Back In Time

Back In Time: Chapter Eleven

EDITED: Chapter Eleven:

As the days turned into weeks, and the weeks turned into months, things became monotonous, and the only thing I had I had to look forward towards would be my random arguing with Sirius.  It seemed that every time a full moon came about, something happened that made it so that I couldn’t go out with the boys.  Of course, it’d still have been in secret, as they hadn’t told me Remus’ secret, and I hadn’t bothered to tell them that I knew.  Five times in total I had missed out.  The first, obviously being because of the storm I had gotten stuck in, next month, I had sprained my ankle, then I had detention, then I fell asleep and last but not least, I might have been too busy spending time with my father. 

Now that the summer holidays were nearly upon us, I had begun to really and truly worry.  It’s not as if I could actually stay with my father and his parents, nor would I be able to stay with James, Sirius, Pettigrew or Remus because they’d wonder why I wasn’t staying with my own family and ask too many questions.  I could stay at Hogwarts as Christmas passed us, and Easter, but now there was nowhere for me to go.

Sighing, I shook my head so that I would stop thinking those dreary thoughts, and walked towards the Common room. 

Tonight would be my last chance to see Remus as a werewolf.  Who knows what could happen during the summer, perhaps my father would invent a counter-curse to send me forward in time, back to my own year.  I vaguely remember Remus Lupin being my Defense Against the Dark Arts teacher in third year, and the Remus in the future is nothing like the Remus from the past.  He’d changed so much, and I knew it was from his best friend, Sirius, getting sentenced to life in Azkaban, and his two other best friends dying, or in Pettigrew’s case, supposedly dying.  I wouldn’t be able to find him again if I were to go to my own year, and I didn’t want to miss out on knowing him without the doom and gloom attitude.

As the light begin to fade through the open window, I smiled.  I hadn’t seen the boys since after classes, where I’d seen them head towards the Whomping Willow.  I knew that that was where they hid out on full moons, shifting to their animagus forms to keep Remus company as he went through, what I imagined, to be a very painful transformation.

Once the moon was nearly at its highest point, I made my move, sneaking along the halls in my sneakers and jeans, making sure to stick to the shadows until I made it outside, not too far from the Quidditch field.  Walking was an entirely too slow way to get to the old willow tree but it’s not as if I had another option, like a broom or even a muggle skateboard, so that’s how I spent the next half hour…walking.

The first howl broke through the night, echoing eerily across school grounds, but I didn’t stop, instead I sped up until I was just about sprinting towards the noise.  I dodged moving tree limbs, narrowly avoiding a smash to the ribs and temple from the Whomping Willow before finding a hole that formed into a tunnel which in turn led to the Shrieking Shack.  Crawling through, I remembered Ron telling me all about Sirius dragging him through this tunnel after accidentally breaking his leg so that Sirius could get to Scabbers, who was Ron’s pet rat, because he was really Peter Pettigrew.

I could hear scuffling up ahead, and the slight sound of growling, and after just a few more seconds I could see them all, except Pettigrew, who was probably hiding behind either the Stag, which could only be James, and the black dog, who was undoubtedly the one and only, Sirius Black. 

The figure of the werewolf nearly had me gasping in awe.  Sure, it wasn’t the most beautiful creature, but he was something to be revered, feared and practically worshipped.  Remus stood on his hind legs, sniffing the air.  Moonlight through the Shrieking Shack’s one and only window shone through onto his golden fur.  His nails and face had lengthened into claws and a muzzle, and his usual light brown eyes had darkened to nearly completely black orbs. 

Suddenly it sniffed again before growling and jerking it’s head in my direction.  Surely he couldn’t know I was there, but his eyes stared in my direction.  I held my breath, only releasing it oh-so-slowly as Remus once again looked away.

This was a night I would never forget.

~*~*~*~*~*~

I sat in that small tunnel the rest of the night, staring wide-eyed as the two bigger animagus forms worked extremely hard making sure that Remus didn’t get out of the Shrieking Shack, and as the moon left the sky and the sun began to take its place I heard the sickening crunch of bones reforming.  I turned away, not knowing whether or not Remus would be in the nude.  I knew when animagi turn back into their human selves that they still have their clothes on, but I knew next to nothing about werewolves except that they transform only on full moons.

Once I was sure it was safe, I turned back around only to notice them all heading my way, and I braced myself for when they would find me.  The first to see me was Remus himself, and he froze dead in his tracks, staring at me in pure horror.  The others followed his gaze, Pettigrew adopting Remus’ expression, James looking plain shocked, and Sirius looked angry.  Murderously so, in fact. 

We all trudged our way back towards Hogwarts, but Sirius stopped as we came to the Quidditch field. 

“What in Merlin’s name were you thinking, Spencer!”  His face had gotten red in his anger, and I couldn’t help but to cower away from him.  I’d never seen laid-back Sirius Black so…royally pissed off before.  I had no answer for him, unfortunately, as I hadn’t really thought this far ahead into my plan.

“What if you had been hurt?”  Sirius practically screamed at me, and though he didn’t say the words, I knew what he meant was -What if Remus had bitten you?-

I shook my head, still not having the answer.  His question was a good one.  What if I had been hurt, or Remus had attempted to attack and bite me?  There was nothing I had planned in case that had happened.  I was so intent on simply seeing Remus in his second form that those thoughts hadn’t even crossed my mind.  I was so stupid!

Tears of embarrassment stung my eyes, but it was obvious that James, Remus and Peter thought it to be tears of another sort, but Sirius didn’t even seem to notice that I was on the verge of crying.  Something I don’t do very often, in fact, I’d cried more times since I had come back to this year than I did in my entire life when I was in my own year! 

“That’s enough, Sirius.”  Remus’ voice was commanding, the first time I’d heard it like that, usually he was quiet, just nodding along to what everyone else said unless he was playing jokes with the rest of the Marauders.

The boy on the receiving of his command immediately snapped his mouth shut, glaring for several second before his gaze softened just a bit. 

“I-I’m sorry, Spencer.  I didn’t mean- I mean, it wasn’t my – Oh son of a.  What I mean to say is, I wasn’t intentionally trying to upset you.  It’s just…what you did was stupid!”

“I know.” 

With that, the first tear fell, and I knew they could all see it.  Without a backward glance, I began to run away so that they couldn’t say anything about it.

I was so stupid.  Stupid and weak.