Chapter Four

Master of Fright Angel of Light

Peter's point of view

Peter knew he was going to die there, in the dark room. He thought of how James and Sirius had laughed at him for thinking the demon was real and a savage pleasure stole over him when he thought of how horrible they would feel when they found that the demon had taken him and that it really did exist. Then, he thought of Remus and how bad he must already feel. He was sure Remus would beat himself up for not staying awake that night, even though he probably wouldn't have been able to save Peter if he had been awake. Peter struggled against his bindings to no avail, and even tried turning into a rat, only to find it impossible for some reason. A door opened at the opposite end of the long, rectangular room. Peter swallowed, expecting to see the demon silhouetted in the doorway. Instead it was a much taller and even slimmer girl's figure that blocked out the light. Peter could make out a long, thick braid that reached the girl's hips. Strings of different colored lights erupted to life on the walls. There were bulbs of light blue, purple, green, red, yellow, pink, and many colors besides that. The floor was a glossy hard wood, but the walls were made of age-darkened stone. The girl standing in the doorway could have been taken for the demon if she had been standing in a shadow.

Her braid was pitch black, but the tips of her hair, both on her braid and bangs, were a purple-pink color on the darker side. She had large, kind, black eyes and a pale complexion. Her lips were painted black, but were smiling in a gentle expression that reminded Peter of Dumbledore. She wore tights that were darker than her hair and a sleeveless shirt of the same color. A piece of shoulder armor and small straps of the same color as her highlights adorned her shirt. A long, black cape covered her shoulders and reached down to her black, open-toed sandals which had accents of the same pink as in her hair and on her shirt. She walked into the room, and as she neared Peter her expression turned to one of displeasure.

"They weren't supposed to tie you up." She said, apologetically. "I'm so sorry." She tapped the cords binding him to the chair with her forefinger and they fell away. Peter stood up quickly, rubbing his wrists where the ropes had dug into his skin. "I'm so sorry." She repeated. "My students are used to dealing with criminals, I should have specified to them the reason I wanted you here.

"Why, why did you bring me here?" Peter stuttered. The girl cocked her head to one side, as Sirius often did.

"Why, I thought that would be obvious, perhaps you do not know who I am." Peter shook his head. The girl was keeping oddly still, it was strange, she didn't even shift her weight over once, she hadn't even blinked as far as Peter had seen. "I am Meli Tanaka." She said kindly. "I am a skilled alchemist, a second-dan black-belt in ninjutsu, and master of the shinobi arts." She put her hands together and bowed. Peter bowed back, nervously. She beamed, as though rather pleased with something. "It is quite the honor to meet you, Master Pettigrew."

"M-master Pettigrew? What do you mean, 'Master'?" Peter didn't have the slightest clue what was going on. He just knew he wanted to get out of the strange room he was in and get back to Hogwarts.

"Do you not know?" She asked in a skeptical voice. "You are prophesied to be the first light based shinobi since the War of Shadows.

"I- I'm sorry." Peter said. "I think you have the wrong Pettigrew, I don't even know what a shinobi is."

"You are not Peter Pettigrew of Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry?" She asked.

"I am, but I can't be the right person, I'm not even good at being a wizard."

"Few shinobis are, we specialize in wandless magic."

"I can't do wandless magic of any kind."

"Have you ever tried?"

"Well, no... but I don't know how."

"That's alright, that's why I tried to bring you here, so I could teach you." Meli smiled again.

"I meant to be able to teach you before Christmas, so you could return to your friends and family for the holidays, but, as my students did not retrieve you on time, I do not find this possible." She continued, brightly. "That is, of course if you accept our invitation to train with the Flametail Clan?" Peter looked up into her smiling, expectant face. How could he say no to her?

"Sure." He shrugged. He had really just now come to grasp that he wasn't about to be murdered by a demon.

"Oh, thank you, Master Pettigrew." She said happily, bowing again. Peter was about to bow back, but a loud thump made him stop, halfway between the action then, jump backward. A high laugh filled the air, but it was amused, not cruel. A boy with white-blonde, spiky hair and pale skin dropped down from the rafters.

"I apologize, Master Pettigrew, for Moto, he is quite the prankster." He brushed a bit of confetti from his hair as he said this.

"That's fine, my friends are the same way, well, not Remus." Peter said.

"Thank you for understanding, Master Pettigrew." The boy said happily.

James's point of view

He and Sirius walked through the doors of Hogwarts side by side, laughing their heads off at a joke they didn't even think was funny. They were laughing, purely just to laugh, and soon James was laughing at Sirius's laugh, that was so dog like. Remus was standing halfway down the hall from him, with his arms crossed over his chest. His expression sobered James up instantly. Sirius's laughing abruptly stopped as well.

"What's up, Moony?" James asked. To his left Sirius cocked his head to one side, slightly.

"What's up, is that Peter's been kidnapped." Remus growled. James started as he saw the shadow of a wolf cross Remus's face. "It's all your fault!" Remus suddenly roared, get startled looks from those passing around them. "You just couldn't believe us could you? We told you what was happening, and you laughed it off like it was some kind of joke, and now, Peter's gone!" His voice was rising with every word. James was terrified by Remus's reaction, so much so, that his words didn't immediately register to him.

"What are you yelling about, Remus?" Sirius asked in a would-be-calm tone.

"The demon, Sirius, the demon! We told you it was following us, and now it's got Peter!" He snarled in response.

"Hold up, you can't honestly be blaming us for this." James said, indigently.

"Yeah, I am, because it's your fault. If you had just listened to us..."

"It would've gotten all of us." Sirius cut across him angrily.

"YOU'RE BOTH COWARDS!" Remus bellowed at the top of his lungs. "I STAYED TO HELP HIM, AND I WOULD HAVE STAYED TO HELP YOU, BUT YOU WOULDN'T HELP PETER?"

"Remus, mate, it's not like that." James said hastily. The whole corridor had frozen, everyone holding their breath as if fearing Remus would round on them. Lily Evens' shocked face stood out vividly in the crowd.

"What is going on here?" 's voice cut sharply through the tension. She stopped at the sight of the three of them and understanding crossed her face. "I want you three to come to my office." Her tone had changed dramatically. The trio followed to her office. "So, I see Mr. Lupin has delivered the news to you two." She said after a moment of tense silence, in which James and Sirius both kept their eyes locked on Remus, who's jaw was clenched tight. James nodded without looking away from Remus.

"What happened to him?" James asked. "What happened to Peter?"

"Mr. Pettigrew and Mr. Lupin came to Headmaster Dumbledore's office the first night of break with some startling news. They told him that they were being stalked be a demon girl and she had written Mr. Pettigrew's name on the window with blood." Chills shot down James's spine and Sirius shuttered. "They had many pictures to back up their claims, apparently they wanted to prove that the demon existed to you, but many of the first pictures only showed parts of the demon. The very next day, Mr. Pettigrew was nowhere to be found within the school grounds, and his part of the dormitory was covered in bloody handprints, and his belongings were scattered all over the floor." James clapped his hand over his mouth to prevent himself from retching. Sirius mirrored the action at the same time. James felt sick. If he had only believed them, Sirius would've too, and the demon would dare have attacked four people at once.

"You're right, Remus." James said while they were once again walking down the cold corridors of Hogwarts.

"Yeah, it's completely our fault." Sirius agreed.

"No, I'm sorry. It's not your fault, it's mine. If I had stayed up, the demon wouldn't have gotten him. I'm sorry I called you cowards." Remus replied quietly.

"Don't beat yourself up about it, Moony." James said, gently. "It was just after a full moon, no-one can blame you for that."

"We should've listened to you, and because we didn't, Peter was kidnapped." Sirius said, obviously trying to make Remus start blaming him again. James knew why; Remus was always so hard on himself, and rarely got mad at other people, annoyed, yes, but not mad.

"Sirius is right, Mate. We should've listened. You can't blame yourself for this." James put his hand on Remus's shoulder.

"Yeah, okay." He replied in a voice that clearly said he didn't believe them. All throughout the day people kept stopping them,, and asking them questions about why they were so down. The trio tried to ignore them, preferring to pretend that nothing was out of the ordinary, until Remus snapped.

"What do think is wrong?" He yelled at the fourth year Gryffindor boy who came up to ask for the fifth time in ten minutes. James and Sirius decided they had enough of it too.

"If you haven't noticed, we're one member short." Sirius shot at him.

"There was a fourth member?" The kid asked.

"Yes, there is a fourth member." James said rudely. "His name is Peter."

"I've never heard of him." He said.

"Get lost." Sirius growled, placing a hand on Remus's shoulder. James could tell Remus was about to loose it. The three of them trooped back to the common room and slammed the portrait in the boy's face when he tried to follow them. James could not focus on anything that night. He was usually fine with homework, but he couldn't set himself to anything.

Sirius seemed to be having a similar problem. He kept fidgeting, and glancing around the room, as if hoping he would see Peter come walking through the portrait hole, and it was all a misunderstanding. James definitely wished that. Even Remus was having trouble studying. He kept picking up books, opening them, then shutting them seconds later, and picking up the next. The next person to come up to them was none other than Lily Evens.

"Where's that other boy?" She asked quietly, sitting next to James. Usually James's face would've started burning and he would try to say something amusing, that would make Lily glare at him, but he didn't even feel the slightest bit inclined to do that. "His name was Peter right?" She asked after it became clear no-one was going to answer her first question. James nodded with a clenched jaw. He didn't trust himself to open his mouth, fearing he might become sick if he did.

"What happened to him." James opened a book, and bent over on the pretense of reading it, to disguise the tears beginning to form in his eyes.

"Peter was only thirteen, that's too young to die." Remus said quietly. Lily looked startled, and even more so when James slammed his book shut.

"Stop it." He growled. His voice, though very low, echoed through the nearly empty common room. "Stop talking like he's dead. He's not, they'll find him, and he'll be okay." He really wished he believed what he was saying. Sirius nodded.

"Yeah, he'll be fine." It sounded like he was trying to convince himself more than the others. "Peter's probably trying to find a way to escape as we speak." Lily raised her eyebrows.

"Yeah, I wonder how he's doing." James agreed.

Peter's point of view

"It's been nearly fourteen years since I began my training as a shinobi, and I've finally reached black-belt level. I've been training in two towns. The first, Chisana Doragon. It's a bright, sunny town with the most charming cottages you'll ever lay your eyes on. There's a forest separating it from the other town. The side closest to Chisana Doragon is a birch tree woods, with springy green grass and wild flowers, visible in the dappled sunlight that dances across the ground in shades of green and yellow. There's a small river cutting through it, it's source being a calm, quiet waterfall. Phoenixes, unicorns, nifflers, and fairies call this side home. The forest changes dramatically once you cross the border to Chisana Waru. There's no warning, besides a small traveler's sign that's splattered with blood in places. The trees become huge and towering with dark almost black wood, and branches that look like dying hands, reaching out to grab you. Some of them do reach out and grab you."

"Thickets of thorny bushes cover the otherwise bare ground. It's dark and shadowy, you can hardly see where you're going. The only lights you can see are the red and yellow eyes of the forest dwellers like werewolves, dragons, vampires, and even dementors. Once in a while you'll even come across a demon or two in there. The place gives me the chills, but not even close to as badly as the town does. If, I mean when, you make it out of the forest you're rewarded by an even denser darkness, punctured by dying red street lamps that line the little dirt road that leads to the village. It leads up a large hill. when you make it to the top you can make out the silhouettes of gargantuan buildings; mansions so big you could mistake them for castles at a distance."

"When you get into town there are no street lamps, the town is lit up by the moon, which is full every night (Don't ask me how). The square is just a water fountain, if you could call it that, shaped like a bat with a wolf carved in the act of pouncing with some dark red substance flowing out of its mouth into the basin. I've been guaranteed it's not blood, but you can't really trust the locals there. One woman invited me for dinner and tried to cook and eat me, when I told her I was lost. The houses that surround the square are small, and shabby looking. They could pass as the shrieking shack, and each one of them is haunted, one of them, the Dyer house (Seriously), is so haunted the locals turned it into a museum of haunted history. (I'm not making this up)"

"Behind those houses, are slightly bigger houses, with the same sense of foreboding. They are also all haunted. The space behind them is one gigantic graveyard. (I swear the people who built this town were trying to get it to be haunted.) I've heard rumors circling around the academy there (only for purple belts and higher) that one of the headstones in the graveyard is a secret entrance to the underground crypt. I asked Meli Sensei, but she didn't say anything about it, so it might be true. The houses behind the graveyard are mansions that look more like monsters than living quarters. There's one that keeps moving around too, but no-one can catch it in the act. Behind them are the mansions I wrote about earlier, they're so big you'd think they were castles. If they were, they'd belong to Dracula and Frankenstein, that's for sure."

Peter put his quill down and looked his parchment over again. He slapped his hand to the side of his head. He had forgotten the most important part of these towns. He picked the quill back up, dipped it in ink, and wrote;

"Both of these towns have a charm placed around them. They're caught in a time warp. For every day that goes by in the real world, one whole year has gone by in these towns." He reread what he wrote and decided he liked it. He closed the journal he was writing in, so far he had filled one page in that one, but he had eight other journals, one for each belt level. Each one was the corresponding color too. His first journal white, second yellow, third orange, and so on so forth. He would end up with ten black-belt journals if he kept working hard and following in his sensei's footsteps. He was very proud of becoming a black-belt, but he was even more proud of being part of the flametail clan.