The Letter
Everything ached. Remus slowly pulled his mutilated and bleeding body into a sitting position. He let out a pained groan, his bleeding fingers moving to his chest were he could feel the hot blood sliding down his scarred skin from a brand new laceration.
A loud knock came from the iron door to his left, the reverberations causing him to flinch as they echoed through the cramped, windowless cage. The scent of so much metal clogged up his senses, making his head pound and his eyes water. He coughed and red splattered his bare legs as the door opened, casting light into the small space. Through bleary eyes, Remus saw the silhouette of one of the many maids enter the room. They knelt down beside him, muttering soft, soothing words, and gently guided his head back onto the cold floor as everything went black.
***
When Remus awoke next, it was dark outside his window. He was in his bedroom, lying shirtless under the heavy duvet covers. His chest had been patched up, and the faint smell of antiseptic cream came from underneath the thick bandage that wrapped around his torso and up over his shoulder.
With a soft groan, he sat up, pushing back the covers and swinging his legs over the side of his bed. Food. He needed food. His stomach grumbled as he stood up and slowly made his way to his door, grabbing an over sized shirt that was haphazardly thrown onto his dresser, and slinging it over his head.
He pushed the door open, squinting at the brightness of the hallway lights as he stumbled through, and then down the staircase towards the sound of cutlery clashing again plates during the evening meal.
As he entered the dining room, he took in the two figures seated at the table, his guardians: Mary and Rupert Pentworth, who turned out to be his non-blood related uncles parents, and the only people willing to take in an orphaned, ‘diseased’ child.
Both people would be considered ‘elders’ by anyone looking. Their hair was almost the exact same shade of gray as eachother, although Rupert still had some dark strands weaving through the mop. Mary was sporting a pair of tiny reading glasses that slid all the way down her long, hawk-like nose. Her eyes, slightly milky with age, were the colour of dead leaves in the winter. Rupert had piercing blue eyes, capable of pinning anyone in place with one look. Both of the Pentworth’s pale skin was covered in wrinkles, but not many surrounded their eyes or mouth -no surprises there, Remus couldn’t remember the last time he saw them smile.
Only Rupert deigned to look up from his newspaper, his expression nothing short from a sneer.
“You finally decided to join us, did you, boy?” Mary snickered behind her hand. Remus just took his usual seat: as far from the seventy-year-old’s as possible.
A serving boy brought his meal from the kitchen, along with an envelope. Remus put the thick paper down beside his plate and dug into the rich food hungrily, his posture and manners flawless from years of drilling, lectures and discipline.
After mopping up the dregs of his food with almost half a loaf of bread, and gulping down his water greedily, Remus pushed his plate away, wiped his hands on a serviette, and carefully picked up the envelope addressed to himself, Remus John Lupin.
On the front of the envelope, there was a crest with the big letter ‘H’ in the center, surrounded by the depiction of a lion, a snake, a badger, and a raven. Above it, was the name ‘Hogwarts’. Sealing the letter was a red wax seal showing the same crest, unbroken and untampered with.
He broke the seal without hesitation and pulled out the letter inside, again it was addressed to him, and this time, it included his dwelling. It read:
‘Dear Mr Lupin,
We are pleased to inform you that you have been accepted at Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry. Please find an enclosed list of all books and equipment required.
Term begins on 1 September. We await your owl by no later date than 31 July.
We very much look forward to receiving you as part of our new generation at Hogwarts heritage.’
It was signed by a Professor McGonagall.
“What the bloody hell is this?” Remus’ jaw hung open in utter shock, his eyes scanning the letter again and again.
At his outburst, Mary’s gaze flicks up to him, “Language, boy, or we’ll send you off to school again,” she snapped, pushing her glasses up her nose to glower at him.
Remus pushed back his chair, shoving the paper in Mary’s face, “Is this a joke?” Remus said incredulously. Rupert snatched the parchment out of his scarred hand, skimming the words with a furrowed brow.
“Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry? What is this?” The older man exclaimed.
Mary took the letter back, looking it over for herself. “A school of magic, it is most probably branded as such for the mentally unstable,” she lowered her voice as she uttered the last words, but they still rang loudly in Remus’ ears, ‘mentally unstable.’
He had always known that he was different, but mentally unstable? That’s a whole new quality.
He shook his head, forcing the self deprecating thoughts into the farthest corners of his mind. Mary and Rupert were discussing the letter from ‘Hogwarts.’
“This is bonkers, Rupert, we aren’t sending the boy to a school of lunatics!” Mary exclaimed in outrage, putting her teacup down hard on the saucer. “And what is this about an ‘owl’? Where are we to get an owl?”
Rupert put a comforting hand on his wife’s arm, “Mary, darling, it’s a boarding school, you’ve been saying how we should send him off for the year, might do the boy some good.”
She sighed, taking her glasses off and lying them down in the table, “He has had a number of run ins with the principal, we can’t have that ruining our reputation,” she picked up her teacup again, taking a long, thoughtful sip, as she scowled at Remus. “I suppose this ‘Hogwarts’ isn’t such a horrible idea.”
***
Later that evening, Remus was back in his room, sitting at his desk, pouring over newspapers, old and new, searching for any information on Hogwarts Schools of Witchcraft and Wizardry, but coming up empty handed.
The matter had been settled over supper, Remus would be attending the ‘Boarding School of Magic,’ as Mary likes to call it, in September. That still left the issue of the necessary equipment for the school,
- Robes, including winter robes
- A pointed hat
- Dragon hide gloves (to his utter bewilderment)
- A very strange assortment of books
- A wand (“Maybe it’s a school for aspiring magicians?” He puzzled to himself;)
- A cauldron
- Glass/crystal phials
- A telescope
- And brass scales
Exhaustion weighed down his eyelids as he scoured the newspapers again and again, for any information. His open window provided a perfect view of the waning moon, the phase directly after a full moon.
Feeling no less perturbed about the matter at hand than he was at dinner, Remus grumpily got ready for bed. Standing before of his bathroom suite mirror, he stared into his hazel eyes with scrutiny. He had a large scar reaching from the far corner of his right eye, to the middle of his left cheek, one he had gotten from a particularly bad full moon.
Being cursed with lycanthropy from the age of five, when his father got on the wrong side of a powerful, and revengeful werewolf, Remus has had to deal with alienation, and unbearable pain most of his life.
Shortly after Remus was bitten, his father, LyallLupin, killed himself. Out of guilt for putting his child through such a thing, Remus did not know. All he did know was that two years later, his mother-Hope Lupin’s- heart gave out from the stress and emotional strain of dealing with a werewolf pup alone, every month.
And that was why he was left to the Pentworth’s, a file of Hope’s notes on lycanthrope and how to deal with Remus she had accumulated over the two years were attached to the adoption paperwork.
Remus tore his eyes away from his scar, instead, he focused on his hand as he used it to muss his dirty blonde, curly hair, still puzzling over the matter of schooling.
He sighed, moving away from the bathroom and into his bedroom. Remus flopped down, face first onto his large, four poster bed, before crawling under the covers and switching off the lights.
Still, as he lay in bed, sleep did not catch him. His mind was spiralling. He couldn’t imagine why someone would want a werewolf at a boarding school. Where would he go on the full moons? Would everyone be safe? What if he hurt someone?
Remus tossed and turned all night, only catching a wink of sleep once it was nearly dawn. When he did sleep, he dreamtof owls and letters. He dreamt of dragons shedding their skin to become gloves, and witches and wizards wearing robes and pointed hats.