Beth awoke with a start. It was seven in the morning; she still sat in front of the fireplace in the common room, which had died down to a pile of ashes. At first she wasn't entirely sure what she was doing there; but as she struggled to sit up she remembered the shrieking woman, and the long night that had followed. Her heart sank. She forced herself to go up to the dorms and take a shower before class, all the while brooding about the unexplained haunting.
Unfortunately, the shower did nothing to wake her up, and it was a tired, disturbed girl who stumbled into breakfast an hour later. She tripped on some first-years, considered apologizing but decided not to, endured a little abuse from their upperclass housemates, and sank into the seat beside Melissa without saying a word. The rain had worsened overnight into a howling gale; the weather was always something of a surprise for the Slytherins, whose underground common room had no windows or connection to the outside. The overcast sky did nothing to improve Beth's mood.
"How was Alchemy?" asked Melissa, who had gotten eight hours of rest undisturbed by a wailing ghost, for which Beth hated her.
Beth grunted.
"Get any sleep?"
"Little." Beth gulped an entire cup of coffee before she felt like she could speak coherently. "She showed up again."
Melissa looked at her quizzically. "Who?"
"The woman, the screaming --"
Before Beth even finished what she was saying, Bruce burst into the Great Hall and practically vaulted into a chair across from Melissa. "I was right," he said triumphantly. He banged a large book down onto the table and several unwary breakfasters jumped. "I just had to check and be sure, but I was so right."
"Unh?" said Beth, who was still bleary. Melissa, involved with her cinnamon roll, made no reply.
Bruce leaned in towards them. "Don't tell anyone," he said, in almost inaudible tone, "but Professor Lupin is a werewolf."
All the sleepiness fled from Beth's brain in one cold jolt of horror. Melissa dropped her fork and stared up at him, eyes white with terror. "A -- you mean, a --" she stammered.
Bruce held out the book, The Way of the Werewolf by Fenris Garnier, and nodded silently. "I followed him all yesterday, just to be sure. He's got almost all of the symptoms."
Beth sat back in her chair, breakfast and the wailing woman completely forgotten. "What do we do?" she whispered.
Bruce wore a look of grim resolve. "Dumbledore told us to report any danger we found," he murmured back. "I'm going to clear it with Richard, and then we're going to tell Dumbledore."
Richard was dumbfounded by the news. Once they had picked him back up off the floor, he agreed wholeheartedly that Dumbledore had to be told -- and immediately.
"We never tell anyone until it's too late," he said fervently. "Like about the basilisk -- or Kettleburn -- or when we heard Quirrell in the Shrieking Shack -- we're not going to make that mistake again. We are telling him today. Three in the afternoon, after the Quidditch game."
Between the screaming woman and Bruce's revelation, Beth had completely forgotten about the game -- Gryffindor versus Hufflepuff, that very morning. "Can we wait that long?" she demanded impatiently.
"He only transforms when the moon's out," Richard reasoned. "He'll be human all day. Besides, Dumbledore will probably show up at the match, to cheer on the Gryffindors."
So, reluctantly, Beth trudged down to the Quidditch pitch with the other S.S.A members. The wind was vicious and November-cold rain slushed sideways, evading their umbrellas and soaking pretty much everybody.
"Glad this isn't us, eh?" Uther called gaily over the raging storm, slapping Bruce heartily on the back. "We can thank Marcus for that!"
Bruce acknowledged him with a brusque nod.
The wind howled so fiercely that they had to shout to make themselves heard. "What's Dumbledore going to do to Lupin?" Beth nearly bellowed at Melissa, certain that no one else would be able to hear her words over the gale.
"Chuck him out, probably!" Melissa shouted back cheerfully. "Turn him in to the Ministry! There might even be some reward money for bringing in a werewolf!"
Beth knew perfectly well that Melissa came from one of the richest wizarding families in England and had no need for a few Galleons of reward money; still, the accompanying glory would be well worthwhile.
Lee Jordan's voice, usually enthusiastic and booming, was barely audible over the screeching storm. If it hadn't been for the cheering of the crowd, the Slytherins would have never known when to boo the Gryffindors. Then the Hufflepuffs came out, and Bruce leaned over, yelling, "Listen close, we don't know who's their new captain yet!"
Above the rain, Beth could almost make out Lee Jordan. "... Chaser Summers ... Stebbins ... new Seeker and Captain, Cedric Diggory!" The cheering of the Hufflepuffs was washed away in the wind.
Huddled together under a mostly ineffective umbrella, the S.S.A. members exchanged disturbed looks. Only they knew that the year before, Diggory had invoked a potion that promised recognition, power, ability -- in exchange for a preternaturally short life. "A few years of glory over a lifetime of mediocrity," Evan Wilkes had said then, and it seemed to be coming true.
Aaron Pucey, who wasn't in on the secret, leaned over to them. "How'd he get to be captain?" he roared. "He's only played one game with them! And he's not built like a Seeker at all!" He grinned even as rain streaked down his face. "Hufflepuff's really lost it this time."
"Or they've been manipulated," Melissa said to herself, so quietly that Beth could only read her lips.
The game had started while they spoke; once they did notice, it was hard to tell what was going on in the rain. "Glad it's not us!" Uther boomed again, as a Gryffindor Chaser zoomed wearily past the stands, soaked from head to toe.
Gryffindor pulled ahead despite the conditions, and by the first time-out they were ahead by fifty points. "Marcus's strategy didn't work," Bruce called, looking somewhat smug.
There was a clap of thunder and lightning streaked the sky. Melissa looked up worriedly at the steel tip of her bumbershoot, a word that in this case means "mostly ineffective umbrella". She must have decided that the towers and top of the stands -- and players -- were more likely to get hit, because she left it up.
The game resumed, and the lightning got worse. Neither Potter or Diggory looked like they had any idea where the Snitch was, although for some reason Potter was flying more deliberately. Without warning, Potter turned on a dime and hurtled toward Diggory, far across the field. The crowd cheered ... and then grew silent.
Beth suddenly felt very cold. Around her, she saw her friends tense up and look around, frightened expressions on their faces. Blank despair settled on her heart. She recognized the feeling, even though she had only experienced it once, and had enough time to look down to where faces turned and trembling fingers pointed ...
Scores of dementors lined the edges of the pitch, faces raised at the crowd and the players, and Beth could almost hear the chilling noise of air being sucked into their hidden mouths. Then her sight seemed to cloud over, she couldn't make sense of what she heard any more, and once more the visions came ...
Green flame, people in hoods, some kind of pain -- and a voice that was oddly familiar --
The woman screams and her mouth is an icy cave. There is no green flame now, only white tattered cloth and white twisted hair, and the wide screaming mouth --
Beth sank onto the bench, senseless to the world around her. All was the woman and the green fire, flickering flames and whirling white hair, and she had no friends, no hope and no future --
Abruptly the visions fled. Beth woke with a jolt and found herself staring into the rain, water running down her face, gasping for breath. All around her, her classmates were gaping in various degrees of relief and panic. In the interest of saving face, they recovered themselves quickly -- but Beth still felt weak and frightened.
She looked around. The players had all landed and were gathered around one spot in the field. A tall figure -- with his flowing hair, unmistakably Dumbledore, was with them. The dementors were nowhere in sight.
"What happened?" she asked breathlessly.
"Let's get inside," said Melissa.
It wasn't long before the common room was tracked through with mud and rainwater. Everyone made a beeline for their dorms to get dried off. While they were changing into dry clothes and brushing out soaked (and in Beth's case, tangled) hair, Melissa described what she had seen of the end of the match.
"Potter and Diggory were both flying towards each other -- the Snitch must've been in the middle -- when Potter looks around, stops short and falls off his broom. Fifty feet. I thought he was a goner. Dumbledore ran onto the field -- Potter hit kind of slow, it must've been a spell -- and then he shot this silver light at the dementors."
Beth shuddered.
"They all ran away and everybody went to see if Potter was dead. He must not've been, Dumbledore looked calm."
"Pity," said Antigone from the other side of the room. She was doing her hair but hadn't changed yet; probably she enjoyed the attention that her wet robes earned her.
"I saw that green flame again," Beth said absently, sitting on the edge of her bed. "The screaming woman too."
Melissa made a noise of impatience. "Really, Beth, you must get over that. I've never seen her ..."
"And that makes her imaginary," Beth finished, suddenly angry. "I've been dreaming her this whole time. Just do me a favor and let me know when I wake up, will you?" She gave her hair one more furious brush and stalked down to the common room to wait for Bruce and Richard. After all, they still had to see Dumbledore about Professor Lupin's "illness".
When three o'clock came around, however, Richard found himself called away for a meeting with Professor Snape.
"Just go," he told them, looking harried. "We've missed this full moon, but we can't afford to miss another!"
So Beth, Melissa, and Bruce, trouped up the stairs to Dumbledore's office and stood before him. Since Bruce had made the discovery, and knew the most about it, he was the one to speak.
"Professor Lupin is a werewolf."
Dumbledore peered at Bruce over the rim of his half-moon glasses. "Thank you, Mr. Bletchey, I was already aware of that."
Bruce looked like he'd been slapped in the face. "You ... knew?"
Dumbledore nodded briskly. "Certainly. I have, in fact, been aware of Professor Lupin's condition for at least twenty years." He chuckled. "It is a bit more obvious than he believes it to be."
Bruce was still standing there as if stunned. "So you're -- letting him stay?"
"Of course. I invited him to come." Dumbledore smiled as Bruce's jaw dropped further. Then he grew serious. "I can assure you, Mr. Bletchley, his lycanthropy is well in hand. Professor Snape has been concocting him a potion to help relieve the more dangerous aspects of his disease -- a recent medical development, remarkable really. He is completely harmless as long as he continues to take this potion." He settled back in his chair, looking thoughtful. "From what the students have told me, he is one of the best, certainly the most popular, Defense Against the Dark Arts teacher we have had here at Hogwarts for quite some time. It would be a shame if he were forced into early retirement." His bright eyes met Bruce's gaze calmly.
Slowly, Bruce nodded. "We -- we won't tell." He glanced back at the others for confirmation. They stared back at him dumbly.
They left the office in silence.
Suddenly Bruce burst out. "He already knew!"
Beth started to laugh. "The one time we come up with useful information and actually tell someone -- it's old news!"
"Of course," Melissa snorted, as they came up to the common room. "The omniscience of Dumbledore. You know, I don't think he's as smart as they say he is. So far he's hired a Death Eater, a complete idiot and a smuggler, not to mention this so-called harmless werewolf. What next -- an escaped prisoner?"
"Dumbledore trusts him," Beth pointed out, lamely.
Melissa tossed her head. "I don't care. Lupin brought in that awful boggart, he can't be all good. I don't know about you, but I'm keeping very close track of the lunar cycle from now on."
They went into the common room. Richard was sitting by the fire, great anticipation on his face. As soon as he saw them come in, he bounded up. "How did it go?"
"He already knew," said Bruce dully, and the expression on Richard's face made Beth want to both laugh her head off and give him a comforting hug.
Aside from the appearance of the dementors, the Gryffindor/Hufflepuff game had excellent implications. The defeat of the Gryffindors was more than Marcus Flint could have hoped for; he and the rest of the team were ecstatic. Draco finally took the bandages off of his arm and perfected an impersonation of Potter falling off of his broom. Even better, it turned out that Potter's Nimbus Two Thousand had been destroyed in the storm. Although the Slytherins' 2001 models were better anyway, it was still good to know that Potter had been reduced to using the second-rate school brooms.
Professor Lupin made no mention of his illness after he returned. It was eerie to sit in class and realize that their mild-mannered teacher became a ravening beast once a month; eerier still was the thought that so few people knew about it. True to their promise, the third-years kept their mouths shut on the subject, although the entire S.S.A. was informed along with strict instructions not to go wandering around at night on the full moon, just in case.
Thankfully, the screaming woman only reappeared in Beth's dreams.
The winter progressed and the weather got worse until Christmas was almost upon them. Beth's father sent her a letter several times a month, always "just to check up". He had never done so that often; she assumed that he was just getting older, and forgetting all about the letters once he sent them. Hufflepuff was mauled by Ravenclaw in the last Quidditch match of the term, putting Ravenclaw very temporarily in first place. Beth was pleased. It proved that even if Cedric Diggory had magically enhanced his own abilities, he could still be defeated.
On the very last Wednesday before Christmas break, word went out that there was another Hogsmeade trip on the way.
Melissa was going with Galen.
Bruce had been asked to go by Blaise again, and apparently didn't have enough guts to turn her down.
Pansy and Draco were attached at the hip and making plans to hold court in the Three Broomsticks.
Even Morag had been waylaid by his fellow third-year Millicent Bulstrode, who it turned out enjoyed a good game of Creaothceann almost as much as he did.
Which left Beth once again alone.
As a last resort, she turned to Mervin. He had made plans with Aaron and Warrington to hunt down and hog-tie the Weasley twins, which would be an all-day venture. By this time, Gina had sprouted to a respectable four feet long and was likely to be useful in their plot. And no, Beth couldn't come along.
"Fine!" she roared, chucking her Transfiguration book across the room. It bounced off of Vincent Crabbe, who looked down at it dully and then went back to pulling the legs off of a dragonfly. "Fine, I'll just stay here! I've been there a hundred times anyway!"
So the next morning, while the rest of her class bustled out of the common room excitedly clutching scarves around their necks and babbling about anticipated good times, Beth sat in front of the fireplace and tried very hard to look interested in her paperback.
"Sure you don't want me to drop Galen?" Melissa said on her way out.
"Go away," Beth growled. Right then, she didn't want Galen to be dropped, she wanted him dead.
Antigone stopped by just long enough to whisper, "Have a good time," and then she was off, silky hair streaming out behind her, on the arm of some handsome upperclassman.
Soon they were all gone and Beth was left behind in the silence.
She read in relative peace for about fifteen minutes before she was distracted by youthful chatter, and then she remembered:
To be left alone was one thing. She was left alone with the first and second years.
It was going to be such a long day.
Beth was almost ready to pack it up and go back to bed when someone wandered up behind her chair. She looked up, eyes shooting daggers.
It was Richard. He had obviously just woken up: his hair was disheveled, and his eyes were still rather droopy. "Hi," said Beth, more out of surprise than anything.
"Oh, hallo," he said mildly, plunking down into the chair beside her. "Staying behind, are you?"
"How clever of you to notice," she snapped, and immediately regretted her harsh tone. She tried to make it up by saying quickly, "What about you, why're you here?"
"Have to be," he reminded her, and let out a huge yawn. "In the job description -- the prefect has to stay home and make sure all the littl'uns don't go and overthrow Dumbledore or something. I don't blame you for sitting it out though. Hogsmeade does get a bit old after awhile, doesn't it?"
"Er ... right," said Beth.
She read her book absently while Richard conjured himself some very strong coffee. When he had finished it off and regained his usual chipper demeanor, he turned back to her.
"I've got the use of the school brooms today -- going to set up the kids with a game to keep them occupied. If you're not busy, would you like to come?"
Beth looked down at her book and then back up at Richard's still-messy hair and overconfident grin.
"All right then."
Outside it was bitter cold, and the snow piled high on the grounds. Aside from the space around Hagrid's paddock, which housed the single remaining Hippogriff, the snow was mostly unbroken -- glistening and white, it was a wide and inviting expanse, begging to be torn into and made into snowballs.
Which is exactly what they did.
The "game" Richard came up with was like Quidditch with nothing but Bludgers. Bobbing around on the shoddy and unpredictable school broomsticks, they broke into two teams and pelted each other with snowballs. Anyone who fell off their broomstick was out and started providing ammunition for everyone else. Beth went out fairly quickly, being a much larger target than just about anybody, but she ran around providing snowballs for the rest of her team and even managed to take out Richard from the ground.
The game was interrupted when they saw a bunch of underclass Hufflepuffs walking around, and the two sides were immediately united in an air attack against them. The Hufflepuffs were driven back into the castle and didn't come back out all day. The Slytherins put their brooms back in the shed, happy, tired, and triumphant.
After everyone had tramped back into the common room (trailing snow, which drove Mr. Filch to a satisfying tantrum) and changed out of their soaking clothes, the underclassmen dispersed to play games or just sit around sleepily and reminisce about how terrified the Hufflepuffs had been.
Beth challenged Richard to wizards' chess. She lost both games to him, but that was mostly because she kept taking the advice of her right-hand bishop. (He was slightly cracked from being dropped and sometimes forgot that he was only allowed to move diagonally.)
At the end of the day the two of them sat around the fire and made tea, then facetiously tried to read their fortunes in the very un-magical tea leaves. According to their readings, Beth was in danger of being murdered by mice and Richard was going to inherit a fortune from a very large elf.
"I knew saving him from a rampaging dragon would come in handy," said Richard grandly.
"Maybe he can protect me from the mice," said Beth.
The door to the common room swung open and the room was suddenly filled with older students, eagerly chatting about the Hogsmeade trip. Beth had almost forgotten about it, between the snowball fight and the afternoon with Richard. She looked around at her friends. All of them were finely coated in snow -- apparently it had picked back up during the afternoon. Bruce was alone but looking furtive -- he had probably just escaped from Blaise. Aaron, Mervin and Warrington were triumphant. Beth wondered if the Weasleys were still tied up. Melissa was Galen-free and came bustling over.
"Merry Christmas," said Melissa, stuffing a bag into Beth's hand. It was full of sugar quills, her favorite treat from Honeydukes. "How was your day?" Melissa asked warily.
Beth looked up at her, considering. Then she smiled. "It was good. Yeah. It was good."