Draw the Veil

XII. Up to Something

My best friends began behaving very strangely part way through my fifth year at Hogwarts, not long after my and Sirius's talk. Well, to be fair, they had always behaved strangely. James, Sirius, Peter, and I had become so well-known as troublemakers at Hogwarts that we had earned a nickname_the Marauders. We seemed to spend more time in detention than in class. So acting up and plotting secrets was nothing new. It is just that sometimes, the plotting did not seem to involve me. And all I could think of, in my paranoid teenage state of mind, was that it was because I was gay.

Many evenings, I would walk into my dorm room, and my friends would immediately put away the books they had been reading and fall mysteriously silent. And the secrecy and suspicious behaviour only seemed to increase in frequency as days and weeks wore on.

It was no longer unusual for them to abandon me after dinner under the guise of some lame excuse. My weekend hours were often spent alone, and they often did not return to our dorm room until late in the evening.

What are they planning? I wondered often. What are they going to do to me? Damnit, if they hate me, why don't they just say so?

When they would return from whatever they had been doing, they would instantly include me, asking me about my classes that day and gossiping as usual. We still snuck around the school at night under the cover of James's invisibility cloak. We still made trips to Hogsmeade to buy sweets and played jokes on teachers and students. But there was something in the air between us, something that I was not part of.

I could have confronted them, and I thought of it often, but it never seemed to be the right time. Just as I would get the courage to yell at them, they would welcome me as if nothing was wrong. I began to think I was going insane. Christian told me the wolf could take over the human; perhaps this was the first sign.

'Well, I'm off, mates,' I said one evening, the day of a full moon.

'Oh, werewolf time again, huh?' James said. 'Well, uh, hope it goes well.' He looked at the other blokes, and they all broke into quickly stifled giggles.

'Yeah,' I muttered. I turned and walked out of the room. What was wrong with me? Why could I not stand up to them, yell at them, demand that they tell me their secret? Why did I put up with this? I felt my blood boil.

I walked back to the dorm room, but before I could turn the handle, I heard Peter speaking. 'Did you see his face? Poor bloke! I don't think I can keep this up much longer. It's cruel.'

'You're such a wet blanket,' said Sirius. 'Anyway, we don't have to keep it up any longer. Tonight's the night!' I heard them all chuckle.

Tonight's the night for what? I wondered as I trekked through the snow to the Whomping Willow with Madam Pomfrey. But I found that I no longer cared. Fine. They can do whatever they want to me. I can't stop them. Let them do their worst.

When we reached the tree, the nurse muttered a quick spell; a flash of light shot from her wand and hit the large knot in the base of the trunk. Click! The branches ceased their thrashing. An opening appeared.

'I'll be back in the morning,' she said. I nodded and quickly slipped inside the secret entrance.

Once inside the shack, I made sure the doors were securely locked and took off my clothes. I had been freezing cold even when I was dressed, so I grabbed the quilt off the bed in the room and sat down in the armchair by the fire to await the change. I knew I had several minutes to wait, so I entertained myself by reading a battered old spy novel I had checked out of the school library.

Here it comes, I thought, bracing myself for the pain.

Knock! Knock! I froze. Surely I had imagined the sound of someone at the door? Who on earth would come here? Knock! Knock! It was louder this time.

'Um...who is it?' I managed in a weak voice. I heard a scuffling noise on the other side and something that sounded distinctly like the bark of a dog. 'Whoever it is, go away!'

There was another scuffle, and then a voice that sounded distinctly like James's. 'Damnit, let us in!'

'James? Is that you? Shit, you shouldn't be here! I'll kill you!'

'No, you won't. Let us in, and you'll see.' Is he drunk or stupid? I wondered.

"Go away!" Silence followed. I assumed James had given up until I heard the sound of a key in the keyhole. I could already feel pain deep inside and knew the transformation was coming. I ran to the door, almost tripping on the ends of the blanket, and shoved my weight against it as hard as I could. James was pushing on it from the other side. "What are you doing here?" I sputtered, leaning against the wood.

'Please, Remus, just open the bloody door!'

The wolf inside me was beginning to surface, and my mind was filled with compulsive thoughts of hurting one of my closest friends and a longing to taste his sweet flesh. My eyes burned. Why won't he just go away? I thought.

'James...' I whispered, and a sharp pain tore through my spine. At that moment, my hold on the door weakened, and the door flew open. I was knocked down by the force and landed a few feet away on the hard and splintered wood floor.

'James, you--' I stopped short. In the corridor stood a magnificent stag, its young antlers still sheathed in velvet. It pawed at the ground, snorting impatiently. At its side stood a shaggy black dog, its tongue lolling out of its mouth happily. And on the dog's head sat a small, gray rat.

'OK,' I said. I glanced to either side of the mysterious animals, looking for James, but he was nowhere to be seen. 'I think I've been coming to this shack too long. Yes, that's it.' I gathered my blanket around me again and struggled to my feet, but pain coursed through me once more, and I fell back down. 'Um, listen,' I breathed, looking at the creatures through hot tears. 'I've gone insane. You're the product of my fevered imagination. I'd really appreciate it if you'd just...'

But at that moment, the dog leaped on me. I panicked, thinking it was attacking me, but it licked my face instead. With great effort, I managed to work my way out from underneath it. 'Please, this is not a good time.' It licked me again, and I resisted the urge to smile. 'I'm not allowed to have a dog in school.' It looked at me happily and held out a paw.

I moved to give it a compulsory shake and noticed that my hands had grown thin fur and were sprouting horrific claws. I got onto my hands and knees next to the dog, my breathing shallow, my skin cold.

The dog barked and tried to lick my face again. Then it looked up at the stag and rat in desperation. The stag nodded its head. And through my hazy vision, I saw the dog morph into the form of one of my closest friends.

'Remus,' Sirius gasped. 'Remus, it's us!'

I stared.

My human mind tried to register the idea that my best friends were now animals, but my wolf mind more clearly registered the form of a human and its blood. 'Sirius,' I breathed. 'Sirius, get...out...now.'

And as fast as he had become a human, he became a dog again, his fur thick and black. He looked at me quizzically for a moment and then moved over to stand with the others. They all glanced at each other and appeared to shrug.

I braced myself_the transformation was not yet complete. I still retained some sense of who I was, and soon, that too would transform. In my mind's eye, I saw the creature I was about to become, the monster standing over me in a country field, its fangs bared. It's coming, it's coming...

But it did not come. I waited for several minutes, panting from fear and pain, but nothing further happened. What the hell? I stood up and looked at the animals in front of me and then down at myself. Fur covered my muscular arms. Blood-red nails tipped my gnarled fingers. I reached up and felt my elongated face. I was a werewolf, yes. So why was I aware of it? Why could I look at the book on the coffee table and remember the last passage I had read? What the hell was going on?

I tried to speak. I wanted so badly to ask the animals what had happened. But all that came out was a strange growl. I tried again and again, desperate. I was a human trapped inside an animal. Much like...my friends.