Authors' Notes: no, that is not a typo. My friend aquaeyes6351 is collaborating with me on this chapter because we are bored. She has some excellent fics and is on my favorites list for easy access. She also likes sparkles, as does the other (excellent) author on my favorites list. Huzzah!
"Are we there yet?" complained Sirius loudly.
"No. Shut up."
Like Sirius, the other students were becoming increasingly irritated with each other, and increasingly entangled in the surrounding brush. However, unlike Sirius, none of them was voicing his opinion. Except Aidan, because he's annoying.
"How long is this going to take?" Aidan inquired irately. God, he's so annoying!
"Your mom," retorted Christian cleverly.
"As long as it takes," said James, who obviously believed he was also being clever.
"Shut up, James," Mary snapped, "we'll be there soon."
"Oh good," said Liz, interrupting the dispute, "this must be it!" for indeed, they had arrived at their destination.
"You mean the rock with the Halloween decorations?" asked Sirius, referencing the quaint skulls-on-sticks theme.
"Somehow I find myself doubting that it's Halloween in this realm," said Remus ominously.
"Well aren't you a right little ray of sunshine, Moony," James said. "Ha ha, get it? Moony… sunshine… like moon and – "
"James, shut up!"
"Um, guys?" Liz asked, clearly intent upon taking action. But, of course, no one paid attention, because they were too busy being stupid.
"Hey, you guys, I think – " she began, but again no one listened, just bickered.
"EVERYBODY SHUT UP!"
They did.
"Why don't we go knock or something?" she suggested innocently. "Sirius, what did you see at this point in your premonition?"
Sirius shrugged cheerfully. "Didn't see nothing after this."
Christian, Liz and Mary all gave simultaneous convulsive twitches and started yelling at Sirius.
"THAT WAS A DOUBLE NEGATIVE, YOU IDIOT!"
"ARE YOU TRYING TO MAKE MY HEAD EXPLODE?"
"ARE YOU RETARDED?"
"HAS SEVEN YEARS OF GRAMMATICAL INSTRUCTION TAUGHT YOU NOTHING!"
"CAN WE MOVE ON, PLEASE?" Aidan squawked, interrupting the girls' onslaught.
Sirius, who looked extremely hassled, got up from the ground and brushed the dirt and blood off himself. He shook his head and then said, "I didn't see – anything – after that part. I just saw us walking round the forest then standing here."
Mary said, "Great. So we all die."
"But let's try and talk to him," Sirius continued, picking up a rock and tossing it in his hand. "I'm sure he'll be friendly!"
Remus cast a darkly significant look at the skulls.
"Yes, nothing says friendly quite like hermit," said Christian dryly.
"Git," Mary said idly.
"Well, Sirius, you were so keen on talking to the bloke, why don't you go knocking round his door. We'll just wait back here," suggested James, sidling backwards. He tripped over a rock and knocked aside Sirius, who accidentally flung the rock towards the cave.
In that moment, an old, wizened man emerged from the dark cave entrance. He was immediately hit in the face by Sirius's projectile rock.
"Oof!"
"Sirius, you idiot!" Mary said, running over to the hermit to help him. She was immediately joined by all of the girls except Peter. "You killed him!"
"Well," Sirius said crossly, "just because he hit his face off my rock – "
The old man croaked, "I'm not dead yet!"
Liz stepped over a skull to approach Sirius and
SLAP.
"OW!" Sirius said, and he lost his balance on James's prostate form and ran into one of the skull shish kebabs. It fell. Not only, however, did this one skull fall. Instead, it knocked over the next skull, which knocked over the next skull, and – yeah. It was bad, and strongly reminiscent of dominoes. Soon every skull in the place was on the ground, and Sirius just stood there looking stupid.
The old man looked at his yard, aghast. He turned to face the students, and stared at them for a tense second during which no one moved. He did not react to Christian's missing face. Then his expression relaxed into a weary but slightly amused one and he said, "Why don't you come into my house before you destroy the rest of my yard? Not that there's much left…" he said, referring to the one remaining vertical skull stick thing.
Unfortunately, however, Peter was there.
Peter emitted, shall we say, an audible gastric movement, and the last upright skull fell over with a loud clunk accompanied by a nauseating odor. He stared at the others through wide eyes.
The old man sighed and shook his head, but not unkindly. "Just come inside, then." Under his breath he whispered, "Fewer things to break in there." He pivoted on the spot and reentered his cave.
The students exchanged glances with each other, and then hesitantly filed into the cave after him.
It soon became clear that the old man was a permanent resident of the cave. The area had all the unmistakable signs of the residence of a single person: it was cluttered and crude, but clean as far as dirt floors go. Clay pots lined the shelves carved into the rock face. In sharp contrast to the rough appearance, long blue-and-white plaid curtains adorned the wall; however, they didn't seem to cover a window or a doorway, just a small area of the rock face.
The man invited them to sit with a wave of his hand. The students perched themselves on the roughly hewn wooden benches around a square table of the same material while be bustled around making tea.
"I can almost smell the tension in the air," Liz whispered to the other girls sitting around her.
"That's not tension, that's Peter," Mary whispered back, and Christian stifled a giggle.
The old man raised an eyebrow at them. They stared back, apprehensive. He returned to his tea-making.
Finally Remus broke the silence. "We'd like to ask you a few questions, if it's all right," he said. The old man stopped making tea but did not turn around. After several seconds of silence, Remus, unsure whether or not the man had heard him, began again. "Um, we'd – "
The man cut him off. "I heard you the first time," he said sharply. Then he sighed, relenting. "I know who you are." (The students exchanged uneasy glances.) "I may know why you have come. I, also, would like to ask you some things." He turned around, holding a teapot. "But first let us have a drink. I find there is nothing quite so relaxing a good hot cup of tea. Chamomile, anyone?" He passed around ten earthenware mugs without handles, retaining one for himself, and poured a liberal amount of the steaming liquid into each.
Sirius, James and Peter immediately started into theirs, but the others refrained. The old man looked at them questioningly. "Why do you not drink?" He paused, then after a moment comprehended their attitude and chuckled. "I understand. You fear that I have put something unseemly into the drink. I understand," he said with a melodramatic look of deepest sadness, "and I will not take offense. I assure you, however, that I have put nothing into your tea that should not be there. Would be a waste of good tea," and with that, picked up his own mug and gulped down a mouthful. Aidan shrugged and drank, and after a moment the others followed his precedent.
As Sirius set his mug back down, he was entranced by the patterns of smoke unfurling from the last dregs of tea. . . .It seemed to him that two identical swirls were traveling through the air, intertwining themselves endlessly in and around the other swirls . . .
He shook his head to clear his mind. Clairvoyant or not, he should not be looking for meaning where there was none.
He became aware that everyone was watching him.
"You all right there, Padfoot?" James asked when he saw Sirius come to.
"Yeah, just zoned out… sorry…"
"Well," said the old man. "Now that everyone is present mentally as well as physically" (the students sniggered) "we can discuss more important matters… you are, of course, the Nine."
There was an intensification of attention all around the table.
"My first question is, of course, how you all came to be here." He looked around at each face, each visage teeming with fatigue and caution and fear. "If you would be so kind."
There was a pause, a very long pause, during which everyone tried to start but no one could figure out where to begin.
Finally Allie spoke. "It started with that stupid spell," she said, unable to keep the note of bitterness out of her voice. The old man raised his eyebrows but said nothing. She continued, "We made a bet with each other. We're all friends, see, and…" her voice trailed off as she thought about how unimaginably long ago that all seemed.
Christian picked up for her. "The blokes over here told us that being a guy was worse than being a girl, and we disagreed, so the eight of us agreed to all switch genders for a day."
"Eight? But unless I am much mistaken – which I am not – there are nine of you here," the old man said.
"Well, there are, but Aidan here was uninvited," said Sirius, shooting Aidan a filthy look.
"Enough," said Liz, quelling any argument that may have started. "When we were changing back, Peter messed up the spell for Christian, and her face… disappeared. Then Mary found out that she could actually go into Christian's face, and she brought back some seaweed…" and she recounted the rest of the tale to the old man, albeit in a much abridged version.
When she was done, the old man sat in silence for several minutes as if meditating. He then pronounced, "Hmm," and then "All right, you may ask me questions now."
The following cacophony sounded a bit like this:
Christian: Who are you?
Mary: Where are we?
Liz: Can you help us get home?
Sirius: I know you can, I saw it!
Remus: What about what the demon said?
James: Where are we?
Mary: I just said that, you idiot.
James: (feels bad about himself) Oh.
Allison: How do you know who we are?
Aidan: (cranky look)
And then everyone breathed again.
The old man merely smiled while taking this in. "First, you asked who I am. Well," he said, leaning back on the bench a little bit, "I suppose I'm Anteros, aren't I?"
"If you say so," James said.
Meanwhile, Liz and Mary were thinking hard. (Yes, Mary is capable of this feat.)
"I know I've heard that name before," said Liz.
"Same," said Mary. "I think it was in World Mythology."
"But I just can't remember…" Liz muttered.
"It's all right, it doesn't matter now," said Mary. "We'll figure it out later."
"Secondly," said the old man, continuing, "I believe you asked where you are… well, this is the Silva von Nonreverto Diligo."
Everyone looked to Allie.
"It's Latin," she said immediately. "The Forest of… the Forest of… Unrequited Love?"
Anteros smiled. "Indeed it is."
Suddenly Mary realized something. "That's it!" she exclaimed. "That's it, Anteros is the Greek god of unrequited love!" Then, realizing what she had just said, her jaw dropped. "You…you're a god!" she said to Anteros.
"Indeed I am," he replied, still smiling complacently.
The looks of awe from the students served only to amuse Anteros.
"And you wondered why my forest is so desolate," he said with the hint of a smile. "The dregs of love and hate remain here always…"
"But doesn't it get lonely?" asked Allison.
"More than you know," answered Anteros, and for the first time he seemed sad.
"Thirdly you asked if I could help get you home. And my answer is: Certainly."
"Oh thank God." Liz slumped back in her chair, hand over her eyes. Everyone else reacted in a similar manner: they were going home, they were going home, it was all going to be over soon!
"However, I will require payment."
"Anything!" said Allison. "We just want to get home!"
"Fourth, I believe you asked about the demon," Anteros said, looking at Remus, who nodded. "I'll assume he told you that he killed the hermit who lived here." Remus nodded his assent. "Yes, he killed a man some time ago…" Anteros's voice drifted off. "But it was not me, it was not even a real person, it was merely a form of protection I had to use for a while… it is a highly unpleasant matter, let us delve no deeper into it."
Understanding the topic to be closed, the students waited for the answer to their next question.
"Lastly you asked how I knew your identity."
The Nine waited with baited breath.
"A long time ago, shortly after the universe was created – "
"By Kronos?" interrupted Liz, unable to contain herself. She was gonna find out how the universe began! How excit –
"Not exactly," said Anteros with another smile, effectively bursting her happy bubble. "It is much more complicated than that, mortals have simply simplified it for convenience. . . .Were I to explain the creation of the universe, you would be here for millennia and still you could not understand. Let us move on."
Liz agreed, though she was disappointed.
"Anyway, shortly after the universe was created, Hermes came to me with a message bearing news of you. Very few have ever come this way, and only those who are meant to stumble upon this realm do so. I have been waiting… been waiting for a very long time, and finally you are come. That, companions, is how I knew who you were."
Silence.
"So can we go home now?" Sirius asked in a small voice.
Anteros, still smiling, looked at him. "Certainly. However, as I said, there must be a sacrifice."
This could not be good.
"What… what kind of sacrifice, exactly?" asked Allison.
"Well, as much as I hate to tell you this," said Anteros, whose grin proclaimed exactly the opposite, "a blood sacrifice is required."
"Eh… how… how much blood?" asked Sirius in a brave attempt at a confident voice.
"One of the Nine," said Anteros. "Alas, one of your own must be left behind forever. . . .But worry not; his or her death will be completely painless."
"Oh my God," said Liz, again putting her hand over her eyes. She felt her body go numb as the full impact of what was about to transpire hit her. The other eight experienced the exact same sensation.
"We can't leave her behind!" protested Christian.
"But we didn't choose to come here! That's not fair!" argued Mary. "That's not right!"
"But you did choose," said Anteros. "Every decision you made has led you to this point. And to continue, you must choose one of yourselves to leave behind. I will leave you alone for exactly five of your minutes while you decide." He exited the cave, presumably for a walk in the forest.
Christian stood up. "We have to draw straws. There's no other way." Even as she said it, she couldn't believe that she was saying it, couldn't believe that she was accepting it. Later she would realize that she was in shock.
There was a small pile of sticks in the corner, probably meant for kindling. Aidan stalked over and proceeded to break off nine pieces of wood, one shorter than the rest. He arranged them in his hand so that they all looked the same length.
"I will take the last stick that is left," he said. Then he held out his hand so the others could choose.
There was nothing else to do. There was to be one other way out of the situation. The only possible plan was to mark one of the Nine as dead.
Gone.
Each student chose a twig.
It was immediately evident from the look on Allison's face that she had received the short stick.
Liz and Christian began crying quietly. Mary looked as if she had just been torn in half. The boys looked like they, too, might break down in tears.
"Allie, I'm so sorry," said Liz quietly through her tears.
Allie, however, held her head high. "Everyone has to make sacrifices," she said softly. "Don't be sad, I know we'll see each other again someday, even if it's not in the life or whatever. It's okay."
And everyone suddenly realized that she was right, and that everyone has a time to go, and that maybe, just maybe, this was Allie's.
Anteros walked back into the cave. "Have you chosen, then?"
Every single person in the cave shot him the dirtiest, filthiest, most hateful look they could.
"I see you have. Who is to go?"
In response, Allison looked up.
"Ah," he said. "Outside, then." Liz, Mary and Christian started to move towards the door to follow, but Anteros stopped them. "No, you stay here," he said. He handed Allison a small clay pot and instructed her to go to the clearing "on the other side of the pines." Following her outside, he said, "Back in a minute."
They heard nothing.
The Nine – now reduced to Eight – sat in silence until he returned several minutes later, toting the small clay jar Allison had been carrying.
"Now then," he said, rubbing his hands together, "you lot. To where are you returning?"
"Hogwarts," mumbled someone forlornly.
"Right." He removed the lid of the clay pot and dipped his finger into the liquid inside. He then proceeded to draw back one of the curtains, revealing a blank rock wall. He wrote some words in a strange, curling language no one recognized (they thought, with a stab of pain, that Allison would have known) and drew the curtain back over the wall.
When he pulled the curtain back again with a flourish, the Eight were utterly unsurprised to see a doorway in the wall.
"Hogwarts awaits you," he cried dramatically. "Fare thee well!" and he waited for them to step through.
With a collective sigh of sadness, the Eight trouped through the doorway.
They found themselves in a very familiar place.
They were in Hogwarts.
"Oh my God," said the three girls simultaneously. Sirius and James looked like they might cry with joy. The relief was unbelievable.
They were home!
The feeling was…well, overwhelming is an understatement. It was phenomenal… but of course, dampened by the loss of one of their companions.
It was not until Remus said, "Wait… something's wrong," on the way to their common room that the feeling of elation began to disappear.
"What, Remus?" Mary asked. "Can it wait? I'm exhausted."
The others agreed with her.
"No, it can't," said Remus. "We're not back."
"WHAT?" thundered Mary. "What do you mean we're not back?"
"We're not back," he repeated. "Look at the plaque." With a trembling hand he pointed to a golden award on the wall.
IN HONOR OF THE MERITORIOUS
HEADMASTER AT HOGWARTS SCHOOL OF WITCHCRAFT AND WIZARDRY
FOR SERVICES TO THE SCHOOL,
THE BOARD OF GOVERNORS
RECOGNIZES ALBUS W.B.P. DUMBLEDORE
SIGNED,
And then there were twelve signatures, followed by a date some twenty-five years after our heroes had attended school.
"Maybe it's just a typo," whispered Christian almost hysterically. "It has to be a typo. Right?"
They were in the wrong time.
"AAAAAAAAAAHHHH!" screamed James. "First that, then this! WHEN CAN WE GO HOME?"
"THAT IDIOT GOD SENT US TO HOGWARTS IN THE FUTURE!" shouted Mary. "I AM SO TURNING BUDDHIST!"
"Shh!" Liz said suddenly. "Someone's coming! Hide!"
And without another word, all of the students except Mary hid, because Mary was too angry to do anything but stand there and seethe. Even through her delirious anger, she could hear footsteps, but she paid them no attention.
"Mary, you idiot!" Christian hissed from the statue behind which she was hiding. "What are you doing? Hide!"
But it was too late.
As two identical red-headed figures rounded the corner, Mary realized the situation… but there was no time to hide, and she was standing right next to the corner.
She collided with the two identical red-headed figures, or, rather, they collided with her; but the result was the same; she was mad so she shoved them away.
"Whoa! Calm down!" said one.
"Are you all right?" inquired the other.
"I'm fine," said Mary. "Get out of my way before I castrate you."
In the shadows, Liz and Christian sniggered quietly. Even with all they had been through, they could not help but laugh at Mary's anger management problems.
The twins exchanged looks, probably because of her apparent anger, and then smiled as if planning something.
"It's a little late to be out wandering around, isn't it?" said one.
"That it is, Fred," said the other.
"Well, let's help this young lady," they said in unison, and in a flash, each of them had picked up one of her elbows and away they went down the hall, Mary struggling for freedom, and yelling loudly as well.
"Oh God!" said Christian. "They've kidnapped her!" and away she and Liz went down the hall to rescue their friend.
The boys followed, as was only pertinent in such a situation.
As they traveled down the hall, Sirius whispered, "This is gonna be one hell of a ride."
Almost as if he could see the future.
Almost.
Future Events: yay, the twins!
Tune in next time, folks!
