Draw the Veil

VI. Moonless Nights

I began to get used to my painful transformations; I at least learned what to expect and how to handle it, which made them a little easier.

Once a month, after dinner, my mother would glance out the window and turn to me. 'It's time,' was all she would say. I would rise from my chair and silently follow her.

The cellar of our small house had always been a source of adventure and terror; cellars were like that for children. They contained wondrous things_old rags and trunks of strange objects and even some big rats that were fun to chase (if you were a bloke, at least). But when no one else was around, when the door was closed, when the single bulb wasn't lit...

And once a month, it was where I went with my mother. She did not walk down the steps with me. She did not want to think about what I was about to go through. Neither of my parents had entered the cellar since our return from France, when my father had gone down the creaking steps to remove our most valuable possessions.

I would stand on the third step, looking up at my mother in desperation, wishing she would come down with me, even for only a couple of steps. But she never did.

'It's for your own good, you know that,' she would say.

'But the light?'

'I don't want to give you an advantage when you're...like that,' she would say, and then she would look at me, sigh deeply, and close the door behind her. I would hear her cast several locking charms. And there I would stand, in darkness, with no sound except the scrabbling of rats and the dripping and creaking of pipes.

My mother was intent on keeping my transformed self from finding the exit, but she had always missed one small thing_the thin sliver of light from the corridor that could be seen under the door. I never mentioned it to her; after all, it was the only light I had.

I would make my way down the steps, gripping the handrail, praying I did not accidentally step on the weak spot on the tenth step. I had done so several times, and it always hurt my ankle as I sunk into the soft wood.

When I reached the floor of the cellar, I would immediately feel around for the tattered blanket near the warm boiler. I would strip _the transformation stretched my clothes and damaged them, and my parents could not afford to buy me new ones every month_and then I would lie down and wrap myself in the blanket to wait. It was the way I had learned to deal with what was coming.

Several minutes after lying down, the pain would begin_a searing pain that wracked my body, a pain that made stars dance before my eyes as my flesh grew and twisted to form its new shape. I would feel the wolf fight for control of my mind, and eventually, it would win.

I never remembered much of what happened after that, only the feel of my claws digging into my own soft skin in desperation.

I never understood why I attacked myself. I never understood anything about the experience at all.

I would awaken to find myself on the cold floor, hurting and bleeding, and I would know the nightmare_the living nightmare, at least_was over for another month.

The cellar door would open with a creak, and I would see my mother standing in the doorway. 'Remus?' she would say, peering into the darkness, a wand in her hand.

'Yes, Mum,' I would manage in a weak voice.

'Come on out now,' she would say, and her voice would be detectably gentler.

I would dress quickly and pick myself up off the floor, and then I would make my way back up those wooden steps into the light of the corridor.

'Are you OK?' she would ask.

'Um, I guess so.'

She would guide me to my bedroom and hand me some bandages and magical healing ointment. 'Clean them first,' she would say, and close the door.

I would spend several minutes patching up my wounds, trying not to look at them too closely because the sight of them often made me feel faint. I would then lie down on my bed with a sigh and look out the window at the sun, if it was out, and think about how long it had been since I had seen a full moon. I remember being amused by the man in the moon when I was little. But he never smiled down on me anymore.

***

Looking back on it, I suppose our family dynamic could be classified as dysfunctional, but I never saw it that way. I accepted it as reality, as what happened to children who had this particular disease. I grew up fast after the attack. I knew my parents had trouble dealing with what happened, with what I had become and how they had failed me (in their own minds). Even at that age, I understood that it was not their fault that they felt the way they did. When my gerbil died, I felt bad for days. I had just wanted to see what would happen if I put him in the bath. I did not mean any harm by it. But the feelings had stayed with me, haunted me. And I knew my parents were in the same boat. If I felt guilt for days over a gerbil, what must they feel over their own child?

But I could not have remained with them in that house for much longer and still grown up normally; I have seen plenty of children from broken homes, and I know the kind of children they often grow into. As a child, I had enough problems as it was without adding drugs or petty vandalism to the mix. The idea of transforming into a werewolf in prison did not appeal to me at all.