- "Remus... we promise, we'll remember that we were friends... we have the proof. We have the map! We have our memories." -
Chapter Eleven School seemed to stretch on endlessly in the days following Remus’s return to Hogwarts. Even if Christmas break was on its way, it seemed to take longer than normal for it to actually arrive. All the students were anxious for the break, after having spent so many tedious hours in the classrooms, but none were as impatient as Remus. From the moment he returned to class he had been the object of pitiful stares from most of his fellow classmates. Then there were some students, like Snape for instance, who taunted him about it, trying to wield it into his mind that it was his fault. But Remus wasn’t about to listen to someone like Snape; he had fully convinced himself that he wasn’t to blame.
As Remus went from class to class, he found himself scanning the crowds of students, trying to pick out Wilkins, but he was nowhere in sight. It was as if he had done what he had come here for and was now going to leave, never to resurface again. Remus thought this would ease his mind, but it only made him nervous. The silence from Wilkins made it seemed as if he was plotting something. What else could he possibly plot? He had already snatched Remus’s brother from him, what more harm could he do? That was what Remus originally thought, until he realised he had more fears than he knew what to do with. These fears made more than one person an object of Wilkins’s terror.
This was what drove Remus to research faster, looking through piles and piles of library books every night, spending as much time there as possible, or at least until Madam Pince shooed him away. His only problem was that he didn’t know exactly what to research. Should he look up magical creatures or spells? Under what title should he search? This was where his friends came in handy. Remus knew he couldn’t handle the load alone, as he had too much homework to make up, as well as the homework that had been assigned since his return. They would take shifts in the library, poring over book after book, most of their attempts proving fruitless.
Finally, James, Sirius and Peter sat Remus down and forced him to examine everything that he been going on, both in his life and his mind, when he met Wilkins. It took him a long time before he was able to recall every emotion and every event that he had felt or seen in those days. Soon he had come to the conclusion that he had been feeling rather lost and had been plagued with nightmares. He had become fed up with his life, sick of the fact that he had no one he could call a friend. His nightmares were causing him to lose sleep and become listless. Then, the day he had gone to Diagon Alley, he had met Wilkins in Gringotts. He seemed nice, someone Remus could be friends with, which as all he really wanted.
“I saw you the day I went there,” Sirius piped up when Remus had finished recounting the events. “You didn’t look too happy.”
Remus nodded agreeably, not wanting to say why.
The four decided to check the library once more, nearly sending Madame Pince into cardiac arrest from seeing James, Sirius and Peter in there again. Still, as they piled book upon book on the table, Remus’s symptoms weren’t enough to help them, and his friends weren’t able to get much else information out of him, for the time being. They were just going to have to look harder, focus in more.
As they were leaving the library, Remus felt a rage sweep over him when he saw the person walking in. It was none other than Larry Wilkins, looking as if nothing out of the ordinary had happened, like he never killed anyone. When the three boys spotted Wilkins and then got a look at Remus, James and Sirius quickly grabbed his arms to restrain him from doing anything he might later regret. Remus fought against their restraints, the fire of rage burning within him; he wanted revenge right now.
“Remus, calm down,” James hissed, tightening his grip of Remus’s arm.
“I said I’d kill him and I meant it!” Remus snarled, his eyes fixed on the back of his enemy’s head.
“If you kill him, you can’t prove he killed Blake,” Sirius reminded.
“Seeing his ugly face wiped off the Earth would be revenge enough.”
James and Sirius looked at each other, shrugged, and pushed Remus out of the library, so hard that they nearly knocked him flat on his face. Steadying himself, Remus spun around and glared at his friends.
“You didn’t have to push me!”
“Yes we did,” James said dismissively, leading Remus as far away from the library as humanly possible. Walking down the corridor, they discussed the possibilities of Wilkins’ true identity, though there were very few that they could think of. They didn’t know of many creatures that fed off people’s worst nightmares. It was clear that they must have been very rare to not even appear in Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them. The four had become frustrated by this, but none more so than Remus, who was tired of having to watch his every step, waiting to see when he was going to next be attacked, or someone else important to him was going to be taken.
If he had to live in fear for the rest of his life, he didn’t think he’d be able to make it. To him, there was no feeling worse than always having to look over your shoulder, waiting for the worst to come. When the worst came he was never able to handle it; he would go to pieces, like he did when Blake died. A knot in his chest clenched painfully as he thought about this, but that was it. He found that he didn’t want to cry every time his brother’s name was mentioned or he thought about him; it still hurt, but not so much.
Remus sat in Defence Against the Dark Arts, calmly writing down the notes on werewolves that Professor Hanks was dictating. Reading over his notes, Remus was extremely grateful that his professor wasn’t having one of his famous mood swings. If he had one, today especially, Remus had no doubt in his mind that he would be part of it, for one insane reason or another. Just as though the thought had fluttered out of his mind and into the professor’s, Professor Hanks ordered them to put down their quills and witness a demonstration. He hurried to Remus’s desk, and pulled him up by the collar of his robes. The class watched bemusedly, thinking that their professor had finally lost it. What would he want with Remus Lupin when they were doing a lesson on werewolves?
“I will now demonstrate a werewolf’s many weaknesses,” the professor announced in a booming voice. Remus gave Professor Hanks a pleading look, but knew it was futile; his professor was lost in his own world. Remus just hoped that the class wouldn’t become wise; he hoped they just thought it was another one of his antics. Remus watched anxiously as Professor Hanks pulled out something from his pocket. He couldn’t even imagine what it was. What would Hanks have that he could use on an actual werewolf who wasn’t in their transformation?
Professor Hanks turned around, holding what appeared to be a silver spoon he had stolen from the Great Hall. Remus rolled his eyes at the absurdity of it; didn’t he realise that merely holding a silver spoon wasn’t going to do much damage? Although Remus wouldn’t deny that he was thankful for the daftness of his teacher, no one would have a clue.
“Observe,” Professor Hanks said loudly, holding the silver spoon on Remus’s nose. If he thought it was going to do anything to Remus, he was sadly mistaken. The most it would do would make him crossed eyed from looking at it.
Lily Evans slowly raised her hand.
“Miss Evans?”
“What exactly are we supposed to be observing?” she asking inquiringly.
“See how he reacts to it!” Hanks insisted, pressing the spoon tighter on his student’s nose. Remus winced at the pressure, which Hanks took as a werewolf’s allergic reaction.
“He’s not reacting to the spoon!” Lily protested. “You’re just pushing it on him.”
“Are you questioning my ways of teaching, Miss Evans?”
Now she’s done it, Remus thought, looking from Professor Hanks to Lily. She had brought about a drastic mood swing and she was going to get the worst of it. However, shockingly, James headed the professor off before he could focus his attention on one particular student.
“She’s got a point, Professor,” he said reasonably. “And why are you picking on him anyway?”
Professor Hanks blinked several times, clearly disbelieving what he was hearing. “But don’t you know?” he asked incredulously.
The class exchanged baffled looks; they thought their professor had finally lost his mind.
“That you’ve finally lost your marbles?” Sirius asked innocently.
Professor Hanks’ turned a violent shade of red when he heard Sirius’s snide remark.
“Detention, Mr. Black!” he snapped, pulling a pink slip off his desk and attempting to throw it at Sirius, only to have it flutter a few millimetres and float down to the ground. “And to anyone else who dares question my teachings,” he added when he saw the hysterical faces of his class. Remus looked over at Sirius, who was doing his best to suppress a grin; apparently having a detention for this was enough to send him laughing for hours.
Professor Hanks managed to compose himself long enough for his eyes to dart over to Remus, as if he hadn’t noticed he’d been standing there the entire time. “What are you doing?” he snapped.
“You made me come up here,” Remus replied smartly, disregarding the professor’s warning.
“What did I say before?”
“Something about detention and questioning your ways… Professor.” Saying professor was all he had to do to restrain himself from calling Hanks ‘your majesty.’
“Detention, Mr. Lupin!” he declared, once again trying to launch a pink slip and failing, even though Remus was standing no more than two inches away from him. “Class dismissed!”
Without even waiting to put their books back in their bags, the class dashed from the room. Remus ran to catch up with his friends, who were waiting at the end of the corridor and they made their way down to lunch.
Sitting down at the end of the Gryffindor table, they burst out laughing about the events of their class. Hanks had really gone over the edge that day; it was only a matter of time anyway.
“I can’t believe we actually got detention for that,” Sirius said, snorting into his goblet of pumpkin juice. “He’s pathetic!”
“I can’t believe he actually thought you were a werewolf, Remus,” said the voice of Lily Evans from behind them. They looked up to see her standing there, positively seething. It was a well known fact that Lily Evans couldn’t stand Professor Hanks; no student’s hatred of him could match hers.
“Well, you know Hanks,” Remus said, laughing falsely. “He’s an idiot.”
“Yeah, he is… But really, where could he get the idea that you’re a werewolf?”
Remus shrugged his shoulders, muttering something about Hanks getting the strangest ideas into his head. That seemed to be enough to satisfy Lily, as she left them to go sit with her friend, Alice Gordon. Remus sighed in relief, that was all he needed right now, for someone else to find out he was a werewolf. Even though he knew Lily wouldn’t use it do his disadvantage, he didn’t want her finding out.
What Hanks did was bad enough, nearly exposing him to the entire group of Gryffindor third years. He was only thankful for the fact that no one took that man seriously, even when he was in his regular state of mind. What professor could possibly think of revealing a student like that? As if it wasn’t bad enough that Remus was ridiculed in that class on a regular basis, at least it was for something as small minded as dripping ink on the desk, not for being a werewolf.
Remus sat in the library well after he had returned from his detention, poring over a welcoming book he had found there. He had never seen it before, and he was certain that it had just been placed there. It was a book about the rarest creatures in the Wizarding World, the kind of creatures he wouldn’t be able to find in a school textbook. He only wondered why it was open to all students. For the types of creatures listed; it should have been in the Restricted Section. There were beasts that could destroy entire villages by merely spraying spit in the ground, monsters that could take out a crowd of two hundred men with a single swipe of its claw. Remus shuddered as he looked at actual pictures of the destruction they had caused. He didn’t think even Wilkins could be as vicious as some of the other monsters that were in this book.
He turned the page and stared blankly at the book, which was now describing some creature starting with the letter F. He was too tired to look at the rest of the name. It was late at night and he was sitting under James’s Invisibility Cloak, which James had graciously lent to him. He wanted nothing more than to sleep at this moment, but he felt that he was getting somewhere. Though he hadn’t found anything, he still thought that if he kept looking, he might find the answer he had been searching for. He had been searching for a while and, now that it was exactly one week until Christmas Break, he needed to find something, something fast. If he wanted to get Wilkins, he might as well do it when the school was empty; he could make it look like some sick accident. Or maybe he would take credit for whatever horrors happened to Wilkins; it would be a small price to pay after what this boy had reaped on his family.
Even in his semi conscious state, Remus could hear how bitter and vengeful he sounded. This was what he had felt like ever since he returned to school, and he was certain everyone had noticed it. Students who usually gloried in taunting him had been avoiding him. At first he thought that they had pitied him, but then the Slytherins started backing off. He knew it was unlike Slytherins to pity him for the loss of his brother, as they had despised him greatly. It was only when Sirius pointed out how much he’d changed that he discovered why he was no longer being bothered. His brother had always protected him because he had been too meek to come out and defend himself, but lately it had been just the opposite. He was ready for a fight and would beat anyone who started it.
Remus stifled a yawn and focused on the page he had opened to. It was nearly midnight, he’d go to bed then, call it a night, and enjoy a nice rest. He slowly read the page, not drinking in a word of what he was reading however, until it started sounding oddly familiar. Rereading it, he realised that this was what he had been looking for. He had struck gold; this was the answer. He had found it!
He snatched the book up and did a mad dash out of the library, nearly knocking all of the bookshelves over as he did so. He couldn’t believe it; this book had given him the answer he wanted. He was going to do it; he was going to catch Wilkins. He knew what Wilkins was, though the thought sickened him slightly, he needed to tell his friends. He hissed the password as he approached the portrait hole, hoping that the Fat Lady would be too drowsy to comprehend that it was after hours. Even if he was caught, it wouldn’t be able to destroy the feeling of triumph in his chest.
“Jelly Slugs,” he whispered. “Jelly Slugs!”
“Mmhmm… slugs… jelly… quite good,” the Fat Lady mumbled, gradually opening and allowing him entrance. Remus smiled gratefully, although she couldn’t see him for the Invisibility Cloak. He hurried inside and up the stairs to his dormitory. He yanked the curtains around James’s bed and threw the Invisibility Cloak on top of him, startling him awake.
“Remus?” he asked sleepily, rubbing his eyes.
“I did it!” Remus hissed excitedly. He held up the book and ran over to wake Sirius, who proved to be much harder to wake than James. Sirius woke up angrily, but lightened up once he heard what Remus had to say and went to wake Peter, who was the easiest to wake of them all. Remus silently led them into the common room and shoved the book into James’s chest. His friends stared at it sleepily, but looked down to read when Remus gestured for them to do so.
When they finished they handed him back the book, looking thoroughly confused, and, unless Remus’s eyes were cheating him, a little frightened.
“Are you sure?” Sirius asked nervously.
Remus nodded; he had never been surer of anything else.
“Remus… this… this thing, its-”
“It’s always been there,” Remus finished for him. “Wilkins has always been there; he’s just never shown himself.” He picked up the book and read it over. He knew it was true. It had to be; there was nothing else that sounded like what happened to him. “I’ve never heard of it before, though.” He gazed at the name, so obvious of a name and yet he’d never seen it before “ Fearnck. A Fearnck was a creature that dwelled within humans, preying on every one of their fears. A Fearnck would wait to release himself, choose the opportune moment. Why had it chosen him?
“These things are dangerous, Remus,” Sirius said, shaking his head.
“You don’t need to tell me they are,” Remus snarled sarcastically. “But what else can it be? A Fearnck dwells within someone their entire life, and waits for the perfect moment to come out and ruin their life. It’s not something I wanted; it was something I was born with. It feeds off your worst fears, makes them come true… and when you have so many, it gets stronger. And if I don’t get rid of it, it’ll make me go mental.”
He let that one thought sink in. At first this was nothing more than a quest to catch Blake’s killer. Never did he expect the cause of it to have been something living within him ever since he was born. The very thought was frightening; Wilkins was a part of him, or not really a part, more that he was born inside Remus. He shivered involuntarily and snapped the book closed.
“The only thing that isn’t in the book, is how to get rid of it,” he said, a hint of helplessness in his voice.
“But if you kill it, what would it do to you?” Peter asked quietly.
Remus knew that his friend was worried about the possibility that killing Wilkins could also bring about Remus’s death. Remus didn’t need to worry about that; the book had clarified that anything that happened to one, would not affect the other.
“No,” he confirmed. “If I killed Wilkins, I wouldn’t die. If he killed me, he wouldn’t. It’s pretty fair, I guess… But if you saw in there, once it’s gone, it’s as if it was never there in the first place. People forget it ever existed. If I even mentioned the name, Wilkins no one would know who I was talking about.” He folded his arms across his chest and leaned back on the arm of the couch. “Nothing that happened while he was here would matter anymore, like it never even happened.”
“But wouldn’t that mean Blake would come back?” Peter asked, earning a disapproving look from James.
Remus shook his head solemnly. “No, he wouldn’t come back. But no one would remember how they felt the days following, or even how he died. And no one will remember I was attacked, or anything that’s about to happen.”
He sighed and gazed around the common room, quiet except for the breaths of him and his friends. The excitement of finding the answer was slowly dwindling away and becoming a feeling of helpless despair. He didn’t want everything to be forgotten. He wanted it to be remembered, however horrible it was. He knew he wouldn’t forget it, because it was a part of him. What about his parents? It wasn’t fair for them to forget how their oldest son died, for them to forget the pain they felt. He knew no one liked the pain, but it was important.
Then there were his friends, this was what worried him most. If everything that occurred since the Fearnck made its appearance became trivial and almost as though it never happened, would they be back at square one? Would their friendship have never existed and would he once again be alone? This time he would have no brother to help him. He couldn’t bear that to happen again, even if the times following had been painful, he had been happy, now that he had friends. He couldn’t have things go back to the way they used to be.
If he could go back to having no friends once Wilkins was dead and gone, then why couldn’t his brother come back from the dead? It seemed logical. It was a reasonable thought; one thought he wanted to come true. No matter how this ended up, he just wanted some good to come out of it, whatever that good may be.
“Guys?” he said quietly, looking at them carefully. “If, when this is all over, if you guys don’t remember that we ever became friends, can you at least be nice to me? Treat me like I’m there?”
“Remus, we promise we’ll remember that we were friends. We have the proof. We have the map! We have our memories,” James said encouragingly.
“I don’t know how far the map is going to help, there’s no proof the four of us made it. For all we’ll know, you three could have made it up without my help. And this book is making it sound like you won’t have much memories from this time, and that could be one of them.”
They said nothing for a while, sitting in a stony silence that was only penetrated by the ticking of the grandfather clock. They knew that Remus was right; they may not remember what happened to them since they stumbled upon him earlier in the year, bloody and beaten on the grounds. They might not be able to recall the friendship that grew as the days went on, making them like brothers. If there was anyone who deserved to keep those memories, it was Remus; if he had to have been infested with this monster, along with being a werewolf, then he needed to remember the good times, even if they were plagued with pain and loss. He needed to remember there was a time in his life when he had friends, friends who would do anything for him.
Sirius suddenly jumped up off the couch and scrambled up the dormitory steps, leaving his friends confused as they watched him disappear. He came back seconds later, holding a very familiar piece of parchment “ the map of Hogwarts. In his other hand, he held a quill and an inkbottle. He stooped down next to the table and dipped his quill in the ink.
“If we need proof, we’ll have the proof,” he said determinedly, scribbling on the paper. When finally set his quill down, he handed the map to Remus, who looked at his friend strangely, but didn’t question him.
Instead, he read aloud to Peter and James, what Sirius had written.
The Marauders Map.”