I should probably warn you that this is a rather dialogue heavy chapter. I had a lot of problems with it, and eventually just decided to get it out of my system even if its not all that perfect, just to get on with the story. Ended up using most of my day writing it. Sorry for the wait ^^'

Chapter 7

Where questions are answered only to rise hunred more

They watched in heavy silence as McGonagall and madam Pomfrey finally were able to open the cupboard door. Apparently Peeves had had something to do with it being jammed in the first place. He had a tendency to get carried away when in came to pranks and general disorder, and to Peeves nothing else really existed. When the door creaked open Val's body fell out limply with a silent thud. She had to have been leaning against it when she lost consciousness and now she was lying on the cold floor half out of the closet. It seemed more like some scene in a sinister play than real life occurrence. The human façade she had kept up all this time was nowhere to be seen, and they found themselves staring at a creature that clearly was all but human.

Her eyes were a solid indigo blue color with silver specs scattered in them like stardust. There was no whites or irises to speak of, only endless pools of deep blue that now was staring blankly to nothingness. Her face, that had been eerily doll like before, was now clearly that of a sidhe, with high pronounced cheekbones and a bit catlike features around the eyes. Under a small delicate nose was full lips parted to reveal slightly feline like pointed row of pearl white teeth. Her pale skin was shimmering in the dim evening sun coming through the high windows. It glistened the same way a snow would, if hit by the winter sun, sending small scatters of light in different directions. All the softness that was characteristic to humans was gone, replaced by sharp angled fragileness that was beautiful and yet deeply terrifying at the same time.

Her body looked so small and frail when madam Pomfrey lifted her effortlessly off the floor. Her wings were hanging limply on her back, dripping wet and shivering slightly along with the tremors going through her small frame. Bones were jutting out in curious angles, reminding them a bit of a small bird of some kind.

"Are they supposed to be that small?" Sirius asked disbelievingly trying to wrap his mind around the sight he was currently witnessing.

"Maybe; they need to be light to be able to fly don't they." Remus answered to him, but didn't really sound all that convinced himself either. It just felt weird, seeing something that looked so much like human yet didn't, and therefore they were not able to judge what they were seeing by human standards.

While madam Pomfrey carried the fay towards her office, McGonagall directed her piercing gaze at the boys lurking near by. The expression on her face was the iciest and most threatening they had ever witnessed before, and that was saying something; sense they had a tendency to find trouble rather often.

"I believe that the headmaster would like a word with you." She said and then pressed her thin lips in to a straight line, a muscle twitching in the corner of her eye. When she turned her back to them to lead the way out of the hospital wing, the Marauders exchanged equal looks of dread and regret.

"I think we screwed up big this time." whispered James his face still unnaturally pale and he looked like he would throw up at any second. Peter led out a small squeak while the other two just nodded in agreement before they hurried after the professor.

The journey through the school corridors was a silent one. Their professor's frame was rigid and straight while she escorted them to Dumbledore's office. Sirius walked in a state of haze, not really able to comprehend what exactly had just happened, and did a double take after noticing that he was already standing in the headmasters study. The portraits were busily whispering among themselves and after regarding them for a while he dragged his eyes to meet the piercing gaze of his headmaster.

"Sit down boys, I believe we have some serious matters to discuss" Dumbledore said in a tired voice while taking his place behind the large cluttered table. After they had all taken their seats, fidgeting uneasily and looking anywhere else except their headmaster he cleared his throat and leaned forward, placing his elbows on the edge of the table and connecting his fingertips in to a spiderlike pattern before him.

"I have to say, that I am rather disappointed in you right now. I am well aware that you have a certain fondness towards playing pranks to your fellow students, but what you did today, must absolutely never happen again. Am I understood?" The four boys stuttered compliant answers at his harsh tone, but this didn't seem to appease him fully.

"I believe you are aware of Miss Nightshades… special circumstances?" he eventually asked. An awkward silence followed, while Dumbledore proceeded to stare at them expectantly. Eventually, it was Sirius who nodded apprehensively and the professor sighed deeply while pinching the bridge of his lumpy nose.

"It is probably best if I explain you something to ensure that this kind of situation willnot repeat it self." he said after some time of contemplation.

"We are at war." He stated, leaning back in his high-backed chair. After a prominent pause he continued

"This war is the very reason, why I insisted for her attendance… Humans are not the only ones that are now affected by the situation. It has reached the point, where the whole magical community is involved, and I am sure you understand that this means that new alliances are needed. I am telling you this, also because I am hoping that one day you will be making your own contributions in the actions against Lord Voldemort. "At this point his stern expression momentarily turned in to and encouraging smile.

"Now, we have sent requests to many different directions, some are compliant to our cause, some are not. I need not explain to you why the sidhe would be an extremely powerful ally, the problem here lies in that they are a very long living race, and what is almost ancient history to us, is very much remembered in their midst." This caused Remus to let out a surprised noise that earned an approving look from the headmaster.

"In the old days, it was relatively common especially for dark wizards to hunt them down for different sorts of magical purposes. As highly magical creatures this practise offered a vast amount of possibilities, a fact that is now caused the custom to resurface. "Dumbledore paused again, allowing his words time to sink in and the boys time to fully comprehend the meaning behind them.

"While this certainly gives the sidhe a certain kind of motivation in the fight against the Dark Lord, it also causes certain types of problems in the case of trust. And as of rule, the sidhe are not very trusting when it comes to us humans. It took me a long while to persuade them to send one of their own here, to a place full of humans. I am hoping that when they see that she is perfectly safe here as well as treated with the proper respect, and there are indeed people that are worth their trust; they are willing to cooperate with us in our time of need."

The Marauders sat quietly; carefully digesting the information they had been given. Dumbledore observed them silently and when he was sure that he had achieved the effect he had been hoping for, he rose from his seat.

"I suggest you give it some more thought when you have time." he said while looking straight at James with his blue eyes meaningfully.

"About the matter at hand: I am under the impression that Peeves had his own spoon mixed in the soup, so I think that three detentions for each of you would suffice. You will be informed with the details later." he concluded while escorting the silent group to the door.

"Now off you go. Straight to your dorms if you may."

-XXX-

"I still can't believe it. It all feels so surreal." James huffed after slumping to his usual seat in the Gryffindor common room.

"Tell me about it." Sirius said forcefully rubbing his eyes, trying to put his thoughts in to a proper order. Remus didn't say anything; he was staring intensively at nothing in particular, chewing his lower lip deep in contemplation. They all sat in silence for a moment.

"So basically what Dumbledore was saying to us, was that we possibly screwed up his plans at making alliances with the fay?" It was James who broke the silence first. Somehow the thought made him sick all over again.

"Yeah, something of the sort at least." Sirius agreed. This was followed by another thoughtful pause.

"Do you think… maybe… that we should try to fix this?" James brought up eventually. He very much wanted to do all he could to help in the fight against the Dark Lord, and he felt like Dumbledore had purposefully pointed him to the direction he could be of use.

"I mean, if we can win over at least the one fay, I'm sure it'll help with the negotiations right? It must be one of the reasons why Dumbledore wanted her here in the first place…" he tried to reason.

"Its easier said than done though." Sirius agreed. "Merlin, I feel so stupid now. I never once stopped to think properly what I was doing… It's just… that even looking at her bugged me so much. The way she beat Remus in every lesson and acted like it was common occurrence… all high and mighty, like we were below her somehow… or so I thought… Now I'm not so sure anymore. We know nothing of her." at the end of his rant he was violently tugging at his hair in frustration.

"Maybe that's where we should start then." Remus suddenly broke his silence; the look on his face was that of a person who had suddenly awoken from a deep slumber.

"If we are indeed decided to win her over for the sake of the war and all, we should start by putting together what we already know of her and then search for more information. The more we know, the easier the task itself will be. Even if it's still going to be bloody hard." he concluded.

"Yeah, you have a good point." James admitted, ruffling at his messy hair while trying to get a good grip of himself.

"So we know that she is a sidhe… and apparently her dad is into politics. It would make sense. If he is a big shot in the fay society, having his daughter here and earning their trust would make a greater impact. Also we know that Val's magic is quite strong, so she has to be part of the court…" he listed, lifting a finger to mark each point he made.

"One of the problems here is that we know so little about the fay. Its like professor Graymoor said on DADA. The sidhe have been in hiding so long that humans have lost almost all accurate information we had of them. I think that's one reason why the prank went so wrong too. We knew that water has some effect on her, just not exactly what it would do…" Sirius continued. When James looked appropriately horrified at the mentioning of his past class attentiveness, he proceeded to throw him with the first object he could reach. Luckily for James it was a pillow, and not one of the books Remus had left lying around.

"Actually I have been doing some research on the matter." Remus inserted.

"Somehow I'm not surprised." James chuckled at that, earning a dirty look from him.

"I had a feeling it might come in handy." he said irritably. "There wasn't much to go from, just few scraps here and there, but I was able to put together a general idea at least. Like we learned in DADA, they are divided in different classes; the high and low courts and the common folk. There are also some that are called solitary, sense they don't really belong to none of the classes. There is also more than one court, and even those courts are divided in to smaller ones. It was all really confusing. Humans generally know them as The Day and The Night courts, but they have their own names for them too of course…" At this point he noticed that the other three regarded him with rather confused faces.

"Here, I'll draw you a diagram, that way it's easier to understand… I think they made it intentionally this complicated…" he said, grapping a piece of parchment and a quill from the nearest table.

"So it's kind of like this… but for some reason we have only The Night courts left in Britain… It has something to do with the subspecies… The Night courts includes more of the unseelie sort than the day ones, they are supposed to be more violent than the seelie so they probably were able to defend themselves better against the hunts back in the day. Remember how Greymoor said they live in hiding? Well it's sort of a different plain altogether. It's called The Dark Fields, or Nidavellir, but apart from the name I couldn't find much about it, just that you shouldn't eat or drink anything there… "Remus furrowed his brow suddenly, thinking that his sleep deprived ramblings probably didn't make much of a sense to the others, diagrams or no diagrams.

"Well the point is, that she is probably nocturnal, and the place she grew up in was probably very different from ours." he completed eventually wearily.

"Of course there is the whole matter of fay magic an all that, but it was mostly the same shit we went through in DADA; shapesifting, glamours, suggestion, familiars and all sorts of tricks…" his mind started to wander again, and the end of his speech came out almost incoherent mumbling.

"Come on Moony, you are clearly so tired that you have already started swearing." James chuckled good-humouredly placing a hand on his shoulder.

"Let's go upstairs and try to get some sleep. We can figure this thing out tomorrow when you have stopped gibbering in half asleep. Now on three: one, two, three." He said, pulling Remus up from the couch. The poor lad was almost asleep on his feet while James walked him up the stairs and pushed him down on his bed throwing a blanket over him before proceeding to get ready for bed, other two following them soon after.