The Songbird and the Serpent
Part II: The Wolf Discovered
Lupin's second year at Hogwart's...
Chapter 4
The next few weeks were quite lonely for Remus. His friends spent every spare moment they had in detention, and he was forced to spend every moment of his with the girls. They weren't terrible company most of the time, but he did find that much of the conversation went over his head. Plus, he got sick to death of hearing how much everyone fancied Sirius. Apart from Lily, who seemed to have more sense.
"But he's so nasty to you! How could you possibly like someone that acts that way?" Lily asked, and the others replied with rolling eyes.
"Because he's gorgeous, Lily! Besides, I'm sure he's not all bad, once you get to know him." Said Mau.
"I wouldn't bet on that..." Remus muttered, and Lily grinned.
"You're too good for them, Remus." She said, which momentarily froze him. Then he regained composure and shrugged casually.
"More like the other way around...even Peter's more popular than I am..."
"Yeah, well...popularity isn't everything. You're a better person than they are." She reassured him, and Remus felt himself growing very red.
The topic was soon changed, much to his relief, and he decided that he should probably try and spend more time alone.
The following afternoon Remus wandered down to the lakeside in search of peace and solitude, away from Sirius-worship and homework and the snide comments of Slytherin upperclassmen. He smiled as he surveyed the area and discovered there wasn't another soul in sight. It was a rather chilly spring day, and everyone else seemed inclined to stay indoors.
Remus took a seat by a large oak tree and read. He'd always loved to read, but since starting school he didn't seem to have as much time for it; he was always either reading for classes, doing homework, or getting up to mischief with his friends. Now that said friends were sequestered in detention, he decided he might as well take the chance to get back into some of his favourite books.
He was deeply absorbed in one of them when a strange noise broke his concentration. He glanced up, noting that it had grown quite dark all of a sudden (or had he been here longer than he thought?), and looked around for the source of the sound. The second he began to think his mind had been playing tricks on him, there it was again. Coming from the lake. Probably just the squid, he though to himself, but as he stared out at the expanse of dark, still water he saw something. Something that definitely was not a squid. In fact, it looked more like a very pale young woman, swimming about two dozen feet from the lake shore.
"Er...hello?" He called out, but she didn't answer. A strange fear swept over him as he looked at her. She almost seemed to smile, and a slender white hand breached the surface of the water and beckoned to him, and he found himself drawn to the woman despite his fear of her.
He took a few steps towards the lake, stopping momentarily only when he heard a strange, airy voice call his name. It sounded like a breath carried on the wind, and he wondered if he'd imagined it. The logical side of his brain kept screaming at him to run back towards Hogwart's, but he couldn't make himself move, except towards the pale woman in the lake.
He was now knee-deep in the water, and could see that the woman was indeed smiling, though in a sad sort of way, and her eyes shone with a strange green fire. She began to drift slowly towards him, arms outstretched. He felt an intense urge to embrace her, and reached out, but a hand grabbed his shoulder and yanked him backwards, and in a flash she was gone.
He was dragged out of the water and thrown to the ground, looking up to see a tall figure standing between him and the lake, looking out towards the horizon. Then the figure turned, and Remus realised it was Professor Tsepesh.
"Are you alright?" He asked, and Remus nodded. The events of the last few minutes were growing dim in his mind, like a dream. He saw his book lying on the ground nearby, as if it had been dropped or thrown there. Had he done that? Tsepesh helped him up, and retrieved the book.
"You dropped this, I think...It didn't touch you, did it?"
"What, the book?" Remus asked, confused.
"No, no...the, uh, woman...out there."
"Oh...no, she didn't. Why'd you call her and 'it'? What does it matter if I touched her anyway...I wanted to."
"I know...but be glad you didn't." Tsepesh replied, placing a bony hand on Remus's shoulder. He shuddered slightly at the man's touch, but couldn't really pinpoint why.
"Was that a mermaid?" He asked, brushing lake weeds from his soggy trousers. The professor released his shoulder and shook his head.
"No...there are mermaids in the lake, but that was definitely not one of them."
"How can you tell?"
"If you'd ever seen a real mermaid, you would know. They aren't nearly so attractive as that." Tsepesh replied with a cold smile, wrapping his large cloak around Remus's shoulders.
"Thank you, Sir...but if it wasn't a mermaid, then what was it?"
"A rusalka, Remus...and one of the many reasons we don't like you children to be out after dark." the tall man replied, motioning for Remus to follow him back towards the castle.
"Is she dangerous, then?" Remus asked, and Tsepesh stopped and turned with an impatient sigh.
"Yes...well, to the male gender at least."
"Why only to boys?"
"Rusalki are the spirits of murdered women. They exist solely to lure young men into the water and drown them, in order to avenge their own deaths at the hands of those they loved."
"They were killed by people they loved?"
"Yes..."
"That's awful...do all women that die like that become...er..."
"Rusalki, Remus...and no. And before you ask, no, nobody knows why it occurs in some cases and not in others. Look, it's late, and I must get you back to the castle. No more questions!" Tsepesh said, his voice stern. He held up the book he was holding, the one that Remus had dropped. "Greek mythology?" He asked, returning the book to Remus, who shrugged.
"Yeah...my parents would read it to me at night sometimes..." Remus said absently.
"Ah..." Tsepesh said, noticing Remus's distant expression. "Is something on your mind? You seem troubled."
"I just...well, I can't help but wonder who she was. I mean, whatever happened to her must have happened nearby, don't you think?"
"Don't trouble yourself with it...this is a very old school, and we've had a great many tragedies occur here over the centuries. It would be almost impossible to pinpoint this particular one in the records."
"But isn't there something that someone could do to help her?"
"There are a few stories concerning the dispelling of rusalki spirits...but they are only stories. Don't think people haven't tried. She's been here for a long time, and caused quite a few tragedies of her own. It's really best to forget about it, Remus."
"Oh..."
"I mean it...I know what you and those friends of yours are like. If I, or anyone else for that matter, catch any of you out here after dark again, it will not be taken lightly. Because of what you've been through tonight, I'm not going to punish you this time. Don't make me regret that decision." Tsepesh said as they approached the castle doors.
The entry hall was empty and quiet, what with everyone else having been sent to their respective quarters for the evening. They stopped by the stairs.
"Thank you, Sir...I know I don't deserve it. I suppose I would've been drowned if you hadn't shown up...I don't know what to say..." Remus said shakily, the full seriousness of the night's events having finally hit him.
"Goodnight Remus. You may keep the cloak for now. Return it to me later...and be sure to clean it first." Tsepesh said, turning on his heel and sweeping down the dungeon stairs before Remus got the chance to say anything more.
He made his way up to his room, finding his friends fast asleep already, worn out from their day of hard physical labour with Hagrid. Remus was glad of it, feeling quite shaken at having come so close to death. The last thing he needed was James and Sirius making jokes at his expense. So he crawled into his bed, still wrapped in the potion master's cloak, and fell into a troubled sleep.
For once, his dreams were free of werewolf attacks. Instead, he was haunted by visions of the woman in the lake. He felt a terrible longing to see her again; an intense desire to run out into the water and into her arms. She beckoned to him, even spoke to him in that breathy, breezy voice.
Come back to me, Remus.
But, who are you? He replied. Her pale face darkened, and her expression grew sad. She didn't reply. Instead, Remus fell off of his bed and woke with a start, tangled in the borrowed cloak.
The sound of his body hitting the floor woke Sirius, and the sound of Sirius shouting curses at the top of his lungs soon woke the others. Remus freed himself from the cloak and stood up so fast that he almost blacked out from the rush. Sirius finally ceased yelling obscenities and looked around, a spectacle-free James squinted in the early morning light, and Peter gaped around the room, utterly confused.
"What the hell is going on?" Sirius asked the room, and Peter shrugged. James put his glasses on.
"Remus, was that you?" James asked, and Remus nodded.
"Yeah, sorry...didn't mean to wake you all up. I fell."
"Oh...bloody hell, Sirius...the way you were shrieking you'd think someone had been trying to kill you or something." James said, and Sirius frowned, then turned to Remus.
"Where were you last night, anyway?"
"I was outside reading and lost track of time a bit..."
"Reading! You couldn't think of anything better to do than that?" Sirius teased. Remus ignored him.
"Remus, did you know you slept in your clothes?" Peter asked, "...are your trousers wet?"
"Was the book really that good?" Sirius laughed.
"Shut up, Sirius...I didn't piss myself. I was in the lake."
"You were reading...in the lake?" James asked, and Remus sighed.
"No! I was reading...it got dark...and then I saw this...uh...no, I'm not telling you. You'll all laugh at me."
"What? ME? Laugh at you? Never!" Sirius shouted in a sarcastic tone. "But seriously...what happened? You can't start a sentence like that and not finish it. I promise I won't laugh." Remus looked doubtful. Peter got out of bed and wandered over to where Remus was standing.
"Okay...well, I saw this woman in the lake...she was sort of...glowing, and as soon as I looked at her it was like I was hynotised or something. I started walking out into the lake..."
"Hey, not to interrupt or anything, but whose is this?" Peter asked, holding up the cloak. James and Sirius shot him deadly looks, to which his cheeks quickly flushed an almost purple colour.
"I was just getting to that, if you could have waited about two seconds...right before I was close enough to touch her, Professor Tsepesh grabbed me and dragged me out of the water. That's his cloak...he lent it to me." Remus continued. James was grinning.
"You saw the rusalka! My parents told me about it...someone in their year was killed by it, I thinkā¦"
"Tsepesh...the potions professor? He saved you?" Sirius asked, and Remus nodded.
"I always thought of him as someone who'd be more likely to kill somebody, not save them..." Peter added, half-joking.
"What was he doing out there at night, anyway?" Sirius said, and Remus shrugged.
"Doesn't really matter. I'm just glad he was...anyway, he's sort of nice...behind all that scaryness. He didn't even punish me for being out so late."
"Really? No fair! We're all stuck in detention for reading a few restricted books...and you go out and almost get yourself killed and nothing?" James shouted in mostly mock anger.
"Hey...what's a rusalka, anyway?" Peter asked, and James explained it to him impatiently. Remus noticed, by the look of disguised interest on Sirius's face as James gave his explanation, that he obviously hadn't known what it was either; but was doing his best to pretend he did, so as not to seem inferior to Peter.
"...and they'll try and drown anyone that comes near them because of it." James finished his lecture on the origins and habits of rusalki, and there was a moment of silence. It suddenly became very apparent just how early in the morning it was, and Remus became very aware of just how uncomfortable his wet clothes were.
"Well, I dunno about the rest of you, but as interesting and exciting as this all is, and since you're obviously not drowned and everyone's okay...I'm going back to bed. Five o'clock in the morning is way too early to be awake." James said, removing his glasses and crawling back under his sheets. Peter seemed to agree, and returned to his own bed. Sirius was still sitting up in his, staring blankly into space.
"Well...I think I'll have a bath first...I'm still covered in lake water..." Remus said, gathering up his bathing things and some pyjamas. He got a pillow-muffled reply from James, a snore from Peter, and an odd sort of hand gesture from a very zombie-like Sirius as he left the room.
