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Author: Kari Lynn Story: Shades of Grey: In Spite of Everything Rating: Young Teens Setting: Pre-HBP Status: WIP Reviews: 1 Words: 29,750
Any bystander would be unable to comprehend the situation. It looked like a Dementor was giving a teenage girl the kiss while a wolf-like figure was sprinting across the grounds behind them. Food! Blood! I smell blood! Must… get… must… bite. The werewolf darted across the Azkaban grounds to where human flesh was. That's all it cared about. Biting human flesh. It approached the Dementor and the girl with so much speed the werewolf couldn't stop; it stumbled into the tangle of bodies without any thought of its own and started biting whatever it could. Instantly its jaws connected with something cold, something tasteless, something that wasn't human flesh. What's going on? were her first thoughts, then Am I soul-less? No, that's crazy, I wouldn't be able to think. What's going on? Am I dead? Completely unaware of what was going on directly in front of her, Ginny didn't want to open her eyes for fear of seeing mangled bodies or something of the sort. That was when she heard a shriek, a cry of agony coming from a few feet away from her. Chancing it, she opened her eyes. She saw the sky first, or what would have been the sky if skies were colorless. It looked like a black and white sunrise that you might see in one of those old Muggle romance movies. But the scene around her didn't follow that description. In front of her was a werewolf, fighting furiously with the Dementor, luckily not having seen her yet. And behind her was the cold stonewall of Azkaban, former prison. Surprised that nobody was out here to help the Dementor, Ginny backed up, not bothering to get to her feet. She was only worried about keeping her distance from the werewolf; there was no doubt in her mind that it would rather take a bite out of her then the Dementor. Looking at the struggle in front of her, she was shocked to find that the werewolf was slowly backing away. Then she saw why – both reasons. The body of the Dementor was lying still on the ground, but any normal werewolf would have kept tossing it around until it was no longer a werewolf. That's what this werewolf had done. Its fur was shortening, its legs were lengthening, and slowly, it morphed into the figure she had seen before in the cellblock. She was looking into the face of a man she knew and had spoken to many times. She was looking into the face of Remus Lupin. "P-P-Pr-Professor?" she stuttered, unable to find the voice that had gone unused for three weeks. "Hello, Miss Weasley, fancy meeting you here." Ginny didn't know what to say; she had been part-way between receiving the Dementor's kiss and then opened her eyes to find she saw in black, white, and gray, and to see her teacher fighting a Dementor in the form of a werewolf. Could things become more strange? "Are you alright?" "Ye-" she started to say, then realized that she wasn't. "No, Professor… I-I-I… I think I'm colorblind." He looked shocked at first, but then recovered his vacant expression as he said, "I'm sure Dumbledore will be able to do something," in a tone that said he wasn't half as sure as he was trying to pretend to be. "But we can't worry about that now. I'm sure we were quite loud back there a few minutes ago, and you can bet that Death Eaters will be on their way if they're not behind the wall right now. We have to find a way out of here, and I bet they've made it so we can't Apparate, not that you could anyway…" he paused for a second before he said "Well… any ideas?" "The Dementor!" Ginny shouted suddenly, and then apologized as her former teacher shushed her, "Sorry, but I forgot why I was following the Dementor in the first place!" "You were following it? Why?" "Because, oh, see!" she pulled the wand out of its pocket. "Ginny, you're brilliant!" "I know…" then she paused, "Why?" "Because of this… Scoparum Elicere," he said, and a broom appeared in front of him, "Scoparum Elicere," he repeated, and yet another broom appeared. Handing one to Ginny he simply said, "And now, we fly." Pocketing the wand, he mounted the broom, and together they flew up into the rapidly brightening sky. *** "D-D-Do y-you know w-wh-where we a-are?" Ginny stuttered, her mouth frozen from the cold of flying though clouds. "Not really," he said slowly, looking around as it he expected someone to be watching them. "H-How are we going to get anywhere then?" "I know for a fact that Azkaban is unplottable, and only the Minister and the Azkaban escorts know exactly where it is, but from the conditions and the places where Sirius was sighted first, I figure it's somewhere near the North Sea, so if I'm right, heading west will bring us to the shores of Whales or England…I think. Unless my geography's wrong… it might have been Scotland…" he trailed off, apparently thinking very hard. Ginny didn't blame him; she could scarcely remember a Summoning Charm, never mind geography, which wasn't even taught in classes. Her ex-Professor's answer slightly unnerved her, but she was determined to keep going. The sky was nothing but clouds, and no matter how high they flew they couldn't seem to get out of them. Finally, after flying through clouds for about an hour, even Remus agreed to go back down. When they finally did exit the never-ending mist, they were scarcely above the water. The result of this being that they were either getting soaked to the skin every second by flying through clouds or that they were getting equally soaked by sea spray, for they were still above the body of water. Remus seemed to think that they were above the North Sea, although Ginny couldn't tell why as there hadn't been a single change in scenery; a single gull, a single fish, or a single ray of sunlight had not been seen since they were last at Hogwarts. At least for Ginny, anyway; she didn't know about her traveling companion. All she was hoping for was a change of sight; she could stay wet, she'd long since lost all feeing in her body, so a bit more water wouldn't mean anything to her. All she wanted was a glimpse of land perhaps, even a lone log would provide what she wanted: proof that the world wasn't entirely made of water. But to no ends, the water continued. They flew for hours upon hours, not daring to stop. Ginny's wish wasn't granted; the water remained all that they saw. The day soon darkened into night, and the night was left behind as the cloud-filled sky lightened. The scenery didn't change, at least not that Ginny noticed. But her companion sure noticed. "The clouds!" "What?" "I noticed something was different, and it just hit me – the clouds." "What about the clouds?" Ginny cocked her head in wonder. "When we started out it was early morning, right?" he began. "If you say so." "And now, it's early morning again, and it's really light out right now! Yesterday it was still dark during the day and got even darker at night." "So… What's your point?" Ginny snapped, irritated that he was beating around the bush. "It means that they're probably much thinner now! Notice how now we can fly between the bottom of the clouds and the water!" Ginny looked down, trying to make sense of what he meant, then she realized it, now there were at least fifty feet between the clouds and the water. "So…" "So we're either out or near the edge of the unplottable section!" he told her with more exuberance then someone who hadn't eaten in nearly two days should have had. "Great," Ginny said dully and sarcastically, "now, we only have to find out where we are, and somehow get back to Hogwarts before we starve to death. This was a bad idea." "Bad idea? What? So you're saying that you would rather be back with the Death Eaters and the Dementors?" He said raising an eyebrow in emphasis. "At least in Azkaban we got food," she snapped, feeling very irritable having not slept. "Food? Is that all you want! Okay, you can have your food." He pulled out the wand, nearly breaking it as he held it in front of him. "Scoparum Alimonium." Then a loaf of bread and two apples appeared in his now outstretched hand. "How did you do that?" Ginny screamed looking positively wild with rage. "Like this, Scoparum Alimonium." That time a full plate of ham, turkey, mashed potatoes, rolls, and anything else you might want for dinner appeared. He handed it to her. "Not hard, just picture the coordinates of where you want to get it from, and… Let's just say it's like a relocating charm, direct connect to the Hogwarts Kitchens." He grinned at his former pupil. "Why didn't you do that sooner?" Her face was rapidly reddening in fury. "I didn't think of it." He shrugged and then handed her the plate and one of the apples. Taking a bite into the other one he continued as if the former scene had never happened. "I think we might want to try going up into the clouds again, they look much thinner now, and if the sun's shining up there we'll be much warmer." Without waiting for her reply, he took of flying again, earning a death glare from Ginny as she tried to fly without dropping her treasured plate of food. Ginny soon found out that the best way to eat and fly at the same time was to sit like she was riding a horse side-saddle, balance the plate on her lap, and hold on to the handle with one hand while she ate with the other. Eating in this fashion, she managed to finish all of the food in a surprisingly little amount of time. "What's that?" Ginny asked, looking ahead at something that was coming up in the distance. "What?" Remus asked, looking confused at the sudden question. "That!" Ginny said, pointing straight ahead. "Oh Merlin…" He almost fell off his broom as he saw what she was looking at. "I think we may be in some trouble." "Trouble? What do you mean trouble? That's land! We're saved! For all you know there might be people out there! I can see something above the rocks; it looks like a hut or something…" "No, Ginny, you don't understand! I know where we are now!" "That's a good thing though, isn't it? Now we know where we need to go to get back." "No, it's not a good thing. That's Vespertilio Colonia." He had a grave look on his face but then added as he saw the confused look on Ginny's, "It's a Vampire Colony, the Vampire Colony. About seventy-five years ago, the vampire slayers went on a big hunt, killed every one they could find. The ones that weren't killed were banished. And they were banished here. "So basically we're dead?" "Dead and buried. Vampires live forever, unless they're stabbed through the heart with a stake. If that's not bad enough, vampirism is genetic too." "Oh no…" Ginny leaned forward and rested her head on her broom, closing her eyes briefly. "So what… we turn around?" "I don't think that's possible." "What? Ok, I know we're in a bad situation, but there may be something else back that way, here we know we're dead." "No, that's not all, because… Er…" "Spit it out…" Ginny's attitude was getting the better of her, and he was stalling. "Well, there's a ring of islands with all the banished creatures and stuff on them. They don't leave because they can't; there's no way that they can make it back to any land. It's too far, even for the natural swimmers." "But there's not that much space anywhere in Europe or anything; there isn't enough room for this." "It's not in Europe, it's like, well, it's unplottable, and unplottable places exist in other worlds." "Other worlds?" "Think of it as an onion, with layers…" "Why can't it be a cake? Cake's have layers too, and they taste much better." "Because cakes are flat, onions are round, and look more like worlds. And they have more layers, and they're thinner layers." "Erm... okay. Continue…" "So we're one of the layers, and the rest of them are like… otherspace, they're bits of the universe, one of the universes running parallel to ours, and they're like, snatched from there to here. We have little 'windows' I guess you could call them, connecting between worlds. Think of it as a doorway: when the door is open, we can fully access what's on the other side, but it can be closed so nothing can escape. It's somewhat like that… but the doors are un-closable now. The ones for Grimmauld Place," he stopped, as if collecting himself from the sudden memories of his best friend, "The door hiding Grimmauld Place is shut and locked, because it has a secret keeper. Nobody wanted to be secret keeper for something like this, so it's open, just very secluded from society." "What?" Ginny was extremely confused by this explanation. "Alright, to put it simply, we can access it, but Muggles don't know it's here. They could go right by it, and never see it. Loads of them get captured and stuff when they come near here. Some big mystery in their world, the Volatus Animalus, Flying Creatures, take down planes, and the Adaquar Daemonis, Water Demons, take boats right out of the water. Loads of different creatures have been banished here. There are three islands, in a triangular shape, enclosing the area. It exists in the Muggle world, but not many go near it there. It's no wonder they put Azkaban near it. I don't know what side of it we're on, probably the outside. But if that's right, then we have a long way to go to get home." Ginny was speechless; they were in the middle of somewhere that was practically impossible to get out of, she hadn't slept in three days, and she hadn't showered in about a month. "Things couldn't be worse," she muttered aloud. But that was just when the one rule that we all know of touched down on her life personally, just when you think things can't get worse, they do. They were stuck in a rut with no way out. They hovered in place, silently, for about an hour, at least that's what it seemed like. In reality it was only about five minutes, but with no noise except the quiet lapping of waves and their steady breathing, it seemed like so much longer. Finally Ginny spoke, "So…" she paused, it was all of a sudden quiet… too quiet. Without warning Remus all of a sudden swung his broom around and flew off to the left. "Where are you going?" Ginny tried to call after him. But there was no time; he would be out of earshot in a few seconds. Not wanting to be left behind, she took off after him. They flew at top speed for quite a long time. Ginny had taken the wand from Remus and was required to cast several caffeine charms on herself to stay awake. Such charms were forbidden at Hogwarts, as people might overdose themselves by casting too many, but they weren't at Hogwarts, and nobody was stopping her. Finally when they began slowing down to normal speed Ginny had a chance to ask him what that was all for. "Well… I just felt something wasn't right, and something told me to get out of there, and get out of there right away." He was looking down at his broom sheepishly, as if he expected Ginny to yell at him or something. He was about thirty years older than she was. And she thought his werewolf senses had kicked in for a bit there or something. Better safe then sorry. "Oh, okay," she said simply, "Speaking of which, you never finished telling me where exactly we are." Her accusing voice echoed against the cliff they were hovering near. "We're, well, what does it matter?" Remus was obviously avoiding the subject. "Just follow me." "Grown-ups!" Ginny muttered under her breath. They always keep information from you for no reason! They expect that kids will always be happier not knowing, but they're not! It's worse, because they never know exactly what the situation is, and for all they knew, a kid might know something that could help. Ginny would have stomped her feet angrily, had she been standing on the ground. But as she couldn't, she settled in doing several log rolls on her broom to use the excess energy. What neither realized is that the creatures hidden in a cave behind them were listening to every word they were saying. And those creatures weren't the most friendly of things. *** Three hours and nineteen caffeine charms later… Can you please tell me where we're going? Ginny wanted to ask, but she simply didn't have the strength. Numerous caffeine charms couldn't make up for that many days without sleep. Even Remus was now showing definite signs of being sluggish, and he seemed to have endless energy, as long as there was hope. As they flew onwards and onwards, something was appearing in the distance. Much like before, an island was seen ahead. "Just… a little… farther…" Remus panted, sounding as though they'd been running. Just… a little… farther… Ginny thought, still unable to speak; it simply took too much energy, it just wasn't worth it. They changed their flight pattern slightly to angle downwards, Ginny following her travel companion in a glide that showed their relief in a way only those who had been in their situation could. Keep in mind that nobody had ever been in their situation. They landed on the island with a thud, the sound of two bodies falling onto sand, asleep before they hit the ground. Both knew it wasn't the best idea and that they should at least make a shelter of some sort first. But they didn't have much of a choice. They were just lucky that it was late afternoon already, so they wouldn't have too bad of a sunburn, and that they had landed safely above high tide. *** "Just five more minutes…" Ginny muttered as the rapidly brightening sun woke her up. As it refused to go away, she blinked and sat up, or tried to anyways. A second into the action she started groaning in pain, her back felt as if it was on fire. But she forced herself to get up, and looked around her. She was on a sandy beach, the water just reaching her toes. About ten feet to her left an expanse of rocks rose out of the sand, extending into the water quite a ways, covered in barnacles. A broom… her broom was hovering about a foot off the ground, next to her. And a man… Remus Lupin was asleep on the ground next to her. His face bright red, as well as his arms and anywhere skin had been showing. Ginny guessed this was what she looked like too. It felt as though the left side of her face, which had been facing down while she was sleeping, was burning as well. It felt at least ninety degrees, maybe hotter. This lead Ginny to suspect that they were somewhere in the south, or perhaps it was just an abnormally warm day. "Ohhhhh…" the man next to her groaned, stirring, then moving to sit up. "Ow!" he screeched, there was no doubt in Ginny's mind he had discovered the sunburn. "Rise and shine, what would you like for breakfast this morning? You could have… nothing, nothing, or… nothing!" Ginny used her own way of telling her ex-professor that she was hungry. "Fine, fine, just give me the wand!" He scowled, and Ginny started laughing. "What's so funny?" he demanded. "Nothing… Nothing," she reassured him, but inside she was thinking, Nothing's as funny as seeing you teacher scowl at you. Remus conjured them food, and they sat a bit longer to think about where they were, how they could get back, and how they would live until they did. "How did you get in Azkaban?" Ginny wondered aloud. "Well… ah… I guess it's about end of December, maybe early January, because…" "Don't change the subject!" she snapped, "What were you doing there? How'd you get there? Was it something for the Order? Did you get caught by the Death Eaters on some mission thing or other? Why were you there?" She was determined to get answers; anything could help. "Yes, it was for the Order, but that's all I'm saying! We could be bugged!" "But Death Eaters wouldn't use anything Muggle, even if it would work well!" "No, magical bugs. There are spells you can use that act like little microphones or video cameras." "You just don't want to tell me, knowing how you were caught wouldn't help them," Ginny accused. "You're right, and I'm not going to tell you, so stop asking," he snapped back. "Fine! Be that way!" Ginny leaned back against the wall of the hut she and Professor Lupin had constructed, closing her eyes. She felt the shade of the grass and hay roof cool her face. Wanting to fall asleep again (one good night's sleep couldn't make up for weeks of either hopelessly restless sleep or none at all), Ginny relaxed for the first time deliberately. "Do you ever want to get off here?" he demanded. "Yes! But we don't need to worry about this now; we can rest for a few days, we have food, we have shelter, the world has survived with us being gone for a month, they can wait another few days. Well, me a month, you more like… who knows how long… Wait, that'd be everyone except me!" she brought their previous conversation into the discussion. Remus ignored her and just sat up, fingering the wand, lost in thought. So Ginny lay back down and shut her eyes again. They could figure this mess out later; she was tired. A scream awoke Ginny from her slumber, eyes snapping open, bringing her to a sitting position; the scream was one of terror. Looking out over the beach, she scanned the area quickly to find the source of the yell. Her eye soon fell upon her traveling companion and his surroundings. A vampire was in front of him, walking slowly toward Remus, blocking him back against the cliff. At first Ginny was confused, it was mid-day wasn't it? But then she looked up and saw that the sun had disappeared behind a newly formed expanse of clouds. The partial sunlight made so that the vampire would be weakened, but could be outside. Then Ginny came to her senses and realized the urgency of the situation. She grabbed the wand, which Remus had left carelessly under the shelter, and ran over to them. But when she came about ten feet away from them, Remus saw her. He frantically motioned that if she was going to do anything, hide. He clearly suspected other vampires to be lurking nearby. In response to his unspoken advice, Ginny slowly crept to some bushes and rocks that were over to the right of them. She reached them, remaining unnoticed by the hideous creature, which was getting closer and closer to Remus with every passing second. Ginny ducked her head behind the sharp, prickly foliage, and crept along the ground. After no more than five feet or so, Ginny was out of the bushes, and had to rush along a few feet. Scared to death that she would be seen, Ginny made twice the amount of noise that she should have, but as she paused for a moment, back under cover – this time by the reddish-brown rock of the beach – it became apparent that the vampire was far to focused on Remus to think of the possibility of another mortal. Finally Ginny reached the edge of the rocks, where they jutted upward sharply, creating a cliff before they shrunk down again and then sloped down to the sea. Ginny sucked in her breath, thinking of all the spells, hexes, curses, and charms she had ever learned – trying to decide which would work best. She thought of a stake possibility, but wasn't looking to kill, and frankly, was scared of the result. She then realized that she had no more time. The vampire was only feet away from Remus, and she hated to think of the consequences there would be if she had a werewolf/vampire on her hands. Not realizing what she was doing, Ginny whispered (for sake of not being heard), "Petrificus Totalus!" and watched as the vampire fell. It was true that vampires had a magic of their own, but it made their shields for other magic weaker as opposed to creatures like Manticores, which had magic that was entirely put towards shell defense and blaster power, made it more elusive towards such spells (much like a Blast-Ended Skrewt). Remus, who was now slowly sliding down the smooth surface of rock to sit on the ground, was overcome with shock. The vampire had been inches away from him when hit with the spell, and was now at his feet. He looked scared, but then had a drastically remarkable change in attitude stood back up, and stepped over it. "Nice handiwork, Miss Weasley, didn't even hear the spell." He winked at her. She just blushed, as she always did when someone complimented her. "Thanks." "For a second there I thought I was a goner. It'd be interesting, a were-pire?" He voiced Ginny's earlier thoughts. "A were-pire? You made that up, didn't you?" He laughed sincerely for the first time in what seemed like forever. "Well why not? I needed something to call it. A werewolf/vampire. I wonder what would happen; like, on the full moon I turn into a werewolf, whose fangs have the power to create a vampire or something? It'd be interesting." "Yeah, I suppose it would." Ginny grinned. "So… D'you think there're more of 'em around?" "Most likely." He sounded unphased by this, as if he had come to that conclusion a long time ago. Which, Ginny reminded herself, he probably had. "So… D'you reckon we should go." "Yes." "Then why are you just standing there, staring at the water as it hits the oh so interesting" she gasped "rocks!" she loaded on the sarcasm. The joke earlier had lightened the mood a bit, but she was getting irritated again as he zoned out. "Yeah…" he said slowly, his voice somewhat quiet, "Rocks… Right… Interesting." He was staring off into space again. "Get over here!" Ginny grabbed his arm and dragged him up to the shelter. "You need to sleep, and you need to sleep now! You will be no help to us if you are zoning out like this all the time! Here – you lie down. Let me watch out for more vampires. I can take 'em. I'll keep the wand with me at all times. Deal? Deal!" she talked very fast, pushing him to the ground to sleep in the soft, warm sand. Sure enough, after he protested for several minutes, he rested his head and fell asleep within seconds. Ginny sat, staring into the abyss for several minutes before she got an idea. Who knew how far away they were? She sat in the sun, only a few feet from Remus, both brooms floating in front of her, and set to work. Authors note: Credit for the onion/cake layers scene goes to the makers of Shrek.
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