Gwen finally drifted into a deep sleep sometime around midnight but even with sleep she couldn't quite fall completely asleep. Dreams and images swam around her until they began to come closer and closer, closing in on her and slowly but surely drowning her. She screamed to herself but no one heard and then she sunk into the dreams. Into the memories…
Some of them hers, some not…
Gwen found herself seated in a large menacing house with dark and dreary walls covered in massive portraits… Walking along she found herself face to face with some very hideous looking people then she heard a sound and followed it. Seated in a small room was a little boy. He was crying and Gwen moved closer to comfort him.
His hair was the color of midnight and draped messily around his face then he turned and looked to the door and she looked into two large, innocent silver grey eyes. Sirius… Gwen raced towards him but just before she reached him he disappeared in a puff of smoke and the room started spinning. A blood-curdling scream filled her ears and she kneeled down holding her head because it felt as if it would break open at any moment.
Shame of my flesh…
Blood traitor…
Abomination… begone…begone…
Then the screams changed. They were a young man's and they cried for help…Stop him before he hurts someone… Stop him…
Suddenly the world stopped spinning and she found herself in the inside of an old creaking shack. The wind blew through the holes as the shack shivered and shook around her. Then suddenly light peaked through a boarded up window and pain laced through her insides.
The transformation began and suddenly she wasn't human. A nose grew… claws, teeth, fur… she fell forward on her hands and feet… no paws. The moon… blood… must have blood. A howl split from her throat and then things changed.
Remus no!
Go back, Remy!
She was a little boy who heard a bullet and raced through the foliage of the forest around him. And there over his father's body stood a great wolf with huge paws and massive jaws… Then his yellow eyes came to him.
She ran… but it was too late. The wolf attacked and pain laced through Gwen starting at her upper arm. Screaming filled her head again. The screams of a little boy. Screams from herself, the woman… then they changed… Screams of…fans… a giddy feeling replaced the fear and Gwen opened her eyes to see the Quidditch field far below her feet.
She was flying over the Quidditch field! She raced after the glint of gold and dived down after it grabbing it up with ease and then turning to the crowd and grinning at Lily…
Then she fell… farther and farther. Suddenly she was sitting in her new room on Privet Drive feeling dreary when she saw a group through the window. Then she smiled and raced down the stairs in time to meet Remus, James, Sirius and Lily. They smiled and waved at her and she followed.
But a sudden thing made her stop and she fell to the ground and felt the tears coming to her. She was sitting on the old rug in the living room of her family's cottage crying her seven-year-old eyes out. Mama sat by the fire full-human size shaking her head back and murmuring to herself…
Knew it…knew it…
Don't doubt me… I know all…
Then her papa's old worn muggle boots slapped the wood floors in front of Gwen and she looked up.
Papa?
Gwen…my little Gwen…
But you're dead… you died… like mama said you would.
I did… But I'm telling you one last thing… Tell them the truth. They deserve to know the real you. Tell them the truth…
He stepped back out of the light that surrounded her and she reached out as if to stop him. Wait! Wait! Don't go! Don't go Papa!
Listen to him the one who died… yes listen to him…
Mama?
She didn't see anything and looked all around her but the voice teased her. Yes, listen to him… never mind your promise…
Mama…
Listen… Will you break your promise? Will you? Or lie…
The voices began to swarm around her crowding her as images pasted before her eyes. The white room seemed to spin around her… it changed, Hogwarts, the shack, woods, stone hallways, lighted corridors, rooms, houses, places she'd never seen… She saw everyone she knew: Lily, James, Remus, Raven, Sirius, Dumbledore, Mama, Papa, herself… and people she didn't…
And the voices… they echoed and mingled in her head and she suddenly felt as if it were going to split open right down the center. Teasing her, taunting her… She felt herself screaming, heard herself screaming but knew that no one heard her. Eyes glittered around her in the darkness… Laughter echoed. Evil and good alike… She sank deeper and heard so much…
Will you break your promise? Will you?
Tell them the truth, they deserve…
Remus, no!
Stop him!
Blood traitor!
Shame of my flesh!
Truth…
Promise…
Stop…
Don't tell me if it makes you sad…
Stop…
Gwen…
Stop…
Gwen…
"Stop!" Gwen bolted upright in her bed and stared at the quiet and dark room around her. Slowly her heart rate became slow and she sat back against the pillow. She looked around the room but no one had woken. Sighing she tried to stop the shivers but they wouldn't go away…
Something warm pounced on her leg and Gwen nearly screamed but held herself in check. She looked down the bed and sighed when Kismet's green eyes met her own. Then she laughed at herself… She'd just had a psychic overload. She hadn't reached within herself to view the memories she had collected over the last few weeks so everything had burst from her in a dream.
She picked Kismet up and buried her face in the soft calico fur as she tried to ease away the tension headache that had grown in her skull. It felt almost like a muggle marching band was prancing around in there playing its music as loud as possible.
When the pounding had eased to a distant drumming she sighed and looked down at her cat with a sigh. "What do you think? Am I crazy?" Kismet meowed and rubbed against her purring so loud that Gwen had to laugh. "What do you know? You're just a cat."
Kismet seemed to take offense to this and swatted Gwen lightly in the face. Giggling slightly she settled Kismet on her stomach as she lay back. "Yeah, you're right. You're doing much better than I am. I mean look at me… I'm talking to a cat."
Kismet's tail swished irritably and Gwen quickly corrected herself. "A very smart cat, but still… talking to animals is most definitely not normal, by any standards. Oh well, at least you can't make me trip up or stutter or blush… You think I should tell them?"
Kismet meowed again and rubbed her head lovingly into Gwen's hands. "Yeah, I should. And I will… soon." Kismet nipped at her fingers and then stared at her with a fierce look in her eyes. "Ow… okay, okay… soon, I promise. I will tell them Kismet." Kismet seemed satisfied and curled into a ball on Gwen's stomach and Gwen stroked her soft fur until her eyes started to drift shut…
"Eventually…" she murmured and this time as she fell asleep the dreams didn't come and she slept dreamlessly until morning…
Sirius whistled as he headed down into the common room and his stretched arms over his head as he slowly jogged down the stairs into the common room. Lily sat by the fire a book in her lap still dressed in her pajamas, without looking up to see Sirius she said, "Morning, Sirius."
"Morning, Lily. What are you doing up so early?"
"Couldn't sleep. You?"
"Same. What are you reading?"
"It's a wonderful book. Pride and Prejudice. You read it?"
"Uh… No, can't say that I have. Sounds… interesting though." He said as he pulled up a chair beside her and looked up to the door of the dormitory.
"Gwen's still sound asleep, you know." Lily told him without even glancing up from her book. "She probably won't be up for another hour, at least."
"How'd you…"
"Remus used to do the same thing every morning when him and Raven started dating. He stopped coming out early a couple weeks ago but if I don't miss my guess he'll be out about…" she glanced at her watch for a moment then smiled. "Now… and of course that is my cue to leave."
The door to the boys' dormitory swung open and Remus himself graced them his hair mused from sleep his robes slightly wrinkled. He left the door open and James followed him down. "Oh, good morning, Sirius."
"Morning, Remus. James…Why is it your cue to leave Lily?"
James walked across the room and leaned over the arm of the chair until his face was a few inches away from Lily's face. "Morning, Lil."
"That's why." She said and put her hand on his face and slowly pushed his head away. After finishing the sentence she was reading she marked her page then she stood and smiled at Sirius. "I'll see you later, Sirius, Remus… James."
"Lily, how do you know us so well?"
"I've been hanging around you too long, that's how." She said with a smile and the she took the stairs two at a time into the girls' dormitory.
James flopped onto the couch and Remus sat down beside him dragging his fingers through his hair. And Sirius yawned. "She knows us too well."
"You better believe it. It's been what? Five years? Five years of knowing the lot of us, pain-in-the-butt-Potter included. She's gotten to know us all and she knows it." Remus muttered almost darkly as he looked up to the girls' dormitory door. "Sometimes she knows us too well…"
"Hey! Listen who is talking, the one and only, Learned Lupin."
"Better than being a pain-in-the-butt, Potter."
James eyes narrowed and Sirius watched in amusement as his friends faced off but then the door of the girls' dormitory was flung open with a bang. Lily stood there a wide-eyed look on her face. Sensing something was wrong he leapt to his feet and her eyes met his.
"It's Gwen. She won't get up. She's completely drained. I don't know what happened…" she turned to run back in but stopped to turn and see Sirius rushing for the stairs. "Don't! You'll just fall. We'll get her out in a minute."
Sirius watched Lily disappear into the room and Sirius began to pace. After a full five minutes that seemed like years Lily and Raven with Gwen supported between them appeared at the doorway and Sirius felt his heart rate go up. She was a pale as a sheet and her eyes were glazed over and her breathing seemed to hurt.
Once the girls reached the bottom step they transferred her weight into Sirius' arms and he looked down at her face. She seemed to be trying very hard to concentrate. Her eyes looked to be filled so much pain and then she saw him and a small smile formed on her lips.
"Sirius?"
"I'm here. We're going to get you to the nurse's…"
"Okay…" she murmured and then she put her head onto his shoulder. "I trush you…"
Then her eyes closed and her body went limp. Getting a better grip on her he turned to the others. "I'm going straight to Madam Pomfrey. Anyone else coming?"
Lily and Raven stood fully clothed and the sleepy look had vanished from Remus' eyes. James stood glaring mockingly at him even as the worried light shined in his own eyes.
"Do you think you can keep us away?" he asked and Sirius grinned at him and then walked out the portal with the four of them right behind him.
Once they reached the nurse's office she ordered him to put her in a cot muttering to herself about, "Students, how they push themselves to hard…"
"What's her name?" she asked Sirius impatiently.
"Gwendolyn Farr."
"Humph…" she said and then she marked it down on the board at the edge of the bed. "Very well, leave now please."
"But Madam…"
"GO, you shall be late for your first class if you do not hurry. She would be very upset at you for that. Besides I cannot treat her with five impatient students hanging on my every movement. You may see her this afternoon, but no sooner than five. Now, go!"
"Yes, Madam." He walked across the ward and then stopped. "Madam, if she should wake… could you tell her that…"
"You were here. I promise I shall. Now go!"
Sirius nodded and headed with Remus, Raven, James and Lily to class but none of them seemed satisfied. Raven stopped and waited for him and as they walked she looked down at the ground.
"Something doesn't feel right, does it?"
Sirius looked back at the ward doors then shook his head. "No, it doesn't."
Raven nodded and then sighed. "I thought so."
They walked in silence the rest of the way to class barely making it after having to walk back to the common room for their stuff. But even if they had been late Sirius wouldn't have cared. He remembered that look of pure pain and agony in Gwen's eyes when she looked at him. She had been hurting inside and out.
Why? And why was it with so many things he was left in the dark when it came to one girl? One Gwendolyn Farr? Why?