- Maybe, as crazy as it sounded, some good came out of Wilkins attacking him; it enabled him to trust more people. -
When word got out that Remus Lupin had been attacked on the school grounds, panic spread throughout the castle. The students had always thought Hogwarts to be the safest place there was, except for Gringotts. Now to even think that there was something out there that could harm them; they didn’t even want to fathom the possibilities of what it could be. Students could be seen discussing the alleged attacker at every corner of the castle, from the Great Hall to Moaning Myrtle’s bathroom. Some of the suggestions were rather accurate, if they knew what the creature was. Others proved to be as absurd as one of the plants in the greenhouse mutating, attacking whoever came closest to it. None of the students seemed to know that Remus had been nowhere near the greenhouses when he was assaulted. Professor Dumbledore was doing his best to assure the students that whatever committed the crime would be caught. Not even the word of Professor Dumbledore helped to ease the students’ fear.
Remus’s parents were beside themselves with fury when they received Blake’s letter, explaining what had happened. They were doing everything in their power to find whatever did this to their son; they even ordered Cassie to find out if goblins were violent enough to do something of the sort. Cassie, however, refused to, as it would endanger her career. She also knew that goblins would never attack someone, unless it was deserved. She strongly doubted Remus would have done anything to upset goblins. They wanted to go up to the castle to check on their son, but Professor Dumbledore guaranteed them that he was in the best of care. He was well cared for, as Madam Pomfrey hardly ever left his side. The only times she ever did was by Remus’s personal request or if she had to tend to another student.
That was another thing; students were now purposely getting into duels so they could get into the Hospital Wing and see the damage reaped on Remus. Every day a number of students would enter the infirmary with bizarre mutations, claiming that they had gotten into a fight and needed immediate care. Once inside, they would be able to catch a glimpse of Remus, who deliberately turned his face away. It was embarrassing enough without students gawking at him. Madam Pomfrey soon became wise to this and, while she couldn’t directly stop them, she pulled the curtains around Remus’s bed and the staged duels eventually ceased.
Remus spent most of his time trying to recall the events that preceded his attack. At first he came up with nothing but a blank spot in his mind where the memory should have been. He would spend all day trying to figure it out. When he was in the company of Blake, James, Sirius, and Peter, they could easily tell that his mind was elsewhere. When they questioned him about it, he wouldn’t tell them what he was thinking. Initially, he only remembered leaving the library and waking up in the Hospital Wing. He didn’t remember any pain or meeting someone else. Soon, as he dwelled further, he knew he had gone on the grounds. He distinctly remembered stepping out into the cold snow. As his thoughts progressed, he knew he was accompanied.
He wasn’t about to figure out who he was with. Soon he realised, with a bit of thinking, he discovered he was with Larry Wilkins. As the days wore on, he was able to recollect the exact conversation they were having. Wilkins was claiming that he wasn’t going to harp Remus about his lycanthropy while Remus kept trying to shake him off. Wilkins wouldn’t do as Remus ordered. He followed him onto the grounds where the arguement continued. It ended with Wilkins stating that he was Remus’s worst nightmare.
Then there was the pain. The pain was unbearable; it was like a thousand knives piercing his skin, tearing away at him. The only problem was that Remus didn’t know how Wilkins had hurt him. All he knew was that it wasn’t with his wand. He could just remember everything up to the pain, the rest was blank.
Currently, Remus was sleeping in the Hospital Wing. It was the middle of the afternoon, but the potion Madam Pomfrey had given him made him feel drowsy. He had had no visitors that day, so it wasn’t as if it mattered if he went to sleep or not. He was having a rather peculiar dream that consisted of three chocolate frogs playing a round of leap frog, using Remus’s shoulders to hop on. He had eaten one too many of the chocolate frogs Blake had given him.
“Hey Remus, wake up!” Remus was shaken out of his sleep by a very wet looking Blake. He opened his eyes and muttered some nonsense, waving his hand at Blake, as if he was trying to swat a fly away. “Remus!”
“What?” Remus whined. He hated being woken up and his brother knew this quite well.
“You missed the most hilarious thing!” Blake laughed, taking a seat beside the bed.
“Would that explain why you’re wet?” Remus asked tiredly, rubbing the sleep out of his eyes.
“Yes,” Blake answered proudly. “So, Peeves was having a fit because the Bloody Baron told him that he wasn’t invited to the Christmas Feast again. He got a whole load of water balloons and dived bombed the Slytherins with them!”
“So, why’re you wet?”
“Oh, you know how Mum and Dad want me to be Head Boy next year, I was supposed to look like I cared and try to help. I ended up getting hit with a few, but, Merlin, it was hilarious!” His smile faded when he saw Remus’s sceptical look. Clearly he didn’t think that was anything worth being woken up over. “I guess you had to be there.” Remus nodded. “Anyway,” Blake went on, helping himself to a Sugar Quill on Remus’s nightstand. “You’re looking better.”
It was true. After being locked up in the Hospital Wing for a week and a half, Remus was showing definite signs of improvement. For one thing, the gashes on the side of his face were now faint scars. His arm was still in a sling, and the bites were mending themselves. The only real problem was that the gashes and bites on his stomach seemed to be refusing to mend themselves. Every time Madam Pomfrey went to change the bandages she was met with a river of blood. This baffled her terribly and was really the reason that she had not yet released Remus. If she found the cure for it then he would be free to go.
That was another reason why Remus had been concentrating so hard on figuring out how Wilkins had assailed him. It would lead to the cure. He remembered that Wilkins had grown fangs and his eyes turned gold, though his fangs were not that of a vampire, nor were they the eyes of a vampire. He was at a loss.
“Did James, Sirius and Peter stop by yet today?” Blake asked as he fished through a box of Bertie Botts Every Flavour Beans, picking out two and handing one to Remus. Remus shook his head as he inspected the bean.
“They had detention; they’ll probably stop by later,” he explained, hastily shoving the bean in his mouth. Almost immediately, he began gagging on it and spit it onto the floor.
“Vomit flavoured?” Blake asked, trying to suppress a smile. Remus nodded, grabbing the jug of water on the nightstand and quickly pouring a glass so he could get the wretched taste of his mouth. “Sorry, I thought it was marshmallow flavoured.”
Remus rolled his eyes at the mistake, but made no further mention of it.
“Mum and Dad still aren’t bugging Dumbledore to come up here, are they?” Remus inquired.
“Nah, me and Cassie double teamed on them and now they’re just happy that you’re okay.” Blake smiled, the memory apparently a funny one. “People still aren’t trying to get in here, are they?”
“No, Madam Pomfrey looked like she was going to get violent if they kept it up.”
“What about Wilkins? No surprise visits from him?”
Remus slowly shook his head. He still hadn’t told Blake who it was that attacked him. This was because he wasn’t sure what Wilkins had done. He only knew it was Wilkins. He only knew that the boy had threatened to make every one of Remus’s worst nightmares become a reality. That was the only thing he managed to recollect from the actual assault, other than the pain. He could distinctly hear Wilkins saying it when it was all over; he meant it too. He meant to take away every good thing that Remus ever had.
“Good,” Blake said in a satisfied voice. He stood up and picked up the stack of books on the floor. “Is this your homework?” he asked.
“Yeah, that’s all of it.”
“I’ll take it to your teachers then.” Blake shifted the weight of the books to his right arm and turned to leave. “I’ll stop by after dinner, alright?” With that he was out the door.
Blake indeed came back after dinner; this time looking like he had more on his mind than he did when he first woke Remus up. Remus looked at him questioningly; he could hardly imagine what was making his brother look at him like that. Well I don’t exactly look too great, he thought lamely, as he caught his reflection in the mirror. Even if his face was healed, it was still deadly pale.
Blake took a seat in the folding chair and leaned back on it, rocking on the hind legs. He fiddled with the hem of his shirt before looking Remus in the eye and asking, “Who did this to you?”
Remus hesitated; he wasn’t sure how he could explain to his brother that Wilkins was the culprit. Blake would certainly ask how he did it and Remus wasn’t able to answer that.
“Remus… I need to know. I’ve been thinking about this ever since I left here earlier. It’ll make things a lot easier if you just try and figure it out.”
Remus bit his bottom lip. He knew that if there was one person he shouldn’t keep this from, it was Blake.
“I know who did it,” Remus murmured.
The front legs of the chair fell to the floor with a loud thud. Blake was leaning so far forward that his nose was nearly touching Remus’s.
“Who is it? Why haven’t you told anyone?”
“Because I don’t know how he did it!”
“He? It’s a he? You mean a student did this to you?” Remus nodded fervently, though stopping as he was gaining nothing but a headache. Getting a look at Blake, he could see that his mind must be racing with all of the possible scenarios in which Remus could have been hospitalized. The look he had on his face was almost frightening. “Who?” Blake persisted.
“Larry Wilkins,” Remus answered. “But please, don’t ask me how he did, I don’t know how. All I know was that he did it. He was the last person I was with before I woke up here.”
He waited for Blake to say something else, maybe a word of encouragement; that this would be taken care of. He at least thought Blake would say he would bring it to the attention of the Headmaster.
All Blake did manage to say was, “I have to go.” And he rushed out of the ward without a backwards glance at his brother.
Remus leaned back on his pillow and shut his eyes, hoping to go to sleep soon. He wasn’t able to; the thought of Wilkins’s threat was still fresh in his mind. Remus needed to stop him before anything bad happened. He couldn’t risk any of his worst fears coming true; it would endanger the lives of everyone who ever meant anything to him. He didn’t know how he had been hurt; he needed to find this out how if he wanted it to be stopped.
He had heard no more from Wilkins since it happened. He received no visits as he had after the Quidditch match. As a matter of fact, he couldn’t even see the boy wandering past the Hospital Wing during passing. He was simply gone. It was as if his attacker existed once, but then became no more than a figment of his imagination. He was simply imaginary.
Remus was released from the Hospital Wing after being cooped up for two weeks. Madam Pomfrey had, at long last, discovered a potion that would heal the gashes on Remus’s stomach. Though he still wasn’t healed to Madam Pomfrey’s liking, so she warned him not to overexert himself for a while. Remus was grateful for finally going back to the activity of the castle; he only wished he would be able to enjoy the grounds more often. He hated to admit it, but he was afraid of going back out there alone. James, Sirius and Peter weren’t too keen on going out there either. The only fresh air he got was whenever he stood by an open window. Even if he wasn’t afraid of going out there he wouldn’t be able to do much in the snow. Snowball fights counted as overexertion and he wasn’t too eager to sit through a lecture from the nurse.
Remus noticed, almost immediately, that he had become the centre of attention once he was out of the Hospital Wing. The students had not at all lowered their interest when Madam Pomfrey barred them from the infirmary. All around the school, he would attract stares from everyone he came in contact with. People would whisper behind their hands to their friends as he passed by on the way to class. They would peer at him as if they were trying to detect a hint of leftover injury. Remus didn’t understand why they had to squint at him; it was rather clear from his limp as he walked and the scars on his face. Now that he was friends with James, Sirius and Peter, the majority of the third years would try and fish answers out of those three. They were true to their word, however, and refused to tell them what happened.
Being that he couldn’t do much, he spent a good amount of time following his friends around and watching them execute their pranks. As he couldn’t participate in them himself, he could at least be a spectator. He had to admit that those three had pranks narrowed down to a fine art. The only way that it could be perfected was if they stopped getting caught. Even the seemingly simplest plan took hours, sometimes days, of preparation. They would sit up in their dormitory for the longest time, discussing the many ways of pulling it off. Then they would spend another hour devising an escape route. One day, they were sitting up in the dormitory listening to Sirius plot out their latest prank involving the Slytherins. It was a simple task of sneaking into the kitchens and putting a little blue elixir in their pumpkin juice, so when the Slytherins drank it their tongues would turn blue. Their only problem was that they didn’t know where they should escape to if the need arose.
“Why don’t you guys make a map of the school?” Remus suggested. “You’ve been doing this since we got here. You need something like that.”
“You know, that’s a pretty good idea,” James said fairly. “If we had a map we could get away easily. We could even chart out where everyone is, so we can avoid being caught.”
“Yeah, but James, we don’t know how to make something like that,” Sirius said.
“Well, it’s really just a bunch of Location Charms,” Remus explained. “For locating everyone in the castle, I mean. The actual map would probably need to be drawn and then enchanted to match the castle movement.”
“It’s a good idea, it really is,” Peter commended. “It’ll just be really hard to do and I can’t draw, so I’m out for drawing the map.”
“Well I can, so I’ll draw the map,” Sirius volunteered. “And you three can handle the location charms and everything.”
So, once everything was settled, work on the map began. It was a difficult task, indeed, to roam about the castle, trying to look as inconspicuous as possible. Countless times they had been shooed away by professors who thought they were up to something. They had managed to find some secret passageways that they were certain nobody, except for Filch maybe, knew about. They all seemed to lead off the grounds. After sitting on it for some time, they came to the conclusion that they would have to follow the paths one night and see where they led to.
They didn’t know how long it would take for them to finish the entire map. They weren’t sure if they could even manage it before they graduated. They usually had to take James’s Invisibility Cloak out at night and go in pairs, trying to discover some unknown stairwell or hallway. If they had any luck, they would report it back to the two that remained in the dormitory. Also, Sirius’s drawing time was rather limited as their roommate, Frank Longbottom, was always curious to see what they were cooking up. Then there was Filch, the caretaker, who was notorious for barking at students and passing out detention slips for doing anything that seemed to be out of order, even if it wasn’t. He was already angry with James, Sirius and Peter for setting off a box of fireworks they had gotten from Hogsmeade. He wasn’t about to let them wander about as they made a map that would enhance their pranking skills.
“Well, there’s a passage under the Whomping Willow,” Remus brought up one night as they were examining the accuracy of the map.
Sirius looked up from his drawing interestedly.
“Where’s it lead?” Peter asked.
“The Shrieking Shack. That’s where Madam Pomfrey takes me every full moon. She smuggles me out of the castle and waits until I’m in the passage before she goes back to the castle.”
“But don’t you get whacked by the Willow?”
Remus shook his head. “There’s this long branch that Madam Pomfrey uses to prod this knot at the trunk of the tree. Once she does that, it freezes and I can go through.”
“Dumbledore thought of everything when he let you into this school, didn’t he?” Sirius said in a faintly awed voice.
“Yeah, if Dippet was still headmaster I wouldn’t be allowed to come here.” He scratched the side of his neck and looked at the ceiling. “I dunno, sometimes I think that’d might’ve been better.”
“What?” Peter asked confusedly.
“Sometimes I just think people’d be a lot safer here, even if I haven’t come close enough to bite anybody. I guess it’s the guilt of being a werewolf. The only werewolf I know of that doesn’t feel any shame in it is the one that bit me.”
His friends looked at each other with expressions that were evidently interested in what Remus had to say. Their expressions also looked a little guilty. They felt that it was private and Remus would tell them when he wanted to, but a part of each of them wanted to hear this.
“You guys want to know, don’t you?” Remus said, getting right to the point.
“Only if you don’t mind,” Sirius said quickly.
“I don’t, I’ve wanted to tell someone outside of my family.” He was quiet for a moment, before deciding how he should start. “Have you guys ever heard of Fenrir Greyback?”
They thought for a moment. The name did ring a bell, to Sirius especially. He had definitely overheard his parents talking about him and this gave him mixed feelings about the man. They were disgusted that he was a werewolf, but they admired his idea that if a child had to be a werewolf, then it was best to condemn them while they were young. That must have been what happened to Remus.
“My dad wrote this article about him in the Evening Prophet and it was really insulting,” Remus elaborated. “Greyback got offended by it and threatened my dad to do something really horrible. He just didn’t say who he would do it to. So my mum took me to Hogsmeade one night and I wandered away from her. Greyback found out that we would be there and knew that it would be a full moon, so he purposely made his transformation near where I would be.”
“He just attacked you right there?” James asked intently.
“Pretty much,” Remus concurred grimly, thinking of the memory. “You know Tom, the barkeeper at the Leaky Cauldron? He was the one who found me and he went with my parents to St. Mungo’s.”
“How old were you when it happened?” Peter questioned.
“About four, I think. It was really bad after it first happened. I got nightmares about it for a long time before my parents fixed it.”
“Was that what happened to you our first night here?” James asked, suddenly remembering being sound asleep on their first night ever at Hogwarts and then being awoken by Remus yelling.
Remus nodded, his face reddening as he explained that sometimes he would start yelling or else he would just wake quickly, thinking that something was going to come out of the shadows and get him.
“They stopped when I turned ten, but they come back every once in a while. The last time I had one was during the summer. They’re just so realistic when I have them; it’s like it’s happening all over.”
“You know, we should’ve told you we knew a long time ago,” Sirius admitted, sitting back against the wall and looking ashamed.
“Well, I didn’t really give you a reason to tell me,” Remus said fairly. “I probably wouldn’t have trusted you.”
“Then why do you now?”
Remus shrugged. “Getting attacked, I guess. It made me think that I should trust more people with it, because if I don’t, then it could happen again. Besides, trust is the one way to get friends and if I want them I have to learn to open up more.”
He leaned against his headboard and picked up the map that Sirius had been drawing. He looked at the path that led to the Shrieking Shack. Maybe if he hadn’t gone to Hogsmeade that day none of this would have happened. Maybe if Wilkins hadn’t seen him that day Remus would be sitting alone in the common room, instead of with three people who accepted him for the werewolf that he was. Maybe, as crazy as it sounded, some good came out of Wilkins attacking him; it enabled him to trust more people. It allowed him to confide in somebody outside of his family. It gave him a chance to trust someone. It gave him a chance to be truly happy for the first time in his life….