It was hard to be solemn about February sixteenth when Remus had just survived an extremely dangerous toxin.
Every single time he tried to think about being bitten by a werewolf nine years ago (he was nearly at a whole decade, and the thought was terrifying), speculation about the poison pushed it out. He'd been poisoned. Remus Lupin, innocent werewolf extraordinaire, had been poisoned.
"I still think it was Ragfarn," he told Madam Pomfrey for the thousandth time.
"Yes, he seems like the only option," she said. "Now go to sleep."
"I'm not tired anymore, though! I already took a nap! I can't sleep all day when I'm in perfectly good health, Madam Pomfrey."
"You're never in perfectly good health, Lupin."
"You know what I mean."
Remus looked down at the notebook in his lap, where updates on James' game had been appearing at sporadic intervals.
Peter's handwriting appeared first. All right, Gryff has the ball and they're getting ready to make another goal… oh!
What? scribbled Remus. What happened?!
Hufflepuff got it. And… YES!
Yes? What is it?
Prongs hit the bloke with a Bludger! Ooh, that looks nasty. I think he's out for the rest of the game. They're bringing in a reserve… and Gryff just scored again! They're totally gonna win.
Of course they're gonna win, Wormtail, wrote Sirius. Imagine Hufflepuff beating Gryffindor. That would be pure impossibility.
Remus frowned. Hufflepuff's team isn't bad.
Yeah, but it's HUFFLEPUFF.
Remus sat there, writing to his friends, waiting for the writing to show up on the empty pages… and then he heard someone at the door.
"That's Professor Dumbledore," he informed Madam Pomfrey.
And then Sirius' handwriting appeared, still cursive, but significantly messier than it had appeared earlier.
WE WON! HALLELUJAH, MOONY, WE WON! I THINK WE'RE UNDEFEATED! THEY'RE HOISTING PRONGS ON THEIR SHOULDERS. HE'S LEADING GRYFF IN A CHANT. THIS IS BRILLIANT!
Remus smiled. "Yes!" he whispered.
"May I be so nosy as to enquire what has made you so happy on this fine morning?" Dumbledore said.
Remus looked up. "Oh. Er. James got us these charmed notebooks a while back, sir, and Sirius and Peter just told me that Gryffindor won the Quidditch game." Remus figured he could tell Dumbledore about the notebooks. They weren't really a secret, and he figured that Dumbledore already knew, somehow.
"Ah, wonderful," said Dumbledore with a smile. "I am supposed to be impartial, of course, but I must admit I've always held a soft spot for my own former House. Besides, I imagine this is a much-needed bright spot to your day."
"Oh, right. I was poisoned, did you know?"
"Trust me, I have heard. You don't seem to be bothered by it."
"Well, full moons feel significantly worse than being poisoned does, apparently. It was unpleasant, but it's nothing I'm not used to."
"I see. What were your symptoms, exactly?"
Madam Pomfrey cut in. "His skin was impossibly hot to the touch. He was pale, sweating, fatigued—couldn't hardly keep his eyes open. His veins were turning green—they were visible under the skin—it was rather terrifying."
"Ah." Dumbledore looked at Remus, considering. The twinkle in his eyes had disappeared. "Professor Slughorn mentioned that you suspect Dav Ragfarn from the Ministry."
"I don't know who else it could be—unless it was you, Professor Leek, the house-elfs, a botched potion, or Evans and Snape."
"I agree that none of those things are particularly likely." Professor Dumbledore hummed, lost in thought. "I do worry… yes, perhaps… I wonder, Remus, if it was a randomized attack."
"What do you mean?"
"It is very possible that there is another Death Eater student at Hogwarts who snuck into the Kitchens and poisoned a single meal… and then you received the meal and were poisoned. It was bad luck... a phenomenon that you seem to experience all too often, I think."
"Oh. That makes sense."
"I shall have to keep a closer eye on the older students," he said. "This sounds like a very advanced poison, and it is not one I have ever encountered. It is entirely possible, too, that you were poisoned many months ago, and symptoms were simply delayed… yes, I would tread with caution if I were you. I shall have a talk with Dav, but I'm afraid there's nothing else I can do at present."
"All right."
"What do you mean there's nothing you can do?" said Madam Pomfrey. "There must be something! This could happen again!"
"We shall simply have to remain alert," said Professor Dumbledore. "I'm sorry, Poppy. There is nothing I can do… except, that is, wish Remus a swift recovery."
"Already recovered," said Remus.
"No, you are not." Madam Pomfrey looked furious. "This is ridiculous. How could a student have been poisoned at Hogwarts, right under our very noses?"
"It's possible I was poisoned at home," offered Remus.
"Still!"
"Here is what I am confused about," said Dumbledore, holding up a hand and cutting off Madam Pomfrey's tirade. "I imagine, Remus, you would have been able to detect a toxin with your advanced senses, yes?"
"Absolutely. I was just thinking about that. But I haven't tasted a thing. The Butterbeer Ragfarn gave me was just Butterbeer, the tea I had with Leek was just tea, and my meal yesterday morning was just a meal."
"There is no purely tasteless concoction," said Dumbledore. "Tasteless to humans, perhaps, but I imagine you would have noticed it. Why would somebody think to go through such lengths to mask the taste if it was randomized? This is… very curious indeed." He turned his eyes toward Remus, and there was no twinkle in the clear blue irises. "Remus," he said sternly, "tread with caution."
Remus grinned. "Don't I always?"
"How are you feeling, Moony?" whispered Peter.
Remus' friends had made their way into the Hospital Wing, and now Remus was rubbing his eyes—he'd been reading for the last three hours or so—and trying to wake up all the way. "Afternoon," he slurred. "M'fine, thanks."
"You sure?"
"Absolutely positive." Remus yawned. "Nine years. Can you believe it? I've been a werewolf for nine years. Almost, that is. It's technically still eight years until… about eight or so this evening."
"Does that bother you much?" asked James quietly.
"Not as much as in years past."
"What do you mean?"
Remus stared at the ceiling for a bit before responding. "Anniversaries are hard," he said. "February sixteenth made me a little bit sad for a very long time, because it reminded me of all I've missed. It's so weird to think that, if I'd only called for my parents after hearing strange noises outside… if I'd only went to their room instead of going back to sleep… if the werewolf had only decided to find another victim that night… if my father had only…." Remus stopped. His friends did not need to know the full story, and Remus did not want to tell it. "My point is," he continued, "things could have been so much different. If it hadn't been for February sixteenth—just one night—I could have been a normal, happy, healthy person. Can you imagine?"
"Not really," said Sirius with a chuckle. "Healthy and happy and Remus Lupin are definitely not synonymous."
"Exactly! So it's just… hard, you know? Because pretty much all my problems stemmed from one day. One minute, really. Less than a minute. It wasn't gradual or anything—it just happened, and then it was over. And it's been nine years."
"You haven't told us much about that day," said James. "What happened, exactly?"
Remus' heart fluttered. Could he tell his friends? Could he really?
No. He'd told Professor Questus, once upon a time, and it had helped, but Remus had no desire to tell it again. His friends were young, innocent, and did not deserve to understand how much evil was truly in the world. Besides, Remus sort of wanted to protect his father as much as possible. It was Remus' father's secret almost as much as it was Remus'.
But Remus would certainly tell as much as he could without disclosing anything about Fenrir Greyback or arguments at the Ministry, because his friends deserved to know. He could find a happy medium between telling them everything and telling them nothing, couldn't he? They already knew most of it, anyway.
"Wrong place, wrong time," Remus said airily. "That's all there was to it. I was sleeping in my bed, a werewolf happened to be nearby, I was the closest human—because I was actually human back then; can you imagine?—and it broke through my window and bit me. It was only a couple of seconds; I didn't even have time to scream. Dad was just downstairs, and he Apparated upstairs and scared the werewolf away as soon as he heard the crash. Then he took me to St. Mungo's—by the Knight Bus, because he didn't feel quite up to Apparating safely."
Peter frowned. "What did it feel like? Getting… bitten, I mean."
"Like being bitten by a wolf. I'm afraid there were no magical sparkles or anything of the sort. I do remember there being a bit of burning afterwards, though—unrelated to the unspeakable pain as I slowly bled out through my entire left side, of course—and Dad thinks that was just the curse spreading. But it wasn't just my left side that was in pain, you know… my ribs were broken from the werewolf landing on me, I had a horrible gash on my hand, scratches, bruises all over… I was horribly broken, and I can't help but remember that on the anniversary."
Sirius looked positively ill, and he started to make for the door. Before he could leave, however, James grabbed his wrist and whispered, "You'll have to get used to it, mate," and Sirius rolled his eyes and walked back to Remus' bedside.
Remus finally realized what that meant. James wanted Sirius to desensitize himself to such things because he was inevitably going to have to see it on full moons—when they became Animagi—and saw Remus as a wolf. Remus' stomach twisted uncomfortably, and he started to feel a little sick himself. He could never let that happen.
"You said it doesn't bother you as much this year, though," said Peter, seemingly oblivious to his friends' antics and Remus' discomfort. "Why is that?"
Remus pursed his lips, thinking hard. "I'm not sure," he said. "I guess… I guess it just feels a bit tacky, to be so upset about something that happened in the past when there's so much going on in the world right now, you know? We live in constant danger. I've been so worried about the future that it's hard to be worried about the past.
"And also," he added, remembering the other reason with another sharp twist of his stomach, "there are other bad things in the world. There are other bad things that have happened more recently. I think maybe… I think maybe the thing that happened last summer sort of… layered on top of the thing that happened nine years ago… and obscured it a little. I'm not sure. I'm far more upset about that than I'm upset about being bitten.
"And also!" Now that Remus had started, the reasons flew, fast in furious, into his mind. "Also. Because of my Arithmancy project and because of Alexander Adamson, I've gotten to sorta… step back and look at my condition from an outside, medical perspective. That helped. Now it feels more like a thing that happened rather than a life-destroying thing, you know?"
Remus' friends shook their heads, evidently confused, but Remus barreled on. "And I think you lot have got something to do with it," he said. "Things are just… less bad now, I guess. I never thought I would be able to have friends, but here I am at Hogwarts, with friends who know and don't care, and try to include me, and visit me in the Hospital Wing… do you have any idea how much easier full moons are now? I'm not feeling so utterly hopeless, because you lot make me happy, so things got better… and they can keep getting better, can't they?"
"Certainly can," said James with a clearly Animagus-related wink. Remus chose to ignore it.
He folded his hands on his lap and smiled. "And also, it's hard to be upset by something like that when Sirius is so annoying. That sort of eclipses my problems, you know?"
Sirius' mouth fell open, and he made a move as if to tackle Remus. "No, siree," said Remus. "It's hard to be upset about being a werewolf when Sirius Black is around. Being a werewolf is just the least of my worries…."
Then Sirius was tickling Remus, and James was laughing and trying to hold Sirius back, and Peter was watching eagerly and giggling, and all felt right with the world—even though it was February sixteenth.
Until it didn't.
Remus was like a boat, sitting at the pier. Tiny waves lapped at his side. The first wave was his friends leaving, as per Madam Pomfrey's directives, leaving Remus lonely and quiet. The second wave was when the euphoria of surviving a dangerous toxin wore off, and Remus started thinking about more mundane things. The third wave was when it began to get dark outside—and Remus, who was in the main ward instead of Madam Pomfrey's office, was across from a window. The fourth wave was the rain that began pattering against the sides of the building relentlessly, reminding Remus of the rain the night he'd been bitten, reminding Remus of the rain that night he'd told Questus the full story, making him even more morose as he remembered how things used to be before the massacre. The fifth and final wave was watching the numbers on his watch flick to eight-ten, knowing it had been exactly nine years….
Remus was like a boat, he had been on the pier, too many waves had pushed against him… and now he was in the ocean.
In other words, he was sobbing—absolute, uncontrollable wracking sobs—as Madam Pomfrey patted his back and hushed him comfortingly. It was quite lucky that there were no other students in the Hospital Wing, because Remus would have been embarrassed for the rest of his life if there had been. Honestly, he was embarrassed for the rest of his life as it was.
"I d-don't under—don't understand," he managed through unrelenting hiccoughs. "It w-was f-f-fine till now. I d-didn't even care that it was F-February sixteenth."
"These things are unpredictable," said Madam Pomfrey. She pulled him into a hug, which was unbearably awkward, but Remus was ultimately okay with it.
"Maybe it was the poison," he said. His voice was getting better as the horrible sobs died down, but the awful empty feeling in his chest wasn't dying down one bit. "Maybe being emotional is a side effect."
Madam Pomfrey chuckled. "I don't think so, Remus."
"I just… nine years. Nine. That's so much. That's 3,285 days. I did the calculations a week ago during History of Magic." He sniffled a bit. "3,285 days. 78,840 hours. You know, History of Magic lasted an hour. That would have been 78,840 History of Magics. That's so much time."
"I do believe that time passes much more slowly in History of Magic," said Madam Pomfrey, and Remus couldn't help but laugh.
"Still. That's 4,730,400 minutes. And 283,824,000 seconds. 283,824,001. 283,824,002. 283,824,003."
"I'm amazed you've memorized all those numbers."
"I was really bored in History of Magic," said Remus. He tore himself from Madam Pomfrey's embrace, because it was starting to get too awkward to handle. "You know, I've only ever been human for 1,804 days, but I've been a werewolf for 3,285. Isn't that horrible? And I don't even remember those 1,804 days…."
"I'm sorry."
Remus was getting a bit hysterical now. "And it makes me miss Professor Questus more, because I can't stop imagining what he'd say to me about all this. I wish I'd woken up this morning and been able to read a letter from him. He always helped. Whenever bad things happened last year, I remember thinking, 'It's all right, I'll just talk to Professor Questus about it, because he always helps no matter what,' but now I think, 'It's all right, let me just talk to… wait, I can't, because he's DEAD,' and that makes it even worse."
"I can imagine."
"He's dead because of Death Eaters, and I'm a werewolf because of one particular Death Eater, and I might have been poisoned by Death Eaters, and Death Eaters are responsible for February sixteenth and February sixth and basically my whole life, and I'm so sick of Death Eaters, and I'm so sick of everything else."
"I'm so sorry."
Remus cried for another twenty minutes. Then, absolutely spent, he fell asleep.
He did feel better now, actually. Sometimes it was nice to cry for a bit.
He was able to go back to the dormitory early the next morning. "I want you to come to me directly if anything seems off," Madam Pomfrey had said. "Got it, Lupin? Anything. That includes things that 'aren't a big deal', all right?"
"Fine," he'd said with a bit of an eyeroll, and then Madam Pomfrey had made him sit down and stay for another five minutes (on account of having spoken the Forbidden Word).
But now he was back with his friends, and all was right with the world. They went outside for a bit, even though it was freezing. They wandered around the corridors, pushing each other and laughing. They talked about their plans for concealing the new batch of Mandrake leaves. They talked about school. Everything was all right, and it didn't even matter that Remus had been a werewolf for nine years, because now—right now—in the moment—he was happy. Happy enough to cast a Patronus, even. Happy enough to sing. Happy enough to dance.
And he did sing a little bit when James put on a Dave Hippo record. He danced a little—Sirius and James tried to teach Remus and Peter how to waltz, and Remus learned a couple of things. He even cast a little bit of a Patronus—they all did, and then they chased each others' Patronuses around the room, tried to catch them, and laughed when their hand went through the silvery substances as if they were grasping at smoke.
Remus remembered a conversation he'd had with Professor Questus nearly a full year prior. "When did you stop being sad about your sister?" he'd asked.
"Well, it certainly wasn't all at once," Professor Questus had said with a bit of a patronizing snort. "Wasn't like I woke up one morning and thought, 'My sister is dead and I don't care! Huzzah!' No, it came in stages. That's what grief does—it evolves. It's one thing one minute, and then it's something entirely different a little while later. Sometimes there are good times. Sometimes there are bad times. Eventually, the good times started lasting longer, the bad times came less frequently, and then, eventually, it was just a fact of life. The sky is blue. The earth is round. My sister's dead. It no longer bothered me; easy as that. I told myself again and again that I didn't care, and eventually, I didn't."
When Remus had asked Madam Pomfrey when he would get over it, her answer had been a little different. "Probably never," she'd said. "I always like to imagine it as a hot poker. It cools down eventually, but you'll always have to hold it, and it'll always be sharp as ever if you poke it in the wrong place."
Remus had also asked Peter when he'd stopped being sad about his father. "It was an exact day for me," Peter had said. "I don't remember which day, but I do remember I had gone to the beach with Mum the day before, and I'd had a lot of fun. The next day, I woke up and I realized that I wasn't sad anymore. And then I got sad about that, because I felt a bit like I was betraying my dad, but… I don't know, Moony. I was young. I barely remember him now."
Even though Madam Pomfrey had warned Remus that Professor Questus was terrible with emotions and should definitely not be used as a good example for any reason, and even though the hot poker analogy felt more accurate… Remus rather liked the idea of a constantly-evolving thing that might go away someday. It really did come in waves, grief, and so did werewolf-related angst. He'd experienced the crest of the wave yesterday, but that meant that today he was in the trough. He felt okay. There were good times and bad times, and this was a good time.
Even though he'd been poisoned.
That evening, he went to visit Rowena. He sat down in the library, Mandrake books open on his lap, light streaming through the windows… he let the comfort, the perfectly picturesque scene, and the hope of a better future wash over him in waves that were much more pleasant than the waves of grief and sadness. He was going to let himself talk about it—the poisoning, the emotions, and especially February sixteenth—and it was going to dull the pain significantly. Talking would help. It always did.
"Merlin's beard, Rowena," he said with a grin, "have I got a story for you!"
