The Intruder
The Gryffindor fourth years were not happy. They were enraged, disgusted, utterly peeved. Due to the brilliance of the Slytherin fourth years and a vat of Shrinking Solution, the Gryffindors found themselves serving a group detention with an equally enraged Professor Twikom. The professor had been on edge all year; it was obvious even to those who didn’t know the reason why. The Slytherins knew better than to do something ridiculous, such as shrinking every piece of furniture in the Defence Against the Dark Arts classroom, yet this did not stop them from doing so. It was a plus when the entire group of Gryffindors fourth years got blamed for it. The fourth years were now sitting in the Defence Against the Dark Arts classroom, growing the furniture back to its original size, a task that was taking ages. Seven fourteen year old wizards could only do so much.
The seven Gryffindors were dispersed about the room, crawling on their hands and knees, careful not to accidentally tread on any of the desks. Their faces were pressed close to the floor, one eye open to spot the tiny chairs and tables. It was only when Peter accidentally squashed three of the chairs with his knee that they all snapped. They wanted revenge, sweet, sweet revenge. Why was it that the Slytherins could get away with framing them for shrinking an entire classroom? Why couldn’t the Gryffindors do something that would incriminate their rivals? The Gryffindors hadn’t banded together on a prank in years. The last time had been their memorable attack on Professor Crane. It was the only time they were completely united. They wanted that sense of unity once more, and what better way to do that with a plan of vengeance?
The plan was simple. They had Lily Evans, the top potion brewer of the Gryffindor house, and, because of Remus’s abysmal performances in Professor Slughorn’s class, they also had complete access to the storage room in the dungeons. During one of Remus’s tutoring sessions with Lily, they snuck out everything they needed to concoct a potion to make everything in the Defence Against the Dark Arts room double in size. Lily brewed the potion and the others planted it in the room when the Slytherins had their class. It didn’t seem fair to plant it in Professor Twikom’s room twice, but it would hopefully prove that the Gryffindors had not been responsible for the first catastrophe. They were only responsible for the second.
They were successful and the Slytherin fourth years were sentenced to three weeks of detention “ starting with resizing the furniture and ending with giving the room a good cleaning, Muggle style. The Gryffindor fourth years walked proudly by Twikom’s classroom, laughing loudly and obnoxiously, waving merrily at the Slytherins as they fulfiled their sentence. Of course, this could have been the start of a war between the Gryffindor and Slytherin fourth years, had their plans not been thwarted by Professor McGonagall, who had caught wind of what was going on. She knew it was far too coincidental that two relatively similar pranks had occurred within days of each other and threatened the suspected culprits with detention for the next two years. They knew she would do it and so refrained from a war of any sort.
James, Sirius, Remus and Peter had more important things to worry about than a prank war, anyway. As the year progressed, they noticed that there was a lack of mysterious disruptions, but this did not set them at ease. If anything, it increased their apprehension. It was only too typical when the villain disappeared for a while, all traces of his presence disappearing as well. It would make the would-be victims complacent; it would allow them to think that the danger had finally passed. This method was certainly working for Professor Twikom. She did not seem on edge at every moment, as she had been when the fourth years were serving their detention. She must have assumed her relative had given up with his plan.
If only this were true. The boys knew that nothing of the sort had happened. The break-in on Halloween had not left their minds. The confrontation Remus and Peter had witnessed that night at the beginning of the school year had not vanished from their thoughts. They knew that the professors would not tell the students if Dumbledore’s office had been broken into, but the boys couldn’t erase it from their minds that it had possibly happened. If it had, Greyback had the name of the werewolf who was trying to pose as a wizard. What worried them was why nothing had happened yet. Why had Remus not been followed during a full moon? He wasn’t complaining that he hadn’t, but this did nothing to lift the weight that had made itself at home in his stomach. Greyback had the information he needed. Why hadn’t he used it?
They could only attribute this to the fact that Greyback did not know where Remus went every full moon. The secret of the Shrieking Shack was still safe, for the time being. But how long would it take before Greyback made the connection between the monthly howls of pain and the full moons? They were not entirely sure of his intelligence, but he must have had some brains. He managed to contaminate almost all of his targets; this had to take some amount of intellect. It couldn’t be long before he realised that it was Remus who was the source of the supposed haunting in the building on the outskirts of Hogsmeade.
Indeed, their luck lasted well into the spring months. There had been no more odd activities around the castle, save for a few rocks that had taken to walking down the corridors and shouting profanities during the lessons, but that had been taken care of. No, it was almost as if there had been no intrusion at all on the hallowed grounds of Hogwarts. The students no longer spoke in fearful whispers about who it might have been who had penetrated the walls on Halloween. In fact, some students seemed to find it a rather nice joke, a Halloween prank that had no potentially lethal ramifications.
“Hand me that quill, will you, James?” Sirius asked one night as they sat in the library, poring over their notes. They had been possessed to study early for the impending end-of-the-year exams. The earlier they studied, the more time they would have for more enjoyable tasks, such as working on their Animagus potion. Besides, they knew that next year would be impossible for their usual last minute studying, not with the O.W.L. exams. They had to start practising proper studying methods, as much as they loathed doing so.
James handed Sirius the quill he had pointed out and jabbed his index finger at one of the sentences in his potions textbook. “Antidotes, that’s all that’s going to be on the exam, right?”
“And poisons,” Remus added, scratching his chin with the tip of his quill, blotting his skin with black ink. He was looking rather pale and peaky; the full moon was only a week away.
James drew two columns down the length of his parchment “ one for facts about antidotes and the other for facts about poisons. During his third year, James had read the entire textbook two times and had been close to collapsing with the useless information that it provided. There were pages and pages of sentences that were entirely irrelevant to what Slughorn put on his tests. This year, he was going to look through the textbook once and jot down only the truly important facts. The only hard task was finding the relevant information.
“So, in the event that someone decides to poison me, I could whip these potions up within the time it takes before I die?”
Sirius shrugged, his eyes focused on his Transfiguration textbook. “I suppose.”
“Always good to know.” James scrawled something down in the poisons column and continued to flip through the book. “How’s that History of Magic coming along, Peter?”
Peter was scanning anxiously through his History of Magic textbook, trying to copy down all the names of the historical figures they were required to remember. They were absurd names, really, names like Ulric the Ugly. What was so magnificent about these people? What was the point of taking History of Magic in the first place? Peter was in a bad mood. He had spent the entire night working on his dream journal for Divination, making up dreams that would suffice the teacher’s craving for all things gloomy. In one of his invented dreams he had been devoured by a manticore, the only trace of his disappearance being a lone finger. “It’s not coming along,” he spat, violently ripping the page as he went to turn it. He swore loudly, earning a reprimand from the librarian.
Sirius sighed and looked at Peter sympathetically. “I told you once and I’ll tell you again-”
“Do not say I shouldn’t have taken Divination.”
“Okay, I won’t.” Sirius returned to his homework. “I will, however, say that there was a myriad of other electives for you to take.”
James glanced up at Sirius, astonishment spelled out on his face. “When did you learn the word myriad?”
“I know how to use a dictionary, mate.” James opened his mouth, no doubt to ask how Sirius knew what a dictionary was, but decided against it. The librarian was already glaring daggers at them, best not to infuriate her any further. Not when exams were looming ever nearer and they actually needed to use the library. They’d irritate her once the exams had passed. Instead, he continued working on his chart for Slughorn’s class; it wasn’t fun at all, but since when were exams ever fun?
The full moon for May landed on the twenty fifth. Remus sincerely hoped it would be better than the previous two. The full moon in March had been on the twenty seventh, James’s fifteenth birthday. Remus detested that he couldn’t spend the day with his friend, though he made it up by getting James an autographed photo of the Puddlemere United team, something James had framed and hung with care above his bed. Though, Remus had to admit, he was grateful that the March full moon had not been on his own birthday. Last year had been the closest in years. The moon had never fallen on his birthday; he had narrowly missed it the year he was bitten. He only missed it because he was bitten in April.
Remus supposed that the fact that he missed celebrating his friend’s birthday was the reason he spent the next three days in the Hospital Wing under the close surveillance of Madam Pomfrey, who feared if he closed his eyes for too long, it would be even longer before they opened again. The wolf must have been having a wonderful time, taunting its host, mocking him because he had to be locked up in the Shrieking Shack while his friends were having a good time. Remus had fought, and lost. It never surprised him anymore, when his transformations were so violent. He had given Lily the reason for this once - he was getting older. There was only so much a fifteen year old boy could handle, and morphing into a full-grown wolf twelve times a year was not usually in the job description.
There was still the looming threat of Fenrir Greyback. Nothing had happened, yet Remus was certain something would. He just didn’t know when. Would Greyback choose the summer and try to sniff Remus out? The Lupins had moved once Remus was bitten as a child, to throw the attacker off their track. Besides, they could not live in a city like London with a werewolf for a son. Because of this, Greyback no longer knew where his victim resided. So that left Hogwarts, didn’t it? But it had been so long ago that the threat had seemed real. It sometimes felt like a thing of the past, that Greyback wasn’t going to come, wasn’t going to live up to his word to make whoever the werewolf was that was pretending to be a wizard pay.
Maybe the danger had finally passed. Maybe there was nothing to worry about. Maybe Greyback wasn’t coming for Remus after all.
“What’re you reading?”
“A book.”
“Obviously. It’s not one of those weird Muggle books again, is it?”
“They’re not weird, Sirius, and so what if it is?”
“Let me see what it is!” Sirius ripped the hardcover book out of Remus’s slackened grip and turned it over so he could see the title. He frowned. “The Crucible. What in Merlin’s name is this supposed to be about?”
“It’s a play about the Salem Witch Trials,” Remus replied calmly, not bothering to get up and snatch the book back. All he could think of was lying on his comfortable bed and he knew Sirius would give it back eventually. Once he’d had a good, long look at it.
Sirius looked blankly at his friend. “And what’s that supposed to be?”
Remus sighed in exasperation. “When they thought there were witches in Salem, Massachusetts.”
“Fascinating.” Sirius dropped the book on Remus’s head, watching as it slid to the floor. “Oops,” Sirius said, laughing. He stooped down to pick it up and placed it in Remus’s outstretched hand. Remus flipped to the page he was on and marked it with one of his quills. “So,” Sirius went on, sitting down on his own bed, pulling his knees up to his chest. “Full moon’s soon.”
Remus nodded, staring at the blue back cover of his book with unmoving eyes. He had been reading to keep his mind off that very fact. Never before had he been so keen to not think about the impending rising moon. Naturally, he dreaded this time of the month, but never as much as he did at the present. There was just the nagging thought in the back of his mind that something wasn’t right. The atmosphere of the castle seemed ominous to him and he didn’t know why. He hadn’t heard anything about Greyback in ages, but he wasn’t about to be lulled into complacency like his professor. No, something wasn’t right and he had a feeling that this month he was going to find out what.
“You know, we’re really close to getting this Animagus thing.” For once, Remus knew that Sirius was being truthful. James and Sirius were almost finished concocting the potion. They were lucky that it took the length of the summer for it to simmer to completion. They could hide it in the Room of Requirement for the duration. Once they drank it, all they had to do was morph into their animals and morph back into their human forms. The latter was the difficult part of the task. “This time next year we’ll probably be going with you to the Shrieking Shack.”
Remus smiled lightly at the thought. His transformations would still be terrible, there was nothing that could alter that, but between the moon rising and the moon setting, there was hope. He wouldn’t be biting and scratching himself, mangling himself in ways he didn’t know possible. His friends would be there to keep his mind off it. He wasn’t sure how that was going to work, exactly, but he knew it was going to happen.
Sirius exhaled loudly and dropped one of his legs to the floor and pulled his other knee up to his chest, resting his chin on his kneecap. “What’s up, Remus?”
Remus jerked his head up in surprise. “What?”
“You’re someplace else.”
“No… I’m pretty sure I’m right here.”
“Well, you may be, but your brain isn’t.” Sirius, James and Peter had talked about it in private. Remus was constantly thinking about Greyback. It was obvious by the faraway look in his eyes. He tried not to, they knew this, but he failed. But whenever it appeared as if he was drifting away from the conversation, they knew where his thoughts were headed. Sirius decided it was time they stopped ignoring it and got some definitive answers. “What do you think is going to happen?”
Remus finally turned so he was facing Sirius and Sirius saw there was just a helpless look in his friend’s eyes, one that he tried vainly to mask. “That’s just it, Sirius,” he said, casting his eyes downward again. “I don’t know what’s going to happen.” He bit his lip and returned his attention to his friend. “There are so many things he could do; he doesn’t want me to be a wizard.”
“But what does it matter what he thinks?” Sirius questioned fiercely, throwing his hands up in the air. “He’s not the one who decides your future. He has no say in whether or not you become a qualified wizard.”
“He’s trying to keep me from getting that and he’s not going to stop until I’m convinced that I shouldn’t be a wizard.”
“But you should be! He doesn’t have any right to tell you that you shouldn’t be.” It was important to Sirius that his friend knew this. Sirius had been taught many things by the lovely hypocrites that he loosely called parents; one of them was that people should be put in their place. Naturally, Sirius chose to go the opposite path and decided to believe that no one should be put in their alleged place if it wasn’t where they belonged. Sirius didn’t believe in his parents’ credo. He wasn’t about to allow one of his best friend’s to believe in it either.
“Tell that to Fenrir Greyback,” Remus said bitterly, spitting out his enemy’s name with a malice Sirius had never before witnessed. “He doesn’t believe that I should be.”
“You shouldn’t care what he thinks. I know you’re scared, and you have every right to be, but don’t believe that you shouldn’t be a wizard. You’re brilliant with magic.” He chanced laughing. “Who else could have gotten all those pranks to go off like that during first year in Crane’s classroom?”
Remus allowed himself a small smile as he thought of their renowned prank. “That wasn’t so hard.”
Glad that he had at last gotten somewhere, Sirius went on. “Being modest, are we? What about getting your Patronus before any of us and on your first try?”
“Okay, you’ve made your point.”
Sirius snickered. “Did I mention girls love piano-playing, singing werewolves?”
“Yes, I believe you have.”
“Well, they do.” Sirius chuckled. “Come on, we’re meeting Peter to watch James’s Quidditch practise.”
“Oh, yeah,” Remus suddenly remembered. “Isn’t this their last practise before the Quidditch Final?”
Sirius nodded eagerly. “Yeah, which means Biggs is going to be mental. That’s got to be fun to watch.”
The two hurried down to the common room to meet Peter, who was working on his Divination assignment with a rather disgruntled look on his face. The three headed down to the Quidditch pitch, where it was almost certain Lawrence Biggs was going to be shouting himself hoarse with the drive to win the Quidditch Cup from Slytherin. It was good to go outside. It gave them a chance to catch some fresh air and a chance to not think about what Fenrir Greyback had up his sleeve.
May twenty fifth dawned quite early with Sirius jumping out of his bed, shouting that a giant was threatening to step on his face. He refused to believe that it wasn’t going to happen until Remus, groggy and sick and annoyed at being woken up before he would have liked, threw a glass of cold water in his face. With his four roommates furious with him, Sirius was shunned to his four-poster bed while the others got ready for the day. Thankfully, it was a Sunday and they had no class that day. Sirius pouted loudly from behind the curtains, which James had pulled around and hexed them to stick to the wall until he decided to free them. It was only when Peter and Frank threatened to put a Silencing Charm on him that Sirius stopped speaking.
Breakfast that morning was also terribly loud as a flock of two hundred owls came down through the rafters, seven of them bearing long, thin packages. Every student watched keenly, wondering where these owls were headed. It was clear from the shape of the packages that they were brand new broomsticks, but who would they be for? When the seven owls bypassed the Hufflepuff and Ravenclaw tables, they knew that the brooms were not for those teams. All heads turned towards the Gryffindor table but, sadly, the owls were not destined for this Quidditch team either.
No, the brooms were for the Slytherin Quidditch team. The seven team members looked smug as the packages were set before them, knocking over several pitchers of pumpkin juice and bowls of cereal. Regulus was the first to unwrap his broomstick, which turned out to be the latest model of the Silver Arrow edition. He held it up for his fellow Slytherins to see. When he caught the eye of his brother, who was glaring at the brooms in disbelief, he smirked. “A gift from my father, for the entire team.”
“Oh,” Sirius said, just as loudly, his voice hot with fury. “So you did get on the team by bribery?”
Regulus scoffed dismissively. “In case you haven’t noticed, Sirius, I’ve been on the team for almost two years.”
“So you must have done some serious shoe licking last year.” Sirius, however, did not hear the answer that Regulus had, because James chose this moment to tap his best friend on the shoulder.
“Look at Dumbledore,” he hissed, pointing at the Staff Table. Dumbledore was looking unusually grave. He was speaking with Professor McGonagall, his lips moving in such a way that they could not even lip read the conversation. Instinctively, James, Sirius and Peter looked at Remus, who could do nothing except shrug hopelessly. They did not necessarily know that the Headmaster’s severe expression was caused by the threat Greyback. The rest of the Great Hall was far too enamored by the arrival of the Slytherin Quidditch teams’ new brooms to register what the Headmaster and Deputy Headmistress could be speaking about.
For the remainder of the day, Dumbledore’s expression weighed on the minds of the four boys. What had he learned the made him appear the way he had? They had scanned the day’s copy of the Daily Prophet and discovered there was no news that could have inspired it. In fact, all of the news in the Prophet was positively good news. There was a once in a lifetime sale at Madam Malkin’s in which all robes were ninety percent off. The Chuddley Cannons actually won a game, and the Leaky Cauldron was going under renovations, adding more tables and barstools to allow for more customers. There was nothing dreadful about any of it, unless Dumbledore was upset that the Cannons’ losing streak was finally over? No, he had learned something that the students were not supposed to know, but may very well have involved one of them.
That night, Madam Pomfrey escorted Remus down to the Whomping Willow as she had done every month for almost five years. The night was still, the trees did not rustle and the animals seemed as though a Silencing Charm had been placed upon them. The sky was pitch-black, yet no stars were visible. The nurse grabbed the long stick that lay inconspicuously at the trunk of the dangerous tree and prodded the hidden knot. The branches froze and took on a calm, docile appearance, as though they would never dream of hurting somebody. Madam Pomfrey retrieved the Invisibility Cloak from her charge and wished Remus good luck as he descended through the hidden passageway.
The moment he entered the Shrieking Shack, Remus knew something was wrong. The tables were misplaced, the chairs in a different position then he remembered. Someone, usually one of the professors, came and cleaned up the damage he inflicted after each transformation and always in the same fashion. Remus knew exactly where the tables and chairs should have been, and they were not there. Along with this, they were not whole. The chairs and tables should not have had large chunks broken off. Who had done this? He felt the familiar jolt in his stomach as it flipped over and over repeatedly. He knew he had to hurry upstairs; he could not linger in the downstairs. But his legs did not want to leave this spot, they were shrieking for him to run. He slowly climbed the creaking stairs, but when he reached the landing, he wished he had stayed downstairs. Downstairs was safe. If he had stayed downstairs, he would not have to endure the hell that was about to occur.
He was greeted with a hoarse, growling, disgustingly satisfied voice, the voice he had been dreading ever since he heard it that night in the Defence Against the Dark Arts corridor, the night he and Peter had flattened themselves against the wall and listened in terror. It was the voice that came to Remus in his dreams sometimes. It was the voice of the beast that had forever altered his life. He had come to do it again. “Hullo, Lupin. I was wondering when I’d see you again.”