Of course, it was one thing to be diagnosed a werewolf and quite another to actually go through transformation. And the first full moon Ted would have to experience was that night, January 23rd.
The five friends didn’t eat much at dinner-- even normally-calm Ted was more agitated than usual, which was, of course, natural, as he would be turning into a wolf in just a few short hours.
It had been arranged that he would use the Shrieking Shack (which had been fixed up and redecorated) for his transformations, although with the Wolfsbane potion, he would not technically be dangerous at the time. After all, it is rather disconcerting to try and sleep while your roommate is pacing around the dormitory as a wolf.
“Hey Ted,” Emma asked casually. “I’ve always wondered, what does that Wolfsbane potion thing do anyway? Is it just, like, a sedative or what?”
Ted shook his head. “No, it’s more like a, well, it makes you not really be a wolf, I mean, you’re a wolf, but you’re… this is hard to explain.”
Jordan took over for him. “The Wolfsbane potion allows the drinker to retain his or her sense of self when in wolf form and keeps them from suffering the bloodthirsty impulses of the un-subdued beast.” He took a sip of pumpkin juice, surveying the girls’ confused expressions. “It means that Ted will look like a wolf but he’ll be a human inside, like an Animagus,” he clarified, rolling his eyes.
“Yeah, next time you explain stuff to us, try English,” Haley suggested kindly.
Ivy was quiet again. Not only was that night’s transformation weighing on her mind, but there had also been an unpleasant incident earlier that day. A first year had exclaimed, upon seeing her in the hall, “You! Your father killed my mum!”
Ivy had swallowed and replied in a voice that was stronger than she felt, “Unless your mum was Lord Voldemort, my dad didn’t kill her.”
“Oh, you know who I mean,” the first year had snapped. “And Professor Potter might have adopted you, but that doesn’t mean you’re not a Malfoy. My dad always says, there’s no such thing as a good Malfoy.”
“You’re dad’s a moron, then,” Emma had said simply. “Sorry your mum’s dead and all, but at least she doesn’t have to put up with having a git like you for a kid anymore. Come on, Ivy. Let’s go.”
Ivy hadn’t thought this very nice at all, but she kept her mouth shut. There was no point in trying to stop Emma from doing something when she wanted to do it. It was like trying to stop the sun from rising.
Back to the present, Jordan was speaking very fast, something he only did when extremely excited or nervous. “So, if you’re going to be transforming but you’ll still think and feel like a human being, then you obviously won’t be a dangerous creature. Well, if that’s the case, we could visit the shack with you, you know, provide moral support on your first transformation, because naturally, it’ll be quite frightening, and--”
“To put that into regular people-speak,” clarified Emma, “Jordy wants to know if we can go to the Shrieking Shack with you, since you’re not going to rip our guts out.”
Ted took a bite of steak-and-kidney pie. “Well, all right. But I really doubt that McGonagall will let you, and…”
Haley smiled. “Well, don’t let her know we’re coming. We’ll use my invisibility cloak.”
Harry was less than fond of Blaise Zabini, Potions Master and head of Slytherin. Not only was he cold and unpleasantly arrogant, he was biased toward the Slytherins and was especially harsh on Harry’s kids. But his dislike came to a head that day in the staff lounge.
He and Hermione were discussing, as was the almost ubiquitous topic of discussion at that time, Draco Malfoy, when Professor Zabini put in his two cents.
“Personally,” he drawled, “I don’t see what all the fuss is. It’s not as though he’ll be killing anyone important, just a few Muggles and Mud… Muggle-borns.”
Harry was rather shocked. Although Blaise had never been exactly the nicest guy in the school, he had always been disdainful toward Death Eaters and Overseers, despite being a Slytherin. Could he have really joined Malfoy?
“You know perfectly well that some of the greatest wizards and witches in history have been Muggle-born!” Hermione told him coldly. “Edgar Czarvesky, Lily Potter, John Andre Burke… some magic historians even believe that Merlin was Muggle-born.” Zabini snorted derisively. “What makes Muggle-borns inferior anyway?” Hermione continued.
Harry decided to let her handle this on her own, and got himself a cup of tea, determined to avoid the entire situation.
Zabini ran his fingers through his hair. “I can’t believe I’m actually answering this. Well, for one, Muggles can’t do magic, obviously.”
“You do realize that there are many, many more Muggles and Muggle-borns than there are purebloods?” Hermione informed him. She was really getting worked up now. “A few hundred years ago, Muggles were putting suspected witches and wizards to death, Blaise. That could have been you! And even worse, there are still people in this world who are idiotic enough to target other people because their ancestors”like yours”came from Africa!”
Harry was beginning to feel very embarrassed. “Well, that’s stupid,” Zabini said emotionlessly.
“I agree,” responded Hermione, equally emotionlessly. “And you know what? No matter what you call it, that’s prejudice, and so’s discriminating against Muggles. Anyway, anyone who joins the Overseers--”
Zabini’s face contorted into the expression that most people would wear if they had dung shoved under their nose. “The Overseers?” he snarled. “They’re a disgrace to purebloods. They accept the fact that they’re known to the world as ‘the dark side’ rather than trying to prove their point. They’re simply thugs who want to hurt people, and they put no thought into their senseless killings. Most of them don’t even know what they’re fighting for. I would never join the Overseers. My--”
He suddenly seemed to realize to whom he was ranting, and stopped speaking abruptly. He strode out of the staff room, closing the door soundlessly behind him as he swept off to the dungeons.
“Ted, good luck tonight, mate!” called a Hufflepuff boy who Ted vaguely recalled as being named Rupert Daniels.
“Hope everything goes all right,” a pretty Ravenclaw girl named Erika Corner said as Madame Patil led Ted down to the grounds.
They had to wend their way through throngs of well-wishers to get down to the Whomping Willow. Ted couldn’t believe it-- how could one little bite (okay, one massive chomp out of his face) have made him so popular?
In the conversations he’d had with his parents about whether or not he should reveal the fact that he was a werewolf, his father had warned him that there was a good possibility that a lot of people he’d considered friends would no longer want to spend time with him. But here he was, the center of attention.
“Hey!” yelled Tyrone. “Bite Zabini for me, will you?”
“And have to share the shack with him? I don’t think so,” Ted replied, grinning. He appeared happy and relaxed, but inside, the butterflies in his stomach were mutating into pterodactyls.
Hs father had told him that the transformations would be painful, even with the potion, that they would be draining and exhausting. But he hadn’t expressed his worries to anyone, even his friends, because he knew that they’d be twice as concerned as he was. And there was nothing he hated more than seeing his friends worried or unhappy.
“Ted, you’re a brave boy,” Madame Patil told him as she pressed the knot on the Whomping Willow. “A very brave boy indeed. I hope your transformation goes well.”
Ted smiled. “Thanks, Madame Patil.” He started down the tunnel into the shack, then turned and looked over his shoulder. He had just seen something pink flash behind Madame Patil-- something that just so happened to be the same color as Haley’s shoes. His friends were coming, under the invisibility cloak.
Ted surveyed the interior of the shack. It was really fixed up nicely; ‘cottage’ was a better name for it than ‘shack.’ In one corner was what looked like a dog bed, surrounded with pillows-- it was where he would sleep in his wolf form. “Try and go to sleep,” his father had advised him earlier. “I know it’s hard, especially on your first transformation, but it’ll be easier to cope with in the long run if you go to sleep during the full moon.”
A clattering noise emanated from the doorway, and Ted looked up to see Haley, Emma, Ivy, and Jordan pulling off an invisibility cloak. “Whew, that was harder than it looked!” exclaimed Haley.
“Well, of course it was harder than it looked,” added Jordan flatly. “We were invisible. It didn’t look like anything.”
Ted laughed, and Ivy settled down onto one of the pillows. “Nervous?” she asked. She was very white.
“Probably less than you are,” Ted replied calmly. He swept the long fringe off of his perspiring forehead, revealing the ugly mass of scar tissue that marred his temple. At the sight of it, Ivy shuddered slightly, and Ted took the signal to flatten his hair back down again. She might have adjusted, however tentatively, to the fact that he was a werewolf, but he didn’t think she was ready quite yet to get used to his disfiguring scars.
“So, what shall we do before the moon rises?” Emma asked, casually kicking off her shoes and taking off her jacket. “Veritaserum or Imperius?” This sounded like an odd question, but to her friends, it made perfect sense. ‘Veritaserum or Imperius’ simply meant ‘Truth or Dare.’
Jordan shook his head. “No,” he answered. “We can’t make too much noise, or the people in Hogsmeade will hear us-- remember, they think that the ‘ghosts’ left the shack years ago.”
“True.” Haley pondered for a moment, then her eyes lit up. “Ghost stories!” she proclaimed.
Ted thought that the last thing Ivy needed was a good scare, but he didn’t say anything. He simply sat back and listened raptly to Haley’s tale of the headless lady who was doomed to wander the streets of London looking for her lost skull, which wasn’t buried with her body.
Several minutes later, Haley was at the most exciting part of the tale-- the ghost was going to finally get revenge on her still-alive husband, who had stolen her skull-- and everyone was watching her closely. (Haley, not the ghost.) A chink of silvery light shone through the window, illuminating her face and shadowing it, making her appear eerie and ghostlike.
Silvery light… the moon… Without a warning, Ted’s body tensed up, and he felt as though he’d been struck with the full body bind.
He fell helplessly onto all fours as white hot pain filled his whole body, burning as though he were on fire. He felt his bones snapping, stretching, growing, and his face and body shifting. His ears were migrating to the top of his head, and his nose and mouth were elongating into a muzzle. His teeth were growing and sharpening, and he tasted blood in his mouth when a newly pointed canine cut into his tongue.
What felt like needles were puncturing, bursting through his skin, and he knew that coarse wiry hair was covering his body. His insides twisted and contorted, and his whole body quivered and shook uncontrollably, and just then, something very strange happened within him. It was as though there was another person inside him along with the real Ted Lupin-- or rather, another animal, as the thoughts and feelings didn’t seem quite human.
“The wolf,” he thought through his pain and panic. “It’s the wolf inside me…but Dad said with the potion, I can control myself.” There seemed to be a sudden driving hunger in the pit of his belly, a hunger for flesh, but he ignored it; he was distracted by the sight of his reflection in the mirror on the wall.
There was a shaggy light brown wolf crouched shuddering on the floor. No longer a pup, but not yet full grown, it had sharp yellow fangs and curved sturdy claws. Ted stared blankly for a moment, refusing to believe that the wolf in the mirror was really him. There was no way that he, human all of the first fourteen years of his life, could have become that animal in the mirror in just a few minutes. The only sign of Ted left in the creature was the eyes. They were the same soft light blue as always, and something about them seemed unmistakably human.
Nobody spoke at all. His friends’ pale, shocked faces were reflected behind him in the mirror, and Ted felt the need to comfort them-- this was all wrong, they couldn’t be frightened of him. “I’m okay, I’m still me,” he tried to say, but all that came out was a bloodcurdling, inhuman howl.
Ivy clutched onto Jordan, the person nearest to her, her eyes shining with tears and her cheeks bloodless. Ted felt strangely jealous; it was usually he to whom Ivy turned for protection and security, and to have Ivy look to Jordan for protection against Ted was disconcerting.
Jordan himself, who normally hated being touched by anyone, did not push his adopted sister away, but stared straight ahead. Haley was wide-eyed and looked as though she was certain she was simply having a nightmare, and Emma’s long curtain of wavy hair covered her face entirely.
“I am Ted,” Ted thought furiously. This was the hardest thing he’d ever done. “I am Theodore Oliver Lupin. I’m a fourteen year old boy, a wizard. My best friends are Ivy, Jordan, Haley, and Emma. My parents are Remus and Nymphadora Lupin.” Reciting these simple facts brought humanity back to him, made him feel more like a person. “I am in Gryffindor. My favorite color is blue. My favorite sweets are fizzing whizbees. I love to draw cartoons and cook. ”
It was too much-- he had to sleep, follow his father’s advice. He maneuvered toward the dog bed, Jordan and Ivy shrinking back away from him as he passed them.
“I’m your friend,” he thought with a twinge of sadness. Ivy had promised him in the hospital wing that she would never be scared of him, but she certainly looked it. “Don’t you get it? I’m not a monster.”
He walked around the dog bed, but it didn’t smell like his territory somehow. It smelled of animal, not of human, and he wanted to be reminded of the fact that inside his monster’s body, he was really just a boy after all.
Instead, he walked toward Ivy, stopping directly in front of her. She gasped and thrust out her hands to protect her face, fear written across her nervous and pinched features. Ted hesitated, then stuck out his flexible pink wolf’s tongue and licked the outstretched palms. It was, he knew, an extremely weird thing to do, but in a wolf’s body, hugs were out of the question, and this was the closest thing he could think of.
He then bounced around her in a circle and wagged his shaggy tail, panting like a big dog. Ivy smiled through her tears and petted him behind the ears. It felt good, and his body relaxed.
Ted crouched down and put his head into Ivy’s lap, curling his wolf’s body around the pillow on which she sat. She smelled of clean cotton and orange soap, he thought, before he succumbed to his fatigue and falling asleep where he was.
Ivy didn’t dare move. This would be the typical reaction of someone who has a werewolf sleeping in her lap. “I have a werewolf sleeping in my lap,” she thought over and over again, though it still wouldn’t register. She had to keep telling herself because she frankly couldn’t believe it was true-- she couldn’t believe that the shaggy beast was actually Ted, the sweet, kind Ted she’d known so well for over three years.
And yet, she could tell now that he wasn’t all wolf. The eyes-- they were still Ted’s same soft blue eyes; and then there was the way that he’d acted happy and playful when he’d noticed that she was scared.
Stroking his soft fur gently, she wondered what he was dreaming of at the moment, and whether he was a person or a wolf in those dreams.
Ted woke up next morning in the hospital wing. He rubbed the sleep out of his eyes with his fists. Human fists. He blinked for a moment, then grinned--he’d never thought he’d be so happy to see his own hands before.
His whole body felt sore and achy, his head was heavy, and he felt weak and tired to boot. He knew that this was to be expected, that his bones and muscles would be strained from changing shape and back again so quickly, but it came as a shock to him how real and hard it was.
Ah, he thought. So that’s what a hangover is.
Madame Patil hovered over him, pressing a cool cloth to his sweaty face and pouring a bottle of glutinous purple potion into a glass. Bright gold sunlight streamed through the windows, illuminating the premature worry lines on the healer’s face. “Here, drink this,” she said softly, handing the purple goop to Ted. “It’s a tonic that’ll boost your strength and ease the aching.”
Ted did so. The potion tasted faintly of orange, and he was reminded of Ivy. “Madame Patil, should I go to class today?” he asked.
She shook her head, and the long black plait she wore danced down her back. “It’s nearly lunchtime already,” she told him. “Your friends came to visit you this morning, but as you weren’t awake yet, I let them leave your sweets and things here with me. Oh, and my nephew and your friend Miss Weasley made you this get-well card.”
The card was extremely poorly drawn. Ted loved it. “I’m surprised that Tyrone and Emma got together to make this,” he commented. “They haven’t talked to each other since October, far as I know.”
Madame Patil squinted. “What do you mean? Tyrone said that he and Emma do peer counseling together every other week.”
Ted arched an eyebrow, then automatically ducked, half expecting Haley to charge into the room and bop him in the head. “He hasn’t been going,” he explained simply.
Madame Patil pursed her lips. “He’s been lying to me all this time, then? I don’t believe the nerve of that boy!” She continued muttering to herself for a bit. Ted had an ominous feeling that this wasn’t the last he’d hear of it.
Emma was supposed to go into an unused classroom for peer counseling every other Tuesday night, but she knew that Tyrone wouldn’t show up. Still, it was her duty to be there, so she and Jordan (who was the only one of the five friends not involved in peer counseling) usually hung out and did their homework together.
However, tonight was different. At precisely seven o’clock, the time when peer counseling was supposed to start, the door swung open, and who should come in but Tyrone Thomas.
“Thomas? What are you doing here?” Emma asked roughly.
“Well, let’s see. Peer counseling starts here at seven o’ clock…ooh, what do you think I’m doing here?” Tyrone replied, and sat down. His posture, Emma couldn’t help but notice, was irritatingly good. He made the act of sitting in a chair look weirdly graceful.
“Yeah? You never came before, and I think we were all happy with that system.”
In truth, it was a bit disconcerting to have Tyrone not showing off to impress Emma every two seconds. She’d been so used to it that it was rather unsettling to have him never even speak to her at all.
“M’aunt made me come here when she found out that I hadn’t been coming,” Tyrone responded, barely moving his lips. “So let’s get this over with. I came to peer counseling because Malfoy killed my mum, okay? Happy? Can I go now?”
Emma was speechless. Tyrone was never like this. He always seemed so exuberant, so confident. And he was always smiling, always showing off those perfect white teeth of his. She didn’t think she’d ever seen him showing anything close to anger before.
“How’d she find out?” was all that came out of her mouth as she tried to rummage around in her brain for something to say.
“Ted,” answered Tyrone. “Not his fault, of course”Ted’s cool, he’d never snitch on anyone. But when he got the ‘get well’ card, he said something about how surprised he was that we got together to make it, and--”
“Wait a minute,” interrupted Emma. “I told Jordan to give you the card to give to your aunt so she could give it to Ted. I made the card. You didn’t do anything! What did you tell Madame Patil, that we made it together during peer counseling?”
“Er, actually…”
“Don’t answer that. Well,” Emma unrolled a sheaf of parchment. “Peer counseling. Right. Hmmmmmmmmmmmmmm….” She scanned the parchment for clues as to what to do.
“I said I’d come here,” Tyrone said stiffly. “I never said anything about actually doing anything. So, bye, Weasley.”
“Thank you, Thomas.”
Tyrone turned around, his hand on the doorknob, a confused expression on his face.
“For leaving,” Emma clarified.
“Any time.” Tyrone smiled sardonically and strode out into the hall, taking care to slam the door behind him.
Ted’s owl, Zsa Zsa, drifted through the window and alighted on his bedside table. This was odd; Zsa Zsa usually came in the morning post rush with most of the other owls, not in the evening. She bore a small parcel wrapped in plain brown paper, which Ted untied from her leg and unwrapped curiously.
It was a box of silver bullets. And written on a scrap of parchment in blood red ink was, ‘YOUR FUTURE.’