Now that Remus had finished getting a blank-slate memory for his Arithmancy project, it was time to move on to the next step. He showed up in Leek's classroom, triumphantly clutching the phial, and announced his success with so much joy that he was certain he looked quite deranged.
"Excellent job!" cried Leek. "Do you mind if I take a look?"
"Not at all." Remus handed the phial to Leek, who tipped a bit into the Pensieve. "I've been practicing, and I've created about a dozen more. I should have plenty for a while."
"Excellent," Leek said again. He stuck his face into the Pensieve, and Remus waited patiently for him to finish.
At long last, Leek brough his head out of the Pensieve, grinning widely. "This is perfect," he said. "You've been keeping track of everything else, yes? You've still been assigning a number to each full moon based on severity?"
Remus pulled out his notebook. "Yes, and I've been getting Madam Pomfrey to do it as well. I should be ready for whatever comes next."
"You're making great progress." Leek was beaming so widely that Remus was rather afraid his head would split in half. "Seriously, Lupin—wow. This is incredible. This project is going to be amazing."
"It'll help so many people if it works."
"Yes… yes, definitely. And you're making good time on it, too. I'm afraid the next step is very labor-intensive, though."
"That's okay. Labor-intensive is easier for me. At least I can see some results, right?"
"Right… mostly. Your goal is to make a number chart that perfectly predicts the time the effects of the full moon start and end, and then you'll need a separate one for the severity of the moon. Once you do a hundred trials with your blank memories and record all results, I'll help you create your initial chart. Then you'll keep doing trials to refine it."
Remus' mouth dropped open. "A hundred?"
"Yes. Each memory lasts for about two or three uses, so... well, you'll need a couple more. I'll show you what to do once, and then you're on your own."
"Okay."
Leek led Remus into the memory. It felt odd in there, with the air perfectly room-temperature, the sky cloudless, and the Whomping Willow peacefully sleeping.
"You're going to try as many combinations of factors as you can," said Leek. "For this example, we'll change the temperature."
He pointed his wand at the air and muttered a charm, and the temperature went up by about fifteen degrees. "There. Now, you are the stress variable, Remus. You're going to have to record your stress levels when viewing these memories as well."
"But I'm not going to transform, right?"
"Not at all. Since the experiment is on you, however, which isn't standard at all for most arithmancy simulations… well, you'll probably get a new ghost of a memory, though you won't actually experience it. Er… I'll do a time-skipping charm and show you."
Remus braced himself as Leek waved his wand, and then he could see exactly what Leek had meant. Almost immediately, flashes of a memory entered his head; one that he was sure hadn't actually happened. He was happy, full of glad anticipation entering the Shack. Symptoms started at seven-forty-nine. He transformed at eight-eleven. He was far less violent than average, and he spent two days in the Hospital Wing (the absolute minimum, per Madam Pomfrey's rules).
"Wow," he breathed, drawing his face out of the Pensieve. "That's pretty cool."
Leek grinned. "Isn't it?"
"I've never actually endured a full moon in that kind of mood before. I'm never quite… happy. I'm always worried about it."
"I hope the memory wasn't too awful."
"No, of course not. I didn't even really experience it."
"Good. So… I would say to do about three a day, and then you'll be done in about five weeks, give or take. Does that sound doable?"
"Of course."
"The only problem is the stress experimentation. You're going to need to do them in all sorts of different moods, both good and bad and somewhere in between."
"I can do that. I feel a lot of things."
Leek chuckled. "Great. I'll see you for another lesson after Christmas holidays, then."
Remus smiled. "See you then," he said, practically skipping away.
Unfortunately, Remus didn't have much time to work on his Arithmancy project, because the time for the real full moon came all too quickly. He went through the monthly routine: waking up obscenely early, talking with James in the common room (James was busy working on his dumb map, and Remus was lying upside-down on the couch, waiting for his leg to stop jumping), staying in the Hospital Wing and reading or napping while he waited for the dreaded moment.
That was, until something dreadfully odd occurred.
While Remus was lying in bed, half-napping (but not quite), passively staring at the wall while Madam Pomfrey read a book next to him… there was a knock at the door.
Madam Pomfrey sighed and put her book down. "Who is it?" she asked Remus, whose phenomenal werewolf sense of smell always knew who was at the door far before she did.
Remus looked up, now wide awake. "It's… no one," he said, puzzled. "There's no one at the door."
"That's ridiculous," huffed Madam Pomfrey. "Someone had to knock, didn't they?"
"There's no one. Trust me."
Madam Pomfrey stood up and left her tiny office, where Remus was staying, and Remus heard her heeled footsteps click away. There was a pause and the slight squeak of door hinges, and then Madam Pomfrey made a small humming noise.
"What is it?" called Remus, for there was nobody else in the Hospital Wing right now to hear him.
"You were right," she said. "No one's there."
The click of her footsteps started up again, and then the door to the office opened. There Madam Pomfrey stood, a puzzled expression on her face. "There was a note, though," she said, "and it's for you."
Remus sat up, swallowing the nausea as he did so. Full moons never treated him well, and he was finding the fatigue to be quite unbearable today. "What's it say?"
"I have no clue."
Madam Pomfrey handed him the note—it was merely a piece of parchment, a little older and dirtier than parchment normally was, with the scent of strong pine, soil, and a person whom Remus did not know. It was folded, and Remus' name was written on the front in uppercase letters. Remus unfolded it.
"What?" he said, wrinkling his nose. On the parchment were dozens of tiny dancing stick figures, written with a heavy hand and sprawling across the page.
"I don't know," said Madam Pomfrey. "It's probably just someone's idea of a joke. Perhaps they saw you come in here and wanted to scare us a bit."
"But the knocking," said Remus. "And it… it smells kind of odd. There's something familiar about these stick figures, but I just can't…"
Remus racked his brain, trying desperately to grasp at the niggling thought in the back of his brain. Through the pre-moon haze of his mind, however, it was just out of reach. "I can't," he said helplessly.
She rolled her eyes. "I'll put it with the rubbish, then."
"No!" Something was very off about this whole thing, and Remus couldn't place his finger on it—nevertheless, he knew that he wanted to keep this mysterious note around. "May I keep it, please?"
"Remus, it could be hexed."
"I'll take my chances. The Hospital Wing is the best possible place to be hexed, after all."
Madam Pomfrey retreated, and Remus stopped paying attention to her after that—however, he did hear her say something along the lines of "silly, self-destructive, reckless teenagers", and he smiled in spite of himself.
"It's a cipher," he told her. "I'm sure of it. I think I know where it's from, too, but I… don't remember. When I do remember it, though, then I'll be able to decode it, and then I'll know what this person is trying to tell me…."
Madam Pomfrey took the parchment from his hands and placed it on a counter on the opposite side of the room. "Very well. You may look at it tomorrow—after the full moon. Today I want you to rest. Sleep, Remus."
Remus didn't have the energy to argue. His limbs felt like jelly, his stomach was roiling within him, and he had the most massive headache—so strong was it, in fact, that it hurt to move his eyes. "Make sure Bufo doesn't accidentally eat it," Remus mumbled as he felt his eyes shut of their own accord. "He's been known to have a liking for parchment."
"I'll do that," Remus heard Madam Pomfrey say, and then Remus was fast asleep, dreaming of nothing and everything, trapped in a world as strange and mysterious as the cryptic piece of parchment.
Remus always left for the Shrieking Shack absurdly early.
Part of that was because of the full moon symptoms that always cropped up directly before the full moon—things like quivering, tearing up (not crying), and occasionally brief moments of panic that enveloped him from head to toe. Remus didn't want Madam Pomfrey to see him like that, and he didn't want to walk all the way to the Shack like that, either.
Part of it, too, was because Remus was frightened that he wouldn't make it on time. That prospect had been terrible enough at home, but it was so much worse at school. Hogwarts was full of wizards, many of whom did not yet know enough magic to protect themselves. Remus would never forgive himself.
(Of course, he wouldn't forgive himself if he'd escaped while at home, either, but the cellar was much closer, there were only two people there besides himself, and Remus had seen his father fend off a fully-grown werewolf before. Remus' mind was often an irrational place, and it told him that he was safer at home, even though he knew that it was likely the opposite.)
So Remus always left for the Shrieking Shack at around five-thirty in the evening, even though he always transformed around eight. At five o'clock sharp, he would begin getting ready—changing into his transformation robes, sipping one last bit of water that tasted all wrong, and taking deep breaths to calm himself. At five-thirty, he and Madam Pomfrey would arrive in the Shrieking Shack, and Remus had two and a half hours to wait before the transformation.
The benefit was that he had a lot of time to think.
The drawback was that he had a lot of time to think.
Remus tried to focus his thoughts on the mysterious dancing stick figures, but he found he couldn't focus on much of anything when he felt this terrible. His mind drifted every which way: from the stick figures, to his legs—which were beginning to feel both numb and prickly at the same time—to his quivering hands and convulsing stomach, to Professor Manard's seemingly endless cruelty, to his Potions essay that was due next Thursday, to Alexander Adamson, to how dry his mouth and eyes felt.
Remus thought about everything, and then, as if flipping a switch, he forced himself to think of nothing. There he sat, barely present in his own body, doing nothing more than existing.
Sometimes, Remus wished that he could spend all his time like this: neither worrying nor exhilarated—and then he remembered that he'd already tried that, for a time (Madam Pomfrey had called it depression), and it hadn't been pleasant at all.
Remus' friends visited the next day around evening (once Remus had been properly cleaned up and soothed), and Remus knew before they even walked through the door that they were holding Mandrake leaves in their mouths.
"Again?" asked Remus, rolling his eyes.
Sirius returned the gesture. "Well, you didn't expect we were going to give up, did you?"
"Expect, no. Hope, yes."
"Squash that silly hope right this instant," ordered James. "We took a break from the Mandrakes for a few months while you processed it all, but we were still working on it. We thought about what you said, and we've made a few changes to our process."
"I'm almost afraid to ask."
"You shouldn't be. Look, Moony, you told us that we couldn't just collect dew from under a rock—we had to have a specialized room, and we had to get your help to add the dew to the potion. We've been working on that special room for months."
"You have? Why haven't I heard about this?"
"Because you get nervous when you hear us talking about it," said Peter. "We were trying to be quiet about the whole thing. We mostly talked when you were somewhere else."
"Oh… thanks, I suppose."
"Our pleasure," said James. "So, basically, we've been researching spells in the library—"
"—which has been so boring," Sirius groaned.
"Shut up. Anyway, we've been researching spells in the library, and we found one that forces a room to stay totally dark. It creates a barrier of darkness, basically, so the darkness can't reach the heart of the room, even when the door is opened."
"That makes things a lot easier," said Peter. "That way, we won't have to build a tunnel."
"And here's the fun part. Since we don't want the dew to evaporate, we're going to collect dew from outside and place it in a bowl in that room. We want it to be totally natural dew. However, to make sure our dew doesn't all disappear, we're going to lower the room below freezing temperatures. The dew will freeze!"
"Hm." Remus didn't like the sound of this. It sounded… clever, and if it was clever, then it would work… and if it worked, then Remus' friends would be in danger of being murdered by a werewolf.
"We'll have you put the dew in the room, of course," said Sirius. "As you've said: you're not human, so the room will still remain untouched by human feet."
"Why don't you just put all the charms on a trunk or something?" asked Remus. "It said it has to be a place, not a room."
"We thought about that, but the darkness spell can only be placed on a room. There needs to be a lot of space for it to work."
"Ah, all right. So where is this room you've decided to use?"
"We're using my shed!" cried Peter. "My mum never goes in there, so it'll be perfect."
"But how will we get there?"
"There's a public Floo in Hogsmeade. We'll sneak to Hogsmeade, use the Floo, and then let you do your thing."
Remus had to admit that it all sounded logical to him. They'd certainly done their research. "You're sure the other ingredients for the potion are ready to go?"
"Absolutely. We've read everything we could about Animagi, and we've double-checked our sources. We've been researching since second year."
Peter stepped closer to Remus' bedside and patted his hand. "James and Sirius are really clever," he said. "They were the ones who came up with the idea to use a Sticking Charm on the Mandrake leaves, shrink them, and change their coloring when we put the leaves in our mouths. We're going to achieve this, and it's going to help you."
Remus wasn't so sure about that.
"The dew has to be added within a week after the Mandrake leaf," said James. "We should put it in the shed before the next full moon, which will be easy, because we'll be on Christmas holidays."
"Will it matter if it's in the dark room for more than seven days?"
"Nope, not at all. The requirements say 'at least seven days'. We'll be fine!"
"I suppose you will." Remus sighed. "I still don't like this, and I wish you wouldn't do it."
"We have to," said James. "You're getting worse, both mentally and physically. You can't go through this for another ten years, but if we help, then everything will be all right."
"No, it won't. I'll still be a werewolf, no matter what you do."
"But you'll be a happy werewolf!"
Remus, however, couldn't imagine himself ever feeling totally, completely happy, even if his friends' insane plan were to work. "We'll see about that," he said quietly. "What do you say to a game of chess? I'm feeling all right."
James pulled out the chessboard, grinning. "I knew you'd say that. We'll a do a tournament. Me against Remus first, and then me against Peter, and then me against Sirius—"
"That's not how a tournament works," interrupted Remus. "What if I win?"
James laughed. "That's funny, Moony."
Remus scowled, but James was also completely right. He lost within ten minutes.
After Remus' friends left, he spent the rest of the evening napping. As much as he wanted to look at the mysterious parchment again, he was simply too tired—every full moon seemed to suck the life out of him faster than a Dementor could. Exhausted, he lay in bed and let Madam Pomfrey feed him various potions that only marginally helped him feel better.
"You've sustained some trauma to the chest," she said. "What happened there?"
"Fell down the stairs," Remus mumbled. "Didn't catch myself in time and landed on my stomach."
Madam Pomfrey rubbed some salve onto the massive bruise on Remus' chest, and he deflated in relief. "How's that?" she asked.
"Tons better. Erm… I have a splinter in my mouth that I can't quite get out. Mind helping?"
"Why didn't you tell me earlier? It could get infected!"
"I dunno. I thought I could get it out myself."
Madam Pomfrey sighed and shook her head. "Open," she instructed, and when Remus did, she pointed her wand at his mouth and said, "Accio."
"Ouch," complained Remus as the splinter flew out of his mouth and landed on the covers. Blood flowed onto his tongue, and he cringed; fortunately, as the wound hadn't been made by werewolf claws or teeth, Madam Pomfrey was able to heal it quite nicely.
"You got quite a few splinters this month," she commented. "I've pulled seven from your leg."
"Sorry."
"It's not your fault. Why don't you try to get some sleep? Your morning nap wasn't nearly long enough."
Remus closed his eyes obediently, trying his best to ignore the twinges all over his body. He let his mind drift to the parchment at his bedside once again, visualizing the strange figures on the page as best as he remembered.
Directly before he fell asleep, he remembered an old, beat-up book that he'd used to read religiously: The Return of Sherlock Holmes, which his mother had given to him when he'd turned eight. It had been a while until he was old enough to read it, but he'd read it all the way through, and then he'd read the other Holmes books as well.
Just as a new, greater discovery was pricking at his brain, he fell asleep.
AN: If you want to try your hand at the cipher before the answer is revealed, there's a link to an image I made in my profile :) It should be correct...
