17.
The dementor on the train caused a whirlwind of conversation at the opening feast. Harry felt many eyes on him even before the castle doors opened to admit them and jumped when McGonagall's hand made contact with his shoulder. She motioned for him to follow and Harry complied, waving his friends off.
"Professor Lupin owled me about the dementor," she said, once they were safely locked away in her office. "How are you feeling? I know you might not want to hear my concern or anybody else's right now, but I understand how jarring your first dementor can be." Harry squirmed under her sympathetic gaze and didn't know what to say.
"The dementors I encountered," she continued, haltingly, "fed on my grief over the death of my husband." She looked down at her hands, wrinkly eyelids unfolding like veiny paper over her eyes. "It took me quite some time to be able to stand being in the same room as a dementor without being overwhelmed."
"I'm...so sorry, professor," Harry began before McGonagall cut him off with a wave of her hand.
"My trouble with the dementors resolved itself a long time ago, Mr. Potter. My only worry now is that you should have to relive such painful memories at a time like this. Do you remember what it was that it made you remember? You don't have to tell me if you don't want to."
Harry cleared his dry throat and shook himself. "I, uh, I'm not sure what it was that I saw," he said, quite truthfully. "I think I'm supposed to remember it, but I can't." McGonagall placed a finger to her lips thoughtfully.
"I have to tell you that I've never heard of anything like this happening before. Perhaps it is something you experienced that your mind decided to forcefully forget. I don't suppose you'd like to tell me what you saw?"
Harry shivered and rubbed his arms. "It's too close. I'm sorry."
"I understand, Mr. Potter. There's no need at all to apologize. I'll be here if you need to talk to someone. Nothing that happens in this room will reach anyone else's ears, not even the headmaster's."
Harry's head snapped up when she mentioned Dumbledore and she answered his shocked gaze with a knowing wink.
"Here, eat," she said, handing him a sizable bar of chocolate. "It'll help."
"So I've heard," he said, smiling. McGonagall waved him out of her office and he left hastily just in time to see the first years entering the castle on his way to the great hall. Thankfully, nobody noticed him coming in and he found a seat by Ron. McGonagall appeared just behind him, scroll in hand and a trail of children behind her just as she did when Harry was a first year himself and he had the distinct feeling that he was starting to like her, if only a little. He quieted his friends' questions by shoving a hunk of chocolate into each of their mouths, laughing quite freely at Hermione's incensed chewing. Dumbledore's speech about the dementors peeved him more than he would admit and he couldn't believe the ministry was stationing dementors this close to so many children. Maybe he could believe it. It was the ministry, after all. The most Dumbledore could offer was to advise everyone to keep their lights on, which gave Harry a migraine. It was worse than telling him to love Voldemort to death. Ron was as mad as he was, muttering a surprisingly acidic, "bloody candle won't keep a dementor away you batty old fart." Harry had never felt their friendship so keenly. Immediately after the feast, Harry and Hermione were pulled aside by Percy, who gestured for them to follow him to McGonagall's office.
"What do you think she wants with us?" Hermione examined her pristine nails in an attempt at hiding her nerves. Harry shrugged, playing along and doing his best to look casual. Percy left them in McGonagall's study and the professor herself appeared shortly after.
"Don't worry Miss Granger," she said, handing each of them a scroll and a pouch, "I didn't call you here to scold you. These are your schedules for the year. I must say that I am quite proud of both of you for taking on such an extensive course load."
Hermione shot Harry a rather surprised look and he shrugged sheepishly back. He'd owled McGonagall about taking overlapping classes and expected to take some sort of revisionary class outside of regular hours. He hadn't told anyone, not even Draco.
"Both of your marks were sufficient for the ministry to grant you provisionary time turners," McGonagall continued, fishing out the device from Harry's little leather pouch. "This will allow you to travel back in time a maximum of five hours to attend all of your classes and complete your coursework." Once she finished explaining the details of its use and the restrictions of time travel, she walked them back to the dormitories and bade them goodnight.
"I didn't know you were going to take the same schedule as me," Hermione said as soon as the portrait swung closed. Most of the other students were in their rooms unpacking, leaving the common room blessedly empty.
"I didn't think it was that big of a deal. I thought I was just going to have a bit of extra class time after hours, not this," he whispered, gesturing to the pouch that lay disillusioned against his chest. Inexplicably, Hermione closed the distance between them to hug him as if he'd come to her rescue. He didn't resist and tucked her head neatly under his chin, noticing their height difference for the first time since reuniting on the train. Hermione pulled away after a few seconds, looking close to tears.
"Sorry, I'm just so glad I'm not the only one doing this. There's going to be so much work and the thought of not being able to tell anyone about it would have driven me bonkers."
"Don't worry about it, Hermione. I was scared too. We wouldn't be human if we weren't afraid." They exchanged parting words and headed up to unpack their things. The first day of classes was satisfyingly chaotic, with his first time turner uses taking up most of Harry's concentration. He found that the best way to manage things was to take one class, go to an empty lavatory, use the time turner, and go to a different class on the other side of the castle. If he saw Hermione during the day, he didn't dare try to talk to her about which time turner revolution he was on. With the three extra classes they were taking, he spent two hours of the day avoiding her. He found the extra work stimulating and sufficiently challenging, but couldn't help thinking some of the new electives were useless. Muggle studies, obviously, did him no good because the lectures were full of things he already knew. Still, it was a nice break in his day and he could try to get some work done while the professor droned on about the primary usage of dish soap. Divination, however, truly left him feeling like he was wasting his time.
"I don't know what to tell you, mate," Ron said, squinting into the teacup before him. "It just looks like a pile of soggy tea leaves." Harry shrugged himself, ready to jot down something creative enough to turn in when Professor Trelawney wafted by, smelling of herbs he didn't want to know the uses for. She squawked at the sight of his tea cup and predicted his death while he could plainly see that nothing was going on with her magical core to suggest any prophetic abilities. He was unreasonably peeved by her comments about his death and was weighing shattering her glasses wandlessly against doing it with his fists. Calm, child, Legion thundered suddenly. Harry flinched in his seat at their sudden outburst. She does possess some prophetic ability, though it is weak. Her Sight is different from yours and only appears fleetingly whenever fate chooses. Look for yourself and you will see that this is true.
Harry did look closer and found a single thread of an unusual form of magic attached to her that seemed to travel nowhere at all, but stuck of her out like a hair out of a mole. It was hardly a momentous cosmic gift, but it was a gift. Harry shook his head, but decided he could try to glean whatever he could from this useless class. He did have the prophecy to worry about after all. Nothing was stopping him from having his fun, however.
"Oh, that prediction isn't very new at all, professor," he said, sweetly as she pointed a claw-like finger at him. "I've come close to dying every year I've been here. What will land Harry Potter in the infirmary this year? It's like the lottery and Sirius Black just increased raised the stakes. Would you like to start the betting pool?" It was far from funny, but Trelawney's stricken expression amused him to no end.
"You're both horrible," Hermione said, eyeing Harry resentfully over her lunch.
"What did I do?" Harry asked between bites of potato salad.
"You joked about your life like it's no big deal, Harry. It's almost worse than her casually predicting the death of a student."
"Come on, Hermione, he was just messing with her," Ron said as soon as his mouth was empty enough for him to speak. He was still miffed about Hermione's cat making a move on Scabbers.
"Yeah, Hermione. It's okay if I do it because I'm talking about myself. I was just trying to get her to drop that hippie dippy mystic act. You know the one," he said, imitating Trelawney's posture and crossed eyes. Hermione laughed in spite of herself.
Hagrid's first lesson as a professor, as one might expect, was awkward and most everyone was peeved by the murderous textbook he assigned.
"Oh bloody hell," Malfoy spat. "This book tore a hole in my new shirt." Harry snickered and looked over to find that the book had indeed hooked one of its teeth into Draco's new shirt and was working on detaching a sleeve.
"Oh you poor thing," Harry said, still laughing at Malfoy's stricken expression. He pointed a finger at the hole and mended it wandlessly, barely able to say the words through his giggles.
"You're supposed to stroke it." Draco glared at him mutinously, stroking the stupid book when he thought Harry wasn't looking. Flying on Buckbeak was exhilerating and Harry couldn't deny that he liked it almost as much as riding a broom. Draco decided to give it a go, only to find that he was dreadfully afraid of having to balance on what was essentially one of those mechanical bull rides with wings. His whoops could be heard from across the lake, but upon landing, he couldn't hold on tightly enough to Buckbeak's feathers and fell off as the hippogriff made its final bucking flaps to land. Harry acted quickly and whipped out his wand to slow Draco's descent and let him land gently on his feet. Draco was himself breathless and giddy despite his fall and Harry could tell that he felt the same about Buckbeak being a wonderful experience. He loved flying as much as Harry did, after all. In the end, however, some of the other students were reluctant to fly and Hagrid was too nervous to let any more of them try.
"Don't tear yourself up over it, Draco," Pansy said, straightening Draco's hair. "I'm sure no one will be stupid enough to report it." Unfortunately, Dumbledore did get wind of the incident and made an announcement at breakfast the next morning that the board would be taking action against Buckbeak and reevaluating the safety standards of Hagrid's class, much to the frustration of all the students. Draco slammed his fork on the table and stormed out from dinner early, mumbling, "Father will be hearing about this."
The first few days of classes allowed Harry to get into a routine that usually included exercise in the morning that Malfoy usually joined in on and training with Legion in the Room of Requirement in the same hour thanks to his time turner. Legion continued to drill him on matters of the soul and was explaining the theory behind reanimation of corpses when Harry was suddenly hit with an uncomfortable feeling in his gut when he looked into the face of the shade of Lily Potter. Legion stopped speaking and tilted its head owlishly, eyes still closed. Its movement reminded him of where he was and he shook the feeling off, pushing Legion to continue the lesson.
Lupin's defence class had Harry keenly interested and he was surprised to find that the defense classroom had been cleared of its desks. The professor stood smiling mischievously in the middle on the room in front of a rather large wardrobe and pointed a finger up at the ceiling. The class looked up to find that all the furniture was stuck magically to the ceiling.
"I came in this morning to find that some clever trickster had done that to all the desks in my room. No matter, we'll just have to do something a bit more fun instead. The boggart was interesting to say the least. Harry squirmed, hanging back behind most of the class. Even he didn't know what his worst fear was. His anxiety wore him down until Neville's boggart turned into Snape in his gran's clothes. He thought that they fit, given the amount of babysitting he did for Narcissa. Harry's smile slipped off of his face, however, when he stepped up to meet it. The room darkened and the air became cold despite the day's warmth.
What looked like a dementor wafted out of the wardrobe in front of him and a woman's scream echoed through the room. Harry was surprised to find that his peers could hear the terrible sound too and many of them put their hands to their ears. The screaming was faint at first, like listening to someone speak underwater. As the dementor crept closer, the screaming became more enunciated until it was apparent to everyone in the room that the voice was screaming Harry's name. Harry's vision went red with anger and panic, completely unwilling to confront his memories, and it made his blood roil that the dementor had the gall to invade his mind. Forgetting entirely where he was, he reached out his wand numbly and fired whatever curse he could think of at it. Since the creature was indeed only a boggart, the thing burnt itself into a pile of white ash, smokeless and seemingly from within. Its death was quick, but violent and painful, judging by the scream that it produced that sounded like one of those fake dinosaurs on muggle television. Harry couldn't bear to turn around to see the expression on his classmates' faces.
"Right, well. Since our specimen has quite literally gone up in smoke, I'd say we can end class early today," Lupin said, ushering the students out and keeping Harry back by placing a hand on his shoulder. Hermione looked as if she were about to refuse until Ron pulled her away.
"I'm sorry, professor-"
"No, Harry, you've nothing to be sorry about," Lupin said pulling down two chairs from the ceiling. He motioned for Harry to sit and took the other for himself. Wordlessly, he took Harry's hand.
"What was that, if you don't mind me asking?" Lupin didn't look up from Harry's hand.
"I-I don't know, sir. I heard it that day on the train when you saved me from the other dementor."
"Do you need to talk about it? I know you don't know me very well, but I am your teacher." When it was apparent that Harry's lips were buttoned closed, Lupin sighed and continued.
"Aestus was an interesting choice in spells," he said, examining the skin of Harry's wand hand, "but I wouldn't advise using it until you're at least fifteen. You've only gone and burned yourself." Harry looked down. He hadn't even noticed the blisters forming in his palm.
"Sorry," he said again. Lupin shook his head as he magically healed the burns.
"Don't apologize, Harry. Really. I'm the one who should have known better, knowing what you've been through." He looked up from his work. "You know, you have your mother's eyes."
Harry blinked. He knew, of course, but he had to tread lightly. "I-I do?" Lupin nodded.
"Your father always said they were his favorite thing about her."
"You knew my parents?"
"I did. They were my best friends. I can't tell you how sorry I am that I didn't say anything. I tried so very hard to find you after the war, but Dumbledore had to keep your location a secret and, well, I'm not the best caretaker in the world."
Harry was at a loss for words. He couldn't decide whether he was angry at Dumbledore for keeping Lupin from contacting him or at Lupin for not trying harder to find him. The question that flew from his lips was born out of confusion.
"What were they like?"
"They were brilliant, Harry. Your dad was the best quidditch player in school and he was a very capable wizard. He was a mean prankster, too, until your mother showed up. Now she was a smart lady. She could cast any spell. You name it, she knew it. They were a lot like you, really. Where on earth did you learn a spell like Aestus?" Harry told Lupin about his revision with Snape and Lupin's jaw dropped when Harry silently and wandlessly brought all of his furniture down from the ceiling in one go.
"Oh my word," he said, hand on his chest. "If this isn't James pulling a fast one on me from beyond the grave, I'll eat my shirt."
Snape pinched the bridge of his nose, looking as if he had a migraine that was as persistent as the great red spot on Jupiter. Lupin grinned tiredly at him and kept a hand on Harry's shoulder. Harry was avoiding Snape's eye. The three of them were gathered in the potions classroom and the room smelt of something foul that was bubbling away in a cauldron that Snape had magically set to stir by itself.
"Come on, Severus," Lupin said, making a poor attempt at camaraderie, "I know you're still miffed that Dumbledore didn't give you the job, but I'd like to help Harry. Think of his education."
"Professor Flitwick and I are perfectly capable of teaching Mr. Potter on our own." Harry winced. Snape hadn't called him "Mr. Potter" since his first year and the change stung.
"I spoke to Flitwick and he agrees that a third teacher to replace Quirrell would help spread out the workload more evenly. You're busy enough as it is."
"And whose fault is that?" The two fell silent and Harry looked between them curiously. Snape saw him watching and harrumphed.
"Fine, for Harry's sake, I will work with you to further his education. You cannot, however, tell anybody about this, especially the headmaster."
"Brilliant! I'll see you tomorrow, then, eh, Harry?" Lupin patted Harry's shoulder and left the potions room.
"Sorry, professor," he said, "he followed me in."
"Like a true dog," Snape spat. "I don't trust that man."
"Why not? He was friends with my dad."
"Exactly."
"I like him." Harry looked down at his hands, afraid of what Snape might say. Snape only sighed.
"As I said, I will try to cooperate. We're not schoolboys anymore." Harry beamed, making the corner of Snape's mouth twitch upwards once.
"You look just like your mother when you smile. It's your eyes."
"Lupin said the same thing." Snape snorted softly and tossed Harry a new curse-breaking book.
Harry began his lessons with professor Lupin most unusually by meeting him outside of the forbidden forest.
"I got old Hagrid to let me use the space he uses for Care," Lupin said, dragging a few stray branches away from the center of the clearing they stood in. He popped the log in a heap that, upon further inspection, turned out to be a part of a very elaborate obstacle course. Harry looked down at his school robes and sighed.
"Professor, what is all this?" Lupin levitated yet another, larger log onto the heap and grinned.
"This is something we used to do, your father and I," he said, working on another barrier. "We were big fans of muggle military training courses and we sort of made things up and romped around for the fun of it. I figured, since you are so very good at wandless magic, what good is it if you're standing still? The best advantage you have is that your hands and body are free to move about without the restrictions of a wand."
"You could have told me," Harry chuckled, gesturing to his terribly inappropriate attire.
"Why Harry," he said, letting a rather heavy bolder crash to the ground, "somebody chasing you won't wait for you to change your clothes. Today shouldn't be any different. Besides, you know how to transfigure them yourself." Harry realized he'd been had and dutifully transfigured his slacks and shirt into suitable athletic clothing. Lupin's obstacle course was tough and he spent the first lesson mostly learning to climb it. At the top of each barrier and under each low rail, he was expected to cast a basic curse at really anything.
"Come on, Harry," Lupin laughed next to him as he worked, if you can't cast a tickling curse at nothing at all, how will you fare against a target? You can do it! I know you can!"
This strange sort of pep talk that Harry was completely unused to got him through the course and in two hours, he was hitting static targets that changed position with every repetition of the course. He was, of course, completely knackered afterwards, but happy. He hadn't thought of his father in a while and it was only now, sweating through the crazy obstacles that his father almost certainly went through, that he felt closer to knowing who he really was. As he dragged his feet back up to Gryffindor tower, The Fat Lady admitted him, asking "What on earth happened to you? You look like you fell in the lake and then had a row with the giant squid."
Harry waved her comments away and dove for the showers and then for his bed, fully intending to use his time turner to take a much needed nap. He was awakened by a tapping on the window by his bed where an owl stood impatiently jerking its head this way and that. It looked to be a rented messenger owl. Harry opened the window, offered the owl an owl treat and a sickle for payment. Bloody thing almost took Harry's finger off and shoved the letter into Harry's palm with its talons before flying off. The letter was written on a plain piece of parchment that was folded in half. In the center, written with soot mixed with water, were the words "I found him" in a shaky, almost illegible script. Harry didn't have to wonder to know that the letter was from Lockhart and his heart pounded out the painful rhythm of relief. He burned the letter in his hands and pulled out his time turner to go back in time for his next class.
"Come on, lads," Oliver howled, his hoarse voice growing more hoarse by the second, "are you boys or are you men?"
"Men!" The team yelled.
"Oy! We take offense to that!" Alicia Spinnet yelled, lobbing the quaffle derisively at Oliver's head. Katie bell aided its journey with a swat of her broom. Angelina scooped it from the air just before Oliver could catch it and threw it, point blank at his head, making him duck and allowing the quaffle to zip through the goal post behind him..
"What are we?!" Oliver exclaimed, hand on his heart and a genuinely frightened look on his face.
"Women!" The rest of the team answered. The three chasers flew in a triumphant circle exchanging high fives and slaps on the back like lionesses sharing a bit of prey. Harry watched the exchange from his end of the practice field, where he was subjected to a different course of gruelling training, and chuckled before having to corkscrew out of the path of an incoming bludger. Oliver had rigged a bludger or four to fly at Harry randomly, never enough to injure, but enough to force him to dodge.
"We don't want a repeat of last year!" Oliver bellowed just before releasing all of the bludgers the school owned.
"That wasn't even my fault!" Harry was too busy trying to fly away to make sure he'd heard. When he next passed over Oliver, his captain was yelling again.
"I don't care! We will be victorious, rigged bludgers or no!" Oliver had clearly gone nutters. By the time practice was over, Harry was dizzy and sore from performing so many spins and flips. The physical punishment continued for Harry when Flitwick decided to teach Harry and Draco advanced dueling.
"Mr. Malfoy will be joining us from now on because dueling in practical situations usually involves more than just one person. Issues like friendly fire and poor cover fire can ruin your day." As he twittered, professor Flitwick worked on transfiguring some of the furniture in his classroom so that they might have enough room to move around instead of the restrictions of a standard dueling strip.
"Learning to duel with other people will allow you to hold your own even if you partner," he continued, gesturing vaguely to Draco, "is an inexperienced dueler, not that you're inexperienced, Mr. Malfoy. You are, however, a perfect example of a reasonably good dueler without the uncommon advantages Mr. Potter possesses. Mr. Potter, do try to remember that your particular talents are so rare, it's like finding a phoenix sitting on a griffin's head in a pair of bloomers owned by Rowena Ravenclaw." Harry, who was in the middle of moving a table, almost dropped the heavy, floating table, cringing at Flitwick's gushing. He didn't have to turn around to know that Draco was stifling his laughter behind him. They spent a solid hour shooting curses at professor Flitwick, who leapt and dodged with surprising alacrity until both boys ended up shooting expelliarmus at each other, sending each other's wands flying into their faces. Draco's wand hit Harry squarely on the forehead, narrowly missing his scar, which he was grateful for since it was still tender.
"Both of you need to work on your coordination. If you were paying attention to each other, you would have noticed that you were casting at each other." Flitwick demonstrated some of the dodging techniques he used when faced with more than one caster and he snapped for them to repeat the exercise. The afternoon ended with only slight improvement and more sore muscles than Harry even knew he had. This exhausting schedule had Harry eating more heartily than he ever had before and as his body grew taller and leaner in just a few weeks, his hunger pang frame finally filling out somewhat, much to his and the bathroom mirror's relief.
"Much better, darling. I was afraid you'd not be long for the grave," the mirror sighed to him one morning. Harry blushed and finished tying back his hair. It was the only thing he could do to keep it out of his face since the Malfoys forbade him from cutting it.
"It's simply too pretty to cut, dear," Narcissa said as she absently cast a sticking charm on his bangs.
"Yes, it's far too unruly when it's short, anyway," Draco clipped, his stance mimicking his mother. At that, the matter was settled and Harry stood in front of the talking mirror in the bathroom in Gryffindor Tower more than a month later with six more inches of hair than when that particular conversation happened. He wasn't about to disobey orders and have Draco report his hair mutiny to Narcissa. Harry was up early again because of another nightmare, the same one that started bothering him only after the dementor on the train. Nightmares weren't anything new to him, but there had never been one quite like this one that came again and again every night like a chronic ear infection. It always began with happy visions of two smiling faces that were interrupted with a flash of green and that horrible scream. He couldn't place the images anywhere in his memories, but that scream ignited within him fear and sorrow that always woke him in the dead of night with his heart beating a reel straight out of his chest. While the general fatigue from his punishing physical regimen kept the dreams at bay for a little while, the days leading up to Halloween seemed to worsen his insomnia.
When Halloween finally arrived, Harry was looking forward to his first visit to Hogsmeade, but was dismayed to find professor McGonagall standing in his way at the school gate.
"I'm sorry, Mr. Potter, but Sirius Black's escape poses a great security risk for you. We cannot let you outside of the castle's wards." Harry stared numbly at the proffered permission slip and he shook with barely restrained rage.
"My safety should be up to me and my family to decide," he bit out once he'd calmed enough to sound civil. "I discussed this with my guardians and they signed this permission slip knowing the risks. Who decided this?"
"The headmaster did, Mr. Potter. I'm sorry. While I agree with you and trust that you would be safe, given the dementor patrols of the area and the presence of so many members of the faculty, it is quite out of my hands."
In a move that sounded more like Draco, Harry left the permission slip in her hands anyway and muttered, "wait until Mr. Malfoy hears about this." After furiously scribbling a letter to Mr. Malfoy and deciding he needed to calm down before owling it to him, he tried scuttling to the kitchens for some tea. Upon reaching the corridor where the Hufflepuff common room was, he raised a hand to summon Dobby, who'd insisted on following them to Hogwarts again, convinced that Harry needed protection with Sirius Black on the loose. Instead of having him on mop guard in Gryffindor Tower, Harry and Draco had decided to convince Dobby that the most danger Harry would face at school would be through the food. The eccentric elf spent the last two months of school working in the kitchens, personally working on all of the food sent to the Gryffindor and Slytherin tables. Shouldering open the door to the kitchen corridor, however, he was surprised to find Professor Lupin negotiating biscuits from another elf. Noticing his presence, Lupin unfolded himself and smiled in greeting.
"Harry! I see we both had the same idea about afternoon tea," he said, straightening his ill fitting jacket. "I thought you went to Hogsmeade." Harry scowled and explained what happened. Lupin grimaced sympathetically, but the mention of Sirius brought something dark into his expression that Harry caught for only a split second before it was gone again. Seeing that both of them were in a surly mood, Lupin invited Harry up to his office for tea.
"I have some tea up in my office, even if these elves won't spare me any." Harry grinned for the first time that day and snapped his fingers to summon Dobby. The excitable elf launched himself at Harry to embrace his legs before snapping his fingers, making a tray containing tea and biscuits appear in Harry's hands. Harry patted Dobby's head and gave him a biscuit from the tray before dismissing him.
"You need to teach me that trick," Lupin said, levitating the tray and leading the way to his office.
"Trust me," Harry said, grimacing, "it's not much of a party trick." They took their tea in Lupin's rather sparse, slightly messy office. Harry noticed that Lupin ate as if he hadn't in weeks and his spare body looked as if the tea and biscuits passed right through him like air. He remembered how he used to eat and still did at times whenever his body remembered the painful feeling of his stomach digesting itself. As he made idle conversation, Harry discreetly pushed the plate of biscuits closer to his professor with the tip of one finger. Before long, the whole thing was gone, seemingly absorbed entirely by the professor's grasping body, leaving nothing to indicate that the biscuits had ever existed.
"You and Sirius were friends with my dad, then?" Harry asked. That pained expression appeared again across Lupin's face, but he smiled and answered anyway.
"Yes, we formed a little group. It was me, your dad, Sirius, and Peter Pettigrew." The conversation stayed on the subject of Harry's father and his friends and Lupin told Harry about their nicknames. As the professor spoke, Harry unconsciously looked deeper into his magical energy signatures and noticed something strange about the way the strands were bound to him. The deeper he looked, the more it looked like a strand of magic, sickly and red, worked its way throughout Lupin's core. Harry couldn't make out what it was.
It is a curse, the floaters whispered into his ear, the curse of the wolf.
A wolf? A werewolf? Harry should have guessed that they were real. He'd read ahead in the defense book, of course, but it never quite hit him that they were real.
"What did your nicknames mean?" Harry asked, trying to tease something out of Lupin. He could tell that Lupin was holding things back from him and he had to know more. Lupin stalled by taking another sip of his cold tea and grimaced at the taste. He cleared his throat.
"Well, you know boys pick frivolous nicknames. They were just funny things we used to call each other." He buttoned up again. Sensing that he wasn't getting anything else from him, Harry tried a different question.
"Was my dad really close to Sirius?" Lupin's smile slipped a little more, but he pulled the corners of his mouth up like a pair of bootstraps and spoke.
"They were like brothers. Your dad's family took Sirius in after he was disowned by his family. Sirius would have died for James." He paused, rubbing his dry hands together in thought. "I didn't even get to talk to either of them in the end."
"You didn't?" Harry was genuinely surprised. Lupin shook his head.
"I was deemed somewhat of a...security risk when your parents went into hiding," because he was a werewolf, Harry thought, "and when everything happened, no one thought to tell me anything. I didn't even know Sirius had done it until I saw the papers."
"Did he have a trial?" Harry asked Lupin gently after a brief pause. Lupin's brows drew together.
"He must have," he said, almost to himself, as if it had never occurred to him. An awkward silence grew between them before Harry called for Dobby and the little elf appeared with a plate of endless sandwiches for the both of them, which Lupin tucked into happily like a starving competitive eater. Harry took a few and sat contemplating his professor with a sad expression on his face, happy for the silence that the activity of eating provided.