Off the Pitch

Chapter 9: Secrets Uncovered

Our first lesson on Monday after Halloween was Defense Against the Dark Arts. To my relief, Lupin was back, but I noticed he looked worse than ever. His skin was grayish and his eyes were red and tired and had dark circles below them. Yet he still smiled and greeted his students like any other day. 

"Today", he started the lesson, "we are going to talk about Hidebehinds. Anyone?" 

I raised my hand. 

"Ah, yes", Lupin turned to me and smiled. "I assumed you'd be familiar with this particular creature." 

He leaned back to the desk behind him and nodded at me: "Go ahead." 

"The Hidebehind is a species that was actually created by accident by a wizard called Phineas Fletcher", I explained. "His intention was to smuggle a Demiguise to Northern America, in order to produce Invisibility Cloaks." 

"However, the Demiguise managed to escape and bred with a freeloader ghost on the ship, birthing a completely new species, the Hidebehind. When the ship boarded, the newly born creature escaped to the forests off Massachusetts, and a population of the species lives there to this day." 

"Excellent", professor Lupin straightened himself up and started walking slowly around the classroom while continuing: "The Hidebehind is known to prefer the meat of humans. What makes it an especially dangerous creature is it's ability to become invisible – and therefore almost impossible to defeat if stumbled upon." 

He had made his way back to his desk. He turned around and pointed at me: "Ten points to Gryffindor." 

I stayed behind at the end of the lesson when everyone else rushed out of the classroom. Lupin winced a little when he lifted his gaze and noticed me still sitting on my place. 

"Amelia?" he asked with a curious voice: "Is there something you'd like to ask about or–?" 

I got up from my seat, walked to the front of the classroom and stood myself in front of Lupin's desk. 

Now or never...

"Does Dumbledore know?" I asked, trying not to tremble. 

"Know what, exactly?" Lupin frowned. 

I hesitated. Just say it. I took a deep breath before answering: "That you're a werewolf." 

The professor opened his mouth to say something, stopped for a second, sighed and closed his mouth. He looked like he wanted to object, but ended up simply tilting his head and asking: 

"How long have you known?" 

I shrugged: "A few weeks, I guess. I wasn't sure until this weekend." 

Lupin pressed his head down and rubbed his forehead. "What gave it away? The monthly disappearances of course, but surely that's not everything?" 

I shook my head before answering slowly: "I heard about Snape's assignment for the third-graders... an essay on werewolves? And I saw Hermione reading about werewolves even before that – I think she's onto you as well. What else..." 

"Oh yeah–", I remembered: "The Wolfsbane." 

I left out the fact that I was pretty sure it was him who had howled at the Shrieking Shack on Halloween. I figured he wouldn't be pleased to hear that I had snuck out to Hogsmeade in the middle of the night. 

Lupin sighed but looked slightly impressed. 

"I assume that's what Snape brought you that night?" I raised my eyebrows. 

The professor nodded slowly and opened his mouth: "I must admit that I am beyond impressed that you found out this quickly. Not everyone would notice such vague signs." 

I stayed silent for a while, not knowing whether to share personal details about my life or not. I figured it wouldn't hurt if the professor knew. 

"My brother was a werewolf", I blurted. Lupin lifted his head up and stared at me mortified. 

"He got bitten when he was six", I explained quietly. "It was pretty bad though... his body couldn't handle it. He died after five months." 

Lupin closed his eyes and sighed, clearly understanding the pain my family had gone through. 

"I'm so very sorry to hear that." 

I nodded and smiled at him sadly: "Thank you." 

Another moment of complete silence. 

"Look, I know that I am your teacher", professor Lupin said and looked straight into my eyes with genuine care in his voice, "but if you ever want to talk about it – or anything else for that matter..." 

"Thank you", I gave him a grateful smile and then sighed: "I should probably go, class is starting..." 

"You know where to find me", Lupin smiled and I returned the gesture. As I got to the door, he answered my very first question. I stopped in place. 

"Dumbledore knows", he said, "and so do professor Snape and your grandmother. I'd appreciate if it stayed that way." 

"Of course", I turned to face him, smiled and closed the door behind me. 

"Where were you?" Fred whispered when I sneaked into Charms class a few minutes late. Professor Flitwick didn't seem to have noticed my absence, so I didn't say anything to him. 

"I had to speak with professor Lupin", I replied quietly and opened my book. I noticed Fred's curious look and added: "About the essay, remember?" 

"Didn't you already return it?" he frowned. I tried to come up with some good explanation, but Flitwick saved me the effort. 

"Today we will be practising the Confundus Charm", he said, stood on a pile of books. "Please pick yourself a partner." 

Lee Jordan offered to pair up with me. I switched places with Fred who was sitting next to Lee. 

"Your job is to use the spell to distract your partner while they are performing a simple task, such as writing the same sentence over and over again or counting to a hundred", Flitwick explained. 

"Counting to a hundred is considered a simple task?" George joked around and the whole class, including professor Flitwick, laughed. 

"Repeat after me", the professor said: "Confundo!" 

"Confundo!" the class repeated in a choir. 

"Very good! Now take out your wands", he said and demonstrated the spell. "Just a small movement with your hand, just like this." 

We did a few dry runs before practising the spell on our partners. It took me three tries to be able to distract Lee properly; he had counted to twenty when I finally succeeded. Lee looked perplexed for half a minute and wasn't able to remember what he had been doing just seconds ago. It was his turn next: he managed to befuddle me on his first try. 

"Excellent work, Mr. Jordan!" Flitwick shouted from the front of the classroom and clapped. "Ten points to Gryffindor!" 

We rehearsed the charm for the next twenty minutes; it took a bit of time to recover from the confusion every time. 

"Remember", Flitwick said, "the more focused your partner is, the harder it is to baffle them. Try to come up with something that requires all of your attention!" 

Lee and I decided that I'd try to distract him while he was counting down from 543, alternating between skipping every third and then every fourth number. Lee began counting in his head; I waited for a few seconds before attempting the charm. 

"Confundo", I said quietly, and Lee looked around in confusion. It took him a minute to recover this time. 

"Okay, your turn now", I said to Lee and started counting the way we had agreed. It was harder than I thought. 

543, 542, 540, 539, 538... Hold on. What was I doing again? 

I looked at Lee with apparently an extremely baffled expression. He couldn't help but laugh at me: "I guess it worked."