- "I have given you a purpose, and your purpose is to be the filth of a werewolf that you are, to have everyone who has ever cared for you disappear or abandon you." -
Remus’s head was surely splitting in two as he lay there, slowly coming around to consciousness. There was no way his head could be in one piece with the pain it was experiencing at that very moment. He had to struggle to not retch, resist crying out in pain. He turned his head to the side, gasping for air and discovered, much to his shock, that he was not lying on the hard wooden floor of the Shrieking Shack where he should have been. His bleeding cheek was instead met with the moist dew of the grass on the school grounds. He was not alone either. He could hear movement around him and the low murmurs of voices.
He felt a cold hand touch the side of his face, tilting his head so it face skyward. The person left him and he soon heard a second person muttering under their breath to the first. He strained his ears to hear what was being said, but his head was pounding far too much to comprehend it. He could, however, judge by the tone in the person’s voice that they were not happy, though apparently relieved. Trying once more, he managed to make out fragments of the conversation taking place before him.
“… Amazing he didn’t kill her…” said the first voice, a female’s.
“Or bite her, though I am sure that was his intention,” said the second, this time the voice of a male.
Remus cringed as his leg surged with a forceful pain, but let no gasp escape. He knew the conversation would discontinue if the speakers realised he was awake. He couldn’t help wondering who they were talking about; surely it couldn’t have been him? What would he have done? Then he thought, there was a full moon the night before, he had been a werewolf loose on the grounds. The woman had said it was amazing that someone hadn’t been killed, who hadn’t been killed?
“Poppy, how long did you wait before you brought him down?” the man said.
Poppy… Remus knew that name; it was the name of Madam Pomfrey. She had clearly been coming down here to pick him up and found something she hadn’t been expecting. Remus just wished they’d come right out and say it, whatever it was. They didn’t seem to ready to come out with it yet, giving him the strange suspicion that they knew he was listening.
“I didn’t think we were running that late,” Madam Pomfrey said uncomfortably. “Albus, I can fix her up with the necessary time.”
Albus? So the man’s voice belonged to Professor Dumbledore. That meant that whatever the nurse had found had to have been bad enough to call it to the attention of the Headmaster.
“Poppy, please take the girl up to the Hospital Wing,” Dumbledore instructed, moving slowly toward Remus. “I want to have a word with Mr. Lupin here.”
Remus didn’t like the tone in the Headmaster’s voice, nor did he like the fact that he had specifically said that there was a girl there, obviously one that was not supposed to be. He must have done something to warrant a talking to from Professor Dumbledore. They had said it was amazing that someone hadn’t killed someone… Everything was slowly coming together.
Remus felt the grass flatten beside him again, indicating that Dumbledore had taken a seat and was now expecting Remus to show that he was awake. Reluctantly, Remus wrenched his eyes open and looked up at the disconcerting face of the Headmaster. This only confirmed Remus’s fear that he had done something wrong.
“I trust that you realise something is not right here,” Dumbledore said quietly.
“Yes,” Remus replied uneasily. Then, without beating about the bush, he asked, “what did I do?”
Dumbledore took a deep breath and hesitated for a moment. “You attacked a girl on the grounds last night,” he said.
Remus’s stomach plummeted automatically upon hearing this. But then he remembered what Madam Pomfrey had said when he’d just woken up: He hadn’t killed her, or bitten her. One small bright side compared to the horror of realising that he almost had killed a girl… How could this have happened?
“Is she okay?” Remus asked, still refusing to meet the Headmaster’s eyes.
“She will recover in time,” Dumbledore replied. “Madam Pomfrey is doing her best to heal her.” Then Professor Dumbledore voiced what else Remus had been thinking. “It is likely that she will not remember what attacked her, especially because she was not bitten. We do not have a need to tell her; you do not have to have your secret exposed.”
Remus nodded, stopping quickly when he received a pang above his left eye.
“You know, I am sure, that there will be a punishment,” Dumbledore went on.
“Yes.” Remus had been expecting it and would have been shocked if the professor had let it slide.
“You will have detention for the rest of the year and for every full moon you will not be allowed to leave the Hospital Wing, to ensure that you do not show up late, nor that Madam Pomfrey can hesitate in bringing you to the Willow. We will also be notifying your father about this.”
“Yes, sir.”
“I know you are sorry about what you have done, but punishment is necessary.”
“I know.”
“Now you are to go to your dormitory and remain there until someone sends word that you are permitted to leave. Do you understand me, Mr. Lupin? No wandering around the castle.”
“Yes, sir.” Remus watched as Dumbledore stood up and walked briskly on the path that Madam Pomfrey had taken when she went up to the castle with the girl. Remus lay on the same spot for a while longer, his mind drifting off from his orders to go to Gryffindor Tower. He really couldn’t believe that he’d attack a girl; what was the matter with him? He had been doing this for ten years and he went and nearly killed an unknowing first year.
Remus looked around and saw that the sky was growing overcast; he didn’t want to be caught out in the rain. So he lifted himself up and walked gingerly back to the castle, wincing in pain with every step. He was sick, sick in pain and sick with grief. What was that girl going to think now? Was she going to be afraid to ever go out onto the grounds again, all because of him? He couldn’t blame her if that was how it ended up; he had been scared just the same when he was attacked.
Remus muttered the password when he approached the portrait of the Fat Lady and clambered inside the common room when she swung open for him. He gained strange looks from his fellow Gryffindors as he wound his way around students on his way to the dormitory. He didn’t care though; their looks were the least of his worries now.
When he entered the dormitory he found it, thankfully, empty. He sat down on his bed, holding his head in his hands. He wished he could go to the Hospital Wing to get something to make him feel better, but that would be breaking his word to Dumbledore and he would also have to see the girl who had fallen victim to his werewolf side. When he thought of breaking his word to the Headmaster, hadn’t he already? By accepting his place in Hogwarts he had automatically promised to keep his lycanthropy at bay, never to inflict harm on another because of it, whether on purpose or on accident. What did it matter now what he did? Still… he felt too guilty to even think of actually leaving the tower; he had nowhere to go anyhow, besides the Hospital Wing.
Only a few minutes later did the door burst open and Sirius, James and Peter came in, talking swiftly about something.
“Remus,” Sirius said when he spotted his friend. “Did you hear?”
“Hear what?” Remus asked listlessly.
“Some Ravenclaw first year was attacked last night,” James explained.
“I heard.”
“Do you know what did it then?” Peter asked interestedly, sitting down on his own bed and looking intently at Remus, who refused to meet any of their gazes.
“Yes.”
“Well can you tell us then?”
“I’d really rather not.”
“Why not?” Sirius said, almost whining.
“Because I don’t want to.”
“Remus, you’re no fun!”
“You call being attacked fun?” Remus snapped suddenly.
James, Sirius and Peter looked uneasily at each other. They knew they had struck a nerve and they hadn’t meant it. Remus had never been right since Wilkins attacked him…
“Are you okay, Remus?” James asked cautiously.
“No!” Remus said angrily.
“What happened?”
“What do you think happened? A girl was attacked last night! I know who did it! It was a full moon last night. Put two and two together, James, it’s not that hard!”
James’s eyes widened at an alarming rate upon hearing this. “Remus… you… you didn’t,” he stammered.
“I didn’t mean to,” Remus whispered. “I really didn’t mean to.”
Remus expected them to believe him, he really did. He would never intentionally hurt somebody and they knew it. They knew that Remus could never stand to bring pain to someone else as he did to himself every month. They knew this was his top priority when the full moon was rising “ to get away from people before he could do any harm. He didn’t expect what happened next.
“What’s the matter with you?” James said in a voice quite unlike his own; this one was harsh and disbelieving.
“I told you I didn’t mean to,” Remus said defensively.
“That doesn’t matter, you did it anyway!”
Remus looked to Sirius and Peter for support, desperately hoping that they would see his way in this. But one look at their expressions showed him that they were just as livid as James. He didn’t understand this; he couldn’t comprehend why they didn’t believe him. He knew how it felt to be attacked by something larger and more dangerous than he was. He’d never do it intentionally!
“Guys,” he pleaded. “I’d never hurt someone on purpose, you know I wouldn’t.”
“I’m surprised he didn’t haul off and go after us,” Peter muttered to Sirius.
Remus’s insides boiled. How could that little rat say that? “Were you people out on the grounds like she was?” he snarled. “No! If you were, I might have gone after you! Werewolves can’t tell their friends apart!”
“Of course you can’t,” Sirius said coldly.
Remus couldn’t take this; he thought Sirius would at least understand. Sirius always heard everyone out about everything; he was the first Marauder to even talk to him… Why were they doing this?
“You know, I don’t think I want to be in the same room with him,” James voiced heatedly. “Might go and attack us when we have our backs turned.”
“Yeah,” Sirius and Peter said in agreement.
Remus watched dejectedly as the three spun around and left the dormitory without so much as a backwards glance at him. Remus grimaced in pain as his sides ached. He must have broken a fair few ribs last night, and his ankle was hurting him as well. He wished he could go to the Hospital Wing, but he wasn’t too eager on leaving the room now. He didn’t want to run into his three seemingly former friends.
In a matter of seconds his friends had went from concerned about what was troubling Remus, to outrage that he had unwittingly attacked a first year girl. This was the last straw for Remus, everything was going downhill. He had been failing at his attempts to fend off Wilkins, collapsing daily because of it. He couldn’t focus in classes (although that was the least of his worries now), he had attacked a girl, and now his friends hated him because of it. It was only a matter of time before his father hated him when he received the letter from Dumbledore.
How was this happening? How was it that his entire world was falling apart at the very seams, all because of one stupid kid? How could one person cause so much pain? Remus couldn’t bear to comprehend how one thing, person or creature, could thrive off misery and virtually ruin another’s life. Now he was losing his friends because of it and his family was thinning before his very eyes. At this moment he wanted his brother back more than ever. Blake would have been there to help Remus when he lost everyone, but he was far from reach. Remus was going to have to do this on his own.
The fright that had run through the school in November after Remus was attacked had now multiplied at least five times now that it had occurred a second time. Everyone seemed to think that there was some beast out there who was trying to do in the students. However, this time no one tried to stage duels just to get into the Hospital Wing to see the girl; they knew Madam Pomfrey’s fuse was short enough and no student wanted to break it fully. So the students contented themselves with trying to find out the identity of the attacker.
Remus went through his days in an immense amount of pain. He was afraid to go to the Hospital Wing, thinking that the girl might be able to somehow tell that he was her assailant. So his wounds from the full moon remained unhealed, save for the bandages he had put over his cuts, but his internal injuries couldn’t be helped. He wasn’t about to receive pity from anybody because of his pain. His friends were now giving him the cold shoulder and it appeared that, once again, he was the strange kid who read too much for his own good. This was very true, now that he was no longer with his friends; he had retreated back into his books.
The day after the attack Remus received the response from his father that he had been dreading. It was not a pleasant letter, just as he had expected. But what he had not anticipated was the overall severity of the message. He had thought that his father might forgive him somewhat, being that it was a full moon and that it had not been entirely his fault he had not made it to the Shrieking Shack in time. His father was furious with him, ranting on and on about how he could have killed the girl. The letter only grew worse when his father mentioned that the Healers were telling him it would be any day that his mother was going to die.
It was so hard to believe that for one brief moment Remus had been fully happy. He had friends, a good family, a brother who would do anything to help him, and a mother who cared for him more than anything else… and in one swipe it was all ripped away from him. The final blow was when his key to defeating the cause of this was taken away from him. When classes started up again, after the weekend, Remus went to Professor McGonagall after Transfiguration, wanting to ask if she was could cancel their meeting that night, as he had a very large pile of homework and he needed to get it done. She did, indeed, concede to cancel the meeting, but also every other future meeting they had planned.
Remus was so shocked that he wasn’t able to think of any reason to argue against this or ask why the sudden change of heart. He just walked blankly out of the room with his mouth hanging open. How could Professor McGonagall do this to him? He needed her help, she was the one who had offered to help. If it hadn’t been for this he never would have bothered her at all. But she’d offered her help and he took it, now she was snatching it away from him without a reason? How was he going to get rid of Wilkins now? He’d have to find a way to do it himself.
Remus was currently sitting in the Great Hall during dinnertime, after a detention with Professor Kettleburn, nursing a cold steak and kidney pie. He looked up at the staff table in the direction of his Transfiguration teacher. Usually she would look over and nod at him, but now she was purposely keeping a forced look in the direction of Professor Sprout. Remus shook his head dismally; he had never expected that in so few days he’d lose both his friends and the help of his mentor. He also never thought that he would be faced with the prospect of breaking into the woman’s classroom and stealing the box.
He had been thinking about it all day, since the morning when he learnt his lessons would no longer commence. In every class his mind was focused on what he could do to keep up with his lessons without the help of anyone. Then he found, with dread, that the only thing for him to do was steal the box and to do that he’d have to break into McGonagall’s office after hours. The prospect in itself was enough to scare him off; the whole world was going against him, so it was almost a guarantee that he was going to be caught.
“Is anyone sitting there?” said a voice that broke Remus out of his thoughts.
Looking around, he saw that Lily Evans was standing behind an empty seat. He shook his head at her question and went back to his dinner.
“I guess I was right when I said I’d thought I’d never see the day you were friends with Potter, Black and Pettigrew,” Lily said casually as she loaded her plate.
Remus slowly raised his head and looked at her strangely. “Excuse me?” he questioned.
“I said it was impossible that you would ever end up being friends with those three,” Lily repeated in a voice suggesting that she was speaking to someone much younger than she was.
“It’s not impossible, I was friends with them,” Remus defended.
“But now you’re not.”
“What point are you trying to make, Lily?” Remus said angrily. “My day’s been terrible already and you’re just making me feel worse.”
Lily looked slightly taken aback by Remus’s outburst but quickly recovered. “But how can you be friends with people who just ditch you for no reason?” she questioned incredulously.
“They have a reason,” Remus snarled through gritted teeth, his frustration showing greatly.
“Well, what is it then?”
“It's none of your business, Lily. Please, just stop asking.”
Remus packed up his belongings and left the hall. Looking around, he distinctly saw James’s mass of messy hair weaving its way through the crowd of students, with two others following him, who were undoubtedly Sirius and Peter. Not wanting to see them, Remus veered off in another direction and found that he was nearing the entrance to the dungeons. Going down the stone steps, Remus’s breath caught in his throat as he landed hard on his bad leg. He hadn’t been to the Hospital Wing, once again, for fear of seeing the girl, who had yet to be released. So he was condemned to walking about with his injuries displayed for the whole student body to see. He wanted to go there desperately, but refrained from doing so for the time being.
Leaning against the wall, giving his leg a rest, Remus thought back vaguely to the day that the accident had occurred. He should have known something was going to happen judging by how it had went. Every time he ended up in the Hospital Wing on the day of a full moon, something horrible usually followed. But it had never transpired in him of what he was capable of doing. It was so hard to believe that his friends had already begun working on becoming Animagi and there he went, proving that he really needed looking after on a full moon, like he was a child.
“Are you looking for something, Mr. Lupin?”
Remus looked up and saw that Professor Slughorn was facing him, wearing a quizzical expression. “Oh… no, sir,” he replied, beginning to walk away.
“Is there something troubling you?”
Remus stopped and rolled his eyes, if that wasn’t the most obvious thing pointed out to him all day. But he wasn’t about to be rude to the professor. “Just some stuff,” he replied vaguely, not bothering to turn around. “Nothing important.”
“Are you sure?” Slughorn persisted.
Remus nodded his head, wondering why this man could suddenly be troubling to find out what was wrong with him; he had never really given him a second look before.
“You haven’t been right since your little… err… episode in my class the other day,” Slughorn went on, disregarding Remus’s nod of the head.
Remus’s face instantly reddened. He was continuously embarrassed by the reminder that he had fallen to pieces in Potions. Slughorn was not right, Remus hadn’t been the same since he was attacked, but he had been showing it more often since that day in Potions.
“I’m sorry about that, Professor,” Remus said sincerely, finally turning around.
Professor Slughorn shook his head facetiously. “No need to apologise about it,” he said. He inched forward, looking carefully at his student. He could tell that Remus was in pain, mentally and physically. He could do nothing about what was going on in the boy’s mind, being that it was rude to pry into someone’s life, but he still could help.
“Have you been to the Hospital Wing since the full moon?” he asked, his voice growing lower with every word.
“No…” Remus said slowly. “Err…” He hesitated as he spoke; he didn’t know if any of the staff, aside from Professor Dumbledore, Professor McGonagall and Madam Pomfrey, knew the identity of the Ravenclaw’s attacker. “I think she forgot about me, after what happened to that girl and all…” He trailed off feebly, thinking that what he said wasn’t fully a lie; she had indeed forgotten all about him and went at once to attend the girl. This was only right; the girl needed the help more than he did.
“Well, that’s not a good thing,” Slughorn said considerately. “Those injuries are not supposed to be left uncared for.”
“No,” Remus said quickly. He didn’t want to go to the Hospital Wing. “I’m fine… really… It’s just my leg that hurts, that’s all.” This, of course, was entirely untrue, he ached all over, but his dread of visiting the infirmary was what was keeping him from mentioning it. Slughorn looked at him skeptically, seeing right through his lie, but chose not to say anything of it, for which Remus was grateful.
“I think I might have something in my office that could help,” Slughorn offered. “Hagrid’s dog, Fang, got a bit miffed with me the other day…” he chuckled light-heartedly and gestured for Remus to follow him.
Remus lingered on the spot for but a moment before following his professor down the dungeon corridor. He was happy for the help, as his leg was stinging with every step he took.
He entered the Potions classroom, which was filled with the noise of stewing potions that were left by a group of sixth years. Professor Slughorn instructed Remus to take a seat at one of the tables while he went into his office to retrieve the potion. Remus sat down at one of the vacant desks and looked inside the cauldron in front of him. It looked as if this student was trying to pass mud off for an actual potion. The substance was a dark brown colour with lumps covering nearly every inch of it and every so often a bubble would erupt. At one point, Remus’s face was splashed with tiny droplets. He wasn’t worried though, the chances were that it was so bad nothing would happen at all. He shook his head; he didn’t think there was someone out there worse than he was at potions.
“This should do it,” Slughorn said, emerging from his office and carrying a bright blue bottle and a goblet. He held the bottle up to the light, inspecting its contents carefully through one eye. “Very effective, that leg of yours will be as good as new in seconds.”
Remus hoped that Professor Slughorn was right; his leg was beginning to feel as if it might burst apart at any moment and, he imagined, that wouldn’t be a pleasant sight. Slughorn placed the goblet down on the desk and uncorked the bottle. Slowly, he poured a good portion of the potion into the goblet and silently handed it to Remus as he capped the bottle again. Remus looked inside the goblet, grimacing at the unappetizing appearance of the potion, but he wasn’t going to keep that from healing his leg and, besides, he had tasted much worse.
He downed it, cringing at the rancid taste, and almost immediately he felt the pain dissipating from him. He swung his leg back and forth, expecting to feel the dreadful sensation he had been experiencing since the morning after the full moon, but there was nothing. He rose from his chair and thanked the professor happily. Slughorn waved it off, saying, in his most dramatic way, that it was nothing at all and it was his duty to help students in need.
Remus ran from the classroom and up the stone steps leading out into the Entrance Hall. Checking his watch as he walked out of the dungeons, he realised curfew was coming soon. He hadn’t even realised how much time had passed since he had left the Great Hall after his spat with Lily Evans. He had a lot of thinking to do, trying to plot the perfect way to break into Professor McGonagall’s office and snatch the box from her, now that he was condemned to training himself.
Entering the Gryffindor common room, he saw that it was far too full to allow him to clear his mind, so he made a detour through a group of second years, went up the spiral staircase and into the dormitory. However, the second he entered the room he wished he had stayed downstairs. Sitting at Sirius’s bed were none other than James, Sirius and Peter. They were talking quietly when he came in and abruptly stopped when they saw him, giving him the suspicion that they had been talking about him.
He ignored them and made his way to his bed, kneeling down and pulling his trunk out from underneath it. He snapped open the latches and began shuffling through his belongings, unsure of what he was really looking for but needing an excuse not to look or talk to anyone. After a few moments of silence, James, Sirius and Peter began talking again, this time about the Defense Against the Dark Arts test that had been set for the following week.
“What are you looking for?” James asked exasperatedly, causing Remus to poke his head out from behind his bed.
“Nothing,” Remus answered simply. He could tell that it was annoying them that he was making noise by moving things around. He waited for a response, but received none. So he moved his trunk back under his bed, having pulled out the book his sister had given him for Christmas and began reading, though he was not paying attention to the words on the page. He felt a surge of guilt as he thought about what he had to do. Yes it was necessary, but that didn’t make it right, violating a teacher’s privacy. He just had to do it.
As the clock reached ten at night, Remus heard his roommates finally going to bed. He had been lying on his own bed, his eyes shut but he was not allowing himself to sleep; he needed to remain awake so he could hear them go to bed. Remus did not move too quickly, waiting until he could hear their snores to ensure that they were really asleep. In ten minutes time he could hear their light and steady breathing, occasionally punctuated with a snore, and he knew that this was his chance.
Remus pulled his robe on and slid his feet into his sneakers. Pulling his wand out from behind his pillow, he stepped lightly onto the threshold and walked light footedly across the room, not daring to allow his foot to fully touch the floor for the risk of waking up his roommates. Slowly he turned the doorknob and pulled the door back, wincing as it creaked, but, fortunately, it was not loud enough to be noticed. Leaning against the railing, he stared down into the common room, squinting through the darkness to see if he could recognise the outlines of any Gryffindors. There were none.
He crept through the common room, thankful that the fire was still going. If it had gone out that meant would that house elves would be about to rekindle it and he did not want to run into anyone, even them. He pushed the portrait hole open, his eyes shut as he listened for a sign that he might have awakened the slumbering Fat Lady. He distinctly heard her mutter something wildly, but she had not woken up. Sighing in relief, he treaded lightly down the hallway, doing everything in his power to keep quiet. He knew that Filch or Mrs. Norris were somewhere around and he didn’t fancy being caught out of bounds.
Remus had never fully appreciated the distance between Gryffindor Tower and the Transfiguration classroom before. He had also never realised how dark the castle corridors were with only torches lighting them. Remus moved his hand towards his pocket, which held his wand, thinking that he should use Lumos so he could actually see where he was going, but decided against it at the very last moment. If he wanted to avoid being caught the last thing he wanted to do was draw attention to himself by making light in a pitch black corridor.
Squinting through the darkness, Remus could make out the faint outline of a door, but he wasn’t sure if it was his destination. As it turned out, when he reached the door and leaned forward to open it, it was simply a closet that he had never noticed before. Groaning in frustration, he veered to his left and continued on his search. He knew he was crazy in his search; he knew it was completely insane. When he thought of the insanity of his idea, he knew that Wilkins was getting to him at last. In his normal state of mind he never would have considered this, but his sanity was slowly disappearing and he had to do his best to grasp it before it was gone beyond his reach.
He shivered as he felt a draught pass by and he saw that he was near an open window that provided a small amount of moonlight, but it was enough to allow him to gain his bearings. He could tell he was in a familiar hallway, one that he usually took when he wanted to get to Charms class, and the Charms classroom was on the same floor as the Transfiguration class… He was getting close. Quickening his pace, he strode down the hallway, not noticing that a figure had begun following him, and it was not Filch.
He finally reached the classroom and stood outside it, his mind now waging a war with itself. One side respected Professor McGonagall far too much to violate her trust and break into her classroom. The other half of his brain was too angry with her to even give it a second thought. Normally Remus’s sensible side would prevail and he would high-tail it back to his room, but now he wanted nothing more than to steal that stupid box right out from under her nose.
He pushed the door open after magically unlocking it, stopping it before it banged off the wall and stepped inside, trying to remember where she had last put the box. Usually it was lying on her desk and she always removed it when they were not using it. He couldn’t recall where she had placed it. He moved stealthily towards the office door, listening for any sound that would indicate Professor McGonagall was still awake. He magically unlocked the door, all the while marveling that this was so easy. He looked around the room, fathoming where it might have been. Then, remembering a spell that Blake had taught to him when he was in his second year, Remus whipped out his wand and muttered a summoning word. He soon saw something coming out from a corner in the room. He grinned, satisfied, when he distinguished the object as his prize.
He caught the box in his outstretched hands, finally registering how heavy it was, tucked it under his arm, left the room, closing and locking the door behind him. Grinning in relief, he now tried to find his way back to Gryffindor Tower, once again not noticing the figure that had come up behind him. He did not see it until it placed a hand on his shoulder. Remus jumped about ten feet forward, dropped the box, causing a loud clatter as he did so. He spun around and pulled out his wand, only to find that it had been Larry Wilkins who had been tailing him.
“Fancied a midnight stroll, Lupin?” Wilkins said, relishing every moment of how terrified he had made his opponent. Remus said nothing; words failed him for the time being. Wilkins looked down at what Remus had dropped and smiled, clearly knowing what it was. “So you’ve been training, have you?” he questioned nonchalantly. Remus remained silent. “I asked you a question; you’ve obviously been getting help from someone.” A smile flickered on Remus’s face; Wilkins hadn’t seen which room he had gone in. “You know, you keeping quiet makes it seem as though you’re not intelligent enough to answer a direct question.”
“I’m not stupid,” Remus muttered defensively. He wasn’t going to take any smart talk from this boy.
“Then are you training?” Wilkins repeated, more forceful this time.
“None of your business,” Remus snarled heatedly.
Wilkins laughed harshly and Remus thought for a second that the boy was going to pull out his wand, but then he remembered that this creature didn’t need a wand to inflict pain. He felt as if his scars were burning as he recalled the attack that had taken place so many months ago.
“It’s April now,” Wilkins said as if he was merely commenting on the weather. “You were attacked months ago; you can’t still be scared, can you?”
“You know nothing about that,” Remus said angrily. “You just did it; you didn’t take a second thought as to what you were doing. You didn’t care how much pain you were causing me. You didn’t stop to think that I was going to spend weeks in the Hospital Wing. You don’t think about any of the horrible things you do, you hurt and… and kill without even blinking an eye.”
Wilkins smiled maliciously, enjoying every moment of torment Remus was experiencing as they stood in the vacated corridor.
“It’s in my nature, Lupin,” Wilkins explained lightly. “It was what I was made to do, what I was born to do, inside of you. This evil is what you’re capable of doing; you’re just too soft to even fathom your potential.”
“It’s not because I’m weak that I don’t do that stuff. I chose not to do it because it’s wrong. I’d never hurt someone intentionally, or kill someone.”
“And yet you have. Everything that’s happened since I came along is all your fault. Everything. You’ve always been afraid of mindlessly attacking yourself and hurting someone else. Didn’t you realise that I was a werewolf when I attacked you? I imagine that you wouldn’t, you were too busy crying for your mother, like a little baby… much like your brother did before I finally turned back into a human and shoved his filthy head under the water. The shrieks of your mother in your house were some of the best I’ve ever heard… and the cries of that little Ravenclaw, as well. All of this is the evil that really lives inside you… The only thing that makes you different is that your evil is embodied in another form, someone separate from you. I am your evil side.”
Remus’s eyes were wide and his breaths were coming in ragged gasps. This wasn’t right… Wilkins was just taunting him. He was not able of bringing such horrors upon people, he’d never do that.
“Oh don’t deny it, Lupin,” Wilkins scoffed. “Don’t lie to yourself; you know that you could do it if you really wanted to. You’ve had so many deadly thoughts in this past year than you have in all of your life because I came here. You’re slowly losing your mind, as you would have done eventually. I’m just speeding it up for you, making it less obvious. If it all happened in one quick blow then people would just think everything was getting to be too much for you.”
“Shut up, Wilkins,” Remus growled fiercely. The anger inside him was at its breaking point. He wasn’t going to stand there and listen to Wilkins defile his family and himself, he wasn’t… He may have been losing his sanity, but he wasn’t going have Wilkins make it happen faster than it would have. He didn’t deserve the glory. “I wouldn’t do that stuff; if you hadn’t come out of me do you think any of it would have even happened?”
“It depends on how far you’ve been pushed, how long you’ve been ignored by potential friends and treated like an invalid because of something you had no control over,” Wilkins said. “Fearncks only come out when someone’s at their worst, and you were the day I appeared. You were feeling lost and lonely, like you had nothing in your life to live for… I made you have something to live for.”
“Don’t make it sound as if you’ve done good for me.”
“I’m not trying to. I have given you a purpose, and your purpose is to be the filth of a werewolf that you are, to have everyone who has ever cared for you disappear or abandon you. Your parents, your siblings, Dumbledore, McGonagall, your friends, they don’t care for you anymore. You’re no longer going to get the help you want. You’ll have to do it yourself and die in the process, because once you die, all of your fears will be unleashed and I will have free reign, and you won’t be there to stop me.”
“You’re not going to kill me and I’m not going to die when I try to get rid of you.”
“You haven’t even got the nerve to kill someone, that’s the only reason that girl survived, because you were too weak to finish her off.”
This touched a nerve. Remus moved so quickly that Wilkins didn’t have time to react. Remus had snatched the collar of his shirt and slammed him against the stone wall. “She’s alive because my human side came through and knew it was wrong,” he hissed vehemently.
“Of course, Lupin,” Wilkins mocked. “Your weak and pathetic human side. You haven’t got the nerve to hurt me, despite how much you want to.” Wilkins clenched his fist and brought it forth, connecting with the side of Remus’s face, knocking him off balance and allowing Wilkins to break free of his grip.
“Just remember this, when the time comes and when you fail… no one’s going to miss you. It’ll be as though little Remus Lupin never even existed. You’ll have died alone and you’ll go through your afterlife alone. You’re not worth the memories.”