Werewolves at Hogwarts

Chapter 19

"What did you get for Christmas?"

"Did you have fun?"

"Did you see the fireworks at Hogsmeade?"

"Did you get to the Sangria Paolo concert in London?"

Questions, thick and fast, echoed across the Great Hall as the floods of children left the great feast and hurried off to their dormitories to finish unpacking. Lisa and Andy bounced on Rose's bed as she laid her clothes aside for the next day, all eagerness to share their Christmas Break experiences. Excitement ruled as they compared and complimented each other on the robes they would be wearing for the Valentine's Day Ball, Rose smiling smugly when her friends began to plan a campaign to find her a date.

"I'm going with Theowyn Jones from Ravenclaw; we had such a great time over the Christmas holidays that she asked me to the Ball."

Lisa blinked but Andy giggled and bounced a little more. "What are you wearing? Do you compliment each other?"

Rose grinned and gave them a detailed description of both their dresses and outer robes while the rest of the dorm filled up and began settling for their first night back. A yawn caught them all in a weak moment and they finally had to settle down and go to sleep, the travelling, the feast and the excitement taking its usual toll.

Malcolm and Andy's first DADA class was on Tuesday afternoon with Professor Lupin, who took them step by step through the process of detection and banishment of zombies in their many forms. He had brought in a number of zombie rats for them to practice the spells and rituals on, keeping a close eye on the small groups in case the rats got away or actually managed to bite a student. He didn't believe in hurting his kids, but he did believe in making them aware that the animals were very dangerous, above and beyond their dangers in life. If they managed to destroy his zombie rats he had a few larger and more dangerous animals for them to try. In year seven he had permission to set them against an inferius which would indeed sort the NEWTs level students out in a hurry.

One rat got away and had to be herded back to the embarrassed group huddled around Parciella Asquith who nursed her hand and bit her lip.

"Got you? Let me see?" Remus murmured, taking her badly bitten hand and inspecting it closely. "Alright people, stupefy your rats and come over here. This is a zombie wound and should be treated very carefully in case of infection. Why would that be?"

"'Cus zombies are dead, and they have germs?" There was an uneasy chuckle around the group.

"Exactly right, zombies have necrobacteria which are even more difficult to move than ordinary bacteria. Any ideas on the spell we use to decide what is infecting the wound? Yes Michel? That's right, want to cast for me?"

There were indeed necrobacteria in Parciella's fingers, and Remus took the extra time to make sure everyone could cast the spell properly, before he allowed the girl's hand to be cured twelve times. As an added precaution, he said the curing spell himself and then cast Acclaro over the wounded finger to be sure. "Why so cautious?" he asked the class in general as he treated the actual bite to a final cleansing.

"Necrobacteria are used to make more zombies?"

"Correct. That is why you will all write me an essay on where necrobacteria can be found, how to detect them, and how to cure them, with spells and wand movements please, for next week's lesson. Well, let's put the rats back into the aquarium, and I think we can take an early mark, don't you? See you next week."

"Professor Lupin?"

"Yes, Andy?"

"Can we have a word?"

Remus blinked then smiled, waving to his desk as Malcolm and Andy followed him over. "You have a problem?"

"Pack trouble, perhaps," Malcolm said heavily. "There was almost an incident during transition," he said, and proceeded to tell their alpha all about the strange happenings. "If it had been a normal transition for either of us we would have eaten him and I fear we would have...."

"Absolutely," Remus agreed with a shudder of understanding. "Human minds are conditioned against cannibalism and if we do forget ourselves then there are not many who can come to terms with it when they change back. Those who can live with themselves tend to become rather less than human in time. So, the Wolfsbane allowed you to ignore him and so saved your lives as well as his. I'll be sure to tell Severus. Any idea of who tried to set you up? And why?"

"No to both questions, nothing concrete. There were a few other rumours floating around at the Ball too, of werewolves being killed because the 'werewolf infestation was getting out of hand', things like that." Malcolm put in sullenly.

"Sadly, we lost at least twenty of our people over this year and some of them have been skinned. The thing no one seems to be able to work out is why they are being targeted and how they are staying in wolf form even after death," Remus told his betas candidly. "The Alpha Prime is getting old and it is almost time for him to be retired, which could mean the killings are related but there is no political pattern to the deaths."

Andy frowned. "Who died? Were they in line for the Alpha Prime position? Candidates, you know?"

"One of them was, but the rest were just ordinary people, not even the pack alphas, half of them." Remus frowned as a stray thought crossed his mind, but he was not quick enough to catch it and he lost it as Malcolm stirred irritably.

"I just want to know who was trying to set me and Andy up, that's all I want to know."

"Who knows? I think I had better go and see the headmaster after classes. Keep your eyes open and be careful, watch over the cubs too."

~~*~~

Professor Dumbledore listened to the report Remus gave him while steepling his fingers and sucking a sweet thoughtfully. "Have there been any further incidents where werewolves have been used as murder weapons?"

"I haven't heard but it would not be something people bruited aloud or gossiped about casually." Remus sighed, scrubbing his face tiredly. "The majority of people who are bitten are simply ordinary folk who were in the wrong place at the wrong time. They aren't intrinsically evil, and even during transition, if they could control their minds, they would not choose to hurt or kill even a legitimate game animal. Quite frankly Headmaster, if the Ministry really wanted to wipe werewolves off the face of Britain all they would have to do is make Wolfsbane potion affordable and available. I can almost guarantee the majority of the current werewolf population would leap at the chance to safeguard their loved ones."

"Yes, I've said the same thing myself on a number of occasions before the Wizengamot, but alas, they choose not to heed me. So, what can we do now to assist in any way?"

Remus sighed and straightened a little. "Well, most of us cannot afford to own a post owl or else we do not trust ourselves to own a post owl so communications can be a little sporadic. If I may, I would like to borrow a few school owls and see if I can get them to locate a few people, perhaps even wait for a while and bring back a reply from my correspondents. Mind you, a couple of the people do not read or write, which may prove interesting. Also Sir - and I hesitate to ask it - I may need to meet a few werewolves in person somewhere on the school grounds."

"And some are most unsavoury of characters to have around young children," Dumbledore concluded for him. "Hagrid's hut is still uninhabited except by the forest creatures. It is in reasonably good repair and should serve as a meeting place for those strangers who may need refuge. It is also close enough to the edge of the Forbidden Forest that they will not feel too intimidated by the closeness of the castle."

"Thank you Headmaster." Remus smiled shyly as he finished his tea and began to rise.

"Oh, one more thing Remus, I notice Severus is in a much better mood these days, have you made your peace with him?" The twinkle in the Headmaster's eyes was decidedly mischievous as Remus blushed to a vivid scarlet.

"Sort of Headmaster, we er talked at New Year."

"Ah, talked. Well done. Has he remembered yet?"

"No, not yet and he may never consciously remember, but he is thawing toward me at last."

"Jolly good. Take care of each other and use as many post owls as you need, my boy. I feel it may become necessary in the near future to call a full meeting of all the Wolves in England."

"Yes, we usually do that at June Moon," Remus confirmed as he bowed and let himself out of the office, pleased to have escaped with such a light teasing.

~~*~~

"Gryffindors are so dumb!" The gleeful thought made a certain young male Slytherin smile smugly as he settled into his bed. A few kisses and a grope in the dark and you could ask them to do anything, more effective than the Imperius curse. Of course, once he realised how much damage their silly little prank will do, he might not be quite so malleable, but then there was the blackmail aspect of their relationship to be taken into consideration. A snigger broke out and he was snarled at by his dorm mates but he didn't care as he thought of the pleasure the prank was going to cause his father when he told him. Father would be so pleased with him, he just knew.

~~*~~

Charlie closed his History of Magic book and sighed sleepily, nudging Paul who had fallen asleep with his head on his own book. Paul yawned and muttered grumpily but allowed Charlie to pull him to his feet and both sleepy boys made their way up to bed. It was still quite cold, even with the roaring fire in the grate so Charlie only shed his dressing gown before he climbed into his bed, his thick fluffy socks keeping his toes warm. Paul often laughed and teased him about the socks his Mum knitted for him in wildly garish colours but Charlie had often loaned pairs of the colourful monstrosities out during the depths of winters to various members of their dorm, including Paul.

Half way down the bed, he banged his toe on something hard and heavy that barely moved as he kicked it a couple of times. Snorting in disgust at the stupid pranks people played on each other; Charlie drew up his foot and gave it a really good kick. Unfortunately he missed and the corner of the block caught the edge of his pants leg, grazing the skin. Charlie howled in agony as it burned like a brand being drawn over his shin. Paul nearly levitated to the canopy as he was startled awake; the rest of the dorm jerking up with sleepy cries of protest, but Charlie was too far gone to heed them.

Racing across, Paul threw back the covers and leaped backwards with a cry of horror. A large silver block lay on the bottom sheet, the corner having branded Charlie's leg for a good four inches. Without thinking, the slight boy grabbed the block and flipped it out of the bed onto the floor, then yelped when he realised he had burned both his hands too. By now other, older people were crowding in at the doorway, Chandler McDermott the boys' prefect pushing through hurriedly. When he saw the scene before him, he yelled at everyone to get out of the way as he simply picked the small boy off the bed, yelled at his friend Keith to grab Paul and they both ran out of the tower to the infirmary wing with the silver injured werewolves in their arms.

Madam Pomfrey wasted no time in flushing the wounds with cold water and a neutralising solution, spending hours tending to Charlie's badly contaminated leg. The wound, that would have been a mere scratch on anyone else, was a deep and weeping gouge more than an inch wide and seven inches long before she could get the poison under control. Lines of red inflammation crept up his leg from the wound, charting the progress of the infection as she worked to draw any remaining traces of silver out and stop the rot before it took a hold of the boy, and caused even more damage.

Headmaster Dumbledore and Professor Lupin came in at a run as soon as Poppy alerted them, Lupin drawing back in fear when he realised how bad it was. Paul, both hands bandaged and wrapped, literally crawled into his lap and laid his head on the professor's shoulder, weeping almost unheeded until he fell into an uneasy sleep.

"Give him here," a soft voice murmured and Paul was lifted from Remus' numb arm. Severus carefully eased the boy into the bed next to his friend's and drew the coverings up to his chin. "Come on, Remus, you can't do anything to help here except get in the way. Poppy has the entire amount of neutralising agent she will need, including an experimental batch I was playing with. You need to go to bed and get some sleep or you will not be fit for anything in the morning."

"Who would do such a thing, Sev? It's tantamount to murder, that much silver in a werewolf's bed. Thank Merlin Chandler acted so swiftly or we'd be burying him tomorrow. That stuff must have been hallmark quality."

"It was. One of my fifth year Slytherins, Lucille Coramandies reported her jewellery box missing a week before the holidays. She was very upset - genuinely upset actually - as it was a family heirloom. The whole of Slytherin has been in a quiet uproar trying to find it, trunks searched, lockers turned out. I checked it for traces of its kidnapper before I returned it, but there was nothing to find. Someone was very careful and clever."

Remus sighed and leaned against the Potion Master's shoulder, feeling a long, thin arm curve around his shoulders, as they wandered down to the dungeons. Severus seated the dazed werewolf in the chair before the fire and handed him a glass of firewhiskey. They sipped in silence then Severus carefully helped his shorter friend into bed. "Go to sleep, the morning will be here soon enough," he murmured, climbing in beside Remus and pulling him into the curve of his body.

Remus sighed and allowed the tension to run out of him, a wave of utter weariness making it impossible to keep his eyes open any longer. "Night, Love," he murmured on a yawn and was out to it.

"Good night, my dear," Severus replied and smiled into the darkness, content.

~~*~~

"The boy succeeded quite admirably, two of the vermin poisoned in one shot," Mr Red reported gleefully to the shadow in the flames.

"Did he kill any of them?"

"No, but they now know they aren't safe anywhere, not even in the vaunted fastness of Hogwarts."

"Idiot! Now Dumbledore is warned and will be even more vigilant in the future. Why am I surrounded by fools?" The flames flared then died abruptly, leaving Mr Red feeling somewhat disgruntled.

Mr White continued to brood on the iniquities of life long after the fire died away. This group of like-minded individuals was proving to be as egotistical and individualistic as any other group of wizards. Did the others fail to realise how important solidarity was in this enterprise? If they failed, their lives and careers were finished forever! Even worse, he would never hear the end of it at home, either!