Chapter Four: Planets of Blood

When Remus awoke on the cold floor of his cellar, on the morning of the 2nd of September, his ribs aching and scratches stinging his skin, he tried not to imagine a world where he had never been bitten, where he had awoken this morning in his bed at Hogwarts - same as his friends - and where his mother was still alive because the worry hadn't killed her. It just felt harder than normal to not be bitter about his situation at the moment, though he knew he was being soft. And anyway - feeling bitter wouldn't change anything.

When he heard the locks of the cellar door scraping back, he forced himself to sit upright and grabbed his pajamas, hastily pulling them on before his dad came down and let him out of his cage.

…

James was not sure, at first, why he woke up choking - but after he sat up in his four poster hacking and coughing and making sounds like a cat trying to vomit, for a little while, he remembered he had a mandrake leaf under his tongue. 'Oh yeah, Moony,' he muttered to himself (only it came out more like 'oh deh, Moody'). From the sound of hacking and cat sick coming from Peter's bed, Pete was also going through a moment of early morning memory loss.

Sirius, of course, had no such trouble - he bounded out of bed, gave them a witheringly haughty look at their inability to sleep (and wake up) trouble free with a mandrake leaf in their mouths and said, 'come on, we'll be late,' (of course his words were not quite that clear - but it seemed there was always going to have to be an element of translation for everything they said up to the next full moon).

Yawning (it is surprisingly difficult to yawn with a mandrake leaf in one's mouth, James discovered) and wishing they had a weekend start again, like they had the past two years, they all pulled their robes on and headed down to breakfast where, among porridge and owl post, they were given their fourth year timetables by Professor McGonagall.

'Not too bad,' Sirius said scanning their Monday lineup, 'though Potions with the Slytherins,' (he made the cat sick noise - though whether at the Slytherins or because the mandrake leaf had finally got the better of him, James wasn't sure).

Herbology was first, and they spent a double lesson getting thoroughly muddy as they fought the roots of shrivelfigs - and then there was barely time for a quick wash before James and Peter headed to Ancient Runes, and Sirius made his lonely way to prep (where, seeing as how he had no homework yet, he took the opportunity to put his head on the desk and have another snooze).

At break, they swiped a copy of Sabrina13 and sat in the boys toilets, reading "12 Signs He Likes You" and trying to guess, from Mary's sage advice, which boys must fancy them. 'Ellis Stebbins - no doubt about it.'

'You're barking, Sirius, did you see how Charlie Lancaster was looking at me in Herbology?'

But Peter shook his head. After careful consideration of the 12 signs he had come to the regretful conclusion that: 'It's Snivellus - he's obsessed with us all.'

And so they left the toilets, hooting with laughter and in high spirits, and headed down to the dungeons for Potions, where they rather mystified everyone by blowing kisses at Snape.

Slughorn had them starting the preparation for an ageing potion they would brew in tomorrow's double lesson, and the whole class was busy chopping newt spleens and shredding belladonna, when the professor waddled over to the back and asked (in his booming voice which carried to every corner of the dungeon) 'where is young Lupin?'

They all blinked up at him - astonished that he could be so thoughtless as to draw attention to the fact Remus was missing (as an old Potioneer, Slughorn should very well know last night had been a full moon - but then, if you weren't rich, well connected or unusually talented then Slughorn could never be bothered to remember anything important about you, and Remus was neither rich nor well connected and - when it came to Potions - his only talent was in melting the cauldrons).

'He was too ill to return to school,' Sirius said stiffly (partly because he was cross with Slughorn, partly because of the mandrake leaf.)

'Ah…' (Slughorn at least had the grace to blush). 'Yes - of course, poor boy, terrible time of year for it.'

But the damage was done - and Snivellus was peering over at them, an expression of curious malice plastered across his big-nosed mug. Peter blew a sarcastic kiss, Sirius gave him the finger, but James drew his wand and hissed 'Engorgio '.

He had been aiming for Snape's nose, but - just as he cast his spell - Snape turned around and bent over his cauldron. So, rather than hitting him square in the face, the wand sparks hit him square in the rump instead.

Snape gave a squawk of surprise, and then a howl of anguish, as his backside began to balloon to monstrous proportions. He clamped his hands to his rapidly swelling buttocks (it now looked like he had shoved some sofa cushions down the back of his robes) and staggered backwards (gravity rather pulled him that way).

The whole class looked up in surprise - and then burst into peels of laughter (the three Gryffindor boys were having trouble keeping standing, they were laughing so hard). Lily fought like a champion to keep her expression straight but, all around her, people were rolling on the floor, clutching stitches, as Snape's bottom blew up like a bouncy castle and he struggled to stay upright as the weight of it threatened to topple him over backwards.

'For Merlin's sake - Reducio ,' with an irritable flick of his wand, Slughorn restored Snape's backside to its normal size. 'I will have order in this room, now - Mr. Snape do you need a trip to the Hospital Wing?'

Burning with humiliation, Snivellus shook his head (while the boys howled all the louder at the thought of poor Madam Pomfrey having to inspect Snape's hexed rear) and Slughorn nodded. 'Very well… who is responsible for this?'

… And so James received a detention on the first day back.

…

Remus woke up in the afternoon feeling rather a lot better than he had that morning. He was still tired and a bit achey, but the feeling that his bones were on fire had subsided, his scratches were healing and - for the first time in days - sleep had actually left him feeling rested and refreshed. 'Can I go back to school now, dad?' he said, as Mr. Lupin handed him a cup of tea. 'I feel better, really.'

But Mr. Lupin shook his head. 'Not yet - I'm afraid.'

'I'm fine!'

'A bit more rest first. I've sent a letter to Professor McGonagall, she says you can floo into her office this evening if you're up to it.'

'I'm up to it - I can go now.'

But Mr. Lupin smiled and shook his head again. 'More rest!' he repeated. 'Anyway - there's something I want to show you before you go… This came in the muggle post.' He brought a large box into Remus's bedroom and carefully placed it on the bed so Remus could look through it.

'What is it?'

'Your Uncle Owain sent it, it's just bits and pieces from Grandma Howell's house - he's been clearing it out after she died - but they're the bits that were your mum's or that your mum always liked. He thought we might like them - rather than give it all to some muggle charity shop.'

Remus rooted through the box, there were some old, muggle photos of his mum looking very young, from before she had met Mr. Lupin, and her ration book from the muggle war of the 40s, a few battered notebooks filled with Hope's teenaged handwriting - which appeared to be diaries, and her ID card from when she worked at the Cardiff insurance company. And then there was a very large, very strange looking contraption which seemed to have both a kettle and an alarm clock embedded into it.

'What's this?' he asked.

'It's your Grandma Howell's "Teasmade" - it sat next to her bed and made her a cup of tea every morning.'

'How?'

'Some kind of muggle magic - I suppose - here are the instructions,' he handed a leaflet over to Remus who began to peruse it.

'Your Uncle Owain says your mum always loved it - thought it was dead fancy. But he says he doesn't want it as it makes a rotten cup of tea.'

Remus smiled, and went back to his reading - thinking that he was maybe beginning to understand how it all worked (though it would need "electric", he was pretty sure of that). An idea struck him. 'Dad - can I have it? Can I give it to Sirius for Christmas - so he can take it apart and enchant it?'

Mr. Lupin smiled - though his eyes were a little sad - 'If it will bring Sirius as much joy as it apparently brought your mother, then I think that's the best thing to do with it.'

…

After lunch, the Gryffindors had Defence Against the Dark Arts with the Ravenclaws. The boys took their normal seats at the back, took out their textbooks and then waited - along with the rest of the class. Their last Defence professor had been Dumbledore, himself, and they rather suspected that his replacement would prove to be neither as instructive nor as inspirational.

The door opened and Professor Malidictus walked in, slight and a little hunched shoulder, his mouth was snappish and irritable. He sat down at his desk and took out a register, stopping on each name and looking carefully into the face of the person who had answered - as if judging their character. The students all gave each other rather startled looks.

'Megan Lawson.'

'Here, sir.'

A hard stare, followed by 'Sandra Lewis'.

'Here, sir.'

Another hard stare. 'Petra Linehan.'

'Here.'

'Remus Lupin.'

Silence.

'Remus Lupin?' Malidictus looked around the room, his dark eyes darting to every corner, as if searching Remus out. He looked more irritable than ever. James raised his hand.

'Sir? Remus was too ill to return to school yesterday. He isn't here.'

'I see,' Malidictus's eyebrows drew together, making him appear even more frowny than normal. He tutted. 'Well - I am glad the rest of you bothered to turn up on your first morning of a new year. Let us hope then, when he deigns to grace us with his presence, that Mr. Lupin's natural aptitude is not as woeful as his attendance, for so far his absence is leaving a very poor impression indeed.'

'That's not fair!' Lily clapped a hand over her mouth, as if she hadn't meant to speak out loud and the words had just escaped her. 'I mean, sir,' she squeaked and put her hand in the air. 'Remus has always suffered from poor health,' she said. 'He misses a lot of school - he can't help it.'

But Malidictus only tutted again. 'Well he had better help it if he doesn't wish to fall behind in this subject.'

'Remus is the best at Defence in the year,' Sirius said loudly - he was glaring at Malidictus and showed none of Lily's contrition at speaking out of turn.

Malidictus fixed Sirius with a very hard stare. Sirius stared back - not dropping his gaze… and then Malidictus returned to his register without comment: 'Mary McDonald.'

'Here sir.'

When he had finished his register, with one final uncomfortable stare into the face of Christopher Wilson of Ravenclaw, Malidictus put his roll of parchment to one side and pulled a rather heavy looking text book in front of him.

'You are now entering your fourth year of the study of Defence Against the Dark Arts,' he said - still staring around the room with those gimlet eyes. 'My job is to give you a thorough foundation in all aspects of dark magic - from creatures to curses; to prepare you for all that is out there. And, I am afraid to say, times are changing - and there is more darkness out in our world today than there was just a few short years ago. Forces, perhaps greater and more terrible than we have known before, are on the rise and there are those - those with power - who would rather not recognise this…'

As Malidictus continued to talk, the class found themselves leaning forward, almost against their will. There was a breathlessness to the air as they all listened to him expound, in no uncertain terms, the threats that were mounting outside the castle walls, finding the thread between all the attacks that had happened - ever since Petra's Uncle Ciaran had disappeared back in first year and weaving it through to the Night of the Glass Shards - and telling them it was all real, it was really happening.

'I'm sure Minister Jenkins would not approve of me being so open with you, I fear she believes that, if the truth is just hidden from for long enough, it will cease to be true, but Dumbledore agrees with me - there is no merit in not giving you fair warning. These things are out there and it is my job to arm you against them.'

His voice had an almost hypnotic quality to it. For a slight and snappish, little man he spoke very well - he sounded very impressive, and the whole class felt themselves pulled along by his authoritative tones, felt no doubt in his assurances, felt relief - even - that someone was finally saying it as it really was.

They sat there silently, paying rapt attention and letting his voice wash over them, listening to the truths he was not afraid to tell them and were startled when the bell rang, signalling the end of the lesson. Time had seemed to stand still while they were in there.

'I can't believe that was 90 minutes,' Lily said to her friends, as she packed up her things.

'He's good, isn't he?' Petra said, watching Malidictus walk out of the classroom. 'He doesn't look like he would be - but he is.'

The Ravenclaws seemed equally impressed. The Gryffindor boys - who had, like everyone else, listened enthralled - still had some misgivings, now the spell of Malidictus's voice had broken.

'Everything he said was right,' James conceded. 'Only…'

'Only Mr. Lupin doesn't like him - and if Big Macca is to be believed, neither does Dumbledore,' Peter finished up.

'We shouldn't just blindly believe Mr. Lupin and Dumbledore, though, we should think for ourselves - they would say that, themselves…' James argued, though he still sounded doubtful.

'Well - I'll tell you what I think,' Sirius finished putting his textbook away and swung his bag onto his shoulder. 'I think he was an arse about Remus not being here - and I won't be forgetting that.'

They left the classroom and said "goodbye" to Pete, who - lucky git - was finishing the day in prep, while James and Sirius made their way to Arithmancy, and then met up again at tea.

They went up to the common room afterwards and finished reading Sabrina13 - feeling ever so slight whiplash as they turned the page from "Date or Ditch? - How to Tell If A Boy is Worth It" (they came to the reluctant conclusion that Snivellus was not worth it) and landed on "Shopping Among the Shattered Glass - Diagon Alley in the Aftermath of the Night of the Glass Shards." The girls had interviewed some eyewitnesses and - amid the description of Florian Fortescue's Double Choco Fudge Mint Chip Sundae with extra whipping cream - was a harrowing account of what Florian, himself, had witnessed that night.

'She's not afraid to tell the truth, is she - Evans?' James said, his eyebrows raised as he read the article.

'Er - I think the other girls might have been involved too,' Sirius said.

'Well… yeah, whatever.'

'Their hair isn't as shiny as Evans's so they don't count,' whispered Peter to Sirius, sotto voce . The two boys snorted with laughter, and James pretended not to hear them. With the magazine finished, they considered doing some homework (Slughorn had set some reading for Potions and Professor Vector never missed an opportunity to set a few extra equations to complete) and then thought better of it. James and Peter settled down to play chess, and Sirius picked up a copy of the newspaper - glanced at another article from Mable, decrying the goblins - and made a start on the crossword.

…

Mr. Lupin had told Remus that - provided he was feeling strong enough - he could return to Hogwarts after tea, and so it was with a great deal of impatience that Remus forced himself to eat the jacket potato and cheese his father had presented him with that evening. 'I can eat when I get there,' he protested.

'No - eat now, travel later.'

'I'll be sick when I use the floo.'

'That's Professor McGonagall's problem, not mine,' Lyall said mildly. 'Now come on - the less you fuss, the quicker you go.'

And - unable to argue with that logic - Remus had shut up, eaten and then got dressed in his school robes.

'Got everything?' Mr. Lupin asked him, as he stood on the hearth, trunk before him and broom over his shoulder.

'Yes, I packed days ago.'

'Well…' he gave him a hug, 'be good - and send lots of owls. I'll miss you.'

'I'll miss you too.' He took a pinch of floo powder, gave one last glance to his mum's photo on the mantel, and then cast the powder into the flames, which turned green. He stepped in, said as clearly as he could: 'Professor McGonagall's office, Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry,' and was wooshed away from home in a blur of spinning chimney stacks, and then landed, on all fours and coughing, in the grate in Big Macca's office.

'Welcome back, Mr. Lupin,' he heard her say from somewhere above him.

'H- hello, Professor McGonagall,' he choked out. He scrambled to his feet and dusted away the worst of the soot.

'Your friends should be back in the common room by now,' she told him. 'The password is "Porcupine Quill"... Here is your timetable for tomorrow, see you period six.'

And - thus dismissed - Remus left the office and dragged his trunk behind him through the corridors until he reached the portrait of the Fat Lady, which hid the entrance to the Gryffindor common room.

'You're late back,' she said, raising painted eyebrows at him.

'Rough start to the month. Porcupine Quill.'

She swung forward, he heaved his trunk into the hole and just had time to look around and gain a fleeting impression of squashy armchairs and a roaring fire and students doing homework, before he was submerged in a tidal wave of James, roaring with pleasure and tackling him to the floor in greeting.

Two more bumps and he knew Sirius and Peter had joined the scrum.

'Remus!'

'We missed you!'

'Yeah - I can tell…' he felt a hand slap him on the back, 'still tender - still tender!'

'Oh right… sorry.'

They sat up, still tangled together, laughing and talking over each other and sharing everything that Remus had missed.

'We've got a new Defence teacher.'

'And James blew up Snivellus's arse.'

'Blew up like a balloon - not like an explosion.'

'It was hilarious.'

'But I got a detention.'

'Worth it!'

They struggled back to their feet. 'We were just playing chess,' Peter said.

'Pete's beating the pants off James,' Sirius said, clapping Peter on the back. Peter suddenly froze - he looked startled and then started to hack - one cough, two coughs… and then, much to Remus's bemusement, a mandrake leaf fell from Peter's mouth and landed on the floor.

…

James lost his mandrake leaf the next day, and Sirius the following week. 'It doesn't matter,' Remus said bracingly, when he caught sight of Sirius's glum face.

'It was a failure.'

'It was a first attempt . Honestly, it would have been a miracle if it had gone better. If it was that easy to do, people would be turning into animagi willy-nilly. Really…' he said, when Sirius still did not look cheered, 'it was amazing that you tried. That means everything.'

Remus had not been impressed that his first lesson of the year had turned out to be Potions, on Tuesday morning, and Malidictus had not been impressed with Remus when he arrived in Defence on Wednesday. 'Oh you bothered to show up this time, did you?' The professor sneered.

'I wasn't well.'

'So I've heard.'

And he was startled when he was approached at the breakfast table by a seventh year girl with a splodgy nose who peered at him through her thick glasses and said: 'There you are, I knew there were four of you - where have you been?'

'That's Big Bertha,' Sirius told him, giving Bertha the finger, 'nosy cow.'

But soon enough, the days were flying past, the homework was building up and it felt like the four of them had been back at school forever. And - while there was the occasional hexing in a corridor that might have been motivated by blood purity and, in Diagon Alley, tension with the goblins (stoked by Mable Grable) was reaching fever pitch - The Daily Prophet seemed mercifully empty of further horror stories going on in the wider world.

'Maybe it's over,' Peter said hopefully, one evening.

'It's not,' Sirius said, 'don't let the quiet fool you. This is just a lull. They'll be planning to do something foul soon enough.'

One thing that Remus had noticed that was different, since they had entered fourth year, was that hordes of girls seemed to follow them around (or - more accurately - follow Sirius around) and they were forever giggling . James and Peter seemed not to mind too much, but Remus found it incredibly irritating - though he couldn't explain to himself why. Sirius, on the other hand, seemed not to notice at all.

They were giggling outside the boys' bathrooms when the four of them emerged one Tuesday afternoon after skiving off A History of Magic. 'What do they want?' Remus asked crossly (though he knew perfectly well).

'Sirius's arse,' Peter said promptly (Remus felt a stab of annoyance - though it wasn't technically aimed at Pete), 'or possibly to be snogged by Sirius.'

'Or possibly to be snogged by Sirius's arse,' James added.

Sirius cast a haughty look at the gathered girls (who giggled harder) and stalked off. 'I'm a man of many talents,' he told his friends, 'but I'm not snogging anyone with my arse.'

More girls were giggling near the lake on Saturday, when the boys went to skim stones (and it was all but impossible to find a girl-free stretch of wall for them to hold one of their competitions against) and Bettina Bagshot spent most of Defence and Transfiguration and quite a bit of Muggle Studies casting admiring glances back at Sirius and then giggling behind her hand.

Sirius remained unruffled.

That evening a sign went up on the noticeboard in Gryffindor common room proclaiming that the second weekend in October would be a Hogsmeade weekend. The following morning, Sirius found himself being trailed down to breakfast by girls with hopeful expressions on their faces. 'Now what do they want?' he asked

'I think they want to be your date to Hogsmeade,' Peter told him.

'People take dates to Hogsmeade?'

'I suppose some people do - you know, older students. They go and snog in Madam Puddifoot's.'

'I'm not snogging anyone in Madam Puddifoot's.'

James grinned around at the girls shadowing them. 'Well it's a "no" on Madam Puddifoot's, ladies, but you're all more than welcome to join us at The Three Broomsticks for a Butterbeer.'

Peter nodded (neither Remus nor Sirius did). But the girls stared at James like he was a cockroach and walked away with their noses in the air. James frowned after them, and was quiet all of the rest of the way down to breakfast. Once they sat at the Gryffindor table he picked up his spoon and, instead of digging it into his porridge, gazed at his reflection in the back of it. His hair stood up every which way in the back, and he tried to flatten it.

'So - is Sirius the best looking bloke in the year or something?' he asked the others, still gazing despondently into his spoon.

Remus stared at him. 'Yes, ' he said slowly - as if this was very obvious and James was very stupid.

'Why?'

'Well -'

He sneaked a peek at Sirius, who was languishing elegantly on the bench - all artfully windswept hair and high cheekbones, 'He's, I mean … look at him.'

Sirius turned to look at Remus then, his expression was inscrutable, and - without really understanding why - Remus felt himself burn bright red, and he turned to his bowl of porridge and wished heartily that he had never answered James.

'I don't see anything that special about him,' James said, giving Sirius the once over.

'Maybe you should get the prescription checked on your glasses then,' Sirius said.

'Alright - who's the second best looking bloke in the year then?'

'Remus,' Sirius said.

Remus felt himself blush again. 'Don't joke,' he said - but mostly to his porridge.

But James was now frowning at Remus, eyeing him up as if he had never seen him before. 'Alright - why Remus?' (Pete was also looking Remus up and down, and Remus rather wished the ground would open up and swallow him.)

'Because he's got a straight nose and a manly jawline and really broad shoulders… his hair's nice too,' Sirius added as an afterthought.

Remus stared down at his shoulders in surprise.

'What's wrong with my nose?' James asked.

'It's too long.'

James felt the length of his nose, and picked up his spoon again to peer at his reflection once more. 'Alright then, who's the best looking girl in the year - if you know everything?'

'Mary,' Remus and Sirius said in unison (Remus very glad to be back on much safer ground).

James re-emerged from the spoon and blinked at them in surprise. 'McDonald?'

'Yeah,' Sirius nodded.

'Why?'

'She's got all that swishy, blonde hair - and her nose turns up.'

'It's called retrousse,' Remus added, 'a nose like that.'

'It is a fantastic nose,' Sirius said.

James was goggling between the pair of them, 'so - do you both fancy Mary or something?'

The two boys glanced at each other. 'No.'

'Then why are you so sure?'

Sirius shrugged. 'It's a purely academic question, isn't it? Which girl is objectively the best looking - and Mary is the correct answer.'

'There is always…' Peter sounded hesitant, 'well … there is always Leticia Zabini.'

'She's a Slytherin!' James sounded appalled.

'Yeah… but a good looking one.'

They all craned their necks to get a better look at Leticia, sitting at the Slytherin table. She had dark skin and large, liquid eyes shaped like almonds. Her short curls clung to her scalp like a cap and only accentuated the sharpness of her cheekbones. She looked like the bust of an Ancient Egyptian Queen - come to life and eating marmalade toast.

'She's alright,' James conceded, 'as long as you don't mind your girls evil… so that's it is it? McDonald and Zabini?'

'Why?' Sirius asked, snickering, 'who were you thinking of?'

'No one,' James returned to his spoon. 'But well - well… What about Evans?'

The other three boys all smirked at each other. 'Evans is very pretty too,' Peter said, patting James' hand reassuringly.

'What? It's not like I care …. Just a suggestion… Didn't mean anything by it… I don't think she's pretty… didn't mean anything…' and he continued this refrain all the way to Transfiguration, until the others were ready to hex his lips shut.

…

The weeks went by. The dying days of September drew to a close, October beckoned. The days grew shorter, the leaves turned orange and Malidictus continued to hold Remus's missing his first lesson against him. With less than a week to go until the full moon, the boys stole more mandrake leaves from Herbology, determined to have more success this month, and stashed them up in the dormitory ready for the night itself.

The closer the full moon came, the worse Remus felt and most evenings he stayed quietly in a squashy armchair, feeling like his bones were on fire, and not even bothering to protest about not wanting to be a pain when Sirius and James did his homework for him. The wireless was usually on but no one really listened - not until the evening when there was an announcement that Septimus Selwyn - the Deputy Grand High Wizard of the Knights of Walpurgis - was about to make a speech.

Heads came up at that, conversations were shushed, and even Remus peeled open a bleary eye and forced himself to concentrate on something other than the aches searing his entire body.

Thanks to Professor Malidictus, his expounding of the dark forces they faced and his refusal to pull any punches when it came to naming those responsible for recent events, there was no one in Gryffindor who did not know what the Knights of Walpurgis were really about. The rest of the Wizarding World might still be fooling themselves that the Knights were nothing more than a gentleman's club dedicated to preserving the old ways, but the students of Hogwarts had had the truth spelled out for them.

'He shouldn't be allowed on the wireless,' Tobias Winchester from sixth year muttered.

'Do you think he killed The Kneazles?' second year Callum Brown whispered to his friends.

There was the sound of the pips - and then Selwyn's plummy voice floated over the airwaves.

'Good evening,'

He said, and everyone went quiet - staring balefully at the wireless.

'I am here to talk to you about our society, our government and the evils we currently face as a people…'

'Take a look in the mirror,' Mandy Thomas said. A few people around her applauded.

'The role of any functioning government is to protect its people against preventable evils, in looking at what may be and securing the nation against a worst case scenario.'

'You mean like your precious Dark Lord taking over?' suggested Alice Law, folding her arms and glowering at the wireless.

'The problem with forming policy with foresight is that it runs into that peculiarity of human nature: an unwillingness to look the truth in the face and accept that the worst may happen before it is too late. How we love to think "it will never happen here" or "it may never come to that" and so an unblinking refusal to face facts becomes the enemy of sound and safe preventative policy. But rest assured, when we fail to make future-proofed policies, it is the future generations that pay the price, who will have good reason to curse our very names.

'I am here, then, to talk about worst case scenarios - what is happening, what will happen and what we need to do about it - as it is my duty, as a prominent pureblood, to use my platform to speak out.'

'Oh - shut up!' Sirius said. But Selwyn continued anyway.

'The other day I spoke with an old acquaintance of mine - a half blood, but of good standing, who I have known for many years. We met in Diagon Alley - quite by chance - and, after a perfunctory chat about the weather, he told me that if he had the galleons to go, he would not stay in this country. I told him that, as incompetent as the Ministry may seem at times, this administration cannot last forever - but he took no notice and said "I have three children, all of them been to Hogwarts and two of them married now, with families. I won't be happy until I've seen them all settled overseas. In this country, in 15 to 20 years, the muggleborn will wield the wand over the purebloods".'

James scrunched up a piece of parchment and threw it at the wireless, but Selwyn ground relentlessly on.

'You may be shocked that I tell such a story, dismayed that I openly relate a tale in which someone dares speak of their true feelings even though they are not the ones we are told it is correct to feel. However, I say to you: How can I not repeat this story? How can I, as an upstanding member of our society, a member of the Sacred 28, with a voice and a platform beyond that which many of you can dream of, not amplify the voices of the ordinary wizard? The proverbial average wizard on the Knight Bus? For here it is - an everyday half blood, no great name, no great fortune to fall back on - a wizard like many of you - plainly saying that his country will not be worth living in for his children.

'The Ministry says we cannot say this, cannot think this. They demand that we sit on our wands and stay silent as laws are passed which further progress and protect the muggleborn at the expense of the half and even pure blood. We are told it is wrong to even question whether it is desirable to have our proud traditions overturned, our children mix with muggles and their futures made more uncertain by an influx of immigrants from the muggle world.'

'Immigrants?' Lily whispered, disbelievingly.

'Don't listen to him, Lils,' Mandy said. 'Magic is magic.' Selwyn, however, continued to disagree:

'But the truth is more and more of our population are made up by those with recent muggle heritage, and they do not rescind the ways of their birth, but raise their own children in a continuation of muggle traditions. And worse - they will marry into magic families and so degrade their bloodlines and their traditions as well. In just five years time - if the numbers hold true - we will see a 10% drop in the number of pureblood births. And as the muggle population steadily grows, so too does the number of muggleborns flooding our society.

'I do not have the numbers for what our population makeup will be in ten - or twenty - years, but if the direction of travel is not altered we will see a significant loss of the old ways, and an ever closer relationship with the muggle world.

'And we are told not to mind this! We are told it is wrong to object, and that we who do are a bigoted minority. Well, if my friend in Diagon Alley is anything to go by, it is the Ministry who is out of step. Anger is rising among the wizarding community, there are those willing to leave - and more importantly, there are those willing to fight, if the Ministry continues to bury its head in the sand and allow the encroachment of muggleborns on our world.

'As I look ahead, I am filled with foreboding. Like the centaur, I see that the Planet Mars is unusually bright - as if stained by blood. There is a war coming. It is not a war I want, but if the Ministry will not act to curtail the movement and rights of the muggleborns, to protect the pure, then by Merlin it is a war I will fight.'

As Selwyn's speech came to an end, Belvedere Johnson, the Gryffindor keeper, got up and switched the wireless off. He looked as if he felt sick. A silence hung in the air, once the wireless was quiet - uncomfortable, and crackling with static. No one wanted to speak. No one knew what to say. But suddenly the whole tower felt closed in and more foreboding, the flames in the grate less cheerful, the common room less cosy, the shadows were deeper. It felt - as they sat there in contemplative silence - as if the darkness of Lord Voldemort had seeped once again inside the castle walls itself.