Vivens cum Pericula
Chapter 10: Awakening
By Anne B. Walsh
From Vivens cum Pericula, Chapter 9:
"Are you hurt," asked a treble voice, "or are you just stupid?"
xXxXx
Sirius’ head jerked up. He hadn’t imagined it. Standing beside him, ankle-deep in seawater, was a tiny girl, maybe six years old. Her skin was the color of brown sugar, her eyes were a silver-gray, and her arms were folded across her chest in a gesture Sirius found hauntingly familiar.
"Well?" the girl said impatiently. "Which one is it?"
"Why does it have to be one or the other?" Sirius asked.
The girl smiled. "I suppose you’re right. It could be both."
Not quite what I meant. But Sirius didn’t care. He’d just had an impossible wish fulfilled, and he wasn’t about to let silly misunderstandings get in his way. There was only one person in the world this little girl could be.
"Would you stay with me for a minute?" he asked. "Before the water gets too deep?"
"Why don’t we move farther up?" The girl waved her hand, indicating the rocky beach behind them. "Then I can stay longer."
"I’m not feeling very well. I tried to get up before, but I fell."
"Then I’ll help you." Two tiny hands wrapped around Sirius’ arm, and the girl began to tug at him.
She has a name, you know. You can say it.
Despite his earlier certainty, though, Sirius didn’t want to commit himself. What if he was just imagining this? What if she wasn’t who she looked like at all?
There’s a very easy way to find out. And you might want to consider helping her haul your heavy self over these rocks.
One of these days, Sirius decided, he was going to find out who his inner voice sounded like and tell that person exactly what he thought of them. But he couldn’t help admitting the voice had a point.
He pushed with his feet, the girl pulled on his arm, and very slowly they made progress. Finally, Sirius couldn’t stand the quiet anymore. "What’s your name?" he asked, hitching himself a little higher on the rocks.
"Meghan. Meghan Black."
And what were you so worried about? the voice asked smugly.
"Shut up," Sirius muttered.
"Sorry?" Meghan said.
"Not you. Just...thinking."
"Mum says that’s a bad habit," said Meghan, letting go of Sirius’ arm to press one hand against her chest. "You’re heavy. I think I need to stop for a minute."
"Stop as long as you want." Impulsively, Sirius opened his arms. He remembered what it felt like to hold Harry and Hermione as toddlers, what it felt like to have their older versions climb on him in Jump’s form, but he’d never held a child this size in his human arms, and certainly not his own daughter.
Meghan sat down on his lap and laid her head on his chest. Sirius closed his eyes in silent bliss, feeling her body warming his and lifting the chill the seawater had laid on him.
She’s real. She’s real, and she’s all mine. For as long as we have.
"You said your mum says thinking is a bad habit," he said, more to stave off the tears he could feel coming than anything else. "Why does she say that?"
"She’s joking. She says it’s something my dad used to say. She says he was very good at not getting into that bad habit." Meghan turned her face up to look at him. "I never knew my dad, you know. He died before I was born, or maybe he didn’t. Nobody ever really knew. It was a war, and bad things happen in wars."
"You are so right," Sirius said softly, unconsciously tightening his grip on Meghan. "Bad things do happen in wars."
"Mum tried to help the people who got hurt by the war," Meghan went on. "She became a Healer. Now she works at the clinic at Camelot. It’s named after my dad, did you know that? She asked if it could be, because she never wanted to forget him. But how could she, when she’s got me?" She yawned. "I’m very sleepy. Do you mind if I take a nap?"
"You’re sleepy? That’s funny, I’m wide awake..." And not nearly as tired as he had been, Sirius realized.
He pushed experimentally with his heels.
And skidded a few inches farther up the slope.
Heartened, he tried lifting himself on hands and feet, crab-wise. The extra weight on his legs nearly felled him, but he managed to scuttle nearly a foot before he dropped again, spent.
He looked around and groaned silently. It’s not enough. We’re not above the tide mark.
But they had more time now. The waves were just beginning to come up this high, they hadn’t touched him since he’d moved...
And what does that do? Lets you die more slowly. Both of you, this time.
Meghan was asleep in his arms. Sirius laid a hand on her cheek. It was noticeably cooler than it had been.
That’s because you stole her energy to get this far, his inner voice carped. And for what? Isn’t it enough to get yourself killed by inches, without dragging her into it with you?
"Shut up," Sirius said aloud, angrily. "Look down there—that’s where I was." The beach where he had started was awash now, the waves higher than his head would have been. "I’d already have died if she hadn’t come here."
And you’ll still die with her here, the voice said triumphantly. Only now she’ll die as well...it’s no more than you deserve...
"Shut UP!" Sirius shouted. "I’m not going to let her die!"
"Nobody’s going to die," said a woman’s voice, and footsteps sounded on the rocks behind him. "Though you do have yourself in a bad position here."
Sirius whipped his head around to look up at the speaker. "You think so?" he said casually. "I thought this was a little picnic myself."
"Well, it could be. All it needs is a blanket, a meal, a little champagne..."
Sirius grinned up at her. "Are you offering?"
"Maybe." Aletha knelt beside him and embraced both him and Meghan at the same time. "Sirius Black, you are the world’s biggest fool," she whispered in his ear. "If it turns out that all this time you’ve been where I found you today, I’m going to be very vexed with you."
"It wasn’t my fault. I swear."
"That’s what you always say."
But her arms were warm and gentle around him, and her lips were soft against his cheek. Sirius felt tears coming to his eyes again; this time, he didn’t try to hold them off with anything.
"I love you," he murmured to both women.
"I know," Aletha answered in the same tones. "And so does Meghan. She always has." Pulling away, she looked around. "Now then, let’s get you two above the tideline, and then we can do some serious talking." She winced at her own words. "And no pun was intended, you horrid man."
"Of course not, but I’ll make one anyway."
xXxXx
A gray wolf crept through the corridors of Malfoy Manor, her nose twitching. Something wasn’t right about the trail she was following. Lucius’ smell was there as usual, though it held overtones of pain she wasn’t used to from him, but Ray’s scent seemed off. She was only getting tiny hints of him, though, since his father had been carrying him, and he’d fallen and been hurt, so that could account for it.
I need to think. I need to think about what I’m going to do.
She slipped aside into a shadowed alcove and sat down, letting her form blur back into humanity.
I’m not welcome here anymore, and I don’t think I can change that. But I might be able to Obliviate Lucius into forgetting what he saw of Ray. If he thinks I was at Camelot alone...maybe that I sneak off there to meet Remus, that would make him happy...
I can talk to Narcissa and get her to support me. She can say that she wanted to spend more time with Ray, so she didn’t question where I was going, and that gets both of them off the hook...as long as Ray has enough sense not to mention anyone he knows from Camelot in front of his father, and I think he will...
She sighed. I’ll miss my boy, but he’ll be all right. Narcissa will take good care of him, now that she knows how. And he’ll be off to Hogwarts in just a few years, and then he’ll be safe ten months out of the year...
A nagging voice in the back of her mind seemed to say that she was forgetting something, or ignoring it, but she dismissed that. If she was forgetting anything, there was no use trying to run after it. It would come back to her when she wasn’t looking for it, not when she was.
And right now, I have a man to stalk.
She slid back into wolf form and left the alcove, her paws making no noise on the carpeted floor. She would find her ally first and make her preparations, then track down her opponent and strike without warning, without mercy.
And then, I keep my promise.
Then I go to my mate, and never leave him again.
xXxXx
Remus bent and lifted Harry into his arms, frowning.
"What’s wrong?" Hermione asked worriedly.
"Nothing," Remus said absently. It wasn’t quite true, but he couldn’t put his finger on what was wrong. Something to do with Harry, and not the way he was limp and unresponsive—according to Hermione, Aletha had said there was nothing to worry about, but Hermione had also passed along that Aletha had only looked at the boy for a few seconds before her attention had been drawn to the dog...
Yes, and what is going on over there?
Remus looked over his shoulder at the tableau. Aletha’s face had changed from its first look of resolute fierceness into a softer expression he seldom saw on her anymore. He couldn’t see Meghan’s face from where he was, but he had a feeling her look was similarly different. And Jump, far from dying as Malfoy had claimed, seemed almost to be larger, though that could be a trick of the flickering blue light around the three...
"Meghan’s smiling," Hermione announced, darting around to look at her friend, then lifting her head to look at Remus. "What is it, Moony? What are they doing? Is it magic?"
"I think it must be, Hermione, but it isn’t anything I’ve ever heard of before." Remus shifted the weight in his arms. The subtle wrongness struck him again, but he shrugged it off. Harry would be fine.
"Do you think Jump will be all right?"
"I think they’re probably trying to help him. I don’t know if he’ll be all right." Remus shifted the boy in his arms again, and came to a decision. "Hermione, can you get my wand out of my pocket? Here, on my right...thank you. Now I need it." He accepted it in his right hand and concentrated on a small bare patch of ground.
Hermione watched intently as a camp bed appeared where Remus was pointing his wand. "That looks like one of Letha’s beds from the clinic," she said.
"It is. I brought it out here." Remus lowered the boy onto the bed. "It would cause a lot of commotion to take him inside, and I’m not up to that. I don’t want to leave Letha alone out here, either, but I can’t move the three of them together, and they probably shouldn’t be separated. So we’ll stay out here for a while, how about that?"
He conjured two of the large chairs from the library, one on each side of the camp bed, for himself and Hermione. The girl perched in hers, rocking back and forth anxiously as she stared at Aletha and Meghan.
xXxXx
Peri crept closer to the door through which Narcissa’s scent led. Odd...the wafts of air from the door were bringing her Lucius’ scent as well, but none of Ray’s. Instead, she was catching another very familiar scent which shouldn’t be here at all...
"Lucius, what does this mean?" Narcissa said sharply. "What is he doing here?"
"Do not meddle in things you do not understand, Narcissa," Lucius snapped back.
"Then allow me to understand it better."
"Have you not noticed a certain lassitude today? A few aches and pains, a general fatigue? I see by your face that you have. Had you not wondered what this was?"
"I had thought that perhaps I was ill," Narcissa said. "But from the way you are talking, it has its origin elsewhere."
Lucius laughed. "Elsewhere. You could say that. A curse, Narcissa. We have fallen under a curse. It was laid originally on me, but it reaches out to all my family, which apparently includes you as well as our son."
"Apparently. I still fail to see why..."
"The curse is fatal," Lucius interrupted. "I was able to hold it off for some years, but now it can no longer be delayed. It will take a few months to have its full effect, since it was designed to inflict a painful and lingering death. And the only way to remove from us is to turn it back to its caster. Unfortunately, she died herself a few months after casting it. But since she worded it to have effect on me and my family, I have the power to turn it back not only onto her, but onto any member of her family..."
Peri lost control of her form in the shock of understanding.
xXxXx
Remus wasn’t sure when he first noticed the sound. He’d been watching the lax face of the boy on the bed, trying to let his mind work its way to the source of the wrongness, when a faint, musical noise began to distract him.
Hermione was humming.
It was a song his mother had once sung to him, a long time ago. His mind fit words to her notes, words about fine things and castles being no better than the place you loved best.
It’s a sweet old song, but why sing it now?
He followed her line of sight, and understood.
She’s hoping to bring them back. As if they’re lost, and she can sing them home.
Maybe she can.
Quietly, he added his voice to hers, though he was singing to someone else as well.
You promised, he reminded Peri silently. You promised to come home.
I’m going to hold you to that.
But for now, these three needed to be brought back.
xXxXx
Sirius thought he would never get tired of sitting like this. Aletha snuggled next to him, their arms around each other’s shoulders. Meghan nestled in his lap, sleeping soundly, one hand clinging loosely to the collar of Sirius’ robes.
It was chilly, the rocks were hard and pointed, but he couldn’t bring himself to care. Even the feeling that his eyes were closing wasn’t too hard to take...after all, who wouldn’t like to sleep with the two people he loved best next to him?
"We have to go," Aletha said hoarsely, rousing herself. "We can’t stay here."
"Why not?"
"We’re not...this isn’t a real place. I don’t know how to explain." Aletha looked around them, at the windswept beach where the waves now beat against the rocks, the sullen gray sky above, the endless sea stretching away to the horizon. "We’re in your mind, Sirius. You were dying. That’s what the tide meant, coming in that way. We stopped it, Meghan and I, but now we have to get out. We can’t stay here."
Sirius sighed and braced his shoulder to let Aletha push on it. Once she was up, he handed Meghan to her, then accepted her hand to pull himself upright as well. It was hard work.
"Now where?" he asked, looking around.
"I don’t know," Aletha admitted. "I wasn’t paying attention on the way here. Inland would be my best guess, but it is only a guess..."
A faint sound of music caught Sirius’ ear. "What’s that?" he asked.
"What’s wh..." Aletha turned her head. "It’s coming from that way," she said, pointing inland and slightly to the left. "It’s someone singing, or humming. Two people. A man and...a girl, I think. The voice isn’t developed enough for a woman."
"A man and a girl," Sirius repeated thoughtfully, then changed forms to listen better. A moment was enough. "Hermione," he said surely, changing back. "That’s Hermione singing."
"Which would mean the other voice is Remus." Aletha smiled. "That’s our direction."
Supporting each other and the half-awake Meghan, the Blacks began to follow their friends’ voices.
"Will we be awake when we get there?" Sirius said as they walked. "There’s something I think Moony needs to know about."
Aletha stumbled but caught herself before she fell. "I don’t think so," she said. "We’re barely awake as it is. I don’t think we’ll be able to do anything when we get there."
Sirius swore under his breath, mindful of the girl beside him. "It’s important," he said. "Isn’t there anything we can do?"
"I might be able to get you awake for just a second, but I don’t know how coherent you’ll be." Aletha smirked. "Probably about as coherent as you ever are."
"Knew that was coming. Would you? Could you? He really needs to know this."
"Am I allowed to know it?"
"The more, the merrier. Or the sorrier, in this case. You’re not going to like it."
Aletha’s vocabulary of curses had expanded over the years, Sirius discovered.
xXxXx
The light around Aletha and Meghan blinked out. Hermione’s song broke off in a gasp as Jump began to grow. His fur darkened and lengthened, his head changed shape, until he could have been...no, he was...
"Padfoot," Remus breathed incredulously.
Hermione pressed herself back in her chair.
The dog’s form blurred, and a black-haired man lay there, weakly trying to lift his head. "Moony," he croaked.
Remus was across the clearing in a second. "I’m here," he said, leaning over Sirius—and how did he end up as the Grangers’ dog, exactly? "I’m here, it’s all right."
"No." Sirius grabbed Remus’ wrist. "Not...Harry..."
"Harry’s all right too. He just fell, he’ll wake up on his own. Aletha said so herself."
"She didn’t...look." Sirius drew a painful breath, fighting to keep his eyes open. "Look at him...he’s not..."
His lids fell shut again. Remus caught his own breath, until he saw his friend’s chest still rising and falling in the rhythm of life.
"What was he saying?" Hermione asked tremulously from behind Remus. "Something about Harry?"
Remus nodded dumbly. Most of his mind was still taken up with a great shout of joy.
Sirius is alive.
xXxXx
"So what do you propose?" Narcissa asked crisply. "To save our family at the expense of this innocent boy? The wizarding world would never stand for it, Lucius—and neither will I."
"You would rather die, then? Slowly, in pain, and watching our son die before us?"
"I would rather see if another way existed to remove the curse, or to mitigate its effects. You will not harm this child while I stand here."
"Easily solved," Lucius sneered. "Stupefy!"
"Protego!"
The sound of a ricocheted spell, and Lucius’ startled curse.
"I am not a child in school, Lucius," Narcissa spat. "Any spell you can cast, I can block."
"Indeed," Lucius said coolly. "You are right, Narcissa. You can block any spell I cast..."
Green light flared within the room, and something heavy fell to the floor.
Peri stifled a scream in her sleeve.
"Any spell," finished Lucius, "but that one."
xXxXx
Gently, Remus lifted Aletha from where she’d slumped and laid her beside her husband, then placed Meghan on her father’s other side.
Sirius is alive.
So many people would have to be told. Harry, when he woke up...Peri and Ray, when they got back...even Narcissa might be pleased to know about it...
But Harry first. He deserves to know he’ll never have to go back to his relatives again.
Remus lost himself for a moment in the thought of Harry’s face when he learned the news.
How will he like Sirius, I wonder?
Remus laughed aloud. Harry picks pockets and taunts his cousin for entertainment...they’ll get along just fine.
And Sirius knows Harry already. He’s been with him all these years, and we never even knew...
"What did he mean?" Hermione asked. "Mr... Black?" She looked curiously at Sirius. "Was that really him all the time, in Jump?"
"It looks like it." Remus stood up. "And I don’t know what he meant. I suppose I should find out. If there’s something wrong with Harry that Aletha didn’t know about, he might need treatment right away..."
xXxXx
"Draco," called a voice. "Draco."
He moved restlessly, wondering who was calling him. Usually, he hated that name, but from one person in the world, he’d accept it. This sounded like that person, but how had she come here?
"Draco, my son," she called again.
"Mother?" Ray turned. Narcissa stood behind him, dressed in white, her face not quite the same as the one he knew. He frowned at her for a minute, then identified the difference—she looked younger, with fewer lines around her eyes and mouth. "Mother, what’s happened?"
"I can’t tell you that yet, Draco. You will find out when you wake up. But you must wake up. You must deliver a message."
"A message? What is it?"
"You will know it when you arrive where you are going."
"Why can’t you deliver it?"
A sad smile touched her face. "I cannot explain that to you, Draco. All I can tell you is that you must wake up immediately. It is very important. I must go." She turned to walk away.
"But I want to know..." Ray moved forward and stretched out his hand, meaning to catch her sleeve.
His hand passed through it as if it were made of smoke.
"You cannot touch me now," she said without turning around. "I must go on, or I will be left here, and that was never my destiny. You must awaken, my son. The fate of people you care about rests in your hands."
Ray stepped back, shaking his head. "I don’t understand..."
"I know. But I cannot explain it to you." His mother’s figure had almost faded away. "Wake up, Draco," her voice echoed back quietly. "Wake up."
She was gone.
Ray looked around the place where he was, then shook his head again. "It’s probably the only way I’m going to get any answers," he said.
Closing his eyes, he concentrated on waking up, on what it felt like. A little stiff, a little sore, but ready to get up and get at the new day...
His limbs all suddenly felt heavy, and his mouth tasted terrible. He tried to call out and ended up moaning as pain stabbed across his head.
"Moony!" cried a girl’s voice, making his head throb again. "He’s waking up!"
"Mother," Ray mumbled, trying to get his eyes open. Something was resting on his face, pressing against the sides of his nose just where it joined his face. He ought to remember what that was, but he couldn’t think of it.
"Mother?" said Moony’s voice, sounding worried. "She’s not here. Were you...expecting her to be?"
"Saw her," Ray managed to get out. "She said...message..."
Moony inhaled in what sounded like surprise. "Your mother gave you a message?" he repeated.
"Yeah." Ray raised a hand to his face to take off whatever was on there. "What’s this?"
"Oh, I’m sorry, I left them on you." The light pressure was removed. "You can have them back as soon as you need them."
"What are they?" Ray repeated, dropping his hand back by his side.
"They’re your glasses, Harry," said Hermione, sounding worried. "You need them to see. You got them in October, remember?"
"’m not Harry. I’m Ray."
There was a long silence.
"This," said Moony finally, "is not good."
And it gets worse, next chapter. You’re all going to hate me. (I know, what else is new?)
But do bear in mind, this is an Anne story, with all that entails...