Chapter Six
The Full Moon
The first month of school had gone by rather quickly and before Remus knew it he was marking off the day before the full moon. This was the first time he would transform at Hogwarts. He was quite nervous, how was he going to manage this? James, Sirius and Peter were friends with him again after they found Remus stuffed into the vanishing cabinet and turning up in the broom shed. Remus turned around and looked in the mirror, his face was pale and he felt exceptionally weak.
"I'm not going to classes today," Remus told his friends.
"Why not?" asked Peter, as he was making his bed.
"Um... well... you see it's my... um... mum!" Remus lied, "she's not feeling well so I have to go see her!"
"Oh," said James, "but today we were going to put a Bogart in Snape's desk in Potions!"
"You'll have to do it without me, I have to go. See you tomorrow." He Walked out of the room and headed up to the Hospital Wing where he found Madam Pomfrey waiting for him.
"Good morning," she said pleasantly.
"Good morning," Remus answered weakly.
"So you will wait here, until tonight when I will bring you to the Whomping Willow and you can- err- transform." Remus found that Madam Pomfrey had conjured up a chair and he sat down in it. He knew his transformation would be painful but after doing it for three years, he had gotten quite used to it. Sometimes he didn't even mind the pain. He then remembered that if James, Sirius or Peter came into the hospital wing or passed by, they would start asking why he was there and Remus did not have an excuse for that one.
Back during Charms Class, James Peter, and Sirius were sitting in the very back working on the Alohamora Charm. They had been given little locked boxes that they had been instructed to open. Peter then stupidly said, "but we don't have a key," causing the whole class to burst out laughing and him turning redder than a tomato.
"Do you think Remus was serious when he said he had to go home?" James asked concernedly.
"Well he was never one to lie," Sirius answered, while successfully opening the bow and earning five points for Gryffindor.
"Well it was just he was the one that looked kind of sick."
"He always looks like that!"
"Well today he looked worse than normal."
"Look if it's that important to you, we'll visit the hospital wing after classes and ask Madam Pomfrey if she's seen him." James nodded and they continued with their work. Charms was the last class of the day, so after Professor Flitwick finished handing out house points for the students that completed their task successfully, they headed to the hospital wing. They passed Severus Snape on the way and he smiled maliciously at them.
"You don't think Snape did anything do you?" Sirius asked.
"Nah, not after the Bogart he found," James answered. They continued up to the hospital wing and knocked on the door. Remus just happened to be sitting beside the window on the door and looked up. He saw Sirius, James and Peter looking in the window and saw madam Pomfrey bustling over. Remus then ducked under one of the beds and whispered to Madam Pomfrey to tell them that she hadn't seen him all day. Madam Pomfrey nodded and opened the door.
"Hullo boys," she said kindly, "how can I help you?"
"Did you see Remus Lupin at all today," James asked.
"Well no, he went home for the day, his poor mother is sick."
"Okay we were just checking, come on guys," and with that they were gone. Remus crawled out from under the bed and sighed in relief. Madam Pomfrey offered to bring him some dinner from the Great Hall but he refused, he was never hungry before a full moon. The clock above Remus struck six o' clock and the sky was growing dark. Madam Pomfrey rushed over grabbed Remus's hand and dragged him out of the hospital wing, down to the grounds. When they were out on the grounds, they didn't notice James, Sirius and Peter were talking to Hagrid not far from the Whomping Willow. They looked over and saw Madam Pomfrey dragging Remus to the Whomping Willow they didn't recognise Remus though.
"What is Madam Pomfrey doing?" Peter wondered aloud.
"Who knows," James answered and they turned back to Hagrid. Madam Pomfrey grabbed a particularly large stick and prodded a tiny knot under the Willow and it froze completely. She showed Remus the entrance to the passageway under the tree and he jumped in. Madam Pomfrey ran hurriedly away, as she did not want to witness this. Remus peered through the light coming from the tiny entrance and searched the sky for the moon. When he spotted it, he felt a surging pain hit him. He felt his whole body changing to his werewolf form. His nose enlarged, as well as his ears, his arms turned into legs and his feet and hands became paws and soon enough he was a werewolf. He ran around the passageway for a while and then he felt the urge to bite something, but he had nothing, so as a substitute hit bit himself and howled in pain.
"Hagrid," said Sirius, once he heard the howl, "what was that?"
"Oh probably some wolves in the forest," Hagrid answered simply.
The next morning James, Sirius and Peter woke up to find Remus sleeping in his bed, completely unaware that his alarm had went off. Sirius seized the opportunity to try and wake him up. He walked over and started shaking Remus uncontrollably until Remus muttered,
"Leave me alone, I want to sleep," James and Peter sniggered and joined Sirius in shaking Remus awake, but they ended up pushing Remus off his bed since Peter tripped on one of James's socks.
"Ouch!" Remus yelled, he sat up rubbing his head and looked at them, "what are you doing?"
"Trying to wake you up," Sirius answered, "you don't want to miss class today, do you?"
"As a matter of fact I do want to miss class." James and Sirius gasped dramatically.
"Oh my," James gasped, "Remus John Lupin doesn't want to go to class! Pinch me I'm dreaming!" Peter then pinched James on the arm and he yelped in pain, "nope I'm not dreaming. Come on lets go down to the Great Hall." Remus watched his three friends go down to the Great Hall, and making sure they were not going to come back, went back to sleep.
Remus slept nearly the whole day, or at least until classes were over. He was having a nightmare that consisted of Remus being back in the forest on the day the werewolf had bitten him. Only this time it was a bit different, he was the werewolf and he was chasing down James, Sirius and Peter. He was chasing them swiftly through the forest and had them cornered next to a cliff. Remus opened his jaw and was ready to strike James first. Just as he was ready to sink his fangs into James's arm he was being shaken awake.
"Remus!" came a voice, sounding very far away.
"No, I don't want to," Remus muttered. "Stop!"
"Remus wake up!"
"No leave them alone!"
"I'm going to get Professor Mcgonagal," came a different frightened voice and he heard footsteps scurry out of the room. He was completely unaware of being shaken and all he saw was his werewolf form bite into James and James shrieking in pain. The real Remus wanted to scream out, but the werewolf Remus just turned on Sirius now. His werewolf form charged to Sirius, once again ready to strike.
"Lupin," came a female voice, "wake up! You're having a nightmare! Oh well, I'll have to resort to this." The voice, that belonged to Professor Mcgonagal raised a hand and smacked it across Remus's face. His eyes snapped open and he immediately said
"Sirius you could have warned me!"
"Sorry Mr. Lupin that was me," said Professor Mcgonagal, apologetically, "but you wouldn't wake up. Is there anything wrong?"
"No- professor- its just- I don't know," Remus answered, his whole body was shaking and he was drenched in sweat.
"I think you should come with me. Put on some clean robes and come down to the common room." Professor Mcgonagal left the room and Sirius, James and Peter followed. Remus sighed and threw on some new robes from his trunk, but he noticed some sharp cuts all over his arms... stupid werewolf. He shoved his shoes on and walked down to the common room. She was sitting in front of the fire.
"Sit down Remus," she said kindly. Remus took a seat on the seat furthest away from her, an old habit of his when he was nervous. "Tell me what's bothering you?"
"Its nothing Professor," Remus lied.
"Don't lie to me. Your friends told me you were panicking in your sleep. What is bothering you?"
"I'm- well- I'm worried," Remus answered.
"What would you be worried about?"
"I don't know, I just think that if someone like James, Sirius and Peter find out about my being a werewolf they wont be my friends anymore and then life will be as worse as it was before I came here. If they ever come across me when I'm in transformation I could hurt them."
"Don't be silly, we've taken all the necessary precautions, you can't hurt anyone!"
"I know, but I can't help thinking it." Remus stood up and went back up to the empty dormitory. He snapped the latches open and took out his calendar. Only one month until I have to do this again, he thought putting a giant X over that day. He tossed it back in his trunk and went down to dinner. When he walked into the Great Hall, he saw something he would never forget. He saw Snape standing directly in front of him, wearing a pink polka dotted dressed and had makeup on his face. Remus tried desperately not to burst out laughing in his face, but he could hardly suppress a smile.
"You know, Severus," Remus said casually, "I reckon pink isn't your colour." Snape did not even reply he just glared at Remus and marched away. The minute he heard Snape's footsteps dashing down the hall he burst out laughing. He sat down next to Peter wiping tears of laughter out of his eyes.
"Well there's a face we haven't seen for a while," Sirius joked, "little Remus Lupin laughing!"
"Yeah well its not every day I get to see the kid who shoved me in the Vanishing Cabinet wearing women's clothes, that was brilliant!"
"Well all in a days work, I suppose," James said modestly shoving his wand back in his robes pocket. The Great Hall doors opened again and James's mouth dropped open, it was Lily. She walked over and took the seat opposite James. She was not smiling as he was. She was glaring menacingly into his bright eyes.
"Which one of you did that to Severus Snape?" she asked maliciously "Hmm... Pettigrew? Black? Nah, not you Lupin?" James mouth dropped open, "well Potter, he wasn't here the whole day, he couldn't have plotted that! So it leaves us with one more suspect, James Potter!"
"Sirius and Peter helped too!" James squealed, Sirius then knocked him on the back of the head and muttered, "snitch."
"Well I'm sure Professor McGonagall will love hearing all about this, excuse me!" Lily hurried out of the hall with James screaming for her to come back. Remus and Sirius just watched and it seemed about ten minutes before he came back looking thoroughly defeated. He was hanging his head low and frowning; he plopped down on his seat on the right side of Sirius.
"What happened?" Sirius asked interestedly.
"We've got detention," James muttered, "you, me and Peter. After the Quidditch match tomorrow we have to report to the Transfiguration room and Mcgonagal will deal with us from there!"
"Well good luck," said Remus, with a tiny smile. That night was a restless one. No one in the dormitory could get to sleep because of James's endless pouting and Sirius muttering for him to shut up. Since no one could sleep Remus took out his Charms book, lit his wand to give him light, and began reading, Peter had taken a bow of Bertie Botts Every Flavour Beans out and was munching on them every now and then emitting a disgusted noise and gagging on one of them. Frank Longbottom was just sitting on his bed, completely enjoying watching James and Sirius argue. The arguing got so annoying that Remus stood up grabbed the roll of spellotape on his nightstand and walked casually over to his bickering friends.
"If you two don't shut up," he whispered threateningly, "I'm going to tape your mouth shut!" Sirius and James immediately shut up and went to bed. Remus walked back over whispered for his wand to burn out, closed his book and fell asleep.
The next morning the boys didn't wake up until nearly twelve o' clock which gave James an hour to prepare for the match. He threw on his scarlet Quidditch robes while to rest put on their regular class robes. When they were finished getting dressed James was looking at himself in the mirror and asking very stupid questions.
"How do I look?" he asked Sirius, "good enough to impress the ladies?"
"Sorry to point out the obvious," Sirius said, while doing up his shoelace, "but I'm not a lady so I wouldn't know." Remus and Peter sniggered as James's face fell. They finished getting ready for the day and scrambled down to the Entrance Hall where they waved James off and Remus, Sirius and Peter headed to the Quidditch Pitch. Sirius Remus and Peter got front seats in the Gryffindor section of the stadium and saw that some of the seventh years had constructed a banner that bellowed "GO, GO, GRYFFINDOR!!" Then whenever the Slytherins would score, as the proud seventh year Max Philips told them, it would blow a raspberry at the chaser whom had scored. Remus and Sirius peered over the stands looking for James. They saw him standing with his fellow Chasers, Alexandra Read and Brandon Danielson. He was smiling broadly and looked up at the sky catching Sirius' eye and waved.
"So," said Remus, "how much you want to bet Gryffindor scores first?"
"I'd bet my whole fortune that Gryffindor scores first," Sirius answered.
"Not that I would really bet you! Hey look its Snape!" Remus was pointing across the stadium where a sea of green and silver. Amongst the sea they saw Snape cheering his house team as he saw them walk out onto the field. While the Slytherin's were all cheering their team their cheering was drowned out by a loud and long set of "BOOS!" coming from every other house.
"Welcome to the first Quidditch Game of the season everyone!" said the newly stated commentator Frank Longbottom, "we've got a great match for you today. Today's competitors Gryffindor verses Slytherin! The teams have just mounted their brooms, followed closely by the referee Madam Hooch, she has released the balls and the game is on!" All six Chasers dived forward to get the Quaffle and James emerged carrying it safely under his arm and sped towards the Slytherin goalpost. He dodged two bludgers and every Slytherin chaser and aimed the quaffle and threw it directly into the hoops.
James punched his fist in the air as he listened to the crowd cheer him on. "10 – zilch Gryffindor! Okay now we have Alexandra Read of Gryffindor with the quaffle! Ouch- quaffle intercepted by Maximillion Snowbanks of Slytherin. Snowbanks is heading towards the Gryffindor goalpost he aims- shoots- but doesn't score!" Alexandra Read of Gryffindor had the quaffle and was speeding towards the Slytherin side of the stadium when it was knocked out of her hand by a bludger. She dropped the quaffle but Brandon Danielson of Gryffindor caught it. Brandon sped towards the opposing teams goal and scored!
"That makes it – what's the score?" Frank Longbottom joked, "oh yes! 50 – notta Gryffindor! Well apparently there is n o sign of the Golden Snitch anywhere, both seekers are getting pretty bored yawn I know I am. Anyway, Slytherin in control of the quaffle, they shoot – darn! 50- 10, oh well Gryffindor is still kicking their butts! Sorry Professor it's an expression." As the Slytherin chaser was doing a lap of honour around the stadium, the Gryffindor banner started blowing countless raspberries. The seeker of Gryffindor, George Finnigan (no relation to Seamus) then spotted the snitch and urged his broom forward to catch it. Dodging players, bludgers, and quaffles he found it hovering right below the Slytherin seeker's stationary foot. He picked up more speed and snatched the snitch before anyone knew what had happened.
"Gryffindor catches the snitch! The game is over! The final score 200 – 10 Gryffindor wins!" The whole stadium (except for the Slytherins of course) was on their feet and cheering chants of "GO, GO GRYFFINDOR!" It was a truly spectacular match. It was dinnertime the next Sirius, Remus and Peter saw James. He was walking into the Great Hall, apparently just coming out of the changing room since he was fixing his tie and straightening his shirt. He plopped down on the empty seat next to Remus, who was busy cutting up his dinner.
"Hey guys," he said exasperatedly. "Great game wasn't it?"
"Yeah," said Remus distractedly, trying to cut a particularly stubborn piece of meat.
A few minutes later Snape waltzed over to the Gryffindor table.
"Hullo, Potter" he said coldly.
"Hey, it's my main man Hooknose!" James joked, "What's up? Did you find a shrinking charm for that nose of yours?"
"Very funny Potter, you're a real comedian."
"Tell me something I don't know!"
"Just so you know, would any of you like to join me tonight in the dungeons?" James and Sirius looked at Remus, who jumped out of his seat quickly before anyone could volunteer him and ran out of the hall.
"I think that means Remus says no," Sirius answered, "and anyways we all have detention. So, so long don't call us and we won't bother calling you!" Snape snarled and crossed back over to his table.