Draw the Veil

VIII. Diagon Alley

Shopping in Diagon Alley

Before I knew what was happening, my mother and I were hurrying along, side by side, down the streets of Diagon Alley. I had not been in 3 years; the last wizard shops I had seen were the ones in Paris only a week before 'the incident.'

The shops all seemed a little smaller now, but the display windows seemed huge and ripe with wonder and promise. Polished, high-speed broomsticks gleamed in the morning sunlight. Thick, leather-bound books writhed and shuddered and muttered to themselves, desperate to be taken home. All around us in the streets were wizards of all different sizes and colours, people in all manner of fancy robes and wizard hats. Children ran past us in the streets, licking ice creams and playing with toy wands.

Shopping with my parents had always been an ordeal of sorts. Like most children, I suffered the indignities of having my mother dress me in hideous clothes, a mother who felt it her duty to wipe marks off my face with her saliva while we were out in public. But unlike some of the children running past me, I had never been able to enjoy endless toys and treats to make up for it. My parents had not been academic types during their school years, although they were not daft, either. My father worked numerous jobs--shipping parcels by owl, working in the print room of The Daily Prophet, exterminating garden gnomes...the list is endless. The jobs never paid well, and he always seemed to lose them before too long. We spent a lot of my childhood on the dole. I had a toy wand and toy broomstick, but I did not have much else. I could never expect a real broom from my parents. My mother did not work, valuing time spent with me over money spent on me, but I knew my mum always felt bitter that we could not have both.

I was as aware of the cost of my school supplies as my mother was_11 years living with her had taught me to look at price tags and haggle mercilessly. Unlike so many children, I knew the value of a galleon.

My schoolbooks, used: 4 sickles to 1 galleon and 3 sickles each. My wand: 7 galleons. My school robes, used: 5 galleons total. My parchment and quill: 1 galleon, 2 sickles. My cauldron, slightly damaged: 4 galleons.

Perhaps it was the expense that prevented my parents from having more children. I suppose I will never know.

When I was not calculating the cost of my supplies as we shopped, I retreated into my thoughts. I was going to Hogwarts. I was almost sick with excitement over it, but inside, I also felt a deep sense of dread. My mother worried about my going away, wondered who would protect me. Although what she really meant was, How can the other children be protected from me? Even if I did not remember what I was like during my transformations, I had seen something just like it with my own eyes out in the French countryside. What if I hurt someone? What if a student died? Or perhaps worse yet, became a monster because of me?

I looked up at my mother as we walked. 'Mum?' I asked. 'What are they going to do with me?'

'At Madam Malkin's?'

'No! At Hogwarts!'

'Oh, Hogwarts,' she said. 'We're going to speak with someone about that today, actually. After we've finished shopping.'

Speak with someone? I wondered. Who?

Dumbledore Steps In

At 4:00 that afternoon, laden with purchases, my mother and I walked down Diagon Alley on our way to this mysterious meeting. 'Where are we going?' I asked.

'The Leaky Cauldron,' she replied.

'But that's where we came in! Are we leaving?' I asked.

'No, dear. We're going to meet someone who might be able to advise us about your stay at Hogwarts. I told you that.'

When we arrived at the Leaky Cauldron, my mother walked over to the bartender. They spoke for a moment, and he pointed up a narrow staircase. 'Come on,' my mother said, and I followed her up the stairs.

When we reached the first storey, my mother looked at the doors near us. 'Two-ten,' she muttered. 'Ah!' She pushed the door open. Inside were two wizards and witches lounging around the small hotel room.

'Mrs Lupin!' said one, an older man with a long beard. 'I'm so glad you could come. Please, have a seat. This here is Madam Pomfrey, our school nurse.' He gestured to the middle-aged woman sitting on the edge of a hard chair, her hair in a tight bun. 'And this here is Christian DeForge, an old friend of mine. I think he may be of some help.' Christian smiled; he was a handsome wizard with worn robes and soft blond hair. Dumbledore next looked to the plump young woman with curly hair who was standing by the window, watching the wizarding street below. 'That's Madam Sprout, our Herbology professor.' He turned back and glanced at me. 'And I see you've brought the lad with you! Hello, Mr Lupin! My name's Albus Dumbledore, the new headmaster at Hogwarts,' he said.

I smiled weakly. Headmaster? I thought. The headmaster of the whole school is meeting us in person, just because of my...condition? And...the Herbology professor?

'It's so sweet of you to meet with us in person about this, Headmaster,' my mother replied, gesturing to me to take a seat and sitting down herself.

'I doubt that would be a problem,' he said. 'We were already aware of your son's situation, long before the letter was sent. There was much discussion over allowing him to attend. I won out, fortunately.' He smiled. 'He's an intelligent young man with much promise. I don't want to see his potential lost because of an attack perpetrated on him when he was young.'

'I understand,' said my mother. 'Although I'm not sure what he'll be able to do with this education once he leaves school.'

The older man sighed. 'I understand your concerns.' Suddenly, he turned to look at me. 'My apologies, Mr Lupin! We're ignoring you, and you're the topic of discussion. How rude of me,' the man said. 'Do you know why we're here today?'

'I'm going to go to Hogwarts. But my mum's worried I might hurt someone.'

'Exactly right. We're going to discuss the options and your schooling. I thought you might find this a bit dull, though, and I'd like to speak with your mother alone some. That's why I invited Christian to join us.' Christian winked at me. 'I thought the two of you might want to chat over a butterbeer.

I was confused. 'Um, OK.'

'Maybe he'd like to know why you thought I'd be a good person to talk to?' Christian asked Dumbledore, grinning. He looked at me. 'I'm a werewolf, Remus.'

That word had an instant effect on my mother and I_we both backed up in our chairs, our eyes wide.

'I see,' said Dumbledore thoughtfully, looking at the two of us.

'He's a...one of those?' my mother asked, pointing at Christian.

'Yes, ma'am,' the other man said. 'Albus here thought perhaps Remus had never met another werewolf, and it might help for him to talk to someone who understands.' He looked to each of us. 'Were we wrong? You both seem very uncomfortable with this.'

Christian is a...werewolf? Like me? He seemed like such a nice, normal man. Maybe there was hope for me yet. I managed a weak smile. 'It's OK. We can talk,' I said.

Conversation with a Werewolf

Christian and I retreated to the hotel room next door with several bottles of butterbeer and a handful of chocolate frogs (I have always been a bit of a chocolate fiend). We settled in with our drinks and a little small talk, and then the conversation turned to the reason we were there.

'You haven't really come to terms with this yet, have you?' he asked me.

I swallowed. 'No.'

'You're 11, right? It can take a while to accept, Remus. It took me a while, I can tell you that. But still, it shouldn't be kept a secret like that, not within the family. I noticed your mother doesn't use the word "werewolf."'

I winced at the sound of that hated word, but a part of me wanted to keep talking about it. 'How long have you...been one?' I asked him.

He thought for a moment. 'I suppose it's been...20 years now?' He laughed. 'It's not like I celebrate the anniversary. I was attacked when I was 12, only a year older than you are now.'

'I was 8,' I said quietly.

'That must be awful. Too young to understand it but old enough to be aware of it and remember it later,' he said, scratching his chin. 'You've kept a lot to yourself then, haven't you, for 3 years?' He took a long drink of butterbeer.

'Right.' I shifted in my chair.

'Have you talked to anyone about it? Did your parents take you to a healer?'

A healer? Is there a cure? 'No. Could that help?' I asked.

He shook his head. 'No. There's nothing your parents or anyone else can do.' He frowned and stared at his bottle, watching the bubbles rise to the surface. Then he looked at me again. 'I know it was a horrible experience, but it's healing to talk. It's how we learn to move on with our lives. Things are less frightening once they're out in the open.'

I shrugged.

'You were 8, hmm? You were out at night?' I nodded. 'Did it come up behind you? Jump out at you?'

'It chased me,' I said softly.

'Chased you?' He seemed shocked. 'My, that must have been...Well, I'm sure there's no word for it.'

I shrugged again.

'What happens on the full moon, Remus? Where do you go?'

'The cellar.'

'That takes me back,' he said. 'Well, it takes me back as far as two weeks ago, actually.' He laughed. 'Although I don't use a cellar anymore.' He took another sip of his butterbeer. 'And do you remember any of it?'

'Not really. Only when I hurt myself.'

I blushed a fierce red. It was humiliating to admit to self-mutilation, but Christian seemed to understand. He unbuttoned his shirt to reveal a network of scars criss-crossed all over his skin. 'Me too. But I find I remember more of it now. It gets easier to retain some humanity as the years go by. Once you're older, you have a better sense of who you are.' He sighed.

'Have you ever killed anyone?' I asked.

'No. But in the early days, before my family had mastered how best to keep me locked up, I escaped a few times. And I hurt my family.' He frowned.

My skin went clammy all over as I remembered my nightmares. 'That's what I'm afraid of. That I'll hurt someone, like another student.'

Christian came closer and put his arm around me. 'We're going to take care of that. Don't worry about it for one second.'

I fell silent, looking at the scars on his chest. 'What was it like, realizing you'd hurt people?' I asked.

'Well, it was no picnic, obviously. The guilt was unbelievable. They were scared of me during full moons, of course. You can't trust a werewolf. But they forgave me. Because you see, Remus, it wasn't me who hurt them. It was this thing inside me that I have no control over. It took me a long while to understand that. I don't need to feel guilt over what I do while I'm transformed.'

He looked me in the eyes, his face suddenly very stern. 'But it is my responsibility to protect others from the thing I become. And it's yours. Dumbledore, Pomfrey, Sprout, and I, we're here to give you the resources you need. We're here to help you.'

He handed me another butterbeer; I had not realised I had finished my first one so quickly.

'Remus, my hope for you is that one day, you'll think about it like I do. To me, it's just an illness. Many people have diseases that need to be treated regularly. They need to take a pill every day. There are muggles who go into hospital to have their blood passed through a machine to clean it. None of those people are at fault for needing that help. And most important, it should never define their lives. They're not "sick people," they're people who are sick.

What I go through is just a disease with symptoms that need to be dealt with once a month. Heck, I can be glad it's only once. And I just need to deal with it, only for one night, and I can go on with my life like normal. I have a job. Not a good one, no, but a job. I have a girlfriend. I have bills to pay. I have hobbies. These things, they are who I am, what is important to me. My lycanthropy? It's just a medical condition. And if I deal with it properly and try to retain my humanity and fight it, I hope to be able to live a perfectly normal life and die of old age like anyone else.' He frowned. 'Some werewolves descend into madness. The wolf takes over the human. But not all werewolves experience this, as far as I know. I met another werewolf several years ago who had managed to fight the madness off. So it's possible. You just have to know who you are and have a desperate desire to stay that way.'

'Oh, I do,' I said. 'I never want to be the thing that hurt me. I never want to do that to another person. But it does.' I took a sip of my drink, trying to find the courage to say what I wanted so badly to tell him. 'I...I have dreams.'

'Dreams? What kind of dreams?'

'Dreams where I...I hurt people. My mum. My dad. My neighbours. I...I do awful things to them. I'm not a werewolf, either. I'm human, but the wolf is inside. And when I wake up...' I trailed off.

'When you wake up, you still want to hurt them, don't you? The dream stays?' I nodded. 'I go through the same thing. Yes, even now. But they're dreams. You don't want to do these things once you're up?'

I shook my head, my eyes wide. 'Never!'

'So there's nothing to worry about. I've had some bizarre dreams, even one where I snogged my house-elf!' He laughed. 'But I don't really want to.'

The Plan

There was a knock on the door, and Dumbledore poked his head in. 'We're done. Maybe you'd like to give us some input on our plan, Christian?'

Christian shrugged. 'What did you decide?'

'We're going to plant a tree.' Dumbledore grinned.

'A tree?' I asked, incredulous. 'How will that help me?'

'It's a special kind of tree.' Dumbledore winked. 'One that guards the entrance to a secret passage. And on the other end of that passage is where you'll transform.'

'I don't get it,' I said. 'Where is this place?'

'Well, the tree_the Whomping Willow_ will be planted on the grounds of Hogwarts. The shack you'll be using during your transformation is on the outskirts of Hogsmeade. It will be securely locked, of course. You just go through the secret entrance and down the passage and lock yourself in. And no one will dare come near it, not with you howling in there.'

'Sounds lovely,' Christian said. 'Wish I had such a good set-up at home. I think it should contain an 11-year-old kid, Albus.' He looked at me.

'Why do I have to transform in a shack in Hogsmeade?' I asked. 'I thought maybe I could do it in school?'

Dumbledore frowned. 'That would be ideal, I grant. But the Ministry doesn't think that very wise, I'm afraid. They're nervous about the idea of a werewolf on school grounds, only a few storeys away from where students are sleeping.'

The Ministry of Magic itself is involved in my transformations? I suddenly felt like even more of an outcast. The wizard government was having meetings about me.

Despite this, I only had one question. 'Will it be dark in this...shack, you said?'

'Why no, of course not. There's a fireplace in it, and lamps. Unless you'd like it to be dark?'

'No!' I exclaimed. 'I want light. I want warmth.'

'Well then, we'll have no problems,' Dumbledore replied, winking.

'And I want to be alone. I don't want anyone watching me or looking in on me.'

'Sounds good to me,' Christian said. He smiled.

For the first time in 3 years, the prospect of becoming a monster seemed slightly less horrific to me.