Disclaimer: see part one.

Chapter nine.

With a small tap of his wand Lupin unlocked the door and walked into Renas room. There had to be something that could help him establish a link to Renas past. Seeing her drawing nearer to the Purge, he wanted to find out who she was and where she came from. He wasn't sure why, maybe it was because Rena refused to talk to him or because Snape was obviously hiding something.

Rena was the only student in the entire school who had a single room, but knowing that she was a werewolf, Lupin didn't find this very strange. What he found strange, almost creepy, was that the room looked more or less unlived in.

It was a small room with a narrow stained-glass window on the left-side wall. There was a small desk, with three drawers, under the window and a bed on the opposite side of the room. At the foot-end of the bed there was a huge black trunk with heavy brass locks. On the floor was a green rugged carpet with a large imprint in the middle.

There was no posters or picture on the walls, and the only item on the desk was a glass of water and a book.

"Little Woman"

He knew this book, the title of it was locked in his mind, but he couldn't remember from where. He was positive he'd never read it.

He bent down on the floor and let his finger trace the carpet. He found a couple of black strings of hair and a large imprint in the middle.

Lupin opened the bottom drawer and found some un-used parchment and a couple of quills. Everything neatly organized. In the middle drawer he found her schoolbooks. A large red book bound in skin caught his interest and he opened it on a random page.

He saw a picture drawn in magical-pastel colors making the imagines glimmer and move uneasily, like colored clouds. He touched the page and the colors rippled like the water's surface. Touching the brown color, small letters in barley noticeable handwriting appeared. It read "wood"

Fascinated, Lupin touched the pale green color and the letters reading "carpet" formed. A crystalblue one read, "water" while a murky red one was labeled "blood." He tried to find a reason Rena would connect colors to objects, but came up empty.

Lupin opened the book on other random pages. It was filled with vivid forms and shapes he wasn't able to identify, but they seemed to leap out at him and settle in his mind in a way he couldn't understand. Somehow, the imagines appeared to be familiar to him and they were oddly disturbing.

On the last page a huge black-cloaked figure was drawn. Its face was hidden in the folders of the cloak and the only thing visible was a rotting claw-like hand. He could see that the picture had been drawn in all haste and in fear; the lines around were sharp and uneven.

"A Dementor" Lupin mused, and then closed the book. Just looking at the picture made him feel uneasy.

The top drawer held nothing interesting, except what looked like old school reports. He spotted the essay he had handed out yesterday. Her answer had been formidable as ever and a quick scan through the other reports showed other essays and tests-answers, all marked with the top grade.

Lupin walked over to Renas trunk. It gleamed in its smooth black polish and it reminded him of whom Renas uncle was. He wondered what Snape would do if he ever found out he had been snooping around in his niece's room. He shuddered at the thought and imagined that not even Dumbledore would go lightly on him.

The trunk opened with a small squeak in protest and he stared down in it. On one side of the trunk was all her school-robes neatly folded. He saw other clothes, pants, sweater and socks, most of them in dark colors. Curiously, he took a pair of socks and placed it among the school robes. He closed the trunk and when he opened it again, the socks were back among the other socks again.

He sorted through the garments, chuckling slightly at the thought of Snape going shopping for clothes for a young girl. At the bottom of the trunk were several books, all very old and none of the pictures on the covers were moving. He picked up one of them and read the title. "Beowulf"

Taking out all the books he read titles like "David Copperfield" "Dantes Divine Comedy" "Lord of the Flies" and "White Fang"

Lupin sighed miserably. The only thing he had discovered about Rena was that she was a smart, organized student who liked to read classical muggle books and have an artistic talent. Nothing he didn't know before.

He started throwing the books back into the trunk at random, knowing they would be magically organized once he closed the lid. As he picked up "Divine Comedy" a small piece of paper fluttered out and landed on the floor.

Frowning slightly, he picked it up and unfolded it and read.

"Maud Applegate"

He could feel his hear-beat quicken and with quivering hands he turned the picture around and stared at the woman. Long blond locks and large blue eyes smiled at him in a pale face. The woman was wearing a red dress and her arms were wrapped around the arm of a man whose face had been thorn away.

Jumping back on his feet, still clutching the picture, Lupin rushed down to his own office, not thinking about the books and clothes still scattered out on the floor.

When he reached his own office, he started to rummage around in his own trunk until he found a black photo-album. He quickly flipped past the painful pictures of his school days until he got the last page. With trembling hands he fiddled with the yellow envelope until he managed to open it and spill its content out on his desk.

He found the picture and held it up to the one he had taken from Renas room. It was the same picture, no doubt, only that his hand been better handled and his own face had not been thorn away.

Lupin collapsed down in the office-chair, still feeling his heart race against his chest and his pulse drumming through his head.

The memories of Maud Applegate flooded back into his mind and he tried to shake them away. It had only been a small romance, in the time after Lily, James and Peter had been killed and Sirius had been thrown in prison.

He had been desperately lonely and miserable and the bright-eyed woman he had meet at a muggle-marked had lit a spark in him. He had fallen head-over heels in love with her, casting away all of his normal worries and sorrows. For one week he had lived in a blissfully pretend world where his entire past had never happened. Maud Applegate had not asked any questions and had accepted him for who he was. He had loved her laughter; her carefree attitude and that wonderful way she made him feel.

But he had left her quickly, knowing that there was no future with her. Come the next full moon and he would become a savage monster again.

Was Maud Applegate really Renas, -Maud Renas-, he corrected him self, mother? What was her connection with Snape and what had happened to her? Who had given Rena her name?

Rena sighed and stared at her property spilled out over the floor, again. The poltergeist had already emptied her belongings over the entire common room twice before.

She started to gather her things, thinking about the conversation with her uncle a couple of days ago. Had it been fair to ask him to kill her? But she didn't want to live like a werewolf and he was the only one she trusted, the only she would want placing a wand at her neck and utter the killing-words…. or slice her throat with a silver dagger.

Automatically she searched for the picture of her mother. It wasn't in the book where she had placed it.

"Accio Maud Applegate-picture" she said waving her wand.

Rena excepted it to come soaring from under her bed or her desk and was shocked to see it slipping in from the crack under the door. The picture landed in her hand and she clutched it tightly.

It wasn't her picture.

It was the same imagine, but this had been better handled and it wasn't thorn at the edge and for the first time she could look at the man's face. Rena had always believed that the man on the picture had to be her father, Dameon Epans.

She stared at him and she could see that there was some resemblance. She shared the man's eyes, the shape of his face, his nose and maybe even his mouth. He wasn't smiling, but looking seriously at the cameraman. There was something romantic and happy about the young couple, both looking like they had their entire future ahead of them.

Gently she touched the man's face and immediately felt a deep resentment for him.

He had been the one who neglected her as child, who had drugged her down and locked her up with only a bowl of water for company. He had been the one who had taken his own life and left her all alone.

Rena shivered in hatred and she clutched the picture forcefully, curling it into a ball. Her suppressed memories started to return, filling her mind like a disaccorded symphony.

There had been a small room under the floorboards in the kitchen where he used to lock her inn when it was fullmoon. One night, he had placed her there, but when the morning came he hadn't let her out again.

Through the cracks she had seen the sunlight and heard him walked back-and forth, mumbling and muttering. There had been the sound of furniture scraping across the floor, and he had climbed up a chair and placed his head in a loop. Then he had kicked the chair away and with a strangled cry, he had cut the air supply to his brain and slowly suffocated.

Rena could still remember the dusty filtered light broken by the movements of the body swinging back and forth and the low creaking of the rope. Eventually the movements had stopped and the noise died out. But she had still waited for him to let her out. She'd call for him and banged her hands against the wall. The light had disappeared and night had come, and she knew she was alone.

She couldn't remember how long it took before somebody had arrived but at the end the stench had been hideous and she'd been so hungry, she had clawed at roof above her. Even now she was terrified of small rooms.

She was quivering and feeling violently nauseas. She tossed the picture away as if had burned her and she wrapped her arms around her legs and buried her face in her knees.

What a horrible insignificant life she lived. She hadn't been welcomed, she hadn't been wanted and she had driven her father to suicide. Her mother had probably abounded her in fear once her child turned into a werewolf.

There was a subtle knock on her door, but Rena ignored it.

There was so much curled up anger in her that it felt as if she would explode, and the wolfish power seemed to pound through her. She wiped her tears away and bit down in robe's sleeve, groaning in pain. The urge to change grew, all she wanted was to lash out her revenge on the people who had hurt her. But they were all dead and there was nobody left to sooth her anger, or her tears. She huddled together and rocked her self back and forth, seeking comfort in her own embrace.

The knocking was becoming more insistence, and Rena covered her ears to block it out.

She just wished everything would be over, not knowing that the future would not let her slip away so easily.