The Kind Hufflepuff

Chapter 43: Cursed Beings

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The Kind Hufflepuff - Year Two

Chapter Forty- Three: Cursed Beings

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The days had stretched into weeks and Cali had been spending an increasing amount of time with Peter Pettigrew. The boy clearly missed his other friends, mostly spending time with Cali simply so he wouldn't be alone but he spent a lot of time talking about the three Gryffindor boys that still weren't talking themselves. She had tried to convince Peter to talk to them, had even tried to convince Peter to tell her what happened so that she could talk to him but Peter was always adamant that she never do that.

Currently, they were in the library together while Peter tutored Cali on the spell, Hystrifors, by showing her the wand movements repeatedly. She had long ago realized that while everyone else practiced wand movements by actually attempting the spell itself, she wasn't able to do the same which really hindered her understanding of the spell and caused her to struggle during the textbook part of the Final Exams themselves.

"Do you know how to recognize werewolves?" Peter asked, curious.

"What do you mean?" Cali giggled.

"It'll be on the OWLs," he defended himself quickly, "Do you know?"

"Peter, that's a third year lesson. You shouldn't stress about recognizing the difference between werewolves and wolves until then, but to answer your question, yes."

"You do recognize the difference?" He seemed slightly confused, clearly thinking about something.

"Well yes, I'm sure you've heard about my argument with Remus last year about werewolves. Where I was reading that book about them? The book covers the very topic," Cali shrugged.

"You argued with Remus about werewolves?" Peter thought back to last year, "I completely forgot about that! It didn't seem so relevant as it does now, I guess."

Cali nodded slowly, "Definitely has different meanings, I suppose. You never realize how relevant a topic is until you know the full picture." She paused for a moment, putting down her quill that she was using to take notes on the wand movement to practice later. "Werewolves are not evil creatures, I hope you know that."

"They're not?" Peter hummed.

"No, they're cursed perhaps. They have no control over themselves and many would never repeat those actions away from the light of the moon," Cali told the boy quietly.

"But they're killers, they could rip you apart on a moments notice."

"And wake up with no memory of it. Some are even cursed as children, it's horrifying," Cali argued. "They're good people, despite what they do one day of the month. There are bad people who happen to be werewolves but it's there actions away from the full moon that makes them bad people, not that night."

"I had made a mistake," Peter quietly admitted. 

"What sort of mistake?" Cali asked, her mind flashing to the werewolf in the forest.

"I didn't react to certain news the way the others had," Peter mumbled. "Not Remus, Remus has no idea if I had to venture but I didn't react well."

"Do you regret such a reaction?" Cali asked the boy, her eyes trained as she watched his body language.

"Yes."

"Then tell them that, Peter," Cali ordered the boy. "You need to talk to them, to apologize."

"What if they don't forgive me?" Peter fretted, and Cali sighed in response.

"They're not talking to you now and if you just ignore the issues at hand..." Cali trailed off, "They'll never forgive you anyways."

"Fine..." Peter mumbled, "I'll talk to them. But how?" 

"Let me worry about that," Cali decided after a moment of thinking, realizing she wanted to talk to Remus before she began to meddle into the lives of the Gryffindor best friends. "I'll meet you in the Great Hall for dinner," she promised the boy before standing up, running out of the library to the courtyard where she knew Lily Evans and her friends preferred to study. 

"Remus!" She called out, smiling brightly when she reached the girl's usual spot and saw the scarred Gryffindor boy. "Can we talk?"

"About?"

Cali considered, "The Forbidden Forest." She watched as Remus' eyes widened as he scrambled to his feet, dragging his items haphazardly along with him as he stuffed them into his bag with a sense of urgency, before grabbing the girl's arm and dragging the girl into a more secluded spot. 

"What do you mean?" Remus demanded. Cali thought back to her conversation with the boy last year, thinking back to what he had said about werewolves and breathed in deeply, realizing she needed to change her approach with the boy.

"I just said it because I knew you would come with me," Cali admitted quietly.

"How did you know?"

"You were with your friends when they helped me, right?" Cali decided not to reveal that she knew that he was the werewolf, making the decision that if this was something that he wanted her to know about then he would have to tell her himself, not because she had figured it out.

"Helped you with that? And they're not my friends," Remus rolled his eyes, causing the Hufflepuff to roll her eyes.

"You're an idiot," Cali chastised. "They're your best friends. And I don't believe that those three boys did a single thing, but rather you just don't want to admit the truth."

"Truth about what?" Remus challenged. "What did Peter did tell you?"

"Nothing, he didn't tell me anything. He just admitted that he was in the Forbidden Forest with me," Cali shrugged. "He admitted that you guys scared that wolf away from me," She told the boy slowly, worried about his reaction.

"Wolf?" Remus asked nervously.

"Wolf, just a regular wolf, I think," Cali waved away. "But they helped me. It doesn't matter, I know I'm right. You just need to accept that they are your friends. They love you, just give them a chance." Cali demanded to the boy, but he shook his head frantically.

"You don't understand," Remus tried to tell her.

"You're right, but what I do understand is that they are your friends," Cali told the boy slowly. "Give them a chance to prove that to you."

"How do you propose I do that?" Remus asked, "I've been avoiding them for ages. They don't want to talk to me."

"Don't count them out like that," Cali rolled her eyes. "Let me deal with it, I have a plan."