Summer Moons
Remus sat in a squashy armchair in an office at St. Mungo’s, waiting for his father to finish speaking with Healer Smethwyk. They had been talking for almost an hour and his father had said it would take no more than twenty minutes. Remus rolled his eyes at the thought, he should have known better. His parents always told him something wouldn’t take long and then they ended up doing that thing much longer than he had anticipated. He glanced over his shoulder at his father and the Healer, struggling to repress the groan of annoyance that was threatening to come out. They had only come to pick up a new potion that was supposed to cure his lycanthropy. How long could that take? Then again, he wasn’t even eager to get it; it wasn’t as if it would actually work. Nothing they ever tried did, so why should this?
“It hasn’t been tested yet, Harry,” Healer Smethwyk was saying. He had been the Healer who had helped Remus right after he was bitten by the werewolf, and that had been nine years ago. He had helped Remus ever since, so his parents and the Healer were on a first name basis. “But I don’t think anything harmful should come out of it. Remus has never had any positive or negative effects from anything we’ve tried on him.”
Remus threw them an exasperated look. Smethwyk always talked about him as if he were an experiment when it came to the numerous “cures” they had come up with. Remus has never had any positive or negative reactions. He was a boy, not a lab rat. He settled himself back in the chair again and continued staring at the wall, which was, in his opinion, the most interesting thing in the entire office. He drummed his fingers on the arm of the chair, listening impatiently as his father spoke.
“No, he hasn’t,” Harry agreed. “But are you sure it’s safe?”
“There isn’t anything in there that can do particular harm,” Smethwyk replied confidently. “That much we know.”
Harry sighed and ran a hand through his hair. “What do you think, Remus?”
“I don’t care,” Remus replied indifferently. He knew not to get his hopes up.
“Remus,” Harry said warningly. He needed a definite answer.
“Yes, fine, whatever! Can we please just go home?”
Harry turned back to Healer Smethwyk and shrugged. “I guess we’ll be taking this then.” He scooped up the package off the desk and pocketed it.
“Remember, he has to take that one hour before the full moon rises,” Smethwyk instructed.
Harry nodded. “Thank you, Hippocrates. Come on, Remus.”
James sat in the sitting room of his home, staring into the flames of the crackling fireplace. At any moment Sirius would be toppling through emerald green flares, ready to start the week. The next day they would be sitting in the same position, waiting for Peter to join them. Peter was just coming back from a camping trip with his father and wanted to spend one day at home before leaving again. James and his parents had only gotten back from France the day before and he could not be happier. Not that he didn’t like France; he just couldn’t stand it when his parents had to eat the snails that Muggles found so delicious. They had managed to make him try one and he had yet to find something that tasted worse. He couldn’t wait to get home and eat foods he was used to eating. Other than the food, James enjoyed seeing the sites, especially the Muggle monument “ the Eiffel Tower.
James stood up to stretch and walk around a bit; he had been sitting down for at least an hour. Sirius had not been specific with the time; he had just said he would be arriving in the afternoon. He couldn’t wait for Sirius to get there. He had gotten so used to always having someone his age around at school that he had completely forgotten what it was like at home where there was no one. Yes, he had his parents, but they weren’t the type of people he could hang out with, especially since they were old. He would talk to his father, sometimes play a round of Gobstones, or he would help his mother in the kitchen with Willie, but that was as entertaining as it got. At school there was always someone his age around.
James picked up the copy of the Daily Prophet that was lying on the end table and looked at the headline: New Cure Found for Werewolves. James sometimes heard his father talking about those cures that never worked. His father felt bad for the werewolves who depended on these cures and who were constantly disappointed when they didn’t work. James couldn’t imagine what it must be like, to have to endure those dreadful transformations every month and then, when a miracle was so close, to find out it was nothing but an invented false hope. His father didn’t often work with werewolves at St. Mungo’s, but he had often gone inside the wards where they were after they were first bitten and saw how sickly they looked. James placed the paper back on the table and looked towards the fire once more.
Suddenly green flames erupted under the mantle and a figure began spinning around and promptly toppled face first out of the grate and onto the carpet. Sirius Black slowly got to his feet and dusted his robes off.
“Where’s your stuff?” James asked, noticing that only Sirius had fallen out. Sirius held out a finger and turned back to the fireplace. Only a moment later a suitcase came falling out after him.
“I think my parents were hoping it would land on me,” Sirius surmised. “So,” he went on, picking up his suitcase, “How was France?”
“You were right about the cheese,” James replied. “I don’t think I’ve ever smelled anything that disgusting.”
“Did you eat it?”
“It didn’t taste as bad as it smelled.”
Sirius laughed. “Peter’s coming tomorrow?”
“Yeah, around one he said.” James began leading the way out of the sitting room and towards the staircase. “Come on, I’ll show you my room and where you’ll be sleeping.”
Sirius followed James out of the room and up a flight of stairs. As they walked, he observed the walls and saw numerous pictures of a smiling James. There seemed to be at least two for every year of his life. Sometimes he was alone, sometimes with his parents; Sirius even saw one of James with the family house elf. Sirius tried remembering the last time he had taken a picture with his parents where he actually smiled like James did. Smiling was almost illegal when it came to taking photos in the Black Family. He and his brother had to look as regal as possible.
They entered James’s room and Sirius had only a moment’s glance around before James veered off through another door. This led into a guest room that was complete with a bed, a bureau, a closet, a bookshelf filled with books, and a bathroom. Sirius set his trunk down on the bed and sat down beside it. It was clear that the Potters loved having company; they went through a lot of trouble to make this room comfortable. He wondered if Peter was going to stay in the room too, there was only one bed. Then again, if the Potters loved company they would have more than one guest room.
“Peter’s going to be staying in the guest room down the hall,” James said, as though reading Sirius’s mind. “So, my parents will be back in an hour. They went up to Hogsmeade. My mum said dinner will be ready around seven, so we have a lot of time.” He folded his arms across his chest. “Want to play Quidditch?”
Sirius jumped up. “Yeah!”
“Come on, we’ve got the broom shed in the yard. We live far enough away from any Muggles that we can actually use the real game balls.” Sirius pulled his robe off, leaving him in his Muggle clothes, like James, and the two dashed down to the backyard.
The sun was beginning to sink, casting a blood red glow in the sky. It was exactly one hour until the full moon would rise, and Remus was nowhere to be found. He had gone out for a walk, though his mother strongly advised against it. He was not looking at all well, but he completely disregarded her warning and had been gone for at least two hours. Normally she would not have been worried; Remus knew the area like he knew his own house. Today, however, was not a normal day and he needed to be home. He had to take the potion the Healer had given them. She peered anxiously out the window, but did she not see him. All she saw was Harry sitting on the porch, waiting for his son to come home.
She stepped outside with her husband. “Still no sign of him,” she said apprehensively.
Harry shook his head. “He’ll be back soon,” he said, in what he hoped was a confident voice.
“He was looking mad when he left.”
“He’s not exactly thrilled about this cure, Anna.”
“He’s never thrilled about any of them.”
“I think it’s that he knows not to get too eager; he thinks that it won’t work.”
They fell silent. Another five minutes passed before they saw a figure emerging from around the corner. Remus was approaching, his hands in his pockets, and a pained, sickly expression on his face. He climbed the steps of the porch and looked at his parents expectantly. Harry fished for something in his pants pocket and pulled out a small bottle filled with a seaweed green liquid. He uncorked it and wordlessly handed it to his son. Remus looked at it and, deciding it would be best to get it over with, downed it in one gulp, coughing at the peppery taste.
“Where did you go?” Anna asked once Remus’s coughing had subsided.
“Just for a walk,” Remus replied vaguely, grimacing at the taste the potion left in his mouth. His parents said nothing else; they merely waited for the full moon to rise. About ten minutes before, Harry led his son to the shed at the very end of their backyard. It had been charmed so, no matter how Remus bad was during his transformation, he could not get out. They still had to lock Remus in there for safety precautions, in case the potion didn’t work. Harry secured Remus inside and slowly backed away. The moon would be coming out in just moments. He didn’t want to listen. If it worked… If it worked, then he would hear nothing. Remus wouldn’t transform.
Anna joined her husband ten feet away from the shed. “It will work, won’t it?” she asked hopefully. She couldn’t stand listening to her son’s cries of agony every month.
Harry sighed and gazed at the silent shed. “I hope it does.”
They looked up at the purple sky and saw the glow of the full moon coming out from behind the trees. They listened with bated breath for the usual sounds of Remus’s transformation, praying that they wouldn’t come. The shed was silent. Harry and Anna chanced grinning at each other; the potion appeared to have worked. They moved forward and just as Anna went to peer through the window on the shed, Remus’s pain-filled scream pierced through the shed walls, startling her. There was something different this time. It lasted longer than it usually did, and it sounded worse than normal. She threw Harry a terrified look over her shoulder. The potion hadn’t worked, it made it worse.
James, Sirius and Peter sat at the dining room table, eating their breakfast and discussing their plans for the day ahead. Sirius and Peter would be leaving that Saturday, and it was Thursday. They had to make the best of their limited time. They had spent the better part of the week playing Quidditch, an activity that Peter was not very fond of. They had visited Hogsmeade with Mrs. Potter and stocked up on sweets from Honeyduke’s Sweet Shop. They would be going with Mr. Potter to St. Mungo’s the next day. Mrs. Potter and Willie the house elf would be going to get groceries and other items for the house, and the boys were not trusted to stay at the house by themselves. Mr. and Mrs. Potter were not keen on arriving home to discover that their house had been blown up. So, to avoid this, the boys would be going to work with Mr. Potter.
“We could play Quidditch again,” Sirius suggested, spearing a sausage onto his fork.
“No,” Peter responded at once. He couldn’t bear another humiliating game of defeat. “We can go into town?”
“I live too far away to walk,” James said, swirling around the egg yolks he was supposed to be eating. “My mum’s too busy to go with us, and my dad’s at work. Besides, they’d never let us go alone.”
“There’s a lake around here, isn’t there?” Sirius asked, vaguely remembering James mentioning it.
James nodded. “Through the woods, behind my house.”
“Want to go swimming then?”
Both James and Peter readily agreed to this thought. After they finished breakfast, James called to his mother, who was busy working on some of her paintings, telling her that they were going to go swimming down at the lake. It was a fifteen minute walk in the blistering heat. Luckily they were walking through the woods, which were shady and fairly cooler than if they had been walking in direct sunlight. The trees began to thin out and they saw a secluded lake, surrounded by tall green trees and round bushes. They approached the shore of the lake and James stuck his foot in the water, shivering and quickly withdrawing it.
“It’s really cold,” he said.
“Well, it’s really hot,” Sirius said, not hesitating before jumping in. When he was in the water long enough to register the temperature, he shouted, “Merlin! It’s freezing!”
“That’s what I said.”
“No, you said it was just really cold.” He swam a few laps, adjusting to the water, before saying, “Take this,” and he flung his sopping wet t-shirt in James’s face.
“Git,” James muttered, pulling the shirt off his face and dropping it unceremoniously in the dirt. He and Peter joined Sirius in the freezing water, which was much more preferable to standing in the humidity. They raced each other a few times, and played a Muggle game that Peter taught them. It involved one of them shutting their eyes and searching for the others just from the sounds of their voices and movements. Sirius didn’t take too kindly to this game and cheated by opening his eyes whenever he went underwater. He couldn’t quite understand the point of the activity.
An hour and a half later the boys found themselves trooping back to James’s house, laughing and talking animatedly. Sirius and Peter were having a good laugh over James, who had started shrieking like a girl when a piece of seaweed locked itself around his leg and refused to let go. James had been convinced that it was a deadly sea creature of some sort, and Sirius had to swim down to see what it really was. As they neared the house, they began to wonder when their booklists would arrive, so they could meet in Diagon Alley. It couldn’t be very long. It was almost August.
“When we get them, we have to meet up there,” Sirius was saying as they walked through the front door.
“Yeah, and one of us has got to send Remus an owl, telling him to come,” James said, leading the way into the kitchen.
“I’m afraid your friend won’t be able to join you,” came the voice of James’s father. He was home early. They spun around to see Mr. Potter standing behind them, looking grim.
“What?” James asked, confused.
Mr. Potter heaved a sigh and gestured for the boys to sit down. “I was at work today and I saw Harry Lupin there. Remus is… a bit sick right now.”
Charles Potter was walking down the first floor corridor of St. Mungo’s. He had not been assigned to this floor, but he was on his break and needed a word with Healer Smethwyk about whether or not they were going to continue distributing the potion that was supposed to cure lycanthropy. He knew the night before had been a full moon and was curious to see if it had worked. Personally, he was hopeful that it had. It would solve so many problems for the Wizarding community, erase so many prejudices. He knew Smethwyk was working at the moment and could probably find him in one of the wards, tending to a patient.
He was shocked to find, not Healer Smethwyk, but Harry Lupin standing in the corridor, his face deathly pale, staring fixedly at the floor. At first Charles thought something was wrong with Harry, but then realised that this notion was ridiculous. If he had been the injured one then he would not be standing in the corridor when there were many Healers capable of assisting him. Charles checked his watch. He was hardly well into his break; he didn’t need to worry about getting to work. And if it was something serious… He cleared his throat and move toward Harry.
“Hullo, Harry,” he greeted, his hands folded behind his back and observing the man closely.
Harry jumped, startled, and wheeled around to face his greeter. He tried to smile, but it came out as strained and unnatural. “Hullo, Charles.”
“What brings you to St. Mungo’s?”
“Oh, nothing, nothing at all.”
“You just fancy standing in a hospital corridor?”
“It’s better than standing outside in that heat.”
“Harry, please, what happened?”
Before Harry could answer, the door beside him opened and Healer Smethwyk appeared, carrying a clipboard of notes. He took no notice of Charles’s presence and spoke to Harry in quiet tones as he consulted his clipboard.
“We figured out what happened,” he said. Harry nodded, allowing the Healer to go on. “The potion was made with Sopophorous Beans; did you know your son is violently allergic to them?” Harry shook his head, his eyes wide. He couldn’t recall a time when Remus had ever encountered that substance. How was he to know that his son was allergic? “Well, they caused him to have a particular aggressive transformation, as you already know.” He sighed and looked through his notes. “He has sustained numerous lacerations and bruises, which can be fixed easily enough. He injured a number of his ribs, which can be mended, though they will be sore. We have a potion that can relieve some of the soreness. His jaw was fractured, but we can also patch that up in no time.” He crossed something out on the parchment he was reading and placed the clipboard under his armpit. “It’s his leg we have a problem with.”
As Healer Smethwyk spoke, Charles could not help but realise what this meant. James had never before mentioned that his friend was a werewolf and now he was certain that James probably had no idea. If he had, he certainly would have told him and his mother. This was why Harry’s son had appeared so sickly when he had first met him at Platform Nine and Three Quarters. This was also probably why Remus had declined James’s invitation to spend the week. He couldn’t possibly come when there was a full moon in the middle of the week. He had seen many children who had been bitten by werewolves, and hardly any of them deserved it.
““ can mend the bones, but it will be difficult for him to walk for a few weeks,” Healer Smethwyk was saying. “We recommend he uses these wooden sticks Muggles use, they’re called crutches. They’re not the best method, but they will help him get around until his leg fully heals.”
“Can I see him?” Harry asked urgently.
“He’s sleeping right now, best he’s not disturbed. You can still sit with him if you like.” He removed the clipboard from under his arm and clasped it in his hands. “Excuse me, Harry; I have to bring this to my office. Morning, Charles,” he added when he saw Charles standing behind them.
Harry seemed surprised that Charles was still there, and he seemed horrified. “You know, then?” he said, almost in a whisper.
“That your son is a werewolf? I do now,” Charles replied, keeping his voice quiet, as Healer Smethwyk had neglected to close the ward door.
“Please, don’t tell James.”
“James isn’t prejudice, he wouldn’t turn against-”
“I know he wouldn’t, but Remus doesn’t want anyone to know, now more than ever.”
“James and his friends are supposed to be coming with me tomorrow, they might wander up here.”
“Tell them he’s sick then, and he can’t have any visitors. Please.”
“Of course, I understand. I’ll do just that. I have to get back to work. I hope Remus gets better. See you, then, Harry.” Charles walked past the open doorway into the ward and glance inside. He could see Harry’s son sleeping on a bed in the very back. He wished he could tell James what was wrong with his friend; he had expressed concerns about it so many times. He could never understand why his friend was always sick; he only hoped that one day he would find out.