Remus Lupin and the Revolt of the Creatures

Chapter Five: Controlling the Beast

At the end of that day filled with triumphant emotion, set out to enjoy walking home, Remus did not manage to keep his eyes from the mocking glare of the half moon high on the evening sky. Over the last quarter of the circle it was bound to be hard again for him to cling to any joy and pride related to himself.

He tried to keep himself as busy as possible by accepting an offer of a few days' work on another construction site supervised by the same manager. In the evenings he drew sketches of imaginary landscapes and even experimented on such pictures which could be defined as abstract art, according to the exhibition catalogue Kingsley had bought at the National Gallery and presented to him.

Besides, he tried to concentrate on preparing himself for the trial in Wizengamot. There would still be plenty of time for that after the full moon, but he hoped that studying the legislation could help distract his mind from his own person.

He soon realised he had been wrong. The rules concerning the rights of the creatures unavoidably led him to the definition of his own essence. He borrowed from Hermione the field study of elves, and that book gave him a lot of pleasure, especially when he had a chance to discuss it with her. But in the conversations with the members of the Order concerning the war and politics he met with little response, if he mentioned the different nature and needs of various creatures.

The members were actually not busy at all. Had he not been given this task as a victim, Remus would have felt completely useless. The other members did not do more than some patrolling around Azkaban just as precaution, but they seemed to be happy to only talk about a war having begun.

They also enjoyed wagging their tongues on Narcissa Malfoy's attempts to find and obtain number twelve, Grimmauld Place. Remus considered it more interesting to ponder Lucius Malfoy's role in the so-called war.

Was it a sign that a war had actually begun that Lucius Malfoy had finally violated the law personally and openly? Dumbledore and his supporters had talked about a second war ever since Harry had witnessed Voldemort regain a bodily form a year earlier. Now even Fudge interpreted the situation as a war, and in official documents he had introduced the expression The Battle of the Department of Mysteries.

At the end of that so-called battle Voldemort himself had appeared, but first he had sent his most trusted followers to invade the ministry and enter the department, where Harry had been lured to pick up the prophecy concerning himself and Voldemort. Malfoy must have been ordered to lead this mission, which Voldemort had considered more important than recruiting followers or starting terror attacks. Voldemort had failed to find out the contents of the prophecy and lost several of his most experienced servants as sentenced to Azkaban. The prison was not so terrible a place as it had been, now that most of the Dementors had left the duty of guarding it. Still, none of the arrested Death Eaters had managed to escape yet.

Malfoy had certainly not expected to be exposed in this way. At the end of the first war he had claimed to have served Voldemort under the Imperius Curse. For fifteen years he had acted either according to the law or most cunningly through others to forward his own quest for power.

Would Voldemort now continue by acting quietly through others in perhaps even higher positions? Would there be more terror attacks - and initiated by whom? In that case, too, Remus would still object the defining of the situation as a war. It was a case of internal violent conflict. Voldemort supported a revolt. And there was still the question whether a certain kind of revolt could actually be justified.

***

As the moon continued to wax, day by day Remus felt it was harder to control the fury raised in him by any thought concerning injustice. He hated to think about himself, about his instincts strengthening, the beast side taking over. He could not deny the fact that this side always existed in him. On the other hand, he had come to realise that the full moon brought a kind of relief. The physical pain he suffered in the transformation could be taken as a punishment, and thus a catharsis.

On another sleepless early morning he pushed all books aside and, instead of taking notes for the trial, let his left hand move the quill freely. By the weak flicker of the blue flames which he had placed on his desk, the shapes emerging in diluted ink were hardly visible.

Naturally, like most people, Remus had very few conscious memories of his early childhood before the age of five. His personal history, carefully recorded in his mind, started from the beginning of his friendship with Miss Emeline, who had assisted in the healing of the outer injury he had suffered.

He remembered how terrified and how much in pain he had first been at the hospital. But after thirty-three years his subconscious still refused to release, and to transform into knowledge of his mind, his experience of the events at that evening of a full moon, when he had stayed too late playing in the forest on the hills. He knew the game he had played, because he had often played it both alone, aided by his imagination only, and with his numerous pals, as their leader. He had always been the hero king fighting another army of four-to-five-year-old boys, slaughtering them without mercy, using both a wooden sword and a branch for a wand.

He remembered clearly having considered by himself, as both Miss Emeline and his parents had advised him to do, whether he wanted to continue to play in the same way. At first he had desperately wanted to. He had destroyed whole armies in his imagination while lying in bed. He had been so fascinated by suddenly being able to build images of more cruel battles than ever before that he had not even cared when none of his friends had come to ask him out to play after he had returned home, apparently healthy again.

The memories of his lonely days - spent either wandering alone, carrying his weapons, or studying books of myths and tales of heroes, who motivated him to quickly learn to read, and practising to capture images of all that on paper - were in regular rhythm broken by a memory like a nightmare. He remembered the growing distress and aggression, and an intensifying ache, which gnawed his insides and spread on his skin, overwhelming him, and being shut in a room, and then regaining consciousness in pain - to examine the strangely fascinating, bleeding gashes in his arms. Every month, while healing his wounds, Miss Emeline had asked him if he had considered the justification of violence.

It had taken him a couple of years before he had decided to learn to control the aggression when in his full senses. Later he had come to realise that - with the help of his parents - he had succeeded in it better than normal boys of his age. He had been forced to do it, not by his parents but by his growing knowledge of what his disorder meant.

And it had taken him ten years before he had realised that he was able to control the aggression during the transformation and in his beast form, too. That achievement had been made possible by his three best friends, who had studied and practised hard to become illegal Animagi in order to accompany him, at the time of the full moon, each of them in the form of a different animal.

After losing his friends he had been forced to adopt the old habit again - to lock himself in a room and wound himself in lack of a victim. But fortunately even before that loss he had found out that he was able to communicate with such creatures who had no ability to produce verbal language. Soon locking himself in a room together with an animal - at first and most often with a bird, who would, if in need of it, have a chance to escape trough a small window - he had learnt to tame the beast in himself despite the full moon.

However, when Dumbledore had invited him to teach at Hogwarts, he had been happy to accept the offer of the wolfsbane potion concocted by Snape on Dumbledore's order. Monthly going through both the physical transformation and the mental struggle against the violent instincts, without any support from another human, had during the previous twelve years almost destroyed his health, while his material and social deprivation had efficiently assisted the process. He had been too exhausted to resist the opportunity, although he had doubted that Snape would give him anything totally harmless. The potion had secured the safety of the students. And it had completed the rest with which Remus had been blessed for an almost full academic year. It had actually rather dulled his mind for the last quarter of each circle, besides allowing him to just sleep through the full-moon night, with no hardship beyond the transformation pain itself - which had, in turn, been harsher than without the potion.

Now he thought he fully understood why Dumbledore had not asked Snape to continue to provide him with the wolfsbane potion outside Hogwarts, not even after they both became active in the Order of the Phoenix. He had earlier wondered if Dumbledore had just wanted to give him a chance to enjoy the full moon with Sirius again. But the all-knowing wizard must have considered it was best for Remus to take again himself the full responsibility for the controlling of the beast.

This month the waxing of the moon forced him to think also about the events during his previous transformation. For three weeks he had managed to push that memory even beyond his dreams, as his nights had been haunted by other nightmares, more significant in the sense that they concerned the people he had loved and not only him.

***

He had never intended to stay in a werewolf community at the time of a full moon.

He had not been overjoyed at the mission trusted to him by the leader of the Order of the Phoenix. Still, he had accepted it, as was proper for a loyal member of the Order. He might have been tempted to discuss it in detail with Dumbledore and to seriously question its relevance and feasibility. But after the loss of Sirius he had felt such utter despair and resignation that he had not truly cared if anybody knew about his doubts or if he was bound to fail in his effort. For a while he had even thought he would not have cared if the werewolves had either killed him or forced him to abandon his struggle to maintain his humanity.

Afterwards he blamed himself for not believing in the success of the mission strongly enough. Maybe the communities would have been more willing to co-operate, if he had been more enthusiastic. He had found it hard to wholeheartedly pontificate about the defence war of a righteous wizard nation against an army led by an evil monster with dark powers.

The leaders of most of the communities which he had visited from Portugal to Persia had been grateful for the information but had argued that the problem was clearly an internal issue. The wise old head of the pack of Thessalonica had engaged him in a long conversation and concluded by pointing out that the enemy was one of the wizards of the nation himself.

"Why did you not stop him long ago?" the honorable Lykos Epikindinos had said. "In order to stop him from gaining followers you should have considered modifying the state of equality in your society. The followers of this aspirant to power don't seem to be those with the lowest position. You should have tried building up a proper hierarchy, like ours, to meet their wishes for wealth and influence. Do you now want us to attack and either kill this Voldemort or turn him into one of us? That would just cause new revolts against your authorities. We can consider not accepting Voldemort's offer, if he approaches us with a suggestion to join in on his revolt. In any case he will first negotiate only with our packs in Britain. They have been quite satisfied with your administration so far. Your laws and practices give them a fair chance to increase their population even by biting. The werewolves are not attacked while within their villages. The biters can easily avoid any punishment, and the bitten often join them. I doubt they have suffered many such losses like the loss of you..."

During the four weeks of Remus's travel the werewolves he had come to visit had turned more and more suspicious. They had given more abrupt and haphazard replies. Some leaders had exclaimed in sudden rage that they would be ready to attack anyone, if an unstable state of affairs and freshly shed blood should provoke them.

***

Remus had started his tour with an artist friend of his as a guide. After leaving London he had first headed for the hidden ones of the Latin quarters of Paris and found the master of sadistic scenes in the same studio flat as ten years earlier. Jean Reno, now an overweight forty-year-old man with unstable but charming personality, had been a child when renouncing the community in which he had been born among werewolves. His mother, who had secretly kept him from participating in the rituals and in any biting, and had finally urged him to escape, had now sent them the information on the locations of the major packs in Europe and the Middle East.

At first Jean accompanied Remus willingly. They shared deep ponderings on art and life, and his company doubled especially the pleasures of travel on magic carpets from Casablanca to Mesopotamia and back to Istanbul. But as soon as the moon started to wax Jean turned irritable. After Prague he suddenly got mad at Remus for forcing him on the trip and returned to Paris.

Over the week of the waxing gibbous moon Remus, too, felt more and more nervous. The werewolves probably sensed his deviation more clearly as they let their own behaviour grow more aggressive. The more he tried to keep up his polite manners and stay in good terms with them, the more suspicious they got, concerning not only his mission but his person as well.

On the last week before the full moon Remus still succeeded in negotiating with a pack in northern Finland. Finnish werewolves seemed to be less hot-tempered than more southern ones but, on the other hand, rather reserved and prejudiced against any close contact with foreign creatures. They stubbornly declared their policy of neutrality. They also did not hide the fact that their main interest was now to prepare themselves for the party time of the month when they could intoxicate themselves with moonlight and blood and throw aside all their reserve. Remus quickly left Finland. Flying over Lapland, he headed for his last destination, the village of Bykle in Norway.

The fatal accident was the attack of a Norwegian Ridgeback.

While circling the mountain tops on his broom, looking for the hidden village on the highlands, Remus suddenly noticed below him a group of huge black eggs down among the rocks on an edge of a cliff. It was too late. The mother had already seen him get too close to the nest. He immediately heard the roar behind him and felt the heat in the air, but when speeding away he could not resist the temptation to turn his head to admire the terrible beauty of the dragon.

His broom was not very good and he was not a very good flyer. He was neither fast enough nor quick enough in diversions, and soon he felt the fire of the dragon burn his back. Grasping his broom, he started spiralling down. Just before losing consciousness he became aware of some men flying up towards him.

They were the werewolves of Bykle.

He was woken up by swearwords and some abrupt tugging movements, which made him wince with pain. He was lying on his stomach, and when he managed to turn his head a bit, he saw a woman rage at a tangled bandage and then bend down to take up a bowl. She tipped her fingers in the lotion in the bowl and, finding it almost finished, hurled the bowl against the wall to smash it. Then she rubbed her hand against Remus's back so roughly that he could not help groaning.

She stepped closer to examine his face and said, "Don't complain! Soon we get to rub our bodies with some better ointment. Nightshade, belladonna, henbane, pig fat..." Her voice turned into chanting. Then she grabbed the bandage from the floor and ripped it in two, shouting. "And you dare complain! Instead of preparing the ointment for the transformation ritual I have to take care of you!"

"Thank you," Remus muttered.

"You just thank me while I'm hurting you! Are you a real werewolf?" She screamed those words, slapped his head hard and rushed out, slamming the door shut behind her.

A man then came to interrogate him. Remus did not bother to mention his mission but just said that, feeling too weak to join in on their ritual, he wanted to return home as soon as possible. The man argued that the ritual would give him strength. Remus's calm manner of expressing his objections only infuriated him. He snatched Remus's wand from the table and his broom and suitcase from the corner of the room and, smashing the window, threw them all out.

He conjured bars on the window and heavy bolts and locks on the door and left, shouting, "You stay here until the moon is full and we make you into a real werewolf!"

***

For almost four weeks Remus had refused to think about the anguish he had suffered in that hut. But now, two nights before the full moon, he returned back in time in his sleep and found himself lying on his stomach again.

The burn on his back was aching, and he was tormented by thirst. Nobody bothered to take care of him anymore. He was falling into slumber but forced himself to open his eyes and look around the room for water. He saw a bowl on the floor and struggled to get out of the bed and on his knees to reach for it. There was water in it, and although it looked like it had been used for cleaning his burn or something else, he drank it. It cleared his mind enough so that he realised it was night.

Moving on his knees back towards the bed, he saw the moon through the window. It was not completely full yet, but he quickly hid his face from it, feeling aggression rising in his mind. But he only wanted to break out of this hut and get away. He only hated himself. He hated his weakness, which did not allow him to disapparate. Leaning his elbows on the bed, he squeezed his head in his both hands. He slept in that position, resting against the side of the bed.

When he woke up once again, now to sounds of banging and chanting outside of the hut, he lifted his head to see the sky red like blood. It had to be the next sunset.

The chanting was getting louder and louder, and the banging was on the door of the hut now. Then the door flung open, and the noise and a rush of air overwhelmed him. Four or five men darted towards him, shouting. They were naked, and he realised he was naked, too. He was trembling with cold and terror, but could hardly lift his head from the bed, before the men had grabbed his arms. They pulled him up and dragged him out.

The glow of the sunset painted their faces and bodies red. There was a row of chanting women on either side of the door, and they were carrying hides, which partly covered their nakedness. He saw children with them, and some did not look older than five. Their chanting and screaming followed, as the men started running up a path away from the village. They were pulling him, and as he stumbled again and again, they pushed him, causing increasing pain on his back.

But that pain was gradually overtaken by another, which he felt growing from his insides and reaching towards his skin. He hated himself. He was one of them. On their faces he saw his own grimace of agony mixed with a pleasure of belonging.

They reached the outskirts of a dense forest. The trees were stunted and the ground was hard. He kept stumbling on rocks. But they did not let him fall until they arrived in a clearing. A big man with long dark hair hanging heavy over his face was drawing a wide circle on the ground. In the middle of it there was a fire, and all the others gathered around a woman who lifted a cauldron from the fire and started dealing out the ointment.

They had left Remus on the edge of the clearing. He was sitting on the ground with his arms wrapped around his knees, sweaty from the running and shivering. The fire was too far to give him warmth, and with the pain gnawing inside of him he caught himself wishing he could be closer to the crowd.

The big man approached him, drawing his circle with concentration and suddenly bent over him with eyes glinting mischievously behind his hair. Was there a hint of desire in the sparkle of those eyes, and was it Remus's own longing reflected?

The man took his hand and pulled him up. There was an enticing smell around the man: it was the smell of the blood in which the long hair had been drenched.

He called out loud, and all the men and women took their places in the circle. The woman who came next to him handed him a bowl.

He made Remus drink from it and started rubbing the ointment both on his own skin and Remus's. The enthrallingly fragrant ointment seemed to give Remus strength to remain standing, but at times he noticed that he was leaning against the man. The ointment warmed his skin and then started burning as the pain from his insides burst to the surface.

The red glow on the sky had intensified and was now reflected on the naked bodies, until it was suddenly switched off. In a moment the darkness of the clearing would be illuminated by the sparkling yellow eye of the moon.

The chanting erupted, "Make me a man-eater! Make me a woman-eater! Make me a child-eater! Make me a werewolf!"

Remus felt the man's nails scratch the skin on his chest. They were lengthening into claws. But his chest was also growing hairier. He felt his own body changing. With tormenting pain his limbs and his back, his face and his mind started transforming. For a fleeting moment of panic he looked in vain for the strength to control his mind.

Then he was strong. He was a beast. He smelled the blood and desired more. But he leapt back from the big wolf beside him and started running away up a stony slope among the stunted trees. The pack was howling in chorus behind him. He hated them. He was one of them. He hated himself.

But there was only the smell of blood he could sense. Then he was aware of no more.

***

Yet, the dream continued. He was still running. Just the setting had changed slightly: the trees grew taller, and the ground was soft under his bare feet. He had hands of a human again,yes: he was carrying his wand and a sword. He heard only one solitary howl behind him. It scared him now more than the chorus of the sounds had, but he stopped and turned, raising his weapons with a bloodthirsty delight in the chance to slaughter an enemy.

The moonlight had turned this clearing into an enchanted unmoving black and white image. He was breathing fast in the anticipation of a battle. He was getting impatient. Now he finally discerned movement between the broad tree trunks behind the opposite edge of the clearing. It was a larger figure than he had expected. But he wanted the drama to continue, so he pushed aside the thought that it must be Dad coming to take him home.

He raised his sword higher and exclaimed, "Beware, you Monster of Darkness! Behold Arthur, your vanquisher!"

At that moment the monster darted towards him. With one leap it reached him. He hardly had time to see the dark hairy figure.

Then his field of vision was filled with a pair of shining yellow eyes with no sign of reason in them. For a passing moment he stared into the eyes, feeling how their utter soullessness did not allow him to say: "Stop, please stop!" Instead, the words continued to be repeated in his mind to prevent him from thinking clearly about what he experienced through each of his senses.

The stink of a wild animal's breath and filthy fur; the sound of its panting and one more howl close to his ear; the sight of a dribbling stout opening to reveal long and sharp yellow teeth. And at the next moment the pain on his back as it hit a tree trunk, and the claws pressed against his chest.

The claws came down ripping his robes on both sides of his chest. The hairy head bent towards his face, and the snout almost touched his cheek and then snapped at the side of his neck. He held his breath not to smell the stink, and now finally closed his eyes.

But he opened them at that very moment to see the fiercely shiny disk of the moon. He had bent his head back and heard himself scream with agony.

The beast had lifted its claws and then pulled them down, gashing deep through his chest. Then it let go and backed off a bit, so he was able to fall forwards to the ground. The pain on his chest was blinding him. He struggled to support his body with his arms, so as to lift his chest from the ground, and his palms were drenched with the blood on the grass.

He managed to turn on his back - to see the beast bending over him, sniffing. Then it threw its hairy body down next to him. His ripped robes had left him almost naked. He felt the fur of the beast on his skin.

"Please... stop," he whispered.

The beast leant its head on his shoulder. He felt the strong jaws open, the teeth seeking the right spot. Then the utter pain like mercy closed his senses and hid it all from his mind.

***

Remus opened his eyes but hardly realised that what he saw was the shadows drawn by the moonlight in his own room. Trembling, he closed his eyes again, and the nightmare continued immediately.

***

He was a werewolf now. He took pleasure in blood and it filled his senses. He was licking the blood from the fur of his companion. They were wrestling on the stony ground, which cut gashes on his back. His companion was bigger and stronger. It pushed him down and bent to snap at his snout with its teeth. At that moment he gathered the rest of his strength and broke free.

He ran away again and looked back only once to see that others had now engaged his companion in wrestling. He could escape. He could hide from the moon and sleep. He was a wounded beast, after all. He had already had enough blood. He had had enough... of blood.

***

With his eyes wide open Remus forced himself to think about every detail of the dreams from the moment of the transformation until the end. He had never known any of that and he did not want to lose it again to the subconscious. He verbalised each perception and emotion so as to record them all in his mind. He would still never know whether he had seen the true events, but this was all he could get.

He wanted to finally cry, feeling the pain and terror of the little boy. But he could not. His grief was overwhelmed by the most tormenting doubt, which he had managed to hide behind others until now. He still did not know all he had done. What else had happened when he had been one of the monsters?

Maybe he should have stayed in Bykle and asked the werewolves about it. No, they would, of course, not have had any memory at all of the events. Still, it might have been wise to stay for a day or two. After the full moon they would have been less aggressive and maybe given him food and a chance to recover. But he had just wanted to have nothing to do with them. He had, perhaps, actually been afraid of feeling pleasure of belonging to their community.

***

He could remember clearly how he had been woken up by the pain of his body transforming back to human. He had found himself curled up on the uneven stone floor of a small cave, his furless body shaken by violent shudders. Rather driven by an instinct than a decision he had crawled out of the cave before vomiting.

With his mind still blank he stared at the vomit. A feeling of relief finally brought to his mind the anguish of the previous days and the events of the night until the transformation. It looked like for a couple of days he had not swallowed anything except the dirty water and the mouthful of ointment. But could he have tasted human blood anyway, in the sense of killing or injuring someone, perhaps... biting someone?

Dizzy and shaking uncontrollably, he felt ready to fall back to merciful darkness. But the werewolves might find him; he had to get away. He looked around in the stony landscape and hardly believed his luck. There was a small brook only about ten feet away. As a wolf he had probably sensed it and already enjoyed drinking from it. He now crawled to the edge of the water to drink, and after a while had the strength to even wash himself. Refreshed, but with his naked body shivering with cold, he had forced himself to walk down the slope.

After falling down to the dewy ground several times and resting, and even nourishing himself with some wild berries, which he happened to find where he had sat down, he finally reached the outskirts of the village. It looked deserted, glistening in the light of the rising sun. Having realised that all the inhabitants were asleep after the orgies of the night, he dared proceed and soon found the hut in which he had been locked up.

Outside the barred window he saw his belongings scattered on the ground. He quickly got dressed, putting on the two robes and his old broken shoes, which had been in his briefcase. The clothes he had been wearing when brought in, including his cloak, he had lost. The rest of the gold which he had been given by the Order for the expenses was missing, too, but the rolls of parchment with the notes from the negotiations he had gathered back into the briefcase, and he soon found his wand among the grass, too.

Without considering any longer, he grabbed his broom and performed a charm on it to make it fly straight to London and the headquarters, and another charm to tie his suitcase and himself on it so he would not fall even if he lost consciousness. So he left the village without being seen and without seeing anyone of its people again.

***

His memories of the flight across the North Sea were just flashes of cold grey water underneath and endless freezing air for him to continue his way through. He had no idea how he had arrived and got in at number twelve, Grimmauld Place or if he had been found and taken straight to St Mungo's .

The first thing he knew he had been completely aware of was Dumbledore telling him that Amelia had died. But it had taken him a long time to bear to think about that. He had stopped listening and hardly heard Dumbledore continue and say something about Harry. He had clung to the fact that there was still Harry.

The only thing to bring him back to consciousness and make him endure his life in London was the thought of Harry still being there, still alive and still at the Dursleys' and suffering. He had been determined to leave the hospital soon and return to his room, which felt like home after all he had been through.

In order to go and see Harry in Surrey he had needed some money, and he had had none at all. He had been too ill to travel by any other means than the Knight Bus. Despite his weak condition he had gone around in the neighbourhood, until he had found some work - cleaning public toilets - in which he could earn the eleven sickles for the bus fare. In a hope of some better source of income he had sent another job application to a publishing company. In the meantime he had just needed to spend nothing, to let his landlady continue to scold at him, and to eat at the headquarters.

In only a few days after his return had he realised that he should not have waited at all. In a conversation during another dinner the members of the Order had confessed that they really had no sure idea of how Harry was doing.

"There is nothing to worry about," Dumbledore had said soothingly. "I would know if he had left the Dursleys'. His letter to me, however, made me wonder whether someone should maybe check on him. Or what did you think, Remus?"

After finally listening to what Dumbledore had earlier tried to tell him about Harry, and after reading the letter, he had insisted on going to Little Whinging immediately unless the Order sent an escort the same night. Only Dumbledore's strict order on the plea of his high fever had made him postpone his departure until the following day.

***

Before his trip to Surrey, too, he had pushed to the back of his mind what he had been through, and only thought about Harry - although that had forced him to think about Sirius as well. He had never ceased feeling unbearably lonely. But until now, for almost a month, he had managed not to become aware of a longing for anybody whom he had met on his mission.

Now the disturbing thoughts concerning the events of the previous full moon also somehow protected him. He could still not lose himself in the newly revealed experience of the five-year-old. But images and other perceptions kept coming to him.

In the morning after the dreams he sat down at his desk and stared at an open book. And he saw the black and white clearing, he felt the blood on his palms, and smelled the stinking breath. He tried to read, and suddenly decided to uncover his chest so as to examine the old scars, which had grown less clear perhaps, but wider, while he himself had grown. He had never known himself like this before.

Could he still keep and control the mind of the man whom the awareness of this memory had made him? How could he have strength for it now? He only wished he could cry. Was it too late? He should have cried a long time ago. He had cried, of course, as a boy when he had gradually come to realise the meaning of his disorder. But he had never been aware of the details in the violence done to him. He should have known about it all when he still had a mother and a father to comfort him. Did he now have to face this memory, his doubts and the next ordeal all on his own?

He did not allow himself to question an abrupt idea: he would apparate to St Mungo's again.

***

"Remus! Your friends will be so happy..." Miss Emeline turned around at her desk as soon as Remus had entered the healers' office on the fourth floor and hardly started greeting her.

"I need to talk to you first, please. That's why I came here today. I have to confess that this time I am... completely selfish."

Frowning, she stood up, and she stepped quickly to him and without a word took his hand naturally like a child's. She led him to the end of the corridor where there was a cozy area with couches and armchairs. When they were sitting on a couch hand in hand, she gazed into his eyes intently and only by nodding, encouraged him to talk.

He closed his eyes but, startled by his mental images, opened them again, and looked away, instead, while saying, "I finally saw it. How I was... bitten. It came to my dream last night."

He felt her squeeze his hand and turned his eyes to see hers fill with tears. She seemed to hesitate before replying, "So you want to tell me about it."

"No! I'm not that selfish. If I feel I need to describe it to someone, I'll choose someone who doesn't care so much. For you it's been hard enough to remember having seen me... I mean, you saw me right after the assault. Now I can imagine what I looked like then. When I regained consciousness, you had already closed the wounds. Of course, I still had the scars. They are still visible..."

Miss Emeline had thrown her head backwards and she now shook it, as if to drive the image away. "I can still see it in my mind. I was so young. I had just started on the ward and had not seen much. And my first own patient had to be a child in such a condition! I was afraid you would die. I'll always have it like a scar in my memory. But I'm afraid you've had it as an open wound hidden beyond your conscious mind. Maybe I made a mistake not trying to help you become aware of it and deal with it earlier. But perhaps your subconscious released it now, because now you are ready to receive it."

"Am I? What released the old memory was a nightmare about what happened four weeks ago." Remus heard a mixture of bitterness and despair in his own voice.

Miss Emeline shuddered but now replied quickly, "Do you want to tell me about that?"

"No, and I wouldn't be able to, even if I wanted. I don't know what happened. I'm afraid I did something... In the presence of a pack of werewolves I lost the control of my mind. I may have... damned myself..." He could not force himself to say more but stared at her, pleading for a verdict.

She returned his stare and pronounced clearly and firmly, "You have not. I can see it in you. Don't doubt yourself. Are you sure you don't want to tell me the details of either memory? Please feel free to share them with me."

"No, I won't tell you. I'm already sorry I made you think about that child... I just came to say that I need you now. I need you to give me strength to face it tomorrow night again."

"I'm happy you had the courage to ask for this," Miss Emeline said slowly while lifting her hands onto his temples. "Since I have the gift of turning anguish into blessing, I want you to remember this: if you ever feel that the strength I'm able to give you is not enough, you must not save me from the details any longer."

He was washed by a wave of serenity. When opening his eyes he felt as if a sister had woken him up to play on another carefree summer morning.

Miss Emeline smiled to him and said, "I've got a surprise for you. I don't know if you'd like us to do it now, but I've got a permission to take Frank and Alice to an outing for a couple of hours."

He smiled back and stood up and pulled her with him to the corridor."Yes, now is exactly when I want us to do that."

***

The four of them all walked arm in arm, nearly blocking narrow Diagon Alley. Alice's white hair was almost flying, if not bouncing like in the old days, as she kept turning her head quickly so as to see all the exciting things around her, and still to look at Remus's face, when he named to her everything she pointed at. Remus took a moment to glance at Frank to see that he was actually smiling. And Miss Emeline began to name those shops and items that Frank looked at, although he still did not show a will to share - or an understanding of the possibility of sharing - the contents of his mind with anyone.

When they had stopped in front of the window of the Quality Quidditch Supplies, Remus asked Miss Emeline to switch places in the row they walked in. He wanted to follow Frank's reactions more closely. He always found it more difficult to approach Frank than Alice and wondered if he should lay the blame on himself, too, and not only on Frank's more severe autistic type of condition.

But at that moment Alice let go Remus's arm and darted towards a man double the size of any other on the alley. She giggled while putting her arms around Hagrid's waist. With the frail woman attached on him, the Hogwarts gamekeeper and teacher of the care of magical creatures reeled towards the rest of the company and bent to greet each of them with hearty and heavy slaps on their shoulders. He probably meant to pronounce some polite words as well, but his voice was stifled by a clear effort not to cry. Alice stared at what could be seen of his face among the hair and beard and stood on tiptoe to reach up and wipe his cheeks. That made Hagrid shed some more tears, but he forced a grin onto his face and managed to speak up. "What yer doin' down here?"

Remus had recently met Hagrid only a couple of times at the headquarters. Since his return from another trip with his fiancée Madame Maxime only after Harry's birthday, Hagrid had spent most of his time in the Forbidden Forest of Hogwarts in the company of his big little brother and other creatures. When seeing Remus he had been eager to compare the missions among the giants and the werewolves, but Remus had not been willing to go through any details concerning his tour, after having fulfilled the obligation of reporting to Dumbledore. He had, in fact, not mentioned the nature of the difficulties at the end of it to anyone at all, but now he realised that Dumbledore probably knew anyway.

As these thoughts came to his mind now, Remus was astonished to notice that he had actually gained some strength to face his memories. Relieved, he smiled to Hagrid and invited him to join them to visit the pet shop, where they had been heading for. Hagrid remarked mysteriously that he had, in fact, just been thinking where he could find information on a very special creature, which did not seem to be mentioned in any of the books that Flourish and Blotts had for sale.

Remus had thought that Frank and Alice would enjoy seeing all those somehow cute creatures sold as pets. The shop had now been named The Best of Magical Pets, and Remus took pride in its neat and shiny looks.

While Hagrid engaged the shopkeeper in a conversation in hushed voices, Miss Emeline tried her best to follow Alice, and Remus accompanied Frank to admire the creatures. The shop was full of customers, and Remus could not help smiling to himself when seeing a crowd in front of the wall painting and even hearing some expressions of amazement.

As if expecting Frank to at least think about answers, Remus was expressing his wonder about the rules of the game which some shiny black rats were playing, when he heard Miss Emeline call for Alice. He looked around to see where she could have gone.

And Alice was right there: sitting on the floor almost at his feet, her white head bent over something she seemed to be caressing. But he saw nothing on her lap.

"What is that?" Remus asked.

"It's a wat." The answer was given by Hagrid, who had apparently finished his business, as he was stuffing his moneybag, a roll of parchment and a tiny cage into his pockets. He stepped to Alice and kneeled in front of her. "Yeh let me pat yer wat, too, Alice?"

"Patty wat!" Alice said, looking up and reaching out her hand towards Remus.

He knelt down, too. "That's a... what?" he asked again.

"Well, that's what adults call it: a what. But really yeh gotta spell it w-a-t. Yeh pat it, too!"

Groping cautiously towards Alice's lap, Remus touched soft silky fur and heard purring. "But it's an invisible cat!"

"Right, a wat. A wat can go ter live with a Muggle kid, too, but the mum and dad don' never know what it is... that there is a wat there at all."

"I love cats." Remus caressed the wat tenderly under its invisible chin, and this made it bend its head backward and purr more loudly. "And they usually have nothing against me either. Only cats treated exactly like humans - the way Mrs Figg brought up hers - may learn to be afraid of me. In Greece I used to share meals with stray cats. But I never met a wat before. Or wait... maybe I did, when I was five or younger."

Checking that Frank had not got lost in the crowd, Remus saw him also holding something that could not be seen. Miss Emeline had joined them, too, and Remus asked her in a low voice, "Do you think Frank and Alice could keep a wat at the hospital without anybody knowing? I suppose keeping pets is against the rules. I wonder how much they cost."

Miss Emeline just nodded, smiling, but Hagrid strode to the counter and back to inform him, "They aren' so expensive. Jus' two Galleons for one."

"I don't know," said Remus, fumbling about in his pockets. "Would you like to have a wat to share? I could buy one, if you promise to take good care of it."

Alice only smiled and continued to caress hers, but Frank turned away pressing his tight against his chest. That was the strongest reaction to anything Remus had perceived in him in all these years.

"Yeh gotta have two. I buy one for Alice and Remus buys one for Frank, right?" said Hagrid. "An' don' worry that we can' find wats if they get lost. They don' get lost. They come to their own kid as long as the kid believes in them."

After Remus and Hagrid had paid for the two wats, Hagrid must have suddenly remembered what he had heard about Remus's painting. Having just glanced towards it over the crowd, he took Frank and Alice there and made them sit down and watch it. Remus followed Miss Emeline, not saying anything, but looking forward to their reactions.

Each of them apparently saw different things in the painting. Alice kept pointing, but Remus felt he could not venture to name anything for her. Himself he mainly preferred examining his friends' faces. He was afraid to look at the painting. Even without looking at it, he kept seeing flashes of the scene with the moon.

"I liked the winter scene best," said Hagrid when they finally got up to leave because Miss Emeline had pointed out it was time to return to the hospital. "That was a beau'iful wolf there."

Miss Emeline replied thoughtfully, "Yes, it was moving violently and still it was peaceful: it just followed the owl's hunting. It refused to catch prey, but it was friends with the bird of prey and did not reproach the bird with its natural ways. It was a strange creature, lonely without a pack of its own kind, and admirable."

"But someone's gotta feed him or he'll starve." Hagrid's eyes looked wet again when he turned to stare at Remus with an expression of sudden insight.

***

However, Remus insisted on paying for his own lunch, even if it was Hagrid's suggestion that they go to the Leaky Cauldron after accompanying the others to St. Mungo's through the floo powder network. While Hagrid emptied a few pints of mead with his heavy meal and Remus contended himself with a bowl of soup, they had quite an open conversation. They even finally compared their experiences in encountering those creatures to whom they had been defined as belonging.

Hagrid had clearly had a harder time trying to communicate with the giants. Still, he and Madame Maxime had not given up after the almost disastrous failure a year earlier. They had managed to give to several influential individuals the simple idea that Dumbledore was a good guy, but nobody could know how long those particular giants would stay as leaders or even alive because of the unstable nature of the giant communities and because of the Death Eaters' quest for allies.

Voldemort had evidently got a lot of new young witches and wizards to his side so as to more than compensate for a few servants having been imprisoned. Hagrid had spied on several wizards in the giant region. Remus had also made careful notes concerning any visitors in the werewolf communities, and suspiciously enough he had not been introduced to any, and all the information had been rumours among others than those in high positions. But Hagrid would now be able to recognise some of Voldemort's servants. Dumbledore had asked him to move more around among people in London, but he confessed to Remus that he preferred the forest. "I don' mean I want ter live like the giants. But it's become more disturbin ter stand out too much. And I miss Olympe."

While telling Hagrid about Jean - but not about the werewolves of Bykle - Remus considered if he could tell him about the old memory, too. No, of course he could not. Hagrid was probably the most sensitive person he knew, and the gigantic man's tender heart would break, if he had to hear about the little boy's suffering. But maybe exactly the reason why he could not confide in Hagrid comforted him. He had a friend who would cry more than he himself was able to.

Thus Remus realised that he was not absolutely lonely. He did have friends, and the best way to prepare himself for the night of the full moon was to interact with them openly until the time when it would be impossible. It even occurred to him that Hagrid would probably be strong enough to accompany him during his transformation. But no, when Remus was in that condition, it was too risky for him to encounter anyone without animal form.

After Hagrid had left for Hogwarts in the afternoon, Remus went home to fetch the field study on elves and continued to number twelve, Grimmauld Place to return the book to Hermione. He felt confident enough to speculate that his conversation with her might touch the topic of werewolves, too.

***

As Remus had guessed he would, he found Hermione in the drawing room studying a school book, while Harry and Ron were there playing wizard chess.

"He's learning something about strategies in every game," Ron said, when Remus expressed his concern about Harry being about to lose.

Remus looked at Harry with a sudden thought that Harry really needed a tutor to help him prepare himself instead of only waiting for the enemy's next move. He realised that he had still not heard if Dumbledore had found a new teacher for Defence Against the Dark Arts.

Without a warning he felt tremendous anger at himself about having wasted precious time. Instead of acting with such delicacy towards Harry and perhaps mainly towards himself, and spending time on the art of painting, he should have taken the opportunity to now teach Harry whatever skills or knowledge or understanding of life he possessed which could be of use for the boy to stay alive and face his final responsibility. Soon Harry would be at Hogwarts, where even Dumbledore could not let Remus come because of the attitudes of the governors of the school. Instead of turning his anger at those influential pure-blood parents, he forced it to abate and said seriously, "Harry, if it suits you, I'd like to talk to you alone after a couple of days."

Harry looked up in surprise and nodded, while moving a chessman and hardly paying attention to which one it was. As Ron immediately finished the game and started explaining how Harry could have beaten him, Remus approached Hermione, apologising in case he interrupted her badly.

"It's all right. I'm happy you came early again. There's almost too much time for me to spend on reading here. You see, we don't think we should go out very often, because Harry can't." Hermione had lowered her voice, and she now glanced at the boys.

A wide smile spread on her face, perhaps triggered by Ron's sincere enthusiasm in explaining strategies to Harry. Harry, on the contrary, looked clearly absentminded.

Remus caught Hermione's eyes again, and she continued in a cheerful tone, "I've almost finished even the Numerology book. Now I've read through all the textbooks for this school year and written notes about them. You know, I've got rid of that habit of learning every detail by heart. Now I prefer writing down the relevant facts and my conclusions. When school starts, I'll be able to concentrate on the classes and on the SPEW. But I renamed it SEE, to stand for Support Elves' Empowerment."

Placing the thick book on the desk, Remus laughed benevolently. "Perfect. It shows that you have studied social research. I first thought that more research should be made on the current conditions of the house-elves. But now after finishing this book I believe it's time for action."

Hermione's face began to shine of excitement and she exclaimed, "Yes, you are absolutely right. The house-elves must just be made aware of the power they've already got in their ancient culture, so they can begin to influence their own lives and to develop the society."

"Hermy, I can't believe it! You can't be serious trying to recruit Professor Lupin to that SPEW thing."

Remus turned to Ron, who was faking an expression of being about to vomit. He hurried to answer before Hermione would show her offended feelings. "Ron, remember you promised to call me Remus. And Hermione doesn't have to recruit me. I'm already a member, you see, and it's now called SEE, because we support the elves to empower themselves, so they can improve both their lives and this society."

"You are kidding." Ron rolled his eyes. "Those whiny creatures dressed in pillowcases improve our society!"

Remus still smiled, but he was unable to completely balance his voice. "I suppose the point is not how they are dressed. The most powerful magic of the elves has been hidden for a long time. A part of it has been taken away from them. But there may well be something that the wizards have not been able to even imagine."

Harry had been arranging the chessboard, but now he suddenly lifted his head. "Do you mean that magic of making images out of air?"

"Yes, that has been bought from them for a price far below its value. But what is hidden may include something more relevant in the...war, if that's what you like to call it. But maybe we should hope that the wizards on both sides despise the elves too much to ever find out. I doubt those who are hungry for power care to read even this book or take the trouble to learn more."

Remus had concentrated on suppressing his aggressive instincts, which were growing almost unbearably. Now he realised that he had probably unwisely made the boys even too much interested in the elves.

So as to lean forward, Harry had pushed the chessboard aside, causing some of the chessmen to fall screaming to the floor. "What do you mean? You hope the good side won't know about this powerful magic either?"

"Is there a good side?" Remus said this quietly and he half wished he had changed the topic earlier. "Tomorrow I shan't be here because of the full moon."

All the three teenagers avoided his eyes and stayed quiet. Ron shuddered. Finally Harry glanced at Remus, who realised that he had never talked to them about his lycanthropy after that night when he had got Sirius back and almost killed Peter with him.

"Are you still getting that potion?" After posing his question Harry bit his lip.

"No, I haven't got it at all after I left Hogwarts. But I shan't harm anybody. I'll be locked up."

Hermione now stared at him with a hand over her mouth. "But how about you? Maybe it was all right last year when you had... I mean, you've said that if you are alone, you'll harm yourself."

"I can manage well, if I've got a companion who's got an animal form. Harry, I actually hope that Hedwig will come to me tomorrow evening. But she won't leave your room, if you are against it."

***

That night Remus stayed awake on purpose. He feared the dreams he might have and preferred his controlled analysing to anything that might rise from his subconscious uninvited.

He tried his best not to be angry with himself about the need to worry that he might have participated in hurting any humans four weeks earlier. Miss Emeline must have been right. She would have seen it in him. He would have sensed it himself, too. And - although perhaps it was just his incurable credulity - he could not believe that those people, or especially that man, had done and made him do anything truly evil.

They must have just been chasing each other and wrestling in a friendly manner. And the blood which he had licked - if he had really done it and it was not just his dream - must have been the same as in the man's hair, probably blood of the pig they had slaughtered to prepare the ointment.

But there was something here that had started to bother him more and more. He realised that he actually cherished a part of his memory.

He felt it had been worth going through - and he was willing to go through again - all the long nightmare of starving and freezing just to meet in the middle of it the man who would lift the bowl onto his dry lips and rub his skin warm. He had been too close to fainting to have even seen the face properly then, but now he could see it more and more clearly: the features so familiar, the sparkling eyes and the reckless smile.

Compared to the intensifying anger at himself about feeling something close to affection towards that man, it seemed quite bearable now to process the atmosphere and the details of the early memory. The little boy's encounter with the beast had been beyond all the terror he could ever have imagined. Still, he was now - probably thanks to Miss Emeline's influence - able to see the memory as a challenge or even as a treasure.

He had bought one small canvas and some oil paint a few days earlier with an intention to experiment on an abstract piece in colour but without any clear idea of what he wanted to express. Now he suddenly knew what to paint. He lit a magical light as similar to the daylight as possible and started working.

By dawn he had finished a harmonious composition of black and white shapes. There was a playful rhythm at the basis and a hopeful, dynamic, open structure above and on both sides. And he left some of his slowly rising aggression unsuppressed, and channelled it to destroy the harmony by splashing colour of blood in violent strokes all over the painting. Not the shade of fresh blood to appeal to his senses, but that of blood dried too long ago to be removed. The magic of this image was its absolute lack of movement.

He could not be completely satisfied with his work as a sample of abstract art. What the picture represented seemed too clear. But he felt happy about the process. And he went to sleep and had a dreamless rest until past noon.

Thus he woke up reconciled and confident. To finish preparing himself to have as much strength as possible, in order to stay alert through the following night, he still went out to have a proper meal, but not too far, so that he would not tire himself. He chose once again the near-by exotic fast food restaurant owned by an elderly wizard from Lebanon, who made delicious sandwiches of thin Arabic bread, salad and falafel. That was Remus's favourite kind of food, vegetarian but nutritious and filling. He was running out of money again, but refused to worry about it now, as if this were a special day to celebrate and not the worst day of the month.

In the middle of the afternoon he started feeling the pain. Now it was time to go Mrs Porchead.

She eyed him keenly from under her peacock feather in the manner she had adopted a few weeks earlier. If she had not thought about the fact that it was the time of the full moon now, she did not seem too irritated to be reminded of the special clause in their rent contract. Remus was not sure if her gaze was a sign of her sincere concern about his health, or if she only meant to act in her own interest when checking that he continued to look well-nourished and fit for work.

"I hope it won't consume too much of your strength this time," she said.

"Thank you. I'll be all right, and there will be no trouble, thanks to your service, too."

"So you want to be locked in now?"

"Yes, please."

Remus followed Mrs Porchead to the cellar. She slid her fingers on a concrete wall, and an opening appeared on it, big enough for Remus to step through when he bent his head. She came after him into the hidden, empty room not much smaller than his own. The other, small opening, high on the outer wall, was just wide enough for an owl to enter, he caught himself thinking.

"This place has not been used for two months months," the landlady said, walking around and checking the condition of the room, as if there were anything to check. She stepped back to the opening. "I'm sealing it now, or is there anything you need?"

"Water!" His voice was stifled by sudden urgency, but he tried to calm down. "I'm sorry. I should have thought of it and brought some."

"No, it's all right. I'll be back soon." She went out, leaving the wall unclosed.

Remus walked under the small window to feel a breeze on his face. He was alarmed by this new feeling of distress while preparing to let himself be confined to a room voluntarily. He had to reassure himself that there was nothing to worry about. He had spent enough nights in this room to know.

He had first rented a room from Mrs Porchead more than two years earlier. He had known this neighbourhood, not far from Sirius's parents' house, ever since he had left school and moved to London. After leaving his position as a teacher he had returned here to look for inexpensive accommodation and also in hope that Sirius could one day come back here from his hiding place in the south.

In the following summer his wish had been granted. And for a whole year they had lived together at Grimmauld Place. For Remus it had probably been the best year of his life, although he was and had been completely aware that it had been far worse for Sirius than what they had hoped for at the time when he had proved his innocence at least to some people. It cannot have been worse than Azkaban, but Sirius must have suffered from being practically imprisoned - and in that particular house, which represented everything he had protested against since his childhood.

And Remus had betrayed Dumbledore's trust, agreeing to apparate once a month with Sirius to deserted places, where they could enjoy the full moon together. He had done it for Sirius but no less for himself.

After losing Sirius he had felt obliged to leave number twelve, Grimmauld Place immediately. He had no right to claim it as his home. His old room in Mrs Porchead's building had still been available - and her magic ability was what he needed when he had no friend to accompany him at his transformation.

He was startled by a clink and a thud. Mrs Porchead had let down on the floor the things she had been levitating. There was a jug of water, and both a bowl and a glass, and a rolled rug.

She waved her hand to open the roll. "This is an old rug. It won't matter if you happen to rip it into shreds."

Remus became aware of a forceful instinct to protest aggressively, although her behaviour lately and at the moment prevented him from interpreting the words as an insult. He suppressed the reaction, smiling at this feat of his as well as at her acts and words. "You know I will try not to do that. You are very considerate. Thank you so much."

She glanced at him briefly and turned to leave. "Well... good night."

The last thing Remus saw, before the opening disappeared, was the steely light of her fingertips. He drank some water and poured some into the bowl, too. Then he sat down on the rug to wait.

The gnawing pain inside of him was stronger than he had remembered. Having prepared himself so well, he now had - unlike four weeks earlier - no other ailment to catch any part of his attention.

This was how it was meant to be. He was capable of concentrating on the pain, remembering that he would have to go through it again in the morning, and again month after month. This should have been enough to offer him a catharsis, purify his essence. But he knew it was not true. He would have to continue to live with the same doubts and with the risk of some day damning himself for eternity.

In this mental and physical torment it felt, surprisingly, like a relief to think of what he had remembered as an overwhelming anguish. Locked up in that hut, suffering from his wounds, thirst and hunger and cold, he had gradually lost the awareness of even the fear of what they would force him to do. His helpless state had, in any case, freed him from a big part of the responsibility.

It suddenly struck him that the werewolves of Bygle had perhaps meant to do good to him. By not taking care of him they had actually made this particular pain easier for him. They had dragged him with them by force, but he now realised that they had, in fact, not hit him or hurt him in any way anymore. Compared to the nervousness and the uncontrolled aggression which he had witnessed and been a victim of on the preceding days, all the events at that sunset had been harmonious. He had not seen any aggression among them either. In the end there had been nothing truly evil, or even violent, in the ritual.

Now he understood what the feared rituals might be about. The werewolves living in a community did not gather to worship dark forces so as to be allowed to join them and be evil. The meaning of the ritual was simply to ease the pain of the transformation: to allow them, as a collective, to help each other through it with solidarity. It was probable that none of them had become a werewolf voluntarily. And it was sure none of them had a choice not to transform. But they got together to help each other go through the pain. The chanting apparently even made it possible for them to control their aggression until the moment of the transformation. And the ointment seemed to momentarily offer a concrete relief, while in reality there was nothing a werewolf could do to avoid this tormenting pain.

Now the pain in his whole body suddenly intensified as in a rush of a wave and almost blinded his mind. He had allowed his concentration to relax for a moment, and he now felt a desperate need of a companion to help him control his mind.

That was what the werewolves of the community had done to each other. He had just been too weak to benefit from it fully. He had lost the control of his mind for a part of the night. But maybe none of the others had. They had spent the night in friendly wrestling and chasing each other. If he had returned the service to the man with the enthralling smell in his hair, maybe he would now know for sure that he had not hurt any human.

He had just enough time left for undressing, before the pain spread in convulsions into his limbs and he could control his body no longer. He clung to the thought of a friend having a contact with his mind. But the image of Hagrid's face covered with tears kept fading, no matter how hard he struggled not to lose it.

For a moment he was able to wrap his arms around himself. Then he felt his claws scratch the skin of his upper arms, until his whole body was the body of a monstrous wolf. He lifted his head to cry out with agony and to hear it turn into a howl. His mind was suddenly dominated by a wish to hurt all those - including himself - who had stopped him from joining anybody to ease his pain. He still had the human sense to be aware of a conclusion that he would now lose the control of his mind. He would end up wounding himself all through the night.

At that moment he felt a current of air on his face. He was staring into a pair of big round amber eyes. The owl's beak touched gently his snout, and he knew that he still had got his own warm amber eyes.

Remus the wolf and Hedwig the owl spent the night chasing each other around the room. Closer to the dawn the wolf curled up on the rug to wait, while the owl flew out to return with a mouse in her claws. The wolf watched her eat it and just drank some water. Then he curled up again to wait for the transformation. Soon his body twisted in pain, but she stayed close to his face, hooting quietly and staring into his eyes. When it was all over, she brought his robes in her peak and helped him get dressed.

Then the owl headed for home, leaving the man exhausted but unwounded and triumphant. Mrs Porchead would soon arrive to find her rug intact.