The Attack
Chapter Twelve
The Attack
Sirius was happier than he’d ever been, just walking through the hallway with his friends. His whole life it had been about establishing the right connections. Making a good impression. Even with his own family every interaction had always been calculated. But with his new friends he didn’t even have to try. He felt like he had escaped the control of Walburga Black and now he was free to just be himself and he still couldn’t believe it.
The peacock's ego had deflated a little after his admiring fans had died down after being sent on an unsuccessful tiresome hunt for the pear. Only to get his swagger back following his successful capture of the Snitch in flying practice. Sirius had to admit he was good, better than he had expected.
Then there was Remus Lupin. Sirius liked him. He was really nice, clever too and unexpectedly funny but definitely strange. He and James in all their prying had managed to find out he was a halfblood. His mom was a Muggle, his dad a wizard who worked for the Ministry. James had acted jealous saying it must be cool to have a mother who understood Muggle things. He seemed serious too, which was still so odd to Sirius when his whole life he felt like his value all lay in what he was: a pure-blood wizard. But his new friends didn’t care about that at all. It was shocking and refreshing.
Still there was definitely something off about their new friend and Sirius was determined to find out what it was. They noticed a couple of boys at the top of the stairs struggling to get a window open. Sirius recognized them as Julius Nott and Simon Lestrange. He wondered why they wanted it open but not enough to stop and ask as the Prefects had warned them not to be late for McGonagall's class.
They found three spots near the front of the class behind a girl with chocolate brown hair. “Where’s Lily?” James asked Sirius, looking anxiously around the room.
Sirius shrugged he had not learned everyone’s names yet and had no idea who Lily was.
Luckily the brown haired girl knew. She turned around. “She’s just grabbing something from her room. She'll be here in a minute,” she explained.
“Right on!” James said. “It’s Poppy, right?”
“Yes!” the girl smiled. She was very pretty, with warm brown eyes and dark features. “You’re James, right? And Sirius?” she asked a little tentatively. They both nodded.
Lily must have been her friend with the red hair James had saved during the flying lesson. He probably liked being around her to remind everyone of his heroics.
“Good day, class,” Professor McGonagall said, stepping into the room. The class went dead silent as if someone had just blown a whistle. The corner of the teacher's lips perked up in a suppressed smile. “We will start every morning by taking the registry and—so you are warned—this class starts after lunch so there is no excuse for tardiness. Three lates will count as an absence in my class. Are we clear? ” she asked, pulling down her specs. Everyone nodded. “Good,” Professor McGonagall said, pulling her specs back on to her nose and peering at the register. “Abbington, Poppy.”
Poppy stuck up her hand.
“Please answer in future,” McGonagall corrected. Poppy nodded, looking scared.
“Phineas, Abbot.”
“Present,” a Hufflepuff boy answered, sounding terrified.
Unlike previous classes James didn’t speak a word as the professor read out the register. He just sat straight in his seat, looking completely petrified.
When McGonagall called out Lily’s name and got no response she gave James a hard look Sirius didn’t understand. His friend gulped and shrunk into his seat.
When she finished the roll she crumpled it in her hand and opened it to reveal a small blue bird. The boys grinned at each other and sat forward in their seats. “Now, Transfiguration is one of the most complicated and difficult branches of magic. Which is why it is essential to master the basics.”
She smiled at them and then went to open the window to release the bird that was now fluttering around the room and chirping curiously. She pushed it open so the bird could fly off. It did but before she could close the window something swooped in. Dark hooded figures cloaked in shadow. An icy chill permeated the air. The light in the room now felt sinister and wrong. They were the strangest creatures Sirius had ever seen. Sirius recognized them but it couldn’t be. A soft scratching noise filled his ears and he knew it was true. The Azkaban guards but it couldn’t be. Not here; how could they be in a school? The scratching continued, not a piercing like nails on a chalkboard but gentle almost like a knock, a soft tapping, the sound of a little paw on the back of a door Sirius couldn’t open, asking to come in. It wasn’t loud but the soft sound tormented him more then any screaming would have.
The creature swooped over and he saw the disapproving look from his father. He didn’t approve of sulking and that’s what he thought his son was doing sitting with his back pressed against the door, but Sirius couldn’t leave. It was his fault. It was his dog. He remembered Andy’s hesitation. His parents had gone to Egypt for a week. His father was a cursebreaker and the Makomboti Zindlovukazi had summoned his father to break the curse on some ancient scroll a magical archaeologist had found that was cursed with eternal restlessness meaning anyone who read it would be unable to sleep until the curse was broken. It was close to his parents' anniversary so they had decided to make a trip out of it. Since they would be missing Sirius’s seventh birthday. They had left his cousin Andromeda with money and instructions to let him buy whatever he wanted from WonderWings & Whiskers. Sirius had been begging for a pet for years. On their way they passed by a Muggle puppy shop. A little black puppy had seen Sirius and got so excited scratching at the glass and wagging its tail. Andromeda had been unsure, but Sirius had insisted, reminding her that his mother had said he could get anything he wanted. So he had been allowed to bring the puppy home. He’d carried him the whole way home and had played with him the entire week. He had taught him how to sit and how to bring him his shoes and couldn’t wait to show his parents. The dog puppy would curl up with him at night and he could remember how excited he’d been to introduce him to his parents when they had got home.
But Sirius had been wrong; his parents had not been okay with him getting a Muggle animal. His mother had screamed and thrown his dog outside then rushed Sirius to St. Mungo’s to check him for worms or fleas. When they got back his dog had been scratching at the door the way he did when he wanted to follow Sirius into a room and the door was closed. It had been the beginning of November on a freezing cold day. His father had put a charm on the door so Sirius couldn’t open it and he had sobbed and begged that they would at least let him take him back to the shop but his parents had refused, his mother screaming about rabies and bit-off fingers. So Sirius had sat by the door knowing that he was freezing and remembering the way he would cuddle into his blankets. Knowing that he was not meant to be in the cold and that if he had just left him in the shop then some Muggle would have bought him and he wouldn’t be freezing out in the bitter cold.
His dog had died curled up on the step, still waiting for Sirius to let him in, but now he was scratching, still freezing and Sirius couldn’t get to him. His head was throbbing from the sound and as the creature came closer Sirius knew it would never end, that the living shadow would take him to a world where the pain never stopped but the monster never came for him.
Instead it darted straight to Remus. The whole crowd of them did. Sirius watched in horror as his friend struggled for breath, shaking, in some kind of horrible trance. Just as they began to pull back their hoods and Sirius knew something awful was about to happen, McGonagall shouted something and a brilliant bright light burst from her wand. It took the shape of a cat. Now Sirius did not normally like cats but he liked this one as it ran forward completely feral to stand protectively in front of Remus’s face. It clawed and scratched at the tatters from the dark creatures' cloaks. They backed away. It was surreal, almost inspiring to see the creatures so frightening and otherworldly be vanquished by a simple house cat. The dark creatures swooped back out, away from the cat and out the window from where they had entered.
Professor McGonagall slammed it shut then stood in front of the window, breathing hard, a hand pressed to her face. The light cat curled around Remus’s neck as if trying to comfort him and then it too vanished. Remus was pale white. He too was breathing hard. McGonagall walked to their table and put her hands on his cheeks and stared into his pupils, assessing the damage.
“Will he be alright?” James asked, looking concerned.
“He will be fine,” she said, standing up and taking Remus’s hand in a surprisingly maternal gesture. “The rest of you stay here while I escort Lupin to the hospital wing,” she instructed.
The class all nodded and watched as they walked to the door, but the moment McGonagall opened it she slammed it shut again. She sat Remus down in a chair. Slow tears were now trickling down from his eyes.
“Take care of Remus,” she told them all. “Do not leave this classroom and for heaven sakes do not try to open the window. Wait here until I come back for you,” she instructed and whispered a spell, waving her wand so both the window and doors shimmered with a silvery light. She summoned another silvery cat from her wand and then ran out the door, slamming it closed behind her.
Sirius jumped up, as did the rest of his classmates. James ran to check on Lupin so Sirius scanned the room. His classmates were all in different levels of distress. Sophie Bell was crying, though the creatures hadn’t touched her. The Hufflepuffs were equally as distressed as the Gryffindors so they hadn’t been behind it but Sirius couldn’t help but think someone had been. Someone had planned this attack.
He remembered the boys he’d noticed fighting to open the window. They were both Slytherins. Did the Slytherins know? Had they helped? Had his brother? Sirius's heart felt hard as he watched Remus laugh through his tears at something James said. If Slytherin had been involved, which he was almost certain now they had, then Regulus Black most certainly had been involved too. His brother always had to lead everything.
Before this Sirius had felt guilty. He had spotted Regulus trying to wave or catch his eye but had always ignored him. Well he didn’t feel guilty anymore. He hated his brother. What kind of person would set a monster like that on children? And why had they all attacked Remus first? Had it been random or had Regulus given it instructions to attack his friend first? Sirius had been closer but it had just passed him by. Why? Sirius didn’t know why but he would find out and no matter what he would remember this moment. Next time Regulus tried to weasel his way into his life he would remember Remus Lupin and crying Sophie Bell and he would never forgive his brother for it.
Remus sat on a bed in the hospital room while his friends sat at his feet, all munching big blocks of chocolate. The creatures that had attacked him were called dementors. They used to be guards for the Azkaban prison, a prison for dark wizards but it appeared they had now left Ministry control and were in the service of You-Know-Who. They had come to the school to attack Muggle-borns. The teachers were still rounding students up but there seemed to be no casualties. The dementors had only gone after Muggle-borns. Except that the first-year Muggle-borns in Gryffindor and Hufflepuff had been untouched as the dementors had all gone after him instead. Yes, a werewolf was much worse than a Muggle-born child. He wasn’t sure what his friends thought? Probably that he had been lying about having a wizard father but whatever they thought they didn’t seem to care.
“Remus, do you have a hag?” James asked, looking at his card.
“No,” Remus said, shifting through his cards, which were a mermaid, a banshee, and a hippogriff. James sighed then picked up a card from the stack. He grinned and put two unicorns down.
“James, do you have a hag?” Sirius asked.
James stared back at him, not amused. “No,” he said flatly.
“Hand it over,” Sirius gloated, holding out his hand. James rolled his eyes and passed him the card and Sirius smugly set the pair of hags down.
“Sirius, do you have a banshee?” Remus asked.
“Nope,” Sirius said. Remus pulled a card from the deck and stared at it. It was a werewolf. The horrible creature, not quite a wolf, not quite a man stood crouched, howling at the moon. He recognized him all too well. What was this game called? Magical Creatures and Monsters? He might be playing cards like a normal wizard boy but he wasn't; he was a monster.
James snapped his fingers, laughing. “Remus?”
“Huh?” Remus said, looking back at his friend.
“A werewolf?” James asked, looking hopeful.
Yes, he was a werewolf, a monster. “Yeah,” Remus said, passing over his card.
“And I think I win,” James said, placing his final pair down on the bed.
“Finally,” Sirius said, dropping his remaining cards on the bed. “I thought you said the game was fun,” he complained.
“It’s fun when you win,” James said with a smirk, breaking off another slab and offering it to Remus. Remus took it and chewed. Chocolate was supposed to help with Dementors and in an odd way it kinda did. It was like that cat McGonagall had summoned, the one that had chased the dementor. Madam Pomfrey had called it a patronus. Chocolate was simple. Something you had at Christmas or bought at a shop. The sweetness meant the monsters were all gone, but they were never gone if you were in fact the monster yourself. Still Remus chewed and he thought of the cat. How he felt that it, like the dementors, had known what he was. Still it had protected him. Hadn’t been afraid of him. Had tried to comfort him, a cat snuggling into a rabid dog with no fear. That brought a warmth like the chocolate.
Madam Pomfrey came around to his bed looking concerned. She was very pretty, probably somewhere in her thirties, dark hair and brown eyes in a nurses uniform, but she had a stern face that warned she was not someone to cross. She put her hands on Remus’s cheeks and clicked her lips in a tut-tut.
“You're the one who had four of them attack you?” she confirmed.
“Yeah,” Remus said feeling suddenly quite proud.
“Brave boy; it's a miracle you didn’t faint,” she said. Then pulled more chocolate out of her apron. “You’d better have some more,” she said giving him three bars and walking past to check on Sammy Loughty, a Ravenclaw first-year who seemed to be in shock and just sat staring at the wall.
Sirius sighed, watching her leave. “Why didn’t they go after any purebloods?”
“Don’t know,” James said sympathetically, watching Madam Pomfrey place her perfectly manicured hand on Sammys forehead.
Remus laughed and tossed a bar of chocolate to each of his friends. They took it, still pretending to sulk. Then Professor McGonagall entered the room, looking grave. Trailing behind her was Poppy with red eyes like she’d been crying. “Has anyone seen Lily Evans?”
Remus looked at James. That was the girl he helped in flying lessons. James stared back wide-eyed as everyone shook their heads. Poppy burst into a wave of fresh sobs and Professor McGonagall looked, if possible, more grim.
“Very well,” McGonagall said. “If anyone does see her please escort her up to the hospital wing.”
Remus felt sick. The atmosphere of the whole hospital room changed; all the smiles were gone like they were suddenly at a funeral.
“Does anyone know how dementors kill people?” Sirius asked.
James and Remus both shook their heads but Sammy Loughty was listening and in answer to Sirius’s question he spoke his first words since the attack. His eyes still blankly staring moved in their direction. It was creepy.
“They suck out your soul,” he said in a hollow, haunted voice. “Through your face.”
James jumped to his feet, looking horrified. “I’m gonna go look for her. Sirius, stay with Lupin!” he instructed and ran out the hospital doors.”