Lone Wolf

Lone Wolf

It was lonely here. It was lonely everywhere. The glint of silver, the night sky in the patch of window, the howling. He pulled the rubber bone smeared with peanut butter out of his pocket. Chewing it looked odd, but it calmed him down, and there was no one to see.

"AROOOO! Backatcha, golden oldies fans. That was "Only You" by the Platters. Now goin' out to to Gwladys Pendlebury of Sheffield, from her Pookie, um, 'Moon River.'" He wished Pookie, whoever he was, had picked a different song. Or at least a different cover. The rich, syrupy tones of Andy Williams poured into the studio until Lupin lunged at the button on the console, desperately, and sent it out to cause damage in the wider world.

He buried his face in his shaking hands. "A job," he thought. "I have got to get a real job."

The good thing about late night radio was that your employers really didn't care. That was the good thing about late night anything. Janitor. Security guard at a regional airport hangar. The application process always went the same way. He was a school leaver. Technically, of course, that wasn't true, but he didn't think it would help to mention his N.E.W.Ts in Charms, Transfiguration, and Defense Against the Dark Arts.

"Mmm. Hogwarts? Silly name for a school. Where's that?"

"Umm, Scotland."

No one ever checked. No one ever looked it up, no one ever called his references, which was a good thing, as the phone numbers were made up and so were the addresses.

"The thing is---I ought to tell you this before you hire me, I suppose--sometimes I get ill. I get ill and then I can't come to work. About once a month." Sometimes people made jokes about "that time of month." Sometimes they just looked at him, thin and tired, and he knew what they were thinking--AIDs. And those people didn't hire him. It was unfair, but it wasn't just unfair to him personally. These days Lupin had taken to wearing a red ribbon in his lapel.

There were Muggles who knew what it was to be sick, to be lonely, to be unemployed, to have no resources. And some of them were kind. Lupin would never forget the small plump lady who saw him at her laundrette one day, staring at the machines and looking lost. She took one look at him and, knowing he was confused, showed him what to do with change, with soap, how to sort lights from darks. Mrs. Mukherjee prevented him from putting his jumpers in the wash, shared her lunch with him, even taught him a few hit Bollywood songs. She was the closest thing he'd had to a friend since Lily and James and Peter had died and Sirius had gone off to Azkaban. She was nice, and he missed her. But he never stayed anywhere more than a few months, six at the most. If people showed signs of getting close, he had to leave. It was best for everybody that way, but it didn't mean he liked it.

This was the best job he'd had so far, in over ten years of just getting by. He loved music, though maybe not the music he was supposed to play, loved the radio. No one at the studio ever bothered him about the shabby clothes he wore, or the hair that always looked a little shaggy and ragged because he didn't think it was safe to go to a Muggle barber: could someone get lycanthropy from a razor nick?--he didn't know, he didn't want to find out, and cut it himself. The job didn't pay well. What did? But once in a while he could stop in Tesco's and get his favorites, minced beef and Cadbury Eggs. A brisk walk home to his treasure, his one true love: the gramophone he'd scrounged from the Portobello Road Market and the small collection of old 78s he'd acquired. Sometimes he cooked the beef, sometimes he didn't. And then he'd use his wand to make the record play over and over again, "Stardust," the one bit of magic he allowed himself these days, turned around three times, and slept.

Those were the good days. Then there were the bad days. Some months it was worse than others, and there wasn't much he could do to make it less painful. Alcohol was out of the question. For some reason, it didn't agree with him when he made his transformations, and chocolate was worse. As much as he liked it, he'd learned the hard way that chocolate was not good for canines. He remembered all too well what happened the night that the Marauders had laid in a supply of Chocolate Frogs and other goodies from Honeydukes and smuggled them down to the Shrieking Shack. Prongs nuzzled the Frogs, licked them, and turned up his nose, he and Padfoot had eaten several Frogs and promptly been sick, and Wormtail ate the entire pile of sweets and fell asleep, stomach bulging, on top of a heap of wrappers. Later he and Sirius found out how lucky they'd been: chocolate was poisonous for them, at least when they were Moony and Padfoot. So, no chocolate. Days like this he slunk home and put on a ratty, torn dressing gown. It smelled bad. It had rips all over, and stains that wouldn't come out. Mrs. Mukherjee had stared at it and turned away, afraid to ask. He curled up in a ball, waiting for it to start, muttered the spell he'd discovered--"VoxDomini"--and let the wild wails of Benny Goodman's clarinet cover over his screams. Inevitably, he came to the next day, covered in sweat and his own blood. Sometimes he'd marked the walls. Sometimes the landlord's furniture was chewed up, and there was the time--which he didn't remember too clearly--when he must have disemboweled the settee. This was usually when it was time to move on.

Lupin sighed and cued up Paul Anka. "Put your head on my shoooouuulllder. . . " Paul wailed. Lupin shuddered. The horror.

He missed the wizarding world. OK, so there was prejudice there, but he'd learned there was prejudice everywhere. But he had been so good in school, he really loved studying, had been a model student. His friends teased him about being the good boy, the Prefect, but secretly he'd begun to hope that maybe, if he really aced his N.E.W.Ts, he might be able to stay. He was really good at Defense Against the Dark Arts, and sometimes a professor took a sabbatical. The teachers liked him, though he never made it into the Slug Club. High marks weren't enough to impress Horace Slughorn. But word got out among the students: if you don't understand your homework, if you can't figure out how to do a tricky spell, ask Remus Lupin to show you. First it was just his friends, then the other Gryffindors, then students in other houses, even a few Slytherins. Even Narcissa Black, who hated him, once saw him in the library. She was in tears over her Transfiguration assignment and desperately asked him what to do. He didn't care who she was, how she'd treated him, he'd just rolled up his sleeves and shown her how to turn the orrery on the corner table into a large pangolin. Professor McGonagall, who had been in the library at the time, had smiled one of her rare smiles and she must have told Dumbledore about it, because soon he was being paid to work with some of the slower students.

"Remus, you have a gift," Dumbledore told him once. "Anyone can love what they teach. But to love the people you teach, especially the ones who are afraid or do not understand--to inspire them and not frighten them into learning--very few can do that." He had never forgotten that.

He shook his head in that characteristic odd way---blluuuuuggh--as though he were trying to get fleas out of his ears, which, to be honest, is how he'd picked it up. Paul had stopped wailing. The sun was coming up. It was time to go home.

Lupin shut off the console. The early morning shift would come in later. They were off the air for an hour or two. He packed up his battered old briefcase, shrugged on an old jacket, wound a red and gold scarf around his neck, and snapped off the lights. The doors locked behind him.

It was cold out for August, bizarrely cold. The sky was already shining with a pale light, and the air was damp and chilly. The wind cut right into him through his jacket and he remembered what they'd told him when he moved to East Anglia about a year ago--the wind comes straight from Siberia. He hunched his shoulders against the chill. He heard his own footsteps, then a far away whirr, coming nearer. It was a milk flat. He chuckled to himself.

"Remus Lupin!" he thought. "Creature of the Night! Man of Mystery! Master of Muggle Milk Flats!" Then he sighed. "Being a werewolf isn't just nocturnal, it isn't just lonely," he thought. "It is so, so boring. If it weren't for jazz, I would go out of my mind."

Had he seen a flash of red in the air, a whoosh of scarlet feathers, a sweet and achingly lovely song? He hadn't. He had.

There, on the doorstep of his grotty little flat, was a brilliant crimson bird with a letter in its beak. He decided to speed things up a bit. Usually he unlocked the door with a set of keys, but he was in a hurry. "Alohamora," he whispered, and held out his arm in a polite, almost shy gesture. The beautiful bird alighted on his arm, cooing gently and looking at him with gentle, limpid eyes. The door swung open and he walked in, briefcase in one hand, the bird on the other arm.

He placed the briefcase on the dining table. He took the letter and the phoenix rose up, settling on the light fixture in the ceiling. He flipped over the envelope and shivered. It had been a long time since he had seen that seal and that motto, Draco dormiens numquam titillandus. A very, very long time.

He opened the envelope.

Dear Remus, he read.

I am writing to ask you if you would consider accepting the position of Defense Against the Dark Arts Master at Hogwarts this year. I apologize for the late notice. To be honest, it has been hard these last few years, and we have had a difficult time keeping Defense Against the Dark Arts instructors. As you know, it is never an easy job, but we seem to lose someone every year. It is very hard to find anyone, and right now we need someone exceptionally good.

I do not want to deceive you, Remus. The previous holder of the position is in St, Mungo's Hospital and may never be well enough to leave. The instructor before that died at the end of the spring term. It could be quite dangerous. I want you to consider this carefully before accepting the position.

That said, if you do accept it, there are a number of students who would particularly benefit from your instruction. As I told you once before, you have a gift.

Also, Fawkes would very much like to have you here.

Please send your answer by return phoenix.

Yours most sincerely,

Albus Dumbledore

Postscriptum: You may remember Severus Snape, who was in your year at Hogwarts. He is now Potions Master here. He tells me that he is able to concoct a very effective Wolfsbane Potion, so you need not scruple to accept for reasons of safety. Naturally, your health would be bound to improve, as well.

Post-postscriptum: Should you decide to accept, please be prepared to board the Hogwarts Express on September 1^st. I hope you will bring that splendid gramophone.

AD

Lupin frowned, puzzled. A position in Defense Against the Dark Arts? Why did Dumbledore need him? Wasn't Snape supposed to be good at that? Wait a minute. Much too good at that. But then, what is he doing teaching at Hogwarts?

"What are you doing teaching at Hogwarts, if it comes to that?" he asked himself. If Dumbledore trusts Snape, if he trusts me--isn't it much the same thing? Who wants to relive the bad old days? He thought wistfully, hopefully, of a simple life back among people he understood, in one of the few safe and happy places he'd known. Maybe it would all be teaching first years how to deflect Jelly-Legs curses and preventing the older students from sneaking out without permission.

He glanced up at Fawkes, nesting in the chandelier. Fawkes would very much like to have you here. No, it wasn't going to be the simple life at all, Lupin thought, or the phoenix wouldn't be involved. But that was good. He felt less guilty about accepting, he felt happy to be needed.

"Accio quill," he muttered, and it flew into his hand, the writing implement he hardly ever used anymore except to fill in his annual Werewolf Registration Renewal Form. He picked up a sheet of paper, and rummaged around for some ink. All he had left was some violet. That would have to do.

Dear Professor Dumbledore, he wrote, and paused, thinking:

I would be honored . . .

And he could bring the gramophone.

Lupin smiled.