Chapter Eleven: The Bystander Effect

You could hear a pin drop in the Great Hall at breakfast time the next morning. Sirius took one look at the headlines, at the news of the werewolf attack on Mrs. Enderby and her baby, and buried his head in his hands. 'This is just going to make everything a thousand times worse,' he groaned. 'They'll all use this to say Malidictus is right, that werewolves are all dangerous and side with the Dark Lord. Act as if all werewolves are the same. And they'll conveniently forget all the murders done by wizards. They're going to make life worse for Moony - just you wait and see!'

Peter looked down at the newspaper, his expression rather solemn. 'Mrs. Enderby is still alive,' he said, reading the article. 'She was bitten, she's badly injured - at St. Mungos - but she's still alive.'

'For now,' James replied, rather gloomily.

The rest of the students were equally engrossed in the paper, equally sombre and - save for the occasional rustle of a page turning - had nothing to say while they were under the nose of the teachers.

It was a different story once they were out and in the corridors though. 'That poor baby,' Lily said to her friends, she sounded all choked up about it. 'I can't bear the thought… what a vicious, horrible monster that werewolf must have been. And Poor Mr. Enderby - his wife and child…'

'They should put her out of her misery while she's still unconscious,' Belvedere Johnson told Bethany Ellshaw, as they headed up the stairs. 'It's kinder. The real Mrs. Enderby is dead already. What's left is just a monster wearing her skin. She'll be attacking other people's babies this time next month if something isn't done about her.'

'All werewolves should be rounded up and sent to Azkaban,' Ellis Stebbins said to his fellow Ravenclaws, as they made their way to Charms. 'And that's being kind! It's proven they're with the Dark Lord now - and we should show no mercy, unless we all want to end up like Mrs Enderby: one of them! Round 'em up, that's what I say. Round 'em up and put down any of them that put up a fight.'

Sirius, overhearing this, growled in anger and made to swing a punch at the unfortunate Stebbins. James and Peter managed to haul him back with a hissed 'Don't make a scene!' and Stebbins, looking rather alarmed, scuttled away with a muttered 'Nutter!'.

Snape happened to be passing, and saw the whole thing. He raised an eyebrow at Sirius's apparent fury, but - for once in his smug git life - chose not to say anything. He did smirk rather infuriatingly though. As if he had discovered something.

'Why did you stop me from lamping the berk?' Sirius demanded of his friends, once they were alone in the hallway.

' Because …' James glanced around to make certain absolutely no one else was in ear shot, 'we can't be seen to be taking this personally.'

'It is personal!'

'But they don't know that! And they can't find it out.'

'S- Sirius,' Peter said, blanching a bit at the sight of the mutinous glower on Sirius's handsome face, 'it's one thing for us to be publicly known as "bystanders" and to not join in with The League. But if we get involved in debates over … werewolves' (he whispered that word, with a glance around the corridor - just like James had done) 'then people will want to know why we care…' He raised his voice as Sirius opened his mouth to give a furious rebuttal. 'And we owe it to Moony to make sure no one suspects a thing. It's about protecting him - you must see that.'

Sirius opened his mouth again - as if to argue - and then closed it again. He folded his arms across his chest and scowled, his deepest, darkest and most frightening scowl. 'I can protect Moony by hexing all these werewolf hating gits into next Tuesday,' he said. But he didn't argue anymore, and he didn't hex anyone and - much to James' and Peter's relief - he went quietly to Potions without saying any more about it.

He did hex Snivellus in the middle of the lesson though - engorgioing his rear just for the hell of it.

…

Remus was very quiet when they went to visit him in the Hospital Wing at break. He had the Daily Prophet open in front of him, so there was no point asking if he had seen. Just a single glance at his expression told them he knew… and that he knew what it meant when it came to The League.

'I imagine a whole peck of owls has been sent off to the Minister this morning,' he said, attempting a wry smile. 'Probably asking for my execution or something.'

'Don't imagine,' Sirius told him.

But that only made Remus laugh (rather mirthlessly, it had to be said). 'I don't have to imagine,' he replied. 'Once I'm down there, later tonight, I'll hear . Let me guess, they're sad about the baby but want Mrs. Enderby to be killed in her hospital bed. They don't think she's Mrs. Enderby any more. Just a monster to be put down…'

'Well, they're all foul gits, aren't they? You don't have to listen.'

'I'm getting rather tired of not listening to what everyone is saying about people like me, to be honest…'

But, once he left the safety of the Infirmary, Remus had no choice but to either block his ears or choose to ignore, as all around him people were talking about what they thought should be done with Mrs. Enderby, with the monster who had bitten her, and everyone else who suffered from the same condition.

'We don't even know if it's anything to do with Voldemort,' James said, when the four of them were up in the privacy of their own dorm, the door tightly shut. 'It could just be a normal werewolf attack.'

'I don't think that would make it any better,' Peter said to him. 'Not to The League.'

'Of course they were working for Voldemort,' Remus said, fighting down a wave of impatience that James could be so naive. 'It wasn't a random attack. Enderby has been speaking out about the Knights of Walpurgis for months now. He said they needed to be disbanded, Voldemort arrested.' He stabbed his mattress with his wand, digging it into the bed clothes until the sheets twisted. 'Voldemort has gone and done exactly what Malidictus said he would do. Recruited the werewolves and then sent them out to frighten everyone into submission… Delivering a fate worse than death.'

'He's recruited a werewolf,' Sirius corrected him. 'Only one was reported in that attack. This doesn't mean - it doesn't mean that the werewolves are joining up to the Knights. Just that one of them has.'

'It won't make a difference to The League if it's one or all of us,' Remus said. 'And it won't make a difference to Eugenia Jenkins either. And I know you know that, Sirius, so please don't pretend this isn't happening to make me feel better. It won't work. Now - if you'll excuse me… I'm tired.' And he drew his bed curtains around his four poster and then, once he was hidden from view, cast a cheering and a calming charm on himself both at once and felt himself drift away from all his worries.

…

But his worries were waiting for him in full force the next morning, along with The League, their snide comments, their violent rhetoric and their even more violent actions. Someone scrawled:

Mrs. Enderby is dead

On the bathroom mirrors. A picture of a wolf with an axe hovering near its neck was painted on the walls in the Charms corridor and someone came along and carved

"This is the right idea"

Into the stones underneath.

They hexed any Slytherin they passed, whether the Slytherin in question was actively muggleborn baiting or simply working quietly in the library.

And it seemed like, every meal time, members of The League would gather together to discuss the latest letters they had sent to Eugenia Jenkins, deploring werewolves and beseeching her to execute or at the very least incarcerate them and - though Remus knew it was only an unfortunate coincidence - it seemed like they all waited until he was around and able to hear before they said their very worst on the matter.

And though Sirius had his heart in the right place, and Remus did not doubt that for a moment, having to hold him back, having to beg him - by quietly hissing in his ear - not to curse anyone, not to show any anger when they overheard people talking about what should be done with werewolves was just one extra weight that Remus could have really done without having to shoulder.

Sometimes the things people said made Remus feel sick; sometimes they made his hands tremble with anger; sometimes he sat there at the Gryffindor table or in the common room - listening to Mary McDonald or Callum Brown or Belvedere bloody Johnson banging on about what a dangerous, vicious animal he was, without a soul and unworthy of life, and he would feel the rage build in him until he wanted to flip the table and start hexing people, or else the shame would grow inside him, like a tumour, until he wanted to run away and shed tears he could never let anyone else see.

And yet he had to sit there, quietly, politely, and pretend none of it was happening. And perhaps it was bloodless or cowardly of him, not to stand up for himself, not to make his own feelings known - but what was at stake was so much greater than the momentary satisfaction he would feel at blasting members of The League through the nearest window, that he had no choice but to keep his peace. And it hurt. It was a physical pain in his chest that he carried all day long, and destroyed every vestige of pride he had, but he did it anyway.

So to have to keep one restraining hand on Sirius at all times, to use a soothing voice on him when he was about to go off the deep end and tell him it didn't matter really, was sometimes more than he could bear. His own load was already too heavy for him, he could not help Sirius carry his as well. So, more and more, Remus found himself leaving Sirius to the (surprisingly) more level headed ministrations of James, and would, himself, creep away and find a quiet corner to enchant himself with calming and cheering charms just to ease the pain in his chest for a little while.

…

It was on a Tuesday, about a week after the January full moon, when Mrs. Enderby had still not regained consciousness and the St. Mungo's healers were quietly starting to think that she never would, that things began to change for Lily.

She had been up late the night before, using Arithmancy to predict the football scores for the following weekend (she had worked out that Liverpool would beat Ipswich 5:2, but she was not convinced this was accurate - still, the odds must be long and, if her dad put it down in the Littlewood's Pools and she was proven right, they should make a tidy sum) and so had been late getting up. She had wanted to take her predictions up to the owlery first thing and send a letter home with Brunhilde, her new snowy owl, however she overslept by so much that - if she didn't hurry straight down - she would miss breakfast altogether and the thought of double Potions on an empty stomach was not an appealing one.

She arrived after the owl post had already been delivered and was surprised to find one lone owl still circling the hall, which swooped down and dropped a letter on her head the moment she stepped through the doors. It was addressed to "Dear Dianella" (her problem page persona for her magazine) and she popped it into her bag, planning on reading it that evening, once she was done with her homework.

As always, when she sat down, her friends were discussing League business, and she listened with half an ear and nodded along as she spread marmalade on her toast.

'There's talk about setting up some kind of rota - making it official,' Petra was telling the others. 'A bit like prefects go on patrol, only it will be League members - you'll be given an hour's slot one evening every two weeks or so and you go around looking for trouble.'

'Sounds like a good idea,' Mandy said, through a mouthful of toast, 'though I don't fancy getting stuck out on duty on a full moon night,' and they all shuddered at the thought.

The day passed uneventfully enough, though Potter knocked Sev face first into his own cauldron during Potions (he came out dripping green and covered in boils) and Black turned Stebbins into a canary during Transfiguration (he claimed it was an accident, Professor McGonagall was white with fury and yet - underneath it - she was clearly deeply impressed by the magic and didn't give him a detention). After tea, Lily dashed off some Ancient Runes homework and spent an hour researching root systems for Herbology and then she went upstairs to her dorm and finally opened her letter.

What she read made her frown.

Dear Dianella,

I am afraid to write this letter to you, in fact I'm afraid a lot of the time now but I have nowhere else I can turn. I am sure you will be a member of The League and so won't like what I have to say, but I must tell someone.

It is The League which is making me afraid, the things they say around school, the way they hex people who disagree with them…

Lily tutted. 'We're fighting evil, ' she muttered to herself.

I know the idea behind The League is important, I know the Dark Lord stands for terrible things and the students of this school want to make it clear we stand against him. And I know you and your magazine have fought for muggleborn rights since the first people were killed in this war - which is just heating up.

'Too right,' she nodded.

But the League is dead wrong when it comes to werewolves

The letter said. Lily stared at it incredulously and then threw it to one side, hissing 'nonsense,' under her breath, until curiosity got the better of her and she picked it up again, intending to read it just so she could stew over the stupidity of it.

My uncle is a werewolf, and he is a good man who cannot help what happened to him. He has never hurt anyone during a full moon and could never live with the guilt if he ever did. He locks himself up securely, every month, and uses more protection charms than I can name to make sure that he doesn't get out and no one else can get in.

And he suffers - all alone! The wolf needs to kill and, separated from humans, he turns all that fury on himself, biting and scratching himself until he bleeds. He is in a terrible state the next morning, in terrible pain, but he does it willingly because - when he is human - he doesn't not want to hurt anyone.

This is what The League is getting wrong! Werewolves are no different than you or I, I know this because - unlike everyone else in this castle - I have personal knowledge of one. I remember him from before he was a werewolf and I know him now and he is still the same man. If Mrs. Enderby ever wakes up, she will still be Mrs. Enderby. A werewolf bite does not change who you are as a person, it does not destroy your soul or make you a monster.

And it could happen to any of us. Before he was a werewolf, my uncle worked for Quality Quidditch Supplies, he made snitches and enchanted them with flesh memories. He was a normal wizard, and all that was taken from him with one bite, but he didn't change! People are so afraid of becoming like him that they cast him out, they treat him like a monster because they think - if he is not like them - then what happened to him can never happen to them. But that is a lie!

There may be werewolves working for the Dark Lord - I don't know - but how many wizards are working for him? We don't treat ourselves with suspicion because wands killed The Kneazles and yet we lump all werewolves together.

Listening to The League is breaking my heart, it is making me despair for the future, for my uncle - and all the ordinary people like him who were in the wrong place at the wrong full moon. I'm afraid to speak up, I'm afraid of being turned on by The League, I feel so alone and I don't know what to do. I hope you can help me.

Yours,

A Werewolf's Nephew

By now, Lily had stopped tutting and hissing and, instead, felt like a painful explosion was going off in her heart. This couldn't be true, she thought to herself; Malidictus could not have got it so wrong - be leading them all so badly down the garden path. And yet she could not think of a reason why this unknown person would lie.

She had never met a werewolf, and had always accepted what other wizards - ones more knowledgeable about the magical world than she - had told her: that they were evil, soulless, dark creatures who lived as criminals when they were in their human disguise. But this person did know a werewolf, and was sure they were just a person like everybody else… and when she thought about it, that did seem to make a sort of sense.

After all, why would Mrs. Enderby be evil when and if she eventually opened her eyes? If that were true, what had become of the woman she had once been? She had never heard a compelling answer to that question. In fact, now she thought about it, she had never even heard that question being asked. Everyone just accepted that werewolves were evil.

Only maybe they weren't.

Feeling very disturbed, she put the letter back in its envelope and placed it on her bedside table. She wanted to think about it some more, to sleep on it, to give it time to settle in and then - if she still was not sure what to think about this letter - she would show it to Malidictus after her Defence lesson tomorrow, and ask him if he could answer all the questions she now had.

…

If Lily was having the first inklings that perhaps there was something rotten in the State of Hogwarts, the rest of The League had no such doubts. And perhaps they had good reason for their confidence, for - in quick succession - muggleborn students were found hanging by their robes from the chandelier, spellotaped to the painting of Sir Cadogan, and planted head first in the soil of Greenhouse Three, their legs waving in the air like venomous tentacular vines. A Dark Mark was painted at the scene of every attack.

So, when a group of seventh years found Mulciber and Avery performing a particularly nasty spell which fused a first year's feet to the floor, the seventh years felt no compunction in using that exact same spell on Mulciber and Avery themselves.

And then, the older boys turned their wands on the next pair of Slytherins who walked down the corridor.

…

'It was Upwin and Pryce,' Peter said gloomily, when the four boys were up in their own dormitory after tea. 'They aren't mini-knights, they went to the first League meeting, for Merlin's sake, they just didn't sign up. They were only trying to get to Charms class, same as us.'

'Bystanders, though,' Sirius said darkly, he was lying on his bed scowling up at his canopy. 'Fair game, innit? It's all that "if you're not with us you're against us" bollocks that the League love so much. Nothing but total capitulation and agreement with every damn point on their stupid manifesto will do… berks !'

Remus also lay on his bed, feeling miserable and wishing he could pull his curtains closed and cast his charms on himself to make it all go away. But with his friends around him there would be no chance. His already bleak mood was only set to nosedive, however, when Sirius's edition of the Evening Prophet was delivered to their window by an owl and the headline screamed:

Enid Enderby Dead!

Healers say it is a mercy she never regained consciousness

"We can mourn the woman and no longer need fear the werewolf"

'Oh, come on,' James snapped, when he saw the newspaper and then saw Remus's face. 'I can't take this any more, I can't sit around here feeling useless and miserable. And I'm out of Bertie Bott's Every Flavour Beans. We're busting out of this joint and going to Honeydukes.'

And, brooking no argument, he heaved his friends back to their feet and ushered them out of the door, down the stairs and through the portrait hole, heading them to the fourth floor and the large mirror which concealed the entrance to a secret passage.

It was dark inside the passage, and they had to light their wands and stumble through the gloom until finally they reached the cave in the mountains where the tunnel opened out. It was not much lighter once they were outside, as it was evening and early February and the days were still short. And so, by the time they had clambered down the mountainside, it was already pitch black - and the lights of Hogsmeade Village twinkled invitingly in the distance.

'We'd better hurry up,' James said, setting a brisk pace, 'Honeydukes will be closing soon and we didn't risk breaking our necks in the dark to return empty handed.'

But for all his words, the fresh air and simply being away from school was making them all feel a lot better. Putting distance between themselves and The League made them feel freer than they had in months, and it was in good spirits that they entered the village and made their way to the sweet shop.

'Maybe we don't have to go straight back once we have the Bertie Botts,' Peter suggested. 'We could go to The Three Broomsticks - see Madam Rosmerta.'

'I bet she's missed me!' James exclaimed.

Remus and Sirius shot each other an amused look, in the dark, but they had no qualms with going to get a butterbeer afterwards, or with staying away from the stifling atmosphere of the castle for as long as they could.

A little bell jingled as they went inside Honeydukes, though there was no one at the counter.

'Be out in a mo,' Mr. Flume's voice called from in the back.

The boys walked down the aisles, breathing in deeply to savour the scents of warm chocolate, creamy fudge and melted sugar which lay heavy in the air.

Sirius blinked curiously at the novelty sweets, wondering who in their right mind would want a blood lollipop, and Pete had to be dragged away from the sugar mice. They were just walking past the Chocolate Frogs, headed for the stand of Bertie Botts Every Flavour Beans when the little bell, over the door jingled again, and a giant, round, velvet clad belly poked through followed by a quivering walrus moustache and the booming voice of Professor Slughorn, himself: 'I need some more crystallised pineapple, my good man.'

The boys looked at each other in horror and ducked behind a barrel of fizzing whizzbees.

'I'll be right out,' Mr. Flume called, and - while the boys crouched low and made themselves as small as possible - Slughorn ambled around the shop, pausing to examine some peppermint toads and shaking his head at the exploding bonbons. He was just about to round their barrel, and the boys were starting to sweat, when Mr. Flume finally appeared from the back, lifted the counter and entered the main shop floor. 'This way, Professor,' he said cheerfully - leading Slughorn away, to the boys' great relief.

With a quick glance at each other, the boys took the opportunity to scurry (still crouched low) behind the counter and into the backroom, where they lurked quietly among the tins of cockroach clusters and cans of jelly worms. 'Rotten luck,' James said.

'If he catches us, it'll be a month's detention,' Remus whispered.

But Sirius had thought of something worse than that, 'If he finds us, he'll find out about the secret passage - and then no more out of hours trips to Hogsmeade.'

'Still,' Peter smiled around at them cheerfully, 'as long as he stays out there and we stay in here no one will get cau-'

'Must be all out,' they heard Mr. Flume say (his voice was no less booming than Slughorn's own), 'let me check the stockroom, I won't be a mo…' and they heard heavy footsteps headed their way.

Panic! Disaster! They grabbed at each other, hunkered down, lost their heads, blundered around and silently bewailed their impending doom until, just moments before the footsteps reached them, Pete's shrewd eyes spotted something on the stockroom floor.

It was a crack between the floorboards, but as his eyes followed it, the crack suddenly made a perpendicular turn and Peter realised there was an entire square which was not fully fitted with the rest of the floor. And beneath the cracks, there was a sense of dark nothingness underneath.

He pointed, 'trapdoor,' he half mouthed, half squeaked and all four of them dived on it at once, tugging at it open and tumbling into the blackness beyond. Remus had just slammed the hidden door shut behind him, when Mr. Flume arrived in the backroom and, noticing nothing amiss, started his search for crystallised pineapple.

Beneath the floorboards, the boys looked around at their surroundings; it was almost totally dark down there, but they did not want to use "lumos" in case the light caught Mr. Flume's eye, and so they sensed more than saw that - rather than being in a cellar, as they first thought - this space opened out and became yet another tunnel.

Although they could barely see their hands in front of their faces, and they had no idea where this tunnel led, none of them even considered for a moment the possibility of doing anything but following it.

They kept their left hands against the wall, to help direct themselves and so - even before they felt they were a safe enough distance away from the shop to risk lighting up their wands - they knew the tunnel they were in was muddy and damp. Once they had lit their wands, the light did nothing to dispel this notion.

It was a tight squeeze, they could not always walk fully upright, and it was steep in places - and they had to scramble and clamber their way upwards, putting their wands between their teeth so they could use both hands. And it was a long tunnel, twisting and turning and seeming to stretch on for miles. They were sweaty and muddy and out of breath by the time they hit a wall and realised they had reached the end.

'What now?' Sirius asked.

Remus shone his wand around the tunnel, 'there must be a way out, otherwise what's the point?'

'Here!' Peter said grabbing Remus's wand arm and casting the light onto the dead end of the wall. Like the rest of the tunnel, most of the walls were caked earth (and the mud was now liberally spread across the boys' hands and faces) but - about four feet up one wall was a hollow, and through the hollow they could make out...

'Is that stone?' James asked peering. 'How do we get through that?'

'There's a hinge,' and Peter shone his wand onto brass hinges, which glowed warmly in the light. 'It opens.'

Sirius raised an eyebrow, 'nice one,' and then, leading the way, he stuck his head through the hollow and pushed hard against the stone, forcing it to open. Fresh air hit him, almost dizzying after the stale, earthy musk of the passage, and - with a fair bit of grunting and squeezing - he clambered out through the gap and then gave a loud 'Ha!' as he saw where he was. 'You'll never believe it, come on out - it's safe.'

The others followed behind him, a little cautiously, and then laughed in astonishment when they saw where they had ended up.

They were in Hogwarts itself, in an out of the way corridor, and they had - it seemed - just crawled out through the hump of a statue of a one eyed witch. Once they were all back through, the hump creaked closed, and the statue looked totally unremarkable once more. Sirius stepped forward to examine it. 'I can't even see how it opens from this side,' he said, 'but there must be a way. You know what this means?' He grinned at his friends, 'We've only found ourselves another secret passage to Hogsmeade.'

'Only if we can find a way to get back through the statue,' Remus said.

But Sirius waved a dismissive hand, 'We will.'

'You know what this really means?' James said rather gloomily. They all looked at him. 'I still don't have any Bertie Botts Every Flavour Beans.'

Their jubilation (and James' gloom) lasted all the way back up to Gryffindor tower, and they were feeling quite pleased with themselves and content with the world as they climbed the stairs to their dorm.

Their good mood was dispelled entirely though when they arrived and saw that someone had vandalised their door. It was only word, scratched deep into the wood, but it looked ugly and jagged and dangerous:

Bystanders

…

Meanwhile, Lily had not been able to stop thinking about her letter and worrying what she should do about it. So, the next day, she approached Professor Malidictus at the end of period 2 and asked him if she could speak with him.

'You'll be late to your next lesson,' he warned.

'This is important,' she said, (It was only A History of Magic next, and Professor Binns would neither notice or care that she was late). 'I've been thinking about it all night and I'm still not sure what to do or what to think,' and she took out the letter and showed it to the Professor. He read it slowly, his frown lines etching deeper into his face as he did.

'This is dangerous nonsense,' he said at the end.

'Do you really think so?'

'Can you really doubt it?'

'Only,' Lily hesitated. 'The writer - he seems so sure that his uncle is the exact same person he always was, and that he doesn't want to hurt anybody.'

Malidictus shook his head. 'Werewolves are some of the most dangerous creatures in our world,' he told her. 'And what makes them most dangerous is that - unlike other monsters - they know what it is like to be human. They remember their lives before, they remember how they behaved and how they thought… and they can ape that behaviour, mimic it so perfectly that,' he shook the letter, 'even their nearest and dearest are quite convinced nothing has changed. This way they can slip among us and pretend to be harmless. But they are not - the beast rules them now, even if they maintain a veneer of civilisation. They are a monster, and they live to kill - to make more like themselves. And they only act human in order to lure in the gullible. It is the way of it.'

'But-'

'I have studied werewolves for a long time, Miss Evans,' Malidictus told her - not unkindly - 'I know the truth of it.'

'But did you ever know one? I mean - before and then after. Did you ever know a person who later became a werewolf, and stay in contact with them afterwards?'

'No, I am lucky to say no one dear to me was ever bitten. I lost plenty of good men, back when I was a hunter, though. I knew plenty of wizards killed by werewolves.'

'But none of them who were only turned?'

'A few survived,' he said shortly, 'though I'm sure they wished they hadn't. I never saw them again - unless I hunted them on a full moon.'

'So you don't know - you don't have personal experience, I mean, of whether or not a person changes?'

'Miss Evans!' (His voice was sharp now) 'I have plenty of personal experience, I have seen things you cannot imagine. I know the blood lust they feel, I've seen the damage they do and I know the crimes they commit in human form. I know they are monsters, and a sensible girl like you would do well to listen to those with more expertise than herself.'

Lily flushed. 'Yes - of course - er… thank you… for your time.' And she left the classroom, feeling none the wiser and not especially reassured or convinced. Not sure what else she could do, she resolved to go to the library after school.