Chapter Six
Lies
The two girls were already sat down when they arrived. "You're late," said Professor Tollenworth, putting her book down and staring at the two boys icily. "You are, in fact, three minutes late."
James and Sirius exchanged sheepish glances. Sirius opened his mouth and said, "We're sorry, Professor, it's just-"
"I don't wish to hear what you think is more important than your punishment. You will not learn from your mistakes otherwise. You will both receive an extra detention for every minute you were late. If you fail to attend on time to those detentions as well, you will serve another and another. Do I make myself clear?"
James' mouth dropped open. Sirius elbowed him in the side. "Yes, Professor Tollenworth," he said.
"Good, now take a seat." She picked up her book again. "And boys, not near one another. This is, after all, a punishment."
Sullenly, James and Sirius took desks on separate sides of the room. Professor Tollenworth smiled widely at them and then waved her wand, sending parchment and quills to the four students.
"You shall write lines," she told them. "'I will not speak in class unless directed'."
Grumpily, Sirius, James and Lily picked up their quills and began to write. Isabelle's hand flew into the air.
Raising a delicate eyebrow, the Professor nodded towards her.
"How long shall we write for, Professor? And what happens if we need more parchment?"
"You shall write, Miss Vicario, until I tell you to stop," said Professor Tollenworth. "And you shan't run out of parchment, it is charmed to lengthen." She smiled widely, sickeningly. "Now carry on."
Blushing slightly, Isabelle dropped her eyes to the paper and began to write in loopy cursive. This wasn't constructive at all, she thought, as her hand began to cramp as she neared the original bottom of the page. Stupid woman who couldn't defend her way out of a wet parchment bag, I'm sure!
Professor Tollenworth busied herself with some important looking pieces of parchment and ignored her students for the next hour and a half.
*
Bloody shadows were being cast across the white walled Hospital Wing. Remus lay very still, feeling conciousness seeping through his body. He ached terribly. He screwed his eyes up against the bright, setting sun.
Unintentionally, he coughed and found that he was unable to stop. Footsteps rushed the length of the room and then he heard a kind voice saying, "Come on dear, sit up. Drink this, it'll help." And a goblet was pressed to his lips and he felt the warm liquid fill his mouth.
"Where am I?" he asked, his voice hoarse.
"You're in the Hospital Wing, my dear. I fetched you on Monday morning at sunrise, just like we'd planned." She smiled kindly as he opened his eyes to squint up at her face. He felt a sharp pain across his nose.
"I-I don't remember..."
"I doubt you do. You've not been awake since. But now that you are, I'll set about healing some of your cuts and bruises." She pulled her wand from her apron and titled his face towards her. "Hold still whilst I heal your face up. I think you must've tried to get out by the Willow," she told him, slowly waving her wand across his face in spidery patterns, a white mist the only thing he could see.
Remus was used to the procedure. His mother was very apt at the healing spells required for the minor cuts and scrapes he sustained during his transformation. However, there was something rather odd about a stranger performing them with such soothing sympathy.
"Did I bite myself?" he asked, once she'd moved her wand away from his face and the white mist had disappeared from his immediate vision.
Madam Pomfrey picked a tub of ointment off of the bedside cabinet and gave it a little shake. "Would I need this if you hadn't?"
He corner of his mouth picked up a little. "I guess not." The matron took his left arm and pushed up the sleeve, exposing bloodstained bandaged arms.
"It was all I trusted myself doing after finding you," she told him, her voice low. "I've never treated werewolf bites before." She blushed.
"Thank you," he said, as he watched her tenderly unwrap the bandages. "You're doing a very good job."
"You're sweet." She slowly waved her wand over the cuts, siphoning off the excess blood.
She began to dab the ointment into the cuts. "How often will I have to come back to get them re-dressed, or should I just do it myself?"
A stern look erupted onto her face and she started work on his other arm. "You'll do no such thing, Remus Lupin! You will return here every other day to have them redressed and more ointment applied until they're healed."
He sat in silence, shoulders hunched. "Madam Pomfrey, Professor Dumbledore said he would come and see me...?"
"The Headmaster doesn't want to draw attention to his visit to the Hospital Wing. I am to take you to him, once your wounds have been redressed."
Half an hour later, as promised, Remus was sitting on a chair in the Headmaster's office, his eyes roving around the room. Instruments sat on stools, puffing smoke and making mechanical ticking noises. The walls were adorned with hundreds of paintings. He assumed they were important people to do with the school. However, sat on a perch, snoozing with its head under a wing, sat a beautiful red and gold bird and it was this that his eyes gravitated towards repeatedly.
"Ah, Remus, I am so very sorry to have kept you waiting," said a voice suddenly. His head snapped up. Professor Dumbledore was old, with an extremely long white beard and sparkling blue eyes that were hidden behind half-moon spectacles. And yet, he radiated power like heat from a fire.
"Th-that's fine, Professor."
The Headmaster nodded towards the bird, "A fine creature, isn't he?"
Remus smiled. "Very much so. But aren't Phoenix's a class five beast?"
"Indeed they are," said Dumbledore, sweeping his robes around him and sitting behind his desk. "But not because they are a danger. It is because they are exceptionally difficult to domesticate, few wizards dare try."
"Then why did you?" asked Remus.
"That, I am afraid, is a tale for another day," he said and he smiled benignly. "Now, onto business."
Remus grimaced.
"I have it on authority from our Matron that the trip down to the Willow on Sunday evening was a success. May I ask how you found the transformation in unfamiliar surroundings?"
Remus frowned, casting his memory back. "I-I don't remember much about it, if I'm honest. I was scared, but I usually am right before it happens."
"I understand. If I were to travel to the shack and transfigure it to look more like your home, do you suppose that would help?" asked Dumbledore, pushing the glasses up his crooked nose.
"It might."
"I am sorry if these questions appear trivial, Remus, I just have the greatest concern for you."
"I know, Professor," he said.
"I shall make a point of doing so before next month. Now," said Dumbledore, jotting something down on a discarded piece of parchment. "Hagrid, our Games Keeper, was down in Hogsmead village Sunday night, having a few drinks with the locals. I asked him to go to see if you created any noise."
Remus found his face growing hot. "And did I?"
"A respectable amount," said Dumbledore. "You are not to worry however. I visited the Three Broomsticks myself last night to tell the bar maid a rather wonderful ghost story about a lonely shack on a hill, that shrieked through the night."
"Won't anyone suspect?" asked Remus, frowning.
"Oh, I don't think so my boy. My story telling skills are rather good, I'll have you know."
Remus grinned.
"Now, Poppy, that is to say, Madam Pomfrey, the Matron, informs me that three Gryffindor first years came to the Hospital Wing yesterday evening looking for you."
"They did?" asked Remus worriedly.
"Yes. I am assuming they are friends of yours?"
"I-I'd think so."
"Then you must do as you see fit by them, but I must warn you, children have a nasty habit of telling their parents things and I would rather the entire student body didn't discover your secret. I would hate for you to be unable to continue your education amongst friends."
He nodded fervently, "Yes Professor."
*
"There you are!" shouted James, chucking his quill down.
Alarmed, Remus flinched away from James' roar.
"Where have you been then?" asked Sirius, pulling a chair over to their table for Remus.
"Erm, I got a letter Sunday morning telling me that my mother was quite ill," he invented, lowering himself into the proffered chair.
Peter's eyes grew wide, "Oh no, is she okay?" he asked.
"Yes, thankfully," said Remus, smiling weakly. He didn't like to lie to them. "My father was just worried and she kept asking for me."
"Do the Healer's know what it was?" asked Sirius as he casually scribbled a sentence down.
"She's been ill on and off for a while. They're not really sure what it is."
James frowned, "I'm sorry to hear that."
"Don't worry, she'll be fine," he told them, leaning back in the chair. He didn't even wince in pain as his cuts came into contact with surface. "So, what did I miss?" he asked, waving a hand at the parchment in front of them.
"James and Sirius got detention in Defence Against the Dark Arts," said Peter, whilst scanning the pages of the book in hand. "And we've got a foot long essay on Bezzors due next week for Potions."
"And don't worry, we got the work off of Slughorn for you," said Sirius, nudging his school bag with his foot.
"Thanks," said Remus, beaming at him.
"Hey, what are friends for, right?"
