Lupin glanced at the polished plate next to the door to confirm that it was indeed his destination and raised a hand to knock smartly on the door three times, just as his instructions had always been. Something made him pause and he turned to Wolf and explained, "Larry's the leader of our little organization. I'm second chair, as they like to call it."

"They have an organization for werewolves?" came the awed answer.

"Yes, and you are now an esteemed part of it!" Lupin jumped slightly as he heard the rough, deep voice of Larry on the other side of the door. "For goodness sakes, Remus, let the kid in!"

Wolf and Remus entered the room, Wolf looking around curiously. Larry, sitting in his office and frowning down at paperwork, looked up and beamed at the two of them. "Are you Scott?" he asked.

Wolf, aka Scott, nodded nervously.

"Good! Good!" Larry set his ballpoint pen down and gave Wolf a scrutinizing look. "Awfully thin, but most of us are anyway. We'll feed you up good, if Hogwarts can't! I can't believe we managed to get a hold of you! Welcome to the organization, kid!"

"Th-thanks," Wolf managed to stutter. He gave Lupin a nervous glance, but pressed his lips together, clasped his hands, and said in a somewhat calmer voice, "I'm pleased to meet you. If you could, call me Wolf. It's a nickname that's more like my name than anything I'll ever remember."

Larry, with his thick shroud of black hair and beady black eyes, nodded and scratched something down on his pad of paper. "Mr. Potter sent Lupin a letter about you a month ago and Lupin contacted me. We agree that you would be perfect for our future plans. Your family left for Russia a week ago, correct?" He nodded slightly as Wolf affirmed that. "We took the liberty of gaining a warrant and searching your house. It was just as we feared."

"What?" Wolf asked, nervousness shooting his belly.

Larry set a book in front of the boy, recoiling from it instantly. "In his day, the Minister of Magic wrote one book."

"Monster Troubles?" Wolf asked dubiously, picking up the book. He didn't believe he'd ever seen Addy or his father reading this book before. Then it hit him. "My father brought this? I suppose it was to deal with me?"

"Yes. That's always what this book is for. If you'll turn to page 134, you'll see what I'm talking about." Larry glared at the book.

Wolf skimmed across the page, his green eyes growing harder and harder with every word. "My father actually believed this...this junk...about me?" Wolf asked, his voice no more than a whisper. He felt betrayed. "He always used to make me wear a metal collar when I...when I transformed and I thought the meat was just for show, because it was dead, but I can't believe he would believe this...I hated that collar...Why would he believe some junk like this?"

"Most people do, Wolf. Which is why we formed this organization. We've managed to get several books published about how werewolves aren't the stereotype everybody sees them as, but so far our struggles have been...fruitless." Lupin laid a reassuring hand on the boy's shoulder, glancing at Larry almost admonishingly. This wasn't news to give to any child at all. The news that Wolf's father had thought he was a monster, that he was the lowest creature on the planet, had landed a heavy blow to Wolf's self-confidence, which was pretty much shattered to begin with.

"First Addy and Joey, then all my friends, then my father?" Wolf's voice held hurt and betrayal. Suddenly, he straightened and the betrayal was lost in a swirl of the hard mask that covered Wolf's pointed, thin face. "What is it you want me to do?"

"We, the council, meet every morning after we become human again. You will be supplied with a Wolfsbane potion. What I want to do, Wolf, is give Minister Fudge a political blow that not even Lucius Malfoy will be able to counter. And I plan to have your help. Can I plan that?"

Wolf stared at the painful book in his hands, shook his head to clear it, looked Larry in the eye and said, "I'll do whatever I can to find a cure to this curse - ignorance." He shut the book and set it on the desk in front of Larry so the man could see that his nails had dug trenches in the cover from his attempts of hiding his anger, hurt, and betrayed feelings.

***************
Lupin returned with Wolf to the Shrieking Shack and the two of them walked to the castle in silence until Wolf asked, "Why do people actually believe things like that about us? That we'll never be completely human at all?"

"Scott, you've got to understand that a lot of people live with ignorance because they don't know any better. I can think of a perfect example - Professor Lockhart. According to some of my former students, the professor was full of himself and incompetent at his teaching job. Some people grow up with people like that and...well, it rubs off onto them and that spreads around like a wildfire. Plus a lot of people are in for adventure. It's not adventurous to believe that werewolves are human, too."

While the man spoke, Wolf could see some of the polish that he was working to keep on his features give way to a tired, haggard appearance, especially when the former professor mentioned how people could become ignoring of matters around them on purpose. He, like Wolf, looked underfed and frail, his tattered robes a bit too big for him.

"My best friend abandoned me when he found out about my secret. He found out and suddenly started calling me all these names at school, setting me up a very bad reputation, getting all the other boys to help me, too. I don't think that's ignorance. I think that's..."

"It's a different form of ignorance, that's what it is," Lupin said just as they reached the Entrance Hall doors. Wolf held them open while both of them shook off snow. "It's called prejudiced. Your friend may not have dealt with werewolves before and didn't know what to think. His parents might have set it that he wasn't to like to go near werewolves, so he started being mean to you as a reflex of obeying his parents."

"It's still stupid," Wolf muttered under his breath.

Lupin heard him. "Yes, I agree. It's very stupid. But that's life. Come on. If I'm not mistaken, Hogwarts has the best French Toast they have to offer! Let's hurry before it's all gone!"

******************
Harry, Ron, and Hermione were all sitting on the end of the table the teachers normally sat at. Since there were no other students there except for a Ravenclaw sixth-year and a Hufflepuff fourth-year, and only a few teachers, all of the students were allowed to sit at the teachers' table. Wolf slid into the spot next to Harry, who was eating and thinking to himself. Ron and Hermione were discussing something in transfiguration, but they stopped immediately when Wolf sat down. Lupin went over to talk to Dumbledore.

Somehow Lupin had been right. French Toast was piled high on every platter. Wolf helped himself to four slices, feeling ravenous after discussing some of his past experiences with being a werewolf with Larry.

"Hermione, it took Moony, Padfoot, Prongs, and Wormtail," Ron sneered the last name, "three years to get it right! It shouldn't take us only two months!"

"I've discovered their notes, see!" Hermione thrust a yellowed sheet of parchment under Ron's nose. "These directions should help us do it a lot more quickly. They spent most of those three years piecing together information from different books about being," and she dropped her voice, "Animagi." Raising her voice to a normal level, she turned to Wolf. "Good morning! You missed the traditional snowball fight!"

"He was with me," Lupin said, sitting down next to Wolf, a full platter of French toast in his hand.

"Lupin!" Harry said, drawing himself from the enveloping cloud of his thoughts. "When did you get here?"

"I was traveling in my wolf form, so about six this morning," Lupin said, managing a tired grin. "I wanted to talk to Scott here."

"Oh, okay," Ron said. He took a bite and chewed on that before saying, "So, Professor, what have you been up to this past year and a half?"

"Odds and ends, here and there," Lupin said, dodging around the question. "I've been employed, but the work is very hush-hush, so I can't tell you." When Ron's face fell, he added, "But you'll be the first to know when I can tell you!"

"I take it Ginger didn't stay for Christmas break?" Hermione asked Wolf between bites of French toast. Wolf shook his head tightly. She stopped eating and rolled up the parchment she and Ron had been hunched over. When Wolf sent her a questioning look, she said, "It's kinda secret. I can't tell you...yet."

Lupin saw the parchment and nearly went white. "How did you get that?" he asked, his voice hollow. "How?"

"I found it stuffed in a transfiguration book. I think it's James's handwriting, because it's so much like Harry's," Hermione said, shoving the parchment at Lupin who unrolled it with shaking hands. Wolf read over his shoulder, but all he caught was the word "Animagi".

"Why are you doing a report on Animagi?" Wolf asked curiously. Professor McGonagall, he knew, had the ability to transform into a cat. The spell, she had said, took years to research and was pretty complicated. Why Hermione would want to do a report on them was a mystery to him.

Hermione shrugged. "We'll tell you later over a game of chess. Syrup?"

******************
"Check," Ron was saying to Harry as Wolf entered the Gryffindor Common Room. Harry frowned down at the chess pieces, who were shouting different pieces of advice at him and moved his king one square over. "Stupid move, there, buddy. Check again."

"I think you won," Harry groaned, leaning back and running his hands through his hair in defeat. "But what else? You always win."

"Hey, it takes quite an extraordinary chess player to beat McGonagall's set," Ron said, grinning smugly at Harry. When Harry punched him in the shoulder, he said, "Naw, man, I'm just kidding!"

"You'd better be," Harry joked. He glanced up and saw Wolf, who was standing calmly in the background. "Hey! Is Lupin gone?"

"Yeah, he left by way of the Library's fireplace. He's got some business to do up at the headquarters. Says he needs to set up an office for me or something like that."

"You're thirteen and you already have an office?" Harry asked as he dealt out cards that he'd bought at Hogsmeade. "You know, if I didn't know it was you personally, I'd find that pretty scary."

"What's wrong with Wolf?" Ron asked, giving Harry a lift of his left eyebrow.

"No, there's not a thing wrong with him at all! He's so mature, you know, that it's almost astounding," Harry said, finishing up the dealing and picking up his stack of cards. He grinned maliciously at Ron, who pretended to cower.

"Yeah, that's an affect of not having any friends," Wolf said. "You guys are the first friends I've had since I was seven!"

"So, did Hermione tell you about our goal of becoming Animagi?" Harry asked blithely, setting two cards down and replacing them from the deck. He grimaced slightly for show, but sent Ron another look. Ron returned it quickly.

"Yeah, she mentioned it, I think. I just have one question. Who are Moony, Padfoot, Prongs, and Wormtail?"

Ron and Harry exchanged glances. "I think we have something to show you," Harry finally said.

******************
Deep down in his lair, oh so many levels below Hogwarts, the dark figure toiled. He had his spies in place and this new spy showed a lot of promise. Spies followed him blindly, doing as he wished and such. He had the whole network in the palm of his hand to build or destroy.

And he liked it.