Disclaimed
Author's note: Thank you for reviewing.
The Basement
By Marz
Chapter 22: A Most Unpleasant Weekend
It wasn't the thirteenth, but it turned out to be a very awful Friday.
"Stop making idiotic faces and drink, Potter. You don't have all day,"
I couldn't stop from making one final sour face before gulping down the last of the Wolfsbane Potion. I handed the goblet back to Snape. He took it carefully, as if it were going to explode, then gave me a look that clearly asked "what the hell are you still doing in my office?" I left.
You'd think saving someone's life would incline them to be a little more polite, if not out right grateful. But, if anything, Snape's intolerance of me only increased. In the past few weeks, he taken a total of fifty points from Gryffindor for my "insolent behavior", "slovenly work habits", "excessive stirring", "poor penmanship", and "horrendous redolence", (which Hermione later explained to me meant terrible smell.) Snape couldn't stand being in the same room as me. I noticed he left the Great Hall, almost immediately after I came in. He kicked me out of potions tutoring early, or he left the room and came back at the end of the scheduled session to fail my assignment. The only good thing about it was he no longer gave me detentions. I suppose he didn't want to have to oversee them. I've got to learn to repress my hero reflex. The next werewolf can have him.
I was short of breath by the time I got to Professor Lupin's office. I should've felt exhausted, but I didn't. Despite feeling deprived of air, I don't think I'd ever felt more awake. I'd tried to get extra sleep on Thursday night. I only spent an hour playing fetch with the dog out by Hagrid's hut, after classes got out. I'd skipped dinner and gone to bed at eight o'clock, but I couldn't keep my eyes closed. I got up and paced for a half hour. My stomach was tying itself in acid soaked knots. I'd gone back to the common room and Ron stayed up with me until three in the morning, playing chess.
I knocked on the door and it opened. Professor Lupin ushered me inside. He closed the door and began muttering spells. He was locking it, so no one would stumble in on two werewolves. He was also putting up magical sound proofing, so no one would hear us screaming. I tried to chew my nails and found they'd gotten too short to participate.
"Nervous?"
I answered Sirius' question by shouting incoherently and tripping backwards over the hem of my robe. I hadn't seen him standing in the shadows next to the bookshelf. He pulled me to my feet. Lupin was still working on the door.
The office had been cleaned up quite a bit since my last visit. The papers were gone from the floor and desk, and I saw a file cabinet in the corner that had been buried under a pile of cloaks before. The desk and chairs had been pushed against the wall, so there was a lot of open floor space. The smell of brandy hadn't entirely faded away.
"How long?" I asked Sirius.
He pointed to a clock on the wall; nineteen minutes until moon rise.
I spent most of that time pacing. My stomach rolled, twisted, and kicked. Sirius told me I should sit down several times, and I tried to, but I knew something terrible was coming, and couldn't get rid of the urge to run from it. I looked at the clock every few seconds. The hands sped up as moonrise approached.
"Harry, take off your shoes," Lupin said, with five minutes to go.
"Why?"
"Your clothes don't transform with you. You should take off anything you'll need later."
I nodded and untied my shoes, and pulled off my socks. Sirius put them up on top of the bookshelf. I loosened the collar of my robes. I figured I could kick them off without too much trouble after…after it happened.
"Give me your glasses, Harry," Sirius said.
"But I won't be able to see," I said. I don't know how I expected to keep them on my face. I've never seen a dog wearing glasses, but I was still reluctant to take them off.
"You'll get by without them," he said.
I handed them over. The far edges of the room were blurry and indistinct, but I could still see the clock. One minute left.
Professor Lupin's office didn't have any windows, but I was sure the east wall was glowing a little bit with diffuse moonlight. There was a disturbing burning sensation growing in my bones and skin, and my arms were starting to twitch. I needed to get out. If I was somewhere else, it wouldn't happen.
"I've changed my mind. I don't want to do this anymore," I said.
I backed into the corner. The burning feeling was growing, and the walls seemed to be stretching upwards around me.
"Harry. Calm down. It will pass in a few minutes," Lupin said.
"No. No. No. I don't want to do this. I want to go outside."
I edged toward the door but Sirius stepped in the way. My legs started twitching and I fell to the floor. Sirius reached towards me.
"NO!" Lupin shouted. His voice was so horse it was barely recognizable. "Sirius, change! If you get scratched by accident…"
Lupin trailed off. I turned towards him. My vision was turning red at the edges, but in the center I could see him clearly. Grayish brown hair sprouted around his eyes and spread over the rest of his skin. His face stretched out like clay pulled by some invisible hand. He clenched his jaw and as huge canine teeth pushed though his gums they cut his lips. He fell over and his loose robes hid the rest of his transformation from view. He screamed, but by then I'd lost interest in him anyway.
I was too busy staring at my hands. What started out as a pinching feeling at the tips of my fingers rapidly escalated to a tearing sensation. Pointed claws pushed up from under my nails. My hands felt as if they'd been smashed with a sledgehammer. As I watched my fingers jammed themselves back into my hands, which were stretching and sprouting short black hair. I looked for Sirius, and saw the dog watching me intently.
I managed to keep from screaming, until the transformation started working on my head. My skull was in a vice. I could feel my jaw growing and it made nauseating clicking noises that reverberated around in my ears. It felt as if someone was pulling out my teeth with pliers. The walls bulged and twisted until my brain was scrambled. Everything went dark.
When I opened my eyes again all the color had faded from the room. The torches on the wall burned with wobbly white light, and the furniture seemed taller. The world had grown a little wider, and a lot flatter. The whole place stank. It felt like my nose was full of worms. All the different scents were making me dizzy. Well dizzier.
I got to my feet and immediately fell over again. Part of my brain told me to stand up on my hind legs, and another part said "lay back down, you don't feel well." Yet another part was telling me I had to go sniff at the strangers in the room, and figure out whose territory was where. I tried to groan but the sound that came out of my mouth was high and whiney.
I was going to close my eyes and try to sleep a bit more, but something cold and wet pressed against my side. I jumped to my feet, all four of which tried to move in the wrong directions. I did manage to turn around and face the source of my discomfort. The black dog was sniffing at me. He whined and his tail wagged. His blue eyes had become an indistinct gray. The different parts of my brain were arguing again. "Tell him you're alright," "Fight until you know who's in charge," and "Sniff him!" were all vying for expression. I whined again.
The dog walked up to me, and bumped me with his shoulder. Then he trotted past me to a pile of cloth on the floor by the desk. He started sniffing and nudging the pile with his nose. I stumbled over to join him. Parts of me were still arguing over the proper order and placement of feet for walking. The pile of clothes shuddered and shook. The dog kept nosing at it.
A gray blur burst out of the cloth and skidded to a stop on the other side of the room. The wolf was larger then me, but not quite as massive as the dog. Its fur stood on end and it growled. I sniffed the air. The arguments in brain rose to an unbearable volume. I couldn't tell what was coming from where.
"The one who bit you! Kill him. Pack. Professor Lupin. His fault. Who's the leader? Fight. He'll get you first. Fight. Blood. Someone is afraid. Fight. That's Professor Lupin! He bit you. Fight. Where am I? You can smell his fear. Sirius Help! Fight!"
Low growling rumbled from my between my clenched teeth. The gray wolf charged me. My feet suddenly knew what they were doing. I darted left and as he turned, I lunged for his throat. There was fir up my nose and blood in my mouth. The black dog circled us barking. I knew I should let go, but I didn't.
"Harry, eat your soup."
"I'm not hungry." The healing potions I drank earlier were still causing turmoil in my stomach.
"Eat it anyway."
When I didn't reach for the spoon, Sirius snatched it up off the tray.
"Am I going to have to make whooshing noises and stuff this in your mouth for you? I was good at that when you were an infant you know."
"You're not funny," I said, crossing my arms. I looked out the window of my room in the hospital wing. Sirius had brought Lupin and me to see Madam Pomfrey the second the moon set. Luckily we weren't spotted on the way. Well I was assuming we weren't spotted. I wasn't entirely conscious for the trip. The last thing I remember before waking up here was getting pinned by the black dog as I tried to get hold of the gray wolf's throat again.
"I'm not a comedian, and you're not a baby, but there seems to be a lot of acting going on at present," Sirius said.
He looked down at the soup and gave it a halfhearted stir. "Remus will be fine Harry. Wolves have very thick skin. It's not as if he didn't get his digs in as well."
I rubbed at the rapidly fading scars on my chin and neck. "I thought the Wolfsbane Potions was supposed to stop us from going crazy and fighting."
"It represses the dark magic that causes the werewolf's rage," said Professor Lupin from the doorway. His face was also covered in fading scars. "The wolf's instincts are always with us. You have to learn control."
Lupin walked to the other chair by my bed. He limped slightly. The black dog had bitten his leg while trying to break us up. He sat stiffly. He had bags under his eyes and gray tint to his skin. I wondered if I looked like that. It had been nine hours since the transformation had ended and I still felt as if I were getting over a case of the flu combined with some sort of semi-truck accident.
"How am I supposed to control it?" I asked. "You've been doing this longer then I have and you didn't seem to have much luck."
Lupin shrugged and smiled a bit. "I didn't have much trouble until you decided to fight."
"I didn't start that! You came at me!"
"You bit first."
I was going to keep arguing, but I saw he and Sirius were exchanging looks.
"What's so funny then?" I asked.
"Not funny really," said Sirius, "Just familiar."
"We had this same argument the first time Sirius, James, and…and Peter came to visit me. The canines had a bit of trouble deciding who was boss. Your father had to break us up several times," Lupin said.
"The next day I told Madam Pomfrey that Snape had ambushed me in the Greenhouse, so she'd give me healing potions for my face. She didn't quiet buy my story though. I couldn't explain why I had a hoof-print in the middle of my forehead," Sirius said, and then he smiled.
He'd smiled before, but this time it was different. For all of three seconds he didn't look disturbed, or miserable, or insane. He looked like a normal person. I thought about mentioning it, but saying "hey you finally look not crazy" would probably not do anything to extend the condition. Three seconds with no worries was very nice though. It was over almost immediately of course.
"Harry, you read the book I gave you?" Lupin asked.
I nodded. It wasn't a very long book, only a hundred and ten pages. It explained the side effects of lycanthropy. Lupin gave it to me while he was still in the "I must look at the floor stage". He said it was the only book on lycanthropy actually written by a werewolf. According to that text I had "moderate to violent mood swings" and "heightened aggressive reactions to stress" to look forward to in the next three to five days, as well as fatigue and muscle cramps.
"Do you have any questions?" Lupin asked.
"Could you please take that spoon away from Sirius? He's starting to worry me."
My attempt at a joke got a few laughs from Lupin and a snort from Sirius who waved the spoon at me threateningly. As another plus, the soup was spilled on the floor in the ensuing mock-argument about nutrition. Creamed-celery should never be made into soup anyway.
Sirius took a Portkey back to Grimmauld place Sunday afternoon. I was feeling almost back to normal by then, but still fatigued. I had a night of rushed homework to look forward to. Hermione and Ron spent most of dinner helping me write my history essay. It wasn't until we were half way back to the dorms that I realized I'd left it next to the roast carrots. Ron volunteered to get it for me, but I didn't want them thinking I was crippled or something, so I went to get it myself. I barely managed to wrestle it away from the house elf that was cleaning up. I got all the way to the third floor stairs before trouble found me.
"Walking around all by yourself Potter? That's not very smart," said a drawling voice I immediately recognized.
I turned. Malfoy, Crabbe, and Goyle were coming up the staircase behind me.
"Get lost Malfoy." I didn't have the energy to come up with a better insult.
"That wasn't very polite," Malfoy said cheerfully. "I think we're going to have to teach you some manners."
His goons rushed passed him and grabbed my arms, shoving me against the banister. I wished very hard that I hadn't left my wand in the dormitory. Malfoy swaggered up to me and smiled. He had his wand in his right hand and he was rolling it across the back of his fingers in what I am sure he thought was a very impressive display of dexterity.
"So Potter, which do you want first, the curses or the beating?"
Malfoy looked down at me, smirking. They're in your space. Malfoy thinks he's in control. He thinks he's better then you. The thoughts floated up into my mind and I had the sudden urge to start biting people. I didn't want to just fight to escape, I wanted to sink my teeth into something and tear off pieces. I could hear my heart blasting in my ears all of a sudden. The tiredness faded into the background and a burning twitching feeling bubbled up to replace it. Malfoy stepped back, looking at the floor with wide eyes.
There was a puddle of clear slimy liquid on the stones between us, and as I tilted my head down to see where it had come from, another trail of drool fell from my mouth, adding to it. I suddenly noticed my lips had pulled back from my teeth with out my higher brain's consent. I also noticed I didn't mind terribly much. I looked at Crabbe, then Goyle, who were starting to look a bit uncomfortable with their assigned task.
"First, first, first?" I said. "First I think you aught to see something. It's cool. Spiffy even." My voice was a lot lower then I remember it being.
Crabbe and Goyle tugged on my arms in an attempt to reestablish menace. It didn't bother me much, but it gave Malfoy a bit of his confidence back. Maybe he remembered it was three to one, and that one was unarmed.
"What should I see Potter?"
I pulled hard with my right arm. Crabbe was holding that one, standing on the step below me. He pulled harder, trying to prevent my escape. I planted my feet against the side of my step, and suddenly pulled with my left arm instead. For a second Crabbe and I were both pulling in the same direction, and this was more then enough to pull Goyle, on the step above me, off his feet. I'd started a human avalanche and the stairs weren't wide enough for Malfoy to get out of the way.
If I'd been thinking I wouldn't have done it. If the staircase had decided to move just then we'd all have tumbled to our deaths, but as it turned out we ended up relatively unharmed on the landing right below. Instincts and reflexes that weren't really mine kept me from ending up on the bottom of the pile. Malfoy was pinned under a rather stunned Goyle, whose head had apparently connected with Crabbe's foot in the fall. Malfoy's eyes were glued to me, and in some part of my brain it registered that I was still drooling.
"What's the matter Malfoy? Not impressive enough? I could show you this thing Sirius Black taught me. It's quite keen. You want to see that, don't you?" I said, circling through the small area of the landing.
If Malfoy's eyes got any wider they'd pop right out of his head. He opened his mouth like he was going to yell but no sound came out. I think he'd had the wind knocked out of him.
"Was that a 'No' Malfoy? You'll have to speak up."
"No." His voice was so quite I think only I heard it.
Crabbe pulled himself out of the tangle of limbs. He wouldn't fall for the same trick twice. If he got his wand out, I was in trouble. He staggered a bit, unsteady on his feet. Push him over the railing. The thought came from so deep inside my head I almost mistook it for mine. I took half a step towards him before I regained control.
"What's going on here?" demanded a loud voice, coming from the floor below.
I didn't stop to see who it was. I turned and ran for Gryffindor tower.