The Secret Exposed
I'd known from the moment I was accepted that I would have to lie to my classmates about where I went during the full moon, but when I had considered it then, it had always seemed so simple. I mean, who would ever even notice that I left for a few days? But now that I actually had friends, it suddenly seemed like a very difficult task. From home I had come up with a story about a sick aunt, whom I could go visit every month, but I was beginning to doubt that it would work. Why did my friends have to be so clever?
Anyway, I had no choice but to try it, and two weeks into the semester I received an owl from home saying that I should come home for a few days, because my aunt was mortally ill, and might not make it that much longer. None of them seemed suspicious about this, so my fear of being found out was calmed a bit, even though I still dreaded my transformation, as I always did. And on top of my normal fear of becoming a ferocious wolf, this time I also feared that I might be able to get out, that I might actually attack some innocent citizen of Hogsmeade.
I hadn't needed to worry, though, as it was Dumbledore himself who had cast the spells that protected the house from anyone getting in or out. The only way to get in there was through passageway under the Whomping Willow, and no one in their right mind would try to get through there, especially not at night when you couldn't see its whacking branches before they hit you. So my first transformation passed uneventfully, yet far from pain free, as there were no enchantments to stop me from hurting myself.
Yet I was still far better off than I'd been before, as my mother was a Muggle, so she didn't have any way of healing me afterwards. Now I was safe with Madam Pomfrey, who's very skilled at healing, so I felt much better when I woke up than I'd ever done since my father left us. Of course there is no cure for werewolf bites and slash marks, but at least she could ease my pain by making me sleep longer, and generally nurse me back to health.
I got to enjoy the peace and quiet of the hospital wing for a day before I had to go back to school, see my friends, and come up with more lies about where I had been. I got back to the dormitory while they were still in class, but they got back soon after me. They were talking as they went through the door, but as soon as they spotted me, they became very quiet. Sirius approached me carefully, and for a split second I thought they had figured it out, and were afraid of me, but then he asked me how my aunt was doing, and I drew a big sigh of relief.
I had come up with a plan about what to tell them while I had been in the hospital wing that day. So I told them that my aunt was more stable now, but that I might have to go home to see her again if she got worse. This way, it would be easier for me to excuse my absence next month. They all believed my lie so I was able to go back to normal life for another month. Throughout my first year, I used my aunt excuse a few times, till right after Christmas, when I decided that it was getting a bit risky, so I told them that she had died, and that I was going to her funeral.
After that I came up with less related reasons – mostly I just happened to fall ill on the day of the full moon, which would save me the trouble of explaining if they caught me going to the hospital wing. By then I was starting to realize that the mischief making friends I had gotten would do pretty much anything, including following their friends, and I didn't want to risk anything. I should have known that it couldn't stay a secret forever though, not when my friends were some of the brightest students in our year; even if they never seemed to study.
It was Sirius who figured it out, in the summer holiday between our first and second year, when he was at home with that horrible family of his. The threat of a dark lord rising was slowly getting out to the general public, and so of course it was the main subject of conversation in Sirius' house that summer. And since the dark lord was apparently recruiting all kinds of dark creatures, werewolves were bound to come up at some point.
They did one night, during dinner, when the family had just finished listening to the Wizarding Wireless, which had reported that a family of wizards, in which both parents were Muggle-born, had just been brutally attacked by a werewolf. What was unusual about the episode was that the parents had been killed, but the children had been left to live. When the children had later been healed as much as the healers were able to, the kids had disappeared. No one knew where they had gone.
Even though werewolves were the topic of conversation all through dinner, Sirius didn't put the thoughts of werewolves and my disappearances together right away; it wasn't until he had been thinking about the terrible attack (which his parents had quite approved of) that he made the connection. He's told me since then that he was absolutely terrified, when he first realized what it all meant. But because he was trapped at Grimmauld Place and not allowed to use his parents' owl, he had plenty of time to think it over before he could tell anyone, which proved crucial.
When I next saw him on platform 9 ¾ on the 1st of September, he didn't show any signs that he had found out. All three of the Gryffindor boys were beaming to see me when I stepped onto the platform, and Lily was waving at me from a short way away, where she was standing with Severus. I waved back, and went to find a compartment with the boys, not expecting anything to be changed from the way things had been between us two months ago, when we had all gone home for the summer.
We spent most of the journey swapping stories about our summers, all being jealous at James, and feeling sorry for Sirius. As neither my nor Peter's holiday had seen much action, we skipped quickly past them so that we could spend more time cursing Sirius' family for making him suffer like they had, all because he had been placed in Gryffindor, and "besmirched the family honour". After we had finished that, we all agreed to be jealous at James, as his holidays had seemingly been perfect.
Sirius kept quiet about his new knowledge so well I had absolutely no idea that he had figured it out. And I didn't find out until the morning after my next transformation. When I left that night, with an extremely bad excuse, Sirius had decided to tell the others what he knew. He had by then concluded that he didn't mind the fact that one of his friends turned into a bloodthirsty monster once a month (I never really understood this fact, but hey, I'm not complaining), but he felt a bit uneasy about telling the others, as he didn't know how they would react.
After I had left the dormitory he asked the others if they didn't find my excuses for leaving all the time quite unrealistic. They agreed with him, and admitted that both of them had noticed it too (Peter probably hadn't, but he didn't want to admit it). He then moved on to asking them if they had noticed that the times of my absence seemed to be frequently spaced out, about once a month. This comment was enough to make James realize what was up, but, naturally, Peter needed to have it spelled out.
Exactly how they reacted, they never told me – I think they might have been a bit ashamed about not accepting it right away. All I know is that they had all accepted it when they came to see me in the hospital wing the next morning. Madam Pomfrey hadn't let them in, of course, but James had his invisibility cloak, which enabled them to sneak in without her noticing anything. I suppose I should have memorized the conversation I had with them that morning, when I woke up, but all I remember is the feeling of complete relief that I still had my friends, even though they knew my biggest secret. That morning was the beginning of the rest of my life: My life with the Marauders.
