Cowboy Casanova

Sunday 5th September 1971

Remus managed to plod through the next week by paying no amount of attention to the other boys. This wasn’t hard as he had spent most of his time alone at home – nobody spoke to him because they thought he was weird for the scars on his arms. James, Sirius and Peter were not like anyone he had met before. They were what his Mam would call ‘well-bred’.

Sirius and Jamie especially seemed to come from money, he could tell from the way they has spoken about their homes, he could also tell by the way they spoke – every utmost vowel and consonant was clearly enunciated. Remus listened as they spoke and resolved to start talking a bit more like them.

It wasn’t just their accents, but what they said as well. He had only grown up around his Mam, so he didn’t speak too much, only when necessary. James and Sirius, on the other hand, spoke like they were the main characters in a novel; their language (or languages in Sirius’ case) was full of enthusiasm, descriptive metaphors and satirical sarcasm. Their quickfire wit was a lot more domineering than a punch in the face.

He had so far been successful in his mission to steer clear of the others, achieving this by going for long wanders around the castle. At home, he could travel across the vast plains of his family farm without any disturbance, it wasn’t anything really special about it though. At Hogwarts, everything was more interesting by miles. There wasn’t anywhere he couldn’t go, it seems. Remus resolved to explore and investigate every inch of the place – every nook and cranny, top to bottom.

They had been given a map at the very beginning of the year, but it proved to be less helpful than a needle in a hay stack. He found it over simplified and lacked much of the necessary details needed to really find your way around. It didn’t list the secret passage way that led from the dungeons to the girl’s toilets. He had no clue as to why on earth anyone would need a passage that led between the too, and the very first time he used it he was waylayed by a rather irritating ghost who had sprayed him with soap. He also reasoned that it would have been useful to animate the map so that the absured moving staircases could be tracked. He was quite sure that one of the rooms had moved as well; it never was in the same place.

When Sunday evening had come around, Remus was feeling extremely apprehensive about what Monday would bring. It would not only be his very first day of lessons, but it also happened to be on a full moon. After tea – which he had spent alone a few places away from his dormmates – he began to make his ascend to McGonagall’s office. Inside, she was waiting patiently for him to appear, the school nurse by her side. He had been introduced to her only the day before. She was kind and pleasant woman ; a little fussy if anything.

“Good evening, Mr Lupin.” She smiled at him “Thank you for being so punctual. Come now.”

To his surprise, the two witches led him, not to the dungeons as he had originally deemed, but out onto the grounds of the castle, towards a very large, ugly, twisted tree. The Whomping Willow was a recent addition to the school. Dumbledore had explained this at the start of term feast speech, stating that it had been a gift from a previous student. Privately, Remus thought that whoever had donated it, must have really hated the school as the tree was absolutely terrifying in aspect, but also abstractedly violent.

As the came closer, Professor McGonagall did something so unexpected the Remus fought hard not to gasp in shock. It was as though she vanished – she had shrunk down so suddenly, until she was no longer there. Where she was only a couple of seconds ago, there was a small brown tabby cat with sleek, beady yellow eyes with faint circles around them, just like her glasses. Madam Pomfrey gave no signal the she was shocked, as the cat ran towards the tree, which was thrashing its branches around as though it was child having a trantrum. She was able to run at the tree, all the way up to the trunk without injuring herself once, and pressed a small paw onto a knot near the base of the bark. In an instant, the tree stopped moving. Remus and Madam Pomfrey followed that cat, walking straight for the hollow underneath the tree he hadn’t noticed before. McGonagall was waiting for them inside, now human again.

The passage was obscurely lit by a neat row of torches, which gave off a murky greenish glow. At the end of the walkway, there was a door. This door led them into a small cottage, which looked as though it had long since been abandoned. All the windows were bordered and every door was bolted shut.

“Here we are.” McGonagall tried to sound satisfied, though it seemed a very dire place. “Now I do hope that you understand that we cannot possibly stay with you, but if you wish, Madam Pomfrey will wait outside until your.... transformation is complete?”

Remus just gave them a small shrug.

“I’ll be ‘lright. How'd i get back in the mornin’?”

“I’ll come back down as soon as the sun begins to rise,” Madam Pomfrey assured him. “I’ll patch you up and have you back to lessons before anyone knows you were gone.” Although she was smilling, he eyes were filled with sadness and concern. It made Remus quite uncomfortable. He supposed that it could also be because it was reachimg that point in the evening where everything was becoming uncomfortable. His hair was itchy, skin tight around his bones, and his temperature was beginning to rise.

“You’d beddah go.” He grunted, quickly, surrendering to the small, bare room. There was a small cot bed attached to a wall with fresh, white sheets. It looked as though it had been placed there just for his benefit.

The two women left, locking the door heavily behind them. He heard McGonagall whispering something and he began to wonder what kind of spell she was casting around the shack. Whatever it was, he thought, was much better than silver plating.

He sat on the edge of the bed, but only for a moment, then got up again, becoming increasingly restless. He paced back and forth around and around the dank, little room. Sometimes it felt as though the wolf would creep into his mind before it took his body hostage. As darkness began to fall, his senses became even more enhanced than usual and the hot swell of hunger gravitated inside his stomach. He removed his clothes quickly, not wanting to damage them. A dull pulsate of pain began in his joints and he lay on his little cot in preparation. This was not the worst of it. His heart thundered in his ears and he could swear he heard his tendons creak as they stretched. His bones felt like they were grinding as they shifted and his teeth grinded against each other painfully as they elongated. Pain speared through his head as his skull split reshaping itself.

He hissed, groaned and grunted until the pain grew too unbearable. He screamed. All he could do was hope that he was far enough away from the castle that nobody would hear the blood curdling yells that escaped his mouth. It took about 30 minutes from start to finish – though he had never actually timed himself. Things became indistinct afterwards, he couldn’t always remember what happened whilst once the wolf took over. The very first night at Hogwarts was a massive blur in his mind, though he did wake with less injuries than usual. He had a creeping suspicion that he sniffed around quite a bit, due to the unfamiliar territory, and tested its boundaries. He though that he had been throwing himself at the door and walls at some point or another, because of the quilt of bruises down the left side of his body, that lasted for days.

Turning back was just as unpleasant – a crushing, tightening feeling all over his body as his bones set themselves back into place, leaving him with a feeling of aching and breathlessness. He wiped the tears that prickled his eyes and agonisingly crawled into the cot, completely grateful for an hour or so of quiet sleep until the sun rose entirely.

As promised, Madam Pomfrey returned. She spoke in soothing tones as she placed her cool hands over his fevered brow.

“I really don’t like the look of you like this,” she cooed, as he opened his eyes sleepily, “It’s insane if they think that you could attend a full day of lessons in this state. You’re exhausted!”

No one had really expressed this much concern for his well-being before. His mother hadn’t even shown this much concern before, usually bandaging him up with a loving look in her eyes. It gave him uneasy feeling in his mid-rift. He pushed away from her and pulled on his clothes,

“I’m okay. I wanna go.”

She made him drink something before he left. It was cold and left a horrible metallic taste in his mouth, but he did feel much better after. He hurriedly made his way his way up to Gryffindor tower to get changed into his uniform – he didn’t want to miss breakfast, he was ravenous.

“Where on earth have you been?” James chastised him as he walked into their room. The three boys were all up and dressed looking flawless – besides Jamie’s hair, which never stayed flat.

“Norwhere.” Remus barged past to gather his things.

“Are you okay?” Sirius asked, glancing away from where he was running his hands through his hair in the wardrobe mirror.

“Yeah,”James put in, watching Remus closely, “You do look a bit peaky.”

“Ffyc off.”

“We are just trying to be nice.” Peter said, hands on hips like a mother would. All three of them now had their eyes on Remus, who was about to remove his shirt when he remebered the bruises and scars hidden beneath.

“What?!” He growled, “Yous all gunna watch me get changed? Yous posh lads are all a bunch of puffs, ‘onstely.” He stormed to the bathroom and slammed the door behind him. After a few moments of stunned silence, he heard them all leave the room to Peter whinning that he was hungry.