Chapter Twelve

The Most Secret World (Hito's Fukiya, Wizards are So Clueless)

Lily's point of view

She'd taken Severus down to see her friend Leilani, learned Severus was psychic, and then heard him recount a vision about Black and Lupin, in which they learned Black had gone mad. At least, from what Severus said, Lily thought he'd gone mad, but Leilani didn't agree. She was meditating at the moment, and Lily knew better than to interrupt, Severus seemed to pick up on this, because he'd resumed his expression that, oddly enough, was very fitting of a black cloak. Blank, mysterious, bored, but in an intimidating way, the look on his face made it clear that he thought was superior to everyone else, and everyone down here who wore that expression was a superior warrior or was the lord or high ranking member of some clan. Severus, as far as Lily knew, didn't know anything about the people of the Archives, not that she did, but he was blending in perfectly, he was good at absorbing information that wasn't directly presented to him, and was a brilliant actor, he'd make a bloody good spy, she only hoped he'd be on their side.

She'd actually chosen to give that cloak to him, because people were less likely to approach him and ask for help with something, but, now that she saw his skill in adapting to situations, she wasn't worried about that at all. He'd probably be able to answer the question without giving any kind of information, something Leilani was very good at. Her theory was tested when a black cloak girl, looking about nine, came up to Severus. The dress she wore, as well as her hair, was the same color as her cloak, darker than midnight, and you almost couldn't tell the difference between them. You couldn't see her feet, but her dress didn't seem to drag on the floor, as if she'd been levitating slightly. Severus turned to look at her, his eyes taking in her appearance, with a slight amount of scrutiny, very characteristic of a black cloak. Only one of the girl's eyes was visible and it looked midnight blue, it was probably a lighter color than that, but her hood cast a shadow over her face, so it was hard to tell.

"Sir," She began, "I wanted to ask if you would share your knowledge of eclipse magic with me." Lily felt herself tense up. If a girl that age knew about eclipse magic, it was probably common knowledge to the people here, and it would look very suspicious if Severus, who was fourteen, did not know anything about it. Severus closed his eyes, frowned slightly, and shook his head.

"Someone your age should not be asking about magic of that nature." He said quietly. Lily blinked in surprise. He sounded as though he was versed on the subject, but he hadn't really said a word about it, he was a good liar, so good, he could probably lie to Dumbledore, and that was almost scary.

"Sir?" The girl inquired. Severus shook his head again.

"Do not waste your time pursuing that subject." He opened his eyes again, looking as though he could see into the girl's soul, which, seeing as he was a psychic, he probably could. The girl suddenly looked confused.

"Waste my time?" She asked, unbelievingly. "It's the strongest of dark magic, isn't it?" Severus scowled.

"Not exactly, but knowing that you seek the strongest dark magic troubles me." Severus was doing a hell of a good job acting like a wise, strong person, and even Lily almost believed he knew what he was talking about. She would've if she didn't actually know Severus.

"Why is that, sir?" The girl asked, her one visible eye had widened and she seemed to think she'd picked out someone even smarter than she'd originally thought.

"Darkness is a consuming power... only too often I've seen people who had great potential swallowed by the evil force, becoming something almost less than human. You cannot dance on the edge of darkness, nor can you control it... nobody can." The girl's jaw dropped slightly.

"But... sir, you are a black cloak as well, surely you must use shadow magic."

"Ah," He said, his eyes lighting up slightly. He suddenly reminded Lily of Dumbledore, and now she was really freaked out. "Shadow magic is not necessarily dark." He continued. Lily knew what he was getting at. Shadow magic was theoretical in the wizarding world, but for these people, whoever they were, it was real.

The theory was that it was a take on dark magic that didn't exactly hurt people. Blood magic, sacrifice magic, and rituals were excluded from this category, but it was mainly curses, and self aiding charms, making it almost dark. In a way he was contradicting his earlier statement about dancing on the edge of darkness, while building it at the same time, by saying he didn't use dark magic. The girl seemed to Find this very impressive. "What do you propose I study instead, sir?" She asked excitedly. Severus closed his eyes again, then smiled ever so slightly, opening them again.

"I believe you should speak to Peter Pettigrew and Scorpion Flametail." He answered softly. This sentence shocked Lily. Why was he bringing up Peter and Flametail? This seemed to make perfect sense to the girl, however, who looked even more impressed.

"Do you know them?" She asked, awed.

"We've met." He said in a slightly false sounding offhanded tone. Here, he was saying the truth in a way that it sounded like he was trying to be humble. That was what impressed Lily the most out of his entire long lie.

"Wow." The girl breathed. "Could you maybe... maybe ask them to, uh, talk to me, sir?"

"If you tell me your name, I'm sure they'd be delighted." He replied. She looked positively overjoyed.

"My name is Melissa Abigail, I'm actually the child of muggles... but could you leave that part out?"

"If you want, but I'm sure it would make no difference to them." He said almost kindly.

"Thank you, sir." She turned and floated away, returning a few scrolls to a shelf, looking thoroughly disgusted with them. Severus turned to Lily, looking relieved.

"How was that?" He asked quietly. Lily blinked, then said;

"Are you sure you're not from around here... I almost believed you knew what you were talking about." She muttered in response. Severus's eyes lit up.

"Thanks." He whispered back. Then, he straightened his posture, and resumed his 'holier than thou' expression.

Leilani opened her eyes, frowning.

"From what I heard your original assessment was correct, however, I am certain that your friend, or... ally, Black has not gone mad. He is what you wizards call an Animagus, correct?"

"Erm... as far as I know." Severus answered, unsure of why she'd said 'you wizards'. She nodded.

"That means he would have many canine qualities, am I right in assuming as much?"

"I believe so." He replied.

"Then he has not gone mad, he was merely communicating with spirits."

"I'm sorry, what?"

"Domestic canines have the ability to see and hear spirits that are silent and invisible to most humans, though, only when they choose to present themselves to them, but they can always sense the spirit's presence." She offered in explanation. "Domesticated feline also have this skill, although it is less prominent. Your ally was speaking to a spirit who did not choose to stay behind in our world as a ghost. He was speaking to someone who descended from the spirit realm temporarily, the majority of humans are incapable of making contact with them, though it appears his canine side makes him an exception to this rule."

Peter's point of view

He was pacing in the cage the two of them were in, apparently annoying James.

"Would you knock that off?" James asked, though, admittedly, less aggressively than he usually would have. Peter could only suppose it was because he was still feeling guilty about not believing him about the demon. Peter had forgiven him a long time ago, but he couldn't really explain that to James, not right now.

"Sure." He said. He focused his chakra to the soles of his feet and jumped, preforming a half backflip so his feet touched the top of the cage, where they stuck. He resumed his pacing on the ceiling, knowing James would be too shocked to say anything about his continued and repetitive movements.

The smell of rotting meat came on them suddenly. A Skinwalker's ungodly face appeared outside of the cage's bars. Two pieces of bread where pushed through the small openings, as well as a small canteen of water. Peter jumped down, practically pouncing on them, preforming a lightning fast spell to ensure they were safe to eat, then passed them both to James.

"What about you?" James asked, taking one of them.

"I'm not hungry." Peter stated.

"Liar." James said with humor behind his voice.

"I'm not." Peter said, stubbornly.

"At least drink some water." James said, poking Peter with the cantine. Peter snatched it away from him moodily, took a sip, replaced the lid, and shoved it back at him.

"There, you happy now?" Peter demanded. He knew James was only trying to help him, but that was making Peter more frustrated. He was tired of everyone treating him like a weak, helpless child, because he wasn't anymore. He was a ninja after all, he didn't need to be babied.

"No." James scowled, but he didn't pressure Peter to eat or drink anymore.

In truth, Peter was wondering why the Skinwalkers were bothering to keep the prisoners alive in the first place. He knew they were herbivores, so they weren't going to eat them, but why did they not just let them starve or die of dehydration. There had to be a reason they were being left alive, and Peter wanted to know. He sighed, and sat on the floor of the suspended cage, clearing his mind, focusing his thoughts on Severus Snape, so that if Snape tried to communicate with him again, he could. When Peter told James that Snape, Remus, and Sirius were actually working together to try and save them, James laughed for at least two minutes straight. It took a while to convince him it was true, but he finally did.

Remus's Point of view

His whole body was aching, and he felt like he was going to throw up. A migraine had set in, and the slightest sound made his head feel like it was going to split open. Sirius was sitting in the corner of the cage, having a whispered conversation with an invisible woman he'd called Angelica. Remus was worried that Sirius had gone mad, but he was also worried about the way his body was acting. Whenever it did that, it was on the day of the full moon, what if he ended up transforming while he and Sirius were locked in the cart together? Just as he was beginning to think about that, his muscles began to retract, painfully, stretching, tearing, rebuilding themselves elsewhere. He called out, instinctively curling into something equivalent to a fetal position.

"Sirius," Remus gasped through his pain. "Sirius, the moon." Sirius shot a frightened glance out at the sky, before transforming into a dog. A prickling sensation spread over his body, the brown fur was beginning to coat his body. His arms and legs were extending, bending in ways a human shouldn't be able to. His renewed yells of pain turned into the howl of a caged animal, and that was all he knew.

Sirius's point of view

Angelica was just telling him about the spirits of death that had followed the two demons into their dormitories, and about how only an elite warrior called a shinobi would be able to banish them, and they'd have to be a hell of a good shinobi to do so. He was about to ask her what a shinobi was exactly, when Remus called out in pain. He looked over at him, concerned.

"Sirius," he gasped, "Sirius, the moon." It looked even more painful for him then usual, the transformation. Angelica, who was a tall girl with long, blonde hair and black eyes, leaned in toward him and whispered,

"He could probably break through the bars in that form." He probably could do that. Sirius mentally agreed. As though Remus had read Sirius's mind, or had finally heard Angelica due to his wolven form, he began ripping and tearing at the cell bars. Sirius knew he was safe so long as he remained a dog. The cart stopped suddenly, Angelica being the only one who wasn't launched sideways into the bars. Remus rebounded quickly, immediately resuming his attempts at trying to destroy the now badly damaged cell. Finally, he succeeded in breaking three of the bars away from their positions, and immediately two skinwalkers appeared in front of their exit. Remus, who was obviously feeling threatened by them, attacked, lashing out with both his insanely large teeth and claws capable of slashing through steel.

Severus's Point of View

Leilani was trying to teach Severus how to use his "spirit ability" so he could use it to potentially track down Peter and Potter, and he was not doing well. So far, she was trying to have him read images on cards without looking at them, and the closest he's gotten was guessing at a crow when it was an eagle... but that was all he was doing was guessing, he wasn't getting images in his head or seeing colors or words in his "mind's eye" like she said he should be. The only thing strange he was picking up on was whispered words, he couldn't really tell what was being said, but every now and then, "Kuso", "Tawagoto", and "Merlin" were distinguishable from the hisses and mutterings that filled his head. He closed his eyes and shook his head, relaying to Leilani that he still wasn't seeing anything.

"Try again, these things take a lot of time, it would be nothing short of miraculous if you could gain control of it in a day."

Severus closed his eyes again, trying in vain to clear his mind, and enter Leilani's. Suddenly Potter floated into his thoughts, and his laughing voice rang out in his head, taunting him about not even being able to do something he was born to do, and as anger flooded through his veins it all disappeared, and the image of a great, black dragon, rearing and spreading it's massive wings drifted into his vision.

"A... er... dragon, right? A massive black one." He said aloud, opening his eyes. Master Leilani blinked.

"Yes."

"How are you even seeing the images on the cards?" He asked exasperatedly. He told himself not to ask that question until he answered at least one perfectly correct, and not on a random guess.

"I am using my chakra and chi. By focusing them to my hands and running my fingers over the images on the card, I can see them perfectly." Severus whistled.

"That's a pretty useful spell to have."

"It is." She agreed. "That's the only way I know how I look, I perform the eyes of the blind spell on any pictures taken of me, that's also how I read down here."

"That explains it." Severus said, nodding, feeling satisfied with this knew pice of information. He turned his head to ask Lily what she thought of it, or if she already knew this before, but she wasn't there.

"Lily's been gone quite a while." Leilani commented, following Severus's train of thought.

"Yeah, are you sure she's okay?" He asked, concerned.

"She'll be fine, she knows how to blend in with the shinobi here, and how to act intimidating."

"Well I know she can do that... wait, hold on, what's a shinobi?"

"A shinobi is an elite ninja warrior, capable of controlling both chakra and chi. We are normally kept secret from muggles and wizards, but they can be lenient on the wizard rule, since wizards are also capable of controlling chi and chakra, but do not have the training.

"There's a world being kept from the wizarding world?" He asked, letting his jaw drop slightly.

"Hito's fukiya, wizards are so clueless." she muttered.

"Hey!"

"I didn't say anything." She raised her eyebrow.

"Yes you did, you just said wizards are clueless." He said defiantly, crossing his arms.

"I thought it," She said slowly, "but I did not say it. I believe your third eye chakra has opened."

"I thought you said it was dangerous to open it in such a short amount of time." Severus commented nervously.

"It is, but I believe you've been accidently opening it, slowly over the span of your magical training." Severus nodded.

"Hold on a minute." He said, suddenly getting an idea. "You said you knew of Peter Pettigrew, right?" She merely nodded. "You also said you'd be honored to learn from him, that means he's a shinobi too, right?"

"I take back what I said about wizards being clueless." Was all she said, and Severus let himself have a grin. He heard footsteps, turned, and saw Lily's fiery red hair, then he gasped, and Master Leilani jumped to her feet.