When I first found out that Harriet was a werewolf, I could hardly believe
it. Had I seriously shared a dorm with a werewolf for a whole year, without
knowing? She ihad/i disappeared a lot, and thinking about it, it was
about once a month. But she had all the answers whenever I asked. She had
gone to the hospital wing with a migraine, or she had to go home because
her mum was ill. I never even noticed that it was the full moon every time.
I didn't think about what I should do about it. I didn't know whether I should stay friends with her (or with 'it'? I was never sure which one was right). I didn't want her (it?) to be executed though. It just didn't seem right. I never really considered our friendship, because quite simply, she wasn't there for me to be friends, or not friends with. I told myself that it had nothing to do with me. But then the letter arrived.
I recognised her owl first of all, as it tapped on the dormitory window that evening. I had gone up to bed early, because I had nothing to do downstairs. My only real friend in the first year had been Harriet, and after the events of the summer, most of the other Ravenclaw girls tended to avoid me. It was as if they thought that something was wrong with me, just because I'd been friends with a werewolf - as if lycanthropy was contagious. Those who didn't seem to overly dislike me, just left me alone,
Anyway, I opened the window, letting in a strong smell of woodsmoke, along with the owl. I removed the parcel and letter that the owl was carrying, then closed the window. The handwriting on the envelope was definitely hers. I hesitated, but then decided to open the letter.
Tuesday 5th November 1995 Dear Danielle,
I felt that I should let you know that I'm OK, though I can't tell you where I am. I was wondering whether you are still my friend or not, after everything that has happened since I last saw you. Even if you are not, could you please read this book, and return it to me. Yours sincerely
Harriet Rivers
Her handwriting was sort of spikier and shakier than I remembered it, as if her hand had been shaking when she wrote it. Come to think of it, my hand was trembling just reading it. Stupid me, I mentally told myself off. Why was I scared of reading a letter, just because it was written by a werewolf?
Well, at least I knew now that the parcel was a book, and she wanted it back, so it couldn't be anything dangerous. Slowly I unwrapped it, peeling the spelloape off carefully, without tearing the paper at all. Inside the packageI found a very 'well-read' looking (read: scrappy) book. The faded print on the cover read 'Hairy Snout, Human Heart'. I glanced at the blurb, and then decided to give it a try. I loved reading, and even if the book wasn't that great, it would be something to pass the time.
Two hours later I was still reading it. Everyone else had come up to the girls dormitory, and I could hear giggling and whispers around the room. I drew the royal blue velvet hangings on my four-poster bed, and ignored them. The book was just brilliant. I had nearly finished, and now I understood why Harriet had chosen to send that particular book to me. If that was what life was really like for werewolves, then I felt really sorry for her, and not just because of the whole execution thing. I felt ashamed that witches and wizards like myself could treat werewolves like that. I was especially ashamed that I had been just as bad. I hadn't wanted anything to do with a werewolf.
I flipped over the last page - THE END.
It really was a wonderful book. Not just the way the story had made me think, but the writing itself. It was so detailed, descriptive, real. I wondered who had written it. Whoever it was deserved to be a famous author. I looked on the cover, but all it said was the title, there was no author's name. I looked on the back cover, and on the inside, but there was no name - the author was annonymous. I realised that it was a true story, that would explain why he wanted to keep his identity secret.
I wondered if this annonymous author had written anything else, but there was no way of telling. I wished I had read the book earlier, but realised that a book written by a werewolf wouldn't be well known or popular. I possibly wouldn't have read it if I'd known. I had only ever thought of werewolves as animals, not of the problems they faced in their everyday human lives. No wonder Harriet hadn't told anybody.
I decided to reply to Harriet's letter then. I climbed out of bed in the dark, and took a piece of parchment and a quill out of the chest of drawers, then hopped back in.
iDear Harriet,/i I wrote,
iThanks for the book, I enjoyed it a lot/i- No, that was no good. 'I enjoyed it a lot'. That sounded as if the book had meant nothing at all. I tore off the top of the parchment, and started again.
iDear Harriet,
I read the book you lent me, and I can see why you sent it to me. I'm really pleased you're safe, and I wanted to let you know that I definitely am still your friend. I can understand why you thought I might not be, but it doesn't matter.
Missing you loads,
Danielle. /i
I sent the letter, along with the book, and just hoped that the letter would be OK. The next day I received Harriet's reply.
iDanielle,
Thanks for getting my book back so quickly. I'd forgotten what a fast reader you are! It took me days to read the first time, though admittedly I was only seven at the time.
It's very lonelt here. There are a couple of people who visit me now and then, but hardly ever.
Harriet. /i
Only seven when she read it? Surely that meant she had been seven, or maybe even younger, when she was bitten! I had imagined how it must have been for her last year, at Hogwarts, but not as a young child. How on Earth did she cope? I don't think I could have done that - covering up the same horrible secret for nearly six years.
We kept writing to each other for months. Neither of us ever mentioned her being a werewolf, though I thought about it all the time, imagining myself in her place. I felt so sorry for her, which was partly why I didn't talk about what had happened. I knew that if I did, it would be obvious that I well, ipitied/i her, and she wouldn't want to know that. Afterall, she was exactly the same as she had always been. It was me that had changed, because I knew.
It didn't occur to me for some time to ask where she was, and I was really surprised at her answer. She was right there - at Hogwarts!
iYou're actually here? Whereabouts are you staying exactly? I mean, why haven't I seen you. I don't understand how you can stay hidden in a school with about a thousand students! /i I replied.
iDanielle,
I'm in the staff tower actually. They have an extra room spare, seeing as the Care of Magical Creatures teacher lives in the Gamekeeper's hut. So have that room, and a little cellar where I go at the full moon sometimes. That's all - can't go outside.
If you want, I'll ask if you can come and visit me here, but I don't know. I haven't told anyone that I've been writing to you, and I don't know if they'd approve.
I'll try to persuade them!
Harriet. /i
She had crossed out 'at the full moon', but I could still read it. That was the only letter where she had mentioned anything to do with being a werewolf, and she crossed it out. In a way, I was relieved. I didn't want to bring that subject up, but I did feel somewhat irritated that after writing to me for six months, she still didn't seem to trust me enough to even mention it in passing.
Anyway, I hoped she'd be able to arrange for me to go and visit her. Maybe it would be different talking to her face to face, something I hadn't done for ten months. So I waited in anticipation for Harriet's next letter.
In the meantime, something started to go badly wrong. I had been keeping Harriet's letters in the second drawer of my bedside table, with my books, and then one night, I was woken up to find Orla Quirke rummaging through the drawer.
"What're you doing?" I whispered sharply.
"Oh! Sorry," she muttered. "I wanted to borrow your copy of 'The Standard Book of Spells' I spilled ink all over the page we need for last week's Charms homework, and it's due in tomorrow morning. You don't mind me borrowing yours do you?"
"No, no. not at all." I replied tensely. Orla was not the kind of person that anyone argued with. I didn't like her particularly, even then, but I wasn't going to disagree, especially at that time of night.
Eventually I ignored the scratching sound of her quill on parchment, and managed to get to sleep. I thought that everything was OK afterall. But Orla was more cunning that I had imagined.
"Danielle?" She asked casually on the way down to breakfast. "Have you heard from iHarriet/i lately?"
"What?!" I exclaimed. She interrupted me-
"You know, it could be dangerous, keeping in contact with a werewolf. It's already killed one person - how do you know you won't be the next victim?"
I should have denied it completely; told her I hadn't heard from Harriet since July, but she had really wound me up. "Harriet is not an 'it'!" I snapped angrily. "You knew her last year! How can you talk about her like that?" Hypocritical of me, I know, when in the Autumn I had been unable to decide whether to call her she, or 'it'.
"The Daily Prophet didn't call it human." Orla smiled.
"The Daily Prophet, writes a lot of shit." I said.
"But they did say that the Werewolf Capture Unit are offering a 100 Galleon reward to anyone who can tell them where the werewolf is."
"You wouldn't tell them!" I gasped. "Do you even know what they'd do to her?" Harriet hadn't told me how they wanted to 'dispose' of this 'dangerous creature' of course, but I'd done a bit of extra-curricular research on werewolves, and found out. How disgusting. I couldn't believe it at first, and I didn't want to know that it had nearly happened to Harriet. Orla, on the other hand seemed very relaced about it.
"Oh, but does that really matter?" she laughed. "They do the same to hippogriffs and manticores, so what's the difference?"
"Harriet is a person!" I exploded. "If anyone tried to. to do that to you, someone would stop it! Just because she got bitten, it doesn't make her an animal. Only once a month. Don't you get it?"
Orla just stood their cooly, like an ice-cube in the middle of my explosion, except she wasn't melting.
"PLEASE don't tell them!" I was begging her now. "If you help them, that makes you a murderer."
And Orla just shrugged. "I'll think about it." and walked away. I waited until she had turned the corner before I completely broke down, and sank to the floor, sobbing. I knew Orla loved having this power.
I skipped my breakfast, and ran back up to the dorm, to write and tell Harriet what had happened.
iI'm so sorry. Orla saw your letters, and she's threatening to tell. Be really careful, and I'll try to persuade her not to. It was my fault, I should have destroyed all the letters. I'm really, really sorry, I just hope it will be OK.
Danielle/i
I didn't think about what I should do about it. I didn't know whether I should stay friends with her (or with 'it'? I was never sure which one was right). I didn't want her (it?) to be executed though. It just didn't seem right. I never really considered our friendship, because quite simply, she wasn't there for me to be friends, or not friends with. I told myself that it had nothing to do with me. But then the letter arrived.
I recognised her owl first of all, as it tapped on the dormitory window that evening. I had gone up to bed early, because I had nothing to do downstairs. My only real friend in the first year had been Harriet, and after the events of the summer, most of the other Ravenclaw girls tended to avoid me. It was as if they thought that something was wrong with me, just because I'd been friends with a werewolf - as if lycanthropy was contagious. Those who didn't seem to overly dislike me, just left me alone,
Anyway, I opened the window, letting in a strong smell of woodsmoke, along with the owl. I removed the parcel and letter that the owl was carrying, then closed the window. The handwriting on the envelope was definitely hers. I hesitated, but then decided to open the letter.
Tuesday 5th November 1995 Dear Danielle,
I felt that I should let you know that I'm OK, though I can't tell you where I am. I was wondering whether you are still my friend or not, after everything that has happened since I last saw you. Even if you are not, could you please read this book, and return it to me. Yours sincerely
Harriet Rivers
Her handwriting was sort of spikier and shakier than I remembered it, as if her hand had been shaking when she wrote it. Come to think of it, my hand was trembling just reading it. Stupid me, I mentally told myself off. Why was I scared of reading a letter, just because it was written by a werewolf?
Well, at least I knew now that the parcel was a book, and she wanted it back, so it couldn't be anything dangerous. Slowly I unwrapped it, peeling the spelloape off carefully, without tearing the paper at all. Inside the packageI found a very 'well-read' looking (read: scrappy) book. The faded print on the cover read 'Hairy Snout, Human Heart'. I glanced at the blurb, and then decided to give it a try. I loved reading, and even if the book wasn't that great, it would be something to pass the time.
Two hours later I was still reading it. Everyone else had come up to the girls dormitory, and I could hear giggling and whispers around the room. I drew the royal blue velvet hangings on my four-poster bed, and ignored them. The book was just brilliant. I had nearly finished, and now I understood why Harriet had chosen to send that particular book to me. If that was what life was really like for werewolves, then I felt really sorry for her, and not just because of the whole execution thing. I felt ashamed that witches and wizards like myself could treat werewolves like that. I was especially ashamed that I had been just as bad. I hadn't wanted anything to do with a werewolf.
I flipped over the last page - THE END.
It really was a wonderful book. Not just the way the story had made me think, but the writing itself. It was so detailed, descriptive, real. I wondered who had written it. Whoever it was deserved to be a famous author. I looked on the cover, but all it said was the title, there was no author's name. I looked on the back cover, and on the inside, but there was no name - the author was annonymous. I realised that it was a true story, that would explain why he wanted to keep his identity secret.
I wondered if this annonymous author had written anything else, but there was no way of telling. I wished I had read the book earlier, but realised that a book written by a werewolf wouldn't be well known or popular. I possibly wouldn't have read it if I'd known. I had only ever thought of werewolves as animals, not of the problems they faced in their everyday human lives. No wonder Harriet hadn't told anybody.
I decided to reply to Harriet's letter then. I climbed out of bed in the dark, and took a piece of parchment and a quill out of the chest of drawers, then hopped back in.
iDear Harriet,/i I wrote,
iThanks for the book, I enjoyed it a lot/i- No, that was no good. 'I enjoyed it a lot'. That sounded as if the book had meant nothing at all. I tore off the top of the parchment, and started again.
iDear Harriet,
I read the book you lent me, and I can see why you sent it to me. I'm really pleased you're safe, and I wanted to let you know that I definitely am still your friend. I can understand why you thought I might not be, but it doesn't matter.
Missing you loads,
Danielle. /i
I sent the letter, along with the book, and just hoped that the letter would be OK. The next day I received Harriet's reply.
iDanielle,
Thanks for getting my book back so quickly. I'd forgotten what a fast reader you are! It took me days to read the first time, though admittedly I was only seven at the time.
It's very lonelt here. There are a couple of people who visit me now and then, but hardly ever.
Harriet. /i
Only seven when she read it? Surely that meant she had been seven, or maybe even younger, when she was bitten! I had imagined how it must have been for her last year, at Hogwarts, but not as a young child. How on Earth did she cope? I don't think I could have done that - covering up the same horrible secret for nearly six years.
We kept writing to each other for months. Neither of us ever mentioned her being a werewolf, though I thought about it all the time, imagining myself in her place. I felt so sorry for her, which was partly why I didn't talk about what had happened. I knew that if I did, it would be obvious that I well, ipitied/i her, and she wouldn't want to know that. Afterall, she was exactly the same as she had always been. It was me that had changed, because I knew.
It didn't occur to me for some time to ask where she was, and I was really surprised at her answer. She was right there - at Hogwarts!
iYou're actually here? Whereabouts are you staying exactly? I mean, why haven't I seen you. I don't understand how you can stay hidden in a school with about a thousand students! /i I replied.
iDanielle,
I'm in the staff tower actually. They have an extra room spare, seeing as the Care of Magical Creatures teacher lives in the Gamekeeper's hut. So have that room, and a little cellar where I go at the full moon sometimes. That's all - can't go outside.
If you want, I'll ask if you can come and visit me here, but I don't know. I haven't told anyone that I've been writing to you, and I don't know if they'd approve.
I'll try to persuade them!
Harriet. /i
She had crossed out 'at the full moon', but I could still read it. That was the only letter where she had mentioned anything to do with being a werewolf, and she crossed it out. In a way, I was relieved. I didn't want to bring that subject up, but I did feel somewhat irritated that after writing to me for six months, she still didn't seem to trust me enough to even mention it in passing.
Anyway, I hoped she'd be able to arrange for me to go and visit her. Maybe it would be different talking to her face to face, something I hadn't done for ten months. So I waited in anticipation for Harriet's next letter.
In the meantime, something started to go badly wrong. I had been keeping Harriet's letters in the second drawer of my bedside table, with my books, and then one night, I was woken up to find Orla Quirke rummaging through the drawer.
"What're you doing?" I whispered sharply.
"Oh! Sorry," she muttered. "I wanted to borrow your copy of 'The Standard Book of Spells' I spilled ink all over the page we need for last week's Charms homework, and it's due in tomorrow morning. You don't mind me borrowing yours do you?"
"No, no. not at all." I replied tensely. Orla was not the kind of person that anyone argued with. I didn't like her particularly, even then, but I wasn't going to disagree, especially at that time of night.
Eventually I ignored the scratching sound of her quill on parchment, and managed to get to sleep. I thought that everything was OK afterall. But Orla was more cunning that I had imagined.
"Danielle?" She asked casually on the way down to breakfast. "Have you heard from iHarriet/i lately?"
"What?!" I exclaimed. She interrupted me-
"You know, it could be dangerous, keeping in contact with a werewolf. It's already killed one person - how do you know you won't be the next victim?"
I should have denied it completely; told her I hadn't heard from Harriet since July, but she had really wound me up. "Harriet is not an 'it'!" I snapped angrily. "You knew her last year! How can you talk about her like that?" Hypocritical of me, I know, when in the Autumn I had been unable to decide whether to call her she, or 'it'.
"The Daily Prophet didn't call it human." Orla smiled.
"The Daily Prophet, writes a lot of shit." I said.
"But they did say that the Werewolf Capture Unit are offering a 100 Galleon reward to anyone who can tell them where the werewolf is."
"You wouldn't tell them!" I gasped. "Do you even know what they'd do to her?" Harriet hadn't told me how they wanted to 'dispose' of this 'dangerous creature' of course, but I'd done a bit of extra-curricular research on werewolves, and found out. How disgusting. I couldn't believe it at first, and I didn't want to know that it had nearly happened to Harriet. Orla, on the other hand seemed very relaced about it.
"Oh, but does that really matter?" she laughed. "They do the same to hippogriffs and manticores, so what's the difference?"
"Harriet is a person!" I exploded. "If anyone tried to. to do that to you, someone would stop it! Just because she got bitten, it doesn't make her an animal. Only once a month. Don't you get it?"
Orla just stood their cooly, like an ice-cube in the middle of my explosion, except she wasn't melting.
"PLEASE don't tell them!" I was begging her now. "If you help them, that makes you a murderer."
And Orla just shrugged. "I'll think about it." and walked away. I waited until she had turned the corner before I completely broke down, and sank to the floor, sobbing. I knew Orla loved having this power.
I skipped my breakfast, and ran back up to the dorm, to write and tell Harriet what had happened.
iI'm so sorry. Orla saw your letters, and she's threatening to tell. Be really careful, and I'll try to persuade her not to. It was my fault, I should have destroyed all the letters. I'm really, really sorry, I just hope it will be OK.
Danielle/i