Chapter 11: Revelations

He was floating, confused, disoriented. How had he gotten here? Where was here? And why couldn't he breathe?

Underwater, he realized foggily. I'm underwater – I have to get to the surface –

Follow the bubbles. It was what his father had taught him when he was first learning to swim. Bubbles went up. Up meant air.

He exhaled slightly and watched the gleaming spheres move away from him – not the direction he would have thought was up, which was why it was necessary in the first place – he followed them, kicking as hard as he could, pulling with his arms, ignoring his lungs, which were demanding ever more strenuously that he breathe –

His face broke the surface. He gasped in air, getting a bit of water as well. As he spit it out, he noticed it was salty.

Seawater. But it's warm – almost blood heat – I'm not cold at all...

Pushing his hair back from his eyes, he looked around. The ocean lay wide around him, with a blotch of land to his left. He had seen that land before, but always receding in the distance, out of his reach. Now it was within swimming distance, and although a current was carrying him slowly away from it, he thought he might well be able to get there anyway.

Although it was full night, there was plenty of light around – the moon was up, shining brightly over ocean, land, and –

A choked cry pulled his attention farther out to sea. He wasn't alone.

Someone was caught in a much faster current than the one pulling him lazily out to sea – it looked like a riptide – and she obviously didn't have the first idea what to do. As he watched, she went under for a few seconds, before coming up flailing, obviously in distress.

And I'm just sitting here, why?

Thought suited to action, he was swimming towards her as quickly as he could manage, recalling as much of the water safety lessons as he could.

I can't let her just cling to me – she'll push me under and we'll both drown. I have to get her out of the current, though – if I can convince her to swim with me, maybe help me along –

He was in the current now himself, swimming with it, getting closer to her every second –

"Follow me!" he called to her, and saw her head whip around as she oriented on him. "Swim out of it, not against it! Like this!" He stroked perpendicular to the current, and felt a surge of relief as she awkwardly imitated him, swimming in his wake. She was coughing, he noticed worriedly, she must have inhaled some water, but getting out of the current had to take first place right now –

And then they were out, in peaceful water, no longer being carried farther from safety by the second. He swam over to her and supported her in the water with his hands, kicking his feet to remain in place, as she coughed up the last of the water she'd breathed.

"Thanks," she said finally, a bit hoarsely, turning to look at him. Her eyes widened. "Remus?"

"Danger?" Remus felt like a first-class fool for not having recognized her before –

But I was a little busy trying to save her life.

"How did we get here?" asked Danger, frowning at the seascape around them. "The last thing I remember is the Death Eaters and Voldemort."

"We can talk about it when we get to shore," said Remus, paddling slightly farther away from her, now that she seemed to be able to fend for herself. "Do you think you can make it?"

Danger squinted at the island, now farther distant than it had been. "I can try."

They swam with slow, easy strokes, trying to save their strength, but it was a longer way than Remus had thought, and Danger obviously wasn't used to long periods of physical effort. About a quarter of the way there, she had to stop to massage out a cramp in one of her legs, and by the halfway point, her stroke had slowed a lot. Remus slowed down himself, so as not to leave her behind.

What am I going to do if she can't make it?

Just as he thought this, some instinct prompted him to turn.

Danger was gone.

Remus took a deep breath and dove.

She was there, sinking slowly towards the distant bottom. She must have gone under just a few seconds before. Remus grabbed her wrist and towed her upwards, getting her face above the surface as quickly as he could, before she could inhale the water and drown.

But what if she already did?

Panic suffused him for an instant, until he saw her chest rise and fall. She was alive.

He hung there, treading water, and considered his options.

I can let her go and save myself. Or I can try to get her to shore with me, and probably not make it with all the added weight.

Drowning had always been one of his worst fears. He'd feared the water so much as a child that he'd been nine before he learned to swim. He hated the thought of his nose and mouth filling with water, water pressing in all around him, trying to crush him, forcing him to breathe it in and choke and die...

Danger stirred slightly beside him. "Wha'happened?" she mumbled.

"You're overtired," said Remus, making up his mind in an instant. How could I let her die? I'd try to save anyone in this situation, and her of all people... "I'll get us to shore. Just try and hold on."

"A'right."

Remus turned around so that his back was facing her and reached over his shoulder to pull her onto himself piggyback style. No one dies tonight, he vowed silently. Not Danger, not me. We will make it to shore.

It was harder going with a passenger. He had to be careful not to kick her by accident, and to keep making sure she was still on his back – she had drifted into unconsciousness again, so she couldn't hold on herself. After a few minutes, he stopped and pulled off his robes, wrapped the soggy cloth around them both, and tied the sleeves together in front of him. It was better than nothing.

His arms and legs were screaming, his lungs felt as if they were burning, but the shore was closer than it had been, and Danger was counting on him. His world narrowed to the need to swim one more stroke. Just one – one – one – one –

His foot brushed something. Automatically, he looked down.

Sand. The beach. They'd made it.

Blinking back tears, Remus stumbled ashore and fell to his knees, Danger's weight on his back suddenly much greater than it had been in the water. He undid the knot with trembling fingers, and she fell limply to the ground beside him.

We're alive. We made it.

A wave washed up onto the beach, lapping at Danger's feet.

But we have to get above high water mark. Drowning here would be just as bad as drowning out there.

He found some remaining strength, somewhere, to lift Danger into his arms, blessing again whatever deity had decided to make her so small, and after a moment of thought pulled off her Hogwarts robes as well and let them fall. They'd only weigh her down, sodden as they were.

He made his unsteady way up the beach, until he could see by the marks in the sand that they were somewhere the waves never came. Then, and only then, did he carefully lower the girl to the ground, and collapse beside her, utterly spent.

The last thing he saw before his eyes closed was a peaceful face framed by frizzy brown hair, and the last thing he remembered thinking was what a nice sight it was to go to sleep to...

Danger roused with a convulsive gasp, flailing her arms wildly, trying to get to the surface. Then she felt stupid as she realized she was on land.

But how...

Someone sighed next to her. She turned.

Beside her, on the sand, Remus Lupin lay asleep. He slept on his side, she noticed, curled up. The moonlight sparked off the one or two gray hairs on his head and washed all the color from his face. He looked like a movie star in a black-and-white film.

"I don't think I ever told you this," she said quietly, so as not to wake him. "Well, I know I never told you this. But I always thought you were the handsomest man I'd ever seen. Lily and Letha can talk all they want about James and Sirius – those two know they're good-looking, and to be honest, that takes half the shine off them. But you're modest to a fault, and that really enhances your charm. You have no idea what those eyes of yours have done to the witches in my year." She chuckled. "Or what they would have done, if I wasn't around and letting everyone know that you're mine."

It felt good to be saying these things. To finally be able to let it out. "I love you, you know. I think I have, at least a little, since the first time I ever saw you. When Letha pointed you out to me as 'the only one of those boys with anything resembling sense, or manners'. I teased her a little, when she started dating Sirius, about going out with a senseless, mannerless lout."

She shifted her position, looking up at the star-filled sky. "So I've been in love with you from the start. Finding out your secret... that took a little longer. Just knowing you had a secret, well, everyone in the school knew that. And I thought you were entitled to your privacy. So I spread it around that your mum was ill – if you wanted people to think that, I wanted to help you." She looked over at him again. "I've always wanted to help you."

Half of her wished his eyes would open and look at her, that he would repeat what he had said to her in the Death Eaters' lair – and how had they gotten from there to here, anyway? – but her other half was just as happy with him asleep. She'd have to tell him everything at some point; this could be considered a sort of practice run.

"I figured it out when Peter brought me that piece of the Animagus spell," she said finally. "I put that together with your disappearance at full moons and the way you looked after, and with the way you always looked mysterious and knowing when people would talk about the Shrieking Shack and the Whomping Willow, and a million other little things, and got my working hypothesis – Remus Lupin is a werewolf. Then I had to test it. So I went to your house over summer hols, the day after full moon."

She grinned. "I can't believe you never twigged that I always visited you the day after your transformations. I was thinking of coming a few other times, so as not to make it too obvious, but I don't think you ever caught on. You just thought... well, I don't know what you thought. I almost never know what you're thinking. You get your polite mask on, and the world passes by you without noticing that it's a mask. But I don't want to see the mask anymore. I want to see you, Remus. I want to see the real you."

She rolled over, stretching her legs out. "Once I knew, of course, I had to do something about it. I'd figured out by then that the other boys had become Animagi so they could be with you on your transformation nights. I decided I should do the same. I knew that had to be why you wouldn't kiss me at the Shack – or why you wouldn't kiss me more than twice, I ought to say. We did have those two. And they were wonderful." She sighed blissfully. "I've dreamed of that day so often. Sometimes I wish I had just told you that I knew right then. But then you might never have trusted me. And I do want your trust."

Something came to her, a hurt that wasn't yet healed. "And I want to know what's the big idea with standing me up before exams. I waited two hours in that classroom, and you never showed up. I wanted to see you so much – even though I know it didn't look like it, the way I'd been avoiding you for months..."

She felt her face heat up. This was one of the trickiest topics for her. "I have been avoiding you, Remus. But not because I don't like you. It's the other way around – I like you almost too much. I'd read that becoming an Animagus would have an effect on me, but I never expected this. That night in the Forest – when I howled, and you came – the wolf side of me fell so completely for the wolf side of you that I had to fight it tooth and nail to keep myself from doing totally unmentionable things with you. I still want to, even in human form. That's why I've been avoiding you – so I don't jump on you in public..."

Her face felt like it was afire. Thank God he's asleep. I don't think I'll ever tell him this when he's awake...

"Yes, I was the wolf in the Forest. That's my Animagus form. That's why I was telling you not to worry about hurting me – I can change as easily as Sirius or James can now. That's why I was always hanging around with Samuel Bevington – he was helping me do the partial transfigurations." She blushed again. "And, I suppose, I was partly doing it to make you jealous. I was always kind of hoping you'd come storming in and claim me as your own, instead of being so damned nice all the time!"

She sighed. "And now I've gotten off track. Where was I? Oh, yes, Animagus. I needed help to make the potion, so I went to the best. Severus Snape. He doesn't care for Muggleborns, or Gryffindors, or the Marauders. But I used a little flattery and a little bribery – offered to help him learn to be an Animagus himself – and he went for it. That was where I had to go, that day you were going to tell me something, he'd come to tell me the potion was ready. You know, if he'd just thought, he could have changed forms that night at the Willow." She frowned. "Or maybe he couldn't have – I know I wasn't reliably able to change until at least a week after that..."

She shivered a little. The night was getting chilly. "I hope you know why I was so mad at you, that day you didn't do anything while James and Sirius cursed Snape," she murmured, looking around for her missing robes. "It was because I wanted to believe that you were better than that. That you were perfect. And I was blisteringly angry that you weren't. But I hope I made it up to you, at least in part. I did my best to make sure you'd have at least some company over the summer, and I stopped in to see you after your next transformation – you wouldn't wake up, they said, but you looked pretty up to me at dinner that night."

Her robes were nowhere to be seen. But there was a much closer source of warmth. And it would entail doing something she'd always wanted to do...

Gently, she lifted his limp right arm and lay down beside him, in the curve of his chest. "I fit here awfully nicely," she murmured sleepily. "Almost like I belong here. Wish I did."

Her eyelids were getting heavy, the beach was starting to tilt and the stars to whirl overhead...

"Thanks for saving my life," she whispered.

Guiltily, Remus opened his eyes and looked down at the mass of brown hair nestled against his chest.

I suppose I should have told her I was awake...

But when he had heard her say that she considered him the handsomest man she knew, disbelief had held him frozen in his posture of sleep, and before he could find the words to announce himself, she had moved on, into things even more surprising than the first.

What she had said made sense, a lot of sense. It made sense out of a few things that had never made any sense to him before. Like that morning shortly after his O.W.L.s, after a rough transformation, when he hadn't wanted to wake up – it had been Danger's voice that had called him back to life. Just as it had been her howl that had called him away from Regulus Black.

But the most incredible thing of all, she'd said over and over again, never quite in the same way twice, but unmistakable.

"I've always wanted to help you..."

"I want to see the real you..."

"I do want your trust..."

And she knows about me. She's always known.

And she became an Animagus, spent all that time, all that effort, just for me.

He blushed himself, thinking of what she'd said about the time they'd spent together in the Forest.

I suppose werewolves can have that kind of desire after all – it just depends on who they're looking at...

There was only one conclusion he could draw from everything she'd said. And it was as wonderful as it was astonishing.

She loves me.

She's loved me ever since we met.

Just like I have her.

Danger sighed a little and pressed herself closer to him. Remus felt his face heating up in a blush – and it wasn't the only part of him that was...

"My turn to be glad you're asleep," he whispered to her. "I have a few things to tell you too. Like what I wish our lives could be like, now that I know you love me, and now that I know you could be safe from me."

He looked around at the beach where they lay, with the trees farther inland and the ocean on the horizon. "This place seems hospitable enough. I think it's an island, far out in the ocean, somewhere tropical. In the morning, we can go exploring together and find out. If it is an island, it's probably uninhabited. So we'll have it all to ourselves."

He began to warm up to his theme. "We'll build a house. Just big enough for two – there won't be any more, but I'm sure you knew that. We'll find some way to cope. We can hunt for food and plant a garden, and every night we'll watch the stars and make a wish on the shooting ones. Except full moons. We can go running together then, and howl all night if we like."

He looked down at himself, at his ripped T-shirt and faded pants. "Our clothes will wear out, but I'm sure you can make us more. I'll help, if you'll teach me how. And I'll teach you how to make music with whatever we can find or make. But none of that really matters. What matters is that we'll be together for the rest of our lives."

His eyes were closed, so that he could better see that blissful, impossible future...

"Would this be a bad time to tell you I'm awake?" said a small, wistful voice.

Remus stiffened for an instant. "Yes. Probably."

"All right. I won't tell you, then."

"Fine with me."

He felt Danger shaking with what he guessed was suppressed laughter. Experimentally, he chuckled slightly himself, and was rewarded with her infectious giggle. In a few moments, they were both laughing helplessly. The situation was just too funny – both of them telling all their secrets, each thinking the other was asleep.

"You're welcome," said Remus when he got his breath back. "For saving your life."

Danger nodded. She had rolled over so that she was now facing him, but she was still lying very close to him indeed, eyes turned up to his face, lips slightly parted in what Remus could only assume was an invitation.

He took it, bending his head down and pressing his lips to hers. She responded immediately, eagerly, and Remus felt a great rush of desire washing over him, threatening to sweep him away. It was an utterly glorious feeling, and he pulled away a few moments later with an effort.

"Mine," he said with an affectionate growl in his tone, running his hands through her hair. "All mine."

"Mine, and I'm not sharing," Danger chanted, sliding an arm around his neck. "Mine, mine, mine..." Her teeth flashed in the moonlight as she laughed for joy.

Wait a second.

Remus looked up at the moon. It was round and beautiful, hanging in the sky – perfectly round. Full.

"This doesn't make any sense," he said, carefully disentangling himself from Danger. "That's a full moon. I shouldn't be like this – I should be the wolf."

"And that leads back to my question, I suppose." Danger sat up, looking around her. "Where are we, and how did we get here?"

Remus followed her gaze, until his eyes rested on one of the mountains the moonlight was touching with silver. It was a double peak, unusual, distinctive.

And I've seen it before...

"I've been here before," he murmured, then frowned. "No, that's not right. I've never been here before. I've... seen this place before. But I've never been here."

"Here as in all of here, or here as in the island?"

"The island. I've seen the island, but I've never been on it before..."

And then suddenly he knew.

"I've dreamed of this," he said, standing up and looking out to sea. "I've dreamed of being in that ocean. But there was always a strong current carrying me away from shore, and I could never get here. I would fight it as long as I could, but there were rocks, and the waves were huge. They'd throw me around like a toy – most nights, I nearly drowned before I could wake up."

"Was this every night?" Danger's eyes were sympathetic.

"No, not every night, not even close. It was full moons, transformations–" Remus' eyes widened as the answer hit him. "Got it!"

"What?"

"I know what happened to us! We haven't gone anywhere – we're still exactly where we were!"

"We're on a beach," said Danger patiently. "There weren't any beaches in that house."

"No, we're not on a beach. Not really." Remus looked up at the sky. "I want it to be daylight," he said.

And it was.

Danger shielded her eyes with a hand, staring at him. "How did you do that?"

"This isn't real. We're inside my mind. Sharing a dream. That spell Voldemort hit me with must have done it – you jumped onto me just before it hit, it must have affected you too..." Remus trailed off.

That spell was supposed to lock me into my wolf form. Forever.

What if it's done the same to her?

"You shouldn't have done that," he said, suddenly horribly frightened for her, looking down at her where she sat, knees pulled up to her chest, looking rather younger than sixteen. "Why did you?"

"Try to knock you out of the way?" Danger gave him what could only be called the Look of Doom. "Let's see here. I have two choices. Stand still and do nothing while the only boy I've ever cared about, the one who not five minutes ago told me he loves me, gets changed into a savage animal forever and ever. Or try to do something to save him. If it had been the other way around, with me about to be transformed, what would you have done?"

Remus sighed in frustration. "You're right," he admitted. "I would have done the same. But I still say you shouldn't have."

"And I still say I did and it's done, so no use arguing about it now." Danger got to her feet. "So. This place is a dream. Is there a way to get back to the real world from here?"

"Wake up, obviously," said Remus. "But I don't know how."

Danger rubbed the knuckle of her thumb across her lips. "You've dreamed of this place before. Of being pulled out to sea, thrown against rocks. Are you afraid of the water at all?"

"Yes," Remus admitted. "Of drowning, very much."

"So this island would mean safety to you. A place you'd want to reach. Possibly... humanity? With the sea as your werewolf side, the part of you that you can't control?"

"That makes a lot of sense."

"Which means, if we're looking for a way back to our human selves, we should go inland," concluded Danger.

They both turned to look at the interior of the island. It was covered with what looked like thick jungle.

Remus looked back at Danger. "Up for some bushwhacking?"

"Oh, why not."

A little mental effort on his part gave them both more suitable clothes for the occasion, and tools to cut through the thick vegetation.

If I'd only known it was a dream, I could just have willed us both to shore...

But he wouldn't really have wanted to, Remus realized. Not if he'd known what their exhaustion would bring about.

If I'd taken us straight to shore, we probably would have been all stiff and formal and never gotten anywhere. As it is...

As it was, they were moving through the jungle together, now one in the lead, now the other, taking turns and changing places without really ever saying anything about it. It was just happening as it needed to.

Remus had heard Sirius talk about playing Quidditch with Aletha, and how the two of them sometimes seemed to be almost extensions of one person, that they could sense where the other one was. He had always thought Sirius was making it up. Until now.

Aletha's his partner. Not just in Quidditch, in life. They know each other well enough to predict one another's moves and be where they need to be to back each other up.

I never thought that would happen to me.

But it had, and Sirius was right. It was a marvelous feeling.

I'm not alone any more.

He looked over his shoulder at Danger, who had stopped to sniff a flower on one of the trees.

I never have to be alone again.

The trek through the jungle seemed to take no time at all. Within a few minutes, they were walking up the slopes of the double-peaked mountain, which seemed to sit at the center of the island. The dark opening of a cave came into sight, and hand in hand they entered it, walking towards the back, where a red light flickered from the floor.

They stood at the edge of a small lake of lava. It looked boiling hot, but Remus felt no fear. If this island represented him and his mind, then this lava was the center of his being, everything he most centrally was.

"This is it?" asked Danger quietly.

"This is it," confirmed Remus. "I think we have to jump. I'll go first – don't come until I make sure it's safe."

"I won't." Danger leaned her head back and kissed him on the cheek. "Good luck."

"Thanks." Remus released her hand, took one step forward, and leaped into the lava.

He sank into it quickly, deeper and deeper – he felt no need to breathe, no undue heat, nothing was wrong – everything was going dark, twisting around him, but it didn't hurt –

And he was looking at the dimly lit room where he had been before he was underwater, walls of sickly colorless energy around him, white Death Eater masks all pointing at him, as if they were staring.

What're you looking at?

Wait – it worked!

Good, he heard Danger's voice call from inside his mind. Here I come. CANNONBALLLLLL!

Remus snickered, and jumped a little at the odd sound of it. Almost like a bark...

Come to think – those shields weren't colorless at all. They were green. And the light was red. Why can't I see that?

He looked down at his hands.

Which were not hands.

Holy – I'm in wolf form!

But I'm thinking. I'm reasoning. I have a human mind. A human mind – in a wolf's body –

Is that because Danger disrupted the spell? It was intended for one person, but it hit two – so maybe it's locked us into wolf bodies, but left us human minds...

I could think of worse things.

But I could think of a lot better ones too.

His side, which had been comfortably warm, was now cooling off. He looked down and realized why. The female wolf he'd met in the Forest – Danger – was uncurling from her position wrapped around him. She sniffed the air in the room and sneezed.

Gesundheit.

Thank you.

It was her voice. In his mind, not his ears, but her voice.

She whirled and stared at him, ears laid back. Was that you?

Yes, I think so.

Where did this come from?

Left over from sharing the dream, perhaps? I like it, however we got it. Usually I can't get anything across when I'm transformed.

Usually you don't have anything to get across when you're transformed. Except "hunt, fight, kill", etc, etc.

Good point.

Danger rubbed up against him lovingly. Has anyone ever told you you're an extremely handsome wolf?

Has anyone ever told you you're beautiful when you're lupine?

She giggled. No.

Then you're well past due. Remus nuzzled her, enjoying the clean, crisp scent of her fur.

"What should we do, Master?" asked a woman's voice nearby.

Bellatrix. Remus growled at her shape, visible through the pulsating shields. Nasty little sack of dung.

"We should wait for Regulus to return with his brother," said Voldemort in a tone of complete reason. "He knows more about these creatures than we do. He will be able to advise us."

Wait a second. Danger's tail, which had been waving gaily, faltered. Sirius wouldn't go down the hall with Regulus, much less come someplace like this with him... unless...

Unless we weren't the only ones taken, Remus finished for her, grimly. And if Sirius was captured, it's almost a sure bet that either Aletha or James was too. Neither of them would let Sirius go without a fight. Peter might have something to say about it too, come to think.

I think I have a way to find out. Danger sat down and lifted her nose into the air. I've been prowling the dorm late at night, and I think I have just about all our scents sorted out... let me see if I can pick anyone up...

And this is highly embarrassing to admit, but I don't think I can help you. I'm not even sure I can walk in this form. Remus looked doubtfully at his paws. I mean, I've been a wolf dozens, maybe a hundred times, but I've never been conscious of it. Not really, like I am now.

It's not too hard, said Danger absently. You just have to let instinct handle it... ah-ha!

Ah-ha what?

Got one. Evanie. She's distinctive, being a female werewolf. And – yes, I thought so, there's Wormtail's along with hers... and yes, Sirius, and Letha too... and James, and Lily...

Good God, they took us all? Why?

Search me. Oh, and one other thing. These scents are fresh, and close. They can't be more than a hundred yards away right now...

"Master!" Regulus Black came hurtling into the room. "Master, I arrived at the room where my traitor brother and his Mudblood were – but they were gone! They've escaped!"

YES!

Thank God.

Danger's mouth opened in a wolf-grin. Remus' tail thumped the floor.

One of the Death Eaters turned to stare at them.

(A/N: Ain't I a stinker, writing up to a climax like this and leaving it there? Will Remus and Danger ever regain human form? Will the other Marauders and Company be able to save them? Will Dumbledore and Snape and the rescue party arrive in time? What do you think about bug bites? Would you like me to have another chapter up tomorrow? Will you review and make me happy so that happens?)