Updated: Saturday 12 February 2005
Disclaimer: See Chapter One
Black Light
By Dante Lewis
Chapter Twenty Three: Fateful Night
Severus shivered. The moon had risen. All of the Hogwarts staff had returned to the Castle to see to their students and have a late dinner. How anyone could eat at a time like this was beyond the man. He could not believe how nonchalant they were being about his niece's disappearance. Most seemed to think she ran away, or that she had the miraculous foresight to find adequate shelter for the night. 'Right', Severus snorted to himself. 'If the child was so insightful, how come she didn't find her way home?'
His legs unwittingly leading him towards the Shrieking Shack, Severus sucked in a breath. In the distance, he could hear the call of the werewolf warded within its walls. Memories of events years previously flooded the forefront of his mind, sending shivers down his spine. As he got closer to the boundary fences of the property he could feel the anti-wizard wards propel him away, and he wasn't about to argue with them. The Shrieking Shack was the last place he wanted to be… and it was the last place Estella would be if the wards were any indicator.
Fatefully turning away from the shack before him, Severus headed back down the road to continue his search. Had he stayed just a moment or two longer, he would have most certainly have heard a terrified child's scream.
Estella turned on her heels and ran. Out the door and down the stairs she stumbled, the darkness of the house enveloping her once more. Disorientated amidst her panic and the cold black stillness of the air around her, Estella ran through the house listlessly, unable to find her bearings. Stumbling unceremoniously into a furry, tattered wall tapestry, Estella screamed, initially thinking she had run into the stalking wolf. Drawing ragged breaths to calm herself, Estella clung to the warmth of the material, seeking comfort and refuge.
Choking down a sob, Estella held her breath in anticipation, desperately trying to discern the werewolf's location from the sounds around her. To her horror, identifiable amongst the subtle creaking and groaning of the old house was the terrifyingly close panting of something no longer human.
It was Moony.
In Azkaban, a dog stirred in his sleep, unbeknownst to the terrors his loved ones were tangled up in at that very moment. For time itself was irrelevant to the occupants of Azkaban prison. Cold, hungry and wrought with emotional tortures, it was not unheard of to lose consciousness for days at a time… or to fall into a lucid nightmare that never ended.
Dreaming whenever the Dementors were near always spelt bad news, and yet sleep was always inevitable. Tonight was the full moon, and like he often did, he dreamt about the nights James and he would accompany Remus to the Shrieking Shack in their animagus forms to keep him company while he transformed. Only problem was, tonight Prongs was not there, and Sirius was not there as Padfoot. He was human. He had no wand, and Moony had him backed into a corner.
"Moony, no!" Sirius silently screamed, his unconscious mind not recognising the canine state he was physically in. "Don't attack! They'll kill you! You don't want to do this!"
He stumbled in his dream, struggling to find his way in the dark. It was all so real, his mind thought as his canine sharpened senses could actually smell the dust, fear and blood. Backing into a wall, the Sirius in the dream screamed.
'That's not me!' Sirius realised incredulously. His scream would never be so high pitched – and he would know, he'd screamed a lot of late.
It was with abstract trepidation that he assumed that his dream must be based on the (very) deeply buried guilt that he felt when he sent Severus to the Shrieking Shack on the night of a full moon in their fifth year. Either his mind was recreating the fear he had inflicted unto his brother-in-law, or the greasy git himself was casting a memory charm on him from afar after having made some voodoo potion with his blasted chemistry set.
'Must be my birthday or something…' A long-absent lucid thought sarcastically bit at his subconscious.
Yet despite his being able to somewhat observe the dream from a third person perspective, he still felt like he was the one being hunted. That he was the one in imminent danger.
'Relax!' He tried to soothe the escalating panic in his mind, trying to convince himself. 'This is just Snivellus' memory. Any minute Prongs will appear and come to the rescue.'
Turning away from the werewolf nonchalantly, he found himself watching the trapdoor he knew was there through the darkness, waiting for the rest of the historical event to play itself out. Only thing was, no one came through the trapdoor; and behind him, the werewolf attacked.
Sirius let out a blood curdling scream and woke up, cold and disorientated in his inexplicably (now) human form.
It was in the small hours before dawn that Severus forced himself to return to the castle in defeat, clinging to the desperate hope that his niece had somehow returned in his absence. Making his way back into his undeniably empty dungeon quarters, Severus inexplicably found himself in Estella's dark and empty room, as though the walls that formed her own little haven would provide him with the answers he was seeking. Letting his weight fall onto her small bed, Severus acknowledged the exhaustion that wracked his very core. Promising himself that he would just rest for an hour – and that the rest, and the subsequent onset of dawn would present much more favourable conditions in which to make his search all the more efficient – Severus dissolved himself, fully clothed, into his niece's bedclothes; subconsciously finding comfort in her lingering scent.
Later, as the beginnings of dawn peaked over the horizon a broken wreck of a man awoke from his monthly nightmare. Awoke with splinters under his butchered nails and suffocated by the undeniable scent of fear and bloodshed in his nostrils.
All that Remus could remember of the night that had just passed was the moments before his transformation. The evening had started like none other – Severus had him dosed up on some new concoction he was experimenting with, and he had whittled the day away in his 'bedroom' in the warded shack, nervously awaiting the onset of the full moon. That was, until, his whole world was turned upside down by the last minute arrival of his most beloved goddaughter.
"Oh God!" Remus cried, "Estella!"
End Chapter Twenty Three: Fateful Night