It was two hours before moonrise- Jill had checked her watch. Her head pounded and she felt the same nauseous feeling she had the previous two times. Jill had come up with some pathetic excuse to escape her friends, an excuse she probably wouldn't remember come tomorrow. As she made her way to the Hospital Wing, Jill's nausea increased and it was all she could do not to throw up. So focused was she, that she only realised she had reached the hospital wing when she was faced with the two oak doors. She pushed them open – where had the time gone? – and walked inside. Almost immediately, Madam Pomfrey came bustling towards her, seemingly out of nowhere.
"Good, good." She said, with the slightest hint of urgency in her voice. Jill didn't really care, she was too preoccupied with her splitting headache. "We're all here now. Come on, follow me." She set of at a remarkable pace, towards a bed where a boy sat, head in hands. "Up you get, Lupin." The boy stood up, wincing, and instantly saw Jill. They stared at each other, dumbfounded. Jill recovered quickest. Her mouth twitched, amused. Remus Lupin. Over the past month, Jill had wondered who the other Lycanthrope might be, but never would she have picked Lupin. It was, she thought, another example of pure irony, to have the name Remus Lupin and be a werewolf. Madam Pomfrey tutted in irritation. "Hurry up!" she said, bringing the two out of their stupor. Jill rubbed her head, going over to where Madam Pomfrey was opening the doors. Like before, Jill found the nausea and headache left little energy for thought or concentration, and the journey out of the castle passed quickly. It was only when Lupin asked her a question that Jill realised she was halfway across the grounds.
"Pardon?" She asked, then grimaced as the sound increased the pain in her head.
"I asked whether you were scared."
"What point would being scared be if it didn't change anything?"
Lupin, it seemed, had no answer for that. A few minutes passed.
"Do you have a headache?" He asked. It seemed he was trying to create a conversation. Jill snorted.
"What do you think?"
"Probably not."
Jill looked over at him. He was smirking.
Remus Lupin was in his third year at Hogwarts, one more than Jill. As a result, the few times they had spoken to each other was if one of them had a note to pass on from a teacher to the other. The odd times Jill had taken note of Lupin was if he was standing near James or Sirius as they pulled yet another prank. It was strange to know that the quiet, insignificant boy was a werewolf. On reflection, Jill supposed he felt the same about her.
Thinking to turn Lupin's conversation starting game back on him, she asked a question.
"How long have you been a Lycanthrope?"
He didn't look very startled; she supposed he had been expecting it.
"Since I was five."
Jill's eyebrows flew up into her brown hair.
"Merlin's Beard, that's young."
"What about you?"
"Last summer. I thought it was a wolf at first. By the time I remembered there aren't any wolves in Britain, it was too late." Jill tried and failed to keep the bitter note out of her voice. That night had been one of the few times she had been scared, though she would only admit it to herself.
They had reached a small hill, upon which rested a tree. Not just any tree, she remembered, that's the Whomping Willow. It had been planted the year before she came to Hogwarts, so she had been told, and was notorious for its will to break the bones of anyone who came near it. At the moment, it was waving its branched threateningly at them. Madam Pomfrey waved her wand, muttering something. A large stick rose into the air and shot forwards to – not very gently – prod a knot in the trunk. It was as if the tree had become stone. Not a branch swayed or a twig rustled. Jill's mouth dropped open.
"That's what I felt like too, the first time I saw it." Lupin whispered, grinning at Jill. She closed her mouth, ignored her headache and followed madam Pomfrey as the matron disappeared into a gap between the roots. Jill went first, sliding down a slope and into a tunnel. It was dark, the only source of light coming from Madam Pomfrey's wand. Jill and Madam Pomfrey, neither of them particularly tall, only had to double over to walk in the passageway. Lupin, however, was forced to practically crawl.
It wasn't the kind of tunnel that encouraged conversation, and for the rest of the way, the trio remained silent, hurrying towards the end. Jill was already suffering from an intense headache and nausea. The tunnel added an aching back, something that deeply frustrated Jill. They could've made it a bit taller, she thought, though did not voice it. After what had to have been an hour, the passage sloped upwards, making one last turn. In front of Jill, Madam Pomfrey clambered out of a hole and into what seemed to be a room. To the right was a door. Evidently hurrying now, the matron half-dragged Jill through it. Up dusty stairs and onto a landing, then through another door. Everything, Jill noticed, was ripped and clawed and scratched. Madam Pomfrey led Jill into a room.
"I'm going to lock the door," She explained, "and then I'm going to leave. I'll return in the morning, and you'll spend the rest of the day in the Hospital Wing, no doubt sleeping. Understand?"
Jill nodded, feeling as though she was once again talking to Professor McGonagall. Those two had a lot in common. Madam Pomfrey backed out of the room and shut the door. Jill heard the lock click. It seemed Remus was also locked in a room; she heard the lock click again.
It was strange, sitting in the darkness in a room that looked as though it had participated in a war. The feeling wasn't fear, Jill decided, something more like pity. She almost laughed out loud, had she not had a headache. You couldn't feel pity for rooms! After a while, pain started to shoot up Jill's leg. She gritted her teeth as bone shifted and fur sprouted. Pain was weakness. Slowly though, her arms and neck transformed, until she was almost completely werewolf. She screamed, but the sound that came out was more of a howl.
I am not-
Then all human thoughts disappeared.