Chapter 11
Lupin's Secret
We landed in the dark basement surprisingly quietly. Harry did break a shelf. Apparently he lost his balance from the unexpectedness of the dark room.
"Why did everyone leave the party so early?" I whispered to Hermione.
"I don't know. They had something planned tonight with the Order. I'm not sure, though." We heard Harry's aggravated voice while he picked the right words to express his misfortune. I suppose he didn't wish to swear before us. I wondered if he ever.
"What's wrong?" Hermione asked.
"My scar is burning, and I landed in something gooey and wet."
"That's my mum's potions. Lumos." My wand began glowing bright green. Harry and Hermione lightened their own wands.
I found Harry sitting by the broken shelf in a puddle of Fever Declining Potions. Mum gave it to me when I felt extremely out of normal. She used muggle medicine for a common cold. He rubbed his forehead; his eyes squinted.
I reached down to pull him up. As soon as our hands touched one another, I saw a circle of Death Eaters with their faces covered by the dark hoods. One of them lay on the ground shivering and screaming in agony. I heard his voice and it seamed so familiar, but I couldn't distinguish it with all the voices I heard through my entire life. I felt joy when I looked at him. I was laughing, as my wand was pointing at the small figure upon the ground.
Instead of me pulling Harry up, he managed to drag me down. My eyes were blurry. I gained a horrible headache. It felt, as if someone was hammering a nail into my head.
"Are you all right?"
"I'm fine! I guess I slipped." I answered. The room was spinning before my eyes.
"He's angry!" Harry exclaimed.
"You didn't!" Hermione shrieked and clasped one of her hands over her mouth.
"He's punishing someone. He's pleased about it too. I'm not sure who's punished."
"You're not working hard enough, Harry!"
"Don't give me this Hermione! I want to block those visions as much as you do." He said angrily. I pulled myself to my feet and performed a cleaning charm. My hands were trembling.
"What have I seen just now?" I thought. "Who were all those people? Am I going crazy?"
"You can't be going crazy." A quiet voice told me within my head.
"That's right! I can't be going crazy! Harry saw all of these too."
"Are you sure you're O.K.?" Hermione asked once again. I quickly nodded only making myself dizzier.
"Well ok, but you look white as a sheet."
"Don't worry about it. Lets just get everything we need and go upstairs."
Hermione crawled up to me. Her voice was barely audible.
"What will we need?"
"I need to find a box. It has all the ingredients that we have in this house. If there's something missing, then we don't have it at all."
"Are you talking about this?" Harry pointed at a large wooden box with a big M on top of it.
"Yes!" I rushed towards it and lifted the dusty lid. There were many containers in it, much more then the box allowed. I remember mum putting an expending charm on it. Harry and Hermione joined me and began observing the contents of my wonderful container. Hermione's eyes were shinning with thrill.
"You have more things in here, then Snape himself in his dungeons!" She exclaimed. Her hands began going through every single herb.
"Actually this room greatly resembles Snape's dungeon." Harry informed me, while his eyes scanned the chamber.
"Potions fascinated my mum." I quickly said placing the lid back on. "We should head upstairs." I opened the basement door that gave a loud squeal, and we entered the corridor in between the kitchen and the living room. I looked around to make sure that we were alone and walked out. Hermione followed me, while Harry performed a shrinking charm on the ingredient box. But he didn't take long and in no time stood along with us.
"Now where are we going?" He asked.
"To the second floor. Harry you'll shrink my dad's portrait, while Hermione and I head for my mum's room."
"Got it!" They both said.
The house was dead. There was no one to be found in it but us. It wasn't completely dark yet. It was not even nine o'clock. Everyone began coming in at about five. I thought we'll have to wait at least until midnight, but everyone was gone by eight fifteen.
We reached mum's room that still smelled of rose extract. It was always tidy and remained that way. She liked everything clean, screamed at me if I left something out of place. She had a large bookcase that stood by the window. I rushed towards it, as soon as I entered the room. Meanwhile Harry and Hermione examined the chamber.
"You're mum was a perfectionist." Harry concluded.
"How so?" I asked while pushing out of the way useless pieces of literature and pulling out the once I needed.
"You should see Hermione's room. It sparkles like the night sky. Also just like this one. I know for a fact that no one in their right mind would keep everything this clean." Hermione gave him a nasty look and began glancing over the books that I've set aside.
"Look Beyond the Music!" She suddenly screamed.
"Hermione, can you keep quiet? We're not on the safe side until we get back! Harry said angrily.
"Sorry," she whispered. I felt so much excitement radiating from her that I was feeling out of place.
"Open the Sleeping Mind, Retrieve the Past, Potions and Dust..." Her eyes shined even more with each passing title that escaped her lips. She was extremely jumpy that Harry dragged her away from me and placed her by the door, so she would keep watch. She would roll to her toes and back again. She moaned with agitation and fired piercing glances at Harry.
"I can't stand here!" She finally said and marched back to the shelf.
"What are you so exited about? Haven't you ever seen books?" Harry walked back to the door arms crossed.
"Not like these. These books are not even in the Restriction Section at the Wizard Library, not to mention Hogwarts. The Ministry in the Department of Mysteries protects them!" She flipped through the pages of Imagine, Create, Feel, and Use.
"How is it that you have them, then?" Harry asked skeptically. I really didn't want to tell them anything. Besides there wasn't that much that I could have told them.
"Don't you give me that! How did you get those books?" Harry studied me carefully. I didn't want to look at him, but maybe that was a wrong course to take.
"What are you hiding?"
"Oh Harry, you're unbelievable!" I snapped. "Are you telling me everything about yourself?" He looked at me bewildered. His eyes fell to the floor and his cheeks flushed.
"Thought so." I said furiously.
"Well, why are you changing the subject to myself?"
"I'm not! I just wanted to know if you told me everything and obviously you haven't. Do you think you're the only one that can have secrets?"
"My secrets don't involve steeling!"
"I didn't steel anything!"
"For all I know you might have!"
"So now you're telling me that you don't trust me! That's really brilliant!"
"Well...I..."
"Have I given you a reason to doubt me?"
"No! But I know you for only a week!"
"Guess what? There is nothing else that you can find out about me. If you do, then I had no idea about it. What you see is what you get. There is nothing behind the way I present myself!"
"Can you keep it down!" Hermione hissed. I wasn't aware of the volume with which we spoke, and I guess Harry wasn't either.
"Sorry," he whispered.
"Forget it. Listen, I don't want you to judge me by what my mother did, and I don't know the whole story myself."
"You can trust us! We won't judge you by whatever you didn't do." Hermione said softly.
"Fine, my mother worked in the Ministry of Magic. She was in the Department of Mysteries at the book division. I don't know why she needed the books, but I read em, and I found them quite interesting. I heard her telling dad that she enchanted some muggle manuscripts to take the appearance of the once she has taken." They both looked at me, mouth adjured, eyes full of amazement. All I could do was look back at them and expect some reaction, but none followed. We just sat in silence.
Silence, however, proofed to be more efficient then conversations; I managed to gather all that I've needed much faster then if we were talking. I've spent a significant amount of time looking for the key to my bank account. I finally founded it in a drawer full of socks. There was also a gold chain with an amulet in a form of a serpent that held two emerald letters CM.
I remember wearing it when I was little. Mum took it away from me when I was six. I looked for it everywhere, but she hid it well. I wonder why she placed it in a drawer of socks.
"O.K. all we need now is get to my room and gather my trunk." Both of them nodded.
My room was still a mess. All of the papers that were knocked off my desk lay on the floor among my cloths. The bed was upside down, the chairs were kicked over, and the mirror was shattered into millions of pieces. There was a black mark that was made by the spell I've send at the Death Eater whom retaliated quite quickly.
I didn't take long to check the appearances of the room. It only brought me bad memories. I ran to my trunk and flipped open the cover. Harry and Hermione helped me assemble everything inside.
"Locomotive Suitcase" Hermione whispered, and we began to head towards the stairs. The moon was just rising. I often watched it from my room.
"We need to clean the house before dusk." We suddenly heard. Harry sharply came to a stop. I was too bewildered by the familiar voice to notice his stop. I painfully collided with him, and pushed him forward that he fell down a couple of stairs. Apparently Hermione was also too shocked to notice our stop and walked into me. A chain reaction, some would say. Just because of our chain, the flying trunk hit Hermione and fell to the floor with a loud thud.
"Shit," she hissed.
Immediately the people downstairs rushed towards us to encounter us. Before we could think of anywhere to hide, four figures were standing before us, wand in hand.
"What are you three doing here?" Mad-Eye-Moody looked at as questionably. His magical eye fell onto Harry.
"We helped Katie get..." Harry began.
"First of all you don't know a Katie. She's not Katie anymore, but Natalie. Albus, we'll need to do something with their tongs, or they'll blather everything to the first person they'll meet at Hogwarts." Snape looked at us plainly disgusted. Dumbledore nodded in agreement.
"Second of all," Snape began again; "it is not your responsibility to worry about anyone's belongings. Have you asked anyone about them?" He looked at me. We all kept silent. All of our eyes were focused on the floor. I saw Harry giving Snape a hateful stare, but I couldn't summon enough courage to look at him at all. It was bad enough on hearing him speaking without looking at him.
"Third of all you three are having detentions as soon as the classes begin. I'll see you at five o'clock sharp. Tell Mr. Weasley that he should report with you three, as he probably knew about your little scam and failed to notify anyone about it."
"Professor!" Harry protested, but was interrupted by Dumbledore.
"It is wise that you three follow Professor Snape's directions. You shouldn't
have been here in the first place."
"But Ron had nothing to do with this." Hermione protested.
"He didn't know about this?" Snape asked her slyly.
"No he hasn't." Hermione answered firmly.
"Miss Granger I despise liars. I think we'll add another detention for you."
"That would be enough you three." Professor Dumbledore said before Harry could say anything else. "Now, Professor Lupin will assist you back to Black Manor, and you'll..." He stopped and gazed at Lupin. Lupin was scared to death of something. His eyes shifted from the window, where the full moon gave off a gentle light, to his own hands that were covered by fur. His nails sharpened and lengthened.
Hermione shrieked and reached for her wand. Harry backed me away and stood before Hermione and myself. Dumbledore pointed the wand at Professor Lupin that howled in the corridor. Snape, Mad-Eye-Moody, and Mr. Weasley rushed towards us.
"I forgot to give him the potion!" Snape screamed, as the wolf like figure jumped at Dumbledore.
"You what!" Mr. Weasley shouted heatedly.
"Stop with the drama! It became ready just a little while ago. He forgot to mention it to me!"
"Stupefy!" Dumbledore shouted. Lupin jumped away from him and leaped on top of Snape and Mad-Eye. I heard them swearing and cursing the beast. Mad-Eye's eye was rolling away from him, as he fiercely tried to keep the creature from biting him.
Dumbledore tried some more spells that achieved nothing. Lupin just hopped from one corner of the room to the next, ripping the wallpaper with his claws and scratching the wooden floor.
Harry desperately observed Dumbledore's hopeless attempts on catching the wolf. Hermione was standing behind him and murmuring something with her wand closely to her. Mad-Eye and Snape lay on the floor unconscious. Mr. Weasley urged Dumbledore to aim left or right, but only managed to confuse him.
"What are you doing?" Harry yelled, as I charged towards Lupin while his back faced me. I reached for his fur and caught a frightful look from Dumbledore, as he ran forwards to drag me away. I heard Hermione screech before the room began spinning before me. I was holding something heavy that struggled to get free. I wasn't sure of where I was going, but I needed to get the creature away from everyone else.
Finally my feet touched the ground. Before Lupin realized what happened, I shouted, "Petrificus Totalus." He fell into a puddle of water both arms and legs glued to his body. I was out of breath and extremely hot. My cloths clenched to my skin. For the first time I managed to take a look at my surroundings. The dirty leaves lay below my feet, decaying for centuries. The sky was barely visible above the canopy of leaves. Heavy branches hanged low, almost touching the wet earth.
I bend down to examine my professor that lay motionless. His teeth were sticking out from under his upper lip. His eyes were yellow and cold compared to their softness and care on a normal day.
"And Hermione told me not to worry!" I thought accusingly.
"What can a simple bite do to a noble man!" My fingers brushed off him when the
world changed in my eyes, and I was no longer in the forest.
"Jake! Jake! Where are you?" A small, thin woman ran around the house, pocking her head into each room that she passed. Her black hair fell to her shoulders in a most untidy way. Her blue eyes were filled with tears. She sobbed trying to hold them in, but no such luck. Her once white dress was ripped in some places and covert in dirt.
"Jake, where are you?" Her voice was cracking with each painful shout. The sound was cutting her throat, but managed to escape her lips.
She was holding the hand of a small boy that rubbed his red, puffy eyes and dragged along with his mother. His feet were barely holding him, but he kept on moving after her.
"Mummy," he suddenly said.
"What is it baby?" The young mother bend down to be face to face with her little boy. Her gentle hand brushed his light brown locks from his eyes. "What is it?" She repeated.
"Where is daddy?"
"Oh honey. I'm looking for him." She managed to force out of her. Her lips trembling.
"I miss him. Who did this?" The boy pointed at the torn down walls, scratched linoleum, and crashed windows.
"Oh Remus, we'll get there soon. We'll get to the place where your daddy is. He must be home." She pushed him into her arms and hugged him tautly to herself.
" Rrrrrrrre! Rrrrrrr!"
"Ah! Mummy!" A huge gray wolf dragged him out of his mother's arms.
"Remus!" Two more such wolfs jumped to the woman, ripping her into pieces.
"Stupefy!"
"Stupefy!"
"Stupefy!"
Three blurry figures appeared before Remus that lay shaking on the floor, blood running down his leg.
"He needs Healer's attention!"
"I know that voice!" I suddenly heard myself say.
"Minerva apparate the boy to St. Mungo's. I'm afraid he has to rest and recover before we can tell him anything. He will have to deal with more then he must, when he'll awake." Minerva's eyes drifted to the bloody figure that now lay motionless on the cold floor.
"Oh Albus! The poor child!"
"Go quickly, or it will be too late."
The scene before me drifted sideways, and I came back to the dead of night. My hands were blue from the chilling wind. Cold tears slowly proceeded down my cheeks.
"He was a werewolf for many years. He lost his parents at most being three years old." I thought.
I once again placed my hands on him, curious if I'll see more.
"You're lying!" Remus cried into his pillow. Two med-wizards stood besides his bed. Not far away from them sat an elderly man with a long silver beard. He wore dark blue robes that resembled the night sky. His bright gray eyes sparkled under his half moon spectacles. His face was expressing pain and sorrow, but kindness escaped his every glance at the tragic scene before him.
"I saw her," Remus continued crying. He was choking on his own tears. His mouth felt dry and his body icy.
"Lift over child!" One of the med-wizards ordered. "It's not going to do you any good denying the facts that are laid out before you! Are you blind?"
"That will be enough!" Dumbledore's low voice ran through the hospital room. "I'll ask for you two to leave. I'll speak with the boy myself."
"But we have to..."
"I'll call you back when he is ready. In his condition, it is not wise for you to engage in a conversation." The two med-wizards exchanged glances and walked out of the chamber.
Dumbledore proceeded up to the little bed in which lay the quivering body in blue velvet pajamas.
"Have you ever heard of a beautiful bird with flaming feathers?" He began. There was no answer.
"It is a marvelous bird called the Phoenix. I have one at the castle where I live."
"You have a Phoenix?" Remus shouted, jumping from under his pillow and glaring at the old man.
"Yes, Do you know why Phoenixes are so unique?" The small boy shook his head. "Because they never leave this world. Their death is just a plain fire. The body turns into ashes from which a new such bird is born. You see, your parents died, but it doesn't mean you'll never see them again. They are still alive and are waiting for you."
"They are?" The boy asked surprised. "Are they going to come back again?"
"I'm afraid your parents are not birds, but the good part about being a human is that if you'll live an honorable life, you'll see them again when you'll get older."
"You promise?"
"I do. Now, about you being a wolf, it's not that bad. It's only once a month and during a single night. You have nothing to worry about. I'll make arrangements for you; you'll have a place to stay and a place to go that night. You'll got to school in six years. You are a normal boy like everyone else."
My thoughts began to retrieve from the memory of my professor into reality. I felt terribly cold. My teeth were chattering. I felt something soft upon my shoulders. I looked up to see a very tiered face of Professor Lupin. His black silk clock embraced me, and his hands were firmly set upon my arms. The first light of sun created a white line just above the horizon, as now we stood on the balcony to my room at Black Manor.
"Professor!"
"Are you ok? Have I injured you? Is there any blood upon your skin?" He looked over me carefully, circled me about, and scrutinized my face.
"I'm fine, don't worry. It is you that I'm concerned about." He let go of me and turned away to walk inside.
"Please don't go! I want to help!"
"You can't!"
"You're wrong! You have friends that care about you; I care, too. I feel so close to you. I lost my family in a blink of an eye, and the first person I saw was you. I felt a connection and wasn't sure what it was all about. I didn't want anyone entering my life, but you and Harry, Hermione, Ron, became my new life. You're like my father, and I know it sounds stupid, but you're the closest person I can relate to. I don't care if you're Voldemort himself; my mind wouldn't change if you're the person you seem to be. I can help, and you can help me!"
"I have nothing to offer." With this he walked out. I heard the door shutting with a loud bang. I came so attached to him that it felt my father died again.
A/N
I'm done with chapter 11! Yay! I hope you'll enjoy it! I'm going to post a prologue so next time you're going to read check it out. You might get some useful information with the turn of the story.
Enjoy!