of that these days), opting out of the meal.
"Anyway, it's a big load off all of us, because I don't know how much you know about werewolves, but without potion, believe me, it's not a picnic for anyone involved. So this potion comes out, but the thing is you need all these incredibly complex ingredients and to add them in just the right order spaced just perfectly apart from each other or you'll keel over right after you drink. Not something to be meddled with lightly, obviously. The Ministry, seeing this as a matter of public safety more than anything else, offers to make it for us. At that same time, incidentally, our father dies. Aurelia and I don't really have anything holding us to the countryside anymore, so we move to London."
"Countryside?"
"We lived on a farm with our parents. When we moved to London, we met the others, the other werewolves, which I found remarkably interesting. I guess I had never really thought of anyone else being like Aurelia and me, I always thought it was our little thing, you know? But then all of a sudden there ten other people were who were exactly like me, which may not seem like a great number to you, but to me it was amazing."
"That's where you met Remus?"
Alan nodded. "Yes. He was always a bit of an odd one, he was very quiet. But very smart. I liked him."
They lapsed into a rather depressing pause, until Alan spoke again.
"I remember, now that I'm thinking about it again, how Remus was so uncomfortable with the whole setup. He didn't like having to depend on the Ministry as much as we had to, and now that I think about it, he was probably right. I mean, look what they turned around and did. Back then all of us lived in London because it was convenient. Now we have to."
Belinda nodded. "Umbridge."
"Not just Umbridge, no," Alan started thoughtfully, starting some coffee now. "It really was more of a whole attitude about us, about werewolves that I just didn't see because I had grown up on a farm my entire life before then. I didn't understand how people felt, but Remus did, so he saw it better than I did. I'd never liked being a werewolf before, but I had never felt ashamed of it, like they expected you to feel. I thought it was just something you couldn't control, like having terrible acne or really ugly hair.
"Or course, then I realized that people can charm away their acne and get potions for their greasy hair. But you can't stop being a werewolf, so I was pretty much screwed for life, as were we all."
"Oh."
He really hadn't meant to talk that much, to sound so self-pitying, because in actuality, he wasn't so. Though, he knew suddenly, he had now probably outlined their situation her with a little too much accuracy. So when she changed the subject he was quite relieved.
"Just how many are there, anyway? Werewolves, I mean."
"Ten," he said, putting the plate of eggs in front of her.
"Ahem."
Alan turned to the doorway with dread. Any attempt at a pleasant conversation with Belinda would be hopeless if his sister was in the room.
"What?" he asked, giving Aurelia a look he hope she would interpret meant he wanted her to be nice or get lost.
"There are eleven werewolves, Alan," she said in a soft voice that surprised him. "You've forgotten Remus."
Alan, nonplussed, stared at her. "R-right. I forgot. Eleven."
"And they're all coming today at five. I've just written all of them. The Manettes wanted to have us all meet at their house, but I told them it's got to be here. And Simon said he'd be here early."
Simon Troubadour was the youngest of all the werewolves (he would be only five years out of Hogwarts had he attended it the full seven years), a rather rogue gentleman, he'd been expelled from most wizarding schools in the English-speaking world for what he described as "repeated infractions," though no one was quite clear what exactly these were. At any rate, he was "always good for a fight," as described by Alan, which made him ideal for what they planned to do (whatever it was they planned to do).
That was how Belinda came to meet every single werewolf in England, save for Remus Lupin, by the time that Saturday was over. After the Callard siblings and Simon Troubadour (who helped her touch up on "the finer points of dueling," as he called them), she met Marie and Maylor Manette, the French married couple, Orion Barclay, another man about Remus and Aurelia's age, and the three Muggle werewolves, Nema Carew, Alex Gold (a younger man who wore a shirt with the word "GREENPEACE" sprawled across it), and delicate little Jamie MacDonald, who looked as if the faintest breeze could knock her over. They all sat around the sofa in the stuffy little flat, eating the Chinese food supplied by Simon and Belinda.
"So, basically, it all centers around Umbridge, is that it?" asked Jamie carefully, trying to grasp the situation as best she could.
"That's it. Whether the Ministry itself is involved any further I couldn't tell you," Aurelia said.
"But these dementor things you brought up...what are they?" asked Alex. He'd spent a great part of his life in the company of wizards, even though he wasn't one, but the only thing he'd really discerned about the dementors was that they scared the crap out of everyone who met them, or
"Prison guards. They...can steal your soul from you, should they wish," said Aurelia rather shakily, and while she didn't want to let on the prospect of it all scared her.
Alan looked ready to say something, but suddenly felt something land on his hand. It was a note deposited on top of his fingers by Belinda, who sat next to him.
"They-they're not going to do that to him?" asked Nema uncertainly.
They're listening, the note read. Don't say anything. Pass it on.
"I don't know," said Aurelia soberly, picking at her egg drop soup. "That's the worst part. I just don't know."
Alan looked at her, bewildered, so he grabbed for the pen she had used.
Who's listening?
The room was silent as Belinda wrote one word.
Butler.
Nodding, Alan managed to insert it on top of Simon's spring roll. Simon stared at it and seemed to take in what it said without much trouble, for he passed it to Jamie, who read it, her brown eyes widening. "How do you know that?" she asked before she could contain herself.
"Know what?" asked Aurelia, who had been staring very hard in front of her trying to keep from showing more emotion than she had to.
Jamie realized her blunder. "N-nothing," and passed the note to her neighbor.
Eventually the hastily written note made its rounds to all eleven people in the room, and none of them could speak. Eventually, Belinda wrote again on her napkin.
He's parked in the car across the street and put a charm on the house so he can hear what we're saying. I saw him do it when we came in but I wasn't sure how to tell you. What should we do?
All of that was written in a hurried hand, and Belinda looked very scared. Alan didn't know what to do, so he passed the note around again.
None of them had spoken for at least a minute now, and Alan supposed if someone was eavesdropping on them he or she was probably suspicious by now from the lack of conversation. Finally, Alan stood up after scribbling another note on the paper.
I'm getting him.
Butler was frustrated, forced to spen time parked in the car across the street again. He had remembered the highly useful Listener's Charm and was now using it to eavesdrop on the werewolves. Their voices floated in his car so he could hear every word. So far he had found they did not know anymore than he thought they did, much to his relief. Then, all of a sudden they had stopped talking much to his chagrin. He shrugged it off and wrote a note to Umbridge detailing to her what he'd heard.
Nothing new here.
Flushed with his victory, he couldn't help but feel a little downhearted when he looked out his window and saw Alan Callard standing there with his wand pointed at his heart. Success, he thought as the red-haired werewolf told him to get out of the car, really was fleeting.
Number 6: What do you want?
Number 2: Information.
Number 6: Whose side are you on?
Number 2: That would be telling. We want information.
Number 6: You won't get it!
Number 2: By hook or by crook...we will.
-The Prisoner
Bridget had refused to tell Remus anything, even after he had grabbed her wrist in the cell, the look in his eyes a hard one, telling her in what she thought must be a very uncharacteristically stern way he wanted information.
Don't we all? she thought ruefully.
She so wanted to tell him, she would have loved to, in fact. She would have loved to tell him in aching detail how exactly she had come to be there, how he had, what was happening to all of them at that moment. She could have told with confidence that once, in her a past life, she had been a maid/nurse. Now she was the maid/nurse, that's what she was on the Hill. That's what he'd made her, and she couldn't very well be anything else, could she? They had made her the maid, and that was what she had to be. Maids don't talk. They serve.
Which was why Remus Lupin received no excess information from his Jailer. His legs grew steadily better, he was almost happy to admit, and by the time he'd been on the Hill a week they were fully cured from their near encounter with being splinched, much to his relief. That did nothing to soothe his dreams, which were growing worse. Before he had felt like had been floating in the darkness listening to a voice whisper indiscernible frightening things into his ear. Now he felt that the voice was almost shouting, yet he still could not hear. He still did not understand their meaning, and it terrified him even more. By the time his legs were cured the dreams had reached such a pitch he was staying up hours and hours into the night, writing into his "memoirs" before drifting off to sleep reluctantly.
The day that Remus Lupin's legs became fully cured was the day he met the Speaker.
A new day had begun.
A/N: Like I said, explanation next chapter. I was trying to create a mood here, at which I probably failed miserably, but oh well. Review, even if you want to tell me how crappy I am. I can take it. I swear.
