Chapter Four
Through the following week, Professor Lupin seemed to become ill. His skin became gaunt and pale, and he seemed to be increasingly weak. As Lin began to notice these signs, she began to take more care around him.
At the beginning of the next week, this same Professor Lupin began to smell. It was not at all great or overt, but Lin's acute olfactory senses allowed her to smell this scent with rather more ease than she would like. In fact, she could smell it the second the previously named professor stepped into the great hall.
Before the first class of that same day, Lin purposely decided to help the now sickly man to prepare for his classes. When she was nearly done and almost ready to depart for her first class, she said rather simply and bluntly to him, "Don't forget to take your Wolfsbane potion tonight."
Despite having her back turned, Lin could sense that Lupin had completely frozen at the mention of his 'condition'. She turned to look at him and said, "Do not worry. I shall not tell anyone."
The Professor turned to look at her with narrowed eyes. "Did Dumbledore tell you?" he asked suspiciously.
"He did not need to. I can smell it," she said.
"No human can smell that well. You can't be one, too, or you'd be sick right now, so what are you?" he asked, practically thinking out loud.
"That, once again, I will not say until a time of my choosing," she said, nodding to him as a good bye before walking out the door.
"Wait!" he called, dashing after her.
Lin merely turned, inclined her head, and raised an eyebrow to him.
"You don't...think any differently of me...because of this, do you?" he asked.
"You are the same person. My opinion of you has not changed," she said reassuringly before turning again. Thank goodness. Wait...wy does her opinion matter so much to me?
"Thank you," he said to her as she walked away.
Without turning back, Lin said simply, "You are welcome."
ooooooooooo
That very evening, Lin was walking through the corridor after dinner. Presently, she calm, but she had heard a great commotion in the direction of Gryffindor Tower. She did not listen closely to find what the uproar was all about.
Because of that, it came as a great surprise when she turned a corner to see a large, black dog down the corridor.
"I know who you are," she said to the dog.
The black dog merely turned and barked once at her before continuing to trot away down the hall. It seemed to be in quite a hurry.
"Come back and face me, Sirius," she said, knowing that he would hear her.
When he did not stop, Lin raised her hand. The dog transformed into a man.
"How did you do that?" the man demanded, turning to look at her.
"That is unimportant. What is important is that you, my falsely accused friend would be captured already had you turned that corner. Your old friend Severus is about a hundred feet down along that corridor searching for you," she said, walking slowly toward him.
"Do you have the Marauder's Map?" the scruffy, unkempt man demanded.
"You should know by now Sirius that I have no need of such things, or do you not remember being caught far more than once in the act of pranking while you were at school here?" Lin said, coming to stand five feet from him.
"Professor Sarvial?" he exclaimed, "It can't be you! You'd be-"
"78 years old by your reckoning, though actually far more," she finished.
"What are you?" Sirius asked, his greasy, wild, long hair flying into his face.
"That is, again, unimportant. What is important is that your old friend Remus Lupin is here teaching Defence Against the Dark Arts. Once you can convince him of your innocence, you will have an ally in both him and Albus," Lin said.
"And you?" Sirius asked. If she could transform him without even a wand, he did not want her against him.
"That would depend upon your actions. Now, who are you searching for?" she continued coolly.
"Peter Pettigrew," Sirius spat out.
"Ron's rat?"
"Use the corridor on your right-hand side. It offers a faster escape. Until later, my dear sir, adieu," she said before melting into the shadows.
"Wait!" he called, but she was already gone.
"I heard something this way!" a voice called from a distance away.
Hearing this, Sirius took off along the corridor she had directed, hoping to get away from his pursuers. He could not have his revenge if they, who were most likely the Professors, caught him.
Her curiosity aroused, Lin made her way toward the commotion. It was no longer toward Gryffindor Tower. It now seemed to be coming from the Great Hall. With this direction in mind, Lin began to run.
As Lin stepped through the doors, she noticed several things. The First of these was that the house tables were pushed off against one wall. Rows and rows of purple sleeping bags were strewn about on the floor. The students of Hogwarts were all talking, huddling into scared groups as they did.
Near the centre of the room, Dumbledore and the faculty were gathered in a group discussing something. She walked straight to them and tapped the Headmaster on the shoulder.
When he turned to face her, Lin said simply, "You won't find him. He left."
"And how, exactly do you know this?" Snape asked ominously, stepping toward her.
"You'll find, Severus, that she has her ways," Dumbledore said. He would have chuckled were it not for the fact that she seen Sirius Black.
Either way, he turned to Professor McGonagall and said, "Minerva, call off the search."
She hurried over and asked, "Why, Albus? He could still be in the castle!"
"He is gone. That I can assure you of," Lin said to her.
McGonagall turned to look at her and said, "Oh, Lin! If you say so, I trust you."
Lin looked suspiciously over at the Headmaster. He looked her in the eye and nodded his head slightly. So she knows what I am, but I wonder if he told her what happened.
"Headmaster, I must admit I hardly think it right to trust such a serious matter to the word of a seventeen year old witch," Snape said, his voice oily.
"Severus, you'll soon learn to trust her. She knows things none of us know, can do things none of us can do," Albus said.
"Like what, precisely?" the Slytherin asked.
Lin smiled and said, "Look around." Snape did so, but was soon struggling greatly to conceal two emotions: shock and awe. All of the sleeping bags in the hall were flashing different colours at a rapid pace. They finally settled back on the same shade of purple as before.
Many of the students stopped talking to look at this feat, though they did not know how hard it actually was to control the colour of all of them. Soon, they entire hall was watching her perform the spell.
"Well, Severus, it seems you have been proven wrong," Albus said cheerfully.
"Very well," Snape said, his voice dark in displeasure. He turned on his heel and walked away.
"Minerva, would you mind organizing the staff into shifts to watch the students?" the Headmaster asked kindly.
"Not at all, Albus," she said, hurrying away to perform her duty.
"Good night," Dumbledore said to Lin. His eyes shone with their own private joke.
She smiled in return and said, "Vanadu." (Good night)
Lin left the Great Hall then. Rather than going for a walk, as she normally would have, she went to the Defence Against the Dark Arts classroom. She walked straight through there without stopping, continuing straight to the door to Professor Lupin's office. After all, it can't be fun having to sit alone in your office while you wait to turn back into a human. He could probably use some company.
When she arrived at his door, Line did not bother to knock. It was late enough that he would have transformed already, and thus he could not answer the door. In lieu of that, she opened the door and walked inside.
She looked around and called, "Professor Lupin?" No large wolf that was actually her professor appeared, so she assumed he was hiding.
"Lupin, I already know you're a werewolf. You don't need to be ashamed. Come out," she said, beginning to look behind pieces of furniture.
After several seconds of silence, she tried again saying, "The floor is quite cold, is it not? I'll just light the fire for you so you won't freeze." And she did just that.
When the task was done, she stood and turned away from the fireplace to see two yellow eyes peeking out from under the desk.
"There you are," she said, smiling. She motioned with her hand and said, "Come over here and lay on the rug. I think you could use some company."
He still seemed hesitant. "If this is because I am a student, I shall not tell, nor does it particularly matter," she said.
That promise and assurance convinced him. He came out from under his desk and trotted over to nuzzle her arm. Obviously, his wolf instincts were still at least partially controlling him.
He barked once before walking over to curl up on the rug. His finishing touch in becoming situated was to lay his head on her leg. She smiled and continued to stroke his head.
"...Do you read often?" she asked.
The wolf lifted his head from her lap to nod before resting it there once more. "I remember from earlier that you rather enjoy the Muggle classics. Do you have any around?"
The wolf got up and trotted over to a large bookcase beside the desk. Lin followed him over and searched the collection of books for a good topic. However, it seemed Lupin had already decided. He went up on his hind legs and leaned against the book shelf for support. He began to paw at a specific book. Lin took the cover and read aloud the name, slightly sceptical, "The Phantom of the Opera?
Lupin the wolf barked once before trotting back over to the rug by the fire. Lin smiled, shook her head, and returned to her place.
She read to him well into the night. Finally, he fell asleep, his head still resting on her lap. Lin smiled and spread her cloak over him. He would be cold otherwise when he turned back into a human. She carefully marked the place where she had stopped in the book before laying it beside him and slipping out of the room for a walk. After that, she just returned the Great Hall, knowing that no one would miss her.