AUTHOR'S NOTE: A nice long update for you all! In just a few hours I will be on the road, heading from Georgia to Michigan to see my bestest friend in the whole wide world (my own personal Ada!) I haven't seen her in two years, I can hardly wait! Please leave me lots of reviews and send me good vibes/prayers (if you're into that sort of thing) for safe travels. I really, really dislike driving, especially in places I've never been before. I wish I could fly – on a broom that is, not a plane lol – or just Apparate. But, it will all be worth it and hopefully the journey will be fun and also scenic because the leaves should be changing this time of year and since I live in a pine forest this isn't something I usually get to see.
Thanks all!
~RPP
Freddie spent the next several weeks splitting her time between the Wolfsbane Potion and spending time practice-dueling with Ada as much as she could before the end of term. She spent every night in Snape's quarters, using his fireplace to go into work every day, and despite the looming threat of the Dark Lord's return to power Freddie was actually happy. There had been no news of the Dark Lord's activities, nothing suspicious in the Daily Prophet which still refused to report on the events of the last Triwizard Tournament task, and as far as she knew the Dark Mark on Snape's forearm had not burned since that night...though it was still as clear as it had been and sometimes she caught him rubbing it absently.
As the full moon approached it was time for Lupin to start coming by her office every evening for the week leading up to it. She hadn't seen him or Black since that day in the Shrieking Shack but at exactly 5 o'clock one evening there was a knock on her office door.
"Come in," she called absently, adding milk thistle to the potion she was working on for Healer Ramsey on the second floor. She glanced up from her work as Lupin walked in. He looked even more ragged than the last time she'd seen him, his face gaunt, but he still smiled kindly at her.
"Good evening, Miss Gray," he said respectfully.
"Lupin," she said with a nod. "I was hoping you hadn't forgotten."
"That would be pretty hard to do," he said with a weak chuckle. Freddie had done some reading up on werewolves recently, her curiosity piqued by Ada's fascination with them. Most of the books she could find about them on Snape's shelf were about different ways to defend yourself against one, how to fight against one that was fully transformed, and of course ways to kill them. But one of the books had mentioned that in the days before a full moon were particularly vulnerable. It said they become ill the week before but didn't go into specifics. Looking at Lupin, Freddie thought he definitely looked sick.
"I just have to finish this real quick, can you wait a moment?" she asked apologetically, stirring the potion slowly six times. "I can't step away from it quite yet and my timing is crucial. Shouldn't take more than 5 minutes. I wasn't sure what time you were coming."
"Of course," he said with a nod. "I don't mind waiting."
"You can sit down if you like," she offered, gesturing to the couch as she went back to her workstation to prepare her next ingredient. "You look, uh, tired."
"The week of the full moon is always the worst," he said, sitting down on the couch. "Thank you."
Ziggy was on the back of the couch and had been watching Lupin since he came in. He didn't seem defensive like before, but his whiskers were twitching as he stood up and stretched. Slowly Ziggy slunk off the back of the couch. Freddie had turned to measure the dittany for her potion but when she turned back around Ziggy had made his way into Lupin's lap and the werewolf was stroking his fur.
Interesting, she thought to herself.
"What are you working on, if you don't mind my asking?" Lupin asked politely.
"Oh there's a patient on the second floor who Healer Ramsey thinks has some sort of liver disease. It's not something I've ever seen before – the man is bright yellow. His skin, his eyes. They consulted my boss and I, thinking it might be some sort of poisoning, but neither of us had read of anything like that. Healer Ramsey said it might be something that Muggles get, I think she called it cirrhosis? So I found a potion for liver ailments that should treat it."
"It looks complicated," he observed.
"Not as much as the Wolfsbane," she said with a chuckle as she started to prepare the last ingredient on her workstation. "Do you know much about potions?"
"Me? No, I'm absolutely dreadful at them. Severus and Lily were the only two in our year who seemed to have any idea what Professor Slughorn was talking about half the time."
Freddie froze halfway through slicing a burdock root, shocked to hear someone else talking about Snape and Lily. She recovered quickly, hoping Lupin hadn't noticed her surprise. She was determined not to talk about Snape with him. Very few people knew the extent of their relationship and she wanted to keep it that way.
"What sort of symptoms do you have?" she asked, eager to change the subject. "When you're sick before the full moon?"
"Eh, mostly nausea and fatigue," he said with a shrug. "I can barely keep anything down. Then insomnia is the worst the night before one and I get a generally restless feeling."
"Does anything help? I have a few different nausea remedies and Sleeping Draughts I can offer you."
"No, most normal potions don't work on me," he said, shaking his head. "Thank you though."
"It must have been hard. Teaching at Hogwarts last year and dealing with all of that."
"A bit. Dumbledore was very understanding and Severus filled in for me a few times," he said with a nod.
"Severus got to teach Defense Against the Dark Arts?" she asked, her interest enough to make her forget her resolution not to discuss Snape. "He never told me!"
"I was told they were very...memorable classes," he said with a slight smile.
Freddie could care less what Potter and his classmates thought of Snape's teaching style. She only wished that he could have taught Defense Against the Dark Arts while she was in school. As grateful as she was to have him as her Potions Master, she knew he wanted that post more than anything.
"He's always been skilled at Potions," Lupin continued. "But I think the Dark Arts is where Severus' talents truly lie."
Freddie opened her mouth, ready to defend him, but quickly bit her tongue. He hadn't missed her reaction though and raised his hands innocently.
"I don't necessarily mean that in a negative way," he quickly assured her. "Severus has always been brilliant. In our first year at Hogwarts he already knew more curses and hexes than most 7th years. By our third year I think he was starting to invent his own spells. He was always in the library, always had his nose buried in some book or other. We weren't friends by any means-" Not by a long shot, Freddie thought silently. "-Slytherin and Gryffindor, you know. But I've always admired his intelligence."
Freddie said nothing, just stirred the diced burdock roots into her cauldron. As much as she was dying to know about Snape's years at Hogwarts, she wasn't going to have this conversation with one of his sworn enemies. Even if she was starting to think Lupin might not be all that bad. Ziggy certainly didn't seem to think so, as he was currently totally relaxed in the werewolf's lap and purring contently. Maybe Lupin really was a different person now than he was back then.
She placed the stasis spell on her potion and quickly cleared her workstation. She had to add more wolfsbane to the Wolfsbane Potion right before Lupin drank it and she wanted to avoid cross-contamination.
"I wanted to apologize for Sirius' behavior in the Shrieking Shack the other day," Lupin said a bit sheepishly. "I know it seemed like he was antagonizing you, but...well, he's had a hard few years."
"He was in Azkaban," she said coolly, chopping the wolfsbane plant.
"For a crime he didn't commit," Lupin reminded her, as if she didn't already know this. "And, well, I think he might've gone a bit mad. I don't think he's really recovered from it, not yet. He may never fully recover. Azkaban is a truly nasty place. Dementors everywhere."
"I know," she said darkly. She wasn't going to tell Lupin that her parents were in Azkaban at this exact moment and that they would never, ever be released. She wouldn't want them to be. But a chill went through her as she remembered her uncle dragging her to visit, trying to force her to go into the prison and see them. The screaming, the cold. The overwhelming feeling of despair from the hundreds of dementors that guarded the place... but she was not going to let herself feel sorry for Sirius Black!
"Can you cast a Patronus?" Lupin asked curiously, not even asking her to explain.
"I can," she confirmed. "A corporeal one. I learned when I was 17."
"That's impressive. There are full grown wizards who can't manage a corporeal Patronus Charm. Hogwarts must have had a really good Defense teacher that year."
"Our Defense teacher was rubbish," she said, shaking her head. "S- I taught myself. The summer before 7th year."
She'd caught herself before saying Snape's name but Lupin smiled in an annoying, knowing way that almost reminded her of Dumbledore.
"Well, then, that's all the more impressive," he said, not mentioning her slip up. "I bet I would have enjoyed having you in my class at Hogwarts. You seem like quite a bright young woman."
"I am," she said confidently and Lupin raised an eyebrow at her with a smile. "I mean, I don't mean to sound conceited, but it's true." She was struck with the sudden desire to impress Lupin. "I became an Animagus that same year."
"Oh?"
"What, you don't believe me?" Freddie stepped away from her workstation and quickly shifted into her kneazle form. Ziggy's ears flicked forward and he began to purr even louder, but didn't move from his spot in Lupin's lap.
"Well then!" Lupin said, sounding impressed as she thought he would be. "You are something else indeed, Miss Gray."
"I'm the youngest Animagus in a century," she said proudly after she shifted back.
"Well now that's not entirely true."
"What do you mean?"
"Three of my friends in school became Animagi in our fifth year," he said. "They just never registered."
"Sirius Black," Freddie said sourly. "Severus told me last month he was an Animagus, I'd forgotten all about that. I didn't realize he learned while in school."
"Yeah, it took them about three years."
"Wow. So I'm guessing the other two were James Potter and the one they call Wormtail?"
"You seem to know a lot about my history. I guess you and Severus really are close," he said, sounding faintly amused.
Freddie felt her cheeks start to flush but quickly shut it down with her Occlumency. She scowled as she turned to summon a goblet for his potion.
"Did Dumbledore know?" she asked as she ladled the Wolfsbane Potion into the goblet. "About them becoming Animagi at Hogwarts?"
"I don't think so, no," Lupin said, shaking his head. "Usually Dumbledore doesn't miss a trick, but when Sirius escaped Azkaban not even Dumbledore knew how he'd done it. There was never any mention in the news of him being an Animagus and since Dumbledore thought he was guilty at the time I think he would have told someone if he'd known. Especially since he thought Harry was in danger."
"Wait, are you saying Black used his Animagus form to escape Azkaban? How?" she asked eagerly, walking the smoking goblet over to him. Lupin took the goblet with a grimace, but didn't drink it right away.
"Well he was unregistered so there were no precautions taken against him escaping that way."
"So why didn't he just escape the moment they threw him in there 14 years ago?"
"Apparently he was too fat to fit through the bars at the time. As the years went on he lost a lot of weight, he was barely eating – a lot of people stop eating entirely, that's how most Azkaban prisoners die – but by that point he'd been around the dementors so long he says he was trapped in a sea of his own bad memories. He was too miserable to even transform...until he saw a picture in the Daily Prophet that a visitor was carrying. It was Wormtail in his Animagus form, he'd been living as a rat with the Weasley family for 12 years."
Freddie couldn't imagine spending 12 years in her Animagus form. As much as she loved being a kneazle, 12 years was a long time. 12 years without talking to another person, not walking on two legs, not using her thumbs...12 years without brewing a potion? No way I could do that! She thought to herself.
"Apparently it was that picture that enabled Sirius to transform. Knowing that Wormtail was still alive, that he could get out and get...well, get his revenge. I'm not sure clearing his name even crossed his mind until Harry stopped him from killing Wormtail in the Shrieking Shack," he said, shaking his head. "And then of course he escaped..."
Freddie nodded her head in agreement. She'd known that much at least. Snape hadn't shared all the details of what had happened that night, he'd been too angry to even talk about it, but he'd told her that Black had been at the castle, that Wormtail was alive and supposedly was the one responsible for the Potters death – the way he'd said it made it clear he wasn't convinced of Black's innocence – and that both men had escaped, all because Lupin had forgotten to take his potion. He'd also said that the werewolf had nearly killed Harry Potter and his friends that night, as well as Snape himself. Missing even one dose of the Wolfsbane Potion made all the other doses ineffective.
"You should drink that quickly," Freddie said, nodding to the smoking goblet.
"I know and I am dreading it," he groaned, then quickly added, "But I am extremely grateful for it."
Lupin took a sip from the goblet and grimaced, a shudder going through him. He seemed to steel himself against the taste and quickly drank some more.
"Is it really that bad?" Freddie asked, sitting down on the other end of the couch as Lupin gagged slightly. Ziggy moved from his lap to hers and let out a meow that Freddie recognized as his concerned meow.
"Awful," he groaned and she noticed his face sweating slightly. "It tastes like...well, there's no describing it. Especially on a night like tonight when I already feel so nauseous."
"You're not going to puke it up, are you?" she asked, alarmed. "I don't know if I'll have enough for an extra dose if you waste one."
"No, I promise I won't do that," he chuckled weakly. He waited a moment then swallowed heavily before draining the rest of the goblet. Freddie took the goblet from him while Lupin put his head between his knees in an effort not to puke.
"You can sit here as long as you need to," she offered. "If it keeps you from puking up all my hard work."
He nodded in thanks. Freddie stood and took the goblet over to the sink at her workstation. It was still smoking from the remnants of potion in the bottom. She cleaned the drops of potion from it with her wand, then rinsed it out in the sink before using another spell to dry it. She placed it upside down to dry and then went to sit back on the couch. Lupin still had his head between his knees, with Ziggy beside him looking worried, but Freddie was mulling over everything that he had been telling her.
"You must have thought Black was innocent," she said after a minute.
"Why do you say that?" he asked without lifting his head.
"Well you didn't tell anyone that he was an unregistered Animagus. Not even Dumbledore. If you'd really thought he was guilty, you'd have told someone so they knew how to find him."
"I'm not sure what I believed," he said, shaking his head. "I think I really did believe he was guilty, until I saw Wormtail that night. Now that I know the truth it seems obvious and I feel like an awful person for even considering that Sirius could have done what they said he did. I'm surprised he's even still speaking to me."
"Then why didn't you tell anyone?" Freddie asked, frowning. Lupin lifted his head and sighed. He leaned back, looking up at the ceiling where her charm still reflected the night sky.
"I should have, but... I suppose I didn't want Dumbledore to lose faith in me. He took a chance on me as a kid, letting me come to school at Hogwarts – do you know how many werewolves get any sort of education? And he took a chance again, hiring me to teach last year. He's always trusted me. I guess I didn't want him to know about all the things we'd done in school, all the rules and laws we broke. Sirius and the others, they only became Animagi because of me. To help me during the full moon."
"Help you how?"
"Animagi can't be turned into werewolves – not while you're in your animal form. They did it so they could stay with me during the full moon. After a few months of biting them in the Shrieking Shack I started to become more calm in their presence. Eventually they were able to control me and the four of us would leave the Shrieking Shack during the full moon and explore. First the Forbidden Forest and then we were bold enough to start going into Hogsmeade and the mountains beyond. We were young and stupid and terribly reckless," he said, shaking his head. "I never wanted Dumbledore to find out about that."
"Everyone does stupid things when they're teenagers," she said with a shrug.
"Not everyone is a bloodthirsty monster," he said darkly. "Once a month anyway."
"Well you don't have to worry about that anymore," she said. "As long as you come by here every afternoon this week for your potion."
"I will," he assured her, getting to his feet. "Thank you so much, Miss-"
"Freddie," she interrupted. "Please call me Freddie."
"Freddie," he said with a nod. "Thank you. Seriously. Words can't express how much I appreciate you doing this for me. I know brewing the Wolfsbane Potion is time-consuming and difficult work. If there's every anything I can do for you-"
"Difficult?" she snorted, waving him off. "It's fun. I enjoy brewing it."
"You really do love potions, don't you?" he said, smiling, but there was a sadness to his eyes. "You remind me of her."
"Her who?"
"Lily Potter," he answered softly and Freddie stared at him, shocked. "You don't look anything like her of course, but you're brilliant just like she was. And you've been kind to me, like she was. So very few people were kind to me, but she...she was the best of them all. She had a way of getting me to talk, even when I didn't want to, and it seems you've done the same thing, whether you meant to or not."
Freddie couldn't think of a single thing to say. Being compared to Lily, Snape's first love, had absolutely floored her. She hadn't known she was anything like Lily, other than they both loved Potions and they both cared for Snape.
"I should get going," Lupin said, checking his watch. "I'll see you tomorrow, Freddie."
"Hey, Lupin-"
"Remus," he corrected her with a smile, pausing with his hand on the doorknob.
"Remus," she repeated, though it felt weird to be using his first name. "You know you can Apparate directly here to my office, if you want to. That way people don't have to see you coming and going every day."
"I didn't want to catch you off guard."
"Well if I know you're coming I won't be. Just Apparate here at the same time every day, say, 5 o'clock?"
"That would be great, Freddie. Thank you again."
"You can stop thanking me, Remus," she said, faintly amused. "I'm just doing my job. See you tomorrow."
