Vivens cum Pericula
Chapter 13: Hope
By Anne B. Walsh
Meghan looked up from her toy and cocked her head to one side. Moony was crying in the kitchen. That had to mean something was very wrong.
But there were a lot of things very wrong. Ray sick, and Peri asleep and not waking up, and the new baby starting to grow inside her—it wasn’t that new babies were wrong, Mum had explained, nor even that this baby was wrong, but that Peri hadn’t said it was all right for the baby to get made. Meghan didn’t quite understand, but she knew Mum did, and Dad, so she accepted for the time being what she couldn’t grasp.
But maybe I can help Ray. She set down her linked blocks and scooted over to Ray, still asleep on the couch. If I could make Ray better, maybe I’d know how to help Peri too. Peri has more wrong with her than Ray does, but if I can take away one of the wrongs, maybe Mum or another Healer will be able to help with the other one.
She put her hand on Ray’s and concentrated on looking. Let me see what’s wrong, she willed. Let me see if there’s a way I can fix it.
Lines of ugly red light began to show under Ray’s skin. Large ones spread through his arms and legs, small ones threaded across his fingers and face, until all his skin was cross-hatched with them. Meghan caught her breath—she’d seen something like this before, in one of Mum’s books—
Whatever’s wrong with Ray, it’s in his blood, running around inside him, hurting him more and more. Can I stop it from doing that?
She reached, but pulled back with a yelp as the wrongness snatched at her too. No! You can’t hurt me! Mum and Dad need me to take care of them!
A little shiver ran down her spine, and she let go of Ray’s hand reluctantly, watching the lights under his skin fade. So I can’t stop whatever’s hurting Ray. Not without letting it hurt me too. And I don’t want to get hurt.
She could taste the wrongness still, in her mouth. It was a sad sort of wrongness, and it reminded her of somebody she knew.
But I don’t know anybody who would hurt Ray. He’s our friend.
She slid that to the back of her mind and scooted closer to the kitchen door, listening carefully.
xXxXx
"There’s nothing anyone can do?" Remus asked for the fourth time, or the tenth, or the thirty-second—he’d lost count, and it didn’t matter, because the answer would never change. "What about you and Meghan? You healed Sirius, didn’t you?"
"The curse on him was different than this," Aletha said patiently. "It was normal magic, laid on thickly, but still normal magic. This isn’t. It’s wild, like accidental magic, but it’s very strong, and it’s tied closely to the Malfoy blood. Meghan and I might be able to draw the curse out of the bloodline, but we’d have to put it into another one—"
"And don’t even think about it," Sirius said before Remus could do more than open his mouth. "Peri’d never forgive us, or you, if you did something that noble and stupid."
"And what else is there for me to do?" Remus asked bitterly. "Sit by and watch them both die? There has to be something I can do, damn it!"
Sirius looked away. "Sometimes there isn’t," he said quietly. "Sometimes, no matter how hard you fight, there are things in life you can’t change. Things you just have to live with, and try to work around." He twisted his wedding ring, reinstated on its proper finger two days ago. "I won’t lie to you, Moony. It hurts, not to be able to fix things and make things all better. Sometimes it hurts a lot. Usually that’s because it’s your fault it happened, or because you think it is." He looked back at Remus with a half-smile. "This isn’t your fault, by the way. None of it is. But I know you. You’ll try and convince yourself it is, because blaming yourself and beating yourself up hurts less than facing the facts."
Remus laid his head on the table, pressing a hand against his eyes. This isn’t fair. He shouldn’t be allowed to know me this well.
"I know the feeling too," Aletha added softly. "And sometimes there just isn’t any way to make it better. But there are other times when things get better all of a sudden, after you’d almost stopped hoping." Her hand found Remus’ and pressed it gently before moving on to hold Sirius’. "Hope hurts, Remus. But without it, there’s no way through this, or at least no way that will leave you as yourself when it’s over."
"When it’s over." Remus let his hand tighten into a fist. "When they’re dead, you mean. When I’ve hoped until there’s no more reason to hope, and let their deaths kill me."
"Do I count as no more reason to hope?" Sirius said in a mock-offended tone. "What about Meghan and Harry and Hermione? They care about you, I’ll have you know. And I suppose Letha does too," he added quickly as his wife cleared her throat. "Ow!"
"You deserved it." Aletha’s hand pressed gently against Remus’ face, turning it so that he could see her. "Remus, please don’t give up hope yet. We haven’t had a chance to study this curse fully. There’s always a chance we’ll find something, a way to delay it if not to take it off entirely."
"Delay it? What for?" Remus shoved her hand away roughly. "Let them die even more slowly, prolong the pain?"
"To give us more time to find a true cure," Aletha said firmly. "But even if we fail entirely, if there is no cure at all, there’s one thing that only you can do."
"What?" Remus asked ungraciously.
Aletha lowered her eyes for a moment. "It isn’t easy," she said. "It will hurt you, tear at you, no matter what we find."
Remus growled under his breath. "Tell me what it is."
Aletha looked up. "Ray. He’s old enough to be told the truth, in my opinion; old enough to ask is old enough to know. You’ll make the final decision, of course, but whether or not he knows, he will need someone there with him, someone to lean on and call for when it hurts too much."
Remus bit down hard on his lip. Could he still bear to hold Ray in his arms if they both knew how it would end?
"And don’t give me that look, either," Sirius said grumpily.
"What look?" Remus gripped the edge of the table, hoping it would help him keep as firm a grip on his temper.
"The look that says Lucky Sirius, he doesn’t have to deal with this. Maybe I don’t have someone dying on me, but I have to explain to Harry and Meghan—yes, and Hermione too—what’s happening to Ray, and to Peri, and they’re going to ask me, ‘When are they going to get better?’" Sirius imitated Hermione’s voice. "You know they will, that’s how kids think. ‘When will they be able to play with me again?’ ‘When will they be able to do everything they used to?’ How do you think I’m going to tell them that it might never happen?"
Remus tried to say something, but Sirius ran over top of him. "When I’ve just seemingly come back from death, they’re not going to understand that being dead lasts forever. I get to try to explain that to them, and deal with whatever comes of it. And you know Harry—he’s just enough like his dad that he might well try something brave and stupid, especially when he realizes it was Lily’s spell that did this, and that Malfoy could have turned the curse onto him and saved Ray."
"And himself," Aletha interjected dryly, "which I think was his main concern."
"No, I wouldn’t say that," said Sirius, diverted. "He seems to care about his son."
"About his son as in Ray, the boy we care about, or about his son in the sense of his bloodline continuing?" Remus said dully.
"Probably the second one," Sirius admitted. "But Harry’s still going to pick up on it, and want to know why he can’t save Ray and Peri, and I get to convince him that he can’t—"
"And since we will all be suffering quite enough over the next few months, I think this session of ‘I’m a bigger martyr than you are’ is over for the moment," said Aletha quellingly. "Nothing is set in stone, Remus," she added more gently. "We could find out something new at any time. There might be a way to turn the curse from them that we never thought of." She sighed. "I just wish we knew more about it. How it was worded, what exactly it said. If we knew that, we might be able to find a way to take it off them."
xXxXx
From the other room, Meghan listened carefully, her fingers pressed against her mouth.
Mum wants to know what words the curse used. She can’t know because Harry’s mum made the curse, and Harry’s mum died.
But Meghan had seen what dying looked like. A cold, rocky beach, with waves washing in...
If the water means dying, maybe people who are all the way dead are out in the water somewhere. She shivered. Mum would never tell her scary stories, but some of the other girls she took her dancing lessons with weren’t so careful. I don’t really want to see a dead person.
If somebody didn’t do something, though, Ray would be a dead person soon, and so would Peri, and Peri’s baby. Meghan shivered harder at the thought of her friends stranded on that lonely shore, watching the water come in, wondering how long they could last before a wave broke over their heads and dragged them away...
I have to do something.
No, we have to do something. Harry and Hermione intruded themselves upon the mission as a matter of course, and Ray as a matter of necessity—it was his life, after all.
Meghan settled down next to the couch for some deep thinking.
xXxXx
When the Blacks had gone home, Remus sat down at the end of the couch and watched Ray sleep. Damn it, Peri, why couldn’t you be here?You’d know how to explain this to him—how to make him understand—
"It’s one of the lies we have to tell our children," Peri murmured in his memory. Remus closed his eyes to see her sitting beside him at the library in Camelot, the children curled up together with Hermione reading to them. "That we can protect them from anything. They have to realize sooner or later that it’s not true, but when they’re very young, if they don’t believe it, they’ll never learn to trust anyone, because they aren’t ready for the realization that no one is perfect."
Remus opened his eyes again to look at Ray. Ready or not, little one, here it comes...
He slid off the couch to sit on the floor beside his boy. I can do this much for you. I can be there with you every step of the way. I won’t let you suffer any more than you have to.
Drawing a deep breath, he shook Ray gently awake.
xXxXx
Ray squirmed, cataloguing all his body’s sensations. Is this what "very sick" feels like? I hurt all over, but I can still do things. I still want to do things. I thought sick people didn’t care.
"Will I have to go into hospital?" he asked Moony.
"Probably not, at least not for a while. As long as you can take care of yourself, or I can take care of you, you’ll stay here." Moony tried to smile. "There’s even a chance Peri could come out of hospital."
"She’s woken up?" Ray realized a split second too late this was impossible—Moony would have told him that long before the trifling fact that Ray himself was very sick—and wanted to kick himself for the look that spread over Moony’s face. "I’m sorry," he said, looking away.
"Don’t be." Moony’s voice was rough, and he leaned down to hug Ray tightly. "Don’t be sorry for anything you do—not that I’m going to let you get away with being a brat," he added, with a faint version of his usual chuckle. "No, Peri hasn’t woken up, but the Healers think that being in a familiar place might make her more likely to wake. So she’ll be coming here, at least until—" His face shut down, and he turned away.
"At least until what?" Ray was suddenly worried. "What’s wrong with her? Is there something new?"
"Yes." Moony coughed over the word, and had to clear his throat before he could go on. "Yes, there’s something new. Sirius and Aletha were just here, with Meghan, to tell me about it." His shoulders shook once, and he reached out to take Ray’s hand. "She’s under a curse, Ray. Even if she wakes up, she’ll be ill the same way you’re ill, and she probably isn’t going to get better from it. Unless the Healers can find a way to get rid of the curse..."
Ray felt a cold knot of ice form in his stomach. "She’s going to die, isn’t she?"
Moony’s face gave him all the answer he needed.
"No!" he half-shouted. "I don’t want her to die!"
"Nor do I," Moony whispered back.
And they were holding each other and crying, crying like Ray hadn’t been sure Moony could cry. Moony wasn’t supposed to cry.
But then, Peri wasn’t supposed to die, either.
xXxXx
Late that night, Ray lay in his bed and watched the shadows on the ceiling flicker and change shape.
Peri’s under a curse. A curse that kills people. But who would put Peri under a curse?
Maybe my father did it. Maybe that was the way he hurt her that was so terrible that Moony couldn’t tell me about it. But Moony acted like he only learned about that today, and there was something else that was terrible that my father did to Peri before...
He shifted uneasily as his shoulder twinged.
Moony said Peri would be ill like I’m ill if she woke up. I don’t want her to hurt like this, but I do want her to wake up. I want her to be here with me. He fingered the locket on his chest. She promised she’d always be with me...
If Peri will always be with me, does that mean I’ll always be with Peri?
The way the thought looped made him smile, until it curved back to touch his earlier thoughts.
I’ll always be with Peri, so wherever she goes, I have to go.
Moony said she’d be ill like I’m ill if she woke up.
Her being asleep isn’t part of the curse.
The curse kills people.
A sudden, terrible fear filled him, and he jumped out of bed.
Or tried to jump. Halfway through, his left leg stabbed with pain, and he doubled up over it, yelling. Too late, he realized this had tipped him over the edge of the bed.
The resultant slam shook the floorboards and left Ray winded. His thoughts, as scattered as his breath, flitted around his head as he fought for air. A curse...like Peri...she’s going to die...
"Ray!" Moony appeared in his doorway, lit wand in one hand. "Are you all right? What happened?"
Ray coughed. "It hurt," he wheezed, pointing at his leg. "I tried to get up..."
"Don’t talk too much," Moony said soothingly, dropping down beside him and helping him to sit up. "Just relax. Breathe deep."
Ray drew one great, sobbing breath, then another. His chest loosened. Leaning into Moony, he closed his eyes, and for one second the world was the way it ought to be.
Then he looked up at Moony and asked his question.
"Am I going to die?"
xXxXx
Remus’ first impulse was to lie.
He’s too young to understand it. He’ll be terrified by it. Don’t tell him.
And behind it all, the sneaking hope, If he doesn’t know it’s supposed to happen, maybe it won’t happen...
"Why do you think so?" he asked, playing for time.
"You said Peri would be ill like I’m ill if she woke up. But if her being asleep were part of the curse, then she wouldn’t ever wake up, or not until someone found a way out of the curse. So the curse has to be something else." Ray pushed away from him and met his gaze. "Please, Moony. I want to know."
Not quite a man yet, but well on your way. Remus felt a rush of pride, accompanied and overshadowed by the grief of a loss assured. "I will tell you," he said quietly. "Yes. Unless Letha and the other Healers find some way to counter the curse..." Stay strong for him. Don’t let him see you break down. "...you will die."
Ray closed his eyes and swallowed once, then opened them again. "What is it like?" he asked. "Dying?"
"We don’t know." Remus waved Ray closer, and Ray came willingly, pressing himself against Remus’ side as though he held to life itself. "Some people say it’s like passing through a door, or walking through an archway. Some talk about bright light, or clouds, or beautiful meadows and forests. Many people believe that you meet the people you loved."
"And I don’t have to go alone," Ray murmured. "Peri will go with me."
Remus winced at this unintentional stab. "Yes," he answered. "Peri will go with you. You know nothing can go too wrong if she’s there."
Ray nodded, and they sat together in silence for a long time or a short one. Finally Ray spoke again. "It would be nice if we could all go together." He shifted in his place. "Or if we could all stay."
"I would prefer that, myself," Remus said lightly, pushing his own pain aside to be dealt with later. "But going together might be a good idea as well."
The only trouble is, I doubt that suicide is a particularly good ticket into whatever realms Peri and Ray are bound for. And I’d hate to ruin my chance. You only die once, after all.
A small smile sneaked onto his face. He let it stay there.
Whatever tomorrow brings, tonight we have each other. Let’s be thankful for that.
xXxXx
"My mum did this?" Harry stared at Padfoot, appalled. "Why would she do something like this?"
"She was angry," Padfoot said, spreading his hands wide. "Both her parents had just been killed. She wanted to hurt the people who’d killed them. There was no way she could have known she’d be hurting Ray, or Peri."
"But Ray and Peri didn’t do anything to her!"
"No, but it looks like her curse was made to hit back the way she’d been hit." Padfoot didn’t seem to like what he was saying, but plunged on gamely. "She’d lost her family, so her curse would hit back by hurting this other person’s family. I’m sure the curse itself is on Lucius Malfoy..."
"But Ray and Peri get hurt for it." Harry shoved back his chair. "I hate my mum."
"Hey, that’s no way to talk—"
Harry tuned out the rest of this, listening instead to his angrily pounding feet as he stamped out of the room. "That’s stupid," he muttered to himself. "That’s stupid, stupid, stupid."
"What’s stupid?" asked Hermione, coming around the corner.
Harry summarized the truth for her in a few words.
Hermione gasped. "She never."
Harry scowled. "I hate her," he said. "I wish she was still alive. I’d kick her." In Lily Potter’s absence, he kicked the wall.
"I wish she was still alive too," Hermione said fervently. "Then she could take the curse off."
"Take it off?" Harry stopped mid-kick. "Hermione, do you think we could find a way to take it off?"
"Us?" Hermione frowned. "We’re just kids."
"We were just kids when we fought Ray’s father, but we still won."
"But that was sneaking and using wands. This is complicated magic." Hermione shook her head. "I don’t think we can."
"Chicken."
"I am not chicken."
"Are so. You’re giving up before we even start."
"I am not! I’m just saying I don’t think we can do something like this!"
"That’s the same as giving up!" Harry shouted.
"It is not!" Hermione shouted back.
"Enough, both of you!"
Harry and Hermione both jumped and faced Letha, who had her arms folded across her chest. "I have no idea what you’re arguing about, but stop it. This is hard enough on everyone without you two making it worse. Upstairs, and either play politely or sit and sulk in opposite corners. I really don’t care which. Go."
Casting angry glances at each other, Harry and Hermione climbed the stairs. Meghan opened her door and peered out as they reached the top. "Were you talking about the curse?" she whispered.
"Yes," said Harry just as Hermione said, "No."
Meghan crossed her arms, looking very like her mother.
"Yes," Hermione admitted. "But Meghan, you don’t really think—"
Meghan put her finger to her lips and beckoned them into her room.
"I can’t read all these big words," she said, pointing to a book that lay open on her bed. "But you can, Hermione. Tell me what this means." She tapped the paragraph she meant with one small finger.
Hermione began to read aloud, hesitantly. "The gaining of knowledge from the dead is a very risky proposition and should not be attempted without proper training—there, you see?" she interrupted herself, looking up. "It’s saying what I was saying—we can’t do..." She stopped and looked back at the page. "Gaining of knowledge from the dead?" she repeated shrilly. "Meghan, what are you thinking of?"
"Harry’s mum is the only person who knows enough about the curse to take it off," Meghan said firmly. "And she’s dead. If we want to learn enough about the curse to save Ray and Peri, we have to ask her."
"You’re crazy," Harry said.
Meghan punched him in the shoulder. "Keep reading, Hermione," she said. "I think I understand the next part, but I want to make sure."
Hermione looked back down at the book, found her place, and continued. "...without proper training, though the physical requirements are fairly basic. That means the things you need to do it are simple," she translated before going on. "One essential is a blood relative of the one to whom you wish to speak—Harry, that’s you! You’re her son, that’s closer blood than anyone but brothers and sisters!"
Harry nodded. "Go on," he said breathlessly, starting to let himself hope. Maybe Meghan’s crazy idea wasn’t so crazy after all...
Hermione hurried ahead. "Another indispensable person is the Healer, who keeps the souls from parting company permanently with the bodies to which they are attached—"
"I’ll be a Healer when I grow up," Meghan interrupted. "And Mum already is one. She could keep us from—from—"
"From dying while we try to talk to a dead person?" Harry suggested.
"Yeah, that." Meghan noticed Hermione’s glare and stopped talking.
"—a third requirement is one possessed of the unusual ability to change one’s sleep-borne visions at will, the skill sometimes called dreamsculpting..." Hermione trailed off, frowning. "But can’t everyone change their dreams?" she asked. "Can’t you?"
Meghan and Harry shook their heads. "I dream all sorts of strange things," Harry said. "They just happen. I can’t do anything about them. Sometimes I wish I could, when I have nightmares. Why?"
"Because I can." Hermione was starting to look hopeful. "I can change my dreams any time I want. I always could, even when I was just a little baby. Sometimes I’d even see you there, Harry, or Ray and Peri. I can dreamsculpt, I know I can."
"That’s three," Meghan said excitedly. "Harry for the blood, me for the Healing, and you for the dream-stuff, Hermione. Is there anything else?"
Hermione returned her gaze to the book. "...but the final person required is the most important of all," she read aloud, "for without him the entire plan shall fail. To enter into the mists of death, your party must be accompanied by one who already walks on death’s road, for only he can see the way and lead you hence."
"Does that mean we have to take along someone who’s dying?" Meghan asked in a small voice.
"I think so." Harry grinned. "And we don’t know anyone like that at all."
Hermione laid the book carefully on the bed. "It’s like it was written for us," she said quietly. "With Ray, we’re exactly the people we need."
"Except for one problem," Harry said, his good mood suddenly sinking like lead.
"What?" asked the girls together.
"The grown-ups."
Silence fell as they considered this indisputable obstacle.
Author Notes:
Not quite what you were expecting, no? I try to surprise!
Thank you all for putting up with me this holiday season. It’s been a bit uproarious. I go home tomorrow, though, and as soon as I’m settled, expect the updates to start coming regularly again!