X. Transformation
At exactly three in the morning, a full hour after their detention should have ended, Pringle unlocked the Owlery door.
Pringle gazed at the mostly clean perches and floor for a moment, then at the four boys, who all looked fit to pass out from exhaustion. He gave an approving grunt and took back the cleaning supplies before dismissing them.
Even James and Sirius didn't have the energy to complain about the extra hour added to their sentence as they stumbled back to Gryffindor Tower. Remus forced himself into the shower—though only in the interest of not smelling like owl droppings in the morning—and collapsed into bed soon afterwards, asleep within moments.
The next morning came much too soon. Normally Hogwarts students began to stir around eight o'clock so they would have time to dress and eat breakfast before classes started at nine, but rising for the day could not have been less appealing on less than five hours sleep. James and Peter were the first to grudgingly get up, then Remus, though Sirius could only be forced out of bed after a collective effort from all three.
"Can't we skive off Transfiguration at least?" whined Sirius, as James threw his robes at him. "Pretend to be sick or something? C'mon, this is practically torture—"
"We've got a test today, remember? And McGonagall knows we had detention, there's no way we could ask to do a make-up later."
"Whatever. Tell her I'll take a zero, I'm going back to sleep..."
"Oh no you won't," said James, beating him with a pillow. "We're all going to suffer together, you hear me?"
"Actually," mumbled Remus.
"Not you too!"
"No, I'm not saying I agree with him, I mean that I can't be in class today. After breakfast I have to—"
"Right, I remember. You might have an excuse, then, but Sirius still isn't off the hook. So come on, you big lump."
"At least tell your mum hello for us, Remus," said Peter miserably, and Remus managed to feel badly for his friends, even knowing that what lay ahead of him today would be far worse than a lack of sleep.
Most wizards had a misconception—one misconception among many—that werewolves made little preparation for a full moon; that they could spend the day idling, perhaps even allowing their transformations to take them by surprise. This was far from the truth: not only would Remus need to swallow down a series of potions before moonrise—these would make transforming more tolerable, though still hardly pleasant—but there was also the problem of noticeable symptoms appearing before Remus was able to go to his morning classes at least, but today he'd woken up this morning with the faint taste of blood on his tongue and felt it might be wise to make an early start.
He entered the infirmary to find Madam Pomfrey writing up an accident report for an older student who could only speak in frog croaks. It was never too early in the morning for hexes to go awry, it seemed.
"I'll be with you in a moment, Mr. Lupin."
Remus went to his usual bed in the far corner and drew back the heavy curtains before climbing in. Madam Pomfrey met with him a few minutes later, performing all the usual examinations and asking all the usual questions.
"I'm doing loads better this time around," said Remus. "Really. Mostly I just feel tired today."
"That so, dear? Open up a moment."
Madam Pomfrey had asked Remus to open his mouth so she could examine the state of his teeth. She kept a record of things like these, to track changes in the severity of his symptoms from month to month, and adjust his potions accordingly.
"No wonder you cut your lip," murmured Madam Pomfrey. "You do look well otherwise though, Mr. Lupin. Any idea what's changed between this month and the last?"
"Well." Remus felt faintly embarrassed by it, but it was the only theory he had: "I've had some good things happen this past week, I guess?"
"I see—glad to hear that. One's mental state truly does make a difference with these things, you know."
Madam Pomfrey brought Remus his potions as always and saw that he took them properly, then wished him a nice rest. One of these potions was a mild Sleeping Draught, to ensure Remus got some sleep before the restless night ahead, but for once he was able to drift off without taking a single sip.
Hours later, nearer to sunset, Madam Pomfrey gently woke Remus again and had him take both a Calming Draught and a nameless cocktail of pain relievers. These would honestly make little difference once in the throes of transformation, but Remus had never once refused them.
"Ready then?" asked Madam Pomfrey.
"Yes," said Remus. There was no sense delaying the inevitable.
Madam Pomfrey covered herself with her cloak, Disillusioned Remus and stole him from the castle—within another ten minutes she had brought him to the edge of the Forbidden Forest, where the Whomping Willow lay waiting for their arrival. Its branches swung at them viciously until she enchanted a small stone to strike a knot of roots at the Willow's base.
"Hurry now."
Beneath the Willow was a well-hidden tunnel. They dropped down into it, with a slight "oof" as they landed, and Madam Pomfrey led Remus along for long while before the tunnel widened and and they had inexplicably come to a basement door.
"In you get, Mr. Lupin," Madam Pomfrey said, reversing Remus' Disillusionment with a tap of her wand. "I will come get you in the morning as always. Best of luck, dear."
Remus passed through the door and shut it behind him. He locked it out of habit, even if the half dozen spells Madam Pomfrey had just whispered from the other side would be quite enough to prevent his escape.
"Hullo," Remus whispered, watching a spider descend from the ceiling on a thread. There were a few things that Remus could always count on seeing in the Shrieking Shack: friendly spiders, broken furniture, and a layer of grime so thick over everything he could've laid down on the floor to make dust angels. The furniture hadn't always been broken, of course: prior to becoming a once-a-month werewolf prison, this abandoned residence had in fact come equipped with perfectly unbroken furniture. In his transformed state, however, Remus quite enjoyed destroying everything he laid eyes on, and the Shack looked ever worse for it.
Remus began to remove his robes with a sigh of resignation. A werewolf didn't fit very well into human clothing, of course, so he would need to magically lock them away in the basement cupboard if he didn't want his belongings in tatters. Once he'd completed this task, Remus went upstairs and sat on the ruined sofa in the living room to wait.
And wait he did.
It seemed funny to him now, but Remus recalled there being a time in his childhood when he hadn't known what a werewolf even was. He'd understood that the lunar phases held a terrifying significance for him, of course, but he'd spent an embarrassing amount of time under the impression that his painful transformations were something that happened to everyone—that he would eventually grow out of it, like his parents obviously had. Remus had just been too young and too isolated to understand the truth.
Remus had also been too young to clearly recall the bite itself—what he did remember was the tremendous pain in his calf the next morning, and that he'd seen his father crying for the first time in his life. Mrs. Lupin had hugged Remus tightly, smoothing his hair, whispering to him, "Remus, sweetie, we love you, we'll always love you, everything's going to be okay," but Mr. Lupin had just sunk into an armchair and sobbed into his hands. It was in that moment that Remus knew everything wouldn't be okay, and learned for the first time that his parents did not always hold the power to make things right again.
"I'm so sorry, Remus—"
It started happening just when Madam Pomfrey said it would. Remus had been absently counting the freckles on the back of his arm when he noticed the thin hairs there beginning to grow thicker, so he immediately moved himself from the sofa, not trusting himself not to fall off once the pain set in. Next his skin began to tremble, his bones began aching, and his blood grew hot. This would be Remus' last chance to experience human thought—he used the opportunity to regret having forgotten to clip his nails.
The worst part was about to come, though bracing himself for it did not stop the screaming. Normally he tried not to think about it—the very thought made him sick—but at this very moment his bones and muscles had begun to rearrange themselves, bending and molding, each movement stretching his skin like rubber. His organs shunted themselves about in different directions, his tendons and muscles and veins pulled themselves apart, and the network of nerves under his flesh became so strained that they snapped and reformed continuously. There was simply no comparison, no words to describe it, only pain on top of pain.
The internal shifting ended. Now all that was left was for his teeth to elongate into fangs, puncturing his lips before his mouth had turned completely into a muzzle, for his ears to change shape and migrate upward, and for his spine to finish growing out to a tail. Even Remus' agonized yells had transformed, becoming a miserable whining that was punctuated by growls.
The pain lifted, except for a lingering soreness that would last all evening. Remus wobbled as he stood back up on four legs, and surveyed the world again through the mind of a beast.
The werewolf began to slash and claw at everything in reach. He needed blood, human blood, people to maim and slaughter, and this basic necessity replaced his every thought. He didn't care how much destruction he caused—he needed out, he needed to be to hunt, he needed to chase someone down and rip them apart—slash them, tear them—mutilate and devour them—
He slammed himself up against walls, upturned a chair, sunk his claws into the floor and left behind deep tracks. He scrambled upstairs and searched the bedrooms, growing angrier when he still found no avenue of escape. He charged down the steps again in his fury, crashing through the stair rail and falling to the lower floor. Dust, wood and fur went flying.
The werewolf continued his rampage for hours. He could see through a window that the moon had reached its highest point and had already begun its descent—he howled at it pitifully, begging for more time. He grew eventually so desperate that he barreled down a hallway and bashed through a door that he'd never managed to break down before.
The werewolf sensed a heartbeat. Several heartbeats.
Where were they coming from? He tried sniffing out the source and allowed himself to speculate wildly about what he might be tracking. The werewolf was crestfallen, however, when his nose led him at last to a nest of very young kittens, their eyes closed and their bodies still weak, mewling pathetically for help.
Well then. Something to kill, anyway.
The werewolf had just opened his jaws when quite from nowhere, a solid black cat came bounding up, hissing and spitting. It slashed him across the nose with a sharp claw and the wolf reeled back, roaring with anger. But then he remembered that he was much larger than the cat, more powerful and still quite capable of stamping out its life—he went after it again, but—
He hesitated. The cat was glaring at him with the fur standing up along her back, posed to sacrifice her life for her kittens at any time. The kittens continued to cry out, and the werewolf, a monstrous animal but an animal nonetheless, realized that if he just listened, he could almost make out the words behind their frightened pleading.
He couldn't make himself go on. The werewolf backed away, tail swishing, and sat down near the door. The mother cat surveyed him wearily for a few minutes longer, then went to attend to her children.
The werewolf looked on with a mixture of feelings he'd never experienced in this form. The cat refused to let her guard down completely, but her attention had gone to her kittens now, allowing them to nurse and then keeping watch over them as they settled down to sleep. The werewolf realized, in his simplistic, animal way, that he'd seen this cat before, and that her owner was none other than Andromeda Black. More significantly, he became vaguely aware that he too had a mother, a Muggle mother who was not always perfect, who couldn't always save him from his pains and terrors, but who deeply cared for him all the same...
Remus woke the next morning to find himself curled up in a comfortable position on the floor. He was disappointed to learn that the cat had relocated her kittens, but happy to find the worst injuries he'd suffered from last night were a long bruise along his side and a scratch on the tip of his nose. Normally he got off much worse.
He stumbled off to dress himself, wondering about the implications of what he had discovered just recently: one, that he was not so influenced by the moon when his mind was occupied by the thought of others, and two, that when transformed, the company of non-humans could be greatly beneficial. Perhaps these factors could be used to his advantage, to ensure that his transformations became less miserable in the future...
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Character Notes: James Potter
There's remarkably little to go on with both James and Lily, which in a way I'm grateful for, because that allowed me to do things like conceive of them as diametrically opposed on a major issue: abiding the rules. I'll get into Lily with a later note, but James (like Harry) is the type who tends to just disregard whatever rules are in his way and doesn't often respect that they might be there for a reason. He also cares too much about what other people think of him, meaning he can sometimes seem like entirely different person depending on the social setting. Lily is actually the first person to ever hate him, so he gets mentally stuck on her and ends up in love. What an idiot.
James' least admirable moments occur in first year (he's perpetually trying to look cool in front of Sirius at this point) and during fifth year, when a combination of adolescence, stress, and Quidditch stardom brings out the worst in him again. It's eventually Remus and Lily's influence that helps him grow into a more righteous individual.
A surprising number of people seem to think James was a constant bully in his youth. I disagree: I think the scene in the pensieve in OotP was a display of James' worst behavior towards Severus, and likewise of Severus' worst behavior towards Lily. I realize that it's the biggest chunk of first-hand characterization we have, but I'd be astounded if JKR truly intended this to define James' character (Lily would go on to love him and Sirius and Remus would insist he was a fundamentally good person, after all). Therefore, I try to characterize James as a flawed person, but one with a capacity for love, generosity and self-sacrifice that goes beyond most others, and this is what makes him a Gryffindor.
Of lesser importance: for some reason I often see James described as being comparable to Sirius in terms of looks, but considering Harry is described as having a somewhat awkward appearance that also closely resembles James', I doubt James was especially handsome.