Chapter 17 - Sometimes in life the hero saves the day.
December 22, 2005

A scream tore from Deirdre's throat as she was pulled away into the swirling black, a wordless, desperate plea for help. She was tumbled about, malevolent whispers hissing in her ear, her skin pricked and scratched, hair pulled, as if she was hurtling through a forest, caught in a tangle of branches. Then there was a sudden roar, like the rush of a river or the onslaught of a wave on the shore. The black cloud was sucked away and she fell with a thud to the ground. She lay there for a while, trying to catch her breath, tentatively checking for injuries and wondering what in the world was going on.

She finally sat up, pushing her tangled hair out of her face, and looked around. It was…empty, wherever she was, a grey space that stretched towards the horizon in every direction. Even though there was no visible threat of any kind, a nameless terror gripped her. Was this what Professor Snape had been afraid of? Was she trapped somewhere in Gareth's mind, alone, with no way to return? Adrenaline surged in response to the fear, and she leaped to her feet, looking frantically around for some sort of marker, anything to indicate where she might go or what she might do. Almost unconsciously she transformed and howled the most desperate, frightened cry she could utter. Only as she finished was she able to at least feel a moment's gratitude that whatever had impeded her from transforming before was gone.

She sniffed the air in every direction, confused and frightened again by the utter lack of…of anything. If someone had asked her before this she would have said it was impossible to scent nothing, that even what a werewolf might consider nothing was really just the normal somethings. Air should be alive, full of plants, animals, whatever chemicals a person used to clean themselves and their home, the briny scent of a nearby sea, or the brackish scent of a pond, sometimes ozone if storms were coming…a thousand ways to orient oneself to reality. But here there was…nothing.

Howling again, she walked about a hundred meters and sniffed, walked the same in another direction, then turned, went on, and turned again, before making her way back, at least able to follow her own scent to where she started. Trying to force back the encroaching despair, Deirdre sat down and took several long, slow breaths. On the last breath she thought she caught a faint trace of a different smell. She sniffed intently, worrying it was just an illusion, that this was going to be the first step of her losing her own mind. Perhaps she would go mad here, trapped in this grey nothing, while outside her body simply wasted away.

But the scent grew stronger, some odd combination that reminded her of bread, sunshine, and blood, but yet wasn't quite any of those things. It seemed to be concentrated to her left, so she set out to find it, trotting slowly along, nose working frantically, ears pricked for any sounds. After what felt like an age, she thought she saw a light in the distance, maybe a half mile away. She picked up her pace, trying to decide what she would do if the light turned out to be something horrible, but as she approached it became clear the glow was several wolves, clustered around the golden man.

Deirdre slowed down as she approached. They were all so solemn, she wondered if maybe she shouldn't come too close, but then the golden man knelt down to meet her. "I'm glad you found me," he said touching her head.

Too many questions bubbled up inside for her to remain in her wolf form. She took a step back and transformed, kneeling with him. "What happened? Where am I?" she whispered quickly. "Where's Gareth?"

"The enemy that has been pestering Gareth made a bit of a fuss," he said softly. "You asked for help and this place is a…well, I guess you could call it a pause."

"And Gareth?" she pressed, her heart and breath catching nervously, leaning closer. Had she been pulled away from the enemy because she'd asked for help? But Gareth wouldn't have asked for help. He didn't trust anything happening right now. Was he still in the clutches of the black swirling cloud, being tossed about like a rag doll, his body bruised or broken, or something worse? "He doesn't believe you want to help. Are you just going to leave him to that…that thing?" In her desperation she reached for him, grasping his hands. "Please," she begged, "please help him. I'm asking, even if he won't."

The man smiled and squeezed her hand. Normally, Deirdre would have pulled away, the smile was too familiar. If he'd been an ordinary man she wouldn't have trusted him to be this close, to make herself vulnerable like this. But his eyes were different, they were…old, as if an Ancient had simply garbed himself in the body of a younger man because it was convenient. Plus the warriors were there, and she'd spent years hearing Daisy's stories, and had heard what Harry said happened the night he defeated Voldemort. This man could help, she knew he could. The wolf closest to him, a fiery red that Deirdre knew was her own warrior, lifted up its head, howling. The other wolves joined in, the high, sharp sounds an otherworldly chorus.

"I will free him," the man said, rising to his feet. "Are you prepared to fight with me? This enemy knows you are a threat and will come against you."

Deirdre scrambled to her feet. "I…I can fight as a wolf." She looked around at the much larger, supernatural wolves surrounding them and felt rather silly. "But I guess I wouldn't be as helpful as these…" Her voice trailed off and she looked down at her feet.

"The fight is not against flesh and blood," the man said. "I do not ask for your teeth or claws. I ask for your heart, your resolve. What Gareth will need is for you to remind him of what is true, no matter what chaos might appear to be happening around him. You must not give up."

Deirdre swallowed, rubbing her hands restlessly over her legs, and nodded. "I can do that," she whispered.

"Good," he said with a firm nod, and then raised his hands. Deirdre felt a slight dizzy sensation, and then the grey space around them was gone. They were in a dim, stone room, a basement of some kind.

Gareth was sitting on a mattress in the corner, hunched over, eyes tightly closed, his hands covering his ears, and rocking back and forth. "No more," he moaned. "Don't make me see any more."

Deirdre ran over to him, dropping to her knees and cupping his face in her hands. "Shh, it's all right," she said gently. "It will all be over soon."

She wasn't sure what she expected him to do, but it certainly wasn't letting loose an angry yell and shoving her away from him. She landed hard on her bum and muttered an annoyed curse. "Gareth! I—"

"I won't watch you kill any of them again!" he shouted, brandishing his wand and firing off a spell that she only just managed to avoid.

Could spells actually work in a dream? she wondered, looking around frantically for the golden man and the wolves as she side stepped another spell and tried to get close enough to touch him and reassure him that she was real. She'd managed to reach for his hand when a hissing sort of white noise filled the room.

Deirdre glanced over her shoulder to see the black cloud appear and begin to swirl, but rather than fill the space, it shrank inward, coalescing into a dark figure. Gareth seemed to forget about her, the wand trembling in his hand, not that she could blame him. As she watched, the figure solidified, human-like, but where the legs should have been was a thick, coiled serpentine body. And the head seemed to be growing some odd sort of antlers that coiled as well.

"Gareth, it won't win," Deirdre whispered quickly, sidling up close to him. "The man said he would fight—" Her words were lost in a loud rush of wind that shoved her away from him against the wall. She hit the stone hard, banging her head and scraping her elbow.

"Stay away, squib," a voice hissed. "Pitiful waste of flesh that he is, this one still belongs to me."

And then Deirdre lost her mind just a little bit. At least, that was the only way she could find to describe it later. Something about the voice of that twisted and evil creature reminded her of dealing with Travers during the Battle of Hogwarts. Gareth's birth father had that same entitled sneer in his voice, and she wasn't having it. Gareth was a good man with a family who loved him and no Death Eater or Demon was going to talk about him like he was rubbish to be cast aside.

"No!" she screamed, launching herself between Gareth and the creature as the thing lunged forward, clawed hands extended. The three of them collided, and their enemy almost instantly held them in cruel talons. "Gareth, you listen to me," Deirdre yelled as the hissing noise began to fill the room. She twisted in the creature's grasp, fiery pain shooting through her arms as she tried to hold his gaze. "This thing will not win! That man who was here, he can defeat it! He said he would! He's on our side!"

For just a moment the demon wrenched them both to the side and they were close enough to touch. Gareth grabbed one of her hands, as a blazing light filled the room. Deirdre blinked, trying desperately to hold on to Gareth as he was pulled away from her again.

"ENOUGH!" a deep voice roared. In an instant everything grew still and silent. A blanket of pure relief covered her. The man had come. At least, she was pretty sure it was the same man. He looked different, older maybe? Certainly brighter and more…well, just more. The wolves stood in a semi circle around him, fur bristling and teeth bared.

The creature held Gareth and Deirdre in front of it, claws wrapped painfully around their arms as they struggled. The thing hissed at the man. "But he is mine," it whined in a slimy sort of voice. "I was given access, he doesn't belong to you. He—"

The wolves surrounding the man began to howl. If their earlier song had been an echo of agreement with the man's smile, this song heralded a fight, ear-splitting and terrifying. "I will have mercy on whom I will have mercy," the man replied steadily. "Your access is revoked and you will leave."

The demon shrieked, releasing them from its claws. It dissolved into the black cloud, swirling around wildly as if in a fit of temper, before bursting through the back wall, showering the room with shards of stone. Deirdre, shaking, sank to the ground, clutching at Gareth. She couldn't see through her tears, tears of relief, pain, and fear pouring out all at once. He cupped her face in his hands, peering at her through the tangle of her hair. "Are you real?" he whispered hoarsely.

And she couldn't speak, could only nod, her hands holding his so tightly she thought it must hurt as much as the demon's claws. Gareth pulled her close, his whole body trembling as he held her, shuddering breaths whispering over and over again, "I'm so sorry. I'm so sorry."

The warm golden light from the man and wolves surrounded them, and Deirdre felt a hand rest on her head. "Be at peace," the man said in a deep, gentle voice.

She looked up and saw him smiling at them, a hand laid on each of their heads. Gareth very slowly lifted his head, face pale and eyes red. "Why did you help me?" he asked, his voice catching.

The man dropped to the floor to sit beside them, and clapped Gareth on the shoulder. "I promised to fight with you, squaddie," he said.

Gareth looked puzzled, and then his eyes widened in shock. "You," he breathed. "I thought…I thought you were another dream…" His voice trailed off and he looked around the room, giving a helpless sort of shrug. "But I guess you are…this is a dream…"

"This is a dream, but I am not just a dream, anymore than Deirdre is just a dream. We are merely sharing this space for a little while."

"Can I ask…" Gareth ran his hands restlessly through his hair and then dropped them into his lap with a sigh. "Why has this been so hard? I was trying to do the right thing…I tried to help my family…"

"And you tried to do it alone," the man said. "I've never asked anyone to do anything alone."

"So what do I do now?" Gareth asked. He looked so uncertain, he who was typically so annoyingly sure about everything. Deirdre reached for his hand, and he held it tightly, his breathing still shaky.

"Nature abhors a vacuum," the man pronounced, like that should explain everything. Deirdre raised her eyebrows questioningly, and the man chuckled. "What I mean, is that now that your enemy has been vanquished it is important that you do not leave your life as empty as it was. You must fill it up. Don't rely on yourself alone. I am always here. My servants are always here. Your family is always here. You are not meant to walk through this life all on your own."

Gareth nodded. "I can do that," he said, and then let out a long breath. "Doing things my own way didn't work out very well," he added, one side of his mouth quirking up in an attempt at a rueful smile. But it quickly faded and he looked once more uncertain and ashamed. "I guess I should say thank you."

The man laughed gently. "Someday you will want to. But you don't have to force yourself right now. I know I'm not what you expected. I'm not usually what people expect."

"Harry said that about you." The words were out of Deirdre's mouth before she'd thought about how they sounded, and she winced. That was a stupid thing to say, almost like they'd been talking about him behind his back.

But the man smiled and winked at her. "I'd rather you be talking about that then not talking about me at all. He stood and rubbed at his chin. "Now I think you'd better wake up," he said. "Your friends are very concerned about you."

Deirdre thought there would be some sort of ceremony about it, but it just happened. One moment she was there and the next she was opening her eyes to the ceiling of Gareth's living room, frantic voices all around her. She sat up and heard several gasps.

"Severus, she's back!" Remus shouted.

Professor Snape sort of staggered to one of the armchairs and sank into it, his face ashen, wiping sweat from his brow.

"Did I do all of this?" Gareth asked, and Deirdre spun to look at him. He was slowly sitting up, his face worried. And only then did she look around the room and see the devastation. The front windows were shattered, rain and wind pouring in. Pictures were hanging crookedly or had fallen, great cracks crisscrossing the far wall. The fireplace mantle had fallen and one end was slowly smoldering where it had landed on the fire.

Remus slowly shook his head and Professor Price visibly shuddered. "No. I don't know what it was, but it wasn't you," she said. She perched on the edge of the chair beside Professor Snape and shuddered again. "It was like watching The Exorcist," she muttered.

"Things were…very chaotic," Remus said. "Not at first," he amended. "At first everything seemed fine." He was standing, arms crossed, beside the fireplace and almost lazily swished his wand towards it to extinguish the burning mantle. "But then you both sort of seized up. And Deirdre transformed—"

"Which she shouldn't have been able to do," Professor Snape added, sounding annoyed. "The potion should have kept you completely immobilized."

"After a moment she transformed back, but Gareth became very…distressed," Remus went on, frowning and shifting on his feet. "It looked like you were choking, but we couldn't find anything wrong. No spells seemed to make a difference. And Severus was going mad trying to get Deirdre to come out of it."

She glanced over at Professor Snape and gave him a small smile. He frowned, but jerked his head in acknowledgment.

"You said you thought there was an enemy involved," Gareth sighed. "And there was. It attacked and separated us. I ran for a long time, or at least it felt like a long time. But it was all around, like a fog, and then it…it grabbed me." He closed his eyes and swallowed. "It was trying to strangle me, like a serpent."

"Then what happened?" Remus asked.

Gareth looked at Deirdre and shrugged helplessly. "I'm not sure. The next thing I knew she was there too and the thing had us, and then it was gone. The man…" his voice trailed off and he swallowed again.

"It was the man Harry saw when he died," Deirdre interjected. "I'm sure of it. Well, not really died," she added, "you know what I mean, when he faced Voldemort for the last time. That man was there, and I asked him to help, and he made the demon leave. He didn't even have to do anything, he just told it go and it went."

"But it wasn't happy about it," Gareth said, shaking his head. "It sort of screamed and then the walls exploded. But just dream walls I guess."

Remus blew out a breath, uprighted a chair that had been toppled over on the floor, and sank into it. "Not just dream walls," he said slowly, pointing toward the windows. "I think we saw that part. Gareth seized up again and this…black cloud starting pouring out his mouth. But once it was out, it…it was like a cyclone, tearing up everything in its path." He gestured around the room. "As you can see…"

Professor Price wrapped her arms around herself, shaking her head. "I don't want to ever see anything like that again. You could feel the hatred coming from that thing."

Remus leaned forward in the chair, looking from Deirdre to Gareth, his eyes intense, though his face looked exhausted and worn. "I am so relieved you both are all right."

Tears pricked her eyes again, and Deirdre slid off the sofa, taking the two steps toward his chair and hugging him tightly. "Thank you," she whispered, "for being here, for helping to save him, for…for believing."

Remus huffed as he held her. "Alec would probably come back and haunt me if he thought I'd let you down," he muttered. "And Gareth had better realize what he has, or Alec may come back for him."

Deirdre laughed, in spite of her tears. "I think," she said, "we could all use some tea."