V
Steps are Taken
In the afternoon, it rained. It poured for over an hour, then turned into a wild thunderstorm. I pushed the branch of the chestnut tree out of the way and shut the window. I had gone up to my room after I had been informed of the conference. I had skipped breakfast—often after a transformation my stomach is too confused to handle anything other than water, and I hadn't been hungry anyway. And I couldn't sleep like I usually did the morning after, not today. So I was in my room staring out the window at the driving rain when Dorcas Meadowes came in without knocking. She had known that I wouldn't have answered.
"Dinner. If you don't come down, I shall take you by force." I followed her down. "Most of the same people came," She said as we went down the stairs. "Fabian Prewett came, though, and Hagrid couldn't make it. Not that that's really a bad thing, he's hard to feed." I said nothing.
I nodded silently at the condolences offered in the dining room by people I scarcely remembered the names of, ate because Leenie was watching me closely. I tried to remember what Lizzie had ordered at the restaurant the night before. I couldn't. I looked at everyone sitting around the table. Had they once been as terrible at dueling as I was? Had it mattered so much if they had been?
When the conference was started, we did not move it into the living room. Leenie just served drinks and we had it in the dining room. The transition from meal to conference was not an official one, but it was one keenly felt. When all the members assembled had drinks, it was accepted that dinner was over and the conference had begun. But for nearly five minutes, nobody had anything to say. The silence was awkward. It was the sort of silence during which you whisper "sorry" after sneezing.
There was a roll of thunder, and Dumbledore decided that it was his introduction. "This cannot be allowed to happen again," he said solemnly. I opened my mouth to say something, an apology of some kind. "Remus, I say again, nobody here blames you for it." There was a general shaking of heads, which made me feel a tiny bit better. A tiny bit. "She would have gone out at some point, and this would have happened. I thought from the beginning that we were simply prolonging the inevitable. We have to find another way to hide our people—when it is necessary." He looked around the table for suggestions. "There is Polyjuice potion. If the Dark Side can identify a person, but not his or her house, that is an option. And there is the Fidelius Charm."
There were gasps. I hardly knew what the Fidelius Charm was, though I had a feeling I should. Hadn't that been in Defense Against the Dark Arts at some point? "Who knows how to do that?" Doc asked. "Besides you, I mean."
"I can," Gideon Prewett murmured. His angelic blond curls had swung forward over his face.
"Oh…." Doc flushed a little.
We talked about how secret-keepers were to be chosen, and the criteria that would have to be met for a Fidelius Charm to be necessary. Then we talked about who would make Polyjuice potion, and under what circumstances, and who the person taking it would turn into. When silence struck again, Fabian Prewett brought up an uncomfortable point.
"We ought to write wills…just in case, you know."
Everyone stared at him.
"You know," Dumbledore said, "I don't think that would be a bad idea." Nobody disagreed, and the silence returned. After perhaps fifteen minutes had passed, people began filtering out. I was among the first. I hid my head under my pillow and thought—I was eighteen, and I had to write a will? What had I gotten myself into? What did I have to leave to anyone, anyhow? There was just my trunk, and there was hardly anything in that that anyone would want.
Suddenly something occurred to me. I had gotten a letter way back in that evil February. I had not paid attention to it, just thrown it in my trunk. I went to my trunk, hoping beyond hope that it would still be there. Miraculously, it was. Way down at the bottom, under an ancient box of Pepper Imps. I opened it. It was from Gringotts, informing me that the contents of vault 221 were mine. There were, it said, six hundred twenty thousand five hundred twelve galleons, three sickles, six knuts in it. With six months interest, now….I suddenly had a lot more money than I thought I had. How much money had I had? A hundred galleons, if that.
So who would I leave it to? Of course, it wouldn't come to that, but since Dumbledore wanted me to. Who? I didn't know any living relatives. The Marauders? Split between the three of them? I put the letter down and lay down on the bed, wondering what the Marauders would do with that kind of money—the in-school Marauders. I dreamed dreams about getting in trouble, and then suddenly there was an executioner in the dream. I woke up. I hadn't realized I had fallen asleep. It was after five in the morning, and I didn't fall back to sleep before I heard Leenie downstairs.
I had the house to myself most of that day after everyone had gone to work. And I hated it. It had gotten hot again after the thunderstorm, but it was marginally drier. I was reminded of that afternoon two days before, when it had been too hot to do anything but lie on the floor half-dressed. I took a nap. It was a sweaty nap, but better than the ceaselessly pounding, miserable memory that was the alternative. I slept fitfully, and dreamed about Italian ice and Lizzie and Lia. I had never had Italian ice, but anyone can dream.
I woke up at four-thirty in the afternoon, feeling a bit sick. The soupy air, restless sleep, weird dreams, sweat, and residual morning-after-transformation had left me feeling like I had a fever. I tripped coming down the stairs. Frank caught me at the bottom and set me on my feet.
"Don't feel great, do you?"
"Not really. What's happening?"
"Everyone's back, and Moody has something you need to see—oh, I'll tell you. They put through a new werewolf decree today. It'll probably be in the papers tomorrow."
The words "werewolf decree" had put me on my guard. Decrees were bad.
"And they've come up with a potion—Wolfsbane potion. You need to keep a flask in the house during the week prior to the full moon."
"What's it do?"
"I'm not really clear on it, you'll have to ask, but I gather that it lets you keep your mind to an extent when you transform. And…."
"And?" I prompted.
"And you have to go to the Ministry by the thirty-first. They need to put your name on a list."
"What are they going to do with the list?"
"All the werewolves in England are going to be on it, and anyone who wants to know who you are can see it if they ask for it. And you'll be given an ID card, and you'll have to show it to any prospective landlords, employers, or employees."
"Landlords, you said?"
"Yeah…."
"There goes the apartment." I didn't want to stay here, not really, but the apartment I had been looking at was owned by a Muggle. I had a sort of sinking feeling in my chest, as if this was just the beginning. And it was. Things were only to go down from here.
That Friday (two days after the decree) I went to the Ministry with Emmy. We split up at the elevator with a morose, "See you." I went to the Werewolf Department, the place so disreputable among the reputable wizarding population that it is a euphemism for sudden unemployment.
It was a dreary place. I had only been here once before, when I was nine, and it had hardly changed since. There were no owls, they had been replaced by purple paper airplanes, but that was all. It was not a grey place, but one got the sense that it was.
I waited for a few minutes in the lobby. I didn't sit down. I thought that soon someone would come, and the chairs didn't look very comfortable anyhow.
When I had almost given up and sat, a West Indian secretary came in. "I'm so sorry, sir, have I kept you waiting?" I shook my head. "How can I help you?"
"I'm here because of the decree," I said.
"Oh, yes. You're the first. This way, please." She led me briskly from the lobby and into a short hallway. She knocked on a door.
"What, Martina?" said a hoarse voice inside.
Martina opened the door. "It's someone for the decree." She glanced at me and left.
I looked with narrowed eyes at the man behind the desk. He was tall and slim, the build I had always thought wizards' robes were designed to flatter. His hair was fair and streaked with grey, though he could not have been over thirty. I thought he must be a werewolf. He had the saddest face I had ever seen—at least, at that point. He was wearing a strange bracelet, apparently made of fake silver and engraved with the number 24601. I felt like I had seen him before.
"Hello, I'm Darryn Hathaway," he said, extending a hand. I started to reach for it, then froze.
"You're Darryn Hathaway?" I asked. I forced my voice to stay level.
"Yes…wait. You're—you aren't Lia's boyfriend—"
"And you're her brother—"
"Remus—Remus Lupin!"
"The photo album, I knew you!"
"Merlin, I'm sorry." The interruptions stopped. His head fell into his hands. "I can't…I can't tell you how sorry I am." I was silent. "It's so hard. I can't stop thinking about it. There was so much blood, and she was so brave, she tried to bring me to my senses—" He choked, and a tear splashed onto the book on his desk.
"She forgave you, Darryn," I found myself saying. Lia's voice drifted through my head: Do this for me: tell Darryn that I forgive him, since it wasn't entirely his fault anyway.
"What?"
"She forgave you. I was there when she…."
"You were?"
"I was the only one." He looked at me with something resembling fear. I realized what he feared. "I forgive you, too, Darryn." The fear disappeared. "What's going to happen about it?"
"My trial's tomorrow. And see this—" he waved the wrist with the fake silver bracelet—"they use it to knock me out whenever I turn."
"What if you're guilty?"
"They send me to a reserve somewhere, I imagine." He said it with forced indifference, and took a drink of something. He shivered.
"When tomorrow is your trial?"
"Ten—wait. You're coming?"
"I can't just let you go to a reserve!"
He shook his head. "It won't do any good. I have Umbridge and Crouch against me." When he saw my blank face, he explained. "Umbridge is a fat toad of a woman who hates anything that isn't pure, human wizard. I'm sure you know about Crouch, the most influential man in the ministry after Dumbledore. And Umbridge and Crouch together are worth more than Dumbledore." He took another swig of whatever was in the bottle. "It's a closed case."
I was going to go anyway.
"But the list. What's your middle name?" The pen in his hand shook. I told him and he scribbled it down. "Address?" I told him Leenie's muggle address. He took my picture. I think I had my eyes closed. A little card came out of the side of the camera. I took it, feeling as though it was my execution order. It was just a little card with a still picture and the words "Remus James Lupin: born 12/17/60, bitten 7/10/70; 44 Jillian Lane, York," and then, at the bottom in big capital letters the evil label: "WEREWOLF."
"Lovely thing, isn't it?" Darryn said contemptuously. "You'll have to come here a week before the full moon and pick up the potion. Bring the card. That's everything for now."
"See you tomorrow," I said. He opened his mouth, shut it; waved jerkily. I put the detestable bit of paper in my pocket and left.
