Chapter One
That Fateful Day
they've been on this Earth. -
“Do you think we should have come this way?” whispered a petrified 8-year-old Remus Lupin to his twin sister, Rachael.
“I don’t know; it was your idea to come this way!” she whispered, equally scared. The two had been walking in the forest for over an hour, trying to find their way back to their home after going on an unsuccessful trip to the market. The twins were the only children of Anna and Gregory Lupin. Remus and Rachael both had sandy brown hair and deep green eyes. They were both the same height and relatively the same weight. Even though they were a boy and girl, they looked so much alike and right now they were wearing identical frightened expressions.
The forest was their least favourite place to be and Remus was now wondering why he had chosen to come this way. For the past hour, they had been hearing low frequency growls coming from behind them, getting louder and louder with every step the two twins took. The drip drops of water splashed onto the ground from the tree branches above, echoing mysteriously throughout the vast woods. The grass was wet beneath their feet and squished as they walked. Every now and then, a squirrel would scuttle up a tree and disappear in the canopy.
The twins walked close together, taking very slow and quiet steps. Remus would look behind them once in a while to check if anything was behind them, but each time he just saw the seemingly endless forest. The growling grew closer and closer, but they never saw anything. What was it?
Then they stopped.
Right in front of them was a fully-grown black, yellow piercing eyed werewolf. It was hunched forward, baring its fangs at the two. There was foam growing in the corners of its mouth, and it bore its yellow eyes into the twins’ green ones. It inched forward, looking at them hungrily. The two backed up gradually, not daring to look away from the wolf.
Then, without warning, it sprang forward.
“Rachael, run!” Remus yelled.
Rachael could not move; she was locked to the spot. Remus ran behind her and grabbed her by the collar of her shirt. She turned around and ran with him through the forest, dodging tree trunks, low branches. They hopped over the roots protruding from the grounds, and struggled to avoid the squirrels running across the floor.
They hid behind a tree, gasping for breath.
“You think it’s gone?” Rachael asked breathlessly.
Remus turned to look. There it was, still chasing them. “No! Run!”
They continued their escape, running for their very lives, not wanting to be the wolf’s prey. Dashing down a slope they went, the wolf still on their trail. Remus had fallen behind his sister. She turned to see that he was only a little behind, but her fright kept her running.
“Keep going!” he yelled. He quickened his pace and went after his sister.
Rachael kept turning her head to see if her brother was all right, but when she turned, she did not notice the tree and it was too late.
Everything went black - the forest, the trees, the wolf, her brother.
“Bad, very bad... couldn’t possibly get any worse,” a voice muttered in the far off distance. Rachael wanted to open her eyes so badly to see who was talking, but she was much too tired. Her head was spinning, aching, throbbing, it was all so painful.
“How bad is it? What happened?” said a second voice, a woman’s voice.
Trying with all her might, Rachael opened her eyes to see the fuzzy outline of a middle-aged, short, brown-haired woman standing mere feet away from her. She looks familiar, Rachael thought, unable to think straight. The woman glanced down and Rachael recognised those sharp green eyes; it was her mother. Mrs. Lupin looked over to a balding man wearing a white lab jacket. Who was he?
“Well, Mrs. Lupin,” the man said. “We don’t know what happened. All we can go by is what your husband told us, and it isn’t very helpful.” What were they talking about?
Then Rachael noticed there was a bed next to her, with someone in it. She leaned forward to get a better look. It was a sleeping Remus. It was odd though, there was such a peaceful air about him. It was one that she had never seen before in her life, except when she visited her grandmother on her deathbed. This set her thinking.
Was Remus... dead? No, he could not be... after all... what could possibly kill him? Then she remembered the wolf. The wolf was chasing them; did it ever leave them alone? Rachael looked around to see where she was. She was a white room with one bed, the one Remus was in. There were some potted plants, two doors at opposite walls of each other, the man, and her mother.
“Well, can’t you run some tests or anything?” her mother said anxiously. The man nodded and that was when Rachael realised he was scribbling on a clipboard. What was this place? What tests was her mother talking about?
“Well, yes, we can, but it’d be much easier if one of your children to tell us what happened,” the man said, still writing on the clipboard.
Her mother looked at Remus and then at Rachael. She smiled upon seeing her daughter fully awake. She walked over and knelt down next to the chair Rachael was sitting in. “Rachael, sweetie,” she said in a calm, but urgent, voice. “Can you tell us what happened?”
“What d’you mean?” Rachael asked. She even didn’t know what happened. Her mother looked at her, puzzled, disbelieving. Her mouth was twitching slightly in the corners, a definite warning sign. She didn’t believe her daughter and, frankly, Rachael had expected it from the moment her mother asked her that question. Undoubtedly, Mrs. Lupin loved her daughter very much; she had always seemed to favour Remus more, probably because he was the youngest by ten minutes.
“Rachael,” her mother said, her voice getting tenser. “You were with your brother when this happened! What happened to him?”
Rachael flinched as Mrs. Lupin yelled sharply in her ears. Why didn’t her mother believe her? She didn’t know what happened. Why would she? She didn’t even know why she didn’t know.
“Mum, I said I don’t know!”
“Don’t you lie to me!” she yelled, startling the man and Rachael. There was now an intense fire in her mother’s eyes, one that Rachael had never seen before. “What happened to my son?”
They heard stirring from behind them, Remus was awake. They turned around to see that he was sitting up and rubbing his temple. Rachael could just see the tiniest bandage covering one part of his forehead and it was soaked in blood.
“I’ll tell you,” he said quietly.