A Second Chance
- "You can't say that," he said quietly, getting up and headingfor the door. "Everyone deserves a second chance to change. Just as you tried to prove that to your mother, one day she's going to prove it to you. Everyone deserves a second chance." -
“Wow, Remus, you look terrible.”
It was the morning after the boys trek to the dungeons and Remus had just appeared at breakfast, although he knew Madam Pomfrey wanted him to remain in the Hospital Wing for another day, as it had been a very horrible full moon. Remus had to endure a long painful transformation, with a particularly bright full moon, causing him to be as vicious as ever in his werewolf form. But of course with the absence of any humans, he resorted to biting and scratching himself.
Madam Pomfrey did her best to heal his bites and scratches, but he was still covered with marks, which was the reason for the nurse’s reluctance in allowing him back into the main castle. But a bit of persuading made her cave in and he now found himself seated at the Gryffindor table.
“I feel terrible,” he said, scanning the table for something to eat. Full moons didn’t affect his appetite afterwards.
“Then why didn’t you stay in the Hospital Wing?” James asked through a mouthful of oatmeal. Remus shrugged. He picked up an apple, put it on his plate and began pouring some pumpkin juice.
“Hey, Potter!” came a fierce voice from behind.
Startled, James wheeled around to see Lily stalking towards him, Rachael walking quickly to keep up with her friend’s speed. “Err… hullo, Lily,” he said, his voice lacking the usual confidence it usually had where Lily was concerned.
Lily bent down and glared James in the eye while he tried hard not to cower under her stare. “Don’t you ‘hullo, Lily’ me,” she snarled, her nostrils flaring dangerously. “What’s the deal with giving me a Laughing Potion?”
James glanced over to Rachael, who shrugged. She was the only one, other than those, who knew about the potion. Unless she told… but Lily was smart enough to figure it out.
“Well I…uh…we,” James stammered.
“Well…I…uh…will get you back for it!” and, with that, Lily stormed out of the hall, causing several heads to turn.
Rachael sat down next to James and looked at him sympathetically. “I’d watch yourself if I was you,” she advised him, then grabbed an apple and went to go catch up with her friend.
Lily was positively fuming when Rachael caught her racing down the grassy slope out on the grounds, panting from trying to catch up with her friend’s lightening pace. Lily had never liked James all that much. In fact she hated his guts, and this just set her over the edge. She finally caught up to Lily, who was still steaming.
“Calm down, Lily,” Rachael said, completely out of breath.
“Why?” snapped Lily.
“It’s not like they did any real harm.”
Lily’s eyes flashed dangerously. “Yeah it’s just the most hilarious thing hearing me laugh all day long!”
“Uh… well it was kinda funny.”
“Yep, just hysterical.”
“Jeez, Lily, you’re making more out of this then you should! It was a Laughing Potion for God’s sake! It’s not like he poisoned you!”
“Of course, side with James!”
“Oh come on-” but Lily was already marching back up to the castle. Rachael watched disbelievingly. “Well it was pretty funny,” she murmured to herself. Not bothering to go after her friend, she went over by the lake, picking up a stone and flinging it into the lake, not even flinching when the giant squid threw it back out.
Remus, James, Sirius and Peter sat in the Gryffindor common room, huddled over the table in the middle of the room, talking in hushed voices. James had just finished telling Remus about their trek to the library the night before and how it nearly ended in their getting caught.
“So I’m guessing the book’s still in the library?” Remus asked.
Sirius nodded. “James here didn’t see it necessary to listen to Peter and me,” he answered, shooting James a glance. “You never stopped to think that they might’ve called it the Restricted Section for a reason did you?”
James grinned foolishly. “Well since it’s over and we didn’t get caught, can’t you laugh about it?”
Sirius and Peter looked at each other skeptically and then back at James. “No!”
The four boys decided they were going to have to try and figure this out for themselves. Normal Transfiguration books were no help here if they couldn’t get their hands on the one they needed. But the only problem was that they didn’t know what they were supposed to do if they didn’t know what animal they were going to turn into. How could they manage that? Their personalities only showed them so much, but not enough to know what animal they identified with.
“Remus,” Peter said suddenly.
“What?”
“Can’t you just try asking your dad again if he could give us permission?”
Remus shook his head. If he asked multiple times then his dad would begin to get really suspicious, more so than he already was. On several occasions Sirius and James asked Professor Lupin and each time the answer was a more forceful no. However the answer to their problem had just come walking through the portrait hole.
Rachael walked right past them, not even acknowledging them and went up to her dormitory. She came back down a minute later holding her copy of Quidditch through the Ages under her arm and sat down in one of the armchairs. Before even beginning to read she sensed someone watching her and looked over the top of the book at the boys.
“May I help you?” she snapped. She had just spent the last ten minutes looking for Lily all over the castle. When she finally found her Lily snapped at her saying she wasn’t talking to her. And Rachael decided to place the blame on her three friends, Peter, James and Sirius, who had gotten Lily mad at everyone.
“Yes you can in fact,” said James, adopting a business like voice. Rachael raised an eyebrow at him. He quickly lost the voice. “Can you ask your dad about borrowing an Animagus book from the library?”
“And why would I do that?”
“’Cause he wouldn’t be suspicious if you asked him. Please?”
“I dunno if I’m up to doing anything for anyone who made my best friend mad at me.”
“Do it for Remus!”
“No! Do it yourself!”
After that slight outburst the boys steered clear of Rachael for a while, besides, they needed all the time they could get plotting ways to secure an Animagus book. But all of their plans would never work. Remus seriously doubted flying a broomstick up four stories to the library window would work. Lily was still peeved by the fact that she had unwillingly drunken Laughing Potion. But she decided to focus most of her anger on James, not everyone else. Poor James was suffering from his crush’s extreme animosity towards him. But he did his best to brush it off and pretend as though it didn’t bother him.
The boys did eventually find a way to obtain a book about Animagi. They went to the library, pretending to help Remus look for a spell book because he’d missed classes, and they were supposedly assigned a spell book to look for and all the copies were gone. In reality they were looking for a spell book Sirius told them about. It had a special spell that could forge any handwriting for anyone. All they had to do was fill out the name of the person and their occupation. Though Remus found it very odd they didn’t want more personal information; a spell this good should have been a little harder to do.
However he didn’t concern himself with the facts, as long as they could do the spell and get it past Madam Pince, the incredibly strict librarian. They managed to retrieve the spell book and ran up to the common room, eager to begin the spell. They ran through the portrait hole, and were highly thankful upon discovering a completely empty common room. The four stooped down beside the table in front of the fireplace and opened the book.
The book was filled with loads of pictures of the process of Animagus transformations. It was a pretty gruesome process by the looks of it. Your whole body either lengthened or shortened itself in such detail that it made the boys almost consider forgetting about it.
But, of course, they couldn’t let Remus down.
November slowly faded into December and a pure white blanket of snow covered all of the Hogwarts grounds. The students spent most of their free time having snowball fights, and ice-skating on the pond. The Gryffindors even took on an unsuspecting group of Slytherin fifth years in a snowball fight. Well technically the Gryffindors didn’t take them on; they ambushed them. It was quite a sight. Even more so when a few wayward Hufflepuffs and Ravenclaws got involved and helped the Gryffindors clobber the Slytherins.
Along with the heavy snowfall came a heavy homework fall. The teachers were relentlessly piling assignment upon assignment in every class. Every student in the school was collapsing from the amount. Professor McGonagall assigned them to read an entire chapter about turning a parakeet into a wine glass and then summarize it on a sheet and a half of parchment.
Professor Flitwick was the only teacher that had gone easy on them, after seeing his entire second year Gryffindor class on the verge of a nervous breakdown. All he asked of them was to review some spells, as he would be giving them a small quiz once the holiday break had concluded. Professor Binstom wanted them to write down the correct concoction for a Welt Potion: A potion that would give your enemy boils for a week upon drinking it. Everyone had a hard time figuring out why he had assigned them this potion, but they knew it would come in handy one day.
All of the students were close to cracking under the pressure, but no one seemed closer to cracking then Rachael who, everyone began noticing, had become increasingly nervous and edgy. Once December 1st had rolled around she had taken on a twitchy manner, becoming highly uncomfortable, hardly talking and snapping whenever someone approached her. Remus couldn’t understand it. It couldn’t have been from the work they’d been given. He had all the same assignments and he wasn’t as worse as her, neither was James, Sirius or Peter.
Lily tried talking to her about it on several occasions, but Rachael would just brush her off and leave the room to go find somewhere to do her work in peace. She wouldn’t talk to anyone about what was bothering her. Not even her father who had confronted her about it just as much as her friends had. But no one would get an answer.
One day, a few days before everyone would be leaving for the Christmas holiday, Lily spotted her friend sitting in the corner of the dormitory, holding a book, but not reading it.
“Hey,” Lily said pleasantly, sitting down in front of her friend.
“Hi,” her friend answered quietly.
“So… are you going home for the holiday?”
“No. You are though, aren’t you?” she snapped, though not meaning to. She never liked thinking about the fact that her friend had a family to go home to. Where did Rachael have to go? Definitely not the orphanage.
“Yes,” Lily answered, a little taken aback. “I was just wondering…”
“You wanted to know if anything’s bothering me. I know, Lily. I’ve only been asked this a million times.”
“Well?”
“Nothing is bothering me! Can’t a person be quiet if she wants to?”
“Well there’s quiet and then there’s quiet.”
“I’m seeing no difference.”
“But-”
“Lily, for the last time there’s nothing wrong!”
“Merry Christmas!”
It was Christmas morning and the few remaining Gryffindors that hadn’t gone home were gathered in the common room under the giant Christmas tree. There were two Gryffindor first years sitting on the stairs, opening a rather large stack of presents. A fourth year was sitting on one of the chairs, working on his gifts and Remus, Rachael and Sirius were sitting under the tree all tearing apart their gifts.
“Let’s see, what did Mum give me this year?” Sirius wondered aloud, observing a rather small gift from his mother. He yanked off the green and silver wrapping paper and saw that he’d gotten a Remembral. “Whatever.” And he set it down next to the giant book of pranks James had sent him from home. Remus was starting on a present from his mother, which turned out to be a box of Chocolate Frogs. Meanwhile, Rachael was working on her gift from her dad, a hand-knitted red jumper with a golden R.L. embellished on it.
“I didn’t know Dad knew how to knit,” Remus said slowly, looking at the jumper. His sister shrugged. She hadn’t known that either. They spent most of the morning opening presents. Then they watched as Sirius let loose a whole bunch of frogs and laughed as they hopped about the common room. However, some came too close to the fireplace and Remus had to block it from them. They didn’t want roasted chocolate frogs.
Around noon the three of them trooped down to the Great Hall for the Christmas feast. Sirius and Rachael were completely ravenous while Remus hardly ate anything. It was hard for him to think of a full moon on Christmas. He still managed to enjoy the feast. He spent a good portion of the time pulling every cracker within reach and in the end had a load of gifts in his lap.
Professor Lupin paid them a visit during the feast, wishing them a Merry Christmas and then went over to the staff table to talk to the teachers. Around four in the evening Remus bid Sirius and Rachael farewell and made his way to the Hospital Wing while they went back to Gryffindor Tower. They spent a good half hour playing Exploding Snap, though none of their matches lasted long as the cards were exploding at every possible moment.
At around four thirty Rachael stood up, saying she needed to go ask her dad something about the homework assignment. Sirius nodded and went to put the cards away while his friend left the common room. Rachael started in the direction of the Defence Against the Dark Arts classroom, just in case Sirius wanted to catch up to her. But, as she neared the classroom, she quickly changed her course and ran down to the Entrance Hall and out of the castle.
Her heart was pumping wildly as she ran down the grassy slope on the grounds, this was it. She had been planning for months to do this… and now her time had finally come.
As she saw Madam Pomfrey approaching her she quickly ran to the nearest tree and hid herself behind it. She waited quietly as Madam Pomfrey went back up to the castle and Rachael quickly resumed her course to the Whomping Willow. The branches were still frozen, but were quivering slightly. She had to reach the tunnel before they started again. She ducked through the tunnel and slid down, finding herself in a dark pathway.
She broke into a fierce run down the path, listening to the moaning sounds coming from above in the Shrieking Shack. She quickened her pace and finally came upon the door leading to the Shrieking Shack.
“Professor, have you seen Rachael?” Sirius asked Professor Lupin, nearly a half an hour after his friend had left him.
“No,” Professor Lupin answered. Then, slightly curious, he asked, “why?”
“She told me she was going to talk to you.”
“Well I haven’t seen her since the feast. Maybe she went down to the Great Hall?”
Sirius nodded and thanked the professor for his help. He would go down to the Great Hall and look for his friend. But as he walked down the deserted corridor he felt that something wasn’t right, but something was finally making sense… Without going to the Great Hall, Sirius broke into a run, straight for the Whomping Willow.
Rachael cautiously climbed the steps of the building to where the loud groans of pain were still coming. Remus was still in his human state. She had to go slowly if this was going to work. As she stopped on the landing the groaning was replaced by low frequency growling. This was it…
Heart pounding wildly, she opened the door to where her brother was and saw instead of him, a full grown, bloodthirsty werewolf. The werewolf didn’t notice her at first, as it was still sniffing at its surroundings. The werewolf walked around in a circle, shoulders arched as it bent down and sniffed the floor, its eyes not seeing Rachael, or its nose smelling her presence. She stood there, watching it with bated breath as its head turned slowly, finally spotting a human.
Slowly the werewolf walked towards her, at last finding some food, though not realising who it was. As the werewolf approached, Rachael realised that she wasn’t going to come out of this alive. The werewolf had cornered her. She was nowhere near an escape. This was the end for her. The wolf raised a sharp claw and brought it sweeping down, slicing Rachael’s face. She felt warm blood begin dripping down her cheek as the wolf brought his claw down again, this time catching the sleeve of her robe and slashing her arm.
The wolf didn’t seem to want to bite her; it just wanted to kill her. She was going to die here and the first person to find her would be her brother. He would know what happened. Then, as though reading her very thoughts, the werewolf opened his jaw and went in for the bite.
“Stupefy!” came a loud, forceful voice from the doorway.
The wolf stood frozen as Sirius stunned him. Sirius stood at the doorway, waiting to see if he’d really stunned Remus. When the wolf didn’t move, he knew he was stunned. He ran over to his friend, who was sitting against the wall with a look of pure terror on her face.
“Are you okay?” he asked, still eyeing the werewolf worriedly. His friend didn’t answer she was still too terrified. “Come on; let’s go back up to the castle.”
“What happened to her?” Madam Pomfrey shrieked when Sirius and Rachael appeared in the hospital wing fifteen minutes later.
Sirius shrugged. “I dunno, maybe a Slytherin did it,” he said in his most convincing voice.
Madam Pomfrey looked at him skeptically, but didn’t question him further. She sat Rachael down on the bed and began examining her cuts, which were still oozing warm blood. She clicked her tongue annoyingly and went off to her office to get a potion.
“Those are some nasty cuts,” she commented as she made her way to the office door. “Must’ve been some brute of a Slytherin. They may be infected, so you’ll need to spend the night.”
Rachael nodded despondently. Sirius took a seat on the bed across from his friend.
“Why’d you do that?” he asked disbelievingly, shaking his head. “How could you do that?”
“I don’t know,” she answered, her voice cracking. She’d never been so scared in her life. Why was she that stupid? Sirius was right! How could she have done that? She nearly killed herself!
“You’re lucky I knew where you were going!” Sirius said, his voice getting louder with every word. “You could’ve killed yourself!”
“I know!”
“Do you know how scared I was when I realised what you were doing? I was scared out of my mind!”
Sirius didn’t like yelling at his friend when she was like this. But he couldn’t find any way better to talk to her. Yelling was the only way to get her to understand the terror he felt a mere hour ago.
“I know, Sirius! And I’m sorry! I was an idiot! I was so stupid to do what I did and I’m sorry!” She couldn’t hold it in anymore. The terror that had been threatening to come out of since the moment she set foot in the Shrieking Shack came out. She just began crying. Sirius looked at his friend pityingly. He knew she was sorry and he knew that she was just as scared as he was. He pulled her into a hug and patted her on the back.
“I know you’re sorry,” he said comfortingly. “I was just afraid you’d end up like your brother. Neither of you deserve to be a werewolf.”
“But what if that’s what I wanted?” Rachael said, wiping her eyes as her sleeve as she pulled away from Sirius.
Sirius blinked. “What? Why?”
“Because… if I were a werewolf my mum would love me again. She was always comparing me with my brother and then she wouldn’t be able to compare us anymore if I was like him. If I were a werewolf my mother would love me again, like she used to. She wouldn’t call me an, ‘evil liar’ or a ‘sorry excuse for a daughter.’ She’d know I have a name and that I’m her daughter. I just wanted to be treated like I used to and that was the only way I could do it.”
“You’re wrong,” Sirius said quietly. “You don’t have to do all of that just to get a woman like your mother to love you again. You’re a great person. You don’t have to prove yourself to her. Your mother just won’t open her eyes to that. If she can’t love you for the way you are than she isn’t worth the trouble.”
Rachael smiled. “Thanks, Sirius… for saving my life and telling me that. You really don’t know how much that means to me.”
“What can I say? You’re a great friend. I didn’t want to lose you, and you deserve to know that.”
Just then Madam Pomfrey reentered the room, her arms full of potions. She struggled over to the nightstand and began dropping the potion bottles on top of it, carefully avoiding dropping them.
“Mr. Black,” she said, turning to Sirius. “I think you should head up to Gryffindor Tower.”
He nodded and stood up. “Feel better,” he said to Rachael, and with that he was gone.
Madam Pomfrey began pouring the potions into a single bowl, all the while muttering about how horrible some Slytherins could be that they did this to a girl. Rachael couldn’t help but feel a bit guilty. She couldn’t tell Madam Pomfrey what she had really done. She knew though that some unsuspecting Slytherin was going to be in detention this time tomorrow.
Once Madam Pomfrey had finished applying the sizzling hot potions to Rachael’s cuts, she left the room. Rachael lay back on her bed and stared up at the ceiling. This had definitely been the most memorable Christmas she’d ever had. She could hardly believe that a few hours ago she and her friends had been opening gifts and feasting in the Great Hall. Now she was sitting in the Hospital Wing after being attacked by a werewolf on her own will.
She knew why she’d done it, now she wondered why she hadn’t thought like Sirius. Sirius was right. Her mother wasn’t worth the trouble if she had to go through this to earn her love back. She didn’t know what she would’ve done if Sirius hadn’t come to help her. He was really the greatest friend anyone could ask for.
Sirius was walking back up to Gryffindor Tower when he saw Professor Lupin walking in his direction. When he saw Sirius walking his way he grinned.
“Hullo, Sirius,” he said merrily, stopping when he approached the student.
“Hi, Professor,” Sirius answered. “Um, d’you mind if I talk to you for a minute?”
“Not at all.” Professor Lupin brought Sirius to his office and sat him down. Sirius began telling him about what his daughter had done. How she’d gone to the Whomping Willow, hoping that Remus in his werewolf form would bite her and make her a werewolf like him. That she’d hoped that it could be the answer to all of her problems. That it would make her mother love her again, and that she knew she might get killed in the process. And that even the very thought of death hadn’t stopped her.
“Is she alright now?” the professor asked, his voice full of concern.
Sirius nodded. “Yeah, she’s fine,” he answered. “Madam Pomfrey’s taking care of her.”
“Did you tell her why my daughter did this?”
“No, I told her that some Slytherin did it.”
Professor Lupin smiled. “Classic Gryffindor answer. If you’ll excuse me, Sirius, I need to visit my daughter and write a letter.”
“No problem, G’night, Professor.”
“Night, Sirius.”
Professor Lupin waited until Sirius had shut the door before he ducked down and pulled out a sheet of parchment from his desk. He sat down and took his quill out of the inkbottle and began writing. When he was finished the letter read:
Dear Anna,
One of my students, whom I sure you remember from when he stayed over the house this summer, Sirius, has just informed me of something that I think you might take interest in. Tonight, as you well know, is a full moon and earlier this evening our daughter followed Remus down to the Whomping Willow where he would transform. You might wonder, though I highly doubt you are, why she did this? I’ll be very glad to answer this… she did it because of you!
She wanted to be an equal in your eye. She wanted your love and respect. She seemed to get the idea from you that if she was like her brother, whom you love and adore, that you would love her again. She wanted you to love her so she nearly killed herself because of you! Please think about this. Your daughter loves you even if you don’t love her, the least you could do is talk to her about this. Do you honestly want you daughter to do this again and possibly die?
Sincerely,
Gregory.
Professor Lupin read the letter over, making sure he’d worded it exactly the way he wanted it. And when he decided it was perfect, he placed it in an envelope, pocketed it, and went off to the Hospital Wing. When he reached the Wing he knocked gently on the door.
“Good evening, Professor,” said Madam Pomfrey when she opened the door. “I’m assuming you’d like to see your daughter?”
“Yes, Poppy, I would,” Professor Lupin answered kindly.
Madam Pomfrey nodded and stepped aside to let the teacher in. Once he stepped foot on the threshold she immediately began ranting about the Slytherin (whom she had no idea didn’t exist) who did this. Professor Lupin just nodded and smiled patiently as he listened to the nurse’s story. Finally though she just got too detailed about something she didn’t know and he kindly asked if he could speak to his daughter privately. Madam Pomfrey nodded and quickly bustled out of the room.
Professor Lupin walked over and sat down at the foot of his daughter’s bed. “How are you?” he asked, watching his daughter carefully.
“Fine,” she answered, although she could have been better.
“How could you-”
“Please, Dad,” Rachael cut him off. “Sirius already gave me the ‘how could you’ lecture.”
Professor Lupin smiled. “Did he now?”
“Yes and he got through to me pretty well.”
“Good, I just hope you know never to do something like that again.”
“I’m not going to, Mum’s not worth it.”
Professor Lupin clicked his tongue.
“You can’t say that,” he said quietly, getting up and heading for the door. “Everyone deserves a chance to change. Just as you tried to prove that to your mother, one day she’s going to prove it to you. Everyone deserves a second chance.”