- He had read it in a book once that no one should be too quick to hand out this judgement, but Remus couldn't help himself. -
Remus didn’t know how long he had sat in the deserted hallway that Professor McGonagall had left him in. It may have been minutes, hours, or even days before he even decided on moving. He sat there, his face in his hands, not crying, but his shoulders heaved as he breathed irregularly, making it seem as if he were sobbing. His mind was reeling painfully as the conversation he’d just had kept replaying; he was unable to stop it. How was this happening? His mother was going to die… she was going to die! First his brother, now his mother… who was it going to be next? His father? Cassie? Lucy? Perhaps his friends?
He couldn’t take this; he didn’t even need to wait for all of his worst fears to occur before he went mad, losing his mother would be enough. The woman who brought him into this world was going to leave it so quickly. He knew it was only natural for a child to outlive their parents, but it was not natural for the parent to be taken out of their child’s life so early, and in such a way. He couldn’t even try to block out the images that had kept creeping into his mind… horrible images that were scarring even if they weren’t exactly what happened. He could see his mother standing in one of the rooms of the house, her bedroom possibly, trying to get out but there were flames blocking the doors, and she couldn’t even climb out the window because it was such a long drop. All of the visions kept haunting his mind.
“There he is,” said a relieved voice coming from close by.
Remus didn’t bother to look up, but heard the footsteps pounding in his direction, three sets of footsteps to be exact. His friends had found him.
“Remus,” Sirius said, stooping down beside him. “What’d McGonagall want?” Remus shook his head madly, mumbling utter nonsense to his friends. “Excuse me?” Sirius asked again, unable to understand him.
“Was it bad?” James asked quietly. The expression he had seen on the Transfiguration teacher’s face when she came into the common room was unforgettable, she looked so sad. He had hardly ever seen her look like that, normally she wore a stern and disciplined expression.
“If you call a fire at my house bad, then yes,” Remus finally managed to say through his hands. His friends paled upon hearing this; they could only imagine what was going to come next.
“What about your family?” Peter asked concernedly. “Are they okay?”
“My older sister is, she wasn’t at home,” Remus replied, removing his hands from his face and folding them around his knees. “My dad and my little sister have to spend a day or so at St. Mungo’s, so they’re going to be okay. But McGonagall said that the Healers said that my mum… she’s probably… she’s probably going to die.”
His friends didn’t know what to say to this. Remus had already lost his brother, now his mother was going to be added to the list. They could only hope that there was something that could be done for her, a small ray of hope that a miracle could take place and save her life. James put a hand on Remus’s shoulder, all the while shaking his head in disbelief. No one deserved so many bad things to happen in their life, especially Remus Lupin.
“But there’s hope, isn’t there?” Sirius said suddenly. “The Healers might be able to save her.”
Remus sighed and rubbed his forehead tiredly. It was amazing that only a mere hour ago he and his friends had been having the time of their lives, celebrating his fourteenth birthday, without a care in the world. Now they were standing in a vacant hallway, three of them having just listened to the fourth, who had just received the most awful news possible. His mother was going to die. This worst birthday present a child could receive.
“Come on, Remus,” James said, sliding his arm under Remus’s and pulling him up. Remus stumbled slightly as he stood up, but James managed to steady him before he fell. “Let’s go back to the common room.”
Remus nodded, unsure of what else he could do at the moment. His head was hammering painfully; it felt as though an iron clad fist had clenched itself upon his stomach, making him positively sick. James looked at Sirius and Peter, jerked his head down the hallway, and they led the way back to Gryffindor Tower.
They were silent the whole walk back, no one knowing what to say that could make Remus feel better. What could someone possibly say to their friend whose mother was just seriously injured in a full scale fire? They couldn’t think of anything, no words of comfort, absolutely nothing.
They entered the third year common room to see Frank Longbottom sitting on his bed, reading a book. He looked up when he saw them come in and smiled, wishing Remus a happy birthday.
“Thanks,” Remus replied distantly, not looking at his fellow Gryffindor.
Frank looked questioningly at James, Sirius and Peter. Peter and Sirius shoved James in his direction, muttering for him to explain while they worked on Remus. However, when they turned to Remus’s bed, they saw that he had pulled the hangings around, a sign that he didn’t want to be bothered at the moment. Sirius and Peter exchanged glances, both thinking the same thing - if this had been any ordinary day, they would have ripped the hangings down. But this was not an ordinary day and those hangings were up for a reason.
Remus felt betrayed, not by his friends or his family, he felt betrayed by the world in itself. He thought that everyone was out to get him, that everyone wanted nothing more than to cause him misery. He felt that his life was nothing more than one disappointment and one disaster after another, and honestly, no one could even blame him for thinking in such a way. He had hardly had a chance to live the life a boy was supposed to live. He had been robbed of a childhood because of Fenrir Greyback. He had never had any friends because of what he was, his brother had been snatched from his life and now his mother was about to suffer the same fate.
James came back over to Sirius and Peter once he finished explaining the situation to Frank, who, stony faced and silent, left the dormitory in order to give them time to try and console Remus. Sirius jerked his head over to the bed to show James that Remus clearly didn’t want to talk at the moment. But, unlike his two friends, James didn’t take that as a reason to stop from talking to him.
James edged over and tapping on the hangings. “Remus?” he said, shaking the hangings.
“Yes?” came Remus’s quiet voice from the other side.
“Do you want to talk at all?”
“Not really.”
James shrugged at Sirius and Peter, who also shrugged in response. If Remus didn’t want to talk then they weren’t going to force him to.
“Well,” James said, turning back towards the bed. “If you want to, we’re going to be down in the common room, all right?”
“Yeah… okay.” Remus listened as he heard his friends’ footsteps retreat to the door and listened as the door shut. Rolling over onto his back, he stared up at the ceiling, his mind moving so fast that he could hardly keep track of what he was thinking. When was he going to get to see his mother? The Easter break wasn’t for another few weeks and by then it might be too late. He wanted to see her and yet Professor McGonagall made no mention of seeing if that could be arranged. Why didn’t she just tell him right there if he could or not? In his anger, Remus took the inkbottle he had been holding and flung it to the floor, not flinching when it shattered.
He hated his life, at this time he really did hate his life. He couldn’t even try to describe his hatred for it, for all of the pain he’d had to endure; there was no word in his vocabulary that would suffice. He was sick and tired of always hearing bad news, never good news. Why couldn’t the message he received from his professor be good? But no, it had to be that his house had been burnt to ashes and his family was in St. Mungo’s. He was tired of always crying about it, as he was at the moment, he couldn’t take it as a man. If he could then he wouldn’t be sitting there, his face wet and his shoulders trembling. Instead he would be saying that he was going to kill Wilkins once and for all, for causing this, but he didn’t have the heart to… he just didn’t.
As it turned out, Professor McGonagall and Professor Dumbledore had arranged it with the Ministry to temporarily link the Gryffindor common room fire to one in St. Mungo’s so Remus would be able to Floo there the following morning. He stood outside the fire, looking into its luminous depths, hesitating before throwing the powder in. He was afraid of what he might see when he came out the other end. All through the night images of his mother, mangled and burned, kept popping up in his dreams and he was frightened that the visions would take reality. But he had to go, it would be wrong if he didn’t. His family was hurt, he wasn’t; he needed to see them. So, taking a deep breath, he grabbed a handful of Floo Powder and dropped it into the fire. He blinked against the bright emerald green flames and stepped inside.
“St. Mungo’s!” he shouted. Immediately he felt the familiar swirling sensation, his feet being lifted off the ground, his elbows being pressed against his sides and his entire body spinning around. He landed with a thud on the cold stone floor of a St. Mungo’s fireplace before stumbling out of the mantle, bringing soot with him and scattering it on the carpet.
Gaining his bearings, he saw that he was not in the waiting room, which was only too memorable to him. Instead he was in an office that was decorated with many portraits of Healers long gone. In the centre of the room there was a wooden desk cluttered with many knickknacks, quills and inkbottles. There was also a blue cushioned chair at the desk, but the back was facing him and Remus could not tell if there was anyone sitting in it. He cleared his throat loudly to find out and, sure enough, the chair wheeled around and he found himself face to face with a wizened old wizard.
The man observed Remus for a moment, a confused look in his eyes before he was able to register why a fourteen-year-old boy had stumbled out of his fireplace. His face split into a sympathetic grin and he strode forward to greet him.
“You must be Remus Lupin?” he said in a friendly voice. Remus nodded. “I am Mr. Derrick Symes.” The man held out a hand for Remus to shake.
“Does your son go to Hogwarts?” Remus asked, suddenly remembering the Quidditch commentator.
“Well, my grandson does,” the Healer answered, now leading Remus across the threshold and towards the door.
Remus listened lazily as the man discussed the history of the hospital, everything ranging from its founding to the latest cases of the latest patients. Remus wasn’t interested in any of that; he just wanted to know how his family was. He knew the Healer was only doing this to lighten the mood, to make Remus feel better. Mr. Symes did get to Remus’s family eventually, but not before immersing himself into a long-winded tale about a man who had come into the hospital the previous week, nursing several injuries that included a head turned backwards.
They had been walking for quite a while before coming upon his family’s ward. Remus hesitated behind Mr. Symes, bracing himself for what lay behind the door. Mr. Symes pushed the door open and Remus was brought into a homely looking room that held only three occupants. Two were up out of bed, and the other was bed ridden. Remus looked away when he saw this, unable to face his mother. Instead he turned to his father, who was sitting on a chair by the window with Lucy in his lap. They didn’t look too bad considering they had been through a fire, although they didn’t look perfectly healthy either.
One side of his father’s face was scarred from burns, which would heal soon if he continued to drink his potion, as Mr. Symes explained. Remus was grateful for this; it would be hard to see his father have to go through life with such nasty scars on his face, Remus knew what that felt like. His sister didn’t look bad either, though her arm was bound in a sling, which looked highly uncomfortable. She looked up and smiled wearily at Remus when she saw him. He tried to return the smile, but found that he couldn’t.
Mr. Lupin picked up Lucy and placed her on the chair while he went to greet his son. “Hullo, Remus,” he said in a hushed voice.
“Hi,” Remus replied, glancing uneasily at the bed behind his father. He didn’t want to look… and yet he couldn’t help it. Mr. Lupin saw this and stepped to his left to block it from view for the time being. He withdrew his wand and conjured up a chair for his son to take, but Remus took the seat his sister had and placed her on his lap, nodding for his dad to take the other one.
“How did it happen?” Remus asked once they were settled in their seats.
Mr. Lupin thought for a moment, he himself was unsure of how the fire started. It had been so sudden.
“I don’t know, Remus,” he answered truthfully. “One minute Lucy and I were sitting in the living room and the next thing we knew the house was in flames.” Remus heard Lucy squeal quietly from her seat; she was going to have nightmares about this for a long time. “I thought your mother was in the backyard fixing up the shed, it was what she had been planning on doing, so we went outside right when it started, but the front hall was still full of flames and that’s how we got burned.”
“So you didn’t know Mum was still inside?”
“No, but when I realised that, I went back in and got her. It’s a miracle I’m not in the same state she is.” Mr. Lupin took a deep breath and he looked over at his wife. “I only wish I knew how it started.”
Remus looked away when his father uttered his wish. Remus knew why it had started and it was only right for him to tell his father. Why should he keep him in the dark?
“Dad,” Remus said slowly. “Do you remember when I said I wanted to find out who killed Blake?”
His father nodded, a confused expression on his face.
“Well, I did. I knew the killer wasn’t human, so I looked through all the books in the library about magical creatures and I found one. Blake’s killer is a Fearnck.”
“Remus, you’re not supposed to know what those are!”
“That’s what McGonagall told me, but I do know and I know who it is too. This kid Larry Wilkins is my Fearnck. He’s been making all my worst fears come true. That’s why Blake’s dead… That was why I was attacked. He made it all come true because I’m such a coward. I have too many fears.”
“You’re not a coward, Remus. Everyone’s afraid to lose someone they love. It still isn’t your fault that Blake’s gone.”
“I know but… well, I thought I’d gotten over my fear of fire since McGonagall’s been helping me. She said it still didn’t matter. I’m still too scared of losing my family. It was Wilkins’s fault that the fire started.”
Mr. Lupin studied his son for a while, as if he couldn’t quite believe what he was hearing. So his son was harbouring a Fearnck and it had finally decided to show himself. He didn’t know too much about these creatures, except for the basics that anyone who had ever heard of the monster knew. He knew that they lived inside a person from the moment they were born; they chose to reveal themselves when the person was at their weakest and proceeded to wreak havoc upon their harbourer's life. What he didn’t know was how to defeat them and now he wished he did so he could help Remus. But it seemed that Professor McGonagall had been helping him and he had been making some progress.
“You’re working on it though?” Mr. Lupin questioned hopefully.
“Yeah… I haven’t done much, but it’s something I guess,” Remus replied, glancing out of the window and into the bright sunny day, all the while wondering how the weather could be so cheerful when there were people out there, utterly miserable. Then, turning to his dad, he asked, “Do you really get a wish if you destroy it? The Fearnck, I mean?”
His father shrugged his shoulders truthfully. He didn’t know. After a minute or two, Mr. Lupin excused himself to speak with one of the Healers, leaving Remus alone with his sister and his mother. The ward was completely silent except for the slow breathing of its three occupants. Remus didn’t know what he could possibly say to his sister, who was still reeling from the fire. He hated “ no “ he loathed what this monster was doing to his family. Why couldn’t Wilkins just leave his family out of this? Remus had enough fears that included himself being harmed; he’d rather that than having his family ripped apart at the seams. They already lost a child… did they really have to lose a mother?
Remus was jerked back to reality by his sister giving a small sob. Remus looked around and saw his sister’s face red with fright.
“Lucy,” he said slowly.
“Mum’s going to die, isn’t she?” Lucy asked straight out, not bothering to beat around the bush. She had obviously been thinking of this ever since Remus had walked into the room.
Remus clenched his teeth; he didn’t want to tell her this. He always had to be the one to deliver the bad news, starting when Blake died and he wasn’t even at liberty to tell her that.
“The Healers… they said it’s not looking too good,” Remus replied.
“So Mum is going to die?”
“No! I didn’t say that… it’s just a bad situation.”
“Remus, you never lied to me before.”
Remus hung his head, his chin centimetres away from his sister’s head. She knew he was lying. He was never good at lying to people he really cared about. The truth was that their mother was going to die. The Healers just didn’t know how long it would take; it could be anywhere from a few hours to a few months.
“Look, Mum’s not doing well,” he said, looking over at her, unable to tell if she was sleeping or unconscious. “No one knows how long it’s going to take before she dies… But maybe she won’t,” he added optimistically. “Maybe she’ll be okay.” Remus placed his sister on the floor, not wanting to sit down anymore and she didn’t seem to want to stay in the room much longer because she left the ward to stand with their father, who was just outside the door.
Remus stared at the door as it closed shut and then glanced over at his mother’s bed once more. He couldn’t do this… he couldn’t sit here and watch her life deteriorate right before his eyes. It just wasn’t right; she didn’t deserve such a fate. Why couldn’t she have Apparated out of the room when the fire started? Did Wilkins put some enchantment over the house to prevent her from doing so? If he did… Remus’s anger increased tenfold at the thought; he had never felt more determined in all of his life. He was going to get Wilkins… He was going to kill him.
Remus leaned on the windowsill, squinting as the sun shone exceptionally bright. There were some people in the world that deserved to live, and some who deserved to die. He had read it in a book once that no one should be too quick to hand out this judgement, but Remus couldn’t help himself. Wilkins deserved to die. He had never done anything that benefited anyone else; he had not one righteous thought in his mind. All of his brainpower went to devising plots to ruin others’ lives. If anyone should be snatched from this planet, it was him.
His mother deserved to live; she had done so much in her life to help other people, hardly ever thinking about what was right for herself. Every full moon she would be beside herself with worry for her son, checking him countless times to make sure he was well. When the full moon finally set, she would spend all day by Remus’s bedside if she had to, if he was in terrible pain. This was the least Remus could do for his mum at that point; he would sit by her bedside all day if he had to, just to be there when she woke up.
It was about an hour before she did rise, only to find her youngest son sitting in a chair beside her bed, dozing. She peered around the rest of the room, to find it completely empty. When she saw the clock on the nightstand she saw that it was noon and her husband and daughter had probably gone to get lunch. Her whole body was racked with unimaginable pain, her limbs seemed to be on fire, much like her home was the night before. She could hardly stand to be awake and wanted nothing more than to drop back off, but her son was there and she had wanted to see him.
“Remus?” she asked lightly, not able to project her voice as she normally would. Remus jerked out of his doze and stared sleepily at his mother, taking some time to process that she was awake. “How did you get here?” she asked conversationally.
“Dumbledore set up a Floo network,” Remus answered, rubbing the sleep out of his eyes. “So I could get here and back.” He was quiet, watching his mother. He didn’t really know what to say at this point. What could he say? Whatever he thought of, it somehow seemed insensitive, even if it was unintentional. He suddenly found himself wishing that his mother would go back to sleep. Everything seemed much easier when she was. He could just sit there and not have to think of anything at all to say.
Luckily he was spared of saying anything else by the appearance of his father coming back from lunch with Lucy. Mr. Lupin whispered to Remus to take Lucy for a walk, as he wanted to talk to his wife. Remus complied only too quickly and led Lucy out of the ward, down the hallway in no particular direction. They stopped at a sign on the wall, which appeared to be a directory. Remus looked at it, trying to spot somewhere they could go. The only likely place seemed to be the tea room, but Lucy had just come back from eating and he himself wasn’t very hungry.
“Where are we going?” Lucy asked when Remus turned and led her down a random hallway.
“I don’t know,” Remus said, looking straight ahead. “I just don’t want to be in there.” He glanced down at his sister, who was trying to see where they were going, but knowing all the same that it was useless. Remus didn’t know where he was leading her; he just wanted to get as far away from that hospital ward as possible. After five minutes they found that they had gone nowhere except to the end of the hallway. Remus leaned against the wall, folding his arms across his chest, and stared down at the floor.
“What’s this place?” Lucy asked, looking at her surroundings.
“I don’t know,” Remus said again. “I just needed to get away from that room.”
“Remus, you said Mum is going to be okay. You said that the Healers might be able to help her.”
Remus had indeed said that there was hope, but he was lying through his teeth the whole time. There was no hope, had she not seen the state that their mother was in? It would be a right miracle if she lived.
“Well I lied!” Remus snapped, causing his sister to jump. “Didn’t you see her? There’s no way the Healers can do anything! Mum’s going to die! They can’t save her. First Blake died, and now Mum is. Don’t you get it?”
He glared down at his sister, who looked to be on the verge of tears. Instantly the rage that had taken him before softened and he felt bad that he had yelled. Remus knelt down to his sister’s height and placed a hand on her shoulder.
“I’m sorry,” he said apologetically. “I didn’t mean to… I just… I dunno.”
His sister said nothing; she just gave him a scathing look and stalked off back towards the ward, not looking back once. He stared blankly at her back, hating himself for how he had treated her. Was she not the one sibling he had who didn’t despise him at one point for what he was? Cassie was afraid of him once, even if she had hit Blake for being scared. He wouldn’t have been surprised if his parents had even been scared.
“Merlin,” he muttered, sliding down the wall. “I’m an idiot.”
Remus didn’t return to the castle until late that evening. At St. Mungo’s, his father had pulled him out of the ward and gave him a long, angry lecture about how he had yelled at his sister. Remus decided to leave right then and there, but was able to as the Floo Network in the fireplace had sealed itself until the evening. Remus had no choice but to stay. When he wasn’t able to leave, however, he went straight to the tea room and didn’t return to his mother’s ward until he was about to leave. He felt disgusted with himself for doing what he did, yelling at his sister and not even talking with his mother for more than two minutes.
He entered the third year dormitory to see his friends playing an energetic match of Exploding Snap, in which James was winning. They looked up when they saw Remus enter, smiled friendly, and immediately returned to their match. Remus sat down and watched them, smiling a little as Sirius’s cards exploded in his face, causing him to swear violently. Once the match concluded, they packed up what remained of the cards (as Sirius had simply waved his wand, scattering them about, so they couldn’t find them) and went to see how Remus’s visit went.
“Disastrous,” Remus said when they asked.
“What happened?” Sirius asked.
“I’m just really stupid,” Remus replied simply.
“What’d you do?”
“Well, I couldn’t think of anything to say to my mother, so now she probably feels bad and I yelled at my little sister and my dad got mad at me because of it.” He knelt down to take his shoes off and pulled his feet onto his bed when he was finished. “I just feel bad because I couldn’t say anything to my mum.”
“Well, it’s got to be pretty hard,” James said sensibly. “Your mother was just in a fire, no one can blame you for not knowing what to say.”
“And as for your sister,” Sirius said, “just apologise.”
“I tried; she didn’t want to hear any of it.” Remus was silent, a thought suddenly occurring in his mind. It was when he had returned from Blake’s funeral, the offer his friend’s had made for him. “Do you remember when you offered to become Animagi?” His friends nodded unsurely at this. “And I told you that I didn’t want you to, that I really just wanted you to help me find out what killed my brother?” His friends nodded again. “Well I know who killed my brother, I know who did this to my mother; I don’t need your help with it anymore.”
“What are you getting at, Remus?” Peter asked unsurely.
“I want you to become Animagi. Please… I really need help right now.”